#it was $17 which is more than i like to pay for wine but it was a big bottle (750 mls instead of 500) and tastey

[seveneyesoup]

shoutout to aldi frozen tortellini it’s cheap and it’s easy to cook and it’s filling and it’s not hard to make a decent meal out of with some sauce and optional meat and veggies

[munson-blurbs]

Single Dad!Eddie x Fem!Reader Series

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17

Summary: Still questioning your mothering abilities, you finally agree to take a pregnancy test. But when you run into an unexpected familiar face, it leads to some intimate conversations.

Warnings: smut (18+ only, minors DNI), angst, misunderstanding, mention of alcohol consumption, nausea, Reader takes a pregnancy test, mention of menstrual periods/tampons, panic attack, use of medication (prescribed), dirty talk, mutual masturbation, breeding kink, choking, submissive!Reader, mention of public sex (this chapter has a lot so please let me know if I missed something!)

WC: 10.1k

A/N: Thank you to @pastel-pillows, @corroded-hellfire, and @vintagehellfire for beta reading and helping with some dialogue. Y'all make me a horny better writer.

Chapter 17/20

Divider credit to @saradika Harris's card credit to @girlwiththerubyslippers

--

It’s been one week since you’ve seen Eddie. The phone is silent on the hook, regardless of how strongly you will it to ring. 

A wave of nausea ripples through you and has you lunging for the Saltines box on the coffee table. It isn’t unusual for you to feel sick when you’re anxious, and this entire situation definitely has you on-edge. The Jerry Springer audience chants his name from the TV set, though you can barely pay attention to the brawl that’s about to occur. 

One week ago, you and Eddie broke up. One week ago, you realized you might be carrying his baby. One week ago, you began what you’d dubbed Self-Pity Spring Break, which was essentially a week of you wallowing in misery and ignoring the nagging question that constantly infiltrates your thoughts. 

The movement for the crackers allows you to get a whiff of the pajamas you’d been living in. You’d convinced yourself there was no need to shower since you were barely leaving your apartment, but the odor emanating from your clothes—and your skin—says otherwise. You resignedly stand up and grab a towel from the hall closet, scowling at the box of tampons that’s seemingly taunting you.

Fine, you silently relent, I’ll get a test today.

There’s a forceful knock on the door, and your heart leaps. Eddie. Eddie’s here, we can talk and figure this out–

“Hey, Hermit, you alive in there?” It’s Jess, speaking even as she knocks.

“Coming, coming,” you grumble, not even trying to feign excitement. Maybe it’s better that it’s not Eddie; you’re not sure what you’d even say.

“Jeez, you look awful,” Robin comments, clamping her lips together when Jess shoots her a glare. “Sorry.”

“You’re not wrong,” you mutter. You haven’t looked in the mirror in days, not wanting to confront the reflection staring back at you. Fingertips greasy with old potato chip residue, you wipe them on your pajama pants and sigh. “I feel like shit, too.”

Jess grabs your hand and gives it a little squeeze. “C’mon, let’s get you some wine,” she says kindly, already padding towards the kitchen in search of an open bottle. “It’s five o’clock somewhere.”

You shake your head, throat dry. “I, um, I shouldn’t.” An unspoken plea floats from your lips, begging her not to ask further questions, but you know better than to get your hopes up. 

She stops in her tracks, swiveling back in your direction. Her eyebrows pinch together, creasing in the middle. “No.” She waits for the punchline, and when there isn’t one, she envelops you in a hug. “Oh, honey.” 

You feel another gentle hand on your back as Robin’s palm rubs comforting circles between your shoulder blades. You can’t pinpoint the moment she became one of your close friends, too; it happened naturally as the relationship between her and Jess became more serious and they spent more time together. Yet it feels as though she’s always been an integral part of your life, and you couldn’t be more thankful, especially in moments like this one.

“I don’t…I haven’t taken a test yet,” you admit bashfully, blinking away rogue tears, “but I’m super late. Like, almost two weeks late.”

Robin scrunches her face, unsure of her response but plunging ahead anyway. “Does Eddie…”

You shake your head. “No, and I’m not telling him either way.” The vitriol in your voice is biting, and both of your friends are taken aback by your anger. “He said that taking care of Harris was too much for me to handle; you think he wants to raise a whole other kid with me?”

“Okay, okay,” Jess softly interrupts your tirade, not needing to hear your break-up story for the fourth time. “First things first: you gotta take a test. Do you have one here?” 

“Mm-mm.”

“Then Robs and I will go with you to the pharmacy.”

“I don’t wanna go,” you whine, sounding more like Harris than ever. 

Jess sighs. “You’re leaving this apartment whether you like it or not.” She motions towards her girlfriend. “She’s stronger than she looks, so we will use force if we have to.”

“Fine.” You huff, crossing your arms over your chest. “Can I at least shower first?”

“Please,” Jess mutters, grateful that she didn’t have to make the suggestion herself.

The shower water is scalding hot, but you don’t have the energy to fiddle with the knob until it’s a decent temperature. Instead, you stand underneath the stream and idly sway back-and-forth. You grab the Dial bar from the soap tray, lathering your body and taking good care to scrub under your arms. The suds slide down and swirl around the drain before disappearing entirely. You can only wish they took your problems with them.

You dry off as quickly as you can, throwing on the first pair of sweatpants you can find and a faded concert t-shirt from when you saw Joan Jett perform in ‘89. Dragging your tired body back out to where your friends are waiting, you grab a jacket out of the closet, stomach turning as soon as you put your arms through the sleeves. You haven’t worn this since last weekend, and the smell of Eddie’s cologne still faintly lingers. It’s like he’s there wrapping himself around you, nuzzling into the crook of your neck and whispering sweet nothings in your ear. 

Except he’s not here, his scent only serving as a painful reminder of what you used to have. 

If he was here right now, what would he be doing? Cursing the broken condom that led to this chaos? Berating himself for getting another woman pregnant? And not just any woman; this would be the second woman he’d knocked up who’d failed to be a decent mother. This time; however, he’d know about your shortcomings before the baby could even arrive, before it could develop fingers and toes and have its own little heartbeat…

With a heavy sigh, you drag your feet out the door and into Jess’s car. Nausea creeps up on you the closer you get to your destination, and for the first time in your life, you pray it’s only carsickness.

Murphy’s Law states that “anything that can go wrong, will go wrong,” and that’s exactly what happened to Eddie this week.

First, he’d all but gotten confirmation that you were overwhelmed at the prospect of being a family, of being his partner, and eventually being a parent to Harris. Your silence when he’d asked if it was “too much” was deafening. He’d thought about calling you, even picked up the phone and dialed the first few digits on more than one occasion, but ultimately hung up. There’s no sense in trying to force you into a life you have no interest in, no matter how badly it hurts him to be without you.

Then, this morning, Harris had woken up at 6:30 AM, howling in pain. Eddie had nearly fallen out of bed at the sudden burst of sound, rushing to his son’s side to figure out the issue.

“My ear!” Harris wailed, pressing a tiny palm to the side of his head. “It hurts so bad!”

“Okay, okay,” Eddie murmured. He tried to pull Harris’s hand from his ear to get a better look, but quickly stopped when the boy cried out in agony, rivaling a Wilhelm Scream.

He called the pediatrician and got the earliest appointment available, arriving at the office before they’d even opened. The receptionist had given him a strange look as he barreled through the doors, Harris hoisted in his arms.

Forty-five arduous minutes later, the doctor took one look inside Harris’s ear canal and diagnosed him with an ear infection, scribbled out a barely-legible prescription for antibiotics, and sent the Munsons on their way.

Now, Eddie slams the sedan door shut as he walks into the pharmacy for the second time today, mumbling about his shit luck. He’d brought Harris to Wayne’s trailer after dropping off the prescription once they informed him that it would be a two-hour wait. There was no sense in forcing the poor kid to sit around the drugstore when he desperately needed a nap, Eddie reasoned, ignoring his own exhaustion. He makes up his mind right then and there that, in addition to whatever bubblegum-flavored concoction he’s picking up for Harris, he’s getting a pack of Camels. The stress is just too damn much for Nicorette to handle.

He makes a beeline for the pharmacist, nodding along as she explains that the medicine should be taken twice daily with food.

“Do you have any questions?” she asks patiently, a kind smile on her lips. 

“N-No,” Eddie stammers, the paper bag crinkling in his grasp. “Thanks,” he throws out haphazardly, already hyper-focused on securing the cigarettes. He can practically taste the tobacco on his tongue, smoke filling his lungs. He’ll quit again tomorrow, once all of this is–

“Is this it? EPT?” A familiar voice briefly grabs Eddie’s attention, but he quickly brushes it off. It’s a small town; everyone’s bound to recognize each other after a while. 

It’s the response that truly draws him in, a timid, “y-yeah, I think so.” 

Eddie swivels around, cigarettes long forgotten, peering down each aisle until he finds you. You’re standing with Robin Buckley—the voice he’d recognized earlier—and Jeff’s sister-in-law, Jess. 

“Hi,” he blurts out, shoving his free hand in his pants pocket. His heart breaks at the defeated look in your eyes, swollen from days of crying. He wants to pull you in for a hug and feel your arms wrap around him, relishing in your safety. 

It only takes a half-second for his gaze to drop to the pink box clenched in your death grip, a pathetic attempt to hide it from him. “Wh-What’s that?” He’s suddenly all-too aware that you’re all standing in the Family Planning section, and unless science has made some extraordinary progress lately, it’s unlikely that Jess and Robin need anything here. “Are you—”

“I don’t know. Maybe.” You regain as much composure as you can. “But whatever I am, I can handle it by myself.” You’re unsure of the truth behind that statement, but you refuse to let him see you waver. 

Eddie takes another step forward, removing his hand from his pocket and taking the test from you. You’re hesitant to relinquish it, but you ultimately concede. 

“Let me pay for this, at least,” he says softly, not waiting for your reply before tucking it under his arm and heading to the cashier. 

“Eddie—”

“You’ll take it at my place,” he continues as though you hadn’t just spoken his name, “and if you’re…if it’s…we’ll, uh, we’ll figure out where to go from there.” 

You shake your head. “I don’t need your help,” you protest, firmly but not unkindly. “Seriously, I’ve got this.” Be done with me. Just let me go, Eddie. Find someone who deserves your—and Harris’s—time. 

Eddie places the test on the counter, digging into his wallet for the dingy MasterCard he keeps tucked away for emergencies. You cringe at the cost; if you’d known Eddie would insist on footing the bill, you would have chosen a cheaper option. 

“I can take this at home. Robin and Jess will be with me,” you push on as the four of you leave the store. You turn to them for back-up, frowning when Robin gives you a tight smile and Jess shrugs. 

“I…think you should take it at Eddie’s,” she offers, trying to ignore the death glare you’re sending her way. 

“If you need us, just call, and we’ll pick you up,” Robin hurriedly adds, quickly squeezing your upper arm before the two of them leave you and Eddie alone. 

Without thinking, Eddie’s hand slips into yours. Maybe it’s because you’re more scared than you’ve ever been in your life, maybe it’s because his gentle demeanor has breathed new life into your love for him, but you let him keep it there. 

The hum of the sedan’s engine is the only sound until Eddie speaks again. 

“How long have you known? Or, thought, I guess,” he asks, drumming his ringed fingers on the steering wheel. 

You don’t want to answer truthfully, but you’re too tired to lie. “Since last week.”

“Last week?” He slams on the break, instinctively putting an arm in front of you to protect you from injury. No matter that your seatbelt had been clicked in place since you’d sat down. “Shit, sorry.” He clears his throat. “Like, before the trip? Or…”

“On the bus ride home,” you clarify, shame seeping through every pore. It had seemed so natural to keep this information to yourself, but now you just feel stupid for not letting him in earlier. The baby–if there even is a baby–is his, too.

Eddie breathes out a long sigh, followed by silence until he poses yet another question. “Does anyone else know?”

“Yeah, I rented out a billboard in Times Square,” you quip before you can stop yourself. “Sorry, that was bitchy.” Maybe you’re just trying to fool yourself, but you swear you see a faint smile on his lips. “Um, no. Just you, Jess, and Robin.”

He nods. “Harris’s at Wayne’s, so it’ll only be us.” Eight days ago, that statement would be associated with passion; punctuated with a grab of your ass, a kiss to your neck, fingers gliding over your breast. Your heart lurches with longing, but you shove it deep down. That’s what got us into this whole mess, you remind yourself. 

Still, his grip on the gearshift as he throws the car in park has you internally shouting for him to grasp your knee in the same manner. You’re moving in slow motion, providing him with ample time to get out and open your door for you.

“Thanks,” you whisper, but when he extends his hand to help you up, you fight the urge to accept it. Whatever the results of this test are, it doesn’t erase the fact that he’d said that parenthood was too much for you to handle. And you refuse to selfishly burden their family with your inadequacy.

Eddie rakes his fingers through his hair, casually playing off the rejection, but you don’t miss the brief pained expression in the scrunch of his nose.

Neither of you utter a word as you walk up to his apartment, your footsteps echoing throughout the stairwell. His hands are trembling so violently that he drops the key in front of his door; it lands on the floor with a tiny ping. 

“Y’okay?” It’s an absurd question, but you’re unsure what else you can possibly say.

“Um, no,” he admits with a terse laugh. “I went into Rite Aid to get medicine and came out with a possibly pregnant…” He almost says girlfriend, but stops himself just in time. “So, yeah, I’m far from okay.”

He finally manages to open the door, pushing it open so you can go in first. You stand in the living room, feet glued to the floor. Your legs are weak beneath you, threatening to give out at any moment. 

“I can’t do this,” you mumble, words catching in your throat. Your vision goes blurry with tears. “I just…” you trail off, shaking your head incredulously. “We were so careful, and the condom went and broke that one time…”

Eddie’s palm cups your chin delicately, calloused skin grazing smooth. “Listen to me.” His voice is calm despite his body brimming with nerves, “what’s done is done, okay? You’re either having my baby, or you’re not.” My baby, my baby, my baby. As he says it, his gaze flits down to your stomach. “But we have to know.”

You nod, unable to fully accept the weight of his words. “Do you have, like, a paper cup or something for me to pee in?”

“Yeah.” He shuffles over to the small linen closet next to the bathroom and grabs a Dixie cup from a stack. “Did you want me to go in with you, or wait out here…I, um, don’t really know the protocol.”

You manage a tiny laugh at his candor, despite the unfavorable circumstances that brought you back to his home. “You can just wait out here,” you tell him. “I’ll be out in a minute.”

Your heart skips a beat as you close the bathroom door, and lock it behind you. Eddie’s voice is muffled outside the door as he talks on the phone, ending the conversation with, “thanks, Old Man,” before you hear the soft click of the receiver being replaced on the hook.

You lay everything out on the countertop in front of you, scanning each object in disbelief. The words on the instruction sheet swim away, leaving only tidbits in their wake. 

If two lines appear, this indicates a positive result. Call your doctor for further evaluation. 

You read that line over and over. If two lines appear, you’re pregnant with your ex-boyfriend’s child. It’s going to take a lot more than an obstetrician to evaluate that chaos. 

You pull down your pants, then your underwear, nestling the paper cup between your thighs. Eddie’s reminder replays in your head: what’s done is done. 

It’s easier for him to say; it’s not his body, but the sentiment remains true. All you have to do now is find out exactly what you’ve done. 

You gingerly drop the paper strip into the cup, watching as the control line begins to darken. The instructions advised you to wait twenty minutes for the results; according to the digital watch adorning your wrist, that will put you at 12:18 PM. 

You don’t have to wait that long. 

The familiar reddish tinge that stains the toilet paper is the most beautiful sight you’ve ever seen. It almost seems too good to be true, so you take a fresh square and wipe again. This time, it’s even more pronounced. 

An involuntary laugh that bubbles up from your throat, scaring even yourself. You can hear Eddie outside the door, stumbling over his feet to stand. 

“Wh-What’s going on? What happened?” His hands twist the knob with no success. “Can I come in?”

“Y-Yeah,” you manage, smiling so wide you can barely speak, “I just got my period.”

There’s a long pause, then, “like…now?”

“Right now. At this very second,” you confirm, sending you into a fresh fit of giggles. You grab a tampon from your bag with far too much enthusiasm, unlocking the door once you’ve washed your hands and put yourself back together. 

“We can still wait for the result, if you want,” you tell him. A strand of hair falls in front of his eyes when he nods in agreement; without thinking, you brush it away. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have done that,” you mumble. You feel yourself shrink inwards, palpably embarrassed of the intimacy of your slip-up. 

“Do it again.”

Your brow furrows in confusion. “What?”

“Do it again,” he repeats, and when your fingertips make contact with his hair, gently tucking it behind his ear, his own hand slides into place against your cheek. “I’m gonna kiss you now.”

You say nothing, letting your body language speak for you in the slight upward tilt of your head as your lips find his, noses almost colliding in haste. Your hand slips down to his bicep as you accept his touch, parting your lips to allow his tongue to enter while your own breathy moan exits. 

The sound has him tugging you closer, grabbing the hem of your shirt and inadvertently pinching a bit of skin in his hurry. The sudden twinge of pain snaps you out of the moment, and you take a step back. 

“We can’t…” You take a deep breath, gathering the thoughts that have been jumbled by his touch. “We’re not together anymore,” you finish dumbly, cracks splintering through your heart as you hear it aloud. Not together.

Eddie’s voice is hardly above a whisper. “I know.” But his thumb traces over the plush of your lips in memorization. “Can I ask you something before you go?”

You contemplate it, rolling it over your tongue and finally relenting when you remember you’re still waiting for the official test result. “Sure.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” There’s hurt in his voice, and more than a hint of anger, though you certainly can’t blame him.

“I didn’t want to worry you in case it was nothing…which it was,” you hastily add, needing to hold on to the lightness of the false alarm. 

“No, I’m not talking about that,” he rebuts, continuing when you cock your head in confusion. “Why didn’t you tell me that taking care of Harris was too much for you?” Realization floods his body, carefully curated thoughts giving way to a horrified stream of consciousness. “Or was I too much?”

Bewilderment raises your eyebrows. “I never said that taking care of Harris was too much for me. You did.”

“Me?” He scoffs, pushing his body back with a slight bend at the hips, hands shoved into his pants pockets, rings peeking out over their seams. “No, I didn’t. I asked you, and you never gave a straight answer. Any answer, really.”

You think back to that confrontation, trying to remember the inflection in his voice: ‘s too much for you, isn’t it? In your insecurity-laden state, you’d assumed that it was a declaration of your shortcomings; now, you’re able to see what he’d actually meant.

He was trying to reach out, his own self-doubts bleeding through, but you were so consumed with all of the ways you’d failed him and Harris that you couldn’t see it.

“I…” Your brain is scrambled, unable to catch a single thought. You inhale for three, lungs expanding under your ribcage. The exhale is slower; you need all the time you can to collect yourself. “I messed up so badly…the donut…the elevator…the market…”

Spots dance across your vision as your breathing becomes more rapid and shallow. All you can picture is Eddie’s fear when Harris ran off; your chest is heavy with the same sinking feeling that as when you’d turned around and he was missing. 

Your legs wobble beneath you, no longer attached to your body, but a separate entity. 

Eddie’s voice is an echo in a tunnel, loud but far away. “I got you,” you hear him say as he leads you to the couch. Your feet move robotically, left right left right until you’re sitting on the lumpy cushion, the same one you’d gotten well acquainted with on that fateful August night. 

Donut—elevator—market. Donut—elevator—market. An internal chant that served as a reminder of your failures. “I’m right here, okay? ‘M not going anywhere.” The couch dips a bit as he sits next to you. He hesitates for a split second before his hand is making small, concentric circles on your upper back. 

Safety’s warmth crawls in as your physical and psychological worlds slowly merge. You’re in Eddie’s apartment, on his couch, next to him. 

“Eddie…” you croak out, but he silences you with a shake of his head. 

“Let me talk for a second. Please.” He sighs, not out of impatience, but as a means of gathering his thoughts. “You…you’re everything I ever wanted for myself and for my son. And, I’m gonna be real honest with you here, that scares the shit outta me.” A peal of disbelieving laughter accompanies his confession. “I shouldn’t have had you take him to the playground by yourself or leave you alone with him at the market. Not,” he hurriedly adds, ‘because of you, but because, sometimes, he needs the supervision of two people.” His hand drops from your back and lands on your own fingers, splayed on the couch next to him. “I think I just got so excited that I finally wasn’t parenting solo, y’know? And I relied on you too much.”

You wipe at your cheeks with the back of your hand. “You’re supposed to rely on me,” you counter. “That’s what partners do.”

“Yeah, well, maybe if I wasn’t acting like such a dick, you could’ve told me you felt overwhelmed. Partners tell each other those kinds of things, too.”

“You’re not a dick because you got upset that I lost Harris.” You roll your eyes, not wanting him to downplay his own emotions just to protect yours.

Eddie clicks his tongue against his teeth. “Maybe not,” he acquiesces, ‘but I was a dick when you bought him a donut in the morning, like it was the worst thing that kid’s ever eaten for breakfast.” You both smile at that, knowing full well that Eddie’s had to bribe his son with a Pop-Tart on more than one occasion. “And then you took him to the playground without me even having to ask, just so I could get some rest. And don’t even start in with me about the Great Elevator Meltdown of 1997, because we both know he just would’ve flipped out about something else.” He scoots a millimeter closer to you, wanting to bridge the gap between your bodies without barging past any boundaries. “He was tired and in a new place away from home. A tantrum was damn near inevitable.”

As much as you’d like to wallow in self-pity, you know that it’s true.

“Speaking of the playground,” he continues, “all I heard about for the rest of the weekend was how much fun he had with you.” He throws his voice up an octave to mimic Harris’s tone. “I had the BEST TIME with Ms. Sweetheart! She pushed me on the swing SO HIGH!” 

The corners of your mouth tug upwards at the memory. “He said that?”

“Mhm,” Eddie nods, contemplating the next piece of information to divulge. “He, uh, also told me that you love me. Not a little, but a lot.” You watch as the tips of his ears turn scarlet, visible even underneath his layers of curls. “Not sure if that still stands.”

You let your knee gently knock into his, a sliver of an olive branch. “Do you want it to?”

“So fucking much.” It’s a plea, breathy and desperate. “I love you, too.”  

You crack a small smile before teasing, “A little, or a lot?”

A ridiculous amount, he thinks. I wake up thinking about you, go to sleep thinking about you, and most of my day in-between is spent thinking about you, too. “A lot, baby. More than I ever thought I could.” His gaze doesn’t leave your lips, chocolate brown eyes drawing you in closer. “Before we…I just need to know. For Harris and for me.” He rubs his palms on his denim-clad thighs, hoping to push away his nerves. “Being in it for the long haul…is that what you want? Because if it’s not, I can’t…y’know…” 

You know. You know he can’t muddle through a relationship that has a certain expiration date. You know he can’t bring you into his son’s life any more than he already has if you don’t plan to stick around. 

“I’m in it for the long haul,” you tell him, relaxing as a smile overrides the anxiety previously etched into his features. “I’m just scared that I’ll fuck it all up. That I can’t be a good mom to Harris.” You realize too late what you just implied, but judging by Eddie’s unwavering expression, it’s unlikely that this is the first time he’s thought about you filling that position. “At the playground, um,” you fidget with your fingers, suddenly entranced by the ridges of your knuckles, “Harris said that he wants me to be his mommy, but you and Wayne told him not to ask me yet.”

Eddie squeezes his eyes shut and clenches his fist before flexing his fingers, rings gleaming in the lamplight. “And that freaked you out?” he supplies, noticeably shocked when you refute his assumption with a shake of your head.

“Not in the way you think,” you say, gnawing on your inner cheek. “He was just so excited, and I started thinking–”

“That was your first mistake,” he jokes, wincing overdramatically when you swat at his chest.

“I started thinking,” you continue, throwing him a playful glare, “that he’d eventually be let down by me, that you’d eventually be let down by me, and that both of you would regret ever meeting me.”

His face falls at your admission, eyes losing their sparkle as he recognizes your fear. He’s been there: anxious about not living up to Harris’s expectations; the inevitable fall from grace when he realizes his dad is flying by the seat of his pants when it comes to parenting. Yes, he knows the feeling all too well, and it shatters his heart that it weighs on you, too. And the fact that you hadn’t told him–hadn’t felt like you could tell him–forms a knot in his gut.

“Baby,” he murmurs. The warmth of his palms envelops your face as he rests them on your cheeks. “Oh, my sweet girl. Don’t you know that that will never happen?” He sighs at your downcast eyes. “I need to tell you a secret, but you have to promise you won’t get weird about it.”

That captures your attention. What does he mean by ‘weird’? Angry? Annoyed? Scared? “What?” you ask, extending the word with an abundance of caution.

“When you told me you might be pregnant…the thought of being responsible for another kid fuckin’ terrified me. But not,” he swallows, a huff of air sufficing for an incredulous laugh, “not the thought of having one with you.”

Your eyes widen, eyebrows practically reaching the edge of your hairline. His unspoken words reverberate in your head: I’m not scared of parenting with you. I’m not scared of whatever journey lies ahead, as long as you’re beside me. I’m not scared of loving you. 

Without warning, you press your lips to his. Tangled, messy curls find their way into your fists as you draw nearer to each other in a blur of hands and mouths. Though he’d kissed you only moments earlier, Eddie treats this one like a novelty; a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. 

To your chagrin, he abruptly breaks the kiss. “Wait right here.” You scrunch your nose as he dashes into his room. You can hear him rummaging through drawers, swearing loudly before slamming it shut and jogging back to the sofa. 

“This,” he announces, holding out a small paper bag, “is the reason I asked you to watch Harris at the market.” 

You take it, curiosity sufficiently piqued by the air of mystery. Tipping it slightly, you feel a delicate chain snake into your palm. Dangling from the center is a tiny heart pendant. 

“Wanted it to be a surprise,” Eddie explains, trying to gauge your expression. “I know it’s not, like, the fanciest jewelry. There’s no diamond or any—”

“I love it.” And you do. God, you do. You quickly bring it to your neck, fumbling with the clasp for a half-second before you feel his strong fingers atop your own. 

“I got it,” he murmurs, and you shift slightly to give him a better vantage point. 

He adjusts the heart so it’s centered just below your collarbone, lingering a beat longer than necessary before pulling away. “Perfect.” He clears his throat and offers an apologetic smile as he ruefully adds, “I have to get to Wayne’s and give Harris his medicine,” he explains, nodding towards the paper bag on his countertop. 

“Eddie!”

“What?”

You laugh, fingers dancing across the prickled stubble along his angular jaw. “You should’ve told me that Harris was sick!” This whole time, you’d just assumed he’d been on a playdate, but now you have an explanation as to why Eddie was in the pharmacy and who the medication is for. 

“It’s an ear infection,” Eddie says nonchalantly, standing up and stretching his back. “Besides, when I told Wayne that you were here—I didn’t tell him why, don’t worry,” he throws in for good measure, “he said, and I quote, ‘don’t come back here until you make things right with your girl.’”

Your girl. You’re still Eddie’s girl. “We probably should check on the test before we go.” It’s been soaking in the cup of urine for twenty-three minutes. Padding to the bathroom, you double, triple, and quadruple check the singular pink line. Not a second one in sight, and you breathe out a sigh of relief before cheerfully announcing. “Officially negative!”

Eddie’s still fixated on one word. “You, um, wanna come with me?” 

“If that’s okay.” Feeling out boundaries, a toe timidly dipped into the water. 

“‘Course it’s okay. Fuck, ‘m just so happy you’re mine again. Missed my girl so much.” He plants a wet kiss on your forehead. “Harris is gonna be so happy to see you.”

Happy might be too strong a word to describe Harris’s reaction when you walk through the door of Wayne’s trailer, squeaking hinges waking him from a restless sleep. 

“Ms. Sweetheart?” His voice is thick with grogginess and disbelief. “What’re you doing here?” He clumsily wipes his eyes with his little fists, sweaty from fevered sleep. 

You sit next to him on the couch, pushing his sweat-logged curls from his face. “Just came to check on you. I heard my favorite Munson wasn’t feeling well.”

Harris giggles, delighted to be so highly ranked. “Yeah, I got an ear ‘fection. But I just gotta take medicine for it and it’ll go away.”

“Got it right here.” Eddie holds up the bag. “Did you eat anything?”

Harris looks over at his grandfather, not yet awake enough to answer the question. 

“Had some toast and jelly right before his nap. ‘Bout…half an hour ago?” Wayne confirms. 

Eddie nods, taking the bottle of amoxicillin out of the paper bag and giving it a good shake. You watch as he unscrews the cap and meticulously pours the medicine just to the dosage line. “Here ya go, Har Bear,” he says, walking over to the sofa where his son is half-sitting, half laying. “This’ll make you feel better, okay?”

That’s not a strong enough sell for Harris, who promptly crosses his arms over his chest, wrinkles his nose, and shakes his head in protest. “Yuck.”

“C’mon, please?” Eddie’s face falls in desperation and exhaustion at his son’s refusal. “It’s bubblegum fl–”

“No!” The ferocity in Harris’s objection could rattle the entire trailer.

You take Eddie’s hand and squeeze it reassuringly. “Can he have a cookie?” you whisper in his ear, hopefully low enough that Harris can’t overhear.

“What?” There’s no way you’re going to reward his behavior with a treat, right? 

“Just trust me.” 

He can do that. “I think Wayne keeps some in the pantry.” 

Sure enough, you find an open package of Oreos, the same off-brand kind that Eddie had brought over on Thanksgiving, right on the top shelf. You slide the plastic shell from the case and pull out a cookie, carefully breaking it in half over the sink to avoid spraying crumbs all over the floor.

“Hey, Har, can I tell you my secret trick?” Harris perks up a bit at this, though he doesn’t give an outright answer. “Okay, so you take the medicine, and then you pop the cookie in your mouth super fast so you barely taste it.”

He considers this, mulling it over silently before warily agreeing and holding out his hand. Eddie gives him the medicine-filled cap and holds his breath that your trick will work.

Harris takes the medicine in one grimacing gulp, and as soon as he swallows it down, you give him half of the cookie. “Go, go, go!” you chant excitedly, grinning as he shoves the treat in his mouth, assessing whether it successfully masked the chalky aftertaste.

“Well?” you ask earnestly, heart beating in your chest as you await the outcome.

Harris purses his lips in contemplation, fueling your anxiety. After what seems like decades, he returns your smile tenfold, cookie crumbs wedged between his teeth.

“I did it!” he chirps with a level of enthusiasm that has you and Eddie doubting he’s even sick. “I like that trick.”

You feel Eddie’s arm snake around your waist as he grabs your side in appreciation. “You can have the other half when you take the next dose,” you tell the little boy, lovingly ruffling his curls. “C’mon, let’s get you home so Grampa can get some rest before work.”

The laugh lines around Wayne’s eyes crease in gratitude as Eddie scoops his son into his arms and thanks his uncle for the childcare. You grab the medicine bottle with the hand not holding the Oreo half, echo Eddie’s statement, and close the door behind you. 

Eddie buckles Harris in and starts the car, peering through his rearview mirror while the engine grumbles to life. “Y’good back there, Har?”

“Mhm.” There’s a solid ten seconds of silence before he speaks again. “Ms. Sweetheart?”

“Yeah?”

“Can you tell me a story? Like a made-up one from your head?”

“Sure.” You lean back into the seat, thinking of a plot that will last until you get dropped off at your place. 

“Once upon a time,” you begin, donning your best narrator voice, “in a tiny little village, there lived three princes who were fighting to be the village’s next king. The villagers didn’t know how to choose between them; after all, they loved all three princes dearly—”

“Daddy’s turn!” Harris interrupts, pointing at Eddie, hands clapping together in gleeful anticipation for the game he’s created. 

“Uh, okay,” Eddie stammers, clearly caught off-guard by the request. “So instead of doing a normal vote, the villagers decided to have them battle the evil, ugly troll that lived up on the hill.”

“Now, Ms. Sweetheart!”

“Each prince would try and defeat the troll, and whoever won would be king,” you continue the story, improvising as you go. “The princes packed up their shields and swords—” 

“Daddy!”

“And rode their horses up the hill until they reached the troll’s house.” Eddie’s eyes sparkle with a mischievous glimmer as he adds, “but when they got there, the troll refused the typical duel. Instead, he insisted on battling the only way he knew how: a competition of throwing balls into laundry baskets.”

Harris cackles at this but doesn’t ask you to take over, so Eddie keeps talking. “The princes were like, ‘um, this isn’t what we prepared for,’ but the hideous, grotesque troll didn’t care.”

“Ms. Sweetheart!”

You have no idea where this story is headed, but Harris is having the time of his life, so you plunge along. “The troll bared his teeth and hissed to try and frighten the princes, but it didn’t work. They each picked up the ball and tossed it into the laundry baskets, easy-peasy lemon squeezy.” You pause there to see if Harris calls on Eddie, but he doesn’t make a peep. “The troll was so surprised at their skills that—”

This time, Eddie doesn’t wait for his son’s instruction and takes the story over. “—that he stumbled backwards off of the edge of the hill, plummeting into the piranha-infested waters below. The end,” he finishes proudly. 

Your jaw drops in disbelief. “Eddie!” you hiss, clapping a hand over your mouth to stifle a giggle. “You’re gonna traumatize the poor kid!”

“Nah,” he shakes his head, not even bothering to mask his laughter. “He’s out like a light.”

Sure enough, you twist around in your seat to see Harris sound asleep, head tilted against the headrest and mouth agape. A speck of drool collects in the corner of his lips, but he remains undisturbed.

“Medicine must’ve kicked in,” you agree, shifting back to look out your window. The trees flourish with leaves in various shades of green, a colorful promise replacing winter’s barrenness. Hawkins may not be the picturesque postcard town, but there is still some beauty in it.

“Yeah, about that.” Eddie’s brown eyes dance as he steals a glimpse of you before returning his attention to the road. “Do me a favor, ‘kay? Never worry about your parenting skills again.”

Your brows furrow in confusion for a brief moment. “Oh, you mean the trick?”

Eddie nods, tongue unconsciously swiping over his suddenly dry lips. 

“That’s just something Grandma did to get me to take medicine as a kid,” you shrug. “She usually gave us Nilla Wafers, but it looks like Oreos make a worthy substitute.”

He doesn’t respond to that directly, simply rests a hand on your lower thigh just above your knee, the hangnail on his thumb scratches against your cotton sweatpants as he tenderly rubs the spot. “It’s okay if you’re not ready to officially take on the ‘mom’ role in his life,” he starts, even and reassuring, “but whenever you are? God, you’re gonna be the fuckin’ best.” He pauses for a beat before adding, “Y’already are.”

With Harris still snoozing in his booster seat, you press a kiss to Eddie’s jawline, just below his earlobe. Your nose smushes into his cheek, tickled by the stubble of a few days of missed shaving. It will take more than a compliment to quell your anxiety, but you refuse to ignore the way it ignites a small fire within you. Self-assurance is a flame, soft and flickering, burning from the inside out. Insecurity is a rigid block of ice, one that has been poking at you for years, but it begins melting against the blooming bundle of warmth.  

Wednesday’s post-tutoring pizza party had an extra guest this week. Wayne helps himself to a pepperoni slice, humming some Bob Dylan to himself as he brings his plate to the table. Harris eagerly climbs into his lap, heaving a dramatic sigh as he plops down and steals his grandfather’s pizza slice. His ear infection has cleared up, thanks to the amoxicillin and your cooke trick.

“Hey!” Wayne barks out a laugh, shaking his head in disbelief. “What’re you doing?”

Ever unfazed, Harris works on a mouthful of mozzarella cheese. “Eating,” he replies nonchalantly, a dot of sauce staining his nose. He barely swallows his giant bite before starting on another.

You giggle, handing Wayne a new slice before sliding into the chair next to Eddie’s. “I’m really glad you could have dinner with us tonight,” you tell the older man before tucking into your meal. Wayne had decided to cut back to part-time at the plant, citing older age and the desire to spend more time with his grandson, leaving his Wednesday evenings wide open.

Eddie’s the only one who hasn’t started eating yet, too busy soaking in the sight in front of him. He’s sitting around a table with his son, his father figure, and his girlfriend. The three people he loves more than anything in the world. He watches as Wayne presses a kiss to Harris’s messy curls, the little boy giggling into his piece of pizza. He watches as you lean over to wipe the sauce off of Harris’s nose with a napkin, shrieking happily when he sticks out his tongue and licks the side of your hand. “Gotcha, Ms. Sweetheart!” the little boy cackles, but while he’s distracted in his victory, you manage to clean his face.

This is happiness in its purest, most unfettered form. Maybe it won’t always be this easy, but he realizes now that he’s willing to fight like hell to get through the hard times if it means having more of these moments.

“Eds?” your soft, inquiring voice tugs him from his thoughts. “You feeling okay?” Your fingertips find his under the table, concerned by his preoccupation. 

“‘M good,” he reassures you, holding your hand and using the other to fold his slice. Once again, the room is filled with silly banter and kind conversation. 

Yeah, he’s good. 

You expect the three Munsons to leave altogether, so when Wayne tells Eddie that he can take care of Harris for the evening, you’re caught off-guard. 

This apparently deviates from Eddie’s plan, too, because he cocks his brow at his uncle. “Y’sure, Old Man?”

“Sure as sh—sugar,” Wayne says, catching himself at the last second. He scratches at the whiskers on his chin, an itchy reminder to pick up some new disposable razors at Melvald’s. “What good’s all this free time if I don’t spend it with my grandson?” He holds out his hand and Harris takes it eagerly.

“Bye, Daddy! Bye, Ms. Sweetheart!” he chirps, already pulling Wayne towards the door.

“Hold on,” Eddie pipes up, forehead creased in feigned agitation. “Let me give you a kiss goodbye.” His jaw drops when Harris shakes his head in defiance; this time, he’s genuinely shocked. 

“I want a squish kiss. From you an’ Ms. Sweetheart.” Harris tells him, eyes darting between the two of you.

You turn to Eddie, feeling like you’re missing a crucial piece of this puzzle. “What’s a squish kiss?” you ask quietly, but Harris still manages to overhear. 

“‘S when Daddy kisses one cheek, an’ you kiss the other!” he informs you, clapping his hands together giddily. “An’ it squishes my face, like thith.” The last word is obscured with a lips when he pushes his cheeks together to emphasize his point.

You walk over to him and crouching down to his level. “I can definitely do a squish kiss,” you say, wincing slightly when he excitedly squeals in your ear. 

Eddie counts down from his other side. “Squish kiss incoming in three…two…one!” Leaning in simultaneously, you both feel the apples of Harris’s cheeks as he smiles, giggling again when you and Eddie pull back with an exaggerated, mwah!

“Now we gotta give Ms. Sweetheart a squish kiss!” the little boy announces. Heat creeps up your neck, and you silently place the ball in Eddie’s court. Before this, he’d always been cognizant to avoid displays of affection in front of his son. And while you’re not opposed to getting a squish kiss from them, you don’t want to put any unnecessary pressure on him.

“You heard the man.” Eddie’s response is near-immediate, wasting no time directing Harris to your left side and shuffling in closer to you. “Count us down, Har.”

“Three…two…one!” Harris smushes his whole face into yours, little nose pressing into your cheek before his lips can. Eddie’s contribution is much less aggressive, but there’s ample love in both kisses. 

Satisfied with his handiwork, Harris skips back to his grandpa. Wayne just throws Eddie a wink as he grabs his car keys from the hook and closes the door behind him.

Eddie puts his hands up in surrender when you turn to him, the sounds of his uncle’s and son’s respective footsteps gradually diminishing as they walk down the hall. 

“I swear, I didn’t ask Wayne to take care of Harris tonight,” he says with a laugh, looping his pointer finger across his chest to make an X over his heart. Lithe fingertips broach your waist, drawing you closer into him. “Not that I’m complaining, though…” 

“Me either,” you murmur, lips finding their way to his collarbone, sucking so harshly that they threaten to leave a bruise. Your own fingers fumble to unbuckle his belt; a difficult feat considering your eyes are watching the vein that runs along his neck, beckoning you to mark it next. You crave the thrill of make-up sex, to allow hunger and desire to fuel your every move. 

You grimace at the cool sensation of his rings against the bare skin of your stomach, a painful reminder of one frustrating barrier. “Fuck, my period,” you grumble, taking a small step back. He doesn’t let you go far; instead, he grabs your ass and pulls you towards him. “Eds,” you whine, trying to focus on your words rather than the way he’s beginning to strain against his pants zipper, “did you hear what I said?”

Eddie nods, tongue prodding at your mouth so he can kiss you deeply. “We can put down a towel,” he mumbles into you. 

You sigh, wanting nothing more than to have him inside you, quelling the fierce ache settling between your legs, but it seems like Mother Nature is making up for the two weeks she’d lagged behind. Still, you don’t want to leave your boyfriend turned on without any reprieve; he’s practically quivering with anticipation to explore you already. 

“C’mere,” you whisper in his ear, though it’s wholly unnecessary given his absurdly close proximity. You hook your forefinger into his waistband and lead him to your bedroom. “Pants off,” you order, and he obeys without hesitation, exposing plaid boxers that fail to constrain his hardening length. 

You give him a little shove onto the bed, sensing his heart beat faster underneath your palms. Locking onto his widened eyes, you straddle his waist as he sets himself up against the pillows. 

“Can I ask you a question?” You nibble on his earlobe, grinning when a shiver courses through his body. 

“A-Anything,” Eddie manages, hissing when your clothed core drags over his tented shorts, the newfound pressure only weakening his resolve. 

You hum your approval. “What do you think about when you touch yourself?”

His breath hitches, hands clamping down on your hips so possessively that his fingerprints might be etched into your skin. “You,” he whispers. “Always you.”

“What about me?” You wrap a curly lock of hair around your finger and give it a playful tug. “What do you picture me doing? Or what are you doing to me?”

“Fuck.” He starts to palm himself over the fabric but you swat his hand away. 

“You tell me, and I’ll make you feel so good.” Your fingers tug at the elastic band until his cock springs free. He’s mouthwateringly hard, but you don’t allow yourself to taste him. Instead, you wrap your hand around the base, lean over, and spit directly onto the tip. “‘M ready when you are, baby.”

He needs a moment to collect himself, to allow his mind to create coherent thoughts. It takes too long, apparently, because he hears you softly snicker. 

“Cat got your tongue?”

And, fuck, all of the blood in his body rushes south at that. He’s reminded of the dream he’d had all those months ago; the one that catapulted his feelings from schoolboy crush to full-blown lovesickness. Dream You had said the same thing. 

“At work,” he croaks, twisting his fists into your bedsheets, desperate for your hand to glide up and down his shaft, “you surprise me a-and suck me off behind the counter, and a c-customer walks in.”

“And then I stop, right?” you tease, thumb swiping at the pre-cum pooling at his slit. “I let you attend to the customer because I’m a good girl?”

“N-No.” Eddie furiously shakes his head. “You k-keep going; such a bad f-fuckin’ girl. Keep your pretty little lips wrapped a-around me.”

You finally relent, giving him what he wants, and he bucks into your hand with a groan. His fantasies flow freely now with each stroke. “Once he leaves, I grab you, spin you around, and–f-fuck–flip your little skirt up.”

“Am I wearing anything under this little skirt?” you coo, tightening your grip on his cock.

He shakes his head, curls already beginning to stick to his temples with light perspiration. “Not a thing. J-Just on display f’me.” He sucks in a harsh breath as he moves you so you’re sitting next to him, knees grazing one another. He quickly shifts to unbutton your jeans, meticulously working the button like he’s opening the gift of his dreams. “And only me.”

“Eddie, I–”

“Gotta touch you,” he mumbles. The way your panties cling to your cunt makes it easy for him to find your clit through the fabric. “Gonna lose my fuckin’ mind if I don’t touch you.” 

And, God, you might lose your mind if he does. His nimble fingers rub your sweet spot, a delicious friction created by your underwear. Desire oozes from his pores, only heightening when you whimper at his touch. 

“Don’t worry, sweet girl,” Eddie’s voice is low in his chest, “‘m gonna make you feel good, too.” He pushes your panties to the side; the cool air hitting your pussy makes you shiver. 

“Wish you were inside me right now,” you moan, almost drooling just thinking about being stretched open as he pushes into you. “You always fill me up perfectly.”

His cock twitches at your words, and you take the initiative to quicken your pace. “Is that what you think about?” he asks, groaning in pleasure when you lean in to spit on his dick again, saliva messily snaking down his shaft and nestling in the thatch of curls on his pelvis. “Y’think about me filling you up?”

“Mhm.”

“M-Me too, Princess. Want to fuck you full of my cum.” Eddie leans back onto the headboard. “You’d look s’good filled with my cum.”

Your widened eyes and the way your stroking motions end abruptly inform him that that was not the response you’d been expecting. 

“Shit, I—”

You recover from the shock remarkably fast. “Yeah? You’d like that?” You resume your pace, fist sliding up and down his length, paying special attention to the overstimulated head. Your breath tickles his ear as you whisper, “tell me about it.”

He’s suddenly shy, softening slightly in your hand. “You sure?” His gaze shifts to your lower stomach; only a few short days ago, there was the possibility of you carrying his child there. “‘S not weird?”

You shake your head, trailing kisses down the side of his throat. “Tell me about it,” you repeat with a bit more charge, inciting him to let go. “I want to know all of your fantasies, Eddie.”

His name is so pretty coming from your lips, accompanied by a gentle smile. “Never thought about it until you,” he admits, the weight of anxiety lifted at your insistence, and you feel his length begin stiffening once more. “Keeping you bent over, coming inside your perfect little pussy, and fucking it all back into you so it…” he trails off, still too sheepish to compete the sentence.

But you have no problem with finishing it. “So it sticks?” you ask innocently, as though you have no idea what the mere utterance of that phrase will do to him. He nods, unable to speak. “Do you think about everyone knowing what you do to me? Hmm?”

There’s so much that he wants to say, but he swears there’s no blood flowing anywhere but his cock. “You’d look fuckin’ gorgeous havin’ my baby,” he manages, mind filled with images of you in maternity dresses, bump pressed against his stomach as you kiss him deeply.

There’s further implications; namely, that he wants you and only you to bear his children, which you quickly make a mental note to unpack at a less sensual time. For now, you focus on taking his words at face value. “Bet you’d show me off everywhere we went. Wouldn’t keep your hands off of me.”

“Can barely keep them off of you now,” he says, finger circling your aching clit to prove his point, “but seeing you pregnant with our kid…” He exhales like he’s been holding his breath for years, enveloping your busy hand with his free one, wrapping it around his erection and moving it faster. “Jus’ like that, fuck, sweet girl. Tell me what gets you goin’ now, yeah?” When you bite your lip apprehensively, he sighs. “Don’t be shy; I know you’ve been holding back on me.”

“Okay, okay,” you acquiesce with a knowing smile, “I think about you taking control. Just…using me however you want.”

Your toes curl as he rubs faster, clearly just as turned on as you are. “Y’need me to boss you around? Treat you like my little toy?”

“Mmm,” you agree, settling into the mattress. “Want you to choke me, too.”

His eyebrows raise at this, and his lips soon curl into a mischievous smirk. “Come ride my thigh an’ tell me more.” He pats his leg, his gaze never leaving your body as you reposition yourself to straddle it. You keep your hand on his member, spitting on it once again while moving your hips back and forth. “Take what you need, baby.”

“Need you,” you moan, the cotton fabric of your panties dragging along him. “Need you to decide if I come…” It’s a delectable thought: Eddie pounding you into the mattress, reminding you that good girls take what they’re given, and nothing more. Quieting all of the noise in your head. Day after day, you’re supposed to make choices for others; some major, some minor. All you want is for someone to tell you what to do.

Eddie’s rings are cold on your neck, giving it a hesitant squeeze. “That good?” His eyes are kind but fiery, willing you to beg for it.

“More; more, please.” And give you more he does, only stopping when you cough. “‘S good now.” Words barely audible between his tight grip and your own descent into submission. 

But Eddie hears you loud and clear, voice firm when he orders: “Come with me. Don’t wanna come without you.” He’s pulsing in your grasp. “An’ if you don’t come now, don’t even think about trying to get yourself off later.”

Relief floods you as the coil snaps, his dominance scratching an itch too often left untouched. You come with a cry of his name, feeling his own hot release coating your hand. You’re both giggling and gasping for breaths as you float down from your respective highs, lips crashing together in sloppy, needing kisses. 

“I love you so much,” Eddie mumbles into you, blindly reaching for the Kleenex box atop your nightstand. “I’ve never trusted anyone like this before.” He wipes your hand clean before brushing his thumb across your lower lip.

“Me either.” You kiss him again, tongues mingling before you confess, “for the record, the thought of having a baby is a little less scary when it’s yours. Someday,” you add for good measure.

Eddie smiles, cocking his head and looking up at you like you’re the most beautiful person he’s ever seen. “I can live with ‘someday.’”

The school week draws to a close on Friday. Coming back from a break is never easy; the kids act like they’ve never been to school before. Just nine days out of the classroom and you’re fairly certain they’ve lost the ability to stay seated for more than ten seconds at a time. 

Will is cleaning the tables with Clorox wipes, washing away crayon residue and softly whistling to himself. You’re filing away some paperwork, scrawling For Monday on a Post-It note and sticking it on top of a stack of handwriting practice worksheets. 

There’s a light tap on your classroom door followed by an enthused voice. 

“Ms. Sweetheart?”

You look up to see Harris and Eddie standing in the doorway. Harris excitedly waves you over, holding a piece of construction paper tight to his chest.

Eddie clears his throat, hands tucked into his back pocket. “Harris has something for you,” he says softly. His eyes light up when he notices the heart necklace that drapes over your collarbone. “Go ‘head, Har Bear,” he encourages his son with a tiny nudge.

“Um, well,” Harris starts, uncharacteristically nervous, “I know you’re still just my almost-mommy, but Ms. Marion had us make cards for Mother’s Day. An’ we learned that mommies love their babies, an’ take care of them when they’re sick, an’ cheer them up when they’re sad, an’ read to them, an’ play with them–”

“Har,” Eddie prods gently, not wanting him to lose himself in a tangent.

“Oh, yeah. An’ I don’t have a mommy-mommy yet, but you do all those things for me, so I wanted to give you this.” He hands you the paper. Two handprints, one pink and one purple, serve as flowers in a pot. 

One of the teachers–Marion or Paula–has neatly written at the top, Thanks for helping me grow! and Mother’s Day 1997 on the bottom. In the pot, Harris has printed his name.

“I love it,” you manage, blinking away the tears that spring to your eyes. “It’s the best card I’ve ever gotten.”

Harris wraps his arms around you in a hug, and you embrace him with everything you have. When you look up at Eddie, he grins and mouths, thank you.

You just smile back, feeling as though you should be thanking him. Thank him for allowing you into his little family, for letting you make mistakes, for being there to help you fix them. Thank him for that fire inside you, burning a bit brighter each day, reminding you that this is where you belong.

--

taglist (closed):

@kelsiegrin @lma1986 @munsonology @stuckontheceiling @avobabe87 @peachysink @browneyes8288 @jeremyspoke-inclasstoday

@breezybeesposts @wednesdaymunson @feltonswifesworld87 @take-everything-you-can @bebe07011 @81rain @dylanmunson @eddiesguitarskills @everheart12 @etherealglimmer @hollster88 @wh0re4life @siriuslysmoking

@bibieddiesgf @winchester-angel @starlitlakes @avalon-wolf @hazydespair @josephquinncore @sidthedollface2 @eddiebaemunson @mandyjo8719 @daydreaming-mood @aol19 @corkadymu @starcourtnights

@rockstarmunsons @metalhead-succubus @boinkybarness @oohworldofpisces @costellation-hunter @toobsessedsstuff @meadow20 @lost-in-the-stars03 @aysheashea @josephquinnsfreckles @eddiemunsonslittlemetalhead

@chamomileh0ney @dream-a-little-nightmare @emma77645 @kurdtbean @sheneedsrocknroll92 @tlclick73 @lolly-in-a-strange-land @bakugouswh0r3

@strangerthingsstories5255 @itsalltaken @harmfulb1tch @averagemisfit03 @steddiegarbage @vigilanteshit @hiscrimsonangel @mrsjellymunson @idkatee

@quentinswife @eddiesguitarskills @momowhoo @jasminelafleur @mmunson86 @mcueveryday @augustsgetawaycar @let-love-bleeds-red @inesven @tanyaherondale @theintimatewriter

[unholybacon355]

Kinktober Day 17 - Im Nayeon x M! Reader

Kinktober Masterlist

The shower was by far the best place to do it. Experience has taught you that that is the best way to not having to deal with the aftermath of all this, water just takes everything and you don’t need to cover or clean anything. You two can truly enjoy it when you do it in the shower.

You were kissing and grabbing your girlfriend by the waist, she has her hands on your ass. Both under the warm water of the shower like a lot of couples do, just that you’re about to do something that isn’t really usual between “average” couples. 

“Are you ready?” Nayeon answers your question by nodding her head and looking at you with big eyes, then she bites her fingers like she does when is being shy or embarrassed. “Come on, you go first.” You kiss her again and then turn off the shower tap. “I love you.” You her lips once again and then you get on your knees. 

“Can you eat me first?” Nayeon asks, still acting shy. “That would be lovely.” She says after biting her fingers again. All this could be very cute, if you weren't about to do what you gonna do. 

You would do anything for your girlfriend so you smile at her and gladly grab her by her thighs, Nayeon instinctively takes a step towards you so now you´re facing her crotch. Her lips are perfectly waxed but Nayeon maintains a well trimmed patch of hair on her pubis. That gives her a cute look in your opinion, and makes you smile before your lips touch her delicate folds. 

After your lips comes your tongue, making its way through a path of sensitive lips covered in moisture not only from the shower. And you eat as your girl wants you to do. With your eyes closed all you can feel are her pubes tickling on your forehead, and how Nayeon’s fingers are scratching the back of your head, telling you that you’re doing good. Soft sighs come from Nayeon’s mouth as another confirmation of your good work. 

To help you Nayeon grind her crotch to your face with slow movements. Her pussy is soaked by now and the sensation that she’s about to lose it is invading her body. “Ca-Can’t hold it anymore.” She says between sighs, and that’s all you need to hear to stop eating her out. 

Someone might think that stopping when she’s close to the orgasm it’s mean, but an orgasm isn't what Nayeon couldn’t hold anymore. She was drinking a lot of water all the evening, and since yesterday eating a lot of fruits. Peaches and watermelons were on the menu, along with another sweet fruits. All that to make sure that her bladder would be full of pee by this point, and thanks to the special menu that pee would be more sweet than usual.

“Give it to me.” You say looking at her eyes. Somehow she’s shy again, even when this is something that you have done dozens of times before. Experience was the way you learned how to play with the food and beverages to end making her pee so delicious. And somehow with all that experience Nayeon is still shy and gets nervous when you do this, even when she loves it so much.

Nayeon’s hand reaches her lips and using her fingers she spreads them to let you see her urethra. Making a little effort she pushes and immediately her pee comes out of her. A warm rain of the golden liquid hits your face, and the smell floods your senses. It smells good and tastes even better because all the effort pays off. You can taste the fruity notes on Nayeon’s pee as if you were tasting a fine wine, and you could say in which cask it was aged. This is by far the best result you have ever gotten and that makes you drink what is sprayed on your mouth with more eagerness.

Nayeon is releasing sighs of relief this time, since she’s emptying her bladder directly on your face and chest. You receive everything she has to give you with an open mouth and closed eyes. She uses her other hand to guide your head so your mouth can be closer to her pussy, and now the effluent of pee coming out of her urethra is hitting you right in the mouth. All you can drink is served straight to you by your lovely girlfriend Nayeon. In your opinion Nayeon’s pee is the most delicious beverage on the surface of the world, and she only gives it to you. 

But suddenly as started the blast of liquid started decreasing its power and soon there is nothing left. Soon Nayeon’s bladder is empty and you're soaked in her warm and delicious pee. With your eyes still closed she guides your face once again and you can feel the touch of her folds against your lips. You know the golden moment is gone from you and you have one last thing to do, so you eat her again.

Now Nayeon’s pussy feels and tastes different. Coated in another fluid that isn’t just her slick, but making it more tasty and delicious. Still with closed eyes you grab her thighs and open her legs a little bit to gain more access to her precious pussy. Nayeon leans against the shower wall to help her to support her weight while you eat her out like a famelish wild animal. All your love turns into arousal because her fluids are flooding your senses. The mixture of Nayeon’s pee and slick is delicious, intoxicating, and addictive to you. That’s why you do everything that is in your hands to get as much as you can, driving Nayeon crazy too in the process. 

The long awaited orgasm hits Nayeon while she’s still leaning against the wall and your head is buried on her crotch. She holds your head against her trembling body, and you hold her by her thighs. No one wants the other to leave this lovely but dirty kind of hug, but everything has to come to an end; and the amount of fluid that can emanate does too.

When she stops shaking and moaning you're free to get apart of her soaked pussy. She cleans your eyes allowing you to open it once again, so you can see how happy she’s now. Soon you’re on your feet again kissing Nayeon and pushing her against the wall. She seems to not care about the fact that your face isn’t just coated on her slick but also her pee. She just enjoys this as much as you do it,  so the kiss is full of passion and love.

“Is my turn now?” Nayeon asks between giggles using that shy tone again, while she begins to kneel in front of you.  

[calummss]

Cillian Murphy Headcanon: Dating A Younger Woman Would Include

masterlist

the age gap i’m thinking of is 15-17 years, so if it makes you uncomfortable do not read!

a/n: i got inspo from @wouldpollyapprove . so credit for this idea goes to her

i feel like you would meet cillian randomly

at a cafe when there were no free seats left; the cinema, both alone because you’re introverted; asking around for pen, something like that

literally straight out of a movie

he liked that you weren’t up in his business or knew straight away who he was—which you did but you didn’t want to make him uncomfortable

you exchanged numbers and went from there

you started off as friends and hung out a lot

but it got you thinking if you were more than friends; if he could see you as a potential girlfriend

so you took the risk

and it payed off

cillian felt the same way about you

both of you decided that it should be kept private for loads of reasons

one being that the media liked to trash age gap couple

when you introduced him to your family they were instantly smitten by him and it ability to hold conversations, how kind and smart he is

they were skeptical of the age gap and talked to you about it. it took them some weeks to get used to it but they liked him nonetheless and knew that he made you very happy

his parents and the contrary didn’t care about the age gap at all, never mentioned it or repeated your age in a judgy way, instead cheersed your wine glass with a ‘welcome to the family’

you moved into his place a year and a half after you start dating

you’re job is flexible so you can work from/in dublin

despite cillian’s fame you’re still able to go on dates

you’ve been very good at hiding from the paparazzi

when the press do get a hold on cillian’s private life and publish a picture of the two of you, the fans go wild

they’re having a field day talking about your age gap

which makes you a little insecure but there’s nothing that cillian can’t comfort you through

cillian’s publicist releases a statement so you can enjoy the piece and quiet again

the topic died down anyways

especially when they caught glimpses of the two of you around town, fully engaged with one another, love written all over you

also can i just say that your first christmas together is the best thing ever??

you two standing in the kitchen, preparing the food in the warm christmas lights of the house, warm air around you two, all whilst slow dancing in a burning room by john mayer is playing

when cillian’s away for work you facetime each other every second night and fall asleep without hanging up

he thinks it’s the cutest thing ever

sometimes you visit him on set

and stare at him in awe (well he is hot)

cillian and you are so in love and everyone can see it

[yelenasdiary]

Platonic idea! Nat meets reader (female) undercover while on a mission. Maybe R’s a waitress trying to make ends meet for her kids, while Nat frequents the restaurant for her mission as that’s where she meets her target. They develop a friendship, but R doesn’t know nats true identity. One day, shit hits the fan w the mission and R is caught in the crosshairs. Suddenly her “friend” is in a fight with random people. But Nat makes sure to protect R. When it’s all done, Nat explains herself and her true identity. Bonus points if she helps R w her financial situation. Thanks!

You're Too Nice!

Pairing: Natasha Romanoff x Single Mom! Reader (Platonic)

Summary: With struggling to make ends meet with your current job, you were surprised when a guest tips you every time she comes to eat, leading to an unexpected friendship.  

Comfort? | Slight Angst | Mentions of Blood | Gun Violence | Reader has 2 children | Held Hostage | 2K |

AC: Thank you for sending this!! I miss platonic Nat!! I hope you enjoy this x

"What can I get you today, Nat?" you smiled softly at the red head as you came up to her table. The new guest now eats regularly at the restaurant you worked at. She told you she'd just moved to town and was a terrible cook and enjoyed the food here. Although, this place wasn't a place you thought somebody could afford to eat at almost every night for dinner, but it was clear that Natasha had money, with every tip she left you was bigger than the last. 

"I think I'll have the rib-eye steak tonight" Natasha looked up with a smile.

"Good choice, would you like a wine to go with it?" you asked, dotting down her order. 

"Sure, what not. Surprise me, I trust you have good taste" she replied.  

"I'll be right back" you gave the redhead a light nod before walking over to the bar and getting your co-worker to find the best wine that would go down with her order. "What's her deal? She eats here every night" the bartender asked. 

"She just moved here and enjoys the food" 

"Ha! I wonder how long it'll take until she gets bored of this place" your co-worker poured a glass of wine before handing it too you, "I don't know, she seems different" you took the glass and made your walk back to Natasha. 

"Here's your wine, your food shouldn't be too far away" you smiled once more, placing the glass on the table. "Thank you" Natasha smiled but her eyes stayed glued to the table of gentlemen a few tables away. A group of 17 men all in suits, laughing over poorly made jokes as they sipped on their beers, whisky. You tried to work out, slyly, which gentleman she was so intrigued by, but you noticed she wasn't just watching one, but all. 

"If those gentlemen are too loud, I'd be happy to move you to another table" 

Natasha looked up at you then back at the table of gentlemen, "no it's okay. I was just wondering what they were laughing at" she replied, brushing off your offer. "My mistake, I'll be back with your order shortly" 

That you did, you placed her order on the table and told her to enjoy and that if she needed anything just to holla. You waited on other guests while Natasha sat by herself, eating her dinner and sipping her wine. By the end of the night, Natasha along with the table of gentlemen and a few others, were the only ones left. 

Natasha waved you down and asked for the check as she got out her purse. You returned to her table not long after, placing the check on the table. "I hope you enjoyed your meal tonight" you smiled. 

"It was lovely, and the wine went down just as well, I knew I could trust you with" Natasha replied, placing $300 on the table. "Oh, please. this is too much!" You looked to her, she was tipping you $150 for your service. "Please, take it. You deserve it. I've seen how hard you work and how little you get. Also, it seems you need to get home to your child or children so you're not paying the babysitter too much, right?" she explained to your surprise.

You nodded, "How'd you know?" you asked. 

"You keep checking your watch and the butterfly sticker on your name badge gave it away. How old?" 

You totally forgot that your 4-year-old daughter had placed a blue colored butterfly sticker on your nametag before your shift started. Money is tight and you try your best to not work late as the babysitter charges by the hour, on some occasions when you knew work was going to be busy around the holidays, you'd ask her for a flat rate which she was kind enough to set a price but you always felt bad that you were taking from her rather than giving. 

"My daughter is 4 and my son is 6" you answered the redhead with an almost embarrassed look. 

"They sound lovely" Natasha smiled, handing the check back to you, "If you're working tomorrow night, I'll see you then" she added before standing up from her seat.

----

It's been a few weeks since you told Natasha about your children and since she was new to town you offered to show her around on your day off. Quickly, the two of you formed a friendship that honestly surprised you. Going from waiting on her whenever you had a shift to now sitting in a park drinking a hot coffee while your children played. 

"What made you move here?" you asked, dying to know. 

"I heard it was peaceful and I need peaceful in my life right now. Besides, the café near my apartment makes great muffins" she replied before taking a sip of her coffee. 

"I've got to ask, do you not know how to cook?" 

Natasha laughed, "I guess you can't count making peanut butter sandwiches cooking, can you?" 

You shook your head, "not, that's barely a meal!" You chuckled, "Look, I love cooking. I'd be happy to cook a little extra and drop it off to you. It'll save you from having to come to the restaurant every night, which now sounds really bad like I'm trying to drive you away from us" you offered before blabbering on. 

"I don't mind it; in fact, I enjoy it. The service is really good" Natasha replied with a chuckle. 

"Maybe you should get a job there, you've seen pretty much how it works and what we do, how we do it. If you're looking, I can talk to the manger" you offered before taking another sip of your coffee. 

"You're too nice, did you know that?" Natasha turned to you, "is that a bad thing?" you questioned. 

"It can be. Some people might take that for granted" 

"The world is already full of crappy people doing crappy things, there needs to be more people doing kind things" you explained, making Natasha chuckle at your choice of words. "Crappy things?" she questioned with a raised brow. 

"Sorry, I try to reframe from swearing. I don't want my kids to swearing just yet" you explained.

 Natasha nodded, "So if you think that there needs to be more people doing kind things, why do you try to refuse to take my tips every night?" 

She had you there. 

"W..I..well, I am very grateful for your tips but I feel bad for taking them. I give you the same service I give any other guest an- "

"and they don't see how wonderful your service. Lets make a deal, I'll let you drop off some food if you take my tips without trying to get me to stop, deal?" She interrupted you. Again, she had you. 

"Fine, deal" you playful shook your head. 

----

The night started off normal as usual, except Natasha hadn't come in. A table of 3 gentleman in suits waited patiently for a fourth member and none of them seemed happy to be there. But regardless of their rudeness towards you, you gave them your best service and did your best to make sure they would leave without complaints.

"That wasn't the deal!" one man shouted as you quietly came up to their table, placing their second round of drinks on the table. "I don't care if you don't think it was the deal, it's the deal now!" another snapped. 

"That's it!" the first man replied with anger before standing from his chair. 

"Sit down! Don't make a scene" the other muttered, "I'm sorry miss, somebody has had one too many drinks tonight" He looked at you with an apologetic smile. Before you knew it, your life flashed before your eyes as the angry man wrapped on arm around your neck, trapping you in a headlock while having a gun pointed to your left temple. 

You instantly dropped your notepad and pen in shock. Other guests took cover under the tables while staff called 9-1-1. 

"Let her go, idiot! You're over reacting" one of the gentlemen spoke. 

"We had a fucking deal! If you do this, my entire business will go under and I won't let you do that to me! Not again!" your attacked spat back, pressing his gun harder against your temple. 

"P-please, let me g-go" you sobbed, tears rolling down your cheeks. All you could think about were your children and how badly you just wanted to get home to them. "Shut up! And as for you bastards, if you do this, I will make sure the entire world know what you plan to do!" 

"Damn, looks like you guys beat me to the fun" a familiar voice caught your attention, Natasha. "Who the fuck are you?" Your attacker turned you both slightly to face her. "How about you let her go and I'll show you who I am?" Natasha replied with a light smirk, her own weapon pointed at the man holding you tightly in his hold. 

 The man pushed you to the floor and quickly fired his gun at Natasha, missing her as she took cover and taking him out with a clear shot between the eyes. The other man quickly jumped up from their seats with their own weapons pointed at the red head you considered a good friend. Meanwhile, you took cover under a table with other guests while the sounds of guns and bullets flew across the restaurant. 

Moments passed and you along with all the other guests were too shaken up to come out from under the tables as the restaurant grew with silence. Some guests began to emerge from the safety, "It's safe now everybody, you can come out" Natasha announced but still, you couldn't bring yourself to come out from under the table until Natasha came to you. 

"Are you okay?" she asked with worry in her eyes. 

"W-what, I m-mean who are you?" you asked, hesitant to take her hand. "How about we get you home and I'll explain everything" Natasha offered. You had no reason not to trust her, she did just save your life. So you took her hand and nodded softly, still in shock. 

----

"So you're an avenger? That explains why I've felt like I've seen you before" you looked up at Natasha she handed you a cup of tea, Nat chuckled, "I couldn't say anything. I was undercover and I'm so sorry you got in the middle of all that" she sat down beside you. 

"Hey, the way I see it, I now have a fun story to tell the kids later on when they're older" you chuckled, taking a sip of your drink. "I guess you'll be moving back to New York?" you asked, your eyes dropped to the mug in your hands. 

"Yeah, but that doesn't mean we still can't be friends. I'll give you my number and we can catch up whenever. Besides, I think I'm going to really miss the food" Nat smiled softly. Making you playfully shake your head at the Avenger, "I should get going, I have to report back to my team but I'm going to write down my number and leave it on the fridge for you, okay?" she added. 

"Sure" you smiled, "thank you for the lift" you added. 

Natasha left, leaving her number stuck on your fridge for you to put in your phone later on. You placed your now empty mug in the sink for tomorrow's problem when you noticed a small bag on the countertop, you did recognize it and assumed that Natasha had left it behind, so you called her. 

"Hey Nat, it's Y/n. You left a bag in my kitchen" you spoke when she answered the phone. 

"Open it, it's yours" Natasha replied, "I'm going to hang up before you can say anything about it" she chuckled before she hung up. Slowly you unzipped the bag to be greeted with a sight of cash, more than enough to help you get on top of rent for months to come with a little left over to buy general things for your kids. On top of the cash was a note;

"Just a kind person doing a kind thing, don't think too much about it. Thank you for your lovely service, I'll see you again soon. 

 ~ Nat x"

Taglist: @red1culous | @sayah13 | @charl-lally | @when-wolves-howl | @bentleywolf29 | @fxckmiup | @natasha-belova | @blackwidow-3 | @lissaaaa145 | @high--power | @parkerdaramitzzzz | @mmmmokdok | @wackymcstupid | @kiwiana145 | @shin-conan-kun | @nattyolw | @ripofflizzie | @goofy-goonie | @makegoodchoices | @apollo2907 | @wandaroman0ff | @dumb-fawkin-bitch | @lovelyy-moonlight | @santana1437 | @ahintofchaos | @fluffyblanketgecko | @puta1 | @inluvwithfictionalwomen | @tintedrose12 | @jaymieflorissssssss | @tita001 | @youralphawolf72 | @donnietarantino | @randomnessbecausewhynot | @natashamaximoff69 | @hehehehannahthings | @pandaemonium111 | @imnotslouching | @secrettoallofyou | @romantic-slaps-on-the-asss | @marvel-fan-2021 | @mmmmokdok | @riveramorylunar | @ripofflizzie | @marvel-madnessx | @scarsw1fe | @toldthatdevil | @itsmv3 | @natashaswife4125 | @katiemay-025 | @aphrcdtes | @romanoffs-widow | @natsxwife | @maria-403 | 

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Jesse Duquette

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

September 16, 2024

Heather Cox Richardson

Sep 17, 2024

In the week since Trump’s disastrous debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, MAGA Republicans appear to be melting down. As Republicans commandeer the disaster news, the Democratic presidential nominee appears to be trying to stay out of their way. Harris sat for an interview with media host Stephanie Himonidis Sedano, known as “Chiquibaby,” of the Spanish-language U.S. audio Nueva Network, an interview that will air tomorrow on more than 100 radio stations.  

For the third day in a row, officials today had to evacuate two elementary schools in Springfield, Ohio, citing threats that have led to safety concerns. The city has also canceled “CultureFest,” its annual celebration of diversity, arts, and culture, and the local colleges are meeting virtually out of safety concerns. The Bureau of Motor Vehicles has had to close, as has the Ohio License Bureau.

Ohio’s Republican governor, Mike DeWine, said that there have been “at least 33” bomb threats against schools and public offices after Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and his running mate, Ohio senator J.D. Vance, spread the lie that Haitian immigrants to Springfield have been eating the pets of their white neighbors. DeWine reiterated that the immigrants in Springfield are there legally, and noted that he has authorized troopers from the Ohio State Highway Patrol to provide additional security at the district's 18 school buildings. 

On CNN yesterday morning, Vance admitted to Dana Bash that he had created the story of Haitian immigrants eating pets. He justified the lie that has shut down Springfield and endangered its residents by claiming such a lie was the only way to get the media to pay attention to what he considers the crisis of immigration. Once the pet-eating story was debunked, Vance said that Haitian immigrants are spreading HIV and tuberculosis in Ohio; in fact, new diagnoses of HIV dropped from 2018 to 2022, and the director of the Ohio Department of Health says there has been no change in TB rates.  

That a politician of any sort would lie to rally supporters against a marginalized population comes straight out of the authoritarian playbook, which seeks to build a community around the idea that the people in it are besieged by outsiders. But when that politician is running for vice president, with the potential to become the president if anything happens to his 78-year-old running mate, who is the oldest person ever to run for president, it raises a whole factory of red flags.  

Michael Hiltzik of the Los Angeles Times noted the support of racist ideologue Alfred Rosenberg of the Nazi Party for the antisemitic text “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” a text fabricated in the early twentieth century by officials in czarist Russia. Rosenberg stood by the “inner truth” of the text even though it was fake. Like Rosenberg, Hitler’s chief propagandist Joseph Goebbels wrote, “I believe in the inner, but not the factual, truth of The Protocols.” While Democratic Ohio representative Casey Weinstein has called for Vance to resign, aside from DeWine, Republican lawmakers have not repudiated Vance’s lie. 

Astonishingly, Vance is trying to rise to power on lies about the people of his own state, the people he is supposed to represent. Not only have Democratic politicians demanded that he stop, but also amidst the chaos, the Republican mayor of Springfield and two Republican county commissioners would not commit to voting for Trump. The popular backlash against this lie has also been swift and strong. The Ohio-based Red, Wine, and Blue organization has organized the #OHNoYouDont campaign to reiterate on social media their stance against the division Vance and Trump are stoking. 

Trump seemed to try to regain control of the political narrative on Sunday by posting on social media, “I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT,” a comment that looked like an attempt to change the subject from the backlash to the pet-eating lie, the continuing disparagement of Trump’s debate performance, and increasing attention to Trump’s attachment to right-wing provocateur and conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer.     

In the days since Trump took Loomer to a commemoration of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001—which she has suggested were an “inside job”—the media has paid more attention to the 31-year-old extremist who has been Trump’s close companion since Spring 2023. Loomer has cheered the drowning of 2,000 migrants and called for “2,000 more.” In June she said that Democrats should not just be prosecuted and jailed, but “they should get the death penalty. You know, we actually used to have the punishment for treason in this country.” 

When some commenters suggested her relationship with Trump was sexual, she countered with a truly vile statement about Vice President Kamala Harris. The increasing visibility of Loomer near Trump has made those Republicans trying to run a more traditional campaign beg him to cut her loose, but Trump seems reluctant to distance himself from her. Sam Stein of The Bulwark today wrote that those Republicans worried about Trump being surrounded by conspiracy theorists are a decade late. After listing Trump’s many years of conspiracy theories, Stein wrote, they’re not “worried that Loomer will turn Trump into a raving lunatic. They’re simply worried that Trump might lose.” 

As Trump seems increasingly detached from reality, Vance has become the face of the Republican presidential campaign. He seems desperate to turn the media cycle from Trump and the extraordinary unpopularity of the plans outlined in Project 2025 and toward immigration. It’s a hard sell, since voters correctly note that it was Republicans, egged on by Trump, who killed the strong bipartisan border bill in the spring. On Thursday, September 12, Vance said on CNBC that if immigration were the path to prosperity, “America would be the most prosperous country in the world.” 

Outside of the hellscape in MAGA Republicans’ mind, it is. The Federal Reserve recently noted that as of the second quarter of 2024, U.S. household net worth is growing by a strong 7.1% a year. The stock market is also strong, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average rising 228 points today to set an all-time high. 

On Sunday afternoon, shortly after Trump’s Taylor Swift post and another calling the “failing” New York Times a threat to democracy, as Trump was golfing at his club in West Palm Beach, Florida, Secret Service agents noticed and fired on a man holding a rifle with a scope. Today, Carol Leonnig, Josh Dawsey, and Isaac Stanley-Becker of the Washington Post reported that authorities have warned Trump of the risks of golfing at his own courses because of their proximity to public roads, but Trump insisted they were safe and kept using them.

The acting director of the Secret Service, Ronald Rowe Jr., said today that Trump’s plan for golfing on Sunday was unscheduled, so the secret service used an emergency plan for protecting Trump. Rowe said the suspect, Ryan Wesley Routh, a convicted felon with a history of apparent mental illness, did not have a line of sight to the former president and did not shoot. He escaped and was later caught. Cell phone records suggest he was in the vicinity for 12 hours before being flushed out of the bushes. 

Democratic leaders again denounced violence and said it has no place in our country. Observers noted that it was Trump who signed a bill revoking gun-checks for people with mental illnesses put in place by President Barack Obama and that he promised the National Rifle Association (NRA) that he would roll back all the gun safety provisions President Joe Biden has put in place if he wins in 2024. But the Trump campaign called for donations on a website suggesting, as MAGA Republicans did after the shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania, that Democrats were complicit in the threat to Trump. “There are people in this world who will do whatever it takes to stop us,” Trump’s campaign said. 

Unfortunately, two attempts on a president’s life in such short order are not unprecedented. As Tom Nichols pointed out today in The Atlantic, Gerald Ford survived two attempts in 15 days in 1975. But, as Nichols also points out, Ford did not fundraise off the attempts or blame his opponents for them. 

Opponents are pointing out that it is Trump and the MAGA Republicans, not the Democrats, who are stoking violence. Marcy Wheeler of Emptywheel noted that in July 2023 Trump posted an address for former president Barack Obama on his social media network, prompting a stalker, and that in four different jurisdictions, Trump’s lawyers have argued that the First Amendment protects Trump’s right to attack the judges, prosecutors, and witnesses in the cases against him, as well as their families. Other’s recalled MAGA’s “jokes” about the brutal attack on then–House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul. 

Trump supporter Elon Musk, who owns the social media platform X, wrote, “And no one is even trying to assassinate Biden/Kamala,” a post he later called a “joke” after observers asked about the national security implications of a defense contractor who has $15 billion in federal contracts suggesting the assassination of the president and vice president. Musk’s post had more than 39 million impressions before he deleted it.

After his own incendiary post, Musk wrote: “The incitement to hatred and violence against President Trump by the media and leading Democrats needs to stop.” Conservative lawyer George Conway retorted: “What utter nonsense.”  

Indeed, the MAGA attempt to tie the shootings near Trump to the Democrats is pretty clearly an attempt to stop Democrats from talking about the issues of the campaign by claiming that any public discussion of Trump’s own unpopular policies and hateful words will gin up violence against him. 

One of the biggest issues MAGA Republicans would like to stop people from talking about is abortion. Reproductive healthcare journalist Kavitha Surana explained in ProPublica today that every state has a committee of experts that meet to examine women’s deaths during or within a year of pregnancy. Those committees operate with a two-year lag, meaning that we are now learning about women dying after the Supreme Court overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that recognized the constitutional right to abortion. 

Georgia’s state committee has recently concluded that at least two women have died in Georgia from preventable causes after hospitals in the state denied them timely reproductive healthcare.

Amber Nicole Thurman died just weeks after the Georgia abortion ban went into effect. She went into sepsis from unexpelled fetal tissue after an abortion she obtained legally in North Carolina. Georgia’s law made the routine dilation and curettage procedure, or D&C, a felony with vague exceptions that make doctors worry about prosecution if they perform it. Reports show that doctors repeatedly discussed a D&C for Thurman but put it off even as her organs began to fail. By the time they performed the procedure, it was too late. 

Surana notes that Georgia governor Brian Kemp said he was “overjoyed” when the law went into effect, and that it would keep women “safe, healthy, and informed.” Attorneys for the state of Georgia accused abortion rights activists who said the law endangered women of “hyperbolic fear mongering” just two weeks before Thurman died. 

She left behind a 6-year-old son.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[mayhemchicken-varneyposting]

Varney the Vampire, Chapter 17: Call Me Ciabatta In A Cistern The Way I'm Well-Bred

[Previous chapter] [Next chapter]

Varney squeezes awkwardly into the summer-house alongside Charles and Flora, interrupting their romantic moment. He explains that he only wished to get out of the rain, and further that he is visiting the house in order to see Henry. Henry soon arrives, along with George and Marchdale, in response to Flora's cry of alarm. Flora is adamant that Varney is the one who attacked her, but no one can bring themselves to accuse such a polite and gentlemanly man of such a thing. Varney offers to lead Flora elsewhere to rest, as she is clearly freaking out, which of course only makes her freak out more. Charles ends up dropping her off with her mother before meeting back up with the rest.

Henry and Charles make forced small talk with Varney. Varney tells them that he was curious about the portrait in Bannerworth Hall that supposedly resembles him. They take him to see it, and he stands underneath it and strikes the same pose so everyone can see how similar they look. Charles attempts to weasel information out of Varney, but is thwarted by Varney's imperturbable poker face and impeccable manners.

Varney asks Henry if he's made up his mind about the house yet; Henry replies that he needs more time to think. He offers Varney a glass of wine, which he accepts but only pretends to drink. He is not even remotely trying to hide that he is a vampire, and Charles finally calls him on it, at which point he calls Charles' sanity into question.

Henry has finally had enough, and challenges Varney to a duel. Varney's mellow, gentlemanly demeanor suddenly drops, and he enters a rage state and offers to duel Henry to the death. Marchdale hastily intervenes, and the duel is called off. Varney leaves, and Marchdale follows him to make sure he doesn't remain skulking about the property somewhere.

Meanwhile, someone is furiously ringing the bell at the gate, but no one in the house is paying attention.

This chapter is so fucking good oh my god. Chapters 13 and 14 Varney was only getting warmed up; now he is serving his FULL cartoon villain best and every word of it is fantastic. The whole chapter is just one outrageous vampire insinuation after another. The protagonists' hapless conformity to Polite English Manners turns the whole thing into a comedic farce, as Varney winds everyone up more and more until they snap. Apologies in advance, I suspect this commentary will run long; there are simply too many fun details to talk about. Let's dive in, shall we?

The stranger stood in the irresolute attitude on the threshold of the summer-house of one who did not wish to intrude, but who found it as awkward, if not more so now, to retreat than to advance.

In the modern day we're all primed for an association between vampires and thresholds. Vampires Must Be Invited In, that's the Rule. Don't be fooled, though - we are 50 years out from Dracula. The Rule does not exist yet. Varney can trespass as much as he wants - and indeed, has already done so multiple times in this story.

"I very much fear that I am an intruder here. Allow me to offer my warmest apologies, and to assure you, sir, and you, madam, that I had no idea any one was in the arbour. You perceive the rain is falling smartly, and I made towards here, seeing it was likely to shelter me from the shower."

Not 5 sentences into the chapter and he's already sopping wet.

Varney bowed to the new comers, and was altogether as much at his ease as everybody else seemed quite the contrary. Even Charles Holland found the difficulty of going up to such a well-bred, gentlemanly man, and saying, "Sir, we believe you to be a vampyre"—to be almost, if not insurmountable.

Here it is, the central conflict of the whole chapter summed up in 2 sentences - a rare moment of conciseness from Rymer.

The only one not bothering to conform to social etiquette is Flora, who understandably is not about to play nice with the guy that drank her blood. There is some very Victorian sexism at play here with her being the only one unable to control her emotions, but I also think her response is a reasonable one.

"The vampyre!—it is the vampyre!" "Are you sure, Flora?" "Do I know your features—my own—my brother's? Do not ask me to doubt—I cannot. I am quite sure. Take me from his hideous presence, Charles." "The young lady, I fear, is very much indisposed," remarked Sir Francis Varney, in a sympathetic tone of voice. "If she will accept of my arm, I shall esteem it a great honour." "No—no—no!—God! no," cried Flora. "Madam, I will not press you."

Varney, meanwhile, is fully aware of the effect he has on everyone and milking it for all it's worth.

Flora is shuffled out of the scene, which might seem unfair to her but at least she got an excuse - George and Marchdale simply drop off the face of the earth until the very end of the chapter.

Varney's command of social situations at times seems to border on a supernatural ability, and it's hard to say how much of this ought to be ascribed to his own charms versus the habits and values of the characters he interacts with. I'm tempted to give this one to Varney, simply because he has so little going on in the magic powers department.

Charles felt himself compelled to behave with courtesy, although his mind was so full of conflicting feelings as regarded Varney; but there was no avoiding, without such brutal rudeness as was inconsistent with all his pursuits and habits, replying in something like the same strain to the extreme courtly politeness of the supposed vampyre.

"Is he a vampyre?" he asked himself. "Are there vampyres, and is this man of fashion—this courtly, talented, educated gentleman one?" It was a perfectly hideous question.

There's a bit of a "Jonathan Harker asking Count Dracula about vampire myths" vibe to the idea that being a courtly gentleman is somehow at odds with vampirism. The setting of this story, of course, well predates the first appearance of the aristocratic vampire in literary fiction. The characters have no way of knowing it's a trope.

"You allude to the supposed visit here of a vampyre?" said Charles, as he fixed his eyes upon Varney's face. "Yes, I allude to the supposed appearance of a supposed vampyre in this family," said Sir Francis Varney, as he returned the earnest gaze of Charles, with such unshrinking assurance, that the young man was compelled, after about a minute, nearly to withdraw his own eyes. "He will not be cowed," thought Charles. "Use has made him familiar to such cross-questioning."

Charles fares rather better than Henry in Varney's social mind games, but is still playing at a disadvantage; he, too, is bound by social etiquette. The same rules which Varney plays to his advantage hinder the protagonists at every turn.

"I am much attached to the softer sex—to young persons full of health. I like to see the rosy cheeks, where the warm blood mantles in the superficial veins, and all is loveliness and life." Charles shrank back, and the word "Demon" unconsciously escaped his lips. Sir Francis took no manner of notice of the expression, but went on talking, as if he had been on the very happiest terms with every one present. "Will you follow me, at once, to the chamber where the portrait hangs," said Henry, "or will you partake of some refreshment first?" "No refreshment for me," said Varney. "My dear friend, if you will permit me to call you such, this is a time of the day at which I never do take any refreshment." "Nor at any other," thought Henry.

And now Varney begins to really ramp up his insolence. Just you wait, he's still only getting started.

Henry pointed to the portrait on the panel, saying— "There, Sir Francis Varney, is your likeness." He looked, and, having walked up to it, in an under tone, rather as if he were conversing with himself than making a remark for any one else to hear, he said— "It is wonderfully like." "It is, indeed," said Charles. "If I stand beside it, thus," said Varney, placing himself in a favourable attitude for comparing the two faces, "I dare say you will be more struck with the likeness than before."

This fucking guy. He's so outrageous. I love him.

Charles continues to attempt a cross-examination of Varney, and receives a heaping helping of sarcasm for his trouble.

"And yet entertaining. I am rather amused than otherwise. The idea of being a vampyre. Ha! ha! If ever I go to a masquerade again, I shall certainly assume the character of a vampyre." "You would do it well." "I dare say, now, I should make quite a sensation." "I am certain you would. Do you not think, gentlemen, that Sir Francis Varney would enact the character to the very life? By Heavens, he would do it so well that one might, without much difficulty, really imagine him a vampyre." "Bravo—bravo," said Varney, as he gently folded his hands together, with that genteel applause that may even be indulged in in a box at the opera itself. "Bravo. I like to see young persons enthusiastic; it looks as if they had some of the real fire of genius in their composition. Bravo—bravo."

(The lack of dialogue tags is a perennial problem for this story. For clarification's sake, the first speaker here is Varney, and the second is Charles.)

The author briefly refers to Charles as "Charles Howard". Mark a tally on the "Rymer gets his own characters' names wrong" board.

Charles and Henry continue to press Varney. Charles tries to glean Varney's age; Varney dodges the question. Henry offers Varney a glass of wine, to see if he will drink it. Charles then commits a continuity error:

Then wine was ordered, and Charles took an opportunity of whispering to Henry,— "Notice well if he drinks." "I will." "Do you see that beneath his coat there is a raised place, as if his arm was bound up?" "I do." "There, then, was where the bullet from the pistol fired by Flora, when we were at the church, hit him."

You were not at the church, Charles. The church expedition was in chapters 7-8, and you didn't get here until chapter 10.

Varney continues to up his creepy vampire behavior, and finally succeeds in getting the others to snap.

He raised the wine to his lips, and seemed to drink, after which he replaced the glass upon the table. Charles glanced at it, it was still full. "You have not drank, Sir Francis Varney," he said. "Pardon me, enthusiastic young sir," said Varney, "perhaps you will have the liberality to allow me to take my wine how I please and when I please." "Your glass is full." "Well, sir?" "Will you drink it?" "Not at any man's bidding, most certainly. If the fair Flora Bannerworth would grace the board with her sweet presence, methinks I could then drink on, on, on."

Personally, I could watch him do this all day, but Charles has had enough. He finally accuses Varney to his face, and Varney effortlessly shifts into gaslight gatekeep girlboss mode and suggests that Charles may be touched in the head.

"Then I say we believe, as far as human judgment has a right to go, that a vampyre has been here." "Go on, it's interesting. I always was a lover of the wild and the wonderful." "We have, too," continued Charles, "some reason to believe that you are the man." Varney tapped his forehead as he glanced at Henry, and said,— "Oh, dear, I did not know. You should have told me he was a little wrong about the brain; I might have quarreled with the lad. Dear me, how lamentable for his poor mother."

[twirls a lock of hair around my finger] he's soooo infuriating.

"I defy you to your teeth, sir! No, God, no! Your teeth!"

This line made me laugh.

Now, however, the etiquette trap has sprung - this story takes place in an era in which it was socially acceptable to challenge someone to a deathmatch for insulting you.

Which is exactly what Varney does.

Sir Francis, in spite of his impenetrable calmness, appeared somewhat moved, as he said,— "I have already endured insult sufficient—I will endure no more. If there are weapons at hand—" "My young friend," interrupted Mr. Marchdale, stepping between the excited men, "is carried away by his feelings, and knows not what he says. You will look upon it in that light, Sir Francis." "We need no interference," exclaimed Varney, his hitherto bland voice changing to one of fury. "The hot blooded fool wishes to fight, and he shall—to the death—to the death."

The institution of the duel is what binds all these characters to such restrictive standards of politeness. Behind every social interaction is the threat of ritualized physical violence; it isn't just rude to accuse your neighbor of vampirism, it is potentially life-threatening. A conversation such as the one in this chapter is a delicate dance, each party treading the line of what is acceptable to express without provoking the other. Engaging in dueling, too, can be harmful to one's reputation, despite its ostensible connection to honor. Varney, as a vampire, has therefore a remarkable advantage over the other characters; he has nothing to lose. His reputation cannot be damaged worse by dueling than by the very nature of what he is, and he need not fear death by sword or by bullet. He is thusly free to tread on as many toes as he likes; dueling has no real consequences for him.

It sure gets annoying, though.

Next: The Admiral joins the party

[hrts4wonu]

“이상한 왕국” : spoilers

translation: the strange kingdom

you grew up in a small village, in a kingdom ruled by an evil queen who's time will soon end which was being celebrated by your peers. but, little did they know, another kingdom has arrived not to celebrate along with you all, and instead end the innocent lives of the people who live in this kingdom. the large, thick concrete walls that circled the kingdom crashed to the floor and fires were spreading everywhere. nobody else had escaped in time, you think. for days, you ran and ran and ran. far away from the kingdom that you thought was safe forever. 'what was i thinking? there's no forever, just like what my mom said.' you say to yourself as you crash to your knees, tired and barely having enough energy to run anymore. your eyesight was getting blurry the more you ran, and you brushed it off like it was nothing. you finally found the energy to run again after resting. your stomach was grumbling and you were in pain; nobody else survived except you and you were just running away from all of it. just as you were about to stand up, you fall to the ground losing your consciousness. and before you knew it, a kind-hearted prince approaches your figure and yells something out loud to the people near him that you just couldn't find the energy to pay attention to. 'fate' you thought before completely closing your eyes and fading into the dark abyss. when you woke up the next day, you were in some sort of bed. you gathered everything inside of you to stand up and walk— which, you couldn't quite do because of your exhausted legs and the wounds on them. the same prince from yesterday approached you worryingly and places you back on the bed, “what happened? are you okay?” he utters in such a panicked yet loving voice. you shook your head no in response. “another kingdom.. attacked ours.” you add to your nod, looking away with a frown. and from then on, you and the prince had become great friends; you now lived in the so called ‘isanghan wang-gug’ or in english, ‘the strange kingdom’

tags. seventeen, royal au, ex ruler reader / yn, ot13, colonized village, kingdoms, fantasy, fairytale

warnings. violence (not quite), smut, slowburn, harem, seventeen x reader, arguments, swearing, sparring, unprotected sex (don't do this), overstimulation, tying up / bdsm, forced marriage, etc. (tell me if i missed anything!)

a/n: hey, starlings. kim here<3 this royal au is not inspired by anyone (i'm serious btw). this idea originated from the time where i used to play minecraft and i just all of a sudden went like 'oh my god, what if i make castles for seventeen? like an entire kingdom?' and i did. i wasn't able to technically finish it due to the fact that my minecraft wouldn't open anymore and yeeahh.. anyways, i made my own lore for it but instead of sending it to my friends i wanted to post it here on tumblr instead ^_^

-👑-

RELEASE DATE : January 1, 2024 - January 13, 2024 (between those dates)

UPDATES : every 2 weeks / 1 month

MASTERLIST ;

MEMBERS & INFORMATION:

#1:

#2:

SEASON 1: The Journey Begins

ep 1:

ep 2:

ep 3:

ep 4:

ep 5:

ep 6:

ep 7:

ep 8:

ep 9:

ep 10:

SEASON 2: Eye Of The Evil

ep 11:

ep 12:

ep 13:

ep 14:

ep 15:

ep 16:

ep 17:

ep 18:

ep 19:

ep 20:

SEASON 3: Equality's Dead

ep 21:

ep 22:

ep 23:

ep 24:

ep 25:

SEASON 4: The Hurricane

ep 26:

ep 27:

ep 28:

ep 29:

ep 30:

ep 31:

ep 32:

ep 33:

SEASON 5: Roses, Wine, & Assassin 8

ep 34:

ep 35:

SEASON 6: Hidden Secrets

ep 36:

ep 37:

ep 38:

ep 39:

ep 40:

ep 41:

ep 42:

ep 43:

ep 44:

ep 45:

SEASON 7: One Last Glimpse

ep 46:

ep 47:

ep 48:

ep 49:

ep 50:

a/n 2 : i might do more but for now, i will try continuing this and finishing all 7 seasons in 2024. i'm currently going to start with the first episodes now and might make the release date earlier than what i want it to be or maybe push it back to a later date.

[practically-an-x-man]

Special Delivery for Gia and/or Vivienne! (sorry it's a lot)

Appearance: 2, 5, 11, 19, Objects: 5, 14, Food and Drink 7, 15, 17, Weather and Nature 4, 11, 16, 18, Community and Relationships 3, 10, 11, 20, Mind, Body, and Soul 9, 13, 18 Hobbies and Activities 7, 12, 17

AHHHHHHH thank you so much!! And I think this is the first ask I've gotten for Vivienne, so double thank you!!

My Super Long Hopefully Fun Ask Game

Appearance:

2. What would your character wear if they were told they had to gussy up?

Gia: Almost certainly a dress, probably an above-the-knee cut (so she doesn't feel like it's tangling up in her prosthetic) in a darker, solid color (so it shows off the vibrancy of her tattoos). I could see her wearing a jewel-toned purple, maybe something with a peekaboo slit in the sides or up one of the thighs, and rose-shaped jewelry.

Vivienne: If it's out at sea, it'll probably just start laughing its ass off. Gussy up? Seriously? Anything that doesn't smell like sweat and fish is gussying up. While on land, though, she tends to dress pretty nicely regardless of circumstance, just because of societal expectations.

5. What are your character's opinion on scars?

Gia: They do still remind her of everything she went through, and that's painful, but for the most part she's gotten used to them.

Vivienne: Doesn't mind them, and they're part of the trade - though she'd rather they not be visible when she's wearing normal clothing, since shark-bite and rope-burn scars are probably pretty hard to explain for the otherwise-demure sailor's wife.

11. Is your character's favorite color a color they wear often?

Gia: She really likes that soft two-toned pink of a fresh carnation, and she does wear a fair amount of pink in her clothing.

Vivienne: I'd say her favorite color is that "wine-dark sea" color, where it's sunset or sunrise on the open ocean and the water turns this interesting purple-red color. That's kind of a difficult color to find in clothing, especially for that time period.

19. If your character had to get a tattoo what would it be?

Gia: She has a lot of tattoos! Most of them are botanicals or various insects :D

Vivienne: Probably a traditional sailor's tattoo, and it was probably a bet. It would probably get a sea turtle - historically, signified a sailor being welcomed into "King Neptune's Court", which for Vivienne is effectively how it became a siren.

____

Objects:

5. Would your character ever try to haggle?

Gia: Not usually. She gets anxious when she's away from the house, so even if she does manage to get out to a craft fair or farmer's market where she could haggle prices, she's more likely just to find what she wants, pay, and leave.

Vivienne: Oh, for sure. It's practically an art form, and haggling was much more of a common thing in those days than it is today.

14. Is there an item your character is embarrassed they own or want?

Gia: She's probably a little embarrassed at the extent of her home security, especially given she's just a single person running a marginally-successful flower shop with no major assets, but it makes her feel safer to have those measures in place.

Vivienne: Nope. It doesn't really carry a lot with it, since most of the time it's swimming through the open ocean. Anything particularly valuable is left onshore, or she asks Wojchek to keep a hold of it for her, but she's not a material person by any means.

____

Food and Drink:

7. Is there food that has made your character sick?

Gia: Ground hamburger meat. She's never been a big meat-eater in general (not a full vegetarian, just doesn't enjoy eating meat much), and it was one of the main things HYDRA fed her because it was a cheaper source of calories and protein to keep her going. No seasoning, no sauces or anything extra, just cooked hamburger meat on a bun. To this day, it makes her stomach turn, though she only vaguely remembers eating it while in HYDRA's capture.

Vivienne: Frequently... it's the 1890's, there's not much in terms of food preservation and especially out at sea. Sometimes she can swim out to a shoreline and find some fresher food, or even fish herself, but there are definitely times it's gotten sick from spoiled food.

15. What food or drink does your character consider a treat?

Gia: She's a sucker for gimmicky desserts like rolled ice cream or those novelty milkshakes that are impractically decadent, and that's a treat because it's something she physically can't get from home so she has to leave the house.

Vivienne: Any kind of fresh fruit or vegetable. It sounds simple enough, but when you've spent a month at sea and finally take a bite of a fresh strawberry...

17. What kind of drinks does your character prefer?

Gia: Iced coffee, peach tea, diet cola, or horchata from the Mexican restaurant down the block from her flower shop.

Vivienne: Honestly... I don't even know. I think it pretty much takes what it can get.

____

Weather and Nature:

4. Is there a natural phenomenon that scares your character?

Gia: Not really? She actually finds the weather more calming that anything manmade, I think. And sure, fire tends to worry her, but any fire she'd experience in the middle of NYC is by no means a natural phenomenon.

Vivienne: She definitely develops a greater appreciation for sea storms once she develops a fondness for Wojchek - sometimes it even worries the storm is a warning from Poseidon himself. And she's terrified of being caught in a feeding frenzy while out at sea (this will actually play into a future scene in the fic... once I write the fic that is)

11. What part of nature would your character most resonate with?

Gia: Plant growth, particularly new growth or recovery after a storm.

Vivienne: Just the will of the ocean, how it can be calm one moment and tumultuous the next

(funny, you picked 2 of my OCs that actually have very strong nature themes lol)

16. What celestial body would interest your character the most?

Gia: Charon (Pluto's largest moon). Can't explain it, she'd just think it was interesting.

Vivienne: Polaris. Wojchek taught her how to navigate by the stars, and that was the first one she learned.

18. How willing would your character be to nap outside?

Gia: Not willing. She has enough trouble sleeping in her own bed, at night, thirty feet away from her clover.

Vivienne: Oh, sure. She does it all the time!

____

Community and Relationships:

3. How comfortable would your character be singing and dancing in front of others?

Gia: Actually, she'd be fine once she gets going. It might take a bit to get her up on the metaphorical "stage" to start, but she could have a lot of fun with it after the initial push.

Vivienne: Totally comfortable. She's actually got a lot of confidence and bravado, and her persona on land is more the restraint of that than her persona at sea is the magnification of it. Plus like... you're asking a siren to sing. Its only hesitance would be whether or not it would hurt someone, but it has no problem with the singing itself.

10. Is there a habit your character has that they learned from someone else?

Gia: She will sometimes swear in Greek under her breath - she doesn't even remember that much Greek, it's just a habit she learned from her parents and grandparents when they were trying not to openly swear in front of the younger kids.

Vivienne: A lot of her habits while working on a ship are echoes from her first husband (who taught her to sail), like the way she does certain tasks or ties certain knots, and how she moves about the ship.

11. Does your character have people they think would worry about them if they got injured?

Gia: Kate would worry, she knows that much. And she knows her family would worry, which is exactly why she hasn't told them about what happened with HYDRA - somehow it's easier to believe they'd grieved for her and moved on, rather than having to see everything the experience made her into

Vivienne: Wojchek, of course. He's her husband, after all. And it's made friends with a few of his regular crewmates too, and it's sure they would express sentiment if it got injured (though maybe not complete worry)

20. What would it take for your character to get into a fight?

Gia: If she's attacked and there's no other way out, she'll fight back. Otherwise she's pretty nonconfrontational.

Vivienne: She's actually fairly mild, both on land and at sea. She can throw a punch when she needs to, but she doesn't have much of a temper that would get her into fights.

____

Mind, Body, and Soul:

9. Does your character have any allergies?

Gia: When she was a kid, she was sensitive to pet dander and tomatoes, but those were both mild enough allergies that her clover makes them basically negligible (though she still avoids tomato-heavy dishes out of habit)

Vivienne: Not that she's aware of.

13. How does your character relax?

Gia: She likes painting, embroidery, and crochet in her downtime, and watching cheesy movies :D

Vivienne: I think it has a real fondness for storytelling, actually. It started with her first husband, since he had no patience for doing the captain's log every night and would push the duty off to Vivienne instead (who found she actually liked recounting the day), but later it becomes weaving dramatic tales to rally the rest of the crew on a tough day. Wojchek has tried repeatedly to convince her to write a book, but Vivienne usually brushes the idea aside.

18. How often does your character have nightmares?

Gia: Very often. The worst part is that she doesn't even remember them when she wakes up, since it's from the part of her memory she blocked aside - it's really awkward to wake up crying and call your girlfriend in the middle of the night, only to realize you don't even know what's wrong when she asks you about it.

Vivienne: It's a mix. Most of the time she doesn't remember her dreams at all, but sometimes it dreams of how it became a siren, and that's... dramatic, to say the least. I'll just leave it at that for now.

____

Hobbies and Activities:

7. What is a talent that your character is proud of?

Gia: She actually thinks she's a pretty good painter, and she does a lot of still-lifes of plants or arrangements in her shop.

Vivienne: See above answer about storytelling. It's really proud of the stories it creates.

12. What kind of music does your character enjoy?

Gia: She's the most "pop" of any of my OCs, so... pop stuff. I do think she's pretty open when it comes to music, though.

Vivienne: She does enjoy a good live orchestra on the rare chance she gets to see one, and also really loves the energy of a whole crew singing shanties together. Really, it just likes powerful music, whether that power is a hundred expertly-trained musicians or a six-man band of tuneless crewmates. And sometimes it does write its own songs to include in its tall tales.

17. Does your character prefer music or silence?

Gia: Music, absolutely. Silence makes her skin prickle.

Vivienne: It's never really silent, there's always the sound of the ocean or the bustle of people around her, but she definitely prefers music either way.

[emeraldxphoenix]

numbers 10-20 for this or that meme!

munday this or that meme (a day late oops)

10. Loud neighbors or nosey neighbors? Hmmm so I've experienced noisy neighbours a lot more than nosey ones, and honestly a noisy neighbour we used to have actually drove me insane at times, so nosey all the way.

11. Vacation or staycation? Okay so I need to clarify the meaning of 'staycation', cos to me it means stay at home, but it seems to have come to mean stay in the same country as your home? Which is not a staycation imo, but anyway. A holiday (cos I'm british) but within the same country is fine by me :)

12. Netflix or Hulu? Guess it will have to be Netflix cos I've never had Hulu before.

13. Night or morning? Night, all the way. I am not even slightly a morning person, it takes me literal hours to adjust to being awake, whereas I am LIVING in the evening.

14. Art museum or history museum? History all the way. Art is cool, but I get annoyed if I can't touch it, and I'm an absolute sucker for history i love it. History nerd through and through.

15. Owe money or owe a favor? Hmmm... Honestly I don't know? Probably depend on the situation and the person. I don't tend to keep a track of 'favours' that people owe me or anything like that? Like I'll just help them out if I can, I don't expect anything back. So it feels like it would have to be super big for me to owe that? We'll go with money.

16. Be embarrassed or be afraid? Literally wrote all the others then came back to this. By far the trickiest. So fear isn't something I experience a lot, I don't really have phobias, and things tend to generate anxiety in me rather than fear - any fear I have tends to be about a big life-changing event. Meanwhile, I cannot BEAR to be embarassed. I can't bear people looking at me too much or paying me too much attention, and I get second-hand embarassment SO easily. Still, I tihnk I'd take embarrassment over fear.

17. Wine or Beer? Wine if I have to, I guess. Beer is the worst. Not particularly a wine person though - give me a cider anyday.

18. Roommates or live alone? I have never lived alone, because I am sheltered and risk-averse, but I don't know if I could deal with having roommates - my family was enough when I was growing up. Alone.

19. Attend a party or host a party? Attend, then I can leave when I want and don't have to deal with the detritus left after.

20. Fiction or nonfiction? Fiction. My long time lifeline, is reading fiction books. Non-fiction is cool, but I couldn't survive without fiction. My first coping mechanism <3

(Also tagging @victoriousfidelity cos she asked me number 11)

[libidomechanica]

“With his half earth, leave to Will”

A limerick sequence

               1

He does shrewedness no wore their housbonde hangman who clear against a living,    nor men. And hand, he    door shame, a shawl’d there I the be spake and Empress they betray.

               2

With his half earth, leave to Will. If that shall unlocking in they should scarce because    I took the too, many    a hill. Like personal quiet-colour own parfit charm!

               3

And them in, gather so strong, indignant of departed by so little    tune place. ’ Air; he naked    faire after mouth opened surprised not how; and laboured end.

               4

And straightway to re-teaches. Lords turns to been so bright of my self up that    rekketh Wine was a Wise    Men from friends went in man that he garlandscape me—even ay.

               5

Gin ye are lying little bag, hung stone—when the shadows han does keeps away    his gardyn ground, in    the lame. And yet I wept, and thence we had make and gazed: I play.

               6

So goon an ear confusing again. Kindness, the Highness headpeace has not    run. You vomit to me.    Spoiling of it was them nat had seal’d fall shoe is distances?

               7

Most feele as the first he walke I wanderson taught wave, I quite of ale.    Reason to kill the one    life-blood of the deid o’ the urge to have learned not conscience.

               8

Where will doe, as dry together. That and lips fading brere, and taking into    me. She was which an    ear-shape me eek to each ther this bed or fairy, could again!

               9

You not waiting that is a wind, go sleep. Your lovely Polly chambre cause I    less robbed us both had    face, nor life are for that and make to stay, faults the autumn’s blow.

               10

Wish to dance wood, and smiled, whence to their three? The wring we made youth, mine. For thy    sweetheart! If I havė noon    have no see you ain’t neverence to the reason’s eyes and then.

               11

’ Had set myrtle leade the Lambe? Came very was found, yu run swim, gladder-bitten    must die. She three leaders    might me, the stairs: and them teach, have your patience loss of you.

               12

Poor foot; which he reed on: there that he smart. When will get a riche, of zeal away;    and strong, with the did    keep? Piers, he she sail with such an urn, for in hue, Great or sand!

               13

No long their own brain? And thro’ thee blunt fist, was a merely instrument? Or    what is no such auctoritee    were the World, to something Wisdom never looks his fight aid.

               14

But they wise, and, rank, we be stinking of tho? Till not rob a little mair    or none or please, dost sinning    mourning whatsoever came of Lochroyan in God’s surface.

               15

And o’er than a hill die of thy han al that say that cough, this verse a knife,    inside to pay. For his    dayes heards laddie. And I was gone, of Her, salámán saw, within.

               16

As help would should myself was synne! Thought the sat by elves had come, and die and    hadde we goeth; come, when my    arms he knell, and a’ his lere, enaunce; her saw the garlands dead?

               17

Be cut backe, and shaped coldly blood candle and for each House of shabby grey,    as his old blossomes    never much I do move, yet in burning mass of this, pardee!

               18

For she beauty, but ay the silence. Her ran away, too dearer the means    so fairy, and blood and    moisturbed from hours alive therefore that the hadde a pretty.

               19

Like a hands no eye of alle we good dead, and when I should rather, with    a virtuous crickening    fleeting hers in the grace. Seen in his gane whole armour hands.

               20

This dame” in endyng days stuck away. Called by father the lust own to pluck    thee never was a    generally the Apostel wal, or if he met herkneth be vnfedde.

               21

For his will doe, as day, but trepidation of than lesse flash stay, I nyl    nat entomb us. I    said he gem so wys be my heart, thou would these may desire!

               22

So rare: after thee, or a lintwhite the World, that which had o’er used. I haddens    dotted: but if more    thy horne. The saw hypocrisy death th’ funeral fire!

               23

The false course. The cast, and twilight her feet of you are liueryes bend, since the    fond of every dyssh and    doors, pardoner, as yet be tobroke foaming, and yet that foot?

               24

’ Me tyta or daddie’s you praise; soundless past as so fair fond Phant’sie, when sheddeth    her state, for, God made    of. To seye, I will art left the floor of bitternesse nat I.

               25

When the prime, like a wheel instrument? And yive the sweetness still haue it out    a little trouble drownde.    The twelve is bed was The tree on without ye could delit.

               26

In this please, than to for their apparailled thee biseke! Who remain’d and    turn’d have his little by    all other, floats over he changely breath and strive not stare.

               27

Oft I have nor clowne, or the hope will draws the daily likne yourse. Come with cypress    of the ferthe. What convict    lies that existening, or face, but for fell: mething wind!

               28

On rose world weary. Of life that is dreamer, beams, wean; mishanted: the soul    was fondly leaves from thee!    We must now, and Lucy Gray will bitter. May get marry night.

               29

Morality which you been at please in tear to fades, but foretell men, and    began to my name. And    formed by all see, the care: her speaking base armies of the moon.

               30

’Es me birds awake us spring? Some with golden sownde, he paper at    evening downe hys packe. The    ful gladly sprout of this, to attract and least, thou dost but more.

               31

There that weary to him, until it pride and that unfair gift, there, lo! And    even it was which put    in age appetite I wolde hand ogled, watching this ago.

               32

Now down the Eyes like, no hopes couplemen to allaying mouth and hill; and    weep a kiss, hundrels, when    in hue, finding ’t was he! But t is angry holour wind.

               33

The garb wi’ an and of joking mud and can give you loved the strong, and pyneons    be done. Which precept    the seyn. Except hold your eye alone; and yet lette there to spard?

               34

Ye, wound wise antic pour decay happy state, light, but something idle little    tention rat avert    her pale delight: band othere that long you lovely bough. Alas!

               35

By the like a young like a candle of linden blue gaue him day is it    mercy itself and spring    whil the sun him, unto me and melodie. She dight, to crown’d.

               36

To try the seafaring base arm over to throne, your grace, where. Such entered    not stood at night to rear    whose richess; and smite the sky: sae wyling. ’Er is no sure tea.

               37

And made of the sport they lived on her fingers maim. Always in inspire and    Wedlock scarlet gown, a    ragout, She was his petticoat wait for it’s liker thee list.

               38

So weep a kings a scream. Groaned, and the old blood for forests, cradle of this    door unto me. And there    upon there is sough to you controlle we extremely spend?

               39

I love is comrade Lucy clime on them she smooth they, but conscience. Yet, all    you can your to ease; and    all who wouldering had brother’d on this dames viewed him also.

               40

With since young flesh and him good? In such as others breast, then, if she warm life    with roam, my wife’s a    crazy auld move, by hymns different issue shepeherde I heart.

               41

Tho will, who did attens about luxury. Too higher they cannot sweet    a sing, and woe, beauty    free for night, sir; for an ill wine-red and on troopers and Time?

               42

The face of her wish the days from crowne sholde a plank, and Locks again and pin’d    thing clove. As thorn neat, because    in a little close heart, then slow autumn’s snare on the heare.

               43

Be she hideous river of an instantly enterest Chlorish on    noon of all remain’d; for    in the babes of silver coming Polly Stewart! Ah, poor fish.

               44

How convict-clothes, with built on thrice is a relieve, yet, yet what are no longer    bled with rage. Thou Me,    for to seek anew some rain: yet of quest to this hauty down.

               45

For said, to be but her, and little: nor to come. Served in grow never glad    husband other then heedles,    and doun, and also, that Lente them; and hideous parade.

               46

Eternally hills outgoe, that little clowne, that creature, like of delights inke,    and his flesh and this Pardon    you so melanchor wine are in ones of tribulacioun.

               47

Are Love, in red contrive to set up this mine are gone: so, love them to    Tibullus, I quaff up to    kiss. What me one, in fact of pain, that he doubled by a glance.

               48

But twenty leaves of eight, we’ll haven hearts! While in a ducklings; and, since to    shore, yet coats; and all eye    upon my silks are the Field; nor made him eyes: but world’s surface.

               49

They look less Earth! Or if you had’st straits feature wol use thar their paced into    aggravate the children    of the top. Or if he yate face over things cool; but the tomb?

               50

He heat: o Bacchus fast. What is—the dapper waukens after they haggled,    were. With thoughter, and the    parents. The latch I heart too stoop; let courself to purge the land.

               51

She is face of tears of hem on the Root heaven’s King; but little looked up    to hold, and paye his neck    wings, the mincing it castle, small? Which for to young, soon his wise.

               52

Who slumbering grace was where is stedde, and down! In vain to anothers gave    had got myself wit were    shape of scorn to thee, as we scarcely compassion’s ill pleasure.

               53

From friend tow taken of affects suffer tyrant. At last prechestow so    nice a half earth, no this    wretch, in pairs: with so sweet skin ye bigamye; why chinks his book, friends?

[misfitwashere]

September 16, 2024

Heather Cox Richardson

Sep 17, 2024

In the week since Trump’s disastrous debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, MAGA Republicans appear to be melting down. As Republicans commandeer the disaster news, the Democratic presidential nominee appears to be trying to stay out of their way. Harris sat for an interview with media host Stephanie Himonidis Sedano, known as “Chiquibaby,” of the Spanish-language U.S. audio Nueva Network, an interview that will air tomorrow on more than 100 radio stations.  

For the third day in a row, officials today had to evacuate two elementary schools in Springfield, Ohio, citing threats that have led to safety concerns. The city has also canceled “CultureFest,” its annual celebration of diversity, arts, and culture, and the local colleges are meeting virtually out of safety concerns. The Bureau of Motor Vehicles has had to close, as has the Ohio License Bureau.

Ohio’s Republican governor, Mike DeWine, said that there have been “at least 33” bomb threats against schools and public offices after Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and his running mate, Ohio senator J.D. Vance, spread the lie that Haitian immigrants to Springfield have been eating the pets of their white neighbors. DeWine reiterated that the immigrants in Springfield are there legally, and noted that he has authorized troopers from the Ohio State Highway Patrol to provide additional security at the district's 18 school buildings. 

On CNN yesterday morning, Vance admitted to Dana Bash that he had created the story of Haitian immigrants eating pets. He justified the lie that has shut down Springfield and endangered its residents by claiming such a lie was the only way to get the media to pay attention to what he considers the crisis of immigration. Once the pet-eating story was debunked, Vance said that Haitian immigrants are spreading HIV and tuberculosis in Ohio; in fact, new diagnoses of HIV dropped from 2018 to 2022, and the director of the Ohio Department of Health says there has been no change in TB rates.  

That a politician of any sort would lie to rally supporters against a marginalized population comes straight out of the authoritarian playbook, which seeks to build a community around the idea that the people in it are besieged by outsiders. But when that politician is running for vice president, with the potential to become the president if anything happens to his 78-year-old running mate, who is the oldest person ever to run for president, it raises a whole factory of red flags.  

Michael Hiltzik of the Los Angeles Times noted the support of racist ideologue Alfred Rosenberg of the Nazi Party for the antisemitic text “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” a text fabricated in the early twentieth century by officials in czarist Russia. Rosenberg stood by the “inner truth” of the text even though it was fake. Like Rosenberg, Hitler’s chief propagandist Joseph Goebbels wrote, “I believe in the inner, but not the factual, truth of The Protocols.” While Democratic Ohio representative Casey Weinstein has called for Vance to resign, aside from DeWine, Republican lawmakers have not repudiated Vance’s lie. 

Astonishingly, Vance is trying to rise to power on lies about the people of his own state, the people he is supposed to represent. Not only have Democratic politicians demanded that he stop, but also amidst the chaos, the Republican mayor of Springfield and two Republican county commissioners would not commit to voting for Trump. The popular backlash against this lie has also been swift and strong. The Ohio-based Red, Wine, and Blue organization has organized the #OHNoYouDont campaign to reiterate on social media their stance against the division Vance and Trump are stoking. 

Trump seemed to try to regain control of the political narrative on Sunday by posting on social media, “I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT,” a comment that looked like an attempt to change the subject from the backlash to the pet-eating lie, the continuing disparagement of Trump’s debate performance, and increasing attention to Trump’s attachment to right-wing provocateur and conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer.     

In the days since Trump took Loomer to a commemoration of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001—which she has suggested were an “inside job”—the media has paid more attention to the 31-year-old extremist who has been Trump’s close companion since Spring 2023. Loomer has cheered the drowning of 2,000 migrants and called for “2,000 more.” In June she said that Democrats should not just be prosecuted and jailed, but “they should get the death penalty. You know, we actually used to have the punishment for treason in this country.” 

When some commenters suggested her relationship with Trump was sexual, she countered with a truly vile statement about Vice President Kamala Harris. The increasing visibility of Loomer near Trump has made those Republicans trying to run a more traditional campaign beg him to cut her loose, but Trump seems reluctant to distance himself from her. Sam Stein of The Bulwark today wrote that those Republicans worried about Trump being surrounded by conspiracy theorists are a decade late. After listing Trump’s many years of conspiracy theories, Stein wrote, they’re not “worried that Loomer will turn Trump into a raving lunatic. They’re simply worried that Trump might lose.” 

As Trump seems increasingly detached from reality, Vance has become the face of the Republican presidential campaign. He seems desperate to turn the media cycle from Trump and the extraordinary unpopularity of the plans outlined in Project 2025 and toward immigration. It’s a hard sell, since voters correctly note that it was Republicans, egged on by Trump, who killed the strong bipartisan border bill in the spring. On Thursday, September 12, Vance said on CNBC that if immigration were the path to prosperity, “America would be the most prosperous country in the world.” 

Outside of the hellscape in MAGA Republicans’ mind, it is. The Federal Reserve recently noted that as of the second quarter of 2024, U.S. household net worth is growing by a strong 7.1% a year. The stock market is also strong, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average rising 228 points today to set an all-time high. 

On Sunday afternoon, shortly after Trump’s Taylor Swift post and another calling the “failing” New York Times a threat to democracy, as Trump was golfing at his club in West Palm Beach, Florida, Secret Service agents noticed and fired on a man holding a rifle with a scope. Today, Carol Leonnig, Josh Dawsey, and Isaac Stanley-Becker of the Washington Post reported that authorities have warned Trump of the risks of golfing at his own courses because of their proximity to public roads, but Trump insisted they were safe and kept using them.

The acting director of the Secret Service, Ronald Rowe Jr., said today that Trump’s plan for golfing on Sunday was unscheduled, so the secret service used an emergency plan for protecting Trump. Rowe said the suspect, Ryan Wesley Routh, a convicted felon with a history of apparent mental illness, did not have a line of sight to the former president and did not shoot. He escaped and was later caught. Cell phone records suggest he was in the vicinity for 12 hours before being flushed out of the bushes. 

Democratic leaders again denounced violence and said it has no place in our country. Observers noted that it was Trump who signed a bill revoking gun-checks for people with mental illnesses put in place by President Barack Obama and that he promised the National Rifle Association (NRA) that he would roll back all the gun safety provisions President Joe Biden has put in place if he wins in 2024. But the Trump campaign called for donations on a website suggesting, as MAGA Republicans did after the shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania, that Democrats were complicit in the threat to Trump. “There are people in this world who will do whatever it takes to stop us,” Trump’s campaign said. 

Unfortunately, two attempts on a president’s life in such short order are not unprecedented. As Tom Nichols pointed out today in The Atlantic, Gerald Ford survived two attempts in 15 days in 1975. But, as Nichols also points out, Ford did not fundraise off the attempts or blame his opponents for them. 

Opponents are pointing out that it is Trump and the MAGA Republicans, not the Democrats, who are stoking violence. Marcy Wheeler of Emptywheel noted that in July 2023 Trump posted an address for former president Barack Obama on his social media network, prompting a stalker, and that in four different jurisdictions, Trump’s lawyers have argued that the First Amendment protects Trump’s right to attack the judges, prosecutors, and witnesses in the cases against him, as well as their families. Other’s recalled MAGA’s “jokes” about the brutal attack on then–House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul. 

Trump supporter Elon Musk, who owns the social media platform X, wrote, “And no one is even trying to assassinate Biden/Kamala,” a post he later called a “joke” after observers asked about the national security implications of a defense contractor who has $15 billion in federal contracts suggesting the assassination of the president and vice president. Musk’s post had more than 39 million impressions before he deleted it.

After his own incendiary post, Musk wrote: “The incitement to hatred and violence against President Trump by the media and leading Democrats needs to stop.” Conservative lawyer George Conway retorted: “What utter nonsense.”  

Indeed, the MAGA attempt to tie the shootings near Trump to the Democrats is pretty clearly an attempt to stop Democrats from talking about the issues of the campaign by claiming that any public discussion of Trump’s own unpopular policies and hateful words will gin up violence against him. 

One of the biggest issues MAGA Republicans would like to stop people from talking about is abortion. Reproductive healthcare journalist Kavitha Surana explained in ProPublica today that every state has a committee of experts that meet to examine women’s deaths during or within a year of pregnancy. Those committees operate with a two-year lag, meaning that we are now learning about women dying after the Supreme Court overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that recognized the constitutional right to abortion. 

Georgia’s state committee has recently concluded that at least two women have died in Georgia from preventable causes after hospitals in the state denied them timely reproductive healthcare.

Amber Nicole Thurman died just weeks after the Georgia abortion ban went into effect. She went into sepsis from unexpelled fetal tissue after an abortion she obtained legally in North Carolina. Georgia’s law made the routine dilation and curettage procedure, or D&C, a felony with vague exceptions that make doctors worry about prosecution if they perform it. Reports show that doctors repeatedly discussed a D&C for Thurman but put it off even as her organs began to fail. By the time they performed the procedure, it was too late. 

Surana notes that Georgia governor Brian Kemp said he was “overjoyed” when the law went into effect, and that it would keep women “safe, healthy, and informed.” Attorneys for the state of Georgia accused abortion rights activists who said the law endangered women of “hyperbolic fear mongering” just two weeks before Thurman died. 

She left behind a 6-year-old son.

—

[mischief-and-tea-by-the-sea]

3, 14, and 17 for the ask!

3. Is your practice more ritualistic or casual? What does it look like?

It's uh...ritualistically casual? Casually ritualistic? I haven't gotten to really practice with anyone (other than doing tarot readings for people - both for friendship, barter, and for pay - I'm really trying to get a career of this off the ground, as I've been reading casually and professionally for 30+ years now, and I do consider tarot/rune/oracle/psychometry readings and dream interpretations as much worship/practice as anything else) - oh and that one guided meditation circle I went to back several months ago - in hell. 20 years maybe? Or just nearly. So most of my practice is pretty casual with some ritual elements - I keep an altar, I burn candles and incense nightly when I go to bed (I'd burn incense more often but too much of it really bugs my sister, and her room is next to mine right now - hopefully when we can finally move east, we'll find a place where our rooms are more opposite ends of the house we rent), I put out offerings of liquor and sometimes food. More often the food offerings go to the outside altars, which right now, I only have a very small shrine to Elegua (ALL Tricksters are honored by me, so every culture's Tricksters are welcome to hang out). I include my gods in my day to day existence, even if that means I'm wandering around the grocery store - "What should we make for supper? What sweet treats should we get for dessert? Would you look at that asshole taking up the whole aisle?"

But I haven't 'drawn' a ritual circle in forever, I haven't called the elements, the directions, I haven't set up ritual space for each holiday, though to be fair, even when I did that with my ex and our friends, we were generally still pretty casual. Ritual robes started to be really unwieldy and definitely dangerous when lighting candles and almost knocking over the wine. Often our ritual regalia was less about clothing and more about painting our faces for the holidays with images and symbols important to each of us at that time. I'd like to get back into doing more (casually) formal rituals once we move and depending on which of my friends in the area we're moving to (or close enough to it) are able to meet up for them. I think I'd still have almost a Dude mentality of ritual, and from hanging out with my gods (predominantly the Nordic pantheon mixed with, again, all the Tricksters and quite a few of the Celtic deities), they always feel really cool with not getting super fancy about it.

14. How would you define your Gods? (have fun with that one)

Hah! Hahahahaha! Define my gods? Me? Oh no. No no no. I live with them, I invite them into the space where I live (I don't consider it home - home will be when we leave Texas, get to the ocean, and can breathe again), I share meals with them, and I learn about the layers upon layers of their history and personality from them, but I don't think I could ever define them. I think they're beyond definition.

17. Do you associate certain Gods with specific songs? Share them!

I have a few. I mean, anything and everything by Wardruna resonates with all the Nordic gods.

But some specifics off the top of my head:

Riders on the Storm by The Doors - Thor and Loki It's known that Thor is the god of storms and thunder, but Loki is the god of lightning, as that was his father (Farbuti, "dangerous striker" aka lightning) striking against Laufey (whose name some scholars believe means "full of leaves"), thus creating Loki - who is a god of fire and lightning (as well as mischief, chaos, change, storytelling, misfits).

Songs from the Wood by Jethro Tull - Loki

Velvet Green by Jethro Tull - Loki but also Freya and Freyr

Locomotive Breath by Jethro Tull - Odin

As you can tell, Jethro Tull is one of my favorite bands. My late brother (druidic in his own beliefs and practices) introduced me to them in full in my teens when he helped to steer me toward the Celtic and especially the Nordic gods, so I have a very reverent feel toward this band, my gods, and my brother (he was the one to introduce me to tarot and runes as well).

Those are songs off the top of my head. I'd like to spend more time with music and the gods - see which music I might already like that Anansi or Old Man Coyote would pick out for their own. Which ones Eris might choose. Which ones Frigga or Sif or Sigyn might like best.

Oh oh wait. Sigyn. Goddess of Victory, Goddess who "holds the bowl" so that Loki might survive in less pain and come out to fight for their children.

We Will Rock You - We Are the Champions by Queen - that is definitely Sigyn

I will say that it seems like they're always (all of them) pretty happy when I play my favorite bands - The Doors, Jethro Tull, Queen, ABBA, Loreena McKennitt, and I imagine they've got favorites out of all of those and the variety of SCA filk-type bands that I listen to.

Polytheistic Asks here!

[torahtantra]

46. Parsha Ekev , "Life Itself." From Deuteronomy 7:12-11:25.

Ek= arising from

Ev= Grace of God

We leave Va'etchannan with instructions to trample the past. We show respect to the good things our ancestors left behind, we forget how they managed to accomplish the bad. This is the essence of intelligence, the greatest gift God has conferred upon the universe.

Thus begins the Parsha:

12 If you pay attention to these laws and are careful to follow them, then the Lord your God will keep his covenant of love with you, as he swore to your ancestors. 13 He will love you and bless you and increase your numbers. He will bless the fruit of your womb, the crops of your land—your grain, new wine and olive oil—the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks in the land he swore to your ancestors to give you. 

14 You will be blessed more than any other people; none of your men or women will be childless, nor will any of your livestock be without young. 15 The Lord will keep you free from every disease. He will not inflict on you the horrible diseases you knew in Egypt, but he will inflict them on all who hate you. 16 You must destroy all the peoples the Lord your God gives over to you. Do not look on them with pity and do not serve their gods, for that will be a snare to you.

17 You may say to yourselves, “These nations are stronger than we are. How can we drive them out?” 18 But do not be afraid of them; remember well what the Lord your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt. 19 You saw with your own eyes the great trials, the signs and wonders, the mighty hand and outstretched arm, with which the Lord your God brought you out.

The Lord your God will do the same to all the peoples you now fear. 20 Moreover, the Lord your God will send the hornet among them until even the survivors who hide from you have perished. 21 Do not be terrified by them, for the Lord your God, who is among you, is a great and awesome God. 

22 The Lord your God will drive out those nations before you, little by little. You will not be allowed to eliminate them all at once, or the wild animals will multiply around you. 

23 But the Lord your God will deliver them over to you, throwing them into great confusion until they are destroyed. 24 He will give their kings into your hand, and you will wipe out their names from under heaven. No one will be able to stand up against you; you will destroy them. 

25 The images of their gods you are to burn in the fire. Do not covet the silver and gold on them, and do not take it for yourselves, or you will be ensnared by it, for it is detestable to the Lord your God. 26 Do not bring a detestable thing into your house or you, like it, will be set apart for destruction. Regard it as vile and utterly detest it, for it is set apart for destruction.

=Anything the Mormons or Evangelicals or their kind try to enforce on the world. These things and their beliefs must leave the world in peace forever as soon as possible.

Do Not Forget the Lord

8 Be careful to follow every command I am giving you today, so that you may live and increase and may enter and possess the land the Lord promised on oath to your ancestors. 2 Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the wilderness these forty years, to humble and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. 

3 He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your ancestors had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. 4 Your clothes did not wear out and your feet did not swell during these forty years. 5 Know then in your heart that as a man disciplines his son, so the Lord your God disciplines you.

6 Observe the commands of the Lord your God, walking in obedience to him and revering him. 7 For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land—a land with brooks, streams, and deep springs gushing out into the valleys and hills; 8 a land with wheat and barley, vines and fig trees, pomegranates, olive oil and honey; 9 a land where bread will not be scarce and you will lack nothing; a land where the rocks are iron and you can dig copper out of the hills.

10 When you have eaten and are satisfied, praise the Lord your God for the good land he has given you. 11 Be careful that you do not forget the Lord your God, failing to observe his commands, his laws and his decrees that I am giving you this day. 12 Otherwise, when you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine houses and settle down, 

13 and when your herds and flocks grow large and your silver and gold increase and all you have is multiplied, 14 then your heart will become proud and you will forget the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. 15 He led you through the vast and dreadful wilderness, that thirsty and waterless land, with its venomous snakes and scorpions. He brought you water out of hard rock. 16 He gave you manna to eat in the wilderness, something your ancestors had never known, to humble and test you so that in the end it might go well with you. 

17 You may say to yourself, “My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.” 18 But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your ancestors, as it is today.

19 If you ever forget the Lord your God and follow other gods and worship and bow down to them, I testify against you today that you will surely be destroyed. 20 Like the nations the Lord destroyed before you, so you will be destroyed for not obeying the Lord your God.

Not Because of Israel’s Righteousness

9 Hear, Israel: You are now about to cross the Jordan to go in and dispossess nations greater and stronger than you, with large cities that have walls up to the sky. 2 The people are strong and tall—Anakites! You know about them and have heard it said: “Who can stand up against the Anakites?” 

3 But be assured today that the Lord your God is the one who goes across ahead of you like a devouring fire. He will destroy them; he will subdue them before you. And you will drive them out and annihilate them quickly, as the Lord has promised you.

-> Anakites are persons who keep flawed traditions alive because of their use of propaganda and idolatry. In spite of all appearances and sound judgement they manage to make it to the top and force history to turn back towards violence and tyranny no matter clear the course ahead may be.

Anakites must be eradicated if God's Commandments and Instructions are to benefit us. The two cannot exist side by side.

4 After the Lord your God has driven them out before you, do not say to yourself, “The Lord has brought me here to take possession of this land because of my righteousness.” No, it is on account of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord is going to drive them out before you. 

5 It is not because of your righteousness or your integrity that you are going in to take possession of their land; but on account of the wickedness of these nations, the Lord your God will drive them out before you, to accomplish what he swore to your fathers, to Abraham "Compassion" , Isaac "Humor" and Jacob "Learning". 

6 Understand, then, that it is not because of your righteousness that the Lord your God is giving you this good land to possess, for you are a stiff-necked people.

The Golden Calf

7 Remember this and never forget how you aroused the anger of the Lord your God in the wilderness. From the day you left Egypt until you arrived here, you have been rebellious against the Lord. 

8 At Horeb you aroused the Lord’s wrath so that he was angry enough to destroy you. 9 When I went up on the mountain to receive the tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant that the Lord had made with you, I stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights; I ate no bread and drank no water.

 10 The Lord gave me two stone tablets inscribed by the finger of God. On them were all the commandments the Lord proclaimed to you on the mountain out of the fire, on the day of the assembly.

-> Golden Calves are very expensive and they sit there and do nothing. Real calves and cows produce, they can sustain entire villages. Golden Calves, like political institutions and religions, where all the money and worship go are not the real things and must be scrutinized for their potential to contribute to our forward trajectories or they too must be eradicated.

As I said earlier, they are not facts of life like fire, wind, sun and rain they can come and go.

11 At the end of the forty days and forty nights, the Lord gave me the two stone tablets, the tablets of the covenant. 12 Then the Lord told me, “Go down from here at once, because your people whom you brought out of Egypt have become corrupt. They have turned away quickly from what I commanded them and have made an idol for themselves.”

13 And the Lord said to me, “I have seen this people, and they are a stiff-necked people indeed! 14 Let me alone, so that I may destroy them and blot out their name from under heaven. And I will make you into a nation stronger and more numerous than they.”

15 So I turned and went down from the mountain while it was ablaze with fire. And the two tablets of the covenant were in my hands. 16 When I looked, I saw that you had sinned against the Lord your God; you had made for yourselves an idol cast in the shape of a calf. You had turned aside quickly from the way that the Lord had commanded you. 17 So I took the two tablets and threw them out of my hands, breaking them to pieces before your eyes.

18 Then once again I fell prostrate before the Lord for forty days and forty nights; I ate no bread and drank no water, because of all the sin you had committed, doing what was evil in the Lord’s sight and so arousing his anger. 19 I feared the anger and wrath of the Lord, for he was angry enough with you to destroy you. But again the Lord listened to me.

 20 And the Lord was angry enough with Aaron to destroy him, but at that time I prayed for Aaron too. 21 Also I took that sinful thing of yours, the calf you had made, and burned it in the fire. Then I crushed it and ground it to powder as fine as dust and threw the dust into a stream that flowed down the mountain.

22 You also made the Lord angry at Taberah "the consumption", at Massah "the proving" and at Kibroth Hattaavah "graves of desire".

23 And when the Lord sent you out from Kadesh Barnea "Sacred Desert Of Wandering, Holy Purifying Staggerings", he said, “Go up and take possession of the land I have given you.” But you rebelled against the command of the Lord your God. You did not trust him or obey him. 24 You have been rebellious against the Lord ever since I have known you.

-> Forty years in the desert = Kadesh Barnea. That's a long time. Recall one Parsha is named Beshalach, "Hurry", and within we see encouragement not to take forty years to realize the straightest, narrowest way to the promised land, before that, God tells the Israelites to hurry and get ready to leave Egypt, but the best reasons to hurry are found in Vayigash:

9 Hurry and go up to my father and say to him, ‘Thus says your son Joseph, God has made me lord of all Egypt. Come down to me; do not tarry. 10 You shall dwell in the land of Goshen, and you shall be near me, you and your children and your children's children, and your flocks, your herds, and all that you have. 11 There I will provide for you, for there are yet five years of famine to come, so that you and your household, and all that you have, do not come to poverty.’ 

12 And now your eyes see, and the eyes of my brother Benjamin "son of my old age" see, that it is my mouth that speaks to you. 13 You must tell my father of all my honor in Egypt, and of all that you have seen. Hurry and bring my father down here.” 

Moving right along...

25 I lay prostrate before the Lord those forty days and forty nights because the Lord had said he would destroy you. 26 I prayed to the Lord and said, “Sovereign Lord, do not destroy your people, your own inheritance that you redeemed by your great power and brought out of Egypt with a mighty hand. 

27 Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Overlook the stubbornness of this people, their wickedness and their sin. 28 Otherwise, the country from which you brought us will say, ‘Because the Lord was not able to take them into the land he had promised them, and because he hated them, he brought them out to put them to death in the wilderness.’ 29 But they are your people, your inheritance that you brought out by your great power and your outstretched arm.”

Tablets Like the First Ones

10 At that time the Lord said to me, “Chisel out two stone tablets like the first ones and come up to me on the mountain. Also make a wooden ark.[a] 2 I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke. Then you are to put them in the ark.”

3 So I made the ark out of acacia wood and chiseled out two stone tablets like the first ones, and I went up on the mountain with the two tablets in my hands. 4 The Lord wrote on these tablets what he had written before, the Ten Commandments he had proclaimed to you on the mountain, out of the fire, on the day of the assembly. And the Lord gave them to me. 

5 Then I came back down the mountain and put the tablets in the ark I had made, as the Lord commanded me, and they are there now.

6 (The Israelites traveled from the wells of Bene Jaakan "sons of he who twists", to Moserah "to bind, to discipline". There Aaron "Exalted" died and was buried, and Eleazar "God is my help" his son succeeded him as priest. 7 From there they traveled to Gudgodah "incising, cutting" and on to Jotbathah, "pleasantness, goodness" a land with streams of water. 

8 At that time the Lord set apart the tribe of Levi to carry the ark of the covenant of the Lord, to stand before the Lord to minister and to pronounce blessings in his name, as they still do today. 9 That is why the Levites have no share or inheritance among their fellow Israelites; the Lord is their inheritance, as the Lord your God told them.)

Wells are places of reflection. The sons of those who reflect, who twist the gold, blue, and red threads of the Decrees, Skills, tzavs and torahs together during reflection are separated from the causes of sin and permeate the world as sources of water themselves. We can't learn how to be good in a world controlled by corrupt politicians and superstitious faith leaders and their flocks.

10 Now I had stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights, as I did the first time, and the Lord listened to me at this time also. It was not his will to destroy you. 11 “Go,” the Lord said to me, “and lead the people on their way, so that they may enter and possess the land I swore to their ancestors to give them.”

Fear the Lord

12 And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God ask of you but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in obedience to him, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, 13 and to observe the Lord’s commands and decrees that I am giving you today for your own good?

14 To the Lord your God belong the heavens, even the highest heavens, the earth and everything in it. 15 Yet the Lord set his affection on your ancestors and loved them, and he chose you, their descendants, above all the nations—as it is today. 

16 Circumcise your hearts, therefore, and do not be stiff-necked any longer. 17 For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes. 

18 He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the foreigner residing among you, giving them food and clothing. 19 And you are to love those who are foreigners, for you yourselves were foreigners in Egypt. 

20 Fear the Lord your God and serve him. Hold fast to him and take your oaths in his name. 21 He is the one you praise; he is your God, who performed for you those great and awesome wonders you saw with your own eyes. 

22 Your ancestors who went down into Egypt were seventy in all, and now the Lord your God has made you as numerous as the stars in the sky.

Love and Obey the Lord

11 Love the Lord your God and keep his requirements, his decrees, his laws and his commands always. 2 Remember today that your children were not the ones who saw and experienced the discipline of the Lord your God: his majesty, his mighty hand, his outstretched arm; 

3 the signs he performed and the things he did in the heart of Egypt, both to Pharaoh king of Egypt and to his whole country; 4 what he did to the Egyptian army, to its horses and chariots, how he overwhelmed them with the waters of the Red Sea[b] as they were pursuing you, and how the Lord brought lasting ruin on them. 

5 It was not your children who saw what he did for you in the wilderness until you arrived at this place, 6 and what he did to Dathan "fountain" and Abiram "my father is exalted", sons of Eliab "God is father" the Reubenite, "the leader" when the earth opened its mouth right in the middle of all Israel and swallowed them up with their households, their tents and every living thing that belonged to them. 

7 But it was your own eyes that saw all these great things the Lord has done.

-> Nothing lasts, not the bad things, not the good. Every generation God swallows the teachers, leaders, and inventors but the world goes on. Where it's going now is because we have lacked the ingenuity and will to take over where they left off. Madmen, psychopaths, pedophiles, savages and liars have taken their places as they always do for some reason...

8 Observe therefore all the commands I am giving you today, so that you may have the strength to go in and take over the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess, 9 and so that you may live long in the land the Lord swore to your ancestors to give to them and their descendants, a land flowing with milk and honey "prosperity and plenty". 

10 The land you are entering to take over is not like the land of Egypt, from which you have come, where you planted your seed and irrigated it by foot as in a vegetable garden. 11 But the land you are crossing the Jordan to take possession of is a land of mountains and valleys that drinks rain from heaven. 12 It is a land the Lord your God cares for; the eyes of the Lord your God are continually on it from the beginning of the year to its end.

13 So if you faithfully obey the commands I am giving you today—to love the Lord your God and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul— 14 then I will send rain on your land in its season, both autumn and spring rains, so that you may gather in your grain, new wine and olive oil. 15 I will provide grass in the fields for your cattle, and you will eat and be satisfied.

16 Be careful, or you will be enticed to turn away and worship other gods and bow down to them. 17 Then the Lord��s anger will burn against you, and he will shut up the heavens so that it will not rain and the ground will yield no produce, and you will soon perish from the good land the Lord is giving you. 

18 Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 19 Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 

20 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates, 21 so that your days and the days of your children may be many in the land the Lord swore to give your ancestors, as many as the days that the heavens are above the earth.

22 If you carefully observe all these commands I am giving you to follow—to love the Lord your God, to walk in obedience to him and to hold fast to him— 23 then the Lord will drive out all these nations before you, and you will dispossess nations larger and stronger than you. 

24 Every place where you set your foot will be yours: Your territory will extend from the desert to Lebanon (purity), and from the Euphrates (nobility) River to the Mediterranean Sea “where you see yourself at your best”. 25 

No one will be able to stand against you. The Lord your God, as he promised you, will put the terror and fear of you on the whole land, wherever you go.

Thus ends Parsha Ekev, "Life Itself" numbered 46 of 54 contained in the Holy Torah.

[dmagedgoods]

#7 Have they committed a crime before? Which one(s)? and #17 What’s the most ridiculous thing they’ve ever spent money on? Sal!

7. Have they committed a crime before? Which one(s)? Oh, for an angel and a lawful good character, Salvadore’s record isn’t as spotless as one might think. In general, he considers crime beneath him. Even in the most desperate situation, he’d have a hard time to go against certain principles (and just to steal what he needs for example). I wrote an AU with a friend once where he almost died after he ended up on the street without money, because he is too prideful to ask for help, too prideful to keep his mouth shut when he should, and too prideful to commit small crimes as well. Interestingly, this doesn’t mean that he refuses illegal deeds as a whole. Some of those become acceptable in his eyes, the moment they’re not for personal gain (or the moment he doesn’t view them as something done for personal gain) but instead for the greater good. Salvadore is a politician through and through, much more upright and honest than most of them, but still highly into strategic maneuvering, smart chess moves, manipulation, and diplomacy in general. Another important fact: If he gives his word, he keeps it, no matter what. But aside from this, his strict personal moral code doesn’t include a rule against lying. Despite being quite idealistic in certain regards, he has a coldly realistic side too and especially when it becomes necessary with the decisions he needs to make. He won’t refuse a deal with someone or something (person, organization, or country) just because they/it doesn’t fulfill certain moral standards. If an assassin or thief is the best to do the job he needs to be done, he’ll pay an assassin or thief, if the neighboring country has questionable laws in place but is the best option for an ally in this situation or that to guarantee safety and freedom and victory of his own nation, he won’t hesitate to form an alliance (temporarily though if they are too contemptible). Of course, it’s never as simple as that and always connected to a whole list of considerations, but just to name a few examples. His crime list includes: lying, blackmailing, bribing, occasional deals with people/institutions that are neither lawful nor good themselves, manipulation … And well, one time he killed. Salvadore always searches for a way to end a conflict with as few people dying as possible. He never attacks without a very good reason and if someone surrenders, they are arrested instead of killed. (To Daeran’s and Regill’s despair that’s true for demons as well.) Aside from arrogance and his strong moral code, there is something even deeper behind it: He despises death and that most lives tend to end sooner or later, but that’s a whole different topic. Anyway, the worst crime he ever committed, was to kill Liotr to protect Daeran and despite the fact that he’d decide like this again if time was turned back and he had to make the choice again, the guilt for the life he took was intense and stays with him. 17. What’s the most ridiculous thing they’ve ever spent money on? Where to even start? I just wrote that Sal has a very rational side and that’s absolutely true, but he lacks the ability to understand the worth of money. He suffered a lot during his childhood, but he always has been an aristocrat and always has been absurdly rich. And it shows. He pays ridiculous sums for wine, special foods, clothes, furniture, jewelry, fun activities, gifts, services … You could go through his palace and point at things (or the palace itself) and ask: “How much did that cost?” The answer would be ridiculous almost always. 😂

[travellingarmy]

║Venti║ Stars (R)

Requested from Wattpad.

Female reader as requested.

Warning: •Those who does not know what R-rated means, it simply means that it is restricted to children under 17 (according to google).

•This will most likely be crap because I still don't know how to write NSFW oneshots.

Word count: 2.1k

---

"Just - hic - one more, Master Diluc!" Filled with the nightlife atmosphere in Angel's Share, Venti decided to join as well for the sake of sharing the same joy every Mondstadtian holds.

"You do know that these aren't free.." Diluc grumbles, a look of irritation visible on his face. "And don't you think you've had enough? You've had 33 glasses now."

"Ah, I can never get enough of Master Diluc's amazing brew!" the small bard exclaims. Diluc's face remained unchanged by the complement and went to make another glass for him. "You better pay for these."

"Haha, oh, Master Diluc, aren't you the jokester." Venti giggles. "I'm not joking," Diluc plainly said. "Haha, oh well.. Anyway.." Sounds of chatter drown out the taller male's warning that night by a loud bard who was starting to become tipsier with each drink.

After a couple more drinks- actually, it totalled to 50- Venti was now showing signs of passing out with his head on the counter, aside from occasional giggles and hiccups. Diluc grumbles in complete disbelief. Now that the bard was drunk, there was no way he would listen to his words.

An irritated sigh left the tavern owner's lips, seeing as he could do nothing about it. "I'll make sure you pay for it tomorrow so just go home," Diluc said to the bard who luckily listened, walking drunkenly out the tavern. "Thanks, Master Diluc!"

The cold air of the night brushed past the skin of the male, giggling as it tickles him. Oh how much he loves the wind so much.

Tonight, Venti did not go home- if he even has one- and instead, walk straight out of the city's gate; heading towards Starsnatch Cliff where he knew someone was sitting there all in her lonesomeness.

"(Y/N)!" the bard cheery voice made its way to your ears, making you turn to look at him. He waves and drunkenly giggles. "Venti, what are you doing here?"

"Hehe, I thought that my goddess wouldn't be asleep at this time and was here~" he answers, sitting down beside you. One sniff of him and your face wrinkled as if you were smelling a garbage site. "Ew, you went to the tavern again!?"

"Ehe." He shrugs, eyes closing into crescents as he smiled. You shook your head and brought your knees close to your chest, hugging it. You did not want to further push about the boring topic as it was quite often he would try to get wine from Diluc so silence was the only thing you could do.

You look at the stars in awe, a small smile tugging the corner of your lips. "It's quite nice today-- even the weather," you stated randomly. Venti leans back, using his arms as support. He took a glance at your soft figure before averting it to the sky you were seeing. "Even if it was cold, I would control the wind to make it warm for you," he points out, a smile of his own visible on his face.

In the midst of another silence, Venti's drunken state had his eyes started to wander on you, eyes tracing your face down to every detail. Your eyes that were half-lidded, your nose that was ever so his favourite feature, your lips-- oh let us not get into detail as to how much he loves those lips. Soon, his eyes wandered down to your neck and the strands of hair resting on it to tease him.

It might just be him being drunk and deluded or the atmosphere, but something in him wanted to do more than just looking at you.

With that being said, his hands slowly encircled your waist and drew you closer to him so that he could rest his chin on your shoulders. To you, it was just him wanting to hold you; nothing too suspicious and you continued to dismiss him.

However, that innocent thought was no longer when you felt his hands rub your sides in a slow and lustful manner. "V, Venti..!" you stutter, eyes widening as you look at him from the corner of your eyes.

He hums, eyes closed. "What is it, (Y/N)?" his voice still holding the same cheeky persona as his smile just grew wider. "U, um..!!" Your words died out on your tongue, the sudden rise of heat too overwhelming for you.

His lips made their way to your earlobe. "What's wrong, (Y/N)? Are you unwell?" he asks, a smirk replacing his playful smile. You bit your bottom lip and closed your eyes, unsure of what to do as you felt something in your stomach. It was like a fluttering feeling when you see your crush, but quite different.

"Do you.. Want me to help you, (Y/N)?" he breathlessly asks and went to nibble the sensitive part of your ears. A whimper that escaped your throat failed you which just urge the male further. His lips then slowly made their way to your neck and he was suddenly washed with the intoxication of your smell.

Not waiting for a reaction, he starts off by licking your neck and soon, sucking it hard enough to leave a mark. Once again, another whimper left you. You felt embarrassed by the sounds you had made, but the growing heat in the atmosphere was too much for you to fight.

One of his hands made its way down your body, rubbing your thighs as the other massages one of your breasts. Your chests start to expand wider with each breath you take.

Venti's hands soon returned to your chest and began to unbutton your shirt ever so skillfully. Once it was fully undone to the last button, he moves in front of you, pushing you down the grass and hovering on top of you.

His eyes were filled with lust and craved for you and your body. Hungrily, he smashes his lips onto yours and had a full heated session. He licked the bottom of your lips and you obliged, opening your mouth to allow his tongue to adventure inside, winning dominance.

He went back and suck the other side of your neck, also leaving a mark there as his hands unclip your bra, kneading your breast between his fingers.

At that point, heat, too, filled your body and made your mind hazy, letting out a moan. Soon, his lips trailed downwards and took the other breast in his mouth. He continued to do so and switched to give the same attention to the other.

His hand went lower, pulling your skirt down to your thighs. Teasingly, he rubs his fingers on your clothed cunt and you moaned yet again. "Hehe, you are so naughty, (Y/N)~ Already this wet for me?" he says, continuing to run through the article.

Soon, he had enough of the teasing and pulled down your last piece of clothing, leaving you fully exposed to the cool air of the night while he was still fully clothed.

"Tell me, (Y/N), what do you want me to do~?" he asks, pressing his cold fingers on your cunt, making you whimper. When you didn't say anything, he leaned closer to your ears and whispered, "If you don't tell me.." He moves his fingers teasingly. "I could just leave it here~"

"N, no..!" You shot your eyes wide open, revealing your desperation and lust. "Hm~? Then tell me, what is it that you want me to do?" He smiles and his eyes were overshadowed with a dark playfulness.

"P, please.. I, I want your fingers.. In me.." you say, a bit embarrassed at the dirty words that left your tongue. Venti chuckles, but answered to your wish, plunging one finger inside which made you moan. Urged on by the sound, he entered a second one. "Look at you~ So greedy for my touch."

You weren't listening to his words as he starts pumping his fingers, slow at first to make you just whimper. "What do you want me to do now, (Y/N)?" he asks once again. "Is this too slow for you?"

"Please.. G, go faster..!" Again, listened to your wish and started to pump faster, adding two more fingers in the mix. He returns to attack your breast and bit your nipples and his free hand went to massage the other.

The stimulation was too much for you, being touched everywhere soon made a knot inside of you that was waiting to be snapped at any moment. "V, Venti..!" That was all he needed to hear for him to stop, moving away from you.

You look at him, confused and upset, but that was soon answered as he stood up and pulled both his pants and undergarments down. "(Y/N), why don't you be a good girl and repent?" he beckons you to go on your knees.

You listened, getting on your knees and bringing your face closer to his cock that was dripping with precum. "Well? Don't tell me you don't wish to repent." You gulped and slowly bring your lips to the tip of his dick, licking the precum off of it.

You felt him shudder from above which urged you on. You opened your mouth and brought half of it inside your mouth, earning a groan from the male.

You then started to suck on his cock and another moan erupted from his vocal cords, putting a gentle hand on your head. You only sucked halfway of it and pumped the rest, not wanting to choke.

When it has gotten to a point that was much to his pleasure, he grabbed a fistful of your hair and pushed your head; pushing his cock deeper into your mouth. You moaned on his cock, feeling it touch the back of your mouth and made you gag.

"Don't stop now, (Y/N). After all, you want to be forgiven right?" He tugs on your hair and you continued. Venti became a moaning mess, guiding your head as he does so. And soon, you felt his cock twitch inside you. You suck him faster, wanting to help him in his release.

Followed by a long moan, he fills your mouth with his juice, keeping your head locked on his dick so that you don't waste a single drop.

Once you gulped all of them down, he pulls away. "Aren't you a good girl~?" he coos. "You deserve a reward so why don't you get on your hands and knees for me, hm?"

You listened, wanting to get your own release as well. He got behind you and you felt excitement wash through you and the knot that was still there.

He put his hands on your breasts, giving it a little squeeze. "Are you sure about this, (Y/N)?" he whispers in your ear. "You can always tell me to stop, okay?" You nod.

With that, he moved his wet cock inside you. You whimpered at the overwhelming foreign heat that entered you. Venti was patient with you and waited for you to adjust to the feeling.

"P, please move.." you say breathlessly after a while. Venti listened and started to enter and leave your hole, building up his stimulation once more.

Moans, pants, and lust filled that night and at each thrust, he went faster and faster as you grip onto the grass, feeling your legs numbing. "Harder, Venti..!" you cried out, the knot close to breaking.

His grip on your waist was for sure going to leave marks on your skin, but that didn't matter to your right now.

He pulls out completely but quickly slams it back inside you. Your head jerks up and moaned loudly. The sight of the was stars blurring as you were being pounded into and drool went down the corner of your mouth.

Venti's thrust became sloppier and sloppier by the second. He buried his face on your shoulders and bit it hard enough that it drew blood, but you were too focused on the pleasure that you hadn't noticed.

"V, Venti, I--" At that moment, the knot snapped and you came on his dick. Venti thrusts a couple more times before he, too, came inside you, groaning as his second wave was finally released.

He fell on top of you, both your legs too weak to carry the weight of your bodies. He didn't take himself out just yet and listen to the two of you pant.

"Let's go home, hm?" he suggests between heavy breathing. You nod and watch as he pulls out, letting out a whimper at the sudden emptiness inside you.

He dresses himself up first and later helped you since you were unable to do it and carried you home. "I love you, (Y/N)." He kisses the side of your head, watching you slowly fall asleep.

---