#she was the person who made sure there was a social net for every member in our area no matter what happened or what was needed

[anghraine]

jenndoesnotcare replied to this post:

Every time LDS kids come to my neighborhood I am so so nice to them. I hope they remember the blue haired lady who was kind, when people try to convince them the outside world is bad and scary. (Also they are always so young! I want to feed them cookies and give them Diana Wynne Jones books or something)

Thank you! Honestly, this sort of kindness can go a really long way, even if it doesn't seem like it at the time.

LDS children and missionaries (and the majority of the latter are barely of age) are often the people who interact the most with non-Mormons on a daily basis, and thus are kind of the "face" of the Church to non-Mormons a lot of the time. As a result, they're frequently the ones who actually experience the brunt of antagonism towards the Church, which only reinforces the distrust they've already been taught to feel towards the rest of the world.

It's not that the Church doesn't deserve this antagonism, but a lot of people seem to take this enormous pride in showing up Mormon teenagers who have spent most of their lives under intense social pressure, instruction, expectation, and close observation from both their peers and from older authorities in the Church (it largely operates on seniority, so young unmarried people in particular tend to have very little power within its hierarchies). Being "owned" for clout by non-Mormons doesn't prove anything to most of them except that their leaders and parents are right and they can't trust people outside the Church.

The fact that the Church usually does provide a tightly-knit community, a distinct and familiar culture, and a well-developed infrastructure for supporting its members' needs as long as they do [xyz] means that there can be very concrete benefits to staying in the Church, staying closeted, whatever. So if, additionally, a Mormon kid has every reason to think that nobody outside the Church is going to extend compassion or kindness towards them, that the rest of the world really is as hostile and dangerous as they've been told, the stakes for leaving are all the higher, despite the costs of staying.

So people from "outside" who disrupt this narrative of a hostile, threatening world that cannot conceivably understand their experiences or perspectives can be really important. It's important for them to know that there are communities and reliable support systems outside the Church, that leaving the Church does not have to mean being a pariah in every context, that there are concrete resources outside the Church, that compassion and decency in ordinary day-to-day life is not the province of any particular religion or sect and can be found anywhere. This kind of information can be really important evidence for people to have when they are deciding how much they're willing to risk losing.

So yeah, all of this is to say that you're doing a good thing that may well provide a lifeline for very vulnerable people, even if you don't personally see results at the time.

[zot3-flopped]

Sylvia Plath did not stick her head in an oven for this! When Taylor Swift took the Grammys stage last month to claim her award for Best Pop Vocal Album for Midnights, she saw that spotlight as an opportunity to announce her 11th studio album: The Tortured Poets Department. The follow-up cut to audience members—Swift’s music industry peers, mind you—told us all that we would ever need to know, and the collective disinterest across the crowd echoed through our TVs.

Folks from all walks of life took to social media to express a multitude of reactions. Swifties clamored to their beloved monarch’s forthcoming era, while others lambasted the terminally cringe title and artwork and ridiculed Swift for making a night recognizing musical achievements across an entire industry about herself—knowing perfectly well that it would send her fanbase into a surge that would, no doubt, overpower the excitement around the ceremony itself.

Quite a few people questioned whether or not that moment suggested that a critical—definitely not commercial—tide would turn against the world’s most-famous pop star. And, perhaps it has—but, to most, it will look like nothing more than a single ripple in Swift’s ocean of successes.

Swift remained relatively hush-hush about The Tortured Poets Department up until its release, leaving her fans, admirers and haters alike with nothing but an album title to ponder about. And it’s a bad title.

If you have never been in Swift’s corner, her taking the route of labeling her next “era” as “tortured” was likely catnip for your disinterest. If you are a fan—not necessarily a Swiftie, but even just a casual lover of her best and brightest work—you might be beside yourself about the first Swift album title longer than one word in 14 years.

In terms of popularity—certainly not always in terms of quality—no musician has been bigger this century than Swift, which makes it impossible to really buy into the “torture” of it all.

This is not to say that Swift being the most famous person in the world makes her immune to having multi-dimensional feelings of heartbreak, mental illness or what-have-you.

But, she has made the choice—as a 34-year-old adult—to take those complex, universal familiars and monetize them into a wardrobe she can wear for whatever portion of her Eras Tour setlist she opts to dedicate to the material.

Torture is fashion to Taylor Swift, and she wears her milieu dully. This album will surely get comparisons to Rupi Kaur’s poetry, either for its simplicity, empty language, commodification or all of the above.

And, sure, there are parallels there, especially in how The Tortured Poets Department, too, is going to set the art of poetry back another decade—as Swift’s naive call-to-arms of her own milky-white sorrow rings in like some quintessential “I am going to take pictures of a typewriter on my desk and have a Pinterest mood-board of Courier New font” iPhone fodder. 2013 called and it wants it capricious, suburban girl-who-is-taking-a-gap-year wig back!

Soaking our book reports in coffee or having our moms burn the edges with a kitchen lighter cannot come back into fashion; the cyclical notions of culture cannot make the space for such retreads.

There is nothing poetic about a billionaire—who, mind you, threatens legal action against a Twitter account for tracking her destructive private jet paths—telling stadiums of thousands of people every night that she sees and adores them.

Tavi Gevinson says it well in her Fan Fiction zine: “When 80,000 people are also crying, you become less special, too.” If Swift can return to one of her dozen beach houses across the world, kick up her feet and say “I’m a poet of struggle,” then who is to say that millions—maybe billions—of people with access to a notes app and a social media account won’t dream that dream, too?

Maybe that looks like a net-positive, but it’s inherently damning and destructive to take an art form that has long stood on the shoulders of resistance, of love and of opposition to power, systematic injustice and climate warfare and boil it down to the new defining era of your own 10-digit revenue empire. “My culture is not your costume,” yada, etc.

The Tortured Poets Department does begin with a shred of hope that, just maybe, Swift knows what she’s talking about—as she sneaks in a cheeky “all of this to say,” textbook transitional phrasing for poets, on opening track “Fortnight.”

But “Fortnight” unmasks itself quickly as a heady vat of pop nothingness, though it isn’t all Swift’s fault. “I was a functioning alcoholic, ‘til nobody noticed my new aesthetic,” she muses, attempting to bridge the gap between a behind-the-scenes life and on-stage performance—only for it to occur while propped up against the most dog-water, uninspired synth arrangement you could possibly imagine.

Between producer Jack Antonoff’s atrocious backing instrumental and the Y2K-era, teen dramedy echo chamber of a vocal harmony provided by out-of-place guest performer Post Malone, “Fortnight” chokes on the vomit of its own opaqueness.

“I took the miracle move-on drug, the effects were temporary,” Swift muses, and it sounds like satire. This is your songwriter of the century? Open the schools.

The Tortured Poets Department title-track features some of Swift’s worst lyricism to-date, including the irredeemable, relentlessly cringe “You smoked then ate seven bars of chocolate, we declared Charlie Puth should be a bigger artist / I scratch your head, you fall asleep like a tattooed golden retriever” lines glazed atop some synthesizers and drums that just ring in as hollow, unfascinating costuming.

Aside from the Puth nod, which I can only discern as a joke (given the fact that he is one of the 150-most streamed artists in the world and is one of the blandest pop practitioners alive—I don’t care if he can figure out the pitch of any sound you throw at him), I think Antonoff should stick to guitar-playing. Get that man away from a keyboard, I’m begging you.

Synths can be, if you use them correctly, one of the most emotional and provocative instruments in any musician’s tool-box. There’s a reason why keyboards defined the 1980s; they rebelled against the very oppressive nature existing outside of the cultural company they kept. There’s resistance in electronic music that, while they brandish an aesthetic that, to a layman’s ears, seems like technicolor hues for any infectious pop track, it’s a genre that aches to tell its own story. That is simply not the case here, and that electronica hangs Swift out to dry when she drags us through the lukewarm “I laughed in your face and said, ‘You’re not Dylan Thomas, I’m not Patti Smith’ / This ain’t the Chelsea Hotel, we’re modern idiots” lines, only to hit us with a softly sung F-bomb that sounds like a billionaire’s rendition of that one Miranda Cosgrove podcast clip.

I used to rag pretty heavily on Reputation—mostly because I thought (and still do, mostly) that it sounded like Swift had given up on making interesting, progressive pop music; that, in the wake of her (arguably) best album, 1989, it seemed like she’d lost the plot on where to go next. But as she’s put out Midnights and The Tortured Poets Department back-to-back, I find myself clamoring for the Reputation-era more than ever—at least seven years ago, Swift wrote songs like she had something to prove and even more to lose.

That was the always-obvious charm of Reputation, even despite the downsides—that she took a big swing from the echelons of her own musical immortality, that the comforts of winning every award and selling out the biggest venues in the world were no longer pillowing her aspirations. Even though that swing didn’t land, she still made it in the first place—and Swift is at her best either when she is clawing upwards (Reputation) or faced with nowhere to go but into the studio and noodle with the bare-bones of her own sensibilities (folklore).

You get something like The Tortured Poets Department when the artist making it no longer feels challenged, where she strikes out looking.

The mid-ness of The Tortured Poets Department will not be a net-loss for Swift. She will sell out arenas and get her streams until she elects to quit this business (a phrase decidedly not in her vocabulary, surely).

She will sell more merch bundles than vinyl plants have the capacity to make, and rows of variant LP copies will haunt the record aisles of Target stores just as long as Midnights has—if not longer.

Perhaps, in five or six years’ time, we will speak of this record just as we now do of Reputation. But right now, it is obvious that Swift no longer feels challenged to be good. The Tortured Poets Department is the mark of an artist now interested in seeing how much their empire can atone for the sins of mediocrity.

Can Swift win another Album of the Year Grammy simply because she released a record during the eligibility period? The Tortured Poets Department reeks of “because I can,” not “because I should.”

On “I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can),” Swift tries stepping into the shoes of the country renegades who came before her—the Tammy Wynettes and Loretta Lynns of the world. But her self-aggrandizing inflation of importance, glinting through via a seismically-bland bridge, is backed by a minimal set dressing of guitar, drum machine and keys.

“Good boy, that’s right, come close,” she sings. “I’ll show you Heaven if you’ll be an angel—all mine. Trust me, I can handle me a dangerous man. No, really, I can.” On “Florida!!!,” Swift calls upon Florence + the Machine to help her sing the worst chorus of 2024: “Florida is one hell of a drug / Florida, can I use you up?”

Even Welch, who is a fantastic pop singer-songwriter in her own right, delivers a grossly watery verse: “The hurricane with my name, when it came I got drunk and I dared it to wash me away.”

Not even the typos on the Spotify promotional materials for this album could have foretold such offenses. I won’t even get into the sonics, because Antonoff just rewrites the same soulless patterns every time.

What separates The Tortured Poets Department from something like Reputation is that, on the latter, Swift made it known what was at stake and who she was making that album for—herself, in the aftermath of her greatest long-standing criticisms (“Look What You Made Me Do” triumphs exactly because of this).

On The Tortured Poets Department, there is a striking level of moral nothingness. The stakes are practically non-existent, and the album sounds like it was made by someone who believes that they had no other choice but to finish it, as if Swift fundamentally believes that her creative measures are firmly embedded in the massive monopoly her name and brand currently hold on popular music. That’s how you get meandering pop songs about hookups, wine moms, Stevie Nicks comparisons, Jehovah’s Witness suit mentions, hollowed-out, tone-deaf nods to white-collar crime in lieu of empowerment and, topically, Barbie dolls.

(Don’t even get me started on the Anthology lyrics, which feature these absolute barn-burners: “Touch me while your bros play Grand Theft Auto” and “My friends used to play a game where / We would pick a decade / We wished we could live in instead of this / I’d say the 1830s, but without all the racists / And getting married off for the highest bid.”) This album and its hackneyed grasps at relevance exist as “Did I just hear that?” personified, but in the most derogatory sense of the notion.

My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys” features another low-point in Swift’s lyrical oeuvre, as she sings “I felt more when we played pretend than with all the Kens, ‘cause he took me out of my box”—perhaps a measure of her capitalizing on the Barbenheimer mania that none of us could escape, not even the musician who spent most of 2023 flying across the world from one country to another.

But you, us, the listener—we want to believe that Swift makes these records because she has the artistic will, drive and interest to continue giving us parts of her story in such ways that they exist as an archival of her life.

But the problem is that, on The Tortured Poets Department, Swift is packaging her life into a form that is easily consumable for the 17 or 18 years olds who pour over her music. Just because her Eras Tour film is on Disney+ doesn’t mean she has to strip her songwriting (which we know can be, and has been, phenomenal) down for the sake of it being digestible by a wide spectrum of ages.

And, sure, maybe that makes the work accessible. But on The Tortured Poets Department, Swift makes Zoomer jargon her bag—titling a song after one of the most popular video games in the world and conjuring flickers of “down bad” and “I can fix him”—and it feels like she’s cosplaying because the Fountain of Youth was out of order.

Now that Swift is in her 30s, it sounds like she is infantilizing her own audience more than ever before—that singing to them at a level that could force them to reckon with something more akin with adulthood would be some kind of kink in the coil or her consumeristic threshold, that writing lyrics that sound like they were penned by a 30-year-old would, somehow, deter the interests of the billions of people who adore her.

If making one, continuous coming-of-age album is what Swift has been doing for 15 years, folklore and evermore were hiccups in the timeline—existing as the most fully-formed renderings of Swift’s own insecurities and concerns. They mirrored our platitudes towards an uncertain future with sweet, stirring remarks about isolation and heartbreak and the unavoidable, hard-worn truth about getting older. On those records, her larger-than-life living seemed, for once, to truly feel as close to the ground as ours.

Now, though, Taylor Swift is at the top of the mountain. Far better artists have made far worse records than The Tortured Poets Department, but you can’t read between the lines of this project. There is nothing to decipher from a place of quality.

Sure, Swift’s fan base will pour over these lyrics for the rest of their lives—insisting they know, for certain, which song is about who. But you cannot place a bad album on the shoulders of lore and expect it to be rectified.

We are now left at a crossroads. Women can’t critique Swift because they’ll run the risk of being labeled a “gender traitor” for doing so. Men can’t critique her because they’ll be touted as “sexist.”

And, sure, Swift is probably too easy a punching bag in this case—and most of the time, I would argue she is undeserving of being a victim of such barbs. But, you cannot write about someone being a “tattooed golden retriever” and get away with it and still retain your title as the best songwriter of your generation. You just cannot.

Sisyphus should be glad he never got the boulder to the top of the mountain—because Taylor Swift is showing us that such immortality and success ain’t all it’s cracked up to be. And, when you’re standing on the peak alone, who else is there left to hit?

In a recent interview with The Standard, Courtney Love said that Swift is “not interesting as an artist,” and I think The Tortured Poets Department proves as much. She has nothing to fight for, no doubters left to drown.

So where does she turn? Well, to boredoms of celebrity thinly veiled as sorrow everyone and their mother can latch onto—because we’ve all had to “ditch the clowns, get the crown” at some point in our lives, right?

The billionaire is having an identity crisis, but there are no social media apps for her to buy up. So she sings like Lana Del Rey and writes meta-self-referential songs about looking like Stevie Nicks.

What’s hollow about The Tortured Poets Department is that the real torture is just how unlivable these songs really are. No one can resonate with “So I leap from the gallows and I levitate down your street, crash the party like a record, scratch as I scream ‘Who’s afraid of little old me?’ You should be.” And normally, that wouldn’t be an end-all-be-all for a pop record—but when your brand is built on copious levels of “I’m just like you!” as the demigod saying it to their fans does so from a multi-million-dollar production set, it’s hard to not feel nauseated by the overlording, overbearing sense of heavy-handed detritus we’re tasked with sifting through on The Tortured Poets Department.

Love’s words to Lana, her advice to “take seven years off,” should be applied to Swift. Now, that doesn’t mean that, to make a good album, you must sit on material for years and labor extensively through the sketching, shaping and recording in order for it to be transcendentally landmark. But it’s obvious now that not even Taylor Swift wants to be the head of an empire—that she, too, can’t outrun the damning fate of being plum out of ideas by hopping in her jet and skirting off to God knows where.

See you at the Grammys.

****

[demacianpuppet]

Of Zaun and their missing surnames

With the hiatus and all the new fans discovering the League lore for the first time, I noticed that many people believe that people from Zaun do not have surnames, which is wrong.

First of all, we have one character from Undercity which gets addressed with her last name all the time - Sky Young.

It is fair to say that we do have places in Runeterra which seem not to use the classical example of the modern surname. 

To list some examples:

Zed introduces himself in his own comic as “Usan of Kéthé”.

Both Cithria and Sylas have a reference to the place they grew up (Cithria of Cloudfield & Sylas of Dregbourne).

Ashe calls herself “Ashe. Daughter of Grena. I am the Bow.” in Ashe: Warmother. 

Even for a person who lacks a proper surname, there is a cultural norm on how to introduce yourself.

For places like Ionia and Demacia it makes sense that their “surnames” are location-dependent - these regions tend to have mostly villages and small towns. You don’t need a fancy surname because everyone knows each other.

In Freljord, the individual is defined by his relationship with their tribe - as long as you haven’t made a name for yourself, you tie yourself to your family. And if you can offer something for your tribe, you wear that title proudly. 

To summarize: All these regions have either small populations so it suffices to mention from which villages they come or have other ways like titles. 

None of these methods would work in Zaun because the Undercity is a big place.

Another point: By watching the way the council operates, we know how much red tape exists in Piltover. Are we all gonna pretend as if getting into the Academy wouldn’t require tons of paperwork, which for sure has to include a full name? So surnames have to exist in Zaun for sure.

However, there is an important narrative point why we know the last names Jayce, Caitlyn and Mel in contrast to the main characters from Zaun.

For all of these three characters, the last names work as stepping stones and safety nets at the same time.

Let’s take a closer look.

Caitlyn is the heir of the Kirraman house. She is the daughter of the councilor member and therefore, every single door is open for her. No matter where Caitlyn would have applied for a job, they would have recognized her name immediately and picked her for the prestige alone.

While Jayce seemed to need a sponsorship to study at the academy, he is not from a bad family. When he gets expelled from the Academy, he actually could simply take over the Talis forge. And while his “name is no good anymore”, I am sure with time people would have simply forgotten about the whole thing and he could have simply stayed in his social circle.

Jayce’s life was not over in any way - he still had a stable future, simply not the want he dreamed of. It was Jayce’s own decision to try to end his life, he was not pushed by actual existential dread.

It is difficult to say how Mel’s climb has been. We know that she has been exiled from her family but we don’t know how. It could be that she came to Piltover with enough money to invest. Even if she didn’t, with her family name it wouldn’t have been too difficult to find someone to help her settle in Piltover before she had the power to shape the city to her own beliefs. 

Every single of these three characters worked hard to get to their position. However, the truth is that their journeys have been so much shorter and smoother than for a lot of other people. The reality is that working hard is rarely enough to actually get to things you want - luck is the biggest factor. Luck in being born into the right family or somehow getting lucky in a different way.

Things are different in Zaun.

Vander is a pillar in the community. Not because he has a fancy family name or because his ancestor did something important but because he helped to create a place of connection in the Lanes.

Silco is a feared man. We don’t know his past but we can assume he worked on the fissure as well since he can breathe that kind of air. A man hellbend to use his power and money to create an independent Zaun, outside of Piltover’s shadow. 

Nobody cares about how Ekko grew up. The people who look up to the “boy savior” do it because he is a symbol of hope.

In contrast to Piltover, Zaun doesn’t have a history it can take advantage of, but instead it forges its own legacy in the present.

TL;DR: People from Zaun absolutely have surnames, since the place is too big for not having such a system. Not knowing the last names of the Zaunites is a narrative choice - every Piltovian had advantage because of their family name, in contrast to the Zaunites who had to climb their way up in spite of everything.

[rocorambles]

Murder of Crows

Pairing: Hinata, Kageyama, Yamaguchi, Tsukishima, Yachi x Reader aka a Karasuno first-year gangbang (Takes place when they’re all third years.)

Genre/Warnings: Yandere, Toxic Relationships, Rape/Non-con, Degradation 

Summary: You should have trusted your gut when you first felt the wandering eyes and lingering stares, but now it’s too late and you’ll learn first hand what it feels like to be utterly defeated by a murder of crows.

Requested by Anon

You’re not quite sure how exactly you’ve found yourself here in a gym full of sweaty athletes, hauling a basket of ice cold water bottles to the sidelines with your best friend, Yachi, but here you are. With a loud thud, both of you drop the heavy container down and grab the pile of towels just in time for the boys who are quickly approaching you, splattering droplets of sweat everywhere and you crinkle your nose and playfully pretend to gag as they draw near. Tsukishima rolls his eyes at your antics, but he nods his head in thanks as he grabs a clean towel from you. You patiently wait as some other team members relieve you of the pile of fabric in your hands before Yachi and you sit on the bench as Yamaguchi and Coach Ukai order the team to gather around as they discuss practice drills. 

You smile fondly at the way Yamaguchi confidently holds himself as he stands next to Coach Ukai with shoulders squared and a serious, but kind face directed at the rest of the team. To think that the shy Yamaguchi you had met when Yachi had first started helping out the team during your first year would grow to be the respectable captain that he is now. But he’s not the only one who’s gone through drastic changes and you look over the rest of the third-years intently listening to him. Hell, you even turn to briefly look at Yachi and yourself. When you had become friends with Yachi at the beginning of high school you barely knew what volleyball was, let alone thought of managing the team and yet here you both are as third-years, decked out in the black Karasuno warm-up track suit.

Yachi was your first and best friend by far of the group, but you can’t deny that over the last two years you’ve also gotten closer to the rest of the boys in the same year as you. Well, you suppose they technically aren’t boys anymore. A faint smile plays on your lips as you reminisce on all the memories you’ve shared together between study sessions that somehow became just tutoring sessions as you all tried to force information into Hinata and Kageyama’s heads and exhausted nights where all of you slumped in front of Coach Ukai’s store eating meat buns and chatting away until he kicked all of you out and made you go home. But that smile turns downwards when you think about some of the more recent and less positive changes in your friends.

You can’t quite put your finger on it. You know the six of you are exceptionally close, almost weirdly close, but you had just chalked it up to the fact that you all see each other for hours every day between classes, volleyball, and after school and weekend study sessions and hangouts. Yet that doesn’t stop the slight unease from growing inside of you as you observe the increasingly strange behaviors your friends exhibit and it’s only become more...physical...now that you’re all in your third year and officially all adults. 

You had visibly winced when Yachi had first introduced you to Hinata and the orange haired ball of energy had decided to scream a greeting at you, but you couldn’t keep the wide grin from spreading across your face as you got swept up in his enthusiasm. Every moment with him felt like riding an exhilarating roller coaster and maybe that’s why you barely noticed how strange it was that he came knocking on your door almost every single day asking you to come hang out or jog with him, how strange it was that he texted you as soon as you got up, blowing up your phone all day until you went to sleep. You were so caught up in the wild ride that Hinata Shouyou was that you never had the chance to get off and think about how you had even gotten on this ride in the first place and when was the last time you had been able to take a break from it. You were still flipping upside down in loops as you entered your third year and the ride just became more intense as he began wrapping his wiry arms around you at practice, nonchalantly talking to the rest of the team with your body firmly pulled against him and his chin resting on your shoulder. You had shooed him off of you the first few times, but he had turned his huge puppy eyes on you and no one else on the team seemed to care, so you just went along with it. 

Kageyama took a little more time to warm up to you, but you didn’t take it personally knowing how reserved he was. However, over time and after a particularly long study session you had personally sat with him through, he had left a carton of his favorite milk on your desk and you had beamed at the innocent object. He started hovering around you more after that. The two of you never really spoke much, but you enjoyed the peaceful and comfortable quiet that surrounded both of you and yet, despite his silence, you noticed that he spoke loudly through his actions. You were beyond shocked the first time you had sat down to lunch with him, ready to dig into your food, when he had frowned at your bento, taken it from you, and removed some of your rice while adding more meat and vegetables without saying a single word to you. Mouth still open in disbelief, you had pierced him with a questioning look only to receive a muttered reply about making sure you were eating a balanced diet. Your heart had fluttered at the endearing reasoning, but it had become a bit strange later on when he would hand feed you, practically shoving a stalk of broccoli or a piece of chicken in your mouth even at times that you said you were too full to eat anymore. But that just meant Kageyama cared for you, right? You know the boy’s terrible when it comes to social interactions, so you shrug it off.

Yamaguchi has arguably gone through the most dramatic personality change since you had first met him and you’re so proud of the confident leader he’s become. But even in your second year with him, you had sworn that sometimes there was a hint of something...darker, hungry...something lurking underneath his shy facade that made you shiver in fear. But every time you tried to take a closer look it disappeared only to be replaced with a soft gaze. And now that he’s fully grown into himself, he’s become more physical with everyone, casually slinging his arms around everyone’s shoulders and backs in a comforting, friendly manner as he rallies up team morale. But you can almost swear that when he slings an arm around you in thanks or in greeting, his arm gets progressively lower to the point that you almost recoil from him when you feel his hand brush against the hem of your skirt. But he’s always quick to move away from you and you wonder if all of it is just your imagination or an accident on his part. 

You're briefly distracted from your thoughts as loud shouting fills the gym and your eyes are drawn to Tsukishima’s figure as it leaps through the air and blocks a spiked ball. Honestly, you’re surprised you’re even friends with him, let alone close friends. He had been nice enough to not insult you like he did with the rest of the boys, but on the other hand, he rarely spoke even a word to you or acknowledged your presence. But as you hung out with the group more, you noticed the tall shadow that seemed to always walk beside you between classes, to the cafeteria, and back home. And he’d only grown bolder in your last year, wrapping a large hand around your wrist and forcefully dragging you with him when the both of you were running late for volleyball practice. You were so caught up in keeping up with his long strides and complaining loudly about his tight grip on you that you didn’t notice the terrifying glares he shot at any male who even looked at you as the two of you walked through the school halls.  

And finally, Yachi, your sweet and adorable best friend. The two of you had hit it off right away as soon as you met each other and it was like you were connected at the hip ever since. You can’t even keep track of the amount of sleepovers, weekend trips, day trips, girl talks, and everything else you’ve done together. But you had found it a little weird when she had slept over for the first time after both of you had officially turned eighteen and insisted on sleeping in the same futon as you. Assuming she was just feeling a bit lonely and nostalgic, you let her slip under the covers with you and drifted off to sleep, unaware of the hand wandering across your resting figure. After that night, she kept on finding her way into your futon and it soon just became the norm for the both of you and you grew accustomed to falling asleep with her body heat next to yours, your dreams suddenly full of feather light touches. 

Yes, they’ve all definitely changed since you first met them all, but they’re still your closest friends despite all their new quirks, and perhaps it’s just the natural transition of entering adulthood that’s affected them. People change. You aren’t kids anymore. Of course they’d be different now. But that conviction struggles to stick in your mind when you’re stuck in the gym alone with all of them after practice every day. Yamaguchi’s always quick to dismiss the first and second years the minute practice is done and he politely assures the coaches that you all would be fine cleaning up the equipment and locking the gym up as he bids them good night. It becomes normal for the six of you to take down the nets and round up all the volleyballs and yet your hackles rise as you swear you can feel multiple pairs of eyes intensely staring at you as you bend over to pick up stray balls. You swear you feel a hand drag and linger across your ass as someone helps you lower the net. You swear it almost feels like they want to devour you as they linger a moment too long in the doorway of the equipment room, not immediately letting you pass when you try to exit. But you have no proof and the moments happen so fast that you wonder if you’re just becoming more paranoid for no reason. 

You really should have trusted your gut. 

There’s an excited buzz in the air as the team hops off of the bus and intermingles with the Tokyo teams. It’s the first training camp of the year and everyone’s busy catching up with old friends and meeting new people. You struggle to lift a bag of equipment and almost drop it when a hand reaches out and catches it before it hits the ground. Stunned by the surprising interaction, you quickly whip around and smile when you see Inuoka beaming down at you. The two of you hug and he walks with you to the dorm rooms, helping you carry everything as both of you catch up, unaware of the many pairs of eyes darkly staring at your backs.

Karasuno has always been close to Nekoma and that hasn’t changed over the years, so when the teams aren’t practicing, you happily joke around with the Nekoma third-years, laughing at Lev’s stupid shenanigans and conversing with Inuoka and Shibayama. A part of you feels guilty for not spending more time with your own team, but it’s so rare that you get an ample amount of time with your Nekoma friends and you brush the feeling off. Surely your friends would understand. But the narrowed eyes, clenched fists, and tight jaws across the room are hardly understanding as they lock in on the sight of Lev excitedly grabbing your hands as he asks you something, the sight of Inuoka resting his hand on your shoulder as he talks, the sight of Shibayama’s eyes lingering a bit too long on your face when he thinks you aren’t looking.

The week flies by and all too soon it’s the last night of camp and you horse around with the Nekoma boys, loudly shouting and fooling around well past curfew. But you know the coaches are turning a blind eye to any mischief tonight, letting you all do as you want as a thank you for all your hard work and dedication. Inuoka and Shibayama are cheering you on as you have Lev in a headlock, but all of a sudden your phone vibrates and you reluctantly release the lanky giant before opening up the unread text.

From Yachi: Come hang out with the rest of the third-years and me! It’s probably going to be our last training camp all together so we want to make some new memories together. 

Guilt gnaws at your heart when you read her message and you immediately rise and say goodbye to the rowdy boys before rushing off to your own team. The Karasuno third-year boys had managed to secure their own dorm room and you excitedly open the door only to yelp as a hand grabs you by the collar of your shirt and you vaguely register the sound of the door slamming shut as you’re shoved to the ground and adjusted until you’re on all fours. You try to shove off the hands that are tearing off your clothes, but tired of your flailing, Tsukishima wraps a hand around your throat and squeezes and squeezes until you stop you’re struggling, choosing instead to wheeze and claw at the arm restricting your air flow and only when you’re completely naked with Kageyama pressed tightly behind you, holding your waist in a bruising grip, does he let go.

You gasp for breath as you stare up at the blonde with teary eyes. “Why are you guys doing this?” You pray that it’s all a terrible joke, just a prank gone out of hand, but you flinch as Tsukishima sneers down at you. 

“What? Upset that we aren’t your Nekoma boyfriends instead? Tell me, if we hadn’t asked you to come here, would you be letting them fuck you all night long? Of course you would, you fucking slut. You have four cocks and a pussy literally just waiting for you to say the word and they’d be all yours, but no, you just had to go off and be a little whore, letting those fucking cats put their paws all over you instead. We don’t share. You’re ours, do you understand?” 

Tsukishima smirks at the fear in your eyes. “Well, even if you your stupid little bimbo brain can’t understand that now, it’ll be engrained in your mind and body after we’re all through with you tonight. Open your mouth.” You try to twist your face away as he lowers his pants, letting his cock spring out and hit your face, but his hand threateningly hovers over your throat once more and you obediently take him into your mouth. He’s so long and you begin to gag with only half of him inside of you. With an irritated sigh, he painfully grabs you by the roots of your hair and forcefully shoves the rest of his length down your throat and you try to scream around the object stretching your jaw, but you’re muffled as he starts pistoning his hips in and out of your wet cavern and tears stream down your face as your throat burns from the abuse. You’re so distracted by the struggle of trying to breathe that you don’t even notice the movement behind you until you feel something hard nudging past your entrance and shame washes over you at Kageyama’s words. 

“She’s already so wet.” You clench your eyes shut as Tsukishima laughs and only ruts into your mouth faster. “God, you’re pretending to cry and hate it, but you love this, don’t you? You love being fucked from both ends. You’re such a fucking cock slut.” He emphasizes each word with a harsh thrust and your eyes roll back as his tip hits the back of your throat at the same time that Kageyama bottoms out into you. You’re so full and you swear your jaw might unhinge itself from trying to accommodate Tsukishima’s cock and yet you can’t help the way your hips start rocking back to meet Kageyama’s thrusts as he takes his time sliding in and out of you at a languid pace, relishing the feeling of your tight walls clenching and sliding across every inch of his shaft. 

You shake your head as much as you can with Tsukishima’s fingers still tightly interwoven in your locks, trying to deny the degrading accusations Tsukishima relentlessly spits at you, but you can’t help the moan that escapes you as Tsukishima curses and pulls out, hurriedly giving himself a few more strokes before painting your face with thick white streaks. Your cunt unconsciously clenches from the humiliation of being so lewdly marked and Kageyama hisses before increasing his pace and you collapse to your elbows as Kageyama desperately chases his end while Tsukishima crouches in front of you, reaching around to play with your clit. And despite the horribleness of the entire situation, you can’t help but fall apart and your quivering walls are all it takes for Kageyama to release deep inside of you.

Kageyama has enough foresight to at least gently lower you down to the floor after he pulls out of you and you lay there on the hard surface, wishing it would just swallow you whole and take you anywhere from here. But of course that doesn’t happen and you weakly sob when you hear Yamaguchi’s soft, but commanding voice ordering you to kneel in front of him. You raise yourself up on shaky arms and move to stand up, but Tsukishima’s hand keeps you down. “Crawl like the bitch that you are.” You tremble from emotional and physical exhaustion as you make your way towards the captain, placing one hand and foot in front of the other, and you cringe at the feeling of Kageyama’s cum beginning to trickle down your inner thigh, but soon enough you’re in between his thighs as he sits on a chair above you. 

His cock is already out and even though he’s not as big as Tsukishima, your mouth still goes dry at the thought of trying to take him in your still aching mouth. You begin to lick him, taking in just his tip and swirling your tongue around him before delicately licking down his entire length, anything to buy you some time before you need to use your mouth again, but you push off of him with a scream, your hands tightly clutching his thighs as Hinata slides underneath your spread legs and licks a long stripe across your pussy. Yamaguchi is patient with you, enjoying the way drool begins to leak out the sides of your mouth as you moan from Hinata’s enthusiastic licks, but his cock twitches at a high pitched whine that exits your throat and he places a hand on your head and firmly pushes you back down to his leaking cock. 

You’re sloppy, unable to fully control your mouth as you moan and drool while Hinata’s tongue pushes inside of you, tasting every inch of you. But the sight of you slobbering all over his cock and the debauched mess of it all only makes it feel better for Yamaguchi and he can’t help the way his hips buck up into you when he finally finishes and he hungrily drinks in the sight of your throat swallowing every drop of him. Your thighs begin to clench and your body is taut as you can feel another climax quickly approaching and when Yamaguchi casually twists and pulls your nipples with his fingers, your back sharply arches as you open your mouth in a silent scream. You stay in that shape for a few seconds until the pleasure begins to ebb away and you try to move away, but Hinata’s arms wrap around you, holding you in place, and you wail as he earnestly continues lapping and sucking at every inch of your drenched pussy that he can reach. Your upper body collapses into Yamaguchi’s lap as he tenderly strokes your hair and it feels like ages before Hinata finally reliquinches his grip on you and moves out from under you. 

You shakily whimper as Yamaguchi soothingly whispers into your ear about what a good slut you are, how beautiful you look when you’re falling apart because of them, but you have no energy to push yourself away from him and you lay there, with your face in between his thighs and your arms splayed over his legs. You can feel your eyelids fluttering shut and just when you think you’ll at least be able to escape into the shelter of your own unconsciousness, strong hands pull you off of Yamaguchi and lay you flat on your back. It’s not comfortable, but you’re at least glad to finally relieve your knees which you’re sure will be black and blue tomorrow. But any small consolation you felt instantly dissipates when you see Hinata hovering over you and you don’t even have a second to understand what’s happening before he shoves his entire length into you in one swift motion. 

After being stretched out by Kageyama and thoroughly lubricated with the sticky mix of your own juices and the setter’s cum, Hinata easily slides in and there’s no pain as he fills you, but this new position means there’s nowhere for you to hide your face from the predatory eyes staring down at you and the humiliation is so much worse as you’re fully aware of Hinata intently staring at your slutty fucked out expression as he continuously rams in and out of you. Your eyes are so far back in your head that it’s hard to clearly see and maybe that’s why you don’t notice the growing shadow covering your face until it’s too late and your nose and mouth are covered by a musky warm scent. Sex. It smells like sex. You rapidly blink the pleasure from your eyes as you try to focus your vision, but you wish you hadn’t when the image of Yachi’s small breasts bouncing above you as she rides your face sears itself into your brain. You try to close your mouth as tightly as you can, refusing to service the woman above you, but it’s so hard to breathe with her pussy covering the bottom half of your face and accidental moans are forced from you as Hinata continues railing into you, which only cause Yachi to grind and moan more as the vibrations from your mouth stimulate her slick heat. 

Later you’ll try and convince yourself that it was just survival instinct, just you trying to do what you needed to do to breathe, to have everything be over and that you aren’t eagerly drinking Yachi’s essence that never seems to stop flowing on your face as your lips and tongue explore every inch of her more intimately than you’d ever dreamed of doing. You’ll deny you felt any pleasure despite the wanton moans you can’t stop releasing and the powerful orgasm that wracks through your body as Hinata’s cum mixes with the mess between your legs and as Yachi’s hips stutter as she smears her release all over your face. But for now you lay there, in a pool of your own liquids and the fluids of the five people towering over your limp and used body, drowning in the dangerously intoxicating pleasure they’ve submerged you in. 

A tiny screeching voice inside of your head tells you to get up, get away and despite the dazed state you’re in, your hands attempt to push you up and it feels like you’re stuck in molasses as you excruciatingly slowly push yourself up into a sitting position and it takes everything left inside of you to feebly move your legs as you attempt to rise. But just when you almost have your feet underneath you, something is pressed against your chest and you’re pushed back down and you whimper at the heavy embarrassing weight of the foot squarely planted in the middle of your chest, stepping on you, keeping you down. Tsukishima’s never looked taller as he leers down at you.

“That’s cute. Did you really think we’d let you just get up and walk away from us? We’re nowhere near done with you. We’re not stopping until we literally fuck you to sleep and make sure that your body is so worn out that we know you’ll be safe and sound in your own futon tonight and not sneaking off to whore yourself out to anyone else.” 

And if you’ve learned anything from managing this team, it’s that they’re relentless in the pursuit of their goals and for the first time since you’ve managed them, you feel a pang of pity for the teams they’ve crushed and destroyed, wondering if this is how all their opponents feel as the five of them pounce on you with the intent of thoroughly dominating and conquering you.   

[ertrunkenerwassergeist]

Rough Galahkari Clan Structure

Some time ago I said I would talk about family dynamics in Galahkari culture. I’ll do so soon, but first I feel I need to talk a bit about Clan structure. Mostly for the sake of completion, but also to make things clearer. (Hopefully XD)

Galahkari society is made up of Clans and families. Clans are (mostly) simple, families are complicated.

To be part of a Clan, one needs to complete their First Hunt. And everyone with the same last name is part of the same Clan. When someone is part of a Clan, they are considered a proper and fully fledged member of society.

A Clan is responsible for ones financial aid, benefits, sick money, pension, etc. Essentially a Clan helps get its members stable liveleihoods. In exchange the Clan member helps sustain the Clan.

The structure of a Clan looks roughly like this:

First, there is the Oirkar, the head of the Clan, the leader. Literally, the word means ‘first person’. So the head of the Clan is considered the first person of said Clan.

The position gets handed down from one Oirkar to the other, but the person to inherit the position does not have to be closely related to the old leader. What I mean is that, when the old Oirkar steps down (when they hit 70 they’re strongly encouraged by society to do so), they choose the next leader, who they feel would lead the Clan best.

One step down there is the Datkar, or Heliokar, Nohelihm or Obiar Oirih, depending on where on Galahd a Clan is. In order they mean ‘second person’, ‘helper’, ‘helping hand’ and ‘behind the first’.

They are the second-in-command. They help run the Clan and make sure the Clan Head’s decisions get carried out. They also take the position of temporary Clan Head, if the Oirkar is out of commission for whatever reason and the heir is still too young.

A new Oirkar chooses their Datkar. But a Datkar always has their own ‘heir’ that can step up should something happen or they want to step down. Also in the bigger Clans there can be more than one Datkar to help with the workload.

The Heir, or Miga Oi - which means ‘little first’ - is a very fluid position in the sense that the power it has depends on how far along in their training the heir is.

Next are the Sinehäri - the Elders. Every person over 70 has a claim to that title, but the ones with actual power are those who were either the Oirkar, the Datkar, or a Qurah.

Elders mostly function as advisors and educators for children. But their age and subsequent experience gives every Elder a certain level of respect.

Qurahi are the Masters of the craft the Clan specialises in. They are in charge of the Clan’s workforce and trade. They make sure the people under them and their dependants are taken care of.

The Miqur are the helpers and assistants to the Qurahi. While not Masters themselves, all that’s keeping them from the position is experience/age and the mastery exam. (Libertus has this position in his own Clan.)

After that is the mostly homogenous group of everybody else.

How does all this relate to families?

Well, mostly in a sociopolitical way.

A member of Clan Ostium can have dependants that aren’t part of Clan Ostium and the Clan would still have to pay money to help with their care. Mostly those dependants are children who are potential new Clan members, so that isn’t really a problem. It gets problematic for some when the Nameless get into the equation.

Let’s take Crowe. In my worldbuilding she isn’t part of Clan Altius and as such does not have a legal last name where the Galahkari are concerned. And as she isn’t part of a Clan, she does not have the financial security net being part of one would give her.

Now, as Libertus’s sister, she can count as his dependant and he can basically ask for money from his Clan for Crowe’s support. (Which would be like kicking a hornets nest, since Murus is a prejudiced dickhead when it comes to Clanless people.)

A Clan cares for their own, and it would really hurt their social standing, if they could not do so. Like, if Clan Najad could not pay its members for their work, or pay them their sick benefits or anything else, and another Clan would do so, that would be a major blow to the face. (And cause for conflict.)

By that I mean, for example, Pelna Khara and his wife Tethys Najad. If Tethys’s benefits fell away for whatever reason, Pelna could name her his dependant and get money for her from his Clan. Which would very likely cause an inter-Clan crisis.

(Here I should reiterate that when people marry, they don’t leave their Clan to join their spouse’s. Which also has the consequence of people keeping their last names.)

So yeah. Clans are mostly simple. Families make it all complicated. And part of why that is, is that families of deed and choice have just as much value in Galahkari society as families of blood.

[hanniiesuckle17]

Getting to First Base

A/n: just a little something. i need more seungmin on my masterlist anyway and i would do anything for my babies so! (not thoroughly edited)

Requested by: @pixielix 

Tag List: @distrikt9 @mini-meanhoe @poeticallyspaghetti @hanstagrams​ @desertofdessert @hoes4hoseok @yangomangos @jeonqqin​ @geminirules​ @crscendoforsung​ @mrsunshine999​  @multi-net​

Word Count: 2.3k

Warnings: cheeky seungmin that's about it i think

Summary: Kim Seungmin is the star of Cheongdam High. His grades are top-notch and he is the star pitcher of the school’s baseball team. Every girl wants date him and every guy wants to be friends with him. But, little does Y/n know he only has eyes for her. All it takes is one night and one extra private practice for things to change for both of them.

Genre: romance, fluff, non-idol!au, baseball player!seungmin, softball player!reader, highschool!au, popular kid!seungmin

◈

An ominous buzz filled the lunchroom. Not the kind attached to any flying pest. This was the sound of gossip seeping from every table in the cafeteria. Despite the conformity inspired by our school uniforms, clear, distinct borders were made in the large room. 

 Near the window, were the candidates for valedictorian and their study groups. Their trays always lay untouched and books took their focus. In the right corner were the Netizens and resident fan-girls and boys alike. They were mostly harmless unless it was comeback season. Across the way in the left corner was the ‘cool’ kids. Cool meaning the guys smoked behind the schools and the girls cut their skirts to short and glared at anyone who looked their way. Towards the back were your general outcasts and weirdos. They usually kept to themselves, but if you were caught sitting with them it was the social equivalent of suicide. 

The center. The center was where everyone wanted to be. The focal point of the cafeteria was the two circular tables that housed the school’s pride and joy. The baseball and softball teams. And at the heart of it all, seemingly lit by a ray of sunshine, was Kim Seungmin. Star pitcher of Cheongdam’s baseball team. 

Seungmin sat atop the lunch table, his shaggy brown hair falling across his forehead. His tie was loose and hanging lower than it should be and the silver bracelet he always wore dangled over his tan wrist as he waved over another member of his team. 

It was no secret I liked Seungmin. Almost every girl in our school had a crush on Seungmin. Girls flocked to give him gifts before games and they waited for him before and after practice. I watched from the girls’ field as they lined up at the fence and cheered for him as he pitched inning after inning. 

My less than white sneakers squeaked over the white tiles as I carried my lunch tray to the softball table. “Y/n!” My friend Jia waved me over, a bright smile illuminating her face. At the sound of my name, Seungmin’s head popped up like a meerkat and searched the cafeteria. His eyes met mine and I gave him a smile before sliding into my seat. 

The cold metal of the cheap tables chilled the bare skin on my legs. “Did you hear about Miyoung?” Jia said twirling the aluminum chopsticks in her hand before stabbing them into a sausage. I nervously laughed at her exhibition of violence towards the innocent piece of meat. 

“No. What about her?”

“Apparently she’s failing a class. Her mom is pulling her from the team.” 

My jaw dropped, halfway full of food. Without looking she pushed it up, prompting me to finish chewing. “But we have Sectionals-” Jia nodded stabbed yet another sausage. “She’s our star pitcher-” I could hear the meat squealing in pain at her unhindered violence. I noticed some of the boys at the next table staring at her with terrified eyes. When she turned they looked away, hands hiding her next possible sausage target.

“I’m going to take these away from you.” My hands reached for her saucer but an animal like growl escaped her throat so I left her be. 

Jia sighed looking at our team around the table. “I just really wanted to win Sectionals this year.” We ate the rest of our meal in silence, waiting for the bell to ring. The hall was flooded with students. The sea of blue jackets made it hard to weave my way into Room B23. 

Class droned on for the next hour. Just as my eyes started to droop, I was hit in the back of the head by a paper projectile. The ball of notebook paper landed on the floor at my feet. My eyes fell on a familiar shaggy head of brown hair. With happy puppy eyes, he pointed towards the paper, eyeing the teacher warily. 

Why Seungmin felt the need to throw the paper at me I had no clue. He sat right beside me. The teacher seemed preoccupied with scolding a student about using their phone so I reached down and picked up the note. I smiled seeing Seungmin’s handwriting. 

Do you have practice today? 

He was asking if I had practice? Did he suddenly drop every brain cell in that big head of his? It was a known fact that the baseball and softball schedule was practically identical. Every day he had practice and every day I had mine. That’s why the school invested in a second field for the softball team.

Of course. Same as you. Why?

My hand moved across the paper, making every letter neat and in beautiful handwriting. Quitely folding the note, I slipped it between two fingers and held it down by my side, staring at the board. I desperately tried not to withdraw feeling Seungmin’s fingers brushed mine as he took the parchment.

Quietly he unfolded the paper and I listened to his pen scrawl across it more than I did read the lessons from my textbook. My hand stayed ready to receive his message but it was once again tossed onto my desk. Rolling my eyes I opened his message.

I like knowing things. 

Not bothering to write anything back I crumpled the sheet and tossed it at his head. Seungmin laughed, our teacher’s head shooting up and sending us a stern glare. 

That was such a Seungmin answer. He always loved being the smartest person in the room. Putting the weird interaction in the back of my mind, I focused back on my work and waited for the school day to be over.

◈

I stood in line with the rest of the now twelve girls of Cheongdam’s softball team. The sound of the boys’ practice was carrying over the chainlink fence onto our field. Our coach walked the line, clipboard in hand.

“I’m sure you all are aware Miyoung has dropped from the team.” Most of the girls nodded, several gasped and turned to the others looking for confirmation. “With Sectionals coming up we need an immediate replacement for our pitcher.” His eyes scanned down the line, holding a stare with every single girl. “L/n. Congratulations, you are our new pitcher.”

“But- I’m just a shortstop?”

“Not anymore.” He tossed me a mitt and called for everyone to take their positions. A heavy weight landed on my shoulders as I stood atop the pitcher’s mound. I felt all eyes on me as the first girl stepped up to the plate. 

The ball was familiar in my hands. I stared at the girl waiting to bat. With as much aim and accuracy as I could muster I threw the ball. It sailed over the plate before connecting with the wooden bat with a loud crack. 

The rest of our practice seemed to last an eternity. The coach yelled at me more than anyone else on the team. By now everyone had left. The floodlights had been shut off and I stood in the dark on the pitcher's mound. The ball felt heavy in my hand.

Staring down the makeshift target I created at home plate, I wiped the sweat off my brow. The ball flew from my hand missing the target by just an inch. Sighing, I collapsed onto the ground head in my hands. Cold sweat lay on the back of my neck, becoming freezing as the night breeze blew over it.

“Shouldn’t you have left already?”

Looking up I saw Seungmin walking towards me with a long stride. A duffle bag hung loosely over his right shoulder and he smiled at me from the gate entrance. His hair was messy and I could see the sleeve of his uniform hanging out of the bag.

“I heard you’re the new pitcher. How is that going?”

“As you can tell, not so great.” Setting down his bag Seungmin grabbed onto a basket full of softballs and dragged it over to the mound. He placed on in my hand before standing back and watching expectantly. “What are you doing?”

He shrugged, scuffing his shoe in the tan dirt. “Helping you. Obviously.” Nudging my shoulder he pointed to the target. “Let me see what you’ve got.” Pitching in front of Cheongdam High’s star player. This was certainly not how I imagined this night to go.

Taking a deep breath, I aimed my stare towards the target. Seungmin watched me with an analytic gaze as the ball left my hand. The round projectile grazed the second most outer ring of the target. He shrugged as I turned back to him.

“It’s not bad. I’ve seen worse.”

“Thanks for your vote of confidence.” Seungmin shrugged once more and watched me pick up another softball. “Here. Why don’t you show me how it’s done then. A smirk played at his lips as I tossed him the ball.

He listed his head, playing with the spherical object. “You do realize, pitching a baseball and pitching a softball are technically different.”

Seungmin rolled his eyes as I stepped back from the top of the mound and motioned for him to step up.  With perfect form, he let loose the ball, long fingers seeming to extend as it flew towards the target. A large thunk could be heard and all that was left was a dent smack dab in the center of the target.

“Want me to teach you?” Slowly I nodded and walked over to him. His fingers brushed mine as he handed me another ball from the basket. “Try inhaling when you prep and exhaling as you let loose the ball.” 

Following his instructions, I took a deep breath and let go as the ball flew past my fingertips. Seungmin burst out laughing when the softball bounced off of the target’s corner. “You’re supposed to be teaching, not laughing dumbass!” 

“I can’t help it,” Seungmin gasped, doubling over in laughter. “That was too cute!” My body froze involuntarily and I prayed that he assumed the blush on my cheeks was from the cold. His eyes raked over my face clearly noticing the heat flooding over my skin. “Try again?” Seungmin proposed picking up another ball. 

Knowing my only chance of a scream-free practice tomorrow was standing next to me I turned back towards the plate, the ball passing between my hand and the mitt. Hearing Seungmin’s sharp intake of breath had me turning to wait for criticism. To my surprise, I felt his hands on my waist and his chest brushed against my back. Again I froze, choosing to look anywhere but the boy behind me. 

“Is something wrong?”

He shook his head, breath fanning over the back of my neck. With a gentle touch, his hands turned my hips parallel to his. “Try angling your hips this way. IT might help-” Seungmin stopped and stared seeing my eyes dragging over his lips. Ghosting over the corner of his mouth was a smirk that would make the Chesire cat proud. “Your staring.”

“Well...you were talking.”

“Please, you were practically undressing me with your eyes.”

“When did I-”

He laughed, keeping his hands on my waist. “I’m just kidding, Y/n.” Embarrassed, I stared down at my shoes. “Though...if you did want to kiss me, you should just do it. I’m very tired of waiting.”

“You’re tired of waiting? What about me?” I asked turning around, crossing my arms. The rough leather of the mitt was tucked under my arm in an awkward way, but I ignored it. “Why do you think I always buy an extra banana milk on Fridays? I know you’re going to ask for one at study group.” 

Seungmin laughed as I lightly swatted his shoulder, dropping the softball on the field and letting it roll away from the pitcher's mound. “Why do you think I go to study group? My grades are fine.” 

“Well...I-”

Before I could come up with an answer, Seungmin leaned down and pressed his lips against mine before pulling away hands behind his back. “You what?”

“I-.....uh...well-”

Again, Seungmin leaned down and pecked my lips. “Yes?”

“Kim Seungmin would you stop for one second!”

“So, you don’t want me to kiss you?”

“Yes. Wait- no. Wait.....what?”

His eyes crinkled and he pulled me towards his chest, kissing me deeply this time. It was a kiss that made me weak in the knees. Still not entirely processing that Seungmin was in fact kissing me, my hands hung by my side. “I’m doing all the work here. Are you going to kiss back or what?” Seungmin said with a laugh. Shaking myself out of the confused trance I grabbed his cheeks and pulled him back down to my lips. 

Wrapping my arms around his neck I kissed Seungmin with every part of my being. He smiled, holding me as close as possible. Suddenly a blinding light flashed over us. “Hey! What are you kids still doing here?” The voice of one of the security guards yelled. 

Seungmin and I shared a look before dropping the mitts and running towards the gate hand in hand. Grabbing our bags, Seungmin pushed me through the gate as we ran from the school guards. “Run!” I screamed dragging him through the looming iron gates that bordered the school grounds. 

The two of us laughed as we ran down the dimly lit street. “So, can I tell people you are actually my girlfriend now? We can officially be the best team in the sports department.” Leaning up I kissed his cheek before pulling him around a corner towards my house. 

“Yes. Why would I turn down a boyfriend when he comes with free pitching lessons?” I joked making him roll his eyes and ruffle my hair.

◈

Requests are Temporarily Closed!

Masterlist

[spine-buster]

The President Wears Prada (William Nylander) | Chapter 32

A/N: Another ‘friend’ of ours makes an appearance in this chapter (unfortunately for me lmao)

August 2nd, 2020

Aberdeen Bloom was as prepared as she could be for Game 1 against the Columbus Blue Jackets.  

Scotiabank Arena was freezing – more freezing than normal – because of the three-games-a-day and all the hockey being played.  She knew the players and team personnel would complain if the ice was crap (apparently they could tell, though it beat the shit out of her how they could tell), and of course Scotiabank Arena, and the Leafs in general, wanted to make an excellent impression.  They were the centre of the hockey world, so Aberdeen knew they could pull it off.  It just didn’t help that it was August and it felt like early November indoors.

She joined Brendan and Kyle in their usual box – luckily they didn’t have to give that up.  The team was taking their pre-game skate below and Aberdeen watched as William shot pucks towards Freddie in the net, sneaking one past him before skating around their perimeter of the rink a few times.  On the other side of the ice, the Columbus Blue Jackets were doing the exact same thing, though she barely knew or recognized a soul on the team.  One of them could walk by her in the arena and she wouldn’t know better.  

“How do you think it’s gonna go?” Brendan asked from six feet away from her, his black mask covering his face.

Aberdeen shrugged her shoulders.  “You should stop asking me these questions, Brendan.  I know nothing about hockey.”

“That may be,” he said, not letting up, “but you know the boys, on a level far superior than your knowledge of hockey.  So what do you say?”

Aberdeen thought about it.  She knew them on a personal level, but that didn’t matter at all – at least she didn’t think it mattered – when it came to a playoff game.  She knew how much pressure the guys were under.  She also knew that they were still adjusting to the bubble life and how weird everything was.  Make no mistake – they were being taken care of exceptionally well by the staff at the Royal York Hotel, and Aberdeen made sure she said a loud thank you to every worker she came across and interacted with.  She heard every single one of the guys do the exact same thing.  But she didn’t know how that would translate into a hockey game.  They were two different things.  They were to different entities that she had no idea how to join together.  

“I don’t know,” she shrugged, her voice soft.  “When you ask me these questions, I feel like you want me to be Nostradamus or something.  What if I said they were going to lose 2-0?”

“I’d believe you,” Brendan shrugged.

***

The Leafs lost 2-0.

“C’mon Nostradamus,” Brendan said as he packed up his clipboard and tucked it under his arm.  “The social media posts can wait.  You need to go mediate the post-game interviews and press calls.”

Aberdeen packed up her iPad after she rolled her eyes.  She shouldn’t have said anything.  She should have responded ‘They’re going to win 5-0!’ the first time he ever asked her that question and kept that answer throughout the entire season.  She followed six feet behind Kyle, who was in turn six feet behind Brendan, as they made their way to the locker room.  By the time they got there, Sheldon was nearing the end of his post-game speech.  Most of the guys were half undressed – at least at the top – and a few of them were shoving off their elbow pads and chucking their tape from their socks into the bins.  They all looked irritated.  

She made her way into the media room and set up the Zoom call where a bunch of reporters joined.  Morgan and Auston walked into the room, and she quickly typed in the chat which players were there so they could organize their questions accordingly.  Morgan and Auston sat down in their chairs.  

“Is Steve on the call?” Auston asked suddenly while Aberdeen was adjusting the camera.

“Uh, yeah.  Why?” she asked.

Auston pursed his lips together and shrugged it off.  

The interviews were going fine.  She hated hearing the sound of her own voice on recordings but she knew she’d have to suck it up for the sake of the media call.  She called on each reporter by name.  The boys answered their questions.  It was all very routine.  

“Steve Simmons from the Toronto Sun,” Aberdeen called out.  She waited, and while waiting, she saw Morgan’s and Auston’s demeanour completely change.  

“Uhhh, Steve Simmons, Toronto Sun for Auston – it’s one thing to hear about how tight they play, and to even watch the films of how tight they play.  What was it like to experience it?”

Auston took the lead.  “Uh, well I mean first of all, it’s unfortunate that I’mn getting a question from you at this point, Steve, but I just wanted to say I didn’t really appreciate the article you wrote about me a couple months ago.  I thought, uh, it was very unethical to be honest, but…uh, moving along…”

Aberdeen didn’t hear the rest of his answer.  Truthfully, she didn’t care.  All she could feel was a burning sensation shooting up her spine at Auston’s words.  He did it.  He called out Steve Simmons, the most annoying reporter known to mankind.  

She smirked.

***

After the media interviews, Aberdeen found a quiet space and took out her iPad again to post the final score graphic to the team’s Instagram page.  As she finished typing the caption – ‘Battled hard.  Back at it on Tuesday.’ – she heard some fairly loud footsteps behind her before they stopped.  “A girl?” a voice from behind her said.

She didn’t recognize it – and it wasn’t like anybody from the team would refer to her as “a girl” – so she furrowed her brows and turned around.  She saw what had to be a member of the Columbus Blue Jackets staring at her.  She couldn’t see it, but she automatically knew from the way he was standing and the energy he gave off that he was smirking smugly underneath his mask.  “Yeah, we exist,” she shot him a look, not ready to take any bullshit from him or anybody else.  The way these men thought she was a complete novelty astounded her.  “Have you never seen one of us before?”

“So Barzy was right,” the man continued.  “The Leafs have a girl in their bubble.  Incredible.”

Aberdeen could tell by the way he said and emphasized girl that this conversation – if you could call it that – was gonna be a doozy.  The guy was huge but didn’t look any older than she was, so she knew she would be able to put him in his place.  “What are you even doing in this hallway?  You’re not supposed to be on this side,” she said sternly.  “I suggest you leave and go back to your area of the arena unless you want me to complain to the NHL that your breaching protocol.”

From the very end of the hallway, another figure walked by, stopping at the gap when he apparently found who he was looking for.  Aberdeen could at least recognize him – John Tortorella, the head coach of the Columbus Blue Jackets.  “Pierre, what the fuck are you doing there?  Come on, we gotta go.”

The man, named Pierre, gave Aberdeen a smoldering look.  She rolled her eyes.  “Must have taken a wrong turn,” he said, loud enough so John would hear.

Dead set on not taking any bullshit, and just really, really wanting to put this guy in his place, Aberdeen didn’t let up.  “Perhaps you should remind Pierre of how to speak to the staff of another NHL team,” she said sternly.  Both men were too far away to notice how red she was getting, but she could see Pierre whip his head to look at her and his eyes go wide in shock.  “And perhaps he should read another copy of the social distancing and bubble protocols tonight in his bedroom so he doesn’t make this unfortunate decision again,” she said, deliberately using ‘decision’ instead of ‘mistake’, because she fucking knew this was no mistake.  She wondered what other rumours were swirling in the Royal York about a girl being in the Leafs bubble.  

Pierre scurried to the end of the hallway.  From her spot, she could hear John chuckle.  “You must be the Aberdeen Bloom I’ve only ever heard good things about,” he said.  “Keep it up.  I might ask you to take my place to keep the boys in line.”

She couldn’t help but smile.  Pierre took one last look between his coach and ‘the girl’.  “I could take ‘em,” Aberdeen commented, getting a nod from John before he and Pierre disappeared.  

She let out a breath.  

***

After the team got back to the hotel, picked up their pre-packaged dinner, and settled into their rooms, Aberdeen showered and changed.  She sat at the desk where she put the meal and took out her phone.  She sent some quick texts to her parents, Siena, and Camden before bringing up William’s name.

U up?

lmao minskatt isnt that what i should be saying to u *wink emoji*

Do you want to eat dinner together?

of course

I’m ready whenever you are babe

She waited for him to start the call.  Not even two minutes later, her phone began to ring and “Head Empty” flashed across the screen.  She accepted the FaceTime call almost immediately.  When it connected and he appeared on her screen, walking in his hotel room with his bathrobe on and his hair wet and tied back, she smiled.  “Hi.”

“Hi minskatt,” he said, his voice low.  She watched as he put a pair of headphones on.  “That’s better.”

Hers were already in.  “I’m sorry about the game tonight,” she said, perching her phone on a high point on the desk.  “Do you want to talk about it?” she asked.

He shrugged.  “Not really.  At least, not right now,” he said, putting his phone down too.  “Maybe later.  Like, after we have dinner.”

“Promise me we will.”

“I promise,” he said, looking into the phone.  He knew she would want him to talk about it, and he made her a promise all those months ago.  He would never break it.  “Right now I just want to have dinner over FaceTime with my girlfriend even though we’re less than fifty feet away from each other.”

Aberdeen chuckled, if only because she agreed wholeheartedly that this whole thing was ridiculous.  The tone of William’s voice made her know that he thought it completely ridiculous too.  “It’s hard.  I know.  At least we get free food,” she held up a forkful of the marinated chicken breast.  “And good food.  It’s not like it’s airplane food.”

William smiled slightly.  “First thing I do when we get out of here is bring you to Canoe or Ardo or Miku and splurge on every meal they have on the menu,” he said.  

“Sounds good to me.  Maybe by then I’ll have a new job to celebrate, anyway.”

“How’s the article coming along?” he asked.

“Fine,” she said.  She’s started in the other day and already had about 1500 words worth of material.  She figured the best way to go about it was keep a sort of diary every day and then edit it down when she could.  “Might talk about how fucking awkward you hockey boys are these days with women.”

“I’m excluded from that, right?” he asked.  “I mean, I totally swept you off your feet when we first met.”

She couldn’t help but smile.  “You did.”

***

August 3rd, 2020

Aberdeen accompanied the team to one of the workout facilities just so she could catch a glimpse of sone sunshine on the day off.  Instead of working out, she sat on the sidelines of where all the equipment was and the boys worked out, furiously typing away on her personal laptop.  Every so often when she’d glance up, she’d see Morgan’s thighs almost ripping through his shorts as he did some lunges; she’d see Auston’s biceps almost bursting through his sleeves as he lifted weights above his head; she’d see William’s thick torso exposed as his shirt rode up from him throwing a heavy medicine ball above his head.  

A million girls in this city would kill her to be in her position.

And here she was, writing 10,000 words about them instead of ogling them.  Well, everyone except her secret boyfriend.

***

August 4th, 2020

Game 2.  

Aberdeen was confident that the boys would respond to Columbus’s win in Game 1.  She could tell in their energy throughout the day and in the arena they were ready and they were ready to win.  

“Hey Nostradamus,” Brendan called out, winking.  Aberdeen saw Kyle chuckle from behind his mask.  “What’s the score gonna be?”

“Oh shut it,” she shook her head, crossing her arms over her chest and smirking to herself.  Except she couldn’t hold her tongue.  “3-0, but this time for us.”

“I believe her!” Kyle piped up.  

Brendan snorted.  “Who’s placing bets?!”

The bell rang and everybody settled down to stand for the anthem.  As the game got underway, Aberdeen could feel rushes of electricity move up her spine every time the Leafs touched the puck.  They were playing phenomenally.  They looked focused, into it, and like a complete team.  It was a night and day difference from Game 1.  Though the first period didn’t have any goals, Aberdeen knew they’d be coming – for the Leafs only.

In the second period Auston scored and Aberdeen jumped out of her seat to celebrate.  And when John scored late in the third period to get a two goal lead, she was even happier.  

Then, with less than two minutes left, disaster hit.  

It was a play behind the net.  Pierre Luc Dubois – the guy from the other day, Aberdeen had learned – basically cross-checked Jake Muzzin, and Jake fell awkwardly, trying to break it, with his head hitting a Blue Jackets player’s leg.  He fell to the ice.  

He wasn’t getting up.  And the referee hadn’t blown the whistle.  

Those fuckers.

“BLOW THE FUCKING WHISTLE!!!” Aberdeen screamed at the top of her lungs, startling Brendan and Kyle.  Her face was turning red.  She was sure she’d been so loud the referee actually heard her, because he finally blew it.  Jake was having a hard time getting up, and then he lay back down.  One of the trainers immediately made his way onto the ice, rushing towards Jake.

The replays began to play from every angle, and Aberdeen watched on the TV screen in the box how his head and neck contorted once he hit the player’s thigh.  She had tears in her eyes as she watched the worst angles.  She looked back out onto the ice to see Jake still lying there.  The trainer was still with him, though more were making their way onto the ice now.  Then, she saw one of the trainers put his hands near Jake’s neck.  They called for a stretcher.  

She bolted out of her seat.

“Aberdeen!” she could hear Brendan call out after her, but she didn’t listen.  She didn’t turn around.  She hurried down to ice level, her mind running a mile a minute, and flashed her credentials to anyone and everyone she needed to, not bothering to stop so they could actually see them.  

By the time she got to ice level, she could hear the distant sound of sticks tapping, letting her know he was being stretched off.  She met all the trainers and the stretcher at the entrance.  “Jake?!” she asked frantically.  

“Aberdeen?” he asked.  

“Are you okay?  Did you break your neck?!”

“I didn’t break my neck.  I can feel my arms and legs,” he said.  Aberdeen let out the breath she didn’t know she was holding in.  “Did it look scary?”

“Is that a joke?” she asked.  “I ran down here the second they called for the stretcher.”

“We’re going to take him to the hospital.  He’s going to have to leave the bubble,” the head trainer informed Aberdeen.  “You need to tell Brendan and Kyle.  Then update us on the protocol of what it will take to get him back into the hotel.”

Before she could acknowledge what was just said, Jake spoke up again.  “Aberdeen?”

“Yeah Jake?”

“You need to call Courtney for me.  Tell her I’m okay,” he said.  “She’s probably worried sick.”

Aberdeen’s heart sunk into her stomach.  Courtney.  “Yeah yeah, of course—”

“—You have her number, right—”

“—We really need to get him to the hospital—”

“—Yeah, I have her number—”

“—Call Courtney, please,” were Jake’s last words before he was stretchered off.

Aberdeen watched until they were out of her line of sight.  For a few moments, the images of what just happened flashed through her mind, and she momentarily forgot about everything.  She felt sick to her stomach.  Jake said he felt okay, but she knew hockey players always just said that.  Morgan had been playing injured for the better part of the year until he actually got injured.  High sticks to the face, lost teeth, blood drawn – these guys just put a bandaid on it and said they were fine.  But this was different.  

When Courtney’s face crossed her mind, she jolted back to life and grabbed her phone out of her pocket, scrolling until she found Courtney’s number.  The phone didn’t even have to ring twice.  “Aberdeen?!” she asked frantically.  “How’s Jake?”

“Hey Court—he’s okay—”

“He’s okay?!”

“Well, they’re bringing him to the hospital right now,” she said.  “But I was able to talk to him because I rushed down to ice level and he told me he was fine and to call you.”

“So you—you were able to talk to him,” Courtney said, her voice much calmer than just moments before.  “You saw him?”

“Yes.  He told me he could move his arms and legs,” Aberdeen informed her.

“Okay.  Okay.  Does that mean he has to leave the bubble though?  I mean can I go visit him?”

Aberdeen cringed.  “I don’t think so,” she said.  As she did, she could hear Luna being fussy in the background and Courtney trying to calm her.  “The NHL has an agreement with Toronto General about potential injuries.  If everything is okay and he comes back into the bubble, all he has to do is pass three negative tests,” she explained, listening to Luna get even fussier.  

“Okay.  Alright.  But they’ll call me, right?”

“Absolutely.  I’m sure Jake will even be able to call you from the hospital.  Our trainers all have their phones on them.”

“Thanks Aberdeen,” Courtney said, and Aberdeen could hear the relief in her voice.  She knew all Courtney wanted was to hear from her husband.  Luna let out a loud cry.  “I’ll talk to you later.”

“Bye Court,” Aberdeen ended the call.  

Families.  So many of them had families.  So many of them had families that were suffering and making do with a prolonged absence and Aberdeen couldn’t take it.  The players were sacrificing so much to be in the bubble.  And their families were sacrificing so much letting them go into the bubble.  She knew most of them had money – to cope, to do whatever, really – but that didn’t compensate for presence.  That didn’t compensate for having daddy around to play and snuggle with.  

She began to cry as she found herself walking towards the locker room, not even knowing whether or not the game had ended.  She didn’t really care at this point.  All she could think about was Courtney and Luna at home, worrying about Jake as he was being taken to the hospital.  To Aberdeen, nothing else mattered right now.  

She heard some commotion from the locker room and she knew the boys were back in.  She didn’t know how long they’d been back for, and didn’t bother to peek in to see.  She didn’t want to when her eyes were still red and welling up with tears.  Instead, she hid herself around a corner, crouching down with her knees against her chest, wiping at her eyes every so often and trying to control her emotions before having to go in, or getting called by Brendan, or by Kyle, or—

“There you are.”

Well, so much for that.

She looked up from her crouched position and saw Jason looking down at her.  He wasn’t completely undressed – he had all his UnderArmour on – but he was still sweaty from the game and his hair was matted against his head.  She wiped her eyes one last time before getting up.  “Hi.”

“Did you see Jake?”

She nodded.  “He’s okay.  He can feel and move his arms and legs or whatever.”

“Why are you crying?”

She knew he wasn’t asking to be insolent, but did she really have to have to spell it out for him?  “Don’t tell me you’re immune to this shit,” she said.  “I just had to call Courtney and explain to her that her husband didn’t break his neck and end his God damn career.  Luna was crying in the background.  It’s a lot, okay?”

Jason nodded his head.  “I know it is.  I’m not trying to…fuck, I know that came out wrong.  He’s gonna be okay, Aberdeen.”

“Thanks.”

“Come on, Aberdeen,” he said soothingly.  “It’s gonna be okay.”

She shook her head, wiping away the last of her tears.  “I know.  I’m just being a big baby.”

“No you’re not,” Jason said.  “You’re not being a big baby.  You’re being a human being.  Someone you cared about got hurt.  Do you want to talk about it when you get back to the hotel?” he asked.

She considered it for only half a second before she shook her head.  “No.  I know you call your girls every night.  I can’t take time away from them.”

“Aberdeen—”

“I’ll be okay,” she asserted.  “I promise.  I’ll be okay.”

“Aberdeen!” Kyle’s voice suddenly called out.  He rushed towards her with his phone in his hand.  “They took him to the hospital, right?”

“Yeah,” she nodded her head, trying to steady her voice and make it seem as professional as possible.  “He’s technically left the bubble, so we have to update the trainers on protocol to get him back into the hotel and how—”

“I’ll handle that with Brendan and Josh,” he interrupted.  “But he was okay?”

“He could feel his arms and legs.  That’s what he told me.  Then he asked me to call Courtney and I did that.”

Kyle nodded his head, looking – really looking – at Aberdeen for the first time in their conversation.  “Were you crying?”

“I’m going to be fine,” was all she said.  

***

“I’m going to come to your room,” William said through the phone in a strained voice.

“Don’t you dare,” Aberdeen chastised him, a new batch of tears having fallen down her face as she lay in bed.  “Don’t you even think about leaving your room, William.”

“Aberdeen, you need me and I need to be with you right now—”

“And you need to stay in your room so you don’t get kicked out of the bubble,” she said sternly.  “I’m being serious, Will.  Don’t come over.”

She watched as he bit his lip and shook his head.  She could see all over his face how conflicted he was.  It was one of the things she loved most about him – to the world, he seemed cool and unemotional and that he didn’t really care about anything or take anything too seriously, but to her, he was the entire range of emotions in one conversation.  He had a heart full of gold and she knew it would always stay that way.  “This is killing me, minskatt,” he whispered, his voice defeated.  “I want to be there for you when you need me.  Always.  I mean…you need me, right?”

Her heart dropped into the pit of her stomach.  She didn’t know where this was coming from, but like some things with William, she felt like it was something that had been on his mind for a while and was only letting out now.  He was still learning to talk to her about his feelings.  He was keeping his promise from February, so she could appreciate that.  “Of course I need you,” she said softly.  “I’ll always need you like you need me.  We’re in this together.  You know that.  But you need to be on this team right now.  You need to help them fight.  This isn’t about me.  It’s about the team.”

“It’s always about you,” William said.  “You still don’t get it, do you?  It’s always about you.”

“Don’t make it about me right now, Willy.  It’s not about me.  It’s about Jake, and the team,” she paused for dramatic effect.  “Make it about me later,” she added, trying to be humourous.

It garnered a small smile from him, and she felt proud of herself.  “I love you, minskatt.”

“I love you too Willy.  Promise me you’ll get some sleep?”

He nodded slightly.  “I promise.”

***

Aberdeen’s iPhone was still in her hands as she woke again from its vibrations.  She jumped at the sensation of being awoken in the middle of the night.  If it was Willy calling her at three in the morning, she was gonna kill him.  

“Hello?” her voice was groggy.

The voice on the other end was not William’s.  “I lived, bitch.”  

***

August 6th, 2020

It wouldn’t be a Toronto Maple Leafs series without some drama, apparently.  And the drama tonight was how the team blew a 3-0 lead, allowing the Columbus Blue Jackets to win 4-3 in overtime, with Pierre-Luc Dubois scoring a hattrick.  That meant the Columbus Blue Jackets were now up 2-1 in the series.

It meant the Leafs could go home tomorrow.

Aberdeen tried not to think about it.  

She didn’t bring it up with anybody as they went back to the hotel, and she knew, judging by the looks on their faces, that they didn’t want to hear about it either.  Nobody would be turning on their TVs tonight, and she doubted they would check the news on their phones, either.  Maybe they’d play video games to take their minds off of it.  Or maybe they’d go right to bed and rest, since they had to do all of this again in less than 24 hours.  Fuck.

Aberdeen took a shower.  She washed her face.  She did her skincare.  She put on a sheetmask.  

Her phone rang.

She knew it was William, so she tucked herself into bed and accepted the FaceTime call.  When he realized that she had a sheetmask on, a smile broke out on his face from ear to ear.  “Nice sheetmask,” he said, biting his bottom lip.

She smiled cheekily and shrugged her shoulders.  “You’re used to it by now.  Shouldn’t come as much of a surprise,” she said.

“I am used to it by now and—oh shit, hold on, I forgot something…” he said, trailing off as he set his phone down so Aberdeen could only see the ceiling in his room.  Knowing William, he probably forgot to turn the light off in the bathroom or something.  But the longer he took, the more Aberdeen became skeptical of his whereabouts.  She barely heard anything on the other end.  “There we are…” she heard his voice.  And then she saw what he had on his face: a sheetmask.  He was still smiling from ear to ear.  “Now where were we?” he asked.

“William!” Aberdeen squealed, letting out giggles she couldn’t hold in at the sight of him.  He looked ridiculous.  It was clearly the first time he’d ever put one on himself.  “What in God’s name are you doing?”

“You love these things!” he tried to justify himself.  “I brought one because I knew I’d catch you at least once in here with one of these things on.  And if we can’t do it together…well, physically, then we can do them together in separate rooms.  Like everything else we need to do.”

Her cheeks flushed red – not that he could see.  He bought sheetmasks and put them on with her.  He gave her time to write.  He encouraged her writing.  He listened to her.  He cared for her.  He was even better than anything she could have imagined in a dream boyfriend.  How did she get so lucky?  How did she let guys treat her like shit before him?  She felt tears well in her eyes.  He was going all out to make the best of the bubble, and she couldn’t be more thankful.  “I love you so much, Willy.”

“I love you too, minskatt.”

“No…I love you Willy.  Like love you love you.  Love you love you love you.  I don’t even have the words…and I’m a writer!  You make me speechless, Willy.  There aren’t enough words in the English or Swedish languages that I can string together that will, like, tell you or show you how much I love you.”

“I get it, minskatt.  Don’t worry.  I feel the same way.”

“I don’t know how I got so lucky with you.”

“I annoyed you enough until I wore you down,” he quipped.

She giggled.  “You seduced me is what I’d call it.”

“I don’t know about that.  If I remember correctly it was you rubbing yourself against my thigh that morning.”

She made a face at him.  He made the exact same face back but crinkled his sheetmask so he had to flatten it with his free hand.  She watched him with complete adulation.  “Willy?”

“Minskatt?”

“Can we listen to our song together?”

William smiled.  He fiddled around with his phone and his ‘Minskatt’ playlist until the familiar chords started playing over the phone, filling the air with the nicest, best, most beautiful sound Aberdeen had ever heard – save for Willy’s laugh, maybe – because she knew this song was about her, about them, and it was still their little secret.

[lgist]

Crime And Poverty

3/30*

My mother said to me yesterday, after the blog post, that she thinks that I will eventually run out of ideas for this little challenge I’m doing. I’m tempted to agree with her, every time I sit here, in front of a screen with a blank white box glaring onto my face, I wonder what would the direction of this post should be? I don’t do second drafts or rewrites and that’s very much intentional in keeping genuine with you, my reader! So it’s crucial for the existence of the blog for me to constantly generate ideas and that is the point of the challenge, when will I eventually come up empty? Or will I just always have something to write about? We’ll have to wait and see. Call it a limit test. Not to fear, for today a certain topic has just sprung itself into my mind. I think this is going to get me into some trouble.

Do you believe criminals are bad people? Obviously, right? They steal, they sell drugs to vulnerable people, they murder for profit. Lock them up and throw away the key right? That will solve our social dilemma. We should never question, the why? We should only prosecute the how. Right? If you agreed with any of those notions I presented to you, I have unfortunate news for you, you are a member of the social dogma. It’s not your fault, we are conditioned from childhood to believe as such. The news will glorify, for the sake of the story, the worst aspects of crime. They treat those who engage in crime like they are inherently monsters. Like they were born on this planet to commit egregious crimes against you or me, and while certainly true for some, it is a grossly low portion of the demographic. In reality the criminal is a victim to the most appalling and widespread crime of all time, poverty. Poverty, the result of hundreds of years of wealth not being redistributed properly. That is the bottom-line. There is too much money in some places and not enough in others and to make sure that this never changes those with the wealth will brainwash the general public into believing every word they spout from their ivory towers. They will lie, for money, they will kill, for money, they will abuse, for money, Sound familiar? The only discerning factor in a criminals conviction, and I wholeheartedly believe this, is the size of their wallet. 

Don’t believe me? Good you shouldn’t believe everything some random writer on tumblr says, so here are the stats. “Households at or below the the federal poverty level had more than double the rate of victimization as persons in high-income households” - U.S Department of Justice. That is the first line in their report “ Household Poverty and Nonfatal Violent Victimization, 2008–2012” The United States, arguably the richest country in the world, is experiencing this problem. I urge you to read the rest of that paper because it pretty much spells it out. With beautiful correlating graphs and everything. What I’m getting at is, The US has the root of the issue in the clutches of their hands and decided to wash it off with money and blood, but they are not alone in this “war on crime”. The irony to call it a war on crime when you are both the ally and the axis. The issue is not complicated and while it will take a long time to fix, the actual solutions are simple. Implement social safety nets over a long period of time, slowly decrease the colossal gap in wealth that divides us by class, that puts us into boxes and categories, that drives us without us even knowing, it forces us to abandon our happiness and live vicariously for the system because that’s what the system is made for. It’s an act. An act for only certain people to engage in the most divine aspects of living on Earth. An act so people can stay in their roles and never move an inch from them. The governing bodies want us to be silent and obedient and we do. We idolize them even. To further their delusions of grandeur because “they are powerful”. Without once questioning their motives we oblige and I, for one, am sick of it. These solutions would come at a cost of their way of living and that is a cost too big apparently. So lets keep people in cells, lets brutalize drug users who are medically addicted. To not treat them as victims of the system but antagonize them and further destroy their sense of selves. To never let them change but to keep them in this institutionalized box because “hey it makes money”

So, criminals, victims of poverty who were forced to do what others wont just for a chance at a decent life. They will steal, so they have a roof over their head, they sell drugs, to have bread in their cabinets, they murder, because their lives are at risk at all times. It’s no way to live but we don’t give them much of a choice and before you say “ohhh they collect the dole every week, they're stealing my money!” Think without ignorance for a second.  Job opportunities are determined on where you live, where you went to school, how much you paid for school and not everyone wants to be a apprentice and most people don’t want to be criminals. The venom of poverty will infest communities and officially class them as “not-people” in the forgotten corners of the planet. So what hope are you giving people in these situations? A paycheck every week? Thank you so much I get to eat today. No its not enough and don’t pretend like its enough. When these rich assholes are sitting in skyscrapers, with their porcelain faces and their fake smiles, their PR teams working hard to display their public image in a positive light, despite the horrendous crimes they commit every day.  I mean nestle just yesterday got children killed. They do this everywhere. They’ve stolen water from people living in Africa AND PACKAGED IT AND SOLD IT BACK TO THEM. If that’s not criminal but having a joint or 2 in your pocket is, we have our priorities out of line. Reform is necessary, for all of us.

That was a doozy. You know what I’m going to say next. If you agree, good, if you disagree, why? I’d love to know, especially on this topic. I don’t know it all and don’t assume I do. This is an opinion that I feel particularly strong for but I’m nowhere near the level of knowlege to be credible in anway. Let’s talk about it though, so we learn more from each other rather than just hating each others guts eh? Much love - S

insta: ZenSultan03

[jenomark]

OCTOBER

➔Pairing: Doyoung x Reader (Female) | Jaehyun x Reader (Female) ➔Other Members/ Characters: -.- ➔Genre: Plot (ft. smut, romance, angst, fluff etc.) ➔Warnings: Drinking ➔Word count: 5,300

➔Summary: You are dating handsome and lovable Jaehyun. You stay at his apartment all of the time, along with his roommate Doyoung. Doyoung has feelings for you, which he doesn’t quite understand. What begins as an innocent crush changes the lives of all three people over the course of seven months.

AUGUST SEPTEMBER

October 30, The Night Before Halloween.

  Doyoung’s eyes followed the sparklers tearing across the backdrop of night. The colors hurt his eyes, but he couldn’t look away from them. His eyes went in and out of focus, fairy lights joining in his vision, vibrant yellows and whites softening around the edges the longer he looked. He was acutely aware of his own breathing, the volume turned all the way up, and the noise of the party cancelling out. All of those things swirled round’ and round’, until the beautiful purple butterfly popped up in front of him.

“What did you say?” he asked.

  At once, the swarm of the Halloween party returned. The music was so loud that it vibrated his teeth. He could hear a distant drama playing out between a girl and her girlfriend, their voices feeling like they were swimming around in his brain. He could no longer hear his breathing, let alone his own thoughts.

“I said, do you want a drink?” 

  You stood before him, a sparkler in one hand, and a cup of alcohol extended like an olive branch. Dressed up as a butterfly in a lilac colored leotard, complete with a gauzy tutu and butterfly wings clipped to your back, you placed his drink in front of him. His eyes swept over your emotionless face before looking up at the antenna headband on your head. Your hair was curled, a fresh short haircut making you appear cute. Not that Doyoung had noticed, of course.

“Thank you.” he said.

  Doyoung was alone at the table. Everyone else was socializing around the backyard, tucked underneath the fairy lights or hanging around the empty pool. He watched a few people hovering around the food, their fingers digging into a bowl of pretzels before airplane-ing them into a cheese dip shaped like a pumpkin. In the corner, a couple dressed up as ketchup and mustard were dancing together, the tips of their bottles touching every time they moved. The yard was big, and it seemed that no matter where Doyoung looked, people were living.

“Why don’t you come join us so you’re not lonely?” you asked. “Me and Jaehyun could use some company.”

  Other than the expansive yard, the house had people occupying it. Doyoung hadn’t been to many Halloween parties, but it was exactly as he had imagined it. There were spiked punch bowls with floating hands of ice, jumpscare decorations and costume contests. Everyone had dressed to impress. It was exactly the kind of scene he avoided throughout his youth.

 Meanwhile, the little butterfly, though as pretty as she was, was one of the more chill costumes of the night. Doyoung looked down at his own and felt a shudder move through his body that wasn’t because of the cold. He felt embarrassment creeping up his neck the longer he sat and thought about what he was dressed up as. He didn’t like the attention whenever he stood up and moved, the odd ends of his costume bumping into things.

“I like sitting here. I’m not lonely.” Doyoung said, which was a lie. He was freezing, hungry, and he just wanted to go home and sleep. “I’m sure you don’t mean that you want me around, since you spend so much time with me.”

  You sat down in the chair next to him and huffed. “Is it the costume? I told you that you didn’t have to dress up in it.”

“I wanted to.”

You looked at him, narrowing your eyes. “Why?”

  The original plan was that you were going to dress up as a butterfly. You had picked it out at the tail end of September, and Doyoung could see how excited you were about it. For a few weeks after, he caught you looking at the costume, pulling it out of Jaehyun’s closet and letting your fingers work over the delicate beading on the wings. At that time, Jaehyun wanted to do a couples costume, which had worked out perfectly because there was a matching part to your costume: a butterfly net.

“Well, I wasn’t going to let the butterfly go without her net.” he said, his eyes not able to match yours.

  The more Jaehyun thought about being the net to your butterfly, the more he was terrified of being mocked by his friends. He gave up the costume after buying it, deciding to be a sexy James Bond instead. You never showed Jaehyun that it hurt you, but Doyoung was so observant when it came to you that he couldn’t help but see. So, within a week of the party, Doyoung shoved his original costume back into his closet and lied that he didn’t have one. He put on the head-to-toe black leotard that kept no secrets about his body, and put the net and tubing around his upper half. He was your safety net, literally and figuratively.

  You smiled briefly before reaching over and taking a sip of Doyoung’s drink that you’d brought. Seeing your smile in any capacity made Doyoung sure that he’d made the right choice. He felt like a fool unable to move, but it was worth it.

“I’m in a couples costume without my boyfriend.” you said. “There is a joke in there somewhere. You can take it off, Doyoung. You don’t have to wear it for me. I’m pretty sure you’ve already reaped all the embarrassment readily available.”

 Doyoung couldn’t help but laugh. You handed him his cup back and he drank from it, his lips touching the cool liquid, and his eyes boring into yours from over the rim of the cup. He set it back down on the table, picked up the netting from his costume and let it fall back down into his lap.

“Is there a bathroom in this place?” he asked. “I have to go,  but I’m not even sure how to get out of this thing.”

“You might have to take it all off.”

  Doyoung could feel his momentary good mood slipping. He thought about excusing himself to go home and use his toilet. He thought about the moment he’d pass through his front door and rip the leotard to shreds, taking all of his anger out on the fabric. He was deep in his thoughts of destruction when you spoke.

“I can help you. C’mon.” you said.

  You got up, holding your butterfly wings securely to your body so they wouldn’t get caught in anything. Since you were also wearing a leotard, Doyoung could see every curve of your body. He looked at your bare legs, which must have been so cold standing outside for more than five minutes. Before you turned around and held out your hand, his eyes were watching your ass and how the tutu lifted up just a little bit to reveal it.

You raised an eyebrow. “You’re one net that won’t be catching this butterfly. Let’s go. I’ll help you take off this monstrosity before I go back to my boyfriend.”

  He took your hand, and you lifted him from his chair with little effort. It was really the bare minimum, but the thought of your strength turned Doyoung on. He shuffled forward, making sure his tubing didn’t catch on the end of someone's wig and pull it off. The last thing he needed was getting into a fight at a Halloween party dressed like an idiot. You kept hold of his hand, weaving your way through the yard, telling him whenever the grass was uneven so he didn’t trip. But when you saw Jaehyun, you dropped his hand.

“What is going on?” Jaehyun said, seeing your face. When he noticed that Doyoung was up and walking, he grinned. “Welcome to the party! You know, it’s really a shame that your girlfriend isn’t here, Do-ie. She would have giggled seeing you dressed up like that.”

“I’m taking him to the bathroom.” you said, getting on your tiptoes to peck Jaehyun on the cheek. “He needs help.”

“I’ll do it.” Jaehyun offered. 

“No,”you said. “It’s okay. I have to go, too.”

  You motioned for Doyoung to come along, but he didn’t see you. Jaehyun grabbed a little bit of net and shoved him forward, nearly making him trip up the steps. Once inside, you grabbed his hand again. To anyone who didn’t know either of you at the party-which was a lot- they would have thought you were the couple.

“It’s just upstairs.” you said, looking back at him.

  The party inside was more wild. People were jumping all around, bumping into him and getting in his face. Doyoung focused on his feet, on moving behind you to get to the bathroom. He felt a little bit like a child walking behind their mother, but one look at you erased that feeling. In your presence, he never felt more like a man in his entire life. When you went up the stairs, Doyoung followed, trying to keep his eyes on the ground, and not up your tutu. Looking at you without your consent wasn’t the kind of man he wanted to be, even though everything in him kept edging him to look.

“Fuck, there is a long line for the bathroom.” you said, stopping at the top of the steps. You got on your tiptoes to look over the crowd. “That’s the negative part of going to a party in a big house.”

“Whose party is this?”

You shrugged. “Someone from Jaehyun’s work. I only come for the free alcohol.”

  Doyoung wedged himself into the back of the line, his body blocking off the entire hallway behind him. You followed, standing to his side, your little butterfly wings impatiently wavering the slower the line moved.

“I appreciate you coming with me.” Doyoung said.

“It’s not a big deal.”

“Mmm.” he mumbled. 

  You looked at him. In the artificial light, he could see a sweep of glittery purple eyeshadow on your lids. There was a light blush on your cheeks and a pink stain on your lips. You looked so beautiful that he couldn’t look away. Though people were chattering in the line, the both of you were silent. Even as the line inched forward, neither of you talked.

 Doyoung felt caught up in his mind. He remembered the last few weeks and how pleasant they were. He had stopped being angry about you inhabiting his personal space. He stopped putting so much effort into being unhappy. He watched Jaehyun come and go from work with a smile. He was always there for you during movie night. He even helped you find a job you loved. He had made the girl he was dating his girlfriend, and had finally sealed the deal with her. He thought maybe it was the sex with her that had made him loosen up and feel happy, but he feared that it was all because you had truly seen him. He had been buzzing ever since.

“Why do you do that sometimes?” you asked, leaning against the wall, your wings getting smushed.

“Do what?”

“Stare at me and say nothing.” you said. “It’s like you have a whole monologue going on in your mind.”

Doyoung moved forward with the line. “I do. A monologue about how miserable I am in every situation. It’s not much, but it keeps me from having a mental breakdown.”

“And how do I fit into this?” you asked. “Plotting revenge? I took your boyfriend and now I must suffer?”

  You were joking, but Doyoung could hear the seriousness in your voice. You smiled to keep it lighthearted. You took his net and pulled him forward when the line moved.

“I don’t hate you anymore.” Doyoung said. “Haven’t you heard? My new rival is boyfriends who break promises to their girlfriends.”

  Suddenly, it seemed like the room had stopped moving. You knew he was talking about Jaehyun. He knew you knew. If you couldn’t sense his annoyance at Jaehyun before, you could feel it now. If he wasn’t mistaken, he could also feel your own anger sitting in the stuffy hallway with all of the drunk people, lined up in place that felt foreign. 

“Well,” you said. “I’m glad I’m not the one you hate.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever hated you, truthfully.”

“No? I think it was touch and go for a while there.”

  Doyoung shook his head. You smiled at him and choked back some laughter. His eyes widened in fake anger, his eyebrows raising up an inch.

“What’s so funny?” he asked

“I’m sorry,” you said, releasing a laugh that was like music to his ears. “It’s just that, in this lighting, with the leotard over your head, you look like an egg.”

Doyoung closed his eyes. “I hate this. I’m also glad my girlfriend isn’t here to see this.”

  At the mention of his girlfriend, you had stopped laughing. You coughed and tried to regain your composure. Doyoung moved forward again, nudging your shoulder gently with his to get you moving. You weren’t too far from the front of the line. 

“Why didn’t she come?” you asked. 

“I don’t know.”

  Doyoung did know. When he found out about the Halloween party, he was excited to invite her to her first real event with him that involved other people. She hadn’t met Jaehyun yet, hadn’t really heard of you. She was excited, too. She wanted to be let inside of Doyoung’s life, not just hovering on the outside, spending time at her place, or in cafes and bars that he hated. Because of the whole costume fiasco, she bailed at the last minute.

 You weren’t buying the lie. He could read it in your eyes. Instead of talking about it more, you gently touched his shoulder. “Hey, I am really glad we’re friends now. I don’t know many people who would do what you did for me tonight.”

“It’s nothing.” he said. “You needed me.”

 Maybe choosing to wear a couple costume with his roommate's girlfriend was the wrong choice, especially since his real girlfriend had already picked one out for them to wear. 

“We’re up next!” you said, growing excited. You moved your wings away from the wall and brought them back to their full glory. When Doyoung realized he was staring again, he looked down at the floor.

  It was his turn to use the bathroom. He barely fit through the door. You had to push him inside. As you shut the door behind you, Doyoung heard people groaning about the couple going in to have sex in the bathroom. He blushed, hoping you hadn’t heard them.

You put your hands on your hips. “Okay. How are we going to do this?”

  He didn’t like that you were eyeing him up and down. It made him feel too exposed. Though his junk was covered with nothing but net, his closed fist went to block you from view.

“Oh?” you asked. “You can look at my ass, but I can’t look at your dick?”

“No I-”

You put your hands on his shoulders. “Do-ie, relax. Anyway, you’re going to have to get naked. This won’t work, otherwise.”

“Turn around.”

“But I need to help you.” 

  You grabbed at his tubing, bending it out of shape and pushing it down far enough to free his head from the black condom. You were being so rough with him that he again got turned on. You fixed his wild black hair before stretching and pulling the neck and leotard further down his shoulders. Before you went too far and brought it all the way down his body, his hands stopped you. His touch was gentle, his eyes firm.

“I can do the rest.” he said.

You turned around. “Do you want me to leave?”

  But Doyoung couldn’t wait. He pulled and pulled the leotard down, his earlier Hulk daydream coming true. The top of it was ripping, but he didn’t care. He pulled it down, along with his underwear, grabbed his dick and aimed into the toilet. The sound of his piss was louder than it needed to be, but the relief he felt kept him away from the embarrassment he would no doubt feel as soon as he was finished.

“You’re really pissing with me in the bathroom.” you said.

“Sorry, I couldn’t hold it.”

  You held your hand over your ears, but you were giggling too. The moment was humorous, even to Doyoung. He finished pissing but he had started laughing with you, so there were still little bits dribbling out.

“How.. much.. more do you.. h-have?” you asked, your voice coming out in wisps.

“Don’t make fun of me!”

  You crossed your arms over your chest, and when Doyoung said he was decent, you turned back around to face him. The leotard was halfway up his chest because it was all he could get back up by himself. 

“That was the best piss I’ve ever taken.” he said.

“Let me help you.” you said, ignoring him.

  You yanked up the remaining length of his costume but kept the netting, tubing and the part that covered his head free. He was sweaty, and as he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror, he thought he looked kind of sexy. He looked at you to see if maybe you thought the same, but you weren’t looking at him.

“Move.” you said. “I have to go, too.”

“Here? With me?”

“Well, yeah. Where else will I go?”

“I can wait outside.”

“No need.’

You pushed past him and started taking off your wings. “Just turn around and don’t listen. I have a shy bladder.”

  But it was hard for Doyoung not to listen. He had seen you in indecent ways since Jaehyun started dating you, but somehow, hearing your clothes hitting the floor and your naked body sitting on the toilet, it was a new kind of intimacy he wasn’t prepared for. It was a moment Jaehyun wasn’t a part of, and Doyoung didn’t know how he felt about it.

“Don’t listen!” you hissed.

“I’m not.” he whispered.

  There was a hard knock on the bathroom door but he ignored it. He was concentrating hard on the tile covering the bathroom floor, trying his best not to hear you peeing into the toilet bowl. But he did hear, and it drove him crazy with a feeling he couldn’t describe.

“I’m done,” you said.

Doyoung started to turn around but you screamed. “No! I meant that I’m done peeing. Don’t look. I’m naked.”

“Naked.” he repeated. 

  He could hear you breathing behind him, hear the way the costume sounded sliding up your body. He imagined the thin fabric covering your breasts, your nipples getting hard. He heard the scratchiness of the tutu snap into place. You turned on the water to wash your hands, and he remembered that he hadn’t either, so he closed his eyes and followed your lead.

“It’s okay.” you said. “I’m dressed, but I need help with my wings.”

He looked at you. Without the wings, you looked like a ballerina. The curls in your hair were falling out from the humidity in the bathroom. He didn't realize how hot it was getting with two people in there at once. He turned off the water and shook water from his hands.

“You’re staring.” you said, turning around.

“Sorry.”

Doyoung dried his hands on a towel hanging on a hook. He took your wings and fixed them to your back, his fingers touching the softness of your skin longer than he needed to. When he was done, you turned back around and inhaled deeply. On the exhale, you gestured to the bathroom door. Leaning over you, Doyoung flushed the toilet and walked out of the bathroom to a bunch of people clapping.

“That was record time, bud.” someone yelled.

“We didn’t have sex.” Doyoung said.

“Fucked her good.” someone else yelled.

  All Doyoung could see was a sea of eyes that wouldn’t understand. Admittedly, he began to feel good that the crowd of people thought you were his. He didn’t believe he was ever good enough to get someone like you. He looked at you to make sure you weren’t upset by the accusation, but your face was lit up with joy. You took his hand and directed him into one of the bedrooms at the end of the hall.

“Yes!” a voice echoed. “Fuck her even better!!”

“Ignore them.” you said, unfazed. “Look at this.”

  In the room you had guided him into, there was an old piano sitting in the middle of it. It was dark in the room but there was no mistaking it. The lights you turned on only made it appear more beautiful and grand, its ivory keys itching to be touched.

“How did you know this was here?” he asked. “I thought you didn’t know anyone.”

“Jaehyun talked about his musician friend. He said he had a lot of instruments in his house.” you said. “I didn’t want to be in the hallway anymore, and my guess was correct. I didn’t know what I’d find when I opened the door, but I think that’s where the fun is.”

“And where is the fun for you?” Doyoung asked, approaching the piano.

“In the not knowing.” you said. “And I’m good at that.”

  He could feel you watching him over his shoulder. Your words didn’t settle in his brain like they would if he wasn’t preoccupied. All of his thoughts were about the baby before him, the beauty in the future. Once he put his fingers on the keys, he didn’t know what would come out, but he hoped it was beautiful.

“How come you never told Jaehyun that you sing or play?” you asked, circling him.

“I never told you I play, either.”

  He looked back at you. You had the good will to appear sheepish. But it didn’t matter. Doyoung was so head over heels for you that any kind of eavesdropping only felt like progression in your relationship. Doyoung pulled out the bench and sat on it. The legs wobbled, but they held his weight fine enough. 

“Can you play me something?” you asked.

  You gingerly sat beside him, your weight joining his. It was a tight squeeze on the bench, but Doyoung loved the feeling of your warm, bare thigh against his. There was also a magical feeling in the air that kept him weighted down where he sat, the future suddenly looking not too grim. Doyoung felt comfortable, content, and free. 

“What would you like to hear?” 

“Anything.”

  Doyoung’s fingers were on the keys. He tickled a few of them and smiled when they played the most gorgeous sound. The person who owned the old piano kept it in good shape. As he geared up ready to play, he hoped it wouldn’t be so loud. He could still hear the music pumping away downstairs and guessed that no one would come in and check on them.

“Close your eyes.” Doyoung said. “Just trust me.”

  When you did as he asked, Doyoung started playing. He never really played for anyone other than when he did recitals as a kid. Growing up, his parents didn’t want him to pursue music full-time, so the piano was meant for chance meetings at music stores and moments that never came but he wished for, like this.

 The song he played was his own. He remembered it, closing his own eyes to play what he had written on paper years ago. It was romantic sitting in the room next to you, your eyes closed, just feeling the music dance all around you. Getting lost in song was his true passion, and though he didn’t plan on it, he started singing. His voice shook, at first. As each second ticked by, it grew stronger and more stable. Doyoung sang his heart out. It made him nervous that he was singing to you, and only to you. The three minutes went by quickly, the end giving out only because he started to feel nervous at what you would say about the impromptu concert. All of the negative feelings flew away when he opened his eyes and watched you clap slowly, your eyes teary, your smile relaxed.

“That was beautiful, Doyoung.” you said. “I can’t explain it, but it felt like I was frozen in time, like I was watching us from above, and everything was perfect and nothing could touch us.”

He felt shy. He took his hands off the keys and set them in his lap. “Thank you.”

“Sometimes I feel like you should quit your job and do singing full-time.” you said.” You sound so good. And the way you play...you’re special.”

“Thank you.” he said.

“I wish I could play like that.”

“You can.”

“I definitely cannot.’ you said. “The only thing these fingers are good for is breaking pistachios open and-”

  You stopped talking when Doyoung took your hand. He pressed your fingers down into the cold keys, his hand guiding you. He held in a key with your hand while his foot put pressure on the pedal. He played his song with your fingers, diligently dragging your one hand and using his other to fill in the gaps. You leaned in closer, your body enchanted by the sound you were making. Your head was almost on his shoulder, and for a second, Doyoung swore he could feel you wanting so badly to rest it there.

“There is so much more about you I’ve yet to learn.” you said.

“I’m a pretty open book.”

You side-eyed him. “Another lie. Doyoung, we’ve essentially lived together for three months. When will you understand that I know you a lot better than you think. I know all your secrets.”

Doyoung let go of your hand. “Not all of them.”

 There it was again: The Silence. Doyoung wanted to close the lid of the piano and leave the room. He wanted to walk his way through the house, passing Jaehyun without saying anything, and he wanted to go home where it was safe. Instead, he looked at you, his gaze falling to your lips. You leaned in first, brave enough to grab the side of his cheek and pull him towards you.

 There was no music in the room, but as you kissed, Doyoung could hear every single note of every laughter you’ve ever spilled because of him, every gasp, every sigh. He moved closer on the bench and put his finger underneath your chin, tilting your head up just a little bit. The kiss that started soft was getting aggressive, the feeling of his tongue wanting to break through your lips. 

 It was the moment he had been thinking about for months. His head was mostly empty of thoughts. There were no regrets. There weren’t any distractions, any inner monologues guiding him. All that was there were your lips and the softness of your hand against his face. He tasted your breath, your tongue, your lips. Somehow, the silence didn’t seem all that bad anymore. 

 But, then, Doyoung’s elbow came down on the piano and the sharp sound broke both of you apart. You wiped your lips and he got up from the bench, his fist up against his mouth and his eyes darting back and forth.

“I should go.” you said, getting up too.

“Right.”

  You walked across the room, passing Doyoung without looking at him. You barely made it to the door before you walked briskly back to him and threw your body in his arms. Doyoung’s hands were up your back, crushing your wings. He welcomed your lips with an open mouth, pulling your body up against his until he felt like one person. You both stood swaying in one spot, making out, and clinging to each other.

“This is cheating.” Doyoung said. You went to kiss him again, but he stepped back. “I can’t do it to Jaehyun, or to my girlfriend.”

“It’s already done.”

October 31, Halloween.

  There were so many empty candy wrappers in the bowl. Doyoung sat on the couch with the plastic bowl in his lap that was meant for trick-or-treaters. No one had knocked on his door for over an hour, so he figured the rest of the candy was his to share with no one. You and Jaehyun were out at yet another Halloween party, and he was left alone to watch old-timey scary movies and think about the previous night.

  He had kissed you a lot. After he said he wouldn’t kiss you again, he had backed you against the wall and kissed you some more. If he were actually drunk, he wasn't so sure he wouldn’t have placed you on top of the piano and fucked you. Still, making out was just as sinful as all of the things he thought about doing to your body. 

  Afterwards, you both went downstairs to find Jaehyun playing beer pong. He was cocky and drunk, and he had no idea that either of you had been gone for awhile. Doyoung couldn’t stick around. He leaned in and let you know he was leaving. You didn’t try and stop him. Ever since, he was wondering if it was a good thing. The less interaction you had together, the easier it was for him to stop thinking about kissing you.

Not really. He still thought about it.

  Doyoung was grateful for the second Halloween party, which he was invited to. He politely declined, citing his need for rest after a long party. Jaehyun thought his roommate got really drunk. If only he knew Doyoung was drunk with love, maybe then he wouldn’t let him around his girlfriend so easily.

 So, sitting on the couch alone didn’t seem so bad in the grand scheme of things. He could stuff his face with candy and wallow in his own feelings. There was a sting of jealousy whenever he thought about you having a good time with Jaehyun, the tail to your little cat costume in his hands. When the worst got the best of him, he imagined Jaehyun tugging you to him and kissing you on the same lips he kissed last night.

 The doorbell startled Doyoung. He picked up his bowl and went to the door, swinging it open with a cheery smile on his face. There was no one there, which made him feel foolish.

“Do people still do that?” he called down the hallway. “Ring the bell and run away?”

  Doyoung shut the door behind him. He rummaged his hands in the candy bowl as he walked back to the couch, plucking out a milk chocolate bar. Before he made it to his safe haven, the doorbell sounded. Quickly, he made it to the door and swung it open. Again, it was empty.

“If I catch you, you won’t like what happens to you.” he called.

  He shut the door but didn’t move from behind it. He would catch the kids who were messing with him. He waited a few minutes but there was nothing. He set the bowl down on the side table and opened the door to see you standing there.

“Hi.” you said.

“Hello.”

Your cat tail was in your hands. You looked worn out, the pink makeup on your nose halfway rubbed away. You smiled, looking down at his empty hands.

“Where is the candy?” you asked. “I heard there was some candy left.”

  Not knowing how to respond, Doyoung looked behind the door and brought the candy bowl. It sat against his ribs, dividing him from you.

“Trick-or-treat.” you said, your eyes not wavering from his.

“Treat. “Doyoung said, dropping the candy bowl on the floor, crossing the threshold, and setting his lips on yours.

[thebluenoteblog]

Rebound

Summary: You really didn't handle the break up well, that is after all, how you ended up in the bed of a member of the opposing team the night before a big game. What could possible go wrong (spoiler: a lot).

Player: Colton Parayko

Word Count: 2500

Warnings: Drunk one night stand and cursing. 

***Tyler Seguin is sort of the bad guy in this fic. I have nothing against him. I’ve written many fics about him. I just wanted to play on a central devision rivalry and this is an old fic. At the time he was the only player on one of those teams that I knew enough about to write without having to google anything. I did not mean to offend anyone and I would like to clarify that this is just a story and I do not think that he would actually do this in real life.***

You tossed back yet another shot, knowing somewhere in the recesses of your fuzzy brain that you really shouldn’t. You should have stopped three drinks ago. You should have stopped the first time you almost fell off your barstool. The bartender should have cut you off. But none of that happened. Instead you pursed your lips at the burn in the back of your throat as the liquor ran down it for the umpteenth time that night.

Your phone was dead, and you had no idea how you were getting back to the hotel, at this point you didn’t care. It had been so long since you had seen Colton outside of work and you were broken. You couldn’t remember how to function. Going to work every day, taking pictures of the boys for the social media accounts, seeing him on the ice, on the plane, and not being able to touch him or talk to him… everyone knowing that things ended… you couldn’t do it anymore.

You were days away from checking yourself into the hospital. For your liver’s safety and your own. If you were in the hospital though, you lost all of your crutches, liquor and rebounds, and you couldn’t call Colton at five in the morning and pray that he would answer.

He usually did, because that was the kind of man that Colton was. He wanted to make sure you didn’t need anything important. Someday he would stop answering. That thought had you ordering another drink.

“Let me buy that for you?” A voice asked from behind you, you turned your head and stumbled a little. A hand reached out and steadied you, landing on your back. “Careful,” He laughed.

Bingo, you found a ride home. And a crutch for the night. He was cute. Tall. Not as tall as Colton by any meaning of the word, but that was good. You didn’t want that. He didn’t look anything like Colton. That was exactly what you needed. He looked oddly familiar, but you were too far gone to place it. “Sure,” you said.

“You aren’t from Dallas, are you?” He asked, taking in your faded blues t-shirt.

You shook your head as he sat down, and you closed your eyes, the motion making your head spin, “No, I’m from St. Louis. Just visiting for a couple days.” Your words were barely slurred, and you were surprised that you were stringing that many together coherently. You must be spending too much time drunk. Your poor liver.

The bartender delivered your shot and it was gone in a second. You made the same face you’d made before, he was smiling at you when you opened your eyes. He handed the bartender a card, “Cover her tab,” he said.

“You don’t have to do that,” you said, making a sound of protest.

He waved a hand, “Its nothing.”

“You underestimate how much I’ve had to drink,” you responded.

He shrugged, “Like I said, it’s nothing.”

The two of you talked for a little while, you avoided what you were doing in Dallas and he didn’t mention what he did for a living. Eventually, you said, “Do you want to get out of here?” your head was still fuzzy but you were starting to sober up a bit and you were pretty sure that you could walk by that point.

“Fuck yes,” he said, and he placed his hand on your back as he showed you to his car.

****************

You woke up the next morning to an alarm going off, naked, in the bed of a strange man. You snapped your eyes open and were immediately thankful that you were mostly immune to hangovers. You jerked up in bed and noticed the naked form of Tyler fucking Seguin lying next to you. This was a new low. Even for you. As the social media manager for the Blues, you couldn’t be hooking up with the Alternate captain of the Dallas Stars. It just wasn’t something that would fly if anyone found out.

Besides the fact that they were playing tonight, and you didn’t want to think about all the chirping that would occur if Seguin found out you were Colton’s ex-girlfriend. It was a nightmare waiting to happen. Thank god neither of them were fighters. Not that you would expect Colton to pick a fight over you after all of his insisting that he didn’t care about you, but it was a pride thing.

If everyone heard a guy say he fucked your girl the night before, and he was clearly serious, even if it was your ex-girl, you were all but contractually obligated to hit him. It was like in the unwritten rules of hockey.

You jumped out of bed and began gathering your clothes, praying that Seguin was a heavy sleeper and you would get out of the room before he woke up to the sound of the alarm. Unfortunately, that mission was a failure. He wrapped an arm around your waist and pulled you back onto the bed. “No round two?” He asked, “No good morning kiss?”

You hesitated, then decided that this would be a good time to come as close to clean as you could without endangering lives. “I’m in Dallas because I’m the Blues social media manager. I was to drunk last night to realize who you were and now that I know, I can’t sleep with you in good conscience,” you paused as a look of understanding dawned on his face, “They would run me out of my office with torches and pitchforks if they found out.”

Seguin released you and backed up, “Jesus, I didn’t realize you were that drunk.”

You nodded as you pulled your shirt over your head, “Well, this was fun. Don’t mention it to anyone. And I mean anyone.”

“What, do you think they’ll fire you over it or something?” He asked, leaning back against his headboard, not seeming to care that he was barely covered by a thin sheet, “You’re a big girl. I’m sure they understand that you have needs.”

“And they expect me not to meet them with the opposing team the night before a big game on a road trip,” you said, covering your tracks, “I have to go, I’m supposed to get pictures of morning skate for the accounts.”

He shrugged, “Whatever you say.”

************

Colton had a shit night. He hadn’t slept worth a damn. He’d laid in bed and stared at his phone, waiting for your five am call that usually came but sometimes didn’t. He wasn’t stupid, he knew what happened on the nights that your calls didn’t come. He was always an emotional mess the next day, but he played his best. Big aggressive hits and hard shots that tore the net and shattered the glass. He’d accidentally hit Binner so hard in the mask with a puck one day at practice after you didn’t call that the poor guy had to sit out for a solid five minutes.

Today was bad though, because you were in Dallas, and what the fuck were you doing out in Dallas? Who were you with? Were you safe? All those thoughts raced through his head at twice the rate they normally did. You knew people back home. You had friends. He could convince himself that you were just busy with the girls. This was different.

He made his way down to morning skate and as all the guys entered the ice, he saw you standing at one of the Zamboni entrances. He was tempted to skate over to you and ask why you hadn’t called the previous night, but instead he just skated a circle around the rink, noticing when he did that you had a hickey on your neck. Mostly concealed by foundation and a jacket, something one would only notice if they were looking for it like he was. He ground his teeth on his mouth guard and focused his eyes forward.

***************

The puck dropped at seven o’clock and Seguin started a brawl at seven fifteen. It was between face-offs, they were just standing next to each other and he said, “So funny, I found out who runs your social media accounts.” He was met with a blank stare from Colton, so he continued, on a mission to throw the giant of a defensemen off his game. “Well anyway, I found her personal Instagram and it turns out the two of you used to be a couple!” He laughed “isn’t that funny? She hasn’t taken your pictures down yet, you know?”

By this point, they had started to draw a small crowd. The team knew how sensitive of a subject you were for Colton. If there was any way to get him to drop gloves, this just might be it. “Why is that funny?” Colton asked, going stiff. He thought back to the lack of a phone call and the hickey on your neck. No. You would never screw another hockey player. Not a Star. Not someone with a reputation like Seguin’s. You wouldn’t do that to him no matter how much he hurt you.

Still, the longer he stared down into Seguin’s eyes, the less he believed what he was telling himself.

“Well, it’s funny because I fucked her last night.” He said, a devious and amused look on his face.

Blood was pounding in Colton’s ears so loudly that he almost didn’t hear the next part of his statement.

“She’s a freak, but you already knew that didn’t you?”

A few things happened at once. First, the refs gave up on the face off upon hearing what Seguin said. Second, Colton threw his stick on the ground, shook off his gloves and pounced like a lion on a gazelle. He didn’t even wait for Seguin to drop his gloves first, though he did a second later, before the refs even made it over to break up the fight. All the stars were on Colton, trying to stop him and pull him off of Seguin who was definitely not a fighter and did not have size or anger on his side.

His teammates had his back though because they all grabbed a different guy and went to town. Within seconds they had a full-on line brawl and the refs were struggling to decide who to break up first. They both seemed slightly hesitant to mess with Colton who looked ready to murder and Seguin was now on the ice but still fighting back as much as he could when pinned to the ground. He was bleeding, his nose looked broken at the very least. Both refs grabbed a shoulder and pried Colton off of him.

Colton seemed to realize what he was doing and backed off. He stood up, raising to his full six-foot six height and looked over to where he knew you were standing, mouth agape and camera hanging limply by your side. He knew you would be pissed and confused. He hung his head, equally pissed at himself and skated off the ice, head hung, running a bloody knuckled hand through his hair as he headed straight to the locker room, leaving his equipment on the ice and not even waiting to be told that he was being called for a ten-minute misconduct. It was obvious. The trainers were already making their way to Seguin. Besides, his hands needed to be iced or they would be bruised too deep to move his fingers tomorrow.

****************

Colton was sitting on his couch staring at the wall, wondering how on earth he’d managed to avoid a suspension when he heard a knock on his door. He made his way across the house and pulled it open to revel you, standing out in the snow in nothing but a sweatshirt and a pair of jeans. “Jesus (Y/N), you have to be freezing.” He said, pulling you inside and closing the door behind you.

You were shivering but he knew you would never admit to being cold. “I came to tell you you’re an idiot,” you said.

He paused and furrowed his bows. “You came all the way here to tell me that?”

“You got a game misconduct on your nearly pristine record because you let something some guy said about me get to you. You’re an idiot, you said, crossing your arms.

He pushed his lips together and took in a deep breath before responding, “I’m sorry.”

“You’re lucky you didn’t get suspended. Those refs went to bat for you. That and your reputation are the only thing that saved you.”

“I said I’m sorry okay!” He snapped, “It hurt!”

You looked taken aback, “What hurt?” You asked.

He sighed, “You being with someone else. It hurts. It hurts so fucking much.”

“You’re going to stand there and tell me you haven’t been with anyone in the last two months?” You asked him, your chin rising in defiance.

“Yes, (Y/N), because I can’t.” He said shaking his head. He took a step closer to you. All of the times that he’d wanted to touch you since the two of you had split crashing down on him and crushing his will power. “I still love you and it feels so wrong to look at anyone else.”

You sucked in a shaky breath, “You left me. You broke up with me.”

“It was the biggest mistake I ever made.” Colton said, finally bringing his hand up to rest on your cheek. “You don’t know how sorry I am.”

“What are you saying, Colt?” You asked, looking up into his eyes, ignoring the bruise on his jaw that made you unreasonably angry.

He swallowed roughly, “I’m asking you to forgive me (Y/N), I’m asking you to take me back.”

You blinked your eyes closed and a tear ran down your cheek. He swept it away with his large thumb. “I forgive you, Colt. I could never hold a grudge against you.”

“But?” He asked quietly.

“But… how will I ever trust that you won’t leave me again?”

He resisted the urge to pull you tight against him and press his lips against yours and prove to you in a thousand ways, just how dedicated he was to never leaving your side again. Instead he said, “Baby, if you take me back, I will do anything in the world to prove to you that I will never hurt you again. I’ll spend as much time with you as I can. I’ll take you anywhere you want to go. Anything. Just for you. Just please,” He said, dropping his head to meet your eyes as you opened them, “Give me another chance.”

You swallowed roughly and studied him. After a moment, you said, “You don’t have to take me anywhere. I just want you.”

This time, he didn’t stop himself. He pulled you into his arms and pressed his lips against yours, putting all the emotions that he had been suffering behind it.

[dillydedalus]

march reading

kinda forgot about this i guess. anyway feat. uh, magical ships, dubious mental health institutions (plural) & a parisian building with 99 rooms. 

the forever sea, joshua phillip johnson (forever sea #1) i firmly believe that more fantasy lit should be set on ships bc ships are inherently a sexy setting & you could have pirates which are extremely sexy. this has ships (and pirates) and also a sea made of grass? a magical plant sea on which ships sail via magical fires, so conceptually i’m very into it all. the plot is fine, but the protagonist kindred has a very bad case of Main Character Syndrome so prepare for mild annoyance throughout. also while i generally enjoy book magic vs wild magic i wish more works would treat them as two ends of a spectrum rather than ~book magic bad and boring, wild magic cool and *~natural*~. but overall i think this series has potential. 3/5

jagannath: stories, karin tidbeck ([partially?] translated from swedish by the author) really cool collection of sff stories by tidbeck, many of which veer into mild horror and some of which are influenced by swedish folklore and especially swedish fey stories. i enjoyed most of these a lot, especially the existential call centre horror story, the ‘god won’t let me die’ one, and a taxonomy of a cryptid that goes a little off the rails. 4/5

annette, ein heldinnenepos, anne weber a novel in verse about anne beaumanoir, a real person who was a résistance member during world war 2 and later supported the algerian national liberation front, for which she was sentenced to 10 years in prison (she escaped to tunisia and later algeria). she’s clearly a very impressive and interesting person & i conceptually enjoyed the idea of writing a modern hero(ine)’s epic, but i feel like the language could have been a bit more stylized to match the form. 3/5

salvage the bones, jesmyn ward (audio) bleak but ultimately hopeful novel about a black family in the days before and during hurricane katrina, although the focus is on the family dynamics, the 14-year-old narrator discovering that she is pregnant, and the kids trying to keep the puppies their dog china just had alive and well. enjoyed this, altho i did it a bit of a disservice but listening to it a lot of short chunks. 3.5/5

regeneration, pat barker (regeneration trilogy #1) set mostly at a military hospital for soldiers with shell shock during world war 1, this novel explores the existential horror of war, psychological treatment (& the horrible absurdity of treating traumatised men just enough so that you can send them straight back to Trauma Town), and the meeting between siegfried sassoon & wilfred owen. i find i don’t really have much to say about it, but it is very, very good. 4/5

how to pronounce knife, souvankham thammavongsa a short story collection mainly about refugees and migrants from laos to canada, many focusing on parent-child relationships and being forced to work in low-paid jobs, often ones that are damaging to their health. the stories are very well-observed and emotionally nuanced and detailed, but with 14 mostly very short stories, the collection as a whole felt a bit samey, which i guess is something i often experience with short story collections. 3/5

faces in the water, janet frame horrifying semi-autobiographical novel about a young woman stuck in new zealand’s mental health system, moving to different hospitals but mostly from ward to (more depressing) ward in the 40s/50s. while there is a shift in attitudes during her stay that sometimes makes the wards more tolerable, mostly the patients are neglected, abused, and the threat of electric shock therapy and lobotomy always hangs over them. 3/5

the upstairs house, julia fine fuck why did i read so many books about mental health conditions this month??? this is another entry in my casual ‘motherhood as horror’ reading project, in which a new mother develops post-partum psychosis & imagines the modernist children’s book writer she’s writing her dissertation on and her poet sometimes-lover haunting her and her child (margaret wise brown & michael strange, who are real people i was utterly unaware of). this does pretty good on the maternal horror front, but i wasn’t entirely sold on the literary haunting. 2/5

1000 serpentinen angst, olivia wenzel a very interesting novel about a woman struggling with grief over her brother’s suicide, an anxiety disorder, the (non)state of a (non)relationship and discrimination/marginalisation based on her identity as a black, east-german, bi woman (while also being, as she notes, financially privileged). much of the novel is written in a dialogue between the narrator and an unnamed (& probably internal) interlocutor, which was p effective for a novel more focused on introspection than much of a plot. 3/5

atlas: the archaeology of an imaginary city, dung kai-cheung (tr. from chinese by the author, anders hansson, bonnie mcdougall) fictitious theory about a slightly-left-of-reality version of hong kong and how maps (re)construct the city, very heavy on the postmodern poststructuralist postcolonial (and some other posts, i’m sure). in many ways my jam. unfortunately my favourite parts of this were the author’s preface and the first part (fictitious theory of mapping alternate hong kong); the rest felt very repetitive and not particularly interesting, altho i’m sure i was also just missing a lot of cultural context. 2.5/5

under the net, iris murdoch .........i liked the other two murdochs i’ve read (the sea, the sea & a severed head) quite a lot so either i was not in the mood for her very peculiar style of constructing novels and characters or, this being her first novel, she just wasn’t in full command of that peculiar style yet but man this was a slooooooooog. don’t stretch out your modern picaresque with an incredibly annoying narrator over more than 300 pages iris!!!! 2/5 bc this probably has some merit & i just wasn’t into it

the impossible revolution: making sense of the syrian tragedy, yassin al-haj saleh (tr. from arabic by i. rida mahmoud) collection of articles and essays saleh (a syrian intellectual & activist who spent 16 years in a syrian prison) wrote from 2011 to 2015, analysing the reasons for, potential and development of the revolution, as well as some background sociological discussion on the assads’ regime. very interesting, very dense, very depressing. wouldn’t necessarily recommend it as a first read on the topic tho. 3/5

angels in america: millenium approaches & perestroika, tony kushner the page to tumblr darling quote ratio in this is insane (”just mangled guts pretending” and so on) and also it just really slaps on every level. also managed to get me from 0 to crying several times. brilliant work of theatre, would love to see it staged (or filmed). 4/5

life: a user’s manual, georges perec (german tr. by eugen helmlé) 99 chapters, each corresponding with a single room in a parisian apartment block; some chapters are basically ‘here’s the room, here’s a long list of objects in the room, that’s it bye :)’, some are short insights into the lives of the people living there, some (the best, mostly) are long, absolutely wild tales that are sometimes only tangentially connected to the room in question. why are the french like this. 61/99 rooms 

sisters in hate: american women on the front lines of white nationalism, seyward darby (audio) nonfiction about women’s role in white nationalist hate movements, mainly based on the stories of three women who are or have been involved with various contemporary american alt-right/racist/neonazi hate groups, while also looking at general social trends and the history of white women’s role in white supremacy. interesting and engaging if you’re interested in this kind of thing. if you’re both politically aware and internet poisoned, it’s probably not much that is completely new to you but still worth reading. 3/5

starting in april i will be Gainfully Employed (ugh) & thus probably not read as much or read even more bc i have no energy for anything else 

[autumnsart22]

Oikawa x Reader ch. 4

I had no idea what to do. 

It had been three weeks since I joined Aoba Johsai, and things were starting to fall into a rhythm. I went to class, and although the school was larger than I was used to, I easily stayed on top of all the work despite getting extra to catch up. I visited Karasuno as often as I could, almost twice a week to see the whole team. Also, Kiyoko’s house was closer to Aoba Johsai than my own, so I used the excuse to sleep over there almost every night. 

But despite that, I was bored and lonely. Studying wasn’t enough to keep me occupied, and now that I wasn’t the manager of Karasuno, I had large amounts of extra time with nothing to fill it. 

Such was the case on the Saturday morning after the second week at Aoba Johsai. Kiyoko was at a practice game against one of the other schools in the Miyagi prefecture, and I had already finished most of my homework. I had decided to pull out some of my old sketchbooks from under my bed, which had grown dusty from me not using them, deciding to try and pick back up my old hobby.

I’d stopped all kinds of art a few years ago, after my parents had a sit down talk with me about success. Before that, I had imagined that maybe I could make a bit of money by designing logos or web pages for businesses and companies, but my parents made it clear that would never be an option. 

But I was bored now, so the sketchbooks were laid out on the table and the pencils were sharpened. Unfortunately, I was a perfectionist who was out of practice and without any inspiration. I ended up breaking two of my nice pencils out of frustration, and decided to go on a run to cool my head. 

It was pretty early in the morning, only 8:30, and mist lay heavy in the air. It was good weather for running, cold enough that I wasn’t overheating as I jogged. 

I definitely wasn’t the most athletic person, although I wasn’t out of shape either. My body was curvy, not particularly muscly in any way, but I wasn’t fat. I had major body insecurities like every other girl in existence, but I had been working on it to try and like myself better recently. 

Either way, I was out of breath after only a few minutes of running, but I kept a steady pace, and focused on the rhythm of the music pounding through my headphones instead of the pain in my side. 

After jogging for almost twenty minutes through town, I finally allowed myself to slow to a walk as I approached a street. The road was busy, so I hit the button for the crosswalk and gave myself a minute of recovery. 

I almost jumped out of my skin as a voice spoke from behind me out of the blue. 

“Hey there, are you the new student at Aoba Johsai?” 

I turned and felt my heart practically stop. The boy that stood a foot away was tall with messy brown hair falling around his head, his figure lean with muscle but not very bulky. He was one of the prettiest people I had ever seen. I guessed that he had been on a run too, but unlike me, he didn’t look the slightest bit out of breath. 

“Oh um,” I realized I had forgotten to respond. “Yes I am. Do I know you?”

“Nope. Not yet,” He smirked, and I fought a blush. What was with this guy? 

“Uh, ok. Well I have to go…” Thankfully, the light turned, and I awkwardly turned away. He didn’t say anything, but I could feel him watching me as I jogged across the street and headed back home. 

That night, I sat on Kiyoko’s bed, legs across her lap. Apparently Karasuno had lost the practice match, but only by two points. The team was improving all the time, with every practice and every game. 

According to Kiyoko, the boys had been upset that I wasn’t allowed to come to the practice game, which made me feel a bit happy. It was nice to be missed. 

“What did you do today?” Kiyoko asked, glasses flashing as she leaned over to plug her phone into a charger. 

“Literally nothing. Went for a run, attempted and failed at drawing, finished my homework.” I sighed. I didn’t mention the boy I had run into while I was out, but I had been thinking about the awkward encounter the whole day, each time making me more and more embarrassed. I had definitely been rude. I hadn’t even asked for his name! 

He hadn’t asked for mine either, I reminded myself, but at least he had talked like a normal person. I had just stuttered, which I always did when I got uncomfortable. Ah well. 

“Y/n-san, you should become Seijoh’s manager.” 

At first I wasn’t sure I heard her right. “Huh?” Kiyoko sighed, pushing up her glasses. “You love volleyball just as much as me, and clearly you’re going out of your mind with boredom. I think it would be good for you.” 

“But-but Aoba Johsai is in direct competition to Karasuno! They’re our enemy!” 

Kiyoko rolled her eyes. “Y/n, honestly. That’s not an excuse for you not to join. Yeah, you’ll probably have to play against us, but it's not like you’ll become our enemy.” 

I sighed, shoulders slumping. “Maybe I’ll just go to a practice and see what the team is like, and decide from there.”

My friend shrugged and nodded. “That sounds good. You have to tell me how it goes.” 

    ✨✨✨✨

On Monday, I went to the front office to ask about Seijoh’s volleyball club. Apparently they met after school for two hours every weekday except for Monday, as well as every other Saturday. It was a lot, but Karasuno did even more, so I knew I would be able to handle it. 

I had to ask a few people for directions about how to get to the gym, but I managed to get there before practice had officially started. I could hear shoes squeaking on the floor when I arrived, which made me pause. I hated being the only new person, especially when entering such a tight knit group like a volleyball team. My social anxiety always made things awkward. 

I took a deep breath, reminding myself that the boys would most likely be too busy to notice me, and I just had to go talk to the coach. 

I shoved open the doors, sliding into the gym and quickly surveying the space. It was way bigger than Karasuno’s gym, the equipment clearly better quality due to their higher budget. 

I expected a few of the team members to be there early, maybe doing simple spikes against the wall to warm up. Unfortunately for me, the entire team was already dressed and gathered around the coach. As the gym doors slammed closed behind me, they all looked over as I walked in. 

I felt all the blood rush to my face, and I awkwardly crossed my arms and stood off to the side as the coach finished talking. I noticed a few of the boys muttering to each other and gesturing at me, which only made my stomach twist. Thankfully, the coach sent them on lunging laps pretty quickly, which kept them from hanging around. 

“Oikawa, not you!” The coach yelled, gesturing at one of the boys. “Your knee isn’t fully healed yet and I don’t want you to reinjure it.” 

Oikawa, the team captain and setter, I remembered. The arrogant one that Kageyama didn’t like. My mouth fell open when he turned around. 

It was the same guy from my run, who had asked me if I was the new student. I felt my entire body tense, and I quickly looked away from him. Damn, this had been a bad idea. 

“Aw coach, come on! At least let me do something,” Oikawa said, practically pouting. 

“You can do some stretches over there,” the coach said with an annoyed look.

The setter grinned, and then he looked at me. His eyebrows went up in surprise as he recognized me, and I smiled awkwardly before quickly turning towards the coach. No need to interact more than necessary. 

“Hi, can I help you?” The coach was looking at me imploringly, and I quickly bowed. 

“Yes, my name is Y/n L/n, and I was looking to see if you had any need of a new team manager. I have some experience from my last school, and I would love to get involved here.” 

The coach looked surprised, but then he smiled. “You have the most perfect timing. Our official team manager just quit, so we were looking for someone to take over. You would need to fill out some paperwork and figure out if you’re eligible, but if you want to stay for today and see how it fits, that would work out great.”

“Ok! Thank you so much.”

“Of course. I’m Coach Nobuteru, and over there is our team captain, Oikawa Toru. Oikawa!” 

I turned around, only to see the tall setter making his way over to us. He grinned down at me, eyes trailing over my body and back up. “Hi again, new girl.” “Oikawa,” the coach said. “This is Y/n L/n. She’s looking to become our new team manager.” Coach Nobuteru spoke for me, and I bowed quickly. 

“It’s nice to meet you officially, Y/n-kun.” Oikawa said, bowing back. He looked clearly surprised that I was looking into the manager position, which annoyed me a bit. I wondered what he thought of me. 

“Yes, it’s nice to meet you as well, Oikawa-san.” 

“Oikawa, why don’t you get back to work?” Coach Nobuteru said after a moment.

The team captain nodded, smirking at me one more time before heading back over to where his team were finishing their laps. 

I watched the practice on the sideline with Coach Nobuteru, assessing the players and trying to determine who needed to work on what. I asked the coach a lot of questions about names and strengths, and he looked at me with new respect as he seemed to realize that I actually did have experience with volleyball. 

It was obvious that Oikawa knew his team extremely well, and I couldn’t help but admire the way he encouraged them, capitalizing on their strengths. They worked like a well oiled machine, unlike anything Karasuno had ever managed to do, even though I didn’t want to admit it. 

The strength between Iwaizumi Hajime, the team’s ace, and Oikawa was almost unbelievable. They knew what the other was intending without effort, and they seemed to work in sync to slam one quick attack after the other over the net. The only relationship I had seen that could compare was that of Hinata and Kageyama. 

At the end of the practice, Coach Nobuteru directed me to the club office, where I could get the paperwork to officially become the team manager. As I left the gym, I felt the best I had for a long time. The energy from watching the team play volleyball made me feel light and happy, like I had a purpose again. It was definitely nerve racking to have to learn the names, strengths and weaknesses, preferences, and relationships of the entire team, but it was also exciting. I would do my best to be as good a manager of Seijoh as I was of Karasuno. 

Chapter 3

Chapter 5

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

August 14, 2021

Heather Cox Richardson

On this day in 1935, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act into law. While FDR’s New Deal had put in place new measures to regulate business and banking and had provided temporary work relief to combat the Depression, this law permanently changed the nature of the American government.

The Social Security Act is known for its payments to older Americans, but it did far more than that. It established unemployment insurance; aid to homeless, dependent, and neglected children; funds to promote maternal and child welfare; and public health services. It was a sweeping reworking of the relationship of the government to its citizens, using the power of taxation to pool funds to provide a basic social safety net.

The driving force behind the law was FDR’s Secretary of Labor, Frances Perkins. She was the first woman to hold a position in the U.S. Cabinet and still holds the record for having the longest tenure in that job: she lasted from 1933 to 1945.

She brought to the position a vision of government very different from that of the Republicans who had run it in the 1920s. While men like President Herbert Hoover had harped on the idea of a “rugged individualism” in which men worked their way up, providing for their families on their own, Perkins recognized that people in communities had always supported each other. The vision of a hardworking man supporting his wife and children was more myth than reality: her own husband suffered from bipolar disorder, making her the family’s primary support.

As a child, Perkins spent summers with her grandmother, with whom she was very close, in the small town of Newcastle, Maine, where she witnessed a supportive community. In college, at Mount Holyoke, she majored in chemistry and physics, but after a professor required students to tour a factory to observe working conditions, Perkins became committed to improving the lives of those trapped in industrial jobs. After college, Perkins became a social worker and, in 1910, earned a masters degree in economics and sociology from Columbia University. She became the head of the New York office of the National Consumers League, urging consumers to use their buying power to demand better conditions and wages for the workers who made the products they were buying.

The next year, in 1911, she witnessed the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire in which 146 workers, mostly women and girls, died. They were trapped in the building when the fire broke out because the factory owner had ordered the doors to the stairwells and exits locked to make sure no one slipped outside for a break. Unable to escape the smoke and fire in the factory, the workers—some of them on fire—leaped from the 8th, 9th, and 10th floors of the building, dying on the pavement.

The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire turned Perkins away from voluntary organizations to improve workers’ lives and toward using the government to adjust the harsh conditions of industrialization. She began to work with the Democratic politicians at Tammany Hall, who presided over communities in the city that mirrored rural towns and who exercised a form of social welfare for their voters, making sure they had jobs, food, and shelter and that wives and children had a support network if a husband and father died. In that system, the voices of women like Perkins were valuable, for their work in the immigrant wards of the city meant that they were the ones who knew what working families needed to survive.

The overwhelming unemployment, hunger, and suffering caused by the Great Depression made Perkins realize that state governments alone could not adjust the conditions of the modern world to create a safe, supportive community for ordinary people. She came to believe, as she said: “The people are what matter to government, and a government should aim to give all the people under its jurisdiction the best possible life.”

Through her Tammany connections Perkins met FDR, and when he asked her to be his Secretary of Labor, she told him that she wanted the federal government to provide unemployment insurance, health insurance, and old-age insurance. She later recalled: “I remember he looked so startled, and he said, ‘Well, do you think it can be done?’”

Creating federal unemployment insurance became her primary concern. Congressmen had little interest in passing such legislation. They said they worried that unemployment insurance and federal aid to dependent families would undermine a man’s willingness to work. But Perkins recognized that those displaced by the Depression had added new pressure to the idea of old-age insurance.

In Long Beach, California, Dr. Francis Townsend had looked out of his window one day to see elderly women rooting through garbage cans for food. Appalled, he came up with a plan to help the elderly and stimulate the economy at the same time. Townsend proposed that the government provide every retired person over 60 years old with $200 a month, on the condition that they spend it within 30 days, a condition designed to stimulate the economy.

Townsend’s plan was wildly popular. More than that, though, it sparked people across the country to start coming up with their own plans for protecting the elderly and the nation’s social fabric, and together, they began to change the public conversation about social welfare policies.

They spurred Congress to action. Perkins recalled that Townsend “startled the Congress of the United States because the aged have votes. The wandering boys didn't have any votes; the evicted women and their children had very few votes. If the unemployed didn't stay long enough in any one place, they didn't have a vote. But the aged people lived in one place and they had votes, so every Congressman had heard from the Townsend Plan people.”

FDR put together a committee to come up with a plan to create a basic social safety net, but committee members could not make up their minds how to move forward. Perkins continued to hammer on the idea they must come up with a final plan, and finally locked the members of the committee in a room. As she recalled: “Well, we locked the door and we had a lot of talk. I laid out a couple of bottles of something or other to cheer their lagging spirits. Anyhow, we stayed in session until about 2 a.m. We then voted finally, having taken our solemn oath that this was the end; we were never going to review it again.”

By the time the bill came to a vote in Congress, it was hugely popular. The vote was 371 to 33 in the House and 77 to 6 in the Senate.

When asked to describe the origins of the Social Security Act, Perkins mused that its roots came from the very beginnings of the nation. When Alexis de Tocqueville wrote Democracy in America in 1835, she noted, he thought Americans were uniquely “so generous, so kind, so charitably disposed.” “Well, I don't know anything about the times in which De Tocqueville visited America,” she said, but “I do know that at the time I came into the field of social work, these feelings were real.”

With the Social Security Act, Perkins helped to write into our laws a longstanding political impulse in America that stood in dramatic contrast to the 1920s philosophy of rugged individualism. She recognized that the ideas of community values and pooling resources to keep the economic playing field level and take care of everyone are at least as deeply seated in our political philosophy as the idea of every man for himself.

When she recalled the origins of the Social Security Act, Perkins recalled: “Of course, the Act had to be amended, and has been amended, and amended, and amended, and amended, until it has now grown into a large and important project, for which, by the way, I think the people of the United States are deeply thankful. One thing I know: Social Security is so firmly embedded in the American psychology today that no politician, no political party, no political group could possibly destroy this Act and still maintain our democratic system. It is safe. It is safe forever, and for the everlasting benefit of the people of the United States.”

—-

Notes:

​​https://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php

https://www.ssa.gov/history/perkins5.html

https://francesperkinscenter.org/life-new/

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[suddenlysackler]

Afterglow (Nice to Meet You Series)

Charlie Barber x Reader

Nice to Meet You: a series of one shots based off of this post. Previous installments can be found here:

Adam Sackler

TW: Lil bit of angst and cynicism at the beginning, mentions of divorce, breakups, anxiety, depression, mention of alcohol consumption

A/N: This is my first piece that I’ve posted in awhile, I’m so sorry for the content drought! This series is kind of sporadic atm (kind of a result of life) but I miss you all so very much. Here’s to a normal content schedule some day 💓 Thank you for reading!

...

Timing always tends to be a funny thing, you supposed.

You weren’t sure if you were an “everything happens for a reason” sort of person person, a person who believed in fate. Who believed in soulmates. You used to be that way six years ago, before the reality of life and relationships and loss and grief and disappointment and all of the wonderful bad things had gotten to you. Had snatched up who you were, chewed that essence up, and spit it right back out. 

So here you were, one year removed from when everything essentially blew up in your face, leaving you to rebuild.

And here Charlie was, coming off one of the worst years of his life, knowing almost exactly how you felt.

The cynic in you is saying that it’s just too cliché, the two of you being so broken and finding each other like this. 

The small voice in the back of your mind that’s still clinging to the dreamer you once were? It’s telling you that the two of you were meant to find each other and, yeah, you roll your eyes every time the thought crosses your mind. However, with each passing day, you become more and more convinced that it was true.

How embarrassing. 

It’s one of those rare September days that happen before the seasons change, when it feels more like mid October than the last few days of summer. Your cheeks are burning from the wind that whips your hair everywhere, a pleasant cold that you’d longed for over the summer months. The hot coffee in your hand threatens to spill from it’s cup and you take tentative sips when you absolutely have to stop at crosswalks and wait for cars to go by before darting out again.

Naturally, you were running late to the Saturday morning meeting of people on the New York theater scene planning for what the industry calls red bucket season. In the aftermath of all of the loss and grief and spiraling thoughts last fall you had finally said yes to the constant begging of your coworkers in the marketing department at Schubert and started to become more heavily involved with Broadway Cares/Equity Fights Aids. The overwhelming joy that came with the annual Flea Market in the Schubert Ally last September had given you hope to last all the way through to red bucket season, which carried you into the spring and helped you to feel like you were doing something productive with your time other than sleep, eat, work, and cry.

You’d met people from different companies in the theater world, met so many lovely actors and musicians and dressers and heads of house and developed a net to busy yourself, to affirm your sense of self worth, to get a drink with on a Sunday afternoon when the ghost light was finally turned on after the matinee crowd had finally cleared the stage door and the last member of the orchestra had said goodnight.

Taking a deep breath and glancing at your watch only to see that you were fifteen minutes late, you swallow and push your way through the doors, cheeks heating up even more if at all possible. There isn’t anyone you know staring back at you when all twenty something people turn to see who had arrived late and interrupted the meeting’s organizer. You cringe internally as you call out a simple apology and slip into the first vacant seat that catches your eye.

Enter Charlie Barber.

His head whipped back when everyone else’s had. He had looked you up and down, tried to see if you were anyone he knew like everyone else in the room. He couldn’t see you, didn’t really see you until you plopped down next to him, wind blown and flustered and absolutely breathtaking. 

Post divorce finalization, Charlie had decided that he wasn’t going to go looking for someone else. He didn’t need someone to come in and pick up all the pieces or any of that bullshit. He wasn’t looking for a savior to fix it all —grief was something to handle on your own in his eyes. 

As you lean over and whisper another apology to him specifically, as if you had inconvenienced him personally by sweeping into the room late and choosing to sit next to him and draw attention to him too, Charlie feels like he’s been hit by a truck. The simple apology rings like a crescendo through his head and chest and he feels it in his bones. He rushes out his acknowledgement, tells you it’s okay, but he feels like his mouth has turned into molasses.  

About halfway through the presentation, he leans over and nudges you, pointing out a typo in the slide presentation. It’s a bold move, all things considered — you did know the woman running the meeting, she was your boss and someone you considered to be a close acquaintance. You’d mentioned as much when Charlie had turned to you during some dumb partner exercise she had made you all do to get to know each other.

The stifled laughter that bubbles past your lips rivals any top forty hit that played in the background when Charlie got his coffee that morning, much earlier than you, in the coffee shop three blocks from the auditorium you were now sitting in. Suddenly, he finds himself obsessing over how it would sound uninhibited by the social circumstances. He wants to make you laugh over and over again. 

It’s chance that the two of you are assigned to help run the first red bucket training session of the season before the first performance of a long running musical that you had never seen nor cared to have seen three days later. It’s close to dinner time and you’ve had a long day at the office. Charlie’s had a long day too, a long few days thinking about when he’d see you again. How well the two of you had gotten on, how your hands had brushed over each other at the stupid little food spread during your break on Saturday. 

He thinks about what he should wear, what you’d be wearing, if you’d want to run across the street afterwards and split a pie at the local pizza joint that all of the tourists frequented before shows, wanting to get an “authentic” slice but not wanting to stray to far from the familiarity of the theater district and Times Square in all of it’s grubby, overrated glory.

Charlie doesn’t assume he’d even crossed your mind since you parted ways Saturday. He figures you’re busy, that you aren’t looking for anything because you’re just fine on your own or maybe you’re with somebody else. He doesn’t chance snooping on your social media to break the lovely reverie dancing in his head as he falls asleep Saturday, Sunday, and Monday evening. The one where he gets to start over, gets to start a relationship that’s based in equal footing and rationality rather than fear and chaotic emotions and limelight. 

Little does he know that you’ve been thinking about him too, your mind reeling with the same possibilities for yourself. It scared you more than anything that you’d even begun to entertain those types of thoughts.

You knew he’d just come off of an ugly divorce. Hell, you knew who he was when you had plopped down next to him and caught a glimpse of his furrowed brow and broad shouldered stature. You hadn’t expected someone as busy as him, as important as him to be here with the rest of you, all minor players in the theater world for the most part. You certainly hadn’t expected to enjoy your time with him and dance almost the whole way home because you were so excited that you’d been given the opportunity to see him again. 

Was it worth asking him to hang out after the meeting? Would he laugh in your face? Turn you down politely and tell you he’d see you at your next assigned training session? Would he ignore it and walk out to meet someone else and kiss them under the lights of the marquees? 

You spent the whole meeting wondering how you would ask him, if you would even ask him. You worked on autopilot, completely preoccupied with stealing glances across the room at Charlie, joking with Charlie during breaks, brushing Charlie’s hand when you passed him paper...Charlie, Charlie, Charlie.

“Nice work tonight.” A baritone voice pulls you from your thoughts and you glance up to see the man himself, eyes crinkled at the edges as he smiles down at you while the cast filters back stage.

You start to clean things up, trying to busy yourself so you don’t put your foot in your mouth. “You too, Charlie.” You hum, mentally kicking yourself because wow were you lame. You could have said anything else and you just echoed his words instead? Your chances were slipping right through your fingers.

He picks at lint on his sweater that isn’t even there, kicks some invisible object as he watches you. “How come I’ve never seen you around before last weekend? Charlotte told me you’ve been with Schubert for awhile now and both of my shows have been in Schubert buildings. So’s my third.”

“You were talking to Charlotte about me?” You ask, head snapping up with a shit eating grin. He was talking about you with other people?

Charlie’s cheeks go bright red and his hand comes up to rub the back of his neck, a nervous habit of his. He stumbles over his words, tries to come up with any other explanation to hide the truth of why he had asked Charlotte about you. Before he could say anything else, you swallow your nerves, then stand up straighter. 

“Because maybe I’ve been talking to her about you.” You shrug — you hadn’t really. Hell, you don’t even know why the words came out of your mouth. 

His eyes sparkle a bit as he tilts his head. “Maybe?”

“Yeah, maybe.”

The man standing across from you grabs an armful of infographics and slips them into the box that was meant to go to the head of house, to have on hand for people interested in donating. “Charlotte mentioned you liked pizza.” He says and, of course, it couldn’t have been true, you didn’t know Charlotte that well, but you appreciated the effort.

You smile and take a step forward, looking him up and down shyly. “Maybe I do.”

Charlie snorts, rolls his eyes, then nudges you playfully for good measure as he prays that he’s reading the room correctly. “Well maybe you’d want to get some with me?”

You half hear the question. He’s so handsome and you wonder if he knows it. If he knows he’s had you weak at the knees since the minute you’d made eye contact with him Saturday. “Maybe I’d like that.” You say, eyes round and full of wonder.

He smiles, putting his hands in his pockets. “It’s a date then.”

“You want to call it a date?” Butterflies are now running rampant in your stomach.

“Maybe.”

You’re both grinning from ear to ear now, faces hot and hands sweaty and shaking. “If you’re calling it a date, then yeah. I’d like that a lot.”

So Charlie takes you across the street and you each eat half a pizza, laughing over cheap wine and talking about how snooty actors could be. How demanding the stage door was. Your respective backgrounds in theater, his early success, your acceptance of the fact that you wouldn’t make it big and it was better to just settle into marketing and still be in the industry. Job security and such. 

He takes your hand outside of the restaurant as you lead him toward the local bakery that sells cookies fresh from the oven.

You intertwine your fingers with his while you stand in line for hot chocolate as dusk turns to night in Central Park.

He kisses you after wiping a bit of chocolate from the corner of your mouth on the Brooklyn bound A train a half hour later. And again on your stoop when you finally arrive home. 

He kisses you another time after he gives you his number and then once more when he realizes he’s only a ten minute walk from your apartment.

After heading upstairs, showering, doing some dirty dishes, and then plopping onto your bed, you smile when you see three texts from Charlie on your phone’s lock screen. Was it cliché to say that he had swooped in and fixed everything? Yeah and he didn’t fix anything really. He’d kissed you a few times and held your hand, sure, and he seemed like he wanted more. You wanted more too, but that didn’t mean that you were healed.

All you did know was that the hopeless romantic in you was louder than they had been for the better part of two years and you couldn’t stop smiling and wondering if it was coincidence that you had plopped down next to Charlie Barber during the meeting. Was it coincidence that the barista had taken longer with your latte that morning or was it fate telling you to take a deep breath and hold on tight because in a matter of minutes, you’d be meeting someone special.

[reading-writing-revolution]

Heather Cox Richardson

August 14, 2021 (Saturday)

On this day in 1935, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act into law. While FDR’s New Deal had put in place new measures to regulate business and banking and had provided temporary work relief to combat the Depression, this law permanently changed the nature of the American government.

The Social Security Act is known for its payments to older Americans, but it did far more than that. It established unemployment insurance; aid to homeless, dependent, and neglected children; funds to promote maternal and child welfare; and public health services. It was a sweeping reworking of the relationship of the government to its citizens, using the power of taxation to pool funds to provide a basic social safety net.

The driving force behind the law was FDR’s Secretary of Labor, Frances Perkins. She was the first woman to hold a position in the U.S. Cabinet and still holds the record for having the longest tenure in that job: she lasted from 1933 to 1945.

She brought to the position a vision of government very different from that of the Republicans who had run it in the 1920s. While men like President Herbert Hoover had harped on the idea of a “rugged individualism” in which men worked their way up, providing for their families on their own, Perkins recognized that people in communities had always supported each other. The vision of a hardworking man supporting his wife and children was more myth than reality: her own husband suffered from bipolar disorder, making her the family’s primary support.

As a child, Perkins spent summers with her grandmother, with whom she was very close, in the small town of Newcastle, Maine, where she witnessed a supportive community. In college, at Mount Holyoke, she majored in chemistry and physics, but after a professor required students to tour a factory to observe working conditions, Perkins became committed to improving the lives of those trapped in industrial jobs. After college, Perkins became a social worker and, in 1910, earned a masters degree in economics and sociology from Columbia University. She became the head of the New York office of the National Consumers League, urging consumers to use their buying power to demand better conditions and wages for the workers who made the products they were buying.

The next year, in 1911, she witnessed the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire in which 146 workers, mostly women and girls, died. They were trapped in the building when the fire broke out because the factory owner had ordered the doors to the stairwells and exits locked to make sure no one slipped outside for a break. Unable to escape the smoke and fire in the factory, the workers—some of them on fire—leaped from the 8th, 9th, and 10th floors of the building, dying on the pavement.

The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire turned Perkins away from voluntary organizations to improve workers’ lives and toward using the government to adjust the harsh conditions of industrialization. She began to work with the Democratic politicians at Tammany Hall, who presided over communities in the city that mirrored rural towns and who exercised a form of social welfare for their voters, making sure they had jobs, food, and shelter and that wives and children had a support network if a husband and father died. In that system, the voices of women like Perkins were valuable, for their work in the immigrant wards of the city meant that they were the ones who knew what working families needed to survive.

The overwhelming unemployment, hunger, and suffering caused by the Great Depression made Perkins realize that state governments alone could not adjust the conditions of the modern world to create a safe, supportive community for ordinary people. She came to believe, as she said: “The people are what matter to government, and a government should aim to give all the people under its jurisdiction the best possible life.”

Through her Tammany connections Perkins met FDR, and when he asked her to be his Secretary of Labor, she told him that she wanted the federal government to provide unemployment insurance, health insurance, and old-age insurance. She later recalled: “I remember he looked so startled, and he said, ‘Well, do you think it can be done?’”

Creating federal unemployment insurance became her primary concern. Congressmen had little interest in passing such legislation. They said they worried that unemployment insurance and federal aid to dependent families would undermine a man’s willingness to work. But Perkins recognized that those displaced by the Depression had added new pressure to the idea of old-age insurance.

In Long Beach, California, Dr. Francis Townsend had looked out of his window one day to see elderly women rooting through garbage cans for food. Appalled, he came up with a plan to help the elderly and stimulate the economy at the same time. Townsend proposed that the government provide every retired person over 60 years old with $200 a month, on the condition that they spend it within 30 days, a condition designed to stimulate the economy.

Townsend’s plan was wildly popular. More than that, though, it sparked people across the country to start coming up with their own plans for protecting the elderly and the nation’s social fabric, and together, they began to change the public conversation about social welfare policies.

They spurred Congress to action. Perkins recalled that Townsend “startled the Congress of the United States because the aged have votes. The wandering boys didn't have any votes; the evicted women and their children had very few votes. If the unemployed didn't stay long enough in any one place, they didn't have a vote. But the aged people lived in one place and they had votes, so every Congressman had heard from the Townsend Plan people.”

FDR put together a committee to come up with a plan to create a basic social safety net, but committee members could not make up their minds how to move forward. Perkins continued to hammer on the idea they must come up with a final plan, and finally locked the members of the committee in a room. As she recalled: “Well, we locked the door and we had a lot of talk. I laid out a couple of bottles of something or other to cheer their lagging spirits. Anyhow, we stayed in session until about 2 a.m. We then voted finally, having taken our solemn oath that this was the end; we were never going to review it again.”

By the time the bill came to a vote in Congress, it was hugely popular. The vote was 371 to 33 in the House and 77 to 6 in the Senate.

When asked to describe the origins of the Social Security Act, Perkins mused that its roots came from the very beginnings of the nation. When Alexis de Tocqueville wrote Democracy in America in 1835, she noted, he thought Americans were uniquely “so generous, so kind, so charitably disposed.” “Well, I don't know anything about the times in which De Tocqueville visited America,” she said, but “I do know that at the time I came into the field of social work, these feelings were real.”

With the Social Security Act, Perkins helped to write into our laws a longstanding political impulse in America that stood in dramatic contrast to the 1920s philosophy of rugged individualism. She recognized that the ideas of community values and pooling resources to keep the economic playing field level and take care of everyone are at least as deeply seated in our political philosophy as the idea of every man for himself.

When she recalled the origins of the Social Security Act, Perkins recalled: “Of course, the Act had to be amended, and has been amended, and amended, and amended, and amended, until it has now grown into a large and important project, for which, by the way, I think the people of the United States are deeply thankful. One thing I know: Social Security is so firmly embedded in the American psychology today that no politician, no political party, no political group could possibly destroy this Act and still maintain our democratic system. It is safe. It is safe forever, and for the everlasting benefit of the people of the United States.”

[mithrilwren]

Carillon

For @essek-week​ day 6: tower/possibilities. This was a VERY last minute fill, and it was an absolute miracle I got it done before the clock struck midnight, but woohoo, here we are! It’s mostly for ‘tower’, but I think it has shades of ‘possibilities’ as well.

[Also on Ao3!]

“I really do appreciate that you were willing to come all this way.”

“Yes, well,” Essek said, inclining his head slightly. “It isn’t so far to travel for people such as us, is it?”

The blonde-haired woman smiled serenely. Lady Allura Vysoren, member of the Arcana Pansophical, senior member of the Council of Tal’Dorei, a talented and accomplished wizard - all facts he’d committed carefully to memory the night before, after a series of hasty messages to his more worldly contacts. She ushered him from the teleportation circle through an oaken door, into a hallway of fine wooden supports and demure beige paint. “Have you been to Tal’Dorei before, Essek?”

“No, I’m afraid I haven’t. My duties rarely take me outside my home country.” He gazed up at the high ceiling, wondering vaguely which government building she’d transported them to. He knew they were bound for Emon, but he hadn’t had time to collect any information about the layout of the city before Allura arrived to collect him.

“That’s a shame. I do love to travel, when I can.” Her pleasant niceties, far from putting Essek at ease, only amplified his confusion as to why he was chosen for this assignment. The role of ‘Shadowhand’ was exactly as unobtrusive as the name implied - he was no diplomat. His work was best done through intermediaries, if any social interaction was required at all. 

His work with the Mighty Nein was an aberration, but not wholly outside his purview: to gather information about illicit dealings within the Dynasty was quite within his usual set of duties, even if the method was… unusual. But he could not fathom why the Bright Queen would select him to play the role of ambassador, unless his seeming success with the Nein convinced her that he had some special pull with humans that other drow lacked.

Yet again, he found himself teetering on the knife’s edge of civility, trying to maintain his balance in an arena he did not understand. If he had little experience playing the host, he had less being the hosted, and he grasped one hand by the other in a vice grip behind his back as he floated after Allura, following her into a little parlor off the main corridor. She gestured to a chair, and he felt at once foolish to have taken the effort to resume his levitation spell, only to be forced to descend within a minute in order to sit.

“Please, make yourself comfortable,” Allura said as she walked to a little table and began pouring cups of tea from a delicate porcelain pot. Beside her, there was a glass door, partially ajar and seemingly leading to a balcony, but Essek could not see past the railing to guess any more about their location. Instead, Essek sank back into the armchair - plush, and upholstered with warm auburn velvetine that complemented the other splashes of autumnal colour within the room - and watched the light breeze from the balcony ripple within the blue folds of Allura’s dress as she finished pouring. 

A receiving chamber, perhaps, for foreign officials? It seemed pleasant enough for it, though nowhere near as grand as the Bright Queen’s throne room. Every so often a shout or cheer drifted up from the street below, also very unlike the reverent silence that he knew so well. Perhaps those things mattered less for a government ruled by a collection of individuals, rather than a sovereign. He had no frame of reference to compare it against.

After handing him a cup, Allura sank into an armchair across from him and took a small sip, just enough to wet her lips, before speaking again. “I hope it’s alright. I tend to drink a lot of tea in the afternoon, but if you prefer something else, I’m sure I can muster it up.”

“This is fine,” he said, and took a sip to prove it. And it was - a pleasant, earthy aroma, subtled by a splash of cream and what he assumed must be sugar. He’d never met anyone besides Jester who preferred sweetness in herbal drinks (or any drinks, in her case), but he had to admit that the flavours melded well. “But- you’ll forgive me, but I wasn’t given much information on the nature of this meeting. What was it you wanted to discuss?”

Matters of politics he had at least a good understanding of, a better one than how to act friendly and convince others to enjoy your company, and Essek was eager to shift to more familiar ground as soon as possible. While he doubted his social graces could net Allura’s esteem, at least he might be able to engage her mind in discussion, and then perhaps the worst of his awkwardness could be overlooked. 

And, for the most part, he believed he succeeded, in the ways that mattered. It turned out the Council of Tal’Dorei had simply wanted a check-in with the Dynasty after Allura’s involvement in the peace talks - a move which he now gathered was only loosely sanctioned by the council itself, though she had seemed quite confident when she arrived before the Bright Queen’s court all those months ago. She meant to shore up relations, and ensure that open communication would continue between their governments. 

He agreed to what he could, proposed options for further engagements, and all in all, performed adequately in his function, but hadn’t quite shaken the feeling he was missing some important detail in all of this - something that might explain why he, of all people, was the one taking part in this conversation. Allura was clearly a skilled diplomat, in addition to her arcane prowess. She projected an air of competence, tempered by a warm, inviting demeanor, but he did not doubt that her demeanor would change were they in her personal tower, rather than within the public eye. Wizards were not known for their hospitality, after all, and the ones he’d met outside himself always guarded their isolation jealously, quick to drop all illusions of civility once they were within a domain of their control. 

“Lady Allura,” he asked as she got up to refill their cups, unable to contain the pressing question any longer. “I’ve enjoyed our conversation today, and I think we’ve made good progress. But… if there is any skillset that I particularly may provide, please, do not hesitate to ask.” There. A way of proposing the question without betraying his own ignorance. The best he could do without surrendering ground in their back and forth. This was, after a negotiation, even if he couldn’t sense the parameters yet. One wizard did not call on another unless they desired something that the other could provide. Even Caleb primarily turned to Essek for help with spells or magic beyond his level, and they were friends - at least, they were.

(He pushed down any thoughts of dinner parties, or good conversation over wine, as the fancies of the past that they were. It was a bitter hope, to believe that there was a different sort of relationship they could have had, one not based on favours and needs. It did not serve him to dwell on it, when his own hand was what quashed that hope for good.)

Allura smiled, setting down the pot on the table. “Nothing of the sort. Truth be told, I actually asked for you personally.” Essek’s eyebrow raised.

“Really.” Though she made no threat, his hand itched towards his wrist, where his components were hidden. Weeks of warnings from Caleb and others in the Nein that an assassination attempt by the Cerberus Assembly might be coming, now that he had outlived his usefulness, had set him on edge. The thought of a powerful wizard with connections both in the Dynasty and the Empire asking to see him personally, and alone? It was worth every  bit of caution in the world.

“You sound surprised.”

“Diplomacy is not my accustomed role.”

“Nor is peacemaking mine, but we find ourselves in strange times.” Allura turned away, looking towards the window and the afternoon sky. “I confess, I still don’t understand the whole of the conflict on Wildemount’s shores. There are shades of grey to every war, and I don’t trust myself to recognize them with an outsider’s perspective. Which is why I asked the Mighty Nein who they would trust to speak to me honestly, and fairly.” She turned back to Essek. “They named you.”

A jolt went through Essek. “When?” he asked, shocked to hear the state of his own voice, strained as it was.

They’d barely spoken in the weeks since the end of the peace talks, other than the warnings about Ikithon and Jester’s occasional messages at inconvenient hours. He’d assumed any ties of trust he’d had with the Nein had been irrevocably broken. Despite any protestations in the Balleater’s hold, he had a hard time believing that No- Veth, or Beau, or even Fjord would count him as someone to be recommended. And yet-

“A few nights ago, when I asked them. I’m glad you were available on such short notice.”

“I as well,” he answered faintly.

And yet-

“Oh no.”

Essek’s head whipped up at Allura’s sudden change in tone to something akin to horror. 

“Is something the matter?”

He stood quickly and floated over to her, scanning the room for any sign of an intruder or threat, but instead he found her staring at a timepiece on the mantle, her eyes tracking the short hand with increasing distress. 

“She’s going to kill me.”

“Who?” Essek insisted, but she was already striding away from him towards the door. 

“How would you feel about a quick tour of the city?” Allura asked, her smile gone from welcoming to hurriedly apologetic in an instant. 

“...Alright.” Strange, but he couldn’t sense an immediate threat. He followed her out the door and into the same hallway, which soon led to a winding spiral staircase leading downwards into a depth of stone. 

“I’m very sorry for the abruptness,” she explained as she walked, “but I promised I would pick something up for someone, and I lost track of time. I’d like to send you off properly, but I also- I really did promise.”

“It’s alright,” he said. “I’m in no rush.” If anything, he was curious to see a bit more of Emon than whatever government building they were in - though, he thought as they continued to descend, it was a strange construction for one. If anything, the layout of the staircase reminded him more of a-

In what seemed like an instant, they were outside, and Essek’s suspicions were immediately proved unfounded. The moment they stepped out onto the street, they were surrounded by bustle - crowded houses, children playing in the street, dogs begging scraps from a food stall down the way. No wizard’s tower would be built so close to the rest of society. They were built for privacy, secluded and elevated above the world. His own house was a half-formed imitation of what he had someday hoped to achieve for himself: gated and lofty, and lonesome.

He didn’t have time to reflect further, or even glance back, lest he lose Allura in the crowd as she hurried away at a breakneck speed.

In the end, he caught up to her on the outskirts of a market, where sellers were just beginning to put away their wares for the coming evening. Essek found Allura at one particular stall, clutching a package of something smelling distinctly briny and looking triumphant.

“Lionfish,” she explained. “They only sell it one day a week, because it’s so hard to keep fresh on its journey from the coast. It’s also my wife’s favourite dish. I would not have heard the end of it, if I’d forgotten.”

“Your wife?” Essek asked, his understanding of Allura shifting in great bounds, like so many shifting cogs whirring into a new configuration. Had he ever met a wizard who was in a partnership, let alone married? It had always seemed to him that a relationship of that kind could only take time away from his work: an unsound investment. Or at least that was a convincing argument, on the days that the loneliness felt like it would suffocate him from within. He almost wanted to ask how she managed it, ambition and love both, but held his tongue. 

“Kima,” Allura provided. “She’ll probably be home by the time we make it back. Maybe you’ll meet her.”

“I’d like that,” said Essek, and found he meant it, which was the most surprising thing of all.

Now that they weren’t in a rush, he was able to get more of a lay of the land. The city was a strange arrangement of highs and lows. It seemed that they were in the high portion, with many houses spread out on the plain below. 

“This is the Cloudtop District,” Allura explained as they walked. Essek had decided to forgo his usual hovering, as his drow appearance was already garnering enough stares from passersby. “It used to be home to the most wealthy citizens of the city, but nowadays there’s a mix of all sorts here.”

“What changed?”

“A horde of dragons razed the city to the ground.” Allura shrugged. “The social divide seemed rather immaterial to most people after that.” She pointed forward at one singular spire, rising above the rest of the mostly one-or-two level dwellings. “Luckily, there was enough space left for me to rebuild the Ivory Tower, and the city’s come up around it.”

Essek stared. It was certainly the direction they had come from, and that they were now headed to.

So it was her tower then, that they had been in. Her tower, that she called ‘home’, that she used to entertain guests, and shared with her wife, and occasionally left to buy fish from a market three streets down. 

“Does it ever feel... crowded?” Essek asked, his own skin already crawling at the proximity of the strangers around him. 

“Sometimes,” Allura admitted. “But I like being able to say hello to my neighbours. I hid my nose in books for so much of my life that it’s a welcome change, for it to be as easy to meet new people as to walk outside my door. It takes some of the work out of it for me.”

That was… not a way that Essek had considered the problem before. He had wondered when he was younger why so many of his peers fell into relationships - platonic or otherwise - without any seeming effort, while he could not fathom how to make a single friend. But he had been separate from the start - isolated because of his mother’s position, and his own talent. Were relationships truly as simple as being in the right vicinity to stumble into them?

He pondered that thought all the rest of the way back to the tower, and up an unfamiliar staircase. “I just want to stick this in the icebox,” Allura explained, “and then I promise, I’ll see you home properly.” He followed her through a new door and into a little kitchen with an adjoining dining room, separated by a half-wall and banister. 

The kitchen itself was fascinating. He got the sense of Allura as an organized individual, but most of the space was pure chaos. Mismatched mugs were haphazardly piled on top of bags of produce and sharp knives were stacked, uncovered, by the sink. Allura’s nose visibly wrinkled as she moved aside a few unopened boxes with her foot in order to open the icebox and shove the package inside.

“Who’s this?”

The new voice caught Essek off guard and he whirled, only to find the air empty at his eye level. He looked down, and found a halfling woman in improbably large plate armor staring up brazenly at him. 

“Essek Thelyss,” Allura supplied from behind him, standing up and dusting her hands off on her skirt. “A guest of mine, from Wildemount.”

The woman didn’t extend her hand, but she gave Essek a good once-over before nodding, apparently satisfied by his look that he wasn’t a threat. He tried not to take it as a snub as the woman shouldered past him to get to Allura.

“Did you remember to get the lionfish?”

“Of course, darling,” Allura said, glancing over the woman’s head at Essek with a look that clearly read I told you so. “I wouldn’t have forgotten.”

Kima, then, and the swift kiss she planted on the back of Allura’s palm confirmed it. “Great, I’ll get started then. Go finish up with your friend, dinner’s in forty.” With that, she was off, pulling pots and pans out with reckless abandon, and utterly unconcerned with either of their presences. It was clear now to Essek that this place was Kima’s, which explained the incongruity with Allura’s neat parlor. 

He thought of his own house, where half the rooms were empty for lack of things to fill them with. He had always wanted to live alone, had never questioned the idea that he would hate to share any part of his home with someone else. 

And yet-

He could understand the appeal now, of sharing a space. Of seeing another person’s marks left over the places they frequent - the dishes in the sink, the paintings on the wall - or to be greeted by a kiss on the doorstep, from someone listening for your footsteps eagerly. It wasn’t a possibility for him, but he thought... he could see it. Why someone would want that. 

Allura sent him back to Rosohna with a promise of future visits and cups of tea to come. By the time he arrived back at his house, it was nearly time to rest, but he headed to his laboratory, intending to check on one of his experiments before closing his eyes for the night. 

The walkways between the different segments of his home were dark, as always, but they gave a good view of the streets stretching beyond his own empty one. From here, he could clearly see the light of Caduceus’s tree, the one beacon in the darkness that surrounded them all, guarding a house too small for seven occupants, but somehow functional, with enough space for all. 

During the day, neighbouring drow still flocked like moths to the flame, walking by the house and trying to catch a glimpse of the strange goings-on inside. He’d never understood the purpose of the tree, when all it did was draw unnecessary attention to the group. He started to wonder now, if that was the goal all along.

His spire was not a tower, but it was removed, just the same. Meticulously organized, just as he liked it to be, but there were still traces of clay he hadn’t managed to scrub from the floorboards. Essek stood on the threshold and saw scattered images of the past: of Nott laying on the floor, of Caleb at the desk, of Jester hounding him for snacks from down the hall. 

They flickered out, one by one, leaving only Caleb, trapped in a scene not from his memory, but from his mind all the same. He watched Caleb stand from the desk and move to the table, beckoning Essek forward. 

“Did you find it?” the shadow Caleb asked, and Essek nodded, heart caught in his throat as he handed over the requested scroll. “Good. Then we can finish tonight.” Caleb leaned over and gave Essek a peck on the cheek, and his lips felt of fog, immaterial and crushing at the same time.

Then he blinked, and it was all gone. Caleb was nothing more than a memory again, and the only proof of his one-time presence were the stains of reddish dirt across the floor.

He stumbled off to his room, feeling unsettled, and deeply tired, with question after question flitting through his mind.

How far would his tower have to climb, so that he couldn’t see the light of that accursed tree from his window?

How long can he pretend that he wouldn’t rather be under that roof tonight, instead of his own?