#(ps is the first program to start complaining......)

[schnaf]

23 days until hyeongjun's 23nd birthday

day 6 - hands

[saltyyuuri]

POOKIE PLEASEPLEASE PLEASE MAKE A PT.2 FOR THE CYPHER SMUT I BEG WITH MORE CHOKING AND DEG🙏🙏🙏‼️‼️‼️😓😓😓😋😋😋

OKAY OKAY I GET THE POINT YOU GUYS WANT TO PART TWO. But on the side note are you guys sincerely okay-like sincerely. I already know the answer but I'm still taking a second to ask it. Anyways -

Oh extra PS, I decided I was going to make a small reference to my fic "writer's block", if you read it you might recognize something in there too. Because this is just too perfect to reference writer's block.

PLEASE KNOW THIS IS ROUGHER THAN PART 1, BE WARNED

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🃏 Keep up 🃏

Cypher x FEM!reader

Pt.2

(Part 1 here for context)

Song: roll the dice, odetari.

Words: 5000

Warnings: foul language, nsfw, bdsm, degradation, sadomazo, potential violence/mention of it, CNC, knife, slightly more extreme kinks for you weirdos (no offense), my sanity, my lack of sleep, okay this is getting off subject....

🃏🃏🃏🃏🃏🃏🃏🃏🃏🃏🃏🃏🃏🃏🃏🃏🃏

"how much longer do I need to be tied to this chair?" You asked as he broke the silence, it had been practically hours at this point, occasionally getting some water and snacks whenever he got up and remembered to do so-he had been so busy going through all the files on the computer and at this point your shoulders were getting completely cramped from being handcuffed behind the chair.

"as long as I want. And I told you to be quiet." Cypher said-his tone firm and nearly cold as he spoke, his mechanical blue eyes glued onto the screens of his computer as he was going through all the files. You were still pretty exhausted, your body was strained and starting to get various cramps. Despite the moment of frustration relief you two had earlier, right now your body was in pain pretty much everywhere.

"for once I'm not going to be sarcastic but I am sincerely in pain. I'm getting cramps all around, mostly my shoulders from being handcuffed like this. Can I just at least-" you started to say again, for once your sarcastic tone completely gone considering your own comfort was completely destroyed at this point. Cypher barely glanced up-his attention mostly on his computer. It was as if he was considering it but then promptly ignored you again.

You let out a sigh, tugging at the handcuffs once again to try to reposition your arms a bit. You were tired and you were uncomfortable, definitely not a good combo. And that was without counting the fact that you hadn't gone to the bathroom in hours. You were just hoping he would be done with the files soon enough-that he had some fancy program scanning them for him because one terabyte would take him a whole week to go through-and you didn't want to be stuck like this for a week.

It was only about an hour later when Cypher finally got up again and a strike of Hope went through you. He made his way towards you and much to your content he finally undid the handcuffs from the chair-allowing you to move your arms a bit but staying very close by, monitoring your every move. When you got a second to stretch-he was quick to put the handcuffs back on you but this time not against the chair-your arms cuffed towards the front. Before you could protest he was already tugging on them and dragging you along-forcing you forward and making you stumble a bit.

You did your best to not trip over, following him. "Where the hell are you taking me-" the words came out on their own, having lost the sarcastic Edge from the discomfort. "The restroom." He answered shortly, his voice was still sharp as he spoke. He just dragged you along, opening a side door to the room-it seemed there was a personal bathroom right there. He tugged your handcuffs all the way to the toilet first; and when you thought he'd at least give you some privacy, he just stood in the corner of the room with his arms crossed, waiting.

You know you didn't have much grounds to complain and you also knew that if you did complain, things could probably go much worse. You did your business despite being watched like a hawk and despite having your hands cuffed-doing as you could to take care of yourself. As you were going to pull back up your pants with your cuffed hands, he stepped forward and put a foot on your pants, forcing them to stay on the ground.

"why. Just why." Came out of your mouth as your head snapped up, a look of annoyance and irritation on your face. "You desperately need a shower." He said, and you could almost see the mocking expression on his face with just how he was speaking. Before you could protest he was already taking care of getting your top off-only undoing the handcuffs for a short moment to get the shirt off. And then it seemed like he was having a moment of consideration once more, deciding to keep the handcuffs off of you.

Before anything could be said or done you were pushed in the shower-it was one of those white showers that were in the corner of the bathroom, a rounded exterior with glass doors. Your clothes were piled on the floor and he was twirling the handcuffs around on his finger, arms half crossed and his eyes glued on your nude body in the shower. "Go on. I don't have all day." He said firmly, leaning against the wall.

"so you're just profiting off the moment for your own sick pleasure?" You said in annoyance, starting the water and flinching as it started cold-a mix of being unpleasant but also soothing for the aches around your body. "Oh sweetheart, you weren't giving me that speech earlier when you were acting like a whore." He said, his tone near cocky as he spoke, still twirling the handcuffs with his finger. "Yeah except earlier I wasn't in discomfort. You're such a fucking asshole." You said from the shower as you started to wash up-only having your back side towards the glass. You didn't want to give him more of a view-but you also couldn't hide much.

"Poor thing. Would have figured you liked it, seeing that having a gun down your throat is what turned you on, out of assumed some pain of sitting in an uncomfortable position for hours would have made you a hot mess." He said with his voice dripping with sarcasm, making you grumble in the shower. "Fuck you. Sincerely, fuck you." You said out loud, rinsing off the soap from your body. "We've just done that sweetheart. Is that your way of asking for a second round?" He asked, his cocky tone already coming back as he spoke, the handcuffs that were twirling on his finger stopped-catching them with the same hand he was twirling them with. His eyes scanned over you once again.

"definitely not. I'd rather be walked like a dog then do that again." You hissed out-even though you had to admit you did like what had happened; you just were so annoyed and frustrated from the hours you had to sit in discomfort, only now just getting a glimpse of relief as the cramps that had been starting to form we're now getting loosened up from the warm water, washing off any traces of him other than the markings. And honestly? If it weren't for all that you would have said yes-you don't know why he just knew how to work you so well, and you weren't complaining...

"careful; seeing how much you enjoyed being degraded, you might actually love being walked like a dog." Well, he wasn't wrong. But you didn't want to prove him right either. Despite the idea of it almost having a slight appeal, much to your twisted dismay, You just scoffed, shutting off the shower despite wanting to stay longer, walking out dripping wet. A puddle was going to form under you if you didn't get a towel, but seeing as he didn't take any out, you just assumed he'd let you drip off.

He chuckled, and you already knew he was going to be up to something. He walked back over, snapping the handcuffs back onto your wrist. He didn't even get you dressed-pulling you out of the bathroom completely nude and dripping wet. "Wait a damn minute-I'm not even fucking dressed-"you started to say before he turned around briefly as soon as you were back in the room that consisted of his office-one of his feet going to kick behind your knee. You roughly fell forward-on all fours in front of him.

"you said you'd rather be walked like a dog? Then that's exactly what's going to happen." He said, his tone almost sadistic as he spoke. You barely registered the words that were said; he was already grabbing the blindfold ribbon he had used previously, tying it around your neck. It wasn't too tight but it was definitely not loose either. You could already feel heat building inside of you again- even if you wanted to refuse, your body was winning this battle over your mind. He proceeded to walk back to his desk after. You wanted to get up, you wanted to go back to that damn bathroom and put your clothes back on-and as you were just trying to get back up; he put his foot back down on the chains of the handcuffs, forcing you back down to the ground. This time he had a rope-nodding it around the blindfold that was around your neck.

"Bad dog, you're supposed to say. Have you not ever been properly trained?" He asked in a mocking voice. The degradation once again was starting to get to you, but you didn't want to let him have that satisfaction. "Go to fucking hell." You said almost immediately, glaring up at him. He just laughed, tugging on the rope he had tied around the blindfold on your neck, walking forward and forcefully tugging it along with him. When you didn't want to budge it just choked you, crawling forward to not get choked again and gasping for air.

The choking sensation just vividly brought your body back to the same moment where he started choking you with his hand- how much you liked it. You could already feel the heat growing again, and you knew you wouldn't be able to resist it. You were leaving wet spots on the floor from not getting dried off after the shower, being walked like a dog around his office. It was a degrading experience. And much to your surprise; you enjoyed it probably more than you should have.

"that's no way to talk to your master. Bad dog-" he said with the same cocky tone, yanking on the rope once again and watching as you choked. You already felt the heat in your core, your mind finally just giving up on its previous frustration. But you were still going to talk back nevertheless. "Fuck... Off..."you mumbled out, crawling forward once again.

"for a bitch, you definitely have one hell of a mouth on you." He muttered out, yanking you forward once again. He took quite a few steps forward, heading to the small sofa that was in his office before he sat down, tugging you forward once again. And there you sat on all fours in front of him, leashed up like a dog. He lifted one of his feet and put it against your head. "I really shouldn't have shown you to be this witty." He continued, pulling on the leash a little harder while his foot held your head in place. The blindfold that was being used as a makeshift collar was starting to choke you, feeling the familiar tingling in your limbs once again from the lack of air.

"And you... Are just a twisted... Bastard." You managed to choke out, gasping slightly for air as he spoke. "Your relentless... It's a shame you're putting it to use in the wrong place, whore." He said, leaning forward as he removed his foot from your face, cutting some slack on the rope as you gasped for air. Before you could even mutter out something else, he reached into one of his trench coats pockets, pulling out a metal object. At first you weren't sure what it was until he flipped it, a butterfly knife resting in his hand.

Your eyes widened and your body froze once again, just like earlier when he had the gun. Fear started to settle, on all fours and on a leash, the heat pooling in the bottom of your stomach and now fear added to the equation, a similar mix to the earlier's events. He brought the dull part of the knife up against your throat, letting the cold metal touch your skin.

"it's so amusing to watch you change your attitude every time your life is on the line. You become such a good slut when you're scared." He said, adding pressure. It wasn't the sharp end of the knife but it was still pressing into your throat in a way that made your heart beat harder and harder in your chest, your breath strained. Even when you tried to swallow, it was almost as if you were trying to be careful. He moved the blade, dragging it down your neck except this time he was purposely letting the tip drag, not putting enough pressure to create cuts but enough to leave a threat-a threat that if he did decide to put pressure, you'd get cut.

"I want you to beg. I want you to beg for me to not cut you, to not leave scars all over you with this knife. And I want you to apologize for your attitude." He said in a commanding voice, his order coming out just as he paused the knife right over your artery, the tip of it still poking at your skin without cutting it. Your breath got stuck in your throat for a second. Why was this turning you on? Why was it that both times he was threatening your life it was turning you on? You are really starting to question your own sanity at this point.

"please -" you started to say, taking a sharp inhale in while also trying to be careful to not move your neck an inch. His knife started to drag down again. "Please- don't cut me. Please-" you said, your voice bordering a whimper as you spoke. He dragged the tip near your shoulder, feeling it the whole time. "And?" He pressured on, turning the knife so that the blade was towards your shoulder now-just gently resting against it without applying any pressure. It was right beside a bite mark he had left.

"I-Im sorry-... I'm sorry for my attitude-" you said in a stammer that was half whimpered- fear still bubbling inside of you along with arousal. "Please -" you added on again, trying to keep your breathing light despite it all. "And tell me, you disgusting whore, how turned on are you right now?" He asked again, feeling the blade ghosting above your skin as he moved it again, his movement was extremely precise as to not apply any pressure that could cut the skin. Your breath was shaky, fighting off a whimper that was building in your throat.

You didn't want to give him the satisfaction of knowing, but you knew that if you didn't talk the knife would start cutting. You took a shaky breath. "Very." You said quietly. The blade went back up against your throat, this time the sharp end was against it. He applied light pressure, enough for the presence to be felt but not enough for it to cut once more. "Louder. And say it properly, stupid bitch." He said, his tone commanding.

"I am... Very turned on-" you spoke a bit louder, your voice coming out as a shaky whimper as you spoke. The answer seemed to satisfy him, lowering the knife before flipping it back closed, putting it back in his pocket. "Turn around." He commanded again-one of his feet already pushing against your arm to force you to turn. He had given just enough loose on the rope to allow you to turn around while still being on all fours, the blindfold turning to adjust around your neck as a collar would. The moment that your rear was facing him, he put a foot between your shoulder blades and pushed you down, a grunt coming out of your mouth from the forceful push.

Your chest was flat on the ground, your rear end was up. He was still holding the rope, holding it with just enough tension to cut off some air flow but not fully, making your breathing ragged. The heat that had pooled at your core was still there, your face flushed now that he could see everything. He could see exactly how it turned on you had gotten.

He hummed out-removing his foot from your back. "Stay like you are, dog." He said, relieving some tension on the rope for just a brief moment. This time he had removed his hat, reaching down to place it on the back of your head-so if you tried to turn around the only thing you'd see is the brim of the hat. Since the blindfold was currently being used, this was the best he could do for the time he needed to undress.

You once again heard him start to mess with his clothes, taking them off before his trench coat also ended around your shoulders, this time making sure no matter how much you moved your head around you wouldn't be able to see anything going on behind you. You let out a whimper, hands gripping onto the fabric of the trench coat, the only thing you could really grab.

"Good girl." He simply said before tugging on to the leash again, hard enough to lift your head a bit and choke you, but due to all the fabric around you and the hat you still wouldn't have been able to turn your head to see. You already knew he took off his mask since his voice was much clearer once again. You felt one of his bare hands feel around your thighs, pulling at the skin occasionally to look over the previous marks that were left.

"You know, just for having an attitude with me earlier... I think you still deserve a bit of punishment." He said, his sadistic voice still remaining as you still had a pit of fear in your stomach, not knowing what was coming next. But once again it wasn't just fear, the damn mix of excitement and arousal remained, and any question you had about what was about to happen got answered pretty fast.

You felt a sharp sting on your behind, the sound of a slap resonating in the relatively quiet room. You let out a choked moan, still being choked by the leash as he felt the sting, the slight burn from being slapped harshly on the ass. "You're going to count out loud just how many spankings you're getting." He ordered you, hearing some shuffling behind you. There was a small pause.

"I said you're going to count. I haven't heard you start counting yet." He repeated once again in that commanding, near sadistic voice. "One-" you choked out, still panthing as you had a bit of trouble breathing from the leash. His hand came down on you once again, another sharp sting and slight burn could be felt. "Two-"you whimpered out, gasping. It wasn't long until you were up to 10, tears In your eyes, your hands balling in fists around the fabric of his trench coat he had tossed around your shoulders.

Only then the leash finally loosen a bit, allowing you to breathe properly. Your mind was completely blank at this point, just a whimpering mess on the ground, on all fours in front of him, your wet cunt and red ass fully exposed to him. "You are such a whore. Taking all of this while just moaning and whimpering? You're such a twisted little slut it's almost disgusting." He said, practically mocking you. His hand started feeling up your thigh, smoothly sliding onto your red ass, feeling the heat of it from getting slapped multiple times. He let out a small chuckle-but his touch was gentle. He run a thumb over your skin, almost as if trying to massage it gently. It was such a stark contrast from just seconds earlier, a glimpse of relief in it all.

"say it. Say that you're a disgusting whore." He said-his touch still gentle on you despite the commanding voice, despite the slight sadistic hint in his voice. "I'm... I'm a disgusting whore-" you choked out, your voice a whimper at this point. Tears had ran down your cheeks, still catching your breath as you spoke. He let out of hum of satisfaction, shifting once again behind you.

There was another tug at the leash-making you gasp. You barely even had time to register anything going on, just like the first time he roughly thrusted into you. It just slid in on its own, with how wet you were, he didn't have any issues to just fuck you right there. Your voice had cracked so much at this point that the moans came out mostly in whimpers and gasps- the leash tugging at your neck and occasionally cutting your breathing only making it worse.

Your body was extremely tense, a warm knot already forming in your stomach. He was grunting, letting out a moan of his own as he kept thrusting roughly inside of you. "Such a pathetic whore, look at you being just a little whimpering mess." He said, his voice breathless as he spoke and continued his pace. At one point he finally let go of the leash and put both of his hands on your hips, practically pulling you forward to meet him mid thrust, making it much rougher on the receiving end.

"I'm... A good whore-" you whimpered out through the thrusts, barely catching your breath, still holding on to the trench coat as if your life depended on it. Your walls were tightening around him, you already know that you were on edge. "Oh you must definitely are a good whore, such a good fucking pathetic slut-" he groaned, one of his hands reaching under you a bit. His body was leaning just above yours, but his fingers going to meet your core once again.

He moved them at a rapid pace, almost purposely trying to overstimulate you immediately. You let out a cry; you couldn't even control yourself at this point. Your orgasm washed over you faster than you would have expected, your legs starting to shake quite a bit while you back arched, pressing your chest even more into the floor. You practically screamed his name despite your voice cracking, another flow of tears going down your cheeks.

"fuck, you're tight." He said, still thrusting roughly despite the fact you had already came. You knew he wouldn't stop until he was satisfied-only getting more and more overstimulated us he didn't stop rubbing your clit either. You were just a shaking mess under him, broken moans and cries coming out of you. He let out a sadistic chuckle, then a moan followed on.

His Pace finally started to slow down a bit, both of you just catching your breath before he pulled out. You stayed in your position despite how shaky you were getting and the pain that was building in your legs-hearing him move behind you. After a couple of seconds his hand, extremely gentle and careful with his touch, pushed you back down to the ground fully so that you were laying on your stomach. It allowed you to stretch your legs a bit and relax them. Your breath was still a bit rough and hiccuped-the tears from earlier were still there.

He took a few moments before removing the makeshift collar from your neck, it had left a red mark all around, complementing the bruising from the choking, the bites and the scratches. You truly looked ruined at this point. He didn't see your face because he didn't want to go in front of you-still unmasked and fully exposed, he didn't want his identity seen like this-but some of the tears that had run down your cheeks and onto your neck, he did feel them. His hands had paused after taking off the makeshift leash, now holding just the blindfold.

He was debating inside of him what to do next, letting out a sigh after a couple of moments. You felt the blindfold getting tied around your eyes once again, being unable to see once more. "Please - ... No more... I can't -" you started to whimper out, you truly wouldn't be able to handle another round at this point, your body was aching at how rough he had been- it truly was extremely pleasurable but also extremely demanding on your body. "I'm not going to do anything more. I just don't want you to see me." He said firmly, but his voice didn't have the commanding Edge or the sadistic hint to it anymore.

He picked up his clothes from around the room, sliding them on but not his mask quite yet. "I'm going to lift you up." He gave you a quick warning before crouching beside you, his hands gentle and careful as he snuck them under you, carefully lifting you from your position on the floor, laying on your stomach, and putting you onto the couch just behind you, on your back. You let out a whimper since your ass genuinely hurt from getting spanked-which he understood pretty fast.

"I know, I'm sorry, give me a moment."he simply said before you could hear him walking off to a different part of the office. You couldn't see him and you didn't know what he was doing-just feeling the pain in your rear end, trying to prop it up a bit. But your legs were aching quite a bit so it wasn't really helping. After a couple of seconds he came back, one of his hands going under the bottom of your back to lift you a bit-then you felt something cold.

You took a guess that he probably wrapped some ice in a towel-or something of the sorts. But the cold feeling was definitely welcome and much more comfortable. Then he finally got to cleaning you up, instead of using wet wipes this time he actually got a warm washcloth and was gentle the entire time. He understood that what he had done was much rougher, much harsher and he needed to be more gentle.

Once he was done with it all he slowly got you dressed-then gently cuffed you onto the couch. "I'm sorry, I do need to keep your handcuffed still until you're in the clear." He quickly apologized, but you were too tired to even complain about it at this point. The couch was very comfortable compared to the metal chair or the floor-so being handcuffed was just the least of your issues at the moment, completely exhausted.

He brought you over some water and help you drink it, going all out with the aftercare and even getting you something to eat that was light and easy. When he was certain he had done all he could, even putting a small blanket on you as you tried to relax your body, he finally took a small step back, his mask held in his hands. "Do you need anything else?" He asked you, even his tone had gone gentle now. "Thank you-" you managed to say, your voice was practically gone at this point so it was in a whisper.

He hummed, kneeling back down beside you. "I'll get you some honey and tea for your throat. Would you like that right now or do you want to rest?" He asked you, one of his hands gently resting onto your shoulder. "Later..." You practically whispered out, slightly shaking your head. He let out a small hum again. "Alright. You rest up-you deserved it." He said, lingering just a moment more. And after a few more moments he leaned in, placing a soft kiss on your forehead.

".... And you still don't have the decency to give me an actual kiss", you whispered out, once more not really able to talk properly due to your voice being gone. You heard Cypher let out an exasperated sigh; of course you would still have attitude after all of that. Of course. "You are insufferable." He huffed out, and once more you were quick to reply. "That's your own fault." And he couldn't disagree-he was the one to make you like this before Kingdom got a hold on you.

He just leaned in, his lips meeting yours for a proper kiss once more. It lasted longer than the first, gentler and not as rushed. When he pulled away, this time you were actually considering asking him for another one- and it also somewhat baffled you that he could be threatening your life while fucking you and then suddenly become much more gentle. It was a stark contrast-but you also knew you couldn't really comment on it considering your own contrast.... Being witty, sarcastic and unapologetic, reduced to a whimpering brainless mess that enjoys the most twisted things- and it seemed the two of you had that in common.

Another kiss was placed on your lips, surprising you a bit but trying to savor it nevertheless. This time when he pulled away you heard him slide back on his mask, adjusting it briefly before his gloved hands made their way back towards the blindfold, gently untying it. You blinked a few times, taking in your surroundings. He stood above you for a moment, the blindfold in hand-but then reaching down to the blanket to pull it up a bit higher. "Just rest. I'll bring you the tea and honey when you wake up." He said once more, heading back to his desk to continue sorting the files on the hard drive he had taken from you.

🃏🃏🃏🃏🃏🃏🃏🃏🃏🃏🃏🃏🃏🃏🃏🃏🃏

[jerzwriter]

Just a couple of couple questions :)

For both pairings:

What’s the best gift they’ve received from their partner in Christmas or their Anniversary?

Do they tend to go on vacations without their child(ren)?

How do you HC their lives after retirement?

What kind of in laws are they once their kid/s bring someone home?

Hi Nonny, Thanks so much for the ask. I'm sorry for the delay. I just really wanted to give this some thought.

See answers below:

What’s the best gift they’ve received from their partner at Christmas or their Anniversary?

For Tobias and Casey, I really want to defer to the DTI AU where he restored the antique toy doctor's kit her grandfather gave her. She thought it had been destroyed, and it was, but she didn't know her Dad still had it. When Tobias found out, he found an antique toy specialist who helped bring it back to life. Casey adored her grandfather, and that was the kit that inspired Casey to become a doctor, so she lost her mind. I'm considering adding that to their HC as well, so let's go with that. lol

For Ethan and Kaycee, can I use her wedding gift instead? He knew how much she loved the water (like him). It was where they felt most at peace. So he purchases a quaint beach home in the Cape Cod town of Sandwich for Kaycee as a wedding gift. They spend many happy days there throughout their lives, and that is where they retire in the future. Needless to say, Kaycee was blown away with the generous gift.

Do they tend to go on vacations without their child(ren)?

Tobias sort of insisted that they go on one vacation a year without the girls. They adore them. Their lives revolve around them, and that's the thing... he said they always needed to remember who they were before, what brought them together. Because their job as parents was to raise these beautiful little ladies to be responsible adults who would go out into the world. When that day came, he wanted Casey and him to be just as happy together - just the two of them - as they were at the start. They're also very fortunate to have scores of people who the girls love being with, so they don't complain at all. (PS... Casey was great with this idea until the first time she had to leave her little Samantha. She was unsure. Here is a little bit about that first trip away together. After this, she was so on board.)

Ethan and Kaycee do take trips without Emma, but they are not as frequent. With the exceptions of a couple weekends here and there, they don't do any until she's around five, then they try to get away alone for a short vacation alone, but it's not all that frequent. The dynamic is just very different in their family since Emma is an only child.

How do you HC their lives after retirement?

Tobias & Casey move to Washington, DC, in my HC for them. But, deep down, Boston was their home. It's where they met and fell in love, and once Kayla is off to college, they decide to buy a condo there and keep a condo in DC where Brooke & Kayla settled. The girls aren't happy because they didn't want their childhood home sold, so Brooke and her fiance purchase the house. Once their girls have babies of their own, they decide the split arrangement isn't working for them, so they move into the Carrick family townhome that was left to Tobias and remain in DC, though they make frequent trips to NYC where Samantha resides.

They also buy a vacation home (I'm not sure where yet) that is VERY large to accommodate their three girls, their partners, and all the grandkids. Many family holidays will be spent there, as well as many vacations.

Tobias remains involved in medicine, teaching at various medical schools. But his true passion is a non-profit he and Casey create to help expose children residing in inner cities to careers available in the world of science and medicine. It's a strong mentorship program that provides educational, social, and financial support to students. A secondary mission is to bridge the racial divide in healthcare in the US. Their girls laugh that they never really retire because they put in so many hours with the organization. But to Tobias and Casey, it's not work at all, it's their passion, and it brings them joy.

They will make more time for travel and absolutely spend as much time together as they possibly can.

Ethan and Kaycee remain in Boston, though they downsize to a smaller condo on the waterfront. Emma remains in Boston, and they want to be near her and their grandchildren. But the bulk of their time after retirement will be spent at the beach house that they love so much.

Early on in their relationship, Kaycee forced Ethan to take up a hobby to relax. He began painting and found he was quite good at it. He spends a lot more time perfecting this and even becomes a popular local artist on the cape. So much for art serving no purpose!

I think Kaycee will write a lot after retirement and, of course, continue working on the causes she believes in.

Both of them will always be connected to the medical world in some way. They'd likely be adjunct professors and continue with some forms of research and publishing.

They will make more time for travel and more time to just slow down and be with each other.

What kind of in laws are they once their kid/s bring someone home?

I'll answer for all four here because the answer is the same. They will always be welcoming and kind. They know they raised strong, smart daughters, and they will trust their decisions. But... let people fuck around with their girls, and they will find out. :)

[yamithediaperdork]

Let’s all go to (baby)jail! (Miraculous ladybug and cat noir)

Nathaniel Kurtzberg yawn loudly and rubbed a eye as he finished cleaning up the main playroom. at age 16 the two time akuma villain had struggled to find then lucked into a job that would help pay for his art supplies over the summer break. at first he'd been thrilled but the truth of the matter was, while playing with the kids that came to rainbow cloud Daycare was fun, and they all loved his sketches he made for them, at the end of the day he was normally too damn tired to do any art for himself. Not helping things was the fact he was suppose to be on the afternoon shift, but one of the other workers had called in sick and as low man on totem pole, Nate got to fill the morning shift and would still have to do his afternoon shift. 'and the stupid evening shift didn't clean up before leaving, again.' he thought glumly. the only other worker on was up in the office, taking in phone calls and the like, or at least that's what Johnson claimed. Nate had a feeling the chubby slob was really just watching YouTube videos on the office computer but since he was the boss's son, there was nothing he could really say or do. all and all it was looking like it was gonna be a shit day, but straitening up and dusting off the brown slacks and white shirt that was his uniform, Nate tried to force a smile on his face. 'no sense in taking out your bad mood on the little ones.' He reminded him, looking at the clock and noting it was almost opening time. there was a heavy knock on the front door and despite the place having a no early drop off rule, Nate wasn't shocked some upper class twit would be dragging their kid by already. shaking his head and making his way to the door he opened it and took a step back in semi concern as some sort of love child between a body builder and a gorilla was standing there, glaring. "Can..Can I help you?" Nate asked, a tremor in his voice though he thought the man looked almost..oddly..familiar. The mountain of muscles made a grunting noise and then held out a letter, which Nate took with shaking hands and glanced over it as the missing link walked towards a fancy black car, leaving Nate hoping that he wasn't leaving cracks in the pavement.

' To which ever wage lackey receives this, my son had been enrolled in your little day care as out of all of the daycare's in the city, this one has the most success with it's potty training. My son despite being older then normally allowed into your daycare and into your potty training program has been allowed due to the frankly massive amount of money i have paid to brush aside all concern's. he's to be treated like any other toddler who's failed to keep his pants clean and know that while i have high hopes this will pay off, no fault will be placed upon you as the boy is simply lazy, and i suspect is doing it just for fun. PS: Don't be scared to spank him if he acts up, he's old enough to know better.

Signed Gabriel Agreste. '

Nate raised a eyebrow as he finished reading, that last name, it could really be.. and then he looked up and grinned ear to ear as of all the people he could of expected to see being enrolled in the daycare's award winning potty class, it was Mr. supermodel himself, Adrien Agreste! The Blond boy was CLEARLY not happy as he was escorted out of the car, pouting and looking down at the ground and muttering something as he was handed a large light black diaper bag with 'Adrien's diaper bag' stitched on the side in white. he was dressed in Black velco sneakers and white socks and wearing a pair of light black shorts to match the shade of his diaper bag and as Nate looked, it was clear to see the shorts were puffed out by a bulky diaper. the diaper itself was over the top of the waistband and was a cream white, it had been visible when Adrien's white t-shirt rode up for a brief second. The shirt itself amusingly had text on the front that ID'ed Adrien as a crybaby brat and while Nate couldn't make out what Adrien was muttering about apparently the gorilla had had enough and gave the blond a firm swat on his padded bottom, making the blond cry out. The gorilla pointed towards Nate and Adrien looked like he wanted to complain, but wisely kept it to himself and carried the large diaper bag (which seemed to be so loaded with extra diapers and the like it took the blond using both arms to lug it) towards the door. '...Oh..today just got a WHOLE lot better.' Nate thought. "hi little guy, welcome to Rainbow Cloud. follow me instead and we'll get you alll set up." Nate said, even as Adrien gave a dirty look.

For Adrien, his hell had started in the last two weeks in school when in the span of 3 days he'd had 6 wetting accidents and woken up having messed the bed twice. Thankfully he'd been able to cover up the accidents so no one had noticed, but naturally his father had found out about him having changes of clothes brought to him, not to mention the bed messing had been impossible to hide. A trip over his fathers knee and 20 minutes with his nose in the corner, and Adrien had been warned NOT to let it happen again or steps would be taken. the blond picked up on the threat and had nodded, promising he'd take care of it and for a day and a half, and carefully controlling his fluid intake he'd been golden. it had been during a pep rally when disaster had struck, he'd been sipping at a soda in the crowd when a loud bit of pyro had gone off and the sudden boom, and the extra bit of fluid had resulted in his flooding his pants, though since they were out in the field the urine had thankfully gone into the ground. thinking quick before anyone noticed he 'accidentally' spilled his soda on himself, soaking his pants even more and joked about his butter fingers and got permission to go and change. His father hadn't been fooled for a second, and when his bodyguard can brought Adrien a change of pants, he'd also brought him a pair of puppy print pull-ups. Knowing better then to argue the part time hero had wore the pull ups, though he could see there was no way anyone could tell under his baggy tan pants, he'd been sure the world knew for the rest of the school day. Further disaster struck on the drive home after school, his father apparently had made it clear no after school fun even if it was Friday, as they got stuck in a traffic jam. trying to ease the sense of doom, and pretty sure he was going to get anther spanking when they got home, Adrien had been watching TV in the back and munching on some rainbow chip muffins he had stashed in a compartment back there, when the urge to go number two hit him like a ton of bricks. he'd been making use of diarrhea medicine to help keep his bed clean and actually hadn't gone number 2 in the day or so as a result, but apparently he'd pushed his luck. squirming and trying to soothe the cramps, he'd begged and pleaded for his body guard to either get them out of the traffic jam, or let him out of the car to use a bathroom, but the doors stayed locked and he'd of blown his secret identity if he had just turned into cat noir and forced his way out. (not to mention he wasn't sure if the pull up would stay hidden with Cat noire's much tighter clothing, and if he was gonna fail at going poopie on the potty it was somewhat better to do it in his civilian clothes, instead of his super suit) the belt and pants had been digging in and Adrien thought MAYBE if he took them off (the back windows were tinted after all so no one could look in) that might buy him the bit of extra time he'd need, and so in just his t-shirt and puppy pull-up, he ended up kneeling on the spacious floor of the back seat, leaning on the seat with his upper half and groaning and pounding a fist, trying desperately not to fudge his pull-up. For all of 20 seconds it felt like it might of worked, then they hit a pot hole, and well that was it. game over. The boy howled and cried as he made softball sized lumps in the back of his pull-up and a rotten stench had filled the back seat. Thankfully (or more accurately, amazingly) the Pull-up hadn't leaked then he was forced to stay in his kneeling position, so that he didn't smush his smelly load and risk leaking out all over the expensive seats. Thankful for the private parking they had, Adrien had been led inside quickly and no one had seen, but instead of being given a chance to clean up he was presented to his father who had wrinkled his nose in disgust. One LONG lecture later, he was allowed to shower, then was spanked and out on time out and put in double pull-ups. For the rest of the remaining school year Adrien could of counted the amount of times he actually made it to the bathroom on one hand. Pull-ups during the day, with him having a pack at the school, and diapers once he got home. thankfully Hawk moth had found something better to do during that week then making villains as Adrien had been put more or less under lock down. it wasn't that he didn't think he couldn't of snuck away from his body guard, but there was also the fact his pants had been taken away, and he was given a pair to wear to school, and any modeling gigs he had booked. rocking the diaper and shirt look around his house was one thing, but he pictured having to turn back after fighting a villain and being stranded in down town Paris in the thick white diaper his father preferred him in. Adrien had figured this was going to be his summer, under house arrest till he could get his bladder and bowels to fall in line but his father had other ideas. "Clearly you're not even making a effort to use the washroom, from what I've seen you just sit on your behind and play your little games while stinking up my house." his father had said. "well I'm not going to let you be a lazy little potty pants and make it so i have to come home to a house smelling like a diaper pail. I've enrolled you in a daycare that will help you get back your control." "But..But..Dad you can't! I can do this! I'll fi-" "I didn't ask for your opinion on it young man, I already took care of it. you'll be going every day, Monday to Saturday, and I expect you to do your best with their 3 week potty training program. You'll either shape up and prove what I've been saying, that your just lazy and been doing this for attention and stop in short order, and then can just stop going once you've proven you can be a 'big boy.' Or you'll prove what you've been saying and you really can't help it and you'll be potty trained..again. Hopefully it'll stick this time." Shopping for the supplies had been mortifying but today as Adrien looked at the face of a semi friend, it seemed like a delight compared to the day that laid ahead of him.

"So little guy, this is the main indoor play area, though we have a playground in the back." Nate said, clearly taking delight in following orders to the letter. "and over here is a area you'll be getting VERY familiar with, hopefully to great success." Adrien followed Nate's gaze and whined loudly, it was a wall lined with 5 training potties, and had a dry erase board above each one. they had tape on them to form a grid that displayed days and times, with room for someone to draw to write something in. "Your daddy must be very eager to get you potty trained, not just anyone gets the full experience.we only focus on 5 kids at a time but if your enrolled in it, your daddy must of paid top dollar." Nate said and then gave Adrien a pat on his padded rump, making the blond sulk even more. the diaper bag had been taken from him and was over by a changing table, so his hands were free at least but all that had meant was whenever they walked anywhere Nate had made Adrien hold his hand. "I will warn you that since your technically one over the limit, you'll be waiting in line to use any potty thats free. I'll be keeping track of your potty progress for you on a card you can take home and show your daddy, so give it your best ok champ?" "..Nate come on, you know I'm not one of these little to-" Adrien said, finally having enough and turning to give the smaller boy a piece of his mind. "Before you dig yourself a nice deep hole, You should know I have full permission to spank your butt if I need to.and we've been told to treat you just like any other little guy struggling to learn how to keep his pants free." Nate said quickly. "..Of course you have. My father is a fucking asshole." Adrien groaned, rolling his eyes then yelped as a hard swat when on his padded rump. "Bad boy! no swearing! Little boys who swear and cuss get their mouths washed out!" Nate said, shaking a finger at him. a mental image of himself with soap suds around his mouth and blowing bubbles popped into Adrien's head and he whimpered. "I.I'm sorry! I didn't know." he said quickly. "...I'll let it go THIS time, but next time, they're gonna be calling you bubble breath. got it mister?" Nate asked. Adrien swallowed his pride and nodded. "right, now going on with our little tour..give me your hand little guy..that's better. anyways, over here is our arts and crafts corner where we'll-" As Nate droned on Adrien whined and found himself oddly fighting the urge to suck his thumb.

Johnson came out and met with Adrien, chuckling lots. Adrien had felt a brief hope spot that maybe he'd be looking after him  but Johnson made it clear he wasn't the type to deal with dirty diapers, so he put Nate in charge of the big baby. As parents started to drop off their children Adrien found a place to try and hide for the most part, which while normally Nate would of raised a fuss and made sure he stayed where he could be seen, having one of Paris's top models in diapers and at a day care might of caused a few issues. It was easier to let him go and hide and the oldest kid being dropped off today aside from the ex model, now pamper packer, was a 5 year old so it was unlikely their parents would believe them or they'd recognize him. Still it didn't stop a few of the children from spotting him as he was hiding under one of the crib, twin brothers age 4 who peered under the crib having seen him. they were dressed in a blue t-shirt and green cover-all's for one, and a green t-shirt and blue cover-all's for the other, both sporting brown hair in mushroom cuts. "Um, Your not 'pose to be under there." blue shirt said, trying to keep his voice down low. "you'll get in trouble and lose your cookie at snack time." "Oh uh..well..I got permission from Nate so it's ok." Adrien said, which, technically was true. it wasn't like Nate didn't know where he was. "wait.." Green shirt said, furrowing his eye brows. "Your kinda..big ta be in here.. how old are you?" "oh uh.." Adrien paused, not wanting to say his real age, but needing to think of something to keep the kids from asking too many more questions. "I'm 9." he said. "hehehe ya don't hafa be shy if your hear and 9 silly. we hada this one um.. " blue shirt paused and looked to his brother for help, and green shirt leaned over and whispered in his ear. "10 year old who was here, and git this! he was here cuz he was a potty pants! me and Joshie were potty trained at -2- and this big kid wa-" "Gawy! you know you're not 'pose ta pick on big babies!" green shirt, or Joshie Adrien supposed, scolded his brother. "Aw come one, it was sooo funny! he kept going " and in place of saying it, Gary blew a raspberry. "in his diaper and bawling like a baby!" "heh.. it was pretty funny." Joshie admitted. "O-Oh yeah.. ehehe..that does sound funny." Adrien said weakly, now really hoping the boys would leave, or at least praying they wouldn't notice his bulky diaper butt. "why dun you come out and we can go and play toys. ya needa hit the toy chest fast if you wanna git a good toy." Joshie said, with Gary nodding and stoking his chin as if his twin had given sage like advice. Adrien chuckled at how cute the boys where being and seeing how the parents were starting to leave he started to crawl out sadly for our hero, the back of his diapers, just under the waistline, but on the seam, caught on a nail. So eager was Adrien to get out and show off (and maybe make this stay SOMEWHAT bearable)  that he didn't notice. Had he but noticed, he might of been able to get away with just a hole in the shorts but atlas, at the high speed he was scooting out the shorts gave way to the nail like a hot knife though butter. Gary and josh both paused as they  heard the ripping noise, and Adrien was blushing bad as he stood up, his hands going behind his back, feeling the slick plastic of his diaper and frantically trying to get the two sides of the massive rip together. "You uh, heh..you OK?" Gary asked, giggling a little. "Did you rip your shorts or was that like a BIG fart?" Josh asked, already holding his nose just in case. "I uh..we;ll." Adrien was very shy and found himself realizing just how much he hadn't appreciated the shorts being in tack. "He totally ripped his shorts. dun worry big kid! I got ya!" Gary said then cupping a hand to his mouth he shouted. "NATTTTE! DA NEW KID RIPPED HIS SHORTS!" Gary hollered, then gave Adrien a thumbs up. "...Oh this isn't going to end well." Adrien muttered.

End part one.

[let-it-raines]

Not Your (soul)Mate {10/15}

Killian Jones doesn’t like the idea of soulmates. He sees how happy his friends are with theirs, but he still doesn’t like the idea, not when he’s found love and lost it time and time again only to still not know his sign. He has no markings on his skin, no voices in his head, but then one day he meets Emma Swan and everything changes. Because, well, he may not have ink on his skin to tell him who to love, but the very first time that he hears Emma’s voice he knows that she’s the one for him. Then again, that could simply be his desire talking. After all, for every word she speaks, he becomes aroused.

It’s not the worst thing in the world to be incredibly attracted to a beautiful woman, but things aren’t that simple when she doesn’t have any interest in being his soulmate.

He’s screwed. And not in the good way.

Rating: Mature

A/n: Will my posting schedule ever make sense? Probably not. Anyways, thanks for reading, my pals! You guys are the best, and I love love love you all for loving this story and these two crazy people💜

Thank you to @captainsjedi for her love and support and artwork!

Found on AO3: Beginning | Current

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Tag list:  @initiala @snowbellewells @karenfrommisthaven @skyewardolicitycloisdelena91 @scientificapricot @captswanis4vr @a-faekindagirl @emmas-storybook @searchingwardrobes @spartanguard @ultimiflos @jamif @idristardis @dreameronarooftop15 @nikkiemms @resident-of-storybrooke @tiganasummertree @wellhellotragic @bmbbcs4evr @onceuponaprincessworld @jennjenn615 @mayquita @captainsjedi @teamhook @kmomof4 @ekr032-blog-blog @superchocovian @ultraluckycatnd @cs-forlife @andiirivera @qualitycoffeethings @jonirobinson64 @mariakov81 @xellewoods @thejollyroger-writer @galaxyzxstark @cssns

-/-

No part of her understands why their cable bill is mailed to her. They’re a cable company. They provide TV and internet and yet they’ve never heard of paperless online billing. It’s ridiculous. And yet the minute she’s late with her payment she gets an increasingly nasty series of emails that shows they obviously know how to use the internet. And since Storybrooke Cable is the only company that provides internet in a sixty-mile radius, it’s not like they don’t have the funds to set up a website. Hell, she’ll take a class and learn how to program the website for them if she has to.

Well, probably not. That’s all a little dramatic, but she really hates having to go down to the mailboxes in the basement to get her mail so that she can go upstairs and write a check and buy a stamp to mail the payment in. It’s not the biggest deal in the world, but she hates it.

She obviously would not have lasted in a world without internet.

The old stairs creak beneath her, a sound that she’s used to when she’s carrying her laundry downstairs (it’s how she knows when she’s on the unsteady step since usually she can’t see over the full height of her clothes which is what procrastination gets her), and she quickly descends downstairs to the row of mailboxes that rest against the wall in front of the washing machines and dryers that work at least ninety percent of the time.

She and Belle need to move to a nicer place. They can afford it, but then again, if Belle moves, it’ll probably be with Will. It’s a constant thought every time Emma thinks about it, so she never quite works up the courage to bring up moving somewhere else. This place is just fine, they’ve made it their home, and so what if she has to walk to a bit of a creepy place to get her mail to pay her cable bill. It’s not like anyone in this town is actually going to do something to her.

They’d have hell to pay.

The stairs could use a little work, though, maybe a few new light fixtures for the hallways too.

Pulling out her key, she twists it in her box, opening it and grabbing the few envelopes that lay flat against the metal. She closes the box, locking it back up, and as she walks up the stairs, she shuffles through the mail, tripping on a loose board as she sees neat black script inked across the white in the upper left corner.

Killian Jones.

What the hell?

What the hell is he doing sending her a letter? Even though her toe is still stinging from how she jammed it, the pain worse than some of her injuries she’s gotten on the job, she stops in the middle of the staircase and rips the letter open.

Dear Emma Swan,

You’ll have to forgive me because it’s been awhile since I’ve written a letter that’s not an e-mail. I’ve been told by a rather reliable source that it’s a bit old-fashioned to write like this, but I do like a bit of a challenge. So, Swan, I’m sitting at my desk writing you a letter on stationary that Ariel found me and with my very favorite pen. And while I don’t expect you to write back, I have included several stamps to encourage you. You wouldn’t want me to waste money, now would you?

Anyways, I find myself wondering about you because you intrigue me. There are things I’d like to know. For instance, how long have you been a secret nerd watching the History Channel and National Geographic? I, for one, have been a fan for years. It’s fascinating to learn about things that have happened in the past. What other interests do you have? Do you enjoy sports? Read any good books lately? What is your ultimate favorite baked good? Do you like cooking them yourself? Are you one of those people who have a favorite flower? I am partial to sunflowers over roses, preferring the brightness of yellow, but then again, there are yellow roses.

I’m simply but a curious man who enjoys knowing the answers to my questions, and in return, you can feel free to ask me anything you want. I’d even tell you what kind of underwear I wear since you seem to be averse to answering that particular question.

Sincerely,

Killian A. Jones

“Oh my God,” she mumbles, scanning over the words one more time before opening up the envelope to see several stamps with pictures of sailboats on them.

A part of her absolutely cannot believe that he wrote her a freaking letter, but then again, she’s not really shocked. That’s exactly something that he would do just to annoy her, and the fact that he included stamps is really over the top. She’s not going to complain. She needs stamps, but damn, the man is persistent.

But she’s not going to write him back.

Absolutely not.

She folds his letter back up and puts it in the envelope before walking up the rest of the stairs and turning in the stairwell so she can get back to her floor, quickly moving into her apartment to write a check so she can send off the cable bill before she gets to work this morning. Belle is still sleeping, so she tries to stay quiet as she grabs her purse and walks right back out the door, all of her mail in the front pocket of her purse.

All day she ignores the letter that seems to be burning a hole through the leather material of her purse that’s hidden under her desk, but it’s more of an attempt at ignoring it than actually ignoring it, because when David leaves to go question a fight that broke out down by the pier, she grabs a piece of paper out of the printer and starts writing something back.

Damn it. Has she lost control of her limbs?

Jones,

You’re ridiculous. Seriously. I can’t believe you took our texts as a challenge, but then again, it is you. I have no idea why I’m writing you back, but you did say that I could ask you any question I want, and, well, I simply can’t pass up that opportunity.

So tell me, what is the most embarrassing thing to ever happen to you? And spare no detail.

Sincerely,

Emma Swan.

PS: I am a mean ping pong player, and I agree with you about the roses. If you’re looking for a good book recommendation, though, I suggest Belle. She gives me all of mine.

Oh, and bear claws.

And I want to know what the A in your name stands for.

Quickly, she stuffs the paper in an envelope, seals it, writes his address on it, places a stamp in the corner, and puts it in the mailbox outside of the station so that she literally can’t take it back without tampering with federal law. She’ll bend a lot of rules, but she’s not going to break federal law over something as dumb as a letter.

Two days later, she gets a letter back. There’s no formal address this time, and she kind of likes that…not that she likes this.

Really went straight for the kill then, eh Swan? It took me a bit to remember what exactly my most embarrassing memory is, simply because I’m so suave that I don’t have many embarrassing moments.

However, when I was a young lad of twenty-three, I had the night off and left base to go out to a pub with a few of my mates. This was something we did often, something we’d done for our five years together, but on this particular night I indulged in a few too many glasses of rum. My tolerance wasn’t quite what it is now, even if I do wake up feeling like I’ve been hit by a truck now, and while I don’t remember the night but in a few glances (particularly me telling the lasses that I was the Captain when I was not), I do remember waking up in the flat of a woman I didn’t know without my clothes anywhere in sight. Either she stole them, my mates somehow stole them, or something else happened, but my options to get home were either walking in the streets of Birkenhead in the nude or wearing this lass’s mother’s nightgown. It was this billowing, flowery thing, and while I fully believe I can wear anything I want, let’s just say my actual Captain did not take too kindly to me walking back onto base in something that was not approved. I was written up three times for one incident, and I’d just like you to imagine me having to explain why to my superiors why I was wearing a nightgown when I had no idea myself.

I have to say, though, nightgowns are quite comfortable. Lots of air to breathe. It’s likely a good thing that my mates thought it would be funny to buy me a nightgown when I was promoted. It was much more my taste. Silk is wonderful, though I don’t think I ever wore it. I much prefer my briefs.

So, there’s a story of one of the brightest moments of my youth, and while I’m sure you’ll somehow use it to torture me, it’s yours to know.

My middle name is, Andrew, by the way, and the lovely Belle has recommended me to The Guest Book as reading material. It’s rather good. Feel free to borrow my copy if you’d like. Speaking of Belle, I hear Mr. French makes rather delectable bear claws, but he’s in a fierce rivalry with Mrs. Lucas over who makes the best. Personally, I think they’re using pastries as a bit of foreplay, but that’s simply a theory from an observer.

Now, Swan, I’ve metaphorically shown you mine, so you should show me yours.

Have a good week,

Killian Andrew Jones.

Emma doesn’t realize it, but by the time she’s finished reading the letter, she’s got tears streaming down her face, just a few of them, from laughing at the thought of Killian running around in a nightgown. That’s the most ridiculous thing she’s ever heard, but for some reason, she has no issue imagining him walking into base in a flowery nightgown that hits at his knees and shows off all of the hair on his legs with the shoulders being a little tight. It’s ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous, and she’s glad that Belle is still at the library so that she doesn’t ask what in the world Emma is laughing at.

It would be a little hard to explain.

Well, not really, but she doesn’t want to explain. Because her explaining any of this would make her have to explain other things, and since Belle already knows that Killian sent her the basket of baked goods months ago. So it would be too difficult to explain her...having to explain. This is kind of like some sort of bad inception.

But Belle’s not even here, so it definitely doesn’t matter.

While she’s still laughing, she gets up from the table and heads to the kitchen, grabbing a wine glass out of the cabinets and pouring her a glass of the wine that she and Belle didn’t finish drinking last night. If she’s going to spend her time writing letters to Killian, which is a ridiculous concept in and of itself, she should at least have some alcohol in her.

Not enough to make her have to wake up without clothes and have to borrow an ugly nightgown from the mother of the person she’d slept with but some alcohol all the same.

She doesn’t have any paper here, so she has to shuffle through some of the old notebooks Belle keeps on their bookshelves, and takes out a lined page from the back, settling down on the couch with her wine and paper and pin while Drain the Oceans plays on the TV.

Killian Andrew (Asshole) Jones,

I’ve added the “asshole” because I really did think that was your middle name. You did say you would respond to it, but I guess Andrew is okay. Is that a family name? Your father’s maybe? I don’t have a middle name, didn’t even have a last name, only my first, but I’ve always kind of thought it would be something classic since my first name is.

Shit. I just got wine on the paper. Oops.

So you and that rum, huh? You seem to be a fan of it. And also nightgowns. Are you sure you don’t sleep in one of those? Is that why you don’t have a girlfriend? You scare them all away with your nightgown. I imagine it makes easy access to...things, so really, they should like it better than the briefs. It’s just a great mystery that may never be solved.

Granny’s bear claws are better than Mr. French’s hands down, but Mr. French has better pastries overall. Plus, he’s like my dad, so you implying that they have a thing going on is really kind of freaking me out. I bet Granny wears a nightgown, though, which makes my earlier joke about easy access so much creepier.

Some things simply shouldn’t be imagined. But if you’re going to, make sure to tell Ruby to scar her for life.

I haven’t read that book, but if Belle recommends it, it must be good. I’ll have to check it out. I’ve been very into historical romances lately, which isn’t really on par for me, but there’s simply something about Jane Austen, you know?

Thanks for telling me your most embarrassing story. You’re right. I’m totally going to use that against you, and no, I will not tell you my most embarrassing story. It involves karaoke, though, so it’s a good one.

Emma

If she hadn’t had the wine, she probably would have realized that she revealed a bit too much in her letter, but after she seals it that night and sends it off in the morning, still using the sailboat stamps Killian provided, she doesn’t think about it.

Not at all.

What she does think about is the fact that eight days go by without a new letter. She didn’t even realize that she wanted another letter, that she got a weird sense of excitement over them, until she wasn’t receiving one in her mailbox.

Who has she turned into that she’s checking her mailbox daily?

What decade is this?

But her week has gone by as normal, spending her days at work, reveling in the hour break she gets to eat lunch with David or Ariel, and her evenings at home, sometimes with Belle, sometimes not. On Saturday she, Ruby, Belle, Mary Margaret, and Ariel all spent the day at the beach, waking up early enough to beat all of the tourists there, and settled down with blankets and umbrellas with bags full of food and a cooler full of drinks. They didn’t bother moving, not unless to dip into the ocean to cool themselves off or to run up to the pier to use the restroom, and even if her eyes constantly trailed down to the pier to look at the fleet of ships and boats and what not resting outside of the Jones’ office.

And if her eyes kept checking her texts even if most everyone she spoke to was already there, no one had to know. Though she does think that Ruby noticed.

She wasn’t very subtle in her desperation.

But she didn’t see him, not that she wanted to, and she tried to push it all to the back of her mind to enjoy the day as the sun beat down on her skin so that she got the slightest bit of a tan that she hopes stays with her until the fall.

Okay, so she thinks about the lack of a letter a lot.

However, she wasn’t thinking about it when she was driving home from work, but now that she’s standing next to the door of her apartment with Will holding a stack of their mail, it’s all she can think about.

Shit.

Why didn’t it occur to her that she and Belle share a mailbox and that Belle could see one of these letters? How could she have missed that?

“Hey,” she cautiously greets, placing her keys down, the clanging loud in her ears, on the table and stepping further into the room, “I didn’t know you were coming over tonight.”

“Belle and I are going to dinner. Why do you have a letter from Jones?”

“Huh?” she asks, trying to keep her voice steady even though her heart is beating wildly in her chest, the sound louder than it has been in a long time. She can feel it all the way down to her toes. “I have a letter?”

Will raises his eyebrow, obviously not believing her, and as casually as she can, she steps forward and takes the letter from Will, stuffing it away in the back pocket of her jeans.

“So where are you guys going for dinner?” Emma asks to change the subject.

“Eric’s place. He gives me a discount.”

“Ah, yes, because everyone wants discount fish.”

“Oi, it’s not like he’s giving us the old fish.”

“So you think. If you guys die in a few days, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“We’ll be dead, and you’ll be bragging about it.”

“Exactly.” She steps around Will and sits down on the couch, reaching down to unlace her boots and kick them off. “I guess I’ll miss you.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“Emma,” Belle shouts, and Emma leans her head back to look down the hall to see Belle standing in the hallway, “can I borrow those teal heels that you wore last week?”

“Yeah, they’re in my bathroom.”

Belle doesn’t say anything back, but less than a minute she comes into their living room wearing the teal heels and a little black dress, fluffing out her hair over her shoulders while Will grabs his coat off the chair, stepping up to her and kissing her cheek, whispering something that Emma doesn’t pick up on, which is good. It’s private, and she doesn’t need to hear things about their private life.

Her hearing thing has been wonky lately anyways. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t.

“We probably won’t be back until late,” Belle tells her, and Emma reaches her hand up over the couch to let Belle grab onto it. “Do you want me to bring you back anything?”

“Nah, you two go have fun. Don’t do anything that I’ll have to investigate.”

“Well, that just takes all of the fun away.”

After the two of them leave, she leans up on the couch and pulls the later out of her back pocket, hoping that Will forgets about it and doesn’t mention it to Belle, and quickly opens the sealed envelope, her nerves running over every inch of her skin and making her fingers shake the slightest bit as she straightens the creases out of the paper.

Emma,

I apologize for my late reply, but you seem to have caught me at a bad time. I had a client call and request a refurbishment on his seafaring vessel (his words, not mine), and I’ve been consumed with it. I love this job. It’s a way to keep me connected to the ocean, a place where I spent so much of my life, but this is different. And it certainly didn’t help that my wrist decided to act up a bit this week. It’s the weather and all.

Regardless, I do wish you would have told me your most embarrassing story. I feel like it’s a real ice breaker, and I love karaoke....if I’m drunk. But then again, bad things seem to happen when I’m drunk. So wine? That’s your vice? I always took you more as a tequila or whiskey type, but then again, I’m learning that I know very little about you, love. Though, I like that it’s changing a bit, if I may be so bold.

Jane Austen is bloody brilliant, and it’s nice to hear of someone else appreciating her. Mr. Darcy and I have a lot in common, you know? I, too, screw up with strong-willed women and then have to realize the error of my ways to have them allow me back into their lives. Or, at least, I hope. Tell me, if you’re a fan of historical romances, how are you not a fan of letter writing when that is such a core piece of the story? Is it simply that you don’t like modern day letter writing because it, for practical reasons, doesn’t make any sense? We could have had this entire conversation in ten minutes, but it’s taken eight days. Yet, this is a bit more fun, even though talking to you does incite other kinds of fun.

As to my middle name, it’s my mother’s maiden name. My father’s name is Brennan, and the only thing I carry from him is the Jones name, which is likely a good thing. He wasn’t a good man. He was a drunk, and he abandoned us when I was ten. I’m proud to be a Jones because of my brother and my mum, so like you, I suspect that my last name carries a weight that most don’t.  

Anyways, that’s much too much information about me. Tell me, Swan, there’s a Summer Regatta coming up in two weeks. Do you think you’ll be at the festival? I know someone who can get you a free ride on a boat.

Killian.

He’s got a screwed up family too.

That’s what she gets out of all of that. It’s not that he loves the same books that she does, not that he correctly guessed her drinking vices, not that he practically invited her to be his date to the regatta in over Labor Day weekend. It’s the fact that he has a screwed up family, a drunk deadbeat dad and a dead mom. She knew his family life wasn’t great, if only because Elsa never mentions having to take the kids to go see Liam’s parents.

Huh.

She can kind of see it now, can see that he is a bit of an orphan too, and even though he had parents, it breaks her heart. No one should ever have to grow up without having people love them, and she’s thankful that Killian had Liam and their mom. That’s a nice thing for them to have a family, even if it’s not what most people would call complete.

Maybe it’s the wine or maybe it’s the fact that she suddenly understands Killian in a way that she knows only a few people can, but she pulls out her phone and lets her fingers move without thinking about it too much.

Emma: So not a fan of karaoke then? Is your voice that bad?

The three dots pop up almost immediately after she presses send only for them to disappear, only coming back every few seconds. He’s either trying to think of what to say or realized that he’s texting back incredibly fast. It’s nice to know some things never change.

Killian: For someone who is incredibly attracted to my voice, that’s a bold thing for you to suggest.

Emma: Touché.

Emma: So it’s not bad then?

Killian: I’ve been told that it’s actually pretty good, but I find that karaoke does nothing but bring embarrassment unless you’ve been drinking all day.

Emma: Okay, but say you have…what’s your go-to song?

Kilian: Easy. Anything Elton John. He’s so easy to understand.

Emma: You’re kidding, right?

Killian: Nope.

He definitely has to be kidding.

Emma: I figured you’d be more of a Queen or Beatles guy. I’m pretty partial to Queen.

Killian: Well, I could do those too. Or pretty much anything from the eighties. I feel old, but I don’t know a lot of the new songs.

Emma: That’s because you are old.

Killian: Being older than you doesn’t make old. And as you can tell, I’ve retained my youthful glow.

Emma: Sure, we’ll call it that.

She takes another sip of her wine and turns the volume up a bit on the television so that she’s not simply staring at her phone waiting for him to text her back. That’d be pathetic. Then again, she’s sitting at home drinking wine and watching the History Channel while her roommate is out on a date. That could be considered pathetic. Or very, very smart depending on who is asked.

Killian: What are you up to tonight, love?

Emma: Watching Drain the Ocean, though I’ll be honest and say I have no idea what’s going on.

Emma: You?

Killian: The same, actually.

Emma: Creepy.

Killian: Believe it or not, I think we have similar taste in television shows.

Emma: Ugh, I know. I can’t believe I have so much in common with an old man.

Killian: If you keep flattering a man like this, he might get the impression that you like him.

Emma: Never.

Emma: At least we don’t like the same foods. Unless you secretly like junk food.

Killian: I enjoy certain kinds, but I don’t think I have the same propensity for grilled cheese, onion rings, and bear claws like you do.

Emma: I also like poptarts and brownies. Oooh and lots of icing.

Killian: You’re a child.

Emma: Oh, come on. You don’t like icing?

Killian: If there’s cake attached, yeah.

Emma: No, no. You’ve got this all wrong. Straight out of the can.

Killian: You also eat raw cookie dough, don’t you?

Emma: Duh.

Killian: I do like cookies, though. And mostly pastries that involve fruit. It makes it all feel a little healthier.

Emma: You’re in shape. I think you’ve got the healthy thing down.

Killian: I knew you liked staring at my ass.

Emma: I said nothing about your ass.

Killian: Just my general body then? The abs? The biceps? My collarbone? What about my left ankle? You’re into period romances. I bet the left ankle really does it for you.

“Oh my God,” she mutters to herself, putting her glass down on the coffee table and standing from the couch, smiling to herself as she reads the message and walks to the kitchen. He’s such an idiot.

Such an idiot.

And now she really wants something sweet to eat, so she presses up on her toes and gets a can of chocolate icing out of the pantry popping open the top and grabbing a spoon out of the drawer so she can at least be a little civilized about the whole thing. Without putting much thought into it, she holds the spoon full of icing up to her mouth and takes a quick picture, not checking to see what she looks like before sending it to Killian.

Emma: See? This is the way to eat sweets.

The three dots pop up before they disappear just like before, and she doesn’t really have time to think about it before the front door is swinging open and Belle is walking inside, an obviously bright red flush on her pale cheeks.

“I’m engaged,” she squeals, holding her left hand up as she walks into the apartment, a small diamond ring resting there.

“What?” Emma gasps, nearly choking on her icing before she puts the spoon and the container down, running her tongue over her teeth to wipe up all of the excess icing. “You’re engaged?”

“Yes! Will asked at dinner. Oh my gosh. You know, I always swore I wouldn’t be one of those girls, but I did the thing where I put my hands over my mouth when he got down on one knee.”

“Of course you did,” she laughs, reaching forward and wrapping Belle up in a hug, squeezing her as tightly as she can while she sees Will walk into the apartment, bags of takeout in his hands and a smile on his face that tells Emma he’s just as happy as Belle is. Good. They deserve all of the happiness. “I’m so damn happy for you. Both of you.”

“And you’ll be so much happier when you know that I brought you earplugs for tonight,” Will tells her when she hugs him.

“That is so gross.”

“I’m simply trying to be helpful.”

“Babe,” Belle laughs, walking over to the two of them and leaning into Will to press a kiss into his cheek, “stop grossing Emma out and give me five minutes to tell her what happened before we can let her put the earplugs into use.”

“Nope, nope, no,” she refuses, putting her hands in the air, “you guys just go. We’ll talk in the morning.”

“Perfect.”

“Please ignore him.”

“I promise you I’m trying.”

Will and Belle go back to their room, and she takes the opportunity to grab her phone, her icing, and plant herself in front of the television, turning to volume up so that she doesn’t have to risk hearing anything else. Tonight will probably be the night that her weird hearing thing picks up again.

She is so damn happy for the two of them, a bit of a buzz of happiness spreading over her skin, but she can’t help the little voice in her head that wonders what’s next for her if the two of them are getting married.

She hates that she thinks that.

Her phone dings, and she looks down at it, forgetting that she was texting Killian before Belle and Will came home.

How long were they texting for her friends to get engaged during that time? That’s…a lot of time. Did it really all go by that quickly? She didn’t even notice.

Killian: I mean, there’s definitely something sweet in that picture that I’d like to eat.

Emma chuckles under her breath, unable to help herself, especially when accompanying the text is a picture of him holding a banana over half of his face, the scars on his wrist and the chain around his neck visible even in the dimness of his apartment. And damn it. This was not supposed to happen. None of this was supposed to happen.

She likes Killian Jones. 

[hanhan156]

Hanhan’s October writing challenge: Rammstein Halloween pt #1

As October tends to be the promised month of all kinds of challenges, I decided to have one of myself. The goal is to write 31 Halloween themed short stories inspired by these prompts. And of course, I chose to write about Rammstein because I really can’t leave these lovely guys alone. :D The stories have nothing to do with each other or with my Stadium Tour main fic, so they can be anything between their band life and crazy AU:s.

Have a nice October everyone and enjoy Halloween with Rammstein. ~

ps. slight sexual content, you’ve been warned.

#1 Meddling forbidden

The prompt: The character goes out on a date (or an outing with a friend) and comes home late that night to see all of their furniture moved/stacked oddly, rotten food in the fridge, but no signs of entry or security issues.

-

Richard didn’t want to complain about his husband’s libido - it was indeed sweet that they still had the fire burning despite being married for three years and sharing the same house for even longer. But the thing that troubled him was that why Paul had to have a sudden lust at public places - this time when they were supposed to spend an evening in a local tavern with their best friends, Till and Flake. Richard was sometimes sure his husband wanted to tease him on purpose - Paul enjoyed his partner’s annoyed look and blushing cheeks way too much.

“Liebling, I can’t open the door while you’re nibbling my ear all the time.” Paul was so close that it was impossible to even see anything.

“Very well, I’ll move somewhere else then,” Paul answered slyly and made his way lower, pecking and licking Richard’s neck this time.

The other man rolled his eyes. “That wasn’t exactly what I meant. Not that I don’t want you, but can we just wait to get inside at least?”

Paul wasn’t going to make it easy this time - he was definitely in the mood and he knew exactly what he wanted now. “What if I’m not willing to wait tonight…”

Richard didn’t reply. There was an annoying pressure inside his tight leather pants as well, but he wasn’t so fond of the idea of making out on their front yard. Forcefully, he pushed the other man away and opened the door as quickly as he could before he was dragged to the familiar lips again.

When they had managed to get inside, Richard tried to fumble the light switch in the darkness, but it was technically impossible while Paul’s kisses were turning hungrier and hungrier, teeth clashing and tongues swirling all around. Goddamnit, you bastard, I’ll revenge you later for this.

Paul stopped for a while and looked at his husband in the darkness: “I want you now.”

The pause made it possible for Richard to turn the light finally on. He was about to overthrow his husband to the sofa when he noticed something - something which made him blink his eyes in confusion.

There wasn’t a sofa anymore.

“Umm, Paul?”

The other man, too busy taking his husband’s clothes off, hadn’t noticed anything. “Less talking, more action.”

“Paul, seriously, I’m not joking, you should take a look at this.”

Reluctantly, Paul moved his gaze from his husband’s bare chest and saw the absurd vision as well. “….what the fuck…?”

The sofa hadn’t really disappeared - it was just on the other side of the living room, turned upside down and the upholstery ripped, pieces of fabric and fillings scattered everywhere. The armchairs were broken and the flower pots were shattered, leaving a layer of soil covering the floor - like a cat would have been doing his job, but they didn’t have pets so they couldn’t blame any animals for this.

“H-has somebody b-broken in when we were a-away? H-how is this p-possible?” Paul stuttered, holding his husband from his arm tightly.

“I have no fucking clue… Let’s check the rest of the house.” Even though he was shivering inside, Richard tried to keep his voice calm so he wouldn’t make his poor partner even more scared than he already was.

The same kind of chaos welcomed them in other rooms as well: furniture turned upside down, dirt on the floor and splinters of wood and plastic scattered here and there. It seemed like their sensual evening had been turned into a romantic sanitation night together.

Perhaps the worst of all was the kitchen. Richard almost threw up because of the horrible smell hovering in the air. “Holy motherfucker, do we have a hidden corpse here or what?”

Paul opened the fridge and saw a disturbing sight. “Reesh, take a look at this.”

Richard approached the fridge, holding his breath and his nose. “What the fuck, what is this…green stuff?” He swiped the slimy goo and regretted it immediately. “You gotta be fucking kidding me, just yesterday we did grocery shopping.“ From that moment Richard swore he would never shop in Lidl anymore if the food got bad this quickly.

“What are we gonna do now?” Paul asked.

“Well, I guess we just have to start cleaning in case we don’t want to stay in this horrible disaster the whole night.”

Verdammt. Richard had a point, but Paul had wished for something slightly different activity with his husband than vacuuming and scrubbing some disgusting shit from their kitchen.

The cleaning seemed to take forever. The grimy slime had already gotten stuck on the surfaces of the fridge, so they really had to use all of their strength to scrub the stains away. They had to throw all the food away and Paul was secretly disappointed because it meant he couldn’t get his morning bacon. At least there was some coffee left in the cupboard - if the sweet life nectar would have been taken away from Richard he would have gone totally nuts.

Richard tried his best to find any clues: any hints if somebody had broken in, but there was nothing besides a lot of mess and broken furniture. Even the lock of their front door was totally untouched. He was thinking they should probably call the police, but what should they say? “Good evening dear officers, we were about to have the best sex ever with my husband tonight when suddenly we couldn’t because our house was fucked up. Please, send help.”

After too much scrubbing, a lot of garbage bags and the artificial scent of cleaning liquids, they were finally ready. The horrendous stink was still stuck in their noses though - it seemed like it was impossible to get rid of it completely anymore.

They sat together on the broken sofa squeezing each other tightly. Richard put the tv on so they could be at least a bit distracted from the incidents of the creepy night. He checked the time: it was 5 am.

Paul rested his head on his husband’s shoulder, still scared, but exhausted as hell. “I have no idea what is going on here, but I’m more than happy that you are with me.”

“Whatever happens, I swear, I’ll protect you forever.”

Paul raised his head from the shoulder and smiled. “ I love you, Richard.”

“I love you too, mein Paulchen.”

After the sweet words, they shared a small kiss - not a fully passionate one which they had shared hours before. The light smooch calmed Paul down enough so he could sleep while Richard kept watching the mindless program, dozing on and off.

Without any warning, there was an aggressive knock on their front door. At first, Richard thought it was only in his dream. But when the knock was followed by the ring of the doorbell, they both were woken up.

“W-hat was that?”

Richard didn’t answer anything to his husband’s question. He was scared shitless as well, but somehow he managed to grab a kitchen knife and approached the door.

“Reesh, is it really a good idea? W-who can it be at this time of the day?”

Richard was determined. He was ready to take the risk of opening the door if it would give him at least some answers to this whole mess. “I have no fucking clue, but I don’t care now.”

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh S2 Ep 23-24: Escape From Box Fort

Currently trying to stop checking twitter more than once a day, and I’m getting legit twitter-shakes so I’ve decided to stave it off by watching nonsense television. So, last update I said that this was a 3 episode game arc yada yada, but that was apparently me just assuming that Yugioh had a formula. Because, to my shock, this one game was 4 episodes long.

It was 4 episodes mostly of Pharaoh rolling his eyes to the sky every time Kaiba said anything.

According to my bro who actually cares about the rules of this game, they broke basically a whole lot of established game rules in this particular match but like, I was all over that fast forward button so if I didn’t catch it, no harm, no foul. I was more interested in Tea and Mokuba’s very bizarre meet up at the box warehouse.

And while they formulated their half-brained plan (which is still better than Yugi who is always two halves of a brain) Marik and his snuggie villains tied Joey up in some dark room full of just one million cupboards and no light bulbs. Even Joey was not entirely sure of the purpose of any of that effort.

He also threatened to beat them all up so I assume he was just going to start bouncing around and headbutting everyone? His hair isn’t sharp enough for that - that’s a Yugi move, who probably greases those weird bangs with gel and then wipes all 4 of them it through a knife sharpener every morning.

There goes Marik, tying people up when he was just going to possess them anyway. Congrats Marik, now you have to untie the guy you only tied up like 3 minutes ago.

It really does feel like this villain just has zero idea what he is doing, and I’m guessing that probably happens a lot when your sister can see the future all the time. Why make plans or decisions when you have Ishizu to over explain everything to you? Honestly he wouldn’t even have had to tell her his fast food orders, she’d just show up with tacos when he starts feeling munchy. The life. Maybe he’s only been kind of a mess ever since he decided to embrace that whole cursed boy lifestyle?

Luckily for him, everyone else on this show is just as incompetent, and his big rival is a dead Pharaoh with amnesia who is currently squatting in the body of an angsty teen who plays the slowest card game I have ever seen played.

Anyway, speaking of ridiculously wasteful plans, will Tea decide to make a box, fort, again, although it really, really didn’t work the first time?

(read more after the cut)

So like, if Tea does it, she’s too heavy, but if Mokuba joins in--a kid who probably only weighs twenty pounds less than Tea, then...it works? I mean maybe this time they used tape?

I mean Mokuba is a genius child, so maybe he’s just better at building stuff. Maybe that’s what he learned from whatever vague genius orphan program these two underwent that still somehow landed Seto in public school. Mokuba learned to put the heavy boxes on the bottom.

And the moment Mokuba’s gifted feet left this box tower, Tea fell right back on her butt.

It took Yugi and Seto so long to play a card game that Tea and Mokuba had enough time to formulate a plan, follow it out, and actually succeed.

This is Mokuba.

They took so long Mokuba escaped. The kid who has been some sort of tied up/in a cage for over half of this show so far.

Anyway, Tristan narrowly avoids missing his train, which would have saved them both from what I’m guessing will be a hell of a lot of trauma.

Such an awkward train ride.

This show just can’t get anyone together, huh? Not complaining, mind you. Just...noticing. First it was Yugi/Pharaoh who really didn’t even blink once when Tea friendzoned them. I mean I think he just sweat a single forehead droplet or something. Now we have Tristan and Serenity, who haven’t even been on a real date--one of which is still in bandages from a very severe operation--and it’s like “we gotta break that one up waaaaaay before it starts.”

Who knows, maybe this anime was like “we can’t risk a Sailor Moon on this, we are already too much in hot water. Can’t be pulling out relationship stunts if we also gotta tie Tea up in a weird bondage chair and somehow still stay on the air during daytime kid’s TV.”

Which really happened, by the way.

How tall is this Odion guy PS? 11 ft?

Anyways, that’s one episode. Rip Joey. Other than that, not much to say about that one, so, lets jump into the next one.

On the other side of town things are still effed up but slightly less effed up as we are about to yes, absolutely, still blow a hole through the ceiling of this well populated building whether the team wins or loses.

So, they decide to work together. Well not really. They decide to trust that the other one won’t screw it on his turn. Considering these two are both card masters, this really was the lowest bar ever as far as trust goes. Can Yugi trust that Seto will play cards well? Y...yes. That’s literally all this kid does other than skip school and run a multicorp that only exists to invest in even more cards.

And he played them so well that this happened

I mean there are a lot of kid’s shows where villains fall to their deaths, but something about how realistic all these characters are drawn and how it’s put in a realistic-enough location to make it feel a lot darker than lets say Gaston falling off of Beauty and the Beast’s tower, you know what I mean?

But no matter, because Marik got these evil snuggies custom made and it is freakin weird.

I mean sure, whatever it takes to keep your 15 yo from doing a murder, Yugioh, I’ll take it, I guess. Even though like...I keep getting flashbacks to Mannequin. I never really wanted to remember Mannequin, so thanks for that.

Anyway, this began a really bizarre fight where Yugi wanted to interrogate the last guy standing--as if this guy knows anything--and Kaiba just wanted to straight up kill him for abducting his little brother. Both ideas were bad, so it’s fine that Marik nipped this in the bud.

Again, standing here next to Magic Muto, Kaiba is just refusing to admit that any of this is even slightly magical. Maybe he was such a bad wizard in his past life that he was cursed to not even believe in the concept of magic in this reincarnation. Not like it really matters, since Kaiba’s tech is basically magic.

Also get a load of this effect.

Hell yeahhhh it’s getting real 2001 now! Mm, probably took them like 4 computers to render back then. Glorious.

So, they both decide to drop this guy and he passes out on the roof of this building. No need to move him or anything. No need to disable the three other bombs. Just like...just loot his body and leave. I love this kid show’s weird ass morality.

So after ALL of that, Mokuba arrives. Good thing Kaiba didn’t actually murder anyone in revenge for his little brother (though he did try) or that would have been...awkward. Though, probably not the first time.

Since Tea saved his brother, Seto decides to help Yugi out by saving the lives of Yugi’s friends (of which, two are in the finals of Seto’s tournament, so he does actually need them.) He makes a note that he’s only doing this so he won’t owe Tea anything, and that Yugi did absolutely nothing at all. Which was kind of true, this entire match was a bad idea that gave them nothing but broken glass.

That’s right, it’s anime food time. Yes yes yes, my favorite time.

Just kidding, it’s all in boxes.

Thanks 4 kids, for not allowing us to think that people in other countries might not eat the same food we do. I guess they figured that the triangle shaped rice ball that Serenity had in the next scene looked enough like a taco to trick us.

Real talk, if my Taco Bell came in a fancy real wood box all cutely wrapped like that, it would be NUTS. Can you even imagine if Taco Bell decided to make Burrito Supremes into cute bento boxes? Hell. I would eat a Burrito Supreme again for the first time in 3 years. I would even eat it if they somehow put a burrito in that nasty Nacho Cheese Dorito flavored shell (though tbh that Cool Ranch shell was absolutely delicious and 10/10. Nacho cheese Dorito shell: bad)

Sorry I’ve been thinking a lot about Taco Bell ever since I realized you could go online and customize your burrito and I’ve been going down the rabbit hole of other people’s mad quesalupas and freaky deep-dish crunchwraps (one guy said he just gets a plain 5layer burrito and shoves a bunch of Doritos in there with extra nacho cheese sauce and he asked “Is this weird?” and the top comment was “no, you are God among men”)

Anyway, I just want you to imagine that spectacularly awful custom 5 layer burrito smothered in extra queso sauce and lovingly wrapped in a box with adorable wrapping paper and being given just two chopsticks to eat it with. And you do. On a train for everyone else to smell.

And then a few weeks ago I asked rhetorically, does Yugi and Seto get to go on a bachelor-style helicopter date and the answer is--YES.

Bless this storyboarder. Get this cross-stitched so I can hang it over my fireplace. Maybe it’s just me who thinks this shot is maybe the best joke in Yugioh, but I mean. Look at it. It just keeps giving. Yugioh characters are just so bizarre when they’re shoved into very small, very normal looking spaces.

And FYI I totally checked twitter four times while writing this so like...so much for that life goal. Boy, I have a twitter problem.

So, next week, on Yugioh:

Does anyone else in Marik’s troupe get real hot, so they take off their hoodie and we find out that nearly everyone else is also wearing the same exact pastel pink crop top sweater as Marik? Do Marik’s snuggie parachutes accidentally go off at embarrassing times? Does Seto pull out a neck pillow and just pass out for a few episodes while stealing Yugi’s arm rest? Does Mokuba offer to watch a movie on the copter and all they have is just Serendipity and Sleepless in Seattle?

And for those new here, this is a link to the Yugioh recaps in Chrono Order from Ep 1 so you don’t have to scroll through comments and stuff

[mayparkerblogs-blog]

Just Your Average Morning {Part 7: infinity war au subplot part 1!}

I’m back and better than ever! Sorry for the 2 month hiatus :( Since I’m still not completely over Infinity War, and I’m sure that nobody else is either, I decided to tie in JURAM with the rest of the group in this tragic story! YAY! The action stuff towards the end will make more sense if you’ve already seen the movie, which I'm sure most of you have, but if not, you’ll be fine.

Quick note: even though this is an au, and most of the events which occur are nothing like the events in the actual film, this post will contain some Infinity War spoilers. If you haven’t seen the movie yet, read at your own risk.

I hope you guys have just as much reading this as I had writing it. Sorry for all the angst in advance. If you’re new to JURAM or missed a previous part, no worries! You can check out my masterlist right here!

PS - get cozy, cause this one is L O N G :))

avengers x fem!reader (contains some Infinity War spoilers)

previously in JURAM (since we all need a little bit of a refresher)...

“Something big is coming, Y/N, something that our current team can’t handle alone. We need you on the field with us, Y/N, fighting the good fight. So, if you’re ready to be an avenger, I’ll see you in the training room at 7 tomorrow morning. Sleep well, Y/N. You’ll need it.”

You waved to Steve as he walked away and shut the door behind you. You proceeded with your nightly routine as usual, and shut off the light and slid into bed once you were finished.

Exhausted, you stared at the ceiling. You were here for a purpose, after all. This wasn’t just a freak accident - this all happened for a reason. You were destined to protect, to defend, to avenge.

Y/N Y/L/N - avenger in training.

3 months later..

“I’ll go grab the green beans.” You said to Steve as you left him in aisle 3 to go grab the veggies needed to make your casserole in aisle 4. 

It was 4 in the afternoon on this fine Thursday, and you and the super soldier had just decided to make dinner for everybody tonight instead of ordering a pizza.

You ran back to Steve with 2 cans of green beans, just enough to make one green bean casserole.

“Excellent work, soldier,” he joked, “Anything else you can think of that we might need?”

“Well, I know that Wanda really wanted to try those cute red velvet cupcakes she and I saw in the bakery last time we were here.” you hinted.

“Hmm, that does sound kind of good. Not today, but maybe some other time.” he said as he wheeled the cart to checkout. 

You stood behind Steve as the two of you waited for the cashier to finish scanning every item. 

“Darn it,” Steve said, “The donuts. I knew I was forgetting something!”

“It is more common among the older population to have memory problems.” you teased.

Steve gave you a little punch on the shoulder before turning back to the cashier.

“Will that be all, sir? Hey... wait a second,” the grocery store employee gasped, “You’re Steve Rogers! Captain America!”

Steve shyly smiled, “Indeed I am.”

“I like what you’ve done with the beard! Couldn’t even tell that it was you. Wow, this is awesome! You’re, like, the best!” the cashier turned to you, “What are you doing hanging around with Captain Rogers like it’s just a typical Thursday?”

“Well, actually, I’m-”

“She’s one of our interns. Yeah, it sure is a tough program, but she’s definitely the top of her class.” Steve patted you on the back after he suddenly interrupted you. 

“Well good for you, young lady!” The woman said warmly. “Oh, honey, would you mind taking a picture of us?”

“Sure, uh, no problem!”

The kind woman handed you her phone and you snapped a picture of the two of them. She quickly finished bagging your groceries while Steve paid, and generously bid the two of you farewell as you left the store.

“That was humiliating.” You said to Steve as you sulked in the passengers seat.

“What? Why’s that?” Steve asked.

“You embarrassed me in front of that lady at the store. You wouldn’t let me speak for myself.”

“I didn’t know if you were going to take this opportunity to ‘out’ yourself as an avenger to the world without asking me first, so I had to take precautions.”

“Why, exactly, would I do that?” you responded.

“Because, Y/N, every single day for the past week you’ve been asking me if you can be an avenger yet. And every single day I give you the same answer-”

“But why?” you furiously retorted, “Why am I not ready to be an avenger? I’ve gotten pretty used to the shield and Tony already showed me my suit. Why are you keeping me away from the world, Steve?”

You looked at Steve as he took a deep breathe in, and then out.

“Tony, Nat, and I all agree that you should have another month of training before we consider sending you on a mission. The bad guys won’t go easy on you like Bucky does, Y/N. If you slip up, you’ll pay the price. It would ease the conscious of the entire team if you had a little more combat training experience before you’re out on the field so that people don’t feel like they have to watch over you and protect you instead of completing the mission, whatever the mission may be. We know that you’re capable of defending yourself, Y/N, but we just want you to be safe. That’s all.”

You figured that your silence was a response in of itself as you looked out the car window and cooled down your conscience a little bit.

“So,” you said after a few minutes of silence, “Can I show Peter my suit and shield over the weekend?”

Steve knew that you were trying to lighten the mood, and appreciated your efforts to do so.

“I think we need Banner to check your hearing, Y/N, because I don’t think you understood a single word I said!” He teased.

The two of you laughed and continued listening to the radio and chatting till you finally returned to the compound.

After bringing the millions of bags of grocers inside, Steve started preparing the steaks while you made the green bean casserole.

“Did you get the cupcakes?” Wanda said as she strolled into the kitchen.

“Unfortunately, no.” You said as you jokingly turned around and glared at Steve.

“Way to ruin the fun, Captain Health.” Wanda teased.

“I just figured that Y/N is going to eat enough junk food over the weekend when she’s staying with the Parkers, so the least I could do was provide with a somewhat healthy meal.”

“Oh right, I forgot about that. You’ll have to tell your little boyfriend I said ‘hi’ when you see him, ok?” Wanda said.

You blushed and threw your oven mit at Wanda, “Stop it, Wanda! We’re just friends! It’d be weird if we dated because we see each other like ALL the time. Also, high school relationships are stupid.”

“Who’s dating what?” Bucky said as he walked into the room.

“Nothing!” You said as more and more teammates joined you and Steve in the kitchen.

What started as you and Steve making dinner turned into a group project. Everybody was helping, talking, laughing, and having a good time. The only people missing were Peter and Tony.

“Hey, where are Stark and Stark Jr. anyways?” Clint asked.

“Peter has finals,” you responded.

“And Tony’s still off doing his own thing.” said Steve.

“Really?” Nat responded to Steve. “He hasn’t called or texted or anything in almost a month. At least to me he hasn’t.”

“I’m not complaining.” Sam chimed in, dishing up his plate.

“He texted me yesterday and told me that it would be him and not Peter that would be picking up Y/N and taking her to the Parker residence tomorrow, but besides that we haven’t been in contact for quite some time.” Steve said while pouring iced tea into his glass.

“I wonder why he’s been so distant,” said Wanda as she maneuvered her way around the crowded kitchen. “It’s not like we did anything to offend him, right?”

“It could be a mid-life crisis.” Vision stated while grabbing a fork and knife.

“At least he’s not our problem anymore, right?” Bucky said as he sat down next to you with a plate full of food.

“That reminds me of when Bucky and I were growing up, and there was-” Steve began telling a story as you looked around the table to the loving family which surrounded you.

Wanda fiddled with her rings, Vision has just realized he didn’t actually need to eat anything since he was a robot (he forgets sometimes), Clint had his elbows on the table, Natasha listened to Steve’s story as she sipped her glass of wine, Sam cut into his steak and wiggled his eyebrow at you when you two made awkward eye contact, Bucky was occasionally chirping in with his input of what really happened, and you sat in between him and Natasha, who was now slightly harping at you to eat your food.

“Y/N? Hello?” Natasha said as she snapped you out of your daze.

“What?”

“If you don’t start eating your food soon, Bucky will eat it for you. He’s been eyeing your plate this entire time.”

“It’s true,” Bucky said, “I have been.”

“Oh yeah, sorry, I was just thinking about some stuff.” “Like Peter?” Wanda shouted from her side of the table.

“Oh no she isn’t. Our Y/N is a smart girl. She knows that all boys bring is trouble. Even though Peter is a nice kid, I’ve drilled it into her brain that boys are overrated. Isn’t that right, Y/N?” Nat asked.

“Oh yes, of course. Girl power. Woo.” 

The table laughed at your lack of enthusiasm and continued talking late into the evening. You went to bed with a wide smile and a full heart.

Home.

You grabbed your backpack and duffel bag and walked down the driveway to Tony’s car. It was 12:30 on a Friday, and he was picking you up to drop you off at Peter’s house for the weekend. 

“Afternoon, Tony.” Steve said from a short distance.

“Nice to see ya, Rogers. How’s the gang doing?”

“Good, good. Where’ve you been, by the way? It’s been a while since we last talked. Anything new happen?”

“You know, the usual.” Tony responded nonchalantly.

Steve smiled and shook his head at Tony as Tony grabbed your duffel and put it in the trunk for you.

“Alright, kid, let’s get this show on the road. Parker gets out of school a little early today so we’ll have to be quick if we want to beat him to his own house.”

“Have a fun weekend, Y/N. Just call if you need me.” Steve said.

“Will do. See you Monday!” you said as you hopped in the car and waved.

Just as the car was pulling out of the driveway, Steve signaled for it to stop and for you to roll your window down.

“You didn’t bring the suit or shield with you, did you?” he asked.

“Oh no, Steve, no! That was just a joke. Don’t worry about it.” you reassured him.

“Are you positive?” He asked again.

“Oh come on, Grandpa, will you just let us leave already?” Tony harped at Steve.

Steve took a step back away from the car with his arms crossed and waved as you and Tony slowly drifted out of view.

Tony nudged your backpack with his foot.

“You brought the suit, didn’t you?” he asked.

You nodded.

“And the shield?”

You nodded again.

“Honestly, I’m not that surprised. You seem like the somewhat rebellious, eager type.”

After an hour of waiting in traffic, you and Tony had finally arrived at the Parker residence. You grabbed your duffel from the back and followed Tony through the building till you reached their apartment.

After knocking on the door a couple times, a lovely young woman opened the it.

“Tony! Y/N! Good to see you two again! Come on in!”

Tony turned around to you, slightly confused.

“Wait, you’ve already met May?”

“She came to the science fair a few weeks ago and Peter introduced us.” May filled Tony in as she grabbed some chips and dip from the kitchen.

“So, what all did Peter tell you about our lovely Y/N?” Tony asked, not sure of what he wanted to hear as an answer.

“That she’s nice, funny, has really pretty eyes, stays at the compound, and is part of the ‘internship,’ if that’s what you were wondering about. But, we all know what the ‘internship’ really is, don’t we?” May said as Tony joined her in laughter while you sat on the couch confused.

“It means I know what you do, your little secret double life thing,” May said as you blushed, “Don’t worry about it, honey! I won’t tell anybody, cross my heart. You should have seen the look on his face when I found out Peter was out being just like one of those avengers! He was terrified. Should have seen my face, too - I was equally as confused and scared!”

You laughed as you quickly made a mental note for yourself to ask Peter about that story on a later date.

May and Tony were discussing politics and the fate of the universe when Peter walked in with a kid you had never seen before.

“Y/N!” Peter said as he ran up and gave you a solid hug.

“Hey! I feel like I haven’t seen you in years!” You said.

“Oh my gosh, me too! I have so many great things planned for this weekend - you have no IDEA how awesome it’s going to be! You haven’t even seen my room yet so I should probably show you that but OH YEAH,” Peter paused and turned around to the kid who walked in with him, “This is my friend Ned Leeds he’s super cool and he’s going to be hanging out with us for a little bit today so um yeah let me go grab some more money for coffee and we can head on out!”

You smiled and shook your head at Peter’s goofy frazzeldness. 

“Hi,” Peter’s friend Ned said from an awkward distance, “I’m, uhh, Ned.”

“I know - Peter talks a lot about you. I’m Y/N.” you said as you stretched out your hand to shake it with Ned’s. 

“Yeah - Peter talks a lot about you, too.”

Once Peter came running out of his room with enough money to pay for your and Ned’s coffee (you insisted you had plenty of money, but Peter said that it was his treat), the three of you departed from the small apartment complex in Queens and rode the subway to Peter’s favorite Starbucks right by Central Park.

“So,” Peter said as he bit into his sandwich, “I was thinking,” he muffled out as he took another bite, “That the three of us should go see that new Star Wars movie tonight.”

“Oh yeah! I almost forgot that it was out.” you responded.

“I already saw it last night, but I’d be down to see it again.” Ned said.

“Didn’t May want us to go out to dinner tonight, though?” you asked Peter.

“Oh yeah. I k-kinda forgot about that, uhh, we can go see the movie after dinner!” he triumphantly declared.

“That reminds me,” Ned began, “Did you see Flash’s snapchat story last night?”

“No, I never really use my snapchat anymore, like, at all. Why?” Peter asked.

“OK, so, apparently Flash took Betty out to dinner last night at like a really, really nice dinner and they saw this one pretty actress lady, oh gosh what was her name, give me a moment I’ll remember-”

Ned’s story about Peter’s weird classmates lost your attention and you began drifting into thought. You looked around the restaurant and out the window at all of the lovely people. One thing you noticed - everybody was happy. Not a single frown drowned a woman’s face, or sank a man’s beard. The little Starbucks that the three of you had parked yourself in was the absolute center of joy. 

Is this what pure bliss feels like?

You gracefully took a sip of coffee and checked your phone, realizing that you missed about a dozen phone calls and a few texts from Steve.

Steve: Just saw the news. Call me as soon as possible.

Steve: Please just let me know you’re far away from whatever is happening, Y/N. Do not engage!

Steve: Please respond.

Steve: Tell Peter to check his phone as well.

Steve: Have you not seen the news?

Steve: Everybody is worried. Please answer our calls. We need to know that you are far away from this mess. We will handle it soon enough.

Steve: ????

Oh no! I left my phone on do not disturb! Way to go, Y/N. You freaked Steve out. Wait, what’s he freaking out about?

You looked up at the TV on the wall and saw it. After what happened a few years ago, the entire world thought that it was a ‘one and done’ sort of thing. No more attacks from space, no more worms flying through the sky, and no more freaky aliens.

But it was here. In the sky. Above the city.

And it oddly looked like a donut.

I never thought that death would come from a donut.

Before screaming and panicking, you glanced around the peaceful Starbucks and realized that not one person had glanced up at the TV.

I mean hey, at least they’re trying to stay disconnected from electronics and interact with each other, right?

“Hey, um, Peter,” you said, gently slapping his arm to get his attention away from Ned's endless story, “Look.” You pointed at the TV.

He squinted a little before he realized exactly what was happening.

“Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh,” he repeated, running his fingers through his hair, “Uh, Ned,” he said, slapping him on the shoulder to get his attention, “There’s a situaiton.”

Ned looked up at the TV and stared at it for a few seconds before his eyes grew wide.

“Oh my gosh! It’s a thing! How come nobody else noticed?” he said as he looked around at the cafe. “Do you need to go do the stuff? Do I need to make a distraction?”

What is Ned talking about?

“N-no, no distraction this time. Just make sure that you and Y/N stay inside and safe.” Peter said frantically as he sprang up from his chair and started sprinting for the door.

You grabbed your backpack as you hopped up right after him and followed him to the door.

“Y/N!” Ned called, “You need to stay here, you saw what’s on the news!”

“Don’t worry! I know what I’m doing!” you shouted back, “I think...” you softly muttered to yourself.

You followed Peter’s bobbing head as he ran through the crowded sidewalks, into a disgusting alley, and started unloading his backpack.

“Peter!” you said as you jogged into the awkward area in between two buildings.

“Y/N! You need to go!” he said as he threw off his clothes and started putting his suit on.

“Is that your spider-man suit?” you said, bewildered. 

“Of course it is! I need to go help, and you need to go home to May! It’s not safe for you here!” he panickedly said. 

“Peter,” you began, “I can help - no, I am helping! I’ve had three months of training with the Avengers, for God’s sake! I know what I’m doing! Just, I don’t know, give me a second to change into my stuff.” you frantically said as you ripped open your backpack and pulled out your suit, helmet, and shield.

“But, wait, you have your suit already?” he asked.

“Mhhmm” you said as you changed into your suits top piece.

“And the shield?”

“Peter!” you snapped at him, annoyed that he was standing there as you were trying to change.

“Ok! I’ll uh, be on the roof!” he said as he swung up and out of sight.

You rapidly changed into your suit and threw your hair into a low pony before strapping your helmet-thingy on and clicking your shield into its holster on your back.

Peter jumped down into the alley and grabbed you by the waist.

“Sorry, I just figured we’d get there faster this way.”

Suddenly you were off the ground and swinging through the air with spider-man, out in the open for all of New York to see.

What am I doing?

“Hey,” Peter said mid-swing, “Your suit is basically just the girl version of one of Captain America’s older suits.”

“Oh shut-up.”

“What’s your name anyways? Captain America Jr? Miss America? Miss Captain?”

“Hmmm,” you thought out loud, “I believe Tony said that he was thinking about calling me ‘Lady Liberty.’ Has a nice ring to it, right?”

“Lady Liberty,” Peter said, “Get ready for a fight, because that’s what we’re going to get.”

On your way to the donut, Peter’s “spider-sense” (you still aren't sure that’s an actual thing but you just kinda go with it) went off and he realized that something was happening at Central Park, not the donut. He set you down on the ground and asked you to run over to the donut and make sure that nobody goes in or out until any other avengers arrived.

Lucky for you, you wouldn’t miss out on all the action. You could hear every conversation an avenger had within a 20 mile radius of you thanks to the little coms that each of you had in your ear.

You sat with your shield strapped to your arm facing the donut on an abandoned car about a block away from the spaceship and listened.

“Hey Mr. Stark, is this guy bothering you?” you heard Peter say.

You tried to follow what was happening from your end of the coms, but it was hard to understand with Peter’s muttering and Tony’s panting into your ear.

You thought everything had calmed down until you heard Tony yell “Get the wizard!” completely out of context.

What is happening down there?

“Y/N!” Peter exhaustedly screamed through your ear.

“What, what?” you responded, jumping up from your seat.

“There’s this wizard dude levitating across the city and he’s heading your way and he’s not stopping. Try to intercept him and stop him from getting into the donut.”

“Wait a second, Y/N? Why are you here?” Tony asked.

“I thought you needed my help, and obviously, you do.” you responded.

“Just get the dang wizard for me and we’ll discuss it later.” Tony said in between several grunts and heavy breathes.

You kept your eyes peeled to the sky and finally saw him - the wizard - approaching straight down the street.

He was going fast and nonstop, just as Peter said. How were you going to stop this dude?

Shield! I’ll use my shield!

You threw your shield at the wizard only for it to bounce off of him and a few buildings before rebounding back to you.

You clicked your shield back into it’s holster and looked up at the wizard, who was almost right above you now. You were stumped. If you let him travel any farther, he’d get to the donut, and you can’t let that happen.

What to do, what to do!

You let your instincts guide you into your next decision, which was a rather bad idea since you have none.

You got on top of the car you were previously sitting on and waited until the wizard was directly above you. The plan: grab on to his body and pull him back down to earth. Once he was in position above you, you jumped as high as you could, connecting your arms on the other side of the wizard’s flat, log-like body. 

That plan didn't work, obviously. You currently found yourself a very high distance off the ground, holding on to a wizard for dear life, with your legs dangling over dozens of pieces of dangerous debris on the street below.

Instincts bad! Instincts bad!

“Peter!” you called through the com, “How far away are you from the wizard and the donut?”

“I almost got him! Why, did you get him?”

“Well, I tried to get him, but now I’m just floating above New York with him and I don’t really know how to get myself out of this situation without breaking at least one bone.”

“Y/N!” Tony yelled, “Don’t do anything stupid!”

“Yeah, it’s a little too late for that!” you responded.

“Peter,” Tony barked, “Are you closing in on him?”

“I’m almost there, Mr. Stark!” he panted, “There! I see you!”

You looked to the end of the street to Peter swinging from building to building as fast as possible, trying to get to you and the wizard.

The wizard continued floating closer and closer to the donut, and the worry of what might happen if Peter didn’t reach you in time suddenly dawned on you.

“Lady Liberty!” Peter shouted from his position a block down, “When I say it, just let go of the dude! I’ll get you!”

“But what about the wizard?” you asked.

“I have a plan! Let go when I say it!”

You waited a few seconds and looked down at the ground below you, which seemed more threatening than it actually was.

“Now!” he shouted at the top of his lungs.

You tried to let go of the wizard, you wanted to let go of the wizard, but you couldn’t. You physically couldn’t. Your arms were frozen.

“I can't, Peter! Like, I physically can’t move! It’s like I’m stuck or something!”

Even though Peter didn’t say anything for a couple seconds, you could tell that he was definitely overwhelmed. This was nothing like anything him or you have ever dealt with before.

“Uhh, I’ll come get you! Just, uh, hold on!” 

You could see his red and blue spandex crawling up the building next to you out of the corner of your eye.

“I’m almost there, guys. Just hold on a little longer!” Tony desperately called from his comm. 

All of a sudden, you and the wizard stopped moving towards the donut. This is partly because, you decided, since you had reached the donut. Peter took this opportunity to jump from the building to you, and grabbed onto your dangling legs.

“Your legs are moving just fine, Y/N, what about your arms?”

“They’re stuck in place! It won’t let me let go or move them at all!”

Peter tugged on your legs a little bit before crawling up your body and onto the top of the wizard, trying to loosen your grip on him.

“I mean, congrats on even jumping up and latching on to him in the first place, I bet that was pretty hard.”

“Peter!” you nervously snapped at him.

“Sorry! Um, uh, yeah they won’t move.”

You groaned in frustration and fear as you desperately swung your legs and tried to break free from whatever was bounding you to the wizard.

All of a sudden, though, you began moving.

Upward.

“Peter..” you croaked out, terrified.

“Mr. Stark,” Peter said through the comm, “We’re being beamed up.”

“I still can’t let go!” You cried.

“Just hang tight, come on, you can do it! I’m almost there just don’t go into the donut!” Tony said.

A door in the donut opened and you and the wizard veered course and started levitating towards the entrance. You looked up at Peter, who was still tugging at your arms.

“I think I almost got it, Y/N! Don’t worry, you’re almost-”

Suddenly, Peter was flipped off of the top of the wizard and sent flying into the center circle of the donut.

“Peter!” you yelled after him, worried about his safety.

Your heart sank as you realized that you were less than a yard away from the dark entrance into the donut, with nobody to save you except yourself. You had no idea who or what was in there, or if you would be able to contact the team from inside.

A tear of fear streamed down your cheek, but you wouldn’t let any more leak out of your eyes. You would find a way out of this. You would save the wizard. This isn’t training anymore, this is the real deal.

As you levitated into the darkness of the donut, you quickly whipped your head around and took in the city, with it’s regal buildings and towering sky scrapers. The sky, with it’s blue ombre painted above you. The welcoming sun, which warmed your skin and soothed your soul when you needed it the most. The clouds, the fluffy, fluffy clouds, where you often looked to and found your biggest dreams, hopes, and adventures. You thought about your room in the compound, which took many weeks to complete to perfection, about the rest of the team back home who must be worried sick, about Peter who was in an even worse situation than you were, about Tony who was racing his way through the city in a frenzied panic, and about Steve, who had probably called you at least 50 times already. You shouldn’t have left your phone on do not disturb, you should have responded to his texts, you should have picked up the phone and called him. You should’ve thought about what you were about to do before you literally jumped into this. You should’ve told Steve how great of a mentor he is, and how much he reminds you of your dad. 

You thought about all of these things as you looked at the great city surrounding you and all of the wonderful people which occupied it, the people that you were trying to save.

You thought about this as you took your last glance at the blue planet you call home.

As you stretched one second into a thousand beautiful moments.

As the doors closed.

And you were utterly, terrifyingly, alone.

TAGS ~ 

@infinite-exist-ence @sataninsatin @tinyclockss @markusstraya @sassyandclassyx @scarletracoon

[autumn-kitten]

Tag Post

I was tagged by @springbearhime, thank you so much!!!!! ♡ ♡ I don’t think I’ve ever been tagged in one of these things so it made me unreasonably happy :’)

Posting this under a cut because it ended up being super long!

Nickname: Nic, Rose, Shy

Pronouns: She/Her

Age: 20 as of this March!

Time: 10:31 am

Fave Artist: Radiohead right now. PS friendly reminder to blacklist the tag radiohead if you don’t wanna see me spamming, I just queued like 50 radiohead posts bc I have a problem lol

Song stuck in my head: This excellent, underappreciated one hit wonder, She Blinded Me With Science. Also, this live version of Radiohead’s Videotape, because it includes a cool part in the middle that isn’t on the recorded/studio version and I love it.

Last movie I saw: The Incredibles 2

Last thing I googled: Trying to figure out how to properly use the Amazon Alexa my mom bought, lol.

Other blogs: I have a Tera Online blog, which is dead rn because I’m not playing Tera very much anymore and the blog is on another email address so it takes too much effort to access it lol. I also partially abandoned it because I got the feeling people didn’t really like me on there.. got a whole lot of mean anons and all my mutuals stopped talking to me and uhHhh idk what I did but sorry y’all... I think I just complained way too much there honestly.  I also have a private rant/journaling blog, because I need to write things down to help me deal with it/get it out of my system.

Do I get asks: I wish!! Sometimes people do message me though but I always get shy ahah. Send me anons! I will answer anything! Hit me tf up!

Why I chose my url: Oh boy, I made this blog when I was probably 16. Autumn was my favorite season and I adore cats. I didn’t use this blog at first because I already had one I was active on and had a lot of friends/mutuals. When I was like 18, this guy I was dating at the would go on that blog and have a huge freakout over nearly everything on it (you posted a selfie and responded to someone that complimented you with a heart??? ARE YOU CHEATING????, etc), so I moved here. I feel kinda bad, I had like 10 messages from different people saying “this blog has zero posts and I want this url can i pls have :(”

Following: 631 LOL. Most people aren’t even active anymore so I should probably go through and clear that out...

What I am wearing: I don’t have work today so I’m still what I slept in - soft Mickey Mouse print boxer shorts and the shirt I wore yesterday lol

Dream job: I don’t really know what I want to do!! Something that makes me happy and doesn’t suck the life out of me, which idk is possible. The idea of working for the rest of my life really depresses me. I am very interested in a ton of things but am not talented at any of them (music, art, film directing or editing, computer programming/coding, writing/editing) so I’m hoping to take some classes at my community college and see if there’s something I’m able to pick up. As a kid I wanted to be an actress (I had no anxiety until I was like 12, it was wild - I was a theater kid haha), then all through middle and high school I wanted to be in a band or be an author/editor, and when I was like 18 I wanted to be an English teacher for quite a while but I’ve realized I’m too shy and definitely not assertive enough.

Dream trip: Japan and all over Europe. Also Australia/New Zealand!!

Fave food: Oof this is hard... I honestly just love food in general. Sometimes it’s burgers and fries, sometimes Chinese food, sometimes Pad Thai, sometimes sushi, sometimes pizza, sometimes pasta... Food is delicious, lol. Right now I’d say probably burgers and fries?

Play any instrument: I took piano lessons for a few years as a kid but hated practicing bc there was pressure from my parents and eventually quit. I wanted to learn how to play the drums but my parents said it was “too loud” so I played trumpet for 4 years in the middle school band and jazz band (because trumpet is SUCH a quiet instrument, lol). I self taught myself guitar in 8th grade and was in a band that never got off the ground, but I haven’t touched guitar since I was probably 16 and really wanna get back into it. I’d love to learn play bass guitar and drums!! Also, fun fact... I was SUPER obsessed with harps as a kid and really wanted to learn how to play one until I was like, 11.

Play(ed) any sport: Aside from being a theater/band kid, I was also v sporty since my dad really wanted boys, hahaha. I played soccer, volleyball, and basketball! I played soccer the longest but I ended up being better at basketball than anything else... but I loved volleyball the most, lmfao. I made some “tryout only” teams for all three sports, which was cool, but any and all sportiness died when I was like 13 or so because Depression Says No and honestly my heart wasn’t in it anymore, it started out as a fun activity but after I was about 10 or 11 I was just doing it because my parents wanted me to and I was really miserable. It was a blessing when they let me quit.

Hair color: Blondeish?? I think?? It’s kinda strawberry blonde in some light.

Languages spoken: English, and three years of classes worth of Japanese. I love languages but it’s super, SUPER hard for my brain to learn them. I want to get back into Japanese, though, because it came pretty easily and was a lot of fun! I tried to learn Spanish for a while since I was living in Argentina, but I was horrible at it and kept adding in Japanese on accident because apparently my brain could only handle two languages and not three, lol.

Random fact: Hmm...  I was incapable of rolling my R’s until new years eve this year.. I was v drunk and apparently was just sitting at the table going rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr... after months of trying to learn how to do it and not even knowing the proper technique I was just rolling my R without even trying/knowing I was doing it. I’ve been able to since that day, lmfao.

Describe yourself with an aesthetic: Oh boy I don’t even know how to do this??And it depends on my mood??? My brain can’t decide who I am or what my aesthetic is, sometimes it’s crazy cat lady with a huge library in her house, sometimes it’s girl at the county fair with a flowy dress and sunflowers in her hair, sometimes (often) it’s “hi I no longer have black hair anymore but I still feel emo/goth in my soul™, sometimes it’s some bullshit 90s vaporwave stuff, sometimes it’s just “haha i’m here for the memes”, sometimes it’s telescopes and observatories and stars and astronomy, sometimes it’s cutesy pastel... idk what my aesthetic is.

Also here’s a relatable picture of me, ty for reading. I tag... anyone that wants to do this bc I really don’t know who to tag ahhhHhhHHHhhh

[braincoins]

How do you write so well?

Okay, first of all, bless you for giving me something to do! We’re just gonna start right there, ‘cause clearly if I can’t sleep, I need to do SOMETHING with my time that’s not getting myself in trouble.

Second of all, thank you for the compliment! I’m just over here smiling like an idiot, I’m so pleased. Glad everyone else (Pengy and the kitties) is asleep, so no one else can see it. ^_^

As for the question, setting aside the opinion… it’s practice. AND I KNOW! Wait, wait, come back! I know everyone says that, but let me elaborate a little bit.

When my mother brought me home from the hospital, she had no idea what to do with me. When she’d gone into labor, she’d been re-reading some Dickens, so she sat down with me, opened the book, and started reading out loud to me. Mooms read to me until I was old enough to read by myself. I abused the hell out of the Book-It! program (so… many… free pizzas…) because I loved reading. 

And out of that love of reading stories came a love of writing them as well. I entered my first writing contest in the 6th grade (got an honorable mention) with the encouragement of my teacher. When we first got a personal computer (sweet chaos, I’m old), I started using it to type stories instead of writing them by hand. In high school, my best friend and I kept an inside joke notebook that we swapped back and forth between us, and I occasionally wrote stories in that, too. I took Creative Writing class. I continued to read, to watch TV shows and movies, listen to songs, to consume stories in every form I could think of.

I’ll be 40 in a little over a month. I have spent that time not just writing, but trying different things. Trying to write in the style of one author or another. Trying to write horror, trying to write comedy, trying to write erotica, etc. Trying to write poetry, but let’s not talk about that. Not all my experiments are successful (especially the poetry) but they all teach me something.

I continue to consume stories (add podcasts, tabletop RPGs, webcomics, and video games to the list of story types I enjoy now) and think about what I liked about them: certain turns of phrase, certain elements of world-building, the way this plotline was structured and paced, the way the characters reacted to situations, etc. 

Look at the stories you like and ask yourself why you like them. Not just the characters and storylines (though those are both important) but how they’re presented. Would this story be better in a live-action medium versus an animated one? 

For example, I complain a lot about the Voltron tie-in comics, but setting aside my personal grievances, I do feel a little bad for the writers. Someone clearly gave them the direction that the paladins have to form Voltron in every. single. issue. And the act of actually Forming Voltron is best in an animated/motion-based medium. In comics, you just basically have Shiro shout “Form Voltron!” and then you have two splash pages of Voltron already formed and ready to go, because you can’t just do the transformation sequence panel by panel. You have a page limit you have to hit, you’ll drive the artists up the wall, and it’s just not as interesting in a static medium. (For that matter, trying to “form Voltron” in a text-based medium like fanfic is ANNOYING AS HELL, and I should know ‘cause I did it TWICE.)

I also like to do readouts of my stories after I finish the first draft. Reading them out loud (to myself, with no one else around) helps me hear things that might sound off, like “did I use the word ‘say’ too much in this paragraph?” Also it’s GREAT for finding dropped words: y’know, you meant to put the word “his” in there, and you totally thought you did, but oopsie, guess you didn’t. OH, and a good editing trick is to shift your draft into a different font. It makes you pay more attention to the words because they look a little different now, and you’re more likely to catch stuff. (I shift it back to my preferred font afterwards, and I don’t pick a font that annoys me, just one that’s sufficiently different from what I wrote in originally.)

Plus, I also have awesome beta readers (99% of the time, it’s @materassassino, who’s wonderful) and, for longer pieces, an editor (my friend @explodingcrenelation who has actually done professional editing and gives me a “repeat customer” discount). Getting at least one more pair of eyes on something helps so so SO much, because they’ll catch things you missed/didn’t think of. 

Okay, that’s long and babbly. Welcome to 4 AM. I hope this helps, Writing Anon! :)

PS - I can’t stand Dickens

[charger-batteries]

MSI MAG B550 Tomahawk Review

With the dawn of the latest in-the-middle chipsets—AMD's B550 and Intel's H470 and B460—midrange desktop motherboards just keep getting better. That arguably goes without saying, but in this generation we're seeing more pronounced improvements. Case in point: MSI's MAG B550 Tomahawk ($179.99), which might be mistaken at a glance for a premium ATX pick. And the similarities go deeper than just appearances—with PCI Express 4.0 support, a 2.5Gbps NIC, and two 10Gbps USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports on the back panel, this board has a modern feature set that's comparable to what we have seen on many AMD X570 and Intel Z490 motherboards. This makes the Tomahawk a hard option to pass up in the midrange market, and our latest Editors' Choice winner among mainstream Ryzen desktop boards.

Design: An Axe-cellent PCB

MSI opted to color the MAG B550 Tomahawk in a mixture of black and gray. Black is the more prominent color, but there's a good amount of gray that adds contrast and keeps the board from looking too dull. MSI also put some RGB LEDs around the chipset heatsink that add some much-needed color to the board when it's powered up.

The chipset heatsink itself is average-size for a midrange motherboard, and smaller than you would expect to see on a high-end board. MSI configured this board with 10 digital power phases for the CPU, and three additional phases for other components. These are cooled by two relatively large heatsinks and should work well enough for everyday use and a bit of overclocking.

This board also has a rear I/O shroud and a permanently attached rear I/O plate, which makes installing the board in a case a bit easier. I don't always mention this aspect of boards because most upper-end boards I review nowadays have shrouds and plates. But midrange and low-end boards usually don't, so it's worth noting.

Two M.2 slots (down by the PCI Express slots) are covered over by heat spreaders. The uppermost M.2 port is set above the primary PCI Express x16 slot, and there is room here to install M.2 drives in the long Type-22110 (110mm) form factor. This slot also runs off the CPU's PCIe controller and can operate using either PCIe 4.0 lanes or 3.0 lanes. It also supports SATA M.2 SSDs.

The lower M.2 port connects to the board's chipset and is therefore locked into using PCIe 3.0 lanes; it supports PCI Express M.2 SSDs only. This slot is also in a more cramped location and can only accept drives measuring 80mm or shorter. I wouldn't consider this a drawback, however, as few M.2 solid-state drives nowadays use the longer 110mm form factor, and PCIe 4.0 support isn't so ubiquitous that every slot needs it.

A Look at the Networking, Audio, and Rear I/O

The MAG B550 Tomahawk doesn't sport a built-in Wi-Fi chip (likely due to cost reduction), but it does have two LAN controllers. (Serious gamers, for one, are going to opt for Ethernet anyway.) The main networking controller is a Realtek RTL8125B chip that supports internet speeds up to 2.5Gbps. This chip is becoming a regular collaborator on modern midrange and high-end boards, and it offers a significant step up in terms of performance over aging 1Gbps solutions. The second networking controller is one of those aging 1Gbps solutions I just mentioned—a Realtek RTL8111H. It can't compare with the RTL8125B chip, but it's a sensible option for a low-cost secondary NIC.

MSI chose a Realtek ALC1200 codec to drive the audio to the 3.5mm jacks on both the front and back panels. Information on this chip is scarce, but it appears to be a budget variant of Realtek's more widely used ALC1220. Most users probably won't be able to tell the difference between the two audio chips, so it should work fine for casual use.

The B550 Tomahawk's rear I/O panel could use a few more USB ports, but it's not bad for a midrange loadout. You get a total of six USB ports on the back panel, including one USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A and one USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C, both supporting 10Gbps peak throughput. Two of the remaining ports are also USB 3.2, but these are of the slower Gen 1 5Gbps variety. The last two ports on the back panel are legacy USB 2.0 ports best reserved for mice and keyboards, and beside these is a PS/2 jack for antique peripherals.

Alongside the USB ports are two RJ-45 jacks for the wired NICs mentioned earlier, and five 3.5mm jacks plus an S/PDIF port for audio. Video connections on the board include one HDMI port and one DisplayPort connection, if you opt for a late-model Ryzen G series chip with integrated Radeon graphics. The rear I/O panel also has a button that can be used to flash the BIOS to a new version, which is a useful function to have, especially if you need a BIOS update to make the board support a newer processor. (It's important to note that the B550 chipset does not support first-gen and second-gen Ryzen AM4 chips. The only chips supported are the Ryzen 3000 and 5000 series.)

The Building Experience

The configuration of the MAG B550 Tomahawk makes it one of the easiest boards that I've ever set up in a case. Due to the limited amount of space, getting cables plugged into the correct place can be difficult, and this actually tends to be worse on high-end motherboards. Midrange boards like this tend to make the job relatively easy.

The CPU's power connector is typically one of the hardest connections to get plugged in, but the connector on the B550 Tomahawk is set far enough away from the VRM heatsinks that it's not too difficult to get at. The rear I/O shroud does get in the way slightly due to its height, but the heatsinks themselves are short enough to stay safely out of the way.

The CPU fan headers are similarly set far enough away from everything that they can be plugged in with ease. Other connectors, like the USB-C and USB 3.0 headers, are set so they stick straight out of the board. Some people prefer to have these set at a right angle along the edge of the board, and while that can result in a cleaner finished build (depending on the chassis), I actually find them easier to plug in when they are straight up like this. The only ports that are set at a right angle are the SATA 3.0 connectors, which, as I just noted, can have some advantages even if they aren't quite as easy to plug in.

A Brief Look at the BIOS

Like most MSI motherboards, the MAG B550 Tomahawk comes equipped with the company's Click BIOS 5 user interface. Upon first boot, this loads you into an EZ mode menu that has essentially everything you would want in a simplified interface. From here, you can select a boot device, enable a memory profile for the RAM, flash the BIOS, and view spec information about the system's hardware.

There are a few extra options here, as well, such as a menu for adjusting the speed of the system's fans, as well as a button to enable MSI's Game Boost auto-overclocking feature. Overall, though, the EZ mode remains quite simple, and it shouldn't cause much confusion for beginners.

Over in the Advanced section of the BIOS, you get the usual fare. There are several options for changing the less notable system settings, and of course there are overclocking tools. The layout for these is essentially the same as on other Click BIOS 5 boards, with quite a few options to help you eke out extra performance from the CPU and RAM. (Ryzen's general lack of much overclocking overhead is another matter, though.)

While testing the board, I ran into a minor issue with its RAM support. I test most motherboards (including this one) with a high-end Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB memory kit that's rated to operate at a max frequency of 4,266MHz with timings of 16-22-22-39. The MAG B550 Tomahawk wasn't able to run this RAM with the XMP profile enabled, however. I was able to get the board to operate the RAM at 3,200MHz and 3,600MHz, though, and realistically this isn't a shortcoming. MSI says on the board's support page that its peak supported RAM speed with two single-rank DIMMs installed is 4,000MHz, dropping to 3,600MHz for dual-rank DIMMs. (Various overclocked modes are also supported, according to the spec sheet.) Just know not to overspend for higher-speed RAM than you can use.

The Bundled Software

MSI includes just a handful of drivers and utilities with this board. All of the drivers installed without any issue, and they don't warrant much discussion. As for the utilities, you'll find a customized version of CPUID's popular CPU-Z tool, along with MSI's Dragon Center software.

Dragon Center provides a wide range of features in a single app. Before I go into what Dragon Center does, I should note that this version of Dragon Center is available as a straight download from the board's support page—which I'm far happier about than I probably should be for such a small detail. With all the previous MSI motherboards that I've reviewed, the company didn't provide the full program in one download on its support page. Instead, the support page offered an installation tool rather than the program itself, requiring you to download a separate SDK package to complete the installation. I've complained about this at least half a dozen times to date, and I'm delighted to see that MSI has now opted to provide an actual download from the start.

As for the program itself, there's quite a bit to explore. If nothing else, you'll want to install it to control any RGB LEDs connected to the system, but it also offers a useful hardware monitor, in-Windows overclocking tools, a network manager, and a few gaming-related tools.

Verdict: B550 Priced (and Feature-Packed) Just Right

The MSI MAG B550 Tomahawk is a solid value at $179.99. It's not quite as feature-rich as a deluxe motherboard, and it wasn't able to handle my Corsair Vengeance LPX RAM kit at its full speed, but this is a midrange board, not a high-end one.

It's not likely that the board will need to operate with RAM clocked that high, and while it may not have all the latest bells and whistles, it has enough of them not to feel lacking. Its 2.5Gbps LAN connection is excellent for a midrange board, as are the two high-speed USB ports. This board nails the B550 balance and delivers exactly what a midrange platform should. It's a fine complement to the value monster that is the late-model Ryzen CPU family.

[toraonice]

Hello, just wanted to say thanks for your translations! I'm sorry to hear about all the people who are culture-shocked about the differences between Japan and the west and are taking it out on you. Also, just wanted to ask because I was curious, would most Japanese people really not assume that two men with Yuuri and Victor's body language (walking with their arms around each other, Victor holding Yuuri from behind, etc.) were in a romantic relationship?

Thank you for your message! (By the way, thanks again to all the ones who have sent me positive messages, both with their names and as anonymous!)I understand that, for people who haven’t lived in both environments, it might be difficult to fully comprehend the cultural differences between Japan and Western countries. I’m not Japanese myself but I think I’ve lived in Japan long enough and interacted with enough people to be able to see both points of view (at least to an extent, though of course all people are different and it’s not just a matter of “Western” and “Japan”!).

Regarding your question… first of all, if Victor and Yuuri were real people, I think it would be different than if they are anime characters. Some people tend to see fictional characters as more stereotyped than real people, so for example, many will say that “unless a character is proved to be homosexual, they must be heterosexual by default”. Therefore some people will be convinced that there is absolutely nothing romantic between them (despite all the things they do) because “it is never stated”.

If they were two real people, I think the way a Japanese person sees them would probably be affected by their life experience and how they feel about homosexuality..

(Continue below)

In Japan homosexuality is not really talked about (though in recent years I think the situation is improving, with some wards even starting to legally recognize same-sex unions and large companies providing the same support for same-sex and heterosexual couples). You have radical people who basically think homosexuality is a myth, so unless two guys are really really obvious (they kiss, and are not drunk or clearly joking while doing it) they will be forever convinced that they just cannot be gay. Then you have the opposite: people who are disgusted by gays and will complain if two guys do as much as hold hands. They would probably think that they are a couple right away, and of course find them disgusting and against nature. Older people (over 50-60) in Japan tend to belong to one of these two categories. Younger people have softer views, but there are surveys showing how a lot of Japanese tend to believe that the homosexual population is close to non-existent just because they don’t come out, so they don’t know that they exist. Which leads me to believe that there are quite many people who will not think two guys are gay unless they have evident proof. (Then of course you have BL fangirls who will go crazy over two guys who even just touch each other, but they would not necessarily think that they are really gay)

Regarding YOI in particular, there is also the fact that Victor is a foreigner. Japanese people are not very comfortable with physical contact (of course, there are always exceptions), but they are aware of this and they know that in many foreign countries it’s normal to have more physical contact, like hugging, kissing on the cheek, etc. Before episode 10 aired many fans thought that Victor was acting the way he was with Yuuri because he was probably a “particularly handsy foreigner” and he fancied Yuuri and/or liked to flirt with him. (After episode 10 many changed their views to “Yuuri rubbed himself against him first, so Victor thought it was ok to act that intimate”)

Now, in Japan it’s not normal, even for couples, to be physically intimate in public. Kissing in the trains or in public is seen as vulgar/indecent, very passionate hugs are seen as the couple showing off (Kubo herself found couples being really intimate in public in Mexico worthy of mention). The most “intimate” thing couples normally do in public is hold hands. So if Victor only touched Yuuri or kept an arm around his waist in public people might dismiss it as “he’s a foreigner”, but if he hugged Yuuri inside a train, yeah well many would find them “suspicious”. (I would actually be very curious to see how they act in public in Japan. Like, would Yuuri let Victor cling all over him or would he refrain from physical contact because in Japan it’s seen as vulgar? Then again the world they live in is open-minded so they might not have these issues..)

Note: being drunk is another story. I don’t drink and dislike cigarette smoke, so I stay away from izakayas and rarely had the “pleasure” to look after drunk people, but one of my male colleagues at my previous workplace was known to become really handsy when he got drunk, with guys by the way… He’s married with a child and of course no one ever thought he might be gay/bi because of that. In general, it’s like if you’re drunk you are allowed to do anything (look up pictures of drunk salarymen online for examples of “anything”) and it will be dismissed as “well he was drunk”. So Japanese people might look at drunk Yuuri and think it’s ok for him to rub himself against Victor and it doesn’t necessarily mean something deeper (now, I do think the contents of the Chihoko drama might be enough to challenge these Japanese standards..).

A side note regarding foreigners and physical contact. There is a Japanese variety show called “Shinkon-san irasshai” (literally “welcome, newlyweds”) where they invite newly married couples and hear their stories. In 2013 for the very first time in over forty years they invited a homosexual couple, a Japanese guy living in France with his French husband. I actually watched this program on TV because I wanted to see how they would handle it. The news spread on Twitter and many of my followers watched it too. One of the things my followers noticed and commented about is how the French guy (who didn’t know Japanese so only spoke when talked to) kept his hand on his husband’s thigh basically the whole time, because two Japanese people, even newlyweds, normally wouldn’t show such physical contact in a TV program. By the way, after the program aired there was a little trend of fanart based on it, involving a certain ship made up of a Japanese and a foreign guy (if it aired now I’m sure everyone would make YOI fanart with Victor and Yuuri being guests and Victor keeping a hand on Yuuri’s thigh, lol).

To sum it up… Considering the fact that in Japan, more than in most Western countries, people tend to ignore homosexuality and pretend/believe that it doesn’t exist, I think it would take more for people to suspect that two guys might be romantically involved than it would take in other more open countries. However, based on how physical contact in public is perceived in Japan, depending on what they do where it’s possible that people would perceive them as a homosexual couple.

Examples of how they would likely be perceived:

-Only Victor walking with an arm loosely around Yuuri’s waist, hugging/kissing (on the cheek) as a greeting, Victor randomly touching Yuuri’s arms/shoulders/head/waist in non-sexual ways -> just friends

-Both of them walking with arms around each other, hugging inside a train and/or not as a greeting, holding hands, kissing (even on the cheek) not as a greeting, leaning against each other when sitting on a train, caressing/touching in sexual ways -> probably a gay couple

Now, this takes into consideration that Victor is a foreigner. If they were both Japanese they would probably be seen as suspicious even if they kiss as a greeting.

Of course… the above is all based on my experience in Japan with Japanese people, and Japanese people are not all the same, so there will be individual differences…

PS: If people only saw them on the rink and not in other places/in private I’m not sure whether they would think they are a couple. The “kiss” in episode 7 was probably the biggest hint (because seriously, I don’t think you would do that to a person you don’t have romantic feelings for…), but I’ve seen lots of pictures of male skaters hugging a lot or being physically intimate, so clinging to each other or wearing pair rings might not be enough.

I hope what I wrote wasn’t too messy…!

[acomplexjourney]

Avoiding burnout

This post is intended for more for my fellow residents and med students, but everyone is welcome to read it of course. Physician burnout is a hot topic right now in healthcare and it is something I have thought about a lot as a new resident. Part of burnout is the sense that physicians’ can’t simply ask “what is best for the patient?” because of all the competing interests at play (thanks for the article, Rich!). The three-part essay “Resident Wellness is a Lie” is also a really good read that reflects on failures to prevent resident physician burnout.

I think the main conclusion I have come to regarding physician burnout is that unfortunately, there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Every resident has to figure out for him/herself what works best within the constraints of their specific program. Two strategies that I have found helpful are doing something “extra” for patients once in a while and remaining curious.

As busy as IM got, some of my fondest memories from the month stemmed from doing things I wasn’t required to do. First, I took extra time to really counsel a patient on smoking cessation. Mr. A. was 40-year-old male in the ICU for alcohol withdrawal, so obviously his addiction to alcohol was the bigger issue. But I also knew that he had been using a nicotine patch for the past few days in the hospital, so I opted to do a little more than the standard, “did you know that smoking is bad for your health, sir?” When I returned after rounds one day to sit down and talk to Mr. A., he told me that he had struggled to quit smoking over the years, but he did intend to now quit smoking and alcohol. I then took the time to draw him the lung curves on a piece of paper for a non-smoker, smoker, and someone who quits smoking. I showed him on the graph how if he stopped smoking now, he could possibly add 5-10 years to his life. Mr. A. seemed surprised and happy to learn this information and thanked me for talking to him. Now I have no idea whether this patient will follow-through on quitting smoking and drinking, but I tried to show during the five minutes I talked to him that I truly cared about him not just as a patient, but as a fellow human being.  

The other example I have of doing something “extra” is when I did osteopathic manipulation for a hospitalized patient. I’ll call him “Mr. B.” and he was a 60-year-old male who was in the hospital for pneumonia during my last week of IM. As I was admitting the patient, he complained of a terrible muscle spasm in the right side of his neck. So even though I was busy, I decided to spend five minutes doing OMT on him. I started with suboccipital release, did some gentle muscle energy to stretch out his SCMs, and finally did AA joint muscle energy. Mr. B. told me he felt a lot better after and I gave him a business card for the resident clinic in case he wanted additional OMT treatments in the future. As a result of the successful OMT treatment, I noticed that I felt better too, and had a little extra spring in my step for the rest of the day.  

The second strategy I have used to combat burnout is trying to stay curious. This is essentially the argument made by Dr. Siddhartha Mukherjee in his NYT article last year, “For Doctors, Delving Deeper as a Way to Avoid Burnout.” I have realized that, in medicine, the necessity of constant learning is both a blessing and a curse. A blessing because I should never get bored if I am doing my job well, because there are always new things to learn or refresh myself on. A curse, because the potential work and studying never end. Again, every physician has to find the work-life balance that works for them. I am trying to get better at recognizing when it’s time to close my laptop and go spend some time outside or with family and friends.

One of the best ways I have seen curiosity described was in John Green’s novel, “An Abundance of Katherines.” The story centers on the 17-year old child prodigy, Colin Singleton, who has had the bad luck of dating nineteen girls named Katherine and being dumped by all of them. The most memorable quote in the book for me was when his friend Hassan tries to explain Colin’s intelligence to a mutual friend:

“You and me will read a book and find three interesting things that we remember. But Colin finds everything intriguing. He reads a book about presidents and he remembers more of it because everything he reads clicks in his head as fugging interesting.”

I’m doing my best to take note of things every day that I find “fugging interesting” and then read about them later. Some days this is easier to do than others. But I hope that by doing something “extra” for patients once in a while and remaining curious, I can avoid the burnout that currently plagues so many medical students and physicians.  

 PS- If you haven’t watched the recent LWT episode about bias in medicine, I highly recommend it!  

[mooosicaldreamz]

but for a prompt....I would love a ficlet set in the "mix the bourgeoisie and the rebel" verse, maybe a few months/years after the end of the fic?

this is a good faith gesture that i do see your prompts and that i will write them, slowly but surely, over the course of the next few days. SO SEND ME ONE???? IN CELEBRATION OF ME REACHING 1K FOLLOWERS? ps if you’ve never seen the chandelier at the omnia club in vegas, you might want to find a video of it to understand this.

It’s not Beca’s idea. It never really is Beca’s idea, she’s pretty certain - one morning, she’s waking up with Chloe in her face talking a mile a minute about going on a trip to celebrate Emily’s album release, blah blah blah - Chloe’s not wearing a shirt and that’s a separate, exciting thing and so Beca nods along with what her girlfriend is saying in an attempt to move it along to the kissing. She doesn’t realize what she’s agreed to until almost two full days later, when Emily sends a picture of a little black dress and asks if it’s an appropriate length for a girls’ trip to Vegas, and Jessica is texting to ask if Omnia can have a set list so they can start programming the chandelier.

It’s a massive chandelier. She and Chloe get to Vegas first, on Chloe’s insistence - something about ambience and alone time, which Beca had read to mean more making out uninterrupted - and when they do, they get picked up by a private driver from Caesars, who does his very best not to stare at Chloe the whole time. There’s a VIP entrance and a way-too-expensive suite that’s been comped to her for performing, and yes, for sure, Chloe had definitely wanted to make out a lot.

Eventually, they make it out of their room and are shown the cavernous club, lights on and freezing. When the sound technicians start playing the setlist Beca had provided, and the chandelier starts glowing and moving, Chloe actually screams, nearly tearing Beca’s arm off she’s clutching it so hard.

“I need one of those,” Chloe says, and promptly begins taking a mass of pictures to send to Aubrey.

The next morning, Emily, Stacie, Aubrey, Jessica, and Ashley arrive, and Chloe spends all of lunch trying to explain to Aubrey about how the chandelier is a must-have for the next tour, that if she doesn’t have it or something like it, she’ll just die.

“Your girlfriend is insane,” Jessica mutters to Beca, as though she isn’t smiling at the admittedly over-the-top display of excitement as well. Emily hums in agreement, reaching for one of the weird oyster things someone had brought over as compliments of the chef. She throws it back and nearly spits it right into her champagne glass. Ashley pats her on the back as she chokes it down, chugging the bubbles to wash it out of her mouth. Beca resolves to not touch the oysters.

“Your girlfriend is insane,” Beca returns, grinning when Jessica rolls her eyes. “How much did Jesse complain about not getting to come when he drove you guys to the airport?”

“He complained the entire time,” Stacie offers. “Aubrey almost punched him.”

“I think it was definitely a punch,” Jessica says. “Legally, I think she’s dead to rights. He started crying.”

Stacie makes a mysterious humming noise, smiling and drinking her champagne, then reaching out for the oysters and not even puking. Emily sulks a little bit, and is only brightened when a waiter arrives with a new glass of champagne for her.

“Okay, so what’s the plan?” Emily asks, clapping excitedly. “You’re playing tomorrow night, right?”

“Have you seen the chandelier, Em?” Chloe asks, leaning halfway over the table to offer out her phone. Aubrey very gently reaches out to lower her hand and lower Chloe into her seat. “Right. I’ll show you later.”

“They comped us tickets to the Cirque du Solelil shows,” Jessica says, pulling out an itinerary at the same time Aubrey does. God, they are the worst together now that they’re friends. Beca should have never resolved to repair that relationship.

“And we’ve roped off time in the day to go gamble safely,” Aubrey continues. Chloe is pouting at Beca like it’s her fault that Chloe had been so consumed by the chandelier that they had been separated. Beca nearly jumps out of her skin when she feels the heeled toe of Chloe’s foot brush against her shin.

“Fat Amy is coming tomorrow, before the show,” Jessica says. Emily looks at Beca nervously. The last time Emily and alcohol and Amy had met, Emily hadn’t crawled out of bed for three days. Beca shrugs, distracted by the look on Chloe’s face as she drags her foot up and down Beca’s calf. “And then we’re going to probably get smashed and go to more clubs.”

“I would really like to go to this thing called TopGolf,” Ashely offers.

“Gay,” Chloe nods, like she doesn’t have her foot halfway into Beca’s chair. “I like it.”

“I have a meeting with Calvin tomorrow morning about my record progress,” Beca says. Chloe grins at her. “So we can’t get too smashed tonight, okay?”

“Speak for yourself,” Jessica mutters, passing out copies of their apparent itinerary. Beca frowns when she realizes its planned nearly to the minute.

“You’re supposed to go with me,” she says back, shoving at Jessica’s arm.

Jessica frowns.

-

“What the fuck?!” Jessica screams, raising her golf club up over her head and aiming to swing it down on the machine that’s tracking her scoring. Ashley manages to tackle her before she does it, grabbing her and wresting the club from her grip with some calming, nice, drunken words that turn way too quickly into kissing for Beca’s taste. Admittedly, Chloe is draped in her lap, singing along to the song playing over their sound system and tapping against Beca’s thigh to the beat. She probably shouldn’t be complaining, but she one hundred percent does, yelling at them to stop making out.

“Fuck you, Mitchell,” Ashley volleys back, and Beca flips her off, and Jessica looks like she might start crying.

Stacie, who has done more shots than any of the rest of them, gets off the couch as though sobriety was her middle name, reaching for her golf club and looking out over the field of holes. She swings - and she fucking nails a perfect shot, the ball rolling into the far hole with the kind of precision that Beca could dream of. God, how had Ashley managed to catch that?

“That’s my wife,” Aubrey yells, standing up victoriously and raising her arms as though Stacie’s massive TopGolf score is a life-changing accomplishment. Beca flips her off, too.

“Em, it’s you,” Beca says, reaching over to knock her hand at Emily’s knee. She’s been drunkenly stirring her drink for the last ten minutes, and it sloshes a little onto Beca and Chloe when she gets up.

She swings so hard that she throws her club onto the grass.

-

“I have a meeting in forty minutes,” Beca whispers, even as Chloe is in the middle of pulling her shirt up and over her head. “With my boss. Who you know.”

“Calvin won’t care if you’re late,” Chloe whispers back, her mouth somewhere down Beca’s stomach. It’s hard to tell, Beca’s eyes are closed.

“Right,” Beca says back. “Right. Okay.”

-

Fat Amy has accumulated a crowd of people watching her decimate the Roulette table. Chloe and Beca are sitting at the bar across from her table, Chloe fiddling with the video poker machine and cheering excitedly every time she gets a good hand and wins a dollar, and Beca is mostly just watching Fat Amy - because the kind of insanity that’s taking place needs to be watched. Emily is settled at the table as well, losing left and right, betting against Fat Amy’s very particular picks.

“Are we sure she didn’t load her own ball in there?” Beca asks, glancing over at her girlfriend, who has a Mariners hat pulled low over her eyes.

“Fat Amy’s rule is to never commit crimes unless there are people watching,” Chloe says, sticking out her tongue at the game when she loses fifty cents on her new hand. “So, no. Just lucky.”

“I wish I was that lucky,” Beca mutters, turning back around in her seat in time to see Chloe dial up her bet all the way to a dollar. “Wow, a big spender.”

“I know, right?” Chloe says, grinning and leaning towards Beca to press a kiss to her lips. “And you are already lucky babe. You’ve got me.”

-

It’s the loudest club she’s ever been in. She’s certain of it. When it had been empty, it hadn’t seemed so massive and capable of holding so many goddamn people. But there they all were, losing their minds to her music under the massive and insane chandelier that Chloe still hasn’t quite managed to shut up about it. She can’t really pick out their group - they’re up in the VIP level, she knows, but that’s hard to see when the lights are crazy and people are screaming and she’s having the biggest, most insane high she’s ever had off a crowd. How can people play this kind of club every Friday night?

When she finally gets offstage, sending the crowd away with a raucous remix of “Parade” that sets some people into hysterics, she finds the group hanging outside her little VIP lounge, and there’s a lot of squealing and yelling and she hears Ashley say, “I totally get the chandelier thing now.”

-

On their last night in Vegas, Chloe buys a cheap paper rose off some guy outside the Bellagio fountains and presents it to Beca with a shit-eating, beautiful grin. She’s not much better at dealing with her feelings than she was when she and Chloe started dating, but she knows enough to say I love you when Chloe hands it to her. Fat Amy is singing “Time to Say Goodbye” in anticipation of the fountains, clutching at Ashley like she’s a lifeline, and Stacie is talking to Emily over by the railing with a huge grin, her arm slung around her shoulders. Over by a tree, Jessica and Aubrey are gesturing at each other and whispering heatedly, Jessica holding the itinerary and Aubrey her phone.

Beca’s happy. That’s obvious. And it’s more obvious when Chloe kisses her, leaning in and pressing closer when the music starts up and a distinctive noise of water falling joins it.

She nearly gets shoved straight into the railing when someone shoulder checks Chloe, and Beca grabs ahold of her girlfriend by her hips and prepares to rip into whatever asshole needed so badly to see the show up close and personal that they felt like shoving a beautiful woman was the answer - but she watches as she realizes who it is, as Stacie suddenly moves back towards Aubrey and Benji is there, kneeling on the ground, and Emily is crying.

Beca is crying too, of course, but Chloe doesn’t mention it when she reaches up to wipe away the tears from Beca’s face.

-

“You planned that,” Beca says, staring suspiciously at her girlfriend as Chloe sings her way through the suite, throwing their clothes in a suitcase. “Benji.”

“Well, duh, silly,” Chloe says. She glances up at Beca, who’s sitting at the head of the bed and watching her. “Benji asked for a good way to propose.”

“And you helped him plan it,” Beca says. It’s sort of shocking to her, all of a sudden, how easily Chloe’s intertwined herself in Beca’s life, how she has lunches with Jesse every Thursday, how she helps Benji plan a proposal, how she loves Emily and hugged her for a full forty seconds after Emily and Benji had finally stopped making out.

“Don’t worry babe,” Chloe says, winking and sending a shock right through Beca’s bones. “I’ve still got plenty of ideas for my proposal.”

Beca blinks, as Chloe returns back to their packing, and she lets Chloe’s gentle voice wash through her as she sings her way through the silence. It’s like the moment after a lightning strike, in her heart. She has this. She’s got this, this beautiful, crazy girl who’s obsessed with a damn chandelier and for some reason thinks Beca is the coolest.

“Good,” she says, in response, probably way too late, but Chloe smiles at her like she’s already said yes, and then she’s climbing on the soft, soft bed, and then there’s kissing, and it’s all great, then.

[bleusarcelle]

Always Has Been

Alo! Psh, so, CORAN AND LANCE BONDING MOMENT BC YES. This is like the fourth chapter of Don’t Put Out the Glow fic I have in my Ao3, but yeah! You can read it separetly. 

The main point here is that Lance is beated up as hell (that happens in chapter 1) and he’s bed resting and the team takes turn to watch over him and take care of him and this time it was Coran’s turn!! 

So, link to read from the start is here: http://archiveofourown.org/works/9630371/chapters/21758132

But like I said, *shrugs* you don’t have to, just know that Lance is emotional and beated up bc of their last mission. 

Ps. I have the hc that Alteans’s language was ...well greek bc I’m not creative enough to come up with cute nicknames in alien language SO GREEK: 

kardiá liontarioú (greek) means lion heart. mikró ílio (also greek) means little sun.

Disclaimer: Voltron doesn’t belong to me. 

“And there I was: Alone with only my flubber and my tutter with at least fifty hundred Deditions. It was hopeless for any Altean…except for me! I stared at the eye of Death smugly and attacked without mercy. Victory was so close I could taste it, quite literal because one of the Deditions fell into my mouth, I might add. Time became slow and it was as I was in a hurricane and there was no escape but do you know what I did,  my boy?”

“What did you do, Coran?” Lance asks quietly, smiling softly at the Altean as he takes a sip from his cup.

“I beat every single one of those Deditions! It was the most satisfying victory of all, my boy!”

The brunet giggles under his breath. “But, Coran, aren’t Deditions like small puppies?”

“My boy! Their piles of cuddles and big shiny eyes could kill an entire army! No one is able to resist their cuteness!”

“Except you.”

“You can survive any outside cuteness when you see this face every day, my boy.” Coran says proudly as he points at his own face and he grins when the brunet laughs gleefully.

“Can’t argue with that logic.”

Coran smiles as he watches Lance chuckle softly. The brunet still has a big bump on his right side of his head, the corner of his lower lip is covered in dried blood and his eye is not as swollen as before but still sensitive and red.

Lance still looks bad but the bright smile on his face tunes out every visible injury and Coran can’t be more grateful with the universe for allowing him to see that smile.

“You know,” He starts after a few minutes in silence, voice gentle and longing, his eyes still looking at Lance fondly, “You remind me of my son.”

Lance’s laughter stops abruptly and then turns his head towards Coran, mouth wide open in surprise and then he’s frowning concern.

“Coran –” He starts, voice small and hesitant but Coran cuts him off by standing from the chair and walking towards the brunet, taking seat on the corner of the bed besides Lance.

“He was a good lad. He had his mother’s hair and eyes but besides that he was a mini me.” Coran chuckles, crossing his right leg across his left one and dropping his elbow on it, resting his chin against his open palm, “His mother used to say that we should have named him Coran Jr; saying that it fitted him better with his wild personality and loud upbeat voice.”

Lance licks his lips nervously and then speaks in small voice, “What was his name?”

“Lyon.” Coran replies calmly, “His name was Lyon.”

“Cool name.” Lance says, smiling warmly at the Altean and Coran smiles back at him.

“I see him in you.” Coran confesses softly, “I see him in your smile, in your laughter, in your determination, in your kindness. I see him in your eyes, in the hope and strength they hold inside them. I see him in your jokes, in your soft subtle caring actions.”

“W-What?” Lance whispers, eyes wide, fill with guilty and regret as he hears the confession, “No, no, but – Coran.”

“He was so brave. Lyon always had this spark on him, just like you, my lad. He was always full of life and energy. Oh boy, but as soon as he hit his teens, I finally understood why my Grandfather used to complain about me at that age, he was a rebel, let me tell you and –“

Coran pauses for a second, frowning in concern and confusion when he catches Lance’s shaking form from the corner of his eye and the soft hiccupping noises coming from the brunet.

“Hey now, no need for tears! He was a good lad, just like you! Which is why I see him in you. You remind me so much of him, my boy.” He says as he leans towards the brunet, wiping the lone tear that fell from his blue eyes with a comforting smile, “I see him every day because of you and –”

“C-Coran.” Lance cuts off, a sob escaping sharply from his mouth, “I-I-I’m sorry, fuck, I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t – I only remind you of what you lost and – God, I’m so sorry I’m causing you that because –”

“Hey, no.” Coran stops his rambling before the teen can go on, “No, Lance, you misunderstood. I see him every day in you and I couldn’t be more grateful.”

“W-What?” Lance sniffles, his eyes wide and shiny with tears and Coran pass a hand through his brown hair.

“When I first woke up and realized that everything I had known, everyone I had loved were gone and lost, I felt hopeless. There was this one second that I actually believed that I should have stayed behind and die with my family so many years ago but then –”

Lance whimpers and Coran shushes him gently, “But then I saw you and you laughed. I was shook, because for a tick, I saw a young man with dark blue hair and light blue eyes with green marking on the corner of his eyes that it took me a moment for me to realize that it was you and not Lyon. That it was you who had laughed and it was you who smiled that bright smile my son used to portray every day without fail.”

“So, thank you, Lance.” Coran says, tears on the edge of his eyes as he takes the brunet’s hand on his own, “Thank you for reminding me that our loved ones never leave, not really. Thank you for reminding me what a family felt like.”

Leaning forward, Coran drops a kiss on Lance’s forehead, “Thank you for being you and remind me of my mikró ílio.”

“C-Coran.” Lance whispers, small hiccups leaving his body and Coran chuckles wetly as he gathers the teen against his chest.

“It’s okay, Lance. Your space family got you.” Coran jokes, smiling when he hears the wet giggle that comes from the teen in his arms.

“I-I’m so sorry, Coran.” Lance whimpers, nuzzling his face against the older Altean’s chest, “I’m so so sorry you have to deal with that pain. I’m so sorry you lost, Lyon and your wife. I’m so –“

“You know,” Coran cuts him off gently, passing a hand through Lance’s back in a soothing motion, “Lyon used to apologize for everything too, even though it had nothing to do with him.”

“Ah.” Lance says softly, “I can understand that.”

“I bet you can.” Coran muses.

“He sounds so cool though.” Lance mumbles softly, sighing as he hides his face in Coran’s chest, “You really shouldn’t compare me to him. It’s not fair to him. He deserves so much more to be remembered by.”

Coran frowns and pats Lance in the arm to catch his attention. “Lance, my boy, let me tell you something about Lyon. He was…he was insecure. He was a bright boy but things started to go south when he got accepted in the Paladin program and …”

The Altean takes a deep breath before he continues, “It was a hard time for him. He was, I believe, sixteen in your earth years at that time and I remember I once hear him cry because he thought he wasn’t good enough for the program. He said that he didn’t have what it takes to be a Paladin. Most of his instructors told him so too. No one besides Ina, my wife, Alfor, Allura and me believed in him and yet it wasn’t enough.”

“Oh.” Lance mumbles sadly, turning his head so he could face Coran, “Did –Did he left the program?”

A big proud smile spread all over Coran’s face at the question. “No. He didn’t. In fact, that only pushed him to work harder. Every book, every simulation and every bonding exercise he pass with excellence. By the time he was eighteen, he had most of the instructions and popular groups wrapped around his finger and even then he still didn’t make it to be a Paladin that year or the next one.”

“But why?” Lance asks softly, confused and heart broken.

“Because he didn’t believe in himself.”

He feels Lance’s sharp intake of breath and Coran makes sure to tighten his hold on him, “Do you want to know what changed?”

Lance nods against his chest so he continues, “Nothing.”

Coran chuckles softly at the confuse sound Lance makes at the answer. “Nothing changed because nothing needed to be changed. I remembered, one early morning, I caught him staring at the sunrise through the kitchen window. It was the most serene scene I have seen in my life and he looked so peaceful at the time.”

Coran leans back and closes his eyes for a second, as if picturing that scene in his mind. “When he noticed me, he turned to me and smiled. He smiled and nodded and that was enough for me to understand his message. After that, nothing changed except his aura. He became stronger, more agile, his mind focused, but his personality was intact: he still played with the younger kids he used to babysit, he messed with Allura and he played pranks everywhere he went. He was happy.”

“It wasn’t long after that when he was announced as the Blue Paladin’s successor.”

Lance gasp loudly and Coran pulls him away from their embrace to stare at the teen straight in the eye. “You don’t need to change, Lance. You don’t have to change to be someone because you already are someone. You are the Blue Paladin. You are Lance and that’s enough. You’re always enough. You are the definition of kardiá liontarioú, your heart is as big and strong as a Lion. Your bravenss and selflessness has no limits.”

Lance’s blue eyes start getting shiny again but Coran just smiles gently at him as he cups his cheeks, “You don’t have to change.” He repeats softly, “You just have to realize and knowledge your worth because you already are enough, my boy. You have always been enough.”

Lance’s lower lip quivers at the words but he still manages to smile, small and grateful. “Thank you, Coran.”

“Any time, mikró ílio , any time.”

[the-record-newspaper]

The killing of Rhonda Hinson: Part III

Judy Hinson, the mother of Rhonda Hinson, shows the dress worn by her daughter at her senior prom. It was the only time Rhonda wore the dress. Record photo by Larry Griffin

By LARRY J. GRIFFIN

Special Investigative Reporter

…I just finished my trig exam and I was thinking about you.  I love you!  Please don’t let those exams get you down.  OK?  You’d better be happy or I’ll get you.  (remember [sic] I have a shotgun)  Just kidding….—Greg McDowell letter to Rhonda Hinson

 Rhonda Hinson was changing.  Her family noticed.  Her friends and acquaintances noticed and said as much.  And from the tenor of his notes, cards, and letters to his girlfriend; Greg McDowell noticed.

“During her senior year, Rhonda started struggling in school,” her mother, Judy Hinson recalled. “I don’t remember what all she was taking; however, she did have French, I believe—she didn’t like it. Rhonda had always done well in school before; but her last year was different.”    

Rhonda’s best friend, Jill Turner-Mull, was surprised by that observation.  “I personally didn’t notice anything unusual about Rhonda’s performance at school—neither of us was a straight-A student; but, we did well.  Usually, it is the junior year that is the toughest academically—not your senior year.”  Ms. Turner-Mull mused that maybe it was something else—perhaps stress related to her relationship with Greg McDowell.

But other of Rhonda’s acquaintances—in general—noted an alteration to her usual happy-go-lucky demeanor.  Her levity of spirit became more serieux, and the ease of social interactions, for which she was noted, devolved into disease.  Her friends remarked that she became more distant, less spontaneous—even sullen—and the ubiquitous smile she readily radiated appeared infrequently.  

Characteristically, when something was troubling Rhonda she rarely talked about it; when asked, she tended to be reserved.  

“She built a glass wall (much like some people build a brick wall)…but with this thick glass wall, you could see her, and you thought that you knew her; but, you didn’t know what she didn’t want you to know.  She just didn’t talk about feelings or what might have been bothering her,” averred Rhonda’s first cousin, Dr. Christina Hardin.  

Rhonda and her cousin, ‘Christy,’ enjoyed a very close relationship.  They grew up together, played together, shared mischievous childhood adventures, and held sacrosanct the concomitant secrets about them.  For instance, when Cousin Christy and family visited the Hinson home, the two girls would exit the house through the back door and follow a path through the woods that lead to a berry patch.  

“I don’t remember why, exactly; but we were not supposed to do that; of course, we did it anyway and kept that secret between us. Rhonda and I could communicate without really using words—the way she stroked her hair, facial expressions, and body language were the ways we communicated.  But during that last year [she lived]—especially that summer—something changed,” recollected Christina Hardin.  “The change was subtle and unspoken and you couldn’t put a finger on it or describe it.  But things were different—just different.”

But there were some notable behavior changes that her cousin recounted during a telephonic interview.  “Rhonda became less talkative—she usually was very chatty, always having something to say.  And her word choices tended to be less…optimistic and—though not exactly dark—tended toward the dark side.  That just wasn’t the way she typically talked.”

Mother Judy Hinson recounted a time when Rhonda confided in a minister whose church provided daycare services for the community and, at which, she and her daughter were employed.  “I was working at the Valdese First Christian Church Daycare and Rhonda worked there after school her senior year at East Burke.  I noticed, one day, that she approached the minister of the church, Rev. [Richard] Blackwell, and talked to him for a good while. To this day, I don’t really know what was troubling her or even the topic of conversation.  Maybe she was talking about her struggles with school or even her relationship(s)—I just don’t know.  But that [talking about her problems with someone] was just not like Rhonda.”

Rhonda’s boyfriend could not help but notice the alterations in her behavior—especially the disappearance of her smile—and commented often in his communiqués.  In a couple notes, he fabricates ‘smiley-faces,’ using round, orange stickers upon which he drew eyes and broad smiles.  In one letter, Greg reminds his girlfriend that she can unburden her troubles upon him:  

…Please don’t ever forget that I love you and if anything [writer’s emphasis] is ever bothering you, please tell me so we can talk about it, OK?  

PS. Now that you’ve read this mushy letter, how about a kiss and a smile?

By every indication, Greg persisted in his subtle subterfuge to encourage Rhonda to write notes to him during the school day—a behavior that, much to his consternation, he had failed to inspire in her. “It’s lunch so I thought I’d drop you a line.  (Hint, hint, you can do the same for me sometime, the cards are in my locker!)”

As troubling for her boyfriend was Rhonda’s failure to arrive at school in time to see him prior to the homeroom bell—even when she promised to do so.   And Greg commenced to comment frequently on that shortcoming—at first playfully before assuming a testier tone.  On one note card that he left at her locker, Greg writes:  “…Well, the bell just rang and my HONEY is not at school yet.  What am I going to do with you?”

With frustration seemingly escalating, he subsequently complains:  

Well, the bell just rang and you’re not even [writer’s emphasis] here.   I’ve been waiting to see you since 8:00 but what can I say?  I guess I’ll see ya when you get here.

Love always (even when you’re late),

Greg

With the dawning of Spring 1981, the thoughts of the graduating class of East Burke High School turned toward graduation—before that, however, there was the excitement of prom night.  

“Rhonda had placed her dress on layaway at Melville’s in the Valley Hills Mall in Hickory,” Judy recalled. “Bob and I went down and surprised her by getting the dress out for her.”  To this day, Judy has her daughter’s prom dress carefully preserved in a box.

Rhonda and Greg attended the senior prom, as did their friends Jill Turner-Mull and Mark Turner.  The quartet spent considerable time together, double-dated on more than one occasion, and ventured out on trips. 

Greg McDowell and Rhonda Hinson on their way to their senior prom. 

As her friend had done, Jill purchased her dress at Valley Hills Mall and recalled assisting Rhonda as she prepared for the stellar event.  

“To my recollection, prom was held in April…and we must have gotten dressed together that evening, because I recall doing her hair and makeup.”  

Rhonda rarely wore makeup—her mother remembered as much.  “She told me that when she was wearing makeup, she felt like she couldn’t breathe. In fact, I can only recall three times in which she wore makeup—prom night was the first.”

Of course, the Hinsons captured that rite-of-passage moment-in-time with their Polaroid after Greg arrived to pick up their daughter.  

On Tuesday June 2, 1981 at 8 p.m., East Burke High School conducted its graduating commencement in the Cavalier’s football stadium.  In excess of 300 seniors received diplomas during the ceremony—among which were Rhonda Hinson, Greg McDowell, Jill Turner-Mull, and Mark Turner. (Ironically, this writer was one of the congregants within the considerable congregation of family and friends who had gathered to witness the graduation of their young women and men—among whom was my sister, Jackie Griffin Berry.)

Interestingly, the top 11 honor students for the Class of 1981 were listed in the program.  Greg McDowell, who had served as the only male Junior Marshall in 1980, was not among them.  

In the late Summer of 1981—subsequent to graduation—Rhonda, Greg, Jill, and Mark journeyed to Myrtle Beach to celebrate.  Mark Turner remembered that trip.  He recalled staying at his grandfather’s mobile home in Lakewood Campground and that Greg drank Budweiser beer to excess.  “He put the cans or labels up on the refrigerator,” Mark recalled of his friend.

During their holiday, Turner recounted Greg’s attempts to entice Rhonda to have sex with him—she rebuffed his overtures.

“Greg went out on the beach and tried to pick other girls up for sex.  Rhonda caught him and an argument ensued.  He or maybe Rhonda threatened to walk back home.  I do not recall Greg ever hitting or pushing Rhonda.  They did argue quite often.”

But the Summer of 1981 correspondence that passed between the young couple suggests that their relationship was devolving from amorous into abusive, both physically and emotionally—the evidence of which was referenced in a rare, terse handwritten response penned by Rhonda Hinson.  In it, she breaks her shielded silence to protest Greg’s treatment of her:

Since I am such a liar, I ain’t saying nothing.  Thank you for hurting my lip and jaw where my tooth hurts.

No longer your,

Fuzzy Lassie