#like two months ago i would be stressing over just buying a full tank of gas

[greatbigstorm]

/ /

[wherethingscomebackx]

Top 25 Larry Fics of 2020

h 2020 was HELLISH. So thank you to all the writers, and I mean ALL of them, who kept us occupied as the world continues to burn.

You may be familiar with these lists:

Top 25 Larry fics of 2016

Top 25 Larry fics of 2017

Top 25 Larry fics of 2018

Top 25 Larry fics of 2019

We’re going on our 5th year!!  As always, I read a lot of fic and the majority of it is Larry. I like making lists and I like Larry so I thought I’d do some minimal research of the top 25 larry fics published/completed in 2020 in order of least to most kudos (with links). All of these fics are top notch so you should all check them out!

25.) a trail of honey through it all by @yvesaintlourent (27k)

The boy in front of him, well really, the man in front of him, was like something out of a confusing wet dream. Built, tall, tan and muscular, his skin glistened with sweat after a long day of working outdoors with his hands. He was wearing a cut up old American football shirt, the bottom hem was torn and the sleeves were cut off to the point where the t-shirt was really just a loose tank top. The shorts he had on had clearly been full length jeans at one point, and were now just crudely cut off above the knee. His white socks were pulled up too high on his calves, and the brown work boots he had on were old as fuck, the leather peeling along the edges of the soles. Curly brown hair stuck out from the edges of his backwards snapback, and there was a smudge of grease wiped along his brow bone. The smattering of hair along his jaw proved that he hadn’t shaved in a week or two, the hair growing in thicker across his upper lip and around his chin. His sinfully bowed mouth was pink and plump, and Louis was suddenly hyper-focused on the way that he chewed at the toothpick stuck between his lips. He looked like he needed a shower. Louis wanted to lick him.

Or, the TPH fic we’ve all been waiting for.

24.) even the best laid plans by @falsegoodnight (25k)

“Anyways,” Louis stresses, narrowing his eyes, “just let me say it and then rate how terrible of an idea it is on a scale from one to ten.”

“Alright,” Zayn agrees, sitting up expectantly.

“I want to ask Harry Styles to take my virginity,” Louis blurts, holding his hands out for emphasis.

The way Zayn’s eyes bulge is almost comical. “Negative infinity,” he says, voice choked. “Negative infinity times negative infinity.”

“Technically, a negative times a negative is -”

“Really negative infinity,” Zayn corrects himself, shaking his head wildly. “Louis, what the fuck?”

-

Or, Louis wants to have sex with someone and decides Harry is the perfect alpha for the job.

23.) A Distant Hazy Light by @greenfeelings (76k)

Life’s pretty ordinary for Harry. He lives with his best friend, got into university just like he’s planned, and manages to support himself just fine for an unbonded omega. If he sustains that lifestyle by getting paid to help alphas through their rut every now and then, that’s nothing to be hung up on. Until he’s hired by an alpha that turns everything upside down.

Or, Harry’s working on taking Louis’ walls down, until he builds his own up.

22.) Ghost Note Symphony by whoknows (96k)

Louis is on tour when he first hears about it. It’s all over the news – Harry Styles Attacked By Fan runs in headlines for days. It’s not even just the gossip rags, either. Actual journalists are covering the story. It would have been impossible to avoid hearing about it. Technically, Oli is the one who tells Louis about it, but it’s not exactly being covered up. Harry doesn’t answer Louis’ text asking if he’s alright, but that’s not really surprising. They haven’t spoken for months, and it’s been a lot longer than that since they’ve had a real conversation. The sting of the text going unanswered is still there, less painful than it might have been a few years ago.

It’s not that it’s easy to forget about, exactly. Louis has a whole life outside of One Direction now, though. So Louis goes on with his life, figuring that if Harry was seriously hurt he would have heard about it by now. He might currently be in the same country as Harry, but being on opposite sides of it puts enough distance between them that putting it in the back of his mind is easy. There’s nothing Louis could do, even if he thought Harry might want him to.

That’s why everything that happens next comes as a complete shock to him.

21.) Until by @allwaswell16 (38k)

Rural Eagle County, Colorado wasn’t the type of place to find a famous musician or actor. At least not until songwriter Louis Tomlinson showed up with pop star Niall Horan to visit his uncle’s horse ranch, and they just happened to find themselves next door to a reclusive former movie star.

20.) Strangers in Love by sweetums (42k)

Louis wakes up to find himself in a marriage with the last man he thought he'd ever end up with.

-

Prompt 51: An amnesia fic where louis and harry were enemies to lovers but after an accident, louis only remembers those memories that him and harry hated each other. now harry has to fix it. I think something like this less dark and less angsty compared to other amnesia fics and it could be funny

19.) A Long Way From The Playground by Pink_Sunsets (170k)

One Direction is broken up. They broke up five years ago. That should be the end of the story, right?

Harry is finished with One Direction. He now has a new life, one with two kids and a successful solo career. And he’s happy.

But a call one night from management flips Harry’s whole new life upside down, and he’s forced to face the life he had left behind.

As well as a certain blue eyed man who had left him behind.

18.) my love’s not simple (it’s fragile) by @falsegoodnight (27k)

“Can I take you out tomorrow?” he asks. “My shift ends at 7 but we can go for dinner at 8.”

Louis is silent for a few seconds and then, “Like… on a date?”

Harry swallows thickly. He hasn’t done this in years, hasn’t ever wanted to. “Yeah.”

He’s worried he’s misread things but then Louis raises his head to kiss Harry’s cheek. “Yeah,” he says easily. “Sure.”

Tension leaves his body swiftly. “Are you sure?” asks Harry. “I know we’re both so busy but I can’t not try with you, Lou.”

“Neither can I,” says Louis. “I think we can figure it out. I care about you a lot Harry. We’ve known each other for a week, but I already like you so much.”

-

Or Harry's new job is threatened by his impending rut. Desperate for a solution, he allows Niall to introduce him to Louis, an omega whose heat begins the same day. They click.

17.) Cocaine for Breakfast by @harryeatsburger (309k)

“It’s an easy job.” He continues, as if Louis wants to listen. “Like I said, a few trips. Parties, students, nothing dramatic.”

Louis gazes over to Harry. He’s looking thoughtful now, eyes on the green like he’s talking more to himself than Louis.

“Clubbing, drinks. Whatever, the business is just a side thing.”

That’s not how Louis remembers it to be, “You lying?” He honestly can’t tell.

Harry shakes his head slowly, meeting Louis' eyes.

“No,” He answers almost toneless. Harry clears his throat, “I won’t put you in any dangerous situation.” His voice is sincere, Louis can tell he means it, his jade green eyes glinting with truth.

or, - Louis Tomlinson is a drug addict, sent away from his beloved party-scene to recover. There, he discovers that small towns have just as much access to drugs as London did, plus something even better that he just can't get enough of. That something is a boy with green eyes and bouncy curls named Harry Styles. -

16.) Tastes like Strawberries by @sadaveniren (4k)

I’m stressed. I’m nesting and demand cuddles. Come over

Harry frowned and double checked who the text was from. Yup, it still said Louis - Grad, which meant it was from Louis from his grad school.

aka Louis texts Harry by mistake. It works out

15.) the way the storm blows by @rbbsbb (21k)

Louis doesn’t have a habit of thinking about Harry’s dick.

That would be weird, seeing as they’re best mates, and they share a flat, and they’ve spent holidays at each other’s family homes. Their friendship hasn’t ever risen to a point where Louis should want to see his mate’s dick, and he’s happy to keep it that way.

Except, all that Louis can think about is exactly that. The size of it. The shape. The amount of people it’s been in.

Maybe it’s the tequila talking, or the fact that Louis’ just recently walked in to an eyeful of Harry taking turns on some slags that he’s never seen before, but. Louis’ mind can’t stop obsessing over the idea.

14.) bruise you like a peach by @falsegoodnight (40k)

There’s two reasons Harry despises Econ.

The first is that it’s boring as fuck. The second reason is a bit more personal, a bit more focused in a way. As in it’s focused on one specific thing, or in his case, person.

His name is Louis Tomlinson.

13.) Watching The World Fall by whoknows (11k)

This segment has been going on long enough that Louis knows what’s coming before James starts in on it, trying to sell him on something he knows that Louis wouldn’t normally be buying. But there’s four cameras surrounding him, and an audience watching him expectantly, so if Louis wants to continue convincing people that he’s doing just fine, he’s going to have to go along with it.

“We have a whole host of single men backstage waiting to meet you, Louis,” James tells him. “We want to help you find love tonight, on Late Late Live Tinder. Is this okay? Do you want to play?”

It actually kind of makes sense that his first date after the break-up is going to be just as public as said break-up. Something like coming full circle.

“Alright, James,” Louis agrees, hopping down off his stool.

“Okay, come down to the stage,” James says. Louis can’t even tell whether the excitement in his voice is genuine or not. “Right now, come on down!”

12.) Quiet People Have the Loudest Minds by @2tiedships2 (38k)

Broadway shows were one of the few things that could keep Louis’ attention for a full two hours without needing to move about. But not tonight.

The alpha next to him was both infuriating him and practically turning him on at the same time. He needed to leave. The alpha, that is. Louis was staying.

Or the one where Louis is a nonverbal omega who has accepted the fact that he will never find an alpha that will treat him as an equal. On the other hand, he’s never met anyone like Harry.

11.) The Wrath of the Emerald Eyes by @purpledandeli0n (85k)

His chin is grabbed harshly, facing the two deep green eyes that have been getting on his nerves for the past ten minutes. The smirk on the man's face does not vanish. The grip of his hand on Louis' chin does not soften, his thumb at the side of his lower lip.

His smile widens as he answers Louis' question, ''My name is Styles, but you will call me Captain."

•

Pirate AU

10.) Canyon Moon by @eeveelou (40k)

For as long as Louis has remembered, he has been promised to be mated to Harry, his best friend and the future pack alpha. But Louis’s heart belonged to the forest and to the hunt more than he could ever imagine it belonging to Harry.

Then Harry’s father dies in a violent accident, and Louis’s future alpha disappears on the wind.

An A/B/O Lion King AU

9.) We Both Got Nothing to Hide by lovelarry10 (43k)

“Talk to me, Lou.”

“I can’t,” Louis mumbled, knowing he genuinely couldn’t say it. He couldn’t admit to what he was doing. “Don’t ask me to say it, because I can’t.”

“Then… I’ll try and guess. You’ve… got some stuff of Harry’s. Something of his to make it smell like him?”

Louis just nodded, eyes fixated on the floor. This was humiliating, but he knew Zayn wouldn’t stop until he found out what was going on.

“Okay. Like… a blanket, or a comforter or something?”

“Kind of…”

//

Omega Louis has a secret nest. Alpha Harry keeps losing his clothes.

8.) sleeping on our problems by @falsegoodnight (67k)

I’m in love with you, Louis thinks. He feels empty, weighed down by his sadness and the loss of Harry inside him just moments ago before his knot finally went down.

There’s moments where he’s sure Harry feels the same. Like now, when he’s gazing down at Louis with so much adoration and tenderness. It’s like they’re both on the cusp of something more, but neither of them ever say a word.

His confession is on the tip of his tongue ready to slide out like honey, and yet he remains silent. They both do, looking at each other and recognizing the reluctance mirrored in each other’s eyes. It’s then that Louis realizes they’re both scared.

-

Or Louis sleeps with Harry and they have more than just catching feelings to worry about.

7.) like it’s a game by @soldouthaz (32k)

there is little harry hates more than truth or dare.

and louis.

6.) before we knew by @falsegoodnight (39k)

“C’mon Lou,” says Zayn after a moment, He sounds even more exasperated than before. Louis sort of has a knack for exasperating people, especially people like Zayn who aren’t usually bothered by his brattiness. “Can’t you give this guy a chance? Harry Styles? Aren’t you curious about him at all?”

Despite his best efforts, Louis still flinches at the name. He really shouldn’t be so affected after all these years. He’s seen the name printed down the curve of his waist in obnoxiously and uncommonly large loopy letters every single day since his sixteenth birthday eight years ago. He’s very familiar with the name Harry Styles.

It sounds pretentious and Louis hates it.

He hates everything about his supposed soulmate.

He hates his large handwriting that stands out like a claim on his skin whenever he’s walking around shirtless. He hates his pretentious name. And now he hates his supposed curls and green eyes and dimples.

-

Or Louis has been skeptical of soulmates for years so it seems like fate when he finally bumps into the owner of the obnoxiously large signature printed into his skin since age sixteen: Harry Styles, a human rights attorney who is firmly against soulmates.

5.) Mine Would Be You by @crinkle-eyed-boo (114k)

Louis blinks his eyes open, his eyelids fluttering as the room swims around him. He takes several gulps of beer once he confirms that he’s definitely not hallucinating, that the very first portrait Harry Styles ever painted of him is hanging on that wall.

Louis stares at the wall, his heart jackrabbiting in his chest as he realizes that there’s not just one painting of him, there’s five, the portraits lined up like they’re some sort of storyboard depicting the rise and fall of his deepest love. His greatest heartache. A pain that cut him so deep that he left the fucking country, severing all ties with his life in New York, now suddenly surrounding him as if he’d never left.

Fucking shit motherfucker fuck.

Louis returns to New York City five years after he left it – and the love of his life – behind. He didn't intend to see Harry again, but fate has a funny way of pulling them together, whether they like it or not. After making a begrudging truce, they both start to wonder: Would it be so bad if history repeated itself?

4.) You’ve Got My Devotion (Hate You Sometimes) by @harryrainbows (95k)

Harry was in the biggest boy band in the world. He was also one half of the best (or worst, depends on who you ask) kept secret relationship in the music industry.

Now, almost five years on, after One Direction has broken up, and Harry and Louis' relationship has as well, a video threatens to put everything at risk.

One determined Irishman, a massive publicity stunt and two begrudging exes are all it takes to bring One Direction back to life and maybe, just maybe, Harry and Louis' mangled love life too.

Or: Harry and Louis are forced to fake-date after an old video from when they were dating emerges.

3.) The Space Between by @lads-laddylads (39k)

Harry Styles is the alpha rockstar who can’t sleep and doesn’t know why.

Louis Tomlinson is the omega PhD student who helps him figure it out.

2.) Nothing But You On My Mind by @absoloutenonsense (83k)

Louis Tomlinson is a PR manager hired to improve the image of royal bad-boy Prince Harry Styles. Unfortunately for him, that means being faced with the Prince's constant innuendos, incessant dirty jokes, and relentless flirting. Louis just wants to make it to Princess Gemma's coronation; once she's crowned Queen, his contract is up and he never has to see the Prince again.

1.) Collision by @tequiladimples (224k)

Mythology/Fairytale!AU in which Louis is a dainty fairy with a temper who wants to be intimidating and Harry hurts people. Naturally, they hate each other.

(Featuring Liam, the big and not-so-bad wolf who’s got a thing for humans, Zayn, a human with supernaturally good looks, and Niall, the cupid who just wants his job to be easier.)

[sassyhobbits]

Rowaelin college AU pt2

i recently reblogged an older oneshot of mine (you can find it here) and some people said they wanted a pt2. You can probably read this as a standalone, but enjoy!

~~~

There was nothing more euphoric than the moment you finished your last final.

Except maybe that first shot you take to celebrate.

Rowan Whitethorn had already experienced both that day.

The hell of finals week had finally come to its end. The hours upon hours he spent in the library with his peers had paid off. He had felt confident about every exam he had taken. Even statistics. He and Aelin had really focused in and refused to leave her dining room table until they thoroughly understood each and every concept.

Usually, Rowan detested studying. But, studying with Aelin was bearable. Almost enjoyable, actually. As enjoyable as looking at equations and cursing out Excel could be.

But what made it worth it was the fact he got countless hours alone with Aelin. 

After their almost-kiss two months ago, they never mentioned it again. They had slipped back into their roles as friends, determined to keep it that way. Though Rowan knew it wasn't what he really wanted.

It seemed his feelings for Aelin had increased ten-fold after that moment. His eyes were always on her, doing whatever it took to wring smiles and laughs out of her lips. He found more and more ways to spend time with her. Asking her to proofread an essay, more and more study sessions, bringing her a ridiculously sweet coffee that she loved and saying that the barista has messed up his order but in reality, he got it just for her.

He was completely, utterly, enthralled with Aelin Galathynius. Her fire, her spirit, how she was always burning so brightly.

Even now, in a crowded, noisy room, all Rowan had eyes for was her.

In celebration for the end of finals week, Dorian Havilliard had invited a shit-ton of people over for a house party. He was more Aelin’s friend than his, but they got along well enough. 

The house was filled to the brim. Dorian had no problems using his father's copious funds to buy an obscene amount of booze and such knowledge tended to draw a crowd.

Rowan knew Aelin loved parties. He was less of a fan of them himself, but she asked him to come. So he did.

It was packed and loud. Music blasted over tall speakers, people cheered and shouted and laughed over it. There were a group of people in a game of beer pong, which must have been good if their screams were any indications. People were doing body shots of the kitchen island, others making out in the corner.

Rowan was lounging on a couch, sipping at a beer, thankful that Dorian didn't buy the cheap shit. He knew he should be up and socializing, but he was too preoccupied. By Aelin. More importantly, who she was talking to across the room.

Rowan had met Chaol Westfall on a handful of occasions. Aelin had introduced them. She, Chaol, and Dorian had all gone to the same highschool. Rowan had known they were all close, but he hadn't known how close exactly until Aelin let it slip that she and Chaol used to be involved. She had explained it was short and doomed from the start, but still… watching them talk now set Rowan’s skin on edge.

From his spot on the couch, Rowan had the perfect view of the two of them. Aelin was leaning against the counter, plastic red cup dangling from her fingers. She looked beautiful tonight. She had left her golden hair down, letting it spill in thick waves down her shoulders and back. She was dressed simply in a black, cropped tank and what he guessed must be expensive jeans. Aelin always had sophisticated tastes. Her face was tilted up at Chaol, the two of them sharing a laugh. 

Rowan ground his teeth and took another sip of his beer. Aelin had said she and Chaol were better off as friends, but they were standing with such an intimate sort of casualty that it drove him up the wall. And when Aelin placed her hand on his upper arm… gods, Rowan could barely watch.

Thankfully, he was distracted from his self-imposed misery when someone plopped down beside him. Rowan glanced to his left, finding Aedion settling back with a beer of his own. 

"Hey man," Aedion said before glancing towards where Rowan had previously been looking. His turquoise eyes, identical to Aelin’s, turned back to him. “You ever gonna ask her out?”

“Who?”

“Aelin. Who else?”

Rowan choked on his beer, quickly managing to regain control over his breathing. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.��

Aedion rolled his eyes. “Come on, Rowan. It’s obvious that you two are into each other. It’s exhausting watching you two dance around it. So ask her out already.”

Rowan looked at his roommate incredulously. “Are you serious? She’s like your little sister. I figured you’d be telling me to fuck off.”

Aedion threw his head back and released a loud bark of laughter. “Aelin would castrate me if I ever tried that, as she phrases it, territorial bullshit. She’s her own woman capable of making her own choices, including those about who she dates.”

Rowan couldn’t believe what he was hearing. The main reason he had never made an advance on Aelin was because of his friendship with Aedion. But hearing his explanation about it now… Aelin would berate him to no end if she found out. It wasn’t like her to let any man get in the way of a decision she wants to make.

“I… I just need the right time,” Rowan said pathetically, not knowing how else to express himself.

“Well, I don’t mean to rush you,” Aedion drawled, swinging his gaze back towards Aelin and Chaol stood. “But Aelin likes you a lot. I suggest making a move before she settles for someone else.”

He was right. Rowan knew deep in his gut that Aedion was right. Aelin would never wait around, putting her life on pause, waiting for another man to act. She was proactive, she was strong. It would do him good to remember that. 

Rowan set his jaw in determination, gulping down the rest of his beer and pushing to his feet. He tried his hardest to ignore the grin of satisfaction Aedion sent his way as he strode across the room.

Rowan tried his best to gracefully maneuver through the crowd, not wanting to get himself into a fight now that he finally decided to act. 

He finally made it to the kitchen, coming up upon them. Aelin spotted him first over Chaol’s shoulder, her face breaking out in a wide, bright grin.

“Rowan!” she greeted. “There you are! And just in time to meet Yrene.”

It was then that Rowan noticed the woman who had come up and pressed herself against Chaol’s side. She was a stout girl, golden brown skin splattered with freckles and a head full of righteous curls.

“Nice to meet you,” Yrene said, jutting out her hand. “I’m Chaol’s girlfriend.”

Rowan took her hand, trying to not let his surprise show. “It’s nice to meet you.”

Aelin nudged Yrene with her elbow playfully. “She finally managed to escape from her pre-med work and have some fun!”

Yrene rolled her eyes in good fun. Rowan could tell it was something she probably heard a lot. Pre-med majors did have absolutely packed schedules.

Of course Chaol had a girlfriend and Rowan had stressed himself out over nothing. The gods decided he needed to learn some humility after letting himself stew in jealousy.

Rowan looked back to Aelin, placing a hand on her lower back before he could think better of it. “Can I talk to you for a bit?”

Although she looked a bit confused, Aelin nodded. She knocked back the rest of whatever the hell was in her cup, tossing it into the trash, before reaching down and taking his hand. “Let’s go somewhere quieter. It’s too damn loud in here.”

Rowan didn’t object as she began tugging him by the hand through the house, expertly weaving through the crowd. She shouted a quick hello at Dorian when they passed him. He seemed very content, though Rowan wasn’t exactly sure why. Manon Blackbeak was perched on his lap and although she was beautiful, she was terrifying. Dorian didn’t seem to mind.

Aelin eventually tugged him through the front door, into the blessedly cold and quiet air. She brought them over to his car, leaning her weight against it as she turned to him. Rowan was disappointed when she dropped his hand to cross her arms over her chest.

“What’s up?” she asked casually. 

“I have something to ask you.”

Aelin quirked a brow. “Is something wrong?”

Rowan sighed. He was going about this all wrong. “No. Nothing is wrong.”

She didn’t look convinced. “You’re acting really weird, Rowan. Did Aedion say something stupid again? Or did one of those asshole footballer players do something wrong because I swear I will knock them on their asses so hard and-”

Rowan acted without thinking. He lunged forward, cradling Aelin’s face between his palms and crashing his lips against hers. For a beat, Aelin was frozen in surprise. That short moment was the most terrifying of Rowan’s life, not knowing if he had made the right choice… but the next moment, Aelin practically melted. He heard her sigh against his lips, her hands snaking up his arms until they wrapped around the back of his neck.

Rowan tugged her closer, relishing the heat of her body against his.

For so long he had wondered what it would be like to kiss Aelin Galathynius. The reality was better than anything he could have imagined. 

He parted Aelin’s lips, kissing her deeply, hoping he could convey the months of emotions that had been building up inside him that were finally coming to the surface. 

Eventually, after what could have been seconds or hours, they slowly pulled away from one another. Rowan’s lips still tingled in the aftermath of the kiss. He opened his eyes, finding Aelin’s eyes still softly closed. She released a short breath before those stunning eyes were finally meeting his. 

“Oh,” she whispered. “Alright.”

“Aelin…” Rowan murmured. “I really like you. I have for a long time. And I’d like to take you out sometime.”

Her lips spread into a slow smile. “You have no idea how long I’ve been waiting for you to do that.”

“I shouldn't have waited so long.”

“Damn right,” Aelin grumbled, rolling onto the tips of her toes and kissing him again quickly. “I don’t know about you, but I’d like to get out of here.”

“Any ideas?”

“Well, Lysandra is staying with Aedion tonight so I have the apartment to myself,” she said, lips curling into a wicked smirk. “And there are some things I’d like to see if they’re better in real life than in my imagination.”

Gods, was Rowan lucky.

He kissed her one more time, feeling her smile against his lips. 

He never would have guessed how wonderful this moment would feel, finally admitting his feelings to her, knowing she returned them. He had been such a fool for waiting so long.

But now that Rowan had Aelin, he would do everything in his power to make her the happiest woman on this planet.

[anotheronechicagobog]

The Crackship Sails to Molly’s

Sylvie Brett x Jay Halstead

1

written by @anotheronechicagobog​

Warnings: swearing, implied smut, Daswon sibling bashing, background manstead

A/N: Please comment :)

Jay was on the floor, in pain. The area around his socket was throbbing in pain, and his lower back was definitely going to have a bruise. He didn’t have time to react before Antonio was back and punching him in the face again. “Oh my god, Antonio stop it!”

He wasn’t fighting it, he just didn’t have it in him to try and stop the man he called his friend, though Jay supposed they wouldn’t be friends much longer. 

Antonio had managed to get in a few more punches before he was hauled off of Jay by Voight and half of the members of 51. Jay exhaled and went to close his eyes, but was interrupted by her entering his line of vision.

Sylvie.

Her mouth was moving, and Jay could vaguely hear her speaking over the shouting men and women. “Sylvie? Are you okay?”

“Me- What? Jay, I’m not the one who just got mauled by Antonio.”

“So you’re okay?”

“Alright get up, I’m taking you to med now. No arguments.”

“Okay.”

“Oh pickles, you’re actually agreeing to go to the hospital, something must be really wrong with you.”

“As long as you’re okay.” His voice was so hoarse he almost didn’t recognize it. Sylvie sighed as he looked at her dazedly while she buckled him up in her car. “I’m okay, I promise. I just have to make sure that you’re okay too.”

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

SIX MONTHS AGO

It had been months since Erin left, and months since Sylvie had to dump Antonio because of his ex-wife. Jay and Sylvie ended up at a table together, neither one was feeling particularly happy at the moment and didn’t want to be around their romantically successful friends. So they sat together, nursed their drinks, and talked about Harry Potter. They’d bumbled around in discussion for a while, not having a whole lot in common, before finding out they were both Harry Potter fans. Will, the rest of the intelligence unit, and 51 weren’t big fans of the book series, sure they’d seen the movies but that was about it. They both found it relaxing to just talk about something that wasn’t about their important work or love. 

They started to spend more and more time together. It started because Sylvie mentioned how she hadn’t grown up in Chicago and was so busy she never got to see the sights, so Jay took it as a challenge and started showing her his favourite parts of the city. Restaurants, theatres, parks, museums, galleries, all of it. He even took her to a restaurant in Canaryville where everyone who worked there had known him his whole life. Sylvie was enthusiastically told stories from Jay’s childhood. Hiding behind curtains buck naked, exposing everyone on the street to his six-year-old butt while he and Will shook in giggles. Block-wide water gun fights. Years of ding dong ditch. Sylvie was in stitches before she even got her food.

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

THREE MONTHS AGO

There was a fire. A bad one. And after receiving a patient on a gurney, something in the basement exploded, Sylvie and the patient were thrown several metres away. No one else had been injured, but Sylvie wouldn’t wake up, was bleeding profusely out of a cut on her head, and she had shrapnel in her back. It didn’t look good.

“Alright everyone, gear up. 51 just responded to a fire at a suspected meth lab, it was confirmed five minutes ago by an explosion. A paramedic, Sylvie Brett, was critically injured and is currently fighting for her- Halstead? Halstead where do you think you’re going? Halstead get back here!” At the words ‘Sylvie Brett’ Jay’s blood ran cold. At ‘critically injured’ he went into autopilot. Just stood up and left. Didn’t even grab his jacket. He ignored his boss’s enraged screams. He just got in his truck and drove to Med.

He ignored the odd looks he got from those at 51. He ignored his coworkers and boss when they came by to talk to their witnesses/ask him what the actual fuck was going on. He ignored his brother and sister-in-law when they asked him why he was there. He just stayed sitting in the uncomfortable chair for hours, watching nurses and patients flitter between the doors to the ED. It had been six hours when Platt came by to yell at him too only to be interrupted by Dr. Rhodes. “Sylvie is awake and stable, I expect her to make a full recovery. We can only allow one visitor at a time, and she has been asking for Jay since she woke up, she’s pretty frantic, so you’ll have to come quick.” He stood up and almost ran past Rhodes into her room, ignoring the confused looks from everyone at firehouse 51 and Trudy Platt.

“Jay, Jay, Jay, Jay, Jay-”

“I’m here Syl, I am right here.” She sobbed as he wrapped her hands in his. “I am right here, and it’ll take an army to get me to move. Or you, but that’s basically the same thing if someone denies you chocolate.” The laugh that briefly interrupted her sobs made his day, releasing the tension he’d been holding all day. Jay sagged in relief, and just held one of her hands as he used the other to gently hug her, hold her as she cried, sobbed, hiccuped and, whimpered from the physical pain expressing her emotions was causing her. “I thought I- w- was goi-i-ing to-o die-e.”

“I know,” he choked, “I thought you were going to die too.”

Jay had refused to leave the hospital until Sylvie ordered him to. “At least shower and change, ooh, get something to eat too.”

“You just want me to bring you mac and cheese don’t you?”

“You know me so well.”

“Alright, I’ll be back in an hour, don’t watch ‘Say Yes to the Dress’ without me.”

“You will take at least three hours to come back here.”

“Sylvie-”

“You have been sitting and worrying for the past three days, take some time for yourself. Don’t make me get Maggie involved.”

“Okay, fine, I will be back in three hours. Can you still wait to watch ‘Say Yes to the Dress’ with me?”

“Duh.”

“Okay, see you later.” He kissed her on the side of her forehead that wasn’t bandaged, and left, starting an alarm on his phone for three hours. He would be back on the dot.

The second he got to the lobby, however, he was met with all of firehouse 51 and the 21st district standing up, expecting news from him. “I’d love to stay and chat, but I have orders to shower and change from Syl. Apparently I smell.” Trying to use his charm to get out of a situation he didn’t feel like explaining. But, he knew everyone glaring at him well enough to know that they needed some kind of answer. “Sylvie has become a very important friend to me, that day was one of the worst I’ve had in a long time.” Fewer glares, more confusion, and a free Jay Halstead.

He returned to his favourite person on the planet exactly three hours later with two containers filled to the brim with homemade macaroni and cheese, his laptop, and a box set of the Harry Potter books. “You, are an absolute angel, Jay Halstead.”

“No more than you, Sylvie Brett. Here is your food.”

“Oh, it’s still warm. Okay, time for bridal drama and lots of carbs!”

Sylvie was still in the hospital with Jay at her side as much as possible for another week. When she was given the all-clear to leave, no one seemed satisfied with the answer that Jay was taking her home. “Gabby I’ll be fine! Jay is one of my best friends, okay? He’s gonna drive me home, insist he stay longer than he needs to, before eventually leaving me with Otis and Cruz.”

“Okay, seriously, when exactly did you become friends with Jay Halstead? And are you sure that’s all you are?”

“Three months ago, and yes, I am sure that we’re friends. I am gonna hang up now, because I really do not appreciate the third degree.”

“Oh, come on Sylvie, I’m just looking out for you and Antonio, I just want to make sure Jay’s not moving in on you guys.”

“Gabby, there is no me and Antonio. And there hasn’t been for a while. He was great, Eva and Diego were great, it was fun, but he in no way protected or prepared me for Laura. He kept from me how erratic and impulsive and rude her behaviour was. He told me that she knew about me and was fine with cause she’d dating a few guys since the divorce. But it turned out a lot of that wasn’t true. He lied to me, leaving me to fend for myself when she came barreling in on a warpath, and then yelled at me for reacting in a scared and shocked way. He was actually the one who suggested we break up. Whether he likes it or not, she is still a significant part of his and his children’s lives, as well as a significant hindrance. And please, don’t act like we’re getting back together. I loved him, but I’m done with him.” And she slammed her finger on the touch screen much harder than she needed to. “Gabby again?”

“Yes, I love her, and I know she means well, but she doesn’t know everything.”

“And she has a lot of audacity trying to tell you she does. It’ll be okay, I think that everyone is just really stressed out and confused. I think that if we just tell everyone that we bonded over Harry Potter they’ll understand and leave us alone pretty quick.”

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

ONE MONTH AGO

Intelligence had set up a meet with a coke dealer to arrest him and get some intel. The buy wasn’t until 1 am and they didn’t have to start gathering equipment and double-checking everything for another three hours, so everyone was just going to eat and try to relax until then. But then Jay’s phone rang. Luna appeared on his screen with a picture of Sylvie staring at a tank of baby jellyfish with complete and utter fascination. “Hey Syl-”

“I need your help.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I know you’re working tonight, but- oh I probably shouldn’t have called-”

“Sylvie, what’s wrong?”

“The blind date I’m on right now? I- he was fine at first but I’m scared. There are red flags everywhere and I’m afraid I’ll end up in a ditch.”

“Marco’s Bistro, right?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll be there in ten minutes, you’re hiding in the bathroom, right?”

“Yes.”

“Good, stay there until I get there.”

“Of course.”

He nodded at Voight and ignored a livid Antonio. When he got to the restaurant, he told the hostess he was here to rescue his friend from a dangerous date and she didn’t even blink. “She’s still in the bathroom but you might wanna deal with her date after, he’s getting agitated.”

“Green dress shirt by the painting of the heron?”

“Yup.”

“Got it, thanks.”

“Hey,” he knocked on the door, “Sylvie I’m here.”

She exited and before he could even make eye contact with her she wrapped him in a bone-crushing hug, despite her shaking body. “I am so scared. He picked me up, saying that I couldn’t refuse him, he knows where I live.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll handle it.” 

 Jay watched her until he could see her in safe his truck before he approached the man, and he knew that Sylvie had every right to be worried. Sharp eyes, nasty temper, tan line on his ring finger, and he looked one second away from just grabbing the next person and caving in their skull. “Excuse me-”

“And just who the fuck are you pal? I’m here on a date so leave before I kick your ass.” Jay pulled his badge out from underneath the collar of his shirt and sat down across from him. “Give me your driver’s licence, please.” The douche (as Jay would call him for the rest of his life) handed it over pretty damn quick, he waved the waitress over. “This man is going to need his bill immediately, please.” She nodded quickly and darted off, then Jay pulled out his phone. “Hey Burgess, I need you to run a name for me. Arthur Garrett. Two t’s. Okay, thanks. Can you send down a couple of officers for me?” He waited until the bill was paid and backup arrived before speaking again. “Mr. Garrett, stand up and turn around. You are under arrest for failure to pay child support and failure to attend court. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you.” After the handoff, he saw his least favourite thing in the entire world. Sylvie crying.

“He had an arrest warrant out, he’s being taken to detainment now. I’m sorry this happened to you Syl, you don’t deserve it.”

“I just feel so stupid.”

“Well don’t, you weren’t even the one who set up the date. Can I ask you a favour though? Let me do a check on everyone you go on a date with, please. I’ll worry a lot less.”

“After tonight? You have a deal.”

“Oh thank God, I was worried I’d have to try and convince you.” He leaned over the console to kiss her cheek, he looked into her expressive eyes and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ears. Neither of them realized how close their faces were until Jay went to speak and their lips brushed together, in a feather-light touch. “We, uh, we were going to order a bunch of pizzas for dinner. It doesn’t look like you got to eat, would you like to join us?”

“That sounds great.”

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

THREE WEEKS AGO

Sylvie had gone back to Fowlerton to spend the holidays with her parents and brother, and Jay stayed in Chicago to celebrate with his brother’s family. Will was in the kitchen with Helen, he and a very pregnant Natalie were watching the looney tunes version of ‘A Christmas Carol’ in the living room with Owen. It wasn’t until Jay thought, about ten minutes into the movie, that Sylvie would love to watch this and he’d have to add this to their movie marathon lost for when she got back that he realized just how much he missed her. Her demeanour, her personality, the way she made him feel warm and fuzzy without much effort. And then he had another, much more startling realization. “I’m in love with Sylvie.” Beside him, Natalie snorted and Helen called from the kitchen “congrats on being literally the last person to know.”

“What? How did my brother’s mother-in-law-in-law know before I did?”

“She follows you on Facebook, remember? Basically everything you post is Sylvie, about Sylvie, or Sylvie related. And vice versa, I see the way she looks at you, she’s into you too.”

“It’s only been a few months, how am I in this deep?” Jay completely ignored his brother’s observation, he could barely register his feelings, he didn’t want to get his hopes up about hers.

“Take it from me, Jay, when the right person shows up it doesn’t matter how long you’ve known them or had a bond with them. If it feels good, go with it. It will only cause you pain to move away from it.”

“I don’t know if either of us are ready for that. The timings just not right.”

Nat covered Owen’s ears, “timing is a bitch.” She released a confused Owen who immediately zoned out looking at the tv again with a kiss on his tiny head, “if you don’t think that you’re ready, that’s fine. But don’t put anything down for timing or the universe, they’ll just mess you up.”

“Yeah... I’ll think about it.”

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

ONE WEEK AGO

Sylvie had been all set to go camping with Gabby and Stella, she’d been so excited and Jay had spent the last three days with her helping her pack and hanging on to her every word. Watching flit around in a flurry of excitement for a girls week. He was sitting on her bed rolling up her light blue sleeping bag with white polka dots when she got a call from Gabby and her face fell. Lines and bumps moved their way on to her face which was carefree and bright only seconds ago. “Okay, Gabby. I hope you and Matt and Stella and Kelly have fun.”

“She cancelled the trip? Or cancelled you out of the trip?”

”She decided to make it couples only. She also took the opportunity to tell me that Antonio’s single again.”

“You know what? You are not going to be sad. Because you have a week off of work, and so do I because we worked too much OT the past two months. Let’s go to Universal studios, I hear they expanded Harry Potter world.”

She smiled again. Bright and beaming and in a way that was just so, so her. “I’ll look at flights.”

Thanks to a bunch of last-minute deals, coupons, and first responder discounts they were on a plane bound for Florida in three hours. And when they got there, they went into prep mode for the next day, making sure that everything was ready to get up and go to the park, and they were so busy that neither of them noticed that there was only one bed until they were both drifting off to sleep, centimetres apart.

Waking up entangled in each other hadn’t been as awkward as either of them thought it would be. It was nice, warm. And it only got better as the week went on. They spent three days at Universal Studios, three at Universal Island Adventure, and one at Disney. Taking as much time as they could at each place. They went on every ride they could, multiple times, enjoyed all the themed food, took far more pictures than they had ever taken in their entire lives, and waited until the last day to buy any souvenirs because of how expensive everything was. They even held hands every day, Jay’s reasoning was so that Sylvie wouldn’t get separated from him but because of the time of year the population of the park was sparse compared to what it could have been. Sylvie knew this, knew that she didn’t have to hold his hand, but she wanted to. Badly. She didn’t care if it was only for while they were in Florida, she could pretend while they were there that they were more than friends. Because once they went home, she had to pretend that she didn’t love him with all her heart. But honestly, they had the time of their lives. Fun, food, and unresolved romantic tension. What could be better? It was their last day in Florida, their rental car was already loaded up with their stuff and after the fireworks display at Disney they were headed back to Chicago. 

Sylvie’s hair was mussed from the long day, and while she looked tired, she couldn’t take her eyes off of the display. And Jay couldn’t take his eyes off Sylvie. The multi-coloured lights were reflected in her eyes and the wind was blowing her hair gently. Sylvie could feel him staring at her and when she turned to ask him was what wrong, she stopped, her words dying in her throat. Jay’s entire soul was playing through his eyes. It was as if there was a tether connecting the two of them. Neither of them could turn away or blink. And Jay just went for it. He leaned down and kissed her with all the emotion his body possessed. The kiss making Sylvie feel weak in her knees. She wrapped her arms around his neck in part to stabilize himself, and in part to pull him closer. They’d missed the rest of the display just holding each other, but neither of them could bring themselves to care.

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

PRESENT DAY

Dr. Choi had been assigned to Jay. He raised an eyebrow at Sylvie seated on the bed beside him but made no comment, paying heed to the words of wisdom Maggie had just bestowed upon him, “she’s the only reason he’ll behave and accept treatment.”

“Alright, while I’m happy you’re not here with a bullet wound detective Halstead, coming back after a fight wasn’t exactly what I had in mind when I said ‘avoid lead’.”

“And deprive you of my charming personality?”

“Yeah, yeah. Now follow my finger, let’s hope you don’t have a concussion.”

It had only taken about twenty minutes to determine that Jay, miraculously, didn’t have a concussion or any broken bones. Just a lot of swelling and bruises. “Thanks, Choi.”

“No problem, while you are discharged and free to go, you can’t travel yourself, I’m actually you can see with how swollen the areas around your eyes are.”

“That’s no problem, I’ll drive him home.”

“Alright, good. Remember Jay, desk duty for a week.”

“Ugh, I’m already bored.”

“I’m sure you are, now let’s go. I want to leave before a Dawson comes barreling in here, cause I might start swinging punches too.”

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

The next week Jay avoided Antonio, not intentionally though. After hearing what happened Voight decided to keep Halstead in the basement as much as possible for his desk duty. While it was boring and agitating not being in the field, Sylvie made sure to send him as many hilarious snapchats as possible, many of which consisted of her hiding in ridiculous places to avoid Gabby. The photo that had offended the Dawsons so greatly sat framed on his temporary desk. Apparently, the people behind them at the fireworks display their last day there thought they were so cute that they took a couple of pics during and after their kiss, but the new couple had left before they could be asked for contact info for the pictures. Luckily, they’d overheard them before the fireworks display talking about how while they were sad to go back to Chicago that night, the fire and police departments desperately needed them to keep their partners in line. It had been an amusing joke to Sylvie and Jay, but a way to post the photos for the people behind them. The Dawsons were already pissed that Jay was ‘moving in on Antonio’s girl’, but when they saw the photos on Facebook, with that mother posting the, admittedly gorgeous, pictures with the tags for CPD and CFD, looking for them so that the ‘adorable couple’ could have pictures from their first kiss, they were both livid. Gabby unleashing all of her fury, most of which was for unrelated things, on Sylvie at Molly’s, while Antonio just started punching.

It all came to a head when Jay was picking up Sylvie from her shift after he had finally been cleared to drive and go back to work. “Hey, you.”

“Hello, gorgeous.” Their quick peck was stopped by Gabby darting in between them and physically pushing them apart.”How can the two of you do this to Antonio? He still loves you Sylvie, even after all this, how can you-”

“Okay, you know what Gabby? You need to shut the fuck up.”

“Brett-”

“Uh-uh. I am talking now. Antonio screwed up. He lost his chance with me. So not only do you need to stop trying to meddle in my love life, but you need to stop feeling entitled to it. You have no say in who I do or do not date. End of discussion. No, ifs, ands, or buts. I am honestly at my wit’s end with you. I don’t even consider you a friend anymore because of how poorly you’ve been treating me.”

“Bu-”

“And don’t pull any more of that ‘but you dated my brother’ crap. I only did so at your encouragement. And I seriously regret dating him because of how much trouble you two are causing for me now because I choose to have a life and not let the end of my relationship with Antonio be the end of me. You need to leave me alone. I’ve already reported you to HR. I had no other choice after you locked me in the ambo for hours today without my phone or radio and wouldn’t let me out unless I got back with your brother. Goodbye Dawson. I’ll see you next shift.”

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

THREE MONTHS LATER

Sylvie and Gabby were finally back on speaking terms, but took them a while to get there. Natalie and Hailey had become her best friends. They both understood how awful it was for someone to feel entitled to your love life, and how much gossipy coworkers who were closer than peas in a pod knew how to affect you more than anyone else. 51 had originally been avoiding taking sides, something that Sylvie was grateful for, and she made sure they knew she’d never ask them to choose. Everything, barring their relationships with Antonio and Gabby, went back to normal. Stella was asking for details about Jay, Cruz, Otis, Hermann, and Boden cornered him at Molly’s one night and threatened him, Upton told Sylvie plainly that she wasn’t allowed to hurt Jay, and the two made each other their emergency contacts. Jay also made stops by the firehouse with doughnuts from the place just around the corner from the 21st district. Sylvie, a secretly amazing cook, also dropped by the station with homemade food for the unit and Trudy on long nights.

Molly’s, in a bid to get more customers, started having trivia nights. Sylvie and Jay were practically vibrating in excitement because the trivia night that night was for Harry Potter.

“What did Draco steal from Neville during flying lessons in the first movie?”

“A remembrall!”

“What was the name of Hermione’s cat?”

“Crookshanks!”

“What was the device Hermione used to go back in time during the third movie?”

“A time turner!”

“Okay, and the winning pair is... Sylvie Brett and Jay Halstead! And can I just say that even though I work at 51 and not at the 21st district, I feel like I should have known that detective I-am-a-badass-army-ranger-and-can-kill-you-twelve-different-ways-with-a-pencil-eraser Halstead was such a nerd!” There was a roar of laughter from everyone including Jay. “Laugh all you want, being a nerd is how I got my amazing girlfriend.”

“Damn right it is.” A celebratory kiss was met with cheers from the tipsy group. “Alright, alright, stop making out with my honourary sister and come get your gift card to the aquarium.”

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

EIGHT MONTHS LATER

Jay was trying to be sensitive to Antonio, really, he was. He put his photos of Sylvie in his locker, not on his desk, he took calls from her in another room. He didn’t talk about her with anyone from the unit. Sylvie was like an entity of golden light, anyone would be a fool to mistreat her or let her go, and Jay knew that both of the Dawson siblings were beating themselves up over their mistakes. But now Jay was pissed. Did he really think that Jay was so stupid he wouldn’t spot him at the table three rows down from them? That he wouldn’t make sure to take a closer look at the man sitting alone in a restaurant designed for dates, wearing all black, with a baseball cap and shades? And that was seriously the worst disguise, too. He could see numerous other couples and the staff take notice of him and they all looked concerned. Hell, even Sylvie noticed him the second he walked in! So they had decided in a little bit of revenge. They normally wouldn’t display PDA above hand-holding or a quick kiss, but tonight they’d made an exception. They were going all out, even choosing to sit on the same side so not only did Antonio have a clear view of both of them, but Jay would lean down and nibble on Sylvie’s neck, Sylvie would lean close to his ear and whisper in his ear, far, far too much physical contact. Oh, and kisses with tongue, can’t forget those when trying to make someone immensely uncomfortable.

They kept it up all throughout dinner and dessert. At some point in between appetizers and receiving the dessert menu, the PDA stopped being an act. They started riling each other up, enjoying what they were doing to each other. They finished dessert incredibly aroused, and paid the bill as quickly as possible. Jay was vaguely aware of Antonio following them but he couldn’t bring himself to care.

They made it to Jay’s apartment in record time and started ripping off each other’s clothes the second the door was locked. Jay lofted Sylvie up and carried her into his bedroom with Sylvie distracting him, kissing and biting his neck. Once they made it there everything happened slow and steamy, with Sylvie screaming Jay’s name multiple times, Jay purring and growling in her ear. They were vaguely aware of someone pounding on the apartment door, whoever it was (Antonio) had been doing so since Jay and Sylvie locked the door. But they didn’t care. They only focused on each other. They let him knock.

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

*Brring, brring*

“Mhm, Halstead.”

“Halstead, we caught a case in Humble Park. Meet Upton there.”

“Sure thing Voight.” He hung up and stared at Sylvie for a moment, taking in her soft skin, mussed hair, and even breathing. He kissed her forehead and closed his eyes as he wrapped his arms around her. “I love you, Sylvie Brett.”

“Mmm, I love you more, Jay Halstead.”

“Did I wake you?”

“Your phone did. You want me to make you some breakfast while you get in the shower?”

“That would be great.” He kissed her, revelling in the feeling of his naked body against hers first thing in the morning.

Jay walked onto the scene with a spring in his step, homemade breakfast in his stomach, and a reusable take-out cup filled with amazing coffee. “You’re looking happy Halstead. How’s Sylvie?”

“She’s great. She made these egg muffins, they’re really good, she sent a few in a container for you if you want them.”

“I absolutely want them. Sylvie is so sweet.”

“She really is.”

“You are so smitten.”

“I am, I uh, I’m actually thinking about proposing.”

“Oh my god, that’s huge!”

“Do you think she’d say yes?”

“Oh, she definitely would.”

“I haven’t had a chance to talk to Nat yet, but would you come with me to help pick out a ring?”

“You got it.”

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

Jay was beyond nervous, but he was ready. He was ready for Sylvie to be his fiance, then his wife, then the mother of his children. Sylvie was just getting dressed and then they were heading to the park for an Irish festival, which would end in green fireworks. “Hey!” Sylvie jumped out from their bedroom in a deep green knee-length dress. “What do you think?”

“You look absolutely gorgeous. Seriously, I have absolutely no idea how I got lucky enough to date you.”

Later, just before the fireworks were about to begin, after they’d spent the whole day dancing and eating, Jay led Sylvie to a spot on a hill that two officers had been guarding for him, courtesy of Trudy. “This is an amazing spot, Jay. What did you have to bribe Trudy with to keep it?”

“Permission to take pictures and a speech if you say yes.”

“Yes to what- oh my god.”

“Sylvie Brett. You are the light of my life, I have never been this happy before and it’s all because of you. I love you so much and I want you to be my everything for the rest of our lives. So please, Sylvie, will you marry me?”

“Yes, of course, YES!” Jay slid the ring Natalie and Hailey had help him choose onto her finger, then he jumped up, wrapped her in his arms and twirled her in the air. He stopped, still holding her, Sylvie caressed his face lovingly before leaning down and kissing the love of her life. Completely ignoring the fireworks behind them, and the camera shutters in front of them. They were getting their happy ending, and they were going to love every second of it.

[of-another-broken-heart]

Today has been hard. And a lot.

I took some tylenol last night to help with cramps. It worked so well, I forgot why I’d taken them by the time I was actually trying to get to bed. I couldn’t remember when, exactly, either, so I didn’t risk taking more to safeguard my attempt to sleep.

It took a lot to get to sleep. I had dreams. I was on vacation again (recurring theme) with family (recurring theme) and all the fun/relaxation was offset by people making things dramatic and stressful. I had my car with me. It was not operating reliably (another recurring theme in my dreams). I don’t think I dreamed specifically of Alex. Doesn’t matter too much, since it takes all of 0.02 seconds for me to think of him once I wake up. And I was waking up every 1-2 hours. 

I stayed in bed all the way until I needed to drive sister to work. Not sleeping much. Just... unable to get up. Too tired. Too exhausted. Too sad. Too purposeless. 

I decided to spend some of a gift card I got for xmas. After I dropped sister off, I resolved to buy myself a meal from McDonald’s. I was planning to get a burger that came with lettuce and onion and maybe tomato. I did not end up doing that, though. I saw they had a spicy crispy chicken sandwich meal, and it was only $6. So I did that instead. It was not very crispy. The spice was good. It took me nearly a full half hour to eat. I thought I had a tooth brush in my purse, but I couldn’t find it. I had some emergency travel picks, and I used one of those, but there were still some places in my fucked up teeth that held on to some food bits that I just had to deal with until I got home. 

But I didn’t go straight home. I put in my refill for my levo yesterday, so I figured I’d pick that up. And my gas tank was dipping below the 1/4 mark, so I figured I should put the last of my cash in it. 

The pharmacy was a small little hell. A lady walked in right before me, but didn’t take any undue time or act obnoxious. An older man came in after me - and jumped to the front of the line, because I was following the 6-foot distance guidelines and I guess he was too good to do the same. He flagged down no fewer than 3 of the employees to help him at the same time, asking for prescription refills (that he hadn’t requested in advance), chatting up the actual pharmacist, and then wandering around bragging about buying out certain supplies off the shelves for his/his wife’s diabetes.  While all that was going on, another guy walked in, and stood so close to me that his phone was next to my head when he held it up to look at it. Even in pre-pandemic times, that’s too fucking close. I moved away. He immediately closed the gap. I moved away again, to the counter this time, sputtering out “Six feet, please, sir!” and while he didn’t have anything to say back, he at least stayed put at that point.  The cashier was still half tied up with the demanding diabetes guy, but he asked who was next (it was me, and Mr. No Personal Space indicated as much, too) so I was able to ask for my meds and start getting out coins to pay the dollar it’d cost. I’m almost out of change. I mostly just have pennies left now. Dropped two quarters, four dimes, and ten pennies to cover my expense - set them in separate stacks on the counter to make it easier on the cashier, who verbally thanked me for the consideration before I made my way out of there and to the gas station. 

Gas is $3 per gallon here, now. I did not know that. It was $2.60 last time I bought any - not even 2 months ago. I put the last $20 of cash I had in Jenny. Not even 7 gallons. Getting out of that parking lot was annoying. I waited my turn, I waited... the person who had the right-of-way just didn’t go. Just plain did not go. Sat on their phone blocking me and 1 other person because she was supposed to go, and if either of us went, then she went, it’d be a big problem. Then when she finally moved (after the light had changed and there wasn’t any more room left) I had to go across the street into a different parking lot just to get out of the way of the people in the gas station parking lot, and then turn around, and then there still wasn’t room for me to pull out of the fucking parking lot because a goddamn pick-up truck rolled up while I was turning around, taking the spot in the road that I could have slipped into. But at least no one else came after that, and when the light finally changed again, I just got to cruise out and get back home without any further headaches. 

The whole time in the car, I felt like I was playing Russian roulette with the radio. From eating lunch to pulling back in the drive way after getting gas - will this song reduce me to an inoperable sobbing mess? How about this one? This one??? I have to drive with the radio off most of the time now. Because that’s how fucked up and raw I am now. 

I got home and checked my emails. Birthday is in a few days, and I get more well-wishes and gifts from corporate programming than I do from people I know. I got a message from Torrid. $10 to spend. I didn’t have very high hopes, but I spent a while clicking through the online clearance listings. I was pleasantly surprised to find a few things I did actually like, and could use, and which would (individually) be nearly free with the $10 birthday spending.  The first was a simple sport bra with a strappy back. I like those. They’re practical, and most of the ones I have are old and not fashionable at all. That one was only available in a single small size, though.  Next I found a pair of boots. I already have a pair of boots, but I like boots. And these were marked down to like, $12 and their original price was over $70? Bonkers good deal. And they were wide calf by default, because Torrid, so hell yeah? There was the option for extra wide, but that seemed like they’d be too big on me (given that standard wide calf fit me pretty perfectly with my existing pair of boots). They were in stock in my size, so I put them in the cart.  Then I found another sport bra. Originally $50, down to $11-something. It was only available in a 3... which might be a size too big for me, or it might be perfect. It was a zip-front black bra with little white stars on it. I put it in my cart, too.  I planned to pick one and remove the other. I had a little money in my Paypal to cover the difference, but I can’t spend a lot. But it was a really good deal... two items that originally totaled like $125, subtotaled to less than a fifth of that. And a ten dollar credit to apply on top, so it was only $13 or so that was left to cover?  $13 for a pair of boots and a new sport bra??  It has to get delivered to the store one town over (or it would have cost an extra $6 and taken longer) but I placed the order.  Happy Birthday to me, from Torrid (and the people whose donations I still had some leftover from. 

My teeth are bothering me so much. I want them fixed. I can’t make the calls. 

I need a new doctor, I need to be taken seriously, I need so much help. And I can’t make the calls. 

The precious few people who were slap-shod forming a support net for me, have mostly dispersed. I’m drowning again, and the promised life raft isn’t even coming any more. The boat that was supposed to be a sanctuary has dropped anchor somewhere far away and is not an option, any more. Not really. 

I just want to talk to and be with Alex. And I can’t.  I can’t. It’s one-sided. I’m wrong. It never should have happened, and I’m paying the price. I was never supposed to be happy. It was a fluke. I have to pay for it, now.

[moony-jamie]

Okay long post that may or may not be shorter than expected but here we go. (I just wrote everything and it's pretty long, I think)

This will mostly be about things that happened in the past few weeks that made me emotional? Kinda? Stuff I want to talk about aka screaming it into the void that tumblr is. (Apparently it's mostly about football and my exams)

I'll put it under a keep reading thing, hopefully it works.

Okay where do I start?

I feel like I spend more time being emotional about football than worrying about my finals. Magdeburg was involved most of the time but also football that shares one braincell and the DFB hasn't seen it in a long time.

But let's start at the beginning.

On the 8th of May 46 years ago Magdeburg won the Cup Winners' Cup. Since it looked like the season will be cancelled and Magdeburg could go into a financial crisis, the fans organised a fundraising event in which they sold tickets for an imaginary trip to Rotterdam to win the cup a second time. This started around the 5th of April and went on for a month.

Obviously I got a ticket too and spend a whole week basically camping in front of my mailbox waiting for it. It took five days and I cried when it came.

It's beautiful, I love it a lot, one of my favourite players singed it, I'm in love.

They even managed to show the game in a re-live so that's the story how I screamed and cried after my English exam because we won the cup (again).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qBL15JPO4g

And well then this video made me cry again and I feel like I spend more time crying over Magdeburg than actually studying for the exams but it's time well spend I guess.

(And no we didn't actually went to Rotterdam it was all imagination but it was great anyway)

During all of this Magdeburg desperately tried to get Milan's attention (for a possible rematch in four years for the 50th anniversary) by tweeting at them in badly translated Italian. Honestly that club is as dumb as I am and I love them a lot.

Apart from that football was all about pain the past weeks, starting with the fact that I can't scream my emotions out during football games? Like idk if it's a good coping mechanism or not but screaming for 90 minutes straight always helped me a lot.

Now I'm really mad that the DFB decided to start Bundesliga behind closed doors because first of all the Bundesliga is nothing without it's fans. Second, ending the season early would be the better option but well I told myself to calm so I will do calm.

BUT THEN they won't stop arguing about the 3. Liga and honestly I'm done with this shit. At least Magdeburg is the club with the braincells and said they want to end the season (I guess I chose the right club to stan).

The thing is Magdeburg isn't legally allowed to train or even play here in Saxony Anhalt but well apparently the DFB doesn't care and is now pressuring the politics into either allowing them to play or they will take away Magdeburg's (and Halle's) license and honestly that is so fucked up I can't believe it's actually happening.

Football, what a fun sport to stan :)

Enough about football tho, lets get into the important stuff. Or well the reason I actually took a break from tumblr.

My exams went surprisingly well despite the fact that I had to stop studying at some point because it just stressed me out.

It all started off with my Chemistry exam which was pretty easy. Besides my business administration exam it was the one that stressed me out a lot because I almost failed the mock exam and I just had a bad feeling overall.

But then I saw the tasks and everything was so easy?? Of course I started stressing again because I was finished with still an hour to go but then my classmate told me that she saw the teacher grading it and I had a lot of points already and?? I was so relieved?? Honestly I could've cried.

My English exam was the next one, two days after Chemistry.

There are two main parts in this one. The first one is the listening comprehension (nightmare of every German student) the second one is the written part.

In my school we have one room that has a very good acoustic in which the listening part wouldn't be a problem but due to Corona they talked about closing it because it might be unfair when it couldn't be used for everyone that wrote the more difficult exam (I not in the mood to explain the whole system right now but if you want to know more about it dm me).

Thursday I wrote my English teacher if she knows how it's planned right now and she confirmed that they will be using this room and that I will be in this room for the listening part. That was the first time I actually cried because of my exams.

Now English wasn't particularly bad but I have a weird feeling about it. We will see once I'll get the results.

My German exam was the next one and just like with the English exam I have a weird feeling but we'll have to see.

I got good results in both of my mocks so hopefully it will be fine.

The last one was my business administration exam and oh boy. I was stressing so much, I couldn't look at my notes without having a breakdown and it was bad, really bad.

I was praying for marketing to be a big part but of course my prayers weren't heard and there wasn't a single sign of it at all.

BUT luckily the main part of the exam was easy. Well not too easy but it was a topic where I didn't think they would make it the main part but they did. It was about loans.

Well we better don't talk about the rest of it but if my calculations are right I should get the required points.

I really don't want to get hopes up but I'm pretty sure I made it.

There is one exam left still but it will be some time around June and hopefully pretty easy so I'm not stressing too much right now.

Now that I finished the hardest part I hate how everyone was stressing me even more. People basically tell you that if you don't start studying months and months in advance you won't make it but?? No, it's not that.

I can't speak for other exams of course because well maybe we had a Corona bonus or whatever but I don't think so.

It really seems to be easy (at least for all the nightmare stories I always heard).

Also wtf F1? I walk out of my German exam and see that Vettel left Ferrari. Got my crying the whole day because well I don't mind him leaving Ferrari as much as I mind should he retire. I really don't want that.

And then I walk out of the business exam and they announce Carlos to Ferrari and Dan to McLaren. As if I wasn't emotional enough, F1 really decided to play with my feelings here huh.

But what else happened except for football and exams?

Well I walked my dog every day and saw all kind of animals during so. I don't know if it was because there were less people outside or just because we have a lot of fields and forests in general but it was pretty cool.

We saw rabbits, foxes, deers and even a snake (I only saw a wild snake once in my life so that's pretty cool)

Also managed to took a (bad) picture of a deer, isn't he cute?

Also a week ago my mom convinced me to buy a bunch of guppies for our tank and ever since we got them my betta got herself a goth girlfriend and I'm??? So soft??? For my gay fish??

They're very shy tho and I didn't manage to get a good picture of them yet but it's really cute. They're always hanging around each other.

Last week I was also able to go to the stable again since Jody isn't actually my horse and they only allowed owners on the property to stop the people from taking riding lessons.

This picture is from today, I wanted to take pictures in this field ever since I missed it last year and most of the flowers stopped blooming back then.

But I was able to go back and can go there again now that I have some free time and I'm just so happy.

Unfortunately now they aren't in full bloom either because we missed it again (thanks Corona 🙃) but the picture is nice enough so I don't mind too much.

By now I can't really think of anything else that happened.

As I said I'm now working on my Fanfiction. In theory I wanted it to be done by the end of May but I don't think I will make it but I'm not stressing myself with it either. Every chapter is more or less plotted so I hope writing will go by a little easier.

I don't know how many people actually read it until this point but if you did, thanks 💙

I'm just happy that I got all of it of my chest now since I wanted to talk about all this but I was getting tired to annoy my mom with it.

[child-of-sunshine]

Just gotta rant for a minute so this is going under a cut

I can’t stand the way tumblr in general talks about “rich people” (which they can’t define to save their fucking lives) and particularly when they mention “millionaires” as though it actually means something significant in terms of wealth. 

First, no one seems to understand that by today’s inflated standards, a million dollars really isn’t that much. A quick google search will tell me that the average “middle-income” parent in America will spend over 250k to raise a child from birth to 18 years old. If a couple has 4 kids, they’re already spending over a million dollars on those kids. Yes, that’s over 18 years, but it’s still meaningful.

If a person makes 100k, which is supposedly the 85th percentile of income, it only takes them 10 years to make a million dollars. And yes, obviously they’re spending money too, and it’s not like their savings or their net worth are going to be a million in that time, but people don’t even seem to comprehend that their earnings over that time would literally be a million. Someone earning the average American income, let’s say 50k because I get conflicting information from various sources, would only take 20 years to earn a million dollars.

And calling “millionaires” (putting that in quotes because people (a) do NOT understand the difference between net worth and actual liquid assets or even income) rich, particularly in the context of the “eat the rich” rhetoric, is ridiculous. I know this site has a serious problem with black-and-white thinking, but for fuck’s sake.

Let’s take a look at my parents.

My dad grew up in a relatively low-income household. His mother’s grandparents came straight from Italy with a few dollars in their pockets and nothing else. Her family struggled to get food on the table at times. She worked very hard as a seamstress and married a man who had a good job at Ford back when that meant actual benefits including into retirement, and so they managed to raise two boys without having to worry too much about being able to afford food or housing. They saved like crazy and spent the minimum that they possibly could on themselves, so that when they reached retirement, they had a pretty decent amount of savings for the rest of their lives and could finally enjoy some luxury vacations and get a small but nice house in Florida.

My mom grew up in a truly low-income household. She was the youngest of five siblings living in a tiny, shitty town in Nowhere, Michigan, with two parents who smoked constantly, in a house that sat next to some kind of horrifying mystery waste pond (she and both of her sisters had cancer, my mom at just 36, and one of her brothers died from some kind of unknown neurological deterioration). Her father got TB and spent time in a sanitarium, after which he became a withdrawn alcoholic and then died relatively young. Her mother became depressed, stopped working, and died of cancer. My mom lost both of her parents in her early 20s, before she even met my father.

Both of my parents were gifted with the great privileges of great brains and being white. Even in their crappy hick town in the middle of nowhere, my mom managed to be in the top of her class (of 56 whole people) in high school and earned a scholarship to a state university, literally the only way she could have afforded to attend. My dad worked to pay for his college as far as I know (because back then you could actually do that). They both got bachelor’s degrees. My dad became an engineer, a good career, and quickly found a job with a relatively new, small local company. He worked extremely hard, long hours for years and moved up to being a manager, and the company has grown a lot over the 25+ years he’s now worked there, with the result that he now makes a low six-figure salary. My mom took a computer programming course after realizing her journalism degree wouldn’t get her much paid work, and has worked as a programmer for 25+ years now, switching jobs sometimes, usually making somewhere in the 60-70k range in the last decade or so.

My mother got pregnant with my sister around the time she and my dad got engaged. She was working a crappy programming job and he’d barely started as an engineer, making nowhere near six figures. They lived in a trailer park, in a trailer with a hole in the floor and steps that were a safety hazard. She’d spent some time living with her sister, who’s 13 years older than her and never had children (thus had a house and some savings). My dad’s mother, the seamstress, made my mom’s wedding dress for free as long as my mom bought the material for it, which was just about all they could afford. They had a nice, small wedding when my sister was about 2 (she was afraid of my mom’s dress lmao) and one of my cousins took the pictures.

Four years after my sister was born, my parents had saved up enough to put a down payment on our house, a moderate-sized family home in a suburban neighborhood that was just being built. The house was a little over 200k. She got pregnant with me and the house was finished just after I was born.

My mom got cancer when I was 2 years old. They haven’t talked to me much about it. Her sister spent a lot of money to buy her a really nice wig made of animal hair (which, unfortunately, she could rarely wear because it made her very itchy). She went through surgery, chemo, and radiation. She spent months sick as hell and miserable, while trying to raise two young daughters. Thankfully, they’d saved enough to be able to handle the medical bills, particularly with my dad’s good job that had good benefits and, by then, was paying him a pretty decent salary. My mom recovered, thankfully (over 20 years in remission now!).

In 2008, when the recession hit, my mom lost her job quickly. She tried finding new ones but couldn’t. No one was hiring programmers, they were getting rid of them. Her depression got a lot worse. I was in high school and depressed myself (in large part because of the situation at home, though my parents don’t know it, that became suicidal depression a while afterward), and they had to start paying for therapy for me. My sister was in college and had to try to pay for it herself because my parents’ college fund for her hadn’t gone as far as they’d hoped. My dad’s company supplies machines to auto manufacturers. They were worried. They laid off some people, thankfully not my dad, and others had to take pay cuts. My parents started sitting down and seriously going over finances. My mom and I had to completely quit figure skating, my only physical stress outlet (like I said, that contributed a LOT to the severe depression). We had to cut down the grocery bills and think about not buying gifts for family members’ birthdays and such. My grandparents, happily retired by then with good savings, paid off the rest of our mortgage and told my dad to pay them back without interest whenever he could, so that no matter what happened with the jobs, we at least wouldn’t have to worry about losing our house. I listened to my parents scream at each other over money and I cried myself to sleep a lot of nights.

Guess what? My dad is a millionaire. Definitely not in liquid assets, but in net worth he probably just barely hits 1 million. He now makes a low six-figure salary and when the economy is doing okay, he invests some of it in the stock market, mostly in low-risk stocks that are guaranteed to have payouts (I don’t know a lot about this, so that’s all I’ll say). He inherited/learned his dad’s extreme money-saving ways and saves as much as possible. He’s an engineer and very handy, so whenever possible he does home and car repairs himself to save a lot of money. I managed to get a scholarship that covered almost all of my undergrad tuition, I lived at home for half of undergrad and all of med school to save money, I worked in retail in undergrad and as an EMT in med school to pay for some of my own stuff, and they didn’t pay for any of my med school tuition, so that’s it for their educational expenses for me. My mom’s had a good, stable job for the last few years that pays in the low 80k range, I think. We live in a house worth ~250k that we now fully own thanks to my grandparents. 

A few years ago, my dad’s brother bought a crappy, tiny, nearly-condemned cabin in the woods up north for about 20k (seriously, it was shit). He and my dad put in a few hundred dollars and a TON of time and manual labor to fix it up, and now we pay half the bills on it and both of our families use it for vacations. We have a small (19ft) boat that my dad bought as a gift for my mom when she had cancer--he got it extremely cheap from a guy who’d bought it, barely used it, and just wanted rid of it. It’s a 1994 and full of problems now, but we’ve managed to keep it going (barely, at times) and my dad has taken really good care of it over the years. A friend of my dad’s got him into snowmobiling about a decade ago and once his brother bought the cabin and they fixed it up, my dad got a cheap, crappy used snowmobile, which he used for a few years before reselling it and upgrading to an actually nice, new one, because yeah, he could afford it. He’s upgraded a couple times, good for him. When I actually have the time off, I go up with him in the winter and ride one of his old ones that he kept and fixed after it had an engine problem. It doesn’t cost much to renew the trail permits each year and I borrow my uncle’s gear for riding, so other than the initial cost of the sleds, it really costs us nothing to go riding (gas is extremely negligible in snowmobiles, they can go 120+ miles on a single 8 gallon tank, and we store them ourselves at the cabin so we don’t pay for that). We store the boat in our garage at home (like I said, it’s small) so other than the permit and gas for that when we take it out, again, really no continuous expense.

My parents pay all of their taxes without trying to do any bullshit work-arounds. They don’t have a lawyer or a tax accountant or a financial advisor, my dad does it all himself. He keeps track of all of our finances himself. We don’t pay a landscaping service or a cleaning service or any of that crap, we do it all ourselves like any other middle-class family. My mom donates regularly to charities for cancer, animal rescues, and injured veterans. 

But to tumblr, incapable of seeing nuance, we’re “one-percenters (absolutely nowhere near true) who own a house and have a ‘vacation home’ and a boat and recreational vehicles” so we’re pretty much just as bad as Bezos, because anyone who isn’t actively struggling to put food on the table or in horrible medical debt because of our disaster of a system is apparently “rich” and there’s no such thing as shades of gray.

[aurora-borealis514]

The Sidewalk.

18 + Mature Content.

(It’s a long story, but I didn’t want to disappoint!)

CHAPTER 1

Location: My bedroom.

Time: 3:45 am 

I can’t sleep, I haven’t been able to sleep. I guess the stress has just been getting to me lately...Yeah... I know, I know you’re probably all laughing like “Stress! Pah! You’re to young to have any stress!” or my favorite line. “You’re lucky you still live at home. When I was your age I was already married with two kids by then.” Oh yeah Deborah isn’t that right? Well I’m sorry that my life isn't all put together at 21 like yours might have been, which was when 40 years ago? 

I hate people.

Especially the ones who just silently judge you. You know which ones, they are nice to your face but as soon as your back is turned they say the complete opposite; Walking around with their noses stuck straight up in the air, and driving around showing off their fancy SUVs. Must be nice to have things handed to you. For me, that wasn’t the case, towards the end at least. I came from an average family you know. Mom stayed at home, dad is a cop, a younger brother, the white picket fence and what family would be complete with out a dog. The all American family you could say.

We were definitely far from it. We had our dirty secrets too, just like any other “normal” family.

Fuck! Why can’t I sleep, god damn it! 

Looking up at the ceiling all I could think of at that moment was “What if this were to collapse in on me?” “ Maybe then it would end all of my pain and suffering.” 

The roof needed to be fixed. Dad said he was going to do that months ago...but here we are closer to winter and it’s still not done. The shingles were falling off and it leaked every time it rained. My room seemed to be the only room in the entire house that received the full impact; It was so bad last week I had to sleep downstairs on the couch. The windows were old and drafty and look like they haven't been replaced in years, the doors were just the same, creaking at the hinges. The yard was over grown and had gone to complete shit. Our house didn't always look like this, we just stopped caring.

My mother was the one who would take care of basically everything around the house without her my dad, brother and I would have been lost. She taught me everything she could. How to cook, fold laundry, how to change a tire. She was a woman that young girls would look up to. She was kind and caring, she spent a lot of time working with different organizations and she was always hosting charity events. Judith Ward even made a brief appearance.

Sigh.

Sadly, that’s all just a faded distant memory, and now my father and I were complete and utterly lost. Most day’s we would just order take out from Ruby’s Diner, we sort of became regulars there.

Tears began to bubble in my eyes blurring my vision of the ceiling. 

My mother and younger brother were murdered, along with a few others. Most would say they were in the wrong place at the wrong time, but my dad wasn’t convinced.

It all happened so fast. My mother had just picked up Danny from school and they were walking home when a man in a ski mask jumped them from behind shooting my mother point blank in the back of the head. Danny’s body was never found, so deep down I know he is still alive...somewhere.

For about 4 years now my dad had been searching and it seemed like every time he would get close to a break through...more “clues” would began to surface and he would be led straight back to a dead end. Part of me believes that the man is still out there holding my brother hostage and he’s just been leaving clues behind to this day just to try and throw my dad off the trail, but he is stubborn and determined, and why would a murder hang around and continue to leave clues? I try not to think about it to often because it kills me deep down knowing someone I used to see everyday just isn’t there anymore. I keep thinking that this was all my fault and a part of me that feels guilty everyday. I should have been there with him, and maybe at least my mother would still be here... I  know fucked up way of thinking, but that’s where my mind takes me when I think about it.

Ever since the murder my father has suggested me speaking to a therapist. He claims that “medicating with Marijuana isn’t the right way to go about dealing with my stress and pain, but what does he know, Those guys are there only to take all your money and silently judge you, then they go home and talk about how crazy you are to their immediate families and significant others. To them that’s just a normal day in the office, but to me that’s the life I am stuck living every single day.

So if you ever meet a family member of your shrink. That’s why they hesitate when saying hello. They probably think you are a psychopath and could snap at any moment.

Time: 4:00 am

Alright, well no sense trying to sleep now, I might as well just pull an all nighter.

Stretching I rolled out of bed and grabbed a shower towel. Sluggishly I walked down the stairs. My dad was asleep at his computer per usual... he must have had another late night. 

Yawning I proceeded into the bathroom and closed the door. Turning on the shower I pulled my nightshirt over my head and gently tossed it onto the floor. Reaching my hand behind the curtain I made sure it was hot. 

Scalding.

That was the only good thing about old houses. The hot water is actually hot.

Stepping in I felt the heat of the water run over my skin, sending chills down my spine, and making the hair on my arms stick up straight. A draft crept through the crack under the door and my nipples grew hard. We didn’t have a shower curtain at the moment, so no matter how hot the shower got you were still cold. Why you may ask? We’ll I decided one night it was a good idea to try and sober up a friend by putting her in the shower, well epic fail on my part. Her foot got caught up on the edge of the tub and she became entangled in it which ripped the holster straight out of the wall and caved in on her. My dad was pissed and his reasoning behind not buying another one. 

“You shower with the door closed so why do you need a curtain to hide behind too.”

His logic never made sense sometimes... but that was dad. Usually his reasoning behind things made me laugh which made it impossible for him to ground me.

Closing my eyes I let the water run down my face. It was soothing, but not as soothing as the sound of rain late at night. Washing up, rinsing off and then turning off the shower I stepped out and reached for my towel also not realizing my phone was underneath it. I couldn’t react fast enough, all I could do was stand there and watch it as It fell and collided with the ground making a sharp snap.

Great. I hope I didn’t just break it.

Wrapping a towel around my hair and the other around my body I reached down for my phone. Closing my eyes I whispered to myself. Please don’t be broken, please don’t be broken. Slowly peeking out of one eye I looked down. Phew! Not broken this time. Taking a deep breath I turned to the mirror and wiped the condensation away leaving blurry streaks. My makeup didn’t seem to come all the way off in the shower so it was still smudged around my eyes making dark circles. Washing my face again in the sink with a face cloth, I then rubbed lotion all over my body. Coco butter, not only does it make your skin smooth as fuck but it smells good too! I brushed my teeth and spit the toothpaste into the sink. Leaving the bathroom I looked over at my dad who was sound asleep, but this time snoring with his face buried deep into his in his arms. 

He looks pretty peaceful. I won’t wake him yet.

Tippy toeing up the stairs, they creaked and groaned. I closed my bedroom door behind me and began franticly digging through my piles of clothes that were just thrown throughout my room. Picking up a shirt I brought it to my face and inhaled. 

Smells ok to me. Throwing on a ripped tank top, I swirled the shirt around my back and flung my arms through. Picking up a pair of jeans I just looked down at them in disgust. These are so old. They had holes, and stains that just wouldn't wash out, but they were my favorite pair and I just couldn’t get rid of them. Slinging my bag over my shoulder and grabbing my camera headed back down stairs.

Still sleeping...

Dad... Dad?

“Wha...What time is it?” he asked in a fog while rubbing his eyes.

4:30 in the morning...

“Why are you awake?” 

Well, I couldn’t sleep so I figured I would get an early start.

Yawning he stretched his arms back behind his head before looking back down at his computer. Grunting he held his head in his hands.

“Every fucking time I think I’m one step closer.” he clenched his fists and pounded hard on his desk making a pile of papers shuffle and fall to the ground.

Dad? Maybe you should get some sleep... bending down I picked up his papers and placed them neatly back onto his desk

“I don’t need sleep, I need to finish up working on this case.” he growled

Seriously though, you need to rest...it’s been 4 years and you aren’t any closer today then you were 4 years ago.

“What I need is for you to stop giving me such attitude, leave me the hell alone and let me get back to work so then maybe I can try and get some sleep.”

Alright, whatever Dad... I’ll see you later.

“Where are you going?” he asked turning to face me.

I see, he only looks at me when I’m leaving.

I don’t know, probably go down to Ruby’s for some breakfast.

“I see you have your camera too?” he smiled.

holy shit...he smiled.

Yeah, I wanted to maybe catch the sun rise. Do you want anything to eat? I can bring you something back? Maybe an extra thick milkshake 

“mmm sounds good, but no.” he replied turning back to his computer.

 Come on Dad, you know you want one. I’ll buy?

“No I’m good. Thank you, but really I need to get back to work.” he responded.

He was exhausted, his eyes were sunken in surrounded by dark circles. His hair was starting to turn gray and he just looked like absolute shit. He was supposed to be off this week. The Chief told him he needed to take time to grieve because he really hasn't since my mom died, but my dad has been sneaking around getting files from the other guys so he can continue to work, but just from home.

Ok so breakfast sandwich and a coffee instead?

“Black.” He replied with a smirk.

Sounds good old man.

Turning to leave, he called out to me once more.

“This old man could still kick your ass”

Name the place and pick a time Dad. I can take you down any day.

“That’s my girl.” he smiled.

Door slams shuts.

It was a lot cooler out then I had expected, yet again the weather man lies, but then again the sun still wasn’t even awake yet.

The air was crisp, and the leaves crunched beneath my feet as I walked along. I absolutely loved the fall. Everything is just so beautiful and the people around here really get into the Halloween spirit.

If Halloween could be an every day event, I would be happy. 

The birds were already awake and chirping away, and just as I got to the bottom of my steps a fat squirrel ran across my path nearly tripping me in the process. Sadly he was just to quick to take a picture.

One day I’ll capture you, Mr. Squirrel. I laughed out loud to myself. You might have gotten away this time, but next time you won’t be so lucky.

The squirrel stopped half way up the tree and what looked like began to mock me, before quickly scurrying up into the brush.

Fat little bastard. I grumbled.

Walking down the street all I could do was look around at how the town went to complete shit. I feel like the loss of my mother and disappearance of my brother just caused the whole town to shut down and lose its spark. My parents were very well known and liked around the area by anyone and everyone who crossed paths with them. They were always willing to help anyone and everyone who asked them, even if that means they got fucked over 85% of the time. So I couldn’t go anywhere without something stopping me to ask how my parents were doing or if they would be around that weekend to give them a hand. Especially now...it’s always. “How’s your dad? Is he ok?” 

Half the time I want to tell them to go visit him and ask for themselves, but I usually just smile and tell them he’s fine.

It got old.

Wrapping my flannel tighter around me I headed down the side walk, the only beautiful thing left in this town were the trees and the canal. 

Pulling out my camera I took a quick photo. 

SNAP, SNAP

Something this beautiful should be captured before it get’s destroyed by humanity. One horrible thing about the human race, so quick to destroy something so beautiful that life has blessed us with, and people wonder why there are global warming problems.

SNAP, SNAP

Shit, whited out. God damn flash.

My camera was old and I needed a new flash, but since I haven’t been able to find a job in this hell hole I haven’t been able to buy a new one. I did ask my dad for my birthday last year, but he just hasn't had the money. It makes me feel like complete shit to even ask.

Come on, adjust...

SNAP. SNAP.

Got it. Thank you! Kissing my camera I smiled at it.

Perfect. I smiled down at my camera pleased with the shot.

Taking in a deep breathe through my nose I exhaled out my mouth causing a cloud to appear. 

Fall is definitely here. 

My stomach grumbled.

Alright, I need to eat...

Walking further down the side walk, and then to the cross walk, I looked and crossed the street heading towards the diner. That was another cool thing. Everything was so close to our house we can just walk there within a few minutes.

My dad and I used to take walks all the time...and then at the end he would treat me with a large malt shake. He always would suggest I get the smaller size because I could never finish a large, but I wanted to be like dad. 4 years later my brother was born. At that point I was 17 and started to rebel. Mainly tattoos, which drove my mother insane, but once my brother was born it’s like I didn’t exist anymore. I mean my dad always wanted a boy, I guess you can say that’s where I get my tomboy spirit from but from then on out it was all about Danny. 

He was only 13 when he disappeared.

Chapter 2:

Location: Ruby’s Diner

 Time: 4:45 am.

SNAP, SNAP

Fucking flash!

Snap Click. chhhh chhhh.

Ugh Wherever. I’ll just fix the damn thing inside. I stuffed the camera angrily into my bag and pushed open the large double glass doors to the diner.

“Hey Harper! Long time no see, two for breakfast?” the man behind the counter asked.

No Shane, it’s just me today. My dad’s at home working. I smiled.

“Isn’t he supposed to be on vacation?” he asked confused.

Well you know my dad...

“Yeah that’s true can’t take a man away from his work.” he laughed. “Would you like your regular booth by the window?” he asked looking down at his monitor.

Yeah that would be great actually.

“Alright, well it looks like it was just cleared off, so right this way ma’am.” He smiled smoothly waving his arm towards the dining room.

You’re the best, they really should just let you run the entire place.

“Thanks, but no thanks. I’m one pay check away from having enough money to get the hell out of this place.” he laughed.

Yeah, I hear ya, I have a feeling I might end up dying here.

“Don’t be so hard on yourself. Hey, once I’m gone my job will be free, maybe I can mention something to management?”

You would do that?! Oh thank you! 

Wrapping my arms around him I hugged him.

“No problem, I always have your back.” He laughed.

Sitting down at the table I pulled my bag to my side, and reached in. Pulling out my sketch pad I plopped it down and began to draw. That’s why I like the window booths. They were just giant windows filled with inspiration. I especially love when the older gentleman come for the early bird specials and bring their fanciest and shiniest cars. You can see them outside standing there gawking over who has the fastest car, or the best engine. Passing around cigars and chopping off the ends before lighting them and blowing big thick grey clouds of smoke up into the air. 

What a life. I always thought about what they were like at my age. It was such an easier time. They used to be able to go outside without having to worry that someone was going to get kidnapped or murdered. They came home when the street lights came on, not when they get a text asking where the hell they are. 

Looking down at the menu I couldn't decided. I know I have been here a million times, but I always look at the menu, you know just incase I decide to order something different.

 Which for me that was rare.

I always wished they would serve lunch this early, call me a psycho but I could totally go for a tuna melt right about now.

Looking up I notice the waitress. Her hair was in a twisted mess on the top of her head and her apron was stained with all sorts of different types of condiments, oil and grease. 

 Kate?! Since when do you work here?

“Well recently, Chloe’s mom was talking to my mom and well...here I am.” she sighed. “I really don’t like it.”

Well, I can tell you waitressing sucks. People are just plain rude.

“Especially the ones who tip like shit.” she laughed

Cheap bastards.

“Where’s your dad?”

He’s at home working. 

“Well it’s good to see he has at least been keeping himself busy.” 

Yeah, if that’s what you called it. I rolled my eyes at her comment.

“I’m sorry...I didn’t mean to...” she began to say.

Don’t worry about it, I’m used to people asking me about my dad all the time.

“Anyway what can I get for you?” she asked pulling out a notebook and pen. 

I’ll have the breakfast platter and a mimosa. 

“Starting early?” she giggled

It’s never to early to drink. I laughed.

“How would you like your eggs?” she then continued

Over easy, white toast, whip cream on the pancakes, bacon fried to a perfect crisp. 

“Anything else?” 

Yeah, freshly squeezed orange juice? 

“Were a diner not a 5 star breakfast buffet.”

I couldn’t help but to laugh. Oh come on the food here is definitely 5 star material.

Placing her hands on her hips. “If you think this is 5 star food then you haven't had real food.”

Well I mean, dad doesn’t cook and this is the only place that’s close enough for me to walk to.

“You still don’t have a car?” she asked cocking an eyebrow.

Well I do, it’s just in the shop. The damn truck is so rusty I need a miracle. Plus my dad’s car has been rotting in the driveway since my mom...

“That’s ok, no need to explain.” she smiled softly.

You know, you don’t have to walk on eggshells around me... I don’t mind talking about certain things.

“I know, it’s just horrible. Any news on your brother?” she asked running her thumbs along the hem of her apron.

Not yet, but I know he’s out there...he has to be.

“Well I will make sure to pray for his safe return.” she smiled again.

Thanks Kate, you're the sweetest.

“Anytime.” she replied turning and heading towards the kitchen.

Looking back out the window I sighed heavily. Well it looks like I am going to miss the sun rise yet again. 

Pulling out my camera and tiny tool kit, I began to work on the flash. Alright if I just adjust it here.... and then tweak this.

SPOING! 

Damn it! I slammed my fists down on the table tightly gripping what felt like the worlds smallest screw driver. Taking a deep breath I went back to working on it.

10 minutes later.

click, click. Snap, Snap

Yes! Fixed it!

And it looks like just in time. Looking over Kate held out the tray of food and placed it on the table. 

Looks good. I smiled at her.

“Let me know if you need anything else.” she smiled.

I will, Thanks Kate. 

Nodding her head Kate turned and walked away. Slapping my hands together and rubbing them I grabbed my fork and dug in.

Everything here just tastes so good to me, I guess you could say this is the closest thing I have had to a home cooked meal in a long time. 

The pancakes were perfectly fluffy, and drizzled with maple syrup and a dollop of whip cream in the center, the bacon was perfect and crispy where it melted in my mouth every time I took a bite, and my eggs were cooked perfectly. 

Finishing up rather quickly I waved for the bill.

“How was it?” she asked removing my plate from in front of me.

It was amazing, as always.

“You really need to get out more.” she laughed. “Need any change?” 

No thanks, I’m good. You keep it. Hey, it was good seeing you. I haven’t seen you since graduation.

“Well, if you want to see me again I’m here everyday of the week.” she smiled.

Alright, sounds good. Bye Kate and thank you.

“You’re welcome.” She responded hurrying off into the kitchen.

Walking outside the sun was finally raising and everything began to flare with color. 

Perfect timing. I smiled to myself.

Time 6:30 am

18 year’s I've lived here and I’ve never really stopped to actually look at the beauty this run down town can hold. 

Looking into the water I held my hand over my eyes to shield the suns glare. I could see fish swimming around happily, and rising to the surface for a small gulp of air before dipping back down and disappearing beneath the rocks.

Life is just so beautiful if you actually open your eyes and look at it.

SNAP, SNAP.

Click.

There is just something so calming about still water. I could just stare into it for hours, even days and never get bored.

SNAP SNAP.

Beep, beep.

What the fuck, low battery? Already. Fuck this stupid camera. 

Turning it off I placed it in my bag, well that’s enough pictures of water for right now I guess. I frowned looking down as a fish swam up and grabbed a cigarette butt that floated by before quickly spitting it back out.

Now that’s just disgusting. I frowned.

I really hate people sometimes.

Reaching for a stick, and then stretching out my arm, I managed to cause a rippled effect to move the cigarette butt close enough for my to pull up into the grass.

Ok fish, you are safe for now! I smiled looking down as 5 little babies swam out from under that same rock.

Heading back towards my house, I decided to take a quick detour.

SHIT! I forgot to get my dad food and coffee. I groaned. Oh well...he probably wouldn’t eat it anyway. Pretty sure his last sandwich is still there not even touched.

Turning the corner to enter my street I looked over at the park. The once beautiful fence, now rusted and damaged from little assholes around the town. There was trash and left over food laying all over the broken cement top. Shards of glass from beer bottles were smashed and smushed into the grass. The only new thing in this place was the swings and the basketball nets. Looking over I saw two kids throwing a ball around. 

“Haha loser! That’s an E for you.” one kid mocked.

“Fuck you asshole.” the other kid replied.

Pulling out my camera I quickly capture the two as one of the boys punched the other directly in the stomach. He started crying. 

“Fuck you dude.” he said as he ran to exit the park. “I’m telling mom.” 

“Don’t tell mom! Wait Get back here!” the other hollered as he ran after him.

SNAP, SNAP.

Well, that one will definitely be a good addition to my scrap book. Laughing out loud at the picture my camera began to beep, and then shut off. Great. I put my camera in my bag and headed over to the swings. Placing my bag on the ground next to me, I began to swing.

Back and forth, higher and higher. Getting lost in a daze.

I loved playing on these when I was a kid. The swing creaked as I swung back and forth. The memories of my childhood began to flash in front of me. All the times my friends and I would sneak out and meet here just to smoke a joint and drink beers that we stole from our parents fridges.

One time we ended up getting busted by the police. He was a rookie, and my friends decided it would be funny to mess with him. We had a bag full of stink bombs, which we lit and threw at him as he walked towards us. When they started to smoke and release the smell, all of a sudden the officer grabbed his throat and began gasping for air. We all panicked and ran away, we ended up hiding across the street in the neighbors rose bushes. MISTAKE. We were covered in scratches from the thorns afterwards. Finally when back up arrived what seemed like hours later, they ended up having to give him CPR and some oxygen. Little did we know he ended up having an asthma attack.

Needless to say that was his first and last day on the job. We also never got caught.

I just can’t believe we let this town go to shit like this, this placed used to be so beautiful and full of life, now its just surrounded by crime, punk ass kids, and lazy old people who spend 90% of their time on the front porch in rocking chairs scolding the teenagers as they walked by. 

Swinging high enough, I launched off the swing and landed on my feet.

I should get home, Dad’s probably worried about me.

I paused.

Yeah right. Laughing to myself I left the park, luckily for me I lived right next door so it wasn’t far.

Time: 8:00 am

Reaching my house I noticed the mail had arrived. Wow, this is here early. Might as well bring it inside or else it will be sitting here for weeks just piling up.

Pulling out a stack of envelopes I quickly shuffled through them.

Bills, Bills, Junk mail, Junk mail, bills, bills. Great. Nothing for me. What else is new.

I always looked through the mail like I expected to receive something, even though every time I always knew none of it would ever be for me. Sighing heavily I stuffed  the mail into the side pocket of my bag and headed up the front steps. Reaching for the door knob I pushed the front door open and this time closed it gently behind me, incase my dad had decided to finally give it a rest, and get some rest.

But no, Dad was still in the same spot I left him in.

Hey Dad, I’m home. Here’s the mail. I said reaching into my bag and then placing it on the desk. I’m sorry I forgot to grab you food. 

“Great honey. How was school?” he asked.

Dad...I’m 21, I don’t go to school anymore.

“Right, right...well good to see you.” He mumbled with his eye glued to his computer screen while he rubbed his temples.

Yeah Dad, Always a pleasure. I sighed waving at him and heading up the stairs to my room.

To be continued...

[empresskira]

For the Secret Santa on the MAS chat!! @shockandlock I hope you like it!! Merry Christmas!! <3

All I Want

Bright lights twinkle, anyone would flinch on the intensity on how bright the room looked and the ceiling light or lamps weren’t even on. Yips are accompanied with a chiming of laughter from two individuals in the kitchen, the smell of baked goods wafting through the home. Marco had just come in through the door with a big box in his arms and the one of them has a smaller box with tiny holes in it. He quietly sets the big box on the coffee table before setting the smaller box to a small table that got shoved behind the Christmas tree. After it was hidden with no way to see coming in from the kitchen, he slides the large present by the tree with the other presents.

If there was one thing that Marco learned over the past few years is that his boyfriends’ loved decorating for Christmas, even more than Halloween. The first time spending Christmas together in his home, it startled him coming home from work to find tinsel wrapped around Ace and lights around Sabo’s neck like a scarf as he place them up. The whole living room was bright and even had them trailed down the hall. The bedroom had small candles, fake and some plugged in, bringing a warm glow to it. Decorations grew over time, gaining some of their own and impulsive buys, mostly on Ace’s part.

They waited until after having dinner at his family’s house to open their own presents. They only stayed to around five o’clock, max. The three of them liked cuddling up on the couch and watching Christmas movies that they did every year. The hot cocoa would run dry by tonight, though they had backups, and it could not be helped. Mistletoe hung around in every doorway to give each other excuses to provide more kisses. It always left them giggling in joy and sharing more.

“I’m back!” Marco says out, hearing clicking on the hardwood and ready’s himself to be pounced by a dalmatian. “Hey there, Stryker! You making sure they don’t burn down the house, yoi?” Barks come out sharp and tail smacks everywhere, thumping against the wall as he shows his joy. Licks get his face as Marco sees Sabo at the doorway of the kitchen.

“Mistletoe!” Ace hollers, twirling Sabo to soon plant a big one to lips, both sputtering in laughter.

“Presents after cookies are done?” Marco asks with a smile and Stryker barks to Ace with hops.

“Yes, yes! You will get your doggy cookies!” Ace cheers as the dog hops over in excitement to the man and gets picked up. A hand rubs o the spotted chest and Ace nuzzles a freckled cheek to the head of the happy dog. “Who’s a good fire dog? Who’s is a good boy?” Yips leave Stryker with wiggles and Marco shakes his head as Sabo begins rubbing against the side of the dog as well.

“Let’s get baking done!” Marco mentions, the two cheering and Stryker barking happily as they go to the kitchen. 

After some sneaked cookies, accompanied with burned tongues, they got the cookies to platters to cool as they go to the living room. Stryker got some of his biscuits and happily ate them as they began dragging out presents. They are all excited and the tradition of small gifts begins. Ace bought cheesy socks for them all and a headband for Stryker, who wore it happily as he also got a new large bone for Christmas. It didn’t take long for the dog to sneak off, hitting the doorway along the way as it was rather large.

“Yes, the full season of Mentalist!” Sabo cheers, holding up a couple seasons with the rest inside.

“We are going to busy for some nights,” Marco looks towards Ace, who is grinning brightly.

“You know you love it, too!” Ace mentions as they all enjoy the show, but he receives a snort from Marco as he wouldn’t deny it.

Marco opens his box and looks over to the both as they are snickering, pineapple tissue paper is taken out with an exasperated sigh. As he got it out, he soon is surprised to see a plush blue bird. “It looks like Fennec…” He mutters as his bird looked like a small phoenix, but they lost him a few months ago. It was understandable, he was getting older and only passed because of old age.

He holds the plush, moving the box to the side and gets both hands on it. Even though it is made of only fabric, it looks handmade, and he brings it close to smell the scent of lavender. It’s the scent that helps him to soothe from any stress that may be coming along. Marco gives a deep breathe before pulling it away and smiling to his boyfriends.

“Thank you, yoi…” the words make the two grin bigger with little bounces.

“Someone handcrafted it, took some time and it was so hard to not give it to you earlier!” Sabo says and Ace gives an agreed whine as he leans to the side.

“A month! We have been holding on for a month!” He says with another whine and Stryker howls from the hallway. They all laugh at the reaction, accompanied with some barks echoing.

They continue, Ace cheering as he holds up a kit in hand. “Hell yeah! I have been wanting to trying whittling!” Hands grip the set of carving knives and waving them up and down.

“Maybe it will show you how to be patient,” Sabo remarks with a smirk and gets a balled up wrapping paper chucked at his face.

“Hush!” The remark starts a mini wrapping paper war, and Marco has to stop it when boxes go flying.

More is opened, finding a pair of slippers for each and a sweater. They got Ace a llama sweatshirt and elf looking slippers as his other ones are getting worn out. Sabo received one with a lizard on it, then some plaid slippers—blue as he loves the color. Marco got one with a dove on it, being bird related, and a pair of blue with yellow as slippers. All that was left is the large gift that Ace is aware of as him and Marco agreed on this for Sabo.

“Is that for us all? I wasn’t involved!” Sabo pouts with arms crossed and Ace is already changing his sweater to the new one he got.

“Stop whining, you will love it!” Ace says with a muffled voice before popping his head out.

“Go ahead and open it,” Marco says as he slides it over to his curious boyfriend. A sigh leaves him with small mutters of being left out as he pulls on the wrapping paper. At this point Marco stands up to push some of the paper and boxes away from the tree. “What is this? Are we getting fish?” Confusion shows as Sabo looks to the tank with some more plain boxes inside as they didn’t want them revealing anything.

“Maybe,” Ace smirks as Marco moves to behind the tree. He grabs the box and brings it out to hold it out to Sabo. Their boyfriend looks suspicious before taking it and opening it to gaze in. Shoulders tense before he jerks his head up to look at them both in shock.

“Y-You got me…?” A small squeak leaves him, small prickles of tears showing on the corners of his eyes.

The two smile as Ace inches closer, “Merry Christmas, ‘Bo!” He says with a grin and they watch as Sabo carefully puts hands into the box. As hands move up, Marco grabs the box so Sabo can hold the small creature in his hands.

“I’ve been wanting an iguana so bad.” Sabo whispers and gets the animal to one hand and begins petting it as it looks around.

“Later we will have to get a bigger tank, so it has room to grow.” Marco says as he is kneeling on the other side of the tank.

Seeing those green eyes glistening in joy at the sight of one thing he wanted so much. He always held off, a little not sure if he wanted to take the responsibility, but Ace and Marco knew he wanted one. The longing in his eyes for one never went unnoticed and they wanted to show how much he deserves one and to know he would take great care of it. The way hands pet along the reptile, it looked to be enjoying it before it scurries along his arm. Sabo gasping as it hurriedly gets to his shoulder, letting its nose near his neck before inching to rest with head forward towards Marco and Ace.

“I think he likes you,” Ace mentions while shifting to move the tank a bit.

“I hope so!” Sabo has hands tightened into fists, grinning brightly as he reaches up to pet more on his new present.

They spend the next hour getting the tank set up, Sabo realizing that they bought the shelf near the couch, pressed to the wall, for a reason now. That was over three months ago, and he about cried again at how much they planned this out for him. Once everything is set up and lamp turned on, Sabo lets the iguana nestle into its home and explore it.

Then they set out to gather cookies, hot chocolate, the three different popcorn in that large can that has Santa on it, and the biscuits for Stryker. There is already a pile of pillows and blankets on the couch that they get arranged for their movie night. On the ottoman part of the couch, they are sure to set up blankets for Stryker as Ace sits mostly there so the dalmatian curls up at his legs. The couch is all done up and Marco is in the middle to let Sabo glance to see his new pet. He knew he would want to and didn’t mind, especially as he knew Sabo would probably scoot to take a glance to it to check on it.

“Home Alone marathon!” Ace cheers as he already pulled up the movie on the television as they are renting them to watch and not have to get up unless necessary.

“Come on, why not the Grinch first?!” Sabo whines and Stryker howls, causing them all to laugh before smashing together on the couch.

“Grinch and then Home Alone, since there is only one Grinch movie.” Marco compromises that they both agree to, Ace a little reluctant. As the movie starts, Stryker is already moving to lounge along Ace’s lap with front paws on Marco’s lap, to be reached by all them, plus Sabo could reach his biscuits better.

They each could agree, this was by far one of the greatest Christmas ever.

[femnet]

Dear Me 15-Years Ago,

You’re 21 today! This is a day you have been waiting on for a very long time. It seems even longer because you’re the youngest out of all of your friends! Eighteen was considered adulthood, but 21 is that next level of adulthood!  You’re almost finished with college, and about to be out in the real world.  As you wake up today, very hungover by the way (don’t worry, you mostly learned that lesson, you’ll only get that drunk one more time in your life), I thought as your older, much wiser self, I would impart a little wisdom on you.

Let’s start with a couple of easy ones…

Be a better driver! This should be a given, but you’re terrible. You’re about to get into another wreck. What is this, like five? Luckily no one will ever get hurt by your terrible driving, but you will save thousands upon thousands of dollars if you would just pay more attention to the road. And this is before people will start texting and driving. Seriously, your only excuse is that you suck a driving. Take a class!

Listen to your parents. They are literally always right. Every. Single. Time. You’re rolling your eyes now, aren’t you? By the time you figure out that they’re always right, you’ll also learn that it’s either because they made your same mistakes and lived to tell the tale, or that they know you better than you know yourself. Your mom will actually know you’re pregnant before you figure it out. It’s freaky!

That guy that you think is so great right now… he’s not the one! In fact, there will be a few more “not the ones” before you do meet the one. Some of them will be total wastes of your time, but a few will teach you something about what you do want in the one. Don’t stop putting your heart on your sleeve. The one time you wanted to protect your friendship and not follow your heart, you ended up losing the friendship anyway because he got tired of waiting around for you.

Don’t get the store credit card for 20% off your purchase. It sounds like a great idea while you’re buying 10 outfits, but what the clerk isn’t telling you is that the interest rate is 29% or more. Are you going to pay it off the second you get home? Nope! The math doesn’t add up. The store just made an extra 9% on you.

Life isn’t black & white. It’s lived in the grey area, but that area isn’t really grey either. It’s full of color. The older you get the more you’ll realize that there are very few clear cut answers in this world. The values that you are passionate about right now won’t change, you’ll always be socially liberal, but you’ll realize that most issues aren’t as simple as you think they are right now. Learn to have real discussions with the other side and listen to their answers with empathy and understanding. The political climate will get really ugly, and understanding the grey area will be what saves a lot of relationships.

Take the Trip, Experience the Things, But Don’t Make the Rest of Your Life Contingent on a Checklist!

You’re planning a trip with your roommate to Europe right now, and it’s going to be amazing. Life long memories! You’ll go on a couple more with her, and do some other really cool stuff too like going skydiving. Here is the thing that most of your generation is going to get caught up with, and you’ll fall into the trap of for a little bit too: don’t make the rest of your life contingent upon checking off a full list first!

You and so many of your peers are going to have these lists that you want to complete before you get saddled down with a spouse and kids. You’re going to want to see all these places and do all these crazy things that you think you’ll never have another chance to do again and do a degree, you’re right! At 36 you will never again share a hostel in Paris with 8 strangers! But you won’t want to either!

What you and your peers don’t see right now is the whole being tied down thing isn’t so bad! Being tied down means you’ll have people at home when you get there at night after a really bad day. Being tied down means you’ll have someone to wake up to every day, and someone to rejoice in life’s everyday victories with. Being tied down means that you have someone who knows you, understands you, and to run ideas off of. You and your future husband are going to miss this point for a while, and end up breaking up and getting back together so many times your best friends are going to be sick of hearing about him! You both will be too scared to be tied down because you haven’t experienced all the things you want to experience yet, and you’ll cause yourself an ocean’s worth of unnecessary tears, a bunch of really bad first dates, and one “relationship” you’ll really regret.

If you’d let go of what you haven’t experienced yet and just follow your heart, the two of you could avoid wasting a lot of time!  Your friends could too. You’ll see a lot of them continue to add to their list of things to do before kids until they get to the point where they struggle to actually have them. Then you’ll watch them hurt and wonder why they thought it was so important to wait for so long.

No, you haven’t been back to Europe since getting married and having kids, but you will one day.  When you do go back, it will be with a different perspective on the world, and a different budget too! Do NOT travel again where you have to share bathrooms and hot water with strangers! For real! And you know what? If you don’t make it back, that’s ok too. That just means it wasn’t meant to be. The world is too big to see and experience everything in one single lifetime.

Be Comfortable in Your Own Skin

Right now, you think you’re fat. You’ve always thought you were fat. The only thing you see are all the girls who are skinnier than you.  You were made fun of all through school for the size of your butt, your not flat stomach, your small boobs, and your weight. The complex has and will continue to stay with you. You were told by your school that the taunting was boys being boys, and you were expected to just accept that. You were expected to accept that your worth was tied up in boys being boys. The good news is, you won’t let your boys just be boys because of it.

Here’s the thing, the size you are right now, at 21, is the skinniest you’ll ever be! Once you get out into the real world and start working at a job that requires you to sit at a desk all day, your metabolism will start to tank, and it will tank more with each pregnancy. Carbs will not be your friend. Thank your genetics for that. You do need to make sure to take care of yourself and stay healthy (you’ll actually meet your husband in a gym, not the bar you’re walking into tonight), but don’t be so worried about the size of your clothes. That new “best friend” you’ll make very soon who talks constantly about her weight and really gets into your head, she has issues! Get her out of your head! She’s going to ditch you after you have kids anyway. One day you’re going to wish you are as fat as you think you are now.

For as skinny as you are now (yes, you’re skinny), in 15 years your kids will still make fun of you because the fashion choices you are making are absolutely ridiculous! Snakeskin, pleather pants are NEVER a good idea. Neither is purple glitter eyeshadow. Your kids, the people who matter most to you in the world, will never think twice about your size.

And here is the thing about your size, the right guy isn’t going to care if you are a size 0 or 14. He’s going to care about the inside. The guy you meet in the bar who does care about your size isn’t worth keeping around. You won’t remember his name one day when your kid finds your old pictures and asks who he is. You can ask your future husband on any given day what size you are and he won’t have a clue. He loves the way you look at any size! The one thing he doesn’t love, however, is bangs. When you cut bangs and cut your hair to shoulder length, then you’re going to have issues. He hates bangs and short hair. You’ll find a picture many years after you did it and realize what he was talking about too! Just. Don’t. With. The. Bangs!

Money is Important… Don’t Buy so Many Shoes!

You love to shop right now! Over the next few years, that love is going to grow, and you’re going to quite literally have a closet full of shoes and drawers upon drawers of makeup! Unfortunately, what you don’t see coming right now is a huge recession and that closet full of shoes is going to mean nothing when you have bills and a baby to pay for! Instead, you should have saved and invested some of that money! I know, super boring, right? But hear me out…

If you had invested some of the money you spent on things that will both go out of style and not fit you anyway in a few years, invested into a small company like Amazon, that money will be there when you’re stressed about how to both buy diapers and keep the lights on. You can still have some nice shoes, but 7 pairs of red heels that you’ve mostly only worn once is a bit over the top!

Start paying attention to money trends and what is gaining momentum early on, then chase it! Just think, if you’d started your blog 15 years ago, when bloggers weren’t even really a thing, where would you be?

On the subject of money, always pay more than the minimum on your credit cards. Go ahead and calculate how much you’ll pay over five years in interest and fees if you don’t. Go ahead… I’ll wait… Ugly, huh? There is your next great trip, by the way! Put more than the minimum down on your house. You’ll have more leverage later when you need to refinance. Listen to your dad when he says to have three months saved up! You’ll be laid off during the recession and not given much of a severance package. You’ll need that money and will be extremely stressed out because of it. Then you’ll be fired again one day and be glad you have some savings while you work things out (you’ll wish you had more, you’ll always wish you had more).

Don’t Put Work First. Check Your Priorities!

There is going to be a big push with companies for the “team” environment. There will be a bunch of studies coming out about how employees work harder, and perform better when they feel they are part of a team or work family. The thing with that is, there are very few companies who really adhere to that philosophy: those will almost always be small startups with very little money. These larger companies you’re working for that are touting this mantra have one goal, and that’s to make you work harder for less money. The goal is for you to put the company before yourself. When you believe in your team or the company so much that it is your main priority, you’re much less likely to call foul when something is not right. You’re much less likely to cause trouble. That “open door policy” all of these companies say they have is B.S. Don’t use it and talk to your boss about anything. It will always bite you later.

The other thing that will happen is that you’ll put work ahead of people.  You’ll miss weddings of dear friends, baby showers, visits with family because you believe that if you just put the company first that it will pay off. You’ll believe that they will see your dedication and reward you for it one day. The thing about it is, that the companies will never put the employees first and they will turn on you in a second to advance a different objective. It will happen to you and it will happen to many, many people you know. When you’re looked over for an opportunity for a promotion, or let go from the job you put first, you’ll be full of so much sadness but in hindsight, you’ll realize you weren’t sad because of the missed work opportunity. You’ll realize you’re sad because you missed life opportunities. You’ll hurt or even lose important relationships because your priorities were not in check.

Embrace Your Mistakes

I know, at 21 you think you have all of life’s answers, and you mostly do have your act together compared to a lot of people your age, but one day you are going to laugh at yourself and your “maturity.” If there is one thing you need to do more of, it’s not taking yourself so seriously, and laugh at life’s blunders! There are very few mistakes you can make that cannot be fixed. You’ll take a lot of your mistakes to a whole new level by over-thinking how you fix them!

Instead, choose to pause, learn something, then just laugh at yourself! Every mistake you make is an opportunity to learn something new about yourself, and will ultimately point you in the direction you’re supposed to go. You can choose to go in that direction with joy and laughter or kicking and screaming but either way, you’re going to go the way you’re meant to go.

You’ll make one huge “mistake” in a few short years and not realize that antibiotics hurt the effectiveness of birth control pills (so doesn’t not taking the pills at the same time every day). You’re going to be totally shocked when that mistake catches up to you and you realize your life is going to go in a totally different direction than planned. You’ll even spend the first couple years of motherhood & marriage mourning a lost youth, watching others continue to check off those lists they made, and not enjoying that time with your baby. That “mistake” actually gave you the kick in the rear you needed to grow up, and he’s a pretty awesome kid.

By the time you have your second kid, you’ll have learned to laugh at life and you’ll be surprised at the difference it makes for your family. Baby number 2 won’t be as fussy because mommy isn’t so stressed! Failure isn’t always a bad thing if you just learn to look at it differently.

Always Trust Your Gut

You know that gut feeling you get? You should listen to that more. Those feelings aren’t just thoughts in the back of your head. They’re really God telling you the direction you’re supposed to go, or protecting you from something. Trust it and listen to it more. When you start to feel things like maybe that boss isn’t a good person, go ahead and jump ship before the job turns bad. Those times you feel like it’s time to leave the party then just get up and go. When you get that weird feeling that you just need to call someone or go to them, do it. Don’t think about it and second guess it. That person needs you in that moment. Even those people you haven’t talked to or seen in a while. If they’re suddenly on your mind, that’s God telling you they need to hear from you.

By listening to your gut feeling, you’re trusting and believing that God has a plan and showing you have the faith to follow it.  In your moments of the deepest trials, whether its money trouble or marriage issues, as long as you continue to trust God’s plan, everything will turn out ok. Most of the time you won’t have a clue as to how it will be ok, but at that moment all you’re supposed to do is trust that it will. Don’t lose hours upon hours of sleep worrying because none of your worries will lead to any kind of clarity that will help. It’s when you let go of the control, and have faith that you will find your clarity in the hardest of situations.

You’re Capable of More Than You Give Yourself Credit For!

You’re full of self-doubt. You question constantly whether you can accomplish your goals. The thing you don’t know right now is that you have some grit about you, and when you need to dig your heels in, you do it with everything you have to follow through on your commitments and promises. You achieve some pretty amazing things this way. Remember that when you start doubting yourself and get tempted to settle for another job you hate right after you decide to finally go after your passion for writing. Keep at it, and you’ll figure it out! You won’t let yourself fail!

Above all else, enjoy this time that you’re in, and love those who really matter with everything you have!

Sincerely, 36-Year Old Me

[ericvick]

Readers share what it's like to go house hunting in Mass.

Have you been to an open house lately? You’ve probably experienced the frenzy. Maybe you toured a home only to hear the real estate agent say an offer has already been made on the house, sign unseen. Perhaps the process is too frustrating, and you’ve decided to rent. 

We recently asked readers to share their stories of what it’s like to house hunt in Massachusetts. We received a wide range of stories from the “unbelievably lucky” to the “very bizarre.” Many readers were surprised at the state of the homes they toured — and the number of competitive offers they’ve made without success.

Below, we feature 10 responses from readers. 

Do you have your own unbelievable house hunting story? Share it with us here or e-mail [email protected]. 

‘We were unbelievably lucky’

“We are still in shock,” Kate in North Attleborough wrote. After the pandemic hit, Kate wanted more space than her one-bedroom in Boston. With her lease up in October, she started house hunting in May. “We started looking in anticipation of a difficult search. On our first day meeting our real estate agent, the 2nd house we looked at was being built and would be ready in October. Put an offer in and it was accepted,” she wrote. “That was it, one day of looking at homes and our first offer we put in was accepted. We waited a while to tell some of our friends because one was on their 10th offer and still no house. We were unbelievably lucky.” 

‘Wheel yourself around to the washer’

Don in Charlestown recalled a house he visited where the washing machine was located in a basement that was only 5 feet high. Then he noticed a number of chairs on wheels. “So to use the washer, let’s say (unless you were willing to stoop the entire time), you would sit in one of these chairs and wheel yourself around to the washer and wherever else you needed to go,” he wrote. “The house also had a stocked trout pond and the trout were obviously hungry. The broker would throw a handful of fish food into the pond and the water would erupt with starving trout. At any rate we did not buy this house and never learned why the basement was 3 feet short. We just hope the trout survived.”

‘No offers were made that day’

Brandon Moss of Boston was house hunting in the Bridgewater and Lakeville areas with more than a few unusual touring experiences. One of them included a floor-to-ceiling pile of beer cans and boxes inside an enclosed porch and “a bedroom set up in the basement adjacent to the boiler (without windows), which eerily reminded me of Sloth’s living quarters in ‘Goonies,’ ” he wrote. Moss continued on to another house “where renovations were half-complete. When asked the status, the occupant indicated that it was the ex’s fault (clearly the marriage broke up in the midst of renovations).” Moss added, “Suffice it to say that no offers were made that day.”

‘Very bizarre’

Jennifer in Natick was house hunting in Needham when she walked through a highly monitored home that may have been owned by a family that also ran a dry-cleaning business. “They had a family member sitting like a statue in each room that we entered to protect against theft, I guess. They didn’t speak but just freaked people out as they walked through the house and entered each room. They also had a complete dry-cleaning clothes rack system in their basement, just like a dry-cleaner, filled with clothes. It was very bizarre,” she wrote.  

‘Naked in bed during the inspection’

“Looking to buy a house we inspected one that was currently being rented. The two people who lived there were naked in bed during the inspection time,” Kelly in Brookline wrote. 

‘The attached garage which held our future soundproofed party pad was actually 7 feet over the property line’

Richard in Boston shared his house hunting experience in the southwest region of the city back in 2007. “[I] was looking at a bungalow that came with, of all things, a recording studio. We made an offer only to discover that the attached garage which held our future soundproofed party pad was actually 7 feet over the property line, on land owned by the town. There was no way any mortgage company would grant a loan for something like that even in those days. The seller suggested we could move in anyway and rent it until it got sorted out! Then they offered to convert the studio into a small office with the bonus of a window. Our realtor wisely advised against it and the last we heard was the seller had to demolish the offending section of the house before putting it back on the market. Yikes!”

‘There were 30 other offers like ours’

“I think the process as a whole is just crazy!” Gina wrote. She sold her condo in March with more than 100 people touring the space and selling in less than five days. “That was the easy part,” she wrote.

The Waltham resident went on to share what it’s like to be house hunting in the Worcester area since December. “Each week we see anywhere from 2 to 6 houses for about 15 mins because that is all that is allowed with our agent in towns from Bolton to Grafton,” she wrote. She noted that sometimes children aren’t allowed at showings, so she has to leave her 6-year-old daughter with family. 

“Then comes the Sunday scramble — we can only put one offer on one house. So we come up with the best offer that includes things we are willing to waive (heat system upgrade, bank appraisal, etc.) to be competitive. We look at comps in the neighborhood, well water tests and disclosures from the current owner. Then we furiously sign document after document to get our final offer in by Monday morning with a friendly letter to the sellers about our family,” Gina wrote. “Then we wait to hear that we didn’t actually get the house because there were 30 other offers like ours. Unfortunately we haven’t closed on our house yet so most sellers don’t want to take a chance that our sale will fall through. It is a stressful process but made even more stressful because we have to do it all over again each week.”

‘The open house was a literal frat party’

“We looked at a home directly on the water in Winthrop a few years ago that had dropped its price to 100K, well below what it was worth and the open house was a literal frat party,” Gabriella in Winthrop wrote. With so many people viewing the property, and all the stuff the owner had accumulated, it was hard to move around the house. “The living room wall was being held up by a beach chair and the bedroom windows were covered in black trash bags. People were going around peeling wallpaper off the walls to see the condition of the plaster and pulling up corners of rugs to see the floors. … We ended up buying a house a few streets over, but the owner still hasn’t sold despite many, many offers.” 

‘It’s truly a marathon not a sprint’

Paul and his wife in the South End have been going to open houses every weekend since October. The couple have been looking to buy in the suburbs “from Weston down to Hingham,” always submitting an offer at or above the asking price. According to Paul, when January hit, “things really heated up.”

“The first house we submitted an offer on was in Wayland for a house $729K. At the 1st showing (which was basically 10 minutes because there was a line of 30 people out the door on a Thursday) we submitted an offer for full asking price, no contingencies, close in 30 days. The realtor didn’t even get back with us! We only found out 3 days later that the house was under agreement and sold for $70K over asking. You would think this house was a funeral home because it looked like there was a wake line outside. … Lastly, my wife and I went to go see a home this past Wednesday in sleeeeepy Sherborn. When I say this house was in the woods, deep in the woods! At 12:45PM on a Wednesday in March, there were 25 cars on the street for a home that was asking $985,000. … Not disclosed to the average buyer looking at the pretty Zillow listing: The septic tank was 31 years old and hadn’t been pumped in 6 years! It was a beautiful home but we are staying away because of the underground details. Not to mention there’s a freight train that runs by the house at night and blows the horn. Little details that you pick up on when you do your research! 

It’s super disheartening out there but I think it’s truly a marathon not a sprint. Once people get vaccinated and people want to travel once again this summer, I am hoping the competition dwindles.”

‘Incredibly frustrating, I decided to rent’

“I’ve made five offers in the South Shore over the course of eight months. The last house I didn’t get I was told by the seller��s agent that I had the highest offer, (significantly over asking, no contingencies) but they picked buyers that are more ‘similar to their family situation’ because of the letter they wrote. I think that could be discrimination? Incredibly frustrating, I decided to rent,” Kelly in Canton wrote.

Subscribe to the Globe’s free real estate newsletter — our weekly digest on buying, selling, and design —at pages.email.bostonglobe.com/AddressSignUp. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter @globehomes.

[webgeekist]

Holiday Karma Pie

I paid for someone’s groceries today.

I didn’t do it for the karma. I didn’t even do it for the charity. I did it because the lady in front of me was having technical issues, and the less-than-$30 bill was worth sparing my sanity and getting out of that line. I played it off as a Christmas thing, asked the lady to pay it forward, and assured her that, yes, I was serious when I said it was no big deal. It wasn’t. I was happy to pay to get out of there.

I have a habit of picking the worst grocery lines. I thought, for a while, it was just this new place I’m in, but then I went home for Thanksgiving and went through 20 minutes of hell waiting for the family in front of me to finish arguing with the cashier about the $20 in savings they weren’t getting because their coupons weren’t scanning, or whatever other nonsense was preventing them from scanning an entire conveyor belt full of items, $200 and two carts into the bill. We moved to another line, finally, when one seemed available nearby. When we left with our own hefty bill in the cart, they were still there, slowly scanning the rest of their items.

I am also the person who will pick up the one item out of 100 without a bar code, and take three of them to the checkout lane.

It’s funny, this idea that you can buy karma with good deeds, as if your motivations don’t count. I’ve seen The Good Place. I know better than that. My motivation today was entirely self-serving, as is most charity in this country. We overwhelmingly donate our time or our money because it makes us feel better about ourselves, not because we genuinely care about giving. We’re scared into doing the “right thing” by a book that has been mistranslated and misinterpreted for centuries, and somehow have this warped idea that doing the right thing will buy us grace. Good Karma. A spot in heaven. Optimal reincarnation. At the end, there’s always something in it for us.

I’m no better than others in that regard. I do good deeds infrequently, and when I do, it’s almost always born of convenience. “Would you like to pay an extra 63 cents to round up your bill and donate to the Children’s hospital?” Sure. “Would you like to donate a dollar to aid in wildfire relief for Sonoma County?” Whatever. “Give a dollar to homeless pets?” Okay. “Save free information!” Click.

The result is positive for the recipient. That doesn’t make the motive for donation genuine.

And it doesn’t make the universe less likely to balance out your good luck with misfortune.

I think about that a lot. I’m always grateful for the positive experiences in my life, but I’m hyper aware of the fact that they often come at a premium. There’s a trade owed the universe, and you will pay it in painful ways. Maybe it’s a hard lesson you need to learn after you land your dream job. Maybe it’s illness, recovery, and loss after you find a few years of companionship. Maybe it’s your family turning their back on you a month before your wedding to the love of your life. And oh, by the way, she’s a girl and you are, too.

I’ve enjoyed two years with my fiancée. I marry her in 23 days. How many of my family will actually show up? At this point, I’m not sure.

I took a job in the Bay Area in July. It wasn’t so sudden that my fiancée didn’t have input. She absolutely did, and though we didn’t expect to be able to afford Northern California, we’re happy we could make this work. Or, at least, that we will make this work after June, which is when her teacher’s contract runs out in Texas. I’ve raked up so many frequent flyer miles, going back and forth every spare moment, and in the airspace between SFO and DAL, I’ve uncovered an anxiety I never expected to have: a fear of flying.

I have flown a Cessna. I have logged hours in a genuine full-scale 737-700 simulator. My dad was a professional pilot at one point in his life, my uncle still is, and all his kids can fly. My grandfather flew for the Thunderbirds. My brother is on his way to being a commercial pilot. I am not afraid of planes.

I started crying and choking before walking through security. I panicked when I booked tickets. If not for some of them being booked immediately after I got the job, I would not have gotten on a plane after September, but I’ve been on five trips since, fifteen total, and for most of them the what-ifs and potential loss has consumed me to the point of paralysis. Every bump and adjustment on takeoff freaks me the fuck out. The changing sounds of the engines at different altitudes and powers freaks me the fuck out. It’s taken every moment of every one of those harrowing trips to learn how to manage the anxiety, to rationalize the noises I hear from the engines, to normalize the dips and turns out of each Bay Area airport, but come Thanksgiving, when I climbed on a plane for the first long break I’d gotten at the new company, when I was so over the project I was working on that I was relieved to be standing at another fucking gate and boarding another fucking plane, all the stress management techniques I’d gathered in my anxiety did nothing to stop me from experiencing sheer terror flying out of SJC, meeting some bumpy air, banking to head south down the coast to catch a connecting flight out of LAX and bouncing around in the turn. I landed at SAT five hours later, cried in relief when the plane touched down (I always do, and I thank the plane for getting me there. That plane’s name was Tank. I gave it that name.), and stumbled into the terminal as fast as my eighth row seat would allow.

And then, I went to my family’s Thanksgiving.

I should precede this with the statement that the nine days my fiancée and I spent at my mom’s house started fairly early on with some culture shock. My fiancée is in grad school, and one of her class assignments was a “cultural plunge.” That’s a hilarious concept, because her entire life is a cultural plunge. She was born in Houston, but raised completely in India, went to college in Singapore, and came back to the states after. Living here has been one awkward learning experience after another, and with her brown skin, it’s also often been an experience of racism, of profiling, of assumptions made by ignorant people. She can’t go through an airport without getting her bag inspected and a pat-down (that happened once with my mother, and after we told her that no, my brown fiancée really does get profiled, and my mom damn near got herself arrested chewing the TSA agents out because how dare you treat her daughter like that. Yes, my mom is privileged. But, go Mom). Her background in science has often made living in Texas not unlike living on an alien world where logic and reason are outlawed. And oh, she’s a lesbian too. Discrimination trifecta.

Anyway, she submitted the idea of going to a Catholic Church on Sunday and staying for a mass as a cultural plunge, because unlike her white middle-class native Texan classmates, this was something she’d never done before.

I mean, what are the odds that they’d pick a gospel that would somehow relate to one of the many hot-button issues that any church in a red state could pick? The Pope is fairly liberal for a Catholic, and neither my mother nor I really remembered the sermons being terribly political.

Clearly, it’s been a while since we attended church.

My mother was horrified. Here was an opportunity for her to show her daughter-in-law a bit of her culture, and her upbringing, and therefore a bit of where my own morals and morality comes from. Here’s a chance for her to prove to me that the church of her childhood might have had these tenants but the sermons didn’t get into specifics, and people mostly just tried to Love Thy Neighbor.

I was pissed. I glared hard at the deacon as he climbed off the dais and walked back to his seat, and I’m certain he saw me. I’m certain he paused for a half-step because he saw my face, which I’ve been told can be really menacing when I’m angry. I don’t keep my emotions to myself very often. I don’t have a poker face like my fiancée.

She couldn’t muster that face. She was openly crying and trying not to show it. This church – this remarkably diverse church where she didn’t stick out like a sore thumb, which had epistles in three languages, which was holding a bake sale as we walked in had on its staff a white conservative deacon who took an unrelated Gospel and warped it into a hateful political rant that didn’t hit one button. Oh no. That sermon was an IED array and it hit every single freaking target on the list.

We left during the Eucharist, and we didn’t buy a pie on the way out.

Five days after this experience that left us all in a drinking mood, and which after several bottles of wine was still a little painful, we went to the Thanksgiving party with my dad’s side of the family.

A lot of my aunts, uncles, and cousins seemed genuinely excited about the wedding. There was a bit of a shadow over one of my aunts because her father is really, really ill. Dad and my stepmother told a story about my grandmother, the escape artist, who is probably a lot more together than they think but who was put in an old folk’s home for people with memory problems about two months ago. I dread going to see her because the last time I saw her in a rehab facility, after she knocked her head and suffered the brain trauma that probably drove a lot of the symptoms she still has, it was a little difficult. It’s not going to be easy to see her in a home that isn’t actually her house. She apparently agrees, because she treats visitors to a tour of the place and asks a lot of pointed questions, like how many nurses are at the front station and whether or not you think someone can get to the parking lot from any given set of doors. She’s an inmate in a place she doesn’t feel comfortable staying, and she’s already made it to her car with an overnight bag once. But they have the keys locked up. I think she’s trying to figure out where they are.

She recognizes me. Remembers my name. Knows the wedding is soon. Asks about California. Hugs my future wife. And maybe goes through a few names before she gets some of my cousins’ and uncles’ names right, but she’s been doing that since I was four. We’re a big family. She always gets it right in under six tries.

My aunt looks hesitant to talk about her father, but she does. Both of us listen as she expresses her fears about being away, even for a day or two, because the doctors haven’t been very precise in telling the family to “spend time with him while you can.” It could be days, or maybe months, but probably not through winter because winter seems to be when so many people go, like the warmth-starved land sucks them dry. Which is weird, because we’re all from South Texas, and winter there is like 80 degrees.

We sympathize, and a pang of something I have only been able to define recently shoots through me. It feels like mortality, and reminds me of my fear of flying. It reminds me that I have this thing, this person, this state of being that I found and eventually will lose, that the loss won’t come when I’m ready for it (because that is never. I will never be ready for it). My heart hurts for her and my cousins, because the man is in his 80s like my two surviving grandparents, and that is a long and accomplished life, but it is still too soon for all of them. We have fought for my grandmother often enough and recent enough that I understand that position, too.

Hours later, before the annual turkey bowl, that aunt and my uncle, plus their oldest son come find my fiancée and I in the upstairs game room where most of the cousins retreat after lunch and before football. They ask us both to come out onto the balcony with them for a few minutes. Their younger son, recently married, follows shortly after with his new bride.

And my cousin starts….with a prayer.

“Heavenly Father, please guide our conversation today in your wisdom and light.”

I have my fiancée’s hand in my own. I hold it tighter. I know where this is about to go.

My cousin is a stalwart, honest guy. He’s the eldest son of two people who have always given where they could. They drop what they’re doing to help people, simply because they need help. They give within their means, which are better means than most. Their big and open hearts were passed to two of their three sons, both of whom were standing on that balcony with them. But they are sinners, my cousin says, all of them. And he is no better than anyone. He cannot cast judgment upon sinners as one of them, as someone who has been addicted to pornography, and has crossed lines with women. He loves us both, they all do, but surely we’ve read what the Bible says and it’s wrong, wrong, wrong.

My uncle says to us, we love you. We will not change how we treat you…but we’ve prayed about this for a while, and we can’t go to the wedding.

“We can’t celebrate the sin,” my cousin says.

And I know they love us, the best way they know how. I told them that I understood their perspective, though I disagreed, and respected their decision. We hugged, my aunt called me big-hearted, someone mentioned chocolate (it might have been me), and they started filing off the balcony.

I stayed behind and broke down in my fiancee’s arms.

See, my family had been outwardly accepting until that moment, when something finally broke enough for the first people to say something about it. And my fiancée – my tall, brown, “foreign” fiancée who has tried so hard to get my family to like her – felt instantly like all that effort had been for absolutely nothing. And I? I felt guilty for putting her in that position, for forcing us into a position where my family may never truly be okay with any of this, where a lifetime of loving and supporting each other so demonstratively may yet be lost on so many people I love, because somehow our relationship all boils down to sex to some people. Theirs is about love, but ours is about sex, and lust, and sin, and how the context of the Bible may be all about polyamorous lustful activities but a committed, loving, monogamous relationship between two women is just the same as sexually abusing guests and having orgies in front of idols and a really vague Greek word which in context probably means “men who sleep with boy prostitutes” but magically includes all people who engage in the act of sodomy and well never mind that you’re not actually doing that you’re just the same as the literal “man bed” who will not inherit the kingdom of heaven.

Maybe karma can keep that paradise, because I don’t want to spend eternity in a place where loving companionship is the same as assault. I get enough of that in the news.

It took me a while to come out of the bathroom I found to hide in, because there was no amount of water that could bring the redness down, and eventually my fiancée brought my closest cousin to find me. She saw us walk out, she counted the time, and she knew something had gone wrong. We told her what had happened.

This is the brewing rift. There are some people in our family who sit in Catholic services every Sunday and are not only going to the wedding but are genuinely excited for it. And there are some who might yet show up, but will be at the bar a lot.

Those excited for it will probably not enjoy learning why so many of us are absent. What happens then is probably not high drama, but probably won’t be business as usual either. Said my closest cousin, “I don’t know what to do with them now. You have a bigger heart than me for walking out of that situation without coming downstairs and telling everyone about it immediately.”

Twice in one day, in different contexts, two people I care about made reference to my perfectly normal sized, potentially smaller than average heart. Karma revealed the consequences of my good fortune that night, and they continue to unfold by the minute. For the first time in my life, I may miss Christmas with that side of the family this year. I suspect it won’t be the last thing we miss.

I climbed on the plane to come back to California two days later, and cried over the root of the problem with all these flights: the separation has been torture, and after the emotional week we had, it was going to be hard for us to heal apart. I put on my noice-canceling earphones and turned on Radiolab just before takeoff. It was a podcast about a girl without an identity, whose family kept her sheltered and off the grid, who didn’t have any kind of paper trail because her parents didn’t believe in social security numbers, and so never let her have one. I flew over Kerrville, where she had lived most of her life, while listening to the story. Takeoff was smooth. So was most of the trip back to SJC. And except for a really rough patch of air over New Mexico on the way to Dallas on Friday, my flights this weekend were just as painless.

I landed at SFO on Sunday and thanked the plane, as usual.

My eyes were dry.

[swampgallows]

i just woke up, it’s close to noon here, five hours is good enough i guess. i keep thinking about college and how fucking suicidally depressed i was then and how ive spent half of this year being unemployed and generally just struggling to take care of myself in the most banal and basic ways possible, and how depression really does just delete years from your life. you live through them in a daze,  you’re already a ghost, you’re already dead. questing in wrath of the lich king is honestly some of the last shit i remember concretely before going into a two year gray area of passing my classes and nothing else. i remember breaking up with my boyfriend because he chose raiding over me. i dont want to talk about it again. the memory is still painful. still, even still, ten years later. and in late 2008 i was attacked in my dorm room and i was screaming and my roommates thought i was being a big ol slut. they thought any guy that came over was someone i was fucking. when i went to blizzcon in 2008 and my brother stayed in my dorm they thought i was fucking him too until i told them he was my little brother. they tried so fucking hard to suppress my interests and make me “like them”. “there’s more to life than world of warcraft and pokemon” they said as if going to college basketball games and rewatching disney movies has any more enrichment or depth beyond what i was fucking doing. my life is so full of hatred, from myself, from other people, just being fostered in me in general, and it’s only within the last few years that i’ve gotten to heal from it at all, all the time being hurt more and more

i was talking to a friend yesterday who is just 19 and thinking about where i was when i was 19, which of course puts me in 2009 again, the year i dropped out of existence, and i was telling them about how i was essentially raised by the ilk of 4chan and the piece of shit community on wow that, like, since i’m around ~liberal genderqueer~ tumblr-type spaces all the time, genuinely shocks me to remember still exists, of those fucking hypermasculine overcompensating military dudes. and we were talking about how like, nerds in general tend to have shit social skills or anxiety or are Othered in ways that have them reinforce this piece of shit pecking order where the loudest and meanest proclaim themselves the Leader and everyone just follows them because theyre too meek to challenge them or they mistake arrogance for confidence and assume any asshole crowing that loud about how Right they are all the time Must Be Right. 

and i thought of my own life, my ex QP, my old friend groups, my abusive ex boyfriend, how i mistook so long their malice as strength, how i was duped by their self-aggrandizement. they had no skills, no talents, no girlfriend (except when i dated them), no women in their lives in general, no real friends they could count on (except, for my abuser, an older man with 3 children and a brand new divorce whose house he muscled and manipulated himself into—”i cant even bear to be in the old master bedroom anymore”—and my abuser promptly MOVED HIMSELF INTO IT) no hobbies, and the one or two hobbies that they had—fishing, video games—they were fucking less-than-passable at. my ex-qp wasn’t good at video games. he would use cheat codes or just play the strongest character and rely on everyone else to pick up his slack. warrior, carry, tank, what have you; all of us his underlings to support him to victory—”I’m doing all of the damage and getting none of the kills”—he would whine, oblivious to the concept of teamwork and seeking credit within the only realm he had a semblance of succeeding in. 

anyway so when i first joined tumblr i swung the pendulum in the other direction because i absolutely had to, it was for my survival to become a virulent feminazi as they put it, and i was obnoxious about it, and i reposted rape statistics all the time and challenged people all the time because i had to. i had to let it overtake me in order to purge all of the 10+ years of toxic social conditioning that places like 4chan and their little infestations in WoW and all of my abusive partners instilled in me. i had to be vocal about rape this and sexual assault that because i spent the better part of my adolescence trying to laugh away the fact that i was raped as a child, trying to make jokes about my “delicious flat chest” and pedobear and “surprise buttsecks/it’s not rape if you yell surprise” and “delicious loli”; some of the images i had willingly saved on my ancient hard drive are absolutely harrowing to go through now as an adult knowing my mushy impressionable 14 year old traumatized mind was trying to cope with and gloss over what had happened to me and with the future i was facing as a budding adolescent in this kind of environment. men didnt want to be responsible for what happened to me or with what would happen to me, it made them uncomfortable for me to talk about it, so i was told to laugh it away, that nobody cares that i was raped, that i was stronger if i could just laugh about it, that no topics were beyond reproach or off limits, and that if i wasnt desensitized to my own suffering then i was weak, i was a sheep, i was a burden, i was letting my emotions get the better of me.

obviously, tumblr as a whole DIRECTLY acts in opposition of this: everything is rooted in our traumas, which we are expected to lay bare for all to be taken seriously: 4chan demanded that we invalidate the trauma by making a joke of it and allowing the masses to pick it apart for their own entertainment, to become part of the anonymous “legion” by offering up our individuality to be consumed by the group (as a currency of “lulz”, basically); tumblr, reflexively, demands we validate the trauma by making it an open and public integral asset to our identity, to have easily digestible and categorized characteristics so as to fit into the tumblr hierarchy of needs, their own misinterpreted facsimile and microcosm of existing systematic oppression, and obtain a sort of fixed currency of privilege or “woke points” dependent on identity politics. so i definitely needed to purge my previous conditioning with this reclamation of my identity as a survivor, etc, and had about 7 years of misplaced anger and fury condensed into a good two or so years instead, and even now im still parsing details. 

it wasnt until i was 22 that i had even heard the term asexuality and it wasnt until i was 25 that i realized i was bi (or “could be” bi), even though i had already been in love with and sexually active with women years prior lmao. i had been told by every possible source that having a dick inside me would change my life and change my outlook and change me into a better person or whatever the fuck, that i would “understand” and “grow up” and “become a woman” or whatever and guess what it did fucking NOTHING, just like every teen drama romance or whatever tries to stress over and over, sex is not a magical lifechanging event that hands you a million dollars and a healthy brain. it changes your life in some ways and it’s definitely not something to be taken lightly but in no way is it a cure for anything.

i dont know where i’m going with this, im just fucking pissed off about my life, im pissed off that healing takes so long and that i had to do any of it in the first place. im so pissed about all of my time wasted with this fucking piece of shit body and fucking piece of shit brain and i wish i could just go back to work and be a functional human being but im like just a short leap away from doing any of that. i have to get in touch w my previous HMO once the new year starts now that im confirmed for medi-cal, and i should have done it months ago, but i have to just accept that this whole time ive been not USELESS but just utterly CONSUMED by self-preservation, that it is taking most of my effort to want to be alive and stay on this planet any longer. especially now with my teeth bugging me so bad because i cant fucking take care of myself so im grinding my teeth and clenching my jaw and i guess eating improperly or what have you idont fucking know. im going to buy a waterpik even though it’s fifty dollars and i have not made ANY MONEY in the last 6 months or done ANY of what i wanted to do and i still have a number of commissions needling at me that i genuinely like cant fucking even look at withotu fucking hitting myself and crying, and im seriously not trying to make fucking excuses, i am so fucking ashamed and consumed by self-hatred about this, this has been a problem for me SINCE COLLEGE where i was an ART MAJOR that i had to fucking beat the shit out of myself to try to draw anything “seriously”, and i do mean literally beating myself, bludgeoning myself with my morris sticks and smacking myself in the face/head and clawing at my skin, and i fucking hate it

i just know i need like SO MUCH recovery or healing or whatever the fuck, i feel so long overdue for very basic shit, and part of me feels like a withering plant, like pouring water over dry leaves thinking it’s just going to saturate itself and be instantly rejuvenated. im losing leaves in the process, as it were, and getting no “water” all this time. i feel like i’m in drought mode. these last six months are me basically conserving all i have, toeing away from the edge of the cliff because iw as so ready yall i was so fucking ready, i was ready to jump off, i spent whole lunch hours just ready to fucking leap, staring down the void, staring at the winding road that went up the mountain, staring at the deer who stared back at me, hiding my face from Adults who treated me like a wind-up doll, i just couldnt take it, ic ouldnt be somewhere that sterile, i couldnt be spending so much of my life getting so little back, i coudlnt see my friends ever, i couldnt breathe, but in general my brain is sick and i need to heal from all of these things, i need to figure out how i can cope with being alive because i am going to be alive at least a little longer and i need to not fear and crave death simultaneously. i do not want to die, I DO NOT want to die, but i cannot live in a constant state of recuperating. my life has just felt like the Shutting Down... screen for the last 2 years. 

NEED a new dentist NEED my teeth fixed PLEASE GOD open the stem cell dentin treatment to clinics worldwide GOD fix my TEETH PLEASE let me REGROW my TEETH NEED therapy NEED to fix my brain NEED to figure out how i can cope with being unable to support myself in this shit fucking economy NEED TO RECOVER NEED TO GET BETTER PLEASE IM FUCKING SUFFERING 

[danyelle756games]

Where to get a good gaming laptop yahooanswers

Caesars Casino Gaming Weblog

On the internet Gambling Web sites covers the complete industry of gaming over the Internet. Scump is skilled American Contact of Duty player. He is a two time MLG X Games gold medalist and is sponsored by various gaming hardware firms, like Turtle Beach and Scuf Gaming. He is also sponsored by Loot Crate, Gymshark, and Brisk Mate. As of September 2016, Scump has won $262,293, of which practically $one hundred,000 was won in Contact of Duty: Advanced Warfare.

It really is tough to compare 15mm rulesets simply because they're frequently so distinctive, so rather than try I'll just say this Patrol Angis stands on its personal laurels as an exemplar of modern day wargaming. It is fast to play, it has elegant systems, and it is not overburdened by rules. It has a working points technique. It rewards tremendously from the awesome fluff of the Ion Age and the miniatures that go with it but could simply be employed for any 15mm games you want to play. Despite its billing as a one particular-platoon skirmish game I can not see any reason why it wouldn't hold up properly with 10+ units on the board.

There are certainly quite a few PCs on the market that, if you make intelligent options when it comes to the components, can present surprising gaming efficiency at low prices (even pairing almost everything with Avira Antivirus Game Mode ). In fact, if you raise the query further, you can bring house some genuinely remarkable machines, even capable of countering formidable gaming consoles such as the Xbox One particular X and PS4 Pro. The instances we reside in boast a clear advantage, specifically considering that industry leaders have launched particularly powerful devices for purposes such as mining and acquiring cryptocurrencies.

Do you enjoy to fight though constructing your personal town or village in a game? If yes, Clash of Clans is the best answer for your gaming demands. It is one of the most common games by Supercell. It is a multiplayer game that comes free of charge of cost with in-app purchases. The most important aim of the player is to make a village and fill it with all the things that the villagers will need to have. A town hall, gold mine, army camp and significantly more get unlocked for the duration of the course of time.

With Providing Assistant, you can now get cash back each time you obtain a new game. Go to the website to locate coupon codes valid on Green Man Gaming. https://www.elyade.online/ You can then follow the link supplied to go to that web page and get started buying. As extended as you use Providing Assistant and remain logged in to your account, you'll get a double money back with every obtain that you make. Giving Assistant pays out earnings each week on Monday, which helps you get your money back more rapidly than you thought feasible. You also get peace of mind mainly because Giving Assistant will respond to any troubles speedily and help you get the money that you earned automatically deposited in your account. Video game lovers can now earn funds and save funds at the very same time.

Tank is a effectively-optimized totally free gaming WordPress theme that comes with a responsive layout that displays your content material beautifully on phones, widescreen monitors, and all the things in in between. With the help of WooCommerce assistance, you can effortlessly commence an on the internet enterprise very easily. The theme comes with a impressive layout that is infused with charcoal black color that gives the website a extremely royal outlook. This theme comes with a style that is exclusive and aids to appeal to individuals with an affinity for the army and tanks in particular.

The wonderful factor about the gaming niche is that video games are a hobby. This indicates that persons will constantly spend much more funds to fund this hobby, no matter if it be by way of new games, new equipment, or each. You can capitalize on this by creating an e-mail list, which will keep these purchasers getting from you once again, increasing your revenue regularly. When one game gets old, basically send them out an email and start out promoting the next one particular to them. When the next good headset comes out, send out an e mail. New CPA platform? Market it! With an e-mail list, you can get these buyers coming back to devote their funds over and more than once more.

A gaming web page solely dedicated to Computer Gaming for more than 20 years. The platform brings professional reviews on most recent gaming gears, introduce you to strange new mods & ground-breaking news about-the-clock. They also organize yearly events such as Pc Gaming Show & Pc Gamer Weekender which is fairly well known all more than the world. Apart from posting each day updates on video game news & previews, user can also find amazing hardware acquiring guides and very best gaming bargains here.

Like gaming? With the aid of a screen capture device (or a video camera) you can pass on your experience on a distinct game (or level) and entertain individuals at the same time. Video games as a spectator sport is a reasonably new phenomenon, but immensely well-liked. Take Twitch, exactly where millions of gamers collect every single month. Some gamers have even turn out to be celebrities as a outcome.

Gaming consists of distinctive genres and systems, and it is critical to know what type of gaming web page you would want to be. Gaming internet sites consist of on-line magazines that concentrate on gaming-related articles, gaming portals, on the internet retail and distribution, and gaming blogs. Gamers are particular with what content they want to access, which means that defining what your site is would assure you get the right audience.

Guaranteed No Stress GAMING

A bustling community of good-minded individuals, the game site is ideal recognized for generating original & fresh content material connected to newly & popular gaming gears such as headsets, keyboards, laptops, mice, controllers, computer systems and much more. The game web page is loaded with different sections that contain specialist critiques, previews, game trailers, cheat codes, discussion forums & video game news. One particular of the most well-known game internet websites ever, VideoGamer has an intuitive interface & they also run their personal podcast as nicely.

These historical cloud gaming solutions, whilst innovative, were often somewhat niche. But will cloud gaming go mainstream any time quickly? Each Microsoft and Google have not too long ago announced forays into the sector, with trials of Project xCloud” and Project Stream” respectively. Even Nintendo, a far far more conventional gaming brand, has established some key cloud inroads on its platforms. Streamed versions of demanding games like Assassin's Creed Odyssey and Resident Evil 7 - initially developed for Xbox, PlayStation and Computer - are becoming readily available on the comparatively weak Nintendo Switch hardware. If the actions of the main players are anything to go by, gaming on demand could obtain serious traction over the next decade.

SHIELD wireless controller has a significant constructed-in rechargeable Li-ion battery for hours for immersive gaming. With up to 40 hours of gameplay on a single charge, you can use the SHIELD wireless controller for lots of play sessions without obtaining to charge it back up. A single hour of charge provides up to eight hours of gameplay. The controller charges from empty to full in less than five hours.

Naturally, gaming” as a topic has a incredibly broad which means and there are a number of possibilities today, both for the casual and hardcore PRO gamer. Even though consoles can provide access to exclusive titles, which are rarely accessible for PCs, this goes hand-in-hand with a higher price of games. Consoles also function some gaming nuances within joystick controls, as well as unique tactics such as progress saving, which is optimized for consoles.

Video games have been about due to the fact the 1950s when the earliest personal computer scientists began producing straightforward games as element of their research. Video games remained a hobby of scientists till the 1970s when the very first video game arcades opened. But video games didn't go mainstream till the 1980s when technology was created to move arcade games into the residence. This ushered in a new era of property console gaming led by firms like Nintendo, Sega and Atari.

[ledenews]

J.P. Dutton – Serving Through It All

It was four years ago when J.P. Dutton decided to run for a seat on the Belmont County Commission and he did that because he believed a more conservative approach to the budget and the county’s debt would benefit the residents in the long-term. Dutton is running for re-election for a number of reasons, but one of them is to see through the cracker proposal in the Dilles Bottom area, a project he inherited when taking office and one which once again has been delayed because of the coronavirus pandemic. Will it happen? If not, what then? Hope is high, but that answer will not arrive now for another six-to-nine months. For now, it is about the impact COVID-19 has had on sale tax collections and county services. That is the balancing act he and the two other commissioners now must perform to preserve services for the people.

The Chik-fil-a opened at the Ohio Valley Mall two months ago and has offered drive-thru service.

How have you and your family handled the COVID-19 pandemic?

My family and I have handled the pandemic much like many other families across the Ohio Valley. We adjusted very quickly, especially in the beginning as each daily press conference from Governor Mike DeWine seemed to bring additional responses to a rapidly changing situation. Taking extra precautions became very routine, not just for everyone in our household but for others around us as well.  Showing a lot of appreciation for those working under more difficult circumstances has been important to us as well.  We have been assisting within our community with local efforts targeted at addressing specific needs that have emerged.  Finally, with three school aged children, we worked through daily assignments despite challenges that exist as it relates to broadband access.  COVID-19 has really highlighted even further the challenges that rural communities face as it relates to broadband quality and the disadvantage of substandard access. This is particularly true in Appalachia.  As a county, we have worked to be proactive over the past few years.  In the fall of 2017, we signed an agreement with Agile Networks to utilize the county's vertical structures (water tanks and 911 towers).  Agile has similar agreements with the State of Ohio in regards to MARCS towers which are used by the State Highway Patrol.  This agreement brought increased broadband service to residents near these structures.  We have also had discussions with companies like AT&T and Comcast to continue to stress the need for increased access in Belmont County and continue to search for possible innovative partnerships through the Belmont County Port Authority. As for Comcast, during this particular time, we have worked to connect them with Belmont County school districts in regards to the company's attempt to assist during the pandemic.  Specifically, we reached out to school superintendents and connected them with contacts at Comcast.  We still have a long way to go but we will continue to work to get there.  The youth of the Ohio Valley need these improvements so that they can have increased access to technological improvements in education and further compete with other students across the globe.

What financial impact will the closure of the Ohio Valley Mall have on Belmont County and the offered services?

Any long-term closure of businesses is difficult for a local government, particularly one whose general fund is fueled primarily by local sales tax. With business closures like those at the Ohio Valley Mall, sales tax revenues are expected to decrease significantly during this time. However, I remain very optimistic as businesses continue to reopen and we eventually emerge completely from the pandemic. Our local economy was strong prior and hopefully will rebound quickly. As for the Ohio Valley Mall, the property owners continue to advance future development while adjusting to changes in commercial real estate. Dunham's Sporting Goods and Chick-fil-A are a couple of recent projects that have been terrific additions to the community.  We look forward to the near completion of Five Below as well as the Hampton Inn.

The Belmont County Courthouse was closed just three months after the Christmas holiday because of the coronavirus pandemic.

What is the projection for the decrease in sale tax revenue throughout the county and what measures have the commissioners considered?

It is too early to have exact figures of the current impact. Sales tax collection numbers delivered from the state of Ohio run a couple months behind when the original transaction takes place.  April's report will be the strongest indicator, but unfortunately it is not yet finalized at the state level.  State guidance points to a potential 20 percent decrease in revenue for 2020.  This type of reduction would make the 2021 budget extremely challenging.  Unlike the federal government, Belmont County cannot operate in a deficit. Therefore, shortfalls in funding as compared to a prior year result in a reduction of funding for operations for that fiscal year. Fortunately, we have made conservative budgetary decisions before COVID-19 ever emerged. For instance, for the past three years, the Commission has taken an aggressive approach to county budgets with numerous cuts. Our office has always taken the largest cut in each of these years.  For example, our current budget is 11 percent less than last year which was nearly 10 percent less than the year before that. Most importantly, these reductions did not result in a decrease of services to the residents of Belmont County.  In addition, our Board has made great strides to further strengthen Belmont County's debt position. In the last three years, the Commission secured two major financing packages with the U.S. Department of Agriculture to better finance existing water and sewer debt. In fact, the water package was the largest USDA package ever secured in the State of Ohio. These two packages make certain that water and sewer debt will be paid in the future by the Belmont County Sanitary Sewer District enterprise fund and not the county general fund. Unfortunately, this organization of debt has not always been the case causing a significant burden for Belmont County meaning that the general fund paid debt obligations that it should not have. Additionally, last year, the Commission expedited the total repayment of the new office building of Belmont County Senior Services as well as the 2008 expansion project of the Belmont County Jail.  Both of these projects are now paid in full.  This year, the Commission completely paid off a $1.6 million sewer project that was over 15 years old and was not eligible for the USDA package. This project was a perfect example of good initiative that unfortunately lacked an effective payment plan and therefore stayed in the debt portfolio without any payments taking place except interest. These recent activities place Belmont County in a very good debt position moving forward and strengthens its favorable Aa3 bond rating with Moody's, which is in the high-quality standard. Hopefully, these prior decisions of reducing budgets and eliminating debt obligations will lessen the financial impact of COVID-19. That being said, we will work extremely hard to work through the remainder of this fiscal year and prepare for the next.  We take our budgetary responsibilities very seriously even in a typical year.  All options are on the table, but we hope to limit the impact as much as possible.

This land once was home to First Energy's Burger Power Plant, but it has been cleared and sculpted in preparation for new development.

With the announcement that PTT Global will not make a final financial decision on the construction of a petrochemical "cracker" plant for six-to-nine months, many residents of the Upper Ohio Valley have grown pessimistic concerning the project. How do you and the other commissioners handle the negativity? What do you say to those residents?

Honestly, there has been very little negativity to handle. The recent announcement in regards to the project timeline was not surprising. At this point, everyone can relate to the complications that COVID-19 has had on all aspects of each of our lives. In this case, it is not hard to imagine how the pandemic would complicate the environment needed to make a major financial investment that is international in nature. I would describe the community reaction that we receive in general as supportive and optimistic. There have been major milestones reached over the past several months. Most recently, Belmont County, Mead Township, and Shadyside Local School District finalized a local tax agreement with the project leaders.  In general, one familiar with the project location cannot drive past the site today and not recognize the tremendous amount of excavation that has occurred since last summer. While a final decision has not been reached, tangible progress continues to occur.

Do you remain confident the project will take place? Why or why not? (please explain)

I am very confident in the individuals leading this incredible effort towards a final investment decision. The project leaders have been very open through the entire process. They have been responsive to community questions and demonstrated a real commitment to developing strong relationships throughout the Ohio Valley. Due to this emphasis on communication and community, this project has developed tremendous backing at the federal, state, and local level. It truly is a team approach that has garnered real buy in from those involved. Read the full article

[purplesurveys]

674

Do you listen to music while you fill out surveys? I have moods where I can and moods where I can’t. But when I do listen to music while taking surveys, I can only ever listen to lo-fi tracks because they’re super chill and great as background sound. Right now is one of the times I have them on.

In the past week, what song have you listened to the most often? I think I’ve mostly been stressed about updates on the virus, so I actually haven’t been listening to any music all week. This is the first time I’ve sat down and let myself listen to my go-to lo-fi playlist.

What was the last thing you shared with someone else? I shared some of my dinner with my dog, if that counts.

While playing video games, do you prefer being first or second player? Second, because I definitely don’t know how to play most video games all that well haha. I’d rather be the second player just cluelessly/aimlessly following around.

What is the most difficult word for you to pronounce? I cannot pronounce ‘bureaucracy’ for the life of me. ‘Mirror’ can also be a bitch but because i watch too much American media, my Filipino ass just goes right ahead and says it as ‘mirr.’

What did you have to do for the last homework you were assigned? The last homework I turned in before the lockdown happened was the weekly article I had to submit for my business reporting class. I gotta say, as a mostly introverted journalism student, I’m SO GLAD there’s been a way out of having to do interviews and produce articles haha. I see you looking out for me for once, universe.

You’ve planned a roadtrip. Where are you going, and who’s coming too? Tagaytay. It’s always a good destination for a chill roadtrip that’s not too far, doesn’t require a full tank of gas, and not too much of a hassle. I’m bringing my college clique with me – JM, Luisa, Jo, Aya, Kate, Kezhia, Blanch – and Gabie, too.

Do you have an overactive imagination? I have little to zero imagination. I mean I guess I like thinking of scenarios, but beyond that me and creativity just don’t mesh well at all.

What was the last important thing that you thought about? That five minutes ago it was time for me to put eye drops on my left eye once again. That eye been working well in the last few weeks, so I had it checked by an opthalmologist, who said there’s most likely a scar somewhere in my eyeball and proceeded to prescribe drops for me.

Generally, do you call people, or wait for them to call you? I would never call people first other than Gabie. Thankfully mostly everyone I know hates calls as well and would never call first, so no one ever calls me either.

On average, how many texts do you send out each day? On a normal day, maybe 50-100 texts? It’s my main mode of communication with my girlfriend, but it also depends on how busy we are during the day.

If a cop pulled you over for speeding, how would you respond? I don’t think speeding is a traffic violation here because 1) the congestion EVERYWHERE is horrible and the traffic is a crawl all day long, and 2) I’ve seen people drive like maniacs on expressways and they never get pulled over for it. On the hypothetical instance that I do get stopped for speeding, I’d obey and apologize for it, and just hope they aren’t rude as fuck.

Has anyone ever questioned your sanity? I have questioned it MANY, many times in the past, mostly when I was in my early teens and still battling with a lot of anger, depression, and a lot of other emotions like I’m guessing most teens do.

How many people do you depend on? As much as I’m not the closest with my parents I do depend on them for basically everything. For now.

How many people do you think depend on you? I dunno if there’s anyone that does. I rather they don’t - I’m pretty unstable.

What is the worst color combination? I’d imagine red and purple to look so jarring.

Have you ever injured yourself walking around in the dark? I don’t think so.

When you get a papercut, how do you react? I thankfully haven’t gotten one in a while, but in the past I’ve usually never noticed the moment it happens, and I only ever find out when the pain hits like a few hours later. That said, I don’t really have a choice but to sigh and grit my teeth through the pain for the next few days.

Can you type without looking down at the keyboard? Yes. The only time I do is when I have to use the keys that aren’t letters, like |, }, and $.

At what age did you develop an interest in the opposite [or same] sex? Opposite sex: Probably literally never. I did attend soirees in high school and got invited to a senior ball – but these were only because I did what I thought a high school girl was supposed to do. I was never genuinely interested in boys. Same sex: I’d say Grade 6, when I had a feeling that I had a crush on Andi.

Are you or members of your family religious? It’s safe to say my entire family – both sides – is devoutly Catholic. They share Bible verses, go to Church, say a prayer before meals, all that crap. I am definitely not. I’ve seen so many people use the religion stuff to justify their being an asshole/hypocrite/both, so it was very for me to let all the bullshit facade go from a young age.

What is your opinion on religions other than your own? They’re valid, especially if it helps one become a better person. Don’t use it to strip others of their human rights, though.

What’s so scary about clowns, anyway? The make-up makes them humans that do not look like humans, and that has always been unsettling for us I think.

When was the last time you acted like someone you’re not? I don’t really do this; I like wearing my heart on my sleeve.

Have you ever wished that something bad would happen to someone else? LMAO yep from time to time.

When was the last time that you cleaned your room? My room is generally clean. My mom likes keeping the entire house tidy, so I just help her out and do my part for her mild OCD.

How many hats do you own/wear? I have one sun hat but it was an impulse buy. I’ve never worn it out because IT’S JUST SO BIG AND FLOPPY and I hate wearing stuff that’s flamboyant enough to give me attention.

What was the last thing that you printed? The aforementioned business news article I had to submit.

Did the last song you listened to hold any special meaning? I love the song, it’s profound and beautifully written but it’s also a particularly sad one, and it’s not one of the songs I’d want to be attached to because that would just make me sad all the time. The song was Hayley Williams’ Leave It Alone.

Are you experiencing problems within a current relationship? No, not at all.

When you’re upset, who do you turn to? Depends on the problem. For most crises I’d turn to Gabie, but sometimes I’d talk to Angela, and sometimes I’d keep to myself. Does winter weather depress you? I’ve never experienced winter. I always say that I have a feeling I’d like it because I like being cold and hot chocolate and wearing socks and feeling fuzzy, but now that I think about it, given how miserable Christmas already makes me, I feel like winter may probably just be the worst thing ever for me.

Who was the last person that you called? Gab, just before she fell asleep a few hours ago.

What product was being advertised on the last commercial you saw? A website for online shopping. It played before a YouTube video.

Do you ever wonder who sings the catchy commercial jingles? I don’t care for them, tbh. When you think about your last relationship, what song comes to mind? I Forget Where We Were by Ben Howard reminds me of my first stint with Gab. Six years ago when we first got together, she introduced the song to me and was being emotional to me about it, and I remember feeling unsettled right off the bat with her sharing such a somber song. I never really got over that feeling and to this day I still listen to it only when I’m sad.

Are there any lyrics to describe your current crush/relationship? Maybe if I wanted to think about it, but I don’t care to right now. <– Same <- Also same. I hate survey questions that make me think of lyrics on the spot.

Who in your life makes you the most uncomfortable? [continued from like a day and a half ago, lmao] My mom has comments and criticisms for everyone and everything, so I always find myself getting anxious around her.

Do you ever receive comments on your weight? That’s literally the greeting of choice in Filipino culture. No one here ever says “hi!” they all just remark how fat or thin you got from the last time they saw you.

Is there anything that you do just to make other people happy? There isn’t any one thing that I do. I’ve realized the people around me have different needs for them to be happy, so if I’m able to and if I’m mentally stable myself, I do those things for them.

When you need a temporary escape, what do you do? Open Tumblr and take a survey or two. If I don’t feel like it, I go on YouTube and watch Friends recaps.

What was the last lie that you believed in? If I believed in it I wouldn’t know it was a lie, if that makes sense.

How long did your last feelings of heartbreak last? I stopped actively mourning for Nacho (i.e. crying randomly while in school, listening daily to the playlist I curated to deal with his passing) around two months after he passed, but I would be lying if I said the heartbreak isn’t there anymore. I still think of him every day, and it makes me sad every day.

Is there any sport that you would want to learn to play? Volleyball would be cool to learn.

What band would you most like to meet? Paramore, obviously. Or One Direction, if they still count :((

Do you ever have difficulty opening pill-bottle caps? I mean I’ve never really had to, so I wouldn’t know if I’d find it hard.

Do you gain weight around the holidays? My metabolism’s always been pretty fast so even if I do eat a lot during the holidays, it’s barely noticeable. 

Are you related to anyone famous, or to any historical figure? I’m related to one of the Filipinas who sewed the first Philippine flag; to a historian whose works are now widely used in history courses; and the diplomat who represented the Philippines in the signing of the Treaty of Paris. As a kid I often thought my love for history was rather odd (because no other kid seemed to like it), but now I have a reason to think it has always run in my blood. Today I’m related to a political clan in my maternal grandfather’s home province, but I wouldn’t use ‘famous’ as the word for them.

If it was an option, would you take a trip into outer space? Oh yeah absolutely. I wanted to be an astronaut when I was a kid.

What was the last thing that you wrote down [with a pen/pencil]? I practiced my high school’s penmanship, both because I really do practice it from time to time so I don’t end up being rusty, and because Andrew is dating Leigh, a friend from high school, in the weirdest crossover episode ever, and he is currently invested into learning our script hahaha.

Has anyone told you that you have a nice smile? Sure.

Are you uncomfortable with being photographed? Yeah ugh I hate it, especially when I have to be photographed or posed all by myself.

How vivid are your memories? Very vivid. I have a number of memories from every age, most of which I can remember pretty much as clear as day, from where I was down to the conversations that took place.

What’s the earliest you’ve woken up in the past week? Like 7:30 AM.

How many people have you talked to today? I’m too lazy to count so I’ll just name them: my mom, dad, sister, Gabie, JM, Apple, Hannah, Rick, Reiven, Ed, Kate, Laurice, and Abby. I’m also in Messenger group chats for each class I’m part of this sem, and all day we’ve been talking about how we’ll move forward now that my school has suspended online classes as well, so long story short I’ve talked to a buuuunch of people.

What was the last reason behind why you went to the hospital? Haven’t been in one since I was admitted myself a decade ago for a low platelet count, which we nearly thought was dengue.

When journaling, are you honest when documenting your feelings? Yes, I get super honest in this blog because this is the only place where I can be that way, and that’s why I’m super hesitant to open this up to anyone.

If you have a journal, do you ever worry others might find it? Gab asks me about it every now and then and it innately makes me anxious haha. Outside of her, I don’t think anyone in my circle would ever check for surveys on Tumblr.

When you go camping, do you sleep in a tent or an RV? I’ve never camped before but I think an RV would be convenient.

What’s one ridiculous thing that you do? Before I eat fried chicken, I will always peel off the breading/skin first so I can save it for last. I don’t like the actual meat, so I’ll only eat some of it and give the rest to my dog. My mom has since called the chicken skin portion my ‘finale,’ so I eventually adopted the term as well haha.

Do you feel that you must wear make up to be attractive? No dude. I never wear makeup and I’ve always felt confident, looks-wise.

What was the last thing [other than the keyboard] that you touched? My phone, just now. 

Ever done anything dangerous while driving with someone else in the car? I’ve texted and taken calls whether I’m alone or driving with someone. If I’m running late I’ll also comb my hair with one hand. I’ve done sexual stuff while I was driving also hahahgdjshgfsf but there’s no need to get into that.

Name someone you wish you could be closer with? The newly-inducted members of our org, and the newest applicants as well! Everybody seems like cool people, and it sucks that the virus has prevented us from getting together.

Have you ever played the license plate game on long car-trips? Sure, but we also have other games to entertain us because car trip games can get boring pretty fast.

Are you a secretive person, or are you open with your thoughts? I have secrets but I’m very open about them if they happen to be raised. Like with me, all you have to do is ask haha.

What is the worst question that someone could ask you? Those dumb ones on surveys that ask if I’d rather kill my mom or best friend lol.

Do you talk to your pets? Every single time I see him.

Do you have a least favorite day of the year? Either Christmas or New Year’s Eve. The loneliness is something I wouldn’t wish on anybody.

What traits do you look for in a potential BF/GF? I’m demisexual, so I never really compiled a list of traits.

Would you date someone that had a different religion from you? Only if they didn’t let it get in the way of my atheism. You do you, but don’t drag me to your thanksgivings, rituals, holy texts, etc.

Right now, what’s in your bookbag/backpack? I honestly have no idea. I haven’t looked inside for so long HAHAHA

What’s unique about your city or town? We have an elevated part that we call ‘higher [city name]’ because it’s the part of the city that’s on a mountain and a base that we, understandably, call ‘lower [city name]’. I live in the lower area, which is busier and nearer to the metro. I don’t know of any other city in the Philippines where one half is situated higher and another lower.

If you could say something to the world, what would you say? Don’t panic, don’t hoard basic necessities, and don’t be fucking racist.