#my new admissions get rejected all the time

[araraito]

I don't know how to not give up nowadays

[themeraldee]

Hii can you do one where the reader rejects homelander because she’s married? He gets mad and obsessive??

Thank you for the ask! So originally I wasn't gonna do requests because I'm very particular about what strikes my fancy. But I'm nothing if not a people pleaser so your request got my head popping up with ideas as I've not really explored the 'loving someone to a fault' part of Homelander where things take a wild turn. So this is my humble attempt - hope you enjoy!

(Also I spat this out fairly quickly so it's not very well reviewed)

The Price of Love

[Masterlist]

18+ Only | 1.7k | Homelander x fem!Reader | Early Season 2. Voyeurism. Dark themes but nothing very specific. Homelander being his own warning. Mention of canon-level violence.

“What the fuck do you mean you’re married?!” Homelander sputters, caught totally off guard by your admission. His body language frazzled, his arms expressing confusion just as much as his words as his presence towers over you. 

You’ve been Ashley’s secretary for a few months now. At first he took no interest in the presence of yet another busybody without a name that was surely going to crack under the pressure and either leave or fuck up beyond repair resulting in your resignation. But no, you’ve proven yourself to be reliable, responsible and most importantly you’ve got a fucking spine in you. You don’t cower in fear, shake when you talk to him or let yourself get talked into a corner. He likes that. He really likes that. 

His preference for you has become so obvious that Ashley made you his go-to. Any news, good or bad, just went straight through you. And somehow, Homelander didn’t mind hearing that he dropped a point or two when it came from your lips.

That’s why he felt so blindsided by your outright rejection when he asked you out. What the fuck do you mean married?! 

“I mean I’m unavailable.” Homelander tightens his hand into a fist now that his arms fell back to rest next to his thighs. He hides the lapse of control behind his cape as he clasps both hands behind his back. At this point the pose has become a bit of a defense mechanism, nobody can touch or hurt him when he’s playing a hero. It’s a whole lot different when he pours his heart out to some fucking assistant just to get it stomped into the ground. 

“You’re not wearing a ring.” His tone is quiet, sharp. He nods his head towards the hand that’s currently clutching a stack of papers, the last thing you were meant to bring over before you clocked out. In Homelander’s eyes, it was the perfect time to ask you out. He’d take you out the same night. Michelin star restaurant, booked out just for the two of you. But no, you had to ruin his whole plan.

“I know, I’m sorry. I oftentimes leave it at home. I worry about it getting damaged or lost.” You clutch your papers closer to you, Homelander’s eyes lock onto your empty ring finger. It’s like you’re trying to hide it from him. The skin where your ring would be sat isn’t even smoothed out or marked in any way. So either it’s a recent marriage or you barely wear your ring as is. Homelander scoffs to himself, what kind of marriage is it if you’re not willing to shout about it from the rooftops. 

“I just—what? You’ve been fucking coming onto me for ages!” He wheezes out in part anger, part embarrassment. His eyes widen at first before squinting, his eyebrows furrowing with the action. In his head he replays all your interactions and he’s not fucking stupid. He’s the Homelander. There’s no one who can read people better than him.

“Sorry? I haven’t, or I didn’t mean to. I wasn’t trying to lead you on.” You take a step back. As much as this whole time Homelander’s been more than tolerating your presence, enjoying and looking forward to it even, now he’s acting like a whole kind of different animal. He takes one step in. Part of him relishes in the way your heart speeds up at the loud thud of his boot taking the one step closer to you. The other part of him doesn’t want you to be scared of him, just like you haven’t been this whole time, you’re meant to be his! 

He raises an eyebrow. 

“Lead me on?” 

“You know, make you think I’m interested when I’m not.” He nearly laughs. Not interested? Not fucking interested?! Give him a break. He might not have many experiences with the most genuine of relationships but he knows attraction when he sees one. He’s not stupid enough to mistake your professional kindness for attraction, it’s more than that. He’s sure of it. Your pulse still races anytime you’re in his vicinity, your pupils dilate, you smile all flustered and sweet when he pays you a compliment and there’s definitely times he’s managed to make you wet just by saying or doing the right thing. Someone who’s not interested wouldn’t be reacting like that. 

He pinches the bridge of his nose shaking his head. “Get out.” His voice rings loud and clear in the empty room. 

“Yes, sir. I’m really so sorry.” His teeth grind at the way you call him ‘sir’. A habit he’s weaned you off a long time ago. Yet there you go again, reverting back to factory settings as if you two didn’t have a whole load of history behind you. He watches you scamper off, the intrusive, violent part of him has an intense urge to laser you in half for making him feel this way.

But no, he knows there’s another way. First, he needs to get this energy out one way or another. And the last thing he wants to do is hurt you. 

Homelander waits till nightfall before flying around just to get his frustration out. First Madelyn, now you. What is it with women being dishonest with him! But no no no, you’re nothing like her. You do love him. You have to. He knows it. He can feel it. He just needs to nudge you in the right direction.

His thoughts get disrupted by a shrill scream coming from the alleyway below him. He pauses in the air, watching the situation with little initial interest. He lands on the building ledge where a man has a screaming woman pinned against the wall. He notices the light reflecting against the switchblade the criminal presses to her neck.

Well look at that, he can get his frustrations out and he’s gonna look like a hero. This night might just be turning around for him.

He leaves the bloody carnage behind, shaking some of the blood and viscera off his suit, bloody droplets hitting his boots instead. He’s so used to the copper tang of blood, at this point breathing it in is as natural to him as air. He’s just not particularly fond of the mess it creates.

But finally, after some physical relief, he grins to himself and with a clear head he can devise a plan on how to win you over. He’s the Homelander, who the fuck else could be more worthy of your love? 

Well… He’s about to find out.

Homelander takes off into the air, shooting up up up, until he finds a happy altitude where the air is just about getting thin, but more importantly where he’s unlikely to be recorded or photographed at this time of night.

He lands on the rooftop of the building opposite where you and your spouse reside. Bleugh. Your fucking spouse. Just the thought leaves a bitter taste in his mouth. He was being patient with you. Wanted to take it the traditional way. Just like normal humans you’d meet at work, get chatting, get comfortable and start dating. So he gave you the benefit of your privacy. Wanted to see you naked for the first time when you’d undress for him. All pretty and sensual, giving him a good show. Now it’s biting him in the ass. If he wasn’t so chivalrous with you he would have long known that he’d need to get rid of the obstacle before he’d even ask you out. 

He watches through the building walls. He needs to see who, or what, has you so whipped that you wouldn’t immediately offer to get divorced just to go on a date with him. At the very least it better be some good sex.

He scans your meager one bedroom apartment. Your spouse is sound asleep in your shared bed but you’re nowhere to be seen. It’s not even that late in the night. Wouldn’t happily married couples be fucking through the night like rabbits at this hour? 

He lights up when he lands on the sight of you in your bathroom. Finally, some fucking reward. It’s the least he deserves after all that he’s been through. You’re submerged in your bathtub, the water level hitting halfway up your chest. You have the most pleased expression on your face, pure delight as you rest your head against the rim of the tub, eyes closed all dreamy. 

Homelander palms the front of his pants, feeling his cock immediately fill out at finally getting glimpses of your naked self. It’s only then he notices that you’re not just relaxing. No. Your hand is holding the shower head right in between your legs, letting the water pressure light up all your sensitive nerves. 

Then it clicks. He grins like he hasn’t in a long while. The pure satisfaction of being right. You’re not satisfied. You can’t be. It’s obvious you desperately need to escape this situation. You need him. 

He carelessly unfastens his pants, surprising even himself that he doesn’t manage to rip them in half as he eagerly grips his hard cock. He strokes it harder than he ever has before, the blood on his glove just easing the glide of the harsh pace he sets himself. Homelander almost chokes on air as he watches you arch your back and whimper quietly, clearly hiding your little indulgent fantasy from your spouse. 

He wishes he could tell you it’s alright, your spouse is dead asleep. They won’t notice. They clearly don’t care. He does. And that’s all that matters, you have his attention. You have an audience of one. 

He doesn’t care what the reason is. There’s no reason in his book that would justify your spouse leaving you this dissatisfied that you have to get yourself off behind closed doors and not with their help. 

He’s so worked up, riding the roller coaster of wildly contrasting emotions, from heart-break to euphoria, that it doesn’t take long for him to feel breathless, panting as he strokes himself to the image of you all wet, pleasured and relaxed. What really does him in, unexpectedly is the whispering plea leaving your lips. ‘Homelander.’

And just like that he cums hard, not caring where his load ends up, his grin never leaving his face as he watches you reach your sweet, sweet release.

He has to have you.

[Part 2]

Taglist (you can add yourself to be notified anytime I publish a new Homelander story)

[assortedseaglass]

Talk Refined - Chapter Two

Michael Gavey x Reader

[Masterlist]

Summary: When Michael Gavey unwittingly insults a fellow Oxford student, they enter into a game of intellectual cat and mouse.

Content Warnings (this chapter in bold): Language, Smut, Saltburn Spoilers

Esme did not let you live your encounter with Michael Gavey down.

“You should have heard her. Like she was interviewing all over again!” At any given opportunity, she took the chance to tell the story of how her best friend had shot down the genius from Brasenose.

“Esme, everyone’s heard this story a hundred times,” you’d said when she once again brought the matter up at the pub. “And anyway, he didn’t even reply when I shouted at him. Just said he needed a piss.” People at the table tittered. Michael’s reputation as a genius made had its way around the university’s colleges. Mainly because he was the one telling them.

It was a fact begrudgingly agreed upon at each recounting of the tale. Esme would tell her college mates, or new friends at the pub, the story of you and Michael getting into a fight, and inevitably they would say “The self-proclaimed genius?”

“The maths nerd?”

“That dickhead?”

Before resigning to the fact that, despite his arrogance, Michael Gavey really was a genius.

“Didn’t you hear him shouting at dining hall first night?”

“Heard he got 100% on the maths admissions test!”

“Pretty funny really. If he wasn’t such a twat I’d invite him out, he’s great entertainment.”

Luckily for you, the spectre of his reputation loomed larger than the man himself who, since your encounter at the pub, you had not seen. Perhaps he was too embarrassed after his very public rejection. More likely, it was because you were preparing for your extended essay deadline. Burrowed in your room at the desk, or else tucked in a dark corner of the library, Esme almost had to drag you to leave your room these days.

“Should have done something on Gentileschi,” you muttered into the open book on the library table. Your endless studying on the use of women as decoration that formed the basis of your essay was slowly crushing you. “Wanted to do a feminist essay but this is fucking depressing.”

Esme shifted in her seat next to you, leant over your book to look at the pictures on the open page, then pushed it from your view. Before you could protest, she spoke.

“One minute not looking at that dull picture,” she gestured to the image of Turner’s Reclining Nude on a Bed, “-isn’t gonna hurt you. But I’ll tell you what won’t be depressing. My end of year party!” Esme grabbed your shoulders and shook you.

You laughed, stifling it behind your hand when a few pug-nosed students frowned at you.

“I thought you’d settled for a cheese and wine night? ‘Sophisticated with a chance of minor sluttiness’,” you quoted her and she winked.

“Yeah, well, it’ll still be a cheese and wine night,” she opened another textbook and riffled through the pages absent-mindedly. “With slightly more wine than cheese-”

“And about sixty people.”

“Only after the meal! Had to take the chance and get in there before Catton. No-one’d come otherwise.” Esme’s face dropped, a flash of worry crossing her bonny face at the prospect of competing with Felix Catton for the Party of the Year.

“It’ll be grand,” you grabbed her hand reassuringly. “Who wants Catton’s friends there anyway? Load of stuck-up snobs-”

“You sound like Gavey!”

You shot an irritated look at Esme. She grinned back and busied herself with the work in front of her. You looked at the title scribbled across the top of the page. “Semper femina: misogyny’s early beginnings.”. You really picked a corker when you saw her at the humanities social. You nudged her shoulder affectionately, rubbing off her last comment and, still a little distracted, look around the library.

Not all libraries in Oxford had vaulted ceilings of ancient oak, or were decorated with elaborately carved roses. Some had harsh fluorescent lighting and tiled navy carpets. It just so happened that you and Esme preferred the grander of buildings. So too, did most other students. When dedication and inspiration waned, the quickest way to feel inspired was to pop to the libraries with ancient tomes alongside the course textbooks, sharing silent exchanges with other students gazing in awe at the latticed windows and rows of paper possibility.

“By the way,” Esme whispered, not due to the setting but what she was about to say next. “Who are you bringing?”

Your eyes didn’t flicker from the book in front of you. “Bringing where?”

“To the cheese and wine party,”

You looked at her, a mixture of exasperation and amusement on your face. “Since when did I have to bring someone?”

“Well,” Esme fully turned in her seat to look at you. “You don’t, but I’m bringing Eleanor-”

“Pretty girl from the pub.”

Esme nodded and continued counting people on her fingers. “Laura’s boyfriend is visiting that weekend, Holly’s bringing some rugby lad, Joe’s best mate is coming and the other three all have boyfriends. Bit sad if you’re the loner.”

“How can I be a loner at a party?”

“You know what I mean! Come on, it’s the end of the year, loosen up a bit. Doesn’t have to be a bloke, just pick someone!”

You thought a moment. Though you hated to admit it, Michael Gavey had been right; a lot of the people on your History of Art course were public school wankers and horsey girls fast-tracked to jobs in their parents’ cosmopolitan art galleries.

Nope. No-one there you could bring, and all of Esme’s friends were already going.

“I don’t know!” You despaired, slumping back in your seat comically in mock defeat.

Esme laughed. “Tell you what, next person that comes round that corner,” she pointed to the last bookshelf of a long row, right by the library entrance. “You’ve got to take. Deal?”

“Absolutely not.”

“I’ll buy your cheese and wine for the night.”

You stared at her. Trinity term was almost up, and so too was your scholarship loan. “Fine.”

Esme laughed excitedly and stared excitedly at the shelves. You did so with apprehension. A minute passed and no-one rounded the corner. A group of gorgeous boys left the library, but not one person entered.

“Looks like you’ll be coming alone after all.” You pinched Esme’s side and she giggled. “Aha!” She pointed behind you and your stomach dropped. Turning slowly, you faced your fate. Date.

A wizened old man no taller that the fourth shelf shuffled along the wooden floor, his worn leather shoes squeaking with every step. There were more lines on his face than the tube map.

“No.”

“Don’t be a bitch!”

“People don’t want their fucking lecturers there, Esme.”

“Fine,” she huffed. “But it has to be the next person or my share of the food is on you.”

“Fine.”

You both stared at the bookshelf. The wizened old man shuffled past you, and soon the sound of his leather shoes faded. You glanced over your shoulder at Esme. “This is stupid-”

“Oh. My. God.” Esme was looking past you, and what had momentarily been shock was turning to unbridled glee.

“What?” You span in your chair. “No. Absolutely not.” Panic prickled the hairs of your neck. You whipped back to face Esme. She was laughing. “I can’t. Fuck. No!”

“This is brilliant,” Esme clapped her hands together. Some students shushed her and she sent them a two fingered salute.  “He’s coming this way! Go on, ask him!”

You took a deep breath and, with growing unease, turned to face your unknowing date.

Michael Gavey was walking stiffly along the rows of bookshelves. The muscles of his jaw were set in a tight line; he wasn’t here to browse; he knew what he wanted and was making his determined way towards it. You watched him carefully, waiting until the perfect moment to speak. How the hell were you going to ask?

“Let’s wait a minute-” Esme made to cut you off but you continued quickly. “Just to see where he goes. I don’t want to ask in front of everyone.”

Esme huffed but nodded, and you both went back to watching him.

“This feels creepy,” you said, watching as he got closer.

“All we’re doing is looking at him.” Esme said matter of factly. But that wasn’t quite true. It felt altogether more like you were studying him. Something about Michael Gavey meant you couldn’t look away.

Just as when you last saw him, his clothes looked second hand. Or like something an aunt would by. A crisp, short-sleeved shirt, starchly ironed, tucked into a pair of beige cargo trousers. Vile. Around his belt swung a number of carabiners, one containing his keys, another a collection of USB sticks. They jangled as he walked past.

You ducked your head to avoid being seen. Esme scoffed. You kicked her under the table.

The two of you watched his retreating back. You noticed you weren’t the only ones looking at him. A few other students, some boys smirking and some girls, were watching him to. None indicated that they knew him personally, for none sent him a smile or a wave. They simply watched as he passed. His reputation really did precede him.

You tried to think on what it was that made Michael Gavey so hard to ignore. He had done nothing today but enter the library and, by now, everyone knew him to be a stuck-up knobhead. So what was it that was making everyone stare?

Perhaps it was the rigidity with which he walked, so upright and solid. For one so thin, you imagined that if someone bumped into him now he would just continue walking as though nothing happened. Maybe it was the unnerving way in which his grey eyes stared. You remembered them from before. How he analysed people, unblinking, as he spoke to them, dissecting every minutia of their movement behind his glasses.

Could it be, that underneath the dreadful clothes and frankly alarming attitude, he was quite handsome? You blushed at the thought and turned away from Esme.

In another life, with better clothes, better glasses, a kinder face, he might have been attractive. Afterall, his hair was that Gisele Bündchen colour girls in your sixth form tried unsuccessfully to get from the bottle. His face was all angles, like the bassist in some boy band. Not front man handsome, but with a little something that appealed to the weird girls. And he was tall. God, was he tall. Not Felix Catton tall, but after him he’d been the tallest at the pub. You remembered the way he’s unfurled his body uncomfortably from the chair. Even now, he was almost half the height of some of the old bookshelves. When he came to a stop, depositing his Tesco carrier bag on the table with a rustle, his shoulder bumped into one of the shelves, and you noticed how broad they were, accentuated by the black leather belt holding up his trousers. Who’d have thought it? Michael Gavey vaguely good-looking. Shame he was a prick.

“There you go,” Esme whispered in your ear as Michael disappeared between two shelves. “Perfect chance.”

Your mouth went dry. You’d momentarily forgotten the reason you were both watching Michael. Sensing your apprehension, Esme turned you by the shoulder and looked you deep in the eye. “It’s fine, I’ll help.” She was loving this, and the two of you spent the next five minutes working out how to approach the Bastard from Brasenose.

You tried to get rid of Esme as quietly as possible.

“Just let me do it on my own!” you hissed.

“I don’t trust you, not after last time!” She was pushing you towards the bookshelf Michael was browsing. You were digging your feet in.

“Please, just let me-”

“No,” Esme giggled, pushing you closer to the shelves. “You’ll either have an argument or not ask at all. I want to see this.”

Your hand gripped the wooden bookcase just as you arrived and blocked her from going any further. She pushed against you, trying to force you towards Michael.

“I’ll do it, Esme, just give me a second!”

“Just get on with it, for God’s sake!” she whispered with a shove.

“Ouch! You’re hurting me!”

“Can I help you?”

You both jolted. Michael was staring at you, his hands balled into fists at his side. He looked…nervous. Esme had clearly pushed you closer to him than you’d thought.

“No, er, sorry,” you took a step backwards only to be blocked by Esme.

“Oh,” Michael relaxed a little, a tight smirk tugging at the corner of his lips. “It’s you.”

You stared at him. “You don’t need to sound so offended by my presence.”

“You’re the one stumbling around the library hissing like a banshee.”

You were about to retort when Esme caught your arm warningly. You looked back at her with annoyance. She simply nodded at you and gestured to take a deep breath.

“Sorry, Michael,” you said. He flinched a little as you said his name, not that you noticed. Esme did. “Erm,”

“She has something she wants to ask you, Michael.”

“Ask me?”

Fucking hell, here goes. You tired to smile at him. He stared back blankly. Why did he make everything so bloody difficult?

“Yeah, um,” you stepped forward and leant against the bookshelf for support, to make it seem less formal. “Well, Esme is having an end of year party-”

“A dinner party,” Esme cut in.

“-and we wondered.”

“She wondered!”

“We wondered,” you said louder, drowning out your friend. “If you’d like to come? Maybe?”

Michael stared at you. His head jerked almost imperceptibly, as if it had suddenly fallen out with his neck, and he scoffed quietly. “Is this a joke?”

“What?” You and Esme said together.

“Are you taking the piss?”

“What? No-”

Michael placed the book he was reading back on the shelf and faced you both fully. “Get out of the way please, you’re blocking the exit.”

“Michael,” he stopped again when you said his name.

“Honestly, we’re not taking the piss.” Esme said kindly.

“We saw you come in, and Esme keeps reminding me what a bitch I was at the pub.” Never mind the fact that you were an absolute arsehole. “And we just thought, as a way to apologise, you might like to come to the party? Fresh start?”

“I don’t do parties.”

“It’s-a-cheese-and-wine-night-actually.” Esme said quickly.

“Right,” he continued staring at you. The longer he did it, the more you regretted asking. Fucking blink. He glanced quickly back at the shelves of books, and screwed his eyes tightly shut, as if working out something impossibly difficult. When he opened his eyes again, you weren’t sure whether he was going to scream or cry.

Then you realised he wasn’t looking at you. He was looking past you. With surprising force and speed, Michael pushed past the both of you.

“Oliver Quick.”

Esme looked at you with excitement. Without a word, you both hurried to the end of the bookcase. There he was. Oliver Quick, caught in a staring contest with Michael Gavey. Oliver glanced quickly at the two of you, eagerly poking your heads around the shelf to get the gossip.

Michael hadn’t noticed. “You look different.”

“Do I?” Oliver sounded bored and you wanted to smack him. What was it with the boys at Oxford? He turned away from you all, but Michael wasn’t done with him.

“He’ll get bored of you.” A pang of pity twisted your stomach. Esme had been right. Oliver’s abandonment at the pub had hurt Michael more than he let on.

Oliver stopped and turned around. “Excuse me?”

You glanced at Michael, waiting for his retaliation with bated breath. He said nothing.

“G’wan, Mikey,” Esme whispered.

Oliver walked away, but not before Michael could twist the dagger. “Bootlicker.” He enunciated every delicious, vicious syllable.

Oliver looked back again, only to cast an uncomfortable look at Michael and see Esme swearing at him behind Michael’s back. “For that Michael,” she clapped her hands. “You can be guest of honour!”

Notes: Short one this time but I’m getting back into writing by doing shorter chapters. SO excited to write the party.

Tags: @lexwolfhale* @theoneeyedprince @lovebittenbyevans @fan-goddess @ellrond @very-straight-blog @arcielee @tsujifreya @liv-cole @myfandomprompts @annoyingkittydetective* @elizarbell @solisarium @thekinslayersswordhand @nightdiamond8663* @slowlysparklyninja* @kate-to-the-ki @bellaisasleep @xxxkat3xxx @lacebvnny @moonriseoverkyoto @ewanmitchellcrumbs @moonlightfoxx @pendragora @aemonds-holy-milk @st-eve-barnes @sapphire-writes @babyblue711 @targaryenrealnessdarling @slytherincursebreaker @bottlesandbarricades @valeskafics @anjelicawrites @exitpursuedbyavulcan @barbieaemond @chattylurker @itbmojojoejo @humanpurposes @cyeco13 @heimtathurs @in-a-mountain-pool @aemondsfavouritebastard @marysucks-blog @rheaxes @xivilivix

*could not tag

[kitchenisking]

Day 7

Price of Admission by whiskytangofuckfest (trumpetcrumpet) - (Rating: Explicit, Words: 6,628, sterek)

"Hi," the alpha said now, ambling forward with his hands shoved into the pockets of his jeans. He was wearing a flannel shirt over an undershirt, and Derek realized abruptly that he himself was only wearing his boxer briefs. The cuffs rattled as he jerked in an instinctive attempt to cover himself. He was used to being naked, like any born wolf, but now, with a fully-dressed stranger looking over him with interest, he felt exposed.

Intruders didn't get sent home with a cup of tea and a pat on the head. That would send a signal that the pack was weak, that it couldn't defend its borders. Even if this alpha wasn't mad at Derek personally, he still had to do something to make it clear to other wolves they couldn't just cross into his territory, and Derek was the only intruder they had captured. He would have to bear the message for the whole group. 

Derek gets caught trespassing on Stilinski pack territory. Stiles takes an interest.

Taking Care by PencilTrash - (Rating: Explicit, Words: 3,413, sterek)

Derek had returned from a conference where the new CEO, Mr Stiles Stilinski, took over his company in a so called meeting where all the white collared, richly clothed shareholders - assholes - voted against Derek. He hadn’t even waited for a final handshake with the new owner. He knew, he’d never be able to fake a smile when his heart was shattering into a thousand pieces. Well, they had Peter to deal with these formalities.

[aka, Derek was already having the worst day when he was hit by his heat, right in the middle of his office]

Be My Strength by Novkat21 - (Rating: Mature, Words: 8,103, sterek)

“I just read about mates. Not much, but enough. Are they really that powerful?”

Deaton hummed and walked over to peer down at the book. “They can be. But it really depends on how well they know each other and their bond. Alphas become far stronger with one and that's why many have their mates go into hiding when a threat is nearby. If they lose their mate, they could lose their minds and become feral.” Stiles swallowed nervously. “Lose as in…?”

Deaton glanced up at him with a raised brow. “They die. Or are rejected.” Stiles felt his heart drop into his stomach and all the blood drain from his face.

Waiting Games by Jerakeen  - (Rating: Explicit, Words: 6,315, sterek)

Being an only child and heir to the throne, Stiles had always known he may not have the luxury of marrying for love. When he’d realized he was an omega to boot, things had taken an even more uncomfortable turn for him.

Omegas are rare. An omega as the heir apparent is almost unheard of.

Which is why there is no wiggle room when it comes to the tournament.

Sweet Buns by skoosiepants - (Rating: T, Words: 17,935, sterek)

Stiles hasn’t seen Derek Hale this close up for over a decade. He looks almost exactly the same, except somehow he seems even bigger and broodier—criminally handsome, with soft-looking dark scruff, heavy brows, light hazel eyes. His gaze zeros in on Stiles almost immediately, and his scowl lightens minutely in what looks like surprise.

Stiles is acutely aware that he has melted butter and cinnamon all over his face, and tries to surreptitiously wipe it with the ends of his sweater-sleeve.

Or-

The a/b/o bakery au with feelings

According to Plans by eldee - (Rating: Explicit, Words: 72,744, sterek)

Five times Stiles and Derek pretend to be boyfriends, and the one time they didn't have to pretend at all. (Or: in which Stiles' plan for senior year is completely ruined by a supernatural creature stalking him.)

Give him back by christinchen - (Rating: Explicit, Words: 21,452, sterek)

Eli feels lost and has seemingly so where to turn. Until a stranger knocks on his car window and demands to know how he got his car!

Drive by orphan_account - (Rating: T, Words: 3,916, sterek)

"Everyone knew you didn't touch Derek Hale's family, leather jacket, and especially not his car. Not if you wanted to live, that is."

Or, the high school AU where Stiles can't decide if he wants to kiss Derek Hale or steal his Camaro. Spoiler: it might be a little bit of both.

hooked on a feeling by EvanesDust - (Rating: T, Words: 2,713, sterek)

Stiles brings Derek home for spring break. Since his dad’s not home, they head up to his room for a quickie. Cue embarrassment when the sheriff knocks on his bedroom door, asking if they're done yet because he'd like to meet Stiles's new boyfriend...

Terrible Twos by alikatastic - (Rating: G, Words: 5,607, sterek)

Derek found himself at Iowa State and loved it. Sure he didn't have his pack or friends, but he was ready for a new beginning. He was perfectly fine being alone until Stiles Stilinski fumbled his way into English 2 class. Derek wanted to get closer and talk to the gangly man, but when he saw him next, a red-headed goddess was hanging off his arm. The scent was different, and he didn't seem to recognize Derek. It seemed like a cruel joke, but something was off. Is everything as it seems, or is there something more going on?

[x-reader-theater]

Hi!! So glad to see you're back! This website has been a desert of good stories without you here. And thank the gods you are back because I have a bit of a sad request 🤭

How about a COD Ghost x male reader where reader has feelings for Ghost and ghost knows but doesnt reciprocate the feelings and reader dies while they are on a mission?

Only if you want to/feel comfortable with it!

Welcome back!!

pairing: Simon "Ghost" Riley x Male!Reader

word count: 750

warnings: Unreciprocated feelings, rejection, and main character death. Please read this as Ghost being an incredibly unreliable narrator. This is from his POV so any feelings he has are his own and not endorsed by the narrative.

a/n: i always get so excited seeing your notifications on my work. thank you for being such a stalwart supporter through it all. your support means the world to me. if anyone else wants to request something, you can find my request rules here to do so.

Ghost knows why you hang around him so much. He knows why you say the things you do and try to touch him at every opportunity. But you haven’t said anything, and he doesn’t want to yell at you and make himself look like the asshole.

But you’re trying to ingratiate yourself with Ghost like Johnny did. You’re not Johnny, so it’s wrong.

“Say, Ghost, you get called on this new mission too?” you ask him, sitting next to him in the cafeteria. Ghost has his mask pulled down. He pulled it back down when you sat next to him.

“No,” Ghost says dismissively, but you don't seem to get the hint.

You shrug with a smile. “Maybe next time.”

“Hopefully not…” Ghost mutters to himself. You freeze beside him, and Ghost realises you heard him.

You curl in on yourself and grab your tray, muttering, “Sorry, I’ll leave you alone.”

Feeling a pang of guilt he’s not used to feeling, Ghost reaches out and for the first time initiates contact.

“Wait,” he says, and you stop, looking at him with his God damned hopeful expression on your face that he can’t help but succumb to. “I’m sorry I shouldn’t have said it like that. That was rude.” Besides what Ghost is referring to, that’s probably the longest sentence he’s ever said to you. “I know you're attracted to me.”

That hopeful smile drops instantly from your face and hurt, you ask, “Who told you?”

Not a denial. An admission without saying the words.

“No one. I can tell,” Ghost says, and at that admission you feel your hands drop the tray you were holding onto the ground.

“Oh,” is all you can seem to say, your lips staying in that little formed “o” shape.

“I just… I don’t feel the same way,” Ghost explains, his grip on your arm loosening, but you just stand there, arms at your sides.

“Okay,” you get out. It seems you and Ghost have switched, with Ghost doing most of the talking and you giving one word replies.

“Maybe… we can start over,” Ghost supplies in a rare moment of vulnerability that he likes to keep tightly locked in his chest.

“Yeah,” you say, looking down at your shoes, still sounding dejected. “Maybe.”

You and Ghost stand like that for a moment, before Ghost says, “Sorry ‘bout your lunch. I can buy you another.”

You shake your head, as if clearing your thoughts, like what Ghost said shook you from your daze, and you mutter, “‘m not hungry.”

“Oh,” is all Ghost says.

You stand for a good few minutes, probably looking kind of crazy in the middle of a busy cafeteria, but you don't pay it any mind, too preoccupied with what's happening. Ghost is singularly focused on you while you try not to be on him.

“Good luck with your mission today,” Ghost ends up saying finally.

“Thanks,” you murmur, before turning and walking away, leaving Ghost to clean up your spilled lunch.

———

“Johnny,” Ghost says with a relaxed smile as he enters the common room claimed by the 141. Soap is sitting on one of the couches, gripping a folder so tight in his hands the paper is ripping underneath his fingers. As Ghost gets closer, he sees the tightness in Soap’s shoulders and the strained look on his face like he’s about to cry but won’t show that in public. “Johnny, what’s wrong,” Ghost asks, his voice going from flirty and playful to serious in the span of a few moments.

Soap turns to look up at Ghost with wet eyes and says, “[Y/N] is dead.”

Ghost freezes, and his already pale face underneath his mask goes white. “What?”

“He was shot. Price said it was a stray bullet. Caught him in the neck. Said he was a bit distracted today, wasn’t paying as close attention to enemy movements and… well…” Soap trails off, setting down the destroyed mission report on the coffee table in front of him.

Ghost feels sick to his stomach as he leans against the back of the couch for support. Another person who cared about him, dead. And it’s all his fault. Soap would leave him if he ever found out. Johnny loved you. You were one of the best people to keep up with Soap’s ramblings, always there to listen and engage, more than Ghost did.

Johnny can’t know. No one can. And Ghost will take this information to his second grave.

[bridenore]

HD fic recs : Career - Aurors (part 2)

Here are a few recs where both Harry and Draco are Aurors. This is part two of three and focuses on 20k to 50k words fics. Listed in alphabetical order, as always.

Agnus Dei by SilentAuror [20k]

Post-Hogwarts. Mystery abounds in the Auror Department, and two of the Aurors find themselves experiencing a friendship more intense than it should be.

Boiling Point by @goldentruth813 [42k]

Ferveret - n. boiling point After an Auror raid gone wrong, Draco ends up trapped in a dodgy safehouse with nothing but Harry Potter’s dubious company and a dwindling supply of food. With only each other and the walls surrounding them, they’re forced to confront their past and their feelings which have long been threatening to boil over.

Draco Malfoy, Bloodsucking Fiend by @kbrick [23k]

There are two things that Draco’s Auror partner, Harry Potter, must never know about him. One is that he’s a vampire. The other is that he’s been completely, pathetically, head-over-heels in love with Harry for years. But when the duo is trapped inside an old shop on Diagon Alley with no means of escape, Draco finds himself fiending for blood and unable to put even a modicum of distance between himself and the man he can’t stop lusting after.

Eye of the Storm by Mx_Maneater [25k]

A storm rages blindly around a cabin with no doors. Without magic, Draco and Harry are trapped inside. 

Nothing But You On My Mind by @moonflower-rose [29k]

Potter has been in Australia on an internship for almost a year, and Draco cannot wait for him to get back home. They’ll finally have a chance to talk about their feelings for each other. What could possibly go wrong? Loads, as it turns out.

The Partner, The Rival and The Very Big Case  by oceaxe [24k]

When Harry and Nott are paired up to go undercover as fake boyfriends, Draco is disappointed not to get the assignment. It’s just professional jealousy that’s making him feel so upset. Obviously. He’s engaged to be married to Astoria, after all. But when he walks in on Nott kissing Harry for ‘practice’ and has a wild magic outbreak, he starts to think that something else might be going on. Is Nott right? Is Draco a homophobe? Or is there… just possibly… another explanation?

Poppiholla by @moonflower-rose [12k]

Harry had accepted that he would pine silently for Malfoy forever, but one, humid summer might change that. Hoppípolla by @moonflower-rose [20k] Falling in love was as easy as jumping in puddles, and Draco Malfoy was completely drenched.

Potential Gravity by @lol-zeitgeistic [32k]

Draco is not good at Cards Against Humanity, but Harry’s not good at being human, so it all works out. Except for the explosions. And Harry’s inability to live when Draco’s not around.

Resistance by SilentAuror [25k]

Everyone but Harry seems to have forgiven Malfoy his past, and tensions are thick in the Auror Department.

Stop All the Clocks (This Is the Last Time I’m Leaving Without You) by @firethesound [44k]

Living with Draco was difficult; living without him is unbearable. But if there’s one thing Harry learned from the war, it’s that even when one life ends, the rest of the world goes right on living.

Take These Lies by white_serpent [34k]

Repeatedly rejected by the Auror training programme, Draco Malfoy attempts an unorthodox method of gaining admission.  

Trust In A Broken Thing by SqueekaCuomo [23k]

If the ring was broken, that could only mean one thing… Harry Potter was dead.

Two Weeks by @shiftylinguini [21k]

If Harry had to guess which out of he or his Auror Partner, and tentative new friend, Draco Malfoy, would turn out to have Veela ancestry, his answer would be: neither, because that is ridiculous. Finding out the answer is actually him, and that his Veela heritage is wreaking havoc on his ability to work, sleep, and above all be in the same room as Malfoy, is a surprise to say the least. But this is fine. Harry’s been through worse, and he can just sit this one out, regardless of how much his body is screaming for the one person he doesn’t want to ask for help. Can’t he?

Waiting For A Song by @korlaena [49k]

After a couple years spent avoiding Draco in the Auror Department, Harry gets assigned to one of Draco’s strange cases. They investigate the mysterious disappearances of a witch and wizard, but in their search for the missing persons they find a lot more than they were looking for.

You Send Me (Honest You Do) by @firethesound [37k]

As far as potion accidents go in general, and deaging incidents go in particular, Draco knew this could have been so much worse. Harry only lost about ten years, and all his memories are still intact. But the sight of him looking as if he’s stepped straight out of Draco’s Hogwarts memories has dredged up a whole mess of complicated feelings Draco thought he’d buried years ago, and Draco really doesn’t know what to do with any of it.

I hope you enjoy these stories as much as I did!

[bucksboobs]

I mean I think it makes sense for heartstopper to not have anything explicit going on as one of them only Just realised he liked boys and the other one has an ED, they do talk about it pretty directly in the show so its addressed not totally unrealistically. But as for fan response yeah there was a weird thing amongst… a certain subset of fans of making a joke/meme out of a single throwaway line in the books where they mention having sex, maybe the accessibility draws that type of crowd but I don’t think that’s the fault of the show/comic itself 😅 esp as things get fairly explicit in the comics later as they get older

I have complicated feelings about Heartstopper. I actually like it in theory as Baby’s First Gay Show (I would have rather had it then Queer as Folk when I was 14) and in theory it’s a uncomplicated cozy, warm, fuzzy story about two young boys falling in love. It’s the definition of Toothrotting Fluff

However in practice, it feels alienating to me as a gay man when the only two things gay boys are allowed to be in the show are Pure UwU Tumblr Softboy who Speaks in Therapy-ese and Pure Evil Rapist who is brought back into the show after the point the comic counterpart had been written out just to be a punching bag for the Valiant Bisexual Girl to yell at and out in front of their classmates and then Get Dunked On by his ex when he tries to apologize and then have The Symbolism Doodles symbolically reject him from the LGBT community and then get written out of the story.

Combined with the complete stripping away of any mention of sexuality outside of exactly One Scene where they discuss the gay equivalent of Waiting Until Marriage, it does come off as incredibly puritan even if it’s justified in-story by Charlie’s ED and I do actually attribute that in part to the source material. Alice Oseman is by their own admission, pretty uncomfortable with the idea of sex and it shows in the way Nick and Charlie are written. As Trixie and Katya put it: they seem like they just want to hold hands at the post office. The show to this point has been very very uncomfortable with the idea that these two boys might be attracted to each other in a not-purely-romantic way, and when the only other gay character that did show some level of sexual attraction that maybe wasn’t purely romantic is Ben Fucking Hope, the implication seems to be that there’s a Right and Wrong way to be Gay in the eyes of the story.

It also doesn’t escape my notice that Love, Victor petered away into obscurity but Heartstopper is seen as the pinnacle of Gay Representation to a lot of people. Love, Victor was unafraid of teenage boys of all sexualities being sexual beings and in fact reckons with it in ways that were VERY close to my actual experiences, like everything with Victor and his mom coming to terms with him having a romantic and sexual relationship with his boyfriend. Disney shafted LV a lot but Netflix has this Pure Sanitized Risk-free Romance on the front page every time a new season comes out and that also just stings. There’s the feeling that maybe if LV had been more chaste, more palatable, it would have actually been a major success.

I don’t want to sound too dismissive of what HS is for a lot of people but to me there’s just something that makes me feel like it was never for me and that could be because I’m too old for it, but it sometimes feels like it wasn’t for me because it’s not for gay men at all.

[back2bluesidex]

I'm Foive!

Anyways

Okay I have 2 songs

These two. Make it angsty but give it a a happy ending.

Um.... Member 🤔...... Jimin 🤷🏻‍♀️ ✨✨

Teardrops - JHS

Pairing: Music producer!Hoseok X Assistant!Reader

Theme: Angst, unrequited love au, friends and collogues to could be lovers.

Song: Teardrops on My Guitar

Word count: 1431

Warnings: Allusions to Hoseok being a fuckboy, an emotional confession, indirect rejection, open ending.

Minors and Karens Are Not Allowed in this Blog!!

A/N: Finally! Finally it's here. I have talked to bestie @phenomenalgirl9 and changed the member to Hoseok because why not. Idk how is it, since the song is not really something I choose to hear. Hope you like it tho, my girl.

“Really? You asked her out?” your eyes go wide with Hoseok’s admission. 

“Yes. What’s with the expression, Y/N?” He chuckles, brushing off the evident displeasure on your face. 

“U-uh not-nothing. You are strictly ‘no string attached’ type of guy. So.. I am just surprised.” you look down on your lap. 

“I know right? But..” Hoseok looks away from you. His eyes wander in the empty space of the studio as if he is trying to picture her there. 

“She’s irresistible. She’s beautiful, she’s funny, her knowledge of music is better than anyone I have ever worked with. And her cooking.. Umm.. delicious. But above everything. She understands me, she matches my vibe completely and I- I love spending time with her, I just love talking to her about anything and everything.” he pauses for a bit and then continues to break your heart, “I like her, Y/N. I really do.” 

You stare at him and wonder how he could never see that he does all of those things with you too.

Yeah, you probably are not as beautiful as the woman in question but you make Hoseok laugh more than anyone else. You have been assisting him for the past two years because your knowledge of music certainly pays off. You are a decent cook and you never shy away from bringing new recipes that you experiment, which he enjoys wholeheartedly. And about talking.. Hoseok probably never counted how many late nights you have spent with him over phone calls, empty beer cans on the terrace, half-eaten cups of ramyeon in his studio, cold and stale fried chicken at his house, talking about everything starting from overbearing loneliness to the smell of fresh paint.

And still.. He doesn’t see you, even when you are always right beside him, always within his reach. Is it because you never climbed his bed? Is it because he never thought you were eligible enough for that?

Tears start forming in your eyes and unlike other times, you can’t blink it away. Your eyes are so heavy that it’s hard for you to even move your eyelids freely. And as a result, teardrops start falling on your jeans. The droplets get soaked in the material, providing them a darker shade than their original tone. 

It takes Hoseok a few minutes to make out that you are crying. And when he does, he starts panicking. 

“Y/N.. are you? Oh my god. You are crying.” Hoseok reaches for face. He cups your cheek so lightly as if you will be bruised if he puts too much pressure into it.

You move your face away from his grasp. Angrily wiping your tears away with the sleeve of your sweat shirt, you voice through your choked throat, “Yes, I am crying. But don’t ask me why. I might not be able to hide it anymore.” 

Partially being hurt as you moved your face away from his thouch and partially being confused about your behavior, Hoseok decides to pull the truth out of your lungs. 

“What? What are you hiding?” he asks carefully. 

A sarcastic laugh bubbles in your throat unwillingly, “Really? You are really asking me that?”  

“Y/N, I don’t understand anything. Please tell me what’s wrong. Why did you start crying as soon as I said I like…” Hoseok’s voice disappears in the thick air when realization hits him. 

“No way. No! Don’t tell me you-” 

“Yes. I am in love with you.” you finish for him. 

“But I know you have never looked at me as someone to be more than just a friend and an assistant. No matter how hurt I get seeing you with different girls every night, I sucked it all up, put a smile on my face and continued pretending that it didn’t matter.” you avert your eyes from him and stare at the ceiling, “but.. I can’t anymore. Now that you finally found someone to keep you company for more than just a night, I might as well move on and start afresh.” 

Hoseok’s heart hammers in his chest but he doesn’t know why. He knows you are right. He has never had any thought about what you and he could be. You are so precious to him that he protected you by drawing clear lines of boundaries. And Hoseok doesn’t like crossing boundaries, neither does he like when people cross them. But with you… he doesn’t know. He is not angry with you but with himself for unknowingly hurting you this bad. 

Keeping his eyes on your profile, he starts to speak, “I am so-” 

“Don’t say sorry. It’s not your fault that you don’t feel the same for me.” you cut him off. Even though your heart is shattered, you don’t want Hoseok to blame himself. “Can I ask for a favor tho?” you sigh. 

“Sure. Tell me what can I do?” Hoseok tries to reach for your hands but you move them away to wipe your face.  

"Can I take two weeks off? I need some time to calm myself down. We don't have much workload these days. So…" you mumble through your sniffles. 

"Y-Yes. Sure. You have a lot of piled up vacations anyway." Hoseok doesn't like the sound of it. What if you never come back? What if you leave this job? How will he even survive without his most competent assistant slash one of the closest friends? 

But he will let you go if that's what heals you. If that's what you want. That's that. 

--

The guilt of hurting you has been eating him alive. But what's worse is your absence in his life.

No one pesters him for his meals anymore, no one seems to know how exactly he likes his coffee, no one knows which beat would work the best in the background, no one picks up his calls in the middle of the night, no one covers him with a blanket when he falls asleep in the studio.  

All of a sudden, he is empty. 

His late night fucking sessions are only a temporary diversion now. He hasn't seen the woman he seemingly likes after the conversation he had with you that day. 

He tried calling you and texting you but each time he swiped his fingers through the keyboard, your tear stained face flashed in front of his eyes and he stopped. 

Suddenly Hoseok realizes, it's you who is more important. But the question is.. what does he actually feel for you? 

He doesn't know the answer but maybe he will find it out when you come back, maybe he will understand what it is when he gets to have a heart to heart conversation with you over some beer or coffee. Maybe? 

But, Hoseok's hopes die and fears take the shape of reality when after two weeks your resignation mail comes instead of you. 

– 

You cried and cried and mulled over what to do for the entire first week. 

At the beginning of the second week, you went on a tinder frenzy. 

On the second day of the second week, you ended up on your tinder date's bed. 

On the third day you started crying over Hoseok again. 

On the fourth day, you started looking for other job openings.

On the fifth day, you get called on an interview and get the job. 

On the sixth day, you type out your resignation mail. 

And on the seventh day, you hit the send button. 

– 

On the first day of the third week, you find your doorbell ringing. 

You are about to take the very first bite of your meal but someone has to interrupt.

You are pushed into a half amazed and half confused state when you find Hoseok on the other side of the door. You thought he would be more than relieved to know that you have quit. It would be awkward to work together after your sudden confession, especially when you know Hoseok doesn't like certain boundaries to be crossed (which you have clearly done with no remorse), thus, you quitting the job should be the best option from Hoseok's perspective. So, what is he doing here? 

When you let him in, he looks grateful. 

"Hey, can we talk?" He whispers staring intently into your eyes as if he has missed getting lost into you. 

"Yeah.. sure." You reply with a small voice. 

"I missed you." His voice quivers.

"Me too." You smile a little. 

You don't know where this is going but if it's Hoseok.. you are ready to get hurt for years and years. 

--

[lover-also-fighter-also]

8 for Ria x Maria for the hugging prompts

Ask list here

8. because they need to be calmed down and hugs reduce their anxiety

Maria paced around her room anxiously, tapping her fingers on her legs. The admission results were going to be out in a few minutes and she hasn't been able to relax since then.

'Babe, stop pacing around, you are scaring me.' said Ria who was sitting at her desk, the laptop in front of her.

'Refresh the page again', said Maria nervously.

'This is the 1000th time Im doing it, im telling you the mail has not yet come, cause its not time yet, so relax.'

'Ri, I can't relax. This is my future we are talking about. What if I don't get in,what if all I get are rejection emails everywhere I have applied-'

'Stop that.' said Ria, getting up and hugging her, till Maria seemed to have stopped shaking in her arms. 'You are the whole package, Maria Flores. Class president, head of the Homecoming and Prom Committee, anchor for Tiger News, should I go on? They would be fools to reject you.'

Maria pulled away from the hug, but still held Ria's hand as she took a deep breath.

'You're right. I just really hope what I have done is enough.'

Just then an email popped up from Terman U. Maria jumped back. 'Open it for me will you? I can't look.' she said, clutching Ria's arm.

Ria held her hand tightly. 'Yes you can do it. Just open it, I will be right beside you.'

Maria opened the mail, her hands trembling with fear, and she read out loud:

'Dear Ms. Flores, we are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted into Terman U's undergraduate program. Please find the below details to complete the admission process..'

Maria looked shell-shocked for a moment before turning to face Ria and said slowly 'I got in.'

She got out of her chair and screamed 'I GOT IN!' and hugged Ria tightly, almost crushing her. Ria laughed and hugged her back saying 'Wow. Your joy is as infectious as your anxiety.'

[catboybiologist]

Unprompted fucking rant time!

I'm getting my PhD after getting my BS and my Master's. I've gone through three separate rounds of university applications. And while I'm openly a bisexual trasfemme now, I've done every round of those applications as a cishet white boy. I've been rejected by a shitton of universities, and accepted by a fraction of that. My current institution is an R1 for my field- basically meaning it's in the highest tier of research funding and therefore research prestige/output- but it's very far from a household name the way Harvard or Stanford is. My undergrad institution was the cheapest local four year college that I was guaranteed admission to because my high school grades were piss poor due to an array of mental health problems.

So from that perspective.... Race and ethnicity demographics should 100% be used as a factor in determining admissions to help increase diversity. There's many reasons to think this, but there's two that underline a lot of my thinking on the matter.

Number one is kind of obvious, but what isn't obvious is how blatant it is. The top tier of universities has blatantly favored white people for generations, oftentimes explicitly. And oftentimes, they still do! Having relatives working at a particular university, or being alumni from a university, is literally part of the application materials for many of these universities. During my Harvard grad school apps, they literally had a pop-up window that asked me to check off any wealthy families I was a part of from a list of donor and alumni last names. It was so fucking blatant that I bust out laughing. Spoiler alert, I didn't get in. You cannot look at me with a straight face and tell me that these universities should be allowed to openly and blatantly give admission priority to rich, white, dynastic American families, while not affording any concession for overcoming the shittiness of being born into a persecuted group.

Number two is the thing that most people realize, but I don't think has really sunk in on a societal level. A massive factor in admissions is blind, dumb luck, and I'm not joking. When admissions tells you they received more qualified applicants than they could admit, it's 100% true. Many applications end up in a stage where they just have to randomly reject people to keep numbers down- or even if it's not completely random, they have to grasp for straws into an enormous amount of intangible factors that have nothing to do with someone's actual qualifications. So if you're down to that level of grasping at straws.... Why not use it as an opportunity to increase diversity? Because as it stands, you're not getting rejected because you're white- you're getting rejected because your high school didn't have a fucking sailing team. Remember that Stanford admissions scandal a while back?

There's a number two and a half that is an observation I've had about life in general here: one of my deepest held beliefs after going through a good portion of my early career is that everyone is overqualified for the opportunities they've been given. If your education system is genuinely functional, you'll be able to take people from an amazing diversity of backgrounds, and y'know... Educate them. If these universities lowered their admissions standards a shitton, and randomly pulled from the new pool of "less qualified" people, and they put them in an environment with access to the same resources as before... They would succeed.

There's a whole other rant embedded here about how elite-tier university education actually sucks, and all they do is filter for people who already have massive educational resources of their own. University prestige is mostly a lie, except in terms of how much grant funding you can get. But if you gave that level of funding to a state college tomorrow? They'd still do great things with it. But that's a side thought.

There's ALSO the side rant about why marginalized groups are important in science overall for perspectives on how science interacts with society, but that's also a whole other rant.

There's one thing I will say against this: sometimes, it's too late. For grad school and a little bit for undergrad admissions, an enormous amount of unpaid labor and study is required to even be eligible for the application itself. Required undergrad research hours are often unpaid. My undergrad research advisor paid her student labor when she wasn't required to, and surprise surprise, she has one if the most diverse and successful labs on that campus. Beyond just undergrad research, this goes waaayyyy back to the schooling and tutoring opportunities that people from higher socioeconomic backgrounds have access to from day one... But that's also a larger side rant. Point is, race based admissions are valid and necessary now, but they're a temporary bandage on the bleeding wound that is education discrepancy.

This was kinda random, but this got kick-started by an IRL discussion with a couple of friends and I just needed to vent my whole perspective here. Idk if the community of voyeuristic transfemmes I've mostly accumulated here will care, but it's nice to just type these things sometimes lol

[smileyvillainarc]

James Dark Mark Part 2

James considered himself a pretty sane person - sure he made impulsive decisions but he always claimed responsibility and tried to sort out problems without doing something rash.

That however was not something he could say about this moment. His very actions were frankly the definition of insanity and he could literally hear Sirius’ voice screaming at him for his stupidity.

Despite all that he continued forwards, towards the edge of the wards of the Hogwarts grounds so that he could take this portkey without anyone noticing. Said portkey was something he had grabbed from Crabbe earlier that day after he had overhead them talking about it taking them to the Dark Lord’s manor - after all it wasn’t as though Crabbe was going to notice, the man was an imbecile.

It wasn’t long until he was dropped in a room of what he assumed was the Slytherin manor. The walls were covered in an ornate green wallpaper and the handles of the drawers were serpent heads. On the bed in front of him, there was a long black robe of concealment and a small mask - not the one of a typical Death Eater - but one he assumed was for new recruits. It was a simple fully white mask that whilst physically only covered half of the face - cast an illusion over the entirety - probably for the Dark Lord to remove during the ceremony.

James quickly changed into the robes, adding them on top of the pureblood attire that he had clothed himself with before leaving Hogwarts. He needed the Dark Lord to take him seriously after all.

It wasn’t long before there was a knock at the door and James saw the Dark Lord. Ordinarily he would probably check the new recruit and properly dressed themselves and led them to the other recruits, but the second the Dark Lord recognised him, the door shut and he was forced to confront him.

With a swift motion, he got down on one knee and said “My Lord, I, Lord James Fleamont Potter , the new head of the Potter Family wish to form an alliance with you.”

James didn’t dare utter a word after that. He knew with the way that the Dark Lord was looking at him, that he didn’t expect him to say that - certainly not after the James having previously rejected the offer and certainly not after hearing that he had broken it off with Barty because of the Dark Mark.

Frankly James was expecting to get killed right there or at least end up a war prisoner although he would prefer the immediate death. Fortunately the Dark Lord was willing to indulge him today.

“My, my, Lord Potter.” he started off slowly as though he were a predator circling its prey, “ It sounds as though we’ve got some talking to do. After all, I was very sure that the last time I proposed you joining me you said that I was a ‘evil megalomaniac that deserved nothing short of endless suffering’.”

He paused once more before circling back around to James front and grabbing his chin and yanking off his mask and plunging into his mind using legilimency. James willed his barriers down as he allowed the Dark Lord to tear through his brain to peruse his memories since his parents death, his loneliness, the lack of trust in Dumbledore and turning down the order. The memories of his falling in love with Barty and working on very questionable spells together, the way that he was in love with Barty enough to do something as stupid as this.

The Dark Lord pulled himself out of James’ mind just as quickly as he entered.

“Whilst that was sufficient in convincing me that you no longer detest me - I still see no reason to let you join me. Alliances with houses as virtually useless and it’s not like you’ll be ceding your house to the Slytherin name once you die- so tell me why I should let you continue and not just kill you right here?”

James lifted his head and looked the Dark Lord in the eyes ready to give him and answer that he had prepared since his argument with Barty in the great hall, “I love Barty Crouch Jr.”

A weight lifted from his chest at the admission but he also knew that it wasn’t a sufficient answer so he continued, “I love Barty Crouch Jr. and you are his master. He would die for you and I would die for him. It’s that simple. You know there’s nothing in the world that would break his allegiance to you - you’re the father he never got because trust me I’ve tried. I didn’t want to see him suffer in a war. But he stands by your ideals and he’s ready to fight for them and i’ll stand right next to him.”

He could tell that it had struck something in the man in front of him - not completely trust but still an acceptance of the truth.

“Well Lord Potter, I suppose you’ve convinced me.” He drawled out.

The Dark Lord placed the mask back upon James’ face and moved back towards the door before calling another figure towards the door.

“If you survive through the trials Lord Potter I’m sure you’ll be a great asset to the Death Eaters. I do hope dear Bella doesn’t put you through too much trouble.”

James startled at that and looked up to see Bellatrix Lestrange removing her concealment mask and hood to face James - relishing in every look of discomfort James held.

“Isn’t this going to be fun Potter?”

Note: This is longer than I had intended to write but I had fun doing it!!! The next part is going to be the actually initiation with a little fighting and I might do a fourth part with Barty confronting James in person but we will see!!!

[ash-is-dying]

Mr. Perfectly Fine: Chap 2

A/N: It’s like 12am right now and i’ve been doing this since 9pm... really wanted to get another chapter done and dusted and I actually really like this one so hope you enjoy! 

P.S. Also let me know if you want me to make a taglist at all...

Eddie x Fem!Reader

Word Count: 2.0k

Chapter 2: Mr. Here To Stay

---

That one interaction hung over your head for the rest of the week. What once was a peaceful and calming place to relax was now haunted by the presence of one aggravating barista. Unfortunately for you the closest coffee place aside from Grateful Bread was blocks away and not worth the walk, so you were stuck with Eddie, the pretty barista from hell.

Avoiding him proved to be easier said than done. He worked most mornings as you’d come to find, on days it was just him you’d wait until the morning rush brought an extra pair of hands to the register and when he placed your order on the bench which made him roll his eyes every time you made sure to wait until he’d moved onto the next order before collecting it. Mornings had become a game of cat and mouse except when you were around Eddie it felt more like starving lion and mouse.

Your one reprieve was on the blessed Sunday morning when you walked in to see Wayne working the counter and Eddie nowhere in sight. Risking it even if he could just be in the back or on break, you swiftly approach the owner who spots you and breaks into a tired smile. “The usual?”

You smiled softly. “You know me too well Wayne.”

He nods and makes his way over to the coffee machine preparing the myriad of ingredients for your usual drink. You stand there watching quietly until your curiosity gets the better of you. “So who’s the new hire? I’ve seen him around recently but haven’t gotten the chance to talk with him yet.” You said lying through your teeth in the hopes of finding out anything about the pretty asshole making your life miserable from afar.

“Eddie? Yeah he just moved to town, needed some quick cash while he settles into school so I thought I’d let him serve while he gets on his feet. Barista is most certainly not his dream job.” He said shaking his head and laughing.

You smile in return, Wayne’s laughter becoming contagious. “You know him too well?” Wayne closed his eyes and shook his head,

“Only lived in my trailer for the first twenty years of his life, the bum. Still hasn’t paid me back a cent for his college degree.”

The realization dawns on your face and your eyes widen, “So you two are…”

Wayne looks up and shrugs, “Yup, that couch potato is my good for nothing nephew” he says kind heartedly, “he’s really more like a son to me than anything, he’s been living cross country for a bit and decided to finally settle down closer to home.” He sighs. “More than anything I’m just glad he’s back in my life for a bit, won’t be long before he gets some savings and goes off on another road trip and I’ll tell you one thing that boy does not look back.” He finishes his speech and puts the lid on your coffee cup to go gently sliding it across the counter. “Sorry darl, feel like I’ve been hogging the conversation. Much going on with you?”

Still reeling from Wayne’s admissions about Eddie the questions fly through your head a mile a minute. ‘How on earth is Eddie your nephew? Why is he such an asshole? Why is he in town? How long’s he around for?’ And yet all that comes out of your mouth is; “No. Not really, just stopping by before my music lecture.”

Wayne nods and reaches for the small bakery display window pulling out some tongs and placing a custard danish into a brown paper bag and placing it in front of you. “On the house. You gotta be taking care of yourself girl.”

“Oh no- no- really its fine Wayne, ill grab something on the way home.” You smile  before he crosses his arms.

“I ain’t arguing, enjoy your breakfast kiddo.” Before you can reject him again he slips away back to the front counter. You blush and tentatively grab the pastry before leaving to head to class, mentally beating yourself up for letting Wayne do that for you.

The guilt begins to wash away as you eat the flaky treat on your walk to campus, the custard is sweet and the pastry is sticky as you hold the bag while you eat, trying to save your fingers from the inevitable. By the time you finally reach the building your sweater is covered in crumbs and the leftover hot chocolate is now lukewarm. You stretch and sit down on a nearby bench, pulling out your music notebook trying to get something down before class, your mind continuing to wander to the tattooed boy who is becoming more intriguing by the day.

---

As you walk in you notice the classroom looks different than usual. The lecture hall has been rearranged. Desks are now set aside in pairs and there is labels on every other desk, some form of assigned seating unfamiliar to the students, you included. You look around and find your chair in the back corner, your desk mate being nowhere in sight. As everyone found their name tag and sat in place the professor started to speak.

“I’m sure you’re all curious why you’ve been seated this way today. I’ve decided that it is time for you all to work on your collaboration skills, a musician must learn to work with a conductor, songwriter and above all else other musicians in order to progress their skills to a more professional level.”

Your eyebrows furrow as the desk beside you remains empty and your attention wanders to your partners tag.

Edward Munson.

Whoever he is he must be new, the class only consists of about fourteen people so keeping track of names is not something you struggle with. Someone you’ve never met and have no experience with in the slightest is who you’re going to be depending on for your music degree. Someone who isn’t even here for the first class of the new course. Lucky you.

You turn back to the professor.

“I have paired you with those who I believe have different music tastes and styles to you going off of your application demos you submitted when you joined this extension class. This will be work the majority of your grade this semester so I suggest you make it count. Spend this first class getting to know your partner and begin to understand who they are, after today I expect you to no longer be strangers.”

You resign yourself to spend the class scrawling in your notebook possible style collaboration ideas, a gut feeling telling you that you’d be completing most of this task. Your headphones go in as the sound of ABBA takes you away from the slight disappointment of not having a partner. Due to this your ears only catch half of what is happening outside your little bubble. There is the sound of the door opening behind you and some mumbled speech hard to make out before a certain phrase catches in your ears.

“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me.”

Clear as day a familiar voice penetrates your brain and causes you to look up beside you. There stands a boy in what seems to be pajama pants, deep grey ones with lightsabers wrapping around the legs. He also wears a stained and well worn iron maiden shirt as his teased curls sit on his shoulders, his whole body slumped over, his eyebrow raised in annoyance as the current bane of your existence glares into your eyes.

Edward Munson.

Eddie Munson.

Shit.

The pair of you stay silent processing what this all means. This is so much worse than working with a stranger.

“Glad to see you’ve shown up. I think we can skip the pleasantries and just get to work.”

“Agreed.”

He sits, more flops into his chair looking over your shoulder at what you had been working on. He closes his eyes and rests his head on his arms. The smell of cheap cologne and sweat fills your nose as you frown and continue to write on your own. Maybe it would have been better if he hadn’t shown up. At least then you’d still have your sense of smell.

This is how the class continues until the professor comes around to read your notes. “These are all good ideas I like them a lot.” A smile graces your face. “But… I don’t know if I’m seeing much of Mr. Munson in here.” Your smile falters slightly. “Have you two been getting to know each other like I asked?”

This perks Eddie up as he lifts his head and opens his eyes slightly. “Oh trust me sir we’re well acquainted.”

The teacher leans back on the desk in front of them. “Then tell me what her favourite song is, favourite colour, where she works, anything at all that you’ve been talking about.” Eddie sits in silence formulating his reply.

“She has almond milk in her coffee.” He replies smugly causing you to scoff.

“He’s a barista at my local cafe sir it hardly counts. He doesn't even remember my name.” You slide your hand over your name card as he grimaces at you.

“As if you remember anything about me.” He responds snarkily.

You sigh and turn to face him. “Your name is Edward Munson but you obviously prefer to be called Eddie, you work at the café Grateful Bread most days a week except for when you come to your music lectures. You obviously don’t particularly care about being on time for said classes and I’d say you feel the same way about work and you get away with it because your boss is your uncle Wayne. You can’t stand it here and you can’t stand me and I’m almost entirely certain as soon as you can afford it you’re leaving this place for good.” You cross your arms as Eddie’s mouth moves and no words come out.

The professor is the first to speak “Sounds like you’ve got some homework to do Mr. Munson. I suggest you both spend more time getting to know each other properly and less time psychoanalyzing each other. I’m expecting big things from you two, you are by far the most advanced students in this course after all and I hope you can be mature and sort this out like adults.” He stands and moves to the next group leaving you both in the same uncomfortable silence as before.

“So… what’s your favourite colour then.” Eddie asks in a monotonous voice.

“Black.” You respond sharply.

He looks at you like you just spat in his face. “Black’s not a colour. It’s a shade.”

Your fist clenches as you hold back the snarky comment stuck in your throat. “It has to be a colour as light is absorbed by it and we can physically see it with our eyes.”

“Uh no. Black is a combination of colours meaning it can’t be a colour itself it just exists as a shade.”

“Your logic makes no sense. If black is just a combination of other colours then how is it not a colour it’s just a darker tone than other colours.”

The palm of his hands dig into his eyes. “Even your favourite colour is dumb I swear-”

“And what makes your favourite colour so great?”

“My favourite colour is dark red like a normal person and it is the best colour.”

“That’s not even a proper argument- Why did you even start this fight? You sound like such a child.”

“At least I’m not an uptight prude.”

“Up yours Munson.”

The class is dismissed soon after and Eddie stays seated whilst you pack up your things. “I’ll write you a copy of my notes so you know what our project is.” You move to leave before turning back sticking your nametag lopsided to his desk. “That’s my name by the way asshole in case you ever wanted to actually know who you’re bothering with your childish bullshit.”

“I’ll try to keep that in mind sweetheart.”

You scowled as you walked out of the lecture hall, your head hurting and your face on fire as it dawned upon you that Eddie Munson was becoming Mr. Here To Stay.

[wen-kexing-apologist]

Bengiyo's Queer Cinema Syllabus

For those who are not aware, I have decided to run the gauntlet of @bengiyo’s Queer Cinema Syllabus and have officially started Unit 2: Race, Disability, and Class. The films in Unit 2 are: The Way He Looks (2014), Being 17 (2016), Naz and Maalik (2015), The Obituary of Tunde Johnson (2019), Margarita With a Straw (2014), My Beautiful Laundrette (1985), Brother to Brother (2004), and Beautiful Thing (1996)

Today I will be writing about

Margarita With a Straw (2014) dir. Shonali Bose

[Available on Amazon, Run Time- 1:40, Language: Hindi and English]

Summary: A rebellious young woman with cerebral palsy leaves her home in India to study in New York, unexpectedly falls in love, and embarks on an exhilarating journey of self-discovery.

Cast: Kalki Koechlin as Laila Kapoor Revathi as Shubhangini Kapoor Sayani Gupta as Khanum

___

I would like everyone to know that at the time of writing this, I was still crying about this movie. It is perfection. I literally…I have so much, too much, and yet nothing to say about this film. If you had asked me before tonight if there would ever be a reality where I was nearly in tears over watching a character on screen masturbate, I would not have really believed it, yet here we are. THIS FILM IS PERFECT BECAUSE THEY MADE THEIR DISABLED CHARACTERS ACTUAL FUCKING PEOPLE WHO ARE HORNY, INDEPENDENT (within the scope of their own physical abilities), AND FLAWED HUMAN BEINGS. Like???????? That in my lifetime of watching films the existence of characters with disabilities is rare enough already, and if you get in to the more stigmatized/infantilized disabilities, say for example, having a main character and romantic interest with cerebral palsy, the acknowledgement that they are people with sexual attraction and desire is almost non-existent.

Like, how many power wheelchair users have I seen being a subject of romantic interest? This film does not shy away from any aspect of being disabled, while simultaneously eliminating any and all possible feelings of the film itself being some type of inspiration porn for The Struggles Of Existing As A Disabled Person. This is not a “aww look the able bodied girl falls in love with the quadraplegic man isn’t that lovely?” types of stories. This is a film where disability really just happens to be included and life and the conflicts in the film have absolutely nothing to do with their actual disability or overcoming some aspect of their disability. 

The closest we get to Laila and Kahnum’s disabilities even mattering to the central conflicts in the story in my mind, is the implication of the way society has viewed them that has fed in to their own insecurities. A huge part of Laila’s journey is self-love and self-acceptance. Laila is obviously feeling dejected after a round or two of rejections from boys she has been interested in. And then she meets a girl, Kanhum who is blind, and hot, and wonderful, and they start a relationship. At some point, Laila cheats on Kanhum, having sex with a boy from her college, Jared, who she has been crushing on since her first day of classes. 

One of the heaviest moments in the film for me was when Laila finally admits to cheating on Kanhum by having sex with Jared one time while Laila and Kanhum were dating. For an explanation as to part of what caused Laila to have sex with Jared, Laila says, to her blind girlfriend “Jared could see me, that’s why” and Kanhum walks away. But here is the thing, this movie trusts its audience, this movie lets the full weight of that admission hang in the air, but doesn’t beat you over the head with what that line is actually saying. 

gif by @celluloidrainbow

To me it is clear as day that Laila wanted to have sex with someone that could see her so she could feel desirable in the body that she is in. Kanhum has her own way of seeing, in a beautiful hands hands hands moment Kanhum sees Laila by feeling her body, her face, her lips, and she tells Laila “you’re so beautiful” and she is fucking right. But I can see how Laila, after multiple rejections, may have a hard time believing that someone that does not have the ability to physically see her body  [In a similar way to Frankenstein’s creature finally finding kindness and acceptance from a blind man, and being chased away from that warmth by his children when they physically saw what Adam looked like]. 

And for Kanhum, it is clear how much that line devastates her, because she can see, she can see in the way she has learned how to see, and she sees well enough by feel to know that Laila is beautiful. You can tell how much she is hurt by the implication that Laila needs to have her beauty validated by a “normal” (as the movie names them) in order to believe she is desirable, even after Laila has been in a months long relationship with Kanhum, and they’ve caressed each other, and made out, and fucked. Kanhum’s reaction makes me believe that Kanhum is worried Lalia doesn’t trust her opinions on beauty because she can’t see the way everyone else can. But neither of these insecurities are voiced aloud, they just hang in the air between them instead. 

 I love how much this movie demonstrates the balance in a family’s relationship to disability. That the film understands that Laila cannot bathe herself, or go to the bathroom unassisted, but on the flip side, Laila is able to help her mother bathe, or warm her mother’s feet. Kanhum needs to have her swim suit handed to her, but she can also help Laila change in to her own swim suit. Laila’s mother cooks for her, because she’s her mother and that’s what she would do anyway, but once her mom flies back to India, Laila is shown cooking meals for herself. And they take the time in an hour and forty minute film to show Laila’s multiple attempts at frying an egg, and all the ways she ends up adapting and improvising in order to make it work. I love that they show the wasteland of broken eggs, that Laila shoves in to a trashcan with a spatula because she doesn’t have the grip strength or range of motion to just sweep those off the counter and in to the trash with her hand. 

I love the way that sexuality and disability intersect in this film. When Laila comes out to her mother as bisexual, her mom is pissed and does not speak to her for a day or two, and Laila calls her own mother a hypocrite: “Abnormal. That’s what the world said about [my disability] too. What’s your problem now?” And it’s such a great point, because we are at a time in this story where every aspect of these characters lives are part of their normal, or added accessibility tools are just swiftly adopted in to their lives. Laila is never infantilized, she is trusted to be independent, to live abroad without her parents there, and her mother is about as anxious as any parent seeing their kid spread their wings for the first time would be. Laila has a caretaker in New York that we literally never see, because it isn’t relevant, and every time we see someone taking care of Laila or on the flip, Laila taking care of someone else, there is a level of intimacy to it. Familial, platonic, sexual, romantic, you name it. 

gif by @celluloidrainbow

I love the complexity this film is able to build between its characters, especially in the way that Kanhum was deeply wounded and betrayed by Laila, but Laila is still the one that comforts her when she is crying about the information late at night. And Kanhum is the one to hold Laila and comfort her while she cries over the death of her mother. 

My only criticism is that they did not hire an actor with cerebral palsy or an actor who was blind for the roles, though Shonali Bose did initially set out to hire an actor with cerebral palsy. But according to the Wiki on this, there were no actresses with cerebral palsy in India, and the woman Bose wanted to play Kanhum initially, is blind, but was uncomfortable with the sexual elements of the film and opted to act as an advisor to the actress who ended up playing Kanhum. Kalki, who plays Laila, spent a lot of time working with Bose’s cousin to learn the physicality and speech patterns of people with CP. 

By/For/About

I would say for me with this one, it is not For the queers, but it is CERTAINLY FOR DISABLED PEOPLE. Like you can tell the writer has some very personal experience with disability from the depiction of disability itself in the film. But, Shonali Bose wrote and directed this film as a result of a conversation with her cousin, who is disabled, where she talked about her desire to have a normal sex life. 

Favorite Moment

gif by @celluloidrainbow

Literally every single one, every time Laila had sex, every time she flirted with a hot boy, every time she made music, every time she smiled, every moment of sexual tension between Laila and Khanum.  

Up until the very last scene I would have said that my favorite moment was when Laila is dancing with her family the night she leaves for NYU. It’s just so full of warmth, and love, and joy it made me so happy. But then. 

BUT THEN I GOT TO THE LAST SCENE, WHERE LAILA TAKES HERSELF OUT ON A DATE AND I BURST IN TO TEARS!

Hands down that is my favorite moment. Laila looks absolutely stunning with a new hairdo, and a fancy dress, and she’s sitting in front of a mirror, cheersing her reflection with her margarita with a straw. It made me so happy, this understanding that Laila loves herself, and is committing to loving herself. GOD IT’S SO GOOD AND KALKI WHO PLAYS LAILA HAS THE MOST BEAUTIFUL SMILE AND HER EYE SHINE IS OFF THE CHARTS AMD GAH IT’S UTTER PERFECTION. 

Favorite Quote

Again, I have a couple. Laila, upon having her professor say he found someone to type for her: “Actually, I can ty-” *sees the hot boy that would be typing for her* “That would be wonderful”. Yeah girl, get it. 

Laila, trying to come out to her mother: “Mom, I’m bi,” // Her mother: “Am I any less of a bai (maid)?” Ah good old multilingual problems used for comedic effect. 

But, ultimately, I had to settle on: 

“This is scary for me. It’s wonderful, but so scary,” 

Because, I love me a good, candid conversation around how it feels to be queer, to embrace that queerness, and to know that eventually you will have to share that queerness with others (aka potentially come out to your parents). I also love it because I didn’t really see a struggle for self-acceptance around Laila’s sexuality. She is having a good time, being cute with her girlfriend all the while she is trying to figure out what her sexuality is. I just love when I don’t have to see a character struggle with realizing they are queer, and being scared feels like a natural part of being queer, and having to acknowledge that queerness to others, especially if you don’t know how they are going to react is, can confirm, terrifying. 

Score

10/10

this is my favorite film in the syllabus thus far.

[wetcatspellcaster]

The way I GASPED when I saw the notification of a new chapter ❤️❤️❤️

They are so sweet, so awkward, I love them 😭

I loved the subtle smut, that focused more on emotions, making sure everyone is safe, and just oh. It felt so intimate, so gentle, it made me tear up, I was so happy their first sex scene was like that. Hot, but tender. You did such a great job balancing everything. In a work like this, I find sudden burst in very detailed smut a big dissonance, but here it looked perfect. The push and pull, the humor, the fears, all that persisted throughout the whole fic, is still there.

It had been years for them, and a decade of different kind of torture, and they are still... Them. It warmed my heart.

I had never expected a chapter with sex, because you mentioned you were not comfortable writing it, but when I read it. When I read it, let me tell you, it was pure perfection.

I can imagine how nervous it must have been posting this chapter. And it was gorgeous. It was so good. You opened the characters further (he he), you made it feel so domestic after that initial awkwardness between them, and oof.

Also, Rose. I'm ten years younger than her, but oh how I feel her 😂 thank you for showcasing those fears and self-consciousness and those PAINS. I love her so much. I'm so sad that there is only one chapter left, but I'm so glad I got to read this story at all.

Thank you again. I'll go cry over how beautiful those two disasters are.

thank you, beloved anon, I'm glad that you enjoyed it 💖

I said in a previous ask that I don't want to claim the chapter as smut, but I'm pleased it read that way! I didn't expect to write a chapter with sex either, but it just felt like the right call for the story, for the reasons I talk about here. I guess that might be why there's no dissonance, it was just a thing I figured would be in-character and then I wrote it as in-character as I could.

And yeah, I know it's kinda cringe to have to cast mobility spells or change things when they feel weird and not immediately have the best fucking orgasm of your life in this moment that you've built up into this massive deal in your head bc you're nervous and feeling a lot of emotions but... the more I thought about it, the more I realised that the mindblowing sex is like, three rounds in. The first time there's too much pressure.

Anyway, it's less smut and more a scene where we get to see what Rose would be like in a safe space. When the Ascendent tried to label her praise kink, or called her old, she brushed it off bc she didn't allow herself any vulnerability around him. When she nearly fucked him on a throne, she wasn't in her real body with its real weaknesses. All of the things she rejects in the chapter are reminiscent of non-consensual encounters, but that means there's an admission of the parts she enjoyed as well.

I'm was nervous bc it felt more like a character study and um... that's not what I'm reading smut for, I'll be candid. But unfortunately for me my first foray into none fade-to-black happened in the saddest fucking fic I've ever fucking written, so this is what we get lads. There's much hotter porn elsewhere but this is the ending to this particular story.

I'm glad that you enjoyed it, and felt like it fit the tone of the work! I felt like it fit as well. I wouldn't have posted it if I didn't, and I wouldn't have written it just to put some sex in there bc honestly? There are people that can do that job 10,000 x better than me lmfao.

Thank you for messaging ! x

[pompadourpink]

Hi ! You give great advice that has helped me before , so here i am at your door again. I’m 19 , female, never had a date. And i feel really lonely so i wanted to try this dating app . And an actor that i love uses it too. However, admission rates are low and they demand instagram. I could use that app to make friends too. I just feel really lonely. Do you think having an instagram would help? What advice would u give me?

Hello,

Welcome to my latest novel!

*insert here a reminder that English is not my first language

While craving connection and love is very natural and loneliness is understandably distressing, I'm going to officially declare that this is not the way.

The type of men you can find on Raya are older, experienced, famous, wealthy. The world is their oyster. You do not know them, what they are like, what they want, how they react where they don't get their way. You do not know what fame has done to them, their ego, trust, character. And in the era of the manosphere douchebags who actively look for women like you to trap, you need to proceed with caution.

It would be hazardous for you to learn how to swim by jumping into the ocean in the middle of a tsunami. You have not gone on a date, probably have not slept or done anything saucy with anyone, and maybe have not even kissed someone. Trying to get with a millionaire celebrity who gets hundreds of nudes in their DMs daily and can get anyone they want is very ambitious. Doing so when you have no experience, game, or skill in bed, will have to be guided every step of the way and are deeply insecure, is a scenario that ends well only in fanfiction written by a teenage girl who has never had a real conversation with a man.

Real-life men will either not look at you at all because they have lazier options, manipulate you because you have no way of telling the difference, or awkwardly reject you because dating someone who has no idea what she wants would be off-putting and make them feel like groomers.

Take it from a late bloomer: there is no deadline for a first relationship. It means nothing about your value as a person. And that is why pursuing people before you find yourself is dangerous: if you don't know what you are after, have no boundaries, and cannot make your own choices, people will make those decisions for you. If you wallow in self-pity in every conversation you have, they will either walk away because they are not therapists and have to protect themselves or take advantage of your weaknesses because you are begging for a crumb of attention and will be giving way more than they will ever give back, while thinking that this is how you will get treated the way you want. The truth is that if there is a hierarchy in the relationship, it will turn into Stockholm syndrome and you will be miserable.

I have talked about this before: when you don't know someone but you get a crush on them, your brain will see them as an unfinished puzzle and start filling up the blanks with your personal preferences. By doing so, you will create a person that does not exist, and when you eventually talk to the guy you have been dreaming of for six months, he will disappoint you, because the puzzle man has never and will never be. And it's worse if you are crushing on a celebrity: their PR team's whole job is to give them an excellent reputation and their work (characters, songs, etc.) is making them look attractive and fun. For all you know, your actor guy abuses his dog, uses slurs because he thinks it's funny and would ask about your underwear within the first minutes of the conversation if you matched with him.

Being in an adult relationship requires a number of things.

One, you need to be interesting, have things to say, passions you can ramble about, and answers to any question your match might have. If you are not there, it is time for self-discovery, trying new things, and discovering what is important to you and what you don't care about. Your partner cannot make you happy if you cannot show him how to do it and will not want to do it if talking to you feels like staring at a washing machine during a cycle.

Two, you need to be secure. You need to love yourself so you don't need others to feel confident, you need friends so you don't suffocate your partner and can stay your own person, you need a job, money, and drive so you can be independent, you need to address your trauma so no one can use your despair to treat you like garbage and get away with it (students get discounts, use them!).

Three, you need to be comfortable with adult activities (obviously people can be ace but most are not and especially not Raya people). Let's illustrate: you got a date with mister guy who invites you over, takes off his shirt and asks you to sit on him, does it feel arousing or excruciating? Would you sit and grind, or run outside and vomit? If you would look away, you're not ready for a relationship and I would rather you find out now than in front of a horny half-naked stranger who might not be good with rejection. Explore your body to figure out what you like so you can get the message across when the time comes.

And you know what? It's okay. People have different lives. You have things to recover from and he doesn't. He has access to opportunities that make him bolder and that is not your case. You might like different things and not be made to be together. No one was made for you. The first one will probably not be the one that makes you feel like you could love him forever, and it's fine, but no one will ever be exactly what you want, just like you have quirks that others will find peculiar or annoying. What makes a good relationship is good intentions and commitment.

Because of that, my advice (finally, we're there) is that you focus on yourself, on healing, first, and that you find a couple of good friends, that will treat you with love and respect, and that you will not treat as a parent or a box of tissues. Find them on social media, on Bumble BFF, or at an event somewhere in your city. Go out there, and try. Talk to people. Get comfortable with starting conversations with strangers. Learn small talk, try to make them laugh and feel appreciated, and fake being unapologetically yourself until you stop feeling like a waste of space.

So yes, you can get an IG, but make it a public diary, a way to express yourself and share what makes you happy, not a way to get into a pretentious dating app. Do things for yourself, so you can one day look back and be happy with the way you spent the very little time you got on Earth. Love will come.

Love,

Mum

[storyunrelated]

Bad Dreams - Part Three

I saw a man. A man perhaps a little older than Rose and myself, and clearly not in a good way. 

A man who had, at some point, decided to have only a loose relationship with eating and with hygiene and who, as a result, had got both angular and pungent. Greasy in places, dark under the eyes and pale just about everywhere. He did not inspire confidence.

Sorry to judge by appearances, but you can tell quite a bit about someone from these things sometimes and context is important - the scrawny, pale man in the dark house with newspaper on the windows makes the mind go certain places.

All of the above was also elevated to new heights by the final detail of the man being shirtless, but being shirtless in such a fashion that suggested it was more because he’d entirely forgotten about putting shirts on, rather than by having made an active choice to be shirtless.

Top to bottom the immediate, overwhelming impression was of someone who’d become so focused on something other than themselves they’d rather let it slip from their minds that they were there in the first place.

Not a great start. Oh well.

“Evening,” I said, giving a wave with one hand and putting the other hand behind my back. The other hand was the one holding the crowbar. Best to try and make as good a first impression as possible, being an intruder in the man’s house notwithstanding. 

The man did not move a muscle. He then blinked, which counted as moving a muscle in my book.

“Who are you?” He asked. Surprisingly restrained given the circumstances.

I could have answered this, but instead I chose not to.

“Terribly sorry, we were expecting to find a witch,” I said instead.

“I am a witch,” the man said, maybe a touch testily, as though this was something that he ran up against a lot. Though maybe it was also because we were in his house. Maybe a bit of both.

I looked him over, tip to toe.

“...where’s your hat?” I asked.

“We don’t have to wear a hat,” he said and this time he was definitely testy and it was definitely about the witch thing.

I looked Rose over, tip to toe. Particularly the tip, where the hat was. Where the hat almost always was. In fact, no ‘almost’ about it - where the hat always was. Not a day had passed since she’d got the thing when she’d been without it. I thought those had been the rules.

“I like my hat…” she mumbled.

The man cleared his throat to get attention back on him.

“My next question - before I call the police - is going to be why are you in my house?” He asked. 

You’d think he’d sound less calm, being confronted by two housebreakers. I certainly wouldn’t be so cool and I was one of the housebreakers. Right then I was mostly running on nerves and gut impulse, my brain clinging on for dear life and only able to react after I’d said anything.

Maybe he got a lot of this sort of thing?

“We’re here about the dream skimmer you got sticking out the chimney,” I said, pointing upward, in case there was any confusion about where the chimney was.

He went very quiet for a moment. I think I heard him swallow.

“Ah,” he said, at length.

He looked like a man who knew he’d been caught out. Because he was a man who had been caught out. 

“Still feel like calling the police?” I asked.

“No, ideally.”

“Would that be an admission of guilt?” I asked. He looked at me like I was an idiot.

“That would suggest I have anything to be guilty of in the first place, which I reject. I’d just rather not get any more people involved and stomping about the place,” he said.

“Naturally. But since we’re already here and stomping about the place you’ll humour us?” I asked.

“If that is what it takes for you to go away,” he said through gritted teeth.

“How very obliging of you. How is the dream skimming going, just to ask? Well? Skimmer doing what it’s meant to be doing? Skimming?”

I could tell my breezy attitude towards what he plainly considered his hard work had got under his skin almost immediately, as much as he might have tried to hide it. Him and Rose too - witches were a touchy lot when it came to their witchy-business, weren’t they? Presumably it’s important to them.

Fair play, I guess. Must be galling to pour work into something and then have someone like me come in and be a smartarse about it. Would I like it if someone broke into my house and started undermining my confidence? Probably not.

“It is performing a little over what I expected,” he said, coolly.

“Delightful. Show me.”

His mouth worked a little. Whatever he’d expected it hadn’t been that.

Why else would I be here?

“I don’t think you’ll be able to appreciate the mechanism, especially given that you are not a witch and wouldn’t even be able to perceive half of the work that’s gone into it. You wouldn’t understand it. You can’t,” he said.

I didn’t think I was missing much, honestly.

“Humour me,” I said, pulling my crowbar hand from behind me and proceeding to stare him down.

Normally I’m not very good at staring anyone down and it’s not something I have a lot of call to do, but this was a special occasion and so I really poured myself into it, really meant it. I imagine that I was holding a crowbar helped a bit as he folded pretty quickly, all things considered, breaking eye contact and seeming to collapse in on himself a little bit, crossing his arms and looking away.

“Fine, fine…” He said turning around and gesturing for us to follow.

The very picture of sullen, he was.

“Come on,” I said to Rose, who squeaked.

“Really?!” She hissed.

“If all else fails I’ll crowbar our way out,” I said.

“That is not reassuring!”

She still followed, however unreassured she was, and we went up the stairs after the man. Cautiously, admittedly. I’m relaxed but I’m not an idiot. Hence the crowbar.

Downstairs had been house-like. In need of a clean, but house-like. Upstairs had been mauled. Doors were removed, plaster was exposed, holes had been knocked through walls, tubes and cables and wires ran everywhere and while I was getting nothing the wince on Rose’s face suggested a lot of magical jiggery-pokery going on.

The man, still sullen and now also mixed with open annoyance at us lollygagging, was stood waiting for us by an open doorframe.

“In here,” he said.

“After you,” I said again, giving him the nod. He glared but went in, and we followed again.

Was this going how I expected it would go? Not really. But it seems to be going well enough.

I think. I have no precedent for this sort of thing. Feels like an adventure though. I think.

We entered into what was one room that had plainly been two rooms before he’d had his way with them. He’d apparently knocked through a wall to link the two together. Not properly, I should point out. Bits of the wall remained here and there and the whole affair was held up by bits of wood the structural capacity of which I did have much confidence in. Professional it was not.

But that wasn’t the main thing, nor was that really the thing that I was paying attention to. The reason why he’d mangled the rooms together was on account of the great, sprawling, tinkling, hissing, gurgling thing that had been built and which took up most of the available space.

The dream sifter, presumably. Really didn’t look like much this close. Look like a still had had a run in with a milk churn and then left in the rain for a day or two. It was leaking in more than one place. Leaking what though was harder to say. Something.

“Very nice. Should it be leaking?” I asked, pointing to the more prominent leak. He looked, hissed, and swept up a roll of gaffer tape and quickly and liberally applied it. From the looks of the thing this was his standard response. There was a lot of tape, not to mention discarded rolls piled up in the corners.

Probably should have just made it less leaky, really. He’d save money on tape.

“Right. You’ve seen it now. Go,” he said, tossing the tape aside and glaring some more. He wasn’t getting out of this that easy.

“Hold on, hold on,” I said. “Explain this thing to me. What does it actually do?”

“You really wouldn’t understand,” the man said.

“Well, you can try. And if nothing else I’m sure Rose would appreciate hearing it. Right?” I asked, looking over to her. She was really coasting on this whole thing so far and leaving most of it to me but, in fairness, this whole thing had been my idea so I could hardly blame her.

“Um. Sure,” Rose said. She was squinting. The man was too, I noticed. Presumably the room was swimming in witchy nonsense that I was entirely unaware of, being so mundane and inert and all.

I looked back to the man and he stared at me in open, exasperated disbelief for a moment before his shoulders slumped.

“Fine. But will you then please leave me alone?”

This was another question I chose not to answer. Just gave him a winning smile instead.

He tried to explain it and I tried to follow his explanation, I really did, but I am as has been said magically inert and on top of that I’m also not that bright, so he got about three words in before I lost the thread completely.

Broadly speaking, I understood what he said something like this:

The bulk of the sifter sat in the room where we were, looking at it. It was the big ugly thing which was leaking. The delicate, sifty bits went up the chimney. Those were the bits we saw wafting about over the house, doing the sifting. 

Alright, that made sense, I could follow that.

The sifty bits sifted. Shocking, I know. They sifted dreams out of the air and snatched them before they reached their proper destination and then drew them down into the main part. He did not explain how or why or where or when or anything about why dreams were just floating about loose instead of being entirely inside people’s heads but that was fine, I was beyond that, I was comfortable knowing I’d never know.

Magic. Whatever.

And then once in the main part of the sifter the dreams were condensed and distilled and filtered and whatever whatever. Basically the thing took dreams and through a series of arcane and fiddly processes turned them into some kind of liquid. Dream liquid, liquid dreams. 

And this stuff was good stuff, he said. You could use it to do a variety of dream-related activities, apparently. Dream whatever you wanted. Live whole imaginary lives doing the impossible. Marry a cloud and have a whole family of raindrops, whatever tickled your fancy.

I thought you could just learn how to lucid dream. Couldn’t people do that already? Maybe that wasn’t good enough?

The man did mention, offhand, that a side effect of people having their dreams sifted or intercepted or whatever was that the ensuing void tended to invite bad dreams to come in and fill the space. Again, how that worked was something that was glossed over completely but here at least we finally had our explanation as to why any of this bad dream business was happening in the first place.

It was happening as a side-effect. This wasn’t the intention at all. The intention was this dream liquid the man wanted. The bad dreams were a consequence of the process. Somehow that’s even more galling than if it had been on purpose. Poor Nisien’s screaming and exhaustion and my bad nights were an afterthought. 

In fact, no, not even an afterthought, not even a thought at all. Just background noise.

Grr. 

I felt I’d heard enough.

“Why?” I asked, cutting in as the man warbled on about some point to do with the bottling process. He blinked at me.

“Why what?” He asked.

“Why did you decide to do this?”

“...I don’t understand. I did explain how it worked, didn’t I?”

“Well enough, sure. I mean why did you think this was something you had to do? Dream liquid? Why did you build this instead of just not building this? Why aren’t you playing pinball right now or literally anything else?”

Not a complicated question, I thought. He blinked at me again as he was having some difficulty working out where I was coming from. I could see him working through a slow formulation of an answer in his head, trying to hack his reasons down into something someone else might understand.

What works in our head is often difficult to put into the heads of others. Often it doesn’t survive the journey. I’m aware of this. I gave him time.

“With access to the raw, distilled essence of dreams I’m able to fully control the dreamscape. Lucid dreaming is a crock and a waste of time and beneath me, anyway. Total control is the real deal, I can do whatever I want, anything at all,” he said, eventually, slowly.

This was not a compelling answer to my not-very-complicated question. It was barely an answer at all. I pointed to the sifter again, just for emphasis.

“So this machine is sucking in the dreams of just about everyone within a however-many square mile radius, leaving a void that bad dreams rush into, and you’re basically melting all those dreams you’ve effectively stolen down into something that you fiddle about with and inject into yourself so that you can have whatever dream you want?” I asked.

“That is a ridiculously oversimplified and crude way of-” he started, but I did not let him finish.

“It’s a yes or no question and I’m holding a crowbar.”

His eyes flicked to the crowbar.

“...yes.”

The crowbar gets results. Humanity really did peak with that one.

Certainly a crowbar was infinitely superior to this dream-snaffling whatever. All these dreams all sucked in so one person can benefit? Those numbers are shocking.

“That’s spectacularly inefficient,” I said.

“Yes, but-”

I wasn’t finished though:

“Not to mention overwhelmingly selfish.”

But that should have gone without saying.

I mean honestly, I’m not even sure how anyone could get anywhere with a plan like this. How could you even start? How could you not run through it in your head, see how horrendously selfish it was and realise that, as an exercise in theory it’s diverting but in practise it would just be disgustingly self-indulgent and therefore something you shouldn’t do?

Was I missing something? Was this just me?

“Selfish?” He asked, as though the word had been a slap in the face.

“Well, yeah. If you can’t figure that out on your own I’m not sure where to start. If you eat someone else’s lunch that’s also selfish, did you know that?”

“It’s not selfish,” he said, pouting. Actually pouting.

“Feels pretty selfish from where I’m standing,” I said and he bristled a moment before replying.

“I’ll admit it’s unfortunate that some people are having bad dreams but there’s really only so much I can do about that.”

Big of him to admit that it was unfortunate.

“You could always not do it. You could do that,” I said.

He ignored this.

“It’s only in it’s prototype stage. I’ll admit it’s far from perfect now, but it’s getting better every day. Soon, pretty soon, I’ll have the ratio all the way down to one-to-one. That’ll just be one person maybe running the risk of having a bad dream - which they might not even remember anyway! - so I can dream whatever I want. Do you have any idea what I can do in those dreams?” He asked instead.

“I shudder to think.”

That took him a second.

“Not like that!”

“Hmm.”

I was thinking. I was always thinking, obviously, as are we all, but right then I was thinking about this whole thing, this whole business. Thinking about it and what I should do about it. Clearly I should do something, shouldn’t I? But what, and why?

Questions, questions.

This was a bad thing he was doing, yes? Yes, I think I can comfortably say that. Deciding that your personal enjoyment ranks above the discomfort or outright suffering of however many other people. Especially since this particular type of enjoyment is the explicit cause of that discomfort. That’s a bad thing.

I think I can follow this so far.

With that being the case what was I meant to do? Was I meant to do anything? Were any of us meant to do anything? 

Maybe I’ve got a bit beyond the scope of the issue, there. Let’s pull back in a bit.

Let us say that he is right when he says the thing can be improved. Let’s assume that for a moment. Even if he got that machine down to one-to-one efficiency that’s still ensuring someone else has bad dreams so he can have good dreams.

What if he rotated who the machine picked? Isn’t it likely someone is going to have a bad dream anyway? Where’s the harm, really? Would they even notice? In the grand scheme of things, does it even matter?

Yada yada. Questions like these serve to pluck away at your energy, slow you down and divert your attentions, make you doubt yourself. Sure, if you ignore them you might make a mistake, but if you listen to them all you might end up doing nothing, and doing nothing is usually what someone doing something they shouldn’t wants you to do.

Sometimes a Gordian knot just needs cutting. Sometimes you just have to say bollocks to compromise and go full-on hey diddle diddle, straight up the middle.

So no dice. Decision made. No dream stealing. Not on my watch.

You want to have good dreams you wait for them like anyone else. Or do it in a way that doesn’t attract my attention, and the attention of my crowbar.

“Rose, you might want to step outside,” I said, which seemed to snap Rose out of whatever quiet funk she’d slipped into. Seriously, she’d really clammed up ever since we broke into a guy’s house and been confronted by the guy whose house we’d broken into.

“Huh?” She asked.

“I’m going to draw a line under this,” I said.

“Oh, right. Okay. I’ll just - I’ll go. Meet you outside,” she said, shuffling out of the room with only one or two backwards glances. The man was suddenly just a touch nervous. I could see this.

“Where’s she going? What are you talking about? What do you mean draw a line?” He asked.

“You’re a clever fellow, I’m sure you can figure it out,” I said.

Though of course I actually started smashing his sifter before he figured it out. Ain’t I a stinker.

I’m not an expert at smashing but I like to think I did an alright job. I aimed for one of the leaking spots with the pointed end of the crowbar, wedged it in, heaved, and managed to lever off a good half of the thing away from the other half. Made an awful noise and sloshed clear liquid all over. Seemed a good start.

“What are you doing?!” The man squealed, lunging but clearly unsure what to lunge at. Did he lunge at me to stop me or lunge at his machine to try and save it? He hesitated, and while he hesitated I kept going. I pried more bits loose, I whacked the crowbar into the bits that looked like they’d crumple best, I hooked the curved part over dangling bits and yanked.

I made a frightful mess. And in a very short time, too. Maybe I have hidden talents.

In a few seconds what had been a ticking, whirring, leaking device was now several bits of wheezing, leaking, non-ticking, non-whirring junk strewn across the floor and sat in puddles of clear whatever. Presumably that stuff was dreams? Condensed, liquified dreams? Didn’t look like much.

“How selfish of me,” I said. Zing.

The man was on his knees, scrabbling. Again, he obviously didn’t know what to scrabble for first and was just halfway scrabbling at everything in his hysteria.

Sort of ineffectual for a witch, you’d have thought. Maybe if he’d had his magic rod to hand he might have had better luck in beating me off. Aha. I imagine he just found the whole thing a bit overwhelming. Everything’s easier after the fact, isn’t it?

“Do you know how much that cost?!” He wailed at me, eyes glistening. I think he was about to cry.

And I wasn’t sure what this was meant to make me feel, this line about cost. Was I meant to feel worse because he’d spent more money on the thing than I might have suspected? If he’d been frugal, should I have felt less bad? Is a questionable decision that costs more easier to defend? Hmm.

If people wanted to spend money doing something they probably shouldn’t that’s perfectly allowable. Just not clear why it has any bearing on what I do or think. Value is, after all, largely subjective, is it not?

I don’t really know.

“Lots?” I asked.

“Yes! Lots! Fucking lots! Oh God, most of those components were bespoke, too!” He shouted, holding up a handful of bits that had fallen out of loosened casing. The bits glistened. They certainly looked fragile and fiddly.

“What a shame,” I said.

The man deflated, a sob wracking him. He looked down at the puddle he was kneeling in.

“And you wasted all these dreams! Wasted! You wasted them!” He said, angry now, pointing at me.

“Yeah, sure. This was all my fault.”

Mean, this exact thing was my fault, I’ll admit. The smashing bit and the making a mess was my fault. But the greater blame really can’t be ignored or moved here, come on. This is like when the bad guy says it’s not their fault they murdered people, but the fault of the good guys for trying to stop them. 

Not quite like that, but similar. Right? I know what I mean.

“Strictly speaking you wasted them. I just made your dream-wasting machine fall over. But that’s splitting hairs. In future if you’re going to make my housemate’s life miserable so you can enjoy yourself, don’t. Pleasant dreams, now.”

If I’d had sunglasses I’d have put them on then. I don’t care if it’s nighttime, that’s a great sunglasses line. Kind of felt bad to waste it, but chances to drop lines like that don’t come around often and the real waste would have been saying nothing.

My hands were tied.

He didn’t say anything after that, which was good because if he had it would have ruined the moment. So I left him sniffling in his puddle of dreams and went back outside to try and find Rose.

I couldn’t find her out back because she’d gone out the front and was there standing under a streetlight looking like she’d prefer to be anywhere else other than on a street waiting under a lamppost.

“Well that’s sorted,” I said, cheerfully, giving her a wave as I wandered over.

“What did you do?” Rose asked.

I considered saying something else pithy and cool but I was far too tired to come up with anything else off the cuff so just stood there gormless and silent for a second before just coming out with it.

“Smashed his thingy with a crowbar,” I said, waggling said crowbar just so Rose knew which crowbar the thingy had been smashed with. Rose did not look impressed.

“How very direct,” she said.

“It did work pretty well. Last I saw he was crying on the floor so I think we can write this one up as a roaring success.”

“Your definition of success…” Rose tailed off and sucked her lip a moment. “I don’t know how to finish that sentence.”

“That’s fair. You were very quiet in there,” I said.

“You seemed to be on a roll. And I couldn’t really think of anything to say. Felt weird being inside someone’s house when we weren’t meant to be, even if he was, you know, doing something like that. It was kind of nerve-wracking.”

Now that it was done I could feel the tension that I’d been ignoring starting to get the better of me. The trembling had nothing to do with the encroaching chill of night, let me tell you.

“You’re not wrong,” I said, looking at my hand.

Oh God, what had I done? What had any of that been? What had I been thinking? Had I done the right thing? Had I done the right thing the wrong way? Had I done the wrong thing? Was I going to get into trouble? Was he going to tell anyone? Had it even worked? Had I just wasted an evening? Why did I feel so sick all of a sudden?

Eurgh. Worries. I hate those. I stuck my hand in my pocket and bit my tongue.

Ow.

“Can we go?” Rose asked.

“Probably wise.”

So off we went. We didn’t talk as we went. There wasn’t much to say that we hadn’t said before we set off home and besides it was late. Wouldn’t do to be talking in the street and waking people up. Proper sleep hygiene had been the motivating force behind this whole endeavour, after all.

Hadn’t it?

I bid Rose a good and restful night once we got to hers and then carried on back to mine on my own, thinking about the evening, about what had happened. Was that what an adventure felt like? Was this what you were supposed to do after one had concluded? Just go home? Was there something else I should have been doing? Was I going about this all wrong?

Was there a book I could read?

By the time I’d got back home and got in and put the chain on the door I’d stopped worrying about it. Or, rather, I was still worrying about it but was confident that a proper night’s sleep without any nightmares would make me feel a lot better about it. That is to say, everything would make sense in the morning and there wasn’t anything to be gained fretting about it in the dark.

Everything is always the worst it can be in the dark. This is pretty widely-known.

Nisien was still on the sofa, but had clearly rolled around enough to dislodge the blanket I’d laid over him, because that was on the floor. Despite this, he actually looked quite peaceful. Certainly looked more peaceful than he had any night that I’d seen him recently. Sleeping happily, comfortably.

That made me feel much better about the evening. That was an accomplishment. I might have done adventure wrong, sure, and maybe I’d made lots of mistakes, but I’d still fixed what I’d set out to fix. If nothing else, Nisien was going to get a proper night’s sleep. And this was good.

Objectively good. In my book.

I put the blanket over him again, obviously, because that was the nice thing to do. He stirred as I did so.

“Nngh? Wassis? Sorry, sorry...” he mumbled blearily, blinking, squinting. I patted him on the head.

“Shh, go back to sleep,” I said.

“N’okay…” and he did.

Yes, definitely an objectively good thing. Solved a problem for a friend. People might question my methods but my results are impeccable.

And so to bed. Knackered me out that adventure. Popped the crowbar back under the bed, stripped off most of my clothes at least until I ran out of energy, crawled under the covers and did my best to quiet the churning, raging thoughts rattling around inside my head. All the loose ends could be sorted out tomorrow. Didn’t have anything else that needed doing, and it was unlikely there’d be another adventure so soon.

Well that was exciting.

END