#this is specifically about a place i visit every year

[butterymangowrites]

ten years in the making

paring: bakugou katsuki x fem reader

warnings: smut, non-con/dub-con, no-quirks au, high school love confession, unrequited love turned very requited, almost non-con threesome, feels like cheating (but technically not), no cheating though, fuck boi bakugou, pining reader, obsessive/possessive bakugou, running away, biting, marking, creampie, breeding kink, angst, toxic relationship

word count: 6.2k

You still had the love letter you handed to him when you were both in high school. His spiky blonde hair was pretty under the spring sun, red eyes examining the envelope in your hands with a disgusted look on his face. 

On the rooftop of the school building, the wind blew extra hard. The chill of winter that lingered in the breeze made your face cold, but it was the rejection from Katsuki that numbed your whole body. 

“Take that shit away,” he sneered. “Be lame somewhere else. I don’t like you.” 

It was pathetic how you fixated on him because he helped you once from a petty thief who tried to steal your wallet. You shouldn’t have liked him that much, not when he was so clear in his stance on how he felt about you. But you were also just a girl, and girls had crushes on Bakugou Katsuki—you were just one of many, but no doubt the most pathetic one. 

Cause while others grew out of their crushes eventually, you did not. And Katsuki, being the spawn of the devil that he was, started to see you as some sort of entertainment. 

You followed him through university, enrolling in the same one. You begged your mom to stay at a dorm near campus, the same dorm Katsuki told you he would stay in. He lied. You knew on the moving day because he texted you photos of his new place from the front of the building to the room with an obviously different layout. 

The text said, ‘lol you really thought u got me huh?’ 

That sentence needed commas, and you… needed to get a grip. Yet, you did not. 

Still trying to be close to him, you went to every party he went to, even if it meant you had to see him with a different woman each time. He never stuck with one, telling you he was easily bored and that was why you and him would never happen. Because you were a soppy, hopeless romantic who would wait for him like a dog waiting for its owner to come home—his words. 

“When will it get through your thick skull, dog?” Katsuki rapped on your forehead with his knuckles. “You’re not my type.” 

Well, his type exited the room just now, leaving only you and a very naked Katsuki in it. He loomed over you menacingly close, trying once again to talk some sense into you, albeit in a very mean fashion. Tonight, he was particularly cruel. After texting you to buy him a box of condoms—stating a specific brand, flavor, and size—he made you sit and watch until the very end. 

You pretended to pay attention, but what you really looked at was the wall behind the scene playing in front of you. 

“I’ll pick you up tomorrow at ten.” You changed the subject, ignoring his hot breath that fanned over your face.

“Yeah, mom misses you like hell,” he jeered. “How did you do it, inserting yourself into my family?” 

It was simple, actually, just offering to drive him home for a monthly family visit with a gift for his mom and dad every time, without fail, even though he got his own car. His mom, Mitsuki, never trusted his driving skills anyway, saying he was too reckless. So she was grateful for you, to the point of inviting you over for dinner as thanks whenever you dropped her son home, and you accepted the kindness. 

Katsuki would roll his eyes, but he let it all happen, cause why would he say no to a personal chauffeur? All he had to do was sit prettily and blast his one-hour playlist until the car was parked in front of his childhood abode. And after eating and helping with the dishes, you would be gone, back to your own family house a couple of streets away—convenient. 

You knew you were just a tool to Katsuki, his lackey, but you were also as stubborn as a mule. 

And as dumb as a clown… 

After many years hounding for Katsuki’s attention, you finally got it when you were both twenty five. The first time he kissed you, he was drunk in your apartment. He was frustrated with a colleague who screwed up an important meeting with a potential client and decided to come rant your ears off with two packs of beer—one for him, one for you. 

You never thought the night would end up with him pinning you to the floor, his mouth devouring yours and his hands popping the buttons of your work shirt until your bra-clad tits showed. 

“Thought you would follow me anywhere,” said Katsuki, red eyes locked onto you from where he was, face nestled between the soft mounds of your breasts. “But you chose a different company, live far away from me, texting seven times in seven months. Traitor.” 

“You’re heavy.” Your words struggled to come out. From when he used to be lanky and the same height as you, he was none of that now. The growth spurt hit him like a freight train. In the blink of an eye, he grew into a giant of a man, tall and filled with muscles, even more so now that he was in his salaryman era. You wondered how he still found time to work out as often as he did when you barely caught any sleep. 

After graduation, you both landed jobs in different companies. And if you were being honest with yourself, you would say the reason you accepted the offer was partly because running after Katsuki and answering his every beck and call started to… tire you. Forced by duty and responsibility, it helped you distance yourself away from him. Cause Lord, you doubted you could have done it on your own.

Getting his text today saying he would come visit, you were dumbfounded, even thinking it was a joke til you got another text an hour later saying he arrived.

You shouldn’t have let him in, shouldn’t have reconnected. You were almost off the noose before he came and adjusted the knot, tightening it. After that night, he came visit once a week on Friday. Kisses slowly evolved into soft touches, then heavy petting, and finally—sex. 

Fucking your brain out, that was what he did most of the times, leaving your ass red and face wet from crying. On rare occasions, it was slow, deep, like he wanted to mold you into the shape of his cock. But all was intense, asking for eye contact and name-saying, and it was Katsuki who did the asking, which surprised you to no end. 

“You wanna come home? Mom and dad miss you,” mumbled Katsuki one autumn night. It had been three months since that first drunken kiss. “They got a new dog. But old people are always lonely, hell knows why.”

With that, not only him, but the monthly visit returned, too. 

Their dog was a loudmouthed chihuahua named Katsumi. It barked at you non-stop from the moment you got out of the car, louder when Mitsuki raced out the front door to hug you. After dinner, it found you and Katsuki in the laundry room with its master’s teeth nibbling down your neck and barked snappily, making Katsuki jump.

When you let out a roar of laughter, his eyes widened with a look of what seemed like wonder. His pupils dilated when he leaned down to take your lips in a fierce kiss. For a moment, everything was perfect. 

Had you mentioned being dumb? 

A month later, there was a knock on your door. Katsuki hips slowed down mid-pounding before he stepped back from you and the bed, leaving you empty. 

“Keep your ass up. Don’t fucking move.”

You only let out a soft hum as a response, not understanding why or who would be here at this hour. Were you too loud? Maybe someone was here to complain. You pondered, face still down against the soft mattress with your rear up as instructed. Katsuki would handle them, whoever they were. 

“Well, I see why you never call anymore, Katsuki-kun.” 

The voice was close, too close—its owner was in the bedroom with you. When the realization hit, you bolted, shooting out of your position and scooting back, all the while pulling the duvet up to shield your nakedness from the newcomer’s eyes.

She was a woman about your age and height, standing at the foot of the bed in a skimpy dress. 

“Do me a favor. Shut the fuck up,” said Katsuki, confirming they really did know each other. 

It was like your brain stopped functioning. You saw Katsuki walking towards you but was too slow to think what your next move should be. So you let him pull you to him by the duvet because you wouldn’t let go of it. When he sat you on his lap, you felt something wet gliding down your cheeks.

“Hush now, princess.” He wiped the dripping drops with both of his thumbs. “You seriously thought our relationship was exclusive? You thought you fixed me?” 

Another set of fat tears cascaded down when he kissed you, seasoning the kiss salty. 

“Seven months, seven texts, no calls,” he said. “Who do you think you fucking are, leaving me like that?”

You knew, you knew it was too good to be true. And when he turned to the other side to kiss the woman who was now naked and sitting on the bed—your bed–beside him, you also knew it was time to let go. The silly crush, the well-kept love letter, the admiration that you should have weaned off long ago—they all needed to go. 

Getting up from his lap while he was distracted, you gathered your clothes off the floor and left the bedroom without turning back. You got dressed in the living room and closed the front door silently when you left the apartment. You didn’t want him to hear, not wanting to cause a scene, not wanting to see him anymore. 

You were sitting in the car in the apartment parking lot, trying to find a hotel to crash at when you got a text from Katsuki.

‘you thought you got me huh?’ 

You blocked him. 

There was only a month left on your apartment’s lease; you would give a notice to your landlord tomorrow that you would move. Everything would be alright, you told yourself. Katsuki might never bother you anymore since he had got what he wanted—your absolute humiliation.

It was different from that one time he told you to stay and watch him rail the life out of that girl when you were in college. At that time, you knew you were nothing to him, knew he did that to hurt you. This time, you thought you were something to him. And it hurt, a thousand times worse to realize that you weren’t, and that he still wanted to hurt you. 

—

Shit, shit, shit, shit. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. 

Those were the only words spinning around in his head since you were gone, really gone. You walked out of that door so fucking demurely. Even when he stopped kissing his ex-booty call to listen, he didn’t hear you wail or see you come crawling back. 

So he texted, leaving the girl he called here to demean you to quickly type on his phone. When the message was marked ‘read’ but got no response, he cursed, “Fuck!” 

“Come on, Katsuki-kun. Let’s have some fun,” the girl whined. 

“Sh!” He shushed her, still tapping the screen.  

She probably looked at him like he was possessed by an evil spirit, but he couldn’t care less. 

‘Who did you think you were? My gf? Lol.’

He was so in a hurry he forgot to type in lowercase. 

‘Lovesick foll’

‘*fool’

‘Where u going’

‘Dont wanna watch’

‘?’

You didn’t read at all except for the first text. That made him get off the bed and get dressed, running out of the apartment to punch the elevator down to the first floor. When he exited the building, your sedan was already on the street; he saw the taillights, remembered the plate. It got farther in each second that passed, and there was not a darn thing he could do about it. 

Fuck, shit, fuck, shit, fuck shit, fucking fuck. 

For some reason he knew, this time, you were gone for good. Not an absence the next day at school after he told you he lost his virginity to some girl in another class, not the seven months with a few texts to check in with him. This time, it was for good. 

Like hell he was gonna let that happen. 

—

You ended up staying at the hotel for a week, scared Katsuki might still be lurking around. While you knew he got his biggest fill of breaking you this time, you wanted to be sure. Then, as soon as you found a new place, you moved out. 

At work, you asked your boss, Aizawa, for a transfer to another branch, telling him it was for personal reasons. You swore you saw him squint his weary eyes, but after asking you a couple more questions, he agreed nonetheless.

“If it were stress, it’d be no different in another branch. Hope you know that,” Aizawa drawled. 

“I do, sir,” you replied, tired from the poor quality of sleep your situation and the hotel bed gave you. 

“And as soon as possible, you say?”

“Yes, sir,” you affirmed. “Please.” 

The transfer was done in one week, all thanks to your boss. 

Restarting your mundane life, it took two months for you to regain some sort of peace found in everyday’s routine—waking up, going to work, coming home, sleeping, waking up again. There was no contact from Katsuki, only the ghost of his taunts that came hand in hand with the memories of his caresses you could not dispel remained, making guilt creep up your spine every time you touched yourself to climax imagining it was his hand. 

You would find someone else. You and Katsuki, it was ten years in the making. You were fifteen years old on that rooftop, confessing to a boy you thought was the most beautiful person in the world, having no clue how your action would play out. It would not be possible to banish those ten years in two months, no matter how despicable he was to you. And that was a shame. 

It took one phone call from Mitsuki to disrupt your normalcy. 

“I just wanted to know how you were doing, honey.” said Katsuki’s mom, sounding worried. “It’s just—you’re gone again, like those months. And Katsuki won’t tell me what’s going on, which means something must have happened. I need to—I—”

She was trying to find words, and you didn’t want to interrupt. 

“I need to know you’re okay.” She finally let it out. “Just come visit, honey. You don’t have to bring my son.”

“We miss you.” 

It was those words that brought you to the Bakugou house the following weekend. 

“Oh, honey.” Misuki stopped before you, eyeing you from head to toe. Katsumi barked incessantly, all the while trying to sniff the bag of fresh-baked cookies you bought for the family. When the woman beckoned you to come close and enfolded you in her arms, you teared up a bit. 

“That airhead of a son,” the older woman grumbled. 

Getting in the house thwarted all the cold delightfully. You put your coat on the couch next to where you sat, waiting for the tea Mitsuki said she was going to get. You always liked the Bakugou house, asking Katsuki to walk him home every day just to see it from the outside. He never let you in. Ironically enough, it was never him who invited you in, it was his mom. 

Where was Mitsuki now? You looked around for the matriarch, but instead, you saw Katsuki. 

“About time you showed up.” 

There was so much fighting, so much push and pull, and trying to run away, and crying for help; yet, no one came. Katsuki had to carry you on his shoulder to go upstairs because you resisted profusely and refused to walk on your own. 

Door closed, lock clicked. A second later, you were dropped on his bed unceremoniously. You had never been in his room before and didn’t want to now. But since there was no choice, you took the opportunity to look around, taking everything in. 

His room was so… boy. A drum set in one corner, an expensive-looking gaming PC in another with a shelf filled with mangas and action figures next to it, posters of his favorite anime character plastering all over the walls. 

You remembered he liked All Might, the blonde-haired hero from a shonen manga you didn’t read but knew every detail from Katsuki’s ceaseless babble. You even broke into your savings buying a dozen raffle tickets till you won the big prize—a large figure he said he was saving up for—and gave it to him as a birthday present. 

He probably didn’t keep it. 

“Don’t be mad at mom, okay? I was on my knees begging her for help. That was on me,” Katsuki spoke softly, as if he was trying not to spook you. “Old hag hit me so hard dad had to intervene. But I’m her son. You understand, right? She would never abandon me.”

It was him between you and the door; you just needed to get past him, unlock the door and run. Slowly, you got out of the bed to stand on your own feet. The moment they touched the floor, however, was brief. Because Katsuki leaped from where he stood, taking him only two strides before he got you again. 

Back on the bed, you fought him tooth and nail, punching, kicking, biting, while he tried to sedate you with a soothing voice. But there was nothing soothing or gentle about this man—a monster. You saw through him. 

His grip on your wrists was immovable, anchoring you to the bed with one hand. He caged your body with his, examining you like a predator sizing up its prey, his presence all domineering, demanding obedience. 

“Shhh, settle down. I’m not gonna hurt you,” he coaxed. 

“Let me go!” 

All you could move now was your legs, which you did to your best ability, but to no avail. Katsuki waited it out, allowing you to try however you want to get away without saying anything. Eventually, you stilled, so exhausted you couldn't move anymore. 

“There, there. That’s my good princess,” he murmured, his usual harsh features softening. 

Frustration brought tears to your eyes. It took less than you thought, easier than expected, to suck it all up and spill everything that occupied your mind. 

“What do you want? What do you want from me, Katsuki? I'm sorry I confessed to you that day. It was pathetic. I was pathetic. But please—please.” Your voice got hoarse and lost at the second please. You had to cough to get it back. “I have learned my lesson. You and me, it will never happen—will never work out. I know that now. I get it, believe me, I do,” you choked through your tears, pleading. “I won't like you anymore, Katsuki, so please—let me go.” 

“Like me?” he reiterated. “I thought you loved me.”

“What?” 

He sighed, his free hand searching for something in one of his sweatpants’ pockets. When he pulled his hand out, you saw a letter—the one you gave it to him and got rejected. All these years, it had been kept with you, safely in your trinket box. Now, it was in his hand, opened. He finally accepted it, but at what cost? 

“I need you to read it to me,” he commanded, “out loud.” 

“Please, don’t make me do this.” 

“Listen,” he said. “I’m going to let go of your wrists and give you this letter that you wrote for me, and you’re going to read it—word—for—word.” He used the envelope to brush down the bridge of your nose. “If you tear it up—if you do, princess—I’m going to make you rewrite it. And it better be as good, if not better, than this one.”

He let go of your wrists and gave you the letter. 

“Oh, and if you run,” he added. “I’ll catch you, and we start over. Clear?” 

You nodded and took the envelope, hands shaking noticeably when you took the letter out. Everything was under Katsuki’s observation. He sat astride your thighs without putting all his weight on you, waiting patiently. 

“To Katsuki, if you are reading this, that means you accepted my letter, thank you!” You wiped tears out of your eyes to see better. “I know you get a lot of letters like this. It must be a bit of a hassle reading love confessions everyday, right? But please bear with me, I will try to keep this—” 

Interrupted, you looked past the letter and saw Katsuki lifting the hem of your sweater up and leaning down to place a kiss on your exposed stomach.

“Go on,” he prompted. “Don’t mind me. Don’t stop.” 

“I will try to keep this short,” you continued, completing the last sentence, trying to ignore the fact that your jeans were being unbuttoned and pulled down. “You know, girls in our class often say they love your hair, your eyes, but a lot of them are scared of your personality.” You felt his breath through your panties, hot. “I disagree. I think you are nice, brave, and kind. And don’t get me wrong, I love your hair and eyes too.”

“You’re cute, baby,” said Katsuki as he pried your legs open. Without taking off the underwear, he licked your pussy through it. 

“Katsuki!” 

Dragging his tongue up, he mumbled, “Keep reading.”

“And I love you.” You read on and saw his eyes roll back at that specific sentence. 

Suddenly, he switched from licking to sucking, making the crotch all wet with his saliva. You were preparing to read the next part when he made it all the more difficult by moving aside the damp fabric and rubbing his face into your naked cunt. His nose, lips, chin, all soaked in your embarrassing glossy juice. You cursed yourself for giving in, for getting wet. 

“Did I tell you to stop?” 

You let out a sob, raising the letter in your hands up again to read. 

“I know we don’t know each other well, and this feeling is not reciprocated—”

Why did he have to slurp the juice like that? He made it hard, so hard for you. 

“I’m—just a classmate after—all. But what I said, I said it with—a sincere—heart. So even if—you don’t love me back, please—let me keep—this feeling, I promise I—will treasure it.”

Panting sharply, you stopped before the next paragraph when you felt his tongue massaging your clit. Grasping his hair with both of your hands, you forgot you still held the letter. There was an audible scrunch when it was crumpled up in one of your fists.

Katsuki stopped dead in his tracks, glaring up from below; his red orbs seemed redder all of a sudden. “Did you just crumple the letter?” 

You pulled your hands back quickly when you realized, strengthening out the paper as best as you could. The creases weren’t that bad. You showed it to him, ensuring that it was still intact. 

He relaxed. You released a held breath. 

Back to concentrating on the handwritten texts, this time, you vowed to not look at him anymore and would just just read through everything as fast as you could—getting it done. Nevertheless, when he was back on eating your pussy and pride out, it did not get easier, Katsuki still managed to make you writhe like your life depended on it. 

“One more thing, I don’t know if you remember, but thank you for—saving me that day in front of the mini mart.” You tried to recall the event, the beginning of everything. “The thief would have—hurt me, and I would have lost—my wallet.” 

And it was just that, just you trying to yank your wallet back from the thief's hands, the popsicle you just bought lying on the ground, melting. The store staff was on the phone with the police—you heard it—but they didn’t come out. Katsuki did. 

When the thief was about to lay his hand on you, the blonde haired boy whom you recognized as your classmate kicked him in the shin. Moving fast, Katsuki then slammed his school backpack on the thief’s head, once, twice, thrice, on and on until he knocked him out. 

“You were my hero.” You read the last sentence, finishing the letter as he finished you.

You set the paper down on your side, finally freed from the evidence of your teenage self’s stupidity. Feeling weightless from the orgasm, all you could do was stare at the ceiling. After what felt like forever, Katsuki appeared in your field of vision, hovering over you, now shirtless… and pantless. You weren’t aware when he took them off, too lost in your own world. 

“You can't just stop loving me,” he said before bending down to kiss your cheek, then whispered, “Take responsibility. Be true to your words, dumbass.” 

“Katsuki, you’re being selfish.” You turned your face away, fleeing him.  

His red eyes sharpened. “After all this time you have showered me with love and attention, and you want to—take it away?” 

“There will be others who love you and give you all the attention you need,” you argued. “I’m not that person.”  

“No! Fucking no! Shut up!” he barked, turning your face back to him and silencing you with a kiss. 

Even with the heater warming up the room, the cold air that seeped through the walls and windows still reached your naked form. After being rid of your sweater, bra, and drenched panties, the only warmth you could find was from Katsuki’s body. And he made sure to share it with you so generously. 

Pain after pain, bite after bite. Katsuki would not stop no matter how desperately you begged him to. Your skin was his canvas, not only your neck, but your cheeks, breasts, belly, arms, thighs, calves; they were tender and hurt to touch. You would have to refrain yourself from looking into the mirror for too long, maybe. Luckily it was winter, this way, nobody would bat an eye if you covered yourself up like it was minus twenty celsius. 

“I’m gonna fuck you raw, okay? Haven’t fucked anyone since you left. You gotta take care of me, princess.” 

“Don’t bullshit me,” you returned. “You fucked that girl.” 

And it still hurt just thinking about it.

“Did not.”

Even so, had he gone mad? He sounded like it. Wearing condoms was the strictest rule of his when it came to sex. As far as you knew, he never broke it once, not for anyone, not for you. But you could be wrong—you didn’t want to—because now, he actually looked eager to go through with it, fucking you bareback.

Too risky, too intimate. 

“You’ll regret it. Please just—think before you act.” 

Trying to reason with Katsuki, you also attempted to move away. Big mistake. Catching you by your thighs, he forced himself closer and wrapped your legs around his waist. Then, he placed his unshielded cock on your folds and pushed it down a bit for the head to slither in, just the tip, nothing more. 

“Katsuki, no!” 

“Katsuki, yes,” he said, mockingly, and shoved it all in.  

—

The bed shook and squeaked annoyingly from how hard he rammed into your tight weeping hole, but the moans you were trying, but not so successfully, to suppress were so adorable he was able to overlook it and focus on you instead. He never knew his bed did this, never brought anyone home to fuck before. 

He almost spilled in the first five minutes, having to slow down to prolong the feeling of being wrapped and rubbed by a pussy, skin to skin. And you—lying there with your brows frowned and tits bouncing—did not help shit. Trying feebly to push him away when he swooped down for a kiss only stirred up his excitement, making him go rougher until you gasped and gave in.

What a soft and tempting little lamb you were. He wanted to brand you with his cum and give you his fucking name, knocking you up with a couple of brats for you and him to take to school and hear a teacher address you as Mrs. Bakugou with his own ears.

Since the day you handed him that letter, you had never been anyone else’s but his. Must have been fate, he didn’t know, didn’t care about a what-if either. His only regret was that he could have had a taste of you sooner, but he would call it a story arc and leave it at that—he had you now anyway. 

“Say my name, princess,” he demanded.

“Kat—suki.”

“Again.”

“Katsuki!”

This was worth it. The tirade of rebuke his mom delivered to his ears and the smacks on the head while saying she never taught him to be like this when he came clean about what he did to you—all was worth it. 

“I’ll get her back, mom,” Katsuki convinced. “We’ll get her back.” 

“You better.” 

It was convenient that his mom already liked you as if you were the one who popped out of her vagina and not him. Well, they were the same in that aspect. Who would have thought it would come to this day, the day he wanted to trap you in his home, when just a decade earlier, he would never have had the slightest idea of granting you the permission to step past the front gate. 

“She’s a good kid,” his mom commented. “The same girl who walked you home and bought you that All Might figure, no?” 

“Yeah.” Katsuki rolled his eyes. 

“Aha.” 

“Will you help me or not?” he asked, irritated. He had been kneeling at her feet for like fifteen minutes. 

“Watch your tone, boy.” Mitsuki’s voice hardened. His dad’s hand over her shoulder rubbed gently to calm her quick temper down. 

“Tch!” 

The tiny mutt chose that moment to strut into the living room, stealing his mom’s attention. She leaned down to pick it up and put it on her lap. It looked down at him, tongue lolling out of its mouth. Conceited little fucker. 

“You know why I named her Katsumi, Katsuki?” 

“Oh, don’t give me that shit.” 

“Katsuki,” his dad said in a reprimanding tone. 

“She reminds me of you, angry for no reason, always bark, bark, bark. It gets lonely around here, so why not.” Mitsuki smiled, scratching her new child’s head. “And you—remind me of her.”

Katsuki squinted his eyes, kinda knew where this was going. 

“A dog, waiting for its owner to come home.” 

She was not wrong. 

“Yes, I will help you, son.” 

A series of bangs on the door broke through the memory and his euphoria. He just came, hard, pouring his pent-up, ripe seeds far up your cunt, and someone wanted to butt in now? Katsuki huffed, but refused to get up and find out who wanted what, dead set on keeping you plugged up. 

Another rapping on the door, then a voice followed. “That’s enough, Katsuki. Let the poor thing out.” 

Of course, it had to be his mom. 

“Go away, hag.” 

“Bakugou Katsuki!” 

“We’ll be out!” 

Just not now. He omitted, and it worked. Mitsuki carried a string of grumbles and footsteps with her, leaving nothing behind. Katsuki turned to you, still under him, in time to see you avert your gaze away. Cute. 

“Can I go now?” you asked. 

“No.” He changed positions, turning over onto his back and getting you on top of him, cock still snug inside your walls. He hoped he didn’t spill a single drop.

“Katsuki, I don’t want to fight anymore.” 

“Then don’t, baby.” 

“I can’t live like this. Please”—you pleaded with your eyes—“don't hurt me anymore.” 

He couldn’t help but feel a pang in his heart at your frail tone. Looking at you, he saw a woman with dark rings under her eyes, beautiful, but she looked like she had seen better days—a stark contrast to the girl who held out a letter towards him on that spring day, wind in her hair, kindness abundant enough to share. 

Before he knew it, words were out of his mouth. “I wish I had hurt you less.” 

It would not have been possible for him to not hurt you at all. He knew himself well enough to believe otherwise. He also knew, for certain, how he would like the story to go. 

“Do you still love me? Like you wrote in that letter.” he whispered. “Am I still your hero, princess?”

“You don’t”—you gritted your teeth—“have the right to ask me those questions.” 

“I’ll be yours. I want to.” And fuck, he really did, just thinking about it woke his flaccid cock up, rigid again inside of you. Putting his hands on both of your asscheeks, he grinded you up and down. “Do you still love me?”

You kept quiet, unyielding, only small, faint gasps could be heard. 

“Guess that’s not important.” Katsuki decided. “I’ll keep you first—fuck the answer out of you later.”

Panic flashed upon your expression at his declaration, and gasps turned into lustful whimpers when he started slamming your hips up and down his erect shaft.

“How long are you gonna make me wait? A year? A decade? As revenge, maybe?” He took your sweet mouth, hand pressing down the nape of your neck to keep it still. “House will be full of brats by then, but take your time, princess.”

“This will never work out. It won’t. It won’t,” you cried, shutting your eyes tight. “I can’t share you.”

Katsuki didn’t know why, but you not wanting to share him was sexy as shit. The mere thought of sharing you, however, made him want to put something on fire. Was this jealousy people were talking about? It burnt like a bitch. 

“Who said anything about sharing?” he grunted, slapping your jouncing ass, making you squeal. “And this goes both ways, princess. Don’t think I would let anyone touch you.” 

He was pissed just imagining it, which was nowhere near healthy, but who wanted that. He just wanted you, in any way he possibly could. 

“I’m—I’m gonna come,” you spluttered, convulsing around him. 

“That’s it. Come on my cock, baby. Make your man proud.” 

Your velvety walls tightened, constricting his cock and milking it when ropes of cum shot out. 

Sucked dry and spent, Katsuki closed his eyes and tried to rein in his breath. When he reopened them, it was to check if you were still with him—you were, resting on his chest with one cheek against it. Out of cuteness aggression, he pinched the other side.

You let out a short screech. “That hurt!”

The thought of marking you reared its head, biting where it hadn’t been bitten yet, hurting you a little more. But he stifled it, saving it for later. 

Steering himself to another matter, he said, “You never texted me back.”

“I blocked you.” 

“Figured.” Katsuki nodded. 

“Deserved.”

“Unblock me.”

You sighed.

—

The messages wouldn’t go through even if you unblocked him. That was how the application worked, which was fine with him. Scrolling through the one-sided chat, he could sense urgency and desperation through each letter, and some messages actually sounded mental. It would be for the best if you didn’t see them. 

‘Answer’ 

‘i didn’t fuck her, she left. Now fucking answer’ 

‘come back, i wont be mad. where u at.’ 

‘I am still at your apartment, u. didn’t come back. where r u’ 

‘i fucking found your letter. i’ll find u too’ 

“You—kept my present?” 

Katsuki looked up from his phone to your towel-swathed form, fresh out of the shower. Following your line of sight, he was directed to the bottom of the bookshelf where an All Might figure was set—his seventeenth birthday present from you. It was one of his top favorites, but he would never tell you that.

“I’m not stupid enough to throw things I like away, I’ll have you know.” He scowled and went back to scrolling on his phone. 

‘so u moved away huh?’ 

‘need you. don’t wanna fuck my hand anymore :(’ 

‘never mind, bitch’ 

‘u love me huh?’ 

‘Pathetic’ 

‘didnt mean that’ 

‘need u’ 

‘i'm an attention seeking whore who abuses your love to get the validation i want.’

‘sorry’ 

‘there i said it.’ 

‘now come back’ 

Yeah, you didn’t have to know any of that.

[yup-no-way]

Astrocartography

ꨄ A brief guide and introduction ꨄ

I am so close to crashing out. Tell me why I was almost done writing this blog and then guess what. It got “saved as a draft”. Spoiler! It wasn’t in drafts and now I have to rewrite it… it’s alright, you can laugh ߹ ᯅ ߹

I’m going to say what I said initially here (before this app deleted my whole blog…). The reason why I got so into astrocartography is because it worked for me personally. The country (and city) that I currently live in falls under my sun trine MC aspect line, which is amazing for my career and development. Mind you I never even knew about astrocartography until this year, but even before I moved here, when I was just visiting the country, I felt such a weird attraction to this place. It was insane. I am so glad that I did move here. The amount of opportunities, and leadership positions I was pushed into are crazy.

Also, since this post took so long to write, I just wanna apologise. I was on break and as soon as I finished, I had to go back to the grind. I didn’t get to post at all. I’m just waiting for the exam season to end and for this year to end so I can be more constant with my posts. The reason why this post took so long to write it’s also because I wrote so much and it took me a horrible amount of time to compile all the necessary info. But I hope you guys enjoy it. If you have any personal experiences with living on a specific line, please leave a comment so I can read it (since I’m so nosy).

This blog should not be taken as your only decision factor to move or travel to a country. Please make sure you check the laws or regulations of each country before you decide to move/travel to a certain country. Do your own research. People with bad intentions can be found anywhere so make sure you are safe and don’t make irrational choices if travelling alone. This post is meant as guidance ONLY. The final choice is yours. Stay healthy and glowing xoxo

What is astrocartography?

So when your beautiful soul gets placed in a physical vessel, the planets and celestial bodies in the sky have certain positions. Those positions will reflect not only on your birth chart, but also on your astrocartography chart, which shows precisely the lines formed by those celestial bodies and planets.

When looking at your astrocartography chart it’s also important to keep your birth chart in mind because it can have an influence on how you experience certain lines alongside other factors that will be discussed later on in this blog.

An astrocartography chart has major lines and aspect lines. In this blog we will focus on the major lines and in the second part we will talk about the aspect lines (for some reason they r severely overlooked online, which is weird since I believe those are more accurate).

How do I access my astrocartography chart?

It’s easyyyy. There are multiple free calculators online that can calculate your chart. The one that I use is provided by “Astro.com”. You are more than welcome to use other sites tbh, but I like this one cause it has ur aspect lines, and it has them nicely sectioned as positive and negative aspects, which makes it easier to understand for people who aren’t as familiar with all the little details of astrology.

If you search “Astro.com astrocartography chart” it should pop up. After you fill in your details, you will automatically be presented with a map that has multiple colored lines. That is your chart. Zoom in and out as much as you want to be able to navigate the map.

For those who don’t always remember every symbol associated with each planet (just like me frl), here is a small image that can help you with that:

Every line is color coded with the symbol. I know the map is crowded, especially if you zoom out, but just you wait till we get to the aspect lines. It’s a soup of colours.

How do I read my chart?

Ok, so few things before we start. If you look closer you will see next to every planetary symbol, a few letters, AC/DC/IC/MC.

Bear in mind, every planet or comical body has a certain influence on an area of your life. And the positions next to it represent how that will mostly manifest.

AC: it’s all about YOU. Your inner development, your inner self, your IDENTITY. You will embody the energy of the planet physically or behaviourally.

DC: this is all about your relationships, whether platonic, professional or romantic. You are going to attract the planet’s energy through other people/connection you make.

IC: this is your roots, your home, your traditions even and your emotions. You will feel this planets influence in your home environment and this position is deeply transformative.

MC: here comes the moneyyyy. Ok so this position is about your public recognition, your career and it’s such a good boost. You’ll feel it through how the world sees you. Great planet for massive recognition in your field.

It’s also really important to check your personal birth chart alongside your astrocartography chart to be able to get the most accurate interpretation.

Please mind that there isn’t inherently a good line or a bad line. Each line is supposed to teach you certain things. Every line will have its ups and downs and depending on what you are searching to achieve, the lines can help you achieve it faster. Mind you that at the end of the day, it is up to you to put in the effort to get what you want. Astrocartography shows you where the flow of energy is smoother, allowing for certain things to manifest easier.

Now that we covered the basics, let’s dive in!

Sun line:

AC: you just radiate love. This line will make you shine for who you are and it will bring you closer to your true self. Great line for self love and acceptance. Your presence alone is charming and it grabs attention wherever you go. If you feel like your life feels stagnant and you wanna rediscover yourself, travel hereeee.

In positive it will give u crazy confidence, it will make you more self fulfilled and self actualised. Good for taking up new projects such as business or any project that puts you in a leadership role since this line will make you feel more comfortable under this position.

In negative this line is quite draining making you feel like you have to be always ready for anything. A lot of pressure to always perform effortlessly and perfectly. Can lead to burnout. So please manage your boundaries and expectations well.

Overall if you want to start a personal brand or a business. Going for a solo trip or a rediscovery trip is going to work well for you. You will find yourself more aligned with yourself and your purpose.

DC: this is your time to shine in terms of relationships. Like the way you’ll attract people by the way you walk, talk and just breathe is insane. Your relationships (platonic and professional included) are going to be transformative for you. They r going to be this relationships that change the way you see yourself. You’re going to be uplifted and confident. You are going to understand yourself better. You are going to attract strong willed, fun and loving people in your life. Your friendships are going to be meaningful and active and your romantic interests might be good future spouse material. You are attracting romantic partners that are determined and basically embody the archetypal sun energy (might even be conventionally attractive). These relationships can even bring you some exposure to a larger audience depending on your chart.

In positive you are a magnet for relationships of substance. You are going to be fulfilled.

In negative you can tend to lose yourself to relationships and connections. Please be aware that you are yourself, not your friends, not your partner. Don’t be afraid to be authentic, even if it goes against the wave.

Overall good for meeting potential long term relationships. Good for networking and work partnerships.

IC: when I say you are going to feel connected to this place, I mean it. Every IC line brings such a deep connection to the country/city specifically. While AC and DC are about external factors. IC is from within. You are going to find your confidence and comfort through your stay in this line. Good place for a vacation home. This is the line that you go to when you need to feel rooted and you need a sense of stability. You might become more introverted or at least interested in going outside since your home will be your comfort zone. The self care here is going to be intense and you will enjoy every second of it. Nurturing your home and your inner home (aka your soul) is going to make you the best self actualised version of yourself. You might even start a tradition that will stick w you here. Like maybe you’ll start a new interest for collecting magnets here. Just an example.

In positive you are going to feel emotional clarity and security. You might be able to connect with some ancestral roots. Maybe you feel like this was your home in a previous life and now you’re reconnecting by with a lost version of yourself. Good place for a retreat. Good place for healing after a bad event in your life.

In negative is not going to give you much public exposure. If you crave a life of excitement and fun (in the traditional sense), you might not be able to find that here. It’s a more of an internal energy and it focuses on rediscovering yourself from inside.

Overall it’s good for long term home building and stable identity.

MC: love this placement so muuuuuuchhh. Not just that MC is here, but it’s on the sun line. This brings so much exposure. Opportunities come left and right. Yk how people say “if one door closes, another one will open”, well they probably lived on their sun MC line. This line is all about that. You are respected, SEEN, HEARD and admired by just embodying your authentic self. This will boost your perception of yourself. This line is genuinely a glow up from all aspects. Career recognition, public success and multiple opportunities for leadership roles. Great for starting a business her as well and amazing for career advancement.

In positive it bring your career to the top and it makes you such a boss tbh.

In negative the burnout is so strong here. If you don’t balance your life well, then you are going to fall into a constant state of tiredness. Also don’t stress about too many things. You have time to do them all.

Overall, amazing boost in popularity in whatever field you go and it can bring a lot of career satisfaction. If evolved (and also depending of other planetary aspects you have) you are also bound to be perceived positively by the larger public.

Moon line:

AC: so having the moon line which is all about your inner world and your emotions being in the AC position can make you very emotionally expressive on this line. You will be so in tune with everyone’s emotions and yours as well. You will be perceived more line your moon sign by the people around you. It’s such an amazing place for artistic expression. If you are an artist of any form, coming here to perform or create your art can increase its potential. You are going to exteriorise yourself in a very sentimental way.

In positive it can be very good for self awareness and deep understanding of your emotions. Good for emotional clarity and discovery. You’re intuitions nd empathy will be at an all time high.

In negative it can make you hypersensitive to people’s emotions and that can be quite tiring. Sometimes you will experience intense emotions and that can be hard to navigate depending on your chart and if you have learned your lessons.

Overall, I’d suggest coming here if you are an artist or need to creative inspiration of any sort (not just for art). Amazing for self expression and deep understanding of how your emotions work.

DC: if you thought sun DC is intense, then you are not ready for this. I’d argue that out of all DC lines, this is the best for deep connections. No relationships will top this one. This one is going to be either the love of your life or your worst heartbreak you ever had (the type you think of before you go to sleep). Late night convb and lingering gazes. Melancholy and deep nurturing friendships or relationships.

In positive you can have such deep transformative relationships that can lead to potential long term connections. Soulmate energy.

In negative you will experience high highs and low lows, depending on the interaction you have. Might development attachment issues or codependency. Might feel like you are like a mom to unevolved people.

Overall, best for romantic relationships and potentially if you are in the medical/caretaking field, this is a good place for you to work in.

IC: this is going to be your safe space, where your emotional side is the most burtiere and safe. I’d argue it’s the beat moon line. You are so emotionally times to this place, leaving it will feel so sad. You are going to start facing your shadow side and it is going to push healing your inner child top priority. Honestly such a beautiful place to live in.

In positive it’ll provide emotional security and peace, bring some heavy healing and it’s amazing if you want to have a good emotional family life.

In negative might be too comfortable, therefore making you attached to this place. It can also make you too isolated.

Overall, great place to settle if you are looking for some transformative emotional energy and a peaceful and secure home. Also great for a therapeutic retreat. Make sure you don’t become too isolated tho. Also if you struggle with mommy issues, some heavy shadow work can happen here.

MC: seriously if you work in the healthcare/ caregiving/ medical/ physiological/ public service industry, move HERE. This is going to literally put you out in the public eye for your ability to heal and give care to others. If you life on this line you might also be seen as the mom friend and constantly feel fulfilled when you help people out. You might be perceived as emotionally in tune, mysterious

In positive is great for certain lines of work that involve caring to others and you could get a lot of exposure for it.

In negative you can be perceived as too soft and try to be taken advantage off. Please make sure you set proper boundaries.

Overall, amazing for careers in healing and caring, therefore leading to success.

Mercury line:

AC: you are going to be perceived as more chatty and more smart. This line will open you up to intellectual development through self discovery and acceptance. You might get a boost in energy and a boost in curiosity to explore and learn. Communication will come rlly easy to you and ideas will flow in and out of your head. Mentally stimulation is everywhere.

In positive you are going to engage in very stimulating conversations and you are going to have more interest in developing yourself intellectually.

In negative you might be more prone to overthinking and that can lead to anxiety. If you struggle with that, please bear it in mind when moving here. Also be careful to think before you speak since here you are going to be more unfiltered.

Overall, GREAT, if not best place for studying. You are truly going to feel intellectually aligned with your course and will feel a desire to learn. Amazing for starting new projects and researching about them.

DC: you are going to feel a shift in your relationships. You will crave more mental stimulation and need an actual communicative person. You will engage in debates with your partner more or might attract partners that make you question yourself (in a good way). Basically the tension here is strong. You might get hyper analytical of people and try to understand more than you can. Good place if you are pursuing a psychology/ psychiatric career.

In positive you’ll attract mentally and intellectually stimulating partners and if you’re into that, this place is ideal for you. Your friendships might also be very communicative.

In negative you might tend to overanalyse the people around you. You need to learn how to balance that.

Overall, great for stimulating relationships and friendships. Great for project that require communication. Conversations might fly smoothly and be efficient.

IC: you will feel mentally safe here. Great for journaling and exploring your personal interests. Really nice for shadow work related to childhood suppressed memories. Truly understanding yourself. Amazing for verbalising your emotions in a clear and coherent way.

In positive you might experience mental peace, developing yourself internally and privately.

In negative you might tend to intellectualise your emotions and isolate yourself mentally.

Overall, if you have a remote job, this place is amazing for you. For private intellectual development this line is also good. If you are a writer, coming here might be very beneficial.

MC: nowwww, if your career is in any field that involves you having to communicate with people, this place is for you. I’d even say that if you are in a field where you do any humanitarian work, this place is good for boosting your voice. Also if you’re a singer that puts a big emphasis on their lyrics, this is also perfect for you. In this are you will be perceived as intelligent by the masses. Also teaching and any programming or coding job is amazing here.

In positive career success using your intellect is almost given, your voice will be heard and be influential, it’s amazing for launching a career

In negative you can feel always a pressure to appear smart and have every work carry a deep meaning and that can feel tiring and can lead to intellectual burnout.

Overall, if you wanna start a career here in general is very good. Making good impressions here is quite easy.

Venus line:

AC: omg so this line so amazing if you want to be noticed for your looks. You will physically look better. I swear. I personally lived on this line for such a long time and didn’t even know. Every time I came back on this line, I kept telling my friends that I feel like I am so much prettier here. GUESS WHAT I realised later I was on my Venus AC line. Not only you’ll look better, you’ll feel better and that is such an amazing feeling. The fact that I was constantly approached here and people are staring at me so much here. I even got random gifts from people just because they liked me. All I’m saying is that you will feel it here. If you wanna have a glow up, go there. Also if you want to have any physical changes done, like surgery or cosmetic or even just general aesthetic things done to you. Come HERE!

In positive you will look and feel more good about yourself and it’s a great place for modelling truly (or getting casted as a model).

In negative you might attract shallow people who mostly see you for your looks not for what you are. Make sure you don’t let this boost in looks get to your head. Venus is powerful when it comes to making you lose yourself to superficial stuff.

Overall, great for self love and aesthetic changes.

DC: WOOOOO! guys, the amount of people I saw moving to this line and finding their spouse. I even heard a story of this girl, meeting his current husband on the exact street this line fell on. Arguably the best line for finding your true love. Relationships here are also kinda dreamy and intense (but in such a nice way). I’d say even friendships and partnerships are rlly good here. Amazing line for your social and love life. (I wish my Venus DC fell on an actual country. My line is in the middle of the ocean. guess my soulmate is a fish…)

I positive, here is the most possible place to find your soulmate

In negative, you might get so absorbed in relationships that you lose focus on the physical world.

Overall, if you wanna get married/ engaged or even meet new people, here is the place for youuuu.

IC: “just a chill guy”. Home life will feel so nice and comfortable. You might even be more inclined to to heal some lineage scars from your mom side. Home here is top notch. Another great place for a vacation house if you are looking for an aesthetic, chill and indulgent life. The comfort is going to be amazinggg.

In positive, emotionally you are going to be at peace and are going to feel som comfy.

In negative, it can lead to laziness and too much indulgence. Please be balanced on any Venus line cause Venus is rlly a planet that is easy to give in.

MC: your reputation is going to flourish here. More prone to a positive reputation (but you might be perceived as a bit shallow). This place is amazing for networking, like really good. Again, any creative field of work is amazing here. ARCHITECTURE AS WELL. Like you’re projects will be knows for being really “beautiful”. Beauty Industry is in bloom here.

In positive, career boosted using your looks and charm. People are naturally inclined to want to collaborate with you.

In negative, sometimes you might be perceived as superficial and fake. Make sure you don’t lose yourself to this line and keep yourself authentic. Again classic Venus line stuff.

Mars line:

AC: if on the Venus line you would be perceived as seductive, here you are hot. You have that s appeal. You might be perceived as more aggressive and hot headed. This line pushes you to be more determined and active. You might be prone to physical conflicts more often. This line makes you feel like you are on something. You are going to be more bold and even a bit more intimidating to others. Leadership roles are hard to balance here, but if you manage to make sure you don’t get overbearing with people and don’t become to strong headed, then this line is going to lead to a successful leadership position.

In positive, more energy than ever, braver and increased confidence.

In negative, aggressive line to be honest. Heard stories of people getting in physical arguments with a lot of people and getting attacked on the streets. Please be careful. If u travel here, make sure to stay out of trouble and go with a trusted person that can protect you.

Overall, good for meeting fitness goals, making goals moves in projects and finding your inner power.

DC: relationships here are just annoying to navigate. You might feel hot and cold. One day you’re happy, the other arguing. Kinda unstable and aggressive. You might attract assertive and ambitious people. The chemistry might be very hot and you might have amazing bed life (lemme just call it that, you get what I mean). Not long term romance, but a short term fun and excitement is good here. Friends are very argumentative or you might find yourself in a lot of disagreements. Again not ideal for mutually understanding friendships, but a short term fun friendship might be ok. You might find yourself to learn how to stand up for yourself here trough these people you meet.

In positive, you will find yourself attracted fierce and ambitious people and might have good s life.

In negative, arguments and misunderstandings are heavy here. Impulsive decisions are made here. Please think not twice but thrice before making a decision.

Overall, short term flings and friends are nice. Good for learning how to stand up for yourself.

IC: this line usually indicates a harsher home environment and a lot of arguments in the house. you will have a lot of miscommunications and disagreements with your family or with the people in your home. if you’re planning on moving here and having a new person as a roommate, this might not be the best idea. This line might also push you to face some shadows that you haven’t yet, therefore it’s quite nice for understanding some areas of yourself. Your father might be in a constant state of anger and might be a big factor of your arguments in the house. BUUUT, great line for doing work in the shadows. Like slowly creating a startup without anyone knowing or writing a book without telling anyone.

In positive, focus, discipline and build inner strength and resilience.

In negative, there might be some stress in your home life and that can cause anxiety, lack of stability and so much more.

Overall great place if you want to build something on the low-key because it gives you that determination to do it but you might be in a home environment that is very stressful for you.

MC: this line makes you be seen as driven, competitive determined and resilient. You are literally gonna tap into your assertive energy. This line will make you so career focus and driven, it can lead to burn out if not balanced well. this is also really good if you wanna take charge of your own career. This line can also make you more prone to a god complex within the workspace. Make sure you don’t let this line get in between you and your coworkers. This line can make you quite arrogant and that can create some stress in the dynamic between you and your teammates. You’re going to want to dominate every project and will not want to allow space for other people to chip in.

In positive, this place is really good for taking charge, learning how to step into your “ boss” energy and stand up for your ideas.

In negative, this can cause quite some conflict in the workplace and can make you come across too domineering.

Overall, not a bad place to be in regarding your career but make sure to prioritise good communication and balance in your workplace.

Jupiter line:

AC: this line right here it’s going to manifest as luck all throughout your day-to-day life. You’re gonna feel it all around you in how people treat you, approach you, view you and overall how life feels for you. You are more likely to find random cash on the streets or receive random acts of kindness. This line will inspire you. It will inspire your creativity, your interest in learning and your desire to succeed. You are going to unlock opportunities and luck by just being yourself. Being your most authentic self here is going to work out for the best.

In positive, you are gonna get luckyyyyyyyy. Life will spoil you just because.

In negative, you may lean into a very optimistic mentality which is not inherently bad, but it can lead to delusions that will sometimes not be reached, leading to dissatisfaction.

Overall great place if you just want to be more authentic to yourself and more confident and also increase your luck. Great place for solo travelling.

DC: here relationships will broaden your perspective in life. Connections on this line will help you grow in certain areas of your life. You may attract older or wiser partners that will act as a guide. Unpopular opinion, but I also think you might attract people with higher financial possibilities on this line (hell yeah), or at least people that will help you grow financially (If you are looking for sugar daddy/mommy, this might be a place where you can start searching for it). even friendships feel expansive here. also if you’re in search for a good business partner, I could argue that this is the best line to do so.

In positive, relationships here feel supportive and mentor like, learning quite a lot from the people on this line. Good for luck in partnerships. Good for finding business partners.

In negative, gets too dependent on external validation and tend to base your self-worth on the connections you have rather than yourself.

Overall, great for partnerships of any sort success in relationships. Good place for marriage as well. If you are in a relationship, travelling here can expand your current relationship.

IC: this place is amazing if you wanna have a secure home. This place feels like home away from home. It doesn’t feel restricting and your home life might even feel liberating. Usually people that have a family on this line tend to leave a lot of space for growth and learning in the household. Self-expression might be a huge thing as well. It’s important for individuals on this line to have a lot of freedom in their home. This place is also great if you want to retreat and expand your knowledge. This place also indicates high level of abundance coming into the home. So a lot of people/families that live on this line feel like they’ve attracted the most abundance and money when they connected with their roots or home. If you want to start a family business, this line is also really good for that. This is really good for ancestral healing as well.

In positive, bring abundance in the home, inner growth and freedom to explore/expand.

In negative, might get too comfortable and feel inclined to retreat.

Overall, literally gives generational wealth potential. Great for creating a family business. Great for growth, especially in intellectually. Great for selling down or starting a family.

MC: now we are talking about opportunities and success. Your career is gonna have a boost here. Your money is going to come in. Your opportunities are going to come in. People will trust you and they will see you as a mentor. You will be perceived as wise and insightful. If you have a career that is about sharing information, this is especially good for you. Might be the place where you start a legacy. Will get professionally recognised and will get compensated monetarily for it. ouuuuu I love this place. Unless you have harsh Jupiter aspect, this place should do the job for you.

In positive, amazing for a career start and career expansion. Great for financial abundance in your career. Great for sharing your knowledge and getting recognised for it. Amazing for job opportunities and luck in your field.

In negative, just make sure you do not get too cocky. This place is amazing, but be aware that the universe will put you in your place if necessary.

Overall, just great for your career and your growth. If you just wanna visit this line keep an eye out for opportunities.

Saturn line:

AC: all the Saturn line is quite heavy to navigate. This line will make you do all the hard work. For this specific case, you might feel a bit isolated and misunderstood. You will come across this more stern and serious. If you always wanted to be taken seriously, this line is for you. All people are gonna see the seriousness oozing out of you. You might not be fully understood for who you are here. You might also feel restricted in expressing yourself here. You might feel the need to hide yourself from people. But this line is not all bad. This line will help you develop discipline and structure in your life. It will actually make you feel in tune with yourself. Even if people don’t get you, you will be able to understand yourself to a certain level that you didn’t before. This line is going to teach you self-respect. If you are searching for a place that can offer stable projects, this line is also good for that.

In positive, good for self-respect, discipline and structure. You will be forced to develop a backbone here. Great place for maturing and discovering yourself to another level.

In negative, you can feel isolated and alone. Being misunderstood for who you are or restricted for who you are is coming here. You will potentially if moving here at a young age be forced to mature earlier than necessary.

Overall, this is a lesson that a lot of Saturn lines teach. The discipline, perseverance, structure, and maturity of life will be taught to you.

DC: you might get in relationships with someone older here. Relationships here might be karmic and they might be really hard to deal with. You might feel controlled or suppressed. Connections will make you mature. Do not expect an easy flowing relationship here whether it’s romantic, platonic or a partnership. I’m not gonna lie, I wouldn’t suggest dating someone here, unless you’re ready to mature and see the harsh reality of things. It will be heavy. I’m not saying it’s the worst, but it’s not the best either. If you are currently living on this line, you might’ve experienced some transformative relationships. The lessons here are heavy. If you do somehow get into a good relationship here, is going to require a looooot of work. to the people who live on Saturn lines, stay strong. Not all relationships are this hard. Lots of love to you seriously. This line can also make you feel quite alone in a relationship.

In positive, relationships are here to help you learn and grow. They can teach self-respect and boundaries. You will learn overall a lot of lessons. If you may, call this character development.

In negative, you might feel disconnected from people. Relationships feel cold and distant and hard to navigate. A lot of karmic lessons learnt through people.

Overall, good for learning boundaries and setting standards. Learning your love style. Sometimes good for marriage. Good for clearing out karmic debt.

IC: I could go on our talking about the home dynamic on this line. It’s restricting. Depending on what house your side is in your personal chart, you might feel even more restricted in that area. home life will teach you a lot of things. You might feel disconnect from your family and your home environment. Maybe there is a lot of emphasis on growing up. People on this line might feel like they were not allowed to enjoy their childhood. If you navigate this line well though, it is amazing for clearing generational baggage. It’s a place where a lot of people either drown in or heal a lot of karma.

In positive, will find comfort in your own solitude. It’s good for creating a good foundation for yourself. If you are planning on moving here, it is going to bring a lot of unhealed family baggage to light (just make sure you heal her please, or it will bite you in the ass).

In negative, it’s pretty given. A lot of solitude and feeling restricted and suppressed. Being forced to grow up through your home. Or if you’re moving by yourself there, you might not always feel fully connected to your house (again unless you healed). This line is heavy on dealing with things that are uncomfortable for us. Nothing comes easy on this line, but once you have it, you have it.

MC: this gives me, I came from nothing and now I’m here. This line is going to teach you how to work your way up to success. The discipline, the power, the pace and the structure you take will guide you to success. I’m gonna be honest, here success doesn’t come naturally. You will have to work for it, but once it’s yours, no one can take it away from you. You will be seen as more serious by your coworkers. You might even appear as a harsh boss to some. You will not accept mediocrity. This is truly the CEO line. This is the place where you can build a business foundation that will last. And if you’ve paved your foundation well, trust me, it will last.

In positive, a career here is stable and if the work is being put in, potentially very successful and abundant.

In negative, you might feel isolated from your coworkers. You might feel restricted at work and might feel like you’re not allowed to express yourself fully in your work field. You might also have workaholic tendencies here. Please make sure you balanced yourself properly since Saturn is all about a good schedule.

Overall, quite OK for a career. It can bring huge success. It can bring a stable income. Make sure you really put in the work for it. Saturn likes to have things be earned. If you earn it though, Saturn will give you everything to wish for and return

Uranus line:

AC: you have been feeling stuck and feeling like you have been in the loop, this is the best place to come. Whether you come here to move in or to travel, you are going to go under major transformations, especially when it comes to your physical appearance. You are going to feel more bold in your fashion. You will make changes to your appearance that are gonna be more eccentric. This is gonna be all about you, and your most authentic self. Think breaking boundaries of what is hair for you or what is fashion for you. You are also going to discover yourself and experience some major eye-opening situations in terms of your personal freedom. You can be unfiltered here, but it’s not gonna be like the Mars line where that comes with arguments, this line brings you unfiltered authenticity. Also, you might discover the fun in being with yourself. So you might discover new hobbies or interests or even get into new intellectual endeavours when alone.

In positive, you are going to break all identities and are gonna gain a new discovered freedom.

In negative, this line can make it a bit hard to stay grounded. There is going to be a feeling of social instability.

Overall, there is a great place for starting something new, something more authentic to you. Self-discovery is a highlight when being on this line. Amazing four coming out of your shell.

DC: this line will bring connections that will challenge your perspective of what is normal to you. There’s a theme of commitment issues alongside this line. You might feel more prone to be single, but if you do end up in a relationship, your partner might be the type that is very eccentric and they might challenge you to grow. Relationships are gonna feel fast paced even with friends, sometimes a bit unpredictable. Also say that along this line, you might change your type or you might have some awakening in regards of what you desire in a partnership of any sort. You might tend to rationalise your emotions more on this line.

In positive, and experience relationships on a different level and they will feel fresh and electrifying. Wouldn’t say it’s the best place to find a long-term committed relationship. It’s a good place for friendships though.

In negative, expense relationship that would end up in breaking up, ghosting and instability.commitment issues are a theme here.

Overall, looking for a relationship that feels open minded and allows for freedom, this might be the life for you. Watch out for unstable partners and constant situationships.

IC: would have to say that in regards to your home life, you won’t completely feel settled here. You probably would not want to live here for the long run. Well, this is a great place for discovering what you really want in your home or what do you expect from your home life, this place won’t align with you for the long run. Through your home, you may discover new things about yourself. Maybe your residence will be the place you start hobbies or you feel most comfortable experimenting. Live with your family members on this line you might experience feeling like the “ black sheep” of the family. If you’re looking for a place that will generally make you discover certain hidden aspects of yourself that you didn’t know existed, this line is great for that, but again you might have a sense of restlessness that won’t allow for you to settle here long-term.

In positive, if you want to reinvent the way you see home, this line is amazing. Hear you might experience some detachment from your roots, allowing for personal discovery.

In negative, costly feeling restlessness and emotional detachment, making a hard to connect.

Overall, if you want to discover and reinvent yourself in this area of home life and in regards to your roots. This place is pretty good for that.

MC: in regards to your career, this place is quite good for it. If you’re planning on working in a tech, engineering, activism or start any sort of start-up, this line is going to boost that. You are more prone for going viral for the most random reasons here. Your career will feel filled with plot twists. You might visit this line with something in mind, and end up doing something completely different. People will see you as innovative, quirky, a bit detached and a visionary. Also you might be more prone to have multiple income streams here. This place is overall really good if you’re looking for inspiration or an advancement in your career. I feel like people look down on this line when it comes to career, but I find it to be a really good line for coming up with something. Also, whatever you create here might be very beneficial or extremely shocking to a lot of people.

In positive, it’s great for creative breakthroughs and having a new outlook on your projects. If you have been feeling stuck in your career or lost in your career, come here and see how your mind literally opens to so many possibilities.

In negative, if you don’t like this unstoppable change or instability, I don’t suggest you come here to work. It can be really good, but I do understand why some people might not want this type of environment. There can also be a fluctuation on how people perceive you here.

Overall, reinventing your career or your brand can go really well here. Having a start up here is also really amazing. Working in any tech, activism or engineering field here is great.

Neptune line:

AC: you will feel like you are in a dream (not in a bad or good sense). Sometimes you might feel like you are more disconnected from reality. People will perceive you as dreamy, hard to pin down and mysterious. Think manic pixie. You might be in your head a lot and you might be more prone to absorb peoples energy. Make sure you guard yourself energetically here. This place is gorgeous for a spiritual awakening and an existential crisis(yikes). You will rediscover parts of yourself in terms of spirituality or religious beliefs. you will be more interested in the occult on this line as well. You will have such an artistic and creative flow here, it’s insane. You will be more attracted towards a slower paced life. People will be attracted to your sensuality and mystery. They might even see you as a healer of some sort. Some might take advantage of that so please make sure to guard yourself.

In positive, you will be attracted to aesthetically pleasing things or at least lean into a more “ aesthetic” life. You are going to have your intuition more heightened and have a smoother creative flow.

In negative, again you might be taking advantage of, you might be prone to escapism (mind those substances please), you will experience an identity crisis and you will be more sensitive to fatigue.

Overall, great for heightened intuition and development in your healing skills. If you want to discover yourself spiritually or religiously, this line can be very fulfilling. I would say this is a good place for a healing retreat. Great to come here if you want to practice your spiritual beliefs, art, music or modelling.

DC: relationships here are hard to pin down. You never know if the person your meeting is your soulmate or it’s just an illusion. You might attract partners here that you might tend to idolise. Relationships will feel dreamy indeed, but you might create your own version of the person you’re dating. Basically, you will get in relationships with people because you like the idea you created of them, not them as a person. Relationships here can take advantage of you. Here the line between dreams and reality is thin. You might find yourself with people that do not respect your boundaries. You might find yourself in the position of healing the wounds of your partners. On the bright side, this line can also bring you closer to a soulmate like relationship. Even if it’s not a soulmate relationship, it is going to be a relationship that shapes you in some way. Going to experience a deep spiritual connection between you and your partner. You might even find it hard to move on from your exes on this line (or vice versa). Friendships here can be very fulfilling but you have to make sure you set boundaries with all the people that you meet.

In positive, relationships here will be filled with empathy and deep spiritual connection. You might receive more unconditional love here.

In negative, strong codependency in relationships and self sacrificing.

Overall, creative collaborations here can be very strong and fulfilling. If you wish to partner with someone in the musical, art or modelling field, this line is good for this.

IC: your home will feel extra safe. There is going to be a tendency of isolation and escapism. You might feel like your emotions and your thoughts are a bit foggy. It’s easy to lose yourself to delusional things. Your home is the place where you might feel the most creatively in tune. Also, your intuition might peak in your environment or when working with your roots. Basically, if you want to practice any spirituality that is tied to your origins or to familiar things, this line can really boost that. You might also genuinely get reallyyyyy vivid dreams. You can also start experiencing premonitions through your dreams. I wouldn’t necessarily say that you fully feel at home here, not because you won’t like it, but because you will feel more disconnected from reality leading to a disconnect in your home life as well

In positive, you will feel spiritually connected to your roots and my double more into your native practices. You will be more in tune with your creativity and intuition.

In negative, easy to get lost in your thoughts and you might tend to opt for unhealthy coping mechanisms. Please make sure to stay grounded on this line.

Overall, great place if you want to feel spiritually or religiously connected. This will unlock a new perspective on this area of your life. Not a bad line, just you might tend to find it hard to stay grounded.

MC: owwwwww! If you r in any artistic or create a field this line is amazing for you. The way you will feel the creativity flow in your work life is insane. You will have more of an unusual approach to your work. You might also bring an ethereal or mystical vibe to your craft. You will be perceived as mysterious by the masses. If you work in the art, film, musi, acting, modelling or any career that focuses on spirituality and aesthetics, I suggest working here. One downside is that you might luck direction or you might struggle with going through with what you planned. If you make sure that you balance that and bring some structure to your life, this line will be amazing for your field.

In positive, great for a lot of fields that are require creativity. You will be more mysterious to people and that can attract quite some popularity.

In negative, might experience some career confusion and lack of boundaries in your workplace.

Overall, again great for creative fields and popularity based on your mysteriousness.

Pluto line:

AC: this line is overall hard to navigate, especially if you have harsh Pluto aspects. One thing you are going to experience on this line especially, is change in who you are. You are going to doubt your principles, your morals, your identity and your habits. This line is all about transformation. It’s good if you are going through an identity crisis and you want to completely reinvent yourself, but I wouldn’t generally suggest to stay here long-term. You’ll be perceived as intense and even harsh sometimes. this is going to be a line that will truly transform your whole identity, from the way you talk, you walk and you behave. I personally would tell people that if they are looking for some change in their life, then they should visit this line, it will stir stuff up. Just like all Pluto lines though, having this constant destroying and rebuilding energy can feel a bit tiring or draining. If you work with yourself, you will find out that by the end of your stay, you became a whole new version of yourself that is more powerful.

In positive, you will be more magnetic and you will reinvent your whole identity. This line might even lead to some clarity when it comes to yourself.

In negative, this line will make you feel really lonely. It will also make you feel like you are in a constant battlefield. More prone to burn out here.

Overall, great place for discovering and reinvention. Mostly would suggest travelling here for a shorter period of time.

DC: relationships on this line are in intensive…(not necessarily good). If you are single, you might attract partners who are controlling, obsessive or toxic (possibly abusive, I’m sorry love). I am not going to sugarcoat it, I’ve heard some stories about women being in very bad situations on this line. Transformations will be deep through relationships. You might actually rediscover your type or you might learn some heavy lessons. There’s gonna be a lot of power struggles here. If you are in a relationship and are planning on coming on this line, all I’m going to say is that this line will test the integrity of your relationship. I’ve heard one too many couples moving to this line and ending up breaking up a few months later after being together for yearssss. Not saying that this line will automatically break your relationship, but it will test it. If you both learn to hold your ground and not let disagreement get to both of you, you will be fine. Relationships here are just difficult, even friendships or partnerships. A lot of tension, and not a good one. One thing I have to say, if you come to this line and you really heal, you will become so unstoppable.

In positive, karmic healing in relationships. You will rediscover what you truly desire in a partner. It will basically bring more clarity on what you want from the people around you. It might also help you learn how to respect yourself.

In negative, lots of powerplay and imbalances. Toxic relationships and a lot of manipulation.

Overall, not the best line in my opinion. If you’re truly looking to navigate your relationships patterns, then come here, but if you are not ready to face some nasty truths, I wouldn’t even suggest travelling here.

IC: your home life will feel very suffocating. You might have parental figures that are trying to control you. You might feel like your home is not your safe space. This place screams dealing with a lot of lineage karma. You will do some heavy shadow work in that area. Honestly, it’s a hard line as well, but that’s all Pluto lines. This place is really great for understanding issues from the root and solving them. You might even heal some generational trauma here or at least become more aware of what that generation of trauma is. Dealing with all this karma and shadow work you will feel so much more powerful, you will tap into your true purpose. This line also builds insane inner strength and desire for justice. Pluto lines are hard, but they are necessary.

In positive, deep rooted emotional and healing. This is a re-occurring thing with a lot of the lines here.

In negative, lot of family drama and emotional baggage. This line can cause depression (please stay strong).

Overall, great for healing generational trauma and deep rooted issues.

MC: weirdly enough, the Pluto MC line is less hard to navigate here (not easy but not as annoying as the previous Pluto lines). It’s still very harsh, but emotionally it’s a bit easier. This line will teach you a lot about power dynamics. You might face some power imbalances at your workplace. A lot of tension between you and authority figures are present on this line. This line will make you more assertive in achieving power (power is subjective, so that can be money for some or authority for others). You might be perceived by the masses as controversial and intense. You will be the type of person that grows on people. You are an acquired taste for sure. Good for rising at the top in general, but especially good for people that work in finance, law, politics, psychology or any taboo field of work. You will deal with some betrayal in your workplace. You might also lose your job here. So be careful and stay mindful.

In positive, you will learn to own the room you walk in and grow your power (and authority).

In negative, you will possibly deal with job loss. You will deal with hardships and authority tension in the workplace.

Overall, good for rising to the top and taboo fields.

Chiron line:

AC: yeah, remember when I said that the Pluto lines are hard? This line is even harder, but it doesn’t feel suffocating, it feels deep, like the type of pain that you can’t fully shake off. Hear you will undergo deep healing of yourself. All your wounds regarding your identity will come to light, and other people will see it too. If you have been insecure about your physical appearance, then you will show it and you will feel it more intensely. If you have been insecure about your intelligence, you will feel more exposed here. This line pushes you to heal through embracing yourself. Accepting who you are and learning to deal with yourself at your own pace. You might be perceived as more melancholic and sad. People will be more inclined to want to help you. Your  own identity will be shaky, but that’s only because this line pushes you to heal.

In positive, will undergo massive personal change in regards to your insecurities or personal wounds.

In negative, you will look down on yourself a lot and might lose a lot of your confidence. Also you might feel more exposed to other people.

Overall, really good to come here if you want to undergo some serious therapy. This line will be amazing for that. do you want to start your healing then come here.

DC: so basically, I’m a liar cause this line is even more horrible(if you’re not healed). Every single insecurity and fear you have will materialise in your connections with people. If you have ever been afraid that people will leave you, then boom, they leave you. If you are afraid deep down that your partner will be cheating on you. guess what? They are. You really need to tackle what makes you insecure in your friendships or relationships in order to have good connections here. This line gives me, you attract what you are! Do not expect good connections if you are not healed. The bright side is that relationships will feel healing as well. You might be able to heal your wounds through your relationships. There is gonna be a sense of deep intimacy between you and your person. Also might attract people with similar insecurities as you.

In positive, you will experience karmic healing in relationship. You will be learning a lot of self-worth as well.

In negative, all your triggers that you have in relationships have a high chance of manifesting here.

Overall, good for clearing karmic baggage and growing through connections.

IC: your sense of what is home, what feel safe and what is trust will be challenged here. Your home or roots might bring a lot of scars. If you are travelling or moving here, be ready for past ones to the surface. This line will really trigger you in a lot of areas. This line will also test if those wounds have been fully healed or just bandage over briefly. this is arguably the best line for shadow work. It is also the shittiest line for shadow work. Why do I say that? Because it will be very hard, but very rewarding. Nothing comes easy when it’s healing we are talking about. Chiron is sad and tormenting, but not impossible. You will develop a next level emotional resilience.

In positive, you will heal deeply and truly. You will develop an inner strength that will be unshakeable after this. Your sense of identity will be very strong as well.

In negative, you might not be able to take it. This line is just really hard to be honest. You will feel the effects of it. My best advice is to truly put in the work to see past the facade of things. True healing comes with hardship. Shadow work is not as nice as people make it seem.

Overall, great for generational healing as well and targeting deep past wounds (even once that you didn’t know are still there).

MC: this line will bring your career into fruition through hardships. So any career in psychology, psychiatric help, mentorship, teacher, healer and motivational speaking is good here. Advocating for communities is going to work out really well here. You could potentially build a legacy here. You could also have a pretty successful career by overcoming your hardships in general. You would also feel align with your career and that can bring some meaning to yourself. You could become quite purpose driven as well.

In positive, you will leave a meaningful impact and find success through transformations. You might even be inspiring to others.

In negative, might be afraid of being seen as weak or broken. You will have all your wounds visible to the world. Your vulnerability will be exposed leaving you quite unhappy.

Overall, any careers that turn pain into inspiration will thrive here.

North node:

AC: on this line, u will feel more along with your true purpose and destiny through yourself. The way you act, behave, speak and walk will all be aligned with your true destiny. by being your most authentic self, life will push you towards your path. You are going to undergo major self growth and you will be pushed into it quite strongly. Once you’ve lined yourself with who you are, you will notice a shift in your reality. I also do believe that this line is really good for manifesting or for using the law of assumption. You will get a boost in confidence.

In positive, you will feel more aligned with yourself bringing you more self-fulfilment. You will also encounter aligned friendships.

In negative, you might experience impostor syndrome. You will also be uncomfortable during this whole growth process. But hey, it’s necessary.

Overall, grateful for true discovery and the alignment with oneself. Also, if you ever wanna start a new chapter, you can always start here. If you want to travel here I’d highly suggested.

DC: you will be more aligned with your true life’s purpose and destiny through your relationship relationships with people. Let that be partnerships, friendships or relationships they will all bring you closer to what you are truly supposed to achieve. Some might help you through actually giving you resources, some might help you through uplifting you, some might even help you through giving you opportunities, whatever the case may be they are all there to bring you to your next stage. Relationships here will also make you grow emotionally a lot so be prepared to face some shadow sides of yourself. You might even attract the karmic partners.

In positive, you will experience emotional and spiritual growth through other people. Other people will help you align with your goals. You will encounter destiny like connections.

In negative, you might become too codependent on your partnerships. You might also experience clings and obsession. Heartbreak will hurt like hell here. Make sure you balance the energy you invest in yourself with the energy you invest in other people.

Overall, good for possibly even meeting your soulmate and creating meaningful long lasting relationships. Relationships will help you grow in whatever field of work you choose to be in. good for meeting mentors and establishing good business partnerships.

IC: here your job will be to tackle the family patterns. You will be in tune with your destiny when you deal with all the emotional baggage that either comes from with you or from within your ancestry (or family). A lot of family patterns will come to life, but it is up to you to solve them. You will feel emotionally content and emotionally evolved. You will be emotionally and spiritually the highest form of yourself. This can build a lot of self assurance and confidence. You will learn to break pattern, set boundaries and learn when to put yourself first. you will also learn how to be soft and who you should give the softness to.

In positive, you will reach emotional fulfilment and successful follow after that. You will reinvent a new concept of home.

In negative, you might experience some conflict in regards to your old definition of what home was. Change is gonna be uncomfortable but it will be very beneficial.

Overall, really good for starting the family and dealing with inner child work.

MC: this is literally career Central. Alongside your Jupiter and sun MC line, this line is also amazing for your career. Having the north node, which is all about your life’s purpose and your MC, which is all about your public persona and career together it’s a very strong combination. This is arguably the best line for your career. Not only will you evolve as a person using your career, you will also evolve in your career. Opportunities will come to you but it is up to you to recognise them and use them. You will resonate with your refill of work and you will passionately pursue it. And to be honest, you might even get some abundance out of it. Life will put you in the spotlight whether you like it or not.

In positive, you will be working in a career that truly resonates with you and brings you closer to your destiny. This alone will bring success.

In negative, you will feel pressure from yourself to constantly do really good. Your lesson here is to learn how to manage your expectations.

Overall, if you want a boost in your career and full alignment with ur destiny, move to this line. If you just wanna visit, keep an eye out for opportunities.

Ok so this post took me so long omg!!! Besides the fact that I am in active exam season right now (I’m so cooked), I also had to rewrite this post… But let me just put that out there, I will always prioritise quality over quantity, therefore I’d rather post a bit less, but at least I know I’m being authentic and I don’t spread misinformation. Also sorry for any possible typos.

Well I hope you guys enjoyed this! I put in so much effort to research on this theme since I am not that familiar with astrocartography. If you guys have any personal experiences living on any of these lines (and if you are comfortable sharing them) I’d love to hear them (and I am sure other people will want to know some first-hand experiences as well).

Till next time stay healthy and stay glowing xoxo

[local-hellhound-steals-spaghetti]

Let's talk about zoo animal welfare for a second...

(And I want to preface this by saying I have a 4 year Bachelor degree in Animal Science (focusing in welfare and behaviour with a major in Canine and Equine Science) before I got sidetracked into zoo animals and did 3 internships working with wild canids, ungulates and marine mammals - this involved both hands on behaviour modification/desenitisation as well as hands off behavioural observation and welfare study. I worked for 2 years as a marine mammal specialist and worked specifically in facilities to improve husbandry, behavioural training and welfare practises.

I also worked in a facility in the Asia Pacific, working to improve welfare standards for bottlenose dolphins and continued to work with cetacean welfare researchers after this. I also did a course in zoo management, husbandry and welfare and this involved working in an accredited zoo facility learning things like exhibit design, behaviour management and husbandry with multiple species.)

So a few points to say about zoo animal welfare when discussing zoo standards and practises:

The average person does not have the expertise to do behaviour observation and welfare evaluation in zoo animals - that's why when the general public visits a zoo and says "the animal looks sad" it's worth being skeptical of that claim. But it doesn't mean a gut feeling about a zoo's quality can be completely invalid. Just that it might be worth researching further or seeking more information.

However, with experience, it is possible to analyse behaviour in the context of welfare. And context to that behaviour is always important (for example, Moo Deng showing stress related behaviour towards the specific context of being touched or followed around by her keeper - very much an indication of poor handling practises)

Poor animal husbandry and welfare is not limited to specific countries or regions, however it can be more normalised and accepted under the influnce of cultures and laws. Or even just the culture of the zoo itself such as the "this is the way we've always done it" places.

Being an accredited zoo is a start to good welfare, but it doesn't make any sort of welfare concern obsolete. And accreditation is supposed to ensure that welfare concerns are addressed but because they are mostly run as a volunteer based organisation, they often don't have resources to check into every concern (unless it's a government funded organisation)

A zoo contributing to conservation research is great, but not if it is at the expense of the animals' welfare - welfare should always be prioritised, with research and conservation efforts to follow.

Welfare is a state that is in flux. So a negative welfare state can move into positive welfare state under different influences.

There are multiple factors that influence zoo animal welfare: enclosure/habitat, expression of natural behaviour, guest interaction, diet, enrichment, water quality, hygeine ect. It'll rarely just be one factor, though it does depend how salient that factor is.

Just because a keeper or management of a zoo have been there for a long time, doesn't mean they can't be criticised - it is possible to be still using outdated practises and believing in methodologies and management practises that need updating - that's the whole point of continued education

Having limited resources can often impact welfare. Giving a facility the resources they need to improve is a good start to improving welfare.

Even if an animal is being handled in an inappropriate way for a short time, that doesn't mean that can't have long term implications for welfare eg. if every time your dog jumped on you when you got home and you smacked him in the face once before going on with your day, that doesn't mean that your dog won't learn negative associations with your arrival just because it was one time.

Best practise husbandry of zoo animals involves:

Use of positive reinforcement based voluntary husbandry and health care

All interaction based on choice and voluntary interaction that is reinforced with primary reinforcement such as food

Mostly hands off approaches for the species that require them (ungulates, large primates, large carnivores)

Relatively stable social groups with aggression only in specific situations/contexts that are normal for the species

Back areas for animals to rest outside of public view

Species appropriate habitats to meet species specific behaviour requirements

Five freedoms of welfare being met but goes above and beyond the bare minimum

Poor zoo animal husbandry involves animals:

Being forced into anything such as presentations, education programs, medical procedures/gating

Any use of physical punishment such as chasing, slapping, pushing or poking - negative reinforcement such as bull hooks are also fairly outdated in handling species like elephants

Being excessively handled, chased and touched/restrained for no reason (eg. for social media videos)

Showing signs of avoidance and aggression constantly towards their keepers

Have constant conflict happening in their social groups

Are living in enclosures that are not suitable for their specific specific needs - size is only one factor in this. Substrate, habitat design, water quality ect. are also things to consider.

Are too close to the public/at risk from the public

Have no areas to retreat from the public/rest away from potential stressors

Have no enrichment program/no daily enrichment

Those are all flags that there could be some poor welfare happening and that a zoo is not prioritising welfare

Okay there's the ramble of the day done. Feel free to ask questions for further clarification if needed.

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

Hi Mx. GatewayDrug

I’m a proud mum of a 13yo trans boy who has only just started puberty blockers after starting menstruation 6 months ago. I never received great healthcare (which is probably how I ended up pregnant at 14) and didn’t see a gyno until I was 6 months pregnant and only sporadically since but I’m trying to be better with my son - I don’t know if or when he should see a gynaecologist. Is it more of a ‘uterus havers should see one every x years starting from this point’ or at his age more of a ‘only see if there’s a problem or he needs bc’ situation?

I’m still trying to navigate what parts of my own health were neglected and how to fix it/catch up, but I’m trying my best to stay on top of his to give him a better quality of life.

Thanks, and I really appreciate all you’ve done - it’s been so helpful for both myself and my son!

hi anon,

thank you so much for sending this ask! it's always great to see parents showing up to support their trans kids and making sure that they have the best care possible :)

unless there are any specific health concerns or pubescent development doesn't proceed as expected, most teens are good to hold off on visiting the gynecologist for an exam until they turn 21 or have partnered sex for the first time - whichever comes first. delayed puberty, in this case, obviously refers to a delay that isn't purposefully induced brought on by puberty blockers - for instance, if someone having an estrogen-based puberty, who was NOT using puberty blockers, had reached 17 without developing breasts or starting their period, that would be considered unusual. since it seems like your young dude was otherwise set to start his period at a pretty typical age, that's likely not something you need to worry about.

as I said, regular exams won't be necessary until he's a bit older, at which point he can consult with a healthcare provider about how frequently he should be receiving gynecological exams. many healthcare providers recommending exams that include pap smears take place either every 3 or 5 years, but annual wellness checkups are also an option, if not mandatory.

in the meantime, you can help prep your lad by discussing the importance of his future healthcare with him. gynecological care can be daunting for many trans men, given that it can often be severely dysphoria-inducing, but it is important care to receive for anyone who still has a vagina, cervix, uterus, and ovaries (or any combination thereof). you can help get him ready by talking about things like how to research gender-affirming and trans-informed care providers, the importance of getting pap smears to prevent cervical cancer (and getting him an HPV vaccine, if he hasn't already had it!), and what changes to his body he can expect if he ever decides to use testosterone (for example: a vagina that can dry out and atrophy if not remedied with topical estrogen, which WILL NOT counteract or cancel out any testosterone he might take).

I wish you both the best of luck navigating the fraught world of trans healthcare, and I'm glad he has an involved parent like you helping him figure it out :)

[brazilian-girl02]

~ Vlogger!Reader and Future yandere!Batfamily Part: 2 ~

Warning: This is where some yandere stuff shows up.

🦇 It was another normal day at Wayne Manor. Tim was walking to the kitchen to get one, or maybe the fourth, cup of coffee;

🦇 He arrived in the kitchen and noticed the absence of the butler Alfred, as well as an old notebook on top of the kitchen island. curious, he turns on the notebook and an email addressed to Alfred appears on the screen;

-dear Alf... It's been two years since we've seen each other in person, two years since our last book club meeting and without your wonderful tea. I came here to say that everything is going well with my studies and I am adapting well in (city of your choice). and I continue to post my videos, I know you watch them, but anyway, I hope you come visit me one day. a big hug, {You}

🦇 Tim read the email again and again.... "who are {you}?" he asked himself as he went to his room. Once there he started going through the files and even found his college's files;

🦇 Tim was so immersed in taking in every piece of information that he didn't notice that someone was at the door watching him;

🦇 it was Bruce... they started talking and Tim asked incessant questions about you, but Bruce had no answer. soon Alfred appears, he accompanies Tim to your old room, with a mournful Bruce behind;

🦇 When they got to their old room, the walls were your favorite color but in a more worn tone and an old computer on the desk. Tim quickly stops the computer to search it;

🦇 while Bruce looked around the room in a daze, how he forgot about you, and soon he started searching the closet and with an Alfred watching;

🦇 At dinner, Tim was very focused on watching his videos, which he discovered by searching the room's computer. Dick asked him what he was watching and Tim started pouring information about you, sparking curiosity in the others, except Alfred;

🦇 Dick started watching all the videos almost religiously and he always comments on all the videos. If you have a public mailbox on your social network, it will certainly send Nightwing merchandise;

🦇Jason, I would read any book you recommended or appear reading in a photo or video... perhaps you noticed that classic books and a box set of Jane Austen's works mysteriously appeared in your apartment;

🦇Tim has scoured every corner of the Internet looking for information about you, from your Amazon account to an old social media account you no longer use. Maybe he hacked your phone and cameras from places you frequent;

🦇 Barbara would be a little like Tim, but in a milder way. if you have a disability of any kind, you can be sure that she would have researched it, perhaps she would have become a little more protective;

🦇 Cass was happy to be able to watch your videos, she even started to have some of her quirks that she sees in the videos. If you practice some dance, she will definitely improve in that dance while dreaming of doing a ballet duet with you;

🦇 Stephanie is so excited to have someone to share trends and memes with. if you are part of a specific fashion style or subculture, she will research everything about it, from the clothes to the political or historical views of it;

🦇 Duke is surprised how the others didn't notice you, he watches your video game reviews and plays them from start to finish. I hope you notice your energy bill dropping suddenly;

🦇 Now there is a very thoughtful Damian, how could you hide from him for so long. he wonders if you would like to paint with him or if you have a pet, he would love to introduce you to his clan of animals;

🦇 Bruce pondered many things. he really loves you, don't get him wrong but his duties as Batman were a property and he wasn't sure how to approach a civilian like you, his beloved daughter. but rest assured that he will protect you... so don't worry that he has researched everything about your friends and girlfriend, after all it is for your safety;

🦇Alfred is pleased, they finally noticed the amazing girl he created and maybe you'll come home;

-Don't worry Young Miss, soon everyone will be paying attention to you like you always dreamed of.

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

This is chapter 2, I hope you all like it. And yes, my Barbara have a wheelchair. kisses

part 1:

[wonderjanga]

idea: billy keeping Important League Stuff in miss bambis apartment for safekeeping cuz the rock of eternity has WAY too much evil stuff, and now all the magic users think that miss bambis magic-catwoman

Miss Bambi: “Billy, whats that?”

Billy: “Space cancer in a bottle!”

Miss Bambi: “Oh… I see.” *takes a drag of her cigarette* “Well, put it with the others.”

Billy: “Thanks, Miss Bambi!” *runs in and puts it with the other bottles full of space cancer*

William Joseph Batson is the World’s Mightiest Mortal. He’s also a 12-year-old boy who doesn’t have many adults in his life that he trusts. That’s why he leaves highly dangerous mission stuff with Miss Bambi. Because he trusts her. Also because he doesn’t think he should have a bunch of dangerous stuff in the Rock. Some of it should be in other places.

Anyways, other magicians who visit Fawcett all get concerned whenever they pass by a shitty apartment complex that has a bunch of evil and negative magic radiating from it. Specifically a single apartment.

This is the apartment complex I told you about.

Marvel: *staring at the building, thinking they know* “I see… and why are we here?”

Random Magician: “Wha- because there’s a bunch of evil magic practically oozing from it!”

Marvel: “And?”

Random Magician: “And what! That person could be extremely dangerous!”

Marvel: “I assure you, they’re not.”

Random Magician: “Yes they are! Magic can only become this bad through numerous evil rituals and sacrifices and spells!”

Marvel: “Look, just trust me, okay? It’s nothing.”

That magician did in fact, not trust him, and instead went to go check out the location of the source of the evil magic.

Random Magician: “Who’re you??”

Miss Bambi: “You can call me Bambi.” *looks them up and down judgmentally* “Are you one of Billy’s friends?”

Random Magician: *doesn’t know Billy is Cap* “No?”

Miss Bambi: “Oh.” *slams the door in their face*

The magic user eventually tried to suddenly ask about her and this Billy character.

Marvel: “That’s uh… My name?”

The magic user proceeded to go and tell everyone they knew because what the heck? This random, potentially very evil lady knows the champions real name? Also, the Champion’s name is Billy??

That’s how the “Oh, she must be magical Catwoman” thing cropped up.

From then on, they all had utmost respect for her cause the Champion is insanely powerful, so by stealing from the Rock of Eternity of all places that means she has to be pretty powerful herself. There’s also the fact that they can sense almost no magic from her so clearly she must be at least skilled to hide it that well.

Every single wizard that is evil is trying to curry to her favor.

Evil Magician: *looking extremely suspicious* “Mistress Bambi-”

Miss Bambi: “I told you weirdos not to call me that.”

Evil Magician: “-I have come to tell you about a special artifact that I think will interest you. It’s the eye of the Bermuda Triangle.”

Miss Bambi: *smoking, looking at them like they’re an idiot* “Yeah… Thanks…”

Evil Magician: “Your welcome, mistress-”

Miss Bambi: “Again, told you not to call me that.”

Later…

Miss Bambi: *chilling outside the apartment complex*

Billy: *jogging over so he can go inside

Miss Bambi: “Hey, Billy!”

Billy: “Yes, Miss Bambi?”

Miss Bambi: “Another one of those creeps came around and told me about some Eye of the Bermuda Triangle?”

“Another evil artifact? Dang. Well, I’ll hop to it! Thanks, Miss Bambi!”

See, the unfortunate thing is that an evil magician would tell Bambi about an evil artifact, and then Billy would go search for it and then give it to her for safekeeping. So they’d think she stole it, which would continue to feed the magical Catwoman rumors.

By the way, all the artifacts besides the ones that sound explicitly dangerous like the space cancer and a bottle, or just scattered about her apartment. Like, she has multiple evil pendants hanging from her ceiling fan because they look pretty and add to the ambience. She has an evil magic tome under one of the legs of her coffee table, so it keeps balance. She does not care.

Also, John Constantine eventually met her, and they vibe.

[aces-and-angels]

verified by 90-ghost follow asmaa @asmaayyad & on instagram (asmaa_ayyad98)

moots/lovely lurkers- lend me your ears (or eyes- y'all get it) and allow asmaa to introduce herself in her own words:

"hello I hope my message reaches you well i am asmaa ayyad from gaza, specifically khan yunis, i am 25 years old, i am trying to save me and my family from the war of extermination that is happening now (a/n: asmaa graduated from the university of palestine in 2021 and went on to study/train to become a practicing lawyer) we lost our home, our friends and some of our relatives, I have also been living far away from my fiancé for two years, I cannot reach him because of the increase in the coordination price and the closure of the crossings and borders (a/n: asmaa lists feras_lbrahim in her insta bio as her fiancé) please i want you to help me by publishing for me and standing by my side, as i am now struggling alone to save an entire family i wanted to contact @/90-ghost but he does not respond to me (a/n: since asmaa sent me this message, 90-ghost has been able to get in touch/share her posts) i would be very grateful to you if you helped me"

asmaa's family consists of 8 members- all of whom led beautiful lives prior to the war. asmaa's older brother, dia, was looking forward to his own wedding. instead of experiencing such a joyous day, his life was shattered after his home was destroyed by the israeli army.

to lose a home- all your valuable possessions- your memories- in an instant is something that cannot be fully understood unless you've gone through it yourself. in asmaa's own words (read & share full post here):

"in addition to the pain, oppression and suffering that displacement causes us, there is a material aspect that no one talks about or mentions or mentions in the media. every place we move from to a new place requires transportation from 1,500 to 2,000 shekels... and despite this amount, you cannot transport all your belongings. this is in addition to the costs of setting up the tent again and trying to return what you lost of your things and belongings. displacement kills us more than death, it drains our health, our money and everything we own... displacement is another war that is harsher than this war of starvation and extermination... displacement is a hidden killer. how many people have been martyred because they do not have the price of displacement? the price that saves them from death! how many people have lost their dignity because of it?! oh god, have mercy on us and our situation 🙏💔"

asmaa's family has already lost so much- friends, loved ones, their cat, timur. they are living in a nightmare they cannot wake up from. the decision to evacuate is not an easy one to make nor is it one for the rest of us to scrutinize. it's what asmaa + her family have decided is the best path forward

please support my friend however you can-- the smallest actions can make the biggest impact

if all you can do is share- then share. follow asmaa to get the most up to date news regarding her family. tell someone you know about asmaa's story. allow others who may be able to contribute more find asmaa so her family may get to safety

and if you can give little more, please visit the link below 🖤

cw: photos of destroyed buildings + deceased cat (timur) included in the campaign

[purplecoffee13]

NFWMB - part 1

Summary: “Harry is a retired boxer who owns a gym and teaches self-defense classes. He considers himself a strong man, but when a gorgeous innocent woman attends a try-out class, she manages to leave him weak in the knees…”

Wc: 4.3k

Tropes: boxer!Harry x innocent!reader

Warnings: mentions of violence and SA

A/N: hello everyone! This is my new series NFWMB, named after one of Hozier’s most horny songs😄. I am so incredibly excited for this series omg it’s gonna be so good!!! If you don’t believe me, go listen to NFWMB and you’ll get a vague idea of what’s coming ;)

P.S. header = pov change

General Masterlist

Series Masterlist

Harry Styles was not one for regrets.

His life may not have turned the way he expected it to, but he was still proud of where he had come.

Being a professional boxer was a risky job, and Harry had known that when he had decided that it was going to be his career. But there was no other logical option. Harry was an exceptional boxer who was able to go pro at age 18, where he defeated a lot of men who were older and bigger than him.

It was his passion, it always had been. Which was something that was quite remarkable, especially to his closer family members, because Harry was anything but a violent person in his day to day life. He was quite reserved, and managed his temper very well. The years in the boxing ring did harden him quite a bit, his reserved nature developing into something more akin to stoicism.

Nevertheless, Harry loved boxing. It wasn't so much a fight to him, but more of a puzzle. Each opponent had its own made up riddle, and it was up to Harry to solve it as quick as possible. Much like a dance you learn the steps to along the way. A perfect combination of intuitive technique.

He hadn't planned on having to retire at the age of 27 already. It was supposed to be his peak; it had been for almost all boxers in history, and he was looking forward to how far he would be able to push his body during his prime.

He never got the opportunity to get an answer to those questions. A car accident got in the way.

He wouldn't have been able to stop it, he knew that, and he had forbidden himself from thinking about what could've happened had he not taken that specific road back home that horrible night. There was nothing he could do about it now, so there was no point in dwelling on it.

After a year of recovery, he was slowly able to get back into the rhythm of his old life again. Well, except for the boxing part. Knowing that his career in that field was over, he began thinking about some other options of his, and decided on fulfilling another dream of his: opening a gym.

He had always wanted to do it, but he always imagined to be retired by the time he would start on that.

Now, two years later, his gym was already in multiple locations, but Harry was still working at the first one he opened. He would visit the other ones every once in a while to see how everything was going, but he was mainly at the one nearest to his house. It was special to him, the place where it all started.

Despite running the place, and therefore not needing to be on location all the time, Harry was at the gym 24/7. He wasn't a personal trainer—wasn't really his style—but he would help people and teach self defense classes to women.

Every Thursday between 6 and 9, he would teach groups of ten women everything they needed to know on defending themselves from whatever threat they may run into. It was one of the things he was proudest of; the turn out at those classes. That these women put their trust in him, and let him help them become even tougher than they already were.

Tonight, after teaching the last group, Harry had gone to the bar with some of his friends. One of them was Sophie, a woman he had become friends with since she'd joined his self defense class. She was a great person with an impeccable sense of humor, and Harry was glad he had introduced her to Greg, his best friend. They were basically made for each other.

Harry had to admit that he envied his friend for the relationship he had. He was happy for them, but sometimes couldn't help but think that his lack of a partner was this one puzzle piece that would make his life even better. All in good time, he reminded himself.

"Hey," Sophie caught Harry's attention when she waved her hand in front of his face. His gaze shot to hers, eyebrows raised. "So, I was talking about your self defense class today at work. You know, promoting your business and all."

Harry chuckled at the cocky tone in which Sophie told her story, chin up high. He mumble a soft 'thanks', to which she grinned.

"You're welcome. Anyways, I have this new colleague and she seemed so intrigued by it, but she was too insecure about joining. I mean— she didn't outright say that, but I could just tell." She huffed, Greg rubbing her back. Sophie was a very happy person in general and wanted the best for everyone, this new colleague of hers included. Harry had the same habit, it's why he immediately suggested:

"Why don't you invite her along next week? A free try-out."

"But your try-out classes aren't for another two weeks." Sophie noted.

It was true. The self defense classes had become very popular, and since Harry taught them himself, he had scheduled one night of try-out classes a month. He was only able to take on so many people, but he didn't mind making this exception.

"She can join your regular class." Harry shrugged, and Sophie's eyes beamed with excitement.

"Thank you Harry!" She squealed happily, giving Greg a hug to channel her enthusiasm. "Oh, I hope she'll come along!"

"I'm sure she will." Harry assured her with a smile, and took another sip from his beer.

Y/N had never been one for risks.

She had never been the type of person to take the leap of faith, relying more on familiar feeling of security. Why risk hurting yourself when you could be safe and content?

It was the logic she had always operated with, the logic she had been taught from a very young age. Y/N had had a sheltered upbringing. Her parents wanted her and her little brother to be as safe as possible, and that was just fine to Y/N.

Her little brother was the more feisty one of the two, and his childhood consisted of a lot of fighting. It hurt Y/N to see the people she loved so much be so angry all the time, and it only motivated her to be as good as possible. She never drank, smoked, or went to parties. She turned in her homework early and got an A on almost every test. It did put a strain on her relationship with her brother, especially since Y/N's behavior would be used as ammunition towards him.

They still didn't talk all too much, but Y/N hoped that one day, she could repair that relationship again.

Moving a few towns away was a big deal for her parents, but the wonderful job she had gotten as a secretary at quite a prestigious law firm had made it all worth it. They helped her with moving into her apartment, but Y/N would regularly visit them on both weekdays and on the weekends. All in all, she'd had a safe, comfortable, content life.

Until a few months ago.

It was a Friday night, and Y/N had agreed to a date. One of the lawyers at the firm, Oscar, had been flirting with her ever since she started working there. Not wanting to be impolite, Y/N never outright rejected him, and so the flirting continued. She was a bit uncomfortable about it — especially since he was nearing his forties and she was only 23 — but figured the banter was part of the job. She was so shocked when he did ask her to go on a date, she said yes.

It wouldn't be too bad, she figured. She would just go on the date and tell him she wasn't interested afterwards. It could be casual, and no one would be too hurt. The date was definitely out of her carefully moderated comfort zone, but she would step out of it for one night.

The date was fine. Like she had expected, she wasn't interested in Oscar in a romantic way. Still, she listened to his stories, laughed right on cue at all his jokes, and told some of her own anecdotes as well. The dinner was great, and he even offered to walk her home.

They were nearing Y/N's apartment when Oscar had suddenly slowed down his walking pace. She only noticed when she was a few feet away from him, and walked back to where Oscar was standing.

"Are you okay? We're almost there, I promise." Y/N smiled politely, much like she did in the office. Oscar didn't say anything in response, only the corners of his mouth quirking up ever so slightly.

"You're so beautiful, do you know that?" He  complimented her, and Y/N looked at her feet, not quite knowing how to handle the flattery.

"Thank you." She said softly, and froze when Oscar's fingers tilted her chin upwards. Her eyes widened when he suddenly leaned in and put his mouth on hers. After the first few seconds of pure shock slowly passed, Y/N pulled her head back.

Not getting the hint, Oscar grinned and leaned in again, this time with both his hands on her face. Y/N let out a yelp, stumbling backwards. Her body's alarm bells were ringing so loudly, but Oscar must've been deaf to her body language because he backed her up against the wall and kept kissing her.

Y/N cried out as she tried to push Oscar off with her hands, but he only grabbed them and pinned them above her head. Finally, not knowing what else to do, she lifted her knee and kicked him right in the crotch. Oscar shot backwards, groaning loudly as his grip finally loosened on her. He looked incredibly angry.

"What the fuck?!" He bellowed, standing up straight again. Y/N's lip quivered, tears running down her face.

"You wouldn't stop." She said softly, almost in a whisper. Her entire body was shaking from the adrenaline. Oscar's mouth opened to say something, but the conversation got interrupted.

"Oscar!" A woman's voice shouted from down the street. He turned his head, and his face morphed from sheer rage into a lovely smile, the same one he always put up for Y/N back in the office.

"Sophie!" He said, but the mention of her name sounded strained. Sophie... Y/N recognized her name, but she hadn't ever met the woman. She was one of the three female lawyers at the firm. Had been working there for only five years, but her reputation was so badass, everyone knew who she was.

"What are you doing out tonight?" Sophie asked as she gave Oscar a hug, and turned to Y/N. "Who's this?"

"This is Y/N." Oscar replied. "She's a secretary at the firm."

"Nice to meet you." Y/N extended her hand, and Sophie shook it.

"Nice to meet you too! How come I've never seen you around?" She tilted her head.

"I— I work on a different floor."

"Well, I'm glad I met you, Y/N!" She said, the kindness in her tone being a real comfort after that scary moment she just had to live through. Somewhere in the way she said it, and in the way her eyes softened slightly, it almost felt like Sophie knew.

"I— I should go. It's getting pretty late." Y/N decided that this could be her sweet escape.

"Right, I'm gonna bring Y/N home." Oscar said, and your eyes shot to him. Anxiety filled your lungs until all you could breathe was fear. You didn't want to be alone with him. You had no idea what he would be able to do to you. What were you going to do about it? You weren't even half as strong as he was.

"Oh, which way is it?" Sophie asked, turning to Y/N, who was about to open her mouth but got interrupted by Oscar.

"That way." He pointed toward the direction of Y/N's house. Sophie side eyed her colleague, then nodded.

"Exactly the way I was going! Let's go." She hooked her arm into Y/N's, and began walking, ranting about how it was unacceptable that they didn't work on the same floor.

Y/N wordlessly nodded along, filled with gratefulness to Sophie or the universe—or both—for not leaving her alone with Oscar again.

She got home safely about five minutes later, not daring to look Oscar in the eyes as she hugged him and said goodbye, and she only allowed her tears to fall down her cheek when she closed her front door.

Y/N spent the rest of the weekend in bed, not in the mood to do anything. By Monday, she felt both better and worse. She had had some time to come down from the shock of what happened, but the terror that filled her at the realization that she was to see Oscar again, had her stomach turn. On Monday morning, she even got into work late as a result of a wave of nausea that hit her once she'd grabbed her keys, spending the time she used to drive to work to puke her guts out instead.

Later, she'd found out that Oscar had called in sick that day. It gave her some time and space to breathe. Sophie visited her the same day, and she hadn't stopped visiting since.

Oscar did eventually return to work, but they never talked anymore. Y/N didn't dare to look him in the eye, and she avoided him at all costs. One day, about two weeks after everything happened, she did see him waiting by her cubicle, but she hid in the toilet for half an hour and by the time she returned he was gone.

It had been two months since that horrible event, and Y/N had entirely isolated herself. Back to the normal routine, back to what was familiar. It gave her a sense of control. She was fragile, and sensitive. She had just pressed down her sadness and anxiety that lingered as a result from the date, and instead focused entirely on what she could control.

She figured it would be easier. Well, except for the mental breakdowns she'd get when something small didn't go right. The dishes not being cleaned, her vacuum not taking up every speck of dust; it just set her off. It wasn't healthy, but she had no idea how else to deal with these things.

When Sophie mentioned she was following self-defense classes a couple weeks ago, Y/N's ears had perked up. She tried to be subtle about it; asking questions to pry some information about the classes from her. But, being the amazing lawyer she was, it didn't go over Sophie's head, and before she knew it she had an invite to a class.

"See you next week!" Harry exclaimed as the last of the women from the 7pm class left the room. He was still busy putting everything back into place before the next class which would commence in about five minutes.

He was just about done with everything when Sophie walked in, another girl walking in close behind her. Harry couldn't really make up her face, as she stayed closely behind Sophie, even upon nearing him.

Sophie looked proud, probably feeling very accomplished about the fact that she had been able to convince this colleague of hers to take her up on her offer.

"Hey!" She greeted Harry cheerfully, giving him a quick hug. He was still smiling when he turned to the woman standing next to Sophie. His mouth went a bit dry when he took in her face.

"Harry, this is Y/N."

For starters, she was a bit shorter than Sophie, and quite frail too. Her hair was up in a ponytail, leaving her features to be admired out in the open. Her eyes were soft—radiating mostly insecurity at the moment—and wide. Those Bambi eyes and plump, rosy lips...

She looked so... innocent?

He wasn't sure if it was the right word, but he was sure that he had to say something before the silence became too long.

"Hi Y/N." He repeated her name, seeing the slightest flicker of surprise run through the eyes of the woman in front of him. But the slight relaxation of her body told him that his usual trick was working. It was a typical 'strategy' that he would often use with people who were a bit unsure about him. His voice would soften, he would always wear a hint of a smile on his face, and he'd repeat people's names to create a bit more of a familiar environment. It always worked, and he was glad it did. He never wanted anyone, especially a woman, to feel uncomfortable around him.

"Hi." The corners of her mouth tugged up.

Angel.

That's all he could think of as he looked at her. Jesus Christ, she was beautiful.

"Thank you for joining the class. You don't have to join in on everything if you don't feel comfortable. Just observe and see if this is something you would like to practice more often, okay?"

The girl in front of him nodded intently the second he had finished talking. Her eyes widened ever so slightly before she peeped out an, "okay."

Harry grinned, his gaze shooting to Sophie—who was looking at him with this suspicious look on her face that she only got once in a while—before calling everyone in a circle and commencing the class.

This girl, Y/N, turned out to be a real distraction for him. He was so focused on trying to read how she was feeling that he trailed off during explanations a couple times. It was embarrassing, really. He was a grown man for God's sake, why couldn't he just concentrate?

Y/N only joined in for a couple of the basic movements, but she stayed back for most of the class. Her big eyes observed every movement Harry and the others made, impressed with how developed everyone seemed to be in their techniques. He noted that it only seemed to make her more timid, though.

His eyebrows kept knitting every time he looked at her, getting lost in his thoughts on how he could help her become more comfortable in his class. She'd caught his stare about halfway through the class, and at the way her eyes shot to the floor he realized that his gaze was actually doing the completed opposite of what he wanted to do, which was help her.

When the class ended, Harry gave his usual speech about how good everyone had done their job, and that he would see them all next week. Afterwards there would always be a couple of women hanging around to ask questions, and he would stop a few on their way out to compliment their improvements. When the rest of the women had left, Sophie walked up to Harry, Y/N following closely behind.

"Great class, Styles. Thanks for teaching me some ass kicking again." She teased, smiling at him before she took a sip from her water bottle.  Harry chuckled, shaking his head faintly.

"Glad you liked it." He turned to Y/N. "What about you?"

Her cheeks started heating up, mouth falling open ever so slightly. "M— me? Oh, uhm, yeah, pretty good."

"I'm going to use the bathroom really quick, I'll be right back." Sophie chimed in, and began walking towards the door. "Keep her company for me, will ya Styles?"

Harry almost laughed at how Y/N's eyes nearly popped out of her sockets at Sophie's announcement. She was nervous around him, and it was quite endearing, but she didn't need to be. Although it was very cute, Harry wanted her to be comfortable around her.

"You hated it, didn't you?" He said as soon as Sophie was out of sight. Harry was amused, watching Y/N scramble for words when she realized what he had said.

"What? No, no of course not! You're great! Teacher— you're a great teacher, I mean." She stumbled over every last one of her words, making it sound even less convincing than it already was, even though she did really mean it.

Harry solely raised his eyebrow, indicating that he did not buy any of that, and it was all it took for her shoulders to slump and a little sigh to leave those pretty lips of hers.

"It's really not you, I promise. I just get... a bit nervous in group settings, especially when it comes to sports. I don't even go to the gym." She confessed, and Harry nodded. That certainly made more sense. His heart warmed a bit at the fact that she reassured him that he wasn't the reason she wasn't liking the class all too much.

"Why don't you go to the gym?" Harry asked further, his tone soft. He didn't want to press too much, but he did want to know more about her.

"It's... embarrassing." She shrugged. Harry chuckled.

"I go to the gym all the time. I mean, I own this one. I can only imagine how embarrassing I must be."  He joked. He had to say he thought it was pretty funny, the way she blushed as he teased her.

"No, I didn't mean it like that! You're not embarrassing at all— I mean, you’re like the opposite. You're lean, and strong. You have like— big arms and you know what you're doing." She ranted, and had no idea how much Harry's ego was fueled by the compliments she was unknowingly throwing at him. "Whereas I— I have no idea what to do at a gym. I hate the idea of people being able to watch me and judge me if they want. Not that I think everyone's focusing on me all the time! I— I don't think that..."

Y/N's heart was racing as she finally got herself to stop talking. It was a nervous habit she had always possessed. As soon as something got awkward, her mouth would open and it would just never shut again. All communication skills flew out the window as soon as something — or in this case someone — made her nervous. She couldn't even remember half the words she just said.

"I can teach you, if you want."

The offer was as unexpected to Y/N as it was to Harry. He hadn't quite anticipated the words rolling off his tongue, but he didn't regret them either.

"It'll be a private class, and it can be in a closed room, like this one, or after closing time. Whatever suits you." Harry tried his hardest to sound casual, and not like what he was offering was something he literally never did. He had to hire a cleaner at home because he was too busy to get around to cleaning the house, that's how much he had to do. But the prospect of losing even more free time did not seem to bother him at all. In fact, he hoped Y/N would take him up on his offer as he scanned her face and waited for her to say something.

"No, I wouldn't want to ask that of you. I'm sure you're busy with a lot of other things." She declined politely, but he didn't miss the glimmer of hope in her eyes. Those private classes had sounded intriguing to her, he just knew it. So instead of accepting her rejection, he shrugged.

"How about this. I'm always in till late on Tuesday's. If you're sure you don't want private lessons, that's fine. But if it does sound like something you want to do, just be there at 9. I'll be there either way." Harry suggested. He didn't wait for a response — hearing Sophie's footsteps nearing — and instead said,

"Just think about it, alright?"

Y/N merely nodded, not even able to croak out a 'yes' before Sophie walked back into the room.

"Okay, I'm ready to go. Y/N?" Sophie asked, watching as her friend agreed and grabbed her things before walking towards the door where Sophie stood.

"Thanks for the class." Y/N turned around and smiled at Harry, throwing him a small wave as she started following Sophie out the door.

"Anytime." He winked at her.

"Bye Styles!" Sophie shouted, her keys clinking as she waved at Harry, behind her.

"Bye Soph." Harry called out, his eyes still transfixed on the girl behind his friend.

He didn't take her eyes off her as they walked towards the exit, taking in every detail of her delicate body as she moved further and further away from him. She was painstakingly beautiful. How had she just walked in? As soon as the girls disappeared behind the door, Harry let out a big sigh.

"Fuck." He murmured under his breath.

He really hoped Y/N would take him up on his offer. Harry had very quickly and very suddenly developed this intense need to help the girl, and that couldn't mean anything good.

Maybe he'd never see her again. She did sound very unsure. Besides, who said that she even wanted to go to this class? For all Harry knew, Sophie could've just used her manipulative convincing tricks, and Y/N, the polite angel she was, would've felt too bad to decline. Maybe, she thought he was an ass and didn't want anything to do with him.

In spite of the countless theories flying through his head, he knew that she wanted it. He had seen it in her eyes. She did really want to join the class, she was simply too nervous. But whether she would take him up on the offer, that was the question. He'd have to wait until the following week.

Strangely enough, he couldn't wait until it was Tuesday. He couldn't wait to find out…

[ailoda]

updated: 09.03.25

ᯓ★ fluff

His Sweet Girl (❤): Bucky taking care of his best girl. (@brnesblogposts)

Marshmallow (❤): her bed is too comfy for Bucky. But she has a solution. (@vivwritesfics)

Wallpaper (❤): Bucky finds out how to change the wallpaper on your phone, and takes every opportunity he can to do so. until one day he doesn't have the heart to. (@cosmicbucky)

Clean Shaven (❤): you shave Bucky. (@your-highnessmarvel)

Dog Tags and Drunkenness (❤): you go clubbing with some of the girls from the team to try and find Nat a date, but Bucky has a pretty specific routine in place whenever you leave his side. (@buck-buck-buckaroo)

Sanctuary (❤): we all need a safe place to rest, even when some of us don't believe it. (@eat-limes-bitches)

My Responsibility Is You (❤): Bucky’s girl has to get her wisdom teeth removed, and he would go to all lengths to protect her from that experience—but he has to deal with the aftermath and takes care of her in the best possible ways. (@eviesaurusrex)

Snowfall (❤): you refuse to go outside on a cold day and Bucky is more than happy to keep you warm. - florist!bucky (@navybrat817)

The Marriage Bet (❤): if in three years time both of you were still single, you will marry your best friend, Bucky. That's the bet. (@brunchable)

Loverboy (❤): Bucky, a lovesick, pining super soldier, vows to keep his feelings for you a secret — no matter how obvious his crush may seem. Those plans are ruined between a meddling Sam, an embarrassing fall, and a visit to the medbay with you. (@thevillainswhore)

From Me, To You (❤❅): as Bucky’s secret santa, you’re determined to give him the best christmas present he’s ever received. (@retrosabers)

Hold My Girl (❤): Bucky comes home from a mission and needs time to hold his girl. (@pellucid-constellations)

Magnetic Mishap (❤): you bought magnets for Bucky's arm, forgetting that vibranium is not magnetic. (@rinasauruss)

The Life (❤): Bucky Barnes and the domesticity he deserves. (@hesthermay)

Pluvial Kisses! (❤): Bucky being the absolute fuckin dream of a man. (@mercurial-chuckles)

Yours, Whether You Know It Or Not (❤): you’ve been running missions with Sam and Bucky for a while now, and everything was fine—until John Walker started showing up and taking an interest in you. Bucky isn’t having it. Not because he’s jealous. Definitely not because he’s jealous. He just doesn’t trust Walker. Right? (@magical-reid)

new! Bucky's Quiet Love (❤❅): after a painful breakup, Bucky offers quiet comfort and unconditional care, showing you a love that's patient and gentle. He mends the ache in your chest and reminds you that you deserve so much more. (@mugglebornmarvelite)

new! Five Days, Five Bouquets (❤): "Do I need to remind you that we're not actually married?" (@marvelstoriesepic)

new! Weakness (❤✧): you use Bucky’s only weakness to your advantage until it bites you in the ass. (@marvelstoriesepic)

new! The Soldier and His Mission (❤❅): when a trigger sends Bucky back into the grip of the Winter Soldier, he shadows you with an unyielding protectiveness that leaves the team on edge, though he doesn't harm anyone. After days of tension and careful steps, Bucky finally breaks through the icy barrier, returning to himself in a quiet, tender moment, finding solace in your presence. (@magical-reid)

new! Forever Sounds Good (❤): Bucky Barnes had been called a lot of things in his lifetime—soldier, assassin, hero—but when you called him your husband, everything else ceased to exist. (@billionairebratenergy)

new! Baby, It's Bad Out There (❤❅): your best friend Kate has always been good at attracting trouble and this time, it’s starting to become your problem, too. Then again, what’s Christmas in New York City without meet-cutes and gunfire? (@intrepidacious)

new! Your Girl (❤): you're very vocal about wanting Bucky Barnes. (@navybrat817)

new! All American All-Star (❤): falling for the club’s American striker, Bucky Barnes, was never part of the plan— especially since your father happens to own the club. (@aquaticmercy)

[deebris]

Heartbeat

Simon "Ghost" Riley x child reader (platonic!)

Synopsis: At just eight years old, you struggle with a heart condition that makes you too fragile for shocks or exertion. To protect you, Simon keeps his military life as far away as possible, and his home, a safe refuge. But everything changes when an intruder, unaware of Simon's true identity, decides to rob them. What should have been a simple burglary turns into a desperate race against time when fear triggers a heart attack. Now, Simon is not only fighting the thief — he's fighting to save your life.

Warnings: Profanity, firearms, panic, mentions of death, the reader is 8 years old, has Long QT Syndrome and is a girl.

Word count: 4.5k

Observation: English is not my first language, and I have very little exposure to British English specifically. I had a really hard time writing Simon and Price's dialogue, but I hope I at least got close to something more realistic.

Simon put you to sleep, just like he had for the past two nights, and now he lay with his head resting against the pillow, the insomnia visiting him once again. He was exhausted from the day, chasing after you and handling your tantrums – but still, sleep wouldn’t come. No one would believe it if they were told that he, a shadowy wall of muscle and silence, spent his afternoons playing dolls and tea parties with an eight-year-old girl.

Your father always watched you sleep for a while, his calloused fingers gently brushing your chubby cheek and smoothing your hair. He admired your serenity, as if the world were perfect and no problems existed. Simon wished you could stay that way forever, carefree and small. The thought of you growing up and facing the world unsettled him, but it was inevitable.

You were a wellspring of joy, something that warmed his heart. Always looking for him, and always worried about how he felt, if he was okay, when he should be the one asking you that. Something inside Simon shifted every time you asked if he was hurting when went too quiet.

He used to think that a child’s mind was too oblivious to understand how adults worked, but you always noticed every time his eyes tightened just a fraction differently, wondering: Why is Daddy sad? And not every time was he exactly sad, but sometimes, his gaze grew distant, thoughts reaching faraway places. Now, he was much more careful not to let it happen around you, not wanting his daughter to think something was wrong with her father.

Everything about you made him immensely happy, a feeling buried deep in his chest that he had to protect you at all costs. But Simon couldn’t protect you from his greatest fear. Your heart worked differently, he had told you that himself, and it had brought him to the edge of panic more times than he could count. When it wasn’t clear what was wrong, he felt useless, powerless, as if he would never be enough.

Once, you couldn’t breathe at daycare, and he was thousands of miles away. Your babysitter called him in tears, it was one of the worst moments of his life. He thought you were going to die, and the very idea haunted him like some loathsome creature. He had faced death many times, in many forms, but with you, it was utterly devastating. You couldn’t disappear. It would destroy him.

When he was near, he handled you like porcelain, always cautious, as if something invisible could suddenly trigger another episode, making you cry from a pain he couldn't take away.

That’s why he refused to take anything that might help him sleep, twisting at the thought of you needing him and him being too dazed to respond. He forced himself to stay awake, alert, every little noise in the house making him tense. A creaking window, the sound of distant footsteps, a whisper in the hallway – he always checked – even knowing it was probably just his mind creating monsters. But he couldn’t help it. The fear of something happening while he was lost in the darkness of his own mind was unbearable.

In the middle of the night, he would get up several times just to check if you were still breathing. The room was silent, except for the rhythmic, comforting sound of your breath. Occasionally, there was a small hesitation, a brief pause that sent his heart into his throat, before the steady rise and fall of your chest resumed. He knew it was paranoia, but he couldn’t stop. To him, you were more important than the very oxygen in his lungs. Every beat of your heart mattered more than his own life.

But he wasn’t unshakable, no matter how much he wished to be for you. Eventually, exhaustion would take hold, his bloodshot eyes pulling him into the dark. When it did, he would wake at the first sign of morning – his sleep never lasting long. But tonight, something was different. He woke up much earlier.

A crash from the hallway, the sound of a lamp shattering against the floor, yanked him into full awareness. Like an instinct buried deep within him had been triggered, Simon’s hearing sharpened instantly. His body tensed, slipping into a readiness only someone like him could know. With a single swift motion, he was out of bed, his bare feet touching the floor with such precision that they barely made a sound.

Then, a sharp, terrified scream shattered the silence, echoing through the house.

It was your voice.

“Daddy!”

Cold fear rushed through his veins. His heart pounded violently, but he didn’t hesitate. Instinct seized him like a crushing weight, and he moved with the speed of a predator. The sound of his own ragged breath and the pounding of his heartbeat were all he heard as he bolted toward your room, his only thought to reach you before anything else could.

He burst through your door, flipping the switch to flood the room with light.

Someone was there.

A boy, probably a teenager. He wore a balaclava and clutched a pistol, the serial number scratched off. Simon noticed it instantly. He always noticed details – nothing escaped him – and guilt tore through his chest.

He should have prevented this. He should have seen the signs before the intruder ever set foot in his house.

“Stay there!” The boy shouted, his voice trembling. His hands shook so much they could barely hold the gun. He seemed on the verge of collapsing, as if he might wet himself at any moment. Maybe he was just a young man making a stupid mistake, a rash decision. That's what Simon's rational side told himself. But his emotional side could only feel anger – a muffled, uncontrollable fury burning inside – because of how that gun had been pointed at you just seconds ago.

Simon's figure must have terrified the invader even more. The boy hadn't expected to find someone like him. Tall. Intimidating. His face covered in scars, his eyes cold and empty. Instinct screamed inside the younger: this is no ordinary man. Even when Simon raised his hands, in a gesture of surrender, he didn't seem to feel safe.

“Calm down.” Simon's deep, imposing voice filled the room. The boy trembled even more. The lieutenant opened his hands, trying to show he wouldn't do anything.

He heard your crying. He could feel your heart racing, almost as fast as his own. And that was not a good sign. Your chest was rising and falling irregularly. He knew you needed help. Now.

“Put the gun down, kid.”

“I'm not putting anything down, Motherfucker!” He shouted, his voice shrill, desperate. You jumped in bed. Simon diverted his eyes for a second, just to see how you clung to the blanket, your fingers gripping so tightly they were turning white. Your father knew the swearing, the yelling, and that gun were terrifying you.

“Look at me! Don't look at her!” The boy yelled again, hysterical. Fear was written all over his face. He thought Simon might attack him at any moment.

“You can take whatever you want, just put the gun down.” Simon's voice came out brutal again, cutting. He needed to appear in control, even though he wasn't. He moved his hands slowly, cautiously, trying to convince the stranger he wasn’t a threat.

Meanwhile, your mind was on high alert, painted red as you saw the barrel of the gun pointed at your father. For a dark moment, you thought that guy was going to hurt him.

“I didn't know she was here, I swear.” The kid whispered. His breathing was erratic. “I don't want to take anything, I just want to leave. I'm very sorry...”

Simon saw the tremor in the boy's shoulders, saw the tears forming behind the fabric of the balaclava. He was crying, probably from the shock of finding a child while doing something so horrific.

“Fine. Then go.” Simon agreed, his mind spinning, his heart hammering in his chest. He just wanted to get to you. Your breathing was becoming difficult. You were so scared you could barely speak.

The thief swallowed hard. His gaze wavered for a second.

“As soon as I get closer, you'll grab me.” He said as if it were a fact, sizing up Simon’s physique – a man who knows how to fight. A cop, maybe? Military? The boy knew he wouldn't stand a chance against him.

“I won’t.” Simon kept his voice firm, but he felt the fear seeping in. His eyes quickly shifted to you, seeing your feet moving under the blanket, you were in agony.

Then he saw it.

Your small chest rising and falling erratically. You brought your hand to your heart, your face contorting. Pain.

Panic exploded inside Simon.

If it weren’t for you, Simon would have already lunged at the invader and ended it. But he couldn’t risk it. A stray bullet. One wrong move.

“What’s your name?” His voice came out softer, controlled.

“J-James...” He stammered.

The oldest in the room nodded, memorizing the name. “James. I’m Simon.”

The boy just nodded.

“You look young. I reckon you made a mistake comin’ ‘ere, and now you’re regrettin’ it.” Simon measured each word with precision. “I don’t care if you walk out that door and vanish, just as long as you’re outta my daughter’s sight.”

He was lying. He was lying with every word. But he needed James to believe it. He needed him to leave. He was definitely going after him later.

James averted his gaze and, for the first time, really looked at you.

Your body was trembling. Tears streamed down your face. Your lips were trembling so much you couldn’t speak.

“W-What’s wrong with her?” The young man asked hesitantly. His voice was different now, but Simon didn’t want to talk. He needed to get to you.

“You're frightenin' her.” He said through clenched teeth, and something seemed to change in the boy. His gaze softened.

But the gun was still raised.

And Simon was running out of time.

He saw you try to call his name once more, but the sound died in your throat.

He knew what it was.

The cold soldier’s face crumbled, giving way to that of a desperate father, and he looked into James's eyes before finally exploding:

“If you don’t let me help her, she’s gonna die!”

The boy blinked at hearing the threat, confused, and Simon took a step forward.

“She’s ill.” He gushed the words harshly, laden with an emotion he couldn’t control. “If you don’t let me go to her, she’ll die. Do you understand, bloody hell?!”

For a second, after the beastly shout he gave, only silence filled the room.

James froze.

And Simon waited.

The boy gave up and nodded, his fingers still trembling as he lowered the gun. Simon didn’t waste any time. In an instant, he crossed the room to you, his steps heavy and determined. You were pale. Small. Your hands still clutching your chest. The fear in your huge eyes was enough to break something inside him.

Simon crouched beside you and held your face between his hands, forcing a softer tone than he had used with the intruder. James, panicked, couldn’t do anything but put his hands over his head, sliding down the wall while apologizing repeatedly. He pulled the balaclava off his face, revealing his features. He was just a teenager, between 16 and 18 years old.

The boy had no idea what he was doing there, nor how he had reached the point of thinking that breaking into a family’s home for some cash was a good idea. The moment he realized what he had done, a chill ran down his spine as he understood that, for an instant, he had pointed a gun at a child.

A child.

“Hey, I’m here. I’m here, sweetheart. Look at me.”

You blinked a few times, as if trying to focus, searching for safety in your father’s face. But your body trembled. Then came the first unsteady breath. Then another. Small, desperate gasps. Your chest rose and fell too fast, and Simon felt his blood turn cold.

No. Not now.

A sob escaped you, and you clung to his shirt as if your life depended on it. Maybe it did.

He held you tightly, as if he could shield you from everything, as if just pulling you closer could stop life from slipping through his fingers. Heart pounding, he descended the stairs in long strides, muscles tense with the urgency only a father understands. Nothing else mattered now – not the stranger still in the house, not the shards of glass on the floor, not even his own fear. Only you. Only getting to the hospital in time.

“D-Daddy…” Your voice came out as a weak whisper, so soft he only heard it because your face was pressed against his shoulder.

Simon’s stomach twisted. You were scared. More than that, you were terrified. Your small fingers clung to his shirt so tightly they could have torn it, as if you were drowning.

“You’re gonna be okay, my love.” The words came out fast, hoarse, more for himself than for you. He yanked the car door open and carefully placed you in the back seat, making sure you were positioned safely. His eyes quickly scanned your pale face before he rushed to drive.

Simon didn’t look back. He didn’t think about the stranger, the house, anything else. He just turned the engine on and slammed his foot on the gas, the headlights cutting through the darkness as he sped down the nearly empty streets. His mind was torn between the road and the sound of your unsteady breathing in the back seat.

“Stay with me, sweetheart.” he murmured, glancing at the rearview mirror. You were curled up, your wide eyes locked on him, trying to stay focused as your small hands gripped the seatbelt.

Simon’s chest tightened. He wanted to say something to soothe you, but all that came to mind was the corrosive fear that maybe – just maybe – he was already too late.

✧✧✧

A few hours later, the sun was shining brightly as morning advanced. Simon shifted in the uncomfortable hospital chair, elbows resting on his knees, his hand holding yours. The warmth of your skin against his was the only thing that a little peace, his thumb tracing slow circles in an unconscious gesture of comfort. He had been silent since arriving, but not in his usual way. This silence was heavy, suffocating, filling the room like an unspoken weight.

He didn’t dare take his eyes off you, afraid that even the slightest lapse in attention could make things go wrong again. The constant beeping of the heart monitor was offering him fragile relief, a reminder that you were here, alive. But he couldn’t shake the feeling that it was just a temporary illusion – that at any moment, the rhythm would spike again, and you’d be in danger.

Two hours ago, you had woken up, still drowsy, sedated by the doctors to prevent stress. Your eyes opened sluggishly, scanning the room until found him. You were scared – for him. The image of the boy pointing a gun was still vivid in your mind, and the fear overflowed. When the panic set in, your heart rate spiked again, and the medical team had to intervene, sedating you once more.

Simon could do nothing. He just sat there, motionless, fingers pressing against the bridge of his nose in frustration.

The sound of the door opening pulled him from his thoughts. Simon turned his head and saw Price standing there. His captain, one of the few people he trusted, and someone who knew you well enough to understand what had happened.

Simon had never minded being alone. Solitude was an old companion, a shadow he had learned to carry without complaint. But this time, for some reason, he had picked up the phone and called John. Something inside him had pushed him to press that button, an insistent, uneasy force hammering inside him.

He wanted to believe it was just for your sake, because you and Price were close, because he had a duty to inform him - because his captain would be furious if Simon didn't tell him about it. But deep down, he knew the truth.

He needed someone else to be there.

Your “Uncle John” never failed to send you gifts when he could, and sometimes even made the hour-long drive from his city just to say “hi” to you. Price cherished you as if you were his own daughter.

“Oi, Lieutenant.” The older man’s voice was steady, comforting.

Simon took a deep breath, trying to compose himself, falling back into the tactical demeanor he always used in the base. But even when he wore his mask, John could read him like an open book.

“Captain.” That was all he managed to say.

Price knew him well enough to understand that Simon needed support. He was used to dealing with Ghost. But this – this was just Simon.

“How’s our Thumbelina?” Price asked softly, as if afraid to wake you. He walked over to Simon, placing a hand on his shoulder in a brief, almost hesitant gesture.

“She'll wake up soon enough.” Simon replied, his eyes fixed on you but not really seeing you. His gaze was distant, unfocused.

“You said she went into shock, didn't you?” Price murmured, trying to follow a line of conversation.

“The doc thinks so.” Simon sighed and leaned back in the chair, exhaling slowly. “They’re going to refer her to a shrink. Don’t want those memories messin’ with her head.”

Price nodded, remaining standing.

“I made a few calls,” he announced, watching his friend's reaction. “I got some info on the brat.”

Simon looked up, attentive.

“He didn’t even try to leg it. Found him in her room, and I called in a contact from the coppers.” He scratched his mustache at the memory of the encounter.

At first, Price got confused. But within seconds, he was already gripping the teenager by the collar, fury burning in his eyes. He only started to rein himself in when James, terrified, began apologizing, without even knowing who the man pinning him against the wall was. His empathy took over. The boy had hurt you, yes, but he didn’t know the severity of your condition. He was wrong, but he wasn’t a demon.

“His mum showed up at the station right after. It was a proper scene. The two of them were at each other’s throats, shouting. The woman was in tears, all disappointed, and the boy looked right sorry for himself.”

Simon clenched his jaw. “I couldn't give a toss about that nonsense.” The irritation was evident, even though he hadn’t intended to be rude.

“He thought the house was empty, Simon. Got it mixed up with the neighbour’s.” Price added carefully. “It was a daft dare from friends who knew he needed the money, so he nicked his father’s gun. He’s off to court. With what he’s done, he might end up in a juvenile centre.”

Simon remained quiet for a moment, running his tongue over his teeth. Then, he exhaled sharply through his nose.

“Yeah. Great.” he muttered, irritation dripping from every syllable.

Price watched his reaction, hesitating before continuing.

“I know you're pissed off, mate, but...” He paused, studying Simon's tense face. “Maybe it’s worth figuring out what the hell was goin’ through that boy’s head.”

Simon heard every word but didn’t reply. He absorbed his captain’s advice and kept his gaze on him. The memory of how you screamed, the tears, all the agony... It made Simon clench his free hand into fist.

You thought he was going to get shot. You were desperate.

Price noticed the movement. He saw how Simon’s fingers were practically digging into his own skin with the force of his grip. He decided not to press the issue. Instead, he walked to your bed, observing your face for a moment. A faint smile flickered on his lips before he reached out and ruffled your hair in a gentle pat.

Then, John pulled something from his pocket and held up a stuffed hippopotamus, showing it to Simon.

Simon frowned, clearly displeased with the choice.

“Come on, you know she fancies it.” Price said, trying to lighten the heavy mood. “Hippos are tough, you know?”

But Price’s joke was cut short when he noticed you were waking up. Your eyes opened slowly, blinking several times as you oriented yourself. Simon shifted in his chair, and a quick glance was enough for John to understand that maybe it was best for you not to see your father right away – not while his image was still tied to the terror of the night.

“Hi, Uncle John…” Your small voice came out in a hoarse whisper, heavy with sleep.

“Oi, little doll.” he murmured back, his expression filled with a warmth he only used with you.

He didn’t need to say anything else to make you smile. As soon as he lifted the stuffed hippo, shaking it like it was going to devour you, you let out a giggle.

The sound relieved Price, and especially Simon. He watched as your tiny fingers grabbed the toy, hugging the plush creature to your chest.

“Thank you…” you murmured, pouting a little as you placed your index finger between your upper lip and nose, mimicking his mustache.

Price copied the gesture, but the face he made was much funnier than yours.

“Where’s Daddy?” you asked just like the first time you woke up, your brows furrowing in worry.

The beeping on the monitor sped up slightly. Simon noticed immediately and ran his thumb over your hand again – a reminder that you weren’t alone. You turned your head and found him there, still sitting in the same chair, his dark eyes betraying the sleepless night he had spent.

“I'm here, love.” His voice was firm, both a reassurance and a promise.

You gripped his forearm tighter than you had held your new stuffed hippo. Simon felt the tension in your small fingers and let you cling to him without saying a word. You seemed calmer now, less frightened.

Price grabbed a cup of water and handed it to Simon, who helped you drink. You took a few small sips, the way children do, but it was enough.

Then, your eyes locked onto your father’s, serious, as if you had something important to resolve. He braced himself for anything. Maybe a question about what had happened, maybe a request to go home. But not this:

"You said a bad word."

Simon blinked slowly. “What?”

“He said ‘bloody hell’.” you whispered to Price, as if revealing a forbidden secret.

Price raised his eyebrows, holding back a smile. “Oh, really, eh?”

Simon sighed, running a hand over his face. “Prob'ly did.”

Price let out a low chuckle, satisfied to get some reaction out of him.

Suddenly, you started paying attention to your surroundings. A hospital room wasn’t strange to you, since you had been here a few times before, but that didn’t mean you liked it. The doctors always said they needed to keep you under observation until the crisis passed, and the worst situations happened quickly, in the middle of chaos, before anyone could stabilize you.

There was a time they had to use a defibrillator, and just the thought of it sent a shiver down Simon’s spine. To his relief, this time all you needed was to simply shut down, a milder way to calm your emotions.

“I want to go home…” you pleaded, your voice thick with emotion.

“We will, in a few hours.” Simon replied firmly. If he gave you an inch, he knew you’d push until the end.

“Is Uncle John staying with us?” you asked, grabbing the hippo by the ear and waving the plush toy in front of Price, who pretended to try catching it but failed miserably.

“No, Princess. I'm sorry.” he answered regretfully. “I wish I could stay longer, but I only came to see you. I’ve gotta head back home soon.” He pinched your nose between his fingers, making you giggle.

“Okay…” you murmured, disappointed, but already starting to feel a little stronger.

You shifted on the bed, getting on your knees to hug Price, who held you firmly, running his hand over your back before pressing a kiss to the side of your head. As soon as you let go, you turned to your father and practically buried yourself in his lap, seeking shelter. You settled on his legs, leaning your torso against his broad chest.

Simon was used to this, but this time, you seemed even more in need of security. Your small fingers poked at the dog tag hanging around his neck, as if it were the most interesting thing in the world.

Simon knew you were still scared. He knew that, in the coming days, you wouldn’t leave his side. And he didn’t mind.

Because deep down, he wanted to stay close to you too.

He held on to this moment, feeling you fidget with the metal piece on his neck. Simon knew things wouldn’t be easy for now, but he chose not to get lost in thoughts of the future. He held you even tighter, his arms wrapping around you like a blanket while you found comfort in the calm. Simon felt deeply grateful that you hadn’t asked questions about the boy, and in silence, he turned to Price, who responded with a simple nod, as if he had understood the unspoken message.

Price took a few steps closer and crouched down, looking at you with affection. “Goodbye, Thumbelina,” he said, extending his fist for a farewell bump.

“Goodbye, Mr. Mustache.” you replied softly, but with a smile that made Price chuckle as he ruffled your hair. He stood up, turning to Simon with a look that carried the same unwavering trust as always.

“Take care, lad. I’ll see you soon.” he said, not waiting for a response, already knowing the lieutenant’s temperament well.

Simon watched Price leave, letting out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. His hardened expression softened the moment there was no longer a need to hide behind it. He still made an effort to appear confident for you, but as he closed his eyes and held you tighter, he finally allowed himself to relax. The silent gesture of protection he offered was an unspoken promise.

He knew that as long as he was with you, nothing else mattered. He would always be by your side. And even with the weight of the world on his shoulders, Simon allowed himself to believe, just for a moment, that maybe the future would be a little lighter. No matter what came next. Together, he and you would face it all.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Sandra Newman’s “Julia”

The first chapter of Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four has a fantastic joke that nearly everyone misses: when Julia, Winston Smith's love interest, is introduced, she has oily hands and a giant wrench, which she uses in her "mechanical job on one of the novel-writing machines":

https://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks01/0100021.txt

That line just kills me every time I re-read the book – Orwell, a novelist, writing a dystopian future in which novels are written by giant, clanking mechanisms. Later on, when Winston and Julia begin their illicit affair, we get more detail:

She could describe the whole process of composing a novel, from the general directive issued by the Planning Committee down to the final touching-up by the Rewrite Squad. But she was not interested in the finished product. She 'didn't much care for reading,' she said. Books were just a commodity that had to be produced, like jam or bootlaces.

I always assumed Orwell was subtweeting his publishers and editors here, and you can only imagine that the editor who asked Orwell to tweak the 1984 manuscript must have felt an uncomfortable parallel between their requests and the notional Planning Committee and Rewrite Squad at the Ministry of Truth.

I first read 1984 in the early winter of, well, 1984, when I was thirteen years old. I was on a family trip that included as visit to my relatives in Leningrad, and the novel made a significant impact on me. I immediately connected it to the canon of dystopian science fiction that I was already avidly consuming, and to the geopolitics of a world that seemed on the brink of nuclear devastation. I also connected it to my own hopes for the nascent field of personal computing, which I'd gotten an early start on, when my father – then a computer science student – started bringing home dumb terminals and acoustic couplers from his university in the mid-1970s. Orwell crystallized my nascent horror at the oppressive uses of technology (such as the automated Mutually Assured Destruction nuclear systems that haunted my nightmares) and my dreams of the better worlds we could have with computers.

It's not an overstatement to say that the rest of my life has been about this tension. It's no coincidence that I wrote a series of "Little Brother" novels whose protagonist calls himself w1n5t0n:

https://craphound.com/littlebrother/Cory_Doctorow_-_Little_Brother.htm

I didn't stop with Orwell, of course. I wrote a whole series of widely read, award-winning stories with the same titles as famous sf tales, starting with "Anda's Game" ("Ender's Game"):

https://www.salon.com/2004/11/15/andas_game/

And "I, Robot":

https://craphound.com/overclocked/Cory_Doctorow_-_Overclocked_-_I_Robot.html

"The Martian Chronicles":

https://escapepod.org/2019/10/03/escape-pod-700-martian-chronicles-part-1/

"True Names":

https://archive.org/details/TrueNames

"The Man Who Sold the Moon":

https://memex.craphound.com/2015/05/22/the-man-who-sold-the-moon/

and "The Brave Little Toaster":

https://archive.org/details/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_212

Writing stories about other stories that you hate or love or just can't get out of your head is a very old and important literary tradition. As EL Doctorow (no relation) writes in his essay "Genesis," the Hebrews stole their Genesis story from the Babylonians, rewriting it to their specifications:

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/41520/creationists-by-e-l-doctorow/

As my "famous title" stories and Little Brother books show, this work needn't be confined to antiquity. Modern copyright may be draconian, but it contains exceptions ("fair use" in the US, "fair dealing" in many other places) that allow for this kind of creative reworking. One of the most important fair use cases concerns The Wind Done Gone, Alice Randall's 2001 retelling of Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind from the perspective of the enslaved characters, which was judged to be fair use after Mitchell's heirs tried to censor the book:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suntrust_Bank_v._Houghton_Mifflin_Co.

In ruling for Randall, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals emphasized that she had "fully employed those conscripted elements from Gone With the Wind to make war against it." Randall used several of Mitchell's most famous lines, "but vest[ed] them with a completely new significance":

https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F3/268/1257/608446/

The Wind Done Gone is an excellent book, and both its text and its legal controversy kept springing to mind as I read Sandra Newman's wonderful novel Julia, which retells 1984 from the perspective of Julia, she of the oily hands the novel-writing machine:

https://www.harpercollins.com/products/julia-sandra-newman?variant=41467936636962

Julia is the kind of fanfic that I love, in the tradition of both Wind Done gone and Rosenkrantz and Gildenstern Are Dead, in which a follow-on author takes on the original author's throwaway world-building with deadly seriousness, elucidating the weird implications and buried subtexts of all the stuff and people moving around in the wings and background of the original.

For Newman, the starting point here is Julia, an enigmatic lover who comes to Winston with all kinds of rebellious secrets – tradecraft for planning and executing dirty little assignations and acquiring black market goods. Julia embodies a common contradiction in the depiction of young women (she is some twenty years younger than Winston): on the one hand, she is a "native" of the world, while Winston is a late arrival, carrying around all his "oldthink" baggage that leaves him perennially baffled, terrified and angry; on the other hand, she's a naive "girl," who "doesn't much care for reading," and lacks the intellectual curiosity that propels Winston through the text.

This contradiction is the cleavage line that Newman drives her chisel into, fracturing Orwell's world in useful, fascinating, engrossing ways. For Winston, the world of 1984 is totalitarian: the Party knows all, controls all and misses nothing. To merely think a disloyal thought is to be doomed, because the omnipotent, omniscient, and omnicompetent Party will sense the thought and mark you for torture and "vaporization."

Orwell's readers experience all of 1984 through Winston's eyes and are encouraged to trust his assessment of his situation. But Newman brings in a second point of view, that of Julia, who is indeed far more worldly than Winston. But that's not because she's younger than him – it's because she's more provincial. Julia, we learn, grew up outside of the Home Counties, where the revolution was incomplete and where dissidents – like her parents – were sent into exile. Julia has experienced the periphery of the Party's power, the places where it is frayed and incomplete. For Julia, the Party may be ruthless and powerful, but it's hardly omnicompetent. Indeed, it's rather fumbling.

Which makes sense. After all, if we take Winston at his word and assume that every disloyal citizen of Oceania is arrested, tortured and murdered, where would that leave Oceania? Even Kim Jong Un can't murder everyone who hates him, or he'd get awfully lonely, and then awfully hungry.

Through Julia's eyes, we experience Oceania as a paranoid autocracy, corrupt and twitchy. We witness the obvious corollary of a culture of denunciation and arrest: the ruling Party of such an institution must be riddled with internecine struggle and backstabbing, to the point of paralyzed dysfunction. The Orwellian trick of switching from being at war with Eastasia to Eurasia and back again is actually driven by real military setbacks – not just faked battles designed to stir up patriotic fervor. The Party doesn't merely claim to be under assault from internal and external enemies – it actually is.

Julia is also perfectly positioned to uncover the vast blank spots in Winston's supposed intellectual curiosity, all the questions he doesn't ask – about her, about the Party, and about the world. I love this trope and used it myself, in Attack Surface, the third "Little Brother" book, which is told from the point of view of Marcus's frenemy Masha:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250757531/attacksurface

Through Julia, we come to understand the seemingly omniscient, omnipotent Party as fumbling sadists. The Thought Police are like MI5, an Island of Misfit Toys where the paranoid, the stupid, the vicious and the thuggish come together to ruin the lives of thousands, in such a chaotic and pointless manner that their victims find themselves spinning devastatingly clever explanations for their behavior:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/entries/3662a707-0af9-3149-963f-47bea720b460

And, as with Nineteen Eighty-Four, Julia is a first-rate novel, expertly plotted, with fantastic, nail-biting suspense and many smart turns and clever phrases. Newman is doing Orwell, and, at times, outdoing him. In her hands, Orwell – like Winston – is revealed as a kind of overly credulous romantic who can't believe that anyone as obviously stupid and deranged as the state's representatives could be kicking his ass so very thoroughly.

This was, in many ways, the defining trauma and problem of Orwell's life, from his origin story, in which he is shot through the throat by a fascist: sniper during the Spanish Civil War:

https://www.rjgeib.com/thoughts/soldiers/george-orwell-shot.html

To his final days, when he developed a foolish crush on a British state spy and tried to impress her by turning his erstwhile comrades in to her:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orwell%27s_list

Newman's feminist retelling of Orwell is as much about puncturing the myth of male competence as it is about revealing the inner life, agency, and personhood of swooning love-interests. As someone who loves Orwell – but not unconditionally – I was moved, impressed, and delighted by Julia.

Tor Books as just published two new, free LITTLE BROTHER stories: VIGILANT, about creepy surveillance in distance education; and SPILL, about oil pipelines and indigenous landback.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/09/28/novel-writing-machines/#fanfic

[tacobacoyeet]

George and y/nn broke up after the war because they both wanted to concentrate on their careers. The two see each other again years later at Ginny's and Harry's wedding because y/n and Ginny were very good friends even though she was in Fred and George's year. She was always like a big sister to ginny. George and y/n have never stopped loving each other and getting closer to each other again at the wedding. Then they disappear into the burrow and have hot sex. George is Dom as always. When the two come back Fred and Ginny already look suspiciously at them, because both of them always had to hear from the two how much they miss each other.

as fate promised | george weasley x reader

a/n: happy birthday to the most impactful and long-lasting book crush i've ever had. george weasley will always be the character i could never live without. thank you for all 5 requests i have in my inbox for him, but specifically this one. i took some creative liberties, but i hope i've at least given you a hint of what you were hoping for.

warnings: SMUT 18+, alcohol mention, war mention, pregnancy mention, au in which fred is alive (it's his birthday and i'm not cruel) and harry and ginny have a happy wedding, this isn't exactly accurate but... it's fun, i actually wrote a happy ending for once! yay, hastily proofread

The sunlight in Ginny’s bedroom streamed in slow, golden ribbons, casting a soft spell over everything it touched—the lace veil folded carefully on the dresser, the half-drunk flute of champagne on the windowsill, and the back of your neck, where a loose strand of hair clung to the curve of your skin. You laughed, breathless and fond, as Ginny spun in front of the mirror, the satin of her gown whispering against the wooden floor.

"You look like a painting," you murmured, reaching forward to adjust the fall of Ginny’s hairpins, fingers trembling ever so slightly. "Something out of a dream."

Ginny rolled her eyes with affection. "Don't go getting sentimental on me now. I need you composed, remember? One of us has to be."

But you weren’t listening anymore. Not really. Because the second you lifted your gaze out the crooked-pane window, your heart snagged on the sight of him.

George.

He was standing in the garden in a navy-blue jacket that clung to his shoulders like memory. His hair—still a riot of that unmistakable Weasley red—glowed brighter than the sun itself. He was laughing at something Charlie had said, tossing his head back. He laughed the way he always had, but it sat different now. Like something had broken beneath it. Something quieter rested behind his eyes.

Time.

It sat on both of you.

And just like that, the years folded in on themselves. Hogwarts corridors. Sneaked kisses behind greenhouses. Midnight swims in the Black Lake. Fred yelling, "Oi, get a room, you two!" as you and George tumbled into the Gryffindor common room hand-in-hand. Ginny’s endless teasing, how she would groan every time George sent an enchanted origami bird fluttering into your textbooks.

You remembered the day they fled Hogwarts. He had told you beforehand, of course. It was a painful night. Tears streaming, whispered "I love you"s, promises about the future you two had planned. You watched, soon after, the way the fireworks bloomed across the Great Hall ceiling, the way your chest cracked open watching him disappear through the clouds of rebellion. You had known. Even then. That something had ended.

You stayed. Finished what you started. Buried your heart in textbooks and late-night patrols, every breath a battle not to sneak out of Hogwarts and into the joke shop to throw your arms around him.

You kept your chin up. You trained. You earned your Auror badge like it meant something. Like it could stitch up the gaping space he left behind.

The letters faded. The visits stopped. And in their place—emptiness. Weeks turned to months turned to years, and you both just… let it happen.

It hadn’t been an ugly ending, just an agonizing one. A slow unraveling. A missed goodbye. No fights. Just silence where laughter used to live. Tear-streaked cheeks and clutched hands and whispered promises you were both too proud—and too young—to keep.

You’d never stopped loving him. That was the worst part. The love had never left. It had only settled somewhere quieter. Heavier. Waiting.

You blinked, and he was still there.

He hadn’t seen you yet.

But he would.

And when he did, the whole bloody world would stop. It may as well have, already.

You didn’t know if it was hope or fear blooming in your chest—only that it was alive again.

-----

The wedding was soft and golden, like everything that had come before it.

The garden behind the Burrow had been transformed—lanterns floating overhead like tiny stars, wildflowers blooming in mason jars along each aisle, chairs arranged in a perfect, charmingly crooked arc. It smelled like rosemary and lemon tart, like old wood and fresh beginnings. Someone had enchanted the breeze to stay warm and gentle. You could almost pretend it was magic itself.

You stood with the other bridesmaids, bouquet tight in your hands, your dress the same shade of blush Ginny had insisted on months ago with a wicked grin—“George will faint when he sees you in this.”

You hadn’t thought she meant it literally. But now, you weren’t so sure.

Because he was there.

Groomsman. Just across the aisle. Tense, freckled hands clasped in front of him, boutonnière slightly crooked, smile tight at the corners like he couldn’t quite catch his breath. And then—

His eyes found yours.

Everything else faded.

He stared at you like it hurt. Like it healed. Like you were everything he'd buried and didn’t dare dig up again until this moment. He looked at you like you were the only real thing in a world built from dreams. Like he'd spent every day since the war pretending not to search for you in every crowded street, every silent room.

And there was something else too—grief tucked behind the edges of his smile. As if the war hadn’t just taken his ear and a piece of Hogwarts, but pieces of all of you. The laughter was still there, but it sat deeper in his chest now. Older. Earned.

And you? You stared right back.

Because how could you not?

That was your George. Still him. Still yours. Except not. Not really.

Fred elbowed him sharply, grinning like a devil, and George blinked—smiling back with something startled and sheepish and boyish in a way that gutted you.

You looked away before you could drown in it.

But you would’ve given anything to drown in it.

You had imagined weddings before. Countless nights holed up in the Gryffindor Dormitory with Ginny, Hermione, and all of the other girls you grew up with. Some nights it was their dream wedding. Other nights it was yours. A beautiful venue, a devilishly handsome court-jester of a ginger across from you at the altar. A sting in your eyes, a warmth in your chest, the vows you had planned out hidden deep in your diary.

It wasn’t just a conversation with your friends. It was late nights and early mornings, the Gryffindor common room fire crackling beneath whispers between you and your lover. Your head would rest on his chest, the two of you staring off as you planned every little detail of your life together. The color scheme of your wedding, the names of your future children, who would be on dinner-duty each night. You were convinced it was fated. Prophesied. Y/N Y/L/N and George Weasley were written in the stars.

Today, though, this ceremony blurred around the edges, dipped in candlelight and vows and Molly’s occasional sniffles. You caught flashes—Harry trying not to cry, Ginny radiant like sunlight incarnate, Arthur clutching a handkerchief in both fists. There were enchanted doves, there was a harpist whose strings shivered like glass, there was magic in the air and it wasn’t all from the spells.

But mostly, there was him.

Watching you.

And you, pretending you didn’t keep looking back.

Your pulse raced, hot beneath your collarbone. Your knees trembled inside your heels.

Because you knew it, deep in your bones. The moment the last toast was made, the first chance he got—he was going to come to you.

And when he did, you wouldn’t run.

You weren’t seventeen anymore.

You were still his. Even if you hadn’t said it out loud in years.

---

The sun had dipped behind the trees by the time the reception hit its stride. Candles floated over tables dressed in mismatched linen. Music played low and rich beneath the hum of voices and laughter. Plates clinked. Wine glasses glittered in the fairy light. You danced with Neville, with Luna, with Bill, all with a smile stretched too tight across your face.

Because you could feel him watching.

Every time you turned, George was somewhere near—laughing with Charlie, talking with Lee Jordan, charming someone’s grandmother,  standing in his brother’s personal bubble as he whispered something that made Fred choke on his drink from laughter.

But he hadn’t come to you.

Not yet.

Your skin buzzed like a live wire. Every inch of you attuned to the way he moved, the weight of his gaze when he thought you wouldn’t notice. You were burning with it. Trembling with it.

And then you were gone.

You slipped away from the crowd, quiet as a spell. Past the string lights, past the garden’s edge, past the kitchen window glowing warm with laughter. You found your way to the porch—the one that creaked beneath your heels and smelled like pine and old summers.

You kicked off your shoes. Wrapped your arms around yourself. Breathed.

The door behind you creaked open, then closed.

You didn’t need to turn.

"You always did disappear at parties," he said softly.

You smiled to yourself. "You always did find me."

His footsteps creaked across the boards.

Then he was beside you.

Close enough to touch, but not touching. Close enough that you could feel the warmth of him through the air. You stared ahead, out at the setting sun. Fireflies began to buzz over the garden, and someone—Hermione, probably—had enchanted the pond to shimmer gold.

"Hi," he said.

You looked at him. Slowly. Let your eyes take him in, like your memory had starved for him.

"Hi," you whispered.

He breathed out a laugh. "Didn’t know if you’d actually come."

"I wouldn’t have missed it for the world."

He tilted his head. "Fred was bouncing off the walls. Told me if I didn’t clean up and act right, I’d regret it when you walked through the door."

You smiled. "He’s usually right."

George went quiet. His gaze dropped to the floorboards, then rose again to meet yours.

"You look beautiful," he said, voice low. "I mean—you always do. But tonight…"

Your chest ached. "Don’t."

"Don’t what?"

"Don’t say things like that unless you mean them."

He stepped forward. Close. Close enough that your arms brushed.

"I’ve meant every word I’ve ever said to you," he murmured.

You couldn’t breathe.

He was looking at you like he did in the greenhouses. In the library when you snuck him in after curfew. On the Astronomy Tower with your tie in his hand and the stars in your eyes.

Like he was falling through every single galaxy to end up in your arms once again.

"I missed you," he said.

You didn’t speak. Just stood there, blinking hard, willing the tears to stay where they were.

George shifted closer, voice unsteady. "I didn’t know how to let go of you. I thought I could pour everything into the shop, into laughing until it didn’t hurt anymore—but you never really left."

Your breath caught. "I thought I was doing the right thing. I thought if I kept moving forward, maybe it wouldn’t hurt so much. But it did. It does."

His eyes searched yours, but he didn’t flinch. "Then let’s stop pretending."

You opened your mouth to respond—but he kissed you instead.

It was not polite. Not soft.

It was filth and fire, all teeth and tongue, years of frustration and longing colliding behind lips that had forgotten how to be gentle. Your back hit the porch rail with a thud as he gripped your hips and ground against you like he could make up for everything in one breathless second.

You moaned into his mouth, clawed at his jacket, dragging him impossibly closer. His hands were under your dress, fists bunching the fabric as he palmed your ass with a growl.

"Come with me," he rasped, biting your lower lip just hard enough to make you gasp. "Now."

You didn’t need to be asked twice.

He took your hand and hauled you upstairs like a man starved, the tittering portraits lining the walls hardly audible as your hearts pounded in your ears, barely making it through his bedroom door before he shoved it closed with his foot and pinned you against it. His mouth was on your neck, hot and open and frantic.

"Missed this," he groaned. "Missed you."

You pushed his jacket off his shoulders, yanked his shirt open, buttons pinging off the walls. He didn’t even flinch. Just lifted you, carried you across the room, and dropped you onto the bed like he owned you.

And maybe he did.

You pulled him down with you, mouth on his, legs wrapped tight around his hips. He kissed you like he was trying to brand himself into your bones.

Your dress hit the floor. His trousers followed.

He didn’t wait.

He dropped to his knees at the edge of the bed and dragged your panties off with his teeth, eyes locked on yours. Then he was on you, tongue lapping between your legs, filthy and unrelenting.

You cried out, hips bucking against his face, and he groaned like he was addicted to it. He licked you through it, through your shaking thighs and gasping sobs, until you were trembling and pleading and yanking at his hair.

He rose over you, lips slick, pupils blown wide.

"You taste just as incredible as you used to," he said hoarsely, stroking himself as he crawled back over you. "I’m gonna ruin you."

You grabbed his face, pulled him close, lips clashing. "Please."

And he did.

He slammed into you in one deep, devastating thrust that made your eyes roll back.

You cried out, nails digging into his shoulders. He set a brutal pace, fucking you into his mattress like a man possessed, like every second without you had been agony.

"You’ve always been mine," he growled, hips snapping hard against yours. "Tell me you never stopped."

"Yours," you gasped. "Yours, George, fuck—don’t stop—"

He flipped you onto your stomach, dragged your hips up, and drove into you again from behind, one hand tangled in your hair, the other splayed over your lower back to hold you still.

The sounds—your moans, the slap of skin, the creak of the bed—filled the room, obscene and perfect.

You were gone. Wrecked. Nothing but sensation and him.

He reached around, fingers circling your clit, and you shattered with a scream, clenching around him so tight he cursed loudly, bucked once more, and spilled into you with a groan that sounded like your name and a prayer.

You collapsed into the sheets, limp and breathless. He followed, covering your body with his, panting into your neck.

"Still with me?" he asked, voice wrecked.

You turned your head, kissed the corner of his mouth. "Always."

He chuckled darkly, still catching his breath. "Hope you're not done. I’m not finished with you."

You grinned at him, panting, glowing. “We’ve got a few years to catch up on, you know. Our plans from 6th year said that I was supposed to have a ring and a pregnancy by now,” you tease.

And from the way he was already hardening again against your thigh—you knew he’d make up for lost time. 

He didn’t give you a moment to rest, not until the moon was casting over the backyard, encasing the party still roaring outside in a cool, whispered glow. 

-----

Later, when you finally emerged, flushed and radiant with something more than just exertion, Fred’s eyes caught yours. Ginny’s followed. They didn’t say a word—just exchanged a look, one that spoke of too many shared conversations and the soft satisfaction of being right.

You didn’t let go of George’s hand.

He leaned down, lips brushing the shell of your ear, voice low enough only for you.

“It’ll be ours next.”

You turned to him. "What?"

He didn’t hesitate.

“The wedding. It’ll be us getting married next.”

And this time, you didn’t flinch.

You smiled.

You believed him.

-----

tagging: @jamespotteraliveversion @hanneh69 @glennussy

[mysillycomics]

Hi everyone! This is Claire. I am writing to let you all know that we did it. We saved Bailey and Tiger Fluff, and we all live together in an apartment in Illinois, my home state. We really, really did it!!!

You can read our thanks, thoughts, and more under the read more :0)

(note: Oliver also goes by Bailey! She has two names.)

There are many important people on this journey that we would like to specifically thank.

First, all of our friends (especially Peregrine, Sophie, and Jackson) who were there on the day Bailey was evicted, who listened to me and helped me figure out what to do when I felt more lost than I’ve ever been. Without them we wouldn’t have been able to act so quickly and efficiently. Because of them, we were able to formulate a plan.

Speaking of Jackson, he and his partner Cherri need to be thanked once again. Jackson drove all the way from his home, Bailey’s motel, and back to get both her and Tiger to a place to stay while we figured out what to do next. They provided a warm, quiet, and safe place for both of them in a time when something like that was so far away. For the first time in a long time, I knew that Bailey was truly somewhere safe. For that, we will be forever grateful.

While we do not have their names, we would like to thank the staff of the airport and airline who helped make this journey objectively possible. They also made Tiger into a little celebrity on the flight, and everyone, including the pilot, went to greet her and congratulate her for being so brave. She really is the bravest little kitty we know.

Next are my very close friends Elle and Callan, who invited Bailey and Tiger to stay at their house not far from mine while we secured a place of our own. They, like Jackson and Cherri, gave both of them the space to simply be. I was able to visit a couple of times, and being with my favorite people made an extremely difficult time so much better. It made me think “this feeling is what we are fighting for”.

Finally, we’d like to thank you.

To all of you who read and shared our story, you helped us to feel seen and heard and not alone. Reading words of support in the comments, quote retweets, and tumblr tags truly made me feel like we could do this with everyone cheering us on.

To everyone who donated, your generosity this financially possible. As of writing, we received $19,381 from the GoFundMe. We are now able to use the rest of funds that have been tucked away in savings for rent, food, and bills. I cannot overstate how grateful we both are. What you did for us will never leave our hearts.

…

While Bailey and Fluffy were at Elle and Callan’s, we found an apartment. It was small, but perfect. We toured. We applied. And we got it.

And on December 9th, 2023, we moved in and started living together! Our goal, our dream, our driving force for so long was achieved. After three years of long distance, we finally made it.

Our home is small, and has some quirks as all homes do, but it’s ours. The love of my life, the best little cat in the word, and I are all together. We are safe, warm, happy, and loved. The future we fought so hard for us now the present. Forgive me for being long-winded. I just have so much to say about all of this! Sometimes I still can’t believe that we actually did it. But we did, we really did!!!

I’m going to keep the GoFundMe up for a little bit, but once things settle more I will close donations.

Thank you!!!!!!!!! 🧸💕

____

Hey everyone Bailey here, I cannot overstate just how grateful I am to every single one of you and how thankful I am that this journey has been able to come into fruition. It was very scary being in that motel not having a plan or knowing what I was gonna do next while everything was crumbling around me. If it wasn't for Claire and our incredibly kind and caring friends I don't know what I'd do. They helped me press on and get through this with Fluff and we finally did.

Finally we're in a place that brings nothing but peace and comfort, my anxiety has dropped and I'm doing things I've never thought possible and building up strengths I never knew I had, I feel whole in a way that I've never felt before and I'm just, happy.

I am so grateful to have Claire, for years she's been so supportive and comforting and has brought this dream we've had into reality and every day I am so thankful to have her, she is the love of my life and my best friend. The life that her, myself and Fluff now share will forever be together and we can finally begin living. 💚💜

Thank you everyone, thank you to our friends who let Fluff and I into their lives to be able to be safe while we get our bearings, thank you to everyone who said such kind and wonderfully compassionate words, cheering us on as we go, every day I was looking at the community post I made on YT and it was just filled with people being so supportive, and thank you everyone who donated and got us into where we are. We could not have done it without all of you. 🐟 ❤️ 🐟 ❤️

[catofadifferentcolor]

Terrible Fic Idea #92: Percy/Apollo, but make it The Trojan War

Into every fandom, a time travel fic must fall - or in this case a second one, because I somehow got to thinking about the delightful PJO trope of Percy being thrown back in time to The Trojan War and realized that doing so misses out on a fantastic opportunity.

Or: What if post-TOA Percy Jackson and Apollo time travel to shortly before The Trojan War?

aka the Tried To Change The Ending fic

Just imagine it:

Everything follows canon through TOA, with one exception: rather than struggle to catch up in the mortal world following the Second Gigantomachy, Percy elects to stay at Camp Half-Blood. There he can homeschool at his own place with programs tailored towards ADHD children and still visit his family on the weekends - and not get into any more ridiculous situations in the mortal world when one of the gods kidnaps him or sends him on a quest to find their sneakers.

This, naturally, stresses his relationship with Annabeth - who, now that she's no longer living at camp full time, calls it the easy way out. But Percy is tired and struggling in mortal high school where everyone thinks he's a delinquent idiot when another option exists seems foolish. Percy and Annabeth break up and drift apart.

Enter Apollo, fresh from his latest stint as a mortal. He's trying to do his best by his children, which includes popping by camp as often as he can get away with - which in turn means spending a lot of time with Percy, who at this point is unofficially running CHB because it's not like Dionysus or even Chiron have done a brilliant job of it in recent times.

(First aid, strategy, and mythology classes are made mandatory. Percy personally ensures every demigod knows enough about self-defense to be able to survive long enough to run away or for help to arrive. Bullying is cracked down on so hard that it's this, not Percy's generally parental nature, that has people calling him Camp Mom.)

Percy and Apollo become friendly. Enough so that some of Apollo's kids assume they're dating and keeping it on the down-low so as not to draw Zeus' ire. Or Poseidon's. Or anyone else's. It's on one of their not-dates that they're yeeted into the past, without warning or explanation.

And so 19-year-old Percy Jackson and post-TOA Apollo find themselves in Ancient Greece c. 1220 BCE, roughly thirty-five years before the destruction of Troy.

The time travel is immediately obvious, as Apollo becomes the closest thing a god might experience to being high the moment they land in the past - being a powerful god in modern times is nothing like being a powerful god at the height of his power in ancient times. It's overwhelming (and somewhat alarming from Percy's POV, but kind of funny in retrospect.)

The specific date is harder to determine, but made clear when Hermes shows up and starts going on about you'll never believe what father's done now: he seduced the Spartan queen as a swan and she's laid an egg. Hera is furious - especially as they're saying the girl that hatched from it is the most beautiful in the world, even though she's only a few days old. It's nuts. By the way, where have you been? You missed the last two council meetings. Do you want Dad to punish you?

Apollo at this stage is very high. He's also been USTing over Percy for quite some time and is worried what the gods of this era might do to Percy without divine protection (smiting or seduction, it's all on the table). But mostly he's very high, and so to keep Percy close and safe he declares he's been off having the dirtiest of dirty weekends with his latest lover and that Hermes' presence is ruining the mood. So if he would kindly leave, please and thank you, he'd really rather get back to it without an audience.

This, naturally, is a surprise to Percy, but he rolls with it because 1) he doesn't have any better ideas on how to get rid of Ancient Greek Hermes so they can figure out what the hades is going on and 2) he's been USTing over Apollo ever since he recovered enough from Tartarus to start feeling attraction again.

Fueled by mutual UST, they put together a cover story that should hold the next time a god with too much prurient interest shows: Percy is now Prince Persē of Gadir - a Phoenician colony that will grow into the future Cadiz - well past the edge of the Greek world at this stage but not beyond belief for Poseidon to have visited, as it's obvious who his father is. They claim his mother is the King of Gadir's youngest sister and as such Persē had a royal upbringing, but was far enough down the line of succession that he was free to chose to sail east and explore his father's homeland. Apollo caught sight of him on his journey, one thing led to another, and here they are.

(Are there easier, more sensible cover stories? Possibly. But the UST refuses to let them consider any of them now that a fake relationship is on the table.)

Deciding what to do about The Trojan War is much harder. On the one hand, it's a lot of senseless death and destruction. On the other, without it we don't get The Iliad and The Odyssey - two of the most influential works of literature in western civilization - and Aeneas doesn't go off to Italy (leading to the founding of Rome, which would change the history of western civilization a lot). In the end, they decide to let the war happen but do their best to mitigate the worst parts of it.

And so Percy goes off and becomes a hero of Ancient Greece while pretending to be in a relationship with Apollo.

This stage of things is filed with angst from both parties, as both Percy and Apollo want a real relationship with each other but think they're abusing the other's trust by eagerly faking their relationship. There's a lot of PDA, a lot of feelings, and limited communication. It goes on for quite a while and would probably exasperate quite a few people if everyone in the know didn't think they were already in a relationship.

It's also filled with modern day Percy being confronted by realties of life in Ancient Greece. It's not just mortals knowing about - and interacting with - the gods: it's everything. It's food and clothes and language and culture and housing and travel. He can play a lot off it as being a traveler from the edge of the known world, but some of it has him asking Apollo if he's being rick rolled.

Apollo, meanwhile, is having troubles of his own. He is not the god he used to be and it's hard pretending otherwise. He tries to walk the line of doing enough to be believable and holding back enough not to despise himself, but it's a fine line, he fails often, and he spends a not insignificant amount of time worried he's backsliding.

And so it goes until 7-year-old Helen of Troy is kidnapped by Theseus to be his wife.

This, naturally, does not fly with Percy, who by this time has built up something of a reputation as a hero. He teams up with the Dioscuri to rescue Helen.

One would think this would earn him Zeus' favor. It doesn't. Instead, Zeus sends monsters to harry him for refusing to let Castor and Pollux take Helen's captors' loved ones captive and raze Aphidna for Theseus' crime. Percy manages to hold his own for quite a while but eventually, exhausted from the near-constant fighting, is gored and left for dead by the reformed Minotaur.

...and when Apollo arrives, frantic, to heal him, Percy ascends instead, becoming the greek version of Saint Sebastian - a minor god of heroes, strength in the face of adversity, and athleticism; sort of halfway between Hercules and Chiron.

Then and only then do Percy and Apollo finally get their act together, confessing to each other how much they care for the other and how much they don't want this to be fake any longer.

History proceeds apace - albeit with Persē being a second immortal trainer of heroes.

24 years after their arrival in the past, 16 years after Percy's ascension, The Trojan War begins. Despite their best efforts, there's only so much they can do - war is war and gods are gods. They are able to stop some of the worst excesses on both sides, but in the end Apollo still sends the plague that causes Agamemnon to take Briseis for his own, which caused Achilles' departure from the field, Patroclus' death, &c - not because Apollo was trying to maintain the timeline, but because in the instant he sent it he was angry and reverted to his old ways.

Troy falls...

...but when Zeus tries to use this as an excuse to ban gods from interacting with their demigod children, Apollo is able to say that's a bit extreme isn't it? with enough backing from the rest of the council that Zeus is forced to amend his ruling so that the gods are only allowed to freely visit their children on the "cross quarter days" that fall between each solstice and equinox (1 February, 1 May, 1 August, and 1 November).

This changes everything and nothing.

Time continues its inevitable march. Greece has its golden age before being conquered by Rome, which splits apart under its own weight and forms several smaller countries, which eventually spread their cultures around the world...

Apollo and Percy are there for it all. Persē is a minor figure in mythology, but never forgotten. He is ever-present in Apollo's temples - though the Church will later try to rewrite their myth so that they were merely sworn fighting partners, rather than lovers who eventually had a quite lovely wedding on Olympus (and then, at Poseidon's insistence, an even bigger ceremony on Atlantis). Percy takes over day-to-day operations of CHB from practically the moment the Trojan War ends.

...and so Persē is there the day Sally Jackson tries to get her son to camp, and is able to intervene when the Minotaur attacks on their border. He's able to meet her and her young son, Perseus ("Mom named me after you and the guy that killed Medusa since you're the only two heroes to have happy endings!"), and guide him through the trials that come with being a child of prophecy.

One day that Percy will hand Luke - who was never happy with the limited attention the gods were allowed to give their children - a cursed dagger so that Kronos can be defeated. That child will be offered godhood, turn it down, and go on to have a happy life with his eventual wife, Annabeth. He will never have his memories erased and be sent to Camp Jupiter. Gaia will not rise until long after that Percy's grandchildren are dead, and Zeus will not be quite so bullheaded when the proof of it is brought before him. That Second Gigantomachy is swift, well-coordinated, and fought without another Greek/Roman war brewing in the background.

And when they finally arrive at the day Apollo and Percy were originally sent back in time, Percy admits that while he is happy some version of him was better prepared for the war he was asked to fight in and allowed his peace afterward, he would change nothing about his own life, for it brought him to Apollo. The sunrise the next morning - on the first morning of the rest of their lives - is particularly spectacular.

Bonuses include:

Gaslighting Poseidon into believing that he's met Percy before the first time they're introduced. ("What do you mean you don't remember me, Father? You were present when I came of age! You gifted me this trident! Have I displeased you in some way?") It's an absolute masterclass that eventually manages to convince Poseidon that, yes, of course he knows Percy - and, maybe, he should check in on all his other demigod children to make sure he's not missed someone. (Two. He lost track of two of the others. Maybe he should be more careful about siring children in the future.) Apollo practically has to stuff his fist in his mouth to keep from laughing.

As much historical accuracy as can be crammed into the Percy trying to make sense of Ancient Greece chapters as possible. Think Of a Linear Circle - Part III by flamethrower levels of historical research. As much as can be shoehorned in without bogging down the plot.

Percy and Dionysus bonding over their mutual dislike of Theseus, though Percy generally gets along with his other half-siblings, especially the ones who come to camp young enough to keep from getting big heads over being the children of Poseidon.

Though Percy adores all the children in Cabin 7 (most of whom are born via blessing this time around), he and Apollo have at least one child of their own - maybe a demigod born before Percy's ascension to sell their fake relationship? Maybe a minor god who's later attributed a different parentage by mortals? Dealer's choice on details.

It never being made clear who, or what, or how, Percy and Apollo were sent into the past. All of Percy's oddities are attributed to him being foreign or formerly mortal, all of Apollo's to the fact that he's in love with someone who didn't die before their first anniversary, and no one ever guesses time travel is responsible for their eccentricities. Or that time travel was ever an option.

And that's all I have. As always, feel free to adopt, just link back if you ever decide to do anything with it.

More PJO Ideas | More Terrible Fic Ideas

[drdemonprince]

hi maybe this is a little silly but i would like to go to bars and meet people but i don’t have a lot of money and i don’t really like alcohol. my parents also don’t drink and so i don’t know how to act in such an environment (my autism loves scripts). my question is how do bars work essentially?

Every bar is a little bit different, that can be part of what makes them so challenging. I recommend following the r/bartenders subreddit for research -- there have been threads on there from Autistic people who want to know how to script a bar interaction, so dig around! I still use that subreddit to learn more about which drinks I can order in which places and what kinds of behaviors get on bartenders nerves. It is a fast-paced, stressful line of work with thin margins of success and it helps for you as a customer to understand that so that you don't take any impatience or shortness from your bartender personally.

I would recommend you start by visiting a bar on your own in the late afternoon on a weekday, as it's unlikely to be crowded and so everyone will be a lot more patient and chatty with you than they would be during a rush. A bar in a quiet neighborhood is probably better than one in a high-traffic area -- something not too fancy, but also not a hole in the wall that hasn't changed a single feature in 80 years (as those tend to operate by their own highly specific logic and have a ton of highly particular regulars and an owner who might be an eccentric crank). In the US, we have a lot of fakey-looking irish brewpubs with simple food and uncomplicated drinks, and those are often a really unpretentious place to visit for a newbie. The menu is simple and the bartenders aren't mixing fancy cocktails there, so there's generally a pretty relaxed vibe and no expectation that you spend a huge amount of money. You can research the menu online or walk past the place to scope it out before going.

Show up to the bar at your weekday afternoon with something to do, like a book to read, a game to idly play on your phone, or perhaps with the intention of watching sports or whatever on the bar's TVs. That will help you feel less anxious. Many bars also have trivia or karaoke on weekdays, which you *may* find enjoyable to participate in or watch or you might find it too loud and disruptive. Up to you what you want to try first.

Sit yourself at the bar and face toward the bartender with a slightly expectant but patient expression. Looking up and forward toward the bar and bartender is how you signal that you want a drink. Usually if it's not busy they will approach you first, so this part should be pretty easy. You can order something simple and non-alcoholic for yourself like a Sprite, a Coke, an iced tea, or maybe a non-alcoholic beer or seltzer. (If you were at a fancier cocktail bar, you could ask for a mocktail of some kind, which can be fun! but I would wait to do that and stick to a really simple drink at a simple bar to start).

Unlike with ordering a restaurant meal, a bartender will *typically* expect payment at the time that you receive your first drink. There are some exceptions to this, especially if a bar is not busy at all, but generally you can expect the bartender to tell you the price of the drink when they deliver it to you. You can then pay either in cash, or by giving the bartender a card -- if you give the bartender a card, they will ask you if you wish to keep your tab "open or closed." An open tab means they will not charge you yet, but rather keep your card on file and add up your total as you continue to order drinks, and only charge you when you ask to "cash out". If you "close" your tab, then the bartender will run the card, give it back to you, and likely ask you to sign a receipt. Then if you want another drink you'll have to do the whole thing again. Keeping a tab open is preferable if you wish to stay for multiple hours, in which case you should have multiple drinks.

Regardless of how you pay your tab, you should tip when you receive your drink if at all possible. (again I am operating from US rules). The rule of thumb is 1-2 dollars in tip per drink. If you are ordering something cheap like an iced tea, I recommend tipping generously. Bartenders will be happy with you if you tip well. Try to remember to bring cash for this, because then they don't have to wonder about what you put down on a signed receipt. I recommend ordering at least one drink per hour, or ordering a new beverage every time your last one is drained, whatever comes first. This "pays" for your seat and keeps the bartender happy and not worried that he's going to be yelled at by his boss for not making enough sales.

Generally speaking bartenders LOVE sober customers. You might not be buying a ton in drinks but you are likely gonna be respectful, not get in their way, not be demanding, and not make a mess of yourself. Just make sure you are not taking up a ton of space that paying customers getting higher-ticket items might want -- don't take up multiple seats, or claim a whole table for just you if the place is full, and don't sit around not ordering anything if there is a wait to get into the place. Again, you're starting with a weekday evening so unlikely to be an issue.

Enjoy your drink and the atmosphere, as well as your book/whatever is on the tv/perhaps light conversation with the people around you! The bartender will make it clear if they are open to conversation. Some will ask you directly about yourself or your day, or make little comments between you and other customers -- some will keep to themselves. Just return the energy. If they are chatty, be polite and talk back to whatever extent you feel comfortable. If they keep to themselves, read your book/watch the tvs and just chill. Other people sitting at the bar may try to talk to you -- this is pretty normal. Feel free to engage if that is what you want to do. Most people who are drinking alone and chatty at the bar are not gonna be judgemental. They love a weird autistic person who will listen to them. This can either be super fun or annoying depending on your own social battery and curiosity about the human condition. I recommend trying to engage though! You'll learn some things!

once your time is up, you ask the bartender to "can I cash out?", pay your bill, leave a final tip if you haven't settled yet (again at least a dollar per drink! ideally more!) and then head on your way.

After you have had this basic bar experience you can challenge yourself by going out on weekend day or evening, attending a bar during an event (like an open mic or a trivia night or drag show). It will be louder and more stressful but people are also more outgoing and fun to watch. Try to quiet your own social anxiety enough to sit back and observe and interact with people who respectfully try to crack a joke or acknowledge you. It's all very surface level stuff usually, it's great low-stakes socializing practice.

After you get more comfy with visiting these types of casual bars on busy nights, you can probably handle visiting a fancy cocktail bar or a raucous dive. A cocktail bar will have a far more elaborate menu and will make more complicated drinks -- you can order something off the menu or, if it's not too busy, ask the bartender to make you something non-alcoholic (tell them you want something with juice, or that you like sweet things, or soda & bitters, or just ask for a Shirley Temple). Dive bars have a VERY limited menu and sling drinks fast so you'll be back to your usual coke or club soda there. People will be a lot more chatty and drunk at the dive bar, and it can be a little intimidating if you are quiet and shy...but the people at those spaces are great at breaking the ice. some will be weirdos. this is not a bad thing necessarily.

okay i wrote a whole lot more about this than i intended to but this is a topic i have a lot of interest in. i have had to carefully study how these spaces work over the years and have googled "what kind of drink can i order that wont make a bartender mad at me*" so many times so i might as well pass on the knowledge.

*do not order a complicated drink at a bar that is not fancy. that's the short version of the rule. typically, any drink that has more than two ingredients is "fancy" and not all bars will be able to make it. A whiskey and coke? Anybody can do that. Screwdriver (vodka orange juice?) no problem. A Negroni? you WILL get an eye roll for asking for that at a packed gay club where everybody else is sucking down vodka seltzers. If you ask for a mojito anywhere the bartenders will all hate you. i dont know why i just know it's a thing. certain drinks have certain associations with them that are good to keep in mind, like Long Islands being for young drunk messes. You do not drink alcohol so you do not need to worry about most of this. you can expect your average bar of any tier to have orange juice, cranberry juice, maybe pineapple juice, coke, diet coke, sprite, iced tea, seltzer, and ginger ale, so you can always order any one of those.

[all-purpose-dish-soap]

56 / 1.2k / medic reader + Ghost + coworkers with benefits

kinktober keywords: subtextual authority kink, workplace smut, rivals to rivals who fuck, coworkers with benefits?, voyeurism (mentioned), actual smut in part 2

...

You watch your would-be beau walk away, shoulder knocking against Simon’s as he goes.

Simon, for his part, doesn’t even bother casting the man a sideways glance. His frosty glare is reserved for you. "This is a military base. I don't think I need to repeat myself when I say that this isn't exactly the place to bring men back to your room."

"I'm familiar with the concept.” You make your tone as chilly as his. “I fail to see how what I do is any of your business." Behind him, you see someone else poke their head out of an open doorway and look around. There’s no way she misses the Ghost standing inside your room, staring you down. You hurry to close the door behind Simon.

"Who was he?"

"A friend from another regiment."

"Yeah? Really? A little late for a friend to be visiting, isn't it?"

"We had dinner. It ran late. I offered tea."

"Right," he drawls. "And all he wanted in return was a good cup of tea? Nothing else? You didn’t cozy up together?"

You cross your arms, saying nothing.

His mouth tightens. "You didn't."

"No. How could we when you barge in uninvited? As if what I do is any of your business.”

"It is my business when I spend my nights on the other side of this wall."

"That's not my problem, Simon."

He resists the urge to use his lieutenant voice. Or hit something. Medic or not, he won’t have you brushing him off. "It is your problem," he snaps, stepping up to stand squarely in front of you. "Don't talk back to me."

You say nothing, but don't back down. Instead, you glare up into his eyes and concede nothing. He’s not your boss and you don’t answer directly to him, but fuck if he’s ever tolerated your sass. Or you his strictness. You’ve never managed to be normal about each other.

He lets out a heavy breath, though it does little to calm him. "I shouldn't be hearing you with other men late at night. Do you get that?"

"Then don't listen."

You can feel his patience wearing thin. "It's kind of hard to," he says through his teeth, "when I can hear every damned sound you make."

Your eyes narrow. Does he mean…

"Everything," he says. You blush from your cheeks to your toes. "And I've been hearing it for a while, medic."

You cross your arms tighter, embarrassment bubbling up in your gut. "I'm sorry. I didn't realize you could hear so much. That must be... annoying." you turn away and rub the back of your neck sheepishly. "I haven't really been with anyone since my last— well, the last year or so. I've been frustrated. But that's no excuse for disturbing others."

The sudden lapse in your defensive attitude seems to catch him off guard. He softens his tone, though his glare is still locked on you, stern as ever. "You haven’t been with Soap, then?”

Soap? That’s weirdly specific. You shake your head. "No. Look, don't worry about it. It's a personal matter. I won't bother you again."

There's a moment of silence.

"Look at me, medic."

You turn to him, your back stiff and your face as impassive as you can manage despite the sheer embarrassment coursing through you. "I'll keep it down, Simon."

His lips twitch. "The sound isn't what bothers me. What bothers me," he says, narrowing his eyes and leaning closer, "is that you want company."

"I know. I know. Relationships are off-limits."

He continues to watch you with what you’d swear is the beginning of a smirk. "You never told me that you missed being touched.”

A new flush heats your face immediately. God, the mortification.

"Frankly, I would rather die than admit that to anyone. Let alone my lieutenant."

He studies your reaction for a moment. Then he speaks again, his voice lower. "I'm happy you're comfortable enough to admit it to me," he says. "You're right. I am your lieutenant. I need to know what ails you because it's my job to take care of you. You can rely on me. For anything."

You look up at him again. You think you hear the implication in his words, but surely he's not saying what you think he's saying. Not Simon. Not Ghost.

He takes in your bewildered expression before letting out another heavy breath. When you still don't say anything, he takes a step back.

"Medic..." His tone of voice grows softer. "I'm offering you comfort. If you’d like it."

The longer you stare at him, the more the truth sinks in. He's really offering to get you off. To relieve tension. Ostensibly. Simon, of all people.

You look away. "That's against the rules, isn't it?"

He can't help the smirk this time, though his tone remains warm. "Relationships are against the rules, yes. But this isn't a relationship. This is an arrangement to alleviate tension. Nothing more."

The usual generic protests and reassurances die in your throat when Simon rolls his sleeves up, peeling his gloves off. You’ve never seen his bare hands before.

He chuckles at your expression. Then he reaches back and locks the door.

Your heartbeat accelerates. Your eyes travel up his muscled forearms to see him looking at you with deliberation, like you're the object of his next mission. But the anticipation in his eyes isn’t so clinical.

"Sit down."

Anticipation floods your nerves. Seemingly of their own accord, the back of your knees hit the edge of your bed. You sit.

His eyes never leave yours as he approaches. The room gets warmer with every step he takes, sizing you up. When he reaches you, he stops just before his leg can brush the insides of your knees.

"May I?"

Your fingertips tingle. You want to say yes. You didn't know how much you’d want to say yes until right now. But...

You shift, pressing your thighs together, fighting the urge to ring your hands. "I'm not an easy or particularly fun woman to please, Simon." You glance up at him, trying not to look pained. You’re not trying to challenge him. You’re just trying to let him down easy and give him an out. You’re trying to tell him he doesn't want to do this; it’s too much effort. After all, you yourself have been trying to give yourself an orgasm for months without real success.

Still, your warning doesn’t seem to deter him. "Then I'll put in the time and the work," he says. "I need your permission. Yes or no. Do you trust me to take care of you?"

You swallow, your heart skipping. You want that very much. You honestly wonder if he can feel the selfish want rolling off of you in waves. But do you trust him with this kind of vulnerability?

It's not much of a question.

You look him in the eye, your voice even. The tension between you tilts. "Yes. I do."

"Good." He takes another step forward. The air thickens with your proximity. His boots nudge your bare feet. "Lay back. Let me do my job."

...

[part 1] / part 2

more Ghost / masterlist