#if its not online in like 12 hours come yell at me

[severeweatheralert]

Chapter 9 of Neither of us were good people. I have. MOST of it down I just. Can't make a coherent ending????

[hoonvrs]

FLOUR FOR YOU — enha hyung line

req for 1k event!

PROMPT [ one, 12 ] cupping your partners face in your hand before kissing them [ two, 5 ] smiling excessively, naturally and so easily around you

PAIRING enha hyung line x gnr

GENRE est. relationship, fluff

WARNINGS none

W. COUNT 1.2k

S. NOTE this just made me wanna bake knowing i’ve never baked a day in my life. also lets ignore how each drabble starts with their name

LEE HEESEUNG

heeseung knew you were easily influenced by a few videos, so when you suddenly announced your new interest was baking it didn’t come as much of a surprised. although, it took a minute for him to convince you to try baking cookies instead of a two-tier vanilla cake that you were convinced you could hack. now you’ve been in the kitchen trying to follow a ’15-minute cookie recipe’ that you found on tiktok.

for the last two hours.

“babe! they’re finished! come try them,” he heard you shout. he approached warily knowing that cooking wasn’t one of your strong suits, so maybe he didn’t have much faith in your baking either.

he walked in to see a tray of cookies placed neatly on the counter, “wow. they actually look good.”

“you have no faith in me,” you tsked, pushing him to sit and try them, “quick, try one, and be honest.”

he plucked a cookie from the batch, and cautiously bit into it. if you hadn’t been dating heeseung for a while you might’ve actually believed he liked it. unfortunately, if there’s someone, he can’t hide his true feelings from, it you. you caught the way eyes slightly squinted and struggled to swallow the cookie, “it’s bad isn’t it.”

“no, no! its good,” he grimaced, trying his best to not upset you even though his face showed everything you needed to know.

“i’ve already tasted it love, i think i mixed the sugar with salt,” you giggled, seeing the look of realisation fall on heeseungs face.

PARK JONGSEONG

jay was known as the self-proclaimed chef in enhypen and in your relationship. he would always offer to cook you different recipes he found online, and you repay him by baking some sweet dessert as a thank you. the roles of baker and cook had never switched between you two, content with the role each had. you had dabbled in cooking before which didn’t end well, so you lucked out with having jay as your boyfriend.

until two seconds ago, when jay came home declaring he wants to try make brownies cause the boys said he’d be a terrible baker. jay refused to believe baking was any harder than cooking and wanted to prove it. 

even though you offered to help, just to instruct him through it he refused, convinced that he could ace it on his first try. so you left him to his own accord, waiting patient in the living room until he finished.

“it’s done!” he yelled, running over to you on the couch with the brownies still in the tray he baked them in with two forks stick out, “let’s try it at the same time.”

as he finished getting seated beside you, he handed you your respective fork with determination, “get ready to be replaced as the baker in this relationship.”

“yeah, okay.” You dismissed him, both going to take a bite out of jay’s ‘masterpiece’ – his words not yours. 

jays eagerness slowly dissipated as soon as you both took your first bite. It wasn’t inedible exactly, just not completely edible. you could see the disappointment take over his face, “how about i make a new batch and you can pretend you made them to the boys, hmm?”

“you’re the best.”

SIM JAEYUN

jake instantly knew something was off the second he saw you in the kitchen surrounded by baking trays and ingredients. you’ve always had a habit of baking whenever something stresses you, which seems to be more often than not these days. 

“hey pretty, what you doing?” he rounded the counter to have a better look at what you’re doing, softly placing his hands around your waist and his chin on your shoulder.

“i’m making cupcakes.” you answered, aggressively stirring your spatula through the wet batter before an intruding hand dipped in and smeared the paste onto your nose.

you turned to see jake giggling, hand covering his mouth as he slowly backed away from you. so, you did the next best thing. you dug into the bag of flour, picking up a handful, throwing it directly at his face.

he stilled for a second, processing what you had just done before speaking up, “oh, you’re on.”

thus, ensuring a full flour fight with heaps of the powder being thrown around, coating every surface white including both you and jake. your laughter could be heard through all the shuffling and playful wrestling, and although you were covered head to toe in flour, jake though you looked so beautiful.

he preferred to see you with a wide smile on your face instead of the frown and furrowed eyebrows you were sporting beforehand, and he found his body moving on its own. he slowly approached you, cupping your face in his hands gently before pulling you in.

kisses with jake were intimate, always starting slowly and usually ending in either him or you in a fit of giggles refusing to separate from the others lips, and this one was no different. 

“never thought I’d see a flower covered in flour.”

“corny, boo!”

PARK SUNGHOON

sunghoon and you decided to try out baking together. every saturday, you both meet up in your apartment and try out a new recipes, sunghoon likes to call it ‘couples therapy – baking edition’, it has confused a lot of your friends.

today, you two decide to tackle the task of icing a cake. apparently, baking the cake itself and decorating it all pretty was too much work, so you both bought two premade plain cakes, and whoever decorated it the best got to grant the winner a wish.

“i’m making mine red, so you better not copy me,” he smirked, snatching the red icing right out of your hands to try to irritate you.

you scoffed, grabbing all the colours you needed, “fine, i’m going to make mine blue. don’t be jealous when it’s better than yours.”

“you wish,” with determination and enough competitiveness between you both, you began decorating your cakes. well, until you ran into a problem.

“babe, are you sure you cut off all the tips of the piping bags? this one won’t come out.”

sunghoon looked over to see you struggling, “yeah i did. maybe if you’d come to the gym with me you’d be able to squeeze it out.”

“stop bringing that up! i’m never going to the gym with y-”

silence fell onto your kitchen after hearing a loud pop cut through the air. you heard screeching laughter before you even realised what had happened. 

looking down to see the navy icing was not only in the piping bag, but over the counter and all over your shirt. sunghoon couldn’t even hold himself up from how much he was laughing, bend over with one hand on the counter and the other holding his stomach.

his laughter rang like music in your ears, a rare sound you don’t hear too often in public where he’d rather giggle quietly behind his hands, but this one was your favourite. where he suddenly loses all composer and collapses in on himself, screaming obnoxiously whist simultaneously tying to catch his breath. worrying but impressive. 

maybe a ruined t-shirt was a worthy sacrifice to hear him laugh this freely around you.

perm taglist @mesopret @tnyhees ​@haknom @shinsou-rii @redm4ri @lacimolela @llama-lyna @chiyuv @lazysmushi @flwoie @kocokookie @kyexvly @seongclb @dammit-jjk @flwrshee @produmads ​@teddywonss

[leoolol2]

29/09/2024

I wasn't expecting something this big, but here is my second day of writing.

anotação pro meu psicólogo: o senhor pode me fazer um relatório pra eu ir pro psicólogo da minha mãe, por favor? ela queria que eu fosse porque eu realmente tô com dificuldade de estudar mesmo estudando fora do meu quarto, e ela achava que o meu quarto era o problema. :) obrigado.

Well, I can't sleep. Like, at all. So here I am, already writing this in 2:30 AM! I probably will have an all-nighter and wtv, I should be productive tonight.

I was a bit productive, doing some of my math homework and watching some mvs from my fav bands until 4 am and then just passing out. I then woke up at 9, and my mom wrote some of my fav bands on my nails! i forgot to mention yesterday that i painted my own nails at night. (mcr and p!atd). i also took a bath in the morning and washed my hair; something i think i havent done for about 1 or 2 weeks? i think im getting worse, mental health wise, but i dont know. i'll update this once the afternoon ends. I also ranted a bunch about mcr and fob to my mom, and she complained about linkin park to me. i love my mom and having similar interests with her! My brother came to visit us today! :)

I ate some actual meal today: broccoli, rice, just a bit grinded meat, sweet potato, and normal potato. The broccoli tasted like shit. I also drank peach tea. After lunch, we went back home and got my Nina the Killer cosplay jacket to a dressmaker so that she could put a zipper on it. We then went to get some icecream at McDonald's! I ranted a bunch about MCR again but this time to my brother. :)

After that we went back home and my family decided to put up the shelf I had on my floor for the longest time. It's a bit crooked, but I don't mind, honestly. I now have a bunch of shit I need to put up on the shelf once more, though. It's all on my bed, making me barely able to sit here and write this on my PC. Well, I should put up my stuff on my "new" shelf.

after scrolling through tumblr a bunch my mom did my nails for me. it was fun. i only got a top coat added because my black nail polish is on the verge of dying but its fine! i'll buy some later. my nails are not shiny, though.

i did some of my hw, and also got my piano out of under my bed! my friend also got me in contact w this russian boy, i think hes cute. hes in brazil too, so i rly hope he replies to my dm on insta.

im so so soo sleepy, so im gonna go sleep after i finish at least this teacher's hw. its 21:47, for the record. i didn't stay up that late today. still, im gonna post this. i hope whoever reads this has a good day!

꒰꒰・┄┄┄┄・rants section・┄┄┄┄・꒱꒱

this is a section i made up to see if any time i have any rants, i come here!

so it will be more in depth than the actual casual diary. (i also will mention when exactly i wrote it!)

12:52. thinking about how my therapist tells me to act as my own best friend. i dont know how, genuinely. i cannot. maybe i can suck my own dick sometimes and tell myself im so hot and the best person in the world, but thats obviously not true. its not like i feel like that all the time, either. from a day to another i suddenly feel like the worst person alive. its not as if someone tells me that i am, or something triggers me. i just feel that out of no where. but whatever.

16:22. My dad doesn't understand that yelling at my dog doesn't do anything. It just makes her madder and more pissed off at the world and makes me actually feel sick and about to cry. I want to protect her from everything. I don't want to be here, I want to go away with her and fuck everything else. I won't be missed probably anyway. The only people that would miss me is my online friends, who doesn't really know me in real life. Well, I guess some that have this blog can now know more about me. :)

16:26. Thinking about the ripped up letter. I wasted 2 hours of my night writing that for a girl who didn't even want me romantically. She just wanted to have fun, someone to kiss with no feelings truly attached. I guess that would be fun if my feelings didn't feel so extreme. Someone I love can become someone I despise just because of a small mistake they didn't really mean to do. Well, I try not to be too mad at them for that, but this isn't the case of that anyway. I wanted her to be my girlfriend but she didn't want to have anything romantic. She practically cut ties and said that she had shit for yesterday when she used to be so excited to see me some time ago. Maybe it was an excuse that she made. Either way, we're not talking. I don't really care about her. I care about the time and words of mine that she wasted.

17:46. i was listening to music and back to the old house reminds me of them so much. fuck. i miss frank.

17:59. i feel too feminine, doing my nails and liking girly things. my face is too feminine, my voice is too feminine. everything about me, the way i walk, talk, read out loud, interact with my friends. absolutely everything. i want to cry thinking about it because i dont want to. maybe this is an internalized issue of some sort. i really need to address this in therapy, probably.

18:17. I just noticed im going back to my "scenecore"/crunkcore phase. fuck. one of my worst, honestly.

18:30. just wanna mention how amazing i feel rn:3 feeling on top of the world is so good !!

18:58. winderson is making me rage. makes me want to punch him or throw it somewhere. but he's my baby, i cant do that.

[marcsburnerphone]

Harmless (sierra six x F reader)

Warnings:smut (in future chapter), its all tease, Training i guess.

(PART TWO FROM SLEEPLESS)

————————

You woke up five hours later at exactly 8 AM you always had. Doing your casual morning routine you put on some socks and headed to the kitchen to start some coffee.

Now you swore you've used this same machine countless times but in this very moment you could not get it on, you huffed and leaned your hands on the counter staring at it for a few moments.

“Maybe it'll help if you plug it in.” you jump and slowly turn around, low and behold the super spy who made no noise like he was floating around the house.

“Im really gonna have to put a bell on you.” you relaxed your arms he had a small smile so small that if you didn't know six that could be assumed his resting face.

When he saw you in the kitchen it almost felt wrong looking at you knowing you hadn't known what he saw last night it was like his one sided secret.

“Itd save you alot if you did.” he said moving past you into the hallway looking around evey other corner even though you can see him walking you still cant fucking hear him, also what the hell did he mean by that.

You got it started then proceeded to make breakfast for you all. It was routine and it has been for the last year and a half after finishing and putting everything on the table you went to wake Claire around 9:00 AM.

“I just want to sleep.” Claire said walking into the dining room and sitting down letting six know he should take his seat also at the end of the table.

“But you go to bed at 9pm claire that's like 12 hours of sleep.” you said with a small laugh she rolled her eyes while taking a bite. Six had always found your guys conflict amusing as he ate he watched you the way you ate the way your lips formed around your fork the way you roll your eyes at yours and claire's banter.

“Six.” his eyes snapped out of their haze and began focusing back on the present moments. You wore a confused smile along with claires but hers was more mysterious.

“Yeah, yeah.” he said, taking another bite looking everywhere but you.

“Nothing we just lost you for a second.” you smiled softly at him and fuck fuck fuck he was screwed so royally screwed he felt like he had to have you more than ever but that was so against the rules donald laid out for him.

“Yeah sorry um thank you for breakfast i should get back to work.” he said before standing up abruptly putting his plate in the sink then disappearing into the house.

“Was that really weird or am i reading into it.” you asked claire leaning back into the chair a bit chewing your bite looking to her.

“Nope definitely weird.” she replied warily finishing up her food before telling you she was going to shower and get dressed.

You did some online assignments your uncle still let you do. It's the only way you could do any work in a way that still kept you safe. You missed it training and doing missions physical assignments not online ones then suddenly you had a wonderful idea.

“SIX” you yelled from the dining room before standing to go find him before you saw him appear from outside he looked slightly panicked.

“Did you call me?'' he asked while sliding the door shut behind him he looked …… so fuckable the tattoos that sat on his forearm drew you attention and the beige pants with your knowing of the ankle gun he always wore had you weak pathetically almost.

“y/n did you call me.” he asked again taking a step forward bringing you out of your moment he knew your telling stance.

“Yes sorry yes i was um i have a favor or more like a i dont know a well i wonder-” you didn't know how to ask you've known six for a year and a half you lived in the same home you ate together yet you didn't even touch unless for when you shook hands when you first met.

“Come on you got it.” he joked with the most serious expression but the tone of voice let you know he wasn't serious.

“Can you well technically can we train or can you train me or-” you got it out in a single breath before he cut you off from your rambling once more.

“Yes I can help you do some training go get dressed.” he ordered before walking past you with a smirk he knew it'd be different but he had to get his hands on you one way or another unfortunately this was the best he could do.

You did as told walking outside in your old training wardrobe making your way to the matts that always lied on the grass claire had sat on her tree swing on her phone. Six made his way towards you long strides intimidating his walk was intimidating.

“Your not going to change.” you asked he was in his everyday formal attire you quirked your eyebrow as you watched him roll up his sleeves higher.

“I can do it just like this.” cocky, you thought he proceeded to step on the matt with you making claire look up amused she had seen you train but never with six she was intrigued.

“Okay hit me.” he laughed should he be easy or should he treat you as his equal.

He threw his leg to kick up under yours which you fell a pawn too but not so easy cause on your way down you hooked your foot behind his knee making him fall to a kneel.

“Nice.” was all he said undercover praise you smiled as he reached out a hand to you pulling you up before kicking you back down putting you in headlock.

“Come on you make it too easy.” he whispered to you making you shiver.

“How do i get out of this.” you asked you were not his equal you wanted to be but six was the gray man he was unbelievably skilled, in how many ways you wondered before he spoke again.

“Pull my arm down and flip me with all your weight i should roll in front of you onto my back.” you tried to flip him but this man was pure muscle he was pressed up right behind you your focus was slipping to other things.

“I cant.” you whispered hopelessly his arm draped around your neck you would've been knocked out by now in a real situation.

“Come on i know you can.” he encouraged you were going to give it your all and with one final attempt you had finally gotten him over but he was on his feet in no time offering you another hand.

“Yeah right no thankyou.” you said standing up on your own he had laughed at that watching you dust yourself off throwing your head back before looking back at him.

“Distracted.” you smirked at him as he rolled his eyes.

“Never.” he threw his hand towards you which you ducked before kicking his side making him fall to his knees putting him in the same position he had you in. what you hadn't thought of is he could definitely get out of this he flipped you with ease before placing knee between your legs and the other on the side of you pinning your arms under his.

You looked down to see his knee between your own making you blush slightly hopefully not noticeably.

“Penny for your thoughts.” he questioned staring down at you his stare was strong holding you down with an even stronger grip.

You smiled embarrassed before trying your best to get out of this contradicting position he laughed watching you struggle once more.

“Use your words.” he said slyly you wanted to wipe the fucking smirk off his face.

“I need help.” you huffed.

“I figured but i think you need to learn on your own.” you rolled your eyes trying again and when you almost had it he proved you very wrong only maintaining a stronger hold on you.

“Six please.” his mind instantly went back to the way you said those same words last night while pleasuring yourself he now saw you sweaty beneath him with a floral essence he was quickly losing his train of thought.

 in that very moment you found the advantage and had kicked him off you onto his own back straddling him before he could get up placing his arms under your knees.

“you went somewhere princess.” you spoke he looked at you with a raised eyebrow and a small sigh.

“I can get out of this very very easily princess.” you stared at him and he did the same you reminded yourself of the position you had him in once more you've dreamt of it but in very different ways for a split second you felt his eyes flick to your lips which made you do the same.

“Six” you whispered you both knew so horribly morbidly even how bad you needed this man.

“GET A ROOM” claire yelled from her seat making you look up to her letting six kick your leg off him and onto the floor.

“Thats enough for today.” six said helping you up fixing the collar of his shirt and walking away.

shit.

—-------------------

PART TWOOOO!!!!!!!!! Let me know what you think please and leave your thoughts its greatly appreciated.

I had to do the scene.

@lust4lucille @mata0-0mata

Final part here.

[thedamageofherdays]

This week's [23-08-2021 - 29-08-2021] reading log is here! I read a lot again this week and I feel like it's a lovely variety of fics. Most fics are Stucky like usual, but there's at least one other ship. I am constantly amazed by the talent people have in this fandom! There was one fic I read on Tumblr that I can't seem to find unfortunately, but when I do I'll make sure to reblog and rec it 💕

Favourites are marked with a 🌻

When life gives you lemons by moonthejedi394 @moonythejedi394 [Stucky, 40k words, Mature] (12/15 chapters available)

Or 13 Terrible Things to Do With Lemons Other Than Making Lemonade

Steve Rogers is a home health nurse. He works for an agency, which assigned him to the aging Winifred Barnes, the one and only Silent Era Hollywood darling. As her needs increased, she requested the agency assign Steve to her full-time. She could pay for it, so she got it. Steve then moved in with her, becoming her caregiver; he cooked, he cleaned, he managed her medications, he made sure she was comfortable.

Winifred's children treated him less than ideally. He was the help, after all. And then Steve had the audacity to go and turn out to be eldest son James Barnes's soulmate. No one saw that coming.

The Masseur and the Assassin by buckybarnesdeservestobehappy @buckybarnesdeservestobehappy [Stucky, 17k words, Explicit]

Bucky Barnes needed a vacation from his job. What he found was a happy ending.

The Words Breathe by buckbarnesdeservestobehappy [Stucky, 1k words, Mature]

All Steve has to do is keep his promise. When he doesn’t, Bucky gets mouthy.

Soft by this_wayward_life @wayward-lives [Stucky, 2k words, Explicit]

The last time he'd seen Bucky he'd looked unhealthy, with pallid skin and greasy, lanky hair. Now, Bucky shone; his hair was thick and silky, his skin a deep bronze from spending so much time outside. He was softer, too; the hard muscle that used to cover him was now replaced by soft fat, his body still strong, but in a more mundane way. His thighs were thicker, his ass plumper, and when he'd pulled Steve into the river Steve had noticed the pudge on his stomach.

Seeing Bucky so happy, well-fed and shining, was a bit of a kick in the face. For all the years they'd known each other, he'd never seen Bucky so... care-free. Now that Bucky was putting on weight, his middle soft and his body malleable, it sent a bolt of arousal through Steve every time he noticed the curves of Bucky's body.

Or: Bucky put on a bit of weight in Wakanda, and Steve is Not Coping.

🌻 Revive Another Side of Me by dontcallmebree @iamthe-wo-manwhocan [Stucky, 1k words, Mature]

Steve’s never lived in a world without Bucky, and he’s not living now. It takes them a while, much too long, to get that awaited rest, a little slice of peace after the dust has settled.Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes are inseparable, history remembers. But they’re not men of the past quite yet.

🌻 imagine being loved by me by spacebuck @spacebuck [Stucky, 20k words, Explicit]

Just after 1am - a few hours after he posted today’s photo - he hears the tell-tale sound of a twitter message. Bucky grabs his phone, not checking who it’s from as he opens it because it’s probably one of his mutuals yelling at him as per usual. When he actually looks at his phone, though, it’s not Natasha

The ‘verified’ check stares back at him for a long moment before he can even bring himself to process the name on his screen. Steve Rogers is messaging him. Or, he reasons, a very good fake. The handle looks right though, not that Bucky knows. Not that Bucky has Captain’s America’s tweets set up as notifications, or that Bucky’s own display name is set to captain america’s bitch. Not at all.

Hey, the first message says. It’s Steve.

🌻 JB’s Complete Lube Services by dixons_mama @dixons-mama [Stucky, 3k words, Explicit]

People just didn’t approach Captain America and proposition him. Although, sometimes Steve wished they would; even the pinnacle of virtue and justice needed to get dicked down from time to time.

Or, the one where Steve has the hots for a mechanic and decides to be proactive in getting that dick.

If it had to be someone by rainbow_nerds [Stucky, 1k words, Mature]

Bucky had known since he was a child that he didn’t have a choice in who he married, but he’d thought he had more time before the day arrived.

Miscalculations by christywantspizza @christywantspizza [Ransom Drysdale/Reader, 6k words, Explicit]

Ransom tries to get you to sleep with him by less than honorable means. You give him what he wants, just not how he wants it.

How to Seduce a Writer by obsessivereader [Stucky, 2k words, Teen]

What's a determined master strategist going to do when the oblivious writer he's trying to woo keeps missing all the clues?

He doesn’t think it’s because he hadn’t signaled his own interest to Bucky. He’s pretty much done everything short of hitting Bucky over the head with semaphore flags by this point. There’s no way Bucky could’ve missed them. Unless… There’d been that one link he’d stumbled upon when he’d googled ‘how to talk to a writer’. It’d been written by a writer, who’d been candid about how oblivious writers could be, and how someone could go about seducing one. An idea starts to form. It’s ridiculous, but at this point, he’s willing to go with ridiculous, since subtle wasn’t getting him anywhere.

🌻 Pod Bless America by Deisderium @deisderium [Stucky, 6k words, Teen]

Bucky can't believe his favorite podficcer recorded his newest fanfic AU of the show Commandos. He's even more surprised when the customer who busts him listening to fic while he's working in the office supply store turns out to be that podficcer.

* The guy—maybe bi_shield?—took his phone, looked down at the screen, and smiled. "Yeah, that one's mine," he said with no evidence of embarrassment. "It was a good one." He handed the phone back to Bucky.

"I wrote it," Bucky croaked.

take a bite by wearing_tearing [Stucky, 7k words, Mature]

"I’d never let anyone freeze to death.” Steve gives a big sigh and flutters his lashes. “All that blood gone to waste.”

Bucky’s lips turn down and his nose scrunches up a little. “I want to be grossed out, but…”

“But you get it.” Steve gives him a pointed look. “Vampires aren’t the only ones who can appreciate how juicy blood is.”

*

Or: Vampire Steve saves newly-turned werewolf Bucky from a snowstorm.

Leaving the Shield Behind by BuckyAboveEverything [Stucky, 6k words, Teen]

“So, on one hand, we have Steve Rogers - hunk, genius, animal lover. Buys you waffles and overpriced coffee. 100% wholesome all-American boy.”

“And, on the other hand, we have Capsicle – twink, smart-ass, fanboy. Reads your stories and sends you fanart. Possibly a pervert or a serial killer.”

Bucky groaned.

“I am 100% certain I am 0% sure of what to do."

Bucky Barnes, full-time copywriter and free-time fanfic writer, struggles to choose between two equally-attractive suitors, only to find that he doesn’t have to after all.

* Based on a true story *

Cap's Book Corner by Neche [Stucky, 2k words, Teen]

Recluse Author Bucky Barns stumbles into fanboy Steve Rogers bookstore one day...

Cat Nap by galwednesday @galwednesday [Stucky, 8k words, Teen]

Objectively, losing the Bucharest safehouse and its contents was the least of Bucky’s problems. The balding agent he’d seen directing the raid was apparently affiliated with SHIELD, which was a shadowy government agency that made representatives from other shadowy government agencies suddenly remember urgent appointments when Bucky tried to bribe, threaten, and otherwise shake them down for information on what the hell SHIELD might want with a former brainwashed assassin. Dodging SHIELD should be his number one priority.

Subjectively, he wanted his fucking cat back.

at any given moment by honeypuffed [Stucky, 1k words, Teen]

Steve and Bucky find out that everyone thinks they're sleeping together.

Brought to Brightness by eyres [Stucky, 10k words, Teen]

Army veteran Bucky Barnes has fallen in love with Steve, a guy he met online a few months after he returned from Afghanistan. Only problem is, he doesn't know Steve's last name or even what he looks like.

When his sister helps him send his story into MTV's Catfish, he's hoping they can help him meet Steve or, at least, let him move on with his life if Steve isn't real. Little does he know, Steve and Captain America have more in common than just a first name.

🌻 Nokken Wood by leveragehunters @leveragehunters [Stucky, 10k words, Teen]

When Sam's friend needs a house-sitter for his place in the country, Steve jumps at the chance. Six months rent-free to do nothing but draw and paint and wander the countryside, looking for inspiration? It was like a dream. But when he gets lost in a storm and nearly falls into a pond he starts to rethink the whole like a dream aspect of life in the country. And when a red-eyed, sharp-clawed, silver-fanged creature rises out of the darkness, Steve is one hundred percent certain the dream's morphed into a nightmare.

...until it gives him a cup of tea.

(Inspired partly by this prompt a supernatural creature is supposed to scare you but instead it gives you a cup of tea and a blanket because you're having a bad day and you keep coming back and partly by this painting.)

Professional Pride by galwednesday [Stucky, 700 words, Teen]

Bucky is having a very good day, until he turns around and finds himself face-to-face with Captain America.

“Oh shit,” he blurts before he can stop himself, and Captain America blinks at him. “Hey, hi, I didn’t expect to see you here.” Here, at New York’s Pride parade, surrounded by thousands of happy screaming people wearing rainbows and sometimes not much else. What is he doing here? Is he on guard duty or something? Was he just on a mission and happened to be passing by on his way back?

He’s in uniform but with the cowl loose around his neck, so when he rubs the back of his head it fluffs up his matted hair. “I, uh. I saw one of your–temporary tattoos?” Captain fucking America says, like it’s a question.

The A-bridged Guide to Trolling by galwednesday [Stucky, 1k words, Teen]

“I don’t have any money.”

Oh no, now the girl looked upset. Her eyes were huge and her lip was wobbling. Bucky tried to think fast despite the oh shit oh shit oh shit looping through his head.

“That’s okay,” Bucky said gently. “I don’t need money. We can figure out another kind of toll.”

The girl frowned at him. “Like what?”

Bucky scratched his head, trying to think of something a kid was certain to have on hand. “Do you know any jokes?”

(Fantasy AU in which Steve is a hedge witch with a green thumb, Bucky is a bridge troll who's new in town, and knock-knock jokes are a viable form of currency.)

It's a bittersweet ending (if you know what I mean) by relenafanel [Stucky, 1k words, Teen]

“I’ll see you around, Steve,” Bucky answers with a smirk, moving away from the counter with a wink.

Steve watches him go. Bucky’s wearing a pair of skinny jeans coated in something to give the appearance of leather. It’s impossible to not watch him go.

stuck on you by wearing_tearing [Stucky, 5k words, Teen]

“Bucky? You don’t look so hot.”

Bucky makes a tiny little sound in the back of his throat, only to start coughing. Of course he doesn’t look hot. He’s sick and he’s dying and Steve obviously isn’t attracted to him.

Decision-Making in Relationships (Paid Research Opportunity!) by castiowl [Stucky, 8k words, Teen]

Clint looked thoughtfully at the flyer. “I guess your actual roommate wouldn’t be down with it?”

Bucky frowned. “Have you met Steve Rogers?”

no way out but through by hollimichele [Stucky, 9k words, Teen]

Steve never sees it coming.

you got blood on your hands (and i know it's mine) by nighimpossible [Stucky, 3k words, Teen]

Bucky refuses to see Steve after his deprogramming.

Like What You See by daisymondays [Stucky, 8k words, Teen]

For all the time Bucky’s spent fantasizing about meeting Captain America, he’d never imagined it would be while posing nude in front of a drawing class.

🌻 A Real Boy by itsnotbleak [Stucky, 5k words, Teen]

It took the Winter Soldier three weeks to remember that human beings needed to sleep and eat.

It took Steve far too long to realise the Winter Soldier was sleeping in his bed.

Amapola by chaya [Stucky, 830 words, Teen]

Total fluff. Bucky's recovering nicely. Steve's oblivious. Sometimes it's best to set aside subtlety for action.

Knocking Boots With Sugar by buckybarnesdeservestobehappy [Stucky, 4k words, Explicit]

In between summers at college, Steve Rogers wants a new adventure beyond his lonely life in Brooklyn. He ends up in West Texas working on a dude ranch where Bucky Barnes is a long-time employee. When Bucky offers to buy Steve a drink, they end up drunk on tequila and making out in public. For the rest of the summer, they're inseparable. As the summer draws to a close, Steve realizes he doesn't want to leave.

Rogers and Associate by roe87 @jro616 [Stucky, 7k words, Teen]

When they first meet, Bucky is a hooker and Steve is a cop. She's been arrested, but Steve lets her off.

Years pass and they maintain a casual friendship, seeing each other out on the streets most nights.

Though he later makes detective, Steve loses faith in the system and quits his job.

He wants to set up as a private investigator, and he asks Bucky if she'd be his assistant.

Just in time by rainbow_nerds [Stucky, 1k words, Mature]

Bucky knew the apartment he was renting was old fashioned, but walking in the front door and finding himself transported back to 1938 was not on the list of things he had prepared himself for.

🌻 You Like What's in My Head by dontcallmebree [Stucky, 15k words, Explicit] (with art by @kocuria)

Bucky can’t decide if Steve’s a tough nut to crack or incredibly easy. The timbre of his voice, a low and almost amused, “Sure, kid,” when Bucky asks for a drink feels like something gripping him on the back of his neck.

He thinks this might be one of those moments in life he’ll pinpoint in the future and either curse at for dooming himself, or remember fondly with pride.

He’s right. Bucky Barnes blunders through falling in love with Commander Rogers and tries to find a deeper meaning behind the expensive gifts and thorough fucking.

Can I Sit Here? by BuckyFrickenBarnes [Stucky, 962 words, General]

Bucky has unusual methods for getting rid of his writer's block.

Or, Bucky needs that table.

Workplace Romance by BuckyFricken Barnes [Stucky, 1k words, General]

Bucky is under the impression that his boss hates him.

Or,

Steve needs to get better at dealing with his feelings.

🌻 1-800-MAYTAG by Miss Plum @misspluckyplum [Stucky, 1k words, Explicit]

Bucky just wants to get some housework done. It gets out of hand fast. Silly little fluff and smut romp with snarky stucky boys.

Eyes of the Forest by Lordelannette [Stucky, 7k words, Explicit] (2/8 chapters available)

When Omega Bucky Barnes comes to Eagle Lake, it was in search of wolves, a creature that had not been seen in the area for decades.

What he finds instead is Steve Rogers, a handsome, though quiet Alpha who seems to be everywhere in the forest.

[avinaccia]

A Completely Objective and Logical Ranking of Every Hetalia Character Song

New character songs are dropping,  I have too much time on my hands, let’s go. 

Also here’s a Youtube playlist for the ~✨nostalgia✨~

Bring it on in the tags 

71. Ah Legendary Class⭐The Awesome Me Highway [Prussia]: Absolutely tearing it up on the drums and on the vocal cords alike (I pray for Atsushi Kousaka). Great for the memes. 

70.  Happy Thoughts Museum [???]: This is listed as an official song but I had literally never heard of the title. Then I listened to it and BAM! Smack back to 2013 watching the teasers for the show on Funimation. Not sure I’d count it as a character song though...

69. (Nice)  My Song that is written by me for me [Prussia]: Deafened me but I can appreciate the industrial grind.

68.  My House is...Quiet. ~With the Trolls~ [Norway]: I have never heard this song, nor can I find any version of it online. By default it goes here and I am so sorry Norge.

67.  Make a Wish to Santa♪ [Sealand]: The discordant notes and childish exuberance only serve to make this sound like a demonic plea to Santa to eliminate the singer’s enemies.

66.  Heaven and Hell on Earth [Rome]: Rome sounds like he’s been in the corner of a restroom. Extra points for the metal version, minus points for the fact that the beach scene was replayed like 1764 times.

65. Canada Complete Introduction [Canada]: Quiet af until Kumacheerio shows up and blows out your speakers. they did you dirty my darling 😔

64.  It’s Easy!!! [America]: I don't think any video of this has ever stayed up for more than 20 seconds. Sounds cool, but like I was listening to 20 different genres at once, someone make him calm down.

63.  Bù Zàiyì the Small Stuff ☆ [China]: I cannot for the life of me find the complete song anywhere, clips have a cool beat though

62.  Let's Boil Hot Water♪ [Italy]: Exactly what it says on the tin..though a bit too close to elevator music for my tastes.

61.  The Fragrance of Early Summer [Japan]: Very ‘from the books’ Japan-esque song

60.  Peace Sounds Nice…[Baltic Trio]: All well and good until the radio demon shows up

59.  W●D●C ~World Dancing~ [America]: How a song can sound like it’s from 4 different decades at once is beyond me

58.  Overflowing Passion [BFT]: This is just drunken karaoke and I have 0 clue what’s going on #iconicforallthewrongreasons

57. Ren●Ren●Renaissance♪ [Rome+Chibitalia]: Wholesome Grandpa with Grandson content - barring the fact that Italy sounds on the verge of a nervous breakdown and Rome has had too much wine.

56.  Roma Antiqua [Rome]: Similar energy to any one of China’s songs - there’s a part of the song where it sounds like he’s singing in the shower, and I will never not laugh at [CENSORED]

55.  Country From Where the Sun Rises, Zipangu [Japan]: Very chill, very Japan, but just meh for me.

54.  Moon Over Emei Shan [China]: Good message, okay song.

53.  My Friend [England]: What a mind palace you must have Mr. Kirkland

52.  With Love, from Iceland [Iceland]: Three words: Heavy. Metal. Puffin.

51.  Having Friends is Nice...♫ [Russia]: Russia is the cutest thing ever

50.  Mm. [Sweden]: Smooth transition from WWE Smackdown to shopping at IKEA.

49.  Why don’t you come over? ~Beyond the Northern Lights~ [Iceland]: I don’t want to be mean but...this does sound like the second closing theme to an anime whose first closing was much more popular (à la Soul Eater)

48. Gakuen☆Festa [Germany, Italy, Japan]: Sounds like a 60s song of the summer but oh dear their voices do not go together. Hella cute though.

47.  Wa! Wa!! World Ondo [Main Cast]: One time I travelled 10 hours in a coach bus with a bunch of teenagers to a city of note in my country, and the only souvenir I bought was the fucking PAINT IT WHITE DVD. Perfectly chaotic, UN ĐĕùX~~

46.  In the Bluebell Woods [England]: In the album cover for this song he’s holding a guitar but this is not a rock song. Still has ‘running through the hills’ levels of dramatism though.

45.  Poi Poi Poi♪ [Taiwan]: You’re telling me that Taiwan, someone whose has *ONE LINE* in Beautiful World (which is criminal tbh what kind of representation-) managed to get an eNTIRE CHARACTER SONG???????

44.  White Flame [Russia]: There’s something to be said for a song that is 3x the length of any Hetalia episode

43.  Ich liebe… [Germany]: Baking cakes for your friends has never been so wholesome.

42.  We Wish you a Merry Christmas [America, China, England, France, Russia]: Nice to see they’ve gotten their shit together since United Nations Sta-hmm.

41.  Ah, Worldwide à la mode [France]: Sounds like a Disney Princess song, hard not to picture France frolicking in a field of flowers.

40.  Che Bello! ~My House is the Greatest!⭐~ [Italy]: Would not be out of place in an advertisement for Sea World.

39.  May You Smile Today [Japan]: THE feel good song of the summer

38.  Let’s Look Behind the Rainbow [Italy]: I will protect you.

37.  I'm your HERO☆ [America]: “Anyone who’s sad or sullen will be arrested” did NOT age well.

36.  Mein Gott! [Prussia]: Alternating headphone effect at the beginning is cool, so is the confidence...the actual singing on the other hand...

35. Nihao⭐China [China]: Listen, all of China’s character songs are great, I just can’t vibe with this one like some of the others.

34.  Pechka ~Light My Heart~ [Russia]: I’m still having difficulty wrapping my head around the fact that this and Winter were released at the same time.

33.  Pukapuka⭐Vacation [Germany, Italy, Japan]: Seems just a bit too much like they’re running on a treadmill that’s picking up speed and trying to sing at the same time. Peppy.

32.  Santa Claus is Coming to Town [Germany, Italy, Japan]: This is unironically the best song sung by this trio; can only vibe with for two months out of the year though.

31.  Excuse Me, I Am Sorry [Japan]: Japan’s character traits speedrun. Gives me barbershop quartet vibes for some reason but is catchy as hell.

30.  The Story of Snow and Dreams [Russia]: A superhero anime opening in the making

29. England’s Evil Demon Summoning Song [England]: Sir that is not how you roast a marshmallow, don’t cut yourself on that edge.

28.  Moi Moi Sauna♪ [Finland]: Exactly the type of song you’d expect and it’s wonderful

27.  United Nations Star⭐ [America, China, England, France, Russia]: This isn’t as much of a song as it is a four minute struggle for everyone to sing without America yelling every 5 seconds...Like a particularly musical episode of Hetalia.

26.  Paris is Indeed Splendid [France]: Paris-pa-pa-pa-paris

25.  Absolutely Invincible British Gentleman [England]: Poppy, rocky, polka-dotty

24.  Vorwärts Marsch! [Germany]: To quote the comment section: “This sounds like a German version of I’ll Make a Man out of you.” There’s some truth to that.

23.  Hamburger Street [America]: The product of America’s rapper phase. 8/10 because he’s trying so hard and because I can unironically sing along to all of this.

22.  Hoi Sam☆Nice Guy [Hong Kong]: A song that would absolutely destroy the ankles of anyone in DDR.

21.  I Am German-Made [Germany]: There was once a version that had Germany and Prussia singing at the same time and it sounded positively demonic and Broadway could never

20.  La pasión no se detiene ~Unstoppable Passion~ [Spain]: Talented, brilliant, incredible, amazing, show-stopping...

19.  Fall in Love, Mademoiselle [France]: Sounds like it should be in Mozart Opera Rock, I have kiss kiss falled in love.

18. Embrace the Très Bien Moi [France]: This is the definition of SELF LOVE PEOPLE. 

17. Carrot and Stick [Belarus&Ukraine]: Absolutely DRIPPING in 2000s power ballad energy. The type of song that plays on repeat in the mind of the widow whose millionaire husband ‘mysteriously disappeared’ (and the only legit character song ever acknowledged by the anime)

16. C.B.C (Cowboyz Boot Camp) Vol. 1 [America]: AH MAH GAWWDDD

15. Winter [Russia]: Heavy metal fever dream and the perfect song for an angst-ridden teenager

14.  Seychelles Here ⭐ Vacation Island [Seychelles]: UN👏DER👏RA👏TED SONG👏OF 👏THE 👏SUM👏MER👏

13.  Nah, it will settle itself somehow [Romano]: One day I aspire to reach this level of chill

12.  Let’s Enjoy Today [England]: I will never not feel happy when listening to this.

11.  Einsamkeit [Germany]: Ludwig manages to air every single one of his worries about not being good enough compared to his friends and always being perceived as mean or uptight when he’s actually just a softie and now my heart hurts. 💔

10.  Aiyaa Four Thousand Years [China]: A very poignant and beautiful song about the passage of time and the inevitability of its passing; comparable to an ancient ballad complete with explosive crescendos and meaningful lyrics.

9.  Bon Bon Bon❤️C’est Bon C’est Bon! [France]: Peppy, cheerful, adorable, groundbreaking; has been my alarm tone for six years and I’ve yet to tire of it. 9/10 The moaning interspersed throughout has been an interesting wake-up call.

8.  Let’s Enjoy! Let’s Get Excited! Cheers! [Denmark]: This is on par with Everytime we Touch by Cascada in terms of rage potential unlocked (the good kind)

7.  Dream Journey [Japan]: Whoever’s playing the shakuhachi is absolutely KILLING IT. Dramatic, wonderful, great metaphors.

6.  Gourmet’s Heart Beginner Level [China]: Absolute banger, I’m a vegetarian but this would inspire me to eat shumai.

5.  Always with you...Nordic Five! [Nordic FIVVVVVEEEE]: Everyone harmonizes beautifully except for Denmark. Extremely catchy, number placement seemed appropriate. 

4.  Pub and GO! [England]: I love this trash man

3. Maji Kandou⭐Hong Kong Night [Hong Kong]: If you thought Denmark’s song was a banger JUST YOU WAIT. I WILL BLOW OUT MY SPEAKERS LISTENING TO LO-HA-SU.

2. Steady Rhythmus [Germany]: THIS SONG IS METAL AF. Seriously, if it can be classified as ‘hardcore’ by my father and his group of 50-somethings who have decided to single-handedly gatekeep the metal and hardrock genres, it can do anything.

1.  The Delicious Tomato Song 🍅 [Romano]: Beautiful, absolutely awe-inspiring, poignant, catchy lyrics with an extremely deep meaning that only years of meticulous research and analysis can unlock, Romano I love you.

BONUS: Closing Songs

5. Hatafutte Parade (World Series) 

4. Hetalian⭐Jet (The World Twinkle): The song is good, the dancing is cursed 

3. Chikyuu Marugoto Hug Shitainda (World⭐Stars)

2. Marukaite Chikyuu (Hetalia: Axis Powers): nE NE PaPA

1. Mawaru Chikyuu Rondo (The Beautiful World)

[ennui-gt]

Here it is. A Piece Of Borrower Content Written Entirely In Stream Of Consciousness:

AN: so this is incomplete and very…needs revisions to the timeline to incorporate some things I added later! It’s the original universe that Mira’s from! I edited it like Slightly to just change Ross’s name to Ross (if u see Max anywhere that’s his old one I just felt like changing it so that’s just him but different. Anyway) Everything's under the readmore tab, cheers!

The Library Fairy:

-

Basic Plot (Chrono, comic starts from human perspective abt the ‘legend of the library fairy’ ig maybe. Nothing here is permanent cept the characterization)

Part A

1- Mira is borrower currently chillin in a college library

2- She lives off of the cafe on the second floor nd reads lots and lots of stuff about everything when the upper floors close (lower floor open 24/7 but upper floors r vacant p much after 12:00 AM)

3- she starts getting increasingly curious about human stuff cos she’s literate nd books r pry neat

4- it starts one night when she spots an unattended notebook and a half eaten blueberry muffin, nd it’s 12:30 so nobody’s coming back in atm (it’s the 80s so no laptops for the plebians quite yet)

5- so she goes ‘welp’ nd takes part of the muffin, then sees the work on the page and goes ‘hmmmm this is incorrect’ so she helps our and leaves notes here n there to point the kid in the right direction and puts down some book refs for further study bcos at this point she’s been there for 2 years and she knows where most things are

6- she stays behind to see if the human comes back for it, hidden in a hidey hole near the desk

7- human comes in, sees notebook, practically melts w relief nd stuffs it in his bag

8- next day human comes back nd leaves nother notebook and a cookie, along w a hidden camera

9- Mira goes ‘o boy, this a trap, innit’

10- Mira then decides ‘eh whatever I haven’t had contact w anyone in years now so I might as well’

11- she steals the camera film nd leaves a lil scrap of paper saying ‘nice try ;)’ on it

12- student comes back, sees paper, goes ‘dammit’, then leaves note addressed to the ‘library fairy’ and another cookie, as well as more of their work for her to help with

13- bout a decade goes by and now the “Library Fairy” is an urban myth, it’s currently 2003 so she’s also wound up on the school’s unofficial Wikipedia page under ‘local cryptids’

14- most library employees know of her but they don’t go looking out of fear stemming from superstitions bout her, somehow the legend grew from ‘can’t be photographed’ to ‘a student once saw her and died that day’

15- there’s now a small shrine devoted to her where ppl bring offerings hoping to get good grades in return, sometimes they will leave papers for her to proofread nd stuff

16- new prof (named Alexei) finds online article thinks he Knows What’s Up bcos he had a borrower friend as a kid, but they left when borrower’s fam found out about them knowing each other

17- he leaves note wedged in one of her secret entrances behind outlet, asking if she can meet w him at some point

18- Mira, already In it, goes ‘Okay. Alright. This has gone on for long enough. Time to go and never return’ but ofc she’s curious as all hell and like she decides she will at least honor the guy’s request for a convo b4 she goes, but on her terms and w/o speaking face 2 face

19- they Talk in the library after hours, bcos he paid off the janitor to let him stay after hours nd most of the student employees recognize him as a prof nd leave him alone

20- they talk again for every subsequent night

21- she uhhhh finally decides to reveal herself nd prays that her hunch was right nd he won’t try to grab her or anything

22- he doesn’t but she’s nervous so she winds up gettin caught in her own climbing rope like idiot, is now dangling from ceiling in tangled mess

23- he stifles chuckle nd she says smthn sarcastic

24- he moves closer and offers to untangle her

25- she’s like ‘please’

26- so he do, but her grip on the rope slips nd he has to catch her

26- so now she’s in his hand and he just sets her down and now he’s a bumbling embarrassed mess bcos he said he wasn’t going to hold her and he just did and o dear pls forgib him

28- nd she’s like ‘dude u just saved my life it’s fine ur fine chill’

29- internally she’s going HOLY FUCK AAAAAAA but externally, her human’s already worked up enough as it is so she’s gotta b the level headed one

29.5- after a while they both kinda get used to each other more, he gets tenure, they celebrate, some more stuff happens, Aleksei got married (not to Mira, Mira hasn’t actually rly thought about being in a relationship w anyone cos she’s laser focused on gaining as much knowledge as possible)

30- eventually Alexei’s like ‘hey so I’m dean of faculty for the biotech branch now uhhhh would u like actual job teaching students? Cos, uh, you can do it remotely thru online lectures n stuff, no in person interaction, and I uh was just kinda wondering—‘

31- she’s like ‘yes. Yes!!! LET ME HELP PEOPLE OFFICIALLY KINDA’

32- so now she’s a professor, and has revealed her Secret a few times here n there to a number of the faculty, nd she has recorded her own findings in a personal journal

33- ‘humans will treat u like a human if they think ur human first. The kids call it ‘catfishing’’

34- enter Ross, an mall goth who accidentally tripped headfirst into a premed program

35- Mira’s favorite field of study is bio so naturally she’s his prof for a majority of his classes

36- being the good boy that he is, he now knows Mira’s secret. There is an Entire Chapter on him finding out and legit just continuing their conversation as if everything was normal bcos he thought that was how he was supposed to handle the situation

37- then she says ‘u can ask questions, u know’ he’s like OH THANK FUCK CAUSE I HAVE SEVEN HUNDRED OF THOSE

38- and now he kinda knows what to look for in terms of ‘do borrowers live here check yes or no’

39-in his apartment, the answer is yes and he mistakenly kinda stumbles upon the mom one night when he wakes up in the middle of the night for Snack and opts to pretend like its not happening. Unfortunately the thing she was trying 2 borrow (piece of crumb cake for Son Boy’s birthday) is the thing he wants 2 eat so he’s like “uh. ‘Scuse me, ma’am.” and he peels back the saran wrap on the other side of the plate, takes piece, nd then leaves some there for her

40-so now the woman is like ‘welp guess it time 2 Leave’

.1- she and husband Talk

.2-they decide it best 2 go

.3-theyre Packing

.4-lil bab Ellie confused

.5-hawk attacke

.6-cut to Ross

41- Ross also happens to work at a bar and he goes outside for a break

43- he finds smal child—smol smal—on the sidewalk and said child is missing an arm, nd has lost a lot of blood, so he’s uhhhhh Losing It highkey

43.5-parents r nowhere 2 b seen, but the hawk is nearby and circling. Ross gets an idea of what just happened

44- he up and leaves work, thankfully his apartment is above the shop so he jumps up the fire escape w the child and

45- he make tourniquet

46- he calls Mira nd asks her 2 come over to ASAP. he’s A Mess at this point

47- it is Very touch and go, kid needs blood, Mira is the only viable donor so she’s just gotta pray that the blood type is fine and won’t kill him

48- and then eventually they manage 2 stave infection thru antibiotics properly dosed to his size, Mira does Math and Prays basically

49- ‘bout a month in, kid wakes up

50- kid doesn’t rember much since he’s only 3

51- hes v scared of Ross at first but over time he gets used 2 the human

52- kid (elliot) starts 2 call Ross ‘dad’ after a while

53- Ross: *internal screaming but in a good way*

54- the end kinda for now

Part 2

A- New Borrowers In The Building

—three of em. paranoid dad, mom, nd daughter that’s Elliot’s age so he’s pumped

B- Elliot offers them a place 2 stay briefly

C- he knows by now bout like, how borrowers don’t typically interact w humans and Auntie Mira’s a bit of a weird case so he just doesn’t tell em bout his dad being the human

D- the kid finds out first nd doesn’t tell the parents, but they figure it out later kinda and think that it’s a ‘o god he’s being kept as a pet’ sitch so they’re >:| abt it

E- they move out and try to take Elliot w them (by force bcos they think he’s brainwashed) but he escapes and makes it to Ross, who’s like “uhhhhhh”

F- and the mom come out the hole near the counter n starts yelling at Ross, who is…kinda used to it since Mira brings in ppl who need help from time 2 time and they typically don’t react well when they’re lucid enough to understand what’s going on. He’s just not used to being questioned about his own kid

G- so they’re like “WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING WITH HIM”

H- and he’s like “r…raising him???”

I- and Ellie steps up and he’s like “this is my dad. I decided he was my dad when I was three. He’s being a good parent”

J- and Ross is like “yeah what he said. I’m a good parent.”

K- Ross is riding that high til the end of fucking time but like back to the story at hand

L- this is when the husband comes out nd is like “lissen. wifey. ily but that is a very big human and he hasn’t grabbed us yet so let’s count our blessings and gtfo”

M- but she’s like “uh no we stay until I’m sure Elliot is Safe and fucking Sound”

N- so they stay for dinner nd stick around a little longer.

O- Val (the kid) gets closer 2 Elliot and also Ross a bit

P- Mira shows once or twice, first time she shows up they’re like “oh god it’s the crazy doctor lady this all makes sense now” (bcos Mira does check up on as many borrower families as possible in her free time so word has got around by now Of her, and the number by which to contact her in case her services r needed)

Q- After a month or so, then they decide to leave bcos they’re like “look we get that ur son is ur son and he only has one arm and in our profession that is kind of a death sentence but we can’t have our kid getting used to dealing w humans who know about our existence” so they go and leave on a kind of sour note bcos Ellie can do anything he wants to do just as well as any other borrower Thank You Very Much and Ross is ready to fite anyone who thinks otherwise

R- Elliot starts trying 2 b more independent, basically from now on he’s like ‘I can do everything my Damn Self Thanks’

S- but uh he does it to a point where he’s going out of the way to endanger himself

T- so they get into a fite about it and ross Yells and Elliot is like ‘kthxbye’

U- and the boi just. Fuckin bolts. Runs Away. Ross is a Mess, he starts smoking again (he quit cold turkey the day he took Elliot in) to curb the depression, he’s jus. Not doin good, worried that his son is dead and the last time they talked it’d ended badly

V- FREEDOM!!!1! Except Ellie doesn’t kno how to take care of himself so it’s a rough month or so and then he runs into some other borrowers livin in their own town in the wild ig, chillin, being hella independent, and he’s like “uh yes ofc I will join u, I was w my dad for a while but.........” he neither confirms nor denies that his dad’s dead but everyone kinda just assumes.

Part 3

W-anyway a year goes by and then the borrower group gets hit hard w some kind of sickness ig. Elliot gets it too he’s basically incapacitated n drifting in and out of lucidity. So. They contact the weird crazy doctor lady who hangs around humans, a.k.a. Mira, and she’s like “oh. fuck. I know this kid.” bcos she does, u kno, and she jus treats em all for their ailment and shows them how to make antibiotic poultice thing in case smthn like it happens again. Mold. Penicillin is basically what it is

X-she and Elliot hav a Chat (Mira basically yells at him a lot) once he’s fixed up and he decides he’s gonna visit his dad but he makes it very clear that he is a Grown Up (he’s not, he’s literally sixteen), and he is living on his own now

Y- he agrees to stay for a week tho since he misses his home a lot tbh and Ross is just. Over the fucking moon to know he’s ALIVE, he’s not gonna fuck up their relationship by insisting that he stay. Or like, by keeping him ofc he would never

Z- unfortunately the borrower community put two and two together and figured out his dad’s human so they have his stuff packed up when he gets back w mira, who’s ready to go the fuck off on them

End 1:

-Ellie is living at Ross’s place atm and hopeful about the future basically. He eventually will go off on his own but he’ll keep in contact w his dad and stuff

Part C.5

55- few yrs later

56- elliot is Adult now he does adult borrower stuff

57- he moves out

58- finds nice borrower gf (her name’s Tess)

59- doesn’t tell her about his dad being human but talks about his dad a LOT

60- so when she asks to meet said father he’s just like “uh. Maybe we don’t do that actually”

61- and she’s like “y tho”

62- and he’s like “bcos”

63- anyway she decides to look into it cos she knows he goes to see his dad nd keep in touch but his dad is allegedly “a recluse who lives in the big scary human’s walls to avoid other ppl”

64- which is. Not true in the slightest tbqh he’s def not an introvert he’s just a workaholic and he Is the big scary human

65- anywho they run into Val and her wife and she’s like “how’s Ross been?” And Elliot is acting Very Suspish so she, being Smart, calls it immediately and is like “oh shit u haven’t told her yet have u”

66- Tess: “told me what”

67- Val: “El’s dad is a human, bro.”

68- Tess: “I’m sorry?”

69- this results in a Big Fight and they separate for like, a month. Elliot blames Val bcos he’s being irrational and doesn’t wanna admit to the fact that lying to his girlfriend for over a year was Real Bad Actually, but over time he’s like ‘yeah it’s my fault sry for snapping at u’ cos he works thru his emotions n stuff

70- Eventually gf comes back cos she’s like “ok so. I understand why you lied to me about your dad. It was a dick move but I do get it and I still care about you a lot. I would like. To meet him.”

80- this is a lie she does not want to meet him she is doing this bcos she does not want to lose Elliot and that outweighs the fear of his dad

81- so they go to meet him but she’s just kinda. Behind the wall at first like “that’s a crazy big human this is crazy ur crazy it’s time to gO”

82- Val is also there bcos she hasn’t seen Ross in a while

83- they eventually coax her out of hiding

84- and by that I mean Val picks her up and drags her out into the open by force bcos she basically freezes up the second she catches sight of Ross and Val’s like “u didn’t come all this way for nothing, bich”

85- they have a Painfully Awkward First Meeting, Tess is trying her best but oh god he’s just too fucking. Larg. Ellie ur dad too big

86- tbh tho the ice kinda breaks after Ellie and Ross get into a fight over smthn stupid (im thinking Elliot grumbles bout Ross’s hair being unruly and he’s worried that mira’s using it like a personal storage system again and Ross is like “I’ve been keeping better track of that actually” and then like a little line of paper clips and a few hand-bound notebooks tied together w some string fall out of his fucking mane and he’s like “I can explain”

87- “dad you can’t keep letting her use your hair like a fucking NEST”

88- Tess is laughing now cos god damn this was not what she was expecting

89- that’s it the end it ends w Tess laughing at them being idiots good times r had by all

Uhhhh that’s it so far. I have More but it’s kinda jumbled rn and I need to fit stuff in places. Anyway.

[joonkorre]

its crazy late but

@drarrymicrofic prompt: blanket fort

(there’s no plot. none. just dudes being guys, guys being pals)

(caution: not very micro, more like a one shot. a whole lot of anecdotes. i’m writing this under a blanket with snow beating at my window, so of course this has to be very soft and warm. you have been warned)

“Hello?” Harry says into the dark. He’s just gotten home and instead of seeing the familiar orange hue of their beetle-shaped lamp (a gift from Luna, of course), there’s a single sliver of moonlight slipping through the curtains. Nothing else seems to exist in the living room but the echo of Harry’s greeting. Tangerine and sage drift into his nose, followed by the bitter tang of smoke. The scent of Draco’s favorite candle, newly extinguished.

Draco just left. Discovered a breakthrough in his research and fled to the Ministry lab, maybe.

Harry sighs. Unlaces his boots and hangs up his coat absentmindedly only for it to crumple onto the floor. Another sigh. He bends and retrieves it, deciding instead to throw it in the laundry bin. Might as well; he’s been trudging around in Dayhound mucus for hours and neither his dragonhide boots nor coat were spared. 

Walking into the kitchen, Harry grabs a glass from the drying rack and pours himself water from the pitcher in the fridge. It’s ridiculous how a simple act like this can drain his energy so, but it does. Curse breaking isn’t a walk in the park; even walking hurts, considering the amount of magic he expends on shite like a 500-year-old wailing locket on a day to day basis. Exposure to different kinds of magic - dark, Old Magick, elemental, countlessly and endlessly more- for 8 hours straight more often than not result in a fierce ringing in his temples and pinpricks on his skin.

After years of doing it, he can scarcely tolerate one Portkey trip from wherever he’s assigned to back to the main headquarter before getting uncontrollable shivers. Another 30 minutes on the metro, then a 10-minute walk home. In addition, Harry has to sleep for at least 8 hours every night to replenish his energy. Morning comes, he wakes up, Apparates to the headquarter, and the cycle continues.

Why does he even stick with curse breaking at this point? Right, a wry grin graces Harry’s lips, Draco thinks the uniform is hot. Oh, and can’t forget the job benefits, insurance, whole nine yards.

With the glass now rinsed and settled once more on the drying rack, Harry drags his feet to the bedroom. The clock - an antique Draco stole from his cheating ex - hits 7:18 PM, but getting ready to go to sleep sure sounds like a decent idea. Harry palms the back of his aching neck and winces. He’d go shower, scrub the dirt and tension off his limbs, and maybe heat up the leftovers from two days-

“There you are. I was wondering how much longer drinking water could take.”

Harry looks up from his slippered feet to see Draco. Or, more specifically, Draco’s silhouette. Behind some kind of white cloth. A white cloth that’s conveniently placed where the focus of the bedroom should’ve been. 

The relief at seeing his husband evaporates.

“What,” Harry says, “where’s our bed.”

Draco’s silhouette crawls to the opening of the cloth… tent-shaped thing. Pewter grey eyes peer at him behind strands of near-platinum blonde, its icy color soothed by the orange tint of… ah, so he’s brought the bug lamp in here. Neat.

“I,” Draco answers. Pauses. “Might have brought it somewhere else.”

“Somewhere else.”

“Yes.”

Harry shakes his head. An exasperated chuckle escapes his lips.

“Is ‘somewhere else’ the recycling center?”

“Why,” Draco flops down on the floor, appearing tired of holding himself up on his elbows for more than 10 seconds. It’s peculiar to see, the gesture a bit ungraceful for someone like him. Harry is helplessly in love amused. “Do my ears deceive me? Am I being confronted, cornered, accosted for being a good husband? Were the 5 minutes it took to Shrink and Levitate the wretched old thing away from our safe haven worth your condescension, dear lover?”

“I guess I did say I hate-”

“Correct!”

“-the headboard. Nothing but the headboard. Yesterday. While I’m half asleep. Baby.”

“Oh, pish posh, I hate it too! In fact, I’m doing us both a favor disposing of the entire thing altogether.”

“God, however can I thank you? I mean, you did rid us of our bed where we sleep on.”

“You can thank me by taking off those horrid gears faster and come here,” with that, Draco crawls back to where he was sitting before.

“You love these gears,” Harry says, hanging his harnesses and tool belt in the closet and walking into the bathroom for a quick shower, “you love them against your ba-”

“Put a lock on that filthy mouth, Potter, what will the Daily Prophet think?” Draco’s yell almost drowns out the shower spray. Harry laughs, his stomach hurting for the right reason at last.

When he re-enters the bedroom, Draco is leaning out from the tent thing.

“Come, get in, get in,” he beckons with a hasty wave.

Harry points to his wet hair with the hand holding his towel. Draco clicks his tongue and waves his hand more aggressively.

His husband’s level of theatrics is directly proportional to how slow Harry is at doing what he says, so he nods, fondness overflowing, and obeys.

“What’s all this?” He crouches and crawls in, eyeing the collection of pillows and quilts surrounding Draco and what would be Harry’s seat. It seems that he had also lugged in the chairs from their dining room to provide some structural support for the tent.

“A blanket fort, lover,” Draco says, his gaze tender. Harry’s finger tips tingle with every touch of cotton, linen, silk, as he gets situated. It’s been years and years and years and years, and Harry can never get used to, can never take for granted, the weight of his husband’s undivided attention.

“Huh,” he says, sitting down with an ‘oof’, “isn’t this for kids?”

“A blanket fort is a blanket fort,” Draco takes the towel from Harry’s arm and puts the throw pillow Ron knitted in his lap. He hits a button on the laptop in front of them, and Harry’s favorite jazz collection plays. He blinks. He thought Draco would play his questionable atmospheric-white-noise-POV-you’re-having-tea-in-a-gothic-vampire-library playlist, the weirdo.

Velvety smooth sax flows through the air. Harry exhales, easy and content, and lets Draco tilt his head. He towels Harry’s hair, massaging unhurried circles on his scalp and varying the degree of pressure. In no time, his head lolls forward, eyes closed, chin a breath away from his well-worn shirt. A slender, pale hand cups his cheek and holds his head up and steady. Meanwhile, the hand’s owner leans out of the blanket fort to get something.

“Ow.” A grunt. Harry smiles; most likely a cramp from all the leaning.

Then, his husband reseats himself, this time with a smell. A mouth-watering, delicious smell, tickling the back of Harry’s nose. He opens his eyes to see Draco lifting off the lid of a ceramic bowl perched on a tray, steam floating out and fogging Harry’s glasses. It’s purple yam soup, topped with chopped up shrimp and ground beef.

“Your usual order from the Viet place nearby whenever Pepper-up isn’t sufficient,” Draco murmurs, placing a spoon in Harry’s hand, his words warm against Harry’s temple. Huh, he didn’t think Draco would notice. “You said today you’d deal with those disgusting booby traps you showed me, thus I reckoned I should put the yams on our counter into good use.”

Harry stares at the soup, stunned. Draco must have taken his expression as something else.

“Oh, right,” he says, “I heated it up on the stove, but you were taking atrociously long so I casted a Heating charm. Let me take it off, okay?”

Draco flicks his hawthorn wand, a hand squeezing Harry’s shoulder as if he could see the prickling running up Harry’s nape.

He turns to look at his husband. When Harry’s career was starting to take its toll on his magical core, Draco didn’t hesitate to dive headfirst into Muggle living. Easier said than done, and it took months for him to stop frowning at the “absolutely bizarre, Potter, bizarre” appliances, but he got there in the end. Despite his constant bitching about everything, Draco not once raised a word about the drastic switch, effortlessly guiding Narcissa to gossip about the Albescu clan’s abhorrent matriarch when she asks about how he’s faring.

“Gosh, I,” Harry says. Mumbles, really, into Draco’s collarbone, filling his brain with the woodsy aroma of potion making that no amount of expensive body products can mask, “that’s lovely, baby, thank you.”

“Eat,” Draco says, rubbing his chin on the top of Harry still-damp hair and messaging his tense neck. Harry knows he’s breathing him in too. “Or I’ll have to heat it up in the kitchen again, and forgive me but I’d rather stay here for the next 12 hours, at least.”

“Lazy arse.”

Draco laughs, a momentary rumble of his chest, then moves forward to click something on the laptop. Harry’s on his fifth spoonful of pure comfort when the jazz music stops, and on the blank wall opposite from their blanket fort is the title card of a movie. Strange, Harry didn’t even notice the mini projector. He squints.

“Why is there Korean subtitles?”

“Lover,” Draco tosses a napkin at Harry’s crossed legs, “what is watching movies online without the occasional bout of piracy?”

“Pira- piracy,” Harry chokes, the hot soup stinging his palate, “we have a Netflix subscription.”

“You can’t find shite like this on Netflix.”

“Of course we can. Baby, we don’t know anyone who’s good at computer stuff and can deal with the viruses.”

“There’s no virus here, I checked.”

“How,” Harry stresses, “and again, piracy.”

“Sometimes,” Draco says, lowering the speaker volume, “not doing crimes… is worse.”

“What the fuck,” the main character, a square-faced woman with a python around her neck, has a monologue in a completely different language. “What the fuck? Is that Italian?”

“Yes, but I’m French.”

“And?”

“And they’re both Romance languages. I can understand certain words and translate it for you.”

No, he can’t.

“Why are you looking at me like that? Keep eating,” Draco settles amid the pillows, long hair settled on his satin-clad chest, white against emerald. Harry sneers at him - an unfortunate habit he’s gotten from Draco - and turns to watch the movie.

True to his words, Draco translates every dialogue and mimics the characters’ voices with zeal, contradicting his stoic expression and somber, interlaced hands, looking like a cranky judge having to deal with reckless teenagers on their anti-authority phase. Harry can tell that he doesn’t understand a thing, and soon enough he’s woven a story about how the thriller-mystery they’re watching is actually a vicious custody battle over a duck. For each of Harry’s occasional snicker at the absurdity Draco has thought up is a playful kick at his ribs.

Minutes pass. With Harry’s bowl now emptied, he puts it on a chair and goes to wash up. 

The moment he sits back down, Draco’s big toe pokes at his spine. Getting the memo, Harry grins and reclines on the pillows. His left side is flushed against Draco’s right, the kinks in his neck eased off from the angle. They, as per usual, gradually get closer to one another, and at some point, Draco lays his head on Harry’s chest and ear on his beating heart. It’s calming to him, Draco had said when Harry asked, on the third night of their honeymoon. With the war long behind them, there was nothing to fear. Only the constellations existed as their witnesses.

“You died, Harry,” he had whispered, full and tipsy. “It was the worst thing I’ve ever seen, despite all the shite I made you go through.

“You were so far away in Hagrid’s arms, I couldn’t see your face,” the night had been blinding, but his eyes had found Draco’s anyway. “It felt like my heart died with you.”

Harry had kissed his forehead and hugged him close. His heart had always been there for Draco to take.

“What’s up with the blanket fort?”

He has a lapful of Draco, a lungful of peach and cedar scented shampoo, and the sleepy timbre of his husband’s voice against his chest. The Italian movie is the last thing on Harry’s mind. 

“I wasn’t aware of its existence growing up,” Draco says. “Having anything other than an immaculate bed when one wasn’t sleeping was uncouth, see, so you could imagine my surprise when Teddy demanded to play in something as messy as a fort so often.”

Harry doesn’t need to imagine it; he had witnessed it himself. Draco, freshly released from a two-year sentence in Azkaban, mellowed and tentative, yet determined to reconnect with his mother’s sister and his nephew. Harry had been wary too, standing in the corner of Teddy’s bedroom, staring at the fuzz of blonde on Draco’s shorn head and his weak gait. Teddy, the darling boy with his clumsy hold on Draco’s thigh, afraid that the haggard man would trip without help, had led him to his play area.

“Fort, fort,” the boy had screamed in Draco’s ear, but he hadn’t flinched. He had nodded and gone along with Teddy’s babbled directions, then sat back on his heels and fixed a wide-eyed stare at the monstrosity Teddy had called a fort (his designing skills were, unsurprisingly, underdeveloped at the mere age of two). 

Swiveling his head, he had gawked at Harry, who had still been standing in the corner with his arms crossed, confusion and hysteria in the arch of his aristocratic brows.

It had been the first time he had looked at Harry in the eye for years. In seconds, it was 6th Year all over again, with him watching Draco pushing his food around with a fork from across the room, unable to look away. Obsession, a voice unlike Hermione’s helpfully defined, had slithered up and under his skin. It had remained there for years, stubborn and ardent, an emotion he had tried to leave behind time and time again. He’d never succeeded.

It’s Draco, after all.

“He never let anyone but him enter the fort, remember? Back when he’s still making us build it for him?” Draco’s fingers tap a random rhythm on Harry’s stomach. Harry tightens his arm around him, shifts a bit. “So many forts and I still didn’t know what it’s like to be in one.”

Somebody downs a shot in the movie. Harry doesn’t quite register it. “I don’t think I’ve ever been in a proper one either until now. Didn’t have enough space in the cupboard. Plus, the hanging around the beds at Hogwarts felt pretty cozy by themselves.”

Draco hums. “Mhmm, I say. Another ‘first’ for us.”

Harry glances at the crown of his head. The man doesn’t sound surprised; Harry wagers that he already knows and decided to make one for the both of them today.

They continue to watch the movie in silence, whites and blues and purples flooding his sight, until Draco yawns and Harry blinks his eyes shut for far too long.

“Baby.”

“Hmm?”

“Sleep?”

“Yes.”

“Where, then? We have no bed.”

“I still maintain that I made the right choice”

“Jesus Christ, you’re so rash for an academic.”

“Well, in my professional opinion, sleeping in a blanket fort every blue moon does wonders for one’s quality of sleep,” Draco gets up on his elbow to smirk at Harry, “we can look at other beds tomorrow, can’t we? Now hush. Rest.”

“Ha,” Harry says, at least 5 more words to follow up on that just on the tip of his tongue. But then Draco runs a gentle hand through Harry’s hair, taking his time with it, the remaining hints of Harry’s migraine from work fading with every curl of hair carefully unknotted. He mumbles this and that, silly, insignificant things, engrossed in his task, and Harry listens carefully as his eyelids lower.

Draco takes off his gold-rimmed glasses (so sweet and soft Harry can barely feel it), cleans them and puts them on a chair. Through half-lidded eyes, Harry watches him cover them both with a quilt and return to Harry’s chest, curling up like a cat. Draco’s arm is around his midriff, peach and cedar pervading his senses anew, and Harry forgets whatever he was going to say.

Cold ankles pressed against bare calves, Harry is already deep asleep when the credits roll.

[thewindsofsong]

Liu Sang has a brother and is also 12 when the fire happens

My angst brain has been going again regarding what Liu Sang’s relationship with his brother would look like and I also was thinking about how Liu Sang could be a part of the base dmbj series.

This is the result. I am planning on writing out more of this, but I wanted to at least post this first part before I lost motivation. Let me know what you think?

----------

The fire happens when Liu Sang is only 12. His little brother is only 8 years old and they’re both scared. Liu Sang had forced his way out of the restraints his “parents” had put him in and managed to get himself and his little brother Liu Yang out of the house before the flames overtook everything. Liu Yang only had some smoke inhalation, but Liu Sang got some 1st and 2nd degree burns in the process. They get taken to the hospital, but Liu Sang has many Bad Feelings regarding Stepmother’s family and bugs out.

Now homeless and desperate to not fall under the custody of his step mother’s family, he takes the both of them to try and live on the streets. The minimal training he received from his shifu is enough to pickpocket unsuspecting tourists  and occasionally steal from corner stores, but his brother still needs some kind of education and food and shelter. His own wounds are barely treated, burns scarring terribly with lack of treatment on his left shoulder.

He also does everything he can to keep the truth of what happened to their family from Liu Yang as best he can. He barely wants to accept it himself that their guardians tried to burn him alive and blame it on him, let alone subject Liu Yang to that horrifying revelation at such a young age. He also takes them far away from the province where they’re from to try and escape as much notice as possible. The attention the fire brought would make them too identifiable if they stuck around so they go south, hitchhiking and blending in with other families as best they can. 

After a few months, Liu Sang starts getting desperate. He’s still a kid himself, but he feels responsible for making sure his half brother gets the best life he can, but he doesn’t understand things like education standards.The best he can do is buy books and try to teach Liu Yang himself while also trying to get enough money for food and new clothes. He hears about an antique shop that has expensive items and little staff and decides to try his luck stealing an item to sell for a lot of money. He gets into the store at the same time when Wu Xie has just come back from the events of book 3 (need to do more research). Wu Xie catches Liu Sang red handed in his attempted theft because he’s inexperienced, hungry, and probably in pain. It takes all of 2 seconds for Wu Xie to realize that the thief he’s caught is a desperate, hungry kid and decides not to call the authorities and just talk to Liu Sang instead.

Liu Sang just about has a panic attack when he’s caught, but then this handsome, kind stranger sits him down at a table, puts a glass of juice and a snack in front of him and tries to gently get him to talk instead of yelling at him. Liu Sang devours everything in front of him and Wu Xie gets even more worried. After a little bit, Liu Sang starts telling him little bits of information like: he has a sibling, they’ve been living on the streets for a few months, and he doesn’t want to be found. Wu Xie doesn’t want to pressure this kid too much and tells Liu Sang that he and his sibling are welcome  to come to his shop and have a meal on him whenever they need one. Liu Sang leaves that day with a small chunk of cash and the impression of that  kind man’s smile allowing him into his home with no strings attached. 

Maybe a week or two later, Liu Yang catches a cold. Its not a bad illness persey, but the two of them have been crashing in whatever abandoned properties/back allies  they can find and the weather is getting wetter and colder. When Liu Yang faints, Liu Sang panics and brings the two of them back to Wushanju in tears. Wang Meng  and Wu Xie are overwhelmed at the frankly pathetic bundle at their door and do their best to help out. An hour later, Liu Yang has had some cold medicine, a warm bowl of soup, and been put to bed. Liu Sang is convinced to have some of the same soup and a warm shower. While dropping off towels or something, Wu Xie gets a glimpse of the burn scars on Liu Sang’s arms and is horrified. After making sure Liu Sang also goes to sleep he immediately starts researching online and finds one sensationalized news story about a family that was burned to death by the eldest son out of jelousy of his step family. The children are missing and most suspect dead.

More stuff happens and when Wu Xie asks about what happened to his family, Liu Sang, after months of holding himself together finally cracks and tells Wu Xie everything that happened, from his stepmother convincing his dad to force a paternity test, the results that he’s sure were altered, the fire they started and planned on blaming on him, the desperate struggle to get out with his brother. Then, in the hospital, hearing the rumors that were already starting to spread that he was the one to start the fire and deciding that he had to run, but also not liking the way he could hear the way his stepmother’s family was talking about Liu Yang and how they’d use him to get to their father’s wealth and how they spoke badly about Stepmother for failing to get rid of him.

Wu Xie is shocked and horrified at first, then resolves to take care of the Liu brothers. Realizing that he doesn’t know the first think about family law, calls up Ershu for advice.

[pentagonpimp69]

Can you ever forgive me? Tom Holland x Reader Part X

*A month later*

“If you don’t think it’s a boy, you’re crazy.” Tom said while shoveling cereal into his mouth.

It had been about a month since talking to Grace. We have texted here and there but I’ve mainly been focused on myself and the baby. My baby. Today I am officially 12 weeks pregnant. Also today, Tom and I are going to our first ultrasound and we will learn the gender of our baby. Even though I feel so nervous, I am super excited to see what we're having. Of course Tom seems convinced it has to be a boy and won’t hear anything else.

“I don’t know what it is Tom.” I answer back. Still cooking my eggs at the stove. I see him roll his eyes out of the corner of my eye.

“You haven’t thought about what gender the baby is?” Tom says with a mouth full of food.

“No, Tom, I haven’t.” I say frankly. 

Tom shrugs his shoulders, “Well, Mom and Dad think it's a boy too.” He says.

“So do my parents.” I answer with a giggle.

Soon after meeting Grace, Tom and I decided that we had to tell both our parents about my pregnancy. Telling them was definitely interesting. My parents were shocked, but thrilled. They were so excited to finally become grandparents. We then decided to tell them about Grace. Well, I decided to tell them about Grace. They seemed upset at first but ultimately said they supported us. But I could swear my dad was glaring at Tom for the rest of the night.

Telling Tom’s parents was another story. They were happy don’t get me wrong, but they just looked emotionally exhausted. They were about to have 2 grandchildren from the same son by 2 different women. One that they know and loved and one by some girl that Tom had a one night stand with. It was a lot. But they are coming around to it.

But today was about none of that stuff. Today was about us and our baby.

“Are you gonna be ready to go once you're done?” Tom asks as I sit down to eat.

“Yeah. I should be. We still have another hour though.” I answer.

“I know, but there's nothing wrong with getting there early right?” He says. I just giggle at him. He has been so excited to go to this doctors appointment. It almost makes me feel bad in a way. When Grace has an appointment, he looks almost like he's going to a funeral. Gloomy and almost sad. But with me, he was ready to go when we first woke up. Granted, I am his long time girlfriend (kind of fiance now) that he's having a baby with, I still feel a bit bad.

“Let me finish eating and I’ll be ready.” I say looking up at him.

He walks over and gives me a kiss on the top of my head. “It’s 100% a boy.” He whispers in my ear. 

“Oh my god!” I say as I push him away. He just giggles and walks into the kitchen.

-

“So Y/N, how are you feeling?” The doctor asks.

“Good! I haven’t had any morning sickness really, just lightheadedness occasionally and that about it.” I say with a smile. Tom sits next to me and grips my hand tightly. His leg shakes not in a nervous way but in anticipation of the ultrasound.

“That’s great! Just make sure you are drinking plenty of water and take thing easy. Especially if you are feeling lightheaded.” She says with a smile.

“For sure!” I answer.

The doctor picks up my file and looks at it. “So you are 12 weeks now right?” she asks.

“Yes! 12 weeks today!” I answer excitedly. Tom squeezes my hand again. I can see his smile without even looking at him.

“Well then, let's get right to it then. If you want to lay back on the table and lift your shirt up, we can get an ultrasound started!” She says.

I nod my head and stand up. I climb on to the fake leather table with what looks like parchment paper on. After I lay down and lift my shirt up, the doctor puts the cool gel on my stomach. 

At this moment, I was hit with panic. What if there is no baby? I remember my mom telling me about her miscarriages in the past. What if this happens to me? I almost start crying when the doctor starts pressing the wand on my stomach. But soon enough, a small flutter starts to fill the room. The doctor turns a knob on the machine and it becomes my louder.

*thud *thud *thud

“That's the heartbeat there and if you look, there's your baby.” She says as she points to the screen.

“Wow.” I say. It's the only word I can think of. It looks like an actual baby in there. I mean I knew there was a baby in there, but just seeing it like that was crazy to me. My baby. 

I look over at Tom and his eyes are fixed on the machine. I say a tear slip from his eye. He looks down at me and gives me his goofy smile. The one I love. The one that got me here.

“Would you guys like to know the gender?” The doctor asks.

“Yes!” I say.

She nods and starts moving knobs on the machine while also moving the wand on my stomach.

“Well from what I can tell, it looks like you're having a girl!” She says excitedly. 

I looked up at Tom expecting to see a disappointed face, but instead, I saw a huge grin.

“A little girl?” He asks the doctor. She nods.

He looks down at me, “We're having a little girl!” He bends down and gives me a kiss.

We're having a little girl.

-

“So what do you think of the name Lily?” Tom asks as he walks in the living room.

“Lily?” I ask as a turn away slightly from my laptop to look at him.

“Yes, what do you think of that name?” He asks again.

“I used to have a dog named Lily.” I answer.

“Well, was she a good dog?” He asks, sitting on the couch next to me.

“No, she used to poop in the house all the time and ate all my dad's shoes. She also bit our blind neighbor once.” I answer, looking back at my laptop.

Tom just stares at me for a minute. “Okay, no to Lily.”

All of the sudden, Tom's phone starts going crazy. Texts are coming through every second.

“What’s happening?” I ask.

“I don’t know, they're all from my publicist. She's freaking out.” He says with a confused face. Finally they stop coming through so he can unlock his phone and read what they are saying. After reading the first one, his face turns white.

“I need to call her.” He says. He walks to the backyard and shuts the door.

I can seem him yelling and rubbing his face during the phone call. What is happening?

Then my phone goes off.

“What the hell is happening????” Is the text I got from Harrison.

“What are you talking about?” I answered him. Once I hit send, Tom walks back in. He won’t look at me. That isn’t good.

“What?” I ask.

“Grace sold a story to the Sun and said that I got both her and you pregnant. She sent them some texts from me as “proof” i guess. The Sun just published it online.” He says, staring at the ground the whole time.

“Are you serious?” I ask.

He nods. “And that's not the worst part.” He says.

“What's the worst part?” I ask. What can be worse than this?

Tom stays quiet.

“TOM!” I sob, “What's the worst part?”

“She’s told them that you threatened to hurt her and attempted to pay her off to go away.” He answers.

“What?” I say.

I cannot believe this. I felt so bad for this girl and then she went out and did this.

“Baby I know that didn’t happen. I’m so sorry.” Tom says as he walks over to the couch to hug me. I cry into his shoulder. What the hell is happening???

“How could she do this?” I choke out.

“I don’t know baby.” He says as he rubs my back, trying to calm me down. “But my publicist says that you need to stay in the house the next few days. Until all of this dies down.”

“Great. So I'm a prisoner in my own home for something I never did. What will I tell my work?” I say.

“Baby we’ll figure that out.” He says. I just nod. I shouldn’t even think about work with what I just found out. Tom and I embrace for a while longer before his phone starts ringing again. He looks down and sharply inhales.

“Who is it?” I ask, wiping away my tears.

“It's Grace.”

Hello! Hope you enjoy this part! Its kind of a whirlwind! Let me know what you think! Also, I've though about starting another series! Let me know what you guys think and who it should be with! Love you!

[impressedbymckayla]

M*ggie continues to be absolute trash. 

If she could travel back in time, before she was suspended from gymnastics after being accused of berating and mistreating her athletes, including an Olympic champion, Maggie Haney says she would change the way she coached.

She wouldn’t push some of her young gymnasts to redo a routine again and again after even the tiniest mistakes. To demand their focus, she wouldn’t yell at them. Instead she would learn to let some imperfections slide.

“I think my mistakes were that I cared too much, and wanted them to be a little too perfect every day, when maybe that’s not possible,” Haney, one of the most prominent coaches in the sport, said this month in an interview with The New York Times, the first time she has spoken publicly in nearly a year. “Maybe what used to be OK is not OK anymore, and maybe it shouldn’t be. I think maybe the culture has shifted.”

Haney has not coached at her gym in central New Jersey or anywhere else since February, she said, when U.S.A. Gymnastics, the sport’s national federation, temporarily suspended her before later barring her from coaching for eight years for what it called her “severe aggressive behavior” toward her athletes. She said she hasn’t even coached her own daughter, who is 11.

The athletes who have trained under Haney include Laurie Hernandez, who won a silver medal on the balance beam at the 2016 Olympics and helped the United States win the team gold medal.

Hernandez’s complaint to the federation was one of nearly a dozen that led to Haney’s ban, which she is appealing to an arbitrator. It was considered the harshest penalty for emotional and verbal abuse in the sport’s recent history.

The suspension was also viewed as a warning that coaches could now face stiff penalties for the mental and nonsexual abuse that was long accepted in the sport before the Lawrence G. Nassar sexual abuse scandal shed light on the toxic culture in gymnastics. Nassar was the longtime United States national team doctor who in 2018 was sentenced to prison for molesting more than 200 girls and women under the guise of medical treatment.

Haney said the accusations against her — particularly those from Hernandez, whom she coached from age 6 — had come out of nowhere, and she vehemently denied them. More than 30 gymnasts at MG Elite, Haney’s gym in Morganville, N.J., and their families continue to support her and are awaiting her return to the sport, she said. Some have voiced their support for Haney in a YouTube video compiled by the public-relations firm she hired to help restore her reputation.

Haney, 42, said she was convinced that U.S.A. Gymnastics had used her as a scapegoat after its missteps in the Nassar case, in which the organization failed to protect its gymnasts from a sexual predator. The federation needed to do “something bold, something dramatic,” she said, to prove to the public that it cares about its athletes.

“I’ve dedicated my whole life to this,” Haney said, her voice beginning to waver. “To be out of the gym has been really hard. I feel like it was unfairly taken away from me.”

Haney’s accusers have not wavered. They say the ban is warranted, and some even wanted a permanent one. They claim that she bullied her gymnasts, publicly shamed them about their weight, encouraged eating disorders and forced them to train with injuries.

Hernandez, who is now training in California for the Tokyo Olympics next summer, told The Times in April that Haney’s treatment of her was “just so twisted that I thought it couldn’t be real.” She said the abuse included Haney calling her weak, lazy and messed up in the head and that the emotional abuse led to a continuing battle with depression.

Riley McCusker, who has a good chance of making the United States team for the Tokyo Games, filed a lawsuit against Haney last month. Among the accusations in the complaint was that Haney had forced McCusker to train through injuries, including while she had a painful, potentially serious medical condition called rhabdomyolysis, which is a breakdown of muscle tissue that can happen from overexertion.

In a separate lawsuit filed last month, another gymnast, Emily Liszewski, a sophomore at the University of Pittsburgh, accused Haney and an assistant coach of forcing her to perform an advanced skill on the uneven bars at the Arena Gym, a gym not far from MG Elite, and it led her to fall and hit her head. Liszewski was unconscious for three days, with multiple skull fractures, and had seizures because of the injury, the lawsuit said. The suit also claimed that Haney once picked Liszewski up from the floor by her hair after the gymnast had fallen.

“These situations are not at all the way I recall them,” Haney said, adding that Hernandez’s mother and McCusker’s mother were often in the gym — sometimes on the training floor — but never expressed displeasure over her demanding coaching style. (Neither mother responded to a request made through a representative to comment for this article.)

Haney added: “I just think when money gets involved, people will say and do different things. I think a lot of this is about money.”

The arbitrator’s ruling on Haney’s appeal is expected in the coming days, said one of her lawyers, Steven Altman. He said he hoped that Haney’s suspension would be rescinded because U.S.A. Gymnastics’s hearing for the case had been biased and flawed, and “as a practical matter, a kangaroo court.” Seven of Haney’s accusers were not even coached by her, Altman said, and the gym offered a fun environment amid the intense training that is generally needed to master the sport’s daring moves.

“When they were doing gymnastics, it was serious,” Altman said. “They worked on life-threatening skills for hours a day.”

U.S.A. Gymnastics, in an emailed statement, said on Sunday that Haney’s hearing was “both fair and impartial, and adhered to the requirements” of the organization’s procedures, as well as the law that oversees Olympic sports in the United States.

Haney conceded she could be intense in the gym. But she said that most of the time “everybody is smiling and laughing and music is playing.” She carefully crafted the atmosphere at the gym, she said, knowing that parents had entrusted her with their children, at times from morning until evening. The program, Haney said, included closely monitored online learning, a certified teacher holding classes during the day and an emphasis on safety.

As a young gymnast herself, training in an elite program for a while, Haney worked with harsh coaches who screamed at the girls, she recalled, and had them step onto a scale daily, then listed everyone’s weight on a bulletin board in the gym. To make the girls lose weight, the coaches forced them to wear rubber suits or 20-pound belts and jog around the gym, she said.

“It didn’t faze me and didn’t bother me, but that kid next to me, it could’ve really bothered and scared them,” she said, adding that she never weighed her gymnasts or forced them to lose weight. “I think what I’ve learned over the last year is that so much of this comes down to perspective. Every person. Every athlete. Every coach. They have their own perspective of things.”

Some of the families whose children continue to train at MG Elite were drawn to her gym because of what they described as an exacting nature.

Henry Rivera, an engineer at a software company, moved his 12-year-old daughter to MG Elite last year so she could train with Haney. He said she had left her previous gym because her routines were getting sloppy and the coach there was pushing her to perform skills she didn’t feel prepared to do.

Rivera said he appreciated that Haney had made the gym a safe space for his daughter, yet never babied her.

“If I wanted her to come home happy and smiling every day, I’d send her to clown school; I’m serious,” Rivera said. “If my daughter has goals and her goal is to be an elite athlete, I need a coach to teach her the right things and safely, and to push them.”

Rivera said if Haney ever was abusive to his daughter, he would have noticed because he monitors what she is going through “emotionally, mentally and physically,” considering it his job as a parent.

“As parents, we need to be vigilant,” he said. “And if you don’t like it, get up and leave.”

In a telephone interview with her parents standing by, his daughter, Hezly, said Haney just wanted her gymnasts to be the best and was tough on them, “but not like to the point where it was horrible.” She said that she was sad to see Haney go and that she missed her.

“She never crossed the line,’’ she said.

Another parent at the gym, Charisse Dash, is a sports agent who recruits athletes from the Dominican Republic to play in Major League Baseball. Her 10-year-old daughter has worked with Haney since she was 6.

“You’re not there to play, you’re there to work,” Dash said, describing that type of gymnastics as “a 9-to-5 job.”

She added: “Do I classify the rigor of the training as abuse? I think you really have to see it on a case-by-case basis.”

Dash said she and her husband ran “a very tight ship” at home with their five children, where screaming, not coddling, was common. So, to them, Haney’s demanding style was a great fit.

“I don’t think it’s fair to say that Maggie is an abuser, by all means,” Dash said. “It depends on how much any child or any person can tolerate.”

Haney’s U.S.A. Gymnastics hearing in February and March was held by telephone, and Haney listened to weeks of it while huddled in a closet so her two children would not interrupt her. About a half-dozen parents testified in support of her, but not all of the parents who wanted to testify were given the chance to, she said. Even when Haney herself testified, she said, she felt that her side of the story didn’t matter. She was sure the three-person hearing panel had already made up its mind.

Some of the gymnasts who accused her of abuse, she said, had been asked to leave the gym because they could not physically keep up. The part she remembers as the worst, though, was sitting through Hernandez’s live testimony. Haney considered their relationship strong, so it was inconceivable to her that Hernandez felt mistreated.

Hernandez often slept at Haney’s house and was considered a part of the family, Haney said. Haney took Hernandez to the beach, to restaurants, to get her nails done, and gave her a tuition break at the gym. When she and Hernandez returned from the 2016 Olympics, Haney said, she helped organize a parade in her town, in Hernandez’s honor.

When Hernandez was competing on the television show “Dancing With the Stars” soon after the Rio Games, Haney said, she spoke to her one night for three hours. The coach remembered their talking like old friends, about makeup and music and how Haney, with her perfectionist’s eye, noticed that Hernandez’s foot had slipped during an earlier dance, but that she had covered the mistake well. Haney recalled telling Hernandez to enjoy her break from gymnastics.

“You’re a star now,” Haney said she told her.

Within days, Laurie Hernandez’s mother, Wanda, called Haney to say that they were cutting all ties. Though Wanda Hernandez told The Times in April that she had severed the relationship after learning that Haney had mistreated her daughter, Haney said she was blindsided by the move and now thinks it was financially motivated because the Hernandezes first offered her a cut of Laurie’s income after the Olympics, but then did not follow through.

“For me, it was never about the money,” Haney said. “I just remember being so confused and not understanding any of it.”

Neither Wanda nor Laurie Hernandez responded to interview requests made through Laurie’s agent, Sheryl Shade.

The situation left Haney wondering what she had done wrong. She said she had been protective of her gymnasts, even when it came to food, as she watched other coaches at meets hover over the meal table to control their athletes’ consumption.

“My kids were never the ones stuffing bread into their pockets,” she said, describing how some athletes felt compelled to sneak food back to their rooms.

She said she encouraged her gymnasts to make smart choices, though McCusker’s lawsuit said Haney promoted unhealthy eating and weight-loss habits.

Haney acknowledged that there had recently been a change in how some gymnasts expected to be treated by their coaches, especially since this summer, when hundreds of them worldwide began speaking out about the abuse they endured from tyrannical coaches.

Many coaches, Haney said, now don’t know when they might cross the line or upset an especially sensitive child or parent, so they “are just letting the girls do whatever because they don’t want to get in trouble.”

The culture has shifted perhaps too far, she said, and she expects the sport, going forward, to be filled with underachievers. She said she thinks coaches will not push their athletes as hard.

Haney blames parents for that. They have become too invested in their daughters’ success, she said, and now are emboldened to lash out at anyone — and potentially crush anyone — who stands in their daughters’ way.

“I feel that somebody needs to stand up for coaches,” Haney said. “If I don’t stand up and fight for the truth, then other coaches aren’t going to, either. I know if this can happen to me, I think it can happen to anyone.”

Video linked in the article if you’re feeling like extra self-punishing today: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&fbclid=IwAR01mlcDzMzw8RlzbRS97gXD5f0vIucwBZEdXuPqZJiMalbLZZI8lj7OCwI&feature=youtu.be&v=5YyrN7nZwx0#menu&ab_channel=GymFacts

[suupernovalight]

Alien Plush

Oikawa x Reader

Not my gif

—————————————————————————————————

You and Oikawa have been together for 8 months

Your anniversary was coming up so you wanted to buy something for him

Oikawa likes aliens so you decided to get him an Alien Plushy... a rare one.

A limited edition alien plush

You’ve spent your whole days trying to find it but no luck

This gave you determination

You had a week. One week until you and Oikawa’s anniversary. You’ve been up all night on what you’re gonna give your sweat boyfriend. Your shared room (you two live in the same house) was filled with random papers.

“Babe, you look like you need rest...” Oikawa said trying to sound as nice as possible.

“Hold on... lemme do something” you yawned.

You sat on your shared bed with your computer trying to look up some stuff. Oikawa sighed and sat next to you. When he saw what you were looking up, he laughed.

“You don’t need to get me anything you know that right?” Oikawa smiled.

“But I want to... just for you” you said typing up some things.

Oikawa sighed and closed your computer. When you were gonna make a fuse about it, he pulled you into a hug. Immediately, you’re body ‘melted into his’. His breathing soothed you.

Just as Oikawa was about to pull away, you were fast asleep. The look on you looked peaceful.

“Rest well... sweetie” Oikawa smiled hugging you.

~~~

After a few days, Oikawa got a text message saying he was going to a volleyball thing for the next few days and will be back on the day of your guys anniversary.

You didn’t want Oikawa to leave but deep down, you knew this would be the perfect chance to find his gift. You and Oikawa shared a loving kiss before he left.

As soon as you saw the car drive away, you got your ass to work. You laid on your shared bed with your computer and got to searching. You searched for something you thought he would like.

At first you searched for contacts cause he would always lose those, but then you searched for sweets. You kept searching until you came across an ad.

“Limited Edition Alien Plush! 100 In Stock! First come first serve”

Your eyes sparkled as you looked at the picture of the plush. It also came with tiny clothes which was cute. You thought to yourself. “Oikawa does love aliens... plus this is limited edition... this is what I’ll buy for him”

You immediately checked how many were actually in stock. You saw that now only 50 were. They were selling fast, and you needed to get it. The plushies were located at your nearby store.

You quickly got your appropriate clothes on and ran out of the door with your car keys. You had a mission... a mission to give your boyfriend that alien.

Meanwhile, Oikawa was still driving to his destination, thinking about what he should get you.

***

When you arrived at the store, there was already people surrounding the toys section. They too were also looking for the plush.

“Damn it.” You cursed.

You walked up to the group to see nothing on the shelf’s. You felt defeated. Though, you didn’t want to give up. You had to find another place,

Though, today, you were tired and didn’t want to go searching anymore. You felt sad cause you really wanted to find the plush. You decided to treat yourself so you got yourself a coffee and returned home.

You had 2 more days to find it.

***

The next days came with no luck. You searched online and many stores but nothing. You wanted to make your boyfriend as happy as ever but you couldn’t without that plush.

Oikawa was gonna come back tomorrow and you had little time. You had to come up with another way to find that plush. Tomorrow, Oikawa would come back at around 3:30.

You had 12 hours left. You have to complete this mission.

~~~

It was the day of the anniversary, you woke up extra early to find that plush. You got into your car and drove to the mall... that last resort.

When you got there, you found the store where it was located. You quickly got in and looked for the Alien Plush. You checked every shelf but no luck.

“Need help?” Someone asked you

You turned to see one of the workers.

“Yes, do you have the limited alien plush...?” You asked smiling.

The worker paused for a second and looked around, nobody was in the store. “I have one last one, you’re quite a lucky one... ill be right back”

The worker came back with the exact limited plush you wanted. You paid for it and ran out of the store thanking the worker.

It took 3 hours to drive back to your house. It was currently 11:00 am. You barley had anytime. You got into your car and bolted home.

***

Oikawa tried calling you but he couldn’t get a hold of you. At first he was worried but then he remembered that you were probably doing something so he stopped worrying.

***

After driving for 3 hours back home, you had to get everything ready. You quickly hid the alien plush and got out some cookies to cook. You wanted everything to be perfect for your boyfriend. Time was running up, you put on your apron and got to work.

~~~

When the cookies were done, you had ten minutes to set them down before Oikawa came back. Time was ticking, you’ve never felt so rushed before.

Just as when you finished, the door bell rang. You quickly ran to your shared bedroom and sat on the bed with the alien plush.

You heard the door open along with Oikawa cheering.

“Come to the bedroom sweetie, I have a surprise”

Oikawa’s face blushed. “Coming!!” He yelled running towards the bedroom.

When he saw that you were dressed in normal clothes and sat normally on the bed, his expression went low.

That was until he saw you pulled out something behind your back.

“Happy anniversary! Here’s a limited edition alien plush!” You said handing it to him.

“Awh baby” he smiled taking it and looking at its features. “I love you” he said kissing your cheek.

“I love you too” you said smiling.

You stayed smiling until Oikawa pinned you onto the bed and went close to your ear. “You’re such a tease..”

You blushed and covered your face. “Oikawa-“

“Happy anniversary babe” he said kissing you.

[koreaunderground]

(2021/04/09) Anti-war activist visited by police after posting embarrassing AOC video

[thegrayzone.com][1]

  [1]: <https://thegrayzone.com/2021/04/09/anti-war-activist-police-aoc-video/>

# Anti-war activist visited by police after posting embarrassing AOC video | The Grayzone

Max Blumenthal·April 9, 2021

9-11 minutes

* * *

#### An anti-war activist was visited by California Highway Patrol officers after posting video of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s bumbling comments on Israel-Palestine. The action, which AOC denies triggering, was initiated by a call to US Capitol Police.

* * *

As he waited for a food delivery at his home in Los Angeles on April 8, Ryan Wentz, an anti-war activist and producer for the online viral program Soapbox, heard two men calling his name from over his front gate. When he approached, he realized they were not delivery drivers, but police officers flashing badges of the California Highway Patrol.

The cops informed Wentz that they had received a call from the Capitol Police, the federal law enforcement agency tasked with protecting the US Congress, about a tweet he had sent that allegedly threatened Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Wentz told The Grayzone, “The officers said, ‘We got a warning about a sitting member of Congress. And it was because of your tweet, which tagged them in it.’ And then they just wouldn’t back down from this accusation that I threatened to kill her.”

> (1/X) I’m really shaken up right now. I was just visited by two plainclothes police officers from California Highway Patrol at my home. They said they came here on behalf of the Capitol Police and accused me of threatening [@AOC][2] on Twitter yesterday. This is provably false. [pic.twitter.com/NGR8KViy93][3] > >    [2]: <https://twitter.com/AOC?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw>   [3]: <https://t.co/NGR8KViy93>

— Human Rights Watch Watcher (@queeralamode) [April 8, 2021][4]

  [4]: <https://twitter.com/queeralamode/status/1380284997785948162?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw>

The California Highway Patrol indicated on Twitter that it had acted on a call from Capitol Police.

_**Update:**_ A [spokesperson for AOC has denied to Intercept][5] reporter Ryan Grim that their office reported Wentz’s post, and has “asked Capitol Police to look into what happened here.”

  [5]: <https://twitter.com/ryangrim/status/1380515841951797248?s=20>

The police visit Wentz received may have been [part of a wider trend][6] of post-January 6 law enforcement intervention in social media criticism of members of Congress.

  [6]: <https://twitter.com/theoneronin1312/status/1380230580919484416>

> The CHP often assists in investigations at the request of allied agencies. Please contact the U.S. Capitol Police for additional information. > > — CHP Headquarters (@CHP_HQ) [April 9, 2021][7]

  [7]: <https://twitter.com/CHP_HQ/status/1380337921086005249?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw>

Though AOC’s office has denied falsely informing Capitol Police of an online threat by Wentz, the Democratic congresswoman has in the past asked her supporters to report critics to social media censors.

Whoever called the police on Wentz furnished law enforcement with a patently false allegation, as he has never threatened violence against any member of Congress.

In the tweet that triggered the police action, Wentz merely posted video of AOC delivering a vapid and embarrassingly convoluted answer to a question about resolving the crisis in Israel-Palestine. Describing her answer as “incredibly underwhelming,” he let the congresswoman’s cringeworthy commentary speak for itself.

> On April 1, [@AOC][8] did a livestream with Michael Miller, the head of the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York. She was asked about “peace between Israelis and Palestinians.” > >    [8]: <https://twitter.com/AOC?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw>

Her response was incredibly underwhelming, to say the very least: [pic.twitter.com/qHdwTy5pVO][9] > >    [9]: <https://t.co/qHdwTy5pVO>

— Human Rights Watch Watcher (@queeralamode) [April 7, 2021][10]

  [10]: <https://twitter.com/queeralamode/status/1379879392642408448?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw>

Asked by Michael S. Miller of the New York Jewish Community Relations Council about actions that could be taken to support movements towards peace between Jewish Israelis and Palestinians, AOC responded as follows:

> Earlier just now you and I were talking about the what and the how. And I think that when we talk about peace, centering people’s humanity, protecting people’s rights – it’s not just about the what and the end goal which actually gets a lot of focus, but I actually think it’s much more about the how, and the way we are coming together, and how we interpret that what, and how we act in, you know, the actions we take to get to that what. > > So what this really is about is a question more than anything else about process. And we really need to make sure that we are valuing a process where all parties are respected and have, you know, a lot of equal opportunity to really make sure we are negotiating in good faith, etcetera. That being said, you know, I think there’s just this one central issue of settlements, because if the what – if the what has been decided on as two state, then the action of settlements, it’s not the how to get to that what. > > And so, you know, I think that’s a central thing that, you know, we center. And that we value Jewish and rather, we value Israeli, uh, uh, uh, we value the safety and human rights of Israelis, we value the safety and human rights of Palestinians, in that process that is similar, and that is on equal footing. And so all of that is extremely important in that process.

The video that Wentz tweeted of AOC’s long-winded dodge of a fundamental question about resolving the Israeli occupation of Palestine prompted a flood of online mockery and contempt, mostly from leftist Twitter users. Many derided AOC as a careerist who had abandoned progressive causes like Palestinian liberation in order to curry favor with Democratic Party power brokers, while others ridiculed her meaningless word salad.

> This is a very easy issue for a leftist, why is AOC struggling? > > Isreal is an apartheid state that should be Defunded > > — Nick is a Fred Hampton Leftist 🥋 (@SocialistMMA) [April 7, 2021][11]

  [11]: <https://twitter.com/SocialistMMA/status/1379905138601684995?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw>

> I'm incredibly impressed with [@AOC][12]'s Obama-like ability to fill large amounts of time with words while saying absolutely nothing. I challenge anyone to tell me what she just said. <https://t.co/hIkWTNR5Rp> > >    [12]: <https://twitter.com/AOC?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw>

— Ali Abunimah (@AliAbunimah) [April 7, 2021][13]

  [13]: <https://twitter.com/AliAbunimah/status/1379883635743059971?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw>

Within hours of the online pile-on, someone reported Wentz to the Capitol Police for tweeting the video that embarrassed AOC. Because Wentz does not provide any information about his personal identity in his public Twitter profile, the social media giant appeared to have provided his private details to federal law enforcement.

“Another weird thing is usually I would get a report [from Twitter],” Wentz said, “because I’ve gotten my tweets reported before. But I didn’t get any notification about this.”

AOC’s staff has previously appealed to social media censors to suppress online criticism. On February 4, 2021, her campaign sent a mass email to supporters asking them to “scan your social media to find posts with misleading information” about the congresswoman, and “use the built-in report feature to flag them for moderators.”

![][14]

  [14]: https://i2.wp.com/thegrayzone.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Screen-Shot-2021-04-09-at-12.30.18-AM.png?resize=1170%2C1067&ssl=1

Team AOC issued its appeal for supporters to police social media in response to right-wing mockery of a [dramatic livestream][15] in which AOC suggested that the mob which stormed the Capitol building on January 6 nearly assassinated her.

  [15]: <https://www.instagram.com/tv/CKxlyx4g-Yb/?utm_source=ig_embed>

“I just hear these yells of ‘WHERE IS SHE? WHERE IS SHE?’” she recounted in the livestream. “This was the moment where I thought everything was over. I thought I was going to die.”

However, the source of the yells which had terrified AOC turned out to be a Capitol Police officer who had been dispatched to protect her. Further, the congresswoman’s office was located in the Cannon House Office Building, which had not been penetrated by any rioters on January 6.

Right-wing activists and other political foes of AOC [exploited these points][16] to launch a viral hashtag likening the congresswoman to Jussie Smollet, the actor who faked an attack on himself. After [attempting to challenge][17] her critics directly, AOC delegated her staff to dispatch its army of supporters to report critics en masse to Twitter and Facebook censors.

  [16]: <https://nypost.com/2021/02/04/aoc-blasted-for-exaggerating-capitol-riot-experience/>   [17]: <https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1357037568966217728>

Weeks earlier, podcaster Jimmy Dore had initiated a [“Force The Vote”][18] campaign to pressure AOC and fellow members of the progressive congressional “Squad” to withhold their votes for Rep. Nancy Pelosi as speaker of the House until Pelosi agreed to bring a bill for Medicare for All to the floor for a vote.

  [18]: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrqTQd5rnwU>

In response to [incendiary criticism][19] from Dore for her refusal to buck centrist party leadership, AOC declared, “That’s not tone, that’s violence.”

  [19]: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyAXpYPA7C4>

> RT: briebriejoy “15 million people have lost their employer-based health care in the middle of a global pandemic, and barely half of House Democrats support Medicare for All even though 88% of their constituents do. > > That’s violence.” [#ForceTheVote][20] <https://t.co/fSD8qwsINJ> > >    [20]: <https://twitter.com/hashtag/ForceTheVote?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw>

— Jimmy Dore (@jimmy_dore) [January 2, 2021][21]

  [21]: <https://twitter.com/jimmy_dore/status/1345275897704640512?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw>

According to Wentz, the police officers that visited him asked if he had any violent intent behind his tweet, then left. “If this was like a purely intimidation thing,” he reflected, “then I guess it did its job. It’s not comforting to be on the receiving end of that. But at the same time, they’re not going to shut the left up.”

Wentz’s disturbing encounter with law enforcement appears to be part of an emerging trend. On the same date law enforcement visited him, a Twitter user posted photos of alleged federal agents on their front lawn and claimed, “FBI just came by my house for a tweet to Ted Cruz.”

> FBI just came by my house for a tweet to Ted Cruz. [pic.twitter.com/cbwouoz4GC][22] > >    [22]: <https://t.co/cbwouoz4GC>

— the1312ronin (@theoneronin1312) [April 8, 2021][23]

  [23]: <https://twitter.com/theoneronin1312/status/1380230580919484416?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw>

[eldritchsurveys]

984.

1. When was the last time someone saw you naked? >> That’s a good question. Sparrow sees me in various states of undress sometimes, but I don’t remember the last time I was fully naked long enough to be seen by anyone. The only time I’m nude is when I’m in the shower or putting on moisturiser directly after said shower (which I do in my room).

2. If you could bring someone back from the dead and spend an hour with them, who would it be and what would you do/say? >> I don’t want to do this. I wouldn’t want to do that to the person, either, like... that sounds traumatic as fuck. (Now, if it were an Inworld type of situation, that’d be way different.)

3. What is the greatest loss you’ve endured? >> Various aspects of myself, I guess. But maybe they’re not truly lost. I have no way of knowing right now.

4. How would you describe your current mood? >> Neutral. I am rarely in an actual mood of any sort when I get this question, obviously -- I tend to only do surveys when I’m in this state, because it’s hard to focus on survey questions (or anything, really) if I’m actively having an emotion.

5. When was the last time you did something you were embarrassed by? >> I don’t remember.

6. What was the last thing you lied about? >> I don’t know, lying isn’t something I normally do -- unless lying by omission counts, because I don’t say literally everything that I’m thinking or tell everyone literally everything about a situation. Or whatever.

7. Where is your favorite place to have sex? >> Inworld.

8. What is your earliest memory? >> I have a vague impression of being on the floor of a dog breeder’s house? When we got my childhood dog Roxie, I guess.

9. Do you ever drink or get high alone? >> I often drink alone just because I’m in the house alone during the times when I’m most likely to drink. I like to just vibe, and not have to worry about “putting on my human suit” or whatever. Sometimes I like to be weird and dreamy or dance-y and vibrant when I’m intoxicated and I like to have space to do that.

10. What type of a drunk are you? >> I don’t know, I haven’t been drunk in a long time. I think at this point in my life I’m probably just a sleepy, cranky drunk. Which is partly why I don’t drink nearly enough to get there, lol.

11. What song (or a few songs, whatever) means a lot to you and why? >> Death is the Road to Awe means a lot to me because The Fountain as a whole means a lot to me and the music is a big part of that whole yarn-ball of meaningfulness. It’s something I really can’t explain. The feelings I have about the movie and the song are on the “this is actually kind of painful in its intensity” level of emotional connection.

12. When was the last time you revealed your feelings for someone? Were they accepted or rejected? >> I don’t remember. Revealing my feelings isn’t a common activity here in Mordredland, as I’m sure is obvious, and I rarely have any remarkable (or share-able) feelings about people anyway.

13. What was the reason behind your last visit to the hospital? >> I think the last time I was in a hospital was when Sparrow’s sister had her child.

14. How do you tend to deal with a breakup? >> ---

15. What is the “worst” drug you’ve done? Are there any you will never try, or any you want to try? >> I don’t classify drugs this way, so I don’t know how to answer this question. The drug I know I will never try is crack, and a drug I am interested in trying is shrooms.

16. What is something you’ve done that you truly regret? >> ---

17. What does it mean to you to be a good person? Do you feel you are a good person? >> I am uninterested in the “good person” designation. I just want to be valuable to and loved by a few people, maybe. That’d be nice.

18. What is your philosophy on life/how do you generally choose to live or conduct yourself? >> I don’t think I have an overall life philosophy, because that seems terribly impractical at best. Life is so complex. Maybe that’s a philosophy -- rejoice in and value the complexity of life. *shrug* 

19. Do you view animals as being just as important as people? Why or why not? >> Hmm. I think a living thing should be allowed to live out its life and not be abused or willfully subjected to conditions that disrupt its quality of life. That’s really it, though.

20. When was the last time you were up all night and why? >> I don’t remember the last time that happened.

21. What is the worst thing you’ve done to yourself? What is the worst thing someone else has done to you? >> I don’t know what the worst thing I’ve done to myself is, but one not-great thing I’ve done to myself is become a chronic self-injurer. One not-great thing someone else has done to me is, well, I don’t know, physically abuse me repeatedly?

22. What is the most personal thing you’re willing to reveal? >> I’m not sure.

23. What made you stop talking to the last person you cut out of your life? >> The fact that he emotionally abused me, probably. That’ll do it.

24. Is there a situation or person you haven’t been able to get over/forgive? >> There are a lot of things I haven’t “gotten over” because their traumatic nature changed the way I am as a person and now I have to deal with that. I don’t really see a point in forgiveness, personally -- what I do see a point is forgiving myself and treating myself better than I’ve been treated.

25. Who was the last person to yell at you? Did you yell back? >> I don’t remember.

26. Where did your last injury come from? >> I don’t know! I just have this random gouge on my finger, like someone just took a small sample of my skin.

27. What are some kinks or turn-ons you have, if any? >> Trying to describe the things I like is hard because 1) it’s often dependent on context and 2) it’s more... specific kinds of things happening in specific kinds of situations and I don’t want to like, have to lay out a whole scenario, lol.

28. What are you like during arguments? >> I have an insanely heightened physical response to conflict, for some reason (I say “for some reason” like I’m not literally post-traumatic, but I don’t know what exactly contributed to this particular symptom) -- crazy heartbeat, flushed skin, shaking, the whole nine. So I guess I’d say I go full monkey-brain during arguments and I tend to do/say whatever will get me the fuck out of the situation because I cannot process anything but “I’m in danger and these people are dangerous and did I mention DANGER”. I’ve been working on trying to express myself rationally during perceived-conflict or actual-conflict situations, but it’s a long process and mostly I just try to avoid getting into the position to begin with.

29. What is the worst thing you have said to another person? >> *shrug* Who knows.

30. Where do you like to be kissed? >> Everywhere, when a person I’m available to in that way is doing it. (So, Inworlders.)

31. What is more difficult for you, looking into someones eyes when you are telling someone how you feel, or looking into someones eyes when they are telling you how they feel? >> I don’t look into people’s eyes, period. It’s the practice of eye contact itself that is inconceivably difficult for me.

32. Think of the last time you were REALLY angry. WHY were you angry? Do you still feel the same way? >> I really don’t remember the last time I was legitimately furious (and not just using bluster to suppress a more vulnerable feeling).

33. You are on a flight from Honolulu to Chicago non-stop. There is a fire in the back of the plane. You have enough time to make ONE phone call. Who do you call? What do you tell them? >> Why was I in Honolulu, though...? I need more context for this situation that I cannot imagine myself in.

34. You are at the doctor’s office and he has just informed you that you have approximately one month to live. Do you tell anyone/everyone you are going to die? What do you do with your remaining days? Would you be afraid? >> Well, obviously I tell my spouse, and then I guess... some people I hang out with online? I don’t know what I would do with my remaining days because I can’t imagine what it’s like to be in that situation and how it would change my priorities. And, of fucking course I’d be afraid.

35. You can have one of the following two things. Which do you choose? Why? Usually when someone says that, a list of two things would follow. <--

36. You are walking down the street on your way to work. There is a dog drowning in the canal on the side of the street. Your boss has told you if you are late even once more, you are fired. Do you take the time to save the dogs life? Why or Why not? >> I don’t work, so that’s the first problem with this question. In a general sense, though, I would probably risk a consequence of that caliber in order to try to save a life if I can. (I don’t know about this specific situation, though, because I can’t swim...)

37. Would you rather be hurt by the one you trust the most or the one you love the most? >> It’s people that I trust and love (those are the same thing, sorry, I don’t get how they can be separate *shrug*) that would have the best chance of hurting me, because of the emotional attachment...

38. Your best friend confesses that he/she has feelings for you more than just friendship. He/she is falling in love with you. What do you (or did you) do/say? >> ---

39. Think of the last person who you know that died. You have the chance to give them 1 hour of life back, but you have to give up one year of yours. Do you do it? Why or Why not? >> No, man, we went through this already in an earlier question. No matter how you present the circumstances, I’m not bringing anyone back from the dead, period.

40. Are you the kind of friend that you would want to have as a friend? >> Well, I don’t know???

41. Does love = sex? >> Inworld, it does, because that’s just how it works for Us.

42.Your boss tells your coworker that they have to let them go because of work shortage, and they are the newest employee. You have been there much longer. Your coworker has a family to support and no other means of income. Do you go to your boss and offer to leave the company? Why or Why not? >> ---

43.When was the last time you told someone HONESTLY how you felt regardless of how difficult it was for you to say? Who was it? What did you have to tell the person? >> I haven’t done that in a long time, idk.

44. What would be (or what was) harder for you to tell a member of the opposite sex, you love them or that you do not love them back? >> I think the “I don’t love you back” conversation would be way harder, lmao. People get really upset about that sort of thing.

45. What do you think would be the hardest thing for you to give up? Why would it be hard to lose? >> *shrug*?? 

46. Excluding romantic love, when was the last time you told someone you loved them. Who were they to you? >> ---

47. If there was one moment and one time in the last month what would you change and why? >> No.

48.Imagine it is a dark night, you are alone, it is raining outside, you hear someone walking around outside your window. WHO do you wish was there with you? >> My apartment is on the third floor... my biggest concern would be “how the fuck is this person walking on air???” I don’t know why I’d want anyone in particular with me -- why, so we can both be killed by this apparent superhuman? lmao.

49. Would you give a homeless person CPR if they were dying? Why or Why not? >> If I felt confident in my ability to perform CPR, I might. I think it’s mostly the fear that I’m going to do it wrong and... idk, kill the person quicker? that would prevent me from doing it. It does sound vaguely irrational when I write it out like that, but hey.

50.You are holding onto your grandmother’s hand and the hand of a newborn that you do not know as they hang over the edge of a cliff. You have to let one go to save the other. Who do you let fall to their death? What was your rationale for making the decision? >> ---

51. Are you old fashioned? >> No.

52. When was the last time you were nice to someone and did NOT expect anything in return for it? >> I’m not “nice to” people. I just treat people with basic respect and consideration, and of course I expect that in return...

53.Which would you choose, true love with a guarantee of a broken heart, or never loved at all? Why? >> ---

54.If you could do anything or wish anything, what would it be? >> ---

55. What was the last thing you ate? >> A few toasted vanilla Smashmallows.

56. What kind of guys are you usually attracted to? >> ---

57. What’s the stupidest thing that’s happened to you that ended a friendship? >> I don’t think any of the things that ended my friendships were stupid. It just sucked.

58. What’s the longest amount of time you’ve had sex for? >> Inworld, probably... an hour and a half, maybe 2 hours? Outworld, I don’t remember or care.

59. What reality shows do you watch? >> I don’t think I watch any. I’m trying to think if anything I’ve watched on purpose qualifies as “reality” and I... don’t think so? Untold Stores of the ER is basically just dramatisations of allegedly-real stories, so maybe that’s the closest thing to reality tv that I watch? Man, I do love that show. Oh, wait, those cooking shows! Those are reality TV, right? Okay, yeah, I watch stuff like that.

60. Post a video of yourself here: >> No.

61. Where do you work? >> ---

62. Have you ever gone up to a car thinking it was yours and tried to get in it? >> ---

63. Where do you buy most of your clothes? >> I don’t have a designated place where I buy most of my clothes. I shop for clothes so infrequently that it’s really just “wherever has the specific item that I want”.

64. If you were very intelligent and had the capability to have any profession, what would you like to be? Getting tired of the unrealistic hypotheticals. <-- My constant mood with surveys.

65. What’s your most irrational fear? >> ---

66. How many radio stations do you listen to? >> Zero.

67. What kind of music do they have? >> ---

68. Would you rather go to Greece or Hawaii? >> Oh, but I would go to either...

69. Musicals: Yay or Nay? >> Yay :)

70. What are the next concerts you’ll be going to? >> Ha! Hilarious.

71. What was the last conversation you had with your best friend about? >> ---

72. Are you one of those people that LOVE to hug others? >> Inworld I will spend all day cuddling if I can. Outworld, I legitimately cannot remember the last time I initiated a hug with someone. It’s been years.

[let-it-raines]

Catch Me If You Can (34/40)

298 days. That’s how long Killian Jones was away from a baseball field. It’s less than a year, only part of a season for him, but it might as well have lasted a decade as he alternated between physical therapy and spending an excessive amount of time sitting on his couch.

But then he came back and won the World Series.

It’s something no one saw coming, and it’s certainly not something anyone who knows about his arm would predict. Now it’s a new season with new possibilities, and anything could happen. On-field reporter Emma Swan will be there to cover it all even if she is not his biggest fan right now.

Asking her out live on-air will do that.

Rating: Mature

a/n: I’m about to sit down to write some new words for the first time in about a month, and @shireness-says​ has permission to yell at me if I don’t. Now to decide what exactly I’m going to work on 🙈

Thanks to my beta @resident-of-storybrooke​ for reading all of these words and being a super cool and supportive human being. 

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-/-

September ends without anyone ever really noticing. The weather seems to get the hint, though, the daily temperatures in the eighties dipping down to the sixties for the high, and suddenly New York no longer feels and smells like melting concrete.

In truth, it’s amazing.

Killian loves summer and loves the feel of the sunshine beating down on his skin as he spends his days standing out on a baseball field, but there’s something special that happens when the leaves begin to change and the air has a crisp feel to it when he walks out of his apartment in the mornings to go to do his workouts or to physical therapy. It’s nice not to sweat as soon as he goes outside, and it’s even nicer to have the feeling that washes over him to know that his team is in the play-offs.

That starts today.

Nervous energy radiates over Killian, more than usual, and he’s not even playing today. He can’t quite yet, but he’s been approved to practice again and if all of that goes well, he’ll be able to play during the Championship Series which means he’ll qualify to play for the World Series.

If those things happen.

He’s getting ahead of himself. He tends to do that, especially lately when so much of his life is wanting and waiting for the future, and Killian definitely needs to put on the breaks.

But the smell of cinnamon is wafting through his apartment, the television is playing pre-game shows for the start of the Division Series today, and Emma is wandering around in a pair of thick socks pulled halfway up her calves with only an oversized sweater on and her curly blonde hair falling down her back in all of its unbrushed glory.

It’s been a crazy two and a half weeks full of them dealing with the fallout from the article and all of the trickle-down effects from it. Everything has been difficult. He won’t lie about that, but things are calming down a little more each day. Walsh has officially been fired from ESPN, and while Killian was tempted to take back his decision to not sue after Emma told him how Walsh confronted her in his office, he did eventually decide against it. The man isn’t worth it.

Contacting his father to confront him isn’t worth it either.

Killian thought about it, paced back and forth in his living room for hours thinking about it, but like he and Emma (and Liam and Elsa and David and Anna and Robin and every other person he knows) keep talking about, they want a reaction out of the two of them. They want to hurt them, and reacting in any ways more than absolutely necessary means that the bad guys win.

His father is not going to win. He’s taken enough. He won’t take anymore.

And if the pattern of photographers slowly disappearing from outside of his apartment door is going to be a pattern that continues, he thinks things will turn out just fine.

What crazy path to have to go through to get to fine.

His phone buzzes on the counter next to where he’s whipping together some oatmeal raisin cookies, much to Emma’s dismay since she insisted on him using chocolate chips instead of raisins.

She’ll never learn.

Robin: Are you coming to the game tonight?

Killian: Yep. I’ll be there. You didn’t think I was going to miss this, did you?

Robin: Possibly. Roland is very concerned that you’re not going to give us one of your famous pre-game talks, and we’re going to lose.

Killian: Tell Roland that I am giving a speech, if you guys still let me, and then I will be in the suite watching with him.

Robin: We’ll definitely still let you. I can’t wait for you to come back. It’s been too long.

Killian: Aye, it has. Soon though. You guys have to win so I don’t have to wait until March to come back.

Robin: I’ll try my best but no promises.

“How do you feel about this for the centerpiece on your dining room table?”

“Hmm?”

Emma slides her laptop across the island to show him her monitor’s screen where there are several artificial pumpkins and faux foliage in a long wooden tray.

“What’s this for again?”

Emma rolls her eyes at him, and he can’t help but smile at her as he cracks an egg over the edge of his bowl. “You said you were thinking about hosting Thanksgiving here. Your apartment is a very ‘a single man lives here’ place. I was thinking you might need something to make it more festive on the folding table you’re going to have to bring in here to accommodate everyone.”

“It’s October fourth.”

“And?”

“It’s October fourth.”

Emma huffs and reaches over to the bag of chocolate chips (okay, so he broke down and is making some with chocolate chips for her but only some) and grabs a few, popping them into her mouth. “I am aware of the date, Professor Jones.” He sticks his tongue out at her for her use of Will’s nickname. “I can’t look at my game notes anymore without going crazy, so obviously I’m online shopping for you to distract myself.”

“I mean, obviously. What else would you do to waste your time away?”

“Watch TV or go back to sleep. I could go pluck my eyebrows or read a book. But then I won’t know when the cookies are ready, and that’s all I’m really here for.”

“It’s going to be thirty minutes. Technically, I should refrigerate the dough for a day instead of popping it in the oven right away. It makes the cookies fluffier.”

“Yeah, but that’s too long.”

“Give me ten minutes, and I will come and look at your decorations that you’ve picked out for Thanksgiving, aye?”

“Aye, aye, Captain,” Emma tells him as she gives him a mock salute and turns around to walk toward the couch, unceremoniously falling backwards down onto the couch so that her legs hang off the side.

Insane, wonderful woman.

Killian hums to himself as he finishes making the cookie dough, and even though he should let it cool for longer than this, he simply puts the bowl on a shelf in the fridge and turns the oven on, the number six flashing up on the menu to tell him it’ll be finished preheating in six minutes.

Emma’s still lounging on the couch, all of her attention focused on the pre-game show that’s on the TV and her fall decorations, and he takes the opportunity to lean down over her, pressing his hands into the soft material of the couch on either side of her shoulders and to dip his head down so that he can sweep his tongue into her mouth. She gasps at the sudden movement, even if she opened for him, and it causes him to smirk down at her as she shifts beneath him, giving him more space to settle between her legs with his knees on the couch. It’s a bit of awkward movement getting settled, especially with how Emma was laying down to begin with, but they figure it out soon enough as his hand snakes up underneath her sweater to feel the soft skin of her stomach and the firm flesh of her breast. He flicks his thumb against her nipple at the same time that he finally gets to sweep his tongue against hers once more, and he’s overwhelmed by the taste of chocolate.

She’s obviously been sneaking in a little more than he thought she was.

“How many chocolate chips have you eaten?” Killian chuckles as he palms her breast while her nails scratch just above the waistband of his shorts.

“That’s not important.”

He teasingly flicks her nipple. “But it is.”

“Nope,” she mumbles with this undeniable joy in her voice. “It isn’t.”

Sometimes he still can’t believe that Emma is his to kiss and to hold and to laugh with. There have been a million and one obstacles along the way, things he never even could have imagined, and yet they are still here.

Together.

Emma’s fingers dip between the waistband of his shorts, and he hisses at her touch before reaching his free hand up to tangle in her hair and kissing her with a purpose. She’s so damn soft and warm against him, every movement of her lips and her tongue sending a shiver down each of the vertebrae that make up his spine as her hands ghost over his growing arousal.

“Bloody hell, love.”

“That’s what you get for judging my chocolate consumption.”

He huffs against her and trails his lips over her jaw and down to behind her ear while his hand moves from her breast to lay flat against her stomach to keep her from writhing below him so much.

“You know I don’t like chocolate too much,” he says into her ear before biting down onto the lobe.

“But you like me.”

“Aye,” he chuckles before biting down a little possessively onto the skin of her neck right in a spot that he knows will show above the dress she’s wearing today, “that I do.”

“Don’t leave a mark.”

“I’m not leaving a mark.”

“Yes, you are.”

“No, I’m not,” he whispers against the warmth of her skin while he purposely does keep working where she doesn’t want him to work at her skin. He won’t actually leave a mark.

Emma gasps in pleasure before moving her hands away from his waist and up to his chest to push at him. She’s strong, he’ll give her that any and every day of the week, but he’s larger than her and manages to press all of his weight down on top of her while he stops sucking a mark into her skin and simple laughs into her ear while his entire body rumbles with amusement.

“You,” she huffs, but Killian can still hear the smile in her face and feel her lips softly brush into the hollow of his throat, “are the most obnoxious man on the planet.”

“I know. I have the trophy in my bedroom.”

“Stop,” she groans, pushing at him again, and this time he listens, moving off of her and the couch only to pull her up with him. It’s probably a little too much on his shoulder, but Emma is a little slight thing and he’s feeling good this morning. She stumbles a bit when she stands, but he wraps his hands around her lower back and tugs her closer to him so that their chests are pressed together and Emma’s arms are loosely wrapped around his neck while she smiles one of the biggest smiles he’s ever seen that he absolutely has to taste. “You know, I thought this was going to go in a very different direction.”

The oven beeps behind him, and Killian dips his head down to pepper kisses across Emma’s cheek and over her mouth so quickly that every kiss is as fleeting as a whisper of air. “I had a timer going for those cookies that you keep complaining about. There was never going to be time for that.”

Her eyes roll as her fingers thread into the hair at the nape of his neck as Killian starts walking them back to the kitchen. “It’s not nice to tease a woman into thinking that she’s going to get some action and it turns out she’s only getting cookies.”

“That sounds like a euphemism.”

“It wasn’t.”

“Hmm, it should have been,” he laughs as he backs Emma up into the countertop so that he knows the stone is digging into her lower back. Killian squeezes her hips before running his hands down to her bare thighs and holding her there while his forehead presses against hers and their noses brush together. “I love you quite a lot, you know?”

“Funny thing, I love you quite a lot too. I also love cookies, so get on that, babe.”

“I thought you didn’t like that they were oatmeal.”

“I will literally eat anything. Also, I already ordered the centerpieces for Thanksgiving.”

“I expected nothing less.”

They spend the rest of the morning piddling around the apartment, not really getting anything accomplished before they both have to get ready to go. Emma, by nature of having to curl her hair and apply her makeup, takes much longer than him to get ready, so he straightens up a little before they leave. Emma’s things seem to spread like wildfire, and he’s not entirely sure she’ll ever be able to clean up after herself.

He doesn’t know how Ruby and Graham deal with it.

Then again, they don’t have to too often anymore.

A little smile creeps onto his face at the thought, his mind recalling Emma making a joke about them living together a few weeks ago, and that’s precisely when Emma walks out of the bathroom wearing a pair of skin-tight jeans with suede boots that go up to her thighs and a tight-fitting white sweater with her hair pulled back into a high ponytail.

“What?” she asks as she puts in a pair of dangling gold earrings in her ear. “Why do you have that goofy little smile on my face?”

“I was just thinking about how undeniably smoking hot my girlfriend is.”

Emma huffs and keeps putting her earrings in. “Those aren’t your usual eloquent words.”

“You’ve rendered me speechless today.”

Emma walks toward him, a sweet smile on her face, and leans down to press her hands on his shoulder and squeeze. “Good.”

And then she’s walking away from him with a pointed sway of her hips that has her ass looking absolutely spectacular. “Minx.”

“I try,” she yells from the hallway. “Come on, Jones. We’ve got a baseball game to go to, and I have to be early.”

-/-

They easily win the game against the Astros that night.

They also win the next night, even if it’s much more of a nail bitter. Killian swears that watching it from the sidelines is a million times more nerve-wracking than actually being an active participant. He feels every little mistake magnified, and his mind focuses on the mistakes more than it usually does. Instead of being able to compartmentalize, Killian keeps replaying everything to figure out how they could have done things better.

He can’t change the past, but there are always improvements to be made in the future.

Focusing on the entire game instead of simply his pitching changes the perspective, and he’s going to lose all of his nails if he has to continue completely watching from up in the family suite instead of getting to be a part of the action every few days. Belle and Ariel are fine to watch with and all, but it’s not what he’s grown used to.

The past six weeks haven’t been too terribly bad, at least recovery wise, but now that they’re one win away from moving on from the Division Series to the Championship Series, Killian isn’t sure that he can wait much longer to get back out on the field for something other than practice.

“Be patient,” Emma always tells him.

He’s trying, but it’s damn hard.

Off to Houston they go.

-/-

“Do you know we’ve been together for six months, and this is technically our first date?”

“And you only had to follow me to Texas for us to accomplish it.”

“You’re a very cheap date.”

Emma laughs as she hooks her arm into the crook of his elbow and walks a little closer to him while they walk down the sidewalk in downtown Houston. They’ve only been in town for two hours, and while the rest of his team is at the fields practicing for tomorrow’s game in what they all hope will be the last game of this particular series so they can get one step closer to the World Series.

He doesn’t even technically have to be here since he’s still on the injury list, and while the team didn’t pay for him to have a room at the hotel, he’s set in being able to stay with Emma.

So while the guys all work their asses off, he and Emma are free to wander around completely freely for the first time, well, ever.

It’s odd still not having to worry about anyone knowing that they’re together. He’s still accustomed to looking over his shoulder and around every corner for someone they know or for some inane photographer to be there. And while things are still a little crazy back home, no one is paying them any attention here.

And since Emma was very rudely heckled by a few fans (though that term is used loosely) at yesterday’s game, Killian is thankful to simply be able to get away from it all. They’re doing a damn good job at dealing with things, but there’s no need to feel the weight of the world on their shoulders – especially his if he thinks of it literally – all the time.

“So,” Emma starts as they dodge a slight puddle on the concrete, “are you still not going to tell me what we’re doing tonight?”

“Nope. I know how to plan an evening. You simply have to trust me.”

“I obviously trust you, you weirdo, but I’m curious. All I’ve figured out was that we’re not going to some stuffy restaurant, which was kind of a surprise to me.”

“And why’s that?”

“Because you’re a romantic, Mr. Jones,” Emma sighs while she pats his forearm and rests her cheek against his shoulder. “You like to do things like get all dressed up and go to a candlelight dinner with wine and flowers and really expensive small food.”

Killian scoffs, incredulous. “That is not the only way to be romantic. Besides, we are not dressed for something like that. I don’t think they let in people with ripped jeans and white sneakers on.”

“Yeah, well, this is how you told me to dress. And you have on a plaid shirt over a t-shirt, so you’re not exactly dressed up either.”

“I thought you liked it when I dressed like this. Are you complaining?”

“No, Killian,” Emma breathes out, and he can practically feel the smile in her face, “I am not complaining. I simply want to know where we’re going.”

He doesn’t say anything, just continues to guide Emma along the sidewalk and follow the path that his phone told him to take. He swears that the GPS is leading him in circles and not to the destination, but then he sees the sign a bit of a way away and lets out a little sigh of relief.

“Swan,” he starts, stopping them in their tracks and placing his hands on her hips while a smirk stretches across his face, “you may not be a candlelight dinner kind of girl, but you are very much a smash old pieces of furniture up with a hammer kind of girl.”

Both of her brows raise high on her forehead. “What?” He nods his head to the building in front of them, and she turns around to look. It takes approximately five seconds for her to figure out. She spins on her toes and looks up at him with a smile that he swears reaches her ears. “I have never loved you more than I love you right now.”

“Exactly my intention.” He winks and places his hands on her ass, pushing her forward. “Now, come on, love. We’ve got a reservation.”

They hurry inside where Killian checks them in, and a woman comes out with safety equipment for them to slip into. They both look ridiculous wearing body suits and face masks to protect themselves from any flying shards of glass or pieces of wood from the broken downbroken-down furniture that they’re about to smash. Killian had simply been looking up things to do in Houston when he found this place where people pay to destroy furniture. Immediately, he knew Emma would love it, so he booked a reservation after texting Archie and making sure that his shoulder would be okay to wield a hammer.

From the absolute beaming joy on Emma’s face, he knows that he was right in his assumption of her loving this.

The room they get assigned to destroy is ironically a set-up of an old newspaper production office, and Killian is sure that Emma is very much pretending that all of the items in here belong to Walsh or his father or any other bastard who has hurt the two of them recently or in all of their years of life.

Smashing a hammer into a computer that has to be from the nineties is quite possibly the most cathartic thing that Killian has ever done.

Fuck Brennan Jones, Walsh Osbourne, Arthur King, and every other person who has ever hurt either of them.

And after the ten minutes of their session, Killian’s arms hurt from the exertion and his stomach hurts from the laughter of it all.

Totally worth it.

“Oh my God,” Emma breathes out when they walk out of the building back and into the crisp autumn air. They’re back in their regular clothes, sweat dripping down both of their backs, and their hair will likely never be normal again. “I take back all of my teasing about you having us go to some stuffy dinner. All of it.”

“Technically, there’s still time for us to go to one of those. It’s only eight.”

“Don’t even mess with me like that,” Emma laughs before pressing up on her toes to brush her lips over his. “But I wouldn’t be opposed to going to get something to eat.”

“I’ve got a plan for that.”

“You think of everything.”

“That I do.”

It’s a pie place two blocks over. He came here the last time they were in Houston and has been wanting to come back ever since. Pies usually aren’t his favorite thing, probably why he doesn’t bake them too often, but this place is downright delicious.

He’s also glad his workouts are back to being regular because the slices of rhubarb and key lime pie that he and Emma get are practically bigger than Emma’s head, and he fully plans on enjoying all of it.

Emma is taking large bites out of both her pie and his, as well as sipping on her mug of hot cholate, while telling him this story about David and Mary Margaret and how they have a penchant for going to karaoke bars on their date nights but usually only when they’ve had a few drinks. David is always willing to go, funnily enough, but Mary Margaret who seems like the exact type of person to enjoy singing songs and letting birds dress her in the mornings, will only go when she’s had at least two margaritas.

And for some reason they always sing We Are The Champions as if they have the vocal range of Freddie Mercury even when they’re not sober.

Killian would pay big money to see David Nolan, the perennial serious guy and protective older brother, willingly go and sing karaoke. In fact, he is very much offering to take the Nolans out one night when he gets more free time.

The smile that’s on Emma’s face mirrors the one she’s had all night, and Killian’s heart is suddenly struck with how much he loves her. She came into his life like a whirlwind, even if it was a slow going one, and Killian hasn’t looked back since.

It’s a funny thing. Love, that is. The world can be going up in flames around you with broken shards of glass having a trajectory straight to your heart, but none of that seems to truly matter when the person you’ve been vulnerable enough to give your heart to has a firm enough grip on it so that the cuts seem a little less deep.

Killian’s been in love before, and even though that relationship didn’t end well, he does know that it was love. But it’s not like this. It’s not this all-consuming thing where Killian can’t imagine living life eating pie in a diner with anyone else.

He’s known for a good while that his future, whatever it may look like, is going to be with Emma, but for some reason sitting with her and laughing with her while she’s got the smallest bit of whipped cream on the tip of her nose has truly cemented the idea in his mind.

And his heart.

Emma waves her fork in the air as she chews. “You’ve got that goofy smile on your face again.”

“I know not to which you are referring.”

She scrunches up her nose. “You’re thinking about David singing karaoke, aren’t you?”

“You know what, my love,” he sighs, “that’s exactly what I’m thinking about.”

“You know,” Emma sighs as she smiles at him with her fork full of pie, “that is a pretty good first date even though it’s not really our first date. I think I might like you, Killian Jones.”

Killian scoops up a bit of his pie. “Does that mean there’s going to be a second date?”

“And possibly a third, but don’t think that means I’m going to sleep with you.” She winks at him, and he can’t help but laugh. “A lady likes to be courted first.”

-/-

They win the next day.

Four more wins, and they’re going to the World Series.

It’s almost unreal, and yet it very much is real.

They’ve just got to beat the Red Sox first.

-/-

“Are you nervous?” Liam asks Killian two days later as he sits on the examination table in the hospital waiting for his doctor to come in with the results of his six-week follow-up MRI and the reports from Archie on how his shoulder’s movement is recovering.

He’s barely felt any pain in the past two weeks besides the occasional twinge, and while Killian has tried to tamper down the hope that things are going to be okay, it hasn’t worked. His mind is already imagining him underneath stadium lights standing on that mound with thousands of people cheering around him.

That’s one of the things that he lives for. Not the only thing but a damn important thing.

And he wants to be back.

He needs  to be back.

“Yes and no,” Killian tells his brother as his fingers tap against his thigh. “You didn’t have to come and wait for me, you know? I know you have your own patients.”

Liam shrugs his shoulder and sits down in the chair they leave for guests. “You said Emma couldn’t get out of a meeting at work, so I figured you’d want someone to be here.”

“I’m a grown man. I can handle going to the doctor by myself.”

“The fact that we’re in here right proves that isn’t true.”

“Ass,” Killian mumbles underneath his breath.

“I’ve made no claims to be anything else.” Liam looks damn proud of himself for having annoyed Killian, and it seems par for the course of things. “Are you surprised we haven’t heard anymore from Brennan?”

Killian’s teeth grind at just the sound of the name, but he quickly unclenches his jaw. “No. He wanted a reaction and more money. He didn’t get it. All that came from the bloody article was that I got followed around by cameras for three weeks and Emma had to put up with shit from men who are nothing more than assholes. Why do you ask?”

“I was thinking about it is all. Mom’s birthday is tomorrow, and that always makes me think of growing up, you know? I’m so much older than you and had such a different experience with them, and I do get a bit sentimental even if our father ended up simply being an over-involved sperm donor.”

“Funny, that’s how Elsa describes you.”

Liam reaches into the box of rubber gloves and snaps one at Killian only for him to catch it and for a smirk to slowly stretch across his lips. “And you call me an ass.”

“Being an ass is simply in our blood.”

“And yet two of the most incredible women in the world have chosen to spend their lives with us.”

Killian raises a brow. “Do you know something I don’t know?”

“No,” Liam chuckles, spinning in the chair. “I didn’t mean anything like that. Emma isn’t filing marriage papers or anything. I simply mean that the two of us, screw-ups that we are, have managed to get pretty lucky with both Elsa and Emma. It’s a big commitment to be stuck with a Jones man.”

“Ah,” Killian sheepishly sighs while reaching up to scratch behind his ear, “well, like you said, Emma isn’t technically stuck with me.”

“No?”

“No.” “And yet she wears mom’s ring around her neck. You hadn’t taken that off in years, and suddenly I see someone else wearing it.”

“Yep.”

“Yep? All you have to say to that is yep?”

“Aye,” he laughs, suddenly feeling a bit shier than he has in years. And it’s in front of Liam of all people. He hasn’t been shy in front of Liam in years. “Is that…are you upset about that?”

Liam’s brow pinch together, all of the lines on his forehead focusing in one place before they fall back to their normal spot and a soft smile graces his lips. “No, Killian, I’m not. I…there was a reason we each got the same amount of mom’s jewelry. She wanted us to give the pieces to the women we love. I’ve given pieces to Elsa, and you’ve given a piece to Emma. Mom would like that.”

“Would she? Do you think she’d like Emma?”

“She’d be obsessed with her. I think she may love her more than Addy and Lucy combined love Emma.”

Killian snickers as warmth spreads across his cheeks and his head nods up and down. “That’s a lot of love there.”

“There was a lot of love in her heart.”

His mouth opens to say something else, but then the door to the exam room is opening and Killian’s doctor is walking in with a clipboard and absolutely no emotion on his face.

“Do you want the good news or the good news?” he asks, and Killian’s heart leaps.

“Both.”

“Well,” he sighs, crossing his arms over his chest, “as long as you continue to monitor your shoulder, you’re cleared to play again. Congratulations, Mr. Jones.”

[travllingbunny]

Quarantine tag game

Thanks for tagging me, @sometimesrosy!

ARE YOU STAYING HOME FROM WORK/SCHOOL? I am staying home but not from work, because I work at home. Not just now, I always work at home, so there hasn’t been any change in that respect. The volume of work was the same as always during the last few weeks, too. I haven’t had any new work since Friday, so I’m enjoying a few days of rest, but I don’t know if this has anything to do with Corona. A few days of rest and no work has happened before. It will give me more time to clean my apartment.

IF YOU’RE STAYING HOME, WHO IS THERE WITH YOU? My two dogs and two cats. They are probably happy that they get even more time with me than usual. I think that some people don’t consider pets real company - probably people who don’t have pets - which I find funny. They are amazing company and I never feel lonely or bored. It’s never boring with them. Taking the dogs out two times a day, having to feed the cats 6-7 times a day or however often they start mewing and asking for food (especially the kitten - the young one is just 9 months old), having to stand guard to make sure dogs don’t steal cat food :D and all the petting and displays of affection.

ARE YOU A HOMEBODY? Not really? But I’m also not not a homebody? LOL Normally, I enjoy going out and meeting people; I have salsa classes two times a week, which are really fun; I go clubbing on weekends; and my favorites are the Language Cafe type events, which used to be up to 3 times a week before the Coronavirus situation started (these are events for people to meet and practice languages, where you can just come, choose the table with the language you want to practice, introduce yourself and join the conversation). I go to concerts, film festivals, public lectures/debates etc. 

But at the same time, I don’t mind staying at home, and I’ve had experience in having to stay for a week or two when I had a ton of work and tight deadlines. I talk to people a lot via phone, Viber, Whatsupp and social media, exchange memes and satirical articles about the current situation, etc. I’m online a lot, and I’m trying to finally catch up/check out some of the many TV shows, movies and books I have on my watchlist/readlist and do other stuff I never had enough time for.

AN EVENT THAT YOU WERE LOOKING FORWARD TO THAT GOT CANCELLED? I don’t think it’s been officially cancelled yet (?), but I doubt that the Tindersticks concert in early May is gonna be happening. I had already bought the ticket so I hope it gets postponed. I’ve also bought a ticket for a Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds concert in early June (it’s probably too optimistic to hope that will happen?) and a Pixies concert in early September (I don’t have to worry about that one, do I?)

WHAT MOVIES HAVE YOU WATCHED RECENTLY? Since the curfew started, I’ve watched just a few movies that happened to be on TV  - which were all very different, but I wasn’t impressed by any of them (Divergent, Ironclad, and Francis Ha). 

The last time I was in cinema was for the FEST film festival, which ended on 8 March, and I watched Jojo Rabbit on the closing night. I really loved it. Before that, at the same festival, I watched Apocalypse Now: The Final Cut, Blood Quantum (pretty good Canadian horror that’s a different take on the zombie epidemic genre, as it takes place in a First Nation reserve, most characters/actors are First Nation and it deals with social issues), Spanish period drama by Alejandro Amenabar  Mientras dure la guerra (During the War) about the Spanish Civil War and Miguel de Inamuno’s role in the events, The Lighthouse (really good, really dark psychological horror drama that can have a bunch of interpretations) and Dead Don’t Die (Jim Jarmush’s zombie comedy with some very on-the-nose social commentary).

WHAT SHOWS ARE YOU WATCHING? The list is pretty long! Some shows I’ve been watching on TV include: Peaky Blinders (really good!), Babylon Berlin (still in season 1), Penny Dreadful (I’m almost finished - I didn’t like season 1 that much but it got much better in seasons 2 and 3), Wynonna Earp (not great but it’s just a fun show with some cool actors/characters). I'm about to finish S1 of The Witcher and I want to rewatch it immediately to figure out the timelines. I’m finishing my rewatch of The 100 and I’m going to resume my rewatch of Agents of SHIELD (hopefully I can finish it by its premiere date, 27 May). Also watching Outlander season 5, Harley Quinn, Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist, need to catch up on Roswell: New Mexico, Prodigal Son and Stumptown and finish The Outsider, and have recently started The Plot Against America and Mindhunter (the latter because my best friend has recommended it). I’ve even checked out the pilot of Lucifer, which I may or may not continue soon, and I’m continuing with 12 Monkeys season 1. And I intend to check out Kingdom. Quite a mix of genres there.

WHAT MUSIC ARE YOU LISTENING TO? I haven’t listened to that much music lately as I used to, but my routine for putting myself to sleep is to turn on MTV Rocks (or the Rock Alternative radio channel) on my TV, in low volume, program the sleep function for 2 hours, and go to bed. It works like a charm. I always have trouble falling asleep in silence. 

Other than that, I’ve been listening to a lot of Haelos since I first discovered them when I heard their song “Alone” in season 6 of The 100, and I’ve listened to othe songs from The 100 and Tree Adams’ soundtrack for season 3.

WHAT ARE YOU READING? Before all this, I borrowed 3 books from the American Corner library: Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye and Beloved and Tea Obrecht’s The Tiger’s Wife.  I’m reading The Bluest Eye at the moment, but I’m also going to finally start reading GRRM’s Fire and Blood, which I had never found time for.

WHAT ARE YOU DOING FOR SELF-CARE? The usual stuff I do - a bit of exercise, nurturing bath once a week, regular skin care. But last week, I also had to make an effort to relax and try to lower my level of stress and blood pressure, thanks to something that happened last Sunday. 

Rant incoming....If you don’t want to read about my bad experience with the police and idiotic government measures, stop now.

Namely, the idiotic government of my country has imposed “measures” which are supposed to be against the spread of Coronavirus but mostly don’t make any sense - they are constantly extending curfew and changing the time of it, and have changed the times when dog owners are allowed to walk their dogs. At one point, it seemed like there was no allowed time for that in the evening or afternoon. You had to listen to the news all the time (and listening to news and the President’s speeches is one of the things that annoys me the most) to figure these things out. And the weekend before last was their first experiment in an extra-long 3 day curfew, which I wasn’t even aware of, when they actually had the police patrol and arrest people for just walking on their own (or, in one case, a young farmer in his tractor - two days after the minister of agriculture said on TV that farmers would be exempt from the curfew - they changed it). So I got manhandled, put in handcuffs and taken to the station for walking my dogs all on my own, with no one else around (which is endangering people and helping the spread of Corona - how exactly??!) where i had to sit for 2 hours while a cop was writing stuff down from the records, and about 60 other cops walked right by me, 10 of whom didn’t have masks, while 3 had but pulled them up/down, then in a police car with 3 other people they picked up - who can’t sit any further than half a meter from you as there’s not enough room, then about 1.5 hours more at the court, with a bunch of other people (and everyone was sitting right next to each other - I was the only one who was like “Nope” and stood a couple of meters away from the others), where they passed the judgment that I have to pay a fine of almost 450 EUR - the amount that’s prescribed for everyone. (And in Serbia, that’s about 1.5 of the minimum wage. I can pay my bills for 3 months from that amount.) Turns out, they arrested some 700-800 people that weekend, so I guess they’re gonna extort a lot of money from the people - if all of them are able to pay it within 15 days (which I doubt. I can withdraw the money from the bank, but I don’t think everyone can). My temperature, pulse and probably blood pressure went up immediately and took an entire week to come down - due to stress, a lot of anger and fear - I had my mask and gloves, but that was still the most close contact and exposure to a lot of other people, much more than I’ve had in weeks. I yelled and ranted and told them that they’re the ones putting others and themselves in danger of contracting Corona, and they probably knew I was right, but it makes no difference -  President Vučić is either an idiot who actually thinks the virus is lurking outside in the air to jump at people, but only during the hours he decides, or, more likely, he doesn’t care, but is a wannabe dictator who likes to act self-important and playact at imposing “strict but necessary measures”.

/end rant. Sorry about that. But that’s why I bought a temperature meter and blood pressure meter, because I was having high temperature, heart palpitations and pressure in my chest, which hasn’t happened to me in a long time (I was also starting to feel PMS, which added to it and didn’t help, but is normally nowhere near as bad when I’m not stressed out) so I needed a lot of self-care last week - which included tranquilizers, but mostly trying my best to relax and feel better. And I’m finally well now and close to how I was before the whole arrest idiocy.

Tagging @jeanie205 @kizo2703 @weareagentsofnothing @turtle-paced @wolfheartgirl @theatre-steph @selflessbellamy @mytly4 @katersann @linzzmorgan100 @immortalpramheda @iishallbelieve @misskittyspuffy @marshmallow-the-vampire-slayer @justbecauseyoubelievesomething @angearia @ladyofthefrostfangs - I know some of you have already been tagged, I’m sorry if you’ve already done it but I haven’t seen it, in which case I’look for it on your blog. Sorry to everyone I didn’t tag, too.