#man I could shit talk my job for 37 years and I’ve been there not even 3 months

[expatiating]

I think when you start your full-time job the morning after the first interview, it’s kind of your own fault for the shit you see and experience there

[charlie-minion]

Who am I?

I feel like I should start this journey by introducing myself. My name is Karla, but I never use my real name in any of my social media platforms. I am more used to being Charlie, and I think it is because “Karla” is the person I am in “real life”, the one I am supposed to be, the one who has a specific role. On the contrary, Charlie is my pure essence, or at least the person I’m still trying to figure out. Charlie is me without other people’s expectations, and I like that a lot. So, for all intents and purposes, please call me Charlie.

I will turn 37 years old in two months. I have a Bachelor’s and a Master’s degree, but I stopped working 5 years ago. I used to be a teacher and worked mostly with teenagers for around 12 years. Nowadays, the thought of being in a classroom makes me anxious beyond belief. I don’t know why, though. I used to really love my profession, but I guess that trying to hide your depression while pretending to be a joyous person takes a toll on you.

Oh, there’s that! I have been dealing with depression basically my whole life. I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 2018. When I stopped working, or better said, when I got fired from my last job at the end of 2017, I was having the worst year of my life. I attempted suicide at least three times only that year. I was done. I was in excruciating emotional pain. I had a therapist and a psychiatrist, but bless their souls, they did not help me much. I had been diagnosed with clinical depression and was medicated, but I saw no improvement whatsoever, and it makes sense since I had bipolar not depression. So, when I got fired, I decided to take a break because I was too emotionally unstable to look for a new job. That break became longer than expected because I haven’t had a formal job since then.

I identify myself as demisexual and biromantic. I only feel attracted towards people when I have formed some sort of emotional bond. Physical attraction doesn’t make me want to date someone. I can appreciate the aesthetic form of the human body, male or female, but I won’t want to be romantically involved with them, no matter how attractive they are, unless I bond with them on an emotional level first. And yes, when I say male or female, that’s what I mean. That’s the biromantic part of me. I don’t care whether the people I fall for are men or women. I haven’t met non-binary, gender fluid, or trans people in person yet, so I can’t talk about that for now, but I'm sure I wouldn’t mind that either. I just don’t really care about people’s genitals or what gender they identify as (if they do at all).

I was married to a man. It ended quite fast and quite badly, but he’s been a good friend for the last few years after our divorce. I was engaged twice before I got married. They were very painful experiences that left me a lot of wounds to heal. I have also been involved with women. The most significant one was good until it became long distance. I have had my fair share of catastrophic relationships and my unstable, undiagnosed mental illness didn’t help at all. I am nowadays single because I am still trying to figure out what I want or if I even want to have someone by my side. I have a lot of unresolved childhood trauma that gets in the way when I try to have a romantic relationship, so I’ve grown a little disillusioned because of that. For now, I think it’s better to have a relationship with myself –something I still struggle with.

I don’t have children, but that was a decision I made for myself a long time ago. I can barely take care of myself. My emotional well-being is a roller coaster, so how could I even think of having to care for another human being? I could lose my shit at any moment and actually end up killing myself, so what would happen to the child? Because of all that, I got sterilized a month ago. It’s funny because I don’t really have a male partner right now, but that could change in the future. What I know for sure will never change is my decision to not have children. Not now, not ever. 

I live alone and have seven beautiful cats. I have been very independent since I finished college. I don’t like to live with other people because I am also an introvert, so I need a lot of time by myself. Cats, on the other hand, are the most precious company I could ask for. They remind me of myself because they are also very independent. One of them, Jerry, is 11 years old, and he has traveled out of the country with me twice. The others are: Lily (3 years old), Debby (2), and Jimmy, Charlie, Abby, and Anny (all four of them 11 months old). The last four were born in my house, when I adopted Debby, the night she was giving birth to them. Debby and Lily were stray cats that I adopted and neutered. Jerry was born where I used to work at the time, but someone was trying to find homes for the kitties, and I adopted the one nobody else wanted because he was the smallest one. He is now a huge, gorgeous, spoiled, and still very healthy senior cat. 

I am sort of retired now. I don’t have plans to work in education anymore. I am lucky enough to be able to make a living without working. My mom gave me a very big house that I sold to buy a much smaller one where I now live. I invested the rest of the money, and now I make a living out of the interests. I am an occasional freelance, though. As I am bilingual, I do translations for a couple of lawyers in my country when they need my services. In 2018, I got a job as the vice-principal in a private school, but when I read the contract and noticed some things, I just refused to sign and didn’t accept the job. I haven’t been actively looking for a job since then because I realized that I didn’t want to go back to that life. I chose my peace over making more money.  I was lucky that when the pandemic started, I was already retired, so I could continue to focus on my mental health. 

I think this is a very good overview of who I am and where I am in life now. My experience with bipolar and how having a wrong diagnosis for years made it all so hard should be a post of its own. Also, little by little, I’ll pour my soul here because I am in the process of figuring stuff out, and I can only do that when I write. You see? I learned from a very early age not to express wants or needs, and I got so used to being low-maintenance that now when I try to identify MY wants and needs, I have a really hard time. I cannot express them; I cannot even differentiate them from the wants and needs of other people that I tend to put first. However, when I write, it’s like I open a door to my psyche that allows me to see things I didn’t know were there. That’s the main reason why I want to start doing this again. I need to know what I want in life because right now I feel very much stuck.

If you read all this, thank you very much. I’ll come back soon with more. For now, this is me. This is Charlie.

[skepticoyote]

auntie coy’s fangirl corner

So recently I’ve been seeing a lot of younger millennial / gen z folks in fandom spaces who have discovered One Piece - and are shipping the characters, writing fanfic, creating beautiful works of art and SHARING them.

One Piece is my oldest fandom. In a lot of ways, it was my first fandom. I couldn’t get any of my adorably awkward anime club pals to read it no matter how much I talked it up. They didn't like the artwork, and I GET that, because it didn't look like any other manga out there at the time. OP is not pretty, and I'm not saying that as a dig to any specific art style but trust me when I say that 99% of the weeb market were going to reach for Inu Yasha over the fuckin rubber kid.

Oda's story has been a huge part of my life since 2005, when I picked up the first volume of this fucking masterpiece. I was in my early 20's and I was real lonely and real broke. Anxiety and adhd made holding down a job almost fuckin impossible because there were days when I could not get myself off the goddamn couch without bursting into tears

But the King of Pirates is the freest man in the world.

You have no idea how badly I wanted to board my ship of dreams with my own set of dear companions and set our course to the end of the world.

To the dawn.

But back in those days, there wasn't an OP fandom like there was for Death Note or Saiyuki (google it kids) so, I didn't really have any one else to gush at about it. There was no one out there on livejournal sharing adorable Sanuso content for my hungry hungry eyeballs. There weren't many artists out there on the English web creating content and sharing the BIG FEELS that this magical world gives us.

There were no longform roleplays set in Oda's universe, there were no fandom OC's  or cute AU's of the Straw Hats as college students

and like

please believe me when I tell you from the bottom of my heart that seeing all of this stuff appear over the past like 3 years is fucking incredible.

One Piece is so fucking important to me. It's even more important to me as a 37 year old woman than it was when I was an angsty 21 year old who could barely afford her own shitty one bedroom apartment

but the things you wonderful people create are like medicine for that 21 year old's wounded soul.

As I am writing this, I am literally full-on ugly crying with the tears and the snot and the drool and everything. I am sobbing because seeing some of the amazing shit that you folks are creating is not only a huge inspiration for me to eventually share my own One Piece brainworms, but my own writing and artwork

my own fucking shitposts that currently exist only as deep-cut inside jokes that my partner I have been giggling about for literally longer than some of you guys have been alive.

And it makes me so fucking happy. It makes my heart full.

I sincerely mean that.

Tl;dr  auntie coy got into the weed again & she is having ALL of the big One Piece feels

[dilfgmancoolatta]

can yuo write angsty freelatta........-benryphobic

@benryphobic

Gordon looks down at the half-eaten pizza, his appetite almost completely gone. He was initially suspicious of it- as much as he trusted Tommy, he had no idea what Mr. Coolatta’s intentions were. But after seeing everyone else dig in (well, everyone who had made it out of the boss battle alive), he let himself give in. It was horrible, but horrible in the way that most Chuck E. Cheese pizza generally is. Mr. Coolatta pulled out all the stops for this one, huh?

He sighs, gently nudging his paper plate away. He’s not really sure what to do. He doubts Mr. Coolatta would react well to being asked when they could leave- he seems really protective of his son.

Gordon decides to get some fresh air. Quietly pushing in his chair, he sneaks away from the group, Mr. Coolatta and Bubby seemingly distracting by a story Dr. Coomer was telling from the Engineering department.

He breathes a sigh of relief once the door closes behind him. He looks up at the sky as he slides down the wall. It’s strikingly beautiful, yet chilling. It’s a sky Gordon’s never seen before, with a large spiral galaxy, that definitely wasn’t the Milky Way, taking up much of it. Planets upon planets and stars upon stars that Gordon couldn’t recognize.

“That’s Andromeda o- up there, by the way.”

Gordon jolts, feeling his heart rate spike, before laughing. “Tommy, don’t scare me like that, man. Kinda still on edge.”

“Oh-” Tommy covers his mouth. “I’m sorry, Mr. Freeman, I thought you knew I was out here.”

Gordon waves him off. “It’s not a big deal. Just- Thought I should let you know.” Tommy nods. “Andromeda’s a lot bigger than I remember.”

“Mmhm! I told my dad once that Andromeda w- is my favorite galaxy. And after that, he always made sure Andromeda was the biggest thing in the night sky in his pocket dimensions.”

“That’s… honestly pretty sweet.”

Tommy nods, sitting down next to Gordon. “My Dad’s a good guy, even if he is pretty weird sometimes. Though I guess I can’t talk.”

“I don’t think you’re weird, Tommy.”

Tommy looks at him in disbelief.

“Mr. Freeman, I wouldn’t be so sure-”

“Listen, we’ve got a lab grown human, a man who’s been cloned, like, 1000 times, and then there’s you. I don’t think the identity of your dad makes you weird.”

Tommy looks like he wants to say something, but seemingly decides against it. Instead, he decides on a simple “Thank you.”

The two sit in silence for a few moments, staring up into the night sky.

“Did something happen at the party?” Tommy asks. “I hope my dad wasn’t being weird about the Chuck E. Cheese debate-thing.”

Gordon shakes his head. “No, I just needed some fresh air. Gordon sensory overload time was coming up, I could feel it. Wasn’t that hungry either.”

Tommy nods. “I understand. That… happens to me too. The only reason I could handle the arcade inside is because my dad makes the machines quieter-” He frowns and scrunches his nose. “But you don’t want to hear about all that.” He waves him off.

And there it is.

It’s a pattern Gordon’s noticed throughout their time in Black Mesa. Every time Tommy seemed like he was about to express any negative emotion, he’d change the subject and say something about Gordon not wanting to hear it.

So he takes a chance.

“But what if I do want to hear it?”

That wasn’t the answer Tommy seemed to be expecting.

“I mean- there’s not much more to it. It’s just me not e- liking loud noises. Nothing all that interesting.”

“It’s not about it being interesting, Tommy. You don’t have to dismiss your own feelings.” Tommy looks at him, his eyebrows furrowed in an unsure look. “You’ve been, like, my emotional rock throughout Black Mesa. You’ve gotta let me return the favor.”

“I d- really don’t want you to think any less of me.”

“Why would I?”

Tommy looks away from Gordon. “I’ve learned from experience, Mr. Freeman. There isn’t r- any way for someone like me to be upset without being treated like a child throwing a tantrum. And then they talk about you like you’re not even in the room-”

Oh.

Unfortunately, the experience is all-too-familiar to Gordon.

“I’ve gotten the same shit- it’s awful.”

“You... have? I never thought that of you- I mean, anyone in your situation might- would be a little on edge.”

“I mean, even before the Black Mesa incident. People would either use kiddie gloves around me or flat out tell me I was overreacting whenever I was slightly upset. So I do somewhat get it, and you don’t need to expect anything like that from me.”

Tommy nods, a small smile beginning to form. It’s a very nice smile- No, Gordon, now is not the time for gay thoughts.

“And I know I shouldn’t have let them win, and I really did try to not give in, but it just got so ti- exhausting going to work everyday with people who saw you as an overgrown child.” Tommy brings his knees to his chest and rests his head on them.

“I mean, I don’t think you ‘should’ have done anything in that situation.” Gordon shrugs. “I don’t think making a statement is worth more than making things bearable for you. It’s not your job to ‘show them who’s boss’.”

“Mm,” Tommy hums, taking his right arm off of his legs and putting it in between them. “It just doesn’t sit right with me that I ba- essentially taught them that that behavior works.”

Gordon gives his hand a comforting squeeze. “You didn’t teach them anything. They were shitty people to begin with, and even if you refused to ‘give in’, I doubt they would’ve changed their minds. You just would’ve been even more miserable.” He feels Tommy shift his hand so their fingers are intertwined. Don’t blush, don’t blush, don’t blush- “If you don’t mind me asking, couldn’t you have told your dad about it? He doesn’t seem like the type to let that slide.”

Tommy shakes his head. “He’s not, but…” he trails off. “Listen, my dads a go- great guy. If I had told him about how I was being treated at work he probably would’ve… either got them fired, at the very least, or have locked them in a void for who knows how long to ‘teach them a lesson’.” Gordon can’t tell if that’s a joke or not- from what little he knows about Mr. Coolatta, it probably isn’t. “But I’m a 37 year old man. My dad wants to protect me from the world, and I don’t really blame him for that, but I need to fight my own battles. I’m not going to be the kind of person that calls their dad at the first sign of danger.”

Gordon nods, brushing his thumb across Tommy’s hand. He understands where Tommy’s coming from. As a father himself, it’s been very hard to ignore his immediate impulse to protect Joshua from anything that could potentially harm him. He can’t imagine what it’ll be like a few years from now when there are dangers Gordon couldn’t protect Josh from even if he did try. “I can’t blame you for that. But I hope that line of logic hasn’t lead to you refusing to ask anyone else for help.”

“Well…”

“Tommy.”

“I’m gonna start trying to change that behavior, I swear!” Tommy laughs, doing an ‘x’ sign over his heart.

“Besides, considering the whole Resonance Cascade thing, I doubt your shitty ex-coworkers will be able to be shitty to anyone else.”

Tommy laughs, shaking his head. “You’re right about that, Mr. Freeman-”

“You can call me Gordon, you know.”

“I- Are you sure?”

“I think, after everything we’ve been through together, we’re well past the awkward coworkers stage of friendship.”

“I mean, if you’re sure about that… Gordon.” Never before had hearing his name filled him with more joy. “But… I don’t know. It’s st- silly, but I still feel bad that they died? Even though they were awful to me.”

Gordon shakes his head. “I don’t think it’s silly at all, man. Feelings are really fucking complicated- Not to mention you’re probably not mourning them specifically, just the fact that people died. You’ve got a big heart, there’s nothing silly or stupid about it.”

“You do too, M- Gordon. You’re a very kind person.”

They stare at each other for a few moments, both of them red as a beet.

“I think…” Gordon gulps, hoping how flustered he is isn’t that obvious. “I think I’m ready to go back inside.”

Tommy nods, standing up and pulling Gordon up with him. They both turn their heads to look inside the Chuck E. Cheese, seeing Mr. Coolatta somehow playing a perfect game of Skee-ball while Dr. Coomer and Bubby cheer on. Gordon looks at their hands, still intertwined, then back up to Tommy.

“C’mon, before the pizza gets cold.” Gordon opens the door with his shoulder, grinning at Tommy.

Tommy follows him in, and the Birthday Party At The End of the World continues on.

[dearcat1]

2,3,6,16,18,20

I have gone totally nuts, but, well, I also want to know 🙈😂

Don't worry! I'm all for being asked questions!

2. Favorite piece overall?

Hu, I think my baby, right now is Ameliorate which is the first part of the contract-verse series. It hasn't been published yet but I've been working on it for about a year, it's like a trilogy. Each part is long enough to be a book and I'm proud of how it's coming along. I like reading the later parts of it and noting just how far both Xanxus and Tsuna evolve in the length of the story.

Published? I think that would be The Dragon Prince and his Consort. I don't even know why, it just brings me so much joy but that one is only in Ko-Fi. If we're going by one that's open to everybody, I think that would be either The Thrill or Isolation. I like the dynamics in them.

3. Which was the hardest to write, in terms of plot?

That'd be Ameliorate, too. Funnily enough, when I first wrote it, it was going to be a 7 chapter long smutty story without much plot. And then, when I read it again my brain went: wait a minute, wait. What about all the political shifts here? The drama? The relationship development? The emotional evolution? So then it became a little bit of a struggle about moving the pieces of all those other points around a story that was going to be only seven chapters long. But then it ended up being too long so I decided that it would be divided into a series.

Which means, 4 plots. One overall plot of the entire story itseld and 3 plots of each part of the series. And so I had to rewrite everything again. Yikes, it's made me scream into the void but I'm also so happy with how it's coming along.

6. Idea that you always wanted to write but could never make work?

I guess there's a lot of somewhat darker themes that I would like to explore. Mostly as I deal with my own mental health and realize some things, I would like to put some of those thoughts into paper and watch them flow, almost like an outsider looking in and yet I have rarely managed to finish a story like that. Mostly because it becomes too much sometimes but also because I get worried that people are going to come after me for 'romanticizing' this or the other. Which it's not, it never is. It's just me trying to work through it, express myself.

16. 3 favorite comments ever received on fanfic.

I answered that one here. I'd answer again but trying to save people from having a truly more monstrously long post in their dash...

18. If you could go back and revise one of your older stories, which would it be?

Mizuiro, the information broker. Without a doubt. I like the story but it feels almost unfinished to me and I feel like my writing has evolved to the point where I could do a much better job of it now.

20. Go nuts, and talk about writing.

Holy shit, why put me in the spotlight like this? Hahahaha.

If I had to babble about writing, I'd complain. I'll be honest, I love writing. It's probably one of the skills I'm the proudest of. I love sharing it with other people and learning just how to convey the image in my head properly. It takes over me, however, which is something that I have a love-hate relationship with. I can be trying to sleep and this entire fully-fledged story decides that nope, it's writing time. And then when you get to writing it, in the hopes of getting to bed at some point, you note that this is scene #37 and you need to somehow write all the other scenes leading up to it and then all the other ones after that.

I think there are people out there that are writers because they sit down and make the conscious decision to do it and then there are writers like me who write out of self-preservation because we started one day and writing didn't let us go after that.

That said, I am thankful for that. During quarantine, writing is the one thing that kept me somewhat sane. It's an interesting ability because depending on which character you're writing, which moment in their life they are in, you have to more or less enter somebody else's mind and try to understand them, deep down. Who are they? What moves them? Why? Are they even making decisions or just reacting to the world around them?

When I write Xanxus, for example, and I'm doing his inner monologue about something that really pulls his strings, sometimes I have to stand up and pace in my room because I get so fucking angry. And yet he's my absolute favourite, I don't know what that says about me. Or Reborn, Reborn's inner thoughts can be so cold. He's an old man, trapped in this body that's not his and he's probably been a hitman for so long that he doesn't really remember how to be anything other than that. I think that even if he can be incredibly kind, in the back of his mind, he always is a hitman. It doesn't get turned off.

So when I try to understand his character, write about him and his thoughts, I tend to think of his love as something cold and possessive, even if the emotion itself is warm. I think he's the sort of person who can look at people around him and make a calculated assessment of those who surround him. Is it worth the inconvenience to kill them? Is the reward worth the unpaid hit? If he lets them die by their own stupidity, what will that mean for him? It takes a special kind of man to be both unaffiliated and so clearly respected by whole ass organizations. So on and so forth.

There's this scene in Ameliorate where Reborn notes that Timoteo just set off a domino event that is going to eventually lead to his death. Not any time soon, Reborn could avoid this, could warn him, could reel his student in. He doesn't even think about the possibility. All he thinks about the matter is that it's a shame. Old friends are hard to come by but Timoteo should have known better.

Human nature, in itself, fascinates me, simply by how diverse it is. So I love that, I play with that. If this happens, how would Xanxus, Tsuna, or whatever character I'm looking at react to that? What would they think? How do they feel about t? To a great extent, that's what my writing is about. That and the fluff. Because it makes me smile while I write it, too.

[word-scribbless]

Smile Again 3

Not my image

Aaron Hotchner x female reader

Masterlist | Smile Again Masterlist

Summary: JJ’s cousin Y/N has been through a lot in her 37 years of life. She’s moved to Virginia to start to move on with her life,until meeting Aaron Hotchner throws a wrench in her plans in the best way.

The team plays 20 questions with readers life and they start to learn about her past life.

————————-

Y/N let herself be pulled away by Rossi and into his home, relieved not to have to explain her self-loathing comment to Hotch.

“I’ve found her!” Rossi exclaimed as he placed a glass of wine in front of her and led her to his kitchen table where the team all sat.

Before she can settle in Hotch takes the seat next to her, leaning over while everyone else was distracted taking drinks from Rossi.

He whispered “you’re wrong”.

She quirked her eyebrow at him and he responded “There’s no way I could ever deserve you” she knew there was so much more to talk about there, but decided to tackle that at another time, when they were alone. Crap why is she assuming they’ll be alone together, and why does that thought give her butterflies? She’s in trouble already, damn her cousin for always being right. She settled for responding “we’ll have to argue more about this later” with a small smirk that invoked a similar small but stunning smile on Aaron’s face.

“Alright I’m ready for the interrogation” Y/N joked as she turned toward the group.

“Oh she catches on quick” Emily laughed

Y/N had already began to bond with her cousin’s BAU girls over the course of the night.

“Good luck friends, she’s a stubborn one” JJ joked, and giggled as she watched Y/N nod proudly.

“Maybe we should just get JJ drunk and ask her about Y/N” Derek joked.

“You know they are cousins maybe they share the ability to spill everything while drunk” Spencer joked

“Maybe? I thought you were doctor statistics! You don’t have exact numbers?” Y/n asked with a quirked eyebrow, causing the table to erupt in laughter including an adorable snort from the often stoic man next to her.

‘Great more butterflies’ she thought as she directed her attention away from Aaron.

Spencer gave an appreciative laugh and answered, “I do, but I was told not to scare you away with them.”

Y/N laughed and looked at JJ.

“Not me! I know you’re a nerd and would eat it up.” He cousin responded.

“Told you Morgan!” Spencer said, jabbing a finger at his friend.

“My bad pretty boy, you go on with your stats then.”

After listening intently while the team tuned Spencer’s statistics about cousins out they turned their attention back to Y/N.

“So we know you’re a nerd and good with kids and adorably gorgeous, but I wanna know more!” Garcia giggled.

“Ask away my new friends” Y/N smiled.

They took turns asking Y/N about her job, her family, what is was like to grow up with jj. She knows they are all trying to stray away from asking the heavy questions. Like why have you suddenly uprooted your life at 37.

“So where did you live before you moved here?” Emily asked. Here we go, she thought.

“Well the past couple years I lived with my parents on their farm in Pennsylvania, but before that I lived in Maryland.” She answered and noticed JJ watching her with worried eyes. She smiled softly at her cousin and watched her relax a little. She was new to this little group but she already knew she could trust them.

“What brought you here?” Rossi asked knowing what he was doing and gaining a glare from Hotch.

“Living with my parents and tending to a farm while working my actual job is only doable for so long” she laughed along with JJ.

“I don’t know how you survived in that town again for that long” JJ agreed.

“Why’d you move back with them?” Morgan asked casually before JJ swooped in.

“Guys I think that’s enough questions for now.”

“It’s okay Jayje... “ She assured her. “Um I lost my husband a few years ago and I needed a change.” She admitted and she felt Hotch shift next to her. A large warm hand suddenly rested on her hand that was settled in her lap, much like she had done with his in the garden earlier. The butterflies were back and more active than ever. She couldn’t deny how much she appreciated the comfort and warmth of his hand. She could get used to this, and that scared her.

“Shit” Morgan said “I’m sorry Y/N/N I didn’t mean to push you.”

“No, no Derek it’s totally okay. You’d find out eventually I mean I kind of told jack last week” She felt Aaron squeeze her hand at the admission “and seven year old keep secrets as well as drunk JJ, who also could have told you.” She laughed and the tension dissipated a little. “Plus I trust you guys” she smiled, causing the group to relax.

“Maybe we could go back to the less heavy, more embarrassing questions for a bit though? Especially if they’re about Jayje!” She suggested and was greeted by jj leaning over to hug her, Y/N knew she’d see her hand in Hotch’s but didn’t make a move to disconnect them, and neither did he. She heard and felt her cousin chuckle against her and knew the ride home would be round two of 20 questions: boy talk edition. She couldn’t say she truly minded.

“Do you have any embarrassing tattoos?” Garcia swooped in immediately to save the day.

“Or does JJ?” Emily added causing you to snort and launch into a story about a beach trip you and your cousin took right after you had turned 18 and the matching ink you each had hidden on your bodies.

She soaked in the glow of finally feeling normal again, of having friends, having a handsome man hold her hand as she laughed with a table full of kind people. Kind people who knew part of her story and still accepted her.

She hoped this was the first step in her new life. She finally let herself begin to think she deserved this, deserved to smile and be happy. She knew that feeling would be taken over by guilt again soon, when she was alone with her thought, but this was a start.

Meanwhile Aaron had a similar thought as he continued to hold her hand under the table, stroking his thumb across her knuckles. He felt her start to relax, trust them, trust him, and maybe even trust herself. He barely knew her story but he was sure that she was wrong, this girl deserved the world, no matter what happened in her past.

He was lost in thought until he locked eyes with JJ whose lips held a knowing smirk at their linked hands. She winked at him and he couldn’t help but smile.

Well he had her cousin’s approval, now he just had to convince her, and himself that they both deserved this feeling they gave each other.

[blue-eyed-korra]

Kieran White: Monster or Man?

With Purple Hyacinth’s season finale coming in the next few weeks and my feelings for this spectacular Webtoon continuing to grow over the course of the past few months, I have a lot I wanna talk about. I’ve decided to make this post to analyse our favourite handsome assassin, Kieran White, aka the Purple Hyacinth, through his actions in one scene in particular and see what we can glean about his past and future from there.

The scene I wanna talk about is at the beginning of chapter 45, right after Lauren leaves the cave after their... disagreement in chapter 43.

(TL;DR: She just stormed in, screamed at him for killing everyone in the Tower, asked if he felt any guilt at all the blood on his hands, admitted that she believed there had been some humanity left in him, but now calls him a monster. He gets triggered by this, tells her that she was stupid for thinking he was human, begins choking her, affirms that he is a monster, but lies when he tells her that he’d always been like that. He snaps out of it, let’s her go, then calls her a hypocrite and says she only cared about Anslow’s murder for her own investigation and she leaves.)

Once Lauren is gone and he’s finally left alone, he lets out his frustrations.

Up until the past couple chapters we’ve only ever seen him be cocky, highly efficient, intimidating or charming, (except for that one time Lauren fucked up the interrogation and when he’s carrying out orders from the Leader and killing but we’ll get to that) but never this angry. And he’s angry at himself, not for attacking Lauren, but for letting his lies slip. For basically telling her he wasn’t always a ‘heartless monster’. He punches the cave wall and screams because fuck, he’s revealed too much of himself to her and that makes him weaker. He’s never been like this with anyone and that break in the facade he’s cultivated will now make him more vulnerable to her.

Then he turns to look at his reflection in the pool, and to us he just looks like a normal man. Angry and a bit dishevelled, but still just a man.

But that’s not what he sees.

He looks down at his hands and sees them covered in the blood of his victims, and he can hear Lauren’s words in his head. It’s very clear that he isn’t heartless and that all the lives he’s taken and the blood he’s spilled weigh on him, no matter how many times he tells himself it doesn’t.

This isn’t the face of a man who enjoys killing, nor it is the face of a monster.

He keeps hearing Lauren’s words and her remarks that she though for a little while that he was human and felt something. And he sees his hands around her throat leave handprints of blood. She’s the only person whose gotten close to him in years. She’s seen parts of him he doesn’t show anyone because it jeopardises this persona he’s created to keep him going. Her believing even for a moment that he actually feels these things is dangerous, because if she sees it, maybe he can no longer deny that it’s been there the whole time.

Nevertheless, despite his clean hands, all he sees in his reflection is a blood-soaked murder. A monster. The Purple Hyacinth.

Whoever made him this way did a damn good job at instilling it into his brain that his humanity is gone forever and that his only purpose is to kill. Which is why it’s so dangerous having Lauren be so close to him. Chapter 43 was a masterclass of Kieran using evasive language and rhetorical questions to make Lauren believe what he was saying about his vile nature, only slipping up at the end when he got triggered. It’s clear that there’s a part of him that doesn’t believe his story either. If it were he would have told her. But he avoided lying to the human lie-detector because he would basically be admitting to the lie he’s been living by for years in order to get up everyday and do his job.

Of course we already knew this on some level. With his strict code of only murdering when ordered to or if necessary, his shock at himself for bringing her into his home in chapter 37, hell we see him literally giving money to orphans so they have a few days of food right after this scene. And of course there’s his backstory and motivation for wanting to take the Phantom Scythe down in the first place; don’t get me started on all that ‘you were that boy’ stuff we’ve been seeing. Also this.

But I digress. Point is our favourite subordinate has been through some shit and needs to work through it in order to take the Phantom Scythe down, and hopefully Lauren can help him with that, and he in turn could help her work through her own damage. Hopefully one day he’ll be able to accept that he’s not a monster. It won’t be pretty and the guilt will become even heavier, but he’s strong and with Lauren’s help, maybe they’ll both get through all this together.

Thank you for reading though the ramblings of someone who doesn’t have much better to do than critically analyse web comics.

If you haven’t yet, do yourselves a favour and read this amazing story on Webtoon and send the creators Ephemerys and Sophism some love! Their creation provides such joy and they deserve to hear it!

[greatfay]

since ur answering asks and shit can u explain what u meant by generational differences in communication

Damn it’s like 2015 tumblr when my inbox used to be WET. So if you’re talking about the controversial opinions post, YES, like I totally understand where people are coming from when they say that generational divides aren’t real (because they aren’t, they’re arbitrary) and distract us from real problems and yes they paint past generations as collectively bigoted when Civil Rights protestors in the 60s (who are in their 70s and 80s now) are mirrors to BLM protestors today, who could be of any age, but the most vocal and famous (at least online, especially irt to the founders, like Patrisse Cullors who is 37.

But how we communicate is sooooo different. I really point to the Internet and Social Media as a major influence in how younger millennials (more Tom Hollands and less Seth Rogans—see even there, I feel like there are two different types of Millennials) and Gen Zrs/Zoomers and even Generation Alpha behave and communicate. We live in a world where we grew up either knowing right out the gate or discovering the hard way that what we say and do has permanence, the kind of permanence that prior generations have never experienced until today. The dumb things kids have been saying since forever can now follow them... forever. We have an inherent understanding of how online spaces work. Compare that to, idk, let’s say you posted on your Facebook (for the first time in 18 months) “All these big and bad grown ass Senators going after actual child Greta Gerwig lol ok, you’re so brave for attacking a CHILD over climate change” and then your aunt, who’s turning “forty-fifteen” in May replies to your post with “So happy to see my passionate niece! Much love from us, hope you’re doing well. Paul is doing great, waiting on his screening results. Tell your mom I said we miss her, we need to get together, we forgive her for last Christmas.”

Like... ok there’s a lot going on there, but your hypothetical aunt is oversharing on a publicly accessible post. And even with the most strict of privacy settings, she’s oversharing where your other Facebook friends (which may include classmates, coworkers, etc.) can see. But she’s saying things that would only be appropriate in a 1-on-1 conversation. This Aunt doesn’t have an understanding of such boundaries, she’s not as technologically literate and hasn’t grown up in a world of Virtual Space, she still gets most of her news from TV, she trusts what a reporter on Channel 4 will read off a script more than what actual video footage of an incident might reveal on Twitter, and she has no clue that she’s been sharing her location data with every post she makes.

There’s such a huge difference. I think it even affects how we experience and express stress and frustration. I think growing up partially in online spaces has made me more accustomed to conflict and consequence-free arguing than someone who never had to worry about that. I’ve been exposed so much to harassment and bullying, triangulating and echo chambers in forums and threads, and vastly opposing point of views at such an early age that it’s had an effect on how I see the world. Compare this to a customer I helped two weeks ago who was looking for a specific type of supplement for children. I found it for her, I handed her exactly what she was looking for, even though her description of the product actually matched several different products; to make sure I’d done my job thoroughly and that she leaves happy and satisfied and doesn’t bother me again, I then show her more products that match her description so that she knows she has options. And she proceeds to freak out, saying “NO, NO, I’M LOOKING FOR [X] AND IT HAS TO BE [XYZ]” and when I say freak out, she looked stressed and PANICKED. And being a retail employee wears you down bit by bit, and add COVID on top of it and little shit like this makes you snap, sometimes. So I have to cut her off like “Why are you screaming and freaking out, jfc you’re holding what you said you wanted. It’s in your hands. I gave you what you wanted, I’m just showing you more things.”

That customer is not an exception, she’s not a unique case. She’s representative of a frightening percentage of her generation, the kids who watched Grease and The Breakfast Club and Ghost in theaters when they were originally released. This is how they communicate and process information. She could not, for some reason, register that her need had been fulfilled, and defaulted to an extreme emotional response when given new and different information.

I’ve yet to deal with someone younger than 35 act the same way, the exceptions being the kids of very wealthy people at my new job who reek of privilege I gag when they walk in—but even they are like *shrugs* “ok whatever” and understanding when there’s something I can’t do for them.

Me: “sorry, we are totally out of that one in your size, but I can order it for you, it’s 2-3 day shipping at no cost to you and we ship it straight to your house”

A rich, white, attractive 22-year-old who’s had access to organic food, a rigorous dermatologist, and financial security since she was born: “mmm... sure, I’ll order it”

A 47-year-old of any socioeconomic background, of any race, in the same situation: “AHHHHHHHHHHH”

I just think it’s crazy how three generations of kids and young adults raised in a world where everything moves so much faster, where knowledge and entertainment and communication can be gathered so much faster, are often so much more polite and patient and understanding. Yesterday I told an older man (mid-50s) whose native tongue is the same as mine, as clearly and succinct as possible, that what he’s looking for is “in aisle 4.” He proceeded to repeat back, “Aisle 7?” four time before I dropped everything to show him what he needed in aisle 4, despite his insistence that he didn’t need me to walk him there. 4 and 7 sound nothing alike in English. There’s just something going on up there 🧠 that’s different.

Oh, other generational divides!!! We have different approaches to labor and working. Totally different! I’m a “young” millennial where I’m almost Gen Z, and I’ve noticed an awful trend among my demographic where people actually brag about working 90 hour work weeks. Or brag about how they skip breaks and live on-call to get the job done for “the hustle” like this “hustle, become a millionaire by 30″ culture that’s dominated these kids, idk where tf that came from. Like why are you proud of being a wage slave, getting taken advantage of by your millionaire/billionaire overlords. Compare this to my mother’s generation (she’s a borderline Genius X’er, she and her best friend were a year too young to watch Grease when it came out and had a random older woman buy tickets for her; she went to Prince concerts, took photos of him, then sold the photos on buttons at school, that’s her culture and teenage experience), where she’s insistent on her rights and entitlements as an employee, and these things she instilled me: “whatchu mean they didn’t schedule a break for you and you’re working 12 hrs today? oh no, you’re off, don’t answer your phone cuz you are NOT available!” There are Gen X’ers who entered the workforce at a time that America was drifting toward this corporate world, with more strictly defined regulations, roles, and understandings of labor rights (and also, let’s talk about how the 80s there was so much more attention on workplace harassment, misogyny and gender divides in wage gaps, etc. etc... not that much has changed, but at least it was talked about!). There are young people today who are taken advantage of because they aren’t as informed or don’t feel as secure and valuable enough to claim what belongs to them.

At the same time, those generations (Gen X and older) have a different viewpoint of hierarchies in the workplace and respect irt our direct supervisors. That’s how you get this blurring of boundaries between Work Life and one’s Personal Life that leads to common tropes in media written by their generations, where oh no! I’m having my boss over for dinner and the roast beef is still defrosting :O is such a “relatable thing” for them... meanwhile us younger generations are like I don’t even like that you know where I live, and if I see your 2017 Honda Civic pass my place one day, we’re going to have a problem. I think older generations have a different relationship with the word “Respect” than we do. Like, my grandma, who’s turning 87 (?) this year, and the other seniors in my area, they have a different concept of honor and an expectation of professional boundaries that I, and my mom and her generation, just don’t see (so then there’s something in common with Gen X’ers and the rest of us.) My dad grew up in a world where talking and acting like George Bailey and knocking on someone’s door with a big smile could get you a job, a job that could pay for college and rent no problem. My mom grew up in a world that demanded more prestige, where cover letters and references could get you into some cushy jobs if you’re persistent and ballsy enough. And I grew up in a world where potential employers literally don’t see your face when you apply unless they lurk on any social media profiles you have publicly available and they hold all the cards, and you need all those CVs and reference letters just to make minimum wage... so I feel like I am powerless in the face of such employers.

[qiankunfics]

KunTen Masterlist Part 4

AO3

1.   we don't know how to talk, but damn, we know how to fuck by flowerhairclips

Summary: It’s hilarious to Ten how they ended up fucking on the regular, because Kun was so uptight and didn’t at all look like the type to have several pornhub webpages open on his incognito browser that reflected all the kinks he had hidden underneath his collared shirts and slacks. Rating: Explicit Status: One-Shot

2. Lords and Ladies by Mntsnflrs

Summary: How galling it must have been to see a common whore beside the throne, his hands in the King’s hair, lips against the King’s ear. Rating: Mature Status: One-Shot

3. Doctor's Orders by Fire_shockk

Summary: Ten gets some upsetting orders from his doctor, and Kun is there to make sure he goes through with it. Rating: General Status: One-Shot

4. Summer Stars by Mntsnflrs

Summary: He never asked for favours, so when he did, Kun agreed without asking questions. Rating: Mature Status: Completed Trigger: Descriptions of injuries 

5. Now your mess is mine by Livvinamess

Summary: Courting him like an omega would court a beta, and that was a problem, because Kun wasn't one. Rating: General  Status: One-Shot

6. supernova beat by taeyomi (buttercream)

Summary: For the record, Kun didn’t free fall into love with Ten. It was a painstakingly gradual process, but in hindsight, it probably started that very day. Rating: Teen Status: One-Shot

7. back to black by rendawnie

Summary: Kun hums under his breath. His wrists ache from the leather straps that had bound him yesterday, during a particularly bad episode. They’d had to restrain him. Ten would have been proud, he thinks to himself. Rating: Explicit  Status: One-Shot  Trigger: Self-Harm, Mental Illness

8. when the time comes by kuntenjohnil

Summary: Ten summons a human familiar?  Rating: Teen Status: One-Shot 

9. bewitched by andnowforyaya

Summary: Kun and Ten move into their starter home outside of the city and throw a housewarming party. Rating: Teen Status: One-Shot

10. i'm gonna bed into you like a cat prance into a beanbag by eatthatup

Summary: All he does is smile, widely, because he loves them, because he’s happy that Ten is happy, because he’s glad they can share such intimate moments. Sometimes it makes him emotional. Rating: Teen Status: One-shot

11. Perfect Little Family by oonymay

Summary: In which Kun and Ten find a crying child in a forest and naturally decide that raising it in secret is the best option. And therein begins a battle with languages, the meaning of home and feelings. Rating: Teen Status: One-Shot

12. I Literally Hate You by RainbowDonkeys

Summary: Roommates Ten and Kun hate each other and they decide to hate-fuck.  Rating: Explicit Status: One-Shot

13.  Totally Showed Him! by pinkfire

Summary: If Ten is so fed up, he can just put Kun in his place, show him that he can’t just step all over Ten whenever he wants. What’s the worst that could happen? Rating: Explicit Status: One-Shot

14.  it's only up from here by unconscious

Summary: Ten can't quite ask for what he wants. Kun is determined to figure it out. Rating: Explicit Status: One-Shot

15. don't you go by angstonly

Summary:  one reunion and way too many drinks later, kun and ten find each other in the same situation that led to them drifting apart two years ago Rating: Mature Status: One-Shot

16. dark white room by rainingover

Summary: Ten visits Kun in the prison wing of the ship. Rating: Explicit Status: Completed 

17. How I’ve waited by crazvdream

Summary: In which Kun and Ten are both dumbasses who don’t know how to express their love. They get there eventually. Rating: Explicit Status: One-Shot

18. Interest by EbbaTriesToWrite

Summary: He didn’t speak word about his interest in makeup but kept indulging himself by watching videos, he always made sure to use an incognito window though - he knew other boys did too but for very different reasons. Rating: General Status: One-Shot

19. Unbent, Unbowed, Unbroken by colorskun

Summary: On the worst days, Kun wasn’t entirely sure what Ten’s voice sounded like when he told him he loved him. Rating: Teen Status: One-Shot Triggers: Blood and Injury, Psychological torture

20. Take Yourself Home by Phoenix_Tears for Purple_rules

Summary: Seeing them now, nobody would ever imagine that Kun and Ten were once head over heels for each other. Rating: Explicit Status: On-Going

21. love you out loud by unconscious 

Summary: Yes, Kun ge, I like it when you hold me down, and pull my hair, and don’t let me touch, and maybe you could spit in my mouth again? Rating: Explicit Status: One-Shot

22.  to the moon and back by andnowforyaya

Summary: “Hey, have you seen Ten?” Kun asked Johnny for the third time that night. Rating: Teen Status: One-shot

23. ‘Cause I can’t make you stay if you wanna go by kkkalguksu

Summary: “He… he ran away.” Kun’s mouth agape in surprise. Maybe he never expected this kind of mess. Especially, not on their wedding day.  Rating: General Status: One-Shot

24.  The Moonlight Shines At Midnight by pylador19

Summary: What if you were the very few people in the world, like Ten, who didn’t have a soul mark anywhere on their body? Rating: Teen Status: One-Shot

25. actually, I don't have a daughter by mikararinna

Summary: "Look, I'm a single gay man in my 30s who's probably desperate for love. When a hot male with fluffy brown hair suddenly talked to me about his babies after I ranted about my sweet, sweet baby TongTong I didn't expect him to be a single father of two!" Rating: Teen Status: One-shot

26. He Moves Like The Waves by pinkfire

Summary: “You’ll get sand in your mouth. Want me to send you his number?” He has a knowing look on his face, eyebrows rising and sinking teasingly. Rating: Explicit Status: One-Shot

27. from me, to you by madhoney

Summary: story of kunten falling in love over time through the exchanging of gifts. Rating: General Status: On-going

28.  The Games by SourwolfZiam

Summary: Ten Chittaphon Leechaiyapornkul (Thailand, 3-time Olympic medallist) announces his upcoming retirement from professional gymnastics a month before the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Rating: Teen Status: One-Shot

29. Familiar Flames by pinkfire

Summary: Ten didn't think he deserved to find another familiar, let alone a loving werewolf Kun who smells like sweets and warm bread. Rating: Mature Status: On-Going

30. it's always say goodnight n go by piiisces

Summary: when ten misses the train home, kun lets him sleep at his place for the night. Rating: Teen Status: One-shot

31.  gotta be first by kuntenjohnil

Summary: lmao xuxi i just walked into this bar and someone yelled dibs - Kun Rating: Teen Status: One-Shot

32.  Senses. by Lesbevian

Summary: In which Ten misses his boyfriend while promoting overseas. Rating: General Status: One-Shot

33.  let's be lucky people by xflatline

Summary: Kun and Ten have been dating for forever.Everyone thinks they're the perfect couple including themselves. Rating: Teen  Status: One-Shot

34.  Lights down low by mkhhhx

Summary: “Why, wasn’t my office romantic enough?” Rating: Teen Status: One-Shot

35. On your side by kkkalguksu

Summary: “I have good news and a bad news.” Kun received a message from his husband that contains this message. Rating: General Status: One-Shot

36.  composure by andnowforyaya

Summary: “What do you want, baby?” Kun mumbled, sinking back down onto flat footing languidly and continuing to push his ass back, teasing Ten. “What does baby want?” Rating: Explicit Status: One-Shot

37. i wil confess what has been on the tip of my tongue tomorrow by ActivelyWeird

Summary: Ten knew they didn't sell any rice milk, so why was he telling this customer that they did? Rating: General Status: One-Shot

38.  the moment you can breathe 

Summary: Kun ends up creating a fake fan account for himself to try and connect with his fanbase. Ten is a very big (and horny) fan of his. Rating: Mature Status: One-Shot *Twit fic AU on AO3

39. Liu Yangyang's Masterplan by Kill3rWhal3D1ck

Summary: *focus pairing is DoJae but KunTen does feature well in the first few chapters Rating: Explicit Status: Completed 

40. you're the right thing after all by unconscious

Summary: kunten getting together and being romo soulmates with intersex ten Rating: Explicit Status: One-Shot

41. 𝙏𝙖𝙠𝙚 𝙢𝙚 𝙩𝙤 𝙘𝙝𝙪𝙧𝙘𝙝 ✧ : .゜ by tintedCupre

Summary: As night drips his lips connect with Ten again and he forgets the lines of what is sin and what is not. Rating: Teen/Mature Status: One-Shot Trigger: Homophobia

42.  Mr Qian and the oh-so-absolutely flirtatious Mr Lee by writesinfontuwu

Summary: Qian Kun finds a secretary that does his job well and actually puts up with his demands. Bad thing about him? Overly, insufferably, annoyingly, (adorably) flirtatious. Rating: Mature Status: One-Shot

43. in a place like this by merryofsoul

Summary: Kun and Ten meet in the hospital, but not in the way you'd think. Rating: General Status: One-Shot

44. Normal but Special by MelodicNoise for kungod

Summary: Kun's birthday isn't shaping up to be what he expected. Rating: Teen Status: One-Shot

45.  Aim and Shoot by softyjseo

Summary: After being separated from his group, Ten doesn't lose hope to find them again. He stumbles upon an abandoned hotel and hopes to survive. Rating: Mature Status: One-Shot

46.  boy, i can't cover up my heart by kunhyangs

Summary: ten decides confessing to kun through a vague, 'didn't-think-this-through' text is the best way to confess. except, it doesn't work as expected, but he's still happy with the outcome. Rating: General Status: One-Shot

47.  He's Our Little Shit by rowx3yourships

Summary: “Tell me why the teachers call me first?” Ten walked over and sat in Kun’s lap. “You’re the responsible adult, not me.” Rating: General Status: One-Shot

48.  Touchin by starryeyed (kaylie153)

Summary: ten meets someone at a club and takes him home Rating: Explicit  Status: One-shot

49. ursa minor by lowkeyamen

Summary: No one is allowed to tell Ten he's a good boy apart from Kun. Certainly not some cheap little lie detector toy. Rating: Explicit Status: One-Shot

50.  give it a shot by 10vesick

Summary: Ten takes a deep breath. “I don’t want to do this anymore.” Rating: Explicit Status: One-Shot

[sparksinthenight]

Advice for Little Me

This is advice that I have for my twelve-year-old self. If I’d known all this at twelve my life would be a whole lot better.

1) Capitalists are horrible, manipulative, lying, selfish, apathetic, overwhelmingly dangerous, incredibly bad for society, wrong, and deeply disturbed.

2) Anyone who ever says or insinuates that they earned the wealth they have are the worst types of people.

3) Anyone who goes around measuring the value of a human being by how fancy their job is incredibly shallow, materialistic, lacking in understanding, and not worth your time.

4) No. No people did not "earn" anything through hard work. They got it through privilege, privilege, privilege, and privilege. The fact that they could afford a decent quality highschool education is already a huge privilege. And no, being poor when they were in college absolutely does not count as not having privilege. They got to go to college. That’s a privilege so many don’t get.

5) You know who's actually working hard? The people in the sweatshops, the mines, the agricultural plantations, the warehouses, etc. The people getting paid poverty wages as they work themselves to death. Have some fucking respect for them you’re not above them just because you were born in a rich family.

6) All humans have equal value.

7) And the value of a human being is inherent.

8) If you have a house and fancy furniture and a flatscreen TV and a car and a closet full of clothes and enough money to go to restaurants and golfing and shit and then you turn around and say you're oppressed I fucking hate you so goddamn much.

9) The voices of the poor people are fucking ALWAYS silenced in this world, all over the world.

10) There's men in suits somewhere defending capitalism and our centrist dads are defending them while most of the world are wage slaves.

11) The poor are always ignored, pushed to the side, and silenced.

12) Hi. Hello person reading this. Check out the Red Deal. It's fucking awesome. Please read it. It will save your soul and change your life.

13) Also my Wattpad account is here please check it out https://www.wattpad.com/user/Balladoad it won't save your soul and change your life but I write communist stories.

14) Your value is inherent. Child. Darling. Your value is inherent. You are alive. That is enough. You don't need a fancy job or a big income or a fancy degree or something. You're a human being trying to do the best you personally can with the resources and knowledge you have and in the situation you're in. Your value is inherent. Baby.

15) Check out the Red Deal.

16) Nobody is liberated. None of us are liberated. Especially under capitalism none of us are liberated. We are all equal. We are all capable of being free. Of having an equal amount of power. Of making decisions equally and democratically where everyone has a seat at the round table. Seperation is a myth. Wow that sounds like a fucking hippie thing to say but I mean it in the most practical, tangible way. We are all equal and we should be treated equally and under capitalism we are not. Not even close. We can all be together, all be comrades, all help and support each other, all protect and provide for each other, all listen to and understand each other, and all create a world where finally, finally people are free.

17) True freedom does not and should not feel forced. Corporate capitalists tell us that freedom is the ability to be successful in the capitalist framework. That is not what true freedom is. True freedom comes from within. It does not feel forced. It feels good and right and beautiful and true. It's not forced upon you it's something that sparks to life inside your own soul.

18) Sucess as a human being is about the kindness and compassion you show other people. Which is actually rather inversely proportional to how much money you make from what I've seen. At every step of your life seek out people who need help and help them.  

19) Children should all be treated with equal respect, reverance, affection, and love.

20) Your value is inherent. Human value is inherent. Valuing human life does mean valuing the continuation of human life but not just that. It means valuing the quality of human life too. It means valuing human happiness.

21) Take every opportunity you have to learn. Not learn trivial "knowledge" about string theory or CRISPR or valence orbitals. Real, important knowledge about how to be kind to other people. How to be respectful towards other people. How to uplift the downtrodden. How to be in solidarity with the oppressed. How to live in harmony with other people. How to tear down the walls that divide us. How to live in harmony with nature. How to have respect and reverence for nature. How to protect and defend the Land and Water. How to be brave to put the needs of others before your own. How to think for yourself and be your own person. How to live your life in accordance to the truth and intangible mystic forces behind everything that guide us all. Wow that sounded hippie.

22) People are exploited and oppressed. So many people are exploited and oppressed. They deserve better than this.

23) You shouldn’t go after power. Seeking power is the way to corruption. You should seek to destroy the unequal distribution of power itself so that all people can have equal power.

24) Absolutely power corrupts absolutely. Power corrupts whenever it’s not equally shared.

25) Money is power. It always has been, it always will be. It’s what determines if people are able to eat or not. It’s what makes us spend most of our time at our jobs working for our bosses and doing what they want us to do.

26) Learn history. Please.

27) Read books about the Holocaust. About slavery. About all the types of slavery that have happened in various societies not just the Transatlantic Slave Trade though definitely you should learn about that too. About the Irish Potato Famine, the Armenian Genocide. About colonialism. About settler-colonialism. About feudalism. About monarchy. About the Industrial Revolution. About segregation. About the genocide of Indigenous peoples. About workhouses. About the Witch Trials. About the French Revolution. About the Spanish resistance against fascism. About residential schools. About the 60s Scoop. About the Stolen Generations. About resistance against the Roman Empire. About so much more. Just read them. Make sure they’re not written through the lenses of oppressors and/or rich people though.

28) Recognize that while history affects the present day history IS NOT the present day and present struggles are unique and different though not altogether separated from history. The present day is the present day. It’s struggles are unique and the way that the struggle for universal equality and liberation manifests in the present day is unique.

30) Don’t trust Christian priests.

31) Actually be cautious of any rich, privileged person trying to teach you religion.

32) Just because someone’s older doesn’t mean that they’re right or they know more than you. Knowledge of the truth and wisdom comes from kindness, compassion, humility, and suffering. It does not come from age. A rich man born to a rich family who thinks he’s better than poor people and does not have humility and respect towards them is not someone who knows things, no matter how old he is.

33) Men are generally less trustable than women because they’ve been taught to believe they’re always right and as such do not question themselves and think deeply and critically about their opinions as much as women do.

34) This does not apply to men who are poor or mentally ill since society never teaches them that.

35) Despite this being an unpopular opinion, pain and struggle are actually really good teachers. If you’re suffering, you deserve better. You deserve to not be suffering. But still, use it as an opportunity to learn.

37) Gender roles are the biggest scam ever created.

38) But the even bigger scam is capitalism.

39) You do not need material wealth. It is inherently addictive and bad for yourself, everyone else, and the Land and Water.

40) It’s just stuff. It doesn’t matter.

41) If you’re in a situation where people are treating you like you’re better than other people just get the fuck out of that situation as fast as you can. And never fucking look back no matter what ANYONE says.

42) Have respect and reverence for nature. Learn from it as much as you can. But from like, nature directly. Not from people talking about nature. Unless they’re Indigenous. And pristine, untouched nature is better than nature that’s been tampered with.

43) The world runs on bonds of love more than bonds between atoms.

44) Work hard not for money or to increase the power you have but rather to humbly and reverently improve the lives of the oppressed.

45) But recognize that you can’t do everything and do what you can and don’t beat yourself up over the things you can’t do.

[let-it-raines]

Catch Me If You Can (38/40)

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

But then he came back and won the World Series. 

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

Asking her out live on-air will do that.

Rating: Mature

a/n: Thanks to @resident-of-storybrooke​ for being my beta, @imagnifika​ for the cover art, and all of you for being awesome, whether you read this story or not ❤️

AO3: Beginning | Current

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-/-

The thing about being a starting pitcher is that Killian rarely plays. It’s every five days usually, and Killian is too competitive to simply be able to sit and watch while everyone else gets to be out there on the field. If it wasn’t absolute murder on his shoulder, he’d be in Al’s office every damn day asking why he can’t be out there.

Understandably, having to watch his teammates play without being able to help has been killing him more in this past week than it did while he was out on injury, and that was actual hell.

Rob did a fantastic job that first night clinching the first game for them by making it nearly impossible for the Dodgers to get on base, and Killian, while he didn’t play his best, pitched a good enough game and had help from Eric’s three-run homerun for them to win the second. It’s simply that everything after that has been a bit of a nightmare.

They lost two incredibly close games in a row in California to tie things up, won the next one, and now they could clinch the entire Series at home in New York.

Tonight.

With Rob pitching and Killian sitting on the bench.

And as much as Killian would love to get to be an active part of it all like he was during the winning game last year, he would give absolutely everything for them to win tonight so that he doesn’t have to get up on the mound tomorrow. The pressure and desire and want  is so damn intense that it makes Killian’s heart ache, but he knows that this isn’t really about him. No part of him could be selfish enough to want to lose today so that he could have the possibility of the glory tomorrow.

That would be ridiculous, and he doesn’t know what the hell he’d do if he wakes up tomorrow morning with a stiff shoulder and he’s got to get out there and play.

Sighing, Killian stretches out his legs to the seat in front of him as a whisper of wind whirls through the stadium to bring in the late October chill. He fiddles with the sleeves of his sweatshirt, pulling them down to cover his wrists where chill bumps are rising, and he wishes that he had a hat on to protect himself from weather, his ears likely red from the cold. It’s only seven in the morning, most of the stadium completely empty except for the maintenance crew and a few people in the offices, but Killian knew that this would be his only time to take it all in with no one around him.

An empty stadium is nearly as magical as a packed one.

He’s spent his entire life building up to things like this. Sure, there were times when he had other goals. He wanted to be a teacher, wanted to get his degree and help others, but that was always the fallback goal. It was never the main one.

Baseball has been his life.

Lately, though, Killian’s been thinking about life outside of the game more than ever. It’s insane because he feels like he’s one of those obnoxious people who only lives and breathes baseball all the time, especially with what’s going on right now, but his mind has managed to find a way to wander elsewhere.

There are saved searches on his phone about going back to Vanderbilt to finish his degree and a sent message in his email to an advisor asking if it would be possible for him to finish in New York instead of having to take classes in person. He hasn’t told anyone that he’s thinking about it, not yet. Telling someone makes it real, and Killian’s not entirely sure that he wants it to be real quite yet. He’s a grown ass man, but change is still terrifying when he’s grown comfortable in his life.

Baseball isn’t forever, though, and while he may still work in the sport later on, he’s not going to be someone who goes throughout his entire life living out the glory days through memory.

Tonight, might be another big moment that defines his life, but the past six months have been pretty life changing as well. Hell, the past year has been.

Things are changing in ways that he wants and ways that he doesn’t, and that’s simply how it is.

“So, we woke up at the ass crack of dawn so that you could sit out here all by yourself?”

Killian twists his head to the side to see Emma standing a few seats over dressed in a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt, scarf wrapped around her neck and Yankees cap on her head. He was so wrapped up in his own mind that he didn’t even hear her move toward him.

“Hey, love,” he smiles, reaching up and holding out his hand so that the cool tip of her fingers touch his as he intertwines their fingers while she settles down into the seat next to him and props her feet up on the seat in front of her. “I told you that you didn’t have to come with me.”

Sitting here reminds him of another time in San Francisco when he put his heart on his sleeve and willingly handed it over to Emma to crush before they decided that they would give the two of them a go and simply see how things worked out. If she had said no that day, he could have listened. But damn is he glad that she said yes.

Or, well, technically, he was the one saying yes.

Either way, everything in his life shifted.

“I know, but you get all moody and introspective, and I didn’t want you psyching yourself out.”

“I would not do that.”

“You’re a liar.”

“Just a little bit.” His hand flexes against hers, shifting his fingers the slightest bit so that he can get a more comfortable grip on Emma’s hands. “What have you been doing while I’ve been sitting here being introspective and psyching myself out?”

“I was taking some pictures. It’s kind of cool to see the calm before the storm, you know? And then David called me with some work stuff and to give me shit about us making out being all over Instagram, so I sat on a bench and talked to him for awhile.”

“He called you this early? Is he crazy?” 

“I think David forgets that not everyone wakes up this early, and he has no qualms about waking me up. Usually I’m much meaner to him.”

“I’m surprised you’re not being mean to me.”

“The coffee we had at home really works wonders.”

Killian almost opens his mouth to say something about Emma referring to his apartment as home. But only almost. They’re both aware of the living situation, have joked about it to each other and others before, and they don’t need some kind of official discussion about things. It’ll all happen naturally, and when the time comes, they’ll talk about it. For now, things are perfect just as they are.  

Life has been crazy with his injury and then Walsh and Brennan and the aftermath of them being absolute assholes. It’s gotten crazier with the World Series and how much press he’s now getting, both for the games and for his relationship with Emma, much of which is now weirdly being caught on camera. All Killian really wants is a bit of normal here.

The sun continues to rise in the sky, darkness shifting into an orange glow that will eventually turn into bright sunshine that makes it difficult to see without a pair of sunglasses perched on his nose. The grass on the field is wet with condensation, water coating the blades, and if it wasn’t freezing out there, he thinks he’d go out and sit along the edge of the back wall instead of in a stadium seat.

Bringing Emma’s hand to his lips, he presses a kiss to each of her knuckles before pulling their joined hands back down to rest on his thigh.

“I think,” he starts, not entirely sure where he’s going, “that I could stay out here forever. I don’t know…maybe I feel things too deeply compared to everyone else, but this place has always felt like home. I can’t imagine what things would be like if I’d been drafted somewhere else or if I’d never been called up at all.”

She hums next to him, and Killian looks down to see Emma’s thumb rubbing across his knuckles like she always seems to do. “What’s that thing you’re always saying? There’s no such thing as ‘what ifs.’ Not in life and not in sport. What happened, happened.”

“Doesn’t keep me from wondering.”

“It doesn’t keep anyone from wondering, twenty-nine.” Her hand squeezes his again, and Killian’s mind dares to ask once more what his life would be like had he not met Emma. It’s a question he doesn’t want an answer to. “What if my parents had kept me? What if Ruth had never decided to foster a shitty teenager with an attitude issue? What if I had never met Neal or Walsh or Ruby or anyone who has impacted my life they the way they have? What if I never met you?”

“You’d be missing out on the best sex of your life.”

Emma knocks her foot into his as he snickers at his own awful joke. “You’re full of yourself.”

He shrugs. “It happens. And I know. I’m just – my stomach has been in knots over all of this for an entire month. I’m not sure my body is going to make it ten more hours. Or hell, possibly even thirty-six. I’ve had to hype myself up for all of this, and I’m a little…fuck, Swan, I’m exhausted and excited, and I’m scared I’m going to have some kind of adrenaline crash.”

It’s Emma’s turn to bring their hands together so that she can brush her lips over his knuckles. His heart stutters at the movement.

God, he loves her. It’s actually insane how much. Truly, it shouldn’t be possible.

“For one, getting up and coming to the stadium before the sun even fully rises is not something that’s going to help with your exhaustion.”

He twists his head to look at her, and she’s got mischief in her eyes and a smirk stretched across her lips that he has to kiss away. She still tastes like coffee.

“Also,” she whispers against his lips, kissing him again, “you’re not going to crash. Not yet. I know you’re really big on not riding on what happened last year, but you’ve got to do that. You’ve been through this before, and you made it. Those butterflies in your stomach are being felt by everyone who’s involved with this team, and hanging out by yourself the entire time isn’t going to help things. Why don’t we go get breakfast together? Or maybe go back to bed?”

“How about a game of catch?”

“What?” Emma laughs as she pulls back from him with furrowed brows? “I am not playing catch with you. Are we five?”

Killian shakes his head and chuckles as he stands from the seat and begins to stretch his shoulders out, letting go of Emma’s hand and rolling his shoulders back as he laughs at himself.

“We’re twenty-eight. I know you remember your birthday last week. And come on, Swan. I play a game of really expensive catch for a living. It’s part of my job to work on my arm today, just in case, and I need a practice partner.”

“That’s what Will and Eric or August are for.”

“Yeah,” he smiles, reaching forward to tug her up only for her weight to go dead so that he can’t move her, “but they’re not here. You are.”

Emma closes her gaping mouth, and her lips move in different directions while her nose scrunches up so that little crinkles appear around her eyes under the shade of her hat. “Okay, but if there’s one misogynistic quip about me throwing like a girl, I’m breaking up with you on the spot.”

“There’s nothing wrong with throwing like a girl, Swan. It’s pretty badass. But there’s something wrong with throwing like shit.”

“I’m not going to throw like shit.” Killian starts walking over the chairs, easily maneuvering through the stands with Emma following behind him. “But I ask you to remember that while I pride myself in my fitness, it’s in things like Pilates and running or boxing. It’s not in baseball. You, meanwhile, do this for a living.”

“These sound like a hell of a lot of excuses.”

“That’s because they are.”

“There’s no excuses in baseball.”

“I thought it was crying.”

“Fuck no,” Killian scoffs. “There’s a lot of crying in baseball, and anyone who tells you something different is a liar.”

“I can’t believe you just called Tom Hanks, America’s sweetheart, a liar.”

They have to go back through the tunnels to get a bucket of balls and some gloves as well as a few towels to wipe the grass in the bullpen down since it’s wet and neither of them are wearing the right shoes for this, but they do eventually get to the point where he can lightly toss the ball back and forth between the two of them. He’s not going to pitch at full speed, not until he has Will later, but it’s soothing to simply be out here getting a little movement in. He’s been back for two weeks, practicing for four, but it’s still all brand new again to him and shaded under a light that wasn’t there before.

Emma isn’t bad at all. She’s actually rather good, a natural some might say, and he jokes with her that if sports broadcasting doesn’t work out for her, she might take up a career in this. Naturally that gets him an eye roll or two, but she keeps on throwing until the sun is high in the sky and the day has truly begun.

Killian’s ready for it.

Everything seems to pass quickly then. The entirety of the Dodgers team walks out onto the field for their scheduled practice while he and Emma are still messing around in the bullpen, somewhere between still doing a bit of practice and Killian backing Emma up against the wall to make out with her. No one sees them, though, the loud blaring of music startling the two of them away from each other, and Killian presses Emma a little further into the wall while he buries his face in her neck so that he can muffle the sound of his laughter.

He’s not entirely sure that works, especially when Emma is doing the same, but they eventually manage to grab their things and slip inside so that an entire professional team isn’t aware of the fact that he was using the early morning stadium to kiss his girlfriend.

That would certainly have been something.

There is an actual practice that Killian has to attend today, an hour of which needs to be spent with him running on the treadmill and then getting massaged by Archie to work out any knots and kinks in his shoulder and to make sure that it’s not inflamed. Killian is always terrified that he’s going to be told that his shoulder is inflamed again and that he won’t be able to play on a day where he thinks he’s going to be able to. That would completely screw up the lineup, and…No, now isn’t the time to think about that.

Killian tells Emma that he’ll see her later, that he’ll probably come bother her wherever the network has her sitting even though he’s splitting the time in the game between the dugout, the clubhouse, and the suite where his family is going to be sitting. She has to go home and get ready for the day, and even if she didn’t, he very much doubts that she’d like to stick around and watch him run.

And then they’re both off.

Let the game begin.

-/-

“Are you guys going to win today?”

Now, that’s the question of the day, isn’t it?

Killian looks down at Roland who is dressed in head to toe Yankees gear, all his dad’s of course, and there’s a nervous smile on the kid’s face. Roland is almost never nervous. He has that childlike faith in everything even with all of the tragedy in his life of having lost his mom, and he nearly always believes that things are going to work out. There’s no good or bad, just the belief that things will work out the way you want them to simply by the power of wanting them to.

If only it were that simple.

“I don’t know, lad,” Killian answers honestly as he reaches down to pick Roland up, easily putting him on his shoulders as Killian walks him down the hallways to the suite he’s staying in for the game. Roland was in the clubhouse for all of the pre-game celebrations, and the kid heard and saw things that he probably didn’t need to hear for several more years.

A decade, really. Maybe two.

Yeah, definitely two decades. There was some creative swearing.

“Why not?”

“Well, because we can’t predict the future, and the other team is really good too.”

“But I want to win.”

“Me too,” he sighs as he pushes open the doors to lead to the suites. “And everyone is going to try their best. But you know what?” “What?”

“I think if you cheer extra hard, it might help your dad out, okay? He might lose because the other team is good, but you’ve got to cheer him on no matter what.”

Roland’s ankles hit against Killian’s collarbone, and Killian pretends that the bony lad doesn’t hurt like hell when he hits him. “I can cheer really  loud. Like, Grandma says that it makes her ears hurt.”

“If you’re not making Grandma’s ears hurt, you’re not cheering loud enough.”

That sentence pretty much sums up why he’s the best uncle in the world, Killian thinks. It’s basically the equivalent of giving kids a pint of ice cream right before they go back to their parents.

Killian pushes open the suite doors and ducks down underneath them so that he doesn’t knock Roland out. Everyone is situated on the couches and around the tables in front of the TV, and no one pays him any mind as he puts Roland down so that he can run to where Addy, Lucy, and Leo are. He imagines that between the four of them, they’re going to make everyone’s ears hurt from their screaming.

Maybe Killian will go spend time sitting in the dugout instead of in here, but it’s a long game. He’s got time to move around as long as he does make time to study Robin’s throwing patterns against each batter.

“Hey,” he murmurs to Elsa in the kitchen area while she pops a chip into her mouth. “I don’t know that it’s good that you’re playing hooky from work and letting the girls do the same with school.”

“Shut up,” she says in between crunchy bites of food, her hand covering her mouth. “You think that joke is funny every time, but it’s not.”

“It is.” Killian dips his head down and presses a kiss to Elsa’s cheek. “But I fully approve of the skipping work thing, especially when your husband’s lazy ass took the entire week off.”

“He’s supporting his baby brother.” 

“Younger, Els. Younger. I don’t need you encouraging that.”

Her bottom lip sticks out. “But it’s so fun to see your ears get all red with embarrassment.” 

“Every single thing I’ve ever said about me being glad to have an older sister in you and Anna? Yeah, I’m taking all of those back.”

“You can’t.” She swipes another chip through the dip. “They’ve been said, and I keep them all in my heart right next to where Addy told me that even if she got to choose her mom, she’d still choose me.”

“Classy.”

“I know,” Elsa laughs. “Where’s your better half?”

“She’s working.” Killian pinches his brows together. “So we’re not even going to pretend that I could possibly be the better half?”

“Nope. Just like Liam isn’t the better half either. And don’t make some quip about being equals. Just let me have this. I’m already stress eating chips.” He laughs while reaching forward to drag the bowl away from Elsa so that she can’t eat anymore, but she doesn’t let him, grabbing onto it and pulling it back. “I didn’t say to stop me. World Series week is like the holidays. The calories don’t count until my jeans feel a little snug next week.”

“Ahh,” Killian sighs in understanding. “That’s likely a good thing for how many baked goods I’ve sent your way.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be in the dugout?” Ariel questions as she steps up to them with her glass of water in her hand. “It’s kind of a big game.”

“It’s also kind of the top of the first inning, and I’m not playing.”

“Excuses.”

“A legitimate one. How’re you holding up, A?”

She waves him away and reaches for the pitcher of water. “I’m fine. Eric is the nervous wreck. I have enough confidence in you guys that I won’t worry until, you know, we’re losing.”

“Only worrying when we’re losing? What kind of method is that? You have to worry all the damn time.”

“That’s how you have a heart attack, and I have not suffered eating healthily and exercising so much to have a heart attack this young.”

“This is where Liam would tell you that it can happen to anyone in any age.”

“Where is Liam?” Killian questions as he looks around the suite for his brother only to have him nowhere to be seen.

“He and David are sitting in David’s regular seats because David was complaining about Mary Margaret and Leo not wanting to use them. I imagine he’ll be up here soon when he realizes how expensive food is to buy.”

“They’re such old men.”

“Says the man who was wearing a sweater while drinking a cup of tea and reading in his apartment last night instead of coming out to dinner with all of us.”

Killian sputters a bit as he narrows his eyes at Ariel. “First of all, there is nothing wrong with doing any of that. Second of all, how could you possibly know that?”

Ariel shrugs, mischief in all of her features. “Emma sent it in the group text.”

Of course she did. A man can’t even relax in his own home without being called out for it.

“Who is in this group text exactly?”

“Oh, just me, Elsa, Anna, and Belle. Don’t worry. Not everyone gets to see the embarrassing pictures of you drooling in your sleep.”

He’s going to kill Emma.

Or get his revenge. Somewhere in between those two.

There’s a loud groan from everyone watching the game, and that’s when Killian is reminded that there’s a game going on. He didn’t know that he could possibly forget, but apparently being teased about how he spends his nights will let him do that. When he sees what’s happening out on the field, though, Killian wishes that he’d been able to completely and totally forget about the game.

There are three men on base for the Dodgers, only one out, and one of their best hitters is up to bat.

Fuck.

This is not a good start.

This is a long game, but bad starts can change the momentum of absolutely everything. It gets in everyone’s head. The losing team is convinced that they’re going to lose, that they can’t come back from this, and the team that’s ahead gets all the belief in the world with their abilities.

Momentum shifts are everything, and it’s not time for the momentum to shift. Not yet.

And yet it does.

Robin throws what Killian knows is a good fastball and Rob’s specialty, but Stewart hits a sharp line drive down past third base that Arthur doesn’t get to. By the time that he does, the Dodgers already have two runs, Stewart is on second, and Ferguson is sliding into home before the ball can get there.

0-3 for the Dodgers eleven minutes in.

Shit.

Now it’s time for Ariel and everyone else to get nervous.

And it never gets better. Not really. There are times and chances and shots that have Killian grabbing onto his hair in frustration, but nothing comes of it. Nothing at all. Every single time there’s a real chance, something happens: the Dodgers have an unbelievable get, someone fumbles when the Yankees should have an easy chance at a double play, or every single person somehow forgets how to hit.

Until they don’t.  

Because now it’s the bottom of the ninth, and after an absolutely incredible eighth inning, it’s now 7-9.

They’re only down by two runs.

(Two runs.)

Killian is pacing back and forth in the dugout now exhausting every bit of emotional energy he has left in him. He left the suite the moment that first inning was over, texting Emma and Liam that there’d been a change of plans and he wouldn’t be meeting up with them after all. There was no way that he was going to be anywhere other than with his team when things were going to hell.

Being two runs behind is both nothing and everything.

There have been plenty of times when they’ve come back from a deficit like this. There have been plenty more when they’ve blown a two-run lead. And yet, like fifty-five thousand people in this stadium know, this isn’t any other game. This is The Game, and they’re closing in on the golden hour of chances.

It’s win now or come back tomorrow for one last chance of glory or crushing defeat.

Best of seven means nothing when there’s the possibility of there only being one game left.

“You’re going to exhaust yourself if you don’t sit down,” Robin tells him from his seat behind him on the bench.

Will has just stepped up to home plate, his bat in hand and feet in position, and Killian can’t breathe. His lungs have stopped taking in air.

“How could you possibly be sitting down for this? Is your blood not on fire?”

“I just pitched five innings, mate. My adrenaline high is gonedown. I’m exhausted.”

The ball is launched through the air toward Will, and Killian immediately knows that he shouldn’t take a swing at it.

He does.

Strike one.

“Shit,” Killian murmurs, kicking his foot at a water cup on the ground. “Shit, shit, shit.”

“You’re going to give yourself a heart attack.”

“Funny, Fisher, I told your wife the same thing. Aren’t you supposed to be warming up?”

Killian doesn’t even have to look to know that Eric is rolling his eyes. “I’m grabbing my stuff to do just that.” There’s a warm hand on Killian’s back, and he turns to look at it just as a “ball” is called. “Take some deep breaths, man. We’ve got this.”

“Aye,” Killian sighs, “we’ve got this.”

Strike two.

“Shit.”

Ball two.

Ball three.

Foul ball.

Killian’s phone buzzes in his back pocket, and he opens it up to see Emma’s name.

Emma: They’re having to censor you on television right now.

Emma: Just thought you might want to know that. Literally every time they show the dugout, you’re cursing. Ruby is getting a kick out of it.

Killian moves to text her back, to say something witty in response, but then the wood of Will’s bat is making contact with the ball and it’s flying gone, gone, gone…

Until it’s caught in the outfield.

Out one.

“Fuck.”

They’ve still got a shot. They have to. And as much as Killian hates cheering for Arthur King and hates that he only got a monetary fine for what he said to Emma and about her, he’s exactly who Killian has to cheer for now as Arthur hits a line drive that enables him to get on first base.

That’s progress.

It’s even more progress when Eric hits a triple sending Arthur into home.

8-9.

Holy fuck.

They might do this. They just might.

Killian still can’t breathe, but this is obviously his natural state now. This is how he’s going to have to live out the rest of his life.

Emma: Okay, now I understand all of the cursing. I’m freaking out.

Killian: Me too. We make quite the pair.

Emma: The best pair. It’s all going to be okay, twenty-nine.

He smiles down at his phone, his lungs taking in a bit of air at that.

Killian: It will be. I love you.

Killian: A frankly ridiculous amount.

“Out,” the umpire yells, and Killian immediately rests his head against the dugout railing, his nails digging into the hem of his sweatshirt as sweat drips down his back even with the late October chill whipping through the stadium as the night fully comes into effect, the sun long since gone.

Out two.

“For fuck’s sake,” Al yells, throwing his hat to the ground and slapping his hand against the railing. “Why would you swing at that, Whale? You could have fucking walked, and then we’d have two men on base with one out. That changes everything.”

It’s not Whale’s fault. It’s not. He messed up, sure, but it’s a team effort. Killian doesn’t always believe that when he’s the one pitching. It’s hard to get that out of your head when you’re being yelled at by managers and fans and people online sending death threats, but it’s true. It’s not one person out there even when it feels like it.

Killian’s going to have to remind himself of that tomorrow.

No.

He can’t go there. They’re not going to play tomorrow. Booth is up to bat, and he’ll get Eric home. Then it’ll be tied up, and they’ll have their shot to close this out right here and right now.

Hope bubbles up in Killian’s chest, his throat closing up with excitement and anticipation, and that lack of breathing thing comes back again as his knuckles go white from the strength of his grip on the railing. When he looks to the right, he sees that Robin’s knuckles are just the same.

They might do this.

Roland and Addy have to be screaming their heads off up in the suite. Killian almost wants to text Elsa or Liam to see what’s happening, but his eyes are glued to the field as August swings his bat at the very first ball.

It’s a fucking foul.

Strike one.

“Come on Booth,” Will shouts out, clapping his hands together. “You’ve got it, man. Be smart about it.”

“I’m not entirely sure that’s helping, Scarlet.”

“It is, Professor Jones. I’m a great motivational speaker.”

Killian’s lips stretch into a smile, a bit of calm returning, until the ball flies from the mound again, whipping through the air and curving into the strike zone at the last minute.

August doesn’t swing.

Strike two.

The stadium absolutely erupts then, hands clapping together and feet hitting against the floor while thousands of people scream, a mix of cheers and boos for August. If anyone can handle this kind of pressure, can handle the weight of world on his shoulders and the pressure, it’s August.

Pressure is a privilege.

He’s likely not feeling too privileged right now.

And as suddenly as the noise started, it calms down. While there are still people talking and cheering and making all kinds of noise, Killian can’t focus on any of it. All he can focus on is what’s right in front of him.

One. Two. Three.

Foul.

One. Two. Three.

Foul.

Killian’s stomach flips, his entire hand going white, and Will is grabbing onto Killian’s forearm so tightly that he could break the bone there.

One.

Two.

Three.

There’s a thwack of ball against Booth’s back, and it absolutely flies into the air. It’s flying, and Killian nearly jumps out of the dugout to get a better view of where it’s going. It’s got to be a home run. It’s got to be. That’s where it’s headed, and Killian’s arms break out in gooseflesh beneath the thick material of his sweatshirt.

They’re about to win the fucking World Series for the second time in a row.

Holy shit.

But then the ball dips.

It dips, right at the line of the back fence, and the ball is caught.

The. Ball. Is. Caught.

The ball is caught, Booth is out, and the game is over.

And just like the ball, Killian’s mood dips, every high hope crashing down around him and weighing down on his shoulders while his stomach flips before everything heavily settles in its place. This isn’t how today was supposed to end. They were supposed to come back from their bad start. They were supposed to win.

They didn’t, though. They lost, and even though Killian tries to be encouraging to everyone around him as they all finish up their post-game on-field routines, in his head he knows that they’ve only got one more shot at this.

They’ve got one more shot, and a lot of it is resting in the palm of his hands. Killian has been a screw up for this team so many times before, and he doesn’t know if he can do that again.

He can’t let everyone down again.

The mood is subdued in the clubhouse as everyone strips out of their clothes, just a constant murmuring of curses and complaints. Even Al is quiet when he’d usually be fired up yelling at everyone, a combination of disbarring comments and encouragements, and that may be the most shocking part of it all.

Reporters begin to fill the room as well as agents and wives and the occasional child, and Killian sits in his locker with his head between his legs taking several deep breaths to calm himself down. His heart is beating far too quickly. It’s thumping in between his ears, and that’s not how it’s supposed to be.

It’s simply not.

“Hey.”

The voice is soft and very much Emma’s, and Killian looks up to see her softly smiling down at him, Jeff no longer trailing behind her with his camera.

The smile that stretches across his lips is forced and half-assed, and he knows that Emma can tell. She steps in between his knees so that his head rests against her stomach while her hands brush through his sweaty hair. They don’t say anything else, simply stay there together while Killian breathes in the scent of Emma’s perfume on her sweater and shivers run down his spine at her touch.

He is undeniably a fan of every part of her, but being able to simply be, to exist, with her is one of his favorites. There’s nothing quite so soothing as knowing the person you love will always be by your side no matter what happens.

They lost. They did. It’s what happened, and there’s no changing it.

Tomorrow is the last chance.

It all comes down to the last one.

-/-

-/-

Tag list: @onepunintendid​ @authorarsinoe​ @stunningswan​ @eala-captian @galaxyzxstark @xellewoods @mariakov81 @ultraluckycatnd @royalswan @shey-starsfury​ @superchocovian​ @sals86 @iam2307 @ashley-knightingale @karenfrommisthaven @scientificapricot @captswanis4vr @ultimiflos @jamif @idristardis @nikkiemms @resident-of-storybrooke @tiganasummertree @bmbbcs4evr @onceuponaprincessworld @jennjenn615 @mayquita @captainsjedi @teamhook @notoriouscs @kmomof4 @ekr032-blog-blog​ @cs-forlife @andiirivera @jonirobinson64 @qualitycoffeethings​ @carpedzem​ @tornadoamy​

[glowstickk]

i wish to know... about your zimverse ocs... they seem pretty neat...

anon u GOT IT i’ve been wanting to talk abt the gang for so long!!!!! when i saw this ask i lost my marbles!!! knowin that someone is actually interested in these guys makes me so happy!!! so!! here they are!!!  also!! apologies that it took me so long to actually answer, i wanted to be able to say all of the lore for lizzie (who hadn���t had her chara arc in rp at the time) and by the time i got her arc done i ran flat outta spoons nbfkgb,, but i got my spoons back and whipped up a few lil pictures to go with this so hopefully that makes up for it!!! oki here we go!! under a cut because talking about five separate charas is gonna get long ndfjkv

ZAPPELINE VOLTAIRE

she/he/they | genderfluid | somewhere between 25-37 y/o zap is basically my main character! she used to be a scientist who worked on interdimensional research, more specifically what the theoretical effects of interdimensional travel/portals would be on the human body and the safety of all of that. at one point the lab she worked at lost funding, but she decided to fuck around there before it got demolished because why not! she did a few experiments on herself, including changing her natural hair color and making it so that she could see an extra color. the latter of which did not work out entirely as planned, because the rods in her eyes didn’t grow in quite right. so! now she has red-green colorblindness in her right eye, and something similar to tritanomaly in her left, which is why she wears those funky glasses!

gonna be honest, i’m still working on a way to properly explain the next bit without it getting super boring or incomprehensible, but tdlr the new colors corresponds to a wavelengths that interdimensional rifts emit, so now she can see interdimensional rifts! she noodles out a way to build an interdimensional portal using some leftover notes from one of her co-workers, and jumps through! she ended up getting too excited about the portal and forgets to make sure it’s stable, and it ends up collapsing the second she gets through. so now she’s stuck in the multiverse! fun! after a bit of dimension-hopping, mad science, and the entire plot of polychrome (a game concept im workin on!!), she lands herself in zimcon!

SPARKPLUG VOLTAIRE

he/they | nonbinary | 5 y/o

sparkplug was originally built by zap to be her impulse control! this did not work! for context, zap used to be a really shitty supervillain before zimcon, so i kinda made sparkplug to be her sidekick/henchman? but in the way that’s like, supervillain is really nice and respectful to their “underlings” and basically treats them as equals and as friends, because i love that trope so fucking much. the original joke was “haha the supervillain has pack-bonded with the box!” but then the box turned into a kid and well! here we are. eventually after just. existing for a while they developed their own personality, and pretty much just became a regular kid! they arrived at zimcon as a box, but later on they end up asking zap for an astroboy-style body! as of writing this they haven’t gotten it yet, but that’s just because the rp’s kinda on pause right now. i do wanna say tho i have a special lil bit of art for it ready that hopefully yall will enjoy!!

ELIZABETH VOLTAIRE

she/her | cis (ew) | 4 years younger than zap

god just. i hate elizabeth! i really do. she’s another version of zap who is basically just an evil boomer who can’t even be fun or dramatic about it. in polychrome, she takes over as the big bad of the game. i feel like she works a lot better in polychrome just because that’s what she was made for, tbh. she and zap used to work together at one point, but due to a lot of arguing, many disagreements and some other Events(tm), started hating each other. she’s literally no fun at all and i can’t really expand upon her all that much without going into spoilers territory so that’s about it for her.

LIZZIE VOLTAIRE

she/they | trans gal | 745-748 y/o

lizzie is a ghost! she’s an alternate version of zap that died before she could ever leave her home dimension. after she died, she was quite literally chained to her death spot for over 700 years. when she died though, she was given a contract that said she could be freed if she got someone to sign it, the person signing it would be able to have her do whatever they want, but once she finished the task she could be free. if the person signing felt that she wasn’t doing a good enough job, they could rip up the contract and she’d be sent back to her death spot. it sounds bad, but it was all she had so she tried her best to get someone to sign! unfortunately though, in the few months where there were still people around, she hadn’t been able to figure out how to get herself to be visible again. just before she figured that out, the world underwent some kind of apocalypse, and all the people were wiped out. so she had no choice but to just kinda sit there and vibe for 700 years.

that is until elizabeth came along! liz signs her contract, and lizzie starts working as a henchman for her. the elizabeth arc happens (which is basically elizabeth helps lizzie possess zap and tells her to erase the con members’ memories, she does this, people are pissed, lizzie gets knocked out of zap’s body, zap dies, comes back, and beats the shit out of elizabeth and later sacrifices her to a crab) and liz decides to send her back for not doing a good enough job. so she goes back to her death spot, and after a night’s stay makes a deal with an eldritch blonde twink to gain her freedom.

REGINALD SPECTER

he/him | agender | a few thousand years probably (boomer)

bastard!! bastard man!! reggie is the one responsible for lizzie’s (and a few other peoples’) death(s). he has a job in the underworld which is basically just “take care of this huge monster that eats parts of people’s identity.” he found that feeding it souls worked best, so instead of finding lost souls he just decided it’d be easier to get some new ones. in order to kill people without getting caught, he disguises all his murders as accidents. lizzie’s happened to be a falling stage light that hit her on the head real hard. it’s not a cool or fun death and it makes her real mad ndjvkdf

lizzie was left there for so long because reggie pretty much just forgot about her. he left her the contract to give her some form of hope, which would keep her from fading away completely, but she was chained there so he could come back when he remembered. when liz signed her contract he got some sort of notice about it, and decided to come back to lizzie later for some shits and giggles. when they met up, he told her if she could find a soul to trade he’d give her her freedom. she accepts, and picks zap to trade, hoping that getting rid of her would help her earn liz’s approval (it didn’t). zap gets sent to this weird hell maze, and when a few others get in the way they get sent there too. lizzie eventually gets talked down from sending more and more people to the hell maze, and she lets them out. she’s tired of hurting people, and wants to give helping others a try! at the moment, reggie isn’t aware that lizzie let them out of the maze (and thus, isn’t gonna give him a soul to trade). if he finds out it’ll be bad, but for now she’s just vibing and trying her best to be nice!

reggie’s very much inspired by hate and dial from tpoh, and a lot of lizzie’s story is inspired by my personal theories on blondie/rgb’s death!! its basically “how many tpoh references can i cram into this: the arc.” it’s unbelievable the amount of shit i was allowed to get away with with nobody calling me out nfjdkvsf

aaaand that’s kinda it!!! i tried my best to make this short and readable, i wrote up something else earlier that was a LOT longer and im much more happy with this version. and if something i said doesn’t make sense or anyone wants to ask anything about these guys or polychrome id be more than happy to answer!!!! thank you so much for reading!!!! <3!!

[thorne93]

Unforeseen Chasm (Part 37)

Prompt: Two sisters fall for men that are absolute enemies. The love they have could tear all of them apart, or it could bring them together.

Word Count:2041

Warnings: Language, fighting, sad moment, angst

Song for this part: Better- Betty Who

Note: This is by far the longest thing I’ve ever written (including my novels). It’s a collaboration with the amazing @mrs-dragneel-stark-solo​​. It started as a funny “What if…?” and it evolved and got huge. This took two years to write. We are both proud and happy and we hope you enjoy it. It follows from Thor 1 to Endgame in the MCU. Some of the timelines may be off in order to fit certain people, and some characters may show up earlier or in different ways than they have in the movie. But for the most part, it follows the MCU. It also has a bit of crossover with some other Marvel characters throughout the story.

Masterlist for Unforeseen Chasm

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As soon as Shannon’s parents left, you and Shannon head to the apartment. 

Once you’re there, memory lane hit you like a semi-truck. You took a look around the apartment you two purchased what seems like lifetimes ago. Your eyes traveled over pictures of you two graduating, the first day Shannon took a job with Stark, your first patent in physics… Pictures and paintings you two had bought together, that super comfy blanket you found at the mall… Every little item was a new memory. 

“Wow. I forgot just how good we were at decorating,” you said in a sort of amused, awe inspired tone. 

“Yeah, with your color palette and my great knack for finding unique items, this place really looked great,” she agreed. 

Next, you wanted to see your bedroom. You wondered if it would be exactly as you remembered it.

When you opened the door, you were stunned to find it was. All the brainwashing and time away couldn’t even change that. The black and purple comforter was still on your bed. Your walls were covered with your favorite movie posters and whiteboards. The dresser was covered in papers and pictures of years past. 

“I had your bed sheets washed periodically,” Shannon suddenly said from behind you. You turned to face her.

“Ah, yeah, thank you.” You tucked your hair behind your ear and looked around. You went to your closet, surprised at how many bright colors were in there. Now, you mainly opted for black, red, green, and purple. “I don’t even know what to take… Actually…” an idea struck in your mind. “Shannon, you said that I could have this apartment, right?” 

“Of course, Y/N. There’s not much else I can do with it. I mean this is our home.” She waved her hands around the place. “I think it’d be more suited if you had it, it’s all paid off so no need to worry about much there.” She smiled knowing her friend would stay close to her even if it wasn’t a floor away. 

You chewed your lip, hoping this didn’t sound awful. “Well… instead of me taking stuff back to the cell -- because I’d really like to stay out of it, and making it feel like home feels awful -- what if… well what if you took some of your stuff back to the tower, with Tony? I mean, you’re engaged now, and Loki and I would like a place all to our own. I’m sure he’d want to go get some things… What do you think? I mean, I don’t wanna sound like I’m kicking you and your stuff out…” 

“Um… yeah sure I can probably get Stevie to help me pack my things and have it out in a few days,” she said trying not to sound hurt. “Well I guess I leave you to it then, I’ll be in my old room collecting my things.” 

Shannon walked out of the room slumping her shoulders a bit. She knew it was childish to feel hurt because she’s not living with her bestie/sister. But it hurt knowing she no longer had a place in their home. She entered her room and was flooded with emotions and memories of when it had been just the two of them here. Shooting a quick text to Steve, she got to work placing her things in her suitcases.  

Seeing your best friend this hurt made you feel worse than when you two were physically fighting in New York. You sighed and went into her room and sat on her bed.

“You know… you don’t have to just rip all your stuff out of here,” you said, looking up at her. You took the sweater she had in her hands from her gently. “What if… we did this? Loki and I will share a bedroom, we don’t need the second. You’re welcome to stay here any time, as long as you call ahead? Just to make sure you know… it’s a good time? This was your home for years, and I don’t want you to feel like I’m booting you out.” You reached over and gripped her hand, smiling up at her. 

Shannon had been concentrating on packing so she wouldn't let the little tear slip out. She looked up at the ceiling and then at you. “It’s okay, Y/N. I get it, you want a place to create new memories with Loki.” She stopped packing and sat down next to you. “I shouldn’t have assumed everything would be like before everything happened.” She went on to say how she understands that you’re both different people and that’s fine because you two are adults. 

The rest of the day was just you two talking and remembering things that were once forgotten and after eating dinner together and watching some movies like old times, Shannon excused herself for a moment.  She headed to her room and made a call to the tower.

“Hey babe, I’m still at the apartment with Y/N. I just wanted to let you know that we’ll be home soon and that she’s decided that she would like to live here in the apartment with Loki once he gets out too.”

“You had me worried for a moment. I thought you were going to say that you two will be staying the night there.” 

“And what if we had decided that huh? We’re adults plus I figured she wouldn’t want to sleep away from him.” She walked around looking at all the things she had left in her room. “I was wondering if you could have someone come help her redecorate the place to their liking?”

There was silence on the line. “If that’s what you really want then sure we can have that done once he gets out of the cell too.”

“I’ll see you at home soon enough.”

“See you here.”

With that Shannon went back to the living room. And they finished watching the last movie they had picked. 

You turned your head to Shannon lazily on the couch as the movie started to end. It was one both  of you had seen at least twenty times. “This has been the best possible day for me being released.”

“Yeah?” Shannon asked, happy to hear that.

“Of course. I became your maid of honor, we went wedding dress shopping, we went out to that great lunch spot, I got to see Lucky, and Diane and Tom… You and I got to spend the whole day together…” 

“Yeah, yeah it was nice, wasn’t it?” 

“Mhm. And I’m sorry about the whole apartment thing,” you apologized again. “It’s just…”

Shannon held up her hand. “I get it. You and Loki have never been alone. This is a place for you to start your lives together. Tony and I have the whole tower, and I have my old floor. If you and I need time away together, we can do it on my old floor.”

“You’re sure?” you asked, still worried you’d hurt her feelings.

“I’m positive, hun.”

At that, you smiled. As soon as the movie ended, the two of you picked up all the food and plates you’d accumulated during the day and cleaned the apartment. 

“Well, I better get back to Loki before he thinks I’ve abandoned him.” 

She laughed. “No, we wouldn’t want that.” 

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

Back at the tower, you and Shannon parted ways, bidding each other goodnight while she went upstairs to Tony and you ventured downstairs to Loki. 

As soon as your eyes landed on him, your chest filled with warmth, then a bit of chagrin when you remembered where you two were. You walked up to the cell door, put your hand on the scanner, and entered. 

“Hi, darling,” you greeted as you walked into the living room. It was odd, to say the least, having the freedom to come or go as you please in this place. “Happy to see me back?”

“I am,” he admitted to you. “How was your day out?” he asked, putting his book down.

“It was… a little overwhelming, but overall it was great.”

“Did they give you any stipulations or anything like that?” 

You got up and headed to the kitchen, readying to make some coffee for yourself. “Uh, actually, yeah. I have a parole officer. I have to report to him a few times a week, work with him… you know…” you said, dancing around the topic. 

“That sounds stressful.”

“Actually, my parole officer couldn’t be more laid back,” you assured. 

“Oh? Is that so? Well that’s good then.”

“He can have a bit of a temper,” you added with a bit of a smirk. 

“Well just stay on the right side of that,” he encouraged as he reached around you to grab a mug and pour himself some coffee. 

“Yeah, I think I can. We’ll be working in his lab. He wants me for my physics brain so…”

“Oh, he’s a scientist? I thought on Midgard they had officers dedicated to this sort of thing?” 

You slowly nodded. “Well.. Yeah, they do. But I’m sort of a special case. A normal cop can’t exactly control me if I get out of hand so--”

“Is your parole officer Bruce Banner?” he asked point blank suddenly, cutting you off.

Shit.

You pressed your lips into a thin line and that was all the answer he needed. A man as clever and witty as Loki would of course see through the thin veil of truth you’d weaved.

“Yes… he is but--”

“Are you serious? They stuck you with that animal?” 

“Bruce is not an animal,” you calmly retorted.

“I beg to differ, or do you not remember the broken ribs and mangled face I acquired last time we met?” he demanded.

“I do, but… my love, we kind of… we brought that on ourselves, did we not?” 

“I want you to demand someone else,” he ordered. “I don’t want you working with him.”

You stared at him in disbelief. “Loki, I’m not going to do that. Bruce is highly respected in my field and if this goes well, he could really get me back in. A foot in the door doesn’t even begin to explain just how much working with him would fatten my resume. I could work for virtually any company.”

“I don’t care. You would be willing to work with the man who nearly killed me? Your career means more than my life?” 

A bitch face clouded your expression. “Now, Loki, that isn’t fair. I’m not choosing one or the other. As long as you don’t piss him off, he won’t do it again.”

“Ah, right, don’t raise his blood pressure or we could all die. It’s amazing to me how I’m the one in a cell when he’s the one that can’t be around loud noises or he could kill hundreds of people because he got shocked.” 

“He can’t help turning into a monster but--”

Loki stared at you. “But what, darling? Go ahead and finish that sentence. Let me guess: but I can? Is that where you were going with that?” 

You stared at him, your face even. “No,” was all you said to him. 

“This is amazing. You’re out of this cell for less than twenty-four hours and you’ve already turned on me.”

“Turned on you? I came back to you. I came back to this cell, which I fucking hate by the way, just to be with you, to spend the night with you.”

“Well who asked you to do that?” he asked with a cold smile. “Please, don’t let me burden you,” he coldly replied before walking into the bedroom and slamming the door behind him. 

On that note, you let out a huge sigh. Well, what to do now… 

You went into the office and tapped on the tablet, pulling up your only contact and calling it. After three rings she picked up. 

“Hey,” you greeted, not hiding your sadness.

“Hey, hun. What’s up?”

“Can I come up?” 

“Sure thing… I’ll meet you on my old floor, yeah?”

You nodded and ended the video call. Leaving the cell for the second time today, but no intention of returning in your mind this time.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tag List: @essie1876​ @magpiegirl80​ @letsgetfuckingsuperwholocked​ @iamwarrenspeace​ @marvel-imagines-yes-please​ @superwholocked527 @missinstantgratification​ @thejemersoninferno​ @rda1989​ @munlis​ @thefridgeismybestie​​ @bubblyanarocks3​​ @igiveupicantthinkofausername​​ @kaliforniacoastalteens​ @feelmyroarrrr​​ @kaeling @friendlyneighbourhoodweirdo​​ @damalseer​​ @heyitscam99​​ @yknott81​​ @sorryimacrapwriter​​ @glitterquadricorn​​ @xxqueenofisolationxx @little-dis-kaalista-pythonissama @bittersweetunicorm​​ @alyssaj23​​ @sea040561​​ @princess76179​​ @thisismysecrethappyplace​​ @sarahp879​​ @malfoysqueen14​​ @ellallheart​​ @breezy1415​​ @marvelmayo​​ @random-fluffy-pink-unicorn @cocosierra94 @hardcollectionworldtrash @capsmuscles @marvelloushamilton @paintballkid711​

Loki: @lostinspace33​​ @ultrarebelheart​​ @lenawiinchester​​ @esoltis280​​ @tngrayson​​ @wangdeasang​​ @harrymewmew @jayfantasyatyourservice​​

UC: @lokis-high-priestess​

@pandacookieowo​

[dirtyfilthy]

The Betrayal Of Chelsea Manning By The Coward Adrian Lamo

I have only participated in “cancel culture” once that I can remember. Once, over the broad course of my life, and that was when Adrian Lamo sold Chelsea Manning out to the authorities. Motherfucker has the  sheer gall to call himself a hacker, and then rats someone out — not because of his principles, but from a constant desire for pure narcissistic supply -- and all this from a position of trust no less… 

I was real angry, and I wanted to put the boot in, any way I could. There was a special circle of hell reserved for people like Adrian Lamo… and as it would turn out, he was already in it. 

Amongst petty vendettas like stuffing his wikipedia page with all the well referenced dirt I could dig up, along the way, and kind of by-the-by, I ended up doing a lot of research on the guy, and then, well, the picture of Lamo that emerged… 

Jesus. 

He’s been a hardcore benzo addict since his twenties. If you know what to look for you can tell in some of his interviews, slurring his words and looking very spacey.  He never really had a real job, never broke into the industry he was aways on the fringes of. It’s kinda crazy, if you search for “homeless hacker Adrian Lamo” you can still see what the mass media thought of him before he turned in Chelsea. 

He’d kind of weaselled his way into popular consciousness by being a shameless self-promoter, and then managing to get caught in that spectacular “rebellious teenage hacker” vs. “huge faceless corporation” way that tends to capture people’s imagination. 

There were whole articles about him in Wired. Multiple in fact. Here’s one of earliest from 2004 (unfortunately now behind a paywall), “New York Times vs The Homeless Hacker”. The first few lines can still give you the gist, however

A self-styled security expert and serial self-promoter, Adrian Lamo made headlines as a grayhat hacker. Then the Gray Lady came down on his head. Not long ago Adrian Lamo was exploring an abandoned gypsum processing plant in West Philadelphia with two friends, when a police cruiser drove slowly by. Lamo’s friends were high on methamphetamines…

https://www.wired.com/2004/04/hacker-5/

Even during this phase of his life, a lot of people in the scene didn’t like him. At least, there were people complaining on hacker boards about him stealing exploits and then burning them for the publicity.  In the end he got off with probation and home detention, and that was the end of blatantly hacking into shit. Any more and he would certainly end up in prison. Attitudes were changing, the authorities had stopped seeing hacking as just high-spirited teenage hijinks. and the increasingly severe penalties could land you some serious time. 

After this, he just sorted floated around. He never got job in the industry like the rest of us, and I suspect he may have been  basically unemployable for one reason or another. The next time he popped up in my news feed was in 2010 with a strange article from ex-hacker turned journalist and friend of Lamo’s,, Kevin Poulsen — “Ex-Hacker Adrian Lamo Institutionalized, Diagnosed with Asperger’s” 

The first paragraph or so reads:

Last month Adrian Lamo, a man once hunted by the FBI, did something contrary to his nature. He says he picked up a payphone outside a Northern California supermarket and called the cops.

Someone, Lamo says, had grabbed his backpack containing the prescription anti-depressants he'd been on since 2004, the year he pleaded guilty to hacking The New York Times. He wanted his medication back. But when the police arrived at the Safeway parking lot it was Lamo, not the missing backpack, that interested them. Something about his halting, monotone speech, perhaps slowed by his medication, got the officers' attention

— (https://www.wired.com/2010/05/lamo/)

The article claimed Lamo had been arrested for acting strangely and then institutionalised, basically claiming the police had arrested him because he was autistic. At the time, I didn’t really give this a second thought, “oh well, ho-hum”. As itt turned out, this was a case of the most spectacular kind of “spin” I think I’ve ever seen; the only place the article actually intersected with general consensual reality was in stating Lamo had been arrested and placed on psychiatric hold.

The real story, which is entirely far more pathetic, was that Lamo’s family had become worried about his benzo use (“prescription anti-depressants”) and had cut him off. He totally lost the plot at this point and stormed out of house. Concerned about his mental state, and with fears for his physical safety, it was actually  his own family that called the police to try and find him. 

When confronted about this fairly massive discrepancy, Lamo claimed he hadn’t exactly “lied” as such, and had simply withheld some facts due to personal privacy concerns. 

It was at this point I finally began to see the whole tattered trajectory of Lamo’s entire life — trace the greasy path of his rainbow with my fingertips, and watch as the once bright twine became  increasing gray and frayed as each thread began to curve back towards it’s inevitable impact with the earth, when, at which point, everything important would begin to totally unravel around him.

At his core, Adrian Lamo was a narcissist, and so Adrian Lamo absolutely believed in the Adrian Lamo narrative, as only a narcissist can. Near of beginning of his tale, this was easy to do. He was a wandering Daoist sage, a renegade techno-monk character in a Neal Stephenson cyberpunk novella, and anytime he wanted to see his own reflection he could simply look in any of the major newspapers.  

After his arrest and release, the rest of the world moved on. His peers all settled down to well-paid industry gigs, and you couldn’t just pop the New York Times through an open proxy any longer — well, at least: not most of time, anyway. His own sword, never the exactly the sharpest in the first place, was beginning to show some signs of a serious structural rust. 

Without the constant assurance of people telling his own story back at him, what was he exactly? What did the mirror portray to him now?  An unemployed, semi-homeless drug addict, a hacker who couldn’t hack his way out of wet paper back with pick axe, the tired punch line to any number of bad jokes...   

Of course, the many similarities to my own life were not exactly lost on me. I was basically a case of being a few near misses and unlucky hits away from sitting in his exact position. I had made the transition to an industry career successfully, but I was still a drug addict with mental heath issues.  I had gone through my own narcissistic stage when I was younger, but thankfully grew out of it, the old moons no longer pulled on my tides the way they used to. 

The essential Lamo pattern had began to emerge. Still chasing the same bright stars that had long since sunk beneath the horizon line of the ocean; Lamo would begin to feel irrelevant —  Lamo would get then his name in the media in some fashion. A momentary peace was then achieved, then came a brief period of post-orgasmic. cosmic serenity. 

But of course, the wheel of karma will not stop spinning for anyone, and so, soon enough and all-to-quickly, the entire process of personal renewal, would have to, you know…..  begin anew.

A few other case studies were observed. An unreleased, permanently unfinished documentary featuring Lamo was mysteriously leaked on the internet. Of course, Lamo himself had leaked it. And there was always appearing on various morning television shows, Good Morning America, Fox News & the like.

But then the mother of all opportunities just dropped into his lap.

Chelsea Manning needed someone to talk to. 

Chelsea knew Lamo was Bi, so he was at least in the LGBT community. Adrian was a hacker too. He’d fought against the system in his day, he was certainly someone who would “get it”, she was very sure of this.  And when she did reach out, he was indeed very sympathetic. Honestly, it seemed like he really cared. Just a genuine human being, reaching out across the vast emotional void to provide a sense of empathy to someone who really, really needed it right now.. 

He was very sympathetic when Chelsea told him all about her struggles with gender identity, and he was very sympathetic when she said she was leaking gigabytes of information to Wikileaks…. But behind his sunglasses, Lamo eyes had already morphed into a marquee LED matrix endlessly scrolling his own name. Think of the news coverage!

This was big. This was very big.

It would, in fact, turn out to be fucking huge. Of course, within in the hacker scene, and to a certain extent, even outside it, everyone just fucking loathed him now.  Eventually even the news moved on, nobody wanted any more interviews, and in the end, when everything has already been all said and done: you are ultimately left with only yourself….

… a pathetic drug addict.  Of course, I have to keep telling myself that one point of intersection does not an entire venn diagram or an actual equality make. But I can’t shake the feeling that, perhaps, maybe we weren’t really all that different.  Maybe my own betrayals have had the simple luck of being a lot less public. 

Perhaps my own sins were just as ugly, but far less ambitious. 

Adrian Lamo died alone, from a drug overdose, in a private unit in an aged care facility in Wichita, Kansas.  He was 37 years old. An autopsy showed his kidneys were already failing. 

I guess Sartre got it wrong. Hell isn’t other people, it’s being left totally alone, with nothing else around but the tedious company of your own terrible self, and of course, the fucker won’t stop talking...

So obviously there was nothing more I could do to hurt Adrian Lamo, nothing that Adrian Lamo hadn’t done already. He had long since locked himself away in a prison cell of his own making. I do wonder if maybe one too many silent 3am’s hadn’t come crawling around the clock face when he was there & awake to witness it, lying in bed & staring at the ceiling and trying not to think about things.

Like I’m doing.

Shit, I hope don’t go out that way. 

[soulsdontbreaktheybeeend]

50 questions tag game

I was tagged by @lynnesm ty, sweetheart<3

1. What is the color of your hairbrush? Black

2. A food you never eat?  Artichokes 

3. Are you typically too warm or too cold? COLD. My hands can be icy cold even in summer. It’s quite practical sometimes lol

4. What were you doing 45 minutes ago? Um, watching a series on Netflix, before KAREN interrupted that with her dirty day dream.

5. What is your favorite candy bar? Oh lord, I was addicted to that lion candy bar when I was kid?? 

6. Have you ever been to a professional sports event? Yes, several soccer games and one of ice hockey, which was pretty cool.

7. What is the last thing you said out loud? I think it was “oh my god” while I read something on here lmao

8. What is your favorite ice cream? Hazelnut with something fruity

9. What was the last thing you had to drink? Water

10. Do you like your wallet? Naw, it’s nothing special.

11. What was the last thing you ate? Swabian ravioli lol

12. Did you buy any new clothes last weekend? I can’t even remember the last time I bought new clothes.

13. The last sporting event you watched? Soccer

14. What is your favorite flavor of popcorn? Just... sweet?

15. Who was the last person you sent a text message to? My dad

16. Ever go camping? Not yet

17. Do you take vitamins? Sometimes

18. Do you go to church every Sunday? I don’t ever go there.

19. Do you have a tan?  A slight one for now

20. Do you prefer chinese food or pizza? NOTHING CAN MAKE ME CHOOSE BETWEEN THE TWO OF THEM

21. Do you drink your soda with a straw? No

22. What color socks do you usually wear? Black

23. Ever drive above the speed limit? Of coooourse nooooooot

24. What terrifies you? Is it bad that “my mind” came into my mind first?

25. Look to your left what do you see? Arthur Fleck lmao

26. What chore do you hate? Hmm taking the garbage out?

27. What do you think of when you hear an Australian accent? The lead singer of Hands Like Houses

28. What is your favorite soda? I try to avoid them. I’d choose coke if I had to.

29. Do you go into a fast food place or just hit the drive through? Taking a seat.

30. Who was the last person you talked to? Some woman from an advertising call lmao

31. Favorite cut of beef? -

32. Last song you listened to? Run to you - Bryan Adams lmao

33. Last book you read? A Summer Place by Meg Murray ;) @littlebird92

34. Favorite day of the week? Saturday

35. Can you say the alphabet backwards? No bc my brain is busy thinking of the clown boy.

36. Do you like coffee? I LOVE coffee. The taste, the smell, the mood it brings me in. Mhhh coffee

37. Favorite pair of shoes? Boots

38. At what time do you normally go to bed? There is no normally. Not before 12 am

39. At what time do you normally get up? 6:30am 

40. What do you prefer - sunrises or sunsets? Sunsets, but depends on the location, I guess.

41. How many blankets are on your bed? One

42. Describe your kitchen plates: White

43. Do you have a favorite alcoholic beverage? Red wine in general and that cheep Hugo Rose from a grocery store here in germany. It’s the cheepest but it’s simply the best. I could drink that shit like water.

44. Do you play cards? No

45. What color is your car? lmao Idk man, it depends on the day light? Really dark purple? Brown? Black?

46. Can you change a tire? Yes

47. What is your favorite province? I have no clue. The town I’ve moved to is pretty nice.

48. Favorite job you ever had? My current one, designer for visual marketing

49. How did you get your biggest scar? Oh lord okay so here we go. I tore the acl in my left knee apart, two year later in my right knee. Two years after that, guess what happened. Yess you’re right! I freaking tore my left one apart AGAIN. So both ligaments they’d use to get it replaced where already used. So they had to cut out a part of my quadriceps tendon with a small block of my knee cap to get it fixed lol so I have a 6-7cm scar above my left knee cap bc of that. Now you know.

50. What did you do today that made someone happy? Talked silly shit, made them laugh. Made myself happy with that too. It’s just the best feeling dude

Tagging everyone who wants to do this, bc I don’t wanna bother any of you guys lol DO IT if you want to please! You can even write it down on your own post, look this beeended soul said I can do it if I want to. So, please do.

[echodrops]

The Promises I Made (2019 Edition)

For the past thirteen years, I’ve spent every New Year’s Eve compiling a list of fifty promises I intend to keep or fulfill over the next twelve months. The results have been truly amazing, and I have kept some promises I never thought I could. 2019 was… a nightmare that I can barely believe I survived, but I still kept some promises that I honestly did not expect I ever could.

This year, for New Year’s, there will be a new set of promises for to me keep, but here are the old ones, for review!

The Promises I Made (2019 Edition)

1) Be more proactive about tracking and following up with struggling students to decrease the number of students who drop from my class when they realize they cannot pass. Status: Somewhat broken? I tried really hard to be proactive with my students; however, there were some massive issues outside the classroom this year that made it extremely difficult to keep the focus on the students. When administration drags your attention away from the class, there is not a lot you can do…

2) Find a place to put in volunteer hours because uhhhh like this is actually important to my work evaluation and I definitely need something to write in that section… Yikes, this spring is my last chance to do this!! @_@ Status: Kept. I volunteered with the Utah Shakespeare Festival and it was super fun!

3) Install the fire escape window in the Utah house, no matter how much it might cost, because I can’t get a totally unrelated tenant in that basement without said window… Status: Somewhat kept. Okay. This one is a LONG story, but to be fair to me, I worked my ASS off to try and make this happen; just every single thing in the world prevented me from completing this promise, up to and including the city telling me I needed a permit AFTER I had already dug a massive hole in the ground for the window…

4) Buy sod to add grass to the front portion of the lawn so that it no longer looks like garbage. Status: Broken, but I did buy grass seed and put that out there. Unfortunately only some of it sprouted, but there is indeed SOME grass now growing there…

5) Fix the bricks near the windowsills on the Utah house to prevent long-term damage. Status: Broken. After dealing with the stupid window disaster, I had no time for this at all.

6) Get a watering system for my roses at the Utah house because I think my bro is probably killing them and that’s just not cool. Status: Broken, see above.

7) Work on the patio at the Utah house before it just flat out falls down. Status: Somewhat broken. Again, I tried to make progress on this—I called a patio guy to come out and assess how much it would cost to fix the patio—but the price I was quoted was so high that there was nothing I could do at the time.

8) Paint the stairwell so that there’s no chance of anything like lead paint or asbestos being exposed. Status: Broken. The leftover wallpaper glue continues to confound me…

9) Trim the backyard bushes so the neighbors don’t hate us anymore… Status: Broken. We trimmed a few bushes and at least got to the trees out front, but definitely a majority were left uncared for.

10) Move into a new house in Texas where I can get real internet, please for the love of god… Status: Kept. I moved into a very nice house with no scorpions!

11) Save money for my upcoming trip to Japan! 2020 baby! Status: Uhhh, broken. I’m not sure how I thought I’d be able to move into a new house AND save money for an international trip at the same time…

12) Get my wisdom tooth removed because it’s still there and still killing me, yikessss. Status: Broken. AUGH. I’m an idiot.

13) Make an appointment with an eye doctor for like the first time in years. Good job, Yehn, good job. Status: Kept. I got my glasses fixed and even got a new pair of glasses too!

14) Get my prescriptions refilled because I’m dwindling on asthma medicine and like… I could die from this… I should never have been left to care for myself; I’m not mature enough for this responsibility… Status: Kept, surprisingly. But I still need a new doctor because the last one I was going to wouldn’t give me any refills…

15) FINISH THE GIVEAWAY PRIZES I PROMISED LAST YEAR because holy shit I am incompetent and the worst and everyone has permission to hate me for starting things and never finishing them, fuck. Status: Broken. So broken. I am the worst.

16) Go dolphin watching in the Gulf for real this time. Seriously, it’s $10 Yehn, you can do this. Status: Kept, amazingly. It wasn’t as impressed as hoped; however, there was a lovely sunset.

17) Return to the Channel Islands to take better pictures. D; Status: Broken. T_T

18) Level all my classes to 70 in FFXIV before next expansion, please. Status: Somewhat broken. I didn’t have everything to 70 before the expansion, but I kind of feel like I should get credit for this one, because HEY, look at me now:

19) Organize and properly label all the photos on my computer so that I’m no longer desperately combing through folder and folder in blank confusion, looking for a single picture in a sea of thousands… Status: Kept. It took me like eight hours of work, but I actually did this.

20) Update Home and a Half more than once? PLEASE??? The guilt I feel over this currently is crushing. Status: Broken. And the guilt grows…

21) Complete the online American Literature class I am designing on time and with no corrections needed. Status: Kept. I’m counting this as kept even though TECHNICALLY there was one thing I forgot to finish and it came back and bit me in the ass; however, I was approved with no corrections needed.

22) Earn 100% completion for Kingdom Hearts III. So excited! Status: Broken. Um… This just didn’t happen.

23) Update my calendar with important dates—holidays, birthdays, etc.—and be productive about sending cards and well-wishes. Status: Somewhat kept. I wasn’t any better about sending cards really, but I did at least save all the birthdays in my phone so I remember them.

24) Get the garbage disposal in the Texas house fixed ASAP so I don’t have to wash the dishes by hand anymore because I absolutely hate that particular chore. Status: Kept. Then I moved, so it didn’t even matter.

25) Finish all the books my coworkers and friends bought for me recently so I can thank them for their recommendations! Status: Broken. So broken.

26) Actually move into my new place instead of leaving it completely undecorated and lifeless. Status: Remarkably, kept. Nothing has plastic on it, unlike at my old house where the nightstand didn’t get unwrapped even after two years of living there lol.

27) Try hard to get Creative Writing into a different area of the general ed. core so that more people will enroll in it. Status: Kept. I’m counting this because I did my darn best, but we are still waiting on the state to tell us whether or not the class will be accepted.

28) Get caught up on my Ebird reports, even the old, old, old ones I never put in because I was slacking. Status: Kept, actually. Whoo.

29) Throw away/return/sort all the stacks of old mail in the house (OMGGGG they’ve made me look like paper hoarder and I’m nootttt). Status: Broken. There’s just… a lot of papers to go through…

30) Clean up the garage before moving so that I don’t have to fight spiders to move when the time comes. Status: Broken, in that I did not clean up the garage in advance and did, in fact, have to fight spiders when it came time to move.

31) Find a way to boost grading productivity so that each class takes only two days to grade, maximum. Status: Somewhat kept. I was definitely better this year than last year; however, I really think the “two days per class” thing was too optimistic, so for the future semester, I allotted myself three days per class and I think it will work better.

32) Go to a totally new restaurant and try their food. Status: Kept. We went to a Mexican restaurant and I had trompo tacos (al pastor) which is probably not anything special to anyone else but it was my first time so lol.

33) Cancel old credit cards to make sure my credit is good before trying to buy a house (although I just checked my credit score and I’m in the great range already, so this is mostly for posterity’s sake). Status: Broken. But it didn’t affect my loan, so I guess it was okay. And it ended up being good I didn’t cancel my Best Buy card because I was able to get good financing on the new appliances I needed for my house.

34) Get official contracts from my tenants so I can use my rental income in my next loan calculation. Status: Broken, but I ended up not using that as part of the loan calculation anyway >_> so…

35) Talk to an HR rep about my retirement savings so that I can consolidate all my retirement accounts into one. (Man, look at all these ADULTING promises.) Status: Broken. Look at me failing all these adulting promises.

36) Really finish decorating my office so it looks super cute and all my students want to visit me. Status: Broken, but I think it sucks that I have to write this because it was really not my fault I couldn’t finish decorating my office. Our offices were all moved and disrupted by building remodels so I spent the entire year basically working out of a couple cardboard boxes.

37) Not sign up for ANY more new responsibilities at work in the spring semester. This is the biggest challenge. D; Status: Kept, by technicality. I was able to avoid signing up for anything new in SPRING… But fall… was a whole other story. XD

38) Migrate all the rest of my books to the new Texas house instead of leaving them in Utah… SOMEHOW. Status: Kept. I’m going to count this as kept. The only books left at the Utah house are my manga—I managed to bring literally every other book, which is very impressive considering I had only my small Camaro with its tiny truck space.

39) Use my twitter account more often to make it worth following. I will try!! Status: Kept… sorta? I mean, since I didn’t use the account AT ALL before, making even one Twitter post kind of counts as using it more, right? >_>

40) Keep my hair cut nicely so I look less like a mess (than I really am). Status: Somewhat broken. Although I think I got my hair cut more often this year than before, I don’t think I looked any less like a mess. XD

41) Successfully find a bridesmaid dress for my friend’s wedding that matches the rest of the wedding party. Status: Actually kept! It was incredible. The wedding I was in was even featured in a magazine because of how pretty it was!

42) Make sure my skin is in good condition for the wedding so I don’t look like a disturbing ghost… Status: Kept? I mean, in the end, looking like a ghost ended up being the whole point since it was a Halloween themed wedding so I kind of won either way.

43) Complete my BNHA manga collection. Since my bro bought me a bunch of the volumes for Christmas, I might as well. Status: Broken… I bought like… one volume. XD

44) See a groove-billed ani. (It’s another type of bird.) Status: Broken. Very illusive bird. T_T

45) Respond to messages, asks, and comments more quickly. I promise I’m not ignoring people… D; Status: Um, broken. I left many people on read this year, sorry.

46) Lose ten pounds so that I feel more fit and comfy. Status: Broken. I didn’t exercise at all this year, uff.

47) Pay down credit card debt by at least 1/3. Yikesssss, I really need to do this quick. Status: Broken. It’s hard to pay down a credit card when you pour all your money into buying a new house…

48) I will finally fucking finish that chapter 73 analysis of Noragami… I swear to god… Status: Broken. Uh yeah. This didn’t happen. V_V

49) Reach 1700 followers on Tumblr. You should follow me—I’m only marginally a waste of time and space! Status: Kept. Over 2500 followers now!

50) I will keep these promises. LOLLLLL. Status: Somewhat kept/somewhat broken. One year I really will keep them all…

 Totals Kept promises: 18 Broken promises: 24 Somewhat kept/broken promises: 8

Well, there are more kept promises than last year at least… It was another really hard year, what with moving in the middle of the year, over-working, dealing with so much drama with the reaccreditation on our campus, and just EVERYTHING all at once this last year… I keep thinking things are going to calm down and then they never do. Please 2020… just let me rest…

My new set of promises will be up on the 1st!