#this is literally a copy and paste of what my coach said

[nyako-bit]

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[pinksmonkey]

Bylers Are Quite Literate

A Reddit post I made discussing Bylers and media literacy.

Unfortunately my post was removed for being reported too much, even though it wasn't against the rules in any way. I messaged the mods, but I don't know if it'll be put back up, so here's what it said:

I just want to make clear that I mean no hate to Milevens or people who don't ship Byler, I completely respect that people can ship whatever they want and I hope I would receive that same respect in return. There are lots of very smart people who don't ship Byler, and there are lots of smart Milevens. I just want to bring attention to the fact that believing in Byler is not delusional, ridiculous, stupid, or the many other things we're called. Many Bylers are very literate, probably not all of them, but lots.

A lot of Bylers actually have great media literacy, many are film students, writers themselves, or do media analyses often.

This post will specifically be about Mike's monologue to El in S4.

One of my all time favourite analyses (and the best) of the monologue is "'Prove it' I Beg You Read This." by oceanfruit444 on Tumblr.

Unfortunately the post is no longer available because the account which made it was deactivated, but I took screenshots before and will copy and paste the text here:

So, the Duffer Brothers write very complex and, usually, well done characters. They give us a trait or statement and then they prove it. As a writer, you can never just have a character say "I'm lying right now' to the screen, that would be...ridiculous Imao.

"I wrote a post not to long ago about my writing process, or the writing process in general. One of the things I spoke on was the concept of 'proving it'. I want to talk a little more about that and how that applies to one Michael Wheeler.

Of course, we see the scene in season 4 where Will Is giving Mike his painting and using it to help mend Mike and El's relationship. We see it continuously, even though we know he's in love with Mike, Will coaches him through his problems, gives him advice, etc. We see it in season 2 as well just with Joyce mentioning Will giving away his toy to another little girl who looked sad. That was kind of the time they stated this trait Will had, and then continued to prove it for the next two seasons. So when we say Will is selfless, we have evidence to back up that claim.

With proving it, that is your job as a writer. It works with situations, but mostly comes into play with characters. For example: you give your audience a trait, Will is selfless. How does he prove that and how do other characters give us clues of this trait?

Now discussing scenes with 'proving it', season 4 is very interesting because it's not as subtle as we may think it is. In the van, we see Mike recalling the first time he saw El and explaining that moment.

"It was dumb luck, not fate."

Then we go to his confession, "I knew since the moment I saw you that I loved you."

That moment felt cringy, but also, there has been no proof for this. There's actually proof combating his claim. That whole monologue was Mike looking into the camera and saying "I'm lying right now." The writers of this show are aware of that, because they continuously make sure to prove things, because that's how you create deep moments and detailed characters. If you have a character just spew things out without depth behind their words, it's not going to create a furthering and complex relationship. I mean, it's not even in writing, if your partner said, "I love you" and then proceeded to, metaphorically, spit in your face, you wouldn't believe that because you know it's not true.

Throughout season 4, Mike can't say I love you to El, he gaslights her, he calls her superman and that meeting her was an accident. He doesn't prove anything that is said in the monologue, and the writers know that, they want people to pick up on it.

'I'm not scared of you'

Mike proves the opposite of that in rink-o-mania. He was scared of her, and El proves that to us by saying you think I'm a monster too.

'My life started the day I met you.'

That just doesn't make sense because he literally tries to jump off a cliff. Apparently his life didn't need to last more than a day.

The love confession, from a writer's stance, cannot be evidence for a solidified relationship. Mike and El had not been together since their big fight. So, as we know. the feelings Mike was responding to weren't El's, they were Will's.

So then you get into another conversation of, was the love confession for El in the first place? Because in both Will's and Mike's confessions, El is the center of it, the middle piece. The writers could be trying to tell us many different things with that. They both give confessions, so are they attempting to allude to the fact that Mike and Will are both doing the same thing?

People are desperate for answers, it's a worldwide trait, so we ask many questions and we are supposed to when it comes to consuming media or any kind of storytelling. Why does he love her? Wait that doesn't make sense, why didn't he just say it in the first place? Why didn't he say it when El was begging him to? Why does he feel like it's a fight they can't come back from if all he has to say is 'I love you'? If he loved her, it should have been easy right? Why did I just waste hours of my life for a plot point that doesn't make sense? Mike said he loved El already, we've already been through this same exact plot, so why is it happening again?

So, what I'm saying is Mike is disproving his points by previous actions. The monologue feels off because as watchers we are subconsciously or, some of us, consciously aware that we were not given evidence for what the character is saying. And we don't like that.

And then, when we get verbal answers, they don't line up or make any sense.

Why? Why? Why?

So, what bylers have right is that Mike is a fake thing (character), he doesn't just get to vibe in his own head and hang out. He has to prove things to us, if he wants to say I love you? Prove it with details we can back up. You want to tell us you love El on her bad days? You're lying to us now because we saw that point disproven.

These characters have very specific jobs and arcs, they're doing things for a bigger reason, not just...cause. I don't think that's easy for many people to grasp onto. So questions writers ask themselves when there's a scene is, what does this scene mean to each character involved, and how can we make that sub textually known?" "Who is this scene for? and how will it farther their arcs'

So, what does the love monologue mean for El? And how will it farther her arc or finish part of her arc? As we know, she wanted Mike to say I love you, Mike needed to say it for that plot point to finally close. But what is the after math.

Now, what *can* Mike's monologue hold truth to? A lot of what he's saying can be backed up if he's speaking to a different person.

Will.

I loved you since the moment I saw you. We can back that up from evidence, Mike made the choice to walk up to Will on the swing sets and ask to be his friend. Little Mike knew that he wanted Will in his life and that he was something special. So we have a check mark there. It was a choice, loving someone will always, somewhat, be a choice.

I'm not scared of you, I never have been. We can back that up as well. Will was possessed by the Mind Flayer and Mike stayed right by Will's side, walking into that shed with a boy that had sent many people to their death. He stayed next to Will's side, alone, when he knew he could be dangerous or even had no idea what he was capable of.

I love you on your good and bad days. Once again, we see that proven. In season 3 Will yells at Mike, is upset and they fight. What Mike does is very important, he goes after Will because no matter what Will said that might have hurt or how distressed Will seemed to be, he still went after him, because he cared about him. In season 2 when they leave Halloween we see it again, Will was having a bad day and Mike sat right there with him, making him feel better.

I love you. I mean, Mike has proven that over and over again. Now, that could be used for both of them, but the interesting point in season 4 is the big discussion on his issue with saying 'I love you' to El. So, something isn't lining up. Again, from a writers POV, Mike doesn't get to say that to El because you are not allowed to expect your watchers to come up with proven points to that on their own. We have to look at the context of that line and find it IN THE SAME SEASON AND PLOT LINE.

I love you. How does Mike prove that to us in season 4? And if you do not have textual evidence as well as actions to back it up, then you're not supposed to have those things. Your job as a reader or watcher is not to do the work for yourself, the writers will tell you all you need to know, if you can't find it, then they're telling you everything you need to know.

Who does that apply to? Will.

I thought that saying it might make it hurt more. This is disproven by Mike's actions with El, he begins to lose her because he isn't saying I love you. So why would him telling her 'I love you' make her leaving hurt more if she didn't plan on leaving until you didn't day it? Lie lie lie. That is thrown in our faces time and time again. He wasn't losing El until he was unable to tell her or write he loves her.

I don't know, I feel like I lost you or something. Mike says the word 'lost twice in season 4 to two different people, or was it two different people?

Mike isn't afraid of losing El, he's afraid of losing Will, and we have evidence of that because he said those exact words. As I said moments ago, the writers will directly tell you things to allow you to prove spoken points made. If you CANNOT back up a claim, they don't want you to.

If something is mentioned or talked about, it's not on accident or to fill up time, it's because it's important. Mike telling Will he felt like he lost him and giving us evidence as to why he may feel that way and then turning around to say it to El doesn't make sense. It's not supposed to make sense because the writers are trying to get us to use our little brains to piece things together.

For a moment I'll talk about the fanfic I'm working on. We see Jane and Mike kiss for a dare in chapter sixteen (I think) and I discuss the placement of his hands, how they both, and what they do. Then in chapter eighteen I discuss Mike's hands again and their placement with detail when he's holding onto Will. Why do I do that? Because I am trying to tell readers there is a contrast to those actions Mike is making. I'm telling people the person he wants and is picking without giving his POV through tiny actions. So what I'm saying is that I can promise the writers of this show are doing just as tiny things.

So my point here is, characters don't get to just say things, they have to be proven and have logical standing or they should be taken as lies. Writing is a system and characters words and lines are thought out. Nothing humans or characters say is meant to be surface level. Not really.

The way dialogue works, is there has to be underlining meaning or message to each thing a character says. So, if you give two different characters the same exact line, they're going to be performed differently because the intention behind the words will be different. Does that make sense?

I love you. Okay prove it to me or you're lying.

I'm not scared of you. Okay prove it to me or you're lying.

As I said before, a writer's job is to give an audience something and then make the character prove it. If they don't do that, then watchers are able, or should be able, to piece together that something is wrong or a character is not being truthful.

Once again, no character will EVER look at the camera and say 'I'm about to lie' we have to piece that together. You know why? Because these stories are perfectly crafted and very much fake. We're not watching reality TV, we're watching a multi million dollar show.

So, I urge everyone to watch this show and think about this 'prove it' mentality and how well the duffers usually do it. If writers want us to believe their characters, then they must prove the points we are seeing or hearing. We never have to give them the benefit of the doubt because they don't want us to.

Mike, Will, El, every character is a puppet on a string being danced around the stage by the writers."

queerest-friend added, "This also relates to the fact that we got virtually no flashbacks during Mike's confession except for one image of El in the Benny's Burgers shirt. Even the camera couldn't help "prove" anything Mike was saying."

This is just one example of the many in-depth analyses Bylers have made about the show. We take into consideration every detail, the set design, costumes, lighting, blocking, dialogue, facial expressions, body language, and more which the creators of the show have pointed out are important and have meaning. Mike is an undeniably queercoded character, because of all of his actions in the show and the clues surrounding him. He's more queercoded than Will was in a lot of ways, and he's more queercoded than Robin. If we were right about all the evidence for Will being gay, and the same types of evidence are being used for Mike, why would one be true and not the other?

That's all, let me know your thoughts in the comments. :)

[riririnnnn]

Alright, I'm here to speak for my husband.

I'm new in Tumblr, so I don't exactly know what people think about Noa here, but as far as I have seen in other places, people generally say that he is the worst coach in NEL.

WHICH IS NOT TRUE AT ALL!

*screeches and rips out your wig*

Firstly, no coaches forced/pressurised anyone to choose their teams. It was one's own wish to go wherever the heck they want. Further, Ego explained everything about each stratum individually, so one knew what he was going in for.

So in no particular order, let's start.

1. Lavinho

Bro

BRO

You are telling me that this:

Is a better coach than Noa?

I agree that the whole speech by Lavi was actually fantastic, and further when Bachira told him about his Monster, not so surprisingly, Lavi told him exactly what he needed to hear because dun dun dun! Who chose FC Barcha?

YAS!

Bachira did, so obviously, it was the best for him and he improved.

Schizophrenia meets paranoia.

I mean, if he were to go in Ubers, Snuffy would've destroyed his 'originality'; if he were to go in PxG, he would've been outshined and pushed into being a midfielder, and in BM, he would've been depressed tbh. Manshine City is the only one which I think he could've improved physically.

All in all, my main focus about Lavi in this post is this panel:

Like, Lavi.

NO!

Guess who called him out for it?

Yes:

JUST LOOK AT WHAT HE SAID!

THAT'S MY HUSBAND Y'ALL!

I can't add more than 10/10 pictures per post, so I'm not adding it here:

In that same chapter (163) of the above panel, he calls out for Kunigami for the goals he missed, and then later (165) he asks him, "Now that you have seen it live, you think you can copy those movements?" If we consider his stoic personality, then it's his way of teaching.

Further, in chapter 164, when Lavi and Noa were going 1V1, and Isagi decided to jump in to steal the ball, Lavi used the blueberry boy as a way to get past Noa. Of course, Lavi was like, "Oh? Weaklings are just noise." LIKE HONEY STOP HE IS JUST A HIGH SCHOOL-ER!?

But yeah, Noa didn't chase Lavi further, and instead stopped to catch falling Isagi and explained him about the playstyle of Lavi.

BRO WHAT YOU WANT MORE!? HE IS NOT A BAD COACH!

2. Chris Prince

It's surprising, but his speech was hella good during the introduction.

And I don't mind that he strips and endorses stuffs. Like, do what you gotta do to get the bread in this economy. Besides, if I were a man and had a body like his, I'll be showing off too.

What, obviously, I'm going to show is this:

Like, the scores were 2-2, it was a PEAK moment, and he jumps in to take the spotlight?

Noa rightfully calls him out for it:

"This isn't your stage, Chris. Back off."

LOUDER FOR THE HATERS!

And you are telling me that Noa is a bad coach, huh?

Chris literally provoked Kaiser, made a near fool out off Yukimiya, and then started a beef with Isagi.

ACT YOUR AGE, CHRIS!

It's like someone throws me and you between Kindergartens, and then I start to write in beautiful cursive to prove that I'm so better than you.

3. Marc Snuffy

It's hypocritical, but the thing I called out Lavinho for, is the same reason why I wouldn't have gone to Ubers if I were a Blue Lock-er: telling the players what to do.

Starting from the start, we can see that Snuffy is one hell of a strategist, and was able to impress everyone.

However, it's been so long since NEL started that we have nearly forgotten that Blue Lock was made for strikers, and everyone selected were the forwards of their team. Like, fym Barou is the best suited to be a striker. Personally, I wouldn't have let it slide and would've started swinging fists.

Also, why are you trauma dumping into a 18 year old you met a few moments ago, just because he refused to play by your sayings.

Imagine someone tells you a story, and you go like, "Why are you telling me some loser's story?" And that someone replies, "Oh, actually, that was my best friend and he killed himself."

Are you getting me?

Further, I think Ubers got the better end of stick because:

Barou Shoei. No explanation needed.

Aryu Jyubei. He was literally the Top 3 during the second selection.

Niko Ikki. Bro is only 15 and hasn't even played for that long and was able to defend against Shidou and has meta vision.

Aiku Oliver. No explanation needed.

Sendou Shuto. Bro was literally the ace of (ex) U-20 team.

Don Lorenzo. Bro stopped Kaiser's impact

At this point, I'm getting my own emotions involved, but I didn't like how he just assigned everyone into positions. It felt like he molded them according to his own wants/needs that is, to win. I mean, he used data of the players to come up with a plan, right? Then why people think Noa is too reliant on numbers?

I'm not saying that Snuffy is a bad coach. Whatever he did, it turned out to work for the best. In fact, kudos for him to help Barou score by pushing Noa aside:

He is a good man and a good coach. Please don't think I hate Ubers.

4. Julian Loki

We haven't seen much of him, but if Shidou and Rin are in close quarters without trying to bust open eachother's skulls, then I think Loki is good at whatever he is cooking. Further, the fact that he is only 17, makes everything very impressive.

I know that we have already gotten a chapter focused on PxG, but it's not sufficient to precisely say how things got to be the way they are currently.

Also, ngl, I do think that PxG got the better end of the stick too:

Itoshi Rin. No explanation needed.

Shidou Ryusei. No explanation needed.

Tokimitsu Aoshi. He was literally Top 3 during the second selection. Like, even Barou couldn't defend against him (at that time).

Karasu Tabito. Bro is smart.

Tsurugi Zantetsu. Bro is speed.

Charles Chevalier. HE IS 15 AND ALREADY A PLAYMAKER.

Nanase Nijiro. Can't say much, but I think he is good.

The only problems are:

Itoshi Rin

Shidou Ryusei

Lol

.................................

To sum it up, Noa isn't a bad coach.

I do think it was a bit not-so considerate of him to just throw them into those physical tests because THEY ARE JAPANESE, NOA!? THEY CAN'T UNDERSTAND YOU!? If I were to be there, I would've been so lost like, Man, what you even want me to do?

Well, like I said earlier, everyone who chose the Germany stratum knew what they were getting into. Besides, Noa had made it crystal clear from the very start that if you want to play as regulars, prove it through your performance— what more do you want him to do!? Die or something?

Secondly, when Isagi came to his office/workspace whatever that is to ask for advice. He did give him one, in his own way. It was same like Lavi did to Bachi, and Chris did to Nagi, but each of them gave advices that reflected their own personalities.

Also, considering the environment in which he grew, one could expect him to be money hungry you know, yet, he was against of letting Isagi play in the match just because the sponsors wanted, and denied it till he forcefully agreed to let him play in, at least, one match. Even when he was subbing in him, he bluntly said, "It's fan service." This post isn't about Isagi, otherwise I would've mentioned how he proved his worth and THAT'S why Noa continued to let him play.

Further, I don't understand why people forget that in every match, Noa has explained stuffs to Isagi. For example:

Us Readers, take this as a narration about a character, and forget that in the BLLK universe, Isagi is the listener.

I don't think so that just because someone has an experience of doing something for long period of time, it also mean that they are capable of teaching others the same— Noa, I think, is doing his best; he literally, though for like a minute, let go of his striker position and did what was necessary for Isagi to score (chapter 201).

Just because Noa-Isagi interactions are highlighted more, doesn't mean Noa hasn't helped others too— he was watching over Kiyora and Igaguri practice, remember? Isagi is the protagonist after all, it makes sense for him to have the most spotlight.

To be completely honest, in the end, there is no definitive way of comparing all the coaches, it just boils down to what playstyle you have.

That's it, I guess.

.

.

.

Noa seems like someone who takes the meaning in the literal sense, like, someone be like, "He is such a Daddy material!" And he'd reply with a straight face, "I don't plan to have kids any time soon, but I appreciate that you think I'm worthy to be a Father." I just know he is dense.

[fefesoutsiderstuff]

More Autistic Cherry Stuff

Started masking around the age of five when she noticed her classmates didn't seem to like her as much as they did her other classmates, connected it to behaviors that were perceived as odd/abnormal.

"Kids my age don't like me because I'm weird" eventually led to: "How much interest, as an average, would you say your peers have in Medieval European geopolitics?" "I don't know what that is." "Oh." *frantically writes in little notebook: delete all evidence of interest in/knowledge of the Middle Ages, Europe, and geopolitics* "Why?" "I just heard those words on the TV last night." "And you decided to... do that?" "...Yes."

Perpetually struggles to copy others while not being super obvious and maintaining enough honesty that she seems interesting

Tries to be more outgoing -> joining random conversations she has nothing to do with

"Should I answer this homework question wrong intentionally so I don't seem like a dork?"

Gets overstimulated at a party and tells the host her mom called and wants her home so she has an excuse to leave

Also lied about what time the party would end so she wouldn't be questioned as to why she was home early

Party ends at 12, tell mom it ends at 10 because she knows she won't be able to function past then and her weekend bedtime is 11, starts goodbye procedures at 9:30

All this effort goes out the window once she's tired/burnt out. School is a horror show for her because it's simultaneously a bunch of loud noises and social conventions. The infamous drive-in double date happened after school. It was also very loud and she was already stressed about getting in a fight with Bob.

Literally just wanted a hand squeeze and felt safe taking the mask off with Ponyboy and only Ponyboy. There was nothing but friendship. She was on the brink of a panic attack.

This, on top of yet another fight with Bob, which ended in a breakup, and then finding out he died, and then getting blamed/yelled at lead to the events of the fic I submitted for Soc September: a complete lack of ability to maintain any semblance of the mask.

Cited John Locke when she dumped Bob. "I'm done." "Did you just break up with me? You can't do that!" "John Locke said that if the government isn't protecting the rights and welfare of the governed, the governed have a right to revolt. When you agreed to be my boyfriend, you agreed to love, respect, and remain loyal to me. You agreed to make me feel safe and comfortable. I agreed to do the same. You are scaring me. I heard the "I got my best girl and some others too" line. Therefore, I have the right to leave." "Cherry, what the fuck?"

Anyway...

Marcia was her biggest cheerleader for demasking once Cherry could finally communicate what was happening.

Cherry did a bit of thinking after the events of the story and sort of started suspecting that she was autistic.

Her cousin was diagnosed with autism and had much higher support needs, but very similar traits to Cherry, just, for lack of better term, on higher levels.

"Hold on. Autism affects the brain. Your sex doesn't determine whether or not you have a brain. So that means girls can be autistic too. But I'm not... wait, what if there are different amounts?"

I'm aware that there's no such thing as less/more autistic. I just didn't know how else to word it and this is Cherry's thought process. This is how she connected the dots.

Her routines are so specific. She always knows what she's supposed to be doing based on the time and date. Things that mess up her routine such as dates/football games stress her out, but she does them anyway.

Does barrel racing and cheer for fun, actually not that good at it, has the proprioception of a box of crayons.

When I say she doesn't want to be a flyer, I mean her internal reaction is to ask the coach how big the curve on their IQ test was when they suggest it, but she sucks it up and does it anyway.

Gets caught, back to ground level, starts crying, they never threw her again.

[monstersandmaw]

Laces for a Lady - 18th century, poly, shifters x human romance - Chapter Two (sfw)

Disclaimer which I’m including in all my works after plagiarism and theft has taken place: I do not give my consent for my works to be used, copied, published, or posted anywhere. They are copyrighted and belong to me. 

Thank you so much to everyone who let me know that you enjoyed the first chapter through your reblogs and tags and comments. I don't expect people to feel like they have to engage in a way that I'll see, but I can only tell you how much it means to me if you do have the energy to do so!

Things have been pretty effing rough on this end of things for me lately, so this story had to take a back seat, but I'm hoping to be able to work on it more for you now. This chapter was originally 5k words but I broke up the 'action' of this one, so it ends on a bit of a cliffie... quite literally, almost. Sorry? Hope you enjoy it anyway??

Content: Nel settles in at Heath Top House, meets Lady Winnifred, accidentally witnesses one hell of a smooch, and finds a body floating in the water after a storm... Wordcount: 3067

Part One

If the housekeeper at Heath Top House was surprised to find a well-dressed, if slightly wind-blown and jounced-about, young lady trundling in on a village cart, she managed not to show it.

Tom drew his placid old horse to a halt and Nel hopped down onto the gravel outside the manor house and slid her case down before Tom had even turned around to see if she needed help. She tossed him a friendly smile though, and a quick thanks that made the old man’s cheeks warm beneath his grey moustache, before the front door of the elegantly proportioned, stone manor house opened to reveal a tall woman in her late forties, with her hair tucked neatly beneath a ruffled, white cotton cap trimmed with a light blue, silk ribbon.

“Miss Bywater?”

“Indeed,” Nel said, and a frisson of apprehension shot down her throat to her stomach, where it curdled with the churning remnants of her coach journey to make an altogether unsavoury sensation in her gut.

She glanced down at her travel-rumpled redingote, picked out some straw from the bed of the cart that had lodged itself in the embroidery, and smoothed out her skirts. She tried to adopt a more seemly and tidy manner before drawing in a long breath, holding it, and then releasing it with a smile to meet the woman’s eyes.

“I’m Davis,” the woman said. “Housekeeper.”

What her first name was, Eleanor may never learn, given that etiquette demanded she be known by her surname by her employers and their guests. As a hired companion, Eleanor fell somewhere between the two, but even so she was unlikely to be considered on the same social standing as a housekeeper.

“If you’d like to follow me, Miss Bywater.”

She cast one last look back at Tom, who was already gathering his reins to stir his chunky, grey horse back into motion, and she offered him a final smile. He tipped his cap to her and set off, and Nel stepped into the relative dark of the entrance hall.

Chequered marble in a sweeping expanse of black and white tiles stretched away and was met by an elegantly curving staircase. The walls were flanked with dark wood panels and stern portraits of past generations, and from a doorway to one side, a young woman in a pale yellow dress emerged.

She was as blonde as her dress, and her skin had the kind of pallor that suggested she rarely went out. She was slender too, and if Nel had had to make a guess at her health, she might have been bold enough to say that the lady was fragile. If she were being gracious, she might have opted for ‘delicate’, but as it was, she looked shy and wan and fragile.

“Oh, Miss Bywater?” the lady said in a slightly wispy voice, and Nel nodded and made a small curtsy.

Slightly behind her, Davis bobbed a polite and slightly deeper curtsy, and said, “M’lady.”

“Thank you, Davis. See to it that Miss Bywater’s things are taken care of. I will give her a tour of the house myself.”

“As you say, m’lady,” Davis said, briskly taking the travelling case that Nel set down on the marble floor, leaving them to it.

The Lady Winnifred Penrose looked to be in her early thirties, and, Nel discovered as she stepped forwards and took her hands in her own chilly, bird-like fingers to squeeze with only the faintest effort, she was terribly shy and a little awkward.

“You must forgive me for sounding so formal and stiff in my letters,” she said, her blue eyes sliding away briefly as her cheeks warmed a fraction. “I… I don’t know how else to write, and I didn’t know you. You must have thought me some dowdy old matron…”

Nel very carefully did not say that that was exactly what she’d been expecting, and instead masked her surprise by saying, “I’m honestly glad to find we’re closer to the same age.”

Lady Winnifred’s returning smile was genuine, and it didn’t fade as she floated back a step and said, “I must also confess that taking a companion was my mother-in-law’s idea. This, as you know, was my husband’s house, and he left everything to me in his will, which seems to have caused a bit of a stir among society, given that he actually has a younger brother who should have inherited it all.”

She sighed and spoke on in almost a whisper.  

“His parents live here with me, and they try to keep an eye on things, but should I wish it, I could turn them out and we could have the run of the place.”

She looked suddenly shocked by her boldness, and Nel would come to learn that it was uncharacteristic of her in the extreme to say such things aloud. At the time, Nel just offered a private smile, and allowed herself to be shown about the house by a woman who struck her by the end of their tour as painfully, heartbreakingly isolated.

Lady Winnifred slowly but surely came out of her shell in their first few weeks together.

She had bouts of weakness and days when she didn’t feel like stirring much beyond her own rooms in the house, but over afternoon tea a fortnight after Nel’s arrival on that blustery spring morning, she confessed that while she had been a little reticent at first at the idea of taking a stranger into her home, she was now wholeheartedly glad that Eleanor Bywater had been the one to apply for the role.

“I mean, we’re almost the same age,” Winnie said as she dabbed at the last of her scone crumbs on the porcelain plate with a delicate fingertip and savoured the lingering taste of sweet, strawberry jam and thick, clotted cream. “And it has been such a relief to find someone to share in my love of reading…”

For the most part, Nel remained at Heath Top House with Winnie, as she insisted on being called by her friends, among whom Nel was apparently now counted. What few friends Winnie had lived in either Bath or London, and that physical distance seemed to have left Winnie extremely isolated while she ran her late husband’s estates in Cornwall and tried to dodge her interfering father-in-law’s heavy-handed attempts to seize control once again.

Luckily, James Penrose’s last will and testament had been most adamant that Winnie be the one to manage the finances and the mines, and from what Nel had learned by leaning over her shoulder while she wrote letters to the board and shareholders, Winnie was more than competent despite her shyness in person. James had been killed only a year and a half prior, in a tragic tunnel collapse while inspecting one of the mines he owned, and Winnie had turned into something of a social recluse in the aftermath.

Gradually, during Nel’s first month at Heath Top, she managed to get Winnie out and about on walks across the heathland when the wild, Cornish weather permitted, and they grew very acquainted with the stretch of coastal path that hugged the cliffs and played host to a prolific number of soaring seabirds. Sometimes, way offshore, they glimpsed porpoises and dolphins, and once or twice, common and grey seals basking and playing in the shallows, and over a period of a couple of months, Nel watched the young, grief-riddled widow draw a little out of her shell.

Despite the fact that Nel was technically in her employ, Winnie had also insisted that Nel could come and go from Heath Top House whenever she liked, so Nel found herself frequently borrowing a horse from the stables to ride around Winnie’s estate and down towards the coast on a shaggy, black-coated mare named Blackthorn. As the unexpected offspring of an escaped racehorse stud and a pit pony mare, Blackthorn had the stubborn stamina of her mother and the will to run of her thoroughbred sire, and Nel found herself adoring the solid, fifteen-hand horse almost the moment she clapped eyes on her.

“She’s beautiful,” she told the head groom, a quiet-mannered man in his fifties named Joe, when he’d first brought the mare out into the yard for her to try. She stroked Blackthorn’s velvet nose with her knuckles and giggled as the horse’s whiskery lips mouthed harmlessly at her fingers in search of apples. “I think we’ll get along just fine.”

Late one afternoon in the searing heat of midsummer, when crickets kept up a tireless chorus in the bleached grasses and cows stood about listlessly in the scant shade of the trees and lowed plaintively, Nel took Blackthorn into town before the shops closed. Her intent had been to buy some more thread for an embroidery project that she had recently undertaken at Winnie’s suggestion, but she knew already that it was probably far beyond her limited skills with a needle.

After she’d stabled the mare at the Lantern and seen to it that Blackthorn was given fresh water and a cool place to rest, Nel headed off to walk around the seaside village on foot. With her thread purchased from the surprisingly well-stocked haberdashery on Clifftop Street, she turned and made her way down the steep, cobbled street towards the harbour in the vague hope of some relief from the heat with a passing sea breeze. The light was perfect, casting pearlescent shimmers across the still sea beyond the harbour, and gilding the white wings of the gulls as they wheeled lazily overhead, but the air was thick with the cloying scent of iodine and drying seaweed at low tide, and it didn't get any cooler as she neared the harbour.

For someone who had grown up in the country though, and who had rarely seen the sea, she was surprised at how much she had come to love living there, with its wild, rugged, independent folk and its landscape that fitted them perfectly.

Nel had just gained a glimpse of the muddy harbour at the lowest ebb of the tide, the view of colourful fishing boats listing to the side like beached sea creatures framed by the squat, white cottages of the village when, in the narrow space between two buildings to her right, a sudden movement caught her eye. There in the shadows not ten paces away, she saw a slender young man pressed up against the bare stonework of a house and crowded in by a much larger man.

She had barely had time to mask her gasp of surprise when she recognised the latter as Locryn Trevethan, as much by his sheer, hulking size and his thick ponytail of steel-grey hair as by anything else, but she was far too surprised to register anything else when Locryn put both his hands tenderly on the smaller man’s jawline and kissed him fiercely.

As she took in the skinny frame of the other man beneath him, she realised it was Edmund Nancarrow. She’d seen him around the village a few times in the months since she’d moved into Heath Top House and he worked as the tailor’s assistant near the haberdashery. She’d not had any need of a tailor since arriving at Polgarrack though, and she hadn’t spoken to him since their brief meeting in the doorway of the Lantern.

All thoughts fled her mind as Locryn rutted up against Edmund’s hips, growling and groaning and kissing him without pausing for breath. “Want you,” he hissed, bringing his hand down to palm Edmund’s crotch. “Come to me tonight. On the sands,” he grunted. “It’s been too long. I need you.”

Edmund gasped and tipped his head back, his pale cheeks flushed and his mouth open in a wanton display of lust, and he just barely managed a weak nod and a dazed smile in return.

With a flush of heat in her own face, Nel turned away.

Locryn and Edmund weren’t the first men she’d known to have an attraction towards their own sex — after all, she had been the first that William had told of his own preferences all those years ago — but to see two people so blindly engrossed in each other, so wrapped up in the sheer, honest pleasure of each other’s bodies, sent a rush of yearning and stinging jealousy through her that was so strong she felt almost faint.

At twenty five, it was not quite too late for her to marry, but it was unlikely that any man would want her now.

She had politely refused the few offers made to her by relative strangers back in London, and as a result, her father, for all that he loved her, had called her a flighty fool. It was hardly her fault that the men who had come calling for her after the various balls during the London Season had done nothing but inspire empty dread and, in one case, open revulsion. She would likely never know the kind of passion and desire that Edmund was experiencing, and she scuttled back to the Lantern with her mind in a spin.

Her journey back to Heath Top with Blackthorn passed in a blur, and she barely heard a word Winnie said to her over tea when she got back with the embroidery thread still crumpled up in her small, silk pouch.

The summer progressed in a series of walks with Winnie, afternoon tea, reading, and lonely rides along the clifftop with Blackthorn, but she didn’t see Edmund Nancarrow or Locryn Trevethan again, and she took to avoiding Polgarrack without realising that was what she was doing. The endless days of blasting heat gave way to nights of brilliant lighting storms that sent veins of white fire flashing across the sky and the sea.

On one such wild night, she woke with a start as thunder seemed to rattle the rafters and the roof beams above, and she walked wide-eyed to the window in her nightgown to watch the lighting dance over the distant sea. Great forks of it illuminated both the water and the undulating land between Heath Top and the shore, and in the searing flashes she thought she saw the dark silhouette of a ship coming round the headland.

A while later, while she still stood at the window with a shawl clasped at her collarbones and her eyes locked on the horizon, the door to her room opened with a whispering creak, and she turned to find Winnie slipping inside, wrapped in a delicate dressing gown of her own and moving like a ghost.

“It’s wild out there,” she said, wide-eyed and pale-cheeked. She’d been ill for most of the day with a headache, and looked worse than ever in the harsh light of the incessant lightning.

“Are you alright?” Nel asked.

Winnie nodded. “I hate thunder,” she added as she joined Nel by the casement, trembling. “James died the morning after a storm like this.”

“I understand.” She slid her arm around her new friend’s waist and they stared out at the storm for a long while. “That ship…?” Nel asked, staring at the shape of it out on the silver water.

“Probably a smuggler’s cutter from the Channel Islands or France,” Winnie said, and when Nel looked surprised, she laughed. “What? Half of the tea we drink, and surely all of my father in-law’s spirits come from the smugglers who are brave enough to labour through storms like this one. It’s a part of life round here. We look the other way and the townsfolk sell us the things we need, and all the while London never sees a penny of it in taxes.” ‘We’ in that case was the local gentry.

It should probably have shocked Nel a bit more than it did, but Winnie had informed her that thanks to those hefty taxes from Westminster, the price to buy imported salt for the pilchards was forty times the actual cost of the salt itself, so she couldn't find it within herself to object in the slightest.

“I suppose half the town will be out there on the beach, bringing it all ashore?” Nel asked, and Winnie nodded.

“I just hope the revenue men from Fowey don’t risk the storm,” she murmured. “They sent a captain down here in a cutter of his own to catch them. They’ve already rounded up a good number of men, though no Cornish jury has ever found them guilty.” She said it with amused pride in her tone too, as if that too was a joke played on Westminster.

They stood there a while longer, watching the storm and the ship before Winnie sighed.

“You should sleep,” Nel said. “Is your headache still bad?”

Winnie nodded and her friend scowled.

“Come, watching lightning flash across a dark sky isn’t going to help. Go and curl up,” she said, and Winnie smiled, climbing into Nel’s bed instead of returning to her own.

Nel watched the weather for another few minutes before joining her, and the two fell asleep within five minutes of each other.

Winnie remained in Nel’s bed the next morning, curled on her side like a child under the covers, but Nel felt restless as the still-churning sea after the storm, and took Blackthorn out for a ride without waking the lady of the house.  

The storm had blasted away the cloying, summer heat from the day before to leave a fresh, blustery day and a blue sky.

Just as she crested the clifftop at Rocky Point, where an old stone cottage sat on the headland like another watcher over the waters of the Channel, and joined the path that ran the length of Cornwall from Land’s End to Looe, she happened to glance down into the sandy cove below.

There floating in the water, was the unmistakable shape of a man. He was face-up, and even at that distance, she thought he looked vaguely familiar.

For a long moment, Nel sat stock-still in Blackthorn’s saddle where the mare had halted obediently on the path, and she stared down at the figure bobbing and drifting with the tide like a piece of flotsam.

Was he dead?

At the thought — at the faint hope that he might still be alive — her shock crumbled and gave way to something frantic. She burst into action.

___

Next chapter ->

Dun-dun-duhhhhh! Sorry. We'll see more from the two shifters next time, I promise. I can’t wait to hear your thoughts on it, as ever! (I hope there weren't too many typos but if you spot some, feel free to yell at me in the comments or my inbox - I'm quite tired when I'm posting this!!)

I hope you’ll consider reblogging as well as leaving a like if you enjoyed it. Take care, and I hope you have a lovely day/night wherever you are, and whenever you read this.

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[mikey-green-genx]

Go Kamala, and Coach Walz, representing GenX so cool...

Again let me say, if 78-year-old Boomer Trump wins in November? (Oh well, we lost, better luck next time.) GenX learned this concept in Kindergarten.

If old-man Trump loses in November? Expect a 78-year-old Kindergartener who peed on your backpack, to hire lawyers to claim it wasn't your backpack. (Because everything in class belongs to him! So, he can pee where ever he wants to pee.) If it weren't sad, it would be silly.

And at a human-level, I feel sorry for Trump Supporters, MAGA & whatnot, because they finally feel like the class bully likes them. "I do what I want!" (Hiding behind an elderly class bully.) It was GenX & Millennials, along with early GenZ, who called bullshit in 2020.

"He peed on your rug, Dude."

"Also, Dude, 'Chinaman' is not the preferred nomenclature. Asian-American, please..." Walter Sobchak (Big Lebowski)

Least Ye lose my point in classic GenX movie quotes, "This aggression will not stand" (Big Lebowski) is only spoken by freely and fairly elected President's of the United States about tyrants, autocrats and dictators of other countries who bully other countries. (We do it? Different discussion entirely, and I even recoded a protest song about it during the Bush era.) Find it here: https://youtu.be/o7Ln1yFWPJc?si=bL3elIxhXfkugLrK (copy & paste the link.)

Yet, I can freely criticize USA because USA holds free and fair elections every 2-4 years. (Your candidate didn't win, oh well, better luck next time.) That's the American Way, we learned in Kindergarten.

Trump literally called Georgia requesting the Governor cheat for him. (It's on tape.)

Only a tyrant, autocrat or dictator, in fact, only a traitor of the United States Constitution (who actually said maybe we don't need to follow the Constitution), would declare within our borders that free and fair elections are "aggression," if he doesn't win.

I'm GenX, and could not comprehend why Trump wasn't arrested on-stage in 2016, when he said: "Russia if you're listening help me win this election." I've never seen anything like it in my lifetime.

I was born during the Cold War. I watched crumbling of the Berlin Wall and dissolution of the Soviet Union. Yet, Donald Trump is the KGB's answer to Ronald Reagan. No nukes, no invasion, just a sleeper agent who destroyed American Democracy. (Or at least plants doubts about it, whenever he doesn't "win.")

GenX calls bullshit.

"He peed on our rug, Dude."

[librasstraydog]

Sumi info dump!!!

I was talking to some friends on discord about Sumi bc I love her. TLDR: Sumi, the “manic pixie dream girl” trope, and possible signs of BPD.... (Im just gonna copy n paste everything on here wooo,, lemme know what you think)

so first and foremost, i wanna talk about sumi as a character. After the death of her sister Kasumi, Sumire takes on her personality and basically becomes Kasumi thanks to Dr. Maruki. Of course in 3rd sem she realizes that she is not Kasumi (and has a hard time dealing with that), but through her own strength she comes to terms with accepting who she is and what happened <3 

NOW LETS BRING OUT THE HEAT LAMP,,, ahem. I call sumi my manic pixie dream girl bc essentially,, that's what she is. However this is just,, bpd. And it makes sense! she literally saw her sister die right in front of her,, she blames herself for it. The trauma associated with that could cause bpd no prob,,, However... you could agrue that she had bpd even before Kasumi died. This is sorta out there but tbh... She's always grappled with her self worth and confidence. She's an incredibly skilled gymnast but feels incompetent (bc she thinks she'll never be as good as Kasumi) despite Kasumi and her coach telling her all the time that she's amazing,,, Kasumi literally said that they'd take over the gymnastics world together! That "together" part is important, it shows that Kasumi really does recognize Sumi's talent. So basically, the only person who doesn't recognize her talent is Sumi herself. As for present day (after Kasumi death but before 3rd sem), she literally gets 3rd place in a meet but only thinks she should've done better,,,  which shows just how disconnected from reality she is (however the school teachers were being assholes to her and saying that she shoulda got first place too, just a small note). Then, she meets Akira. She basically latched on to him right away (their third time meeting i believe), but the real evidence of this is shown in her... Phantom Thief attire! lets take a look at Akira n sumi's fits for a sec...

As you can see, they're VERY similar. Phantom thief attire is based on that character's perception of rebellion, or what a rebel looks like. When she awakened she had already seen Joker's thief attire, and she already really valued Akira as her senpai (this awakening would've happened regardless of where you are in Sumi's confidant. So you coulda never spent time with her AT ALL and it will still play out like this). SO, when she awakened, her attire reflected her idealized version of what a "true rebel" looks like,,, which ended up being Joker... yea, yea, yea (valuation).

more evidence of bpd,,, after 3rd sem happens she really just,, goes about her life. Like she overvalued Akira while she was in a fragile state but after 3rd sem she just,, moves on. She never visited akira before he left, never gave akira a parting gift like every other maxed confidant did or anything. We just kinda just.,,, bump into her at the train station where she says "keep ur head up, you taught me that" then she walks away. Its actually a canon fact that if you romance Sumi, she’ll literally just ghost Akira on valentines day lol (which is post 3rd sem!!). So basically,, devaluation (I love her so much).

I also wanna talk about her role in the story too. So for persona characters, you can interpret a lot about their character based on their arcana and persona. Sumi has the Faith arcana,, which is from an archaic tarot deck mind you (ok atlus). Upright, it represents belief in others and in oneself, and in religion or science. On the other hand, reversed, it can represent blind faith misplaced in something that does not deserve trust. It can also mean false idols, or overconfidence (ripped this straight from google lol). Sumi had a lot of faith in her sister, which she then lost. Devastated, she then put that faith in Dr. Maruki (a false idol who she shouldn't have trusted) to become Kasumi,, then did it AGAIN with Akira (just some guy fr /j). Of course, her whole growth is her putting that faith not in others, but in herself! so yea, that's her story! 

As for her persona... eh. It's Cendrillon aka Cinderella. Essentially the narrative is that Maruki acts as the "fairy godmother" by enacting a miracle... but then that means Akira acts as her prince charming here to save her. It's super cute in theory, but my issue is in the og cinderella story, the prince is literally her saving grace. Like Cinderella would've never left her abusive step family had he not searched for her, found her, and married her. Basically, cinderella's salvation is granted solely bc of the prince's efforts (you could agrue that she helped via leaving her shoe but like,, she didn't leave that thing on purpose sooo). So what this is saying is "Kasumi is saved from Maruki solely bc of Akira’s efforst",, which is ,,, no. She overcame the trauma from losing her sister because of HER own strength, not Akira's. Yes there was a brief moment in Maruki's palace where she was so desperate to keep living as Kasumi that she fought Akira,, but in the end, she made the decision to move forward herself (this is shown in how AFTER that moment, she's briefly unable to call her persona,, but then finds the resolve to actually do it).

(the whole cinderella allegory is also why she gets a sailor moon transformation and everyone else doesn't btw) 

so yea,,, im not much a fan of how atlus chose cinderella to represent her since it devalues her own efforts to save herself and instead attributes it all to Akira,, but i do see why they did it.

in conclusion, I love sumi so bad SHE IS MY DAUGHTER FR!!!

[wherewhereare]

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BEVERLY HILLS, CALIF. — In February 2015, Gwen Stefani joined Maroon 5 onstage at the Grammys to perform the ballad “My Heart Is Open.” After the awards, she got Mexican food with the band’s singer, Adam Levine, a fellow coach on the NBC reality-singing competition “The Voice.” For a pop superstar of two decades, it was a relatively normal night. But when she woke up the next morning, “My life was literally blown up into my face,” she said.

For 10 weeks, those closest to her had known the secret that ultimately ended her 13-year marriage to Gavin Rossdale, the singer of the band Bush. Ms. Stefani won’t discuss the details, partly to protect her children, but said: “If I could, I would just tell you everything, and you would just be in shock. It’s a really good, juicy story.” (The tabloids say Mr. Rossdale was having a several-years-long affair with a nanny caring for the couple’s three sons.)

Ms. Stefani, 46, was reeling. “I’m gonna die,” she said, recalling her emotional state. “I am dead, actually. How do I save myself? What am I going to do? How do I not go down like this?”

Sitting at the long marble table in an office in her sprawling home here, dressed in a sheer white blouse and shiny red stilettos, Ms. Stefani laid out the answer: She plunged herself into her first love, songwriting. “I have to make music out of this. That’s what God wants for me,” she remembers thinking.

The result is “This Is What the Truth Feels Like” (Interscope), her first solo album in a decade, which will be released on Friday, March 18.

Image

Ms. Stefani performing with No Doubt in 2000.CreditRobert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times, via Getty Images

The album’s 12 tracks are more direct and less whimsical than her previous two pop records. There are fiery songs about secrets and infidelity (the swaggering “Red Flag” and “Naughty,” delivered in Ms. Stefani’s speak-sung pseudo-rap) and ballads that capture the rawness of a long relationship’s premature end (“Used to Love You”). And thanks to Ms. Stefani’s budding romance with her “Voice” co-star, the country singer Blake Shelton — which began after news of her split with Mr. Rossdale broke last August — more than half of the tracks are about discovering the spark of a new love. The songs aren’t as dancey as much current pop; they retain the bouncy, synth-driven sound of Ms. Stefani’s earlier work. In a field dominated by young starlets, she’s made a grown-up pop album, confessional and sleek, without the oddball “B-A-N-A-N-A-S” flourishes of her past hits.

As Ms. Stefani began writing, she said she didn’t worry about potential sales, what it means to be a 46-year-old pop singer in a youth-dominated field, or pleasing her record company.

She talked to a new contact at her label, Aaron Bay-Schuck, and felt a glimmer of hope. (“I was like, wow, this guy, I think he might actually get me.”) And then she started sessions with the team that became her “Truth” squad, including the songwriter Justin Tranter and later his frequent partner Julia Michaels, who together had written high-profile tracks for Selena Gomez and Justin Bieber.

Ms. Stefani’s directions were clear: She wanted to capture her history — if it didn’t happen in real life, it wasn’t going on the album. And the floodgates opened.

“Being in that room and being creative, it was the only place that felt good — I was like, I love the smell of this room,” she recalled. (Ms. Michaels said there were a lot of laughter and tears during the sessions, which Ms. Stefani attended in her signature look: “The red lip and big nails and the jewelry.”) Songwriting had saved her before, Ms. Stefani said. She described herself as having been a “passive girl,” an unremarkable teenager, until she uncovered her talent. “It’s almost like one of those movies where they discover they have magic,” she said. “When I was able to first write a song, that’s when I found my whole self.”

Ms. Stefani’s label, however, had reservations about the highly personal music she was churning out. On a phone call that felt like “five people punching me in the stomach,” she said she was told: “We support you, you should put out an artistic record, and don’t go for radio. It’s over for you, basically.”

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Ms. Stefani with Pharrell Williams on “The Voice” in 2014.CreditTrae Patton/NBC

John Janick, the chairman and chief executive of Interscope Geffen A&M, said he “absolutely” remembers the uncomfortable call — because he was the one who had to make it. “I said, ‘I’m not sure you have the song that’s going to really connect with people,’” he recalled. “And two days later, she sent us ‘Used to Love You.’”

The label immediately got in touch to say, “You have a hit,” Ms. Stefani said, noting with some glee that it was the most personal song she’d attempted to write. “That’s never happened in my entire career.” (The song wound up peaking at No. 52 on the Billboard Hot 100. A second single, “Make Me Like You,” for which Ms. Stefani created an intricately choreographed live video during a commercial break on this year’s Grammys in a multi-million-dollar partnership with Target, is at No. 54 and climbing.)

After a few weeks in the studio, Ms. Stefani returned to her other job on “The Voice,” burdened with knowing her marital issues had not yet become public. “I’m not a secret girl,” she explained. “I tell everybody when my period is coming.”

But she soon learned that Mr. Shelton, whom she refers to as “one of my co-workers,” was also in the throes of a personal crisis. He “had been going through literally the exact same thing in literally the exact same time frame,” she said. Her friendship with him blossomed.

Her collaborators noticed a change instantly. “We had anger, we had sadness, we had flirtation, we had sexy, and now we’re madly in love,” Mr. Tranter said. Ms. Stefani described the shift with one of her frequently used terms — “crazy!” — and added, “Never in my wildest, craziest dreams would I ever have seen this coming.”

Ms. Stefani, unguarded and reflective, spoke quickly in torrents of words, pausing only to sip tea from a cup that, like most of her décor, was black and white. She thought back to her childhood in Anaheim, Calif., where she presumed she’d one day lead a happy family like the one her parents had built. “I literally was so sheltered and naïve, and that’s a lot why I think I got myself into so much trouble, in a way,” she said. She lamented that because of her split from Mr. Rossdale, she now has her sons 50 percent of the time. “It’s like, the most unjust, unbelievable system,” she said, adding that the “blessing” in it was she had time to heal and write. Atop her work table sat a book of photos from her youngest son’s first year, two pairs of sunglasses, her journal and a tin of Dr. Martens Wonder Balsam.

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Ms. Stefani with Gavin Rossdale in 2002.CreditKevin Winter/ImageDirect, via Getty Images

No Doubt, the band she co-founded in 1987, had already sold more than 20 million albums worldwide when it took its first break following its 2001 LP, “Rock Steady.” Her first thought: “dance record.” The result was “Love. Angel. Music. Baby.,” a 2004 album of wacky, hip-hop-inflected songs that blended her fascination with Japanese fashion and ’80s synth pop. Pharrell Williams, now a longtime friend, collaborated on its signature hit, “Hollaback Girl.”

“Gwen is a true heroine, whose creativity represents all the young female rebels at heart,” Mr. Williams said in an email.

She got pregnant with her first son, Kingston, before embarking on her first solo tour and returned to the studio to make a follow-up album, “The Sweet Escape,” when he was just eight weeks old. The cycle almost immediately repeated itself: a worldwide tour and a pregnancy, with her second child, Zuma. Her growing empire now included fashion and fragrances.

And she wasn’t done yet. No Doubt had been awaiting her return, so she hit the road with a toddler and a nursing baby and completely exhausted herself. “I felt quite trapped on so many levels, because when you have that much success you feel like you owe everybody,” she said. “Everybody depends on you.”

Sessions for the band’s first album in 11 years, “Push and Shove,” followed, and Ms. Stefani wasn’t brimming with ideas. The LP failed to take off commercially, and when the band returned to the studio — this time with collaborators including Sia, Greg Kurstin and Mr. Williams — Ms. Stefani got pregnant for a third time. “That’s when I started to really find my faith again,” she said. “It’s like a miracle, at my age.”

Weeks after giving birth to Apollo, the offer to become a coach on “The Voice” arrived, and Ms. Stefani found herself relishing her new role as mentor. “I needed so badly to do something different, and I needed so badly to be in a different role, a giving role.” Freshly inspired, she felt the urge to make music and mulled a solo album. “I started to think, well, I’ll just curate a record, and I’ll do it like every other pop girl does.”

Image

Ms. Stefani with Blake Shelton at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party last month.

Credit Emily Berl for The New York Times

This was the first time Ms. Stefani had dipped a toe into the new pop economy, where ace songwriters for hire shop tracks from artist to artist. “Every song that people would write for me felt like me 12 years ago, me 10 years ago. And lyrically they could never touch my heart, ever.” She recorded a full album, but decided to shelve it once sessions for “Truth” took off.

Considering how much the pop landscape has changed in a decade, Ms. Stefani is incredulous about her ability to continue recording. “I don’t even understand how I could possibly have had this long a career, or a career at all,” she said. “And that anyone cares, and that I’m relevant or anything, it just blows my mind.”

Mr. Tranter said Ms. Stefani’s sweetness and humility aren’t put-on. “At first I thought she was just being polite,” he said. “And then I was like, oh, she actually doesn’t realize the lives that she’s changed. She has no clue.” Describing Ms. Stefani’s appeal as “that amazing combination of extreme fabulousness and extreme honesty,” he noted the 1995 No Doubt album “Tragic Kingdom” “defined one whole era of music, and then she did it again as a solo artist, which is very rare.”

Mr. Janick said the longevity of Ms. Stefani’s career is one reason the label is confident in her new album’s viability. “Obviously there’s a lot of people that have grown up with Gwen over the years. Her being on ‘The Voice,’ what she does in fashion, she’s all over all the magazines. You can say it’s a grown-up pop record, but I feel like it touches on all different things that people can relate to of all different ages and sexes.”

Ms. Stefani, who sometimes reminds herself “Wow, I did do that! I wrote those songs!” to boost her own confidence, said singing about being happy is “so fresh” to her. “I needed something new to happen. And not just in my career, in my life. Something had to change.

“I’m not going to say I’m not still picking up the pieces and every day isn’t a challenge,” she said. “I’m still in shock. But it’s an awesome time.”

G March 2016

She got pregnant with her first son, Kingston, before embarking on her first solo tour and returned to the studio to make a follow-up album, “The Sweet Escape,” when he was just eight weeks old. The cycle almost immediately repeated itself: a worldwide tour and a pregnancy, with her second child, Zuma. Her growing empire now included fashion and fragrances.

And she wasn’t done yet. No Doubt had been awaiting her return, so she hit the road with a toddler and a nursing baby and completely exhausted herself. “I felt quite trapped on so many levels, because when you have that much success you feel like you owe everybody,” she said. “Everybody depends on you.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/13/arts/music/gwen-stefani-truth-feels-like.html

[isletakebarzal]

I Hope I Never Lose You | 1 | Mat Barzal

a/n: my first mat barzal fic. my first fic since......... sh*wn m*nd*s. Here is the first installment of a new elementary school au. pLz leave feedback it has been so long since i've written and I am so ✨insecure✨

summary: you teach kindergarten and Mat Barzal is a P.E. Coach at Cornelia Street Elementary School. i don't know just give me validation plz

warnings: literally didn't even read it over. just copy-paste-post. mutual pining idiots to lovers?? some jealousy and angst???

WC: 5.6K

***

I. “then on a Wednesday in a cafe[teria], I watched it begin again”

You take a deep breath as you inspect your appearance in the teacher’s lounge bathroom at Cornelia Street Elementary. Your kindergarteners will be arriving at your classroom in nearly twenty minutes, so you wanted to get one final look in before starting the school day.

“Who’s the guy?” your friend and co-teacher, Molly, startles you as her figure appears behind you in the mirror.

“What do you mean?” You shake your head, sticking your hands under the sink for the automatic faucet to turn on.

Molly laughs, walking up next to you and leaning up against the counter, “You’re dressing up for someone! You never wore high heels until recently, and you check yourself in the mirror like 6 times a day. Who is it?”

You roll your eyes, pulling paper towels out of the dispenser and wiping your hands dry. “Sniff too much elmer’s glue again, Molly?”

You leave the restroom and lounge with Molly trailing closely behind. Turning into your classroom, you stop in the doorway when you find someone standing in the middle of your classroom, causing Molly to bump into your back.

“There you are!” Mat exclaims when he notices you and Molly enter the room. “I’ve been waiting here for, like, 10 minutes. Why do girls take so long in the bathroom together?”

You let out a nervous laugh. Molly stands at your side, glancing from Mat to you and back to Mat. You can tell she’s connecting the dots as the left corner of her smirk.

“Where else would we gossip about you?” Molly teases, snapping your attention away from Mat. You elbow her in her side, whispering her name scoldingly.

Mat rolls his eyes playfully, “Aww, Molls. Writing our initials in a heart on the bathroom wall again?”

You freeze at his comeback. Is he flirting with Molly? You try your best to remain calm. He’s Mat Barzal, he flirts with everyone.

“What are you doing in here anyway, Barzy?” Molly asks as she further enters the room, setting her briefcase on the desk and leaning up against it. She eyes you, as you haven’t taken one step further into the room. “Don’t you have a PE class to teach?”

Mat stiffens at the question, looking from Molly to you. He fumbles to start his response, “I, uh--” he looks to his immediate left and right, searching for an answer. “I needed a pen.”

Molly barks out a laugh, “a pen?” She turns to you, raising her eyebrows with a pointed look. “Did you hear that, Y/n? He needs a pen.”

You don’t respond to Molly, your body moving on autopilot towards your desk. “Here, I have a pen you can borrow!” You grab the first pen you get your hands on from the container on your desk and hold it out to him, trying your best to keep your hand steady.

Mat’s cheeks grow a rosy tint that matches your own. With a smile he takes the pen, finally looking it over. “Are you sure you won’t miss this one?” The smirk returns to his lips.

You furrow your brows, looking down to the pen he’s holding. It’s a purple glitter pen--your favorite pen. You shrug your shoulders, playing it off as no big deal, “Yeah, no worries. Keep it as long as you need.”

You spare a glance at Molly across the room, and you can tell she’s trying her very hardest not to laugh. The daggers you shoot at her with your eyes fail to get her to control her face.

“Thanks, Y/n, I appreciate it,” he says sweetly, giving you his million-dollar smile that makes all the lunch ladies swoon. “I’ll see you at Lunch Duty?”

You nod enthusiastically, “Totally. See you then.”

Mat stalls for a few seconds, shifting back and forth on his two feet before lifting the pen in another silent thank you. You try not to blush as you give a small wave goodbye, and he leaves the room.

Molly finally blows, erupting into laughter. You turn your attention towards her, a confused expression on your face. “What?”

“I guess that answers my question!” Molly exclaims, wiping an escape tear of laughter from her cheek.

You shake your head, placing your hands on your hips, “What question?”

“Which guy you’re dressing up for,” Molly explains as if it’s clear as day. “Seems to me like you’ve both got it bad.”

You blush again--probably for the 50th time in the last 10 minutes. “That’s it,” you huff. “No more glue for you.”

**

When 12:30 rolls around, Molly takes your class of kindergarteners to the Music Room while you head to the cafeteria for Lunch Duty. There’s nothing glamorous about watching elementary schoolers struggle to open their zebra cakes and milk cartons, but, for some reason, it’s your favorite time of day.

“Miss Y/n!” A voice cheerily calls out to you as you enter the cafeteria, and your gaze instantly lands on the source. That voice could pull you out of a coma. You could pick out that voice in a filled stadium of a Nickelback concert.

Mat waves at you from across the room, pulling out the chair next to him as if to tell you to come sit. You smile and wave back, making your way to him with your lunchbag in hand. It’s your Wednesday ritual to have lunch together, since it’s the only day of the week you are scheduled for Lunch Duty at the same time.

You sit gracefully in the chair next to Mat and set your bag on the table. Mat instantly reaches for it, spinning it one way then another as he searches for the zipper. You grab the lunch bag from his hands and pull it back to your side of the table.

“Excuse you!” You exclaim, playfully.

“Come on, Y/n, I’ve been waiting a week for this!” Mat whines, no better than one of your kindergarteners.

You peek into your bag making sure you have his treat, “Okay, okay.” You reach into the bag and close your fist around the circular fruit that you made sure to pack in your lunch--just like you do every Wednesday.

Mat shoves his hand in the big pocket of his backpack, then looks at you with an eager smile. “Ready? 1...2…” You both bring your hands out of your bags on 3, holding out the respective items for each other.

In the palm of your hand is a Cutie brand clementine, sticker already peeled off. You never really understood why Mat loves these so much, or why he never just buys them for himself, but you’ve been swapping lunch treats since the beginning of the school year.

You were sitting at the lunch table that was angled perpendicular to the student tables in the cafeteria. It was your first Lunch Duty of the year, so you made sure to get in the cafeteria before any of the students came in.

Now that you and Molly were co-teaching this year, you wouldn’t be on Lunch Duty together like you were last year. You didn’t think you should be nervous, being that it’s just Lunch Duty and you already had a year of teaching under your belt, but still, not having the comfort of your best friend around you made you a little more on edge.

No one told you who was going to be on duty with you, so when the new gym P.E. coach, Mat Barzal, strolled into the cafeteria, you stiffened in your seat. You noticed him a bit last year, but it was your first year with your own class of students, and you wanted to focus on being a good teacher rather than good-looking coaches. Mat was new to the school, too, but he seemed to be quick to make friends, talking to anyone around him. Like, anyone.

Like, even a first grader with a hockey AND a superhero obsession that wanted to know which NHL team each superhero would play for. You had eavesdropped on his answers while you were standing near them in the hallway.

(You remember this, because you had to hold yourself back from interjecting when he told the student that Superman would play for the Islanders. He would obviously be a Ranger.)

When he walked into the cafeteria that day, he strolled over to you and sat right down in the chair next to yours, jumping into conversation. You were munching on carrots when you realized that he had yet to pull out any food for lunch.

“Are you hungry?” you blurted out, interrupting whatever thought he was rambling on about while you were...you wouldn’t say staring...more like analyzing.

He deadpanned, “Yeah, but I’ve got some snacks back in the gym. I’m just going to eat them later.”

You shook your head, finding his answer unacceptable. “Here,” you said, looking into your lunch bag for anything to give him. “Do you like clementines?”

A smile spread on Mat’s face, “My mom used to buy them for me and my sister when we were kids. I haven’t had one in forever.”

You handed the fruit to him before he could protest. He accepted it graciously. “I’m Mat, by the way.”

“Y/n,” you told him.

The next week, you made sure to pack a clementine in your bag just in case he didn’t have a lunch again. You tried to hide the disappointment when you walked towards the table and saw that he didn’t actually forget this time.

That is, until you noticed the silver wrapper of a Fruit Roll-Up on the table in front of the empty chair.

“I wasn’t sure what flavor you liked, or if you even like these, but, like, everyone likes these,” Mat explained and you couldn’t hide your blush.

After sitting down next to him, you reached into your bag and pulled out the clementine, sliding it across the tabletop to him. Week after week, this unspoken trade agreement continued, neither one of you having forgotten yet.

You take the Fruit Roll-Up from his hand as he swipes the clementine and starts peeling.

“Oh, it’s the tongue-tattoo one!” You cheer, unrolling the fruit leather from the plastic film. Mat nods enthusiastically, but doesn’t speak, his mouth already full with slices of clementine.

You tear the fruit roll up in half and hold the half with the skull “tattoo” to him.

“No, Y/n, this is our trade. It’s yours,” he pushes your hand back, but you roll your eyes.

“I don’t need the whole roll, and the skull would suit you better,” you persuade him. “Just take it.”

With a smile, Mat takes the half and holds it to the light to find the skull printed in food dye. You hold up your half to tilt the crown “tattoo” to the right angle.

“Okay, ready?” You ask, and Mat nods. “One...two…”

On three, you press the sugary roll to your tongues and hold for a few seconds, making sure it’s long enough for the dye to transfer. You and Mat have done this enough times to know that the sweet spot is around 7 seconds.

Now facing each other in your chairs, you each stick out your tongues to show the other your tattoos. Mat lets out a loud laugh, and can’t help but mirror his reaction. You love this with Mat--getting to goof around with someone and finally laughing again.

Your last relationship ended nearly a year ago, and it left you devastated. You had dated Ryan all through college, and you thought he was going to propose after graduation. Little did you know, he had been applying to medical schools in London, rather than where you were in Seattle. He was never planning forever with you like you were with him.

Needless to say, it’s made you hesitant to start dating again. You don’t trust your instincts with reading people and you definitely don’t trust men.

“Here,” Mat hands his half back to you.

You squish your nose up at him, “Ew, your spit is all over it!”

Mat rolls his eyes playfully and holds the rollup even closer to your face, making you laugh. You try to bat his hand away, but he catches your hand with his free one instead.

“Oh please, it’s just a little slobber. Same as kissing!” He jokes, but the way he’s holding your hand and so easily talking about kissing makes you tense up. You feel like you’re 16 again, developing your very first school-girl crush with the way he’s stirring up dormant butterflies.

You look away, hoping to conceal your now very rosy cheeks, and Mat, thankfully, pretends not to notice. “Fine, mine now,” he shoves the whole rollup in his mouth, and your laughter breaks up the tension in your chest. You fall into easy conversation filled with laughter and banter, and it’s like the room full of rambunctious elementary schoolers doesn’t even exist.

**

II. “don’t you worry your pretty little mind, people throw [kickballs] at things that shine”

“Life just makes love look hard, Y/n,” Molly tells you. You came into school this morning looking down bad, and Molly was quick to figure out the root of the issue.

You saw Ryan last night. With a girl. Wearing a ring on her finger. You knew exactly what ring it was too, as his grandmother had showed it to you at Christmas one year and explained that it would be Ryan’s to give to the one he wanted to spend forever with. At the time you could’ve bet your life that his “one” was you.

You mope in your desk chair, “I know. It took him less than a year to meet someone new, fall in love, and commit. Love isn’t hard, but maybe I’m just hard to love.”

Molly gives you a sad look and opens her mouth to respond, but she is cut off by your classroom door opening. Your already glum face contorts into a sour expression when you see who has entered your classroom.

Alexa.

You spare a glance at Molly, who is already glaring at the 4th grade teacher. You try to hold back the chuckle that is bubbling in your throat. Alexa started working at Cornelia Street Elementary at the same time as you and Molly, but unlike you and your co-teacher, you were not fast friends.

Maybe it was her snarky attitude, or the way she told you and Molly to your faces that “kindergarten teachers are glorified babysitters” on the first day you met her. Either way, you and Molly were not fans.

“Hello, ladies!” Alexa screeches in a high-pitched voice.

Molly deadpans, “Whatever you want, the answer is no.”

Alexa’s nose scrunches in distaste, “I don’t want anything, Molls. I’m here to see if you both have signed up for the teacher-student kickball game next Friday.”

Molly winces at the use of her nickname, “Yes, Alexa. If you had just looked at the sign-up Google Sheet, you would’ve seen that both mine and Y/n’s names were already on the list.”

Alexa shrugs, brushing off Molly’s aggressive tone, “Well, good. I hear that Coach Barzal and Coach Beau will be team captains this year.”

Your body has a visceral reaction to hearing ‘Coach Barzal’, like your ears are rejecting the sound of her witch voice speaking his name. Molly flips her gaze in your direction, giving a smirk.

“Yes, Mat told Y/n the other day that he is going to be a team captain,” Molly lies between her teeth. He never told you that, but if there’s one thing Molly knows, it’s how to get under Alexa’s skin.

And she does. Alexa’s face pinches before clearing her throat, “It’s a shame none of us can have him, isn’t it?”

You and Molly mirror each other with confused expressions. “What do you mean?” you question.

“I mean, section 34.12B in the School Handbook,” Alexa replies as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

Molly rolls her eyes, “And what is section 34.12B in the School Handbook?”

Alexa’s lips curl smugly, “Section 34 is the Teacher Code of Conduct, silly. And rule 12B clearly states that teachers working in the same school are not allowed to intermingle romantically or, well, otherwise. Any infraction will result in one of the teachers being immediately transferred to another school in the county.”

Your stomach drops, and Molly looks at you with a sorrowful expression.

“Didn’t either of you read the handbook when you started?” Alexa asks condescendingly. In truth, neither you nor Molly read that brick of a handbook. If you remember correctly, you think you ended up using it as a doorstop in your old classroom last year. No clue what happened to it after that.

“Of course we read it,” Molly, again, lies. “We’re just not psycho enough to have it memorized.”

Alexa glares at Molly. “I didn’t memorize it. I just recently refreshed my memory after talking to Coach Barzal the other day. He had asked me to get drinks with him, so I wanted to see what the policy was on dating colleagues.”

You whip your head to Molly, a confused expression on your face. Molly takes your reaction in stride and stands from her seat at her desk.

“This has been so fun, Alexa,” Molly walks towards the 4th grade teacher at the classroom door, who takes the hint and starts backing up. “But we have to prepare for a day of babysitting, so if you don’t mind…”

Molly backs Alexa out of the doorway and shuts the door in her face. She leans back on the door to find you sitting with a sad puppy look on your face.

“I’m sure she was bullshitting like she always does,” Molly tells you.

You sigh and slump into your chair. An airy chuckle escapes Molly’s lips and you flick your eyes to her face, wondering what could possibly be funny.

“What? Why are you laughing?”

Molly shakes her head, muffling more laughs.

“Come on, spit it out.”

“It’s nothing,” Molly starts, a smile growing on her lips. “I just fucking knew it.”

You furrow your brows, “Knew what?”

“Knew you had a thing for Coach Barzal.”

**

You really don’t want to play kickball, if you’re being honest. You always hated gym class growing up, because you weren’t necessarily skilled in hand-eye coordination. The only reason you signed up for this student-teacher kickball game for the upper grades was for Molly. And...someone else.

Mat and his co-coach, Tito, are standing in the middle of the gym giving instructions to the 4th and 5th grade classes. The rules are simple: kick, run, and no cheap shots. You’re not sure if 4th graders were capable of taking cheap shots, but you realize that this rule might not be directed at them. If you’ve learned anything over the last year or so of teaching, it’s that adults are just really big Big Kids.

Once they finish explaining to the students and teachers how the game will work, Mat announces that it’s time to pick teams. The students are counted off by twos for their teams to make sure no kid feels like they’re being picked last--especially by the teacher--but the teachers are to be specifically chosen by the captains.

Tito, the captain of the A team, scans the crowd of teachers for his first pick. “Mr. Kessler,” Tito picks the 3rd grade teacher first. It’s a great first pick, since David Kessler apparently played sports in college.

Mat looks at the group like he’s searching for someone, and his eyes land on you. The right corner of his lips pulls up into a smirk. Your palms start sweating--either due to the nerves of feeling like you’re back in grade school again, or from the way he is looking at you.

“Mr. Peterson,” Mat’s gaze leaves yours as he picks the 5th grade parapro. Again, you don’t think it’s a bad idea to start setting up the team with the best players before moving on to, well, you.

The two coaches go back and forth until all of the seemingly more athletic teachers are assigned teams. When it’s time for Tito to pick again, his eyes land directly on you. You look to your left, then to your right, then behind you, just to make sure he wasn’t looking through you to someone else. But no one else looked like they were paying enough attention to be the one he was focusing on.

A smirk draws up Tito’s lips as he looks at Mat. Mat rolls his eyes and pushes his shoulder, making Tito teeter a bit. “Just pick, man,” Mat urges, and Tito looks back at you.

“Molly,” Tito chooses, and you release a breath you didn’t know you were holding.

Molly lets out an airy laugh and nudges you with her elbow, “Damn, they’re splitting us up.”

You roll your eyes, but on the inside your stomach flutters at the thought of being chosen by Mat. He glances your way every so often that you think it might be coming, but you try to keep your cool.

“Umm,” Mat starts, like he’s about to think out loud. “I’ll pick…” Mat’s eyes scan the group and he stops on you for a brief moment, but passes you over. “Alexa.”

Your heart drops into your ass.

You look to Molly, hoping that her usual cool and collected demeanor will level you, but she’s speaking lowly to Tito with furrowed brows.

“Y/n, you’re on my team,” Tito calls out next. You make your way towards the rest of the A team, and, despite the voice in your head screaming ‘don’t look at him, don’t look at him’...you look at Mat, gauging his reaction.

He looks completely unbothered. A smile is even gracing his face. It’s not like you thought he was necessarily interested in you, but, fuck, you at least thought he liked you better than Alexa. And now you’re wondering if there was any truth to her comments in your classroom last week.

Once the teams are sorted out, the captains flip a coin to decide who will kick first. Tito calls heads while the coin is in the air, and sure enough the coin lands on heads. Tito calls a huddle while Mat gets his team organized into positions.

“Alright team, listen up,” he starts, clapping his hands once. “We need a strong offensive start.”

The students jump around excitedly as Tito lines them up along the gym wall behind the designated “home plate”. He orders the team with one teacher kicking after every few students.

Molly is in the front of the line with Thomas, an eager 4th grader ready to play. He walks to the plate, backs up a few steps, and waits for Mat to pitch the ball. Mat winds up before releasing the ball in a (relatively) straight line to Thomas.

Thomas runs up to the ball, going for the kick, and….he misses. Tito jogs up to him, squatting to his level. “It’s okay, bud, let’s try again. You can do it, just keep your eye on the ball.”

The little boy nods and steps back up to the plate. Tito nods at Mat who winds up and rolls the ball once more. A little more cautiously this time, Thomas runs for the ball. He swings back his left foot and propels it forward, making contact with the ball and sending it soaring towards Mat.

Mat lets the ball drop in front of him, fumbling around to pick it up while Thomas runs to first base. Once he’s about halfway there, Mat tosses the ball to one of the fifth graders who is guarding the base. Thomas, unsurprisingly, is safe.

A few more students and teachers take turns kicking the ball, and before you know it, there are two students and Molly on base with two outs on the board. You were hoping that you would be able to linger in the back of the line long enough to avoid taking a turn, but Tito calls you up to the plate.

“Okay, Miss Y/n, bring ‘em home!” Tito encourages, and you roll your eyes at him.

“Doubtful,” you respond. Walking up to the plate, you make eye contact with Mat, waiting for him to roll you the ball. He takes a deep breath and raises his eyebrows to you.

“Ready?” He calls out.

You shake your head, “No, but do I have a choice?”

Mat laughs. ‘You got this!” he tells you, and winds up to roll the ball. Maybe he does it on purpose, but when he rolls the ball, it veers off to the left.

“Come on, Barzy, give her something she can work with!” Tito chirps, as Mat jogs to grab the ball from one of the students that picked it up.

Instead of returning to his makeshift pitcher’s mound, Mat strides towards you, catching you off guard.

“What are you doing, Mat?”

“You looked nervous,” he says. “Thought you could use a better pep talk than Beauvis over there.”

“It’s...elementary school kickball,” you say with a laugh.

Mat rolls his eyes, “This is a very serious game, Y/n. There’s a lot at stake.”

The smirk that forms on his lips sends a ripple down your spine. “Like what? A pizza party?” you joke.

Mat pushes your shoulder playfully, and a shout erupts from the sidelines. You both look to where Tito is standing with his arms raised in question. “Quit messing with my teammate, Barzal!” Tito yells.

Mat waves him off. “Keep your eye on the ball, and I’ll roll it slowly. Kick with the inside of your foot to get more distance, and, for the love of God, take off those dumb sandals.”

You look down at the strappy sandals on your feet. “What? They’re cute and comfortable!“

Mat rests a hand on your shoulder, squeezing it comfortingly. “Cute until you break an ankle. Just trust me and do it, Miss Y/n!”

You roll your eyes and kick your shoes off to the side while Mat backs up to the middle of the gym. You step up to the plate again and Mat winds up his pitch. The ball rolls in a straight line towards you, and you take his advice by kicking the ball from the inside of your foot. It’s a hard kick, too, so the ball soars over towards second base.

“RUN!” Tito yells from the sidelines, urging everyone on base to get moving. The student that was on 3rd base waddles home, scoring a run for your team, while the fielders scramble to get the ball.

There are some mishaps in passing the ball between the 4th and 5th graders in the field, so Molly is able to run home as well as you round first base. You look to Mat to find that he’s yelling at you to run to second, despite being on your opposing team, which coincides with the screams from Tito behind you. Now you're really thankful you took off those sandals.

You take off from first base towards second base, when out of the corner of your eye, you see Alexa grab the ball straight out of a 4th grader’s hands. She winds her arm back and throws the ball right at you, probably as hard as she can by the sting of contact on your left arm.

“Out!” Alexa yells as you slow your pace to a stop. “That’s three!”

The teams start shuffling as they switch from field to kicking and vice versa. You stay in your place, figuring you’ll just linger in the “outfield” anyway, while Molly comes up to you.

“That bitch is a dirty player,” Molly spits, turning to glance at Alexa. “Did you see how she just ripped the ball from a kid? Geez.”

“It’s just the game,” you brush it off, not wanting to seem fazed by how she so obviously was out to get you. You don’t realize Mat walks up to you and Molly until you feel a hand rest on the small of your back.

“Are you okay?” Mat asks, moving his hand to gently brush the red spot on your arm where the ball hit you.

You try not to blush at the contact as you nod and wave him off, “Yeah, yeah, I’m good.”

“Tough play, but it was a great kick,” Mat tries to be encouraging. “Who knew Lex could hustle like that.”

You wince at the nickname and look at Molly, who is sporting a scowl.

“Lex could’ve knocked a kid unconscious if she had missed,” Molly retorts, and Mat clears his throat awkwardly and removes his arm.

He shrugs his shoulders, “Yeah, I guess she could’ve.” There’s a brief pause and you hear Tito in the background positioning his students on the field. “So, Y/n--”

“Mat--I mean, Coach Barzal!” Alexa’s voice rings through the gym, interrupting Mat. “Come over here!”

“I think you should get back to your team, Mat,” you tell him. “Wouldn’t want to keep your star player waiting.”

He frowns at you, but nods, “Yeah, guess so.”

You didn’t mean to sound jealous--you really have no right to be. You weren’t even sure why you were so affected by the idea of Mat and Alexa. It’s not like there is a Mat and Y/n.

Well, maybe you do know why. You watch as Mat jogs over to his team, giving each kid a high five and circling them up for a pep talk. You can hear their laughs and cheers at his words of encouragement, and you smile involuntarily. He is so good with the kids and he really cares about them--you can tell that he puts his heart into what he does.

“Ready, team?” Tito’s voice breaks you out of your thoughts. The rest of your team cheers in response and Tito starts the next inning.

The rest of the game flies by with excitement. You all only make it a few more innings before it’s time for the kickball game to end and everyone to finish out their Friday school day. Tito was overjoyed, to put it lightly, when his A Team won the game, and you could tell he was already taunting Mat with it. Mat, though extremely competitive throughout the game, was a good sport about it in front of his B Team.

Since your and Molly’s class would still be in their Music Class for another 10 minutes or so, you two stayed back in the gym while the 4th and 5th grade teachers got their students together.

“Well, ladies, it was a good game,” Tito says to you and Molly, giving you both high fives. “Sorry you got blitzed, Y/n.”

You let out a laugh, “Thanks Beau, but it wasn’t that bad, was it?”

Tito rubs his hand on the back of his neck, “I don’t know. Alexa went for blood with that hit.”

Molly scoffs, “Alexa is going to taste blood next time she pulls something like that.” You bump Molly with your hip, giving her a pointed look, but Tito just laughs at her comment and falls into conversation with Molly.

You eye the way Molly reacts to making Tito laugh, a wave of something resembling pride or satisfaction washing over her. You haven’t seen her look...giddy like this until watching her talk to Tito. Interesting, you think.

After a few minutes, you decide it’s time to pick up your kids from the Music Room, and you tell Molly she can just catch up with you in the classroom in a bit. You make sure to give her a suggestive smirk, glancing back and forth from her to Tito without him picking up on it. She rolls her eyes and waves her hand at you, gesturing to you to exit.

As you’re walking out of the gym, though, Mat calls out to you, jogging towards you before you can leave.

“Y/n! Wait up a second!”

You turn towards him as he slows down in front of you. “What’s up?”

“Um, where are you headed off to?” He asks, almost like he is stalling.

You furrow your brows, but respond, “Gotta pick up our class from Music.”

Mat nods, “Oh, yeah, for sure. Shouldn’t Molls be with you?”

You glance back at your friend, where she is laughing and twirling a strand of her hair while talking to the young coach. “Nah, I can handle it this time. She’s...preoccupied.”

Mat follows your gaze and lets out a snort, “Tito is so hopeless. He’s been gone for her for so long now.”

“Oh yeah?” You question, thinking maybe this could be a chance to set Molly up with a nice guy. If there’s one thing you’ve learned about Molly, it’s that she usually has terrible taste in men. “How do you know? Has he said something?”

Mat shakes his head, “No, but he doesn’t have to. I mean, guys are so much easier to read than girls. Like, if a guy is interested in a girl? You’ll definitely be able to tell.”

You have to keep your shoulders from slumping. You think back to all the times you’ve interacted with Mat, and you can’t recall one instance of Mat acting the way Tito is with Molly right now.

“Yeah,” you sigh, looking back at the pair. “I guess you’re right.”

**

OKKKKKKK SOOOOOOOOOOO TELL ME WHAT U THINK HELLO PLZ FEED ME BACK FEEDBACK LOOP FEED ME WHAT DO WE THINK?????????????????????????????????????

[tloujm]

Part XXVI: Giving Grief

Author’s Notes: This is the first chapter I’ve posted in months (literally since April). I don’t know if this is a full comeback. I have a few chapters in the drafts that need to be edited and formatted for posting but after that, I still plan on continuing the series bc my plan was always have a long fic. With no new content after part II of the game was released, my interest in the fandom waned but was always there. Now with HBO creating a show based off the game, as well as me being apart of the Pedro Pascal fandom, I think I will soon become more consistent in posting as new content gets released. I will say that at least half of what appeals to me for Joel is Troy Baker’s voice and while I love Pedro’s voice too, I know it won’t be the same. I still think Pedro will do the voice justice bc he can do a damn fine country accent as seen in the movie Prospect on Netflix. If you’re a fan of his and have Netflix, please go watch it!

Genre: Angst and Fluff

Summary: You and Joel reconcile and bond over Ellie and Sarah. 

Ship: Joel Miller x Fem!Reader

Joel waited for you to come home. He paced back and forth in the kitchen switching from holding the card and setting it down on the counter. He was eager to talk to you about this new revelation partly because he was nervous to have the other conversation with you. After a while of calming his nerves down, you still hadn’t come home. The sun had set an hour ago and Joel was ready to throw on his boots and go looking for you. 

Just as he laced them up, the front door opened. You walked in and immediately stopped because his body blocked you from walking in the house further. 

“Going somewhere?” You asked as you slid past him. He was a grown man and could do what he wanted, but the thought of him leaving to go do other things before the issue between you was resolved upset you. 

He reached back down to unlace his boots. “Not anymore. I was ‘bout to head out and find you.”

“Why?” You asked dryly.

“I’d been waiting on you to come home for a couple of hours. We gotta talk.”

“You’re right, we do. I was helping Wendy walk the kids home from the daycare; that’s what held me up. I’m here now, though.” You leaned against the back of the couch and crossed your arms. The stance you took reminded you of what Joel would do.

He walked into the kitchen and came back. “Kiddo made this for us.”

You took it in your hands. “When did she have time to make this?” He shrugged. Your fingers brushed across the drawing of the hat before finally opening it. “Oh my God.” She looked at you for a split second before looking back down at her signature. “Her name has been ‘Ellie’ the whole time.”

“I know.” He commented. 

“She never said anything. All of us have asked her.”

“Technically, she still hasn’t spoken her name, but I guess she wasn’t ready for that.”

“She wasn’t ready to let anybody in.” You said. He nodded in agreement.

“Until now.” He walked up to you and pointed to her name on the card. “She’s doing so good, this Ellie. I can only try to imagine the horrors that she’s seen out in the world before she came to Jackson, but whatever happened out there, it led her to us. I’m...It’s just nice to see her opening up to this place.”

You understood what he was trying to say. “Yeah, I’m proud of her too.” You walked past him and into the kitchen to hang the card on the refrigerator. Joel followed. This time, his arms were crossed.

“(Y/N), I meant it when I said I was sorry back there. I shouldn’t have said what I did.”

“If you didn’t mean it, you wouldn’t have said it.” You rebutted.

“I was upset with you because I expected you to react the same as me when Ellie climbed up that T-Rex, but I don’t want a carbon copy of myself. I love you and want to have a family with you because you are wise beyond your years, confident even if you don’t always think so, responsible even for things that aren’t your responsibility and most importantly, you’re level headedness. Where I have a tendency to lose my cool in certain situations, you are guided by this calm...patient sense of will that I envy.” He took a deep breath and slowly exhaled, giving you the opportunity to say something. Seeing that you were still soaking in his words, he continued. “You’ll be a great mother. I saw it in the gentle way you juggled all those kids at the daycare. I saw it in the way you took care of Ellie the first day she came here. You’ll see though, if it’s meant for us to have a baby, how difficult it is to stop worrying. It didn’t stop when Sarah....even when I tried to push those feelings away. It doesn’t stop. I know she’s not her, but it’s hard for me to just stand by and watch her do something that could hurt her.”

“I wasn’t standing by, or at least that wasn’t my intention. I wanted to give her space. She’s so delicate, or maybe that’s my problem. I shouldn’t treat her like she’s some glass figurine. I just wanted her to grow comfortable with us by trusting her. Believe me, it wasn’t easy for me to do when there was nothing personally for me to go off of, but then I thought, she’s lived out there for God knows how long by herself. She’s not only seen things but has been able to survive things. It’s hard to see how clever someone is when they won’t let you in, but I knew she had to be to have made it this far. I get it though. I’ve never been a parent. I can only sympathize with your worries. I can not empathize with you until I’ve been where you have. I’m sorry too. I could have found a way to give her space without allowing her to be in such a dangerous spot. You must be disappointed in me.”

He moved up to you and placed his hands on your shoulder. “I’m not. Look at me. I’m not disappointed in you. She was both of our responsibilities earlier.” He brought you into a tight hug. “You’re right, she is smart. She felt comfortable enough to show a side of herself that no one else has seen. You know why? ‘Cause she felt safe around us. Despite the grief she put me through, it was nice to see her so happy.”

“I know it was, wasn’t it? I can’t believe she jumped though! I didn’t think she’d go that far.”

“At the end of the day, kids will be kids. It’s not an excuse to slack off on raising ‘em, but there's just a certain wild and carefree nature that every kid has. It’s instilled in their DNA or somethin’ and then it fades away as they get older, about the time their back starts to ache.” Joel chuckled as he explained. He kissed the top of your head before pulling away to get a good look at you. He made a face as if to ask if you were ok. You nodded. He took your hand and pulled you into the living room. You sat down next to him. “She reminds me of Sarah sometimes. Ellie’s about the same age as her. She ran me through the ringer, raising that one.” He chuckled at the memories. “I wouldn’t trade it in for the world, being her dad, but you shoulda seen the amount of grief she put me through. Especially being a single parent.” He wiped his hand across his face, letting it linger along the length of his neck. “One time, she snuck off to some skate park when I told her no. She was in this skateboarding phase. I bought her a customized skateboard for her birthday and she would practice using it up and down the driveway. She had barely learned that little flippy trick when she asked me to take her to the skate park. I told her no because it looked like it was for experienced skaters. I wanted her to practice more first. To say the least, she was mad at me. She told me she was staying after school for the science club, but she really went to the skate park with some friends. By the time I figured out where she was, I found her lying in the grass, holding her arm in pain. Turned out she had a hairline fracture in her...radius?” He pointed to the bone on his arm. You nodded that it was in fact called radius. “I grounded her for lying to me, but sometimes I wonder if I should have taken her to the park. I mean I’m no expert on skateboarding, but at least I could have been there to supervise; make sure she wasn’t on one of those tough looking ramps.”

“Did you ever take her skateboarding after she healed up?”

“After the cast came off, she switched interests to soccer. I installed a shelf on one of her walls to hang the skateboard on. Better that than being stuffed under her bed. Soccer was her life though. She made new friends from the team, won titles, learned tricks with the ball. Me and Tommy were regulars at her games. I was...am proud of her.”

You smiled as you envisioned his memories. “Did she give you grief with that as well?”

He nodded in an exaggerated way. “Oh yeah, but I’m sure I used to give her grief too.” You lifted your eyebrows with desire for him to elaborate. “I may or may not have argued with the coach and ref on a few occasions regarding plays.”

“You never dated any of the soccer moms?” You teased.

He scoffed. “Most of them were married and the ones who weren’t, I sent Tommy’s way instead. He wasn’t mad at it.” The two of you chuckled. “I did flirt with a few, married or not, so I could get my hands on some of their homemade baked goods.”

“I was under the assumption that soccer moms made food for everyone.”

“They did, but I still wanted a few more cupcakes for the ride home.” He admitted as you laughed. “Listen, I had a busy life. I didn’t have much time to hone my baking skills, so it was nice to be able to have homemade cakes and cookies for a change.

“Well, if you wanted cookies, that’s all you had to say! I can show you how to bake right now.”

“It’s late.” He reasoned.

“It’s never too late to feed your sweet tooth.” You rebutted as you pulled him back into the kitchen.

[sdwolfpup]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Game of Thrones (TV), Ted Lasso (TV) Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth, Minor or Background Relationship(s), Sansa Stark/Margaery Tyrell, Jon Snow/Ygritte, Renly Baratheon/Loras Tyrell, that last one is very minor Characters: Jaime Lannister, Brienne of Tarth, Sansa Stark, Margaery Tyrell, Podrick Payne, Bronn (ASoIaF), Addam Marbrand Additional Tags: The Ted Lasso AU that literally no one was asking for, Nope not even my prompter, Do I know anything about football?, no., Did I let this stop me?, also no. Summary:

Football is life.

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

This is the gift fic I was given for the @jaime-brienne-fic-exchange and YES IT IS A TED LASSO AU, YOU READ THAT RIGHT. I’m gonna copy & paste from a rec I made elsewhere:

This is CLEARLY a Ted Lasso AU -- takes the premise of a nonsense coach brought to a mediocre football team by the new owner to spite the old owner -- but it does such an incredible job of making that premise work with the characters we love. This isn't Brienne-as-cheery-Ted, this is Brienne-as-Brienne-in-Ted's-role and it's such a smart smart smart way to handle this AU. The author takes many of the plot points from the show but, again, applies them to the particular world they've set up, and while at the beginning there's a little "oh Bronn is Higgins" (which: *chef’s kiss*), all of that falls away as you get immersed in this beautiful world. And the way they handle CHANGES to the Ted Lasso universe, including plot stuff near the end! Jaime is the perfect narrative choice--cynical and hurting and accidentally falling in love. Brienne is a FORCE but a quiet, steady one. The author said they chose the 'my dear, what kind of storm are you?' prompt and Brienne is the best kind of storm. 

It’s FUNNY and ROMANTIC and in character and surprising and I highly highly HIGHLY recommend setting aside the time to read it. 

[itsallanimeandgames]

Sore Loser (Seto)

Seto Kentaro x Reader

Warning: Words & Suggestive Content

A sore loser takes his anger out on you when he loses to Kirisaki Daiichi.

“There she is...”

You were completely unaware of all the attention you were receiving from across the hall. Your eyes were solely fixed on the tall figure before you. His slicked-back hair a sign that he had been called on by Hanamiya today.

“Sorry I missed it was hard getting time off work.” You pushed your hair back over your shoulder in an attempt to placate your wild locks. They had gone through significant turmoil as you rushed and ran the last few blocks.

“You should quit,” Hanamiya bluntly suggested. He wasn’t a fan of overachieving students like you who tried their best to the point of exhaustion.

His blunt statements no longer fazed you. Ignoring him completely, you strode past him to attach yourself to the owner of your heart. He was warm and sweaty but you could care less. The sight of his slightly exhausted face made you want to take him back to your place for a nap.

Seto comfortably leaned into you, his hand resting on the small of your back. His lips gently pressing against your forehead in the usual gentle greeting ritual that was a stark contrast to his appearance. 

“You should have gone straight home.” 

It wasn’t that he didn’t appreciate your presence, rather he was worried knowing how hard they worked you at your part-time job.

“I wanted to cheer for you.” 

Hara pointed out you were still in your uniform which did nothing for him, unlike your usual short school uniform skirt. “Shouldn’t you wear something sexier to raise our spirits?”

The comment earned him a glare and click of your tongue. You knew “I don’t give a f*ck about your spirit.” 

Unbeknownst to you, the opposing team was grumbling as they glanced in your direction. A couple of them scowled feeling a sense of misplaced anger towards you who they had seen several times cheering on their cheating rival. Their captain instructed everyone to get over the loss and get ready to leave. 

A few of the younger members didn’t agree with him. They thought they had a duty to look out for their seniors. They wanted to do something about the injustice they faced.

“I’ll be waiting outside.” You let go of Seto’s hand so he could follow the guys into the locker room. The night was relatively warm but the cool breeze made up for it. It was ideal idling around weather. 

You leisurely walked with your phone in hand, mindlessly scrolling through social media until you got to a bench behind the gymnasium that was empty. It never crossed your mind to take a look around so you were legitimately startled when someone called your name. 

“Y/N-” 

A guy with light brown hair sat beside you on your left while a blonde took the right seat. One look at their uniform was all you needed to know why they were here. This wasn’t your first time being approached by guys from other schools. It was your experience that told you it was best to avoid them.

“That’s your name right?” His eyes roamed to your chest where your nametag gave away that he was indeed correct.

You got up to leave but only took a few steps when the light haired guy quickly caught up blocking your way and nearly making you bump into him. You took a step back only to bump into his friend.

“What the f*ck do you want?”

They were both slightly taken back by your language, not expecting the expletive.

“You’re that guy’s girlfriend right?”

“That’s none of your business-” when you took a step to the side they followed. 

“That guy hurt our captain’s shoulder. Coach said he might be out for the rest of the season.”

Honestly you weren’t in favor of the tricks or their manipulative plays. After watching for so long you were desensitized to their behavior. It was beyond you to feel their pain. Instead you celebrated Seto’s victory.

You sighed.

“Listen, talking to me isn’t going to change anything so back off and go home.” You looked back to his friend making sure they knew you were talking to both of them. 

This time when you tried to leave the light haired guy held onto your arm and tightly pulled you back. The quick motion caught you off-guard for a moment causing you to crash into him.

The moment was all seen by Seto who had been looking for you. He didn’t know what their business was with you and he didn’t care. All he knew was what he saw.

“Oh they better run,” Hara taunted with laughter when he saw Seto walk faster than he has ever before. “Should we watch?”

Hanamiya didn’t even stop to look. “What’s the point, it’ll be over the moment they see him.” He knew physical violence was unnecessary for such a scary looking guy like him.

Those first years were nothing but benchwarmers. They had only seen Seto from afar, failing to recognize how overpowering the army of one could be. As soon as he came up to them he pried the unknown guy’s hand off of you with no effort.

You happily joined his side now that they could no longer stand in your way. When you reached for his hand Seto noticed a bruise forming on your wrist.

“Did they do this to you?”

The guys took a step back, their faces a mix of anger and frustration. “We did nothing compared to you. Our captain’s shoulder is probably broken-”

“So?” He caught them off with one word. Then ignored them for a moment to grab his jacket out of his bag when he felt the wind pick up. He draped it over your shoulders to ensure your warmth. 

“Better?”

You nodded appreciating his attention to detail.

His lips curved up at the sight of his oversized jacket on you. It was gone in an instant when he turned his attention back to the offenders.

“Don’t come near her again,” Seto’s voice seemed deeper when he warned them. “If you have a problem with me then you come to me.”

The guys had to stretch their necks to look at him. The height difference was enough of a threat, however these two knew Kirisaki Daiichi would deliver on their threats on or off the court. 

“Whatever, let’s go.”

“That’s no fun,” Hara booed when he saw them leave with their tails between their legs. 

You leaned on Seto to take your shoe off and throw it at Hara. The bubble-popping weirdo caught it despite your wishes to have it hit him.

“Don’t mind him,” Seto picked you up and carried you over to Hara to retrieve your shoe. He took a hold of it and continued to walk home with you in his arms.

“I can walk.”

“It’s faster this way.”

You didn’t mind the stares but you wondered where this burst of energy came from. Usually after games he lazily leaned on you the entire walk home. When he walked past your home and into his you only gave him a look of confusion.

“From now on you aren’t allowed to leave my side.”

“We literally live next door to each other.”

He nodded in understanding but, “No one is home.” He couldn’t leave you to fend for yourself again. From now on he had to pay closer attention to your safety. 

He brought you to his room and finally set you down.

You were touched by his sudden overprotective behavior brought on by today’s incident. “I’m fine Ken-kun” you brought him over to sit on his bed. With him seated you stood in front of him, between his legs, now able to meet his eyes. “I’m actually pretty tough, you know?”

“I know,” his arms wrapped around you. “I still worry.”

“I know,” you copied his monotonous response. A giggle erupted at his stern look. “Thank you for worrying.”

At this height you were better able to kiss him, so you did. First it was a peck on the forehead then on the lips.

But a peck wasn’t enough.

Seto held you closer as he captured your lips. The two of you kissed in the silence of his home forgetting the whole ordeal. When it got intense he fell back onto his fluffy bed bringing you along on top of him. 

One thing you loved about your boyfriend was his passion for rest. Since he loved to sleep, his bed was always well-maintained. He kept the sheets clean, invested in a good mattress, and pillows.

“Oh,” you smirked playfully. “I thought you wanted me to rest?”

“Rest after.”

-end-

A/N: Thank you for encouraging me to write this one and hopefully I’ll get to Hanamiya too ^^

@kaidoslastbraincell​ @lukes-princess​ @zero-nightshade​

[keijiskitty]

getting caught making out with yamaguchi w/ fem!reader

request: can you do yamaguchi getting caught making out with his gf in the club room? but he’s more dominant in their relationship. also can you not put my name in this? thank you <333

a/n: hey love! so i didn’t really know how to respond to your ask but keep your url hidden, (or if that’s even possible) so i decided i’d just copy paste your reuest and tell you lmfao. also, congrats on being my first request lol <3

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

• okay so earlier in the day, he had lent you a textbook

• so you decide to just stop by the clubroom and leave the textbook in his bookbag since you dont want to interrupt practice

• but in the gym earlier, noya had spilled water on yamaguchi's shirt

• and daichis all like "don't worry about it, there are extras in the clubroom"

• so then yams goes back to the clubroom to change

• he's taking off his shirt when the door opens, and thinking its nishinoya coming to apologize, he turns around

• "hey, noya-senpai i'm not ma-"

• “i’m not that short y’know” you retort, but then you get a good look at him

• and now you're standing there staring, because your boyfriend is standing in front of you, shirtless, and fuck he looks hot- what with the sun coming through the open door behind you illuminating his features and defining his toned abs

• you have absolutely no idea what to do because you've never seen him shirtless so should you look away? no that would be weird you're his girlfriend. but what if he doesn't want you looking because he's insecure? but how could he be insecure he literally has the body of a God wtf-

• "like what you see, y/n?” seeing you ogle at him was a total confidence booster

• "uh"

• he rolls his eyes good-naturedly and leans against his locker with an amused look, "well? are you gonna keep ogling or are you gonna come here and kiss me?"

• you: say less lmfao

a breathy sigh leaves your lips as you feel tadashi's hands roam up and down your sides, your back against the cold locker. honestly, you're not complaining, your boyfriend is extremely hot, you're in the mood, and he's giving you exactly what you want. its just that you know how hard he's been working and how much he’s been focusing on volleyball, and don't want him to berate himself over this later. "tadashi, you have to get back to pr- ah! practice!"

"practice can wait, love" he responds as he sucks hickies above your collarbone

yeah, definitely not complaining.

he grazes his teeth over the sensitive spot under jaw, "fuck!" you breathe out, pushing his chin to face you so he can continue kissing you. you comb your fingers through his hair, tugging on one strand to elicit a grunt from him.

you smile into the kiss, satisfied that you’re the reason he makes those sounds, and you’re the only one who gets to hear them. your body is on fire, feeling electric everywhere tadashi touches you, your hand trailing down to the back of his head, pushing his head deeper into the kiss. you wanted more, needed more. 

unfortunately, you didn’t quite get more.

“hey, yama- ohhkay! woah! uhHH”

you scrambled to let go of tadashi and push him off of you the second you recognized another presence standing in the doorway, made easier by the fact that your boyfriend had practically jumped 3 feet backwards.

you recognized the short stature standing in the doorway as nishinoya, their libero. why was he here? it sounded like he had some business with yamaguchi, shit, you realized you weren’t even supposed to be here in the first place, was he going to get you in trouble?

“nishinoya-senpai! I’m so sorry! I- I didn’t- I’m really sorry It won’t happen again-”

“I DIDN’T KNOW YOU HAD A GIRLLL!! CONGRATS YAMAGUCHI! My mann!”

okay, so he definitely wasn’t going to get you in trouble. he was...proud? of tadashi? you were just grateful that it wasn’t one of the third-years or coaches, that would be bad. still, it’d be better if you left before anyone else come in and read the situation. you moved to pick up your bag and finally give tadashi the textbook you had borrowed when-

“aaand what do we have here?” 

your head shot up to see one of the third-years, the one with silver hair leaning against the doorway. so much for your escape plan

“I was just leaving! Sorry, I came to give back one of Tadashi’s textbooks.” you looked over at him when you said his name, and actually took him in, he was still shirtless, and crimson red from his beck to the tip of his ears, avoiding eye contact by hanging his head down. it would’ve been cute if you also weren’t mortified. 

“sure,” said the third-year, with a knowing glint, “don’t worry about it, your sugawara-senpai’s-” so that’s his name “got you covered.” he looked down at the libero, “as long as you can keep your mouth shut,” and then looked back at you and tadashi, “you lovebirds’ll be safe from embarrassment.” 

“c’mon, nishinoya, you can apologize later” you heard sugawara say before walking out the door, following nishinoya. you picked up the textbook and placed it in tadashi’s hands, who was still avoiding eye contact.

“uh, here” jeez, real smooth y/n, you could’ve at least tried to act normal

“hey, y/n?” he finally looked up at you.

“hm?” 

“don’t worry, we can continue this later.” 

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and that’s it! i apologize for how long this took, and i’m really sorry if it’s cringey, any feedback is appreciated! <3

[winterscaptain]

emergency.

Aaron Hotchner x Reader

a/n: credit for this awesome idea goes to snow (@agenthotchner original post linked here)! 

warnings: there’s some description of a decent-sized cut across the palm of the hand and the treatment of said cut in an emergency room, as well as some swearing rating/word count: t / 2096

AO3 | Masterlist | Requests Open!

+++

“Really, I’m alright,” you assured your (very well-meaning) neighbor. She was dead-set on getting you checked in at the emergency room, even though you insisted you could stitch yourself up at home. You brought your medical packet with you – including all the intake forms, copies of your credentials, and your emergency contact information. Your go bag was at your side, packed and ready with three days’ worth of clothes.

Your neighbor stayed with you until she was sure you wouldn’t bolt, leaving you as soon as someone called you to the back.

Another Tuesday night, another kitchen accident. You’d sliced your hand open while cutting an avocado for a late-night snack. Fortunately, it was your non-dominant hand. Unfortunately, your neighbor caught you as you scuttled to your car for your first aid kit.

So here you were, sitting on the edge of a bed in one of the private emergency rooms while a nurse flushed the wound and prepared it for stitches.

+++

“Hotchner.” Aaron sat up in bed, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.

“Am I speaking to Aaron Hotchner?”

“Yes. May I ask who’s calling?”

As he listened to the emergency room admin tell him about your incident, he threw on a pair of jeans and a black v-neck from the drawer. He called Jessica as soon as the nurse finished relaying the address to the ER closest to your home. Jess was in the neighborhood, coming from a girl’s night with friends, thank God.

With a kiss to his sister-in-law’s cheek and an earnest “Thank you,” he was in the car and on the way.

+++

There was some kind of commotion right outside your door, but you were busy watching the nurse as she applied local anesthetic to your hand and wrist. The bleeding had slowed enough for the nurse to maintain it with a few swipes every minute or so, and you could see the extent of the damage.

You’re a fucking moron, you know that?

You rolled your eyes at yourself and was only a little startled when the door flew open.

“Hotch?”

He checked in with the nurse, who smiled and nodded at him over your hand. Suddenly, he was sitting right next to you, looking over your intake paperwork. “They called me. I got here as fast as I could.”

Shit. “God, I’m so sorry. I forget you’re the first on my emergency contact list.” You bit your lip. “I really should make it Emily or Penelope or someone who doesn’t have kids.” You said it more to yourself than him.

To your surprise, he laughed. “No, it’s okay. Jess was in town, and Jack is still sleeping. I’m glad I can be here for you.”

+++

When they pulled out the suturing material, you paled and blindly reached for Hotch’s hand. Instead of just taking it, he tucked your head into his chest, holding you there with one hand while he rubbed soothing circles on the back of your free hand with his thumb.

You probably looked silly, tucked into your friend’s chest while your arm was fully extended to your side, under a blindingly bright light. You couldn’t feel the stitches, but it still squicked you out.

Hotch’s voice rumbled through you as he spoke close to your ear. “You’re okay. Breathe with me.”

“Hotch...” It came out as a bit of a panicked whine as you heard the doctor shuffle some tools around.

“Aaron.” He squeezed your hand. “Aaron’s just fine. It’ll be over soon. Just a little while longer.”

You took a few shaky breaths in time with his, but your hand was still a vice grip around his. He smelled really good. You knew that already, having sat next to him on the plane more than once, but it was different without the professional boundaries.

And without the suit.

“You’re doing great. Squeeze as hard as you can and keep breathing with me.” His voice was gentle and constant. It was sufficiently distracting.

Oh, right. He’s coached someone through literal childbirth before.

God, you’re such a baby.

“I’m sorry I’m such a baby.”

He laughed, taking care not to jostle you. “We’re all babies over something.”

“You’re not a baby over anything.” It came out as a grouchy gripe, your humor not strong enough to get past the tightness of your jaw.

After a moment, he shrugged around you. “Spiders. I hate them.”

You lifted your head, keeping your arm steady. The hand holding you to him dropped to your waist, where his protective grip kept you centered. “Really?”

Brown eyes smiled down at you. “Really. Jack takes after his mother and thinks it’s hilarious. ”

A shaky smile crossed your face, and you heard the telltale rasp of ripping gauze.

“All done,” the nurse said. “You’re good to go. Change the dressings daily and take care not to rip the stitches. They will dissolve on their own in about a week.”

+++

“Hotch, I can really manage on my own.”

“You have your go bag, and I know for a fact you’ll rip the stitches in your haste to grab something on your way out the door tomorrow morning.”

You couldn’t argue with him there. He pulled into his driveway and helped you out of the car.

When you were safely inside with Jessica headed home, you took your pain meds while Aaron locked his gun away.

“Oh shit,” you said, checking your bag. “I don’t have my gun. It’s in my safe at home.”

“You can use my second. I know you prefer the Glock 26, but my 17 is about the same weight in the trigger.” He handed you a mug of tea and plopped down on the couch. “I can have Anderson grab yours during the day tomorrow if we get called out on a case.”

“Thanks.” The gesture didn’t go unnoticed – offering his second gun was like offering his right arm. You settled down beside him, tucking your feet under you. “I can make up the couch, so you can head to bed. I’ve kept you up long enough.”

“You know where the linens are?” He asked, one eyebrow aloft.

“I have built many a fort with Jack, and I pay enough attention to get around.” At his dubious glance, you continued. “Second hall closet, third shelf. Blankets, sheets, and an extra pillow.” You smiled at him over your mug.

“You know...” he swallowed and seemed to struggle with his words. “You don’t have to make up the couch if you’d be more comfortable in my room.”

“Trying to get me in bed, Hotchner?”

He floundered for a moment, and you laughed softly.

“I’m kidding.” You set your mug on the coffee table and brushed his hair back with your good hand. “If you don’t mind, I’ll take you up on it.”

“I definitely don’t mind.” He leaned into your touch like a cat.

He’s adorable.

“Thank you for staying with me tonight.” Your hand fell to his jaw, where your thumb brushed back and forth on his cheekbone.

Careful, don’t want to cut your other hand on that.

His eyes closed as you took more of his weight into your hand. “Of course.” He turned his head and kissed your palm.

Your heart jumped into your throat. He gently picked up your injured hand in his and pressed a kiss to your gauze covered knuckles. That particular act didn’t do anything to lower your heart rate. He released your hands, soft and gentle, and led the way down the hallway toward his room.

Jack’s door was open, and you saw his little sleeping form by the glow of his nightlight, curled in a ball. You wondered if the Hotchner boys slept the same way.

You’ll find out soon enough, won’t you?

Jesus.

“You can borrow one of my shirts,” Hotch said, closing the door quietly behind you, “since yours is...” He gestured to your t-shirt, and you note the blood down the front of it.

“Damn. I liked this one.”

Hotch smiled with one side of his mouth. “I’ll soak it overnight. We’ll probably be able to save it.” He turned and shuffled through his drawer, pulling out what looked to be a worn-in FBI Academy shirt and some flannel pajama pants. “These should cinch enough for you.”

You took them from him with your good hand. “Thanks, Aaron.”

His hands lingered over yours under the soft fabric. “Bathroom’s through that door – take your time. There are extra toothbrushes in the cabinet to the left of the sink. Make yourself at home.”

You settled into the en suite bathroom as he padded down the hall. You changed quickly, brushed your teeth (twice), and draped your bloodied shirt and pants on the edge of the sink.

Hotch was pulling back the covers and checking his email when you walked back out. He looked up and smiled at you.

When he brushed past you to soak your clothes in the sink, your heart caught in your throat again.

You slipped into bed, your back to the bathroom door. You closed your eyes and tried in vain to fall asleep before he returned.

You failed.

The lights in the room went out, leaving the blue cast of moonlight in front of your eyelids. You felt the bed dip as Hotch tucked in beside you.

“You’re terrible at pretending to sleep,” he whispered.

You could tell he was close to you, but when you opened your eyes you saw how close. His face was peaceful in the dark, his mouth and brow relaxed (for once).

“I wasn’t pretending.”

“Mhmm. Sure.”

You rolled your eyes and shut them again, insistent this time. “I’m ignoring you, Hotch.”

“Oh, so it’s Hotch now?”

“It is when it's nearly two in the morning and we have to leave for work in six hours,” you grumbled.

He chuckled, and his minty breath fanned over your face. You could feel him sober, and you opened your eyes. His face was pensive, and you were caught off guard by how open and expressive he was at home. You could read everything on his face as if it was printed out and handed to you.

“I don’t-“ he stopped, and his mouth pressed into a thin line for a moment. “I know we’re both adults who can share a bed without anything going on.”

You raised an eyebrow at him, doing your best to hide your amusement.

“What I mean is, I don’t want to make you feel uncomfortable or –“

You pressed a finger to his lips. “Aaron, shh.” You let your smile shine through for a moment. “I’m here because I want to be, and I’m next to you because I want to be, okay?”

He nodded, still watching you carefully. You removed your finger from his mouth, ignoring the thrill it sent through you.

Adults. Adults who can share a bed without anything going on.

You rolled over and got comfortable, smooshing the pillow underneath your head. With your good hand, you reached behind you and searched until you found Aaron’s shirt.

“C’mere.”

He huffed a laugh and curled up behind you, snug from shoulders to calves. His arm hovered over your waist for a moment. You squished it to you, lacing your fingers with his over your belly.

“Thank you for taking care of me.”

He hummed and tucked his face into your shoulder. “Anytime.”

“If you want...” you trailed off, your bravery evaporating when you actually processed what was about to come out of your mouth.

“If I want...” he echoed. You could hear the smile.

“You could – You could kiss me if you wanted to.”

Well, there it was.

You felt lips press to the soft fabric over your shoulder, trailing up to the sensitive skin near the collar.

“I thought you’d never ask,” he said, and you suddenly felt fully and pleasantly warm.

When you turned your head, he was waiting for you. Yes, the angle was awkward and it was dark, but maybe laughing into each other’s mouths wasn’t as embarrassing as it seemed.

He kissed you once, twice, three times. There was a sweetness, a chasteness about it. You’d both waited a long time, and it wasn’t like you didn’t want to jump his bones, but now was decidedly not the time.

You turned back around and pressed back against him as to not miss out on a single millimeter of contact.

Your sleep took you quickly, and you nearly forgot about the nine stitches in your palm.

tagging: @arganfics @quillvine @stxrryspencer @agenthotchner @happyhotchner @hurricanejjareau @fics-ilike @octothorpetopus @ange-must-die @ughitsbaby @rousethemouse @criminalsmarts

[kaaytea]

Kuroo Tetsurou x reader

Summary: You've been avoiding him all week, and now he's starting to question what exactly you're doing when you pull Yaku into rooms with you.

Warnings: angst, cheating?, Lil fluff at the end as a treat

A/n: ITS KUROOS BIRTHDAY!!!! Kuroo is the captain of my favorite team and was one of my first favorite characters! I hope I did him justice with this lil fic also I apologize for the angst 😔

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

Why were you avoiding him?! And on his birthday never the less!!

The whole day whenever you spotted him you'd skitter off without a second look behind you.

It was kind of annoying actually.

You hadn't said a word to him today besides your good morning text. For the first time in a long time, Kuroo was feeling kinda lonely. The past few weeks you had been slowly spending less and less time with him; this week had been the worse so far, he's only talked to you face to face about three times.

Kuroo stepped into the classroom, eyes scanning the groups of faces for you. Maybe you'd want to talk a bit before you had to go to your class like usual? He spotted you by the front of the room pointing at paper that was spread out on Kai's desk, Yaku and Kai listening intently to what you were saying.

Unfortunately, Kai noticed him walking over to the small group and nudged your arm. You looked up from the paper and froze when your eyes met with his. In a split second, you hurriedly snatched the paper from the desk shoving it into your bag then grabbed Yaku's hand and dragged him out of the classroom.

Kuroo sighed inwardly.

You sure had been spending a lot of time with Yaku these past few weeks; you seemed to almost always be around him, grabbing onto his hand, pulling him into different rooms...Whispering to him....in the halls......

Wait a minute

You couldn't actually be...

The two of you weren't.....You'd never.....Yaku wouldn't... Right?

Then why was there this awful feeling twisting in his chest, a feeling that only got heavier as he thought back on how weird you had been acting the past few weeks, like you were hiding something from him.

Kuroo felt like he was gonna throw up. Has he really been that blind? Were you actually cheating on him right under his nose, and with one of his teammates?

He sat down at his desk completely ignoring Kai's gentle greetings.

He felt numb. He also felt completely and utterly stupid.

Did Kai know? He was the one to tip you off that he was in the room. Now that he thought about it Fukunaga did something similar earlier in the week.

Did everyone know but him?

The rest of the day went by slowly. It felt like he was trapped in a pool of molasses, slowly and painfully trudging through, only to be pulled back in by his sticky thoughts and doubts.

By the time practice came around he was exhausted, emotionally and physically.

He was so out of it, he almost didn't hear Coach Nekomata wish him happy birthday with a cheery smile and a soft pat on the back.

"You're acting weird"

Kuroo glanced up at Kenma from his spot on the bench.

"What do you mean by that?"

Kenma sighed and shuffled over to sit next to him, "You keep spacing out," he mumbled softly, "you're playing stiffly and you've been avoiding Yaku like the plague."

He really can't fool Kenma, huh? I guess growing up together played a part in that.

Kuroo sighed, he unconsciously started to ring the towel in his hands. He didn't want to admit it out loud, his body started to burn from the build-up of thoughts and emotions throughout the day.

"I think (y/n)'s cheating on me," Kuroo's stomach twisted sickly at saying that sentence out loud.

"Why's that?"

"They've been avoiding me all week, they've also started being very friendly with Yaku."

Kenma almost burst out laughing at the absurdity of the situation, quickly masking it with a cough.

"I don't think they'd ever cheat on you, they probably have an explanation for their behavior," Kenma said, he silently pulled out his Switch already booting up a game.

Kuroo frowned at the gym floor. He hated feeling like this.... He felt lost and hurt, a dull ache pierced his heart when his thoughts drifted to you.

Just as he was about to go help clean up the gym, Nekomata called out to him.

"Go deliver these papers to the principal for me, the directors wanted a copy of the tournament schedule."

Kuroo only nodded and made his way out of the building, at least he got out of cleaning up the gym today.

When he arrived back at the gym all of the lights were off.

That's odd....usually, there are a few people who hang back and work on solo drills.

He stepped into the dark building, searching blindly for the light switch. At this point by he just wanted to go home and sleep, it hadn't been that great of a birthday anyway.

He flipped on the lights only to be startled by the sound of a confetti popper.

Kuroo turned around, the entire team was stood in the middle of the gym with you in the front holding a cake with a bright smile.

What?

"Happy birthday Tetsurou!!"

You handed the cake to Kai, who went off with Fukunaga to cut it, and launched yourself at him trapping him in a tight hug.

"Surprised?"

He looked down at you, his brain was still catching up with the fact that you were actually interacting with him, "...yes?"

"Ah! I’m so glad I don't have to keep a secret anymore! That was so long!" Lev shrieked.

You turned to Lev with a baffled look, "What do you mean long! I literally just told you what we were doing yesterday."

You started bantering with Lev but your conversation blurred out as something clicked in Kuroo's brain.

Yesterday?

"How long have you been planning this?"

You turned away from Lev and looked up at him, "A few weeks, Kai and Yaku helped a bunch though!"

Oh.....well that explains a lot.

Kuroo let out a sigh of relief and pulled you into his chest, you looked at him with a worried expression, "Are you ok Tetsu?"

He chuckled slightly. Could he consider himself ok if he spent the entire day thinking you had been cheating on him only to find out you were just planning a surprise party?

He got his answer as he looked into your eyes, they sparkled with love whenever you were near him and the genuine concern on your face made his heart clench.

"I'm great, (y/n)" he smiled at you then proceeded to press kisses all over your face causing you to giggle at his actions.

There was a gagging noise heard behind you causing the both of you to look in the direction of the sound.

The gagging came from Yaku with a slightly disgusted Kenma standing next to him, their faces scrunched up at your display of affection.

"We get it you're both sickeningly cute but please for our sake save the sappy stuff for later"

"You think I'm cute Yakkun?"

"Don't push your luck!"

<< ---------------------------------------------------- >>

Kuroo enjoyed the small party with the team but he was even happier now that he got to spend alone time with you. The second the both of you got back to his house he was pulling you to his room so he could cuddle you to death. After the absolute rollercoaster of emotions he went through today he needs to just hold you close to further convince himself that you wouldn't ever leave.

"Tetsurou?" you piped up from your position lying against his chest, your hand continued to twist and twirl locks of his messy hair.

"Hmm?"

"Are you sure you're ok? Nothing happened today right?"

Ah

He didn't have the heart to lie to you, so he came clean. He told you about this morning where he made the silly assumption that you were cheating on him and how your behavior fit in with everything.

"Oh Tetsu, I'm so sorry! I didn't even realize what everything could have looked like from your perspective," you pulled yourself closer to him, tucking your face into his chest, "I'd never cheat on you, ok? And I don't plan on leaving you any time soon.... you're too important to me."

What you said was barely above a whisper but those words rang loudly in Kuroo's heart.

His eyes burned slightly with unshed tears as he pressed his face to the top of your head.

"I wouldn't dream of leaving you either, (y/n)."

[katnissmellarkkk]

Okayyyy chappy seven 🤩 Here we goooo 🥳

Lord, Katniss always had nightmares 😭 even before the games, between her father’s death, her mother’s abandonment and the other traumatizing things she saw in her life, my girl never slept peacefully a day in her life 🥺.

She even indicates that she sometimes has nightmares about past hunger games 😭😭😭. Someone protect my smol child. Please. Someone.... Someone? Anyone? No? Okay 🥺

“I bolt up screaming for my father to run as the mine explodes into a million deadly bits of light.” This is such a powerful image and it really does show that Katniss has literally envisioned all the gory details of her father’s death for the last four years. This is so sad 😞

Also though. Katniss really doesn’t talk much about her father’s death after the first book and definitely doesn’t describe nightmares about it. So .... like basically, the games traumatized her so badly that, her father failing to escape the mines as the collapsed in on him, crushing him into the pits of despair, the possibility of rescuing his corpse deemed unimaginable, pales in comparison? Yes I just tried and failed to phrase that long run on sentence the way Katniss phrases her nightmares about her dad dying, yes that was over the top but you know what? So. Is. Katniss.

“Dawn is breaking through the windows” Twilight reference 😬😬😬. I couldn’t stop myself, y’all. Forgive for please.

“The Capitol has a misty, haunted air.” Katniss, you’re from the butthole of Kentucky, the air you’re used to is probably humid as all get out 😓😓💦😅😅

“I must have bitten into the side of my cheek in the night. My tongue probes the ragged flesh and I taste blood.” 😒😒😒😒 this feeling ..... is .... v v v .... distinct .... and .... familiar 😕🙁☹️

“I end up hopping from foot to foot as alternating jets of icy cold and steaming hot water assault me.” Why is this so funny omg 😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂😂😅😅😅😅😅 Katniss is just like pressing buttons like, “Ah! Too cold! 🥶 Ah! Too hot! 🥵 Ah!!!!!” All while jumping like a .... cat 🐱🥁

Lemon foam? 🍋 Whatever. I guess there’s weirder flavors of soap we have today but like where’s the Philosophy flavors that give recipes on the bottles??? Surely they’d survive an apocalypse??? Everyone uses those???

I’m so glad Katniss didn’t forget to moisturize, even as she prepares for a death match 😅😅😅😅 even if it’s just as simple as pressing a single button, why is she even taking the time to press it?

I know, I know. She just wants to make sure her skin is so smooth for the arena that the knives and arrows just slide right off 🤣🤣🤣🤣

“This is the first time since the morning of the reaping that I resemble myself.” Lolololol which means Mr. Romantic is gonna be even more turned on by the sight of ya, since he’s crushed on you looking like this for the last decade of his life 🥳😎🤗💁🏼‍♀️. Peeta ain’t even here yet and I’m already making the shipper comments Samantha calm down 🙄😶😑🤐🤐🤐🤐🤐🤐

Seriously there where is Peeta? Did he also have to figure out the temperature controls in the shower? Did he also moisturize? I miss him I wanna know about his morning too 😔. Katty, is it too much to ask for you to go take a lil ... sneak peek into his room for me? 😏😏😏

Twenty dishes seems like a lot for like four people eating? Eh, maybe six people, if we count the stylists who magically pick and choose when they’re coming to a meal... Hmm, I’ll calculate just so no one else has to. 🤓😬🤗 No one else cares, Samantha. 🤐🥱😴😶 Twenty dishes amounts out to about five plates without the stylists and three and a half-ish with so.... idk it’s not that much food I guess but it seems like a lot for one meal, esp if people in the Capitol intend to keep their trim figures. This is why that one prep team girl is chubby. 🤐🤐🤐

Awww Katniss copying Peeta’s weird lil eating quirks 🤗😎🥳. She’s already taking interest in him, she just don’t realize it yet 💁🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️ shipper comment alert 🚨🚨

But also has anyone actually tried dipping bread on hot chocolate and was it good or does it taste as repulsive as it sounds to me? I hate it when my food even so much as dares to touch though 🤢😡😤😓

Oooo I always forget Prim has to be utilizing her goat, milking the thing every day until it’s dry I’m not a farmer idk how milking animals works ... so she contributes more than I give her credit I suppose.... I’m making an effort for you, Primmers. You seem useless and immature but I’m trying. 😪😶 Taylor Swift voice 🎶 *this is me trying* 🎶

Oh wow it was only two mornings ago? Man. The first book is slow moving. 😅😭 six chapters in and we’ve gotten through one point five days 🤣

“It makes me irritated that Peeta is wearing exactly the same outfit I am.” “Listen, Peeta, one of us has to change, this is getting embarrassing, you have to stop borrowing my clothes!”

“This twins act is going to blow up in out faces once the Games begin.” Ahhaahahahaha blow up 💥 💣 🔥. Get it, get it. 🥁 Because she represents fire. And she also blows things up in Every. Single. Book.

But seriously, did Cinna and Portia and Haymitch all plan on presenting Katniss and Peeta are like, tight friends or whatever, and then Peeta is like “oh b-tee-dubs, I have a massive crush on K-dog” and they just decided it perfectly fit into their plans?

I’m so jealous that their breakfast has bread baskets 😩😩😩 I know they’re headed to the slaughter but still. Bread.

if you like, I'll coach you separately. Decide now." "Why would you coach us separately?" In case one of you ... not naming names .... Peeta .... wants to reveal your lifelong crush on live television 😎😎😎

Also Haymitch is like “make an important decision but take zero time to consider it, I’m tired and hungover, kids, idc for your drama 😒”

Which as an auntie to a wonderful little two year old ... is v relatable 😅🥲🙃🤭

“And I already know what yours is, right? I mean, I've eaten enough of your squirrels." I wanna make a dirty joke here so badly but the lord himself is saying no.

“Town families usually eat expensive butcher meat. Beef and chicken and horse.” Ohhh this is interesting. Katniss believing Peeta and the other merchants live high on the hog while Peeta is later is like “I eat expired bread for every meal, Katniss” I mean, better than starving like her, but also not how she’s painting the picture in her mind. 😶😭

Also Katniss never mentions horses in Twelve, where’s the butcher getting horses from to slaughter and sell? That’s why Katniss never sees them, Samantha, duh 🙄

“I can't do anything. Unless you count baking bread.” "Sorry, I don't.” This was such a quick and matter of fact brush off, poor Peeta 😭😭😭 my baby I’m still rooting for you don’t worry you got this

Also. Lowkey, highkey, that tiny exchange triggered me. 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭. Those awkward moments where people brush me off or glance over me live in my head. Rent free. For life.

I wonder sometimes often times if Katniss’ father and Gale’s father knew each other? Both hunted and worked in the mines. Just a random sidebar 😅🤭🤐🙃

“She’s excellent” He’s so proud of his wife 🤧🤧🤧🤧🤧

So uh.... is it safe to say Mr. Mellark is an Everlark fan? If he likes and admires Katniss and Peeta and him apparently have some kind of close-ish bond (okay, maybe not but maybe) then perhaps he is carrying the shipper banner back in Twelve for them 🥳🥳😎😎

Katniss, you dingaling, of course he noticed you 🙄🙄🙄

Peeta compliments her and her instant reaction is “what are you doing, weirdo?” 😅😭

“Don’t underrate yourself” Peeta, love of my life, take your own advise. Stupid. 😪😪😪

“I've seen you in the market. You can lift hundred-pound bags of flour” Katniss in the market, staring across the way at Peeta, 👁👄👁, watching him lift flour over his shoulder.

“He came in second in our school competition last year, only after his brother." This is criminally undiscussed. Peeta being a wrestler alone is undiscussed but also.... did you go to his matches, Katniss? Miss Anti-Social, Hunting-First-Everything-Else-Later? 😏😏😏 If this ain’t proof of her lil crush idk what is

“All you need is to come up with a knife, and you'll at least stand a chance.” “You'll be living up in some tree eating raw squirrels and picking off people with arrows.” Does no one else realize that Katniss and Peeta literally took the other’s advise for the first part of the games? How did Peeta get in with the Careers? The way she just said. Where is Katniss when Peeta and the Careers discover her? High up in a tree. Okay, this maybe didn’t compute right but I had a thought here so I said it

Peeta’s mother is just a monster. Who says that crap? 😔😔😔 don’t worry, baby, I’m rooting for you

“She said, 'She's a survivor, that one.' She is” Yeah, she is, no thanks to you, Mrs. Mellark 😤. Stingy ho.

Peeta’s got pain in his eyes 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺

Awww, Katniss accrediting her survival to Peeta’s help 😭😭😭😭. This is so pure. Also kiss now, you little freaks.

“She has no idea. The effect she can have.” This is such an iconic line... but the can has always had me laughing. She can have an effect, if she really wants to. Or not, depending on the day.

Katniss is so stupid, how did she construe that as an insult??? 🤦🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️ y’all ever just wanna smack her into a wall?

“In public, I want you by each other's side every minute” If Peeta didn’t have a long life crush, what was the ultimate plan with all this friendship act they’re being forced into? 🤔🤔🤔

Even Peeta’s trying to object to it 😭😭😭😭

“You will be together, you will appear amiable to each other.” You will fall in love. 🤩🥳😎

“I bite my lip and stalk back to my room, making sure Peeta can hear the door slam.” Okay, now imagine how much she’s hurting his feelings right now 😖😣 what a little brat

“But that didn't mean I wanted to do everything with Peeta. Who, by the way, clearly doesn't want to be partnering up with me, either.” Lolololololololol this is so funny in hindsight 🤣🤣🤣. Also if you showed a little enthusiasm, Peeta would probably be happy to partner with you.

“But a tiny part of me wonders if this was a compliment. That he meant I was appealing in some way.” No, really, Katniss? A compliment? Who’d give you one of those? 🙄🙄🙄

“It's weird, how much he's noticed me. Like the attention he's paid to my hunting.” A normal person at this point would put together a crush 😅

“And apparently, I have not been as oblivious to him as I imagined, either. [...] I have kept track of the boy with the bread.” Anddd a normal person would figure out their own crush at this point 😅😅.

“I do a quick assessment. Peeta and I are the only two dressed alike.” We stan a matching couple in this house 😎😏

“Almost all of the boys and at least half of the girls are bigger than I am” That means 18 out of 24 tributes tower over my girl here. Smol Katniss. The movies did such erasure on this front I’m still bitter 🤐😒😤😩

“I may be smaller naturally, but overall my family's resourcefulness has given me an edge in that area.” Just a tiny muscular thing standing next to a bunch of tall, lanky kids. 🥰🥰🥰🥰

Awww “Each [Career tribute] must have fifty to a hundred pounds on me.” I mean ... let’s calculate. A muscular girl would probably weigh like 150 pounds... so basically Katniss is at most, 100 pounds. Tiny Katty.

“I'm thinking that it's lucky I'm a fast runner when Peeta nudges my arm and I jump.” This is a random, cute interaction 😍😍😍. Shipper blinders are on and tight.

“Suppose we tie some knots.” “Right you are.” I legitimately just scratched my face, who says right you are? An 87 year old man, that’s who 😅😅😅. Not turning your girl on very well, Peeta baby.

Although it does sound a bit like a backwoods southern thing soooo.... hillbilly Everlark nation rise. 🙋🏼‍♀️🙋🏼‍♀️🙋🏼‍♀️🙋🏼‍♀️

“We concentrate on this one skill for an hour until both of us have mastered it.” Awww, so Peeta knows how to tie a snare? He’s not as clueless as half the fandom acts.

How exactly is frosting cakes equating to amazing camouflager in a death match? Books crack me up with these connections. “I’m an amazing artist because I write birthday cards!”

Lolololol Prim admiring her future brother-in-law’s handiwork 🥰🥰🥰🥰 too bad she dies before they can get together for real for real.

“Somehow the whole thing - his skill, those inaccessible cakes, the praise of the camouflage expert - annoys me.” Dude, you get praised by everyone and their brother while Peeta gets overlooked, give him a moment to shine. 😑🙄 jealous wife much?

Also she’s already picking up on Peeta’s eye for beauty 😅😅😅

“It's lovely. If only you could frost someone to death.” "Don't be so superior. You can never tell what you'll find in the arena. Say it's actually a gigantic cake-“ "Say we move on.” She’s such a little snot. 😒😒😒

But also I love that already in this point of their relationship, Peeta is noticing when she’s being a brat 😭😂😅. “Don’t be so superior.”

“Despite Haymitch's order to appear mediocre, Peeta excels in hand-to-hand combat, and I sweep the edible plants test without blinking an eye.” Lolololol their mentor’s advise went into one ear and right out the other 😂😅🤣.

But also why did the movie make a point in adding an extra scene of Peeta looking weak and the Careers staring at him? That literally took up time and served no purpose at all. 😤😤😤 I’m coming for you, Gary Ross

Awww, everyone but the careers eat alone. But Katniss and Peeta eat together 🥺🥺🥺. It’s like a forced first date 🥳🥳🥳

I like how Katniss says they include bread from every district but she then proceeds to only mention the two districts that later have relevant tributes. 😅😅😅

Lolololol their fake friendship “laugh ... now! Okay, I’ll smile, try to say something interesting”

“Ever since I slammed my door, there's been a chill in the air between us.” Well yeah, you probably hurt his feelings 🥺🥺🥺

Umm, Katniss just casually drops that she was chased by a bear.... how did homegirl live? 😬😳

Peeta knowing Rue’s name and being the one to take notice of her first 🥺🥺🥺. If the games had come down to Katniss, Peeta and Rue, y’all know Everlark would have swallowed the berries and gotten Rue home. 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺

“Don't. Don't let's pretend when there's no one around.” "All right, Katniss.” He made a single comment to you, ding dong. He didn’t ask for a goodnight kiss 🙄🙄🙄.

Also anyone ever think of how lonely Peeta’s life must be? He’s not close to his family that we can see, Delly’s his only real friend, after he wins he lives in that huge house all alone... I feel sad now. I did this to myself. 😬😭🥺

Katniss’ “Oh! The weapons!” When she sees the bows and arrows is so cute 🥰🥰🥰

Katniss has such a rage built up inside of her. Let it out, girlfriend

See, I’d have done this too but in my rage, I’d probably have shot a real person and not the pig ... goodbye, Plutarch 👋🏻

Andddd I think that’s all for this chapter! Sorry my comments weren’t as interesting as usual 😬.