#very small very under budget everything is old and broken

[hecksupremechips]

I just finished watching Abbott Elementary (or all that’s come out so far aaa) and the way that every single one of these teachers are people my gay ass would wish were my parents as a kid

[wegobond]

10 Best Ways to Plan a Small Group Trip with Women

With the pandemic and the declining world over, many countries are opening up their doors to tourists. Travelling to new climes is a much-needed proposition to most people right now as they clamour to get the vacation of their dreams after the lockdown imposition.

That being said, another thing that has become very popular is women-only travel groups. Women have finally broken the bias of not being able to, cannot or should not travel solo. Finally, over the last decade or so, women are gathering experiences worldwide, travelling with travel groups that focus solely on “Women only trips

Travel has always been a form of reconnecting with the self. For most women, travelling in group trips for women

or solo has been a way to rediscover themselves and learn new things along the way, which may not have been possible under different circumstances. And that too, in a safer setting and space.

We have selected the 10 best ways to travel for women and without further ado, let’s get to it because we believe that planning a trip is not rocket science and there are several well-managed women’s solo travel groups that can take you on your fun vacay!

What is the real reason to travel? At times, some of us know where we want to travel and some of us need to get inspired. What could it be? Is it that you haven’t travelled in a long while? Or do you want to experience certain weather (could be winter snow or spring or autumn) in said place? Or have you heard so much about the culture of a place that you want to experience it firsthand? Could it be that you want to get lost in the historic monuments of an old city? Zero in on this first before you embark on your expedition.

Research the destination. Sketch your itinerary. There are plenty of travel blogs and tourism sites for authentic information. The Lonely Planet is the best way to go, but please use your discretion and go wild with this particular research because, in this matter, more is more & more. Make a list of realistic places to see and also add a few unrealistic ones (which can be out of time, distance or budget) because never say never, it can magically be squeezed in if you find a like-minded fellow traveller who would not hit the snooze button and explore that one market around the corner with you. Make a list of activities you would want to do and be creative. Jot everything down and don’t forget to look up Trip Advisor.

A must-have is a must-do. Some places and activities are non-negotiable. Imagine going to Paris and not going up to the Eiffel Tower. Duh! But besides that, research will help you find your ideal must-do, which could be like the Lindt factory in Switzerland or kaftan shopping in Morocco and closer home, plucking apples in an orchard in Tirthan, or river-rafting in the mighty Brahmaputra in Arunachal Pradesh. One thing to remember and acknowledge is that you don’t have to go to a certain monument if it is of no interest or importance to you, this is your holiday so do what makes you happy and not because all the tourists are headed there.

Pack appropriately. While this one seems like a no-brainer, believe me, putting some thought into packing can be rewarding. Make sure you have all the essentials in smaller packages, which in turn will make space for things that you may buy on impulse. Roll your clothes and use space appropriately for the things you know you will buy for certain. For example, roll your socks and stuff them into your shoes, little trinkets if absolutely necessary can find a corner in there too. And try to carry no more than two pairs of shoes and one pair of a slip-on. Also, this evidently depends on the destination. What if you need hiking boots? You may reach out for that extra pair of jeans but avoid it. Always remember on group trips for women, less is more. This is a holiday and you don’t have to dress to impress.

Plan your budget. Although in a “Best solo trips for women” situation, you are paying the company that is managing the holiday, a flat rate which may account for travel tickets, stay and sightseeing according to their itinerary. But to have your own small unique experiences, you may need to spend some more. Let’s say you skip the excursion to the museum for an extra hour of meditation at the monastery in Ladakh, for example. And now that you have some time to kill, maybe a visit to the local Tibetan market?!? Well, are you stopping at window shopping itself? Hmm, so isn’t it better to know how much you are going to spend on shopping during a holiday so as to not overstretch your pocket? Or eating at the local places that may or may not be in your travel company’s plan? Hence, we come back to point number 2, research! This will give you major insights.

Book tickets: I mean…… if you are not travelling with a company that organises the Best solo trips for women with utmost care and experience, you need to do all the bookings. Flight tickets, and to and fro from the hotel and airport. Besides, a lot of tourist attractions internationally are ticketed and the best bet is to book it way in advance due to the influx of tourists. Why take a chance? Also, it is always good to understand the local travel system in a city. For example, it’s good to have a basic knowledge of the tube in London, or else you will end up paying through your nose for the beautiful, vintage black cabs there.

Book your accommodation. As a group of women, it is imperative to look for a safe, clean and tourist-viable place. By that I mean, find a place that is best suited to your travel needs. While one can get to the destination and find a reasonable and convenient place to stay too, it is always better to be prepared than to be sorry. For example, visiting Edinburgh, Scotland in August, any given year, without prior bookings could land you in a big soup as people from all over the planet travel there in this month to prepare for the big literary, arts, theatre, history and music festival there is, “The Fringe Festival ”. Even sleeping in the alleyway was not an option at the time, due to the crowd and weather, and anyway, every inch of the square yardage of land is taken over by artists from all over the world. Whether it’s a hostel, a boutique hotel, a luxury hotel or an Airbnb, you should book first.

Go ahead and book activities as well. Once you have it down pat as to what all touristy places you would like to visit, it is always good to check them out at their website as well as the Tourism board. There are many discounts to be availed of and you may miss the bus on that if you wait right up to the last day (or not). Booking everything in advance saves you money and time. And a great way to save money and get a regulated tour is to get a city pass so that you can hop on and off the city tour bus at your pace and still have not missed a thing! Check this out at the tourism board website. Lastly, also make sure that if you are booking a popular site’s ticket, you definitely have a spot on the stipulated date and time.

A small First-Aid box to the rescue. The farthest thing from our mind, when we plan a trip, is a mishap or unwarranted illness. But more often than not, people do fall ill albeit mildly due to different reasons. Could be the weather change, the time difference if travelling internationally or the cuisine. Or just the plain bug. It is important to carry all the basic medications and a first-aid box due to such emergencies. Can you imagine yourself in a place where you don’t know the local dialect and trying to find the nearest pharmacy when you have a raging headache? Better still, take your vitamins regularly and study a lot about the weather conditions and be prepared.

Cold, hard cash counts. While there are ATMs across the planet, it is always advisable to carry some amount of cash on your person. There can be small, tucked-away corners that don’t have the facility in a workable condition or some other unforeseen circumstance. Roll up the cash, divide into three to four different wads and hide it in different places because, in case of a pickpocket, you are stranded. This way ensures you have money at any cost. In the case of foreign currency too, it is advisable to convert your money and carry traveller’s cheques as well.

When planning a women’s travel solo group in India or abroad, whether it may be a wellness trip or a touristy one, an experiential getaway or an adventurous sojourn, all the above tips come into play. Ask yourself these questions:

Am I looking for a cultural experience?

Does adventure travel float my boat?

Do I need to get away in time and visit some historical places?

Will trying out new cuisines be my calling for this vacation?

Do I just need a break from the routine normalcy this life has become?

The answers to these questions will send you pandering off in the right direction. And if you do not like to do all the planning, leave it up to us. We will ask you the pertinent questions, suggest a destination and create your travel itinerary, while you can just sit back and relax. Visit our website to see all places you can visit now!

[hermannsthumb]

for the autumn fic meme.. newmann #20 like newt chasing leaves and hermann outwardly is psh, childish and internally heart eyes and is crunching the leaves around his feet with his cane when newts not looking (this became really long lol feel free to just post it not as a request)

20. Crunching Leaves

from autumn fic prompts here

this is such a cute idea

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

"It's weird having a break from things, isn't it?" Newton says.

Hermann hums noncommittally. He prods the small fire in their chiminea with the end of a rusted poker (dug up from a garden shed that's seen better days), and moves his leg back just in time to avoid spraying his trouser hem with sparks. Newton tugs the sleeves of his sweatshirt down over his knuckles and gives him a small smile. "Even a small break," he amends. "It's like a mini vacation."

Hermann is not sure—if given the opportunity to do so—he would've picked the northwestern United States as his ideal vacation spot, nor would he spend three out of their four days there networking and lecturing at an international Kaiju Science conference, but he supposes he understands Newton's point. The location of their rental cabin is remote and wooded, which has made for rather calm, picturesque evenings by the living room fireplace, and everything (even their sparse accumulation of groceries) is on the PPDC's budget, which means it's hardly the hit to the wallet it would have otherwise been. Ideally, he would not have to handle Newton on a vacation, either, but Hermann supposes nothing can be perfect. He watches silently as Newton pours himself another cup of coffee from the rental kitchen's French press. "Mm," Hermann says.

Their flight back to Hong Kong leaves tomorrow afternoon. Over their shared dinner of instant mashed potatoes and fish sticks from a box, Newton had suddenly become deeply incensed that they had not taken full advantage of the rental cabin, and dragged Hermann outside onto the small back patio to do some proper autumn things—to Newton, that meant finding two wooden deck chairs languishing under moss and ivy at the very back corner of the property, lighting a campfire in the dusty chiminea with an ancient book of matches discovered under the sink, and attempting to roast marshmallows with a broken tree branch. He gave up on the marshmallows after he kept burning his beyond recognition, too impatient to hold them anywhere but directly in the flames. Hermann had not bothered in the first place. He's always been somewhat repulsed by their texture. "Have you ever been camping?" Newton says.

Hermann shivers at the thought of willingly spending time inside a tent. Even sitting outside beneath trees right now (where twigs bounce from above onto his clothing, bugs keep landing on him, and all sorts of things to set off his hay fever) is pushing the limits of his patience. "Absolutely not."

"I used to go camping every October when I was a kid," Newton says. "I loved it. This place kinda reminds me of the campground we'd go to. So many—" He waves his hand around, and adds, lamely, "Trees."

Hermann privately thinks that all forests tend to look the same, but he doesn't tell Newton that; it's not as if they can take a stroll through the woods whenever they'd like back in Hong Kong, where they spend about ninety percent of their waking moments toiling away in the dark and the damp of the basement laboratory, and he's not keen to put a damper on Newton's good spirits. He knows Newton has spent more than a few days off of work hunting down the nearest hiking spots, always returning (often the following morning) with his pockets full of leaves and interesting rocks he looks up online. Hermann has always, quite frankly, found it endearing. Not that he would ever confess such a thing to Newton.

He pokes the fire again. This time, sparks shoot out at Newton's boots. Newton doesn't bother moving out of the way. "I never spent much time outside as a child," Hermann says. "Too busy with school, I suppose." When he was not doing schoolwork for his classes, he was practicing whatever his mother and father decided school was not sufficiently instructing him in (for the Gottlieb children were expected to be exceedingly accomplished and well-rounded in their skills)—advanced mathematics, languages beyond their native German, even piano, for a spell, before Hermann finally confessed he loathed the instrument, though he still retains enough of it he reckons he could play some Chopin should you sit him down in front of one. He used to have a treehouse—a hand-me-down from his elder brother, as most of Hermann's things were—he would keep his telescope in, and he would fall asleep there some nights, one eye still pressed to the eyepiece. That was when he still had the full capabilities of his left leg that were required to shimmy up and down a ladder, of course.

"Didn't you live on a farm?" Newton says.

It was not actually a farm, as Hermann frequently reminds Newton, merely a former farmhouse on what was, at one point, likely farmland, but that must've been at least a hundred years before the Gottliebs moved in. The house was certainly old enough. Newton never fails to roar with laughter over it anyway, and Hermann knows it's because he's picturing Hermann's in dungarees and milking a cow or some such nonsense. Hermann can see Newton's mouth twitching into a broad grin even now. "Hardly," Hermann says. "I really do mean I was too busy to have the time to do much else. My mother and father preferred it that way."

"'Much else'?" Newton echoes.

"Childish sorts of things," Hermann says. A dead leaf drifts from a tree overhead and lands near him on the patio. Hermann stabs it with the poker, debates condemning it to the fire, and then flicks it off to the side inside. He drops the poker back on the ground. "Er. Playing. Indoors, or outdoors."

This sobers Newton up. "You mean, like, being a normal kid?"

"I suppose," Hermann says.

"Jeez, dude," Newton says. "That's...kinda depressing."

Hermann shrugs and takes a sip of his coffee. He doesn't think much about it these days. He doesn't think much about his childhood in general, really, and certainly doesn't waste time moping over it—there are much more important things that require his attention. "Is it?" His coffee's gone cold. They've been out here for quite a long time; the sun has almost set on the horizon, and the chill of the October evening is settling upon them fast. Hermann suddenly wishes he'd thought to pack a thicker sweater. Or, oddly enough, a book. It feels like the appropriate setting to read something, perhaps even aloud to Newton (not that they would ever agree on what to read). Perhaps he and Newton might draw their chairs together, and toss a heavy blanket over themselves, and Newton would put his head on Hermann's shoulder and poke fun at Hermann's taste in literature, but listen intently anyway...

The fire pops. Hermann coughs and shoos his traitorous thoughts away. Another leaf drifts down, this one landing in Newton's hair, and Newton's smile returns as he extracts it. He clenches his fist around it with a satisfying crunch. "I love fall," he says. He raises his boot above another leaf and slams it down with an even louder crunch. His smile widens into a grin. "Hey, do you remember if there was a rake in the shed? I kinda want to make a leaf pile."

"It's nearly dark, Newton," Hermann points out.

"And?" Newton hops to his feet. "I'll be right back," he says, and, his scarf flapping behind him like a cape, tears off back in the direction of the shed, taking care to trod on each and every dry leaf in his path.

He returns a minute later empty-handed. "No rake," he says.

He jumps on another leaf. Then another.

"Don't be such a child," Hermann sighs, though his heart twists in his chest at the sight of Newton so unabashedly happy. He often envies Newton for how carefree he can be sometimes, though he has a sinking feeling what he's feeling now is nothing remotely like envy. Newton really is a thorn in his side.

Newton, rather appropriately, sticks his tongue out at him, and then jumps on another leaf. The force of it jostles his glasses so far down his nose they threaten to fall to the ground themselves. "I'm having fun, man. This is the first time I haven't been stressed out of my fuckin' mind in months." He pushes his glasses back up. "I wish we had another day here."

Oddly enough, Hermann finds himself agreeing with Newton. But he'd prefer an additional day without Newton, of course—Hermann would love to have a day all to himself here, where he could sleep in late, take advantage of the bathtub (which he's been too shy to so far, given that their cabin has only one restroom and he shares it with Newton), and devote as little time as he pleased to all things kaiju-related. Well, maybe he'd let Newton stop in for dinner. Or for a passionate debate or two. Or to share a blanket and a book, if only in Hermann's wildest fantasies. It does sound a bit like a bore without him.

While Newton's back is turned, Hermann uses his cane to crunch a few dry leaves littering the ground by his feet. The sound really is quite satisfying. "Can we go inside now?" he says. When Newton turns to him, his hair sticking up at odd angles, his cheeks flushed, and his eyes bright behind his glasses, Hermann must affect a frown to keep himself from smiling. "I'm—er—I'm getting a bit cold."

[untitledtheunknown]

Psychofans & Mediacorps

(Backstory and lore on some psychofan encounters and the attempted kidnapping of Kerry Eurodyne along with some related events with Johnny Silverhand. Written as a Screamsheet because I was bored, and this all isn’t 100% since actual events aren’t always fully disclosed. Word count: 2976. Sources at the end.)

Being a world famous Rockerboy is really all it’s chalked up to be, doesn’t mean there isn’t its fair share of snags along the way. Fame and glory comes with a heavy price tag many don’t realize as they’re building their way to the top. Blinded by having your name in the lights, seeing hundreds of thousands of fans all eagerly waiting to just get a glimpse of you. Night City Legend Kerry Eurodyne commented, “It’s scary. I mean, to think that one hundred thousand people are selling their souls to see you, and you’ve got them hanging on your every word.” The very fans that would kill for a chance to see their idols live, are the very same that would put them on Trauma. 

Not just the fans either. Corporate is everywhere, in everything. Fight the system through lyrics while making them richer all the same. Media giants like N54 and DMS buying up the whole show to beat on their chest about who has the most control. The issue comes with their greed for it, keeping those who give them wealth on short leashes. Best offers, benefits, prestige of having a higher name attached to yours. But when friendship runs deeper than the quick climb to fame, other options of “persuasion” may occur. Aggressive strategies to keep themselves on top, because the company always come first.

We’re going to start this article off on arguably a lighter topic, that being the psychofans. I say arguably because they can do just as much damage as the corporations, but it's usually a bit more controlled. We'll hit on that later. There’s the usual rush security, jump fences, steal an axe, the almost seemingly normal chaotic fan behavior you can expect at most high profile gigs. Don’t lie, there’s always one in the audience. 

The sudden rise to fame with Samurai also helped play a part in this erratic behavior, Eurodyne had previously stated, “One minute we’re chugging through our old numbers in some small, no name club to the same crowd; the next we’ve sold out Wembley Stadium and there are a hundred thousand killing each other to get a look at us.” This wasn’t much of an overstatement either. Samurai’s rapid rise to fame took a mere three weeks after signing to Universal Music to reach the number one spot on EuroRadio charts. Everyone wanted a piece of Samurai then, and following the break up in late 2007 that craving didn’t soon die out. 

A number of incidents have happened, being on world tours is a crazy place. Never really know how fans are going to act until you’re in the thick of it. Most these incidents happen backstage, after gigs, or just by random chance coming across someone on the streets, in the open. One particular incident was documented in 2020 in the following of Trauma Team’s Rich “Meatball” Cramer M.D., Lifeline Trauma Inc., Night City Branch #23. 

Broken card call, 15:55, to the Grand Illusion Dance Hall and Bar. Patient being none other than one Rockerboy, Kerry Eurodyne. Compared to the rest of the logs of the night this was a breath of fresh air for the Lifeline agents, not so much for Mr. Eurodyne who was being assaulted by a gang of young female fans. Teargas was dispensed and our Rocker was extracted from the scene. Kerry was in good health at time of extraction, footing the bill of the call to the studio as well as a new set of clothes. Lawsuits were never charged as the fans left enjoying the chaos. 

Another lesser known act back in 2043-44, while performing in Memphis TN an assailant got backstage and put a knife to Kerry’s throat. Intentions of the attack are unknown. Could have been a psychofan making demands of an idol, or someone who knew the net wealth of the name Kerry Eurodyne at the time? Either way the incident ended without bloodshed, Kerry was able to talk the assailant down and promptly knock him out with a stiff pour of that high life tequila. The rest was handled by the venue’s security. Unfortunately events like these are almost common for the stardom lifestyle. 

Lives are kept under public scrutiny 24/7. “Be prepared to have your private life open to the world,” Rockerboy, Johnny Silverhand, had mentioned in a column from Advice From the Pros. Name in the lights simply means just that, private life is on show as well and nothing can truly be kept secret forever. Kerry Eurodyne had added, “Cover your ass on your social life, the mediacorps are capable of setting you up bigtime in compromising situations… Make sure you know who you’re hanging out with, and something about their friends.” Not just fans and so called friends you need to watch out for, but the very people you sign yourself away with. 

Rockers Kerry Eurodyne and Johnny Silverhand are no stranger to this cold truth. Even mediacorps you don’t sign with will have motives, and often resources, to try and gain a signature. Corporations will often go after the output/input or family of the Talent instead of the Talent itself. However, big companies like DMS, the rival to N54 News, also have other methods to “persuade” a contract breach and change. Both Kerry and Johnny were targeted by this particular company, though this time it was Eurodyne dragging Silverhand into trouble. 

After the time Samurai had broken up for good, late 2007 early 2008 Kerry was looking for a decent solo deal. This was a gamble for most Labels at the time, Johnny was the frontman of Samurai, Kerry’s true talent had yet to really flourish into the Legend we know today. At this stage in their careers they were just some new-boy artists, that had a couple songs and albums that made it big. A lot of bands will have their handfuls of top sellers and then disappear into a faded memory. However, media giant DMS saw promise in Kerry, and they quickly came out with an offer for the young Rockerboy that would put him right back on the road to stardom. 

Kerry was going to take the offer until Universal came up with an offer that wouldn’t just set him up but Johnny as well. The two decided that the offer Universal had was too good to pass up, and with good reason. Universal not only was packaging the two Rockerboys together as independent solo artists, they were offering a better deal as a whole. Since Universal already knew them from Samurai, and knew what the two could produce, formalities of signing a new band was skipped. Re-signing with Universal gave them guaranteed concessions normally only offered to major bands or superstars. 

DMS didn’t come back with a counter offer, they came back with threats. Eurodyne, and those close to him, started to receive threats from the mediacorp, these quickly escalated to hired thugs harassing and assaulting everyone in the Rocker’s inner circle, as well as himself. A common tactic for many corporations to get what they want. However, Kerry wasn’t folding to their pressure, sticking with his decision with Johnny to sign to Universal. At this point the signatures were received and Kerry’s talent was the official property of Universal Music once again. This only made the situation worse, and turned into a rather rare occurrence for the music scene. 

Major corporations have a number of outlets that they have at full disposal to get what and whom they want, when they want. DMS is not unique in this fact, but they do have one of the more unique techniques. DMS is creative, deadly, and, for a corporation its size, dangerously agile. They are known for their aggressive and ruthless recruiting tactics, and they do not take “no” with grace. 

Eurodyne’s fate, to DMS, was sealed the moment they selected him, no matter his choice. DMS starts with a fair offer, most of it coming with the prestige of having their name backing you and their benefits package. In the case of Eurodyne, where this was not enough, DMS will call on their Special Recruiting Division, which is devoted solely to recruiting and converting people who are reluctant to sign to DMS. A fancy way of saying they send in their black ops section to perform extractions on those who are bound by contract or reluctant to leave their current company. 

Extractions are illegal, but the government is in the pocket of these corporate giants. Though they hardly ever send their own people, so even if the extraction does fail the proof of finding out who sponsored the extraction is normally too timely, over looked, or asking corpses. Most these companies hire Solos to get the job done, a number of groups exist in this profession alone. Extractions are unsettling common in the corpo world that counter extractions are budgeted into company spending plans. As well many big companies have jealousy protection, and pre-planned countermeasures to prevent extraction attempts of their employees or Talents.

Now, you may be asking yourself, “If they didn’t want to work for them before, what would kidnapping them do?” Well, DMS and other companies thought about this issue as well. How do you force someone to work for you? Blackmail is the obvious answer, to the Talent, to their friends, their family, etc. It's a simple fix that will get a result, but can’t guarantee the product. Its proven effective though, reputation is everything- threats to destroy that are not taken lightly. For a company like DMS, they have a one up on this if they can't get the Talent to see eye to eye with their terms. “Talent Indoctrination”, TI for short, otherwise known as brainwashing to the common choom. It's a program used for winning over people who express resistance to “joining the DMS family” even after extraction. 

TI is only a rumor outside of the highest levels of the corporation, and those who have been subjected to it. Luckily, TI section failures are rare, unluckily survival of TI section failures is even rarer. DMS, however, is willing to risk TI only on targets with a high enough revenue generation potential. Executives are more at risk than artists, given artists are seen as disposable and the average commercial shelf-life of a DMS Music artist is only a couple years. Most only making it an average of two before they’re dropped back to performing at clubs and bars for the same hundred fans, if that. 

This was the threat Kerry was under, one that became very real one fateful day when the Rockerboy was abducted by a group of hired muscle from the corporation. While Kerry was successfully kidnapped and relocated, the extraction itself failed due to intervention of Legendary Solo, Morgan Blackhand. Blackhand was able to capture all five kidnappers, alone, and turned them over to the Federal Authorities. Beaten, battered, and bruised but all five were alive when they were handed over. This act alone humiliated DMS, who was only found later on in investigation to have been the group’s sponsor. Its not unheard of extractions being foiled, but for a company like DMS it was a shot to their pride since Kerry would know it was them that called it. The real humiliation of it comes from the fact Blackhand snagged them all alive, allowing the truth to be exposed to the public, tarnishing that royal reputation of theirs, though no legal action would be taken.

Embarrassing a huge company like that puts a major target on your back. Legality they could care less about, but reputation is not something any corporation wants to gamble with. Morgan Blackhand would become a target for a later date, DMS wasn’t done with Kerry Eurodyne yet. Now, though, their attention was brought to one of the key elements for why Kerry declined their original offer; Johnny Silverhand. 

“They were threatening Johnny and I with things like government investigations and stuff. By the time that threat was made, we’d already signed with Universal…” Eurodyne recalled during an interview. It was true, DMS had dug not only into Kerry’s past life but Johnny’s as well. They were at the stage of “If we can’t have you, no one will.” While Eurodyne’s rap sheet was arguably cleaner, DMS was preparing to go full out, and all in to find anything they could. What they had as their ace was Silverhand’s military past, and they knew they could find the same information about Eurodyne as well or paint him for it. Both Rockers had served during the 2000’s Central American Conflict, Johnny’s desertion was all they needed to start the fire.

DMS was preparing to take this knowledge to the government, and at that point they could say and paint anything on Kerry as well. Their careers were about to end before they even began. Short on time, they did the only thing they could do, they went to Universal Music. With the counter threat of exposure of DMS’s corruption and abusive power over their Talents, Universal made their position clear. This was a PR move, DMS could go to their pocket government agents to have the Rockerboy’s locked away for life, but Universal was going for their public appearance. The ends didn't justify the means, DMS backed down.

Lawsuits were dropped, threats ceased, no more extraction attempts were made on either rockstar. They were given freedom to produce their albums and do tours under the protection of Universal. It wouldn’t be for another several years down the line when DMS would rear its ugly head back into their lives. Well, only in passing.

Denny, the former drummer of Samurai, had a new band called Mastermind that was being recorded by DMS Music. “She knows how I feel about them, but the contract they’ve got is suitable for her, so I’m not going to interfere as long as she is happy.” Kerry had stated on the matter back in late 2013, “Even now you won’t find Johnny or I saying anything remotely positive about DMS… I’m just glad no one was listening when I made certain comments or some of my fans might have taken those rash words to heart and we might have had some serious problems.” A tongue in cheek response to the 13 April 2013 Arasaka Riots led by Johnny Silverhand, under the old band's name of Samurai. Rioters killed 18 and wounded 51 on that night, gutting the Arasaka complex. An event that would only deepen the wedge between the two Rockerboys, yet redefine them entirely.

Silverhand, however, would be blackmailed again later on in 2009 by EBS Records to leave Universal and sign a solo contract with them. EBS had found out that Johnny was an AWOL U.S. Marine who had deserted during the Second Conflict. The blackmail attempt was quickly dropped as Johnny came clean himself, revealing all his secrets and shining light on the plight of veterans of the covert war, with his now famous album Sins of Your Brother. 

One thing the Rocker was known for was starting changes with his music, back in late 2012 Silverhand had an assassination attempt on his life believed to be sourced from Biotechnica do to their belief of controversal opinions to their practices heard on his album Clone Wars. Being forced to take several months of seclusion to let the heat die down before going on tour himself.

Given all of this, and much more, they had been relatively lucky. Maybe not with the fans, Eurodyne still faces the masses though in some more creative ways now. Having his biometric data copyrighted, and agreements with NCPD to monitor CCTVs for any unauthorized replications. Hasn't stopped some from trying, going as far as faking nudes that broke headlines awhile back only to have frisky imaginations shot down by his management. As far as Johnny goes, I don't think anything beats the rumor that was circulating sometime after the events of Arasaka Tower back in 2023. The idea some obsessive fan sneaked past security of the city to dig through the rubble, locating his body to put on ice and keep like some kind of memorabilia? It sounds crazy, but everyone in Night City knew what kind of fans Samurai, and more importantly, Johnny Silverhand had. Made it completely possible and people didn't really doubt that it could be true.

With corporations though, the two Rockerboys dodged a bullet. Multiples if you were keeping count. Others haven't been so lucky. A number of stories of Talents being threatened and giving into demands, multiple assassination attempts to end someone's career, Talents being kidnapped and tortured, so far as one account of a musicians hands being crushed to prevent preformances. From the outside being a Rockerboy looks like a party scene, and a lot of it is, but as the longest living in the scene will tell you, keep a Solo and a Netrunner you trust close on personal pay.

Events come full circle, once you make it to the big time stardom, the public eye notices everything, hangs onto every word. Talents like Silverhand and Eurodyne control the masses in the same way the corporations do. The audiences look to them for guidance, though in some cases the lessons are lost in translation. With everything from greedy labels making backdoor deals behind their Talent’s backs, something Kerry Eurodyne and Us Cracks went through this year, to psychofans making their own demands, to corporate reputation wars. Being a Rockerboy never gets easier, but few have hardly ever survived the test of time as Kerry has. An uphill battle from his earliest beginnings, to sitting on the Rockerboy throne of Night City, well into 2077 and still holding the title of "God of Rock" without a fault. 

Sources and Quotes:

Rockerboy Source Book

Backstage with Kerry Eurodyne page 7-9

Extortion. Bribery. Kidnapping. Brainwashing. And Other Nasty Tricks. Page 44-45

Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0. The Second Edition

Silverhand Update: Clone Tour Begins page 225

One Night with the TRAUMA TEAM page 231 

Live & Direct 

Diverse Media Systems “Technotainment” page 81-82

Solo of Fortune Vol II Source Book

American Angels: One of Europe’s Best Rates the Top U.S. Pros. page 63

Cyberpunk Red

Welcome to the Dark Future page 239

Cyberpunk 2077

Spector Melee Vendor Westbrook

Gig: Psychofans Gaston Slayton's computer

Shard Glam Now! - The Mag For Those Who Love This For Themselves

[fatefulfaerie]

Lost and Found

Offshoot from this. Might still do a direct sequel to that one but I’m not sure.

Last post before Linktober. Probably. I know I keep saying that and then my brain is like but what if this idea...

Also sorry for the lack of content before October 1st.

“Sarqso, young vai,” Furosa said, her arms dangling on the counter. “My usual ice deliverer is on vacation so this shipment of ice is a goddess-send.”

Link was standing casually, with his hand on the counter.

“Don’t worry about it,” Link said. “You don’t even have to pay me the regular rate.”

“Good,” Furosa said as she stood up straight. “Because we don’t even have the budget for that. But if I may say so, you do look a touch older than when I first met you. If you are so inclined, I can give you and your friend each a Noble Pursuit, our signature cocktail, on the house. How old are you two?”

“We’re both eighteen,” Link said as Zelda came up beside him.

“Give or take a hundred years,” he muttered under his breath in his normal non-heightened voice, which made Zelda smile.

“Great!” Furosa said. “Right on the rupee! I’ll get those for you right away!”

“Link, are you sure about this?” Zelda asked as they sat on the barstools facing each other, Furosa leaving to prepare the drinks.

“We are of age.”

“But I’ve never had alcohol before. Have you?”

“Not that I remember,” said Link.

Zelda tipped her head with a slight smirk.

“They’re free,” Link argued. “We may as well try them. One sip.”

“Fine,” Zelda said. “But for the record Gerudo consider themselves adults at eighteen. For Hylians it’s twenty one. You’re being a bad influence on me with your impulsive courage.”

“You don’t have to drink it.”

“No, no,” Zelda said. “Don’t want you going around saying I’m a coward.”

“Here we are,” Furosa said, Link and Zelda’s gazes shifting. “Two Noble Pursuits for two lovely Hylian vais.”

It was in an elegant, long glass, the liquid hued orange like a sunset with a hydromelon wedge on the edge of the rim and two ice cubes floating in each.

“Thank you,” Zelda said to the old Gerudo bartender.

“Fair warning,” Furosa said. “It doesn’t have much effect on Gerudo but for small Hylians like you, you could be hammered in no time.”

Furosa departed, leaving them to their drinks. Link and Zelda took a gentle hold of the short stems of the glass with their fingers supporting the long bowl of the glass.

“Do we toast to something?” Link asked, assuming his normal voice now that all Gerudo were out of earshot.

“My father always did that,” Zelda replied. “The toast, I mean. Some long monologue about Hyrule’s prosperity.” Zelda shook her head. “I can’t guarantee that in its ruined state, and I’m not even sure if I want to rebuild the kingdom. Everything we’ve been through...with Calamity Ganon and with Ganondorf’s corpse...I think I want nothing more than to indulge myself into just taking a break.”

Link’s eyes had melted and saddened with concern, blue eyes attentive and watching hers.

“That’s why we’re here, isn’t it?” Link said.

Zelda nodded.

“Yeah,” she said. “But…”

She looked down at her drink, pondering at the thought and not thinking about the drink at all. The ice was surely gradually melting as they talked.

“I think I want a longer break than I let on,” Zelda said. “I think I want to wait even longer before I return to the castle as Queen.”

“How long?” Link asked.

Zelda paused. She didn’t know why she feared Link would object. He had always supported her.

“I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe a month, maybe a year and part of me.” She exhaled a sigh. “Part of me wants to forget it all together and stay in your Hateno house, living a simple life until we both die of old age.”

“That sounds nice,” Zelda heard Link say, looking up at him to see the smile she thought she heard. “But it’s ultimately your choice.”

Zelda took a deep breath in and out, closing her eyes before resettling them on Link.

“To something new,” she said, the words making Link smile more.

“To something new,” Link repeated.

Their glasses clinked, Link bringing the rim to his lips as Zelda decided to smell the beverage.

She immediately balked, coughing and feeling nausea rise up within her chest. Link, alarmed by the sound, didn’t meet the rim of his glass to his lips, stopping and setting the glass on the counter as Zelda teared up, noises from her throat similar to a cat’s hiss.

“Are you okay?” Link asked.

“It smells disgusting!” Zelda exclaimed. “I feel like I’m going to throw up!”

Link’s brow contorted. It didn’t seem that bad. He picked the glass back up and brought it to his nose.

It was sweet, with the slight bitter scent of alcohol.

“Smells fine to me,” Link said.

“I don’t think I’m drinking mine,” Zelda said, placing her elbow on the counter and her head in her hand, attempting to get over her nausea.”

She watched as Link took a sip, waiting for his reaction as his lips opened and closed. He looked as if he was trying to ascertain his own opinion until his eyes suddenly widened and the glass slipped from his hand, crashing to the ground with splattering broken glass. Zelda’s eyes had widened as her head came off her hand.

“Link?” she asked before Link’s eyes closed and he started to faint off the chair.

“Link!” she said, attempting to catch him, but only making it soon enough to be at his side after he crumbled to the ground with a thud.

“How much did he drink?” she heard Furosa ask. Apparently the commotion had attracted the worry of the bartender, who had come around to try and help.

“Just a sip,” Zelda said before shaking her head. She didn’t even look at Furosa, so concerned for Link she couldn’t afford the polite glance away, “but it wasn’t the alcohol. He faints like this sometimes.”

“He?”

Zelda panicked.

“Sh-she,” Zelda corrected. “Sorry, I misspoke. My worry must have jumbled my words.”

“Is there anything I can do?” Furosa asked.

Zelda finally looked over.

“No...no thank you...I know what to do. Thank you...I-I mean sarqso.”

Zelda returned her concerned gaze to Link as Furosa left, placing a gentle hand on his cheek.

“It’s been so long since you’ve gotten a memory,” she said quietly. Her hand changed so that the backs of her fingers grazed his cheek instead. She looked over at the sound of footsteps and saw some pedestrians.

As one of the pair said something indistinguishable to the other, Zelda thought upon how this must look, that Link resembled a very drunk vai. He picked the perfect time to remember something about a hundred years prior.

When Zelda looked to Link again, waiting for him to open his eyes, she wondered at what memory it would be, whether it was associated with Gerudo town or with her or even with the Noble Pursuit.

It was a couple minutes before his eyelids flitted open.

“Link!” She exclaimed, putting her hand back on his cheek.

“I’m okay,” he said with a smile and a hand on hers at his cheek. He sat up slowly. “I’m okay.”

“Are you feeling okay?” She asked quickly, her mouth running a mile a minute. “Did you get a memory? What was it? Did it have to do with your family? Or was it later? Did you--”

“Zelda,” he interrupted with a slight laugh. “I’ll tell you all about it, don’t worry. But first, let’s get out of the street. The Hotel Oasis isn’t far. I’ll pay for the broken glass later.”

“Okay,” Zelda said as they both stood up, each other’s hands clasping into each other. They walked along the street with swinging arms.

“One bed or two?” Link asked.

“Two, I think,” Zelda reasoned. “Being close to you is just so abhorrent.”

“All right, one it is,” Link said, catching Zelda’s sarcasm.

It wasn’t long before they faced each other on their bed, legs crossed and knees almost touching. The innkeeper had raised a brow when they asked for one bed and although the inference she made about their relationship was correct, Link and Zelda both reddened when she asked them not to engage in any “funny business”.

Link and Zelda were an incoherent mess explaining that they had never done that and that although they were technically dating, they preferred to wait until after marriage. It was obvious the explanation wasn’t needed, even as Link and Zelda explained that they just liked to cuddle in each other’s arms.

They stopped their rambling when the innkeeper was clearly unamused and sat on their bed. It occurred to them that the innkeeper more than likely thought of them as a gay couple, Link looking like a vai, but with their masks on and homosexuality just as acceptable as heterosexuality anyway, they didn’t really care.

“The memory,” Zelda prompted excitedly where they sat. “What was it?”

Link smiled, in fact, his lips curled inwards, as if he were trying to stifle a laugh.

“What?” Zelda said with an unrestrained laugh.

“You’re not going to believe me,” Link said.

“Of course I will,” she said. “Now out with it.”

He looked so excited to tell her, to see her reaction, his smile was brimming with impatience.

“It involved you,” Link said. “A bit after we went to Eldin. You were about sixteen. Your father had a banquet and...you got drunk.”

“No, I didn’t,” Zelda insisted.

Link raised his brow.

“Really, Link,” she insisted. “I didn’t. I know I said I would believe you but I’ve never been drunk.”

“Oh yeah?” He challenged. “What do you remember about that night?”

Zelda shrugged.

“I don’t know,” she said. “Most things from those times are foggy. You know how it goes.”

“Try,” Link said, Zelda exhaled a sigh and looked up at the ceiling for answers.

“I was at the banquet and then you escorted me back to my chambers when it was done...at least I think you did.”

Her eyes narrowed.

“But I wasn’t drunk,” she said. “I told you I’ve never had alcohol. I know for sure you escorted me back to my chambers because the next morning I woke up in my bed with the absolute nastiest headache. And I was nauseous...”

Those last four words were slowed down as she figured it out. That’s why she had such a reaction to the Noble Pursuit. Her mouth popped open.

“I was drunk!” She exclaimed. “How did I get drunk?! Oh goddesses, did my father know?!”

Link shook his head.

“Urbosa told him you were sick,” Link said. “I escorted you back to your chambers after you mistook the Noble Pursuit for something non-alcoholic.”

Zelda brought a hand to her mouth almost smiling as she anticipated both the hilarity and embarrassment of what was to follow.

“What did I do?”

Link’s lips pursed inward.

“In my eyes, you suddenly went from a princess to be kept at a distance to a girl clinging to my shirt. You barely even recognized who I was and then you went on and on about how perfect I was.”

Zelda shook her head.

“Goddesses, I don’t remember this at all.”

“I took you back to your chambers and told you it was time for bed,” Link continued. “And then you...kissed me.”

Zelda’s eyes widened and she felt her face pale.

“On the lips,” he clarified, “before proceeding to throw up immediately after. I cleaned you up as we talked about the kingdom’s expectations and after asking me if you were drunk, I led you to your bed. I went to leave immediately after when you thanked me for the first time ever. I smiled and departed.”

Zelda’s smile had faded and her eyes were fixed on him.

“The next morning I would learn that you didn’t remember any of it and at the time I convinced myself the kiss didn’t matter to you because you were drunk.”

“So…” she made out, lowering her hand as she figured it out. “So that whole time...we had already kissed? And...and you said nothing?”

She searched nothing with her eyes.

“Because you were keeping it hidden, weren’t you?” she asked rhetorically. “To shield me from embarrassment, to shield yourself from my anger and...to shield us from a scandal that would take on a life of its own.”

Link nodded.

“I assumed so, too.”

Zelda shook her head.

“I just can’t believe you knew that whole time why I resented you, your perfection, my imperfection, I guess it makes sense why you so easily forgave me, how we so easily became friends.”

Zelda let out a chuckle.

“I didn’t think I had lost a memory, too,” she said. “This is just bizarre.”

“Welcome to my life,” Link jived.

Zelda giggled as she tipped her head, her eyes adoring him.

“I wish I could kiss you now.”

Link put on a mischievous smile, looking to his right, to his left, and back to lean closer into her.

“The innkeeper is gone,” he said. “No one will see if we take off the masks connected to our veils.”

Zelda peered around Link at the empty street outside before looking around the inn.

“I suppose.”

She took off her blue mask, but that wasn’t the dangerous part, Zelda concerned as Link took off his. She considered them lucky he was facing away from the street.

“See?” He asked rhetorically when no one seized him for being male. “No problem.”

He leaned forward and captured her lips with his, the hero and the princess kissing deeply and losing their focus on anything else. The “Sound the alarm!” was not regarded by either of them as they made out with each other, their hearts burning only to continue.

“A voe has been detected!” It was just white noise to them. “Capture him at once!”

Link suddenly felt himself pulled from her lips, from her all together by strong hands on his arms.

“Link!” Zelda exclaimed, coming to her hands and knees on the bed before hastening off it, two Gerudo dragging Link away.

She followed them through the town, racing to catch up with how swiftly they dragged him, only to toss him into the sands outside the entrance.

“You didn’t have to throw him!” Zelda exclaimed to one of the guards.

“I apologize, Your Highness,” the Gerudo guard said. “But you know the law. You know what we had reason to believe.”

Zelda furrowed her brow at the insinuation. Link would never do that, but Zelda knew she couldn’t overturn Gerudo law. Link had already sat up when Zelda approached him, Zelda kneeling in front of him and looking back at the guard.

“No voe are allowed within the town!” the guard exclaimed with her spear pointed at Link. “It’s a rule of the Gerudo! Do not come back here! Not ever!”

Zelda exhaled a sigh with closed eyes before turning her head and opening them to look at Link.

“I’m sorry, Link,” Zelda apologized. “I shouldn’t have suggested we kiss.”

Link shook his head.

“It’s fine,” he responded. “I probably would have kissed you anyway.” He released a chuckle. “I’ve actually never been caught before, at least not like this.

“Wait,” he said with a different train of thought. “You are still technically the princess, aren’t you? Can’t you do something about the rule?”

Zelda shook her head.

“I don’t want to disrespect their culture, it’s unfair.”

“Why do they even have that rule? Do you know?”

Zelda nodded in affirmation.

“It’s myth by now, one of those cautionary tales that speak of danger and are meant to elicit fear, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t justified.”

“What do you mean?” Link asked, his arms were now casually draped over his bent knees and Zelda had already repositioned herself to sit on her heels.

“It is said they used to allow men when the town was first built,” Zelda explained, “but a Gerudo woman was raped and conceived a child. The woman was regarded as ruined, and although she loved her child, she never found romantic love. Gerudo do not allow men because of that story, but also because they want to control the way in which they find a mate. They want to be ready for it, to have reached adulthood and have prepared for a pilgrimage to Hyrule. On this journey, they get to know themselves, and eventually, they find a mate who matches them. It is courting on their own terms, where the men don’t hold all the power. That is why they hold classes on courting, to prepare those who have chosen to undergo the pilgrimage for the challenge ahead.”

“Wow,” Link said. “I had no idea. So just now they thought…”

Zelda nodded at the inference.

“Zelda,” he said as he too sat on his heels, taking her hand. “I would never do that to you, I promise. I could never hurt you like that, betray your trust in such a manner.”

“Link,” Zelda said with her infectious laugh. “I know you wouldn’t. But they don’t.”

The sky had already started to darken with the sunset, but the approaching night started to bring a chill, especially cold considering their light Gerudo fabrics.

“It’ll be cold soon,” Link said, looking out at the desert.

“Maybe we can stay at the Bazaar,” Zelda said. “Head back to Hateno in the morning.”

Link sighed, looking in the direction of Gerudo town, the one he was just ousted out of.

“It’s just…”

“What?” Zelda asked, searching him.

“Nothing,” he said. “It’s nothing.”

Link stood up to avoid suspicion and it wasn’t long before they started their walk to Kara Kara Bazaar.

But Link knew that they were walking away from the jewelry shop, where a special order was waiting for Link, a ring with a diamond in the center. He had planned to pick it up late in the night when Zelda was sleeping in the Hotel Oasis.

But if he could no longer enter the town, he would have to find a Gerudo who could pick it up for him.

And then, on an orange sunset like this one, at the top of Tuft mountain next to the lake shaped like a heart, Link would propose to his Princess.

“The men holding the power,” he said, the thought suddenly spurring him with worry. “Although the power should be equally shared, sometimes that is unfortunately not the case. Do you...do you ever think I hold that power?”

“Link, of course not,” Zelda insisted. “You’re the best boyfriend a girl could have. You let me speak my mind probably more than I should.”

“But...but what if I did something that steps on your power...made a decision that puts you in a place to...to choose one thing or another.” Link sighed. “Maybe I’m overthinking it.”

“The Gerudo are a race made up entirely of women. There is a great power in that and they wish to harness it. But that isn’t the case with our relationship, Link. As long as we approach everything knowing we both have input, everything will be fine.”

Link nodded, supposing there was a difference between asking her to marry him and forcing her to marry him against her will. Perhaps he was overthinking it.

“Right.”

He felt Zelda take his hand and his worries were soothed. Link smiled with a warm heart knowing the love of his life was beside him, safe from harm, and may even choose to be by his side forever.

[slashermom]

How do the Sinclair bros celebrate their birthdays with their s/o? And what if there s/o is like super into birthdays and wants to make it special for them?

Bo

Truth be told, birthdays never really mattered to Bo.

Why should they when they were never truly about him? Attention was always fixated on Vincent and how it was Vincent’s special day.

He only kept track of them as he got older so he could know when he could legally buy his own smokes and beer.

But even now they’re not particularly a big deal to him.

You: It’s your birthday Bo! :D

Bo: *ducks head out from under the hood of his truck with a cigarette hanging out the corner of his mouth* Well ain’t that sumthin’. You think I can get a free meal at Hooters?

He’s pretty adamant about keeping the celebration down to a minimum.

A drink and some birthday sex will suit him just fine.

But if you’re hellbent on giving him the birthday he deserves he’s not gonna stop you.

Not like he could if he tried.

Just as you suspected, Bo woke up completely forgetting that today was his birthday and went about his normal routine.

This gave you more than enough time to decorate the kitchen and part of the living room with birthday decorations and bake a good-sized cake.

You actually commissioned Vincent to make some little candles for the cake. You reminded yourself to make sure he came up and enjoyed himself and give him the gift you picked up for him. It was his birthday too after all.

You laid everything out neatly and triple checked all your little decorations and placements before the sound of the front door opening pulled your attention.

Bo went to let out a noise of question but you didn’t let him process the thought and shouted a joyful ‘HAPPY BIRTHDAY!’

Raised eyebrows and wide eyes scan the Sinclair house with disbelief. You really went out of your way to do this for him?

Believe it or not, Bo may be prideful and confident but he also considers himself more trouble than he’s worth and knows he doesn’t deserve good things.

So this sentiment leaves the quick-witted man speechless for a moment.

You push him into the kitchen where all the gifts and cake are while you mention something about Lester stopping by.

You shove three presents toward him with a smile. You felt bad that you had to wrap them in old newspaper, completely forgetting about wrapping paper but it’s what in the wrapping right?

Bo will protest he doesn’t need anything. That you’re already making a man blush but you shake your head and tell him to open the damn presents already. So he does.

A pair of new work boots, a cap, and a shiny new lighter. Nothing too extravagant but all things he could use. Practical, you reasoned with yourself. You wanted to get him more but your budget was already stretched thin as it was and-

Bo didn’t allow much time for you to feel guilty about what you couldn’t give him. Quick to show his appreciation with a kiss and a genuine smile.

You make his heart feel so full.

You’ve done more for him in these few moments than anyone has his whole life and if this is how all birthdays are he’s gonna have to start paying attention to them more closely.

Vincent

Birthdays slipped away from Vincent after he left Ambrose.

With nobody there to wish him happy birthday or show any sort of appreciation for his day of birth he just let them slip away.

He knew how old he was or had a rough idea, but just hadn’t truly celebrated since he was a young boy.

Vincent wasn’t oblivious to his twin’s dismay at the day and wondered if he could ever make it up to him for all the years Bo was swept under the rug.

Most of the time, he spent his birthday hiding away in the basement from Bo. Vincent knew Bo probably didn’t know it was their birthday but he didn’t want to risk it and piss him off.

But you weren’t as weary about Bo as he was.

You were gonna give Vincent (and by extension Bo) a fantastic birthday!

You started off his birthday by waking up the sleeping artist with some breakfast in bed. A meal he often skipped or grabbed the bare minimum.

He was startled at first.

Didn’t know why you were being so generous to him before you explained that it was his birthday and he felt heat spread throughout his cheeks.

You remembered. You knew.

He wanted to jump right up and snatch ahold of you and never let go.

But Vincent settled on a lovely kiss.

You tried to convince him to take the day off but he reasoned that he had to get another wax figure in the museum. You eventually gave in and told him to take it easy today. It was his birthday after all.

It gave you some time to make sure you had everything.

As Vincent sat in his workshop long after your surprise this morning, he could still feel his heart beating rapidly in his chest. Vincent considers himself a very stoic person, but you are able to pull emotions from him almost effortlessly.

You checked on him multiple times that day.

Each time you would wish him a happy birthday and leave him with a kiss or a nice back/shoulder rub.

You did most of these things on a normal day but they felt more special today.

As the day came to a close and the night crept in, you began to get restless.

To kill some time, you ran down to the service station to drop off a piece of cake and Bo’s gift but he seemed to be preoccupied in the basement and there was no way in hell you were going down there.

Once you returned to the house and puttered around a bit more you grew tired of waiting and decided to bring the party down to Vincent.

Balancing his presents in one hand and his piece of cake in another you thumped your way down the stairs into his work space.

Vincent just stands there in shock for a few seconds as he asses the situation before him.

You mean to tell him you did more for him?

Vincent’s heart is beating so loud in his chest that he’s pretty sure he’s just gonna keel over.

Placing everything on a clean space on his workbench you usher him over to sit at the stool and open his gifts.

Vincent tells you that you didn’t have to do this, that he’s more than happy with the breakfast and all the birthday wishes.

You only shake your head and push the gifts closer.

He’s careful unwrapping each gift and each gift he pulls free of its wrapping he feels his breath gets caught in his throat.

A few sticks of charcoal, some nice new color pencils, two hardcover sketchbooks, and some paints.

A bunch of small items that made it seem bigger than it really was.

Vincent could only stare at the gifts.

He’s pretty sure that even if he was a big talker he would still have trouble finding the right words to express his appreciation and love for you.

He plucks your hand from his shoulder and presses it to the lips of his mask.

Vincent quickly decides that this contact is not nearly enough and stands from his seat to pull you closer.

You might not be able to tell but he’s got the biggest grin on his face. Even though it stings and aches he can’t help it. You make him so happy.

Lester

Much like the harsher of the two twins, birthdays were tricky for Lester.

He didn’t get to have too many at home before Trudy got sick and the ones he could remember were very brief and cold.

He had a few birthdays here and there in the system that were somewhat memorable but nothing special.

Lester did see other kids at birthday parties with their friends and family and did always wonder what that was like. But he knew better than to stare for too long.

As he got older, he would maybe treat himself to a meal out but besides that, it was just another day.

He spent many of them alone but that was gonna change this time around.

You knew Lester would get up early and be at work for most of the day if not till early evening.

Giving you the opportunity to go out and get everything. You had waited to pick up what you needed until now because you knew that Lester would be inclined to snoop. He always did during Christmas.

But you did make sure to slip his birthday card into the front seat of his truck for him to find sometime during the day.

You were left the rest of the just wait for the scrawny man to return and you couldn’t wait for him to see his reaction.

You had thrown up a few decorations but nothing too extravagant. You understood that simplicity was key.

After spending the day impatiently waiting for Lester to return, you finally heard the telltale squeak of the front door and his boots hitting the floor.

You rounded the corner to see Lester staring in awe at the decorations as well as the cake and gifts laid out in front of him.

He had the birthday card held tightly in his grasp.

“You do all this for me?”

You chuckled and nodded, going to pull him closer into the room but he instead pulled you closer and pressed a kiss to your cheek before grabbing your hand and tugging you toward the gifts.

Lester raised his eyebrows as if asking permission to open his own gifts. You told him to get on with it and he did frantically.

First, he unwrapped the new long sleeve shirts.

He definitely needed some new shirts. His old ones were forever stained with his work. Not to mention, they reeked even after you washed them more times you could count on both of your hands.

Lester was so excited he was already trying them all on.

Making comments about they’re so soft and you got just the right size and how he’ll never take them off.

But he was most excited about the new Bowie knife you had presented to him after he got done trying on all the shirts.

His old one was getting dull and although you found it comical watching him struggle against the hide of some poor dead critter it was time for a new one.

He cries.

Wraps his arms around you and whispers thank yous and I love yous into your neck. He really, truly, absolutely means it.

The moment was broken up by the sound of Bo kicking open the front door with a loud: “Happy Birthday you smelly son of a bitch!”

Lester pulled away to go meet his brothers and you laughed watching the three men converse in the entryway.

Lester spends the rest of the night glued to you. Every once and awhile turning to get a look at you and smiling to himself about how lucky he is.

[thetriggeredhappy]

angst&hurt/comfort, where scout is anxious and doubts his skills, so he tries to calm himself by holding/hugging/whatever his plushie (or something else, idk), whilst someone is trying to get to him, to make him confess what is bothering him? idk if you wanna make it a ship ir maybe dad spy, ily -🦂

oh dude you already KNOW dad!spy hours are 24/7 up in here. welcome to “projecting RSD onto Scout TF2 episode 85″

-

Stupid summer, stupid break, stupid losing streak. Stupid everything.

Usually Scout was excited about breaks. A week or so of getting to be off work, heading home to visit family or going on a road trip or whatever was happening. It was nice, he loved it. But this time they had explicit orders from their boss not to go anywhere or do anything. To stay on base or to go specifically exclusively to the store in the nearest town for food or whatever. He hated it. The base was too small to hang out in for more than a few days at a time. He hated it.

And not to mention that they’d finished off work on a bad note. A day of losses turning into a week of losses, half the team scrambling to try and pull together enough to get one last good push in before the break and the other half deciding to just accept the loss and do better once they got back.

And every day after battle Soldier would single out someone who wasn’t on top of their game and lecture them. And all week, instead of going for the people who were largely slacking off and not breaking their necks to try and get them some actual wins, he went after Scout, who was so frantic that he kept making stupid mistakes.

And he just... usually he argued about it, and got in a fight with Soldier, but he just... didn’t have the energy for it. The day was over. They’d lost. And Scout knew it wasn’t entirely his fault, but it kind of felt like it. Maybe if he’d tried just a little bit harder, pushed himself just a little further, he could’ve gotten the rest of the team motivated. Maybe they all would’ve picked things back up and tried too. But he couldn’t do it.

It was frustrating. He knew his job, beyond what he did on the field, was trying to keep morale up. He kept music playing, he was always up for hanging out or playing a few hands of poker or headed into town with someone to get shitty fast food. And he tried really hard to be funny and to keep things lighthearted, tried so fucking hard to keep spirits up. And he knew if he said anything about it, pointed out how literally like all of his time was spent trying to make sure everyone was feeling okay, it would...

He didn’t know. Maybe they’d just tell him off for being whiny or whatever. Maybe it would stop working so well, if they knew he was always doing it so extremely on purpose, so intentionally. He didn’t know.

But at that moment, he was feeling so much like utter garbage that he knew he had to just avoid the team so he didn’t drag the mood down further. Usually they didn’t really miss him anyways, other than idly asking if he’d gotten into any trouble while he was off doing “whatever he did”. All he knew was that him feeling like shit around everyone else would just make them feel bad too. And it was break anyways—maybe they’d just end up feeling better on their own. Especially since he wasn’t around to interrupt them.

He had plenty of food in his room, mostly chips and candy bars and stuff like that, stuff he didn’t want the guys stealing. And he’d totally share if they asked, for sure, but for that moment he was mostly just digging through the hoard for himself and doing not much of anything else.

He felt like kind of an idiot, sitting alone and eating his feelings like some kind of angsty teen in a movie or the chick in the romcom who just got broken up with. But there was nobody there to ridicule him except himself. And he did, but... the point stood.

A few days passed like that. He had food, he had the little bathroom connected to his room, he had comics to entertain himself. He slept a lot, mostly. Felt like garbage. Read some comics. Ate chocolate about it. Slept some more. He left a few times to do a few assorted things—called home like he did every week, went into the common room late one night to grab some of his records back so he could listen to them.

At one point, he got a knock on his door. He didn’t answer, couldn’t seem to find the energy to. A second knock when the first was unanswered after about twenty seconds. He still didn’t move.

The next day, another knock. This one was accompanied by words. “Scout? I know you’re in there,” Spy called, sounding annoyed.

To be honest, Scout was pretty sure he didn’t have the energy to deal with whatever Spy was about to lecture him about. So he just rolled over.

“You’ve missed every team meal for almost four days. You’re being rude,” Spy declared.

Scout reached off the side of the bed and picked up a plushie that had fallen down. It was a big, chunky pig, and he’d won it when he and Pyro had gone out to a fair and he’d knocked the ball toss game out of the park. Pyro had taken three of the plushies he’d won, and insisted he keep the fourth for himself.

He felt like even more of a dumb baby, sitting there cradling a stuffed animal like he was scared to head off to his first day of kindergarten, but he was already too tired and filled with vague unrest for it to get to him much.

At some point he heard a heavy sigh and the clack of fancy shoes moving away down the hallway, and Scout relaxed.

Twenty minutes later, a knock.

“Scout, let me in,” Spy said firmly.

“Fuck off, Spy,” Scout snapped.

“Scout, if you don’t open the door, I’m going to,” Spy declared.

“Bullshit.”

A heavy sigh, and then a few moments later the door swung open.

“What the fuck?” Scout asked, lifting his head to glare towards the door as Spy stepped inside.

“I know how to pick locks, Scout. You know this.” Spy squinted to try to get used to the light, the blinds having been drawn. “I’m turning a light on.”

Scout just grumbled, dropping his head back into the plush pig. In his periphery, the light was indeed turned on. There was a beat of silence.

“I brought a plate from dinner. I was concerned you would get scurvy, since you now apparently have the diet of an eight year old child who was given a hundred dollars and left unsupervised at the grocery store,” Spy said dryly.

“I don’t want your fuckin’ handouts, Spy,” Scout muttered, muffled.

“It’s not a handout, it’s the fact that I refuse to have anyone on the team besides me whose teeth are falling out. Take the food.”

“Fuck off.”

Spy sighed again, and after a moment he moved to put the plate on the bedside table. Scout prickled at the proximity, but didn’t give him the satisfaction of looking up.

“I noticed that while you haven’t been at dinner, you still took the time to leave a thumb tack on my chair. Usually when you do that it’s because you’re angry with me. What exactly have I done?”

“I’m not mad at you, I’m just mad,” Scout grumbled.

“You know, it’s very childish to refuse to look at someone when they are trying to talk to you.”

“Guess I’ll just keep being the dumb idiot kid of the team then, huh?” Scout snapped.

Silence for a moment. “Scout. You’ve locked yourself away in your room and refused to come out again for several days. I know that something is wrong. The team does too—they’re starting to worry.”

“That might just be the most obvious lie you’ve ever fuckin’ told me, Spy,” Scout practically spat, and was glad to have his voice muffled, because suddenly it went a little tight.

“Is it that hard to believe that perhaps your teammates care about you?” Spy asked, a little sharply.

“It’s me, in case you haven’t noticed,” Scout said next, getting his voice back under control. “People don’t hang around me on purpose. They put up with me. And then they stop putting up with me at some point.”

“That’s not true,” Spy said, tone leaving no room for argument, but Scout elbowed some argument in anyways.

“All seven of my brothers, every fuckin’ date I’ve ever been on, the standing ban sayin’ I can’t go in Engie’s workshop or in Heavy’s workspace down by the boiler or the infirmary unless I’m actually seriously injured—“ Scout listed off, ticking off on his fingers, keeping his face hidden. “My own fucking dad decided he couldn’t fucking stand me and I was two years old, Spy, what the hell does that tell you? I’m an annoying little piece of shit and that’s all I’m ever gonna be and then one of these days I’m gonna die for real out in this hellhole desert and ain’t a single damn person out here will have ever even bothered to learn the name that’s supposed to go on my gravestone.”

Dead silence in the room. Scout’s arm fell back down by his side. His voice was shaky when he spoke again.

“Nobody’s ever even asked,” he managed. “Demo’s real name is Tavish, Heavy’s real name is Mikhal but his sisters call him Misha. And plenty of you guys get asked about it all the time but you don’t wanna say. And nobody’s ever even fuckin’ asked me.”

Silence for a few more seconds.

“I’m a whole person,” Scout said next. “I’m really into sci-fi. I’ve read every mainline issue comic book ever published after ‘35. I know how to cook and draw and I know the all the stats of every person on every major league baseball team. I was in theater in high school between track and baseball season in the winters and I and got a lead role on some Shakespearicles thing before it got cancelled because of budget cuts. I bet you didn’t even know that.”

“I didn’t,” Spy admitted.

“And why would you? Who the fuck cares? It’s just dumb scrawny idiot Scout, who the fuck cares what his deal is? He can barely do his job and read any word that’s over four syllables, who cares what he does? He ain’t nothin’ today, he must never have been somethin’ in the first place.”

“Scout—“

“Tell me I’m wrong, Spy,” he snapped, voice cracking down the middle.

“You’re wrong. Scout, what’s going on?” Spy asked, and his voice sounded closer, like he’d taken a knee. “What happened?”

He understood, logically, that telling Spy damn near anything was a bad idea. He sold information for a living. But logic hadn’t ever been much help to him, and anyways, he was pretty sure he was about to break down either way, and he could either cry like a dumb little baby and Spy could go to the rest of the team and tell them about stupid Scout and his crying for no reason, or he could at least sort of maybe a little bit sound justified and a little bit less completely unhinged.

“We lost all week because I fuckin’ suck at my job, and we don’t get to go off base for some goddamn reason, and I miss my family, and I—“ God damn it, he hoped to at least get to a second sentence before he broke, but here came the waterworks. “—and I know the team doesn’t give a shit, and if they even noticed they probably think I’m being some idiot baby, and I’m just so fuckin’ tired of all of this, alright? I’m just so goddamn exhausted, all the time, and no matter what I do I can’t make my own stupid, shitty, broken-ass brain shut up, and I...”

There was a hand on his shoulder, now. For some reason that’s what unstuck the sob in his throat.

“And I just miss my mom,” he managed, and sobbed again. “And I know that just makes me a stupid fucking baby—“

“Scout, it doesn’t,” Spy said firmly.

“Bullshit.”

A sigh, less exasperated than the others. “Scout, I miss my own parents. Often. Heavy writes to his mother, the Bushman calls home once a week and stays on the phone for an hour at a time. Do you think they would do that if they didn’t miss them?”

Scout couldn’t seem to find his voice, and just sniffled a little.

“If anything, it’s good that you miss your mother. You are appreciating her now, while she’s still part of your life, rather than later on when she’s gone. That’s a good thing.”

“Here I am cryin’ over dumb shit—“

“The fact that you’re even capable of tears shows that you haven’t completely sealed yourself off from your emotions like several of our testosterone-puppet teammates. I’m fairly certain that Medic surgically removed his own tear ducts. I think Soldier is so dehydrated that he’s incapable of it. And rather than sweat he needs to cover himself in liquid-like food products or else he’ll die of heat stroke.”

Despite everything, that made Scout laugh, just a little. More of a hiccup than anything else.

“Admittedly, you have greater social needs than several of our team, and they need to take breaks. Not just from you, but from everyone. It’s part of being human, everyone requires some amount of time alone or else they start losing their minds. But that doesn’t mean that they don’t care about you—value the things you do for this team, even. Every time someone would like company when going in to town for any reason, they always ask me where you are. And you’ve given good film recommendations to everyone except for the Sniper.”

“Guy hates movies,” Scout defended weakly.

“You keep recommending horror films. As it turns out, he is a fan of romantic comedies.”

“Fuckin’ what? Seriously?”

“I was shocked too. His complete lack of taste in all areas of his life continues to amaze me.”

Scout scoffed at that. A beat of silence.

“What I am saying is that the team doesn’t simply put up with you. You’re impossible to simply put up with, you take up too big a part of everyone’s life here. Instead, they must like and respect you.” A pause. “And your father must have truly been an idiot. Anyone with two eyes would be proud of the challenges you’ve faced and overcome with all of the disadvantages you’ve been dealt over your lifetime.”

Scout sniffled, wiped his eyes with his forearm, finally managed to look up at Spy. “Anyone with two eyes? You sayin’ you’re proud of me, then?” he asked, even if it was a little shaky.

“I feel no strong emotions,” Spy deadpanned.

“Alright, nevermind about earlier. That’s the most obvious lie you’ve ever told me.”

Spy rolled his eyes, standing, brushing off the knee of his suit.

Scout looked at the plate, made a face. “Aw man, what the fuck, is that asparagus? Is Medic back on trying to make us eat healthy again?”

“The Engineer cooked it, stop complaining and just eat it,” Spy said, quickly falling back into his role of naggy just on the near side of patronizing.

“C’mon, it couldn’t have been like, mashed potatoes or broccoli or somethin’?”

“You always douse those things in salt and butter. That combined with the energy drinks means you’re going to get a heart condition before I do.”

“Just get the fuck outta my room, Spy,” Scout huffed, putting the stuffed animal aside and moving to pick up the plate and utensils.

“Very well. And go talk to Demoman at some point, he’s been whining about nobody wanting to go get fast food with him for two days,” Spy said as he walked to the door. “And you can’t borrow my car to go.”

“Fuck you, Spy,” Scout said flippantly, waving him off.

“Fuck you too,” Spy said just as casually, and made sure to close the door behind him.

[beingatoaster]

I honestly don’t want to replace my phone, it’s a good, sturdy little device that has served me well for six years now :( but it really is getting old:

the battery life is... nonexistent. I went to get my shot today, had it charged at 94%, used the GPS to navigate (20 minutes each way), was on Twitter for about half an hour while waiting for my shot, checked Discord and email a couple times, and had the screen off the rest of the time. About two hours total, and I got home at 24%

the charging port is so broken that it will only charge off what’s supposed to be my portable/emergency charger (no matter what, a wall-plugged charger won’t do it), if I get the cord in EXACTLY the right position and then step away and don’t touch the phone at all, and under those conditions it charges... about 20% an hour when turned off, less when on

if it gets below about 30% battery and I try to open more than one program at a time, or a high-resource program like Pokemon Go, the whole phone crashes into a restart cycle where it turns itself off, gets to the restart screen, turns itself off again, etc. etc. etc., until I open it up and remove the battery to stop it

storage is so small (compared to current phone standards) and so choked that I literally cannot update either the firmware or any of my programs (I have stripped out as many programs as I can, and am down to what I consider the “essentials”) no matter how much I try to transfer stuff to the SC card

This is an S5, so it has a removable battery that could in theory be replaced and solve some of these issues, but no new batteries have been made for 4-5 years, and all that’s available at this point is refurbished ones. I’ve bought three refurbished ones and all have been worse off than my current one (which was harvested from my dad’s old S5 when the one this phone came with cracked down one side), and failed whenever I tried to bring up the camera. I do have my dad’s S5 and have considered switching to it, which would solve the charging port problem, but then the battery issue recurs.

And my mom wants to take a roadtrip in June to visit my sister in Texas, at which point this situation will be COMPLETELY untenable, since “in a rocking car” is not an environment in which my phone will charge even on the portable brick, and if I have to use it for GPS at any point, well, there goes my phone for the entire rest of the day. :( So... since my teeth are not going to be quite as expensive as I thought, the rest of what I was budgeting for that is getting redirected to a new phone some time this month.

I’m just SAD about it because. I love my phone. So much. I’ve had it so long, and I’m so completely used to it, and everything about it suits me perfectly. And I was lucky enough to get a very high-quality one for its generation (they’d just come out with some new generation of the Samsungs when I went to get it, and they gave me a huge discount because they were clearly getting rid of old stock), and don’t have the budget for that now, so that’s going to be a bit disappointing. (I’m also a little afraid that they’re going to say my incredibly cheap low-data plan can’t be kept when upgrading, and I want to say then I’ll just walk out and keep mine after all, but... that’s not a forever solution.)

[jemstone625]

Shield | Dabi x Oc Chapter One --------------------------------------------

The door was scratched and dented with chipped brown spots. The brass colored lock and matching door knob dulled with age and neglect. Dabi gave no thought as it squealed and groaned when he pushed it open, not till the apartment before him revealed itself. His feet stuck outside the threshold, and his eyes widened a fraction as they shifted through the murk. Dabi did not like being caught off guard, and at the moment he most certainly didn’t want to deal with worthless lower lifeforms who had forgotten to lock their front door.

The arrival of winter and its icy serenade of coolness, alongside with the pain of hunger and the thirst for sleep, had left Dabi in a very low mood. One that hadn’t quite escalated into being fowl, but he knew it was teetering on the edge of descending into just that. All it would take was some pointless villain or thug trying to jump him for Dabi to burn the whole building to the ground. Instead of his hands flickering blue to light the path before him Dabi sniffed at the warm air washing over him in thick waves. Entwined in the building’s natural pungent odor of damp moldy wood was the faintest trace of cinnamon. 

It was this oddity that had his knees bending and Dabi crossing through the doorway. He didn’t mind crashing into another’s home. He doubted they would even mind if they had left their front door unlocked, and extra security wasn’t something he bothered worrying about -- not in this part of town. If someone screamed often more than not those nearby looked the other way. Only the heroes would investigate and they rarely came this far unless on a mission or patrolling, and their activity decreased drastically at night.

Closing the door behind him, to keep the warmth locked inside the small flat, electric neon hues flickered about as they studied the shadows for movement. Looking for an indicator that would expose the owner of this hovel, but Dabi saw and heard nothing. Only ugly and baron peeling pale purple walls with cracks running down them greeted him.

Scared and calloused hands trailed along the wall as he sauntered his way through the home. Dabi’s footsteps echoed on the wooden floor boards. His mind though had him following the sweet, spicy-hot, fragrance until he found himself standing alone in a living room. On one of the counters sat a lit candle. It looked new. To the left, high above on the shelf connected to the only window in the room, sat a half dead plant. The orange pot it occupied was obviously too small for the large leafed shrub.

A grin broke out across Dabi’s face, stretching the staples till his flesh stung, as he soaked in the mirthful garden he had accidently stumbled upon. What luck that some sucker had just left their front door unlocked for him.

‘Idiot.’ Dabi chastised as he focused on a poorly white painted door he could see down another short hallway. It looked to have been left ajar. Which to him was only an eager usher to have him travel over and give his whole hearted thanks to the tenant.

Pulling down his hood Dabi’s hands flickered with his flames. For the most part the rundown old building was empty, but the few that occupied the place where nothing but lowlife wannabe thugs or drug addicts. It was why he was squatting in one of the many vacant flats. The likelihood of being caught was low.

Still he should give his thanks and greetings to the tenant. It would only be proper of him. Dabi wouldn’t want to come off as rude when later they found him sleeping on their couch.

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Yua huffed. Today had been sheer hell, and it had all begun the moment her alarm began to bleep at five-thirty. The milk had soured, there was no water because she had forgotten to pay the bill, and just as she had been leaving the lock on the front door decided it was time to become unattached to half rotten planks of wood. Yua had gone to slide the lock over and the whole contraption had just popped off into her hand. Half of it bouncing across wooden floor boards and the other half bent in an awkward direction in her hand. 

If there had been a second to spare Yua might just have screamed in frustration, but instead she plopped Kayda down before rushing about in a frenzy to hide anything of value. She cursed and swore in colorful words as she shoved objects beneath the loose floorboards under her bed and in the space above the tiles in the bathroom.

‘The day is still young.’ Was what she had told herself as Yua dropped her sister off with the sitter. A broken lock on their home wasn’t the worst thing to happen to them, and it could easily be fixed. Her day though didn’t get better as the hours ticked by. During her shift at the diner she had been called in to talk with her manager. Who notified her that due to budget costs she was going to be released. She had known a few of the employees would be leaving but that still didn’t help when she had discovered that she was one of them. Though Yua had a hunch that the decision had been heavily influenced by her dumping a steaming cup of coffee on the crotch of one of their customers, not to mention she had golden laced things when she had hit the creep repeatedly with one of the trays they used to bring out the food. Yua didn’t regret what she had done. The purple tinted man deserved what he had gotten. Still, it stung that her reckless actions had cost her this job. 

“I understand.” Finding another job that could fit with her busy schedule was going to be difficult. Yua didn’t let her employer see the stress steadily growing and instead she scraped on a smile before bowing deeply. “Thank you for this opportunity.”

At least she had been able to finish the day in dignity before fleeing for her evening work in the red district as a club waitress. When all was said and done and her day had finally come to an end it was two hours past midnight, and Yua still had to make a pit stop to get a new lock for her apartments front door. By the time she had picked up Kayda the night had long since been enveloped in a blanket of velvet darkness and streaked white from snow. The only light being casted was from the street lamps.

Yua hated winter. She hated the cold, almost as much as she hated mushrooms and saggy pants. There was nothing like worrying if your fingers would fall off first or if your nose would. Nothing like having to scurry home only in the same short skirt, nylon tights, and tight top she had worn at the club because someone had stolen her jeans and heavy coat. 

Walking home in the dark was not new for Yua, but doing so with her arms full and a small bundle of life attached to her hip left Yua on edge. Her feet traveled as swiftly as possible, as she kept her eyes peeled and her ears alert for any signs of trouble. It was unusual, and rare, when Kayda’s sitter couldn’t make it to the flat. The last three days had been that way. Yua getting ready in the morning before racing to drop her little sister off with an elderly lady she trusted.

Yua would have much rather waited to go shopping until tomorrow. She would have been free tomorrow morning until late afternoon now without her primary day job, but the idea of sleeping in her flat while the lock on the front door was broken didn’t settle well with her. Yua hated where they stayed, but it was the only place she could find within her budget. She hated that the man on the first level always sat outside his door smoking and watching. She hated that there was mold in the hallways. She hated that she could only fall asleep with one of the kitchen knives tucked between her bed and the box of springs.

She had promised herself and Kayda that one day, one of these days, they would leave the horrid hole they were trapped in. That Yua would give her sister the life she deserved and not the slums they were stuck in.

Shivering uncontrollably, Yua sped up her pace as their home came into view. Bitterly cold and humid -- what an enchanting combination. Everything outside was coated in a heavy dusting of snow, and pulling open the metal doors left her hands tingling and throbbing painfully. The dim lit hallway that met the two sisters was just as cold and unforgiving as it was outside. Yua could see her breath materializing with each exhale, just as she could feel the small body clinging to her side shivering despite the thick winter apparel adoring the child.

Climbing four flights of stairs Yua finally came to a stop. With Kayda balanced on one hip and grocery bags dangling off her other arm Yua struggled as she used her foot to harshly push open the front door.

“Hold on will you.” Yua chattered to the wiggling toddler as she flicked on the lights. Jumbled words fell from the girl’s mouth as she quickly made her way to the ground. Yua was only able to pick out the words duck and bubbles before the dark haired three year old made a mad dash for the living room.

Yua couldn’t get her feet to move for a second as she basked in the heat swelling in her home. It felt so nice against her icy skin. Standing there with bags digging into the flesh of her arm though had her mind reeling and telling her to keep moving. So, she followed Kayda as the small girl wobbled to and fro. Her head pointed down to the ground in a firm glare. A challenge had been issued and Yua had no clue what it was, or how the floor had aggravated the toddler. 

Dismissing the child Yua instead took a turn for the kitchen. Bags were barely placed on the counter before she heard her sister babbling to herself down the hallway. Halfway through putting the items away Yua heard her sister cry out again, this time with a request that was still being warmed in the microwave.

“Coco!” Came Kayda’s small but demanding voice. “Coco!”

“It’s still warming up.” Yua answered as she shoved a bag of chicken nuggets into the freezer. “You’re going to have to wait.”

A soft smile graced Yua’s features as her hands wrapped around her steaming mug. The heat of the drink brought life to her veins once more. Green hues watched as the numbers on the microwave counted down, and when it dinged she removed the sippy cup and took a test sip from the beverage to see how warm the liquid inside was. Then, with a mug and warm sippy cup in hand Yua made her way to the living room.

“Coco! Coco! Coco!” With each word came the squeaking of her fluffy toy duck.

“Patience little demon.” Yua teased playfully, though the slight smile dancing on her lips vanished when she became aware that there was a stranger standing within reaching vicinity of her sister.

“Coco! Coco!” The child cried as she pointed viciously at the man near the window. Electric blue’s stuck instantly to Yua but her attention was on the steady flickering of flames erupting from his fingertips.

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Interested? You can find the story on Quotev and Fanfiction!

https://www.quotev.com/story/13059990/Shield-Dabi-x-Oc/1

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13693411/1/Shield

[phoenixfire-thewizardgoddess]

Hey guys, 

This is the local dog rescue charity that we were carers for, for several years. May do it again in future, but after Debbie (who was rescued by Precious Paws), it feels like we need a break. 

We have had three foster fails, but two puppers came through our home, learned to feel safe and loved, and went on to a perfectly matched new family.

There is always a demand for carers, so if you think you can, have a look at their Carer Info. Or look into the FB page, to keep your eyes open.

The best way to find new carers for animals is having a network of people sharing the Urgent statuses, which flags the attention of new groups of people. No dog will ever be LEFT on death row. They look for carers until the last second, but will absofuckinglutely take the dog anyway and put them in a boarding kennel short-term whilst a carer is located.

No doggo left behind.

It can be a bit confronting, though, so I understand if you cannot. The majority of the dogs have been surrendered to the pound, for various reasons, and the rescues in the region put their hands up for the ones slated for being put down each week. This list constantly refills, so there is always a need.

Some other dogs, like Debbie, are rescued directly from the disgusting human slime of the world who have caused them pain, injury, or attempted to kill them.

Carers open their homes to as many as they can, but there will always be more needed. A dog can be with you for a few months, to a few years, depending on their needs. 

Little Willow was so scared of everything when we got her, it took 5 months to get her to trust men near her due to where she came from. But after nearly a year, she was ready for adoption and went to a new mother; happy, healthy, and confident. She was fast, smart and a very delightful little doggo. I do miss her, sometimes, but her new mother sent us photos of Willow on her first and second adoption anniversaries. 

And little Gemini’s face, when her new family sent a photo from her first meeting with her human brother, was SO BIG!

It is hard to say goodbye, because they are with you for a long time, and you have to work hard with them, so they are an integral part of your life. But it helps to know that their future family is out there, not yet aware that there’s a dog shaped hole waiting to be filled.

As my parental unit says, “In reality, if they were not with us, they’d be dead. Someone without any heart dropped these animals off to be killed, and because of all these rescues, all these dogs and cats get another chance at life.”

Harvey, who we have now, was 9mths (Willow too) when they came to us. BABIES who just were too energetic or too big, so they had to be sent away. It takes a while to rebuild that trust in them.

Not to mention the absolute FUCKS who take their little old dogs, who have known and loved them their WHOLE LIVES to the pound and walk out with a new puppy (or kitten). FUCKS.  Those little doggos are never forgotten, PPARs and the other rescues make sure they have somewhere to go as well! I know of a 16yo bulldog called rosie, who was snappy when she first came and very depressed, who blossomed with her carers into a happy old girl. She was adopted recently!!!

It is important to be aware that these animals are often traumatised and have behaviours that some can consider ‘naughty’. You have to be understanding. Like traumatised kids, the worst thing you can do is yell or hit or whatever, even if they piss on your favourite rug or chew a beloved pair of shoes.

They may snap and snarl. Might shy away from men, or women, or teenagers. Might cower away, or show subservience constantly. Might hide for a few weeks. Might wet themselves or run to hide if something makes a loud noise or there is a specific trigger. They might rip up the couch twice, or hump your pillows. Try to escape the yard (need strong fences). A trigger? One of our kids was terrified of men, the noise of a powertool, and anyone having the hood of their car open. Would sit, shaking, panting in fear if these things were present. Still a bit much for her, but she knows to go to a human, who will keep her safe. Or sit with her sister doggo, who will protect her.

Willow was scared of men, shouting, and would be immediately wet-herself-afraid and show her belly in subservience. My giant bearded mountain of a sibling would lay on the floor with her, and talk gently, let her come over to sniff him. Eventually, she would lay next to him, and finally he could pat her, and it progressed from there. This took months of consistency and care.

I know of another carer couple who had this tiny little dog who was SO SCARED of everything she spent absolute months hiding under their bed or sofa. Too scared to be touched. They fed her and never made a fuss if she had a little accident indoors. And one day, she popped her head out while the male carer was pretending to be occupied... and licked his arm. That was it, went straight back under the bed. But it was a huge step. She can now be held and cuddled, and loves her little life. But it took the time, understanding and patience of these carers to get her there. It’s important to note that carers dont normally have the whole backstory for each dog, but after a while, you tend to get good at figuring it out based on behaviours. Harvey’s behaviours were extremely frantic for attention, he didn’t know how to sit or be still, he was desperate for attention; his behaviours increased when on a lead (which had to be used for the first few weeks and outside time, as this was a New Household Member time).  It was clear that given his age, when we got him, and his behaviours that he’d been an xmas gift puppy that had gotten WAAAAAAY bigger than anticipated. When he was small he’d been the fuss of what we suspect was at least 2 children. After getting too big, he was put on a leash in the yard, and had no real interaction.

Harvey would go BALLISTIC if given even a glance from a human. He NEEDED attention, and it took months of careful work with him to teach sit, stay, look, settle, back back, etc. He’s still a bit ridiculous, sometimes, but he can sleep on a bed with a human and only half drown them in spit (ugh) lmao. 

So consider if you could be a carer.  Or, if that isn’t realistic for you right now... donate.

-------- 

Donate, if you can.

If you’re in Brisbane, you might see them doing sausage sizzles at Bunnings on the weekends to raise needed funds! 

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COVID-19 hit all the rescue charities hard. Their normal fundraising was crippled by the lockdowns, but animals are always in need of new homes and protection.

If you can help out your local shelters, they’d appreciate it!

There’s food and supplies that need to be paid for; PPAWs specifically help out pensioners who take on an animal, by providing the food and toys, collar, bedding, etc. There’s desexing, microchipping and all vaccinations to be paid for. Some animals have extreme medical issues that need to be fixed (such as a dog surrendered with a broken hip, or dogs like Debbie, who were starved almost to death. Who need intensive and long-term things; with Debbie, my family put money forwards for her insulin and eye surgeries, etc. bc we could budget for it. Not everyone can, though.

There’s also little emergencies here and there that they jump in for, to assist.  [E.g early on when the caninculin levels were being sorted, Debbie had a random fit, so I rushed her in and they discovered her BSL had hit 1 - very dangerous. PPAWs got on the phone and said, “Any tests, any medication, any fluids, anything that needs to happen for that little girl, you DO IT” and they stabilised her. PPAWs also helped fund the full-day glucose testing and blood panel the next day and an overnight with the vet, that was pretty expensive. To be clear, it is expected that her starvation and new diabetes was likely to experience highs and lows, so we had bought a glucometer, and had squeezy-top bottles of honey all over the house as an emergency-response kit. When Debbie went funny, we filled her mouth full of honey and transported; which was the protocol, as was taking her medication chart (she’d been waaaay high for BSL that morning so this dip was SCARY). It took another incident before the vet decided to use an interstitial fluid monitor, and the results backed up our concerns that Debbie was having completely random highs/lows and spikes with no real pattern. She had the vet recommended food and no treats outside of the ones she was allowed, and at times suggested by the vet. Except on her last day when the vet said she could absolutely have a wholw happy meal, and little Debbie was DELIGHTED. I have the funniest photo of her with it all in her mouth looking excited but not sure where to go from there, but it still makes me cry to look at it because we lost her just three weeks ago. (We did rip it into little mouthfuls for her, though. Just to clarify.) She was placed on a higher dose, after that, and was completely stable from there. It was the testing that initially identified a flaw, though, and we are forever grateful that PPAWs stepped in on that day.

And the point of my rambling speech... is that shit happens. Especially with these dogs, cats, horses, and all the other animals they rescue.  Emergencies are often the most expensive to cover for charities.

On the upside! Donations also help with a) transporting animals to carers around the region, and b) on the occasion that an animal’s new furever family is interstate, they can be flown to them!

Lots of stuff.

Think about the mess of words, and consider donating - to PPAWs, or find out the name of your local charity and see if they need help!

[letterboxd]

Kid Detectives, Adult Problems.

As The Kid Detective becomes “a surprising darling” of a hit with our members, Jack Moulton talks to its Canadian writer-director Evan Morgan about broken projectors, the pressure of proving yourself, and what happens when precocious kids grow up.

“The premise felt immediately funny but it also felt immediately sad and painful.” —Evan Morgan

A growing number of indie films over the past decade recognize that ‘coming-of-age’ is not a teen-exclusive life event—indeed, that it often takes decades to work out who we are, versus who people perceive us to be. The Kid Detective takes that premise and steals off into the night with it, blending noir with indie slacker in an offbeat, genre-flipping tale of a washed-up, thirty-something private eye who was once a star solver of local mysteries.

Adam Brody (Ready or Not) stars as Abe Applebaum, the detective in question, who seizes a chance to step back into the small-town limelight when a young woman (Sophie Nélisse) asks him to help find her boyfriend’s murderer. Veep’s Sarah Sutherland also stars as Abe’s secretary, taking calls about lost cats and other inane mysteries.

Reviews on Letterboxd praise the “delicious premise” that explores “the darkness lurking beneath the surface of small-town America”. They also appreciate Brody’s “phenomenally pathetic” performance, and the unexpected swerve in the final twenty, noting that “sometimes movies don’t recover from a shift in tone in the third act… but here it all [falls] into place”.

The Kid Detective is the directing debut of Toronto filmmaker (and Letterboxd member) Evan Morgan, who first received attention for The Dirties (2013), an alternately funny and upsetting micro-budget dark comedy in found-footage style, which he produced, co-wrote and co-edited. Morgan’s work is drenched in pop culture: Abe’s talent for deduction is demonstrated by how he digests movie narratives; The Dirties, too, has endless movie references. So we were chuffed to quiz Morgan about the films that have played an important role in his life.

What was premiering The Kid Detective at the 2020 Toronto Film Festival like for you, under the current conditions? Evan Morgan: We were in quite a rush to get the film finished for the online platform that they had made—I signed off on the final cut on Thursday and then I was reading a review of the movie by Saturday. I was still in that mode of trying to scrutinize everything and implement my final notes, and then all of a sudden the movie was done and I could never touch it again. It certainly was a surreal transition to make that quickly.

It was also extremely gratifying to see people respond to it for the first time. We knew that we weren’t making a movie that was for all tastes but when you’re reading the first response from the first person who’s ever reviewed it and they’re picking up on stuff you intended, you start to let your spine unclench a little bit. You can sort of finally say goodbye to the process of making something and enjoy the process of people interacting with it.

Have you been reading the Letterboxd reviews? Obsessively. I’ve been refreshing Letterboxd all the time. I’ve been joking with my editor and composer a lot about how people posting their reviews on Letterboxd, on their YouTube channel, or other little outlets would never expect the filmmakers to be instantly reading their reviews.

You’re also a member! How do you use Letterboxd? I’ve always been a big film nerd. Ever since I was a teenager I was making lists at the end of the year and obsessing over an order that would always change. A friend of mine, Matthew Miller, who produced The Dirties, recommended that I hop on Letterboxd and instantly I was going through the library rating and organizing everything, and it became a real slippery slope. I remember spending hours on it in the first week.

Now, after actually having made a movie that’s on a larger scale, I’ve found that my sensitivity has changed a lot in the last year. I’m less inclined to give a star rating. I’m happy just to catalog the film so I can reflect on it and just use the ‘like’ button. That’s been an interesting shift in my relationship with how I see movies after having finally completed this project.

I know this idea had been gestating a while for you, what was the seed of the story? I’d written a short film in film school, which I never shot, that was about a child detective who was still a child and was solving grisly murders. I was obsessed with the first season of The OC and I thought Adam Brody was so funny. I was impressed with how he broke out of the formula of that show. I knew he was someone I really wanted to work with and we happened to cross paths at Sundance because The Dirties was premiering at Slamdance. It was clear to us that we shared a similar sense of humor and taste.

I was looking back on my old ideas and I saw an opportunity to re-conceive this one for him because I immediately identified with the protagonist. I’ve always known I wanted to be a filmmaker and thus had that sense of expectation where people would joke: “he’ll grow up to be the next Spielberg!” It’s incredible encouragement when you’re young but it also creates this unfortunate sense of pressure where you’re beholden to a future that you actually haven’t achieved or lived.

When I graduated film school, I was suddenly left in the space of my own apartment where now it was up to me to actually make this happen, to write and direct a feature film. The process acquires this unfortunate pressure because it’s not just about watching ideas unfold in front of me, I also have something to prove. I was at a point in my life where I was doing a lot of writing and not having great success in terms of actually finishing a script so this premise resonated with me and I saw an opportunity for people to connect to this character in their own way.

I revisited The Dirties after watching The Kid Detective and I finally understood why there were those huge The OC posters in Matt and Owen’s edit suite. I assume that was your idea? Yeah, it was. We were all big fans of that show. The cultural references they made were things that were important to us at that particular moment and we loved Seth Cohen [Brody’s character]. When I ran into Adam at Sundance, I shared a link to The Dirties, forgetting that his face was in the background of about twenty minutes of our movie. We were back in our hotel that night and it suddenly just occurred to us—“wait a minute, shit. We should probably warn him that his face is a big character!”

How did you conduct your research into detective work? What excited me about this premise was the character and not so much the genre. I think the genre is alluring in a sense that it’s so hallowed. The set pieces are so familiar in terms of the PI office, the receptionist and the glass of scotch. That stuff was all super cool and enticing, but I was never a big mystery person. I was intimidated by the process of writing because it felt very much outside of my wheelhouse.

The first thing I did was buy a bunch of Raymond Chandler books from the Philip Marlowe series. I read those super quickly and thought they were super funny. I also read a bunch of Encyclopedia Brown books. So, the world of The Kid Detective exists between these two realms. I started watching bad TV procedurals where the detectives try and find the victim within the span of 42-minutes just to absorb as much as I possibly could.

Here you have a whimsical directorial approach while the film reflects upon a cynical, changing world. In comparison, The Dirties also deals with young adult trauma but couldn’t be further from this in style. Can you talk about your use of juxtaposition this time around? There was no more fun experience than shooting The Dirties. It really was a film made by four best friends having an endless sleepover in their parents’ basement. That’s where the energy, the life, and the humor of the film comes from. We were always relying on the darker component of the dramatic payoff to provide us with a structure so that we could goof around as much as we wanted knowing that it wasn’t all for nothing. Those dramatic stakes would provide it with a different kind of technical legitimacy. We didn’t have any money to make it but it didn’t have to look like a big Hollywood film because it was made by the characters.

It wasn’t a conscious decision to recreate the same dynamic with The Kid Detective in terms of dealing with dramatic issues in a very light way. The premise felt immediately funny but it also felt immediately sad and painful. I wanted to find a way to wrap them together without forfeiting the humor or the reality of the characters. It’s interesting how a lot of people are responding to the way the movie reveals itself to be dark because, for me, this was always inevitable. If you’re going to tell a story about a stunted adult, like a kid detective who never really grows up, the only way for the character to grow up is to confront something that is so sinister that it would break them from their selfishness.

Which detective movies most influenced The Kid Detective? The biggest films that were in my head when I was writing this movie—and also in terms of our aesthetic—were Chinatown and Blue Velvet. Chinatown was a movie that I had more of a relationship with as a teenager than I did the older Humphrey Bogart movies like The Big Sleep and The Maltese Falcon. Blue Velvet also has a suburban setting that reveals this darker underbelly—two characters driving around in a convertible, interviewing people, and putting themselves in greater and greater risk. Those were the movies that we wanted you to be able to put the film on the shelf with.

Jim Carrey in ‘Ace Ventura: Pet Detective’ (1994).

Which film made you want to become a filmmaker? This is an easy one for me. I was a very big fan of Jim Carrey when I was eleven and I remember seeing Ace Ventura: Pet Detective for the first time and having my mind blown. I didn’t even know what some of those jokes were referring to, but I was so delighted by his energy and the absurdity of that movie. It invited this ferocious interest in acting and consequentially, the world of film. I got really excited when I heard he was working on his first dramatic feature and that it was going to be directed by Peter Weir since I was already a fan of Dead Poets Society.

I remember going to see The Truman Show with my family on the first night that it played and the projector broke about an hour into the movie. I was broken—I knew that was I watching my favorite movie that I’d ever seen. I was absolutely blown away by the world and the story. After about 30 minutes, the theater staff came out and started offering vouchers to see it again but I wouldn’t let my parents leave—I said “no, we have to stay and finish it!”—and then I was rewarded with what remains my favorite movie ending ever.

That was the point when my interest shifted from wanting to be in front of the camera and the center of attention. I was kind of the class clown as a child. If you’d asked at the time, I’d say I wanted to be a comedian. This was the moment where I decided I wanted to tell stories and start writing scripts.

Which coming-of-age protagonist did you relate to the most as a teenager? Not super original, but I was obsessed with The Catcher in the Rye as a teenager. I don’t know if I necessarily saw my experience reflected in a movie—I’m sure it’s out there. Rushmore was another film that Adam and I used as a reference when we were pitching this movie, in how The Kid Detective exists between that and Chinatown. It’s also about a character dealing with his own expectations of himself and ultimately having to evolve out of his selfishness.

I think that there’s something about the coming-of-age genre that is very special to me and I continue to really appreciate and recognize it. I really enjoyed Adventureland, which came out about eleven years ago and it’s sort of underrated. I guess in its own way, Blue Velvet is a coming-of-age story too. Those are the ones that are the top of my list.

What are your favorite Canadian films that really could not be made anywhere else but Canada? It seems I should have an immediate answer to that question. It just proves how bad Canadians are at celebrating themselves. There was a movie called Monsieur Lazhar that stars Sophie Nélisse, who’s the leading actress in our film. It was her first film role at eleven and it’s an incredibly sensitive and quiet movie that was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the Oscars that year. That’s a really amazing example of Canadian filmmaking at its best.

If you’ve had time to watch any films this year, what is your favorite film of 2020 so far? This is another tough one for me because I was honestly so immersed in trying to complete The Kid Detective—we were editing intensely from the very beginning of the year and throughout the lockdown. I was so exhausted by that process that I lost track of what was happening in terms of new releases, so I watched quite a few old movies and there were a few movies I revisited.

The movie that probably had the biggest impact on me was Midsommar, from last year. I couldn’t believe the precision and how unshakable it was in terms of those images. It got me excited again in the way that sometimes you feel when you have to see a movie more than once in order to truly see it, because the first time you’re dispensing your expectations. Maybe you wanted to like it or maybe you didn’t want to like it, but the second time you don’t have the same anticipation, and as a result you notice things that you didn’t notice previously.

Related content

Melissa’s list of films about Detectives, Private Eyes, Mysteries, Film Noir, Neo Noir, Thrillers, Erotic Thrillers, Cat and Mouse, Chasing, Crush, Obsession, Stalking, Escaping

Phillip Marlowe, Private Eye: RetroHound’s ranked list of films featuring Raymond Chandler’s famous detective

MovieMaestro’s Teenage Wasteland list of coming-of-age movies

Follow Jack on Letterboxd

‘The Kid Detective’ is in select US theaters now.

[hhemeraa-a]

Update / Haitus

I’ve been a ghost the last two weeks and I know that my last post was very succinct - which I had to delete because apparently porn blogs started reblogging it for some reason????????? And I’m just?? not in the place to deal with that.

I really hope to get back into a place where I can be here again, I know before I said I was on discord but I’ve had zero (zero) time to do literally anything else other than deal with my current situation so I’m barely even there. I do read all of your messages and I’m really sorry I haven’t responded. 

A lot of people had or have questions and wanted to know how I am, etc etc so under the cut will be a quick explanation of my absence and everything that’s happened within the last few weeks.

As some of you know, I am a Peace Corps volunteer servicing in China. I had been serving as a university English teacher for the last near 2 years. This was a very very very important and huge opportunity for me. 

Years ago when I was in college, my Mom was taking student loans out in my name while I was living with her. I went from having $54k in student debt (which is a lot already) to having about $108k in student debt in private loans. She shirked all responsibility on me, I had to graduate college early with a degree in something that I had credits in (International Studies with a focus on Chinese language and history), I was homeless for a while working random jobs, trying to join the Marine Officer program, etc etc -- needless to say, things were really really messy for a few years there. I ended up getting a really nice job for a logistics company getting paid about 2200 a month, but I was paying about 1600 a month in student loans. I had a lot of support from a friend who let me live with her and to this day I literally cannot thank her enough for everything she provided to me while I was suffering through all of this. 

After working that soul sucking job for nearly 4 years, I took a chance and applied for Peace Corps because it was an opportunity to finally make it to China. I was supposed to study abroad in college, but when my mother maxed out my debt, it was no longer feasible. I never thought I was going to get in because I had been out of school for years at that point, I had never taught English before besides 1-on-1s during college and I kind of thought I was too old???  

BUT LOW AND BEHOLD I GOT IN.  This shit meant everything to me. I was finally going to study abroad, I was finally going to have a chance to use my degree, I was finally going to have the chance to learn a language, I had an opportunity to have a complete career change. 

It was so incredibly hard though. I worked my ass off during training, I worked really really hard to integrate into my site, but if anyone has ever heard any of my horror stories of being the only foreigner in the middle of south east China, you’ll understand that it’s not always fun 😅 I even had a whole mental break down and had to be sent back to the States for 45 days so I could stop stressing, but I got my ass right back on that plane and came to finish the job I started. The low were low, but the highs were so incredibly high that it made up for every bad moment.

This program meant everything to me.  My first semester sucked ass, it was harder than I ever thought it would be. My second semester was so much better, my third semester I was over loaded with about 450+ students and 8 classes, but I was finally getting the hang of the language, the school, the people, and I had gotten the ‘ok’ from my school to work there as a full time teacher once my Peace Corps contract was finished. This?? Was such an opportunity?? I literally had started making the moves to start a life here -- at least temporarily. Work at my school as contracted teacher for a year, pass the HSK Chinese language test above a 4, use the money to find a better job in Taiwan -- there was a whole plan. 

Every year, Peace Corps meets for 1-2 weeks for In Service Training. We met from Jan. 12 - 17. Usually it’s just to reconnect and make sure all the volunteers are doing their jobs, medical check ups, etc etc etc. It’s a good time to see how other volunteers are doing. 

Jan. 17th we were formally told that the Peace Corps China program was being closed. After 2020, there would no longer be any new volunteers and that we needed to start preparing our schools for the transition. They called it a graduation, but we all knew it was a political move. For five hours, a room of 200 people ripped into the US PC HQ staff as to why they were “”graduating”” the program. They said it was because the budget didn’t call for it and that China no longer needed volunteers in their schools. Which is a lie. Tensions were already really really high, the answers kept gettin more vague, and we finally flat out asked if this was a political decision to remove Peace Corps from China. 

We didn’t get an answer. 

Needless to say, all the volunteers are livid. The information spread like wild fire to all of the schools and volunteers were faced with having to be the representative of a shitty political decision. It was extremely difficult to have to face students and try to explain that Americans don’t hate them when the political system there does. 

Chinese New Year was from Jan 25th - Jan 27th this year. I lived in Chongqing city in the Chongqing province/municipality, a city that has about 32 million people in it. During this time, the city becomes a ghost town due to the holiday being similar to Christmas/Thanksgiving where everyone goes back to their hometowns to be with family. All the shops close and for foreigners it can be difficult to find food because everything isn’t open lol. 

However on Jan. 25th was when news about the corona virus started getting around. It wasn’t very big, but the news was starting to spread. The Hubei province touches Chongqing province, so whispers were starting to come through and most information volunteers got were through foreign sources, but even my Chinese friends were telling me that I shouldn’t go out or if I do, I need to be sure to wear a mask. 

Sunday Jan. 26th, notices are starting to go up on store fronts saying that they are required by law to be closed, but I managed to find a place that was still open. News about the virus is starting to gain traction and more and more information about what is happening in Wuhan is starting to spread. My friend who is staying with me who lives in a small town near the border of Hubei (where Wuhan is placed) gets a call from his school telling him that it is safer for him to not come back to site. We are starting to hear that small towns are shutting down travel in and out, bus systems are starting to shut down and certain areas in the city are no longer allowing taxi or Didi (Chinese Uber)  services. 

Monday Jan. 27th, my friend leaves because all train and bus tickets out of the city were being canceled. My city was slowly starting to quarantine everyone. I live on campus, and when I tried to return after walking my friend to the metro, security took my temperature (with those neat little temp guns) and then wouldn’t let me in because they thought I was too warm. After arguing with them in my broken Chinese and convinced them that I lived there, they finally let me back on campus. They told me that no cars or people are allowed to go in and out anymore. 

I lived near city center and it was obvious that the government was slowly locking everyone away to try and prevent the spread, but it was so eerie and apocalyptic. We had been receiving emails from the PCChina director giving us daily updates that were inching towards the idea that all volunteers were going to be ‘consolidated’, so everyone just needed to be prepared. 

Tuesday Jan. 28th, the notice went out that the volunteers were being ‘consolidated’ to Thailand because China made it illegal for any group of 4 or more people to be together. We were only allowed 1 check in bag and we weren’t sure if we were ever going to be allowed to come back into country. People who were not at their sites were not allowed to go back to their sites. Wherever a volunteer was in that moment that we got the notice was required to get their ticket to Bangkok and leave immediately. I had to pack 2 years of my life up into a single suitcase not knowing if I was ever going to come back. 

Wednesday Jan 29th, I was on a plane and landed in Bangkok. I am a safety warden of my province and the first warden to arrive so I was in charge of all safety until staff arrived. 

But after that, things were very much in the air. We had no idea what was going to happen and every day things just got weirder and more serious and we didn’t know if at all we were going to be able to go back. We speculated a lot, as the news got worse and worse and worse. By Friday, all USA government employees were told to evacuate. No gov employee is allowed to enter China until the travel restrictions were let up, which meant that many PCChina staff - if they were to leave, would be allowed back in until China decided that it was safe enough or... if they wanted them back. 

Sunday, Feb. 2nd, all the volunteers who were at the hotel had a skype meeting with the head of the PCChina program and were told that due to the severity of the situation, all currently serving China volunteers would be forced to COS (Close of Service) by Thursday. The program was ending and we would all be sent back to our respective homes between Wednesday and Thursday. 

When I say it was the shittiest delivery of news imaginable, I cannot even put it into words. After we were all told that we could no longer return to China, we had lost our jobs, and couldn’t even say goodbye to anyone; HQ Staff had the balls to tell us that in order to get our final service allowance, we were still required to fill out paperwork and that we shouldn’t be sad. We should be happy we served at all. 

They gave no time for mourning, many of us put two years of our lives on hold to do this program, some of us don’t even have homes to go back too and they want us to make decisions in 4 days. After Thursday, they will no longer provide any assistance with travel, we do not get health insurance, the moment we COS, PC shrugs off complete responsibility of over 100+ volunteers. 

I have been so busy filling out paperwork and I have been so incredibly angry and sad and resentful that the only person I’ve told is my Dad. Returning to the USA isn’t really an option and the plan I had set into motion is now nonexistent because I’m no longer allowed in the country I gave two years of my life to until they decide that this virus has been resolved. 

I have been spending a lot of time trying to figure out where I’m going to live, what job I’m going to have, how I can get a cellphone plan, where I can go because I’m being quarantined for having been in China within the last 14 days, how to manage the money I’m getting -- everything has been changing so rapidly that I still don’t know where I’m going to be by Friday since Peace Corps is only paying for the hotel up until then. 

I promise I’m not ignoring any of you, I really really want to be in a place where I can RP and chat with y’all, but life for me right now is moving so fucking fast and I have to make so many decisions that will affect my future that I literally have not stopped going since Sunday night. 

I still stand by my last message: I really appreciate all the messages you guys have been sending me. I do read them. I just don’t want to talk. I don’t have the emotional capacity to and I haven’t even been given time to just... process and be mad. 

I promise I’ll be back, just give me some time. 

[thelarriefics]

BAKERY FIC REC: Below you’ll find a selection of fics that have to do with bakery shops or just baking in general. 

📖 Relief Next To Me by @haydolce (333k)

AU. What happens when a baker and a graphic designer meet via a very specific Craigslist post? Fate, friendship, food, and maybe more.

📖 Make Your Heart Remember Me by @perfectdagger (97k)

When Harry’s daughter auditions for The Voice Kids singing One Direction, Louis unexpectedly finds himself remembering a boy from his past. This time, he hopes to have another chance to make sure he won’t let him slip away.

📖 leave it to the breeze by @hattalove (81k)

a great british bake off au in which louis cares about winning and winning only, harry is made of sunshine and rainbow sprinkles, and niall sticks his nose into other people's business. also featuring liam as louis's best friend-slash-concerned mother, and zayn as a macaron connoisseur. 

📖 Skin New, Hands True, My Hands All Over You by @moonhusbands (44k)

Harry designs wedding cakes, so of course meeting blissfully happy couples every day is part of his job description. Unfortunately, it's caused Harry to perpetually hope each new day is the one he'll find love, too. That is, until Harry realises everything he's ever wanted is right under his nose in the shape of his best friend, Louis.

But predictably, Harry only comes to this epiphany when Louis starts seeing someone else. And this is not a John Hughes movie as far as Harry is aware. Everyone else is pretty sure, though.

Featuring a heavy dose of pining, copious amounts of alcohol, drunk dialing that results in a situation reminiscent of Rachel Green's, a ginger cat that likes to interrupt intimate moments, and a Halloween party that changes everything.

📖 shine by @eversincenewyorks (40k)

Louis is an actor who needs to get away from the real world. He does the only thing that he can and runs away, finding himself in a small town where he happens upon Harry. What Louis doesn't expect is to somehow fall in love and end up having to face what he was running from all along.

📖 This Ain't Just a Thing That You Give Up by @lululawrence (34k)

The one where Harry is a baker in addition to being a college student who just happens to meet the crazy famous Louis Tomlinson while on spring break. Featuring personal assistant!niall, roommate and best friend!liam, and costar/model!zayn.

📖 I Know How To Whisk (But Teach Me Anyway) by @2tiedships2 (32k)

the one in which banana bread just might make Louis change his mind about soulmates.

📖 Like Candy In My Veins by @littlelouishiccups (31k)

Basically the A/B/O, enemies to lovers, fake relationship, Christmas AU that nobody asked for.

📖 Game of Scones by @noellehenry (20k)

You’ve got mail AU. Harry Styles owns a little pastry shop on Portobello Road, called ‘Sweet Cakes’. He creates the most heavenly cupcakes and offers workshops for children. Business is booming, that is… until Louis Tomlinson opens an 'A Baker’s Dream Superstore’ branch on Portobello Road. Soon Harry is at a cupcake war with the 'big bad chain store’ and its owner.

📖 Wait For Me To Come Home by @harrieberrie (15k)

Some people meet in line at the grocery store on a Sunday afternoon, others use social media and technology to find their match. Sometimes, it's the old fashioned way through mutual friends at a dinner party.

For Harry and Louis, it was a hot summer's day on a crime scene.

📖 Sugar by @cheshireflowers (15k)

“I hope our paths will ‘croissant’ again.”

There’s a little smiley face drawn next to the words, and it’s ridiculous, Louis knows, but he can’t help the swell of butterflies that he feels as he reads over the words once more. An odd fellow indeed, he thinks.

📖 Even Supposing - by @casuallyhl (14k)

a Dickensian London AU where Harry and Louis overcome illness, small budgets, and their own stubbornness to give each other an unforgettable first Christmas together.

📖 Loosen Up My Buttons by @softfonds (13k)

Louis owns a tattoo shop called Pretty in Ink, Harry owns a bakery called Rolling Scones, they haven't been introduced, and Valentine’s Day seems like the perfect opportunity to finally talk to the man Louis has been pinning over for the past year. And they both end up with more love than they bargained for.

📖 Shine Like Silver by @iamasphodelknox (11k)

Sometimes what you never thought you needed is exactly what you need. Sometimes it's right in front of you. Harry find love when he's broken and abandoned, in the one place he never thought to look. Although once he figures it out, he's really not surprised.

📖 In This Moment by @dimpled-halo (11k)

A mix-up at the hospital causes Louis to reevaluate his life and he works on trying to fix his biggest mistake: letting Harry Styles walk out of his life two years ago.

📖 Feel My Love by @styleandsin (10k)

Louis always gets things done on time, he just takes a detour along the way. The detour? Having sex with Harry. Harry never brings it up. Until he does.

📖 Take The Bitter With The Sweet by @rainbowsandlovehl (7k)

Liam recruits Louis to spy on the 'rival cafe', which Louis is less than enthusiastic about but it does lead him Harry, the pretty barista who works there. 

📖 Be My Little Sugar and Love Me All the Time by @yafookinlousah (4k)

Louis Tomlinson's modeling career is Harry's favourite thing and Louis quickly finds his way into the position of Harry's favourite person through the use of bad puns and general charmingness.

📖 an honest mistake by @disgruntledkittenface (2k)

“You look different when you’re not covered in come,” he blurts out, immediately regretting each and every life choice that has led to this exact moment. Elevator Guy is going to hate him.

Louis has ridden the elevator with his neighbor all week. The first time they speak, there’s a misunderstanding.

[hellfirenacht]

Can’t Be Unseen Chapter 4

Sal Fisher x Reader

First Chapter

Previous Chapter

AO3

Chapter Summary: You attend a holiday party and you consider abandoning ship.

The week leading up to the party at Sal’s place wasn’t anything exciting. You spent most of it either catching up on your sleep or hanging out in the basement with Larry, Sal, and whoever else was around at the time. It wasn’t exciting, but it was normal which is all you could have hoped for after everything that happened. Sure, you still found yourself harboring feelings for your friend but it was more tolerable now. You still held yourself back from flirting too hard for him, but when anyone else was around it was a lot easier. 

“Hey, your dad need any decorations for the party?” you asked one evening as you all huddled around the tv, none of you paying much attention. “My parents have so many Christmas decorations they don’t have room to put out, I’m sure they’d be happy to lend it to someone else.” 

“I’ve never seen anyone act more like a cheesy holiday special like your parents.” Larry said, shoving some popcorn in his mouth. “It’s almost creepy how much they try to push the holiday spirit.” 

You just shrugged. “They met and fell in love during the holidays, so they really are the living embodiment of every bad holiday rom com.” 

“Got any decorations that aren’t strictly Christmas?” Sal asked. “Dad’s trying to be more inclusive.” 

“Oh yeah, we got tons of general winter stuff. Plus my uncle’s wife is Jewish, so we have an alarming number of dreidels and star of David’s for a house that doesn’t even go to church. Larry stop hogging the popcorn!” you scold, pulling the half-eaten bowl away from your friend. 

“Come on, I’m hungry!” he pouted. 

“You’re stoned.” Sal corrected. 

“Puff puff pass includes more than the joint, Larry. You gotta share the snacks, too.” you laughed at him and threw an unpopped kernel at him. 

“It’d actually be helpful if you could bring some decorations.” Sal said, pushing some popcorn under his mask. “I love my dad but he’s really bad at this kind of thing. I think it was actually Lisa’s idea.” 

“Yeah, my mom’s been doing the decorating for Addison Apartments for about 10 years now.” Larry chimed in. “Sometimes they give her a budget for it, but most of the time she’d had to reuse old stuff that’s fallen apart.” 

“My parents go wild for post-holiday sales so we should have some sturdy things lying around. I’ll see what I can dig up.”

...

LarryFace: who else is coming to the party?

SallyFace: us, Ashley and her new girlfriend, Todd, Neil, Chug, Maple, your mom uh...

LarryFace: that’s a lot of highschoolers for a holiday party your dad wants to throw

SallyFace: yeah but I think its cause he wants me to be a normal teen and have a normal party for once. I didn’t even start celebrating my birthday until I moved here

LarryFace: wait really? I had no idea. 

SallyFace: yeah theres also a chance hes using this as a way to fake a surprise party for me

LarryFace: SallyFace is gonna finally be 18, i’m so proud. No more having to lie on porn sites that youre an adult!

SallyFace: ha ha and did I mention ha? 

...

You spend most of Friday digging through the large tubs of old decorations that your parents hadn’t put out, picking out what would be the best and easiest to bring upstairs to Sal’s place. You couldn’t help but shake your head, when it came to winter decorations, your parents were borderline hoarders. Really, you were doing them a solid by going through all this stuff and throwing out broken decorations or unsafe looking Christmas lights. 

The past 3 years that you lived in the apartments, come winter time you always knew which window was yours when looking outside the building. Your parents always insisted on some sort of light up winter decoration, as they didn’t have a house to fully blow the power out on every December. It was one of the few things you humored them on. You didn’t want your own personal tree in your room, but you could live with a snowman waving out at anyone who happened to be on the street. 

After filling a small tub with enough decorations, you looked at the clock and cursed to yourself. It was already 4 pm and you told Sal that you’d be their early to help set up! That didn’t give you much time to get ready. 

You rushed through your routine of getting ready, changing into your favorite comfortable outfit and topping it with a Santa hat to keep it festive. Despite the rush job, you had to admit to yourself that you looked pretty damn good. It had been a while since you had dressed up for yourself, without worrying about wanting to impress anyone. This was you, and you liked it. 

Shoving keys in your pocket, you ran to the fridge and pulled out two bottles of apple cider that your parents had bought. 

Have fun at your party! We’ll be out late recreating the first night we met!

Which you decided to translate to “gone boning for the weekend, don’t die”. Gross, but at least you go the place to yourself for the next few days. 

With everything in hand, you finally made your way to the elevator and towards the Fisher apartment. Henry was the one to open the door and let you in, thanking you for lending him the decorations. 

“These are from my parents.” you added, handing over the bottles of cider. 

“Alright, now it’s a rager!” Larry laughed from the kitchen while his mom laughed. Looks like they came here early as well to help out. From where you stood, you could see that Larry was also wearing a Santa hat with the word ‘naughty’ on it. 

“Do you want to give me a hand with the decorations?” Lisa asked, still managing to be in work mode even on her day off. “I’m sure we can make this place look real special for tonight.” 

“Is anything special specifically happening?” Asked Sal, his head facing your direction. 

“Nope, it’s just a nice little holiday party for our sons and their friends.” Lisa replied. 

“So I should ignore the cake that my dad brought home and is hiding somewhere?” Sal asked with a small laugh. 

“You sure should if you don’t want to be smacked with a broom.” Lisa scolded playfully. 

“She’ll do it too, dude.” chimed in Larry. 

Sal held his hands up in defeat. “I understand, this is just a regular holiday party that just happens to fall very close to my actual birthday and the fact that you had me invite all of my friends and none of yours it just a coincidence.” 

“Now you’re getting it, son!” Henry laughed. 

With your decorations, Lisa’s eye for making things work, and Larry’s tallness, by the time 6 rolled around, the apartment looked awesome. There were strands of lights hanging all around, food on the counter and table, and Larry was setting up a tape deck to play music. From the corner of your eye you saw Larry remove a green and red tape and Sal putting in an older more beat up tape. They pressed play and you were a little surprised to hear generic holiday music play. Larry caught you eye and gave you a wink that made you feel like something was gonna happen later. 

Todd and Neil were the first to arrive, not surprising as Todd lived in the building as well. You and Neil had English together but had never really talked before, but Todd was really happy with him and that’s all that mattered. 

Ashley arrived next with her new girlfriend, Jamie. She was pretty cute and bubbly and excited to meet and talk to everyone. You swear that when it was your turn to talk that you went through five different topics in three minutes before the bounced to the next person. Jamie sure was energetic, but she’d always bounce back to Ashley to give her a kiss on the cheek or check on her. It was too damn adorable really. 

The arrival of Chug and Maple surprised everyone. They showed up late, citing that he’d been waiting for Maple to arrive, but that wasn’t what surprised everyone. What was surprising was him and Maple holding hands as they walked in. 

“We’ve been dating for a few weeks,” explained Maple. “I just didn’t wanna make it public until I thought it was solid.” 

You were happy for the two of them, but you were starting to see a pattern with the guest list. Was this a holiday party or a Valentines party? You found yourself glancing at Lisa who leaned over to give Henry a quick peck on the cheek before moving some chairs around. 

“They also made it official with us right after Thanksgiving.” Sal said, watching his dad and Lisa. “I’m really happy for them.” 

“Yeah, me and Sal have a master plan to make them get married so that we can be one big family.” Larry explained. “Total Parent Trap material.” 

“Seems more like an It Takes Two to me.” you offered up. 

“So Sal,” Larry said, looking around the party. “Why didn’t you tell me that this was a hook-up party? Looks like everyone brought a date but us.” 

Sal shrugged. “I didn’t really plan for it to be, looks like everyone just got together at once.” 

Larry suddenly slung his arm around your shoulder. “Well if that’s the case then I call dibs on this one.” 

You couldn’t help but let out a laugh. “Do I get a say in this at all? Come on Larry, at least pretend to romance me.”

“You’re hot, lets date.” Larry replied, and you couldn’t help but fake a swoon. 

“I’m won over instantly. I’m changing all my relationship statuses to ‘taken’. You are clearly my soulmate.” The three of you couldn’t stop laughing. 

“Wait, that means I’m the only one here without a date at my own not-birthday party.” Sal suddenly realized. 

“Sounds like a bad song from the 50’s.” 

“At least I still have Gizmo?” Sal replied half-heartedly. 

“I wouldn’t be too sure about that, dude.” Larry said looking over at Todd and Neil where Gizmo was enjoying the attention from the two of them. 

“He only loves you for your pets and food!” Sal called over to them in fake hurt. 

“Tough break, Sal.” you said. “But hes’ got the right idea. I’m also hungry and constantly wanting attention.”

“On it!” Larry said, removing his arm from around you and running off towards the kitchen. You were confused for a moment, looking at Sal questioningly. He just shrugged, and a moment later, Larry was back with a plate of food in one hand as his other draped back around your shoulder. 

“Food? Check. Attention? Check.” Larry said with a smile. “I’m totally nailing this boyfriend thing.”

You snorted. “Boyfriend already? It just seems like five minutes ago you asked me on our first date. Oh where has the time gone?” 

“It was more like three minutes ago.” Sal replied, stealing a cookie from the plate in Larry’s hand. You followed his lead and shoved one in your mouth as well. 

“Details, man, details.” 

As the night continued on, Larry didn’t let up on the whole ‘boyfriend’ act. It was a little confusing but you found yourself not completely minding the attention. He kept his arm around you, called you really stupid pet names and always made sure that there was food on your plate. You had to admit for a moment that it felt nice to have someone else putting in the effort for once. You were usually the one to pay attention to the little details, to move things forward, to think of things that you and a possible significant other to do together but to have someone do the same in return? It just felt nice. 

So nice that you continued playing along, and with you on board did Larry crank it up to eleven. It even started to feel more like a challenge- who could out-date the other one? He called you a pet name? You threw an over the top compliment back. Larry got you more food? You hand fed him from the plate. It was absolutely disgusting, and you were loving every minute of it. 

Of course, every relationship has its ups and downs. Larry complimented Sal on his ugly holiday sweater by calling it ‘the sexiest thing he’d ever seen’ and it was only logical that you faked offence and dumped him on the spot. Heartbroken, Larry had no choice but to try and rebound with Sal, who was having absolutely none of this nonsense. However, when you were done with your soda, you realized the error of your ways and begged him to take you back and also please get you another drink. 

Before the end of the night, you and Larry would have broken up 3 times, gotten engaged, called off a wedding, and had announced that you two were going to elope. It was all very stupid and very dramatic. 

But before that, it was time for the cake to be brought in. Lisa cut the lights and Henry walked in with a large cake with two candles that had 18 on them. 

“Happy birthday, Sal!” Henry said to his son, and Sal shook his head a bit. 

“Wow, what a surprise that I did not see coming. At all. I’m super surprised!” Sal said with a slight laugh in his voice. 

Larry was the first to start singing Happy Birthday, and it was only when everyone was done that everyone realized that maybe this wasn’t the most well thought-out plan. 

Sal, taking it in stride, took a deep breath and blew.

Of course, nothing happened as he was still wearing his prosthetic which blocked his mouth. 

“Oh, maybe we could-” started Lisa, when she was interrupted by a sudden change of music. The pleasant generic holiday songs suddenly swapped over to what you think was a heavy metal cover of Jingle Bell Rock. 

Larry jumped up and moved away starting to thrash his head back and forth. Sal took the moment of confusion to unstrap the bottom of his prosthetic and blow out the candles before strapping it back on. He was next to get up and run over to Larry and start headbanging. 

You suddenly remembered seeing Larry and Sal switch the tape earlier. You wondered if they planned on this during the cake or it if it was just a coincidence. It didn’t matter much though as Ashley and Chug also got up and joined the headbanging, Jamie was quick to follow. You looked over at Todd and Neil who shrugged, Todd setting his glasses carefully on the table and also joining in. 

There was no way that Lisa and Henry had intended a yuletide holiday mini-pit for Sal’s birthday, but there they were. It was quite the site to see all these high schoolers banging their heads in their ugly sweaters and Santa hats for three minutes straight. Lisa quickly pulled out a camera and took a snapshot of everyone which was bound to be blurry with all the movement but it was okay. 

At some point during the song your Santa hat flew off, but you didn’t care. The rush of adrenaline spending this moment with your friends was enough. When the song ended, it abruptly went back to the soothing holiday music from before. Larry and Sal were laughing hard and high fiving each other. 

“And how long had you been planning that?” asked Lisa. 

“Ab... about two days.” laughed Larry. 

“We didn’t plan on it happening during the cake, just kinda happened that way.” added Sal. “Couldn’t have picked a better time though.” 

“At least you guys didn’t knock anything over.” Henry said with an amused smile. “Was everyone in on it?” 

“Nope, just us. Having everyone join was just an added bonus.” Larry reached down and handed you back a Santa hat. You noticed that his had been flung off as well. 

Lisa cut the cake for everyone and Henry pulled out a gift for Sal- a vinyl copy of Sanitys Fall first single. You felt a little bad that you hadn’t brought anything for Sal, but considering no one else had known that this was a surprise party (well, except the birthday boy, ironically) it was okay. You mentally made a note to get him something or do something special for him later. 

Cake time was filled with small talk and a relaxed atmosphere. Larry fed you a bite of cake, but in typical fashion it looked like he was trying to shove half a slice in your mouth instead. It took you a good minute to finally chew it up, followed by a few huge gulps of your drink. The whole thing was dumb, but it was all in good fun. 

Once everyone had their fill of cake, Henry announced that it was movie time and everyone else wondered back to the sitting area. 

Larry sat next to you on the couch, his arm wrapping around your waist. Even though the night had been filled with playful teasing and flirting, there was something about having him so close in the dimly lit room that felt a little more... intimate. Every flirt and touch tonight had been something of a joke for everyone’s enjoyment, a good goof to make everyone else laugh. Not this though, in the light of the tv that Henry was setting up, it was a gesture for just the two of you. 

Your hips were pressed against Larry’s, and his arm was around your waist and it felt like something a real couple should be doing. You looked around to confirm it; Chug had his arm around Maples shoulders on the other side of the room and Todd was holding hands with Neil. Your heart was starting to beat faster and you felt your face heating up, suddenly glad that it was dark in the apartment. 

This really wasn’t like you, to get so flustered. You were used to being in control of situations like this, but Larry had suddenly thrown you off your game. He had created a tension between you two and you could tell that he was feeling it too, whatever it was. 

The best way to take back the situation, you decided, was to just lean into it. Enjoy the attention from your (admittedly) attractive friend and for the next 45 minutes, just pretend that this on-going gag between the two of you was real. Maybe it’d even distract you from your lingering feelings for-

Sal plopped next to you on the couch. Ah, yes, of course, why would anything be easy? Nope, you were going to ignore the blue haired boy next to you and watch this cheesy holiday special, and not think about how last week he held you while you cried. 

Ah, fuck. This was gonna be a very long hour, wasn’t it? 

The first few minutes were a slog to get through, as you mind wouldn’t let you focus on anything but the two boys who you were sitting between. It got easier as the plot picked up though, soon you found yourself able to focus all of your attention to the television. At least until you felt something heavy press against your shoulder. 

Prosthetic slightly askew, the side of Sal’s head was pressing limply against you. Sal was completely conked out against your shoulder and you had no idea what to do. As much as you had joked about wanting to be between these two boys, this wasn’t exactly what you had in mind. 

You glanced at Larry, hoping that he could help you out, but he was engrossed in the movie, not paying any attention to the fact that his best friend had fallen asleep on his fake-girlfriend. Looking at Sal, you considered nudging him awake, but remembering how hard it was for him to fall asleep most nights anyway stopped you. Who were you to prevent him from getting some much needed sleep? He was probably still messed up from some of the all-nighters during testing. 

The thumping in your chest felt so loud as if everyone should be able to hear it. Even worse, you couldn’t tell if your heart was pounding for Sal or Larry. You still liked Sal, that much was true. Getting over Sal was a slow process, some days you’d be okay with just his friendship but some days you still found yourself daydreaming about being more. Shutting down those feelings were never easy, but they were necessary. 

With Larry it was always an easy friendship, and you had to admit that you found the greasy stoner look more attractive than you should have. Plus the attention he had been giving you all night had been so nice. 

What did that really mean? Yes, the attention was nice but was it nice because it came from Larry or would you be feeling this way about anyone who paid attention to you right now? You tried to imagine someone else in Larry’s place. Chug? It didn’t feel right with Chug but that felt more because you didn’t feel comfortable daydreaming about anyone with a significant other. 

Damn, that was almost everyone in your friend group by this point. Why did this have to be so confusing? On top of all that, you didn’t even know what was going through Larry’s head right now. As far as you knew, this was still just part of the joke and you were now the punchline. 

Something warm snapped you back into reality, making your head spin. Larry’s thumb was rubbing small circles on your hip idly, sending small sparks up your spine. Now he was just playing dirty at a game you weren’t sure you knew all the rules to. 

Between the two boys who you found very attractive it was starting to get very warm in more ways than you wanted to admit. You were going to need a long shower after this, and you weren’t sure if it was going to be a warm or cold one at this point. 

Your mind continued to wrestle with itself for the rest of the movie until the end credits rolled. Larry got up without a beat and announced that he needed to use the bathroom, leaving you to deal with the still passed out birthday boy on your shoulder. A few months ago you would have been thrilled to be his pillow and let him sleep for as long as he wanted, but now it felt wrong to have him so close. 

“Sal, you’re drooling on me.” You said quietly, nudging him awake. Sal sat up, taking a moment to remember what was going on before adjusting his prosthetic. 

“Ah, sorry about that.” he said. 

“No worried, I’m gonna go help Lisa and Henry clean up.” you told him before quickly moving to the kitchen where the two adults were putting away food and taking down some of the decorations that you had lent. 

“Thanks again for the decorations and helping set up.” Henry said before waving goodbye to Chug and Maple who were headed out. 

“It’s no problem. Like I said, my parents love the holidays. Half this stuff wasn’t gonna get put up at our place anyway. 

As the rest of the guests filled out it was just you, the boys, and the adults left to clean up the party. It was quiet, but not uncomfortably so between the five of you. You were looking forward to going back to your place and having some quiet time away from boys. 

“I think that’s the last of your decorations.” Lisa said, setting the box on the counter. “Lar-bear we’re almost done here. Why don’t you help her carry those back to her apartment then you’re free to go.”

So much for having some time alone to think. You were about to protest and say that you could handle taking it back on your own, but Larry was already lifting the box. 

“Great party, Sally Face.” Larry said, giving his best friend a fist bump. 

“Glad you two could make it.” Sal replied, before leaning in and giving you a quick hug. 

These boys were so good at playing dirty it wasn’t even funny. 

“Thanks for the invite. See you all later!” you said with a smile and followed Larry out into the hallway. There was an awkward tension between the two of you still, he hadn’t said much to you since the beginning of the movie, and as much as you wanted to ask him about his arm around your waist earlier, you were worried that bringing it up would make things worse. 

“So where’d you find that Jingle Bell Rock cover?” you asked, trying to change the mood as you two got into the elevator. 

“I found the tape while looking through my dad’s old music collection.” Larry replied. “I was wondering why he had a tape of generic holiday music and just stumbled onto it.” 

“Ah, I see.” You wanted to smack your head. Way to accidentally bring up his disappeared dad. Good job. The awkward tension returned to full force for those few long moments between exiting the elevator and entering your apartment. You flipped on your light switch and the apartment lit up like a Christmas tree. In fact it lit up the actual Christmas tree in the middle of your living room, along with strings of lights all over the apartment. 

“What the fuck...?” Larry started.

“I know.”

“I knew your parents were into-”

“I know.”

“You weren’t kidding at all.”

“I knooooow.”

“Actually I think you downplayed it.”

“Yes Larry, as I have stated, I know.”

Larry set down the box of decorations next to the door and invited himself in to look around. The whole living room looked like something out of a Hallmark movie, with silver and gold decorations all over the place. Snowflakes were plastered over the walls, garland was draped over every window, and along the wall hanging over the tv were three hand-decorated stockings, each carefully customized for you and your parents. Larry was looking over them with a slightly confused expression. 

“It’s a tradition for my family.” you explained. “We’ve used the same stockings every year since I was born. Each year we get to pick a pin or a decoration or something to add on to the stocking that we feel defines our year. The only rule is that we have to keep it winter themed, so it can get pretty abstract.”

“That’s... kinda fuckin’ neat.” Larry said, looking over your stocking. “Care to share with the class?” 

You looked over the stocking and pointed to a very small present box that was hot glued on. “Okay, so I added that when I was about fifteen right? So when I was a kid I was a total space cadet and had a lot of trouble making and keeping friends because I was very introverted.”

“You? Introverted?” Larry said with a surprised tone. 

“We moved around a lot.” You shrugged. “I guess I got used to being by myself to the point where I stopped making an effort. But anyway, this was the year I moved here and met you and Sal and Ash. Between the three of you, I felt more grounded. Plus my parents promised that this was the last time we were moving so anyway, long story short, I glued that gift box on my stocking because I felt more... present.”

“That was terrible but also so fucking adorable I don’t even think I can be mad at it.” Larry said with a straight face. 

You shrugged. “You guys are the best friends I’ve ever had.” 

Larry moved away from the stockings and looked around the decorations more. You were more than happy to point out which ones held the most sentimental value and which were bargain bin decorations that your parents just had to have. 

“And what’s with the frog?” He asked suddenly, pointing up at a stuffed frog hanging above your head. It was green with a santa hat with thick red lips. Your heart suddenly sped up to sonic speeds as you realized where you two were standing. 

“It’s not a frog.” you said quietly. 

“I think I know a frog when I see one.” 

“It’s a toad.”

“What’s the diff-”

“A mistle-toad.”

Larry let out a groan at the pun. “Do all of your decorations have a terrible pun attached to them?”

“I don’t wanna hear that from you.” You laughed. “You’re like the king of terrible puns.” 

“Yeah but I don’t deserve this kind of punishment.”

“...Pun-ishment.” 

“Don’t start.” 

“I swear it was pun-intentional.” you continued. 

“Oh my god, shut up.”

“Make me.”

There are fewer words known to up any sexual tension between two people than the combination of ‘shut up’ followed by ‘make me’. Those two phrases alone can change the course of an entire relationship between two people. 

“Okay.” 

What?

Larry reached out and placed a hand on your lower back, pulling you closer to him. He stopped for a moment, as if to give you a chance to pull away or make any indication that you didn’t want what was about to happen to happen. You found yourself unable to move any way but forward into your friend, which he took as a sign to go ahead. 

‘He has enough nose for both him and Sal.’ you found yourself thinking.

His lips were warm and slightly chapped against yours but it was far from unpleasant. Warmth spread throughout your body and in the back of your head a small voice said that tonight's shower was gonna be a cold one. Your hands found his hips and you felt the cold metal of his wallet chain against your warm hands for a moment. The kiss was in a weird limbo where though it was more chaste, there was a hint of wanting more from both sides. 

You were about to give into the side of you that wanted more when Larry pulled back, his cheeks a bit red. 

“I gotta admit, I’ve kinda wanted to do that all night.” he said quietly, taking you by surprise. 

“Do... you like me?” you asked, hands still on his hips. 

“I don’t know.” he admitted. “I mean, you’re really funny and easy to talk to and you look really hot tonight. I’m gonna be completely honest, I’m definitely thinking with my dick right now more than anything.”

You found yourself smiling up at him, feeling a little relieved. If Larry had admitted to having any feelings for you right then, you weren’t sure if you could handle it, but if your close attractive friend was just wanting to kiss you, that was okay, right?

He took a step back. “I’m sorry. That was probably a bad idea. I know you’re still dealing with the whole Sally Face thing and this isn’t helping-” 

“Larry, do you wanna make-out?” you asked. He looked at you in surprise and you gave him a small smirk. “Best way to get over someone is to get under someone else, right?” 

“Are you sure? I don’t wanna complicate our friendship or make anything weird between us.”

“I won’t catch feelings if you don’t.” you said, lowering your voice a little. 

He stared at you for a moment before grabbing your hand and dragging you over to the couch. “Oh fuck yes.” were the last words he said before pulling you into another kiss.     

Next Chapter

Author Note: Sal x Reader is still end game. 

[dykedteach]

Black nail polish, oil paints, overalls, and space

black nail polish: do you have a bucket list? if so, what are the top three things?

I didn’t really, but I’ve developed a “prison list” since lockdown - as soon as all of this is under control, my top three things are to go home and see my family, take my mum out to her favourite greek place, and then head across to wales to go and see my bestie’s new place.

oil paints: what would you title the autobiography of your life so far?

maybe something like, “wait what?” just to really hammer home how often i need to double triple check things with people because of my attention span/auditory delay/who i am as just like a person

overalls: what would you do with one billion dollars?

okay so that’s roughly £800 mil. I give my two adult siblings £1.5 mil each and put £1m into locked high interest rate accounts for my kid brothers. Help my parents to buy a decent house, family cars for each of them, enough for them to start their own small businesses from home to keep them busy and keep my mum from having to do physical work, and then enough for them to go on holidays and pay the bills and never have to worry about financial security again. Let’s call that £5m. Sort my grandparents and uncle out with nice places to live, and enough money to securely live there. Drop half a mil on each of my closest friends heads, enough so that they can all buy property or set up a business or travel the world or chase their passions, whatever. So far, I’m down a whole £15 million, and I’ve taken care of everyone in my immediate circle.

Donate a million to directly fund my old workplace. Donate another two to my current workplace. Donate a million to the UK hospital that kept my younger brother alive when he had cancer, donate another to the US hospital that did the same. £20 mil down.

I buy up a few properties in areas I’d like to travel to, New York, Paris, London, Athens, Amsterdam, Rome, etc. Cute flats, nothing too fancy. I make arrangements in most of them (definitely not the London one, as I’d use that too often, and maybe one or two others I’m not sure) to have a few local students stay in them to keep them from being empty, and then have them free for me to stay in during the summer. Let’s be very generous and give that another £20 mil budget. So I’m at £40 mil. 

I’d want one real nice base home somewhere near my family in England. Maybe somewhere coastal, too. I’d learn to drive, get a nice mid range electric car. Buy a shop and turn it into my dream florist-bookshop-cafe. Hire a florist, get them to teach me bits on the job (I’d mostly be doing the book bits until I learn the ropes, I feel). Hire servers. Paint the whole place bright yellow, inside and out. Have little tables outside. Buy local, make everything in house, learn how to make excellent bread, pay staff and local suppliers a generous wage, and sell as cheaply as I possibly can.  Keep it as a passion project. Have my nice home, full of books and postcards and dying flowers from the shop, a nice big kitchen with a standing mixer and an island, a wild garden with stepping stones and a pond and overgrown flowers, room for friends to stay over, and a huge bed for me. Buy myself nice things, do a style overhaul, pay for cooking lessons. Let’s say £60 million to live on, with all these things. Keep a small business surviving, nice house, car, money in case I have a family, in case I need to pay for IVF, plenty to live on. Bank most of it, live off of the interest. Drop into that money on the daily when I see crowdfunding projects, or struggling local businesses, or if some kids are having a cake sale outside Tescos and I feel like paying five grand for a cupcake.

that still leaves me with £700 million. that’s the money i’d spend recklessly, throw at every fund and charity i can think of, try and help the most vulnerable where possible, the kind of dumb shit that real billionaires out there could be doing, paying off student loans and medical debt and all that cool shit, and still being rich enough myself that i can live a happy secure life and still be able to donate almost all of it when I die

this....got a little long winded. oops

space: do you have a desk/workspace and how is it organised/not organised?

I have a workspace right now, it is....my bed! I’ve been working from my bed for the past five weeks! it’s been! yeah! I have a broken ikea lap desk, and i pile cushions up behind me, and i try to make sure i don’t get under the covers when i’m in work mode, but that’s it. in theory, i’m supposed to clear my bedside table each morning to make way for notebooks and pens and folders, but i don’t.

thanks for the ask! sorry it ran away a little!

[forestwater87]

The Jungle (Day 4 of Gwenvid Week 2019)

Gwen has to go into the city alone to propose an idea to Camp Corp. It was supposed to be an easy, unexciting trip.

It wasn't.

(Gwenvid Week 2019, Day 4: Whump/Comfort)

(an unofficial companion on S4E12, “The Forest”)

Chapter 1

“I know you’ll be just great, Gwen!” David took her by the shoulders and gave her a smile that was way too happy for 5:30 in the morning (and should not have made her feel just the tiniest bit brighter, but she’d long resolved herself to the fact that David had that effect on people). “And just think: after this, we can just focus on making Camp Campbell the very best it can be!”

What did he think she was going all the way to their offices for? It wasn’t for her fucking health, that was for sure. But she bore his optimism with the best grace she could muster before the sun was up -- namely, sighing and not kicking him in the shins.

“Now, do you have everything?” The Campmobile was broken -- Gwen was inclined to blame Max and the other two, but David was convinced it was “just something mechanical” that he’d be able to fix despite his complete lack of interest in cars -- and QM, the only one of them who knew how to drive the bus, had disappeared on some sort of mysterious retreat that neither of them had wanted any details about. Which meant she had to walk into town and from there take a regular, crowded, non-school bus into the city to make her 9:00 meeting with Camp Corp. (She’d initially suggested a taxi or Uber or something, but then looked in both the camp budget and her bank account and decided that wasn’t going to happen.) She’d change into her heels and interview suit in the bathroom and then blaze into that meeting and charm the Campwells’ attorneys into hopefully partnering with them as an “independent Camp Pals partner camp” -- which mostly just meant “you give us a bunch of money and we’ll use it to do our thing and you can take credit for anything we don’t royally screw up” -- after which she’d triumphantly cram herself back onto the next overstuffed bus of sweaty assholes and be home in time to collapse in bed and not move for at least 14 hours. To facilitate this plan, David had insisted on packing her a hiking bag complete with a change of clothes, three water bottles, and enough granola bars to feed the entire city. (He’d tried to sneak in an extra pair of socks and a first-aid kit before she’d told him if he made her bag any heavier she’d clobber him over the head with it.) “I know it’ll be chilly at first, but make sure you stay hydrated anyway! Dehydration can --”

“Got it, David. I usually run the First Aid camps, remember? That’s my speech.”

“Well, okay!” He hovered around her anxiously as she tugged on her boots and hooked her purse onto the backpack. “And just remember, I know things didn’t go all that great last time, I’ll have my phone all day! If you find yourself getting nervous, or starting to feel like -- like you might sell the camp --”

Gwen rolled her eyes but didn’t say anything.

“-- you just give me a call!” He looped an arm around her shoulder, squeezing her against his side painfully. “Remember, Gwen, we’re a team!”

“Yeah, got it,” she grumbled, extricating herself from his grip. She made it to the cabin door when she was suddenly hit with a wave of nervousness, turning around to see David standing where she’d left him, his hands clasped in front of his chest and his smile bright and a little wavery. She put her hand on the doorframe, focusing her gaze on the pine tree clock above his shoulder to avoid having to meet his earnest gaze (and the way her chest tightened at the sight of it). “Seriously, though, thanks.”

His grin steadied and widened, and he gave her the Camp Campbell salute. “Any time, Gwen! Now go get ‘em!”

She didn’t return the salute, but she was smiling as she closed the door and headed off into the very early morning.

---

“Jesus.” Gwen collapsed onto the bench outside Sleepy Peak’s sole bus stop, tipping her head back toward the muted sunlight that had begun stretching tendrils across the sky. It was actually a rather nice walk, but ever since she’d taken over the business-and-paperwork side of running the camp, she’d kind of let herself fall out of shape, and she was just relieved the morning was a relatively cool one. She lifted her ponytail off the back of her neck, enjoying the cool air on her sweaty skin just long enough to feel the pinch of a mosquito. “Fuck!” An old lady approaching the stop jumped, shooting Gwen a wary look like she was rabid. “Sorry,” she muttered. “Just . . . you know, waiting for the bus.”

She nodded, taking a seat on the other side of the bench. “I’ve been taking this bus every day for the last fifty years.”

Oh, god, that sounded like the beginning of a conversation. “Neat,” she said, hoping her “please dear god don’t talk to me anymore” voice was obvious enough. She pulled out her phone and sighed with relief; at least the bus would be here soon.

“It started when my husband Edward lost his job at the silicone implant factory. ‘No good would come from changing the gifts God gives,’ I said when he took the job, and you know I was just right. That factory burned down in 2007, and I think the foreman -- he was a dear friend, the foreman; that’s how Ed was offered a place in the factory in the first place. Factory jobs weren’t common even in those days, and lord knows they’re all but gone now, so you better believe he thought he’d gotten lucky when old Jimmy Fitsimmons called! Dear Jim is now working at a packing plant in Missouri, and you know Missouri is just beautiful most of the year -- but goodness, the winters are rough. ‘I hope you know what you’re doing, Jimmy, with those winters,’ I told him, but he and his wife Enid were determined to make the best of it, and we’ve even been down to see their home. It’s small, you know houses just aren’t as easy to pay for as they used to be, and my Ed and I are very lucky to still have the home we bought as newlyweds -- and oh, that is a funny story! You see, my father . . .”

---

“-- oh goodness, where was I? That’s right, Edward lost his job at the silicone implant factory. So I said, ‘Edward, I’ll have to help you get back on your feet,’ and he didn’t like the idea of me working -- he’s an old-fashioned man, my Ed, but times were changing then and still are now; you young people might think we don’t pay attention, but we --”

“Wow, the bus sure is running late, isn’t it?” Gwen interrupted, glancing at her phone for the third time in the last ten seconds. She was supposed to have a full half hour once she got into the city to make herself look less like a swamp monster, but she was starting to wonder if she’d have to run straight from the bus to the meeting in her sweat-soaked camp clothes. “Wonder where it is?”

“Oh, don’t worry, my dear,” the old woman said, taking a long sip from her thermos. “It’ll be along any minute now; I should know, I’ve been riding this bus every day for the last fifty years, ever since --”

“Great. I just kinda have an appointment to get to, so . . .” She tapped her fingertips on her knees, trying not to panic. Panic made her break out, and she probably didn’t have time to put on the makeup she’d packed in her bag, so she needed to have a nice clear Dove-commercial face for this meeting.

“It’ll be here,” she said, and Gwen forced herself to take a deep breath. Deep, soothing breaths, like she’d learned during those six weeks she’d taken yoga. In through the nose, out through the mouth; breathe out stress and negative self-talk, breathe in positivity and healing . . .

“Unless, of course, they’ve canceled the run,” the old woman added casually, and Gwen nearly choked on the positivity and healing.

“Wait, what?” she managed, coughing past the swallowed air. “Canceled it? You mean they just don’t show up?”

She nodded. “It happens sometimes, in a town as small as this one. On those days we just have to wait for the next one to come along.”

Gwen couldn’t exactly afford to wait for the next one, not that she seemed to have much choice. Maybe if they cut one of tomorrow’s camps, they could stretch out the supplies enough to afford a single lousy cab ride . . . “When’s the next bus?” she asked, holding up her phone and cursing the lack of a signal.

“There’s a schedule down outside the general store.”

I thought you did this every goddamn day for fifty years, she thought, grinding her teeth. But the store was a straight shot down Main Street; she’d never be out of sight of the bus stop. “Don’t let them leave without me!” she called to the old woman before half-jogging, half-running down the road to the general store.

Of course there were a thousand fliers papered all over the store’s windows, and of course the schedule was buried under a months-old announcement for a “xmas family fun fest!!!” But another bus should be arriving in . . .

The bus blew past her, barrelling like a runaway freight train toward the stop at the other end of the street. “Hey!” Gwen broke into a sprint, the rising sun searing as she tried to reach the bus stop in time. She tripped over a rock, hitting the dirt road face-first and seeing stars as she scrambled to her feet. “Fucking -- hey!”

The bus started pulling away, and she tried to force her body to run even faster despite the stitch forming below her ribs and the throbbing sting where her knees, chin, and palms had scraped the road; she swiped one hand across her face and it came away bloody. That old bitch hadn’t even told the bus to wait thirty seconds! After she’d pretended to listen to that whole goddamn story about Jim and Ed and whoever the fuck else . . .

It finally stopped just at the edge of town, its engine growling impatiently as she staggered up to it. The driver stared at her for a long moment before opening the doors, his expression blank.

“I was at the bus stop,” she panted, dropping her money into the till. “I’d been there for half an hour.”

The driver shrugged. “I coulda just kept going, lady.”

She resisted the urge to flip him off and just continued onto the bus, which was somehow completely full even though she was pretty sure Sleepy Peak didn’t even have this many people. They weren’t even the last stop before the city, which meant it was only going to get more crowded.

Great.

She squeezed in between a family of six and a young businessman, grabbing onto the overhead bar just as the bus started moving again; one of the children stumbled into her, jabbing his elbow into her side and clinging to her backpack with sticky fingers.

“Whoa!” A lanky young man leapt out of his seat, gesturing for her to take his place. She sat down with a grateful smile, her legs starting to feel like jello after all the abuse they’d taken that day. Thank god there were still some decent people out there.

She opened her mouth to thank him when he shook his head at her and added:

“Just keep your arms down, girl. You stink.”

Mortified, Gwen dropped her gaze, searching for literally anything to look at that wasn’t involved in this conversation when she noticed that she was somehow seated right next to the old bitch who hadn’t held the bus for her. She smiled at Gwen serenely, like she hadn’t just been the cause of all this bullshit.

“You look familiar, my dear,” she said. “Have we met?”

“Nope,” Gwen replied shortly, preparing to disappear into her phone when the woman continued.

“Well, I’ve seen so many faces. I’ve been riding this bus every day for the last fifty years, you know. Ever since my husband Edward lost his job at the silicone implant factory . . .”

She dropped her head into her hands and prepared to spend the rest of the bus ride trying not to exist.

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