#we also had a fan on tonight that we did not have Tuesday so. I think she was a big help

[autopsytableromance]

You can just. Take breaks. Did y’all know that. Did you know it doesn’t have to be none stop

[littlegrapejuice]

Saved his life | LS2

Pairing: Logan Sargeant x Reader

Summary: You come to check on Logan after qualifying at the Dutch GP, hoping to lift his spirits.

Author's Note: ok so this literally came to me in a dream😭 logan's replacement was announced on tuesday (still crying about it btw) and istg i woke up wednesday morning after having lived this plot during my sleep

You had been seeking him out after FP3, and were once again seeking him out after qualifying. Logan was nowhere to be found and you worried about the state he mentally was in since his crash. The backlash from his team as well as journalists had blown out of proportion, for they were all focusing on the damages suffered by the car before considering the health of the driver.

Similar to you, Logan's fans were doing their best to support him and wondered about how he was doing. You had seen many comments online about people complaining that neither Williams - as in James Vowles - nor commentators had expressed an interest in the well-being of the driver, only talking about ruining a newly upgraded car - which would be proven illegal later on.

Scouring the paddock, you were now going from garage to garage looking for Logan. Obviously, you had first gone to the Williams one but without any success in finding the American. You hadn't even known at first if he was actually at the track, but a quick shot of him on the TV screen had confirmed you that he was indeed in his garage.

This is why as soon as qualifying ended, you had waited for George to come back to the Mercedes garage so that you could notify him that you were leaving for the time being. You had plans together later tonight, meaning that he didn't mind you doing whatever you wanted until then.

And that's thus how you were still walking around the paddock, praying that it wouldn't take much longer to find Logan.

As you then thought you had seen him from afar, someone obviously had to come up to you and stop you in your tracks. You turned around at the tap on your shoulder and was met with a blonde driver, but not quite the one you would've rather faced.

"Hi Max," you said with a smile.

"Hey, you alright?" He asked both because he was genuinely interested in your answer and because he couldn't help but notice you frantically looking around.

"Yeah, I'm good! Congrats on P2, that's great at your home race." You gave a last glance to the side and decided to temporarily abort your mission as you had unfortunately lost sight of who you thought had been Logan.

"Thanks, I wish I could've gotten pole but I'll get the first place from turn one so that's alright."

"I'll be internally rooting for you, but you know I'll have to stick to my roots and publicly support my team."

"Of course," Max replied. "The Red Bull garage is always open if you ever feel like changing your mind. We also probably have better food than Mercedes." He let out a smile at your laugh before scratching his throat, as if he was thinking about his next words. "Listen, I-"

"Sorry Max," you apologised as you checked your watch and got afraid you would miss logan leaving the track. "I'd love to talk more with you but I was on the way to do something important so please make it quick."

"Yeah, hmm... did you have the chance to visit the city and its surroundings? I was thinking that..." Max hesitated before he saw you nodding at him, silently telling him to continue. "We could grab a drink or some food later on, and I can show you around? Seeing as this is my home country, I'm pretty familiar with it so I could give you a proper tour and you'd see things that you would never see with a regular tour guide and-"

"Sounds lovely yeah!" You felt pretty bad for interrupting him once again, but the clock was really ticking and you were getting more nervous. "I already have something planned for tonight though, so maybe another day?"

"Well, there's only tomorrow left then. After the race?" He suggested with hope in his tone.

"I'll get back to you on that. Depending on who's winning, I might be celebrating someone else you know."

"Of course, but I'm pretty confident that I can score another victory here."

"Great, then that's settled! Super cool to chat with you Max, I'll see you later." You waved at him and quickly started walking again to the direction you had last seen Logan several minutes ago.

You were gone so fast that you hadn't even heard Max telling you that he would text you his request again, as he had sensed that your focus had been on all but your exchange with him. You liked Max to be honest; he was a really sweet guy and could easily match your energy as a fellow yapper. However, he had chosen the worst moment to strike up a conversation with you. Thinking about how you could repay it to him next time you'd see him - probably tomorrow, all your stress was going away as you finally found the person you were looking for.

You stopped close enough to him that he would notice you, but a few metres away so that you had time to catch your breath without it being too obvious that you had been almost running around for him.

As he called out your name, you couldn't help the smile that lit up your face.

"You're good?"

"I am now, thanks. Been searching for you, you know? You're quite hard to find," you told him in complete honesty with a light laugh.

"Really?" Logan was surprised by your words. He hadn't expected anyone to come talk to him today, except for his teammate Alex or a couple drivers texting him for a check up.

"Yeah," you nodded. "I couldn't see you after practice earlier and I thought talking to you face to face was better than a text so yes, I was looking for you."

If you and Logan weren't surrounded by hundreds of people, he would definitely shed a tear at your kindness - not like anyone was actually paying attention to the both of you as you were on the side of the path. He didn't think a headline consisting of F1 Driver Logan Sargeant seen crying while talking with F1 Driver George Russel's long-time friend was a good idea though.

"And you wanted to talk to me about something important?" He wondered.

"That's what I said", you replied. "I wanted to talk to you, about you, I guess."

"That's not super-"

"It is," you immediately interrupted him before he could finish his sentence. You knew what he was about to say and you were definitely not letting him give voice to his thoughts. Seeing as he was still taken aback by your words, you kept going. "You're important, Logan. More than a random chassis, or an engine, or whatever they put in the shit car that they make you drive."

Hearing your own sentence, you were about to apologise for the strong opinion - Logan was driving said car so you didn't know if you were right to comment on it - but the chuckle that came from the American stopped you from doing so. It didn't last long as Logan quickly covered his mouth, thus shutting down the sound, but you suddenly wished you could hear it again.

And not because you're trash talking his team, but because you're, let's say, watching a movie together and a funny scene comes up; or because you're walking around a park and he laughs at your clumsiness when you almost trip on a random rock.

You just wished, right now, that you weren't at the track, in this paddock, with all those cars and people around. You just wanted to be with him, in a quiet place where you could just enjoy each other's presence without having to worry about a team principal that didn't take his driver's needs into account or about journalists that couldn't seem to see the human aspect of a driver behind the suit and helmet.

Your thoughts were however soon interrupted when a hand appeared in front of your face.

"Hello? Earth to whatever planet you're on?" Logan had a smile on his face. He wasn't laughing anymore but he didn't seem annoyed either at your silence. "Did you get lost in your mind?"

"Possibly", you answered with a nervous laugh. "Sorry, won't happen again."

"It's fine, don't worry."

You could see Logan was genuine in his eyes. The way they were being lit up by the sun suddenly made you wonder about what was hidden behind it. They often say that eyes are the mirror of the soul; but for now, you could only see yourself in Logan's.

"Hey Logan," you said after a few seconds of silence. He glanced down at you, which you took as a sign to continue. "Do you wanna hang out with me tonight? I- hmm I have this dinner with George, Lando, Alex, and their girls. And it could be nice of you to join. I mean, if you want to of course, and if you don't have anything planned already but yeah, that'd be cool. I'd like that."

When Logan didn't reply, you started to think that it was over and that your stress was so obvious, and that he wasn't going to accept the offer. But then:

"I'd love to." Your gaze was now filled with hope, until the next words left Logan's mouth. "But I think I need to be alone tonight. It's absolutely not against you or the others, but today hasn't been the best day for me as you obviously know and even though it could lighten up my mood, I'd rather focus on tomorrow's race."

"Oh, hmm... okay, yeah... I totally get it, no problem."

Logan was not dumb; he noticed your immediate change of attitude as you lowered your gaze, so he decided to add on to his explanation:

"It's just a raincheck, you know? I'm not going out tonight, but I'd absolutely be down for another day if we both find the time. Sounds good?"

"Yeah!" You nodded with a smile. "Raincheck, okay, got it."

"Sorry to cut this short, but I gotta go for now." Logan gave you a smile before checking his phone. "I'll get back to you for a hang out, but thanks for taking the time to talk with me. I truly appreciate it."

"It's normal, we're friends so... I wasn't really thinking twice about it."

"Then thank you for that as well. We'll see each other later, right?"

"Of course," you confirmed. "Race's tomorrow so at least then, goodbye for now Logan."

"Bye, take care."

He gave you a quick hug before departing, and next thing you knew, he was gone. You then turned around, ready to exit the paddock and go back to your hotel, so that you could get ready for your dinner tonight with your friends.

.....

"George, hey!" You called out to him as you saw him from afar. "Thanks for waiting, sorry I'm a little late."

"No problem," he replied. "I sent Alex and the girls inside to keep us a table. We're just missing Lando, but I think he'll be here soon."

As if on cue, you had received a text. Thinking it was from the curly haired man, you opened it in front of George before reading the sender and the content of the message.

Hi! Regarding our conversation from earlier, I decided to formally ask if you wanted to grab dinner with me tomorrow night after the race?

A smile unknowingly took place on your face, and George couldn't help but notice it.

"What's got you all happy?" He asked before adding a comment. "You're even blushing so I guess this is not Lando."

"It's no one," you said as you immediately locked your phone before George could look at the screen. "Just a friend I'm supposed to catch up with tomorrow."

"You have friends other than us in the Netherlands right now?" A familiar voice questioned from behind you.

"Lando!" George exclaimed as the last of your group was finally here. "Hey mate. Congrats on pole. Good quali you did there."

"Thanks man." Lando glanced at you while the three of you started walking inside the hotel, towards the restaurant. "So what's this about a friend of yours?"

"Drop it Lando," you replied, annoyed - although you could truly never be annoyed with him. "I'll tell you all about it when it's over if you still wanna know after the weekend."

"Of course I will! I'll even bring that up in the groupchat so you'll have to tell this wonderful and absolutely not suspicious story to everyone," Lando laughed as he nudged your side.

Thankfully, neither George nor Lando had brought up the topic with the others, even though they were still curious on what you were hiding. You were glad that they didn't because how could you even explain to them that you would be going out to dinner with a fellow driver? You honestly didn't think they would mind, but you also didn't want them to go and bother said driver when you knew that the paddock's walls had ears everywhere.

Hoping that it would be fine to reply to the text later, you had therefore waited until you were back in your hotel room to agree to the offer. Tonight's dinner had been amazing and you were always happy to spend time with your friends whom you didn't see much, but tomorrow's would be something even more special as it would actually be your first time hanging out one on one with the driver you were maybe fancying.

Before forgetting, you also decided to notify your friends of your plans - omitting the driver aspect of the 'friend' you would be seeing after the race - so that they wouldn't be surprised to not see you attend any celebration. Of course you would try and spend some time with the winner if he was part of your friend group, but at least you were in the clear to not go party all night with them.

.....

And you had never once regretted not attending the party that had celebrated Lando's win at the Dutch Grand Prix. He had told you that day after the race that you would have a myriad of other chances to attend another one as he was planning on winning more and more often - which he did.

Tonight's party, however, would be in your honour. As well as Logan's. And you couldn't see yourself anywhere else than here, in front of him. You truly didn't think you would one day end up in this situation, and neither did he. Logan hadn't really expected to experience such an event in his life, but he eventually did, all thanks to you.

You had saved his life. That day, when you reached out to him after qualifying, was unknowingly a turning point in his life. He had been at his lowest. He had known what would certainly happen following the Grand Prix; he had been expecting to be let go after the disastrous performances he was giving.

Knowing didn't make it less painful though.

He did get dropped by his team, Williams, which you cursed for as long as you could and still did from time to time. And even if Logan had achieved being a Formula One driver - which no one could ever take away from him, he had still felt like he was worthless after it happened.

He hadn't known how to process the sudden end of his short time on the grid and felt lost for a while, wondering about what would define him as a person now that the dream he'd had since he was a child was over.

But you had made him believe that it wasn't the end of the world and that something else was waiting for him. He could've ended it all, but you showed him a glimmer of hope and he chose to keep going, see what else was in store for him. He still had a future. And he had been right to trust you, as he was now here, facing you and about to be making you his. Only two words left to say before doing so.

'Thank you', he mouthed to you before the long-awaited sentence was to be heard out loud. "I do", he then confirmed without tearing his gaze away from your face.

..........

Okayyyy so this it lol

Hope y'all liked it🫶🏻 this was my 1st time ever writing for a driver since i got into motorsports and I feel really happy w it!! Thanks to my brain for making me dream ab logan, i think it kinda helps me cope regarding him not being the grid anymore (i miss him sm chat)

Idk when I'll write again for a driver if i ever do so, but don't hesitate to give feedback on this so that ik how to approach a future work🤍

[babydollmarauders]

MEDIA MANAGEMENT — JACK HUGHES (23-24 SZN PART 12)

au masterlist

notes: short, but i’m tired and have a migraine so i apologize

y/ndevils00

liked by dawson1417, ehaula, and 273,528 others

y/ndevils00 HAPPY 1989 (TAYLOR’S VERSION) DAY!!! I HOPE YOU’RE ALL STREAMING IT AND LOVING THE VAULT TRACKS AS MUCH AS I AM!!!

AND MORE IMPORTANTLY, AN INSANELY HAPPY 22ND BIRTHDAY TO MY VERY BESTEST FRIEND IN THE ENTIRE WORLD, MY PUPPY, MY SWEETHEART, MY BESTIE NUMBER 1, DAWSON! YOU’RE TAYLOR SWIFT AGE NOW!!

oh yeah, and happy Devils game day too, i guess.

lucifer’s favorite children won 5-4 against the water buffalo’s tonight!

we got 2 great goals in the first period from Holtzy (not pictured because he’s being punished for his comments on tuesday) and my sweet swedish fish, Jesper! they served tonight!

and in second period we got the first out of two goals from Haula hoop! his second goal coming in the third period! my favorite uncle also almost got a hatty, but his stick broke :( criminal! it’s okay, he got the hatty in my eyes AND in my heart, and that’s the only hatty that matters! 🫶

and finally, before we got to holla for Haula-back girl’s second, we got a goal from my amazing, one-of-a-kind, brilliantly spectacular, so babygirl, the guy who stayed up until 2am on a game night and spun me around the house while we listened to 1989 (TV), everyone’s favorite, JACKY!!! this goal brought him up to 18 points in 7 games, which is 9 less games than it took him last season! i’m so proud of you, babygirl! you’re a star and you’re shining your light!

p.s. connor clifton, i am under your bed. seriously, i know where you live.

tagged dawson1417, jackhughes, john.marino97, jesperbratt, and ehaula

Load more comments

jackhughes i love you, my beautiful girl ♥️ thank you for your praise and for being my biggest fan

y/ndevils00 oh? i love you too, sweet boy

jackhughes okay, good, now that that’s done, STOP THREATENING PEOPLE

y/ndevils00 YOU TRICKED ME INTO A FALSE SENSE OF SECURITY!

jackhughes i had to! you don’t listen to me!

y/ndevils00 :(

jackhughes yeah, i’m not nico, that doesn’t work on me

y/ndevils00 RATS!

ehaula i would like to get a real hatty

y/ndevils00 no! you get the hatty in my heart and you appreciate it!

ehaula i don’t wanna

y/ndevils00 you’re an ungrateful uncle

ehaula and you’re a bossy niece

y/ndevils00 I AM NOT! @/kristen.haula AUNT KRISTEN, TELL HIM I’M NOT!

kristen.haula she’s not!

ehaula i rest my case

user19 the last jack picture 🥹

y/ndevils00 that was the product of me yelling “SMILE FOR THE PICTURE, BABYGIRL!”

jackhughes i thought the picture would come out better

y/ndevils00 @/jackhughes i can’t help it, your smile makes me shaky

jesperbratt i got a goal and i served!

y/ndevils00 you got a GREAT goal! i wanna carry you around with me everywhere, do you think nicole would allow it?

jesperbratt i’ll ask!

jesperbratt she says split custody, you can only have weekends

y/ndevils00 hmm i’ll agree to those terms

dawson1417 ITS MY DAY OF BIRTH! THANK YOU, BESTIE NUMBER 3!!

y/ndevils00 DID YOU LIKE YOUR CAKE OF YOUR FACE?!

dawson1417 I LOVED IT!! IT LOOKED JUST LIKE ME!

y/ndevils00 I KNEW IT! I KNEW I DID GOOD!

john.marino97 that cake looked nothing like you?

dawson1417 @/john.marino97 shhh be nice!

john.marino97 i mean, that cake looked just like you! y/n should go into art!

john.marino97 okay, say it, i’m mentally prepared, i can take it

y/ndevils00 you did so well! i’m proud of you and your assist!

john.marino97 wait what?

john.marino97 that’s not what i was expecting

y/ndevils00 i’m feeling nice, don’t push it!

john.marino97 if you’ll excuse me, i have a quick call to make

y/ndevils00 to who?

y/ndevils00 MARINARA, WHY AM I GETTING A CALL FROM *HIM*

john.marino97 i may have pre-tattled

nicohischier i’ll be fine, y/n. no need to threaten!

y/ndevils00 THAT WAS A DIRTY HIT?? ALL THE NEED TO THREATEN!

nicohischier i appreciate that you care for me and my wellbeing, but i’ll be okay

y/ndevils00 but he hurt my slut :( you’re being targeted

nicohischier i’m tough, i can take it

y/ndevils00 no, you aren’t! you cried at finding nemo! i need to wrap you in bubble wrap!

nicohischier HE COULDN’T FIND HIS DAD

user84 so what were john and dawson talking about?

y/ndevils00 HOW MUCH FUN WE’RE GONNA HAVE AT OUR ‘BEST FRIEND NUMBER 1 BIRTHDAY SLUMBER PARTY’!

john.marino97 game plays

dawson1417 candy!

user27 the world may never know

lhughes_06 i can’t believe you laid on the floor for the first picture

y/ndevils00 i think i have gum on my dress

y/ndevils00 at least i hope it’s gum

lhughes_06 burn that dress. just burn it.

y/ndevils00 but i love this dress :(

lhughes_06 jack will get you a new one

y/ndevils00 okay!

jackhughes wait what?

[iantimony]

twoweeker tuesday: redux

im really making a trend of two-weekin these huh. gonna try to Not do that bc it makes me way less likely to actually do it lol. speed-posting this before bed (and before the melatonin kicks my ass, i'm trying to reset my sleep sched a bit)

listening: hozier unreal unearth. sammy rae & the friends. leaving this pretty sparse because i don't want to dig back through my history for the past two weeks and that's definitely the bulk of it. some notes from the Release Radar(tm) that i like: good luck, babe! - chappell roan bell - rob blivion waiting. - pater ...all (feat jake clemons, live) - grouplove i had not my hat - tom rosenthal april 8, 2024: the great north american eclipse - sleeping at last (!!!) too sweet - hozier flea - st vincent lil' freak - bbno$

reading: finished the main bit of scum villain! i'm reading the extras now. officially read all three mxtx books

watching: FINISHED SERIAL EXPERIMENTS LAIN. i have so many thoughts. i was in delta-orionis' dms about it a bit but my ass has so many Notes. many thoughts. gnosticism mostly but also the obvious tech-as-extension-of-self throughline. idk it was a very weird show and i definitely need to re-watch it to let it sink in a little more.

playing: no games but a lot of horn! i have an audition tomorrow for the fall's campus ensembles, i am...not super confident about it tbh, unsurprisingly i am not back to where i was pre-pandemic so my upper range and endurance is still really crunchy.

making: i keep forgetting to charge my phone before pottery so it keeps. dying. so i made quite a few new things the past few weeks but no photos of those - i did Crack the Code a bit, so now i can more reliably get things shaped in a conscious way. basically i was sitting too far forward so when i was pulling the walls up i was actually doing it at an angle, if i sit with my nose over the center of the pot it's all *chef kiss* beautiful. anyways here's a few glaze related pics. a lot of disappointment unfortunately.

1. my fucked up teacups. god im so mad about these. they were supposed to be a cool grey-green with a white flower, and matte. it is None Of These Things. idk will get redone. big mad.

2. bowl and mug that both got bubbles because i misread the glaze labels - they're both mayco glazes that are optimized for cone 05, not cone 5, so the both the color is not as good as i thought and also the surface variation is. not great. the bowl is acceptable, it's mirror blue, it went through the kiln again and the bubbles evened out (pic is from before), and plus it's on the outside - i just put plain white on the inside - so it's fine. the mug is a little more problematic. it was green slip sgraffito with evergreen fir over top, and i really love the color effect, but there's some small bubbles along the rim...this glaze was marked as food safe in a way that the mirror blue is Not so i thought it would be fine but. well. i'm hoping nuking it in the kiln again will smooth those out.

3. One Good Thing: trying a new glaze technique! someone in my studio does this gorgeous thing where she paints on flowers with underglaze, then covers them with liquid latex to paint on the background, and finally peels off the latex. it always comes out sooo nice, so when i ordered some more underglaze i went ahead and added liquid latex to cart too :3 this is just the flowers, i will be adding the background tomorrow!

eating: uhhh good cauliflower vegetarian shawarma thing that i refused to make unless we added a can of chickpeas because where in the fuck is the protein. tonight was a miso-butter chicken with radishes that we added potatoes and onions to. both sheetpan recipes so im def a fan of those now.

misc: ouuuugh. augh. oughghghg. i need to be done with homework forever please god. i have like...7? 8? total hws left between my two classes. and then i am Done With Classes. mentally gearing up to do my preliminaries at the end of the summer. not to doxx myself but ouch. basketball yesterday. Pain. the eclipse yesterday WAS unreal. oh my god. i drove to [redacted] very small town about 40 minutes from me and it was perfect. so glad i avoided the Big City, although that's where my roommate and her mom went and apparently the traffic was fine, but i'm definitely glad to have been in a less crowded zone. i get it now. i want to take that feeling i had watching totality and eat it and keep it with me forever. i was with friends. the weather was perfect. it was beautiful.

[ineffablehogwash]

I'd like to vent about my service industry job for a moment, feel free to ignore. I'd put a break if the fucking mobile app would let me, but I can't get it rn, so I'm sorry.

As a preface:

Already having 10+ years food service experience, I slid into this job with practically no training needed, and have now been here for a year, busting my ass and doing far more than I ever should have between prep, cleaning, service, etc. (and just to side-gripe, never gotten any sort of raise or recognition from the men with the money.)

Despite her admittedly having some kind of gross hot takes and political opinions, between going through our late ADHD diagnosis and treatment together and having similar job/general life experiences, I've become decent friends with my current manager. Unfortunately, part of our shared experience is being/having been food service managers for a place with ignorant, stingy, trash-men as owners.

In a commercial kitchen it is a legal requirement here (and in most places) to have a ventilation hood, and is something that a single notification to the local fire marshall would incite immediate closure and steep fines for. There are exceptions to this rule, but that's for places like Smoothie King where they don't even as much as bake cookies in-house.

We are not a Smoothie King.

We utilize a full gas setup for a double frier, flat top grill, stove top range, and two ovens, in a kitchen that may be smaller than some of your living rooms.

When using these kinds of equipment without a functional hood, not only can it raise the temperature to disgustingly, nauseatingly-high temperatures, it also allows for smoke, airborne grease particulates, and toxic fume byproducts building up in the kitchen, and depending on various circumstances and floor plans, creep into customer areas.

Well, my manager and I had noticed and notified the owners starting at least two weeks ago that ours was making a lot of noise that did not seem normal or okay.

We were blown off, mansplained to about 'moisture on the fan belts causing a little noise now and then', and a lot of other bullshit excuses to just ignore it.

This kept going day after day, progressively getting worse every time we turned it on. I could not hear anyone over the noise it was making unless I left the grill side altogether. I feel like this goes without being said, but this makes busy service more difficult than it needs to be.

Yesterday, New Years Eve, the main owner was there while it made more Jurassic Park sound effects and still blew it off while the manager and I both stared at him. I finished my shift out and left.

Later, come time for dinner service, it finally happened.

Here are excerpts from the text conversation I had with the manager:

"The hood motor completely died during dinner tonight. That sound we’ve been hearing was the fan bearings shattering. They’re trying to still do brunch tomorrow. We will close after, stay closed until Tuesday afternoon or Wednesday at the earliest. HAPPY NEW YEAR, enjoy your day (days?) off! 🤡🔫"

..."I've been on and off the phone with them while they tried to rig it with the spare intake motor. The bearings completely destroyed it tho. I said "So no brunch?" and he said we'll still do brunch, just with the door open and a fan. I said "No one should work that grill without a hood, it's illegal for a reason." ..."

"He seemed flabbergasted that we might not want to work without a hood. ..."

"This is the most comical, theatrically written moment of karmic retribution, and they're completely ignoring the bad omen staring them in the face lmao"

"CMON JUST BE COOL GUYS, THINK OF THE BUSINESS."

Of course it devolved into meme trash:

So since I have a child to feed and they are the type to opt towards spending thousands of the shop savings on unnecessary music equipment for events that don't pertain to us, but can't use that same pool for preventative equipment maintenance, repairs, or lost wages due to negligence of said maintenance, I went in for my opening shift this morning.

Ending up just being me watching this disrespectful, mansplaining, stoned out of his mind, "I'd vote for Obama again" performative liberal stutter and flounder, arguing with the manager about whether to be open or closed, making very insensitive comments about "needing the money too" and "no one wanting to work anymore" (paraphrasing, and a lot of comments hyper-situational to a few of our individual circumstances) until he broke and called it.

Now we're closed indefinitely because of the holiday timing. 🙃

I'm awaiting the update call from the manager - seems they stayed behind to continue yelling at one another, but she said she wants to help me fix up my resume.

Fuck this place, this job, this industry, and capitalism, and uh, thank you for reading I guess?

Anyway, want some shitty fan art done of your favorite ships or ocs? Proceeds go to this temporarily out-of-work nb parent lol

[the-duckless-pond]

Hello diary!

It’s been a few days (I think - I lose track of how often I make these tbh).

Lots has happened, assuming it has in fact been a few days. I had my first Japanese test of the semester, finished my first French chapter of the semester, and went to the Renaissance Festival again! And I only had like, one maybe two bad days. Overall things are trending upwards mood wise.

Let’s start with the Japanese test.

This chapter was all about healthcare terms and going to the doctor, so the test was full of that stuff. I drilled kanji for hours prior to taking the test and I am really glad I did because I am pretty confident that I read and wrote them all correctly on the exam! The listening portion wasn’t too bad - it was someone going to the doctor about having a cold. The dialogue portion was just as bad as the Nakama 2 workbook is, where I had to just… intuit what advice a doctor would give based on the vocab I know??? I think that is very dumb. So I probably lost points there. The reading portion was kind of tricky because it used some unfamiliar kanji, but I’m getting better at deciphering meanings from radicals and placement in words and sentences, so I think I did alright. Overall I would say I probably got a B! Woo!

Not much to report on finishing the French chapter to be honest. I am still struggling with doing an independent study, and am definitely glad I dropped the other one because it would have just been too much. I have to take the class eventually, but I have two years for that. Plenty of time. All that’s left for next week is writing my first big composition, which is only 300 words. And as someone that has written like… 700k in fanfic and maybe 10k in French short stories, I can do that in my sleep. So I’m not overly concerned. Hoping to finish it on Tuesday and then get ahead by starting to work on chapter 2.

Way more importantly, I got to go the Renaissance Festival again!! My friend Dan invited me (I feel comfortable calling him a friend now I think) and we left around 10am, bright and early. I was so excited that I went to bed at like 8:30pm and woke up at 6am on the dot. I was super on top of things too! I had my outfit all set out the night before, had my bag set up with my fun money and ID and hand fan, and anything else I could conceive of needing.

I wore my mustard linen dress because it is my closest approximation of a medieval peasant outfit, my sneakers, and my sunhat. I’m really glad I wore the hat because there wasn’t a cloud in the sky and it was super bright all day! Although my head did get kind of sweaty, but that is to be expected in 85 degree weather.

I can’t remember what we did when we first arrived since we had about an hour to kill, but we ended up meandering over to the Highland Games because Dan wanted to sign up for the keg toss! We found a shady spot and ran into one of his friends and chatted and watched people throw large branches. It was super cool! And then it was time for the keg toss, and he threw it 32 feet and some change!! It was all very impressive to me. I also made a friend who was watching too, and we exchanged tumblr info! That’s the first friend I’ve made in ????? ages! So that was really exciting for me.

Sometime between watching the branch throwing and the keg toss I got a soup bread bowl and devoured that because I had breakfast at like 7am and was hungry. I also had my one and only mead of the day and it was wonderful! I kept thinking that I wanted to go back and get another and got the wristband so that I could, but I kept forgetting to mention it. Oh well. Next time I will try again.

Anyway, after the keg toss we went on the mission, the entire reason I was so very excited. The mission to get another sun catcher! And I found the perfect one.

That is it in the evening light! I get direct sun in the mornings and I just know it is going to be sooooo pretty. I can’t wait! I am staying up late studying tonight and depending on how I feel after all that is done, I might actually try to stay up until the sun comes up just to make sure I get to see it. Alternatively I could set an alarm for like 8 or 9am, but it’s my weekend and I kind of want to do something dumb like stay up all night. I had such a nice day that I don’t want it to end, you know?

Anyway!!! After completing the mission, it was time to watch shows! We wandered over to the Harmless Danger’s stage, a juggler, and saw a pirate show instead. Then we saw the end of some other show about lifting? I can’t recall the troupe’s name. After that we saw Rogue Blades, a comedy sword fighting show, and Pictus, a bagpipe and drums band! By that time it was 4:15pm and we had been there for like 8 hours, but there was one more show to see! We went to the next stage and saw the latter half of a circus act that was really cool and made me want to learn circus tricks, and then we saw the final show of the day - a practical magic show! I even got picked to go on stage!! Dan took a video and I have watched it several times now. It was great fun.

Usually I make these entries when I am upset or something bad has happened like Boo getting sick, but today was just a really really good day and I wanted to share something nice for a change. Also I am paralyzed by indecision on where to begin with my studying and needed to waste some time.

Well, I guess I’ll wrap it up here. My bff is texting me and maybe she has advice for getting started on tasks.

[allylikethecat]

hello!!! i missed talk shop tuesday but im assuming i can still come to chat :)

How long have you been a 1975 fan and when did you decide to become a fic writer for the fandom?

most played 1975 song of all time?

if you could choose any artist for a musical collaboration who would you want?

and lastly, just for fun what is your hottest take just in general not necessarily about the fandom?

You are ALWAYS welcome to come chat!! My inbox is ALWAYS open and I get so ridiculously excited that people even want to chat with me so THANK YOU!

I've been a fan of The 1975 for too long at this point 😂 I discovered them during the self titled era via Tumblr / Chocolate being played on the radio my senior year of high school. I thought Matty was super hot 😂 I actually still have the promotional Twitter DMs that they sent out during the ILIWYS era saved on my account because looking at them makes me laugh - wow have we come so far! (I also distinctly remember watching them on SNL the first time and the TRSMT festival performance with my college roommate and her being like whoa he is not okay) HOWEVER, I didn't get involved in the fic writing side of the Fandom until last year. I had done some lurking on AO3 over the years, but never fully committed to it. Then BFIAFL came out and holy crap did that album just like totally consume me, it also lined up with my life totally falling apart and so I dove extra head long into anything to do with the boys as a little bit of an escape / distraction a good IRL friend of mine was the one who encouraged me to actually start writing my own fic and posting it / making a fic Tumblr and now here we are 😂

Probably The City - I'm not actually entirely sure because I've been listening to this band for so flipping long that I had to listen to A PHYSICAL CD IN MY FIRST CAR and also this was like prespotify for me and I had to BUY THE SONG ON iTUNES and listen to it that way. So we're talking about me trying to pull and compile data from multiple places. I do however know that was my first favorite The 1975 song and I did listen to it on repeat obsessively for a while there.

Not to be controversial but I would KILL for that scrapped Taylor / The 1975 collab - think their voices would really complement each other as would their writing styles and George's production. I don't really enjoy a lot of the Taylor stuff that's been happening lately because as a football fan I hate Travis Kelce, and I hate how her fans treated Matty last spring and I don't want him to have to go through that again but WOW I feel like a song between them would be incredible.

Hottest take in general? Hmmm I am a wealth of hot takes... honestly my instinct was to say that I fucking hate bean sprouts they are little strings of evil but I think that's just because I got dinner with some friends tonight and I forgot to say no beansprouts in my pad thai and was just like traumatized by the pile of them on top. They all laughed at me because my hatred of bean sprouts is very well known. I'm sorry that's a very lame hot take. OH ALSO NOT ALL FUCKING HORSES CAN BE BAREFOOT AND NOT ALL HORSES SHOULD BE BAREFOOT REGARDLESS OF WHAT SOCIAL MEDIA WARRIORS SAY. I FUCKING WISH POP COULD BE BAREFOOT IT WOULD SAVE ME SO MUCH MONEY BUT ALAS HE LIKES HAVING PIECES OF STEEL NAILED TO HIS FEET EVERY FIVE WEEKS.

Thank you so much for sending this in!! Getting to chat and ramble on was so exciting!! Thank you so much! I hope you had a wonderful day and that you have the best rest of your week!

❤️Ally

[nickgerlich]

To The Max

When was the last time you watched something on linear TV? In case you’re wondering what I’m talking about, linear TV is programming that is scheduled for specific times, like NCIS on CBS tonight at 8pm. It’s how people of my age had to watch TV, because we had no choice when I was young, and if you really liked a show, you just made sure you did not make any other plans, or else you would miss it.

To answer the question, my last time was August a year ago, and only because I was completely sucked in to the last season of Better Call Saul. New episodes aired at 9pm on Mondays on AMC, and I wanted to be in the moment, as well as not have to worry about spoilers being posted to social media fan pages.

By definition, linear television is traditional broadcast TV, and includes cable, satellite, and over-the air. Today, for the first time ever, linear TV has dipped below 50% of all television content consumed.

So what happened? Well, we have to go back to the 1980s when we had programmable VCRs that allowed us to record our show, and effectively time-shift when we viewed them. These were followed by DVRs. And now we have cloud storage and streaming content, fueled by an explosion in cord-cutting by households. Being anchored to a TV at set times is now just a quaint, fading preoccupation.

All these things taken together mean it is incumbent upon all media outlets to find their way into streaming, because this is the future. Actually, the future is now. And CNN is very much aware of this, this last week announcing a partnership with Max (formerly known as HBO Max). The new service will be a combination of older content along with live shows, amid the many varied movies and TV shows already in the Max catalog.

The move comes a year after the news giant launched and then abruptly shuttered its standalone CNN+ network, which could not find traction. I get it. At a time when households are facing streaming saturation (I have nine, if I remember correctly), it makes perfectly good sense for CNN to piggyback on someone else that already has an established presence. CNN can then reach more people with the same ads we would see if we were viewing its news content on cable or satellite.

I expect to see more partnerships as well as consolidations like this in the future, because the space is becoming crowded. Never mind the fact that we still only have 24 hours in the day, and we can’t watch movies and show endlessly. Well, maybe if we get a blizzard this winter I might, but otherwise, I have a job to go to, groceries to buy, miles to walk and bike.

At this point, you might be wondering, “Why is CNN pushing linear television in a non-linear arena?” Excellent question, because it is somewhat of a hybrid. And when Hulu releases new episodes of Only Murders In The Building on Tuesdays, and Max dropped new episodes of The Righteous Gemstones on Sundays at 9pm, you have a mash-up of old and new. Sure, we can watch them whenever we want, but they have stirred in a degree of linearity.

The bottom line, though, is that consumers have spoken, and we want to be in control of our viewing. We want to watch our desired content whenever we want to. I might also add the “where" aspect as well, because when I travel, I always have an HDMI cable with me to hook into the hotel TV. Portability is a big part of the equation now. All we need is a strong wifi or cellular signal.

Things sure are a lot different from when I grew up, when we had an aerial antenna on our roof, and a limited number of stations. Back then, everyone had extreme cases of FOMO, because you had one shot to watch something. Today, the only FOMO going around is when you don’t have a particular streaming service.

And that’s the kind of news that CNN is definitely listening to.

Dr “I’ll Be Watching” Gerlich

Audio Blog

[mahpaiam]

Sunday, February 12, 2023

I got in a fight with my mother again. The day seemed to have been going well; we went to mass together. After, I left to run some errands and cleaned my room. My mother texted me something wholesome about going through pain and God letting all the good come into your life after.

I just carried on doing homework. It seemed to be going great until she came into my room, upset over my skirt, saying it was too short. She said I couldnt wear it anymore, how I never changed, how I wasn't making her happy. This was the skirt in question:

Objectively a very normal length skirt. I always wear stockings underneath. She then proceeded to tell me I dressed like a bitch and did it to please men. She then made me take off my pants, try it on, bend over, etc. I pulled out another skirt she had bought me and wore that on too. We marked my legs and there was only a 1cm difference in the two. I started to get frustrated, on the verge of crying.

She then yelled at me as we argued back and forth over the length of the skirt. It's the same length as all other skirts I had worn before. I then pulled out a skirt she bought me and she refuse to acknowledged that she had done so. When I screamed out no, she shut all the doors and then pulled off her shoes to try and hit me. She then proceeded to cut up the skirt and tell me I wasn't ever making her happy. How it was her or the skirt. I started to cry and tell her all she does is call me a bitch and tell me I do things for men. My aunt got involved and agreed with me. My dad was screaming from downstairs and then came up to ask to see the skirt. He said he never wanted to get involved because all she did was think he was bias to me.

When my dad saw the skirt, he agreed with me, telling my mother, 'how conservative do you have to be to let an 18 year old wear that. when will she wear it? when she's 81?"

My mother still told me it didn't make her happy, getting angrier.

I can't do homework anymore. I cried so much my eyes went swollen. And I NEED to do it. I just spent the next hour crying. There's so much work piling up but I just feel so so sad.

I want to be far far away from this. Every year my mother just gets more and more conservative. She gets mad at clothes I wore a year ago and even ones she's bought me. What the fuck. It makes me so sad all the time, how I never do enough for her. She also has a conspiracy that I'm a prostitute on the side. I'm so busy with school and work and extracurriculars I think doing that must be an act of passion for me to be able to squeeze that in my schedule.

I have great grades, I get along well with everyone, I go to two times a week, I volunteer at the church, I have amazing extracurriculars. It's like she's never happy with me.

I just want to be happy so bad. It's been an hour and I'm still crying. I've locked myself in my room and refuse to see anyone. I'll try my hardest to not come down to dinner but you never know.

Tonight is the super bowl. I know nothing about it other than the fact that Rihanna is performing and that Taylor Swift is a fan of the eagles, one of the players.

Valentines is also coming up. So that means I can't get any work done Monday or Tuesday unless I don't see friends then. I probably shouldnt but we've been planning for a while and Solana is vulnerable with being alone then.

Anyway, I've got a lab report due Monday, physics work due wednesday, history work due wednesday, math homework due thursday, and probably something else I'm forgetting. I'm so so tired. And sad. I wish I could sleep.

[helliontherapscallion]

(Y/n) and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Week: Thursday (Part 2)

Monday     Tuesday     Wednesday     Thursday (Part 1)     Friday     Saturday     Sunday

Spotify Playlist (collaborative)

Warnings: panic attacks, swearing, puking, concussions, mentions of injuries/bullying, homophobia

Word count: 5,138

After school, you were sitting on the couch as you furiously typed on your keyboard at an extremely fast pace. You were on a roll with these essays, they were probably going to be finished by the time you had to go back to the school to get on the bus with the team. You figured that you could even finish Annie’s essay and get started on Sammy’s US history presentation on the sociopolitical climate of the United States in the mid twentieth century to today. However, instead of covering a variety of topics like the rubric requested you to do, you were only going to talk about the significant events that happened to the LGBT+ community starting with Stonewall and going to Obergefell v. Hodges. You were also going to go in depth about how even if there are more opportunities available and more laws set in place to protect for LGBT+ people in the present then there were in past, members of the LGBT+ community still suffer heavy discrimination in the workplace and in the public. With receipts of course, the assignment required a minimum of three pictures per slide, and the group chat was a perfect source.

After that was done, you would email Sammy’s teacher (you had her last year for US history and you knew that she had a son in the grade below you currently transitioning from female to male) that you were the one that did her project and send screenshots of Sammy calling you slurs. Luckily for you, you had receipts of her being transphobic in the past that you could also send. Everything was effortlessly falling into place for you today. 

As you were typing, the front door swung open and two overly excited fifth graders ran into the house and up the stairs. A tired Schlatt followed them. “I will never know how the hell Phil keeps up with them.” 

“I dunno, maybe because he’s already raised three kids before.”

You watched as your uncle jumped and whipped his head over towards you, his hand clutching his chest. He lightly glared at you, “christ kid don’t do that, you nearly gave me a heart attack.”

You smirked at him before turning back to your laptop to continue typing the essay. You were almost done with the conclusion paragraph on Annie’s essay and you wanted to get to Sammy’s presentation as fast as possible. As you were typing, you felt a warm air fan across your neck and your uncle’s voice right next to your ear, “whatcha typin?”

You lept off the couch and almost fell into the coffee table before steadying yourself and deadpanning at Schlatt. “I was typing an essay before you interrupted me.”

He snorted, “it looked like you were on a roll, just thought I’d see what my beloved niece was writing. Can I read it?” 

Your eyes lit up as an excited grin split your cheeks, “yeah, but lemme catch you up real quick. Adrian, Sammy, and Annie got mad at me a few days ago and wanted me to do some homework for them as a sort of payment. But after they pulled that little stunt in the lunchroom yesterday, they decided to be little bitches to me and call me slurs. So naturally, I decided to change the essay prompt into an in depth analysis about discrimination LGBT people face from their peers on the daily. My english teacher’s really against homophobia and the project’s worth twenty five percent of our overall grade, so it’s perfect.”

While you were rambling on and on about your detailed plot for revenge, Schlatt couldn’t help but be proud of the person you’d become. A major part of him was impressed that you came up with a detailed plan so quickly, that meant that his cunning nature was rubbing off on you and that made him ecstatic. Sure you mentioning not being straight was new to him, but he was prepared to accept you for whatever you identified as. He didn’t care how people identified, he just cared if they were good people. And his niece was one of the best kids he knew. He’d let your slip up slide for now until you felt comfortable enough to properly come out to him. 

“That an amazing plan, fuckin brilliant. Though, you could do more.”

That piqued your interest, “I’m listening.”

“Do you have any blackmail?”

Your eyes glinted with sudden understanding, “why yes I do, uncle dearest. I just so happen to have thousands of texts from them talking shit about each other and basically the entire school. And them being incredibly racist. They would be destroyed if that came out.” 

“Two things. One, never call me that again. Two, perfect. Keep it as leverage if they try to do something. You don’t pull out all the good cards in the first round, you wait for the right moment to strike so you can win. You need to constantly defend yourself against other players and anticipate their every move. If you leak everything right now, you won’t have anything to use against them if they have something up their sleeve you didn’t know about. Patience is key in things like this.”

You absorbed every single word that came out of his mouth like it was the holy gospel. Although he was your uncle and you loved him with all your heart, but he was a sly bastard when he wanted to be. He knew his way around fighting and manipulating people just right, so you were incredibly happy that you were on his good side and he absolutely adored you. Though questionable and morally gray, he was giving you advice because he cared about you and you’d be an idiot to not heed his advice. 

“That’s genius, Uncle Schlatt. What would I do without you?”

“You’d get along just fine without me, you would’ve gotten there eventually. You’re smart. I’m just givin you a little push in the right direction.”

“I honestly would’ve never thought about waiting, I was so dead set on getting revenge that I would’ve just leaked everything all at once. I want them to feel how I felt when they were around me. I-” you paused. Would this make you the same as them? You’d be screwing up all their grades, Adrian’s job, and Sammy’s athletic career. You came to the chilling realization that you’d be the same as them. You’d be as manipulative as they were. “...Uncle Schlatt, would that make me the same as them?”

“Fuck no! You’re always gonna be better than them no matter what. When they’re at their best, you’re always gonna be a whole lot better than them. They deserve what’s happening to them, it sounds like they put you through so much shit the past few years. I actually think you could do a whole lot worse to them if you’re willing to put more work in, but it’s your plan and if you think that what you’re doing is too much,” he darkly chuckled, “you wouldn’t like my idea.”

“You’re right, they deserve everything I have planned for them. God, I don’t know what I was thinking, ‘would that make me the same as them,’” you mocked what you said earlier, “what a load of shit. Anyways, thanks Uncle Schlatt. I’m gonna get back to writing this. They’re due tomorrow and I wanna finish as much as I can before I have to go.”

“Alright, whaddya want for dinner? Phil’s gonna be like thirty minutes late from work so I’m cookin tonight.”

Oh no. No, no, no, no. That man can barley cook boxed mac n cheese, let alone anything else. He’d burn down the house if you left him alone in the kitchen with the stove. “On second thought, why don’t I help you with dinner? We can make some chicken alfredo.”

“Awe, you’d rather hang out with me than finish your homework? Ya really do love me. C’mon let’s start.”

The process of making dinner was… interesting. Multiple times, Schlatt almost spilled boiling water on himself and he even managed to burn the pasta while it was in the water. How he even managed to do that you’d never find out, you had your back turned cutting up vegetables and herbs at the time. That was when you subtly started to take over in the kitchen, giving him smaller tasks while you handled everything else. You felt bad for Tubbo, his father can’t cook for shit. 

By time you finished, about an hour passed and Philza had come home and changed out of his work clothes. The two adults sat at the table discussing something that you didn’t pay attention to while your brothers and cousin were in the living room waiting for you to finish dinner. Finally, you set the table and it was time to eat. 

Because you couldn’t have many fatty foods before any matches or practices, you had made a separate plate for yourself that only had plain pasta, chicken, and broccoli. You were surprised with how well it turned out, you were following an iffy recipe you found on the first link Google brought up. 

After dinner, you went upstairs to put your uniform on and pack a little bag full of things you might need: a small blanket, some snacks, a water bottle, and a portable charger. Oh, and fuzzy socks and a pair of crocs. You could never go wrong with fuzzy socks and crocs. Feeling a vibration in your pocket, you pulled out your phone.

Hales : )

(Y/n), I’m omw to your house

Gonna give you a ride to the school

(Y/n)

Hales you don’t have to give me a ride, I can drive

Hales : )

Don’t care

Omw, be there in like 7 mins

You swiped out of yours and her conversation and opened up the family group chat

(Y/n)

I don’t need a ride to the school, Haley’s giving me one

She’s gonna give me a ride home too

Dadza

Alright, thank her for me

Tell her I said good luck too!

Uncle Schlatty Patty

Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do

Dadza

(Y/n), do everything he wouldn’t do

Uncle Schlatty Patty

Fuck you I’m a good influence

Dadza

You’re really not

Wilby

^^^^

Technology Sword

^

Uncle Schlatty Patty

Fuck all of you 

You heard Haley’s car pull into the driveway and dashed out of your room with your bag. Just as you put your hand on the doorknob, a hand stopped you.

“Coat.”

You grumbled as you reached past Philza to grab your coat. After you slipped it on, you were pulled into a hug. “You’re gonna do great out there. I know you’re gonna win this, we’ll be watching in the stands.”

“Damn right she’s gonna do good, she’s my niece after all.”

Schlatt pulled you away from your father’s hug and tried to ruffle your hair before you swatted away his hand, “don’t. You have no idea how long it took me to get a perfect ponytail. I have an ungodly amount of hairspray and bobby pins in my hair right now.”

“Fine. You’re gonna kick their asses tonight.”

Tommy and Tubbo pushed past Schlatt and both tackled you into a hug making you stumble slightly back. 

“Kick their asses good (y/n)!” Tommy cheered, making you crack up before one stern glance from Philza completely stopped you. “Tommy, don’t say that. (Y/n), not funny.”

“Alright, Haley’s waiting for me. I gotta go, love you guys!” As you turned to walk through the door, you could hear your family following you and shouting “good luck”. You felt heat creep up on your cheeks as Haley rolled down her window and wove at your family with the biggest grin on her face. 

“Thank you! We’re gonna take home the gold for sure!”

You hopped in her car as she rolled up the window and chuckled. “I love your family, they’re always so full of energy. It’s refreshing to see compared to how boring my family is.”

You glanced at your entire family gathered on the front porch. Tommy and Tubbo were practically vibrating with excitement, Wilbur and Techno calmly smiled and wove at you, Philza was grinning widely at you as you saw his mouth forming words that you couldn’t hear or read, and Schlatt was grinning cheekily at you. You raised your hand to wave at them as they vanished from view when Haley pulled out of your driveway. You smiled softly, “I love em too.”

The car ride was relatively quick with the same soft indie pop music floating from the speakers and an easy going conversation with Haley about the match tonight. You both thought that you could beat the other team if everyone focused 100% and played exactly like you guys did in practices. If everyone did that, you would be unstoppable. 

Luckily for you and Haley, you were the first ones in line to board the bus so you two got the back seat with Zara and Jazzy sitting across from you guys. The hour long bus ride passed quickly and lively with you four passing around your phone and playing some mad libs, you were sure that by the end of the last game you four were laughing and crying. Sometime in the middle of the trip, you noticed that Haley would start to lean on your shoulder and continuously glance at you as she laughed. You desperately wanted to believe that it was because she liked you, but she was straight and she was your best friend. She was probably trying to make sure you were having a good time. 

When the team had gotten to the opposing school and left the locker room to stretch in the gym, you could hear your family start to scream your and Haley’s names from the front row next to you, Tommy and Tubbo being the loudest amongst them with Philza trying to get them to quiet down so you could focus. You felt your cheeks heat up as you smiled at them and Haley wove enthusiastically back at them. Zara was laughing at you two. Stretching went by in a flash and before you knew it, you were on the court facing the opposing team. 

The first match was won by the opposing team by five points. The second match stretched on and on until it was won by your team narrowly by two points. The team was going to have to shape up in the third match if you guys wanted a chance at winning, the opposing team was good. Before the third match started, Coach Williams called for a time out so you guys could talk about strategy. Before Haley could go back onto the court, you pulled her aside.

“Hales, we need to do what we practiced. The other team won’t be expecting it at all, I’ve been setting you up this entire game. They’re never going to expect you setting me up for a spike.”

“When are we going to do it though? We need a better plan.”

“I’m sure the opportunity will come and both of us will recognize it. We just can’t do it too early in the game though, that’ll ruin their surprise.”

“(Y/n), I hope you know what you’re doing.”

“When do I not Hales? We gotta get gold this year.”

The third round went by with both teams constantly swapping places until you both were tied fifteen to fifteen. You saw the ball flying towards Haley, giving her the perfect opportunity to set you up for a spike.  “HALEY NOW!” 

You watched as her face hardened in determination as she pretended like she was going to spike it by jumping high in the air and stretching her arms back, making the opposing front row players all gather in front of her. Much to their surprise, she launched it towards you as you leaped up and went for the kill. The stinging of the ball hit by your wrist and the smack sound the ball made when it slammed onto the open gym floor was something you’d never forget as the crowd around you went wild over the unexpected play. You could hear the high pitched screaming of Tommy and Tubbo over everybody else. Glancing at them over your shoulder, you saw them jumping up and down on the gym floor and looking at you with awe filled eyes and gaping mouths. The rest of your family looked at you with similar expressions, their cheers echoing in your mind. Winking at them, you turned back to your team and went straight to Haley. Clapping a hand on her shoulder, you pulled her into a quick hug, yelling over the raving of the crowd. “HALEY WE NAILED THAT!” 

“HOLY SHIT I DID NOT THINK THAT WAS ACTUALLY GONNA WORK!”

“You have such little faith in your setter! You wound me Hales.”

“Well, I would have more faith in you if you weren’t chaotic on the court, sweetheart.”

You felt yourself surge in happiness at the nickname, but you couldn’t afford to focus too much on it. Your team only needed one more point to win best in the state and go to nationals. It would be the first time in your team’s history if you reached national level, and you’d be damned if you were the one to screw it up for them. 

The last rotation went on for a while, each team fighting tooth and nail for the state championship title with clashing determination. You tried your best to block every hit and try to set Haley up for a spike, and you were successful for the most part, only missing a few blocks. You saw the setter adjacent to you set the spiker up for a spike and jumped up in time to try to block it, your arms stretched upwards and your palms out. Only, the ball didn’t hit your hands. It collided painfully with your nose, ricocheted off your face with a thwack and sailed over to the other side of the court. Your head whipped back as your body followed suit and flew backwards onto the floor. Without giving you any time to react, your head bounced back and cracked against the polished hardwood floor of the gym. Everything went black. 

“...(y……”

“..(y/n)......”

“(Y/n).”

You faintly heard someone calling someone’s name over the continuous ringing noise. Was it your name? It felt right, so it had to be your name. You peeled your eyes open to see a blurry figure hovering over you. It was swirled with tans, browns, and backs. After a while of the figure repeating your name, it slowly became more recognizable, albeit appearing twice in your vision. It took you a while to figure out who this was before your muddled brain recognized Haley.

“Hales! There’s two o’ya. Twice as beautiful babe…” You slurred out as you attempted to smile at her.

“Oh thank god, PLEASE WE NEED A DOCTOR SHE HIT HER HEAD!” Her usually angelic voice gritted against your brain like sandpaper making you cringe as pain exploded in your head.

“God babe you’re so loud, why’s so bright? I-wha's goin on?” You blearily tried to move your head to look around only to be stopped by a pair of large hands on each side of your head gently holding it in place. You moved your laggy eyes around to look at the figure. He was a blonde man with blue eyes and a hint of stubble on his chin. His eyebrows were knitted together and he looked… he looked… your brain worked to figure out why he looked how he looked. Who was he?

“Please don’t move hun.” His muffled voice was baritone. You squinted at him trying to figure out who this man was.

“Who th f-fuck… why?”

“I’m your dad hun. Do-do you not recognize me?” You made a noise in the back of your throat as your stuffy brain finally put a name to the face.

“Dad- wha’s goin on? I’on feel so good…”

“Shh, I know, I know. Just stop moving and talking. Everything’s fine. I’m here. You’re okay.”

“Mmk… Dad, where are we? I’ont know- you’re so quiet.”

“Stop moving so much. You’re on the floor in a gym. You just won your team the state championship. Now stop talking please.”

Huh. So that’s why everybody seemed to appear from above you. You strained your eyes to look around you, but you could only see your dad’s face hovering above you. “Shit I- who’s aroun’ me? Where’s Hales?”

“I’m right here sweetheart. I got the doctor, Mr. Minecraft.”

Your dad’s face moved away from your vision so fast that it made your head spin and your stomach twist. Another face appeared above you that you once again didn’t recognize.

“I’m Doctor Martin, can you tell me your first and last name?”

“Uh, (y/n) Minecraft?”

“Good, what month are we in right now?”

“Nov-November?”

“Close, it’s late October. Can you tell me who this,” he pointed to your dad, “is?”

“S’my dad Phillip.”

“That’s your dad Philza.”

The questioning stopped as he suddenly shined a blinding light into your sensitive eyes. You hissed as you tried to move your head away from the offending light only to be held in place by your dad’s hands. Your head spun as you moved too quickly and a wave of nausea hit you, making you groan and move your arm to cover your eyes. Your hand was stopped by something warm and soft wrapping around it and holding it tightly. Everything was so overwhelmingly and painfully bright and loud. You wanted to make it stop. 

“Mr. Minecraft, your daughter appears to have a concussion. I don’t have the tools on hand to determine the severity of it, but it’s worrying that her pupils are asymmetrical, she’s delirious, and has slight memory loss. I understand you live about an hour away from here, and it’s alright for you to take her to a hospital closer to your house. Make sure you keep her alert.”

Your delirious mind only registered about half of what came out of the doctor’s mouth. You mumbled gibberish as you once again opened your eyes to look around. You were only briefly able to crane your neck to the left. Several figures large and small were standing behind your dad. Your family, your mind supplemented. Slowly, your mind was starting to recognize your surroundings even if there was currently double of everything and everything was blurry.

“I’m going to help you stand up. Do ya think you can do that?”

“Yeah Dad.” You lifted your upper body off from the ground with a gentle hand on your back helping you sit up. Fighting the wave of nausea that slapped you in the face, you reached up to rub at your eyes. A hand once again stopped you. You peeked your eyelids open and lightly glared at whomever stopped you. “Hales you’re lucky you’re so cute I woulda slapped you. I like holdin but you’re bein annoying. Stop.” You attempted to make your voice sound firm, but the words that came out of your mouth were slightly slurred.

She was silent as she helped her dad haul you to your feet. Once on your feet, you saw the room spin and felt yourself start to sway slightly. An arm wrapped itself around your shoulders and pulled you close to them so that your weight was supported. They were a little taller than you were making it easy to lean on them. 

“...Can you walk?” A deep, monotone voice rumbled the chest of the person you were leaning against. 

“Mhm. ‘M not weak.” Though your limbs felt like they were made of molasses, you placed one foot in front of the other slowly. The person moved alongside you, “you’re doing so good, keep going.” That sparked familiarity in you as you stopped in your tracks and tried to look up at the person you were leaning against making the person tighten their arm around your shoulders when you almost fell over.

“Tech?”

“Yeah, it’s Technoblade. Just focus on walking. You’re almost out of the gym.”

When you realized that you were out of the gym, you sighed in relief. It was so much quieter and darker. Though it was still relatively bright, it was better than the gym. 

“S’better.”

“When we get her to the car we can give her some sunglasses or something if it’s still too bright for her.”

“Wilbs-”

“Focus on walking.”

You huffed in irritation, “don’ tell me what to do bitch.”

You felt Techno’s body jolt slightly as he chuckled, making your head throb at the sudden movement. “Just walk.”

When you walked outside, you shivered as you felt the cool air nip at your exposed skin. Right, you were in your volleyball uniform. “I’ll go pull the car around, you guys stay with her.” 

You saw a tall brunet start to walk away from you. Uncle Splat? Uncle Schmat? Whatever his name was, you were sure he was your uncle. You tried to snuggle closer to Techno, craving warmth but never being satisfied. Where was your uncle? 

After a while, you saw a car moving towards you and blinding light pointed right at you making you cringe away and groan. Techno started to slowly walk towards the car. “C’mon (y/n), you’re almost there. When you’re in the car you can relax.”

“Tommy, Tubbo, and Techno, you’re in the back row. Schlatt can drive and Wil, you’re taking the passenger seat. I’ll stay with her in the middle row so she can have some room to lay down.” Tommy and Tubbo were with you? Why weren’t they talking, they usually were very vocal.

“Tom, Tubbs didja like the game?”

They didn’t say anything as they climbed into the car. Did they not hear you? 

“They’re just… tired (y/n).” Your dad’s voice reassured you as he took Techno’s place holding you up. 

“I wanna nap. ‘M so tired.”

“You can’t sleep yet. We gotta get you to a doctor first.”

“Mm. Makes sense.”

“Let’s get you in the car hun.”

As he helped you climb into the car, you felt an overwhelming wave of nausea wash over you making you lose your balance and almost faceplant into the cloth seats. You felt yourself being gently, yet urgently taken out of the car and led to grass as you felt your esophagus shorten. Something burning made its way up your throat and spewed into the grass. You felt someone rubbing your back as you puked up your dinner. 

When you were done, you reached up with a shaking hand to wipe your mouth. “You feelin better? Think you can get back into the car or do you need to sit down for a bit?”

“Car.”

After some difficulty, you were successfully in the middle row of the car laying down with your head on Philza’s lap. Soon enough, your shoes were taken off and a blanket was draped over you. 

“(Y/n), what do you remember?”

You scrunched up your face as you squinted at Philza’s face. “I remember playing volleyball with Hales. She’s so pretty, she’s straight though. I remember the other team hitting the ball, me jumping, then nothin. Wha’ happened?”

You watched as Philza winced, “well, you got everything right so far. You got hit in the face with the ball so you fell and hit your head on the floor. You were passed out for a minute before you woke up. It was a pretty nasty fall, we’re going to the hospital now. How’re ya feelin?”

“Head hurts, ‘m seein two of everything, an I can’t think.”

“Do you know what a concussion is?” You nodded in his lap slightly, “you probably have one.”

After a while of talking, you were slowly starting to come to your senses and your speech was clearing up, but your head was still too stuffy to think about what you were saying before you said it. You didn’t have a filter.

“Do you wanna tell us about your week so far? Do you remember most of it?”

“Mhm, it was shit. On Monday I had a panic attack and Adrian, Sammy, and Annie were being bitches to me all day. They fucked up my back. On Tuesday, they got mad at me for ditching them and they had me do their homework, had another panic attack, and Haley told me that someone took pictures of our boobs ‘n stuff and they were gonna leak it to the school if Haley didn’t stop hanging out with me. Haley and I almost kissed, but she’s straight. Pulled an all nighter and Wednesday I accidentally came out to Tech and Wil and had another panic attack. Annie, Adrian, and Sammy took more pictures of me through my window, Annie outed me to the entire school and slapped me. Another panic attack, skipped the last two classes and felt like shit the entire practice. Today Adrian and Sammy told me to kill myself and I had another panic attack. ’S about it.”

As you were going through your week, the hand that was previously gently stroking your hair had frozen as the car was enveloped in a tense silence. Luckily, Tommy and Tubbo were passed out in the back seat so they didn’t hear how bad your week was. Everyone awake knew that you had a few bad days this week, but they didn’t know the full extent of it. You watched as Philza’s expression had turned downright murderous, but you didn’t really care. You were busy talking about your week.

For the rest of the car ride, Philza asked you simple questions like what your favorite color was, your favorite animal, basically your favorite everything. Eventually, the car pulled into the hospital parking lot and Philza helped you get out of the car. “Schlatt, can you take the boys home so they can get some rest? I’ll stay with her.” 

“Yeah, I’m on it. Don’t cause too much trouble (y/n), we all know you can raise hell.” He watched you for a reaction, but when you didn’t react, he coughed. “Well, I’ll see ya later kid. Good luck.”

The car drove off leaving you and Philza at the front of the emergency room building. “It’s gonna be a long night (y/n).”

“I gotta finish Annie’s essay and Sammy’s presentation though.”

“No you don’t, I’ll email your teachers.”

You two checked in with the front desk before moving to sit on the uncomfortable chairs. It was going to be a long night. You were so tired.

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[myevilmouse]

My editor was a retired philosophy prof, which meant that his corrections were often long, lyrical, but eventually arrived on point. One of his favourite admonishments was “there can only be one first time, so make it count!” This meant that instead of opening the scene with bondage, why not show them lovingly picking out the silk shirt, holding it close to their body…and then ripping it to shreds to make the bindings. There can only be one first time.

Unless, of course, you writing fan fic!

Mouse, you have written no less than 10 *first time encounters* for your Thryce characters (gleefully visualizing my editor pulling his hair out) Often, the fics take place in a very close time frame, but other encounters maybe a decade or more apart. Every encounter is written as fresh & exciting as if it were the first time! This technique is new and exciting to me, because I was never allowed this option. I have a few questions for you, if I may.

1. What inspired you, initially, to revisit a first encounter?

2. Do you have to clear your mind of all past couplings with purpose, or does each fresh new experience come (pun intended) naturally/easily

3. Do you maintain the first time passion/excitement for your characters on the 10th time as you did the first? (Hint: I do when I read your fics. I madly love throwing the rules out the window)

As always: thank you for lending me your brain for a few 😊

I am very appreciative of your ask tonight, as my fic muse is feeling lazy, and I’m just needing distraction, and this is absolutely a delightful bunch of asks @beebee-76!

Your editor sounds like a wise man, but obviously, as you point out, he wasn’t talking about the stalwart “two cakes” principle we enjoy in fanfic, or in my case, more like 10 💙

As a Thryce reader, you have lots of my Thryce “first times” to choose from, but my deprived Luke/Mara readers tend to have fewer options—my inclination is always to write them as an established couple for some reason.  I once got an ask about some of my fics taking place in the same AU for Luke/Mara and I used it as a springboard to discuss a Thryce timeline as well, so you may find it amusing reading, if you like, here (Thryce in the second half of the post):

So that ties in to your questions.  Here we go! *rubs hands gleefully*

1. What inspired you, initially, to revisit a first encounter?

I started writing Thryce after being encouraged by other writers on the Thryce Discord.  The first fic I ever wrote was Unity for our canoe of a ship, and my PLAN had been to make it a “first time” fic, but instead it wound up being UST and UST and more UST.  I failed to hook up the ship in my very first outing!  It was G rated!!! Muwahahah Still like the fic though. 

So of course I needed to remedy that…but my plans were far from romantic.  I intended to write something twisty…which wound up being the first “first time” fic I wrote for Thrawn and Pryce:  Deal With You.  Ever since Thrawn’s threat to Pryce in Rebels post-fuel depot explosion, I thought the moment was so ripe for a nonconnish/dubconnish follow up punishment.  I set out to write that and failed, because both parties were too damn willing.  So that was a rather bizarre first time, not quite romantic and not quite the dubcon I had planned.

So to retaliate against my uncooperative pervy muse, I decided to write something unashamedly fluffy and sweet for "Friday Fluff," a completely different dynamic from Deal With You, and that became The Annual Stormtrooper Relief Fund Ball.  It was the first “revisit” of Thryce’s “how they got together” story, and also written in a few hours, short and sweet.

2. Do you have to clear your mind of all past couplings with purpose, or does each fresh new experience come (pun intended) naturally/easily

This is a fascinating question, and the answer is it comes naturally/easily.  I don’t even consider anything I’ve written before when I do a new “first time” fic, although sometimes I put in Easter Eggs from older fics into new fics when I see opportunities to do so… And each time is, not to sound too silly, just like the first time 😁

3. Do you maintain the first time passion/excitement for your characters on the 10th time as you did the first? (Hint: I do when I read your fics. I madly love throwing the rules out the window)

Thank you for the lovely praise for my stories, and YES I do!  I have so much fun writing fic, writing romance, writing smut, and writing Thrawn and Pryce hook up for the first time over and over and over is always fun and rewarding.  Sometimes it’s more hard won than others, but I would be hard pressed to say which “first time” was my favorite.  Each time is different, with shifting dynamics, timelines, situations and scenarios, so it’s wonderful to hear that you maintain your enthusiasm for the start of their romance just as I do! It's always fresh to see how they will get in their own way (or out of it, as the case may be) on the road to happiness/smutville. I do enjoy those two, my evil OTP.

Thank you so much again for the ask tonight! I offer you this custom-made gif as a token of appreciation and gratitude!

[voiceless-terror]

And Many Happy Returns

part 2 of my sequel to Inseparable, my childhood friends au. part one here.

Tuesday dawns quicker than Jon imagined it would. 

It’s not one of his best days. First of all, tomorrow is Martin’s birthday, which already has him antsy and distracted. Second, he keeps losing his train of thought whenever he talks to Martin and he’s definitely starting to think something’s up. Third, he’s gotta tell him he can’t play today.

“I’m going to the store with Nan tonight, she wants me to help pick out the groceries,” he says, tearing his sandwich into bits and trying to maintain eye contact with Martin. Nan always thinks he’s lying when he doesn’t meet her eyes. “She says I’m too picky cause I won’t eat anything she gives me.” That’s true, though she wouldn’t remedy it by letting him pick out his own food. She’d just let him go hungry.

“You should eat it anyway,” Martin says, his brow furrowing in concern. “You’ll never grow tall if you don’t eat dinner.” He sounds like one of those TV adverts on the kid channels. Jon has to stop himself from rolling his eyes.

“It’s fine.” He shoves a bit of sandwich in his mouth. Martin worries too much, and not about the right things. He’s going to make sure Martin has a worry-free birthday. Even if it means making him worry extra today, which kind of cancels it out. He tries to remind himself that feelings aren’t math, though it sure would make things a lot easier if they were. Emotions are messy and Jon doesn’t always understand them.

At the end of the day Martin parts from him reluctantly, and Jon tries not to let it bother him. I’ll make him very happy tomorrow. It’ll be worth it. He drags his feet a bit on the walk, taking twice the normal amount of time to get home. By the time he opens the door, his nan’s already there, putting her purse over her shoulder.

“C’mon then, child,” she says, not sparing him a glance as she slips into her shoes. “Don’t dawdle.” Jon follows suit, throwing his backpack haphazardly on a pile of shoes and bounding out towards the car. He’s usually not a fan of car rides with his Nan; she doesn’t like to play music and she isn’t a fan of Jon’s ‘incessant chattering,’ so they can get pretty boring. This time, however, he’s too distracted to let it bother him, and before he knows it, they’re pulling into the car park. 

Nan insists on doing her shopping first, so Jon has a lot of time to stew. What if they don’t have what he wants? What if they’re all out of cupcakes and Jon has to get him some sort of cookie? What if he has to get him an oatmeal raisin cookie? That would be a disaster. Martin likes them, but they’re just so boring. 

Jon almost breaks out into a sprint when they finally reach the bakery section, but a sharp tug on his arm stops him. He takes exaggeratedly slow steps to the far right counter, where he can spot the birthday cakes and a small selection of cupcakes. Jon’s eyes scan over the rather limited options until he finds it. The perfect one.

He taps on the glass emphatically. “That one. The one with the orange icing.”

His grandmother leans down beside him, her mouth drawn in a disapproving frown. He hopes she hasn’t changed her mind- usually if he behaves, she’ll follow through on her promises. And Jon’s been very good, except for the whole almost-running thing. 

“Are you sure?” She points to a different one to the right, with boring blue icing and dumb baby sprinkles. “The blue one’s much nicer. Orange, it’s such an odd color for-”

Jon stamps his foot in outrage, a move that’s sure to get him in trouble later. “Martin’s hair is orange and it's fantastic! It has to be this one.” He pauses, well aware of the consequences of a tantrum and tacks on an insistent “please.” 

It gets the job down. She gives him one last exasperated sigh before motioning to one of the people behind the counter, pointing at Jon’s choice. He bounces on his feet as they wrap it in a nice little box and Nan carefully puts it in the seat of the cart. “Thank you thank you thank-”

“Alright, that’s enough.” But she’s giving him a little smile, and doesn’t even flinch when he throws his arms around her waist. “You’re welcome.” He gives her an extra good squeeze.

Almost there!

________

And finally it’s Wednesday. The big day. Martin’s day.

He’s spent all of last night fixing up his present, looking at it with a critical eye. He thinks Martin will like it. He hopes he will. Nan had given him the cupcake and told him to make sure he handled it very carefully, lest he get icing all over everything.

Jon’s not stupid. He can handle one cupcake.

“Jon!”

At the sound of Martin’s voice, Jon shoves the box into his backpack.

“Happy Birthday!” he shouts, throwing his arms around Martin and squeezing him tight. Martin’s wonderful at hugs, but Jon can give very good ones if he puts his mind to it. Martin pauses and it takes a few moments before he eagerly returns it.

“Y-You remembered!” Jon looks up from his spot in Martin’s sweater (it’s very soft) and resists the urge to scowl. There’s no scowling on people’s birthdays. 

“Of course. You only told me a few days ago.” He reluctantly parts from him and gives him a lookover- Martin’s not wearing anything special (besides the sweater, a nice light blue), he doesn’t look any different. Jon expected him to carry himself with a different air, like he’s seen older kids do. But eight year old Martin looks the same as seven year old him. Unless he grew a centimeter or two overnight, as children are wont to do.

“I figured we could go to the park after school to celebrate.” Jon resists the urge to dance on his feet as Martin gives him a shy smile. “Well, not the park but the little clearing behind it- you know, the one where we found the headless doll-”

There’s a little path in the sparse woods nearby, where Martin and Jon like to go when the weather is nice. It’s as warm as it could be, and Jon made sure to clear the twigs from the area beforehand so it wasn’t so messy. He’s got a picnic blanket and everything.

“You don’t have to go through the trouble, not if you don’t want-”

“Martin,” Jon sighs, giving him a level look. “It’s not trouble if it’s you.”

His friend’s face immediately goes red at Jon’s words, and he opens and closes his mouth a few times before he manages to speak. Martin gets like that when he’s flustered, though Jon has no idea what he said to cause it. 

“I-I would like that, I think.”

“Good.”

Martin keeps shooting him shy smiles all day and Jon can’t keep still, he’s too excited! He’s almost tempted to give Martin the cupcake at lunch (he checks his bag- still good!), but he also brought a little surprise with that, and he’ll definitely get in trouble if they see him at school with it. Still, it takes everything in him not to just celebrate now. By the time the bell rings, Jon’s already out of his seat, tugging at Martin’s hand. 

“I’m sorry I couldn’t throw you a party,” he says as he practically skips his way to the playground, Martin huffing alongside him. “But you know how Nan is, and I don’t really know who we’d invite. Better it’s just us.”  They bypass the playground and the few children on it until they make their way to the clearing. Some new twigs must have fallen since his visit on the weekend, and Jon impatiently kicks them aside and throws his backpack to the ground, rummaging through it. Martin stands patiently beside him, watching as he pulls out a ratty blanket and spreads it out on the grass with a flourish. He plops to the ground and pats the spot next to him, gesturing for Martin to sit.

“And for the last bit…” he digs around in his bag, pulling out the small container. The cupcakes gone all crooked and some of the icing’s smeared, so Jon turns that edge towards him. “Tada!””

And Martin just stares.

He’s starting to get nervous. Jon’s gotten good at figuring out Martin’s expressions, but this one is just plain weird. It’s just a lumpy cupcake and Martin’s staring at it like he’s liable to break into a million pieces. Jon’s starting to think he’s done something horribly wrong.

“You don’t like it?” he asks tentatively, starting to pull back. “Should I have gone with the blue one? I thought you liked orange-”

“I do.” Oh no. Martin’s voice has gone all squeaky and breaky, like when they read that book where the dog died at the end. “It’s just- It’s very nice of you. You didn’t have to-”

“Of course I did.” Jon says as soon as he realizes where this is going. “But here, hold this- I’m not done.”

“Not done?”

He digs around in his backpack again and pulls out the small box of matches he’d stolen from the cabinet and a tiny, single candle from some ancient cake pack. Nan had plenty of them, to light the cigarettes Jon’s not supposed to know she smokes. He’s seen her light them with ease, so it shouldn’t be that hard.

He turns and opens the container, still in Martin’s hands, and sticks the candle right in the middle. He takes the matches and tries to strike them against the black bit, fast and quick like his Nan does, but it only succeeds in breaking the match in half.

“Oops. Hold on.” He tries again to no avail, this time flinging the bent match to the side. Three. Four. Five more tries, and he’s starting to get real frustrated and embarrassed. He’s almost eight, for crying out loud. He should be able to light a match.

“Um, here. Let me.” Martin gestures for the pack and Jon reluctantly hands it over, taking the cupcake instead. With one smooth, easy motion, Martin strikes the match against the stripe and Jon watches in awe as it easily lights.

“Wow!”

“It’s not that hard.” He places it against the candle and shakes it out in his hand. He pauses for a moment, staring at the lit candle like he doesn’t know what to do.

“Well? Make a wish!”

“O-Oh! Right.” Martin closes his eyes, clearly concentrating real hard. So hard, in fact, that the wax is starting to melt a bit and Jon worries he’s forgotten to make a wish. A few more seconds pass and Martin blows it out gently. Jon would clap if his hands weren’t full. 

“Eat it!” he demands, and Martin complies, a smile on his face as he takes a hesitant nibble and nods in appreciation. “But I would like one bite, please. I want to know how orange tastes.”

Orange ends up tasting mostly like white and pink and all the other colors do. How boring. Martin seems to enjoy it, though, judging by the icing smeared across his face. He should’ve brought napkins.

“I, um, I also got you this,” Jon reaches into his backpack to pull out his actual present- it’s a bit crumpled, bent at the corners, but it’s managed to stand up pretty well in his backpack. Doesn’t even have any pencil marks on it! Martin seems to like his pictures, always keeping even the silliest of doodles, so he decided he’d give him a whole bunch at once, that way he can get a bunch of smiles from Martin. He threw away his more amateur attempts- he’d tried to draw just Martin, but the arms kept coming out real wonky so he decided to go with his busier drawings, so Martin wouldn’t be able to see how bad he was at proportions.

“It’s got a book cover and everything,” he explains excitedly, holding it out to Martin but not exactly letting him touch it yet. He’s not going to understand everything unless Jon walks him through it, obviously. Martin hovers near his shoulder looking weirdly nervous, so Jon sidles up to him.

“Here’s us at school, at our tree, in the library- oh! This is just a page of dinosaurs. I used that book from the library as reference. It’s got really good pictures. I think they turned out pretty well, don’t you?” He points to his favorite one, a purple brontosaurus (he’s never seen any purple ones in the books, but it’s a very nice color). 

“Y-Yeah,” Martin replies, leaning further into his side. Jon likes when he does that. He can be pretty hesitant about touches, but he doesn’t need to be. Not with him. “It looks really nice, Jon.”

“Thank you.” Of course Martin would like it. He was so silly to worry. “And here’s that time you kicked that ball at Marcus- and here’s that dog I hate- and here’s our house-”

“Our house?”

Jon blinks, turning to look up at Martin. “Yeah. For when we’re big.” Martin continues to stare at him with big, bright eyes, like Jon’s an alien or something. Weird.

“A-Are we married?”

“Um, maybe.” Jon hadn’t really put much thought into that. He just supposes that when they grow up, they’ll get their own house. Well, first a flat in London, but then they’d get a big place when they were rich. Jon’s going to work with dinosaurs at a museum, there’s definitely money in that. They have to pay you a lot because the bones are so big. And Martin...what will Martin do? Firefighter, probably, on account of his height and his arms. Or maybe a doctor, since he’s so good at putting on plasters. 

I suppose we could be married. He’s not sure he ever wants to give Martin a kiss or have babies or anything like that, but it would be nice to have someone to hug on a permanent basis. He doesn’t want to get married in a church, though. The last time he’d been in one was during his mum’s funeral, and he thinks he’ll cry if he has to see a cross.

“I haven’t thought about it,” he decides; he doesn’t want to dash Martin’s dreams, since there’s still a distinct possibility it’ll happen. It just makes sense. “But you would have to get me a very shiny ring with lots of colors. None of those boring clear ones. Okay?”

Martin gives him a very good smile. “Okay.”

They spend a little bit more time going through the rest of the pictures- Jon explaining each one, and Martin nodding as if it's the most interesting thing in the world. Martin’s very good at giving people his undivided attention. When they’re done, Martin hugs it to his chest like it’s something precious and beams.

“Thanks, Jon. I- I really like it.”

“Oh, good.” Jon tries not to let it show how much this pleases him, looking away from Martin’s beaming face even as he bounces a little on his knees. “I’m glad. I can make you one next year. And the year after that. All the years, really. I can’t wait for us to grow up and do lots of things together.” Now that Martin’s seen all his pictures and predictions, they need to start doing some planning, the two of them. They’ve got a good ten years before they graduate, and he wants to do some stuff in between.

“I can’t wait to drive everywhere like my mum does,” Martin says. Martin has a preoccupation with that, Jon noticed. Most kids are fine with bikes but Martin wants a car, he wants to go far places. Like Scotland, even. And you need a car for that. The thought of being behind the wheel fills Jon with anxiety.

“I don’t think I’m going to drive, ever,” he announces, plopping down beside Martin. “Cars are so big. I don’t know how I’d control them.”

“Mum says it's not that hard,” Martin says. “And once, Dad let me drive in his lap. Only a little bit, though. I think I can handle it.” Jon can very easily picture Martin behind the seat of a car. It’s just something he looks like he can do. 

“And don’t worry,” he continues. “I’ll drive you wherever you need to go. It’ll be fun.” It’ll definitely be an improvement over car rides with Nan. But anything with Martin is an improvement, he makes things fun just by being there.

“I guess. But I want to go on adventures,” Jon says emphatically.  “I want to go on a train ride around Europe. Visit all the museums and gardens and castles. We can do that together.”

“Go out and see the world, then?”

“Yeah.” He looks over to Martin, sitting there on Jon’s dirty little blanket with his present tucked against his chest and a far off look in his eyes, smiling at Jon like he’s hung the moon and suddenly they’re not in this stupid little clearing in stupid little Bournemouth, but somewhere else- a grand forest in Germany, or a field in France, or a cottage in the country. The world out there is large and scary and full of things he doesn’t understand, but he’s not alone anymore, fantasizing about adventures he’ll never have and places he’ll never go. He’s got Martin, now, and he makes the world a little more familiar, a little more safe.  His fantasies don’t seem so far away anymore. 

This is why people have friends, Jon thinks. It’s one thing to have a home and a family. Or a Nan, like Jon has. But when you have a friend, it’s like having a whole nother family. And when you see them it’s like coming home, even if you’re not at your house. And you’re not lonely or homesick cause even a dingy little clearing or a forest or a castle can be home, as long as you’re with them. 

“Jon,” Martin says, his voice interrupting Jon’s musings. “This is...really nice. Thank you.”

“I’m glad.” Jon beams, nudging Martin’s leg with his foot. “I wanted you to have a good birthday. You’re my best friend!”

“I’m your only friend,” Martin corrects, though his face blanches as soon as the words come out. “I mean, you’re my only friend too, so I don’t have much room to talk.”

“Well, I’ve got you. I don’t need anyone else.” Jon rolls his eyes. He likes this whole friend business, but he doesn’t think he can handle another one right now. He’s got enough on his plate as is. 

“Yeah,” Martin says, nudging Jon back with a smile. “Neither do I.”

________

They spend the rest of daylight there, talking. Jon even offers to go on the tire swing, though the last time he threw up in his mouth a little. Martin declines with a knowing smile, and says he’s just fine sitting here. Jon thought he’d want a bit more excitement, but he’s willing to go along. It’s Martin’s birthday, after all. And the talking isn’t so bad. By the time they leave, they’ve got enough plans for the next twenty years. Martin’s hesitant about university, though, so Jon’s going to have to sell him on that one. He’s not going to share a dorm with some stranger when he’s got a perfectly good, perfectly smart friend who ought to be in school. 

On the walk back to Martin’s, they’re mostly silent. Jon knows Martin isn’t going home to a celebration, or a mum that’ll wish him a happy birthday, but he hopes today more than made up for it. He stares ahead for a few moments before he takes Martin’s hand.

“Did you have a good birthday?” Jon asks. He hates needing constant reassurance like this, but sometimes it’s better to just come out and ask instead of worrying all night.  “I haven’t planned a birthday before, and I’m not as good as a mum or dad at it, but I-”

“Jon,” Martin says, turning to him with that very good smile, one that Jon will try and fail to recreate in a hundred more doodles. “This was the best birthday I’ve ever had.” He sounds like he means it, like today was enough and Jon did a good job. He beams in response.

He thinks his mum would be proud.

ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30599192/chapters/76194152

[bruhstories]

Baby, I’ve Already got Your Heart

Summary: An accidental meeting between Armin and Y/N leads to an unhealthy obsession. Pairing: Armin Arlert x Fem!Reader (modern AU) Warnings: stalking, language, unprotected sex, loss of virginity, fingering, oral sex (male receiving), oral sex (female receiving), switch!Reader, switch!Armin, rope is involved. Word Count: 2.5 k

A/N: This fic is heavily inspired by this song. It is surprisingly wholesome, considering the tags xD

Armin Arlert. The purest man in the world. You accidentally met him one cold, rainy day when he entered your coffee shop for shelter and warmth. He naively talked to you, grateful for how nice you were with him, grateful for the cappuccino on the house, grateful for the towel you offered him to dry himself off. Little did Armin know, a fixation sprouted in your mind and heart, developing into the unhealthiest obsession. He was just so cute — and you just had to have him. It helped to know that you were both going to the same university, and after that, you knew everything about him: his Facebook, Instagram, email address, hell, you even knew his real address. To be fair, it was a piece of cake, the boy was absolutely clueless and whenever he 'accidentally' met you, he thought it was by pure chance. The next and most obvious step was to befriend people in his social circle, one Jean Kirstein, one Sasha Braus and one Connie Springer. Naturally, you did your homework, and you knew his best friends were Eren Jaeger and Mikasa Ackerman, but they weren't easy targets. Besides, it would jeopardise your entire plan, as you found Armin was considered a genius. An oblivious genius. He didn't know it yet, but you loved him and he loved you too, right?

A text from Sasha, months after you first met the angelic man, set your plan in motion. A casual gaming night at Armin's place, and you were invited. How perfect. Poor glutton Sasha had no fucking clue how much you were using her, how you told her you want to meet a cute guy, someone nice and caring, someone smart and attentive. The girl put two and two together and decided she just had to introduce you to one of her friends, especially that he was also interested in meeting a girl like you. Unbelievable — you acted surprised, met up with Sasha and left for Armin's little gaming night. You wouldn't let this opportunity go to waste. Starting from tonight, he'd be yours. Forever.

"Armiiiiiiiiin, I brought a plus one!" Sasha barged into his house. "This is my friend, Y/N. Y/N, Armin! Oh shit, pretzels!" The brown-haired woman left the two of you in the hallway and the blond flashed you a smile.

"I feel like I've seen you before." He mused as he closed the door behind you.

"If you ever drink coffee at Rose's you might've seen me there." You smiled and removed your leather jacket, revealing a Pearl Jam t-shirt.

"No way you listen to them!" Armin blurted.

"Are you kidding me? They're my favourite!" You lied through your teeth with a sickly-sweet smile.

"Mine too! Oh, I know, you're the girl who gave me a free cappuccino months ago!"

"I remember! You were drenched in rainwater." You laughed as the two of you entered the living room. "I had to mop up the puddles you left behind."

"I'm so sorry about that..." He blushed. Your heart fluttered and you couldn't wait to get your hands on him, but for the time being, you needed to behave.

"No worries, I just hope you didn't catch a cold." You assured Armin and sympathetically placed a hand on his shoulder. There he goes, blushing again. It couldn't be... was he a virgin? Fuck. This was better than you could've imagined.

"Who's this?"

"Oh, Mikasa, Eren, this is Y/N. She's friends with Sasha."

"Nice to meet you!" Eren shook your hand. "Oh, God, you listen to Pearl Jam, too? You nerds are going to get along just fine." He joked.

The night went great, and you actually had fun with Armin and his friends, despite not intending to mingle with them too much. People started leaving around 2 am, but Eren and Mikasa stayed longer. Too fucking long — and things were boring now anyway. You and Armin kept talking about video games and books, Mikasa fell asleep on Eren who was playing fucking Farmville on his phone. They had to leave as soon as possible.

"Hey, Y/N, we can take you home." Eren suggested and you froze. Shit.

"Didn't you say you're almost out of gas?" Armin questioned his friend.

"Ah, fuck, you're right. I still don't know how that happened — I fuelled the tank yesterday!" The brunette scoffed. "Guess you're on your own, Y/N."

"It's alright, I'll take an uber." You politely smiled.

"Alright, we'll wait for you."

Oh, for fuck's sake. Truth be told, you appreciated how nice and caring Armin's friends were, but you had a different goal to accomplish.

"You really don't have to, plus I have to use the bathroom." You excused yourself. "Um, where is the bathroom exactly?"

"Upstairs, first door on the right." Armin told you while gathering plates and cups from the table. You nodded and climbed up the stairs. Your hand hovered over the bathroom doorknob for a good minute, eyes drifting to the door next to it. Armin's bedroom, by the looks of it. Surely, you could take a look, right? Fuck it. You opened the second door and at first glance, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. LED and fairy lights encircled a corner of his room and, curiously, you walked closer to see what that was, because it didn't look like a desk. Your Y/E/C widened when you saw tens of framed photographs of yourself on the square table, objects you thought you lost and — Jesus, was that your bra? A rush of anxiety hit you, but before you could do anything, a blow to your head blurred your vision.

•°☆°•☆•°☆°•

Dark lashes fluttered as you opened your eyes. The sudden realisation that you were naked and restrained to a bed made you jolt. What just happened?

"Fucking finally, I thought you'd never wake up." Armin greeted you, but his voice was different, deeper and darker.

"Ar-ugh, Armin?" You groaned at the stinging sensation at the back of your head.

"You know, I was relieved you didn't leave with Sasha, otherwise you would've slipped between my fingers again."

Again?

"Ugh, and Eren and his stupid idea. 'We'll take you home.'" He mocked his best friend with a high pitch. "I've been dreaming for this moment since I walked into that shitty coffee shop."

You were at a loss for words. This was not the Armin you fantasised about, not the Armin you wanted. He was much more and much worse. And. So. Much. Better.

Alright then, you'd put up a show for him.

"P-please, Armin, please untie m-me! I'll be good, I p-promise!" You stuttered and whimpered, trying your best to sound genuine.

"Why, so you can run away?" The blond scoffed. So, he didn't know you stalked him. What a twist.

"I won't r-run, I swear!"

"Bullshit." Armin bent over your body, hands around your neck. You gasped and pretended to be startled by his touch, but in reality, your core was already burning with lust. You knew you couldn't keep up with this charade. "No, Y/N, I won't untie you. But we'll have so much fun." He sneered.

"You promise?"

"Yes. Wait—"

Your laughter filled the bedroom, genuine laughter that baffled Armin. Was this some sort of reverse psychology trick?

"Oh, Armin, even when you reveal your true colours, you're still oblivious to the reality of what's in front of you."

"Then enlighten me, what am I so oblivious to?" He folded his arms across his chest and waited.

"The fact that this was my fucking plan, too." You stretched as much as your restraints allowed you to and licked your lips. "I guess we both stalked each other without even knowing. How ridiculous."

"I think I would've known if you stalked me, Y/N."

"Really? Let me prove it, then. Your favourite food's Carbonara pasta, your favourite drink is peach and lychee iced tea, favourite movie is Interstellar, you lived on Sheena street until you were 12–"

"That's common knowledge, Sasha could've told you any of that." Armin blurted, growing impatient.

"You watch BDSM and asphyxiation porn between 10 pm and 11 pm every Tuesday, you're a virgin, you own a fleshlight–"

"Fuck, alright!" He threw his hands in the air, defeated. "So, what next?"

"You untie me and you tear me apart, Armin, that's what's next."

The blond hesitated before removing the cuffs on your ankles, still unsure about the ropes around your wrists. Clearly, you weren't making things up, but what were the chances of both of you stalking each other? For a brief moment, Armin felt guilty for hitting you and practically holding you captive, and you could see that on his face, but obsession and desire soon took over, and he reverted back to his darker self. His soft hands moved from your ankles to your knees, up your thighs and stomach, stopping above your chest, deciding it's best if you're not fully free. Armin licked his lips and climbed on top of you, unbuttoning his flannel shirt. You thought was surprisingly strong for such a thin man, but when the unbuttoned shirt revealed his chiselled abdomen, it made sense why he was strong.

"The wrists, Armin." You insisted but the blond clicked his tongue.

"I like you better when you're helpless." He pressed his lips onto yours in a hot kiss. A great kiss, you thought, your tongues wrestling for supremacy.

"Please, I want to touch you! I need to..." You trailed off, intoxicated by his smell, notes of saffron and cardamom. His hands roamed your shoulders, tickling your axilla and groping your breasts. "Please let me touch you, Armin!" You begged again, but he didn't say a word, his hot breath fanning over your oversensitive nipples, goosebumps all over your skin. His pink tongue poked out of his mouth and you watched him painstakingly slowly lick one of your nipples. It literally pained you to be unable to touch him, pull him closer to you. Alas, you had no choice, and despite yearning to be in control, it aroused you to have him control you.

"You smell so sweet." He abruptly stopped. "I bet you taste sweet, too."

"Armin..." His words made you brace yourself. While you weren't a virgin, you've never had anyone eat you out. The blond was already in between your legs, one hand resting under your thigh, the other gently touching your slick folds. Armin was so careful, like you were made of glass, and the ticklish sensation didn't help you at all. You wanted him to ram his cock inside of you and rearrange your guts, but he wanted to take his sweet time. The teasing only made you dizzy with pleasure, and you bucked your hips, trying to get him to move faster.

"You really need to learn to be patient, Y/N." Armin purred, pressing gentle kisses on your thighs. He lazily dragged his tongue across your slit, electricity shooting through your body. God, how you wanted to rip those ropes apart. Two fingers entered you and the blond gingerly licked your clit.  

"Fuck– so... so good ah–" You couldn't form a sentence even if your life counted on it. Gradually, you could feel your orgasm building up and Armin sensed it, picking up the pace. His fingers thrusted harder and you arched your back, the intensity too much for you. "Armin, please! I wanna come with your cock in me!" The begging didn't stop him, he was determined to make you finish then and there. And he did — within seconds you melted under his touch, legs trembling with pleasure. Armin pulled back, his mouth messy with saliva mixed with your juices.

"You come when I want you to come." His voice was low, almost like a growl. He unbuttoned his jeans, and you watched him like a hawk, waiting to see just how big his was, and you were not disappointed.

"Please please please let me suck it, please!" You begged him, eager to taste him. He smirked and kissed you, all the while rubbing his cock.

"You want this?" Armin quirked a brow at you. The little shit, jacking off in front of you and you couldn't even do anything about it.

"Armin..."

"Say it. Say you want it."

"Armin!"

"Say it, Y/N." He groaned, precum leaking from his member. Fuck.

"I... I want it..." You eventually gave up.

"Good girl." The blond climbed back on top of you. He raised your hips and you placed your legs on his shoulder, his first thrust slow and deep. Armin couldn't help the moan escaping his lips — this was so much better than that shitty fleshlight and countless porn videos. You couldn't deny the fact that it hurt, despite your soaking cunt, but you quickly adjusted to his size. As Armin pounded you, the bed underneath the two of you started moving and screeching, and the ropes tied to the metal bedframe loosened and you felt your arms fall onto the pillows. In his frenzy, the blond didn't notice, so you took this opportunity to lower your legs and wrap them around his waist, one hand grabbing his soft locks, the other wrapping around his neck. You used his weight against him and turned him over. You were in control.

Armin was taken aback by this, but the feeling of your fingers squeezing his throat only turned him on more. You bounced up and down, throwing your head back and groaning. He gripped your hips tightly, thrusting his own hips against yours.

"F-fuck me harder, Y/N!" He begged and you sped up. You felt like a queen — no, a goddess — when he asked you to fuck him, the feeling of him inside of you so addictive. He was your drug, and your rehab, your poison, and your antidote. And you were his and his only. His cock was twitching in your cunt and knew he was close but you didn't want to risk it. Swiftly, you got off of him and wrapped your lips around his dick, bobbing your head up and down. It didn't take long for him to finish, hot liquid shooting down your throat with one final grunt. You swallowed it all and threw yourself next to him. It was breaking dawn already, but you weren't tired. Physically, yes, both of you were exhausted, but mentally it felt like you discovered a hidden gem.

"What the fuck did we just do?" Armin calmly caressed your hair as you nuzzled his neck.

"Are we talking about the obsessively stalking each other part or the part where you hit me in the head? Or the fucking?"

"The everything." He explained. "This is wrong."

"Did it feel wrong?" You asked him, your fingers idly tracing circles over his chest.

"Well, no..."

"Then it's not wrong." You shrugged. "Am... am I yours?"

"Yes." The blond instantly replied without a trace of hesitation in his voice. "Am I?"

"You've been mine the moment you set foot in that shitty coffee shop." You laughed.

"And what are we going to tell the others?"

"That we ended up talking all night and I stayed over?"

"Sounds like a plan." Armin kissed your forehead.

"By the way, I really don't like Pearl Jam." You admitted.

He laughed and it filled your heart with warmth. You have no idea why you and Armin were like that, or how things would be from now on, but you had a good feeling about it. Things were okay. You two were okay.

[norarigby]

フェア関西のルームメイト二名 (The Two Roommates from Fair Kansai)

Chapter 2: The Typo

Previous | Next

Description: In which while typing a roommate ad online, the famed Miya Atsumu, (23) MSBY Jackals Setter, makes a detrimental typo that leads to an influx of women applicants. Confused, but not completely opposed (the idiot), Miya Atsumu lands on a formidable candidate. Y/n L/n. A Biotechnology major at Kansai University, looking for a change after her last disastrous roommates and some space from a particular complication. It’s odd, but it’ll work. Maybe a little too well.

Pairings: Miya Atsumu x Reader

Warnings: None!

Word Count: ~1.4k

A/n: Cross posted from my AO3. I update there first, so if you want the chapters sooner, check it out!

To say Atsumu was overwhelmed would be an understatement. When one of the athletic directors approached him saying how his phone kept going off in the locker room, he was concerned something was seriously wrong. As a precaution, they assure him that if it was an emergency that he should feel free to take the day. But upon closer inspection, he quickly realized that wouldn’t be necessary. He scrolled through what seemed like pages of messages and missed calls about the ad. And not just any inquiries, but…

“ALL WOMEN!” Atsumu exclaimed loudly in the busy shop. A few annoyed heads turned to the source of the outburst.

Osamu rolled his eyes, “‘Tsumu, we talked about this. Having you come during busy hours is already enough of a nuisance, but could you keep it down? This is still a public place.”

“But ‘Samu! What am I going to do?” Atsumu whisper-shouted like it would help his outburst, but it still elicited a few head turns, “I already didn’t want to room with a stranger! And now all of the applicants are girls? This has to be some sort of joke.”

Osamu helped with the line and handed out a few orders to customers before focusing some energy on his dramatic brother. “Well, did you specify that you were only looking for male roommate?”

Atsumu picked at the stray rice grains on his plate as he tried to remember what he wrote. He couldn’t remember specifying anything about the roommate themselves; focusing mainly on the apartment itself. He voiced his thoughts to his brother.

“Hmm, well Atsumu can be a girl's name. Maybe that’s why?”

He tried not to be offended at his brother’s comment, mainly because he was partially right. It’s possible that they’re assuming he’s a girl. But that doesn’t make entire sense either. Is it possible his fan club found the posting? That seemed pretty possible. Atsumu knew fangirls could get crazy when they wanted to be.

Osamu finished some things behind the bar and went over to sit by Atsumu. The two contemplated his conundrum over a fresh plate of onigiri. After Osamu’s second, he spoke up, “Just for science, can I see your ad?”

Atsumu gave him an incredulous look, but pulled up the ad anyway, “I mean, sure, but I don’t think-”

At Atsumu’s sudden silence, Osamu’s curiosity was piqued, “”Tsumu? Everything okay?”

Wordlessly he handed the phone over and Osamu read through the ad. Immediately after reading, he burst into laughter.

“‘Samu! This isn’t funny!”

But Osamu was laughing so hard he couldn’t even speak. Some of his employees turned out of concern and curiosity at their boss’ sudden burst. Eventually, he calmed down enough to choke out a “you are in some trouble, ‘Tsumu”.

Roommate Wanted.

Master Bedroom available with a private bath in a 100 sq m apartment in Osaka. In-unit wash, AC, dishwasher, internet, etc. Fully furnished (besides bedroom available). Rent with utilities is 62784¥. Near public transportation. Feel free to contact with questions or offers.

06-XXXX-XXXX

Text/Call

Miya Atsumi

--

“Alright, that wraps it up for today. Finish the calculations on your own time and be sure to bring back your completed form by next class. See you Tuesday!”

The sound of chairs scraping against the floor harmonized with the zipping and unzipping of backpacks as the classroom got up to leave. Y/n pulled out her phone to finally check her messages.

From: Mom

Found a listing in Osaka that looks interesting. Good apartment with really good pricing. You should give them a call.

(link)

Y/n typed a quick thank you before clicking on the link. Her mom was right. It looked like a decent location and a not too bad price. Trying to look for any information on the roommate (roommates?), all she could see was a number and a name at the bottom of the ad. What a strange listing. It was probably the shortest listing she’d ever come across--and definitely the most to the point.

Y/n sat and stared at the listing for a little bit while weighing her options. She just got out of an interesting situation in Suita, but she was now living with her parents. Which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, but both her and her parents weren’t exactly jumping at the idea of her moving back in, especially with her graduating college next year.

Making up her mind, she copied the number and sent a quick text to the number on the ad. A silent prayer was sent to whoever was listening. This wouldn’t fix all of her problems, but this would solve a big one and she swore she would be able to handle the rest.

--

“And you told me I was loud,” Now Atsumu was getting antsy about the amount of people staring at his hysteric brother. “”Samu, you need to calm down.”

This had been going on for at least ten minutes now. Osamu would read through the ad, get sent into a fit of laughter, finally calm down, but then would read it again and the cycle would start all over again. Not used to being the responsible twin, in addition to being extremely embarrassed by his brother’s reaction to his typo, Atsumu was at a loss for what to do. He tried sending reassuring smiles to patrons and mumbled some apologies, but that was the extent of his capabilities.

Finally, Osamu calmed down and pushed Atsumu’s phone back to him. Taking a deep breath to compose himself, Osamu tried to console his brother, “Hey, maybe this won’t be such a bad thing. Surely, there’s at least one of those girls that you could at least be civil with.”

Atsumu scrolled through his messages again, exacerbated, “Even if that’s true! There’s too many! I don’t really have the time to sit and go through all of these.”

There were at least 100 people who had responded to his ad and where the messages definitely weren’t flooding in as much as they had earlier that day, he would get a notification about once every 15-20 minutes. By the time he got through the original applicants, there would be another 100-200 to take their place. In between practice and conditioning, there was no way Atsumu was going to be able to get through these all by himself.

“Tell you what,” Osamu leaned back in the chair he was sitting in, “Since this was partially my idea, I’ll help you tonight after I close up. And if we can’t find anyone, I’ll help you write up a better listing and we can delete this one.”

Atsumu’s other issue with all of these applicants is that he really didn’t want to spend energy looking through dozens of descriptions and deciding if he would like them or not. He assumed it would be like the dating app he had for a couple weeks, but worse. Atsumu really didn’t like the idea of judging someone based on a single paragraph they wrote about themselves. He preferred a more personal approach. Like with the various spikers and teammates he’d played with over the years, he was really good at reading people in person. Within a short conversation, he could pretty accurately lay out a person’s personality (what things they might like, what might make them tick, what things they were indifferent to). Over the internet it was much more difficult.

He guessed he could always ask them to meet in person, right? That was something people did. They could meet at his brother’s restaurant so then Osamu could get a feel for the other person. Atsumu figured it would also get one glaring issue out of the way: he was a guy.

It was a fool proof plan. Osamu and him would sort through the applicants tonight and he would invite them to meet him in person. This way he can see if it’s going to work or not and if they aren’t comfortable with rooming with a guy they can just leave. Genius!

Atsumu recounted his plan to his brother and Osamu was in agreement. With that, the blonde brother left to go to afternoon conditioning, planning on returning just before close to sneak in a few more onigiri from his brother before the long haul.

[daniishep]

Goodbye Holby

23 years ago, 8 year old me was rejoicing in the fact that I was finally allowed to stay up later than 8pm. While I was rejoicing, my mum (big fan of both Holby City and Casualty since they started) was settling down to watch the first episode of the new spin-off from Casualty. I don’t think 8 year old me paid much attention (to busy with my Barbie dream house) but I can honestly say I have seen every episode over the past 23 series. Even if the first 2, maybe 3 series are very hazy, my first major recollection of Holby was the death of Victoria Merrick way back in the third series.

For the past 23 years, Holby City has been a constant on my Tuesday - and sometimes other days of the week - nights, and tonight it ended for good, and I am a little - or a lot - bereft. It has also been a big player in my ‘fandom’ life, I can remember some of the very first fanfiction I wrote (very poorly, but I was 14, still finding my narrative voice) was for Holby City, way back when the BBC website used to have dedicated forums for their shows. If anyone is interested it was fanfic featuring the pairing of Connie Beauchamp & Will Curtis. Since then my fandoms have changed, but always at its core, Holby still remains special, simply because it was the very first. For a short while, I even wanted to be a cardiothoracic surgeon, just like Connie. Being slightly poor at science rather put paid to that.

Though the show has had its ups and downs - like any show - I never waivered in my support of the show. I may not have always agreed with some decisions, but I came back every week out of love for the cast and this show. I thought it would go on, at least for a few more years, if nothing else.

While I know that not everyone would’ve liked the ending, I wholeheartedly did. Do I wish Jac hadn’t died? Of course. But in a story sense, I get it. I loved the fact that we see a heart transplant in the final moments, taking it right back to the very first episode which centered around a heart transplant being performed by the great Anton Meyer - who I wish we could’ve seen one last time. It was right, in a sense, that most of the action took place on Darwin, the same ward that started the show off.

I loved hearing that voiceover of Jac’s as we saw who would get her organs, seeing some dear old friends performing the transplants, each having their own little moment of reflection before getting on with the job. Just like the rest of the staff right at the end. The show ends, but the characters, their lives and the hospital goes on. To me that was perfect. Again, taking it back to the beginning.

In the days coming up to the last episode airing, I had said to my mum, that I’d love it if the end credits were like those for Avengers Endgame with brief shots of the character as the actors name appeared. So, the end credits airing over various cast pictures, was rather fitting. Oh and that last little bit of them all getting on with their lives, and the text at the end, reminded me very much of the final shot of The Bill.

There's so much I could say, but I don't think there are enough words to say how much I've loved this show. So the final words will do:

"It's something to believe in...it's home".

Goodbye Holby City. I’m really going to miss you. 💙💙💙💙

[modern-vellichor]

hello my love !!!

i know you have a lot going on right now so take your time with this request .... but wouldn’t it be so cute if the reader was a HUGE Steve Rogers Cap fan and Bucky surprises them by having Steve come to their like taco night or movie night or something. And they can’t get the reader to stop hugging Steve so they just continue their night with the reader attached to Steve LOL or something like that ? I just think Bucky and Y/N (aka me) would be Steve’s biggest fans 🥺

anything for you babe <3 also if you haven't seen the movies in this i highly recommend them, they're some of my faves. warnings; explicit language.

"What are we watching tonight?" You asked as you dried the dishes.

Tuesday nights were movie nights. You curled up on the couch and dimmed the lights. Bucky was a romantic, last week you watched Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Bucky's favourite.

"I don't know," Bucky called from where he was stacking plates. "It's your turn to pick."

You ended up picking Ready Or Not. You liked picking horror films, and listening to Bucky pointing out all the inaccuracies and mistakes being made by the characters. You would listen to him talk about anything.

"Buck, turn on the radio," you commanded excitedly. "Steve's on now."

You'd listen to Steve talk forever, too. He was gorgeous, and you had no problem admitting it. He was your favourite exhibit at the Smithsonian when you were young. You spent every birthday there, even after it was deemed uncool. Steve's voice buzzed to life on the radio, you listened contentedly.

"Don't forget I have a surprise for you, doll."

"I won't."

"Dress decent."

"I will."

"Will you?" Bucky looked you up and down with a cheeky grin.

You giggled, pecking your lover on the cheek. You dried your hands and carried on pottering about the kitchen, just tidying things up until Bucky yelled at you to get ready. You skipped out of your room, settling yourself on the sofa, dressed only half decent.

It wasn't your birthday, or his. It wasn't an anniversary either, you would have known. So it couldn't have been that important, but you dressed nicer than usual anyway.

Bucky didn't settle beside you as he usually did, instead he hovered anxiously by the door, waiting. A gentle knock came from the other side of the door.

"Buck, darling, who's that?" You called, eyes on the tv.

"Your surprise," he called back. "Close your eyes."

You did as you were told. You closed your eyes and folded your hands in your lap. You waited patiently, and then Bucky spoke again, his voice coming from directly in front of you.

"Alright, don't freak out. Open your eyes."

You cracked one eye open slowly, and then the other. A tall blonde man came into view, dressed nicely. You smiled at him, hoping he couldn't hear your heart beating out of your chest. You stood up and extended your hand.

"Mr. Rogers, it's lovely to meet you," you exclaimed. "Bucky has told me so much about you."

Blood rushed in your ears, your breathing was shallow. You swallowed as Steve took your hand. He was so much bigger than you, he took over your living room, totally blocking the TV.

You settled Steve on the couch before hurrying Bucky into the kitchen.

"What the actual fuck, babe!" You whispered, panicked. "The place isn't clean, I look like shit!"

"Honey," he cooed quietly. His hands gripped your hips, pulling you flush against him. "You look great. Steve is only here for movie night, he's a friend of your boyfriend, that's all."

"He's my boyfriend's friend, yeah," you breathed as you calmed down.

You smiled as you skipped back towards the couch. You sat next to Steve, curling against Bucky so that you could face him. You chatted for a while. Steve was nice, funny too.

"This one's a little bloody, so, uh, sorry," you rambled as you pressed play on the movie.

You all enjoyed the movie. Steve ended up vowing to join you for more movie nights.

"That was nice, thank you," you mumbled against Bucky's lips as you slipped under the covers.

"Darling," he smiled. "it was my pleasure."