#when we first met i told him about my poems and i gave him some free copies of this small local literary magazine they're published in

[britneyshakespeare]

I don’t think he ever read any of my poems now that I think about it

[inkskinned]

yesterday while feverish i wrote about how boats can moor next to each other like pigeons, cooing with the gentle rap of water against their hull. you once said that that the way i see things - birds in the water, feathers in marina paint - was "childish and naive." you said i'd been misdiagnosed - "it can't all be adhd. you might be just kind of stupid and lazy."

i still do certain things like how you taught me - turn the pillow case inside out before putting it on. drive defensively. hate myself entirely.

the prompt for this poem is "mahler's fifth." i wish it wasn't, but mahler's fifth was our song. it ended up in my book. every person that knows your name has promised me they'll give you one swift rabbit punch, right to the face. dean read the book and showed up on my front porch, drenched in sweat from running the 8 miles at 4 in the morning. he was shaking. pacifist and gentle - he works with children - i'd never seen him furious. a punch isn't going to do it, he said, and then said i'm sorry. i had to come to see if you were okay.

mahler's fifth was mine first, like my girlhood. i like the way each movement piles onto the next movement, each instrument bleeding into the next. i like the horn version the best. before i met you, i danced to it on grass still-wet from sprinklers.

later you would tell me that the way you heard it was somehow better. you understood something in it that i couldn't quite wrap my fingers into. once, on our anniversary, you asked the classical music radio station to play it for us. we missed hearing it because we were fighting. one of the things people get wrong about abuse is that sometimes victims are, like, brutally aware of the stupidity of our situation. what do you mean that you thought i wasn't good enough for you? you? you're just... nothing.

sometimes people can pull the poetry out of your life. i watched my words become clothesline, and then thin out into kite twine. i watched you chew through every good syllable of me. so many good songs and places and moments were ruined. i am glad you didn't like most of my music - less to tie back to you.

but still mahler's fifth. the music swells, and i am 21 and throwing up in a bathroom on my birthday. a woman i will later refer to as lesbian jesus runs a cool hand down my back, her perfect pantsuit starch-pressed. she told me to leave you. she said - and this is true, and not an invention of rhyme or fantasy - i'm you from the future.

i am 22, and i got home from an award ceremony, and i remember you telling me - you act so proud of yourself when you're actually so fucking embarrassing. i took you to disney world. you took my virginity. i gave up visiting spain for a week with my family - i instead choose you, to spend the time just-cuddling. you called it "our fuck week." the music swells. it probably should have been a red flag that for about 3 years - i just gave up on crying. my grandfather died and you said nothing. my uncle died and you ghosted me for 3 weeks. you said i need to protect myself from your ongoing tragedy.

every so often i come back to the memory of one of our last afternoons in person. i had just told you that i wasn't going to law school, despite the free ride - i was going to join a creative writing program. master's in fine arts. i was going to finally do it - i was going to follow my dreams. this blog was already internet-famous. however reluctantly, i would occasionally refer to myself as a poet. i got into umass amherst's writing program for fiction authors. it is one of the the top 5 programs in the country.

wait are you seriously considering actually attending that? dumbfounded, you turned completely towards me in your seat. for the 3rd time in our relationship, you almost crashed the car. you actually want to be a writer?

the first time i went viral, it was for a poem i wrote about you:

he wants to say i love you but keeps it to goodnight because love will take some falling and she's afraid of heights.

every time i see that, i want to throw up. you weren't in love with me, you were in love with the control you had over me. a little truth though: i am afraid of heights. you caught a rabbitgirl and skinned her alive.

mahler's fifth still makes me sick.

give me that back. give me back music. give me back everything i had before you. give me back fearlessness. give me back bravery. give me back a scarless body.

give me back what you took from me.

[rroseselavyyy]

lavender moon - ksj

pairing: seokjin x female reader

warnings: angst with a touch of smut, shitty ending (the ending is kind of rushed :( sorry about that)

He nestled your head on his shoulder like he was helping a kitten finding a comfortable position in his embrace as you sat between his legs in the steaming bath. He nuzzled his nose to your exposed neck, planting soft kisses that made you mewl contentedly under his touch.

"Why were you crying all alone, baby?" He stroked your wet hair as he wrapped his arms around your waist, pressing your back against his firm chest as if you were the only thing keeping him safe in the middle of a thunderstorm.

You pressed your lips together in a thin line as you shook your head to make it clear that you weren't going to give him the answer he wanted to hear, his lips eliciting a chuckle just behind your ear at your childish manner.

"I think I have an idea of what's going on." You let yourself sink further into his embrace, feeling all the stress you carried on your shoulders melt away with the scent of lavender, his thumb tracing a path across your skin to dry the drops of water that adorned all the way your arm like freshwater pearls. "You're protecting my mother again, aren't you?"

You twitched in his arms, turned in his embrace to see his expression and the moment you looked into his eyes you found yourself lost in them as they bored into yours, the love he had for you was there like concrete evidence. "I can't help you if you don't tell me what's wrong."

"She told me you should have left me a long time ago." You attempted to cover your mouth when you realized you had said more than was necessary. Even you were amazed at how easily the words slipped out of your mouth, you blamed it on the fact that you were completely relaxed in his arms, he had that special power that made your worries go away. "I don't think she's wrong, Jinnie. I've been nothing but trouble since the first day we met."

"How on earth can she be right?-" He kissed the bridge of your nose, the gesture making you blink innocently as the touch of his plump lips sent blood rushing to your cheeks. "I love you, that's all that matters."

"Do you want to know why she hates you so much?" A thousand stars had burst open in your swelling chest as he gave you a quick kiss on the lips. "Because I married the love of my life and not some other girl she wanted me to marry."

"Maybe it's because my brother beat you up so badly? Not the best first impression, obviously." You chuckled nervously as you breathed the same air as him, his fingers now intertwined with yours. "Isn't it funny that you happened to be there? Maybe we might never have met if you hadn't been there to help your brother with his wounds. Did you know that I fell in love with you the moment I laid my eyes on you?"

You rolled your eyes as he looked at you with a sense of adoration, ready to tell you for the thousandth time how beautiful you were that day like a poem he recited by heart.

"I think I have lost the count of how many times you have told me this story."

His mother's never-ending insults no longer saddened you, instead Jin and your shared giggles replaced your muffled sobs in one of the sacred places blessed by your marriage, where you would make happy memories with him until the end of time.

"You looked so pretty that day that I offered to pay your brother to beat me so I could see you again. Understandably, he didn't accept the money-" Your eyes widened in shock as you turned to face him. He giggled sweetly in your ears like a song, his hands making soothing circles on your thighs. "However, still, he beat me to death anyway. He said he did it just because he thought I was a jerk. God, you should have seen his face when I told him I wanted to marry you."

"I don't want to believe you. It doesn't even make sense." You cringed at the thought, but since nothing was impossible when it came to your husband, you could easily imagine the scenario, even with details.

"Oh love, I still have the scars on my chest to prove it." He wiggled his eyebrows teasingly, causing you to slap his chest lightly in return as you smiled with your eyes closed. "Maybe you'd like to kiss them better, hmm? Mrs. Kim?"

He was just an example of how maturity was not about age. Sometimes he was so sweet that he didn't even have to try to get what he wanted.

Including getting kisses from his baby.

"Only because you asked me nicely." Your lips curled into a smirk as you wasted no time in placing your hands on his abdomen, kissing a path down his neck to his chest. "I can't see anything-" You were halfway to his collarbone when he grabbed you by the hair, and even though his hands were some of the roughest you'd ever known, knowing he wouldn't put any pressure on his grip, you let him take control.

He guided you with his hands on your waist as you shifted in his embrace to find a better position on his lap. He tasted the drops of water on your lips like a man finding water in the middle of a dessert, your foreheads touching as you enjoyed the comforting silence.

"You're the only good thing in my life-" He whispered in your ear as you allowed him to help you straddle him with his expert hands. He watched your expression intently as you grabbed his hair at the back of his neck, using it as leverage to your face. "I'm not willing to give up on you ever."

"You are mine." Feeling your hips roughly lifted by the same hands that gently stroked your hair, you let out a soft whimper against his lips, feeling your pussy clench around his cock as he guided it into your welcoming walls. "I'll make sure no one ever hurts you again. She has no right to make you sad."

"Jinnie- don't you ever get mad at your mother-" You brushed his wet hair from his forehead as you finally settled into his lap. You were both still, clinging to each other as if you wanted to be moulded into one. "You know that I can take care of myself. Your mother's just being protective, there is no harm in that."

It was Jin who broke the silence as he couldn't help but thrust his hips into you, his breath catching in his throat.

"We'll get through this." You reassured him with a kiss on his lips. "Nothing scares me when you're by my side."

He tried to hide a giggle as he bit down on his lips with ultimate force, his fingers digging into the curve of your ass as he took control of you, moving you to his liking. He was too consumed with pleasure to even coherent sentences, but he promised you in a velvety voice.

"Good thing, angel. Because even when the sky falls down, even when the earth crumbles around our feet, I'll always be here by your side."

[ghostybat00]

"OUR CUTE HACKER 👾..." KÖNIG YANDERE AND HORANGI YANDERE

(I need more Horangi content, but I also need more König yandere content, so I said fuck it, both of them as yanderes for a hacker reader, and here we are lol)

Reader gender neutral.

👾:Imagine being a hacker at the Kortac base of operation, you are someone who wants to go unnoticed. It's a shame that these two soldiers won't allow you to be alone anymore.

👾:You met the two quickly after you were hired as a hacker operator, specialized in stealing data from enemy bases and extracting important information on missions.

👾:First you met Horangi, he was a quite energetic man, a good soldier of Korean nationality, you caught his attention from the beginning, was it your cute little face? How your beautiful hands move around the keyboard and mouse, extracting data while you look so irresistible?He didn't know it, whenever you were around he would make jokes and sarcastic comments, he camouflaged himself that it was to break the tension with the team, But it was only to have even a minimal chance of seeing a nice smile or laugh from you.

👾:Horangi quickly told König, König hadn't really met you, but if he was a little tired of Horangi never shutting up talking about you, of course, he didn't know what he was missing when had the opportunity to meet you on a mission, you helped them and the others to open a database and finish the mission easier.

👾:Then he saw you physically...he swore he thought he saw a "Engel", You were so cute, so intelligent, the blood rushed to his face that fortunately for him, his piece of cloth on his face covered, from that moment on he understood why Horangi never kept quiet about you.

👾:They both tried to be friends with you, but it was a bit difficult since you were a bit quiet. They always tried to get you to spend time alone with them, inviting you to eat with them during breaks. Protecting you a lot when you had missions with them.

👾:Horangi used to use his humor to get the better of you, more than once making a cute laugh or small smile escape you, god how he loved that.Also, in his free time he used to write poems, so what's better than making some for yourself and leaving them in your locker or room?, The poems were very beautiful and always came with nicknames, but in the Korean language, he liked to see how you tried to decipher what meant each new nickname he gave you, such as "내 꽃" (My flower) "내 아기" (My baby) "나의 별" (My Star).

👾:It was obvious that König was more reserved, he wasn't shy, but he definitely wasn't very talkative, at least when it came to you if he usually made the effort to strike up conversations outside of the professional. Also, one of his favorite things was to help you train, of course, you were military too, but you were a hacker, so you were not in the same physical condition as them, So he helped you exercise more, taking the opportunity to touch you more, like helping you use a gym machine, putting his big hands on your hips for much longer.

👾:This was the nice part that you knew about them, not the obsessive and possessive part of these two.

👾:The two used to work together to eliminate any man or woman who would try to take you away from them. Did a rookie soldier try to flirt with you? Oh! You never saw that rookie again, he magically decided to quit after being brutally beaten!, Did an enemy even give you a mini cut? He died in the most brutal way possible, leaving his body unrecognizable!

👾:Another thing about them is that, worshiping it was a daily requirement for them. They see you as a god/goddess, you are so cute and unreal that sometimes they wonder if you are real or the both fell into a beautiful fantasy.They love you so much, that even the smallest thing about you drives them crazy,so much so that they keep them as if they were sacred objects simply because they were with you.Things like a ring that you dropped that was on your pretty finger? You never found it, and the plastic water bottle you just threw away a few seconds ago?, is magically no longer in the trash can.

👾:Speaking of item collection, yeah, they share a fucking sanctuary of you, hidden in the closet in König's room. Mundane things you used, even intimate things like a toothbrush you no longer needed, underwear you wore etc.

👾:They continue to act as your "just friends", although of course in the future they plan to make you their wife/husband, They are also very protective, thanks to König's status as a Colonel, they can keep you safe better, such as ordering soldiers not to get too close to you, excluding you from the others unless it is necessary for a mission, after all you already have them, what else would you need?.

👾:And they are very intelligent, especially Horangi who is a better manipulator than König, they know strategies so that you don't discover them and if you ever suspect them they cover it up as a coincidence.

👾:They really like "friends" nights, where during your free time at work you are squeezed between their muscular bodies in a comfortable bed,while watching some movie or series, you definitely have them around your finger, with the disadvantage that now you had 2 huge soldiers obsessed with you, and who will never let you escape.

[soleilceirinen]

Renaissance | teacher!Cillian Murphy x fem!Reader - Part 8

Summary: you are an Art History student in your last year at university. Cillian is your teacher. A/N: in this story Cillian is about 20 years older than the reader. Everything happens in an alternative universe where he is not an actor or famous, he doesn't have a wife or kids like in real life. Warning: this is my first attempt at writing smut, so read with that in mind. It is at the end, if you are a minor I don't think you should read it. Also, English is not my first language, sorry if there are mistakes. Part 7 - Cillian Murphy Masterlist

After your talk with Cillian, things turned back to normal. At the end of the week you finally found some free time to spend rummaging through the different stalls at the charity book market. It was a little overwhelming due to the number of other people who, like you, were looking for the perfect book added to the lack of order in how the books were distributed. You could find a recipe book next to an out of print edition of the Punic War history. 

After going around several times, you finally found what you were looking for. You delicately held the copy, it was an old dictionary of artistic terms. 

“I’m ready,” you commented, “have you found anything?”

Cillian had been by your side the entire time, watching in admiration as your face lit up every time you saw a book that caught your eye, or how you ran your finger over the covers while reading the titles. 

He held up a small collection of poems for you to see. You did the same with your dictionary. 

“May I take a look at it?”, he asked.

As you were giving him the book you felt a strong push and saw a man stand between you and Cillian. Ready to reproach him for his lack of manners, you were left speechless when you realised that he was Brad, your roommate. “Hi, Brad.”

“Are you going home now? Let's go together,” he grabbed your arm, making you wince in pain. 

“Wait Brad, I’m not done yet.”

“Y/N,” called Cillian staring at Brad, “is everything alright here?”

Brad looked him over from head to toe before turning his attention back to you. He rolled his eyes scoffing at Cillian. A wave of disgust washed over you, you met Cillian's gaze over Brad's shoulder, silently begging him to get you out of there. 

“We should go back to the office, we still have a chapter to review in your project,” he said, stepping closer to you. 

You nodded. “It’s true, I had forgotten. Sorry, Brad. I have to go.”

“It’s okay, I’ll wait for you.”

“Afterwards I will meet up with Valerie so I don’t know when I’ll finish, you can go now.” 

Valerie couldn't stand Brad, the advantage was that the feeling was mutual. He gave you and Cillian one last annoyed look and let you go. You took the opportunity to run towards the office building with Cillian following you under the gaze of your roommate. Once inside his office, Cillian locked the door and sat on the edge of his desk. You stared out the window, from where you could see Brad looking up, probably trying to figure out which unit you were in. 

“He looks at you like you are a piece of meat, I don’t like it.”

You turned around to look at Cillian, who extended his arm to give you the dictionary.  When you picked up the book, he took the opportunity to gently pull you until you were in the space between his legs. 

“My friend Valerie thinks the same,” you told him. He wrapped you in a hug, tracing different shapes on your back with his fingertips.

“Are you really going to see her?” he wondered, tilting his head to the side. 

“No,” you shook your head against his shoulder, smelling his scent. “I totally made that up. Why?”

Being practically leaning against his chest, you could feel his heart beating rapidly. “We could go on a date, tomorrow is Saturday so if you want, you can stay at my house.” 

"Okay, sounds good." You said, caressing his cheek. You noticed that he hadn't shaved that day since his face was a bit rough, you scratched it with your fingernails before giving him a peck on the lips. 

Cillian had his eyes closed, he was focused on your touch. Slowly, he opened them and cleared his throat. “We should go now, I have to stop at the grocery store to get some things before it closes.”

-

At the grocery store, you pushed the shopping cart through the aisles, following Cillian, who from time to time stopped to pick up ingredients for dinner and placed them in the cart. Everything was going well until you got distracted. You didn't realise that Cillian had stopped so you continued pushing the cart until you crashed into him.

“Oh my… Sorry! Did I hurt you?”

He pursed his lips and gripped the edge of the car, looking at you with wide eyes.

“It’s fine, Y/N. Why don’t you go and choose some ice cream that you like? I’ll be in charge of the shopping cart, alright?”

Reluctantly, you let go of the cart and walked to the frozen food aisle, looking for the ice cream. Luckily, your favourite flavour wasn't sold out so you grabbed a tub and headed back to Cillian. He was already at the checkout putting the groceries in bags. After adding the ice cream and paying, he tried to carry all the bags by himself.

“Wait, old man. I’ll help you.”

He chuckled and pointed to one of the bags. “You can carry that one.” 

You already felt bad for almost leaving him crippled with the shopping cart, but at least he didn’t refuse you helping him. 

-

“I think you’re going to get a bruise,” you stated while taking the grocery out of the bags. 

Cillian had disappeared somewhere in his house, leaving you in the kitchen with a very excited Scout. He reappeared in the kitchen, having changed his clothes into something more comfortable.

“I left some clothes for you on the bed in the guest room in case you want to change, they shrunk the last time I put them in the dryer so they may not be too big for you,” he told you. Then, he pulled down the waistband of his pants to show you an incipient bruise. “Already here.”

“I feel terrible, but I must admit it was funny.”

He rolled his eyes, though he wasn't really upset. You giggled and went to change as he had suggested. 

He left you a basic black t-shirt and some gym shorts. Although they seemed to have been shrunk for him to wear them, they looked huge on you. You decided to discard the pants since the shirt covered enough, like a short dress.

You returned to the kitchen. Cillian was making a homemade pizza, when he saw you he pointed to one of the glasses on the counter. “Do you fancy some wine?”

“Always,” you took a sip, enjoying the fruity flavour. Cillian smiled and gave you a piece of carrot. You looked at it and then back at Cillian. “What am I supposed to do with this?”

“You can eat it if you want but better if you give it to Scout. Tell him to sit down and give you the paw.”

So you played with Scout and talked to Cillian until the pizza was ready to come out of the oven. After dinner, you and Cillian sat on the couch to watch a movie. You chose it so it was one of your favourite ones, despite having seen it too many times, you would never get tired of it. The leading actor was a very young Alain Delon, whose blue eyes could only be compared to those of the man sitting next to you. 

After several minutes, you realised that Cillian wasn't watching the movie. Even though the living room was illuminated only by the light coming from the television, out of the corner of your eye you noticed him staring at you.

You looked back at him and whispered. “You’re missing the film.”

“I’m truly not seeing it,” he responded with a hoarse voice. He caressed your cheek and placed a loose strand of hair behind your ear. You rested your cheek against the palm of his hand and moved closer to him. 

In seconds, the film became background noise. All your attention was on Cillian, on his hands running over your body and his lips on yours. 

You kissed slowly but intensely, enjoying every bit of it. Cillian leaned over you without breaking the kiss, his breathing getting faster. You held his face with your hands, slowly scratching his stubble with your nails. You moved your hips trying to get some friction against his crotch, he tentatively put a hand under your shirt, stopping when it brushed against your bare belly.

“Why do you stop?” you groaned. 

“Are you sure of it, Y/N?” 

Cillian was giving you the chance to stop in case you were uncomfortable, and at that moment his thoughtfulness filled your chest with love. No one had ever cared about you in that way before. 

“Yeah, I haven't been so sure about something before.”

You placed a hand on the back of his neck and pulled him closer to you, crashing your lips once more. His hand continued its way up until he grabbed your tit, squeezing it a couple of times before brushing the nipple. You let out a moan against his mouth.

“Let me make you feel good, okay?” his voice wasn’t louder than a whisper, you nodded eagerly. 

Cillian slid his hands down your waist until he touched the hem of your underwear. He gently moved the fabric aside and with the tip of his fingers, he brushed your clit with quick movements making you let out a gasp. It was much better than when you did it yourself. 

“More?”

“Yes, Cillian, yes. I need…”

He kissed your exposed neck and parted your folds to access your inside, first with one finger until you were stretched enough to introduce another one. He moved them in and out several times, continuing to rub your clit in circles with the pad of his thumb. You were starting to feel the pressure building in your lower belly, so you grabbed onto his shoulders and moved your hips in an attempt to accentuate the feeling.

Cillian caught the signals and at that moment he bent his fingers to press on the exact spot while rubbing your clit faster. You arched your back, feeling the orgasm spread throughout your body, until you lay limp on the couch with Cillian on top of you.

He leaned on his forearms so as not to crush you with his weight and gently brushed his lips against your collarbone. You grabbed onto him panting, even though he was trying not to lean on you too much, you noticed that he was hard.

“Now it’s your turn, Cill,” you said softly, caressing his hair. 

He shook his head. “Another time. Promised. Plus, I wanted you to feel good.” 

You kissed him tenderly, feeling like a fucking goddess with soaked panties and the warmth of his body against yours reminding you that it was real, that your teacher had made you cum with barely no effort. You needed nothing else to know that you loved him with every bit of your soul. 

Hugging him tightly, you whispered three words in his ear.

[handeaux]

In Cincinnati, Everybody Who Was Anybody Got The Scoop At Grandpa Hawley’s

The year before he assassinated President Abraham Lincoln, the actor John Wilkes Booth was in Cincinnati, performing at Wood’s Theater in Shakespeare’s “Merchant of Venice” and “The Taming of the Shrew.” Throughout the run, Booth was a frequent visitor to Grandpa Hawley’s newsstand, just two blocks south at Vine and Fourth. Years later, Hawley told the Cincinnati Post about Booth’s visits [28 April 1903]:

“He was in my store while here and I remember a conversation with him. I do not remember what we talked about in particular, but there was nothing to indicate that he had the least thought of perpetrating the dark crime with which his name is stained.”

By coincidence, James R. “Grandpa” Hawley also had a connection to Lincoln. Hawley first opened his business on Tuesday, 12 February 1861, and watched from the shop door as President-Elect Lincoln, on his way to Washington, was paraded down Vine Street to the Burnet House. Throughout the Civil War, Grandpa Hawley was the place to go for news of the conflict. Hawley told the Times-Star [10 January 1891]:

“That was in the war time, you know, and then the illustrated periodicals monopolized the sale, for in them were pictures of the generals and battles and the printed material dealt with the doings of the army.”

In fact, Hawley’s patrons often included those very generals themselves, picking up the latest weekly to read what was being said about the war. Generals Ulysses Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman famously mapped out the strategy to ensure a Confederate defeat in Parlor A of the Burnet House and gathered a lot of their information from Grandpa Hawley’s newsstand. He told the Post:

“I do not believe I ever saw them in uniform. Grant was not very talkative, but Sherman frequently started a conversation.”

Another regular military visitor to Hawley’s was Philip Henry Sheridan, whose triumph at the Battle of Cedar Creek was memorialized in Thomas Buchanan Read’s poem, “Sheridan’s Ride.” That poem was required reading for generations of American school children and the author, a Cincinnati resident, was also a frequent customer of Grandpa Hawley’s. It is not recorded whether poet and subject ever met at the Vine Street newsstand, but they might well have.

Vice President Andrew Johnson spent so much time at Hawley’s that the news vendor took to calling him “Andy.”

In addition to generals, politicians and poets, Grandpa Hawley’s shop was also a gathering place for the actors who trod the boards at Cincinnati’s theaters throughout the Nineteenth Century. Edwin Forrest was among the first Americans to gain distinction as a Shakespearian star. He frequently performed in Cincinnati and always stopped by to see Hawley, who recalled:

“In my mind I can see him now with his tragedy stride and hear his deep rumbling voice.”

In almost every interview he gave, Hawley mentioned Adelaide Neilson, whose fame as an actress almost equaled her fame as a great beauty.

“Neilson, the actress, has been here many times, and always used to pat the little newsboys on the head and give them an encouraging word.”

Hawley himself was something of a Cincinnati celebrity, mostly because of his enormous beard, which ran from his chin almost to his belt buckle. Most of the Cincinnati papers remarked about the “biblical” dimensions of his whiskers, rivaled only by those of Vine Street saloonist Andy Gilligan.

Many folks stopped by just to chat with Hawley, who was an especially entertaining raconteur, but most came for the news. In those pre-electric days, when “the media” meant print publications, Grandpa Hawley moved a lot of paper. He told the Times-Star that New York daily newspapers sold the most in his shop, followed by dailies from Chicago, St. Louis and Louisville. Among the weeklies, Harper’s and Leslie’s ran neck-and-neck, followed by the London Illustrated News. Some readers were quite dedicated to their favorite publication:

“One lady used to walk down from Walnut Hills every week to get the New York Ledger, because it would not be delivered to her until the morning following its arrival here. One day a Walnut Hills man who was a regular customer of mine asked me if I knew why he always took two copies of the New York Ledger. I told him I supposed he got one for a neighbor, but he said it was because he had two daughters and they were always squabbling about which should read it first, until, to keep peace in the family, he decided to give both a chance.”

Those were the days when multiple magazines appealed to every specialized interest. Hawley sold dozens of sports magazines, humor magazines, fashion magazines, science magazines and literary journals of contemporary thought like Atlantic Monthly and the North American Review – both of which are still published today. He carried most of the major periodicals published in German and French.

After 40 years in business, Grandpa Hawley found himself evicted from his landmark shop to make way for the construction of the Ingalls Building, the first reinforced concrete skyscraper in the world. Railroad magnate Melville E. Ingalls spent so much effort convincing city officials to allow him to build his revolutionary building that he gave little thought to the businesses he displaced.

Grandpa Hawley ended up relocating to the nearby Emery Arcade on the other side of Vine, but years of generosity caught up with him and bankruptcy was a real possibility. According to the Post:

“Everybody’s word goes with ‘Grandpa’ Hawley and were his customers so disposed they could carry away in overcoat pockets or under their arms several times as much as they paid for.”

At this dark moment, Hawley’s theatrical friends, accumulated over the decades, sprang into action and staged a benefit extravaganza for him at the Grand Opera House on 1 May 1903, raising more than $650 and saving the old man’s finances. It was a short-lived victory. Not quite a year later, Grandpa Hawley was dead. As he was laid to rest in Covington’s Linden Grove Cemetery, the Post [20 February 1904] eulogized:

“’Grandpa’ Hawley did not have an enemy in the world. For a lifetime he jogged along in an even, quiet way. He was honest and fair. He was never too busy to clasp hands warmly and talk entertainingly. He possessed a smile that was born of the natural kindness in his soul.”

[stardancingchild]

Weirdly enough, this is one of my comfort songs.

(turn the music on before reading, you'll get me better)

I listen to it as i imagine him singing it to me.

Holding me carefully, not too little or i might fall apart, not too much or i might break. We sway slowly side to side, in each other's arms, just for a moment passing by, as i shed all my unseen tears. I imagine that he cares, he cares that he never cared for me like i did for him. I imagine him singing this to my poor soul, telling me that he'd only make me cry, because it would make more sense than my idea of "us". We sway with the wind brushing our sorrows away, somehow my sorrow held onto my heart for him and took it away as well. So as long as this song fills the room, we're the only two that exist, only two that matter. And as long as this plays, it matters to him that i never mattered to him as he did to me. He knows, he shows, he sees, he's sorry.

But the song ends, and so does this pitiful fantasy. Reality comes rushing in...

I had him on my mind , ingrained in my brain. I made playlists for him in hopes the melodies might convey a fraction of my affection. I saved posts that i would send him if he was ever mine. I wrote him poems, which were some of my best works. I had a whole digital diary of him, secret albums of pictures of him, especially of ones which i took, if he could see himself through my eyes, him smiling wide with glistening eyes, maybe he would also want to capture and safeguard every nuisance of his beauty; and also, there is that folder of pictures my friends took of us together in one frame, accidentally of course.

I thought of being near him all the time, i thought of his wellbeing, i wished for him to know how perfect he was. Is. And he doesn't know any of this. I had him written all over my life for about an year, and he will have no idea how deep it goes.

He never led me on, he never did anything that would "make" me feel something about him nor did he drop hints that he felt something, he didn't have to, i guess, because i was never delusional, just utterly smitten...

(but then, what business did those eyes have, meeting mine??)

One day, i gave in to this agony and said to him that i liked him, and he said it was ok, i was his friend, this won't change anything. He was the nicest about it. But I still wonder, what if I would have said so much more, only if he could hear so much more... if he could, I'd tell him,

how like is something i did to a stranger at the airport who i talked to for a few minutes,

how like doesn't do justice to the gravity with which i was falling,

how like is what my mouth says, while my heart goes on to describe his beautiful piscine eyes, as the deepest ocean I'd drown in,

how like is what i wished it was, because it wasn't love of course, something less, something very one sided, but something so true.

If only i could tell him, i missed him when he was out of sight or even when he was right in front of my eyes, i fell for his laugh and his smile and his eyes and his lips and his hair and his hands and how he treated everyone respectfully, and his brain, and how he was so in love with his family, and how he was just a beautiful human being...

If i told him, i felt the familiarity of falling the first day i met him, if i told him i never wanted to be just friends, if i told him i would cherish him in every way he deserves...

Would it have made a difference? Would our story have a different ending?

I like to think

no.

I still don't know how to be that for someone else what he was to me.

Was? .... Is?....

no.

For the sake of my damn heart and the amount of love overflowing from it, it should not be an "is".

Was.

"Was" is where it should belong.

So I'll listen to "cry" again and imagine him singing again as we sway back and forth and I'll imagine i cry my unseen tears and pretend that

this is what my closure is.

[sharp-silver4795]

Could we know more about Jessie? :)

I loved that character!! Poor Liu boy needs smth good in his sh!tty life </3

Jessie Vahns (OC)

Ofc!! I love talking about my OCs!! And Liu 🤭

Jessie Vahns, an inmate Liu met in prison.

The Story of Jessie & Why he was arrested

CW!! ⚠️ Abuse, murder, SA, sexual abuse, child molestation, physical abuse.

His father literally beat his mother to death.

Because she died, he started to take it out on Jessie.

Meanwhile, his little sister, Samantha, was being sexually abused by their brother.

One day, Jessie decided to fight back against his dad. He then tried to stab his own son. It was turned against him and Jessie stabbed his dad 19 times.

When he went upstairs, his sister was crying in the aftermath of her assault. Jessie decided that, he already killed one person and he’s probably going to prison for it, might as well finish it here and now.

So, he found his brother and stabbed him until he stopped moving- it was 27 times.

Obviously, Jessie was arrested and sentenced to 20 years in prison. He was 19 at the time, the same age which Liu would kill himself.

Liu and Jessie

Jessie was 36- he had 3 or 4 years left in his sentence- when Liu came in.

He caught the older man’s attention because of how kept down he was. Someone who had committed a crime wouldn’t be in a ball on the floor, nearly crying, with his head on his knees.

When Liu told him his story, Jessie was livid.

It reminded him of his own injustices, so he would fight tooth and nail to get him outta there.

Liu’s Release

CW!! ⚠️ Implied physical abuse

Once Jessie helped him get out early, he wrote the man letters.

The letters told of all the shit he went through, but there were also casual ones as well.

He sent him drawings of his favorite things: sunflowers, butterflies, drawings that encapsulated songs he liked, etc.

Jessie always loved these letters, and sent some back to him. He complimented Liu’s drawings and some of his poems that he sent as well. Jessie disclosed that he wanted to be an author as a kid, and sent Liu the main concepts of the stories he made up. Liu loved all of them and even drew cover art for them.

One day, a woman came to the Woods’ house looking for Liu. Peter was angry when he called Liu down, assuming he was in trouble.

The woman merely gave him a scarf. It had gray and black stripes and was so so soft.

“It was my brother’s. I think you know him. His name is Jessie.”

Liu was near tears at the gesture. Peter was instantly calm, but they didn’t save Liu from the pain that would ensue…

Liu’s First Death

CW!! ⚠️ Suicide

Jessie was the first one to know about it. He had a half year left in his sentence.

Liu sent the letter before he did it, so it would get to him on time.

Once released, Jessie put together every single one of his letters and drawings, sobbing over the loss while he put them in a box and marched down to the police station.

He slammed down the box and said:

“He didn’t fucking deserve this. Make it right!”

Then he left.

He paid for Liu’s cremation, but gave him a headstone in the graveyard. He left sunflowers on the grave every weekend. They were his favorite, after all.

Keith’s & Liu’s Second Death

Cw!! ⚠️ Murder, rape

When Liu (23) had killed Keith, the first person he ran to was Jessie (41).

His hands were covered in blood as he sobbed into the older man’s shirt.

Jessie had told him this, and he meant it too:

“It’s alright kid… it’s over. He can’t hurt you anymore… you did good… I’m so proud of you…”

He was 44 at the time, out of prison for nearly 9 years. Liu was 27, and off to the electric chair.

Jessie was well aware of what Liu had been up to. He knew who he was killing, and why.

Rapists, abusers, and people who fucked with his brother and friends.

Jessie couldn’t bring himself to justify it. But that didn’t stop him from loving the kid as if he were his own.

He went to visit Liu before he went off, and asked one simple question. And Liu gave a simple answer.

“You coming back again? Like ya did before?”

“I plan on it.”

And he did. He did come back.

Jessie’s Death

He died at 62 years old in the hospital. He was a smoker, and it caught up to him. Liu was 42, and left Hydra to visit him in his dying moments.

It was a sweet moment: Liu sitting on the side of the bed, holding Jessie’s hand. The two had one last conversation:

“Kid?”

“Yeah?”

“Look at how big ya got. Damn.”

“You need to get tough or die, right?”

“You were tough to begin with, kid. You took so much pain and suffering, and ya still held on for so long… I’m proud of you.”

Liu started to tear up, the words that he needed his whole life being said to him. Jessie was the only person who would say it. Granted, this wasn’t the first time, but it would be the last.

“You know, kid. I started calling you ma son.”

Liu was speechless. Jessie considered him his son? It shook him that someone, a parent figure, would want him. Would call him their son… and be proud of it…

“Thank you… so much..”

“C’mere”

Jessie stretched out his arms as best he could, and Liu cried into his chest once more. Jessie, his only father figure since his dad’s death, was leaving him.

He died in the hospital.

This time, it was Liu who paid for the cremation and headstone. No one came to the funeral except him and Samantha, Jessie’s sister.

He stood with her as she mourned the loss of her brother who saved her so many years ago. She cried into Liu’s arms, the only other person who would care.

When her eyes were dry from the crying, she looked up at Liu and noticed he was still wearing that scarf…

Divider & Header Creds: Sister-Lucifer

[tinywitchgoblin]

Hey wassup, I’m delusional (and insane) and I saw your past posts, so which bad batch member would you ship me with?

Im Hispanic (Dunno if that’s important lol). Brown curly hair and brown eyes. Tan skin but I have low iron so I kinda look pale but not too pale. I got two little moles on my chin that I’m insecure about but sometimes I’m confident about them. I’m 5’5. I struggle with anxiety but I’m coping with my depression, I occasionally have really bad depressive episodes. I’m bipolar. Sometimes I act so confident in myself and other times I get insecure and try to hide my stomach.

Some things about me is that I love to write and make poetic shit, like I will sound like a insane hopeless romantic. I like to use cheesy pick up lines when I get comfortable enough. Music is my life and savior. Will legit make a whole playlist or CD dedicated to someone. I LOVE to dance to literally anything, usually if I try to get someone to dance with me is because I just wanna have fun with someone and be able to laugh and feel alive. Dancing is just a way to express myself and have someone alongside me. I love painting, cooking and reading. I adore romantic poetry. My friends consider me as the mom of the group. I’m loyal and I’ll always put other before me ( it’s a curse). If you need anything, honey I’m right here like a genie. I hopelessly devote myself to others. I LOVE taking care of others though, maybe it’s because that’s what I’ve been doing for majority of my life.

I Love cinema. Like deeply love cinema. I’m always up for a night or day full of movies and shows and being lazy on the couch or bed. My definition of Netflix and chill is to literally Netflix and chill, we are watching movies only! Will use quotes from movies on a daily basis and expect someone to get it and finish the quote. Kind of a introverted but I can be social if I know enough people in one space. I’m always up for adventure and thrill in life, like wanna go on a roller coaster? Heck yeah. Wanna dance? Aint gotta ask me twice. Try new things? Might be nervous but I’m up for it.

My standards for love and a relationship can be described as Melanie Martínez’s song High School Sweethearts.

Alright that’s it. Thank you and have a blessed day! <3

Thanks, you too 💚

I ship you with...

Wrecker!

You'd actually met Omega first, but once she introduced you to her brother Wrecker, the two of you were inseparable. You would write him love letters and make playlists for him, and he would shower you with compliments and support you in every aspect of your life. Once, he tried to write you a romantic poem back because he loved the ones you gave him, but it... didn't go as well as he wanted. When you asked him about it, he told you he wanted to make you feel the happiness he got when you gave him a poem or a playlist, but nothing was working. You reassured him that you felt his love in other ways, that his love was as unique as him.

One of Wrecker's many love languages is quality time, and he wants to spend it all with you. Sometiems you'll end up in the kitchen, attempting a new recipe (or maybe just dancing while some pasta is boiling away in the background). Other times, you're just relaxing on the couch, watching something on Netflix. If you're into it, he'll pull you into his lap and keep you close especially if you're watching a horror movie. Both you and he get super frustrated when Hunter has to drag Wrecker away because he needs help with something, but there's always the promise of hanging out again later.

Wrecker doesn't know much about mental illnesses in the clinical sense like Tech does, but he's really good at not only telling when you're not feeling well, but sussing out what the underlying issue is. He's very in touch with emotions (both his and yours), so he's usually able to tell if you're anxious, depressed, insecure, or any of the above. Wrecker doesn't like seeing you in any type of pain, so he will do anything he can to make you feel better. He'll sit with you, talk with you, make you some good, make sure you take your meds and/or get appointments scheduled (if applicable), etc. He isn't someone who does things halfway, and that includes loving you; making sure you feel your best is only a small fraction of that.

-

Thanks for reading! If you want a ship request like this one, drop it in my ask box, and don't forget to reblog 💚 it may take a little bit, but I'll get to it eventually!

[mariacallous]

After returning from the war in Ukraine, many Russian soldiers are invited to speak about their experiences at schools and patriotic events for children. Among them is Nikita Semyanov, a 35-year-old from Novosibirsk, who was recruited to fight in the war while serving a nine-year prison sentence for murder. Multiple women have also accused Semyanov sexually abusing minors and of physical assault. Nevertheless, he’s continued to make appearances at various patriotic gatherings for children since his return from the front in February 2024. The independent outlet Holod dug into Semyanov’s past and learned why local groups organizing the events are still turning a blind eye to the allegations against him. Meduza shares an abridged version in English.

In February 2024, Novosibirsk’s Garin-Mikhailovsky Library posted about a recent recitation competition for schoolchildren called “Dedicated to the Defenders of the Fatherland.” Among the judges evaluating the children’s performance of patriotic poems was Nikita Semyanov, a veteran of the war in Ukraine. The post refers to him as a “special military operation” participant and reconnaissance group commander.

Shortly after, Semyanov visited a local school and spoke with the children there. Heroes of Russia – Novosibirsk, the local chapter of Russia’s Association of Heroes, published photos from the meeting on social media. The next day, Semyanov’s ex-wife, Polina, wrote a post revealing that Semyanov had killed her father.

Nikita Semyanov strangled his father-in-law in April 2021, after the two got into an argument. Alexander Makarenko was listed as missing for over a month. His body was found in May, and police quickly closed in on Semyanov and arrested him. Semyanov confessed to the murder, saying that the pair had started arguing while working together in the garage. As Makarenko was leaving, Semyanov grabbed him by the neck, put a plastic bag over his head, and strangled him with a wire. He then loaded the body into a car, took it to a plot of land he owned, and buried it in a pit.

In May 2022, a court found Semyanov guilty of murder and sentenced him to nine years in a strict regime prison colony. However, a few months after the verdict, he volunteered to fight in the war. After Semyanov was wounded, he returned to Novosibirsk a free man.

‘A sexual predator’

In early March, an acquaintance of Semyanov’s named Ulyana published a thread on X (formerly Twitter) in which she called him a pedophile and a murderer. “Now this animal is going around schools and blowing up smoke up your children’s asses,” she wrote.

According to her, Semyanov used to teach guitar to teenagers, and he coerced some of his students, girls aged 12–15, into having sex with him. Semyanov’s ex-wife Polina, seven years his junior, was also a minor when the two first got involved. “I met Nikita when I was 10,” she told Holod. “He worked at my school. We slept together when I was 13, and I moved in with him at 15. I gave birth at 17, and then when I was 18, we divorced.”

Ulyana said Semyanov tried to coerce her into having sex with him when she was around 14, and then again, about a year later:

On my boyfriend’s birthday, I ended up at his place again. There were a lot of us, my friends were there and in general, everyone was having fun. When my drunk boyfriend passed out, Nikita called me outside to talk. There, he shoved me into the dog kennel and started threatening me: either I give him a blowjob, or he’d strangle me and bury me, and no one would ever find me since the house was his. I was depressed, and I told him just to kill me. He got angry and dragged Polina over, made her suck him off in front of me.

Semyanov taught guitar at a local school in the 2010s, Ulyana told Holod. According to her, he’d let underage female students come stay with him if they’d gotten into fights with their parents:

I heard him say there’s a price for this, and if you weren’t willing to pay, you could pack up your things and get out. They didn’t complain about it, or maybe he hushed them up. In general, at that time, a lot of awful things were just a normal part of reality. He himself always said that his parents would help and cover for him and that he wouldn’t suffer any consequences.

Semyanov’s ex-wife Polina told Holod that while she was living with him, he constantly humiliated her, sexually assaulted her, and beat her: once he even broke her nose. She claimed that after the divorce, he used threats to force her to relinquish her parental rights in court. “I ran away from him with almost nothing,” she said. “I left everything. I had nowhere to go. I was afraid of being judged by my parents and afraid for myself. He made it very clear that I couldn’t see my child, and that if I tried to, he’d ruin my life.”

After the divorce, Polina went to prison on drug possession charges. Friends say that her daughter currently lives with Semyanov’s parents and that he likely sees her. Semyanov later remarried, and then again divorced. A family friend, Oksana (name changed), said that he regularly drank in front of the children and brutally beat his second wife, Irina (name changed). According to Semyanov’s acquaintances, he would make violent statements about his ex-wife Polina, saying she should be “chained in the basement and left to die there.”

“He’d scold his daughter, yell at her, and hit her,” Oksana added. “He justified it by saying her looks reminded him of his ex-wife, Polina. That she was just as nasty and vile and therefore deserved to be beaten and screamed at.” Oksana also told Holod that Irina found child pornography on Semyanov’s computer, which he later claimed to have deleted.

‘An exemplary father’

Not everyone believes that Nikita Semyanov killed his father-in-law and raped underage girls. Under posts accusing him of crimes, people started leaving comments in his defense. “Who’s writing this? Information has to be verified; you can’t just write a post based on what one person said. He’s an exemplary father, raised his daughter on his own. You can see how much she loves her dad. And as for what happened, you have to know the family’s situation and all the details,” wrote a user named Vera Osipova.

Osipova told Holod that her child was in some classes with Semyanov’s daughter. She described him as a “good father” and a “positive and friendly young man.”

The Association of Heroes, which organized Semyanov’s school appearance, told Holod that it doesn’t do its own background checks on members of the Russian military:

The Defenders of the Fatherland Foundation sends us the soldiers’ contact information. […] As for the horrors and accusations, apparently there is some tragic family history that the Association of Heroes has nothing to do with. We organize meetings with lots of soldiers.

Holod was unable to get in touch with Nikita Semyanov. He told Novosibirsk journalists that he wasn’t going to comment on the situation and that he didn’t recommend publishing anything on him. He blamed his ex-wife Polina for allegedly “abandoning a five-month-old child and disappearing for 10 years.” The Association of Heroes confirmed that Semyanov refuses to talk to the press. A representative there told local journalists that he is an active volunteer in patriotic organizations and, therefore, “from a moral standpoint, everything is fine.”

[starielluvsdnd]

Session 2 of Speak No Harm Summary:

We entered the ant hill where the party was sent to the dungeon. Kingsley’s characters tried to resist by initiating combat but Sting gave up on that pretty fast. A highlight is when Bob (Faragrim) and Fennel (both tied together) climbed onto the back of one of the ants and used it as a mount (Nel even grappling it while using her Rabbit Hop to get over a [fake] wall [for cover in the training area]) which I gave them inspiration for.

When the party got sent to the dungeons Kings hatched an amazing plan using an arrangement of spells (which I will beg him to explain in the comments or a reblog) and since Sting had spent all week talking about how he wanted there to be a lake nearby to cause a flood with discovered the river which was the showers water source (which had to totally been there the whole time). The party met some NPCs I’m quite proud of (like an ant who was sent to jail for trying to join the bees, 2 ants who didn’t speak common, an angry ant who responded to everything with “IS IT MY FAULT THAT X?!” and dangerous praying mantis in solitary [who told them a piece of a prophecy I wrote]) and took a bunch of rests before breaking free.

We’re at the escape now and it’s dinner so we’ll probably continue tomorrow. The 1st part of the poem is written below (as it’s the first law drop in the campaign it’s VERY vague but I’m still happy with it);

Bells will ring

Birds will fly

And the grass will sing

At the arrival of Spring

[illseeyouinidaho]

Ocean. Ocean—

"The most beautiful part of your body is where it’s headed. & remember, loneliness is still time spent with the world."

It’s funny. All I’ve been doing is thinking since I stepped foot on campus. Now, I can’t think of anything to say. Of course, there is so much to say. But none of it is immediately bubbling to the surface. It’s late, after all. I’m digesting food, too.

I wondered today if you were happy or sad. When I waved at your friend, without realizing you were beside her, you waved back, as she did, you though with a frown.

I spoke to a my favorite jewish ginger giant today about you. He says that everyone’s adjusting to something, the first week of school, to new relationships and to know that you’re not going through it all alone. I read him the poem above, he didn’t say much. He didn’t have to, of course. I said that it made me feel comforted. I said to him, like I’ve said to a few other confidants, that I feel like I’ve lost the beating drum to my livelihood, the tempo, the marching snare, the passion pit. I told him that you were that for me. I can’t quite remember what he said to that. Sometimes I feel your eyes on my back watching me wander around the campus. I wonder if being in the city by yourself just meant being in the city without me.

I always thought that change comes naturally or not at all. I’ve been going to the gym the last couple days, and plan on going tomorrow at least. I have more time on my hands, more thoughts to expel, more things to prove. I’d like to get bigger: my chest broader, my triceps more defined, my chest also enlarged, too. It’s always something I’ve wanted but the new motivation for it is obvious. If that’s true then I’m probably just proving her eternal point: better off separated. I want to tell her she knows nothing above love. And that one day she will understand, and think of me, and say that I was right. That I was right about it all.

But that was yesterday. And I do not always feel that way. Some days I feel that this hiatus is the right move. I think this only under the right condition: that she is learning what it means to find peace within yourself, which is what I am doing, I think. In the case that this condition is not met, this hiatus becomes sadder, uglier, and more defining. It communicates to me that she is not looking for brahman, she is just looking for time away from me. And I believe these two things are very different, finding peace alone, and being away from me.

I’ve been reading religious texts of the ancient Indian sub-continent. And whilst reading I think of you. Well, I think of myself in relation to you. I think of myself in relation to change, acceptance, healing, and desire: in relation to you. I guess this is not new though. I always felt in relation to you. And it saddens me to think that perhaps you thought this as well.

Sometimes I think my best friend, Massimo, is the only audience I ever need. The only conformation of my feelings, my writing, that I need or truly want. And I think that’s something to be proud of, and to be grateful for.

Phoebe said, at the beginning of this semester ,that she couldn’t believe that it was truly over. And I don’t think anyone, close to me or to you, can truly believe as well. Lord knows we gave it the ride around. Meaning, of course, that we were on and off for the longest time. And that time, curiously, meshes together into one blob that I cannot hope to separate into eras or themes or sub-situations no matter how much I think, and I do—think.

It’s been a few days and I’ve found myself thinking of you less. Maybe next week I’ll think of you more. I don’t know. I dreamt of you last night, though. I ran into you outside of a bar, I was a bit drunk. You looked startled at first, almost uncomfortable. But that air of negativity soon vanished and a nostalgically-induced banter commenced. We walked into the bar, and continue the conversation. There was a bed there, you asked to lay next to me, for me to hold you. I asked to dance instead and then awoke. It was 4am or something; I swung my legs from around my bed and checked my phone. There was nothing of interest and so I returned to my bed and fell asleep once again.

[ruminate88]

My First Boyfriend

I’ve stated in prior post, I grew up in a very empathetic home, and I was an extremely very emotional and empathetic person. I always felt sorry for people who were less or made to feel unwanted or unexcepted by society. Since I was homeschooled, I have no way of meeting people outside of the Internet! I met my first boyfriend on MySpace when I was 18. He had claimed he was homeless at one point I felt so so sorry for him, he was very nice to me, we had a few things in common, and we started a quick friendship/boyfriend and girlfriend relationship. His name was Stewart and he lived in Westfield, Indiana. He was almost four hours away! Stewart drove to my house! With my parents reluctant approval, my online boyfriend was able to come to my actual house and meet me. I had felt so sorry for him being homeless……

I was a caretaker because I had been taking care of my grandmother and my brothers kids, so it didn’t phase me to take care of this boyfriend. Him being from Indiana m, it was always so hard to drive the long distance to come see me. I didn’t have a drivers license at all. I could never drive to go see him. So eventually he started staying for days at a time at my house. My parents were Christians, they were against sex outside of marriage. They had no idea I had been previously addicted to pornography. I tried not to watch pornography, the whole time I was with Stewart. He slept on the couch downstairs. There was times I was very tempted to have sex with him. I even gave him blow jobs.

Eventually, he never left…… He lived at my parents house for almost 2 years! Stewart had never graduated high school. He claims he got suspended but never told me why. He also claimed his dad was in prison. His own mother hardly ever called to check on him to see if he was OK. My parents were very upset and bothered by this. They felt his mother was not a good mother. We all felt very sorry for Stewart. His clothes were like rags and had holes in them. My parents bought him a whole new wardrobe, shoes and coats. We gave Stewart a lot! My dad tried to help him get a job and an apartment. Stewart would never talk marriage with me, he would never talk about the future. I only ever met his mother. I never met any of his other family because I never went to Indiana with him. At some point because he was living with my parents, we began to be too comfortable with each other and would fight like brother and sister!!! I felt sorry for him, but also was getting resentful towards him as he would not get a job and wood hog the computer and tv. He was very jealous of my obsession for Jesse McCartney. He also flirted with multiple girls from my church younger than him and privately wrote poems to one of them on myspace. I saw it in his private messages because we both had access to each other’s MySpace accounts. The one good thing about Stewart, he was very good at math and was able to help me get my GED and he also got his GED with me. We studied together, took night classes together and leaned on each other for support. During the day, I was still taking care of my grandmother, my brothers kids, and now this boyfriend who was super lazy! He would sleep till really late in the day like 3pm!! he went to church with my family because they made him but I could tell he did not care about it or really believe in it. He would try to stay home, but my parents did not like leaving him alone at their house they didn’t 100% trust him. My dad didn’t care for him, but felt sorry for him to the point he continued to let him live there even after we broke up!!

At that point in my life I no longer felt sorry for Stewart, but I was irritated at him and just wanted him out of my life. He was super lazy. I was not attracted to him anymore. It was like fighting with my brother fighting over things that were mine, him taking advantage of my parents and there kindness!! He was always playing the “victim” consistently, and was nothing but a taker. I lost respect for him, but unfortunately takers we’re all I knew in my life at that point. So whenever I dated true narcissistic men, it was normal for me I didn’t even understand or see a difference. I just accepted the abuse!

[fandomtrashbag]

It's 3:11AM and I think my current favourite moment of my partner (and there are many) is how he used to say that love was nothing but a chemical reaction in the brain and humans needed to rise above it when we first met. And I told him it was bullshit. He disagreed with me at the time, but now the fucker cannot nap in a car with me without holding my hand.

I don't know where this ideology comes from, especially in desi men. They're products of the patriarchy I guess. Told they need to be strong and tough and without human emotions as a survival tactic. Romance is a thing of the past and a life partner was simply for procreation. Even if you really did love someone, you would not show it. You would not let anyone see how vulnerable you are deep down. It is weak and it must be squashed mercilessly.

My partner has had a rough life and I will not dictate much about it for the internet to see, but I love seeing his evolution through the time I spent with him. He told me that love is a chemical reaction in the brain and nothing more and I told him it's bullshit. He asked me how and I said it's much more than that, and if you're ever lucky to be mutually in love you will understand it.

He went from a touch averse person to someone that will pout and get cranky if he hasn't had enough kisses on his face.

He went from a person that didn't care much for the gifts people got him, to cherishing every single little thing i gave him to the point he had a lil ziplock file full of them. Some of them were pretty stupid, like work plans. He kept them because they were parts of time we spent together.

One time while working he asked me if I wanted flowers and I jokingly said "planning on buying me some?" Alarmed at the forwardness and unknowing of how to deal with a crush, he changed the subject to talk about how he never liked flowers. Flowers are already dead and they're for vain purposes. Beauty shouldn't be something that's dead. While I disagreed, a few months later after we started dating I gave him a crochet white rose for Valentine's Day. And another time I got him yellow gerberas and a yellow rose, fresh cut. I traveled in the middle of a really bad heatwave to surprise him with those, too. I'd never seen a man so happy before.

He never liked many sweets but his heart melts every time I get him a chocolate donut because we bonded how he got one hollow on our snack break all those many months ago, he's happy eating sugar.

I once asked him what made him fall in love with me so fast, mostly because I like picking at his brain. He thought for a second and said it's because at the root what he wanted the most was for someone to genuinely care for him and not treat him as disposable. He didn't think he'd ever find someone he'd enjoy talking to every night, the point where I was shocked when he told me he was a restless sleep talker who sometimes kicked people in his sleep. Because the person I knew only searched for me when dozing off.

A while into dating, a mutual friend posted the same quote he had ranted about all those days ago. Same one, from Rick and Morty. I teased and said remember when you thought that? He shyly said yeah, I was wrong. Love is so much more than a chemical reaction.

Love is transformational and it is kind. It is tough on you and the softest caress when you need both the most. Chemicals are part of it, sure. But love, genuine love? It's what wars are fought for, for sonnets and novels and poems and prose. You can't replicate that. Trust me, he tried.

[maythedreadwolftakeyou]

Session 12: some side-quest cleanup, and heading down to Orzammar

Short playtime this week--and extra short writeup because the first hour was just cleaning up some of the Denerim sidequests in various back alleys, which I don't have much commentary one. Except one of them I thought was an easy one, but ended up being multi-part, a little dungeon crawl, and fighting a whole bunch of Qunari at once. so we ran around on those for a bit and then headed to the meat of the game, and Setna picked heading to Orzammar next!

She wanted to shake up her usual party dynaimic (Alistair, Morrigan, & one other trading out) and went for Zevran, Shale, and Sten for this. With the understanding that we'll probably be down there a while and she can change up as desired. So off we skipped to the Frostbacks! I explained a little more about the caste system, isolationist approach, surface dwarves not being allowed back in kind of points as we chatted around to the merchants. She noted the one merchant who's kind of racist about Sten and commented on how reactive this game is to your choices--which yes, that is what makes it soooo good and fun to replay imo.

Anyway, went up to the gates and encountered more of Loghain's men trying to argue their way down at the blocked gate... and further enraged when we get to go in. I think she's picking up on how tensions are building between warden gang/Loghain as we are moving further up the plot. Once inside the entry hall, we read through the plaques about the Ancestors and talked about DA dwarves not having 'religion' as much as 'ancestry' that gets intentionally mythologized... love it. On our way in, watched the Behlen/Harrowmont first proxy showdown, and she once more discovers that "these people are gonna need me to figure their shit out yet again!" yep thats right no promised treaty help for use until we solve everyone elses crisis first.

didn't do any other plot advancement, just some walking around/looking at architecture. Had our first convo with Dagna encouraging her to go to the surface, met a nug for the first time ("why is it bald!"), and promised to look for someone's lost son in the deep roads (rip in advance, ghoulboy). Then called it a night.

Oh, actually, one other thing: i told her if we're not taking ANY mages or healers I had to give Sten his special present. I've been waiting to do the feastday gifts, since I don't want her to get all the approval bumps at once, so I said we were going to have to give him both his Good gift and his Joke gift he will hate us for, to balance the scale. Sten is in fact my favorite revialist in the game because you can have him read from his Qunari Poems For The Dead book to cure your knocked out companions in battle! I think a lot of people don't realize that about his book lol. Anyway so gave him that AND the butterfly sword, which he isnt even strong enough to use yet, so next level up I'll have to remember to show her his new pretty pretty princess weapon.

Setna Plays DAO

this post thread will be part 2! find all of part 1 here

session 8: last time we wrapped up saving Conner, and getting the Urn of Sacred Ashes quest. now first up, camp chats! going to readmore these posts now to avoid them getting too long, so details below the cut.

our bro Alistair first--my friend likes that he's funny, but also that you can be a little snarky to him and he just rolls his eyes and accepts it as a joke. he gives us the heartfelt "thank you for helping out Eamon's (and his) family" speech, since we went out of our way to save Connor. Setna remarks that she thinks at some point he may attempt getting romantic with us and we'll have to shoot him down--this is def a possibility though she hasn't taken too many of the overly nice and none of the flirty lines with him, so i'm actually not sure if that will trigger or not. Wynne's here now, so we chatted with her next, and i revealed the Age Conundrum--fwiw i think the bioware writers are just bad at math, she's clearly supposed to be around 70 not 50. i think the dates given in the tie in novels were just thrown out there with less thought. worth a chuckle though!

for tonight's adventuring, I took us on a detour from the main story to go get Shale. grabbed the control rod, skipped down to Honleath (triggering the cutscene with Howe, Loghain, and Anora confronting him--I pointed out after that Howe is voiced by Tim Curry and she's excited to see more of that later lol), fought through the town & insanely large community basement/wilhelm's lab. along the way i accidentally clicked morrigan and i guess she got a +1 approval somewhere because she asked us to search for the Grimoire, which we did in fact already pick up in the tower.

Agreed to go search for Amalia, lied to Kitty, STRUGGLED my way thru the damn tile puzzle, and sent Amalia running back to daddy while we took out Kitty. then finally out to wake up Shale with the correct password! fantastic news is my friend LOVES Shale (going to stick to "it" pronouns until the reveal bc i am trying SO hard not to slip up in person), specifically that it jokes to her and seems to like when she jokes back. we had a lot of follow up discussion about what exactly a golem is, at least with the current knowledge from the game. Shale agrees to come with us so it's back to camp!

first convo with Shale confirms Setna's love for it. next a round of basic gifts to get the gang warmed up to us a little more, which unlocks Morrigan's backstory dialogue about the stolen mirror Flemmeth smashed, and Wynne's nervous check-in on our thoughts about Abominations. Also triggers Alistair's asking to go visit Goldanna in Denerim, and she was annoyed that agreeing to this is less +approval than giving him a funny runestone we found. I tell her how beautiful Sten loves fancy paintings and she says "that makes sense" to which I go "what" and she refuses to elaborate. Zevran has no new dialogue for us and she threatens to turn him down if he asks for a date and sees me go 😭 at the thought. Then we go hand over Flemmeth's Grimoire to Morrigan, and have a chat about Morrigan's growth over the past sessions/how she's starting to open up, yay. she still feels most attached to her and Alistair, since they've been with us from the start, and have had the most chances to get to know them.

ended with just a couple codexes to read at the end of the night. decided next time we'll start the ashes quest, since Teagan asked and she doesn't like leaving things open ended... and i will quietly go off and check what levels things are there bc i usually save it for the end, uh oh

[heavyhitterheaux]

Love the Way You Love Me

A First Lady of Private Garden Fic

Liked by jackharlow, angiemartinez, urbanwyatt, druski2funny, saweetie, and 9,306,742 others

y/ninsta: I was all smiles during my radio interview with angiemartinez once she mentioned my baby jackharlow 😭 LOVE THAT MAN TO DEATH 🥺

jackharlow: 🙈🙈🙈

jackharlow: always and forever baby girl 😘

saweetie: my favorite couple ever 💕

normani: I just love the way yall love each other. that's some soul mate shit if I ever seen it.

dualipa: but.... y/ninsta what about our love? 😐

jackharlow: dualipa you tryna get all the smoke this morning huh? 😡

y/ninsta: dualipa in another life my darling

jackharlow: WHAT? NO. She's my wife in the next lifetime and all the ones after that

y/ninsta: that's my man and imma stick beside him 😌

maggieharlow: the way you two talk about each other 🥰🥰

y/ninsta: maggieharlow I literally am always thanking you and Brian for raising such an amazing person 🥺

claybornharlow: y/ninsta I know right. I am pretty amazing 🥰

urbanwyatt: I mean I guess he's an okay dude

jackharlow: urbanwyatt and clayborn take your asses on somewhere

jackharlow: y/ninsta you make my world go round smush 😘

"So Y/N, you have just been out here killin it left and right. I know Private Garden is proud of you. Especially your husband."

"The way that they support me is insane. There was a time I was nervous to rap in front of them and it wasn't until Jack came home early and caught me. He didn't know I could rap until late 2019."

"That is crazy, so all you did was write and produce?"

"Yeah, ever since we were younger. I always loved to write and started out writing poems when I was around eleven. That soon led to me writing songs."

"So what led you to want to come out in the spotlight and make a name for yourself?"

"Literally because PG and Jack pushed me. It was a good thing. I remember it was the last night of his creme de la creme tour and he was like it's time. Because when he first caught me I was like there is no way I'm releasing anything and I was like babe, let's just focus on you first. Once we did that, he was like it's go time. I'm not taking no for an answer."

"I absolutely love the way you two are just so supportive of each other. And you two first met when you were both 14?"

"Yes, it's so insane because who would've thought that me moving to Kentucky would lead me to the love of my life."

"You both are so fortunate to find love at a young age, so what keeps it going and what makes it work?"

"It's like people don't understand that you have to want your relationship to work and want it bad and put in the effort. You have to be all in and that's what makes it work for us. We're a team with everything that we do. Like without a question or doubt in my mind. Communication is a huge factor and we never keep anything from each other no matter how big or small it is. Honesty is key."

"I've heard people mention that it seems as if you don't do anything without getting his approval first."

"It's not the fact that I need approval. It's the fact that he's my husband and I value his opinion as well as his feelings. I never want to do anything to break his trust in me and he's the same way. I look at it like this. He's my husband and I am submissive towards him because he's a leader. He has never steered me wrong with the decisions that he has made and I know he won’t. He literally treats me like a queen and makes sure that I want for nothing. He's made sure of that the entire time we've known each other."

"Tell me about the parents finding out you two had been married for almost five years. That was insane."

"Okay so, Jack proposed a week after I had turned 19 in my parents backyard at 1 in the morning with no ring. He was like when I get my first million, I'll get you whatever you want. So I had described what I wanted and did not mention it again. The same night he told me that it was time to release my music, he gave it to me. I most definitely cried. But I had a feeling my mom and dad knew. I don't remember what I said one time talking to her but she gave me the side eye and I quickly changed the subject. Now Jack's parents especially his mom was ready to fight him only because she wanted to be there since I remember on Jack's 16th birthday she was like you two are going to get married one day."

"That is insane for her to have known that early."

"Okay so this is crazy and I actually never told Jack this. Before I moved to Kentucky, I had a dream about a year earlier showing me walking down the aisle. I couldn't see my husband's face, but once I got closer, it was Jack so I literally had my dream show me my husband before we even met."

"That... that's powerful."

"Like he's it for me. And when I first met him in person, my breath hitched. I was like, this is really about to happen. This is the man I'm going to marry."

"Tell me about how your parents felt when you decided not to go to college and move with your boyfriend to Atlanta."

"That was a really hard conversation. They knew I wanted to move back once I graduated high school. They were concerned because I was always told as a black woman in this society that I had to work twice as hard to get half of what they have. They just wanted for me to be secure. There necessarily wasn't a doubt in their mind that Jack wouldn't take care of me but, the conversation ended with me and my mom in tears. But we made up before I left. I know that she only wants the best for me and that she was scared. She just wanted for me to be okay and I can't blame her for that."

"It's a blessing to have your parents in your corner wanting the best for you and cheering you on."

"I would not be anywhere without my parents as well as my in-laws who are my second set of parents. There have been times when I called Maggie at 3 in the morning just because I need advice on a situation and she is always there for me. Same goes for Brian. I always thank them for giving me Jack."

"You literally light up like a kid on Christmas when you talk about him. I love that."

"He's my forever. I could talk about that man for hours."

"So, what's next for the first lady of Private Garden?"

"Just bringing smiles to people's faces as I continue to reach the goals that I set for myself. I want to be remembered as an entertainer who wasn't afraid to be different and shows that being yourself is what is going to lead you to greatness."

"And there you have it. Y/N, thank you so much for coming to visit us. Don't take so long next time!"

"I promise I won't!"

---

Jack had just finished watching your interview with Angie Martinez and was nothing but smiles.

He was currently at home waiting for you to come back from said interview and was just taking time to reflect on how far the two of you had come.

He was interrupted by the front door opening and immediately hopped up from the couch to give you a kiss and a bone crushing hug.

"Oh, hi baby! Are you okay?" You asked as he was still tightly holding you.

"I just... words cannot literally express how much I love you and how much you mean to me."

"Aww, stink. I love you too. Always have and always will."

"I just finished watching your interview and the dream you had? Insane."

"Yeah, and we hadn't even met yet. I didn't tell you, but when we first met, I had to do a double take. I was like that's him!"

Jack had given you another kiss before leading you both to the couch to sit sliding you onto his lap.

"And the way you just trust me?"

"Because you have never steered me wrong. Marriage and career included."

"I don't deserve you."

"Stop that right now Jackman. Yes you do. I just love the way you love me and I...."

"Yes? What's wrong?"

"I want to ask you something, but I'm nervous."

"Baby, why are you nervous? You know you can come to me for anything."

"I know, but.. "

"Come on, pretty girl. Tell me."

"I think I'm ready to have a baby." You respond while looking down.

Jack tilted your chin up to look at him and smiled.

"Baby girl, that's what you're scared of telling me?"

"I just with both of our careers. I just..."

"Y/N, stop for a minute."

Jack then took your hand in his and began making small circles on the back of it.

"I would love to have mini versions of us running around. If my baby wants a baby, her wish is my command."

"Wait, really?"

"You're already gorgeous now, but I can't wait to see you carrying our baby."

"Promise to paint my toes when I can't see my feet anymore?"

"Promise. And you should know me better than that. Mrs. Harlow is not lifting a finger during her entire pregnancy."

"There's no one I would rather share this life with." You said while kissing his nose.

"Not going to lie, I teared up a little bit watching you earlier."

"Aww, why baby?"

"To hear you say you love me is one thing, but to hear you explain why and what makes our relationship work... I'm so happy you moved in across the street from me. I saw the cute little girl with the braids and I was done for. Had me wrapped around your finger ever since."

"It was your blue eyes, chubby cheeks, and freckles for me. Still remember you turning red as a tomato when I first talked to you."

"Can you blame me mamas? Gorgeous then and gorgeous now."

"We're in this together, stink. We're building an empire for our babies so they'll want for nothing."

"Sooo, can we get started now?"

"You know my answer is always going to be yes." You replied while kissing him and he proceeded to stand up while carrying you bridal style up the steps.

"Wait...babe?"

"Yes, my love?"

"Google positions we have to do in order to have a girl."

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