#administrators except i think out of all the staff who were there i was the only one who wasn’t an administrator 😍. and i kept introducing m

[all-the-things-2020]

Late Night Talking - Chapter Seven

Summary: Emily goes back to work and Dieter comes to spend the weekend. Chaos ensues.

Rating: PG-13

Word Count: 6780+

Tag list: @rhoorl @avastrasposts @readingiskeepingmegoing @runningmom94 @gwendibleywrites

The first day back on campus was always full of boring staff meetings and, for those of us in the library and textbook room, a daylong parade of teachers with requests for books. It was exhausting but gave us a chance to catch up with everyone. It also meant the Nosy Parkers were out in force, sniffing out the best gossip to spread around campus. Who went where on vacation, who didn’t go anywhere, who got married or engaged, who got pregnant, etc. I knew that it wouldn’t be long before word got around that I was dating someone; I was friends on Facebook with a few of my coworkers, and although I hadn’t posted many clear photos of Dieter or mentioned his name, I had made a few posts referring to “my boyfriend.”

As I settled into a seat in the auditorium for the all staff kickoff meeting, I was simultaneously distracted by my phone buzzing in my pocket and my least favorite coworker, Eileen, latching onto my arm. She was nearing retirement age and every year the rumor went around that she wasn’t coming back in the fall, but every year, there she was.

“How are you, sweetie?,” she asked. “Did you have a good summer?” I could tell that she’d already heard something from the way she smiled so insincerely.

“I’m good. Summer was good,” I replied, digging my phone out. “Excuse me, let me check this.”

As I suspected, it was a text from Dieter

DIETER: Happy 1st day back. Break a leg or whatever you say for luck in a library. Break a spine??

I was surprised he was up so early. He must have set his alarm so he could text me. I smiled to myself and texted back.

ME: Weirdo. Just starting all staff meeting aka most boring two hours of my life. Talk to u later, k?

I put my phone back in my pocket and reluctantly turned to Eileen. Before she could open her mouth, my phone buzzed again and I pulled it back out, mouthing “sorry” at her.

It was a video of a duck with cartoon arms running around a dog.

DIETER: If meeting gets too boring watch this.

He added several smiley face emojis, a dog, a duck, and his favorite, the grinning purple devil. I shook my head.

“Bad news?” Eileen pounced on the slightest whiff of intrigue or gossip.

“No, just a dumb video my boyfriend sent me,” I said without thinking. Oops.

“Boyfriend? Really? Congratulations!” She sounded sincere, but I’d endured enough snide remarks over the years about my single state to know that she was inwardly lamenting the loss of something to pester me about.

“Yeah,” I said off handedly. “We met this summer. Oh, there’s the principal. Meeting’s about to start.” I had never been happier to see Dr. Osuna climb the steps to the stage and make her way behind the beat up old podium that had been used by every principal since the school’s founding over 60 years ago.

As various administrators droned on about vision and aiming for lofty goals and hitting our target numbers, I surreptitiously peeked at my phone, which kept buzzing. Dieter was sending me GIFs and cartoons and video clips about surviving meetings, and more birds with arms, which he’d found out never failed to make me laugh. Finally, I texted him back.

ME: Stop. People are staring at me. Supposed to be paying attention like a good little drone.

Truthfully, no one was paying any attention to me except Eileen. Everyone was either on their own phones, ignoring admin completely, or pretending to be captivated by every word. Some teachers were even taking notes, but they were just trying to score brownie points. Eileen, however, was watching me like a hawk, a small frown on her face. She was the sort of employee who was more concerned about keeping track of everyone else and making sure they weren’t slacking off than in doing her own job. Unfortunately, she was also very efficient and had no problem doing her own job and sticking her nose in everyone else’s business.

The meeting finally ended and I made sure to hop up quickly and head out of the auditorium before Eileen could corner me again. It was only a temporary reprieve, since her office was located inside the library building, but I’d take what I could get.

“Emily!” I stopped on my way out of the auditorium lobby to let the speaker catch up. It was Simone, my favorite English teacher. She was a huge book nerd and was our number one customer in the library. “Girl, slow down!”

“Sorry, friend,” I told her. “I was trying to get away from you-know-who.”

She nodded knowingly. “Gotcha,” she said. When she’d caught up, she steered me out a side door, which meant we’d take the long way to the library. Eileen would make a beeline for her office so she could have a front row seat for the parade of teachers, so there was little chance of running into her as we walked.

Simone gave me a look and nudged my shoulder with hers. “So …,” she said. “Who’s the guy?” She was friends with me on Facebook, and she’d liked several of my posts over the summer. “And why haven’t you posted very many pics? Dude is hot!”

I stopped walking and took a deep breath. Part of me didn’t want to say a thing, and another part (the part that had never really left high school) wanted to squeal and show her the approximately seventeen thousand photos of Dieter on my phone and brag about how I was dating a freaking movie star.

“His name is Dieter,” I said. “We met at a bookstore in L.A. back in June.”

“Dieter? Unusual name.” Simone prompted. “What does he do? Where does he live? Come on, I need details!”

I pulled out my phone. “He’s an actor. And he lives in L.A. so it’s kind of a long distance thing.”

“A real actor or one of those waiters who says he’s an actor but never actually does anything,” she asked, her head tilted to one side. I remembered her talking once about a guy she dated right after college who claimed to be an actor but really waited tables at an Applebee’s in Burbank and tried to slip headshots to studio execs.

“A real actor,” I said proudly. “He hasn’t waited tables in years.” I laughed as I opened up my photo gallery and pulled up the most recent picture. Dieter was leaning toward me across the table at a little bistro we’d had lunch at on Saturday. His hair was messy, as usual when he didn’t have a stylist to tame it, and he was wearing an old t-shirt that had a small hole near the collar. But he was giving me one of those smoldering looks that could so easily turn into a goofy face or lead to a passionate kiss, depending on his mood.

“Whew!” Simone said, fanning herself. “I can see why you want to hide him. Post too many pics like that and everyone will be crawling out the woodwork to try to steal him.”

“What you looking at?” It was Tyler, another of my favorite teachers. He also taught English and I’d gone to happy hour a few times with him and his wife, who was a graphic artist who dreamed of writing a graphic novel someday. She was also a big sci fi nerd, just like Tyler. He was more into Star Wars, while Sofia was more into Star Trek, but they loved both.

Tyler peeked over my shoulder at the phone. “Oh, hey, good taste,” he said. “Sof is crazy about him, too.”

Simone frowned. “How does Sof know Emily’s boyfriend?”

Tyler laughed. “That’s the guy from Cliff Beasts 6,” he said. “Dieter Bravo, right?”

Simone’s eyes got huge and she smacked my arm. “Get out! You couldn’t lead with that?”

Now Tyler’s eyes got wide. “Are you shitting me? You know him?”

I felt my face go hot. “Um, yeah,” I stumbled. “We’ve been dating for about two months.”

Tyler got a goofy grin on his face. “This is the mysterious boyfriend you mentioned on Facebook? Oh, Sof is going to freak out. Wait until I tell her you’re fucking Dieter Bravo.” He froze. “You are fucking him, right? I mean … two months …”

Now I was mortified but also secretly pleased. “Yes, Tyler, not that it’s any of your business, but yes, I am sleeping with my boyfriend,” I said after I’d regained a bit of composure..

“Well, you are now officially the coolest person I’ve ever met,” Tyler said. “And you’ve gotten me a couple of degrees closer to George Lucas.” He winked. He’d once told an entire bar that he was only four degrees removed from the creator of Star Wars because he was cousins with someone who worked with a guy who did electrical work on the set for Empire Strikes Back and had taken his orders from a guy who got his orders from an assistant director who reported directly to Lucas. “I mean, you’re sleeping with a guy who did a movie with Darren Eigan, who interned with George.”

Simone rolled her eyes. “You are so weird,” she said. Simone was more into historical fiction, mysteries, and thrillers than sci fi and fantasy, but I knew she had a soft spot in her heart for the Lord of the Rings films and had admitted to watching Game of Thrones, although she hadn’t read the books. “But seriously, Emily, I’m happy for you.” She glanced at her watch. “Oops, department meeting in five minutes. I’d better hit the bathroom. Talk to you later!”

She and Tyler hurried away toward their building and I headed for the library building. Time to face Eileen’s interrogation.

**********************************************************

By the time I got home, I was mentally exhausted. I’d managed to dodge most of Eileen’s questions, giving her only the basics: I was dating a guy who lived in L.A., we’d met over the summer, he worked in the entertainment industry. She’d find out the rest of the details eventually, but I decided to make her work for them.

I spent the day reconfiguring the textbook checkout schedule as teachers changed their minds about which books they needed and which days they wanted to bring their students for checkout. The spreadsheet was morphing into monstrous proportions by the end of the day, but our textbook clerk wasn’t as proficient in Excel as I was (which wasn’t saying much) so the task always ended up in my lap.

I got home, kicked off my shoes, put my hair in a messy ponytail and poured myself a glass of wine. Normally, I waited until Fridays to indulge, but the first day back was always an exception. As I flipped through my mail (all junk, of course) my phone buzzed on the coffee table.

“Hey,” I said as I swiped to answer.

“Hey,” Dieter said. “I take it you survived.” He chuckled. I’d texted him at one point lamenting the brain cells I was losing trying to juggle the schedule.

“Barely,” I said. “Thank goodness for wine.”

I settled back against the couch cushions and told him about my day. It was weird, after being off work all summer, to not only be back in my normal routine, but sharing it with Dieter. So far our relationship had been very relaxed and I was still afraid that it would end up just being a summer fling, once the responsibilities of work and life started to assert themselves.

“I wish I was there to give you a back rub,” he said when I’d finished venting. “Or foot rub, or whatever’s hurting you rub.” He sighed. “I have an interview at two on Friday but I’m heading out as soon as it’s over.” We’d agreed to alternate weekends; this would be the first time he was coming to my place, and I felt a frisson of fear and excitement. I’d been at his house so much over the summer, mostly because there was nothing interesting to do in my neck of the woods, but partly because I was hesitant to bring him to my modest condo.

“Are you sure you don’t mind driving out here on a Friday night?” I asked. “The traffic will be horrible. You could wait and come out Saturday morning.”

“No!,” he said immediately. “I want every minute I can get with you.”

I smiled and sat my wineglass down. I curled up with the phone. “That’s sweet,” I said.

“It’s the truth,” he said softly, his voice dropping to a sexy growl. If we’d been in the same room, this was about the time he’d slide an arm around me and lean in for the first of many, many kisses. “I can’t believe how much I miss you, and I saw you yesterday.” Then he proceeded to tell me exactly how much he missed me, and what he planned to do when he saw me on Friday. Needless to say, I didn’t get around to fixing myself some dinner until much, much later than I’d planned.

****************************************************

Friday finally arrived. I was completely exhausted by the time I got home. I knew it would be another couple of hours before Dieter arrived, and I told myself I was just going to sit down for a few minutes to rest before I cleaned up the place. The first week back was always hectic and I hadn’t done any household chores all week, except for a quick sweep of the kitchen floor after I spilled a box of rice on Wednesday night.

I slipped my shoes off, sat down on the couch and put my feet up on the coffee table. “Just five minutes,” I told myself as I closed my eyes.

The next thing I knew, there was a knock at the door and I bolted upright, drool dripping from the corner of my mouth. “Shit, shit, shit,” I mumbled as I lurched to my feet. I hoped my face didn’t have creases on it from being smashed into the couch cushion but I didn’t have time to worry about it as I fumbled with the deadbolt and pulled the door open.

Dieter stood on the doorstep, overnight bag slung over his shoulder and a bottle of something in his hand. He broke into a huge grin and threw his arms around me. “You weren’t kidding about the traffic,” he said into my hair. “Fuck, that was a mess.” He pulled back enough to kiss me on the lips, then hugged me tight again.

“Come in, come in,” I said, when he’d loosened his grip a bit. “Sorry the place is a mess, I fell asleep when I got home.”

He made an “are you kidding?” face and dropped his bag next to the couch. “It looks great,” he said kindly. “And I’m sure you were tired after such a busy week.” He sat the bottle on the coffee table and I could see the label. It was a top shelf brand of tequila. He shrugged as he saw me looking at it. “A friend gave it to me and I thought we could toast your first week back at work. Or get drunk enough that you forget all about it, depending on how bad it was.”

He plopped onto the couch and pulled me down beside him. “This was the longest week ever,” he said as he slid his arms around me and started nuzzling my neck.

“Tell me about it,” I said, playing with his hair. “But at least this year I had you to look forward to at the end of it.” He hummed in agreement and we stopped talking for quite a while.

Eventually, though, my stomach growled. Our lunch break during textbook checkouts was ridiculously early so we could deal with the hordes of students who stopped by on their lunch break to pick up books they’d forgotten to get earlier in the week.

“Okay,” Dieter said. “The stomach has spoken. What shall we have for dinner? Any good restaurants around here that deliver?”

Now I was really embarrassed. “Not really,” I admitted. “Mostly fast food and a few chain restaurants out by the mall. Um, there’s a nice deli near the grocery store I go to, but I think they might be closed already.” I glanced at the clock on my wall and sure enough, it was well after six o’clock.

“I did see an In-n-Out from the freeway a few exits back,” Dieter said hesitantly. I had already teased him at least once about his seeming addiction to Double Doubles and animal style fries.

“There’s one about five minutes from here, actually,” I said. “That’s one decent thing around here. Come on.” I stood up, adjusted my disheveled blouse and held out my hand. I grabbed my purse, dug out my keys and led Dieter outside to my car.

Ten minutes later, we were in line at the drive through at my local In-n-Out. As usual, it was packed, with both order lanes practically out of the parking lot and threatening to spill onto the street. Still, it had a much bigger lot than the one near Dieter’s house and no cars were actually blocking traffic.

I pulled into the lane that went on the left hand side of the building, since I had a passenger. It was usually a bit shorter than the other one, since anyone driving alone had to use the other lane. Still, there were several cars ahead of us as the order taker bounced back and forth between both lanes, tapping away at his tablet.

“Let me guess,” I said. “Double Double and animal style fries, right?”

Dieter arched an eyebrow at me. “Actually, no,” he said primly. “You don’t know me as well as you think you do.”

When the order taker got to us, he came up on Dieter’s side. “Double Double animal style,” Dieter said. “Cheeseburger, grilled onions. Two orders of fries.” He turned to me smugly. “What do you want to drink, babe?”

“Iced tea,” I said.

He shook his head. “Regular iced tea and a chocolate shake,” he said, completing our order. After the order taker read it back, I put the window back up and poked Dieter in the side.

“I knew it,” I said.

“What?,” he said innocently. “You said a Double Double and animal style fries. I ordered regular fries and an animal style burger. That’s totally different.”

Now it was my turn to shake my head. “Still.”

He shrugged. “They have like two things on the menu, there’s not much room for variation.”

He insisted on paying at the window, much to the delight of the girl working the register, who clearly recognized him and giggled a little when he handed her a twenty. She very carefully placed his change in his hand, letting her fingers linger just a bit too long.

“Stop flirting,” I stage-whispered at him while we were waiting for the food to come up.

“I’m not flirting,” he said. “I’m just being polite. She’s the one who's flirting.”

I shook my head. “You just want extra ketchup packets,” I said. “You’re such an In-n-Out whore.”

“I admit it,” he said proudly. Just then, the window opened back up and the girl handed out our drinks, followed by an iconic white bag.

“Have a great evening!,” she said.

“Thank you, you too!” Dieter said. I couldn’t see his face, but I knew he’d winked at her because she giggled again.

I smacked his arm as I pulled away. “Behave yourself,” I said, “or you’re sleeping on the couch tonight.”

He was busy peering into the bag. “Ha, it was worth it. She gave us ten ketchups.” He pulled out a few fries and shoved them in his mouth. He turned to me with them hanging from his lips. “Wan’ som’?,” he mumbled.

“Of course,” I said. I opened my mouth and he carefully placed a couple of fries between my lips. “Oh, yeah, that’s the ticket,” I moaned as the crispy potatoes hit my tongue. I was a bit of an In-n-Out whore myself.

**********************************************

We ate at my dining table, leaving behind a mess of burger wrappers, crumpled napkins and empty ketchup packets. I scooped it all up into the bag and shoved it into my trash can, which was already full and needed to be taken out to the garbage bin, but I was too tired to do it that night. I just pushed it down enough for the lid to close and walked away. I’d deal with it in the morning.

We retired to the couch, where Dieter started scrolling through the cable guide. “Um, is this all the channels you get?,” he asked. When I nodded, he gave me a scandalized look. “No HBO? No Netflix?”

“No, just basic cable,” I said, taking the remote away from him. “I don’t watch a whole lot of TV during the week and if I want movies, I have some DVDs.” I waved the remote vaguely at the cabinet next to the TV stand. Dieter got up and opened the door, staring into it like it was a fridge and he was looking for a snack. Finally, he turned back to me.

“Your selection of films leaves much to be desired,” he said solemnly.

I’d figured as much. He had an extensive DVD collection as well as several streaming subscriptions. My meager collection of favorite rom-coms and musicals, with a sprinkling of sci fi and fantasy (I had the original Star Wars trilogy and the Lord of the Rings extended editions) was severely lacking in comparison.

“Sorry,” I said. “Next time you come over, bring some DVDs.” He sat back down next to me and took the remote back. He scrolled through the channel guide again, finally settling on an obscure film noir on one of the classic movie channels. I snuggled up against his side, only half paying attention to the film. I was still tired, despite my nap, and had a full stomach. My eyes slowly drifted shut.

I woke up to the sound of Dieter’s soft laughter. “You were snoring,” he said quietly when I looked up at him. “Maybe we should go to bed.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, yawning. “I’m not much fun right now, am I?”

“It’s okay,” he said. “We’ve got the whole weekend.” He hugged me close and kissed the top of my head.

“You can stay up and watch TV if you want,” I said. It was barely eight thirty and I knew he was used to going to bed much later than that.

“Nah,” he said, clicking the television off. “Not much on anyway.” He smirked and I swatted at him.

“Jerk,” I said. “Making fun of my cable selection. Not all of us have Hollywood money to finance our movie obsession.” I tempered my words with a kiss pressed against the grey spot in his patchy beard.

I got up and headed for the bedroom before he could respond. I grabbed my nightshirt from the dresser and went into the bathroom to change. When I came out, Dieter was already in the bedroom, getting undressed. Unlike me, he had no qualms about removing his clothes in front of me. I busied myself turning down the bed, which I’d made up with fresh sheets that morning, even though it had made me ten minutes late for work. Dieter had a lovely, comfortable king size bed, while mine was a serviceable full size, big enough for two people, but just barely.

“Ahh,” he said as he slid under the covers clad only in a clean pair of boxers. “Nothing better than fresh sheets, am I right?”

I slipped in beside him and turned off the bedside lamp. “Especially when you’ve just shaved your legs,” I said.

“Well, I’ll take your word for that,” he said with a laugh. He pulled me close and slid one foot up and down my calf. “But it does feel nice to me.” His hand began to trace patterns on my thigh, creeping slowly up toward my panties. His other hand cupped the back of my head and he began to kiss me gently but urgently.

After a few minutes, he stopped. “You’re not really into it this evening are you?,” he asked. It was true; I was not very enthusiastic in my responses but I was willing to keep going for his sake.

“No, it’s okay,” I said. I ran my hand through his hair and pulled his face close, kissing him deeply.

“No, it’s not,” he said when I pulled back. “You’re tired. We can just go to sleep.”

“I told you to just wait and come in the morning,” I said, feeling miserable. “You drove all that way in horrible traffic for nothing.”

“Not for nothing,” he said. “We’ve had several hours together already. And I got In-n-Out. I think that’s worth the drive.” He kissed my forehead. “We’ve got the whole weekend to fool around. Don’t feel bad. I’d never want you to just go through the motions because you feel like you owe me.” He rubbed his hand up and down my back. “Just relax and get some rest, okay?”

I nodded against his chest, my head tucked under his chin. “Okay,” I said. “But I’ll make it up to you tomorrow night.”

“You’d better,” he teased, his hand sliding down to gently cup my ass. It was still there when I fell asleep a few minutes later. Maybe sharing a full sized bed instead of a king wasn’t so bad after all.

***********************************************

I woke up slightly disoriented. For one thing, it was nearly nine thirty, and the sunlight was streaming through a gap in the curtains, hitting me right in the eye. For another, there was something heavy squashing me into the mattress.

I squirmed out from underneath Dieter, who was face down, sprawled across three quarters of the bed, and snoring softly. “Whatsit,” he muttered as I slipped out from under the sheets.

”Morning,” I replied. “Gotta pee.”

“What time’s it?,” he sighed.

“Nine twenty six.”

”Shit. Gotta get up then.” Dieter had an unspoken rule. Despite his love of sleeping in, he had to be up by nine forty five or the day was shot. Even if he’d been out until three the night before, if he wasn’t up and dressed (approximately) before ten am he felt like a failure.

”You’ve got a few minutes,” I said, leaning down to kiss his forehead. “I’ll run to Starbucks and get you some coffee as soon as I get dressed. Breakfast, too.”

I didn’t drink much coffee and so didn’t own a coffee maker. Fortunately, like most places in the free world, there was a Starbucks roughly every three blocks even out here in the IE, and I knew of at least five within a ten minute drive of my house. One was even close enough to walk to, except Dieter was in no position to walk any further than the bathroom without a caffeine infusion.

Dieter mumbled something that could have been “thank you” or possibly “fuck you” — it was hard to tell with his morning incoherence. Whether he was thanking me for braving the world or cursing me for not owning an espresso machine was a toss of the coin. Either way, he’d forget all about it by the time I got back.

I threw on some shorts and a tank top. August was brutal and with the sun already up, I knew it would be at least 80 degrees outside, if not hotter. “You want hot or iced?” I asked, poking my head into the bedroom before I left.

Dieter made a vague waving motion with his hand. “I need more than that,” I said.

“Hot,” Dieter said through the pillow. “No, wait.” He rolled halfway over. “ S’August, right? Cold.”

By the time I’d driven to Starbucks, ordered his four shots of espresso over ice, my iced tea and two breakfast sandwiches, and returned home, Dieter had managed to put on a t-shirt and stagger out to the couch. His hair stood up in all directions and his eyes were barely open, but at least he was sitting up.

”Give,” he said, reaching out for the coffee. He’d downed a third of it by the time I handed him his sandwich. “Thank you,” he said. “The elixir of life.”

It was strange to be sitting on my couch, in my living room, with Dieter beside me. Saturday mornings were normally my alone time. After a long week at work, they were my quiet bubble of peace, before I started running errands and doing chores I hadn’t had time for during the week. My routine was completely shattered and I didn’t know what to do.

”Um,” I said, after I’d eaten about half my sandwich. “So, what do you want to do today? I usually do my shopping and stuff on Saturdays, but I can put it off until after you leave tomorrow. I don’t want to bore you.”

Dieter took a long sip of coffee. “Whatever,” he said, which wasn’t helpful at all. “It’s gonna be hot, so maybe we could stay in? Watch a movie? Fool around?” He raised an eyebrow suggestively, which would have been hot if his hair hadn’t been doing the Alfalfa thing.

”Netflix and chill, except without the Netflix,” I mused. “Sounds good to me.” I ran my hand over his head. “But you need to at least brush your hair first. Kind of hard to get turned on when you look like a giant toddler.”

”This giant toddler is going to rock your world,” he growled. When I didn’t respond, his face fell. “Too weird?”

”Extremely weird,” I replied. “Even for you, Deet. Please cross ‘giant toddler’ off the list of fantasies you have in your head.”

”Done,” he said. 

“And brush your teeth before you kiss me, Coffee Breath.”

He groaned and collapsed against the cushions. “Too many rules! Comb your hair, brush your teeth … I thought you were fun.”

“I am fun. I’m also a grown-ass person and I have minimum standards of hygiene.”

*************************************************

Sex with Dieter was … interesting. He was vastly more experienced than I was — I suspect he’d been with more men than I had — but he was the king of consent. He asked permission before doing anything, even if we’d done it before. And he was surprisingly polite. “Oops, sorry,” was more frequently said in his bed than any other phrase. 

“I’m not a porcelain vase,” I told him when he apologized for gripping me a little too tight. “I won’t break.”

”But I don’t want to hurt you,” he said, kissing the tip of my nose. “I never ever want to hurt you.”

”Believe me, if you hurt me, you’ll know,” I assured him. “I won’t hesitate to scream.”

He arched his brow. “The only thing I want you screaming is my name.” He burrowed his face into my throat and peppered me with kisses.

Then the smoke detector peeped.

”What the fuck?” Dieter’s head popped up.

I sighed. “Smoke alarm. It wants its battery changed.” I had a running feud with the unit. I invariably decided its battery was too old in the middle of the night, and because it was located about a foot away from the bed, that meant I had to drag out my step stool in order to access it. The step stool that lived in the closet next to the kitchen.

I slid out of bed, grabbing my robe off the floor. “I’ll be right back,” I said. “There’s a new battery in the drawer of the nightstand. I’m going to get the step stool.”

”I might be able to reach it …” Dieter was saying as I left the bedroom. He was tall but he wasn’t tall enough to reach the alarm without assistance, so I continued toward the kitchen, rooted around in the closet and pulled out the step stool.

I returned to the bedroom just in time to see a naked Dieter teetering on the edge of the bed, his fingertips almost reaching the smoke alarm. “Be careful!” I cried.

”I’m fine,” he said. “Just need to get a little bit closer …” His foot inched toward the edge of the mattress and it all happened in slow motion. The mattress gave way, he lost his balance and fell, hitting the nightstand on the way down. The lamp fell with him and its glass base shattered. Then Dieter landed on top of it.

”Shit!,” he yelled, as time returned to normal speed. “My ass!” A shard of glass was embedded in the muscle of his right butt cheek.

“Don’t panic,” I said, my heart racing. I wasn’t entirely sure if I was talking to him or myself. “It doesn’t look too bad …”

Dieter pulled the glass out of his flesh and it started to bleed. A lot. “It hurts, Em. Oh, shit, it hurts.”

I grabbed the first thing I could find — his dirty t shirt — and pressed it firmly against his butt to stop the bleeding. “I think … I think we need to go to the emergency room,” I said. “It might need stitches.”

”No way,” he said through gritted teeth. “I am not going to the ER. Last thing I need is word getting out that Dieter Bravo went to the hospital because he had something stuck in his ass.”

”You’re bleeding, Deet,” I said. “And that gash is pretty deep.” I peeked under the wadded up t shirt. “I don’t think it’ll close up without stitches.”

”Shit, shit, shit,” he said. “Okay, but I’m using a fake name.”

”Your insurance card has your real name on it,” I reminded him, as I helped him off the floor. He grimaced in pain as he sat gingerly on the bed. “Let’s get some clothes on you and I’ll take you to the hospital.”

The ER was packed because it was a Saturday night. I tried to explain to the nurse at the desk that Dieter was bleeding, in pain, and didn’t want to be recognized, but he simply shrugged and said, “We have to triage everyone based on the severity of their injury. We’ll get to him as fast as we can.”

Dieter was whisked into a back room for vitals and then sent back out to the waiting room with me. “My butt hurts,” he whispered in my ear as he sat carefully in the chair next to me.

“Duh,” I replied. “Try not to think about it.” I looked around the room. There were several people with bloody rags and bandages pressed to various bits of their anatomy, but Dieter seemed to be the only one with an injury to his bottom, except possibly the guy who kept running urgently to the restroom.

”It’s throbbing,” he said, pulling his ball cap further down onto his forehead. He was also wearing sunglasses, which only made him stand out further considering it was after midnight.

”I can’t kiss it and make it better,” I told him. “I wish I could.”

He snorted. “You just admitted you want to kiss my ass,” he said. At least his sense of humor was still intact.

“Who doesn’t?” I teased back. “You’re Dieter fucking Bravo.”

Fortunately, no one recognized him (or at least, no one acted on it if they did) and we only had to wait about forty minutes before a nurse called him into the back.

”Can she come with?,” he asked.

”Of course,” the nurse said. “Right this way.”

We were led to a curtained off bed tucked in a corner of a busy room. People were moaning and cursing and crying, some tucked behind curtains, others slumped in wheelchairs. Dieter winced. “I hate hospitals,” he whispered.

”So do I.” I’d spent far too much time in them when my parents were ill, and the memories were always lurking just beneath the surface. I focused on Dieter and willed my stomach to unclench.

A doctor breezed in and quickly examined Dieter. “Ooh, nasty laceration there,” he said. “But we’ll get it cleaned up and stitched in no time. It should heal up easily. You might have a scar but who’s going to see it?”

”She will,” Dieter said, nodding toward me. “And maybe the whole world if I have to do a nude scene.”

The doctor tilted his head and frowned, then it hit him. “Oh, you’re that Mr. Bravo. Wow. Wouldn’t have expected to see you around here.”

”Girlfriend,” Dieter said, wincing as the doctor dabbed at the wound with antiseptic. “Lives. Near. Here.”

“And it says you fell on a broken lamp?”

Dieter groaned, and I was pretty sure it wasn’t because of his injury. This doctor was going to have a great story to share with his friends and colleagues — and possibly the gossip websites.

”Look, I was trying to change the battery in a smoke alarm. I fell off the bed, broke the lamp, landed on it. Please, don’t spread it around. I feel like an idiot.” Dieter gave the doctor his best puppy dog eyes.

”I’ve seen weirder stuff,” the doctor said, preparing a hypodermic needle of local anesthetic. He jabbed it into Dieter’s butt. “I could tell you stories … but that would be unethical. And I won’t tell yours, either.” He patted Dieter’s rump. “Give that a moment to kick in and I’ll start stitching.”

I held Dieter’s hand as he laid on the bed, grunting now and then as the sutures tugged at his skin. “This is humiliating,” he muttered.

“It’s character building,” I said, squeezing his hand. “You’ll be a better man after this.”

He squinted at me. “How could I possibly be better than I am right now?”

”Maybe the doctor can trim your ego while he’s at it,” I shot back.

”I hate you,” Dieter said.

“No, you don’t,” I said. “You’re just in pain. A pain in the butt.”

”Literally,” he said, wincing as the doctor tied off the last stitch.

”There you go,” the doctor said. “The local will wear off in a bit, but we’ll get you some pain killers so you’ll be more comfortable.”

Dieter bit at his lower lip and shot me a look.

“Um, maybe we can just do something over the counter?” I asked.

“I’ve been in rehab,” Dieter blurted out. “I don’t want narcotics if I don’t have to.”

The doctor nodded. “Fair enough. I’ll give you a shot of toradol and you can use Motrin or Tylenol once that wears off. And stop by the pharmacy to get one of those donut pillows. Then you can sit without putting direct pressure on the wound. You’ll be fine in a few days, a week at most. Check in with your primary care physician as soon as you can, and make an appointment to get the stitches removed in about ten days.”

**************************************

By the time we got home from the hospital, it was close to 2 am. I helped Dieter out of the car and back to the bedroom. “Sorry about all this,” he said as he got undressed.

”It’s okay,” I said. “I’m just glad you’re alright.”

He ran his hand through his hair. “Yeah, but this hasn’t turned out to be the romantic weekend we thought it would be.”

“It’s okay,” I repeated, not sure what else to say. The weekend had turned into a bit of a shit show, but it wasn’t his fault. It was just bad luck. I got him into bed and then fetched a dustpan and broom to sweep up the shards of broken lamp that still littered the floor. Thank goodness I didn’t have carpeting, or it would have taken me much longer to clean up.

Dieter was dozing off by the time I changed back into my night shirt and crawled in beside him. “Thanks for taking care of me,” he said sleepily.

”Of course,” I said, snuggling against him. He was lying on his left side, facing me. His breath was warm on my face. “What did you expect me to do, dump you off at the ER?” I was teasing, but he was serious.

”No, I mean it,” he said. “Thanks for not complaining about having to drive me there, being up late, cleaning up the mess … I really appreciate it.” He kissed my nose and then pressed his forehead against mine. “It’s nice.”

I knew a little bit about his past. I figured this had something to do with his mother. He’d alluded to her being a bit aloof. She wasn’t a very nurturing mother, from what I’d gathered. I could imagine her complaining about having to drive her son to the hospital.

”You’re welcome,” I said. “Now get some rest. Your body needs to heal.”

”I broke my butt,” he said, laughing gently. “My butt needs to heal.”

”Poor broke-butt man,” I said. “Go to sleep.”

”Yes, ma’am,” he mumbled, nuzzling against my neck.

As he fell asleep, the thought came into my head like a bolt of lightning. I love him. I ran my fingers through his hair, relishing the feel of his silky locks against my skin. I love this man. I wondered if he loved me, too.

[elfboyeros]

Photogenic

The First Chapter of Brier's Three: Raining Academics. Read about the nerds!

“Ms. Urgent makes seven students that have had to be rushed to the infirmary this year and it isn’t even the end of May!” Sloan huffed.

Sitting at the long meeting table with a few teachers and other staff members, including, Casper, Percy, Georgia, Calvin, a few other healers, the administrator of the hunters and huntress, the housemaster and housemistress over the dormitory, and of course Indigo.

“This has never happened before who can these kids just lose their abilities to perform magic or alchemy,” Percy scoffed.

“Granted this isn’t lasting,” one of the healers mentioned, “Thankfully they are regaining their abilities after a few days.”

“Urgent is different, however,” Sloan hummed with a nod, “She was carried into the infirmary by Mr. Couri, the other students were able to enter the infirmary on their own.”

“That’s assuming Ms. Urgent is a part of this group, she appears to be exhausted,” another healer added

“Appears,” Georgia repeated with bitterness in her voice, “she could very well be a part of this group we just don’t know yet because she’s still unconscious, maybe whatever is going on is affecting her differently.”

“She is fae,” Sloan mentioned quietly, “all of the other students are human.”

“See!” Georgia exclaimed loudly, “Mallory is fae!”

“Ms. Nozadze, please we are just—”

“Mallory is my apprentice!” Georgia shouted, “I have seen how she treats herself! She doesn’t push herself to exhaustion! Mal is an athlete! She takes care of her body and is more concerned about her health than I am about my own! She would just pass out because of exhaustion, I know that!”

Everyone in the room is silent before Calvin looks at Indigo, her hands clasped in front of her as if she praying to the goddess her forehead resting against her fists as she sits at the head of the oblong table, “Angel?” her husband asked curiously, “I know you’re thinking.”

“She will come down, not in a plague or famine, Mother Goddess will come down in curse man will a purge of all mankind of his power,” Indigo recited, “Bridgehid will one day curse all man for their corruptions only gift back the magic and whimsy when she sees that man himself has repented in full.”

“The Goddess’s Canvass Deliberate?” Georgia commented.

“It does sound similar to what we are currently experiencing,” Calvin muttered, holding his chin.

“It could be mere coincidence,” Sloan shrugged, “Remarking of religious hymns to the masses to explain what is happening to their children will only spark fear and create extremely religious and non-worshipers.”

“What if someone is taking the gospel to heart,” Percy remarked, “and doing this to the students because of some wrongdoing that the school has committed against us.”

Everyone fell silent once more. The idea that someone was purposefully doing this to innocent students didn’t sit right, especially when it seemed to be in the name of the saint over the island. No that didn’t sit right with anyone.

Indigo sighed, “It is normal for magical energy and power to ebb and flow when one is young and training, but not like this.”

 “And that’s not normal for alchemists at all,” Sloan added

“Start with those who are extremely religious or those who have studied theology,” Indigo instructed, “Am going to assume everyone in this room does not have a hand in anything if this truly is some kind of repentance. If it turns out that no one within the college is involved, there is nothing we can do outside the college gates.”

Everyone lets out a sound of agreement while nodding, “Keep in mind this is not a witch hunt, we are merely investigating what is happening to our students,” she added, before sighing once more, “You are dismissed.”

On cue, everyone involved left except for Calvin, “Tell me what you really are thinking,” he muttered as she crossed her arms and led her head on her forearm, “Everyone is gone.”

“Why does something go wrong when our kids get enrolled?” She vented, “With Rowan, it was finding out about Duke’s experiments, with Aurora it was the theft of the sacred tools, which we never solved, now with Alexandria and Finnegan it’s only getting worse! It’s like we are throwing them into danger!”

“Maybe we are some kind of bad luck magnet,” Calvin said with a light chuckle.

Indigo groaned, “Don’t say that! This is our children we are talking about!”

“I’m sorry, Angel,” Calvin sighed with a soft smile across his lips, “But these are our children, nothing is going to happen to them.”

“Calvin, they are just like anyone else.”

“No, they are like everyone else, Indigo,” Calvin sighed, getting out of his chair, and making Indigo straighten up, her gaze following him as he walked around her, “They are our children. Aurora is becoming a fantastic healer and she’s only 18, Alexandria is at the top of their class and proficient at the mage craft—”

“The fact that they are so powerful does frighten me a bit,” Indigo remarked, turning her chair to look at him as he stood by the window.

Calvin chuckled, before looking at the window, seeing their son crouched near a small pond feeding ducks, “and Finnegan, your son—”

“My son.”

“Your son is becoming a fine young man,” Calvin replied, “He is becoming a great mage thanks to you, and he’s becoming quite the protector.”

Indigo sighed, “He also worries me.”

“How do you think I feel?” Calvin joked, “You all worry me!”

Outside next to one of the ponds on the expansive Bridgehid campus, Finnegan is still feeding the ducks, making sure one of his mother’s many loves in the world is happy and healthy. He doesn’t hear the camera shutters, he doesn’t realize that there is a very tall lanky guy taking pictures of him from afar, as he has never figured out his mother’s sixth sense of knowing when she is being watched and when people are around her. So, he doesn’t realize that his photographer friend inches ever closer, continuing to take pictures of him.

“Has anyone ever told you, you are tremendously photogenic~”

He jumped at the sound of the voice, honeyed, masculine, and light, hitting the center of his eardrums while also being on his level. Looking at the source Finnegan is met with deep buttercup yellow eyes and an ivory face, brown hair dipping into the photographer's face.

“Hi, I’m Bonnie,” the photographer said.

“… Finnigan.”

Bonnie smirked, camera in hand as he continued to stare at Finnigan in the crouched position, “How did you get that scar on the corner of your lip?” he asked, reaching to touch Finnegan’s face attempting to touch his scar before Finnegan grabbed his wrist halting his Bonnie’s movements.

“You’re too close,” Finnegan stated before letting go of Bonnie’s wrist before he stood up.

Focusing back on the ducks, he can still feel Bonnie behind him, hearing the shuttering of his camera, “Do you like ducks?” the photographer asked.

“Not necessarily,” Finnegan muttered.

Bonnie hummed continuing to take pictures, “So who’s making you feed the ducks?”

“No one makes me,” Finnegan scoffed, “Maman likes ducks, so I feed the ducks.”

“I am assuming that maman is mother?”

Finnegan hummed softly, nodding, before standing. His gaze once again met Bonnie however he was at eye level with the dirty blonde’s chest. He is extremely tall, which caught Finnegan off-guard, after taking in his height the mage boy walked away.

“Hey, wait!” Bonnie called following behind him.

“I have to get to class!” Finnegan huffed.

The two boys walked down the stone paths around the outside of the school building, “There aren’t a lot of classes during the summer, what class do have at noon?”

“It’s a magical weapons training class,” Finnegan answered, before turning to look at Bonnie then swiftly turning away and walking faster, “Why the hell am I even talking to you!”

“Oh, you’re going to a weapons class?! Perfect, I was asked to take pictures of the summer classes for the school’s website.”

Finnegan rolled his eyes as it became more obvious that he wasn’t going to be left alone. Even once on the weapons field, even with the students on the turf with him, the instructing of his educator, and the thoughtful gaze of his father he could still feel Bonnie’s camera lens on him as if he could hear the shuttering of the camera itself. The fact that Bonnie was there, watching him specially, sat in the back of his brain eat away at him, causing him to make mistake after mistake.

“Finnegan?” Calvin called as his son packed up his things at the end of class.

“You should really have some kind of grip on the training spears if we keep using them we’ll start getting—” Finnegan turned to face his father while speaking only to stop when his face placed his large hand on his forehead, “Papa?”

“Are you okay? Do you feel alright?”

Finnegan clicked his tongue on the roof of his mouth, “I’m fine,” he scoffed pulling his father’s hand off his forehead, “Just… being stupid.”

“You’re allowed to make mistakes, son,” Calvin remarked, “There is no need to be perfect.”

Finnegan gave his father a small smile, “I know but…” he paused seeing Bonnie over Calvin’s shoulder still taking pictures, “Papa, I have to go!”

The mage boy grabbed his things before racing inside with a quick “Love you, see you at home!” thrown at his father.

Racing down the halls of the college with his school bag hitting his side as he did everything to get away from the tall boy with a camera, finding his way in front of his mother’s office door, before swinging the large doors open.

“Finnegan?” Indigo asked concerned, seeing her son out of breath and disheveled in her office doorway.

“MAMAN! I need you to kill someone!”

Her office was devoid of anyone but herself and the cat familiars apart of their family, who were cuddled up on one of the chairs in front of her desk.

“Miel, I would do anything for you, but can you tell me what’s going on?” Indigo inquired.

Finnegan stepped into her office before sighing and beginning to explain what had happened in the past couple of hours, “There is this boy with a stupid camera, he says he taking pictures of the school and the summer class, but I know he is taking pictures of me! He-he-he’s weird! Asking me questions and following me around! He’s even taking pictures of me and dad just having a conversation! GRAH! I need him to leave me alone!”

Indigo snickered, before Finnegan stared at her with an intense gaze making her clear her throat, “What’s his name bébé,” she asked.

“Bonnie,” Finnegan answered as his snow-white cat familiar nudged his hand for pets, “I don’t know his last name.”

“Bonnie Olsen-Nielsen,” Indigo read aloud looking at the file on said student on her computer, “He’s a senior, he moved here in the spring and started on campus, he is in the media club.”

Finnegan groaned, “Can’t you do something about this Maman?!”

“Miel…”

“Maman!”

“It is odd that he is taking pictures of you, but have you asked him to stop?” she pondered, “and not in your little passive-aggressive way that keeps you from making friends, have you actually asked him to stop?”

Finnegan thought for a moment, “… No…”

“Ask him to stop, and if he doesn’t come back to me.”

“Okay, Maman…”

Finnegan hung his head while leaving Indigo’s office waving goodbye, with his familiar following him, and leaving his mother with a pitiful, “I love you.”

Surprised, that he was able to get off campus without running into Bonnie or feeling his presence taking pictures of him while he walked home. Everything was grand until he reached home and saw that lanky photographer in his parent's yard taking pictures of the plants lining the side of the house.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!”

Bonnie turned to a look at Finnegan seeing the rage on his face before pointing to the cottage, “You live here?” the senior asked.

“Yes! Why the fuck are you here?!” Finnegan shouted, “What the hell did you do?! Figure out where I live and come to my fucking house?!”

Bonnie looked at him confused before he continued, “my goddess, why won’t leave me alone! Why are you even taken pictures of me anyway!? I get be that interesting a subject to follow me to my own home and continue to take pictures of me!”

“Now hold one—”

Finnegan let out a villainous chuckle, “Oh and the taking pictures of me with my dad! That’s just fucking creepy! I’ve never understood what the obsession with camera is! It’s all so creepy, do you really—”

“I wasn’t taking pictures of you and your dad!” Bonnie exclaimed with a shocked expression.

“Quoi?” Finnegan asked quietly, his face becoming hot as Bonnie welling handed over his camera.

“Take it, look for yourself,” the photographer said before Finnegan took the camera apprehensively, “I was taking pictures of the college’s architecture. You and your father may have been in the photo, but I didn’t take them like that on purpose.”

Finnegan looked through the camera roll seeing the images of the college’s beautiful dark sculpting of Queen Anne architecture, he and his father cut off from the frame, “I do admit my actions are often creepy, and I was taking pictures of you without permission earlier, but I didn’t take picture of you and your father.”

Finnegan sighed, flipping through more of the camera roll and seeing pictures of the plants on the side of the house, “I also didn’t know that you lived here,” Bonnie added, “I was just on my way to see my mom at the church, then here this beautiful house cover in all this foliage, I got all little too excited and just started taking pictures.”

The mage boy sighed sulking over to the pouch steps hanging his and resting his arms vertically against his knees, forehead resting on his forearms like he is praying, “Fuck, I’m sorry.”

“I apologize for being creepy,” Bonnie chuckled.

“I’m sorry for calling you creepy,” Finnegan groaned.

Bonnie chuckled again before leaving, “I got attacked.” The mage boy called as the photographer descended the stone path leading up to the cottage.

“Mhm?” Bonnie hummed, looking back at the boy on the porch.

“My grandparents had taken everyone to one of the cabins near the edge of the forest,” Finnegan began before Bonnie approached the porch to listen to the story about to be told, “I don’t remember how but Alex and I got too close to the forest and something reached out of the woods. Papa did save me, but I was already bleeding.”

“Your dad sees rather intimidating; I can’t imagine being that creature that attacked you made it out alive.” Bonnie chuckled, sitting next to Finnegan.

The mage boy let out a laugh, “Believe me, my dad is only intimidating in appearance… unless he has a sword in his hand… or you try to hurt maman.”

Bonnie smiled before handing over his camera once again showing Finnegan a picture of himself and a man with a similar appearance, “My father died in April. I think the reason I am obsessed with photography is because of him,” the senior explained, “He told me: “If you find something beautiful don’t hastate to take a photo,” he said that’s how he met my mom and even though they didn’t stay together long all the pictures he took of her were worth it. So, again, apologize for taking pictures of you without your permission,” Boonie flips through his camera roll before showing Finnegan a picture of the young mage in his weapons class, “but like I said, you are very photogenic.”

Finnegan smiled, his cheeks becoming flushed, “It’s good,” he muttered.

“Can I put it on the school’s website?”

“Sure,” Finnegan shrugged.

“Ya’ know,” Bonnie remarked, standing up from his seat next to Finnegan and looking upon the picture he selected, “You look like a prince like this.”

“What does that make you the court jester?”

Bonnie laughed walking down the stone backward, “Does that mean I’m your court jester?”

“It depends on how you jest,” Finnegan joked.

“Then the next time we shall me I shall aim to entertain,” Bonnie relayed with a bow, “Sweet Prince~”

 Finnegan laughed, “Go visit your mom, creep.”

“Until next time, Finnegan.”

“Goodnight Bonnie.”

[nyx22-blogs]

To Loathe or To Love

You were a teacher at Winsford Highschool, a science teacher to be exact. You were currently walking to a meeting with your fellow teachers and the schools principal, Principal Coulson. You walked through to crowd of high schoolers going to their classes and made your way through the doors and into the meeting room.

"Hey everyone, is Phil here yet?" You said as you sat down next to Ms. Romanoff and Ms. Maximoff, who you knew as Nat and Wanda.

"No Mr. Hard ass isn't here yet so we can relax for a bit before everyone else gets in." Natasha said as she chuckled at her own name for him.

"Shh, Nat don't call him that out loud he might come in and hear you!" Wanda said, urging her friend to be a bit more cautious of her words.

"Relax Wan, we all know he's usually 4 or 5 minutes late for every meeting he hosts." Nat said rolling her eyes and she spun in her chair.

You giggled and rolled your eyes at your friends antics. Natasha could be so silly at times and Wanda was usually the one who played the mother hen of the group. You definitely wouldn't have it any other way though.

"So Nat..how was the date last night?" You asked her, she had told you and Wanda that she was going out on a date with the art teacher, Steve Rogers, and you hadn't heard anything about the date yet. To say you were curious was an understatement.

"Yeah! Tell us what happened!" Wanda said as you and her scooted your chairs closer to her.

"Ok ok, so basically we had dinner at his loft, which was decorated beautifully may I mention, and it was just so romantic. We talked and ate, and then he turned the lights down low and played some music and we danced and then afterwards when he twirled me he-"

"Hey ladies, Phil here yet cause I was wondering if-"

"NO!" You three said at the same time as the redhead went back to her story.

"And then he kissed me." She whispered and giggled.

"Awwwww how romantic." Wanda said.

"I know ... of course Steve was so romantic he's the freaking art teacher. He probably knew how to set up everything perfectly...like art-!" You said, slightly wishing you had someone doing that for you as well.

"Uhm hi, sorry for interrupting whatever is.. going on here but have any of you ladies seen Phil..or Steve for that matter. I have to ask him something." Said the man you loathed most. James Barnes. A nuisance he was, and idiot, and most importantly..an egotistical know it all, except he knew nothing. Stupid man.

"No, Mr. Barnes. We don't know where Steve or Phil are. Do you think we'd be here talking the period away instead going to them if we did?" You said condescendingly to James.

Nat and Wanda exchanged glances and sat down watching all the drama unfold. Unbeknownst to you your two best friends had been shipping you with the English teacher for quite some time.

But alas, Natasha and Wanda being the foreign languages teachers, you never knew their opinion about you and Bucky due to them always whispering it to each other in Russian or sometimes Sokovian.

"Well sorry y/n, I should've known you wouldn't be able to answer such a simple question in a civil manner." He said in a very irritated tone.

"You know what-" you got up from your seat but before you could continue Natasha put her hand on your shoulder, making you sit back down. You sighed and pulled out your phone so you could message Phil to see where he was. You realized you left your phone on do not disturb so you turned it off and saw you had an email from Phil.

"Guys I got an email from Phil, maybe he changed the meeting location..I'm reading it now..."

Your eyes widened in horror as you read through the message.

Attention all students and staff members, due to the health code violation 1019.1001 -asbestos, which was found in the laboratory, we will all be evacuating the building at approximately 9:50 a.m. Should there be any emergency, please contact school administration immediately. All classes are to be cancelled as well as faculty meetings for the rest of the week. Under no circumstances are any staff members allowed to stay within the premise of the school building. All closed doors and windows will be automatically shut down and locked immediately, and will only be reopened with staff keys.

-Sincerely

Mr. Coulson

"Holy shit!" You said as you ran towards the door and tried to open it.

"What's wrong?!" Bucky, Nat and Wanda all said at the same time.

"Oh my god everyone evacuated the school because of some asbestos in the building and now we're stuck in here." You said panicking as you tried to look for another exit in the room.

"WHAT?!" Natasha yelled.

"Oh my god, today was supposed to be the last day until break...we're gonna be stuck in here for a week?!" Wanda said while she shook Natasha's shoulders.

"Wait- wait a minute, why did y/n get the email late and everyone else left already? Even better question..why didn't any of US get the email?!" Bucky yelled.

"I didn't get it late I had my phone on do not disturb so my notifications wouldn't interrupt my lesson. Do you guys have your phone on do not disturb?" You said.

"Shit..I do." Bucky said.

"I do too." Wanda said.

"Same." Said Natasha as she groaned.

"Well...how the hell do we get outta here?" You said, kind of scared you all would be trapped in this goddamn school the entire break.

"I think the better question would be what the hell are we supposed to do while we're in here." Natasha said as she got up and walked further into the room.

"Nat? Where are you going?" Wanda said as she watched her friend walk away.

"The bathroom, I've been needing to pee for a while now and I can't do it during my damn classes so might as well now." She said as she opened the door to the bathroom and walked in.

"I didn't know there was a bathroom in the meeting room.." Wanda said as she opened her bag and pulled a snack out, she offered you and Bucky some..you both quickly denied.

"I'm going to see if there are any vents in this room." Bucky said as he got up and started looking around.

"What the hell do you want with a vent?" You said confused as hell.

Was he moronic?

"I see my theories of you living under a rock are correct. Haven't you ever seen a James Bond movie?" He said as he kept looking around.

"What the fuck does James Band have to do with anything?" You said getting irritated.

"Ok first of all, it's James BOND you abomination to fucking society. Second of all, if you've ever seen any of his movies, which I'm now learning you haven't, you'd know that when he was stuck in a room like we are he found a vent and climbed through it, which then led him to the door."

So he was moronic..

"You dumbass, you think the five by four vents in this room are gonna be big enough for one of us to fit in it? Hell, even I couldn't squeeze through one of those, and I'm the smallest out of all of us here." You said.

"Obviously I'm looking for a bigger one you idiot! Every room in this building is required to have a ventilation system that's at least 64 square inches. At least I think the bathrooms do.." he said as he scratched his head.

"Great..so we'll just go to the bathrooms then and-" You looked around the room and realized just how screwed you and Bucky were.

"Wanda and Nat are in the bathroom.."

"So? What's the big deal..let's the ladies relieve themselves.. Jesus." Bucky said chuckling at the odd amount of worriedness in your statement.

"Oh my god you're stupider than I thought, the email said that if the doors are locked then they lock permanently, which will include bathroom doors." You said, enunciating the last five words in your sentence.

This entire day was just turning out to be a shit show..

"Jesus Christ, now they're stuck in there. You think we can maybe break the lock?" Bucky said, worried that Nat and Wanda may be stuck in there for a whole week. He may not have liked you, because he really loved you, but he didn't want them to be stuck there the entire time.

Your phone started ringing and it was Natasha.

"Yeah yeah, before you say anything I know. You're stuck. We're trying to figure out- well I'm trying to figure out how to get you out of there. Idiot over here is just make dumb suggestions."

Bucky glared out you and you chuckled at the little pout on his face. It was cute..as much as you hated to admit it.

"Alright well, just get us outta here..Wanda's getting anxious without her snacks..and I really don't wanna deal with Wanda when she doesn't have snacks."

"Yeah yeah, don't worry we'll find a way to get you out sooner..or later.." you mumbled the last part of that statement and hung up the phone.

"That's heavy duty metal surrounding the door knob, I don't think so. Besides, we have to find another way to get out of here now..seeing as the whole ventilation thing won't work." You said, answering Bucky's previous questions before Natasha had rung you.

You we're contemplating if you should try and hit the lock with the fire extinguisher that was in the corner of the room.

"What do you mean? I thought we were gonna go to the bathroom and get to the ventilation system."

"Wanda and Nat are in the bathroom idiot. And. It's. Locked. Were you not here for like half of our conversation?"

"There's a men's bathroom too dumbass." He said as if it were obvious

"No there isn't, not in the meeting room anyway. It's just one big ass bathroom for every adult." You said

"That's dumb.." he said slightly annoyed that nothing was going right today.

You groaned and took a seat in one of the chairs, your head in your hands. You heard Bucky sigh and he took a seat next to you as well. You felt a large hand on your back, Bucky's hand, he rubbed your back up and down.

"We won't be here forever you know..it'll be ok." He said with a genuine smile..which quickly turned into a smirk as he said his next sentence.

"Besides, you'll get to be with my handsome face for the rest of the week." He said, laughing as you started to not so playfully smacking his arms.

"Hey..can I ask you something?" Bucky said as he took his hand and gently tilted your chin towards him.

"Yeah.."

"Why don't you like me?"

"Because you don't like me..?" You said confused.

"What-? No, you don't like me." He said.

This entire feud started because of miscommunication didn't it?

"No, you started making snarky comments towards me the first month I started working here."

"Yeah because you were pretty much a jerk to me doll." He said with a pained chuckle.

"What? What do you mean I was a jerk?"

"Well you showed interest in me in the beginning of the month when you worked here, pretty much lead me on, then when I bought you flowers and left em on my desk you threw em out and never even told me why."

"I- you bought me those?!"

"W- yeah, you didn't know?"

"NO! I- I thought they were from Brock.."

"Why would they be from BROCK?!"

"Because he was hitting on me in the staff room..and then told me you didn't like me..." You said, a bit ashamed this got so out of proportion.

"What- doll. God of course I liked you and- wait Brock was hitting on you?"

"Mhm." You said

"Son of a bitch, I should go knock his fuckin teeth out for all the issues we had to go through and-"

You cut him off by giving him a kiss on the lips. It was soft and slow and passionate and all the little things you needed to confess. His hand combed through your hair and the other wrapped around your waist. Both of your hands instantly wrapped around his neck and you both savored the teaste of one another.

"Hey guys there was an emergency key in one of the stalls and- WHAT THE FUCK-?" Natashas eyes popped out of her head as she witnessed the scene unfolding in front of her.

"YES! I knew it would happen eventually!" You heard Wanda say, and you giggled a bit at their antics.

"What was that about an emergency key Nat?" Bucky said, still a bit out of it from the kiss you two shared.

"Well there was an emergency key in a stall and I'm pretty sure it opens all locks."

"Finally! Let's get the hell outta here." You shouted and all of you ran to the door and Natasha unlocked it. You guys proceeded to unlock all doors in your way and you all finally made it outside.

"Well ladies, and man, it's been a pleasure but I should really go now..I gotta see a certain artsy blonde about something." Said Nat as she walked to her car saying her goodbyes and drove off.

"I should probably get going too, my Vis is probably worried sick!" Wanda said as she gave you a quick kiss on the cheek and said bye to Bucky. She got in her car and drove off as well.

"Who's Vis-?"

"Her husband." You said.

"Oh. Well uhm, do you have a ride..or-?"

"Oh no, I came without my car today..a ride would be nice thank you." You said sheepishly.

"Of course doll, c'mon." He said as he wrapped an arm around your waist and you both walked to his car.

"Hey uhm..would you like to come back to my place for some early dinner..? You don't have to say yes or anything I was just-"

"That'd be great Buck, as long as this isn't a one time thing..?"

"Definitely not doll."

"Well let's go!" You said as you gave him a small kiss on the cheek and you both walked to the car.

Fin

A/N: this was freaking long 😂 and I liked it..ish.

Please please please show me y'all actually read my crappy writing, like, comment, reblog. Revive me lmfao. It seriously helps with motivation ngl :) ❤️🧡💖

~Nyx

[terraliensvent]

Things Tycho needs to implement for the mod apps:

Please hire fucking adults. Not 19 year olds, please hire some people that are over 21 and have more developed brains. Preferably 25 and up.

Heavily restrict the ability to make mod customs. I know that a LOT of people only want to be staff to be able to make customs, and this isn't a good thing to be able to do right off the bat since Tycho needs mods who want to work, not make money making designs. I think mod customs should not be allowed for at least 6 months AFTER mod trial is over. Work on the species, that's what you were hired to do, not make customs. If you want to make and sell designs, apply to be a GA, not staff.

Mod myos. There's too many mod lim myos floating around and these should not be tradeable. If mods get myos as payment every month, they should get two options. Lim myo, not tradeable. Modified myo, tradeable. They get to choose just one.

Also I think Tycho needs to go through the shambling remains of the staff and get rid of loose ends, like Kea. Kea does absolutely fucking nothing for the species except occasionally vote on staff matters and do transfers, which literally any other staff member can do. All she does is ignore trade offers for her obvious trades that totally aren't entertaining offers, which aren't even allowed btw, and she'll talk about opening up customs to get people to throw themselves at her for her art. She needs to be removed as a staff member and made a GA, since that's what she's best at. Plus she's just conveniently taking a break and ignoring all the work that needs to be done and making Tycho and the other few mods do everything themselves. If Kea can't be a functioning staff member in this moment when we really need them, why do we need her at all? Karma, too. Why are you guys taking a break and making everyone else do all the hard work so you can just come back when it's all over and reap the benefits? You guys suck. Either step up and do your job or quit.

i agree with everything you said here anon

on your first point, it def goes back to the maturity thing for me because, while previous mods and the owners are “adults,” 18 and 19 is still pretty immature (and you can really tell based off of the controversies that have happened just within a year)

on the second, i really think terras should make more use of the “official artist” role. i agree that a lot of mods seem to just sit on their ass and make customs/adopts, which, if you want to just do art then say that!! dont present it like youre gonna actually moderate if ur just pumping out adopts, thats why theres the official artist role

for the third point, i actually think tycho does have plans to mitigate the myo situation (you can see that in the conversation i had with him here), so i think theres gonna be some progress there

on your last point, i agree as well; i think kea especially is one of the people who would benefit from being an official artist instead. she has the admin role but ive literally never seen her be an administrator of anything. doing approvals is something that really anyone can do, and the main thing ive ever seen from kea is customs and adopts. i dont think ive really ever seen her answer questions or design help, and as far as events go the only one shes been visibly a part of is the birthday one that just happened (and honestly if i didnt just go and check right now i would have totally forgotten shes an ADMIN, not just a regular mod)

i think delegation of staff and staff responsibilities is a big thing that needs fixing, since its been an issue basically forever in this species. design and prompts take forever to approve, but when its ever suggested to get more mods it was always “we have enough!” yeah, you have an overabundance of mods that just wanna make fucking adopts and nothing else. just make them official artists and have the mod role for people that can actually work.

[thecharmedquill]

Chapter One: In A Different Light

A/N: Hello! I know in my last chapter I said I would frequently be posting but I forgot the holidays were coming up, so now I am catching up. I will post this chapter and then finish the second chapter by tonight. I’ll try to post two chapters at a time, otherwise I will for sure post at least one every other day moving forward. 

Warnings:

Word Count: 1448

-

There was a week before classes started and the halls of Hogwarts were rather quiet. Your schedule was clear except for a few administration meetings, during your free time you decided to meet Hermione in the Library to plan out the curriculum. Instead of staying in a shared dorm, eighth years were given separate living quarters in a new wing since there were few in number. This meant your own private bedroom alongside a small bathroom. Your mother had snuck a smaller charmed bag into your suitcase that held a few houseplants and decorations to make you feel more at home. When you arrived earlier in the week, McGonagall had gone over some of the expectations for the young professors as well as the new or returning professors. Student professors were given the option of whether or not they wanted to sit with the rest of the professors or if they preferred being sat at their former house tables. You had chosen to sit at the head table with Neville so he wouldn’t feel so lonely, you knew he had always wanted to be a professor but under these circumstances, it was a little nerve-wracking for him. You had all discussed on the train the anxieties you felt toward your new jobs. It would be awkward teaching fellow students who you had fought with a year prior but even more difficult to teach the younger students who have just joined the school. Pushing your anxieties to the side, you decided to get ready for the administration meeting.

You put on a simple blue sweater and a pair of brown dress pants, old school shoes, and your school robe. Although most professors graduate from their house robes, you weren’t quite ready to give up your house pride. As you headed out to the hall, you caught up with Hermione and Harry, both dressed in professional attire and their school robes.

“It’s a little weird to know in one week we will be teaching at our school,” Hermione says, playing with the red outline of her robe. “I didn’t know if I should've packed my proper uniform or if I should’ve packed professor attire. I ended up packing both just in case.”

Harry nods. “ I think we could’ve brought anything and McGonagall would’ve just been happy we showed up.”

McGonagall had been very grateful the students were willing to come back to help the school. She has been so caught up in repairs, restaffing, and sending out letters for the first years she has barely had enough time to create a solid curriculum for her classes. In the end, she decided to let the teachers and the ministry work together in creating a balanced curriculum, which is why the staff has been meeting so frequently.

“Did you hear Malfoy is coming back to teach?” Harry said, crinkling his nose at the thought of a Death Eater, former Death Eater, teaching at Hogwarts, especially after everything that has happened.

“He is? I doubt the Headmistress would allow him to step foot on the grounds. I know his family has been doing charity work for the families who were impacted by the war. But I doubt the ministry would allow for him to come back.” Hermione shook her head. “Besides, I haven’t seen him once since we arrived. He hasn’t been to any of the previous meetings nor was he on the train.”

“I think Harry is right. I overheard McGonagall speaking to one of the other staff asking if Malfoy had arrived yet.” You thought back to a discussion you had had previously with Neville and Luna on this subject. Malfoy’s mother had made an agreement with McGonagall, in hopes to help the Malfoy name. “I think Luna said this is another charity, like a redemption opportunity.”

“Or maybe it's another ploy.” Harry scoffed. 

You frowned at his statement. It wasn’t fair that Harry was quick to judge. “You know, Malfoy probably was scarred from the war, too. He was just as much of a pawn as you were in the war. Besides, in a way, Narcissa helped you, even if it were to save her son.”

“Yeah but-” You cut him off.

“I am not defending him but I think we should at least show some respect to him. McGonagall wouldn’t have agreed to let him teach students if she was suspicious of him. Malfoy is about to be one of our peers, we should try to be open to the idea of him being equal.” With that you walked into the Great Hall, ignoring the glares you were getting from Harry. You made you way to your seat next to Neville noticing the empty seat next to you. You had figured that it was meant for a professor who had not yet filled their position. Harry and Hermione found a seat in the front next to Luna, who was beaming at the sight of all of her friends. 

“Alright everyone, please come in and take a seat. We have a few things to discuss today that are of importance.” McGonagall walked in with a long parchment paper and stood at the podium where everyone could hear her. “First off, I hope everyone is done or almost done with their curriculum through winter break. When you have finished, send a copy to my office for me to review so that I can make sure we are covering the needed bases. Secondly, I would like us to clear the air with any pressing matters or concerns for the upcoming year. We as a staff need to be on the same page so there is no miscommunication or assumptions.”

Harry raised his hand, “Is it true Draco Malfoy is going to be teaching students this year?”

McGonagall smiled, “Yes, it is true. Professor Malfoy and I have been working closely this past week in planning his curriculum. He seems excited to take the position.”

“Aren’t you worried about his reputation, Profe-Headmistress McGonagall?” Hermione asked, though not in a judging way, out of sincerity. 

“I am not worried about any reputation. We as a staff must support each other through this upcoming year. Meaning, any rumors or whispers you hear about Professor Malfoy should be corrected, as he is now your colleague and equal. I expect you to encourage the students to have an open mind and treat all their Professors the same.” She gave a knowing look to her audience. The rest of the meeting was discussing basic policies that are being put in place to keep both staff and students safe such as curfews and spell restrictions. 

Your mind began to slip from the conversation as you began reminiscing on your past school years. You weren’t much of a troublemaker as you had always made curfew and spent most of your time in the library. You loved learning as much as you could about magic, often spending countless hours reading further on various topics such as the history of magic and the various creatures around the wizarding world. The library is where you had found Hermione, you had quickly become friends bonding over the fact that you both had muggle backgrounds and loved learning new things. Slowly, you had begun growing the group, adding on Harry and Ron as Hermione had met them on the train. This was followed by Neville as you and Hermione felt protective over the accident-prone boy, he was a major help to the group when it came to anything Herbology, destined to become a professor. Luna was the last to join the group as many were hesitant to become friends with someone whose nickname was Loony Lovegood, but quickly she grew on the group as she was sweet and quick-witted. You always admired Luna’s kindness, she saw the good in everyone and was a major reason why you were quick to defend Draco. Although you never knew Draco well, besides the rumors that had gone around the school, you did know that he was just a young boy when he was exposed to the Dark Lord and his wrongdoings. If you were in a similar situation, where everyone in your life seemed to be connected to the Death Eaters, you were sure you would’ve done the same. 

Hermione approached your table, “Y/N, do you want to go to the Library and finish our planning?”

You nodded, “I would love that. Neville care to join us? You can invite Luna as well, I know she has been persistent in helping you plan.”

“Sure.” And with that, you all headed to the Library, just like the old days when you were cramping for midterms and essays.

[mabyn-mabyn]

Edit, Shift, Rewrite (yoonkook)

Edit / Shift / Rewrite Yoongi/Jungkook Rated T 8k

kitten!yoongi, magic, cuddling, soft, touch starved, novelist!yoongi with his editor JK, fluff

Yoongi turns into a tiny black kitten whenever anyone hugs him. He wishes he were fast enough to dive out of the way when his new editor, Jeon Jungkook, dives in for one.

Teaser >

The new editor, Yoongi grudgingly admits, is good.

He steps into the sleek elevator that will take him up sixteen floors to the publisher who’s released his three latest mystery novels. They’ve all done quite well on the market. His success means he can spend less time freelancing for newspapers and more time writing what he loves.

Still, he thinks as the elevator ascends, he hadn’t been happy when his former editor Kim Namjoon had pushed him off onto the newest member of the team. Twenty-three-year-old Jeon Jungkook was hardly older than an intern. He’s brilliant, Namjoon had reassured him. I’m certain he’s going to take your writing to the next level.

Yoongi had been suspicious, but Namjoon was right. Jungkook had transformed his third novel—the weakest in the series—into something fresh and surprising. Yoongi is nervous about how Jungkook’s going to react to his latest manuscript. He wants his opinions. If he’s honest, he wants him to like it. The weight of Yoongi’s laptop hangs heavy in his satchel.

“Welcome, Min Yoongi-nim.” Park Jimin, the administrative assistant, greets him with a polite bow. “Jungkook-nim has been waiting for you.”

The publisher’s office is clean and well-updated, silent except for the whir of the central air, while the staff busily work in their cubicles. A woman in the far corner speaks on the phone in hushed tones. Everyone here is busy and serious and committed to the success of their authors. Once again Yoongi congratulates himself for making it into one of the top publishers in Seoul.

He’s led beyond the cubicles to the neat row of offices where the more important editors enjoy the luxury of private meetings. Jimin taps on the door with his knuckles and upon hearing a soft enter, opens the door and gestures for Yoongi to go inside. Yoongi gives him a polite bow goodbye and passes through the doorway.

Jeon Jungkook jumps up from his cushy office chair. His blue and white silk shirt drapes prettily over his torso. A single long, silver earring dangles from one ear. He grins big enough to expose his crooked front teeth, as if he’s thrilled to see him. Jungkook has never been one to hide his feelings, a trait that Yoongi has always found admirable.

“Yoongi-nim!” Jungkook calls out. “Your latest manuscript blew me away! I was up until 4am reading it!” Jungkook maneuvers out from behind the desk and flies across the room on his long legs until he’s right in front of Yoongi. He’s practically vibrating with energy. “It might be your most brilliant work to date. It’s gonna outsell all the others without question!” He wavers on his toes like he’s tempted to reach out for Yoongi but is holding himself back. Although embracing clients is almost unheard of, Jungkook is young and new and excitable enough that he might take liberties where other editors would remain strictly professional.

And then Jungkook just…grabs him and pulls him into a hug.

Yoongi freezes. It’s not that hugging freaks him out. The thing is, though—Yoongi’s weird little secret, what no one would ever believe unless they saw it with their own eyes, the reason Yoongi retreated into the small space of his apartment and never visits his friends or family anymore, the reason Yoongi stopped going to work and started writing full time at home even though it meant earning less money—the thing is, Yoongi can’t be hugged.

He can’t be hugged because he’ll turn into a kitten.

Okay, not forever. The spell usually takes a week or so to wear off. He can speed the process along by dwelling on unpleasant thoughts, such as scary clowns and crowded rooms and starving in some unsightly alleyway. In the meantime, though, he’s a tiny black kitten (he’s looked in the mirror, it’s a nightmare), he can’t say a word in human language, and it’s hard to defend himself. It’s a cold, scary, mean existence, and Yoongi doesn’t like it at all.

The worst part, though, is when he turns back into a human. Not only is he sore and fatigued and thin with hunger, but he’s naked, all of his clothing having fallen away, useless, when he became a kitten. That has put him in some awkward situations. Getting arrested type situations.

So, yeah. That’s exactly what happens now. Yoongi fails to jump out of the way in time to avoid Jungkook’s hug, and then, boom! He’s suddenly tiny and furry, fighting his way out of the mass of shirt and tie and suit trousers to get back to the light and air and—hopefully—to not get accidentally stepped on by Jungkook.

“Yoongi-nim?” Jungkook asks confusedly, his arms still hugging the air. He looks down at the pile of clothes on the floor and gapes. Slowly, he crouches down until he’s squatting right in front of Yoongi. Yoongi doesn’t move because, well, he’s basically fucked. If he tries to leave Jungkook’s office, he’ll get squashed for sure. His best bet right now is for Jungkook—who has always seemed like a nice and decent person—to take pity on him. Jungkook pokes his cat shoulder in disbelief. “Y-Y-Yoongi? Are you a—what am I even saying, but—are you a kitten?"

Read the rest on ao3

[saruvanthewhite]

Target Corp.

Store 0320

Colma, California

After several years of busting my knuckles and my ass, putting up with the anxiety and the bullshit, I am now jobless. They said it was performance and behavior.

A couple things about those points they failed to mention or own up about:

First, performance suffered for a number of reasons. More was being put on the plate, admin stuff that wasn’t even fixing things, reporting that wasn’t even official forms to fill out & weren’t even official Target forms; Just things the individual boss wanted us to fill out. That involved hunting and finding for information through several different systems. All data that could’ve been pulled with a clever SQL command on demand. It added more wasted time to our day and left us with less time to do the other things that we needed to do like fix ʇıɥs. That and toxic individuals in the workplace about whom I made noise. Was anything done about those people? No. Did those people ramp up their psychological and verbal abuse? Yes, they did. Did management like me making noise about it? No, they did not. Were the people responsible for it given a talking to or removed? No, they were not. Was I the only one who had made mention of ʇıɥs like this? No I was not. Was I the loudest about it? Yes, I was. So working under duress because you have executive team leads, a store Director, & an administrator-only boss gaslighting you isn’t supposed to make you feel some kind of way or speak up about it? Apparently, that’s what Target expects; Fall in line or we’ll smack you down. I noticed their efforts to get me out stepped up as soon as I made mention of our store directors dismissive & gaslighting behavior. That & as soon as I named my bosses boss as somebody who didn’t understand what was going on and even agreed with some of what my old boss was saying about her. But he can say stuff about her and I can’t.

And second, as far as behavior is concerned, they didn’t like me expressing my frustration with the unreasonable ʇᴉɥsllnq going on in that store. They didn’t like me taking issue with no one respecting the equipment I was expected to maintain. They didn’t like me speaking up about how difficult my job was.

They especially didn’t like me mentioning PMLs are paid pennies on the dollar for what we do and then as salt in an open wound, we’re told to celebrate how much money we’ve saved the ƃuıʞɔnɟ store in a year. Given Target’s own calculations, I saved their ƃuıʞɔnɟ Colma store over $5 million in the last 12 months. If only a fraction of that had been paid as part of my pay, I could be out of living in a van, and in an apartment with a safe space for my children; which is what I have been trying to do for years now. Target wanted me to celebrate some huge number I had saved the company at that store, but only wanted to pay us a tiny fraction of what our work was actually worth to them.

Do you think they could be bothered to maybe even try to house this person? They acted surprised when they found out how hard life is for me outside of the store, and then offered to help me only to pull the rug out from under me as they were getting those wheels turning. They fired a hard-working homeless guy who is trying to get his life back together after HR was trying to work with him to do it. That takes a special kind of callous corporate mindset of which Target should be ashamed.

Working for Target in this role felt a lot like Sisyphus except I didn’t have to kill anyone like Sisyphus did in order to be ʇıɥs on like that. Perhaps somebody a lot more like the man Sisyphus was purported to be should do that to the abusive sʞɔnɟ there. But as for me, Target can ʞɔnɟ right on off.

For the rest of us…

Do not shop there, do not give them any business, if you have anything related to them, get rid of it. They sell ʇıɥs and make you believe it to be a good product. They treat their staff poorly, don’t pay enough and i’ll just say it because I couldn’t while I worked there, the Colma store in California has a huge rat problem. Yes, RATS. They even had damage control called in when a customer took a video of one on the sales floor. I did my best to help knock the population down while I was there and even got it under control with no sightings. But careless and stupid behavior on the part of a few individuals has brought the population back up. I caution anyone who goes there to buy groceries, to not.

Their food & beverage executive team lead can’t. She just can’t. I would speak to her and receive a vacuous look in return. Absolutely nothing behind the eyes. And the person who heads up food and beverage in this district once put my safety in danger by swinging a hammer next to my head, never having apologized for it. Never.

 The store in Coloma also has an executive team lead who is most likely undiagnosed bipolar. He will be cruel and petty one day and positively sweet and innocent, the next. It disrupts workflow. They have another ETL there who is snarky, rude, solipsistic, disrespectful, and ogles the small young girls that work there. & he’s married too.

The store in Colma has employed a food and beverage team lead who cannot think worth a ʇıɥs. She can’t drive heavy equipment safely and lied about what happened when she knocked over an entire goddamn shelf of milk. She’s rude as ʞɔnɟ too; pushing her way past anyone trying to get out of an elevator before they can exit. I don’t think I ever had an experience with her getting on an elevator where she didn’t shove her way past me before I exited.

That’s not all that’s wrong there regarding food and Bev either. If you go through the milk section, you will find different dates on cartons of milk scattered over the shelves. You will also find out-of-date baked goods on the shelf. If you look carefully, you will find rat fæces underneath some of those shelves.

Another thing I was responsible for that location was the care and maintenance of their handheld equipment assets. If you walk into a Target store, every single employee will have a mobile device on them for their particular role. Part of my responsibility was maintaining the integrity and health of those devices. Do you think I experienced any buy-in from the team in that endeavor? No. At over $750 a device over 108 devices, I was the only one taking care of them, and no one else ƃuıʞɔnɟ cared. As a matter of fact, people actively disassembled what I have been ordered to keep integral. People would sabotage the efforts with which I was tasked to maintain the equipment. But I was held to account for other people ƃuıʞɔnɟ up. Still hadn’t lost one in over a year. That was thanks to me. I expect six to eight to go missing by next week because that’s an average of assets I had to hunt down every week. On a related note, if you go into that store, and you see one unattended, take it.

For myself, I know that if I must shop in a Target store, I will be looking for unattended Zebras to appropriate and sell back to the company.

The PMBP for that location stress the importance of his subordinates meeting with store directors every week. Yet the Store Director at this location found ways to duck out of that meeting, getting this repair technician in more trouble every week.

[dead-loch]

I’ve just had my first decent night of sleep in 2 weeks and for some reason I have woken wanting to cuddle anyone here or anywhere who is considered uneducated (and note I said uneducated NOT willingly ignorant).

I used to hide this from everyone except those who already knew but I never graduated high school. I didn’t drop out, actually, although at this point, for my own mental health, dropping out may have been the better choice.

I grew up with a mother who forced me to attend an extremely strict & conservative catholic school, no matter how much I begged her to let me attend the arts school in our city. (My mom would later wish she had let me change schools.)

Being queer and trans in the early aughts was hell. It’s honestly astonishing to see how much things have changed (and in some cases, in some ways, gotten worse but in others, gotten much better). I don’t think I had a single happy day in that school. Unfortunately the teachers and staff were abusive. It was never the other students (which is usually the problem in high school) but the adults who truly didn’t give a shit. But anyway. In my last year, I was depressed and literally unable to get out of bed for months. I failed one class (history) by 5 points. And thus, no high school diploma. I’m honestly amazed I was even able to attend exams.

What really kills me is that I remember that I loved learning before high school (and actually problems began for me in elementary but those were personal). I loved writing. I loved reading. I used to search universities for the one I wanted to attend and as a child I’d picked Oxford because it sounded fancy and it was far away.

Unfortunately, these hopes and dreams were literally and figuratively beat out of me.

What I’m trying to say here is that there’s a difference between lacking (formal) education and being willingly ignorant (that word is important, because it indicates a choice being made). Lacking formal education can make things incredibly difficult, and as a now 32 yr old, I can see the many ways that not having attended university especially can be detrimental. People learn to craft arguments and defend their points of view in structured ways that you probably won’t learn just being out in the world. I think that’s really valuable because often I can only describe my feelings (thankfully I value feeling and emotion but people often look down on that too).

With no high school diploma (and employers having no context), I’ve had to fight for a lot of what I’ve accomplished. While fighting tooth and nail every day working jobs I hated that didn’t even pay me enough to live, I began volunteering at an art gallery. From there, I was offered a paid position. From there, I began a career in arts administration that spans almost a decade and would culminate in communications & marketing management. It’s not an exaggeration when I say that every single other person I have ever worked with had at least one degree.

And then in 2021 I decided to try for something more. I left a full time salaried position which had given me financial stability for the first time in my life and pursued what was in my heart & soul, which was being an artist. I was accepted into a very small program (in fact the only program of its kind in Canada) and suddenly I was back at school, with all of that trauma I hadn’t fully processed.

It was hard. The last time I’d written any kind of essay was in high school, and to be honest I couldn’t remember anything about that time or anything I might have learned. I felt like an idiot in theory classes because the writings were heavily academic and not accessible (this is a whole issue and not just for me).

And guess what.. attending an arts program didn’t fix all of my problems. I missed out on a lot of what people learn throughout their 20s if they get a post-secondary education. I also still have a lot of rough parts when it comes to educators, because I still struggle trusting them, even though the ones I met at this school were amazing and supportive and a complete departure from the ones I had in high school. It really sucks that so much of who we are is shaped during a time where we have little to no control over our environments. But them’s the breaks.

I think what I’m trying to say here (and I honestly have no idea why I’ve just decided to be all introspective this morning— I literally woke up 34 minutes ago) is that high school does not need to define your life. That’s not to say that not receiving a formal education won’t make things difficult. I’m not advocating for one or the other, because there are a lot of reasons someone won’t do well in school. But next time you meet someone who didn’t graduate high school, I hope your immediate reaction won’t be to think that they’re stupid or ignorant. Some of us have just been through it. Others need different environments than the ones we currently have to be able to learn. Still others may have had to make a difficult choice. And even with a high school education, attending university is often something you need access to resources for, and some of us don’t have those resources or don’t want to spend time fighting to get them.

I will say that from the outside, the one really good thing about attending university seems to be that you learn to express yourself and your ideas in very clear ways. Also reading comprehension. I have a lot of trouble expressing myself and I’ll often just give up because the thoughts come out really jumbled and not fully what I was intending. I think that’s invaluable and i think they’re starting to do that in high school too (based on the current people I know who are still there or graduated recently) which is great.

But really the whole point of this is that it hurts me so much when people who don’t have a formal education think they’re stupid because of it and I just want to say, clearly, that you are not. I also want to say that a lot of university grads will (knowingly or not) use their education as a tool to make others— the seemingly uneducated— feel inferior. Instead of speaking in language that is accessible, they will use heavily academic language to make you feel like you have no idea what you’re saying and therefore nothing you say has any weight (instead of using it to, you know, help others understand something). Fuck these people. That’s all I have to say about that.

[pashterlengkap]

Lauren Boebert rages at Pete Buttigieg for caring about climate change but still traveling

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) took to Twitter to call Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg a “hypocrite” for traveling on a “private jet” while promoting measures to combat climate change. “The Secretary of Transportation has pushed for less air travel ‘to protect the environment’ yet flies around on a private jet,” she wrote. “There’s no denying [Pete Buttigieg] and the Biden administration are a bunch of hypocrites.” --- Related Stories Lauren Boebert brags about giving birth in a truck in repulsive anti-gay rant about Pete Buttigieg Rep. Lauren Boebert said that “you can’t celebrate Christmas” this year because Pete Buttigieg was too busy making R-rated movies with his husband Chasten, showing a clip of the two men touching pinkies. --- The Secretary of Transportation has pushed for less air travel "to protect the environment" yet flies around on a private jet. There’s no denying @SecretaryPete and the Biden administration are a bunch of hypocrites.— Rep. Lauren Boebert (@RepBoebert) June 28, 2023 Get the Daily Brief The news you care about, reported on by the people who care about you. Boebert is referring to the longstanding criticism of Buttigieg’s use of government – not private – planes to get around as he does his job instead of flying commercial airlines. Earlier this year, for example, he was criticized for taking a military flight with his husband to represent the Biden administration at the Invictus Games in the Netherlands, even though a military plane could hardly be described as a “private jet.” Fox News and other conservative media outlets have dogged Buttigieg about his use of government-owned planes but haven’t produced any evidence that he uses them excessively. For example, an article from Fox this week about a Republican senator’s bill to stop Buttigieg from taking “private jet flights” doesn’t say how many private jets Buttigieg has flown on. The article only notes that he has “flown aboard taxpayer-funded jets at least 18 times while in office,” which could include planes operated by the Department of Transportation (DOT), the military, or other federal agencies, but not aircrafts owned by private citizens and donors. The DOT has said that Buttigieg’s flights on government aircraft have cost $41,905 so far. They said that all but one of his flights were cheaper than the cost of getting him and his staff commercial airline tickets and that the remaining flight involved a Federal Aviation Administration plane that was used for “exceptional scheduling or security reasons.” The DOT’s inspector general launched an audit of his use of government planes earlier this year. People mocked Boebert for being so concerned about Buttigieg traveling for his job. Others point out that using the expression “private jet” to refer to planes operated by the government is misleading at best. Seriously, you need new material for your outrages. pic.twitter.com/0Ft5ea8qN2— A to the Z (@A_tothe_Z_Amber) June 28, 2023 Again, this doesn’t do anything for the voters who elected you. I didn’t/wouldn’t vote for you. But your salary is supposed to be earned by representing us, your district!— Madmama (@madmamavotes) June 28, 2023 How many flights have you taken since you have been in office, I’m guessing it’s close to 1000— Enya Donley (@enya_donley) June 28, 2023 We need to invent a new word for the stratospheric level of hypocrisy you and your kind have taken it to.— T. witter's ucking me again. (@Blacksmitheart) June 28, 2023 It's literally his job, Bobo. You fly for your "job," too. This isn't the own you think it is.— zeroboi (@ogzeroboi) June 28, 2023 Since when is a plane owned by the FAA, an agency he’s in charge of, a private jet? And since when do you give a rosy rat’s hind end about the environment? You spend all day embarrassing the poor people you conned into electing you.— LolLioness#TeamPeteForever (@LolLioness) June 28, 2023 http://dlvr.it/SrPqhw

[ledenews]

Theresa Russell: A Rational Voice in Times of Emergency

You know 9-1-1, those three lifesaving numerals. And you know to use them when something is really, really wrong. Like when a law is being broken or someone has been hurt and in need of emergency care or when one person is threatening other people, and those scenarios are only a few of the reasons why people dial those three digits. 9-1-1. And Theresa Russell, a native of North Wheeling, has been the lady in charge of those three digits so long she was referred to initially as the “Public Safety Dispatch Supervisor” before the higher-ups cut the crap and started referring to her simply as the 9-1-1 Director. Ohio County’s dispatch center, located in the basement of the Ohio County Courthouse at 1500 Chapline Street, is a 24-hour service and she and her dispatchers were honored last week during National Telecommunications Week. Why? Well, have you ever heard a frantic person describing their house is on fire? About an uncle who accidentally shot themselves in the cheek? A mother calling about their son turning blue during an overdose? Or a child screaming about their parents beating each other? Or, have you heard an elderly woman call for an ambulance for her dead husband? A crash victim who was mashed into a median? Or have you taken a call from a suicidal individual simply searching for someone to talk? Be sure Theresa Russell has, and so have her staff members, and while you would have no idea how to react or respond, she and her fellow dispatchers must. That is why, for several years now, 9-1-1 dispatchers throughout the state of West Virginia have been lobbying to be considered pension-wise as, officially, “EMS first responders” in state code. Russell, her Ohio County dispatchers, and 9-1-1 personnel throughout the Mountain State are, after all, literally THE FIRST to respond, correct? Theresa is married to Randy Russell, a long-time Ohio County employee who recently was named the administrator of the Ohio County Commission. What is the biggest difference today in your childhood neighborhood? I grew up in North Wheeling at a time when it landmarked Washington Grade School, Wheeling Hospital and its nurse’s residence, Sacred Heart Grade School and Sacred Heart Church, Dotty’s and Delmonte’s Restaurants, Margie’s Food Mart, two Ross’s food stores (where you could forge a note from your mom and charge “stuff” on their weekly food bills), and Wilson playground just to name a few.  Friends lived on every block!     With the exception of Wilson playground, all that remains are fond memories of a great era. What is the best advice you have ever offered a younger person? I would have to say that the best advice that I believe to have ever offered is:  If you don’t really know what it is that you want to do with your life after high school? Choose a trade skill!   Something that you can take with you wherever you may want locate that would gain you immediate employment!  Trade laborers are necessary wherever you wind up. What sport did you play when you were a kid and were you any good? Please explain. Wweell, as memory serves, I think it was in fifth grade when I attempted girls’ softball.  Although I made it through a season, I say “attempted” because I’m a lefty who absolutely could not master the ability to catch the ball in my left hand and throw with my right hand! I recall my coach always joking, “catch the ball, take of the glove, and throw the ball!”  Haha … he was obviously a very patient coach! What has been the most frightening 9-1-1 call you have ever taken as a dispatcher? Please explain. This is a tough one because I really feel that I have trained my brain to only remember the ones that turn out for the best.  But personally, the most frightening for me would be a call that I took early on when I was new at the job. I took a call from the neighborhood where I lived. The caller said that a young boy was hit by a car while riding his bicycle. I knew my sons were out riding their bikes when the call came in. My professional side told me that I had to get the call out with no emotion, but the mother in me was scared that it could be my child.  I thought that I had done well but the paramedics who responded must have thought otherwise because they came across a private radio channel shortly after arriving on scene and said, “Theresa, you can breathe now! It’s not one of your kids!” Whew. Her family is what is most important to Theresa, and she keeps them in mind while serving all residents of Ohio County. Finish this sentence: ‘I’m so old, I remember when …’ Being a kid didn’t mean you got an allowance!  If you wanted spending money to buy candy, pop, chips, or just whatever, you went around the neighborhood and collected pop bottles that you could cash in for .10 cents each! Read the full article

[dungeonsandblorbos]

Campaign Intros: North Pines Camp

having gone through all my PCs, let's dive into the campaigns they come from!

North Pines Camp, a Monster of the Week campaign, was my first time ever playing a ttrpg. the campaign was short and sweet, only running 10 sessions, and my notes are absolute trash. did i memorialize some funny out of context quotes and snapshot moments? you betcha! did i manage to write down enough info to reconstruct the basic mysteries we solved? yes, barely. did i bother writing down anything about my fellow PCs? except for the fact that one of them likes chips on their sandwiches, nope! did i bother noting where the camp actually is or anything about its layout or the nearby town? also nope! did i do anything to help me remember who NPCs were or what they looked like? not really!

this campaign happened, like, five + years ago now. i have played four five other campaigns in the meantime. my memory isn't very good in general, but between the time and bad notes, my memory of this campaign is very minimal. any story times from North Pines Camp will be very brief and won't have a lot of context because i don't know either

but ~anyway~

the setting

North Pines Camp (NPC) is a children's summer camp in (i think) central Oregon, USA. once upon a time it was a training grounds for monster hunters, but it's been 100% properly converted now. definitely. no banjo-playing vampires or child-stealing witches in the woods. nope. not here

the camp is set up on the north end of a lake, and there's another camp on the other side of the lake called South Pines Camp. there's a stable and places to play sports, and a few different activity lodges. Saraki Lodge hosts dances. Newman has a variety of board and card and other tabletop games, including a strange Cards Against Humanity set that seems to have come from another dimension with its own incomprehensible memes. somewhere i think there's also a theatre and an arts and crafts room? and of course a cafeteria/mess hall and nurse's station. and a big garden!

there's also a small town nearby that might be called Acorn. fewer than four thousand people live there, and it's also haunted. cool places to hang out include the Acorn Museum and the abandoned combo KFC/Pizza Hut

the other PCs

Izzy: played with the Spell-Slinger playbook, i think. a fellow camp counselor. she has long blue hair, eats tomatoes like they're apples, and likes her cereal with orange juice. she also eats raw eggs. she once got possessed by a ghost in the abandoned KFC/Pizza Hut and helped him fulfill his dying wish of eating fried chicken

Malcolm: played with the Mundane playbook, i think. a fellow camp counselor. he has brown hair and green eyes and likes chips on his sandwiches. at one point he dresses up as a girl (to try to trick a lonely banjo-playing vampire into kidnapping him shh it makes sense in context) and, while pretending to be a girl, refers to Indie as his boyfriend

the NPCs of NPC

Lawrence: a camp administrator with a spooky personal cabin in the woods where he keeps a bunch of stuff from the old camp. lots of weapons, a monster manual poorly co-written by the original camp's three founders, stuff like that. i think he was magical in some way bc i have a random note about his arm turning to silver but literally nothing else about him during that mission. he has a walking stick that, and i quote from my notes, "is actually a deer"

Gabby: another camp admin who knows about the monster stuff. her DJ name is DJ Gabby Gabs. i think she was normally the one telling us to go investigate things

Gabe O'Malley: the only one i have a last name for? like i said, my notes for this campaign are terrible! he's another camp admin and has his own cabin, where the wifi is named "mancave dog chow." he helped us identify some magical items. that's it that's all i wrote about him

Eugene: some sort of authority figure, or maybe custodial staff? he likes pickles. 9:30 (am? pm? idfk) is Eugene's pickle time. he has a secret fridge in Newman that's literally just filled with pickles. all of the notes i have referencing him are about pickles.

Preston: the head chef. he's got a weed stash somewhere and has a personal mini fridge equipped with a polaroid camera to catch thieves. Indie once stole something from his fridge and then stole the polaroid of himself stealing things

Baltimore: a fellow counselor and the campaign butt monkey--we made fun of him a lot. to be fair, he made himself very easy to make fun of. a lifeguard at the camp and elementary education major who slathers himself in way too much sunscreen and puts way too much mayo on his sandwiches. he's lactose intolerant, and his favorite dessert is vegan cheesecake. his favorite game is jenga. he likes both Neutral Milk Hotel and Mariah Carey. at one point we accused him of having a foot fetish. as a side note, he's 5'8" with "tousled black hair" and frequent bags under his eyes, which makes him sound like maybe he was kind of adorkable actually? he probably did not deserve all the grief we gave him

Paleontology Paul: a fellow counselor who may have been ordained? he made holy water for us once. he dresses like he's going on a dig. i think we joked about trying to set him up with Baltimore; i say "i think" because i have a bullet point in my notes that just says "paultimore" as if that means anything

The Katies: there's five people named Katy at NPC. one is a lifeguard, one does sports, one works the stables, and the other two are both counselors. Katy Quinn, aka Horse Katy, has a daughter named Susie

Derek "Turg" Turgle: Indie's counselor in training. about 16. wears brotanks and has his hair cut like Sokka's from A:tLA. he does yoga. at one point he sees a mysterious fancy cologne in the cabin and assumes it's Indie's, so he sprays himself with it and then immediately disappears into a spooky shadow realm/pocket dimension controlled by a youth-stealing witch. he's okay though; we rescued him

Torvold: a hot Swedish guy built like Thor. i think he was another camp counselor? he loves America and also gets possessed in the KFC/Pizza Hut by the fried-chicken-seeking ghost

the plot

there isn't one. it's more of an episodic campaign, which is pretty normal for this system

[petnews2day]

Permit for dog shelter upheld, new restrictions added

New Post has been published on https://petnews2day.com/pet-news/dog-news/permit-for-dog-shelter-upheld-new-restrictions-added/

Permit for dog shelter upheld, new restrictions added

Adam Rollins, Staff Writer

The Warren County Commission has upheld a permit for No Time To Spare Animal Rescue in Pendleton, but is adding extra restrictions on dogs at the facility.

Commissioners Joe Gildehaus and Matt Flake voted on Oct. 25 to allow the conditional use permit (CUP) for the nonprofit shelter. Commissioner Tom Meyer was absent.

The ruling mostly upholds a CUP that was granted to No Time To Spare by the county planning and zoning board in July. The CUP was under appeal by nearby neighbors, who claimed that noise and other alleged issues caused by the shelter are nuisances.

Despite the positive ruling for the shelter, the commission’s vote came with additional restrictions on how No Time To Spare is allowed to operate. Most notably, the commission is only allowing the shelter to take in dogs from Warren County or any adjacent county, but excluding St. Charles County.

Commissioner Flake noted that the need for an animal shelter in Warren County is clear, but that the shelter should remain explicitly focused on meeting that local need.

“I feel that if this is allowed … the dogs need to be limited to Warren County and adjoining counties only. No out-of-state dogs and no dogs from all over the state,” Flake commented. “It was part of the testimony how much Warren County needs this. I think there’s plenty of rescue (dogs) to be had in Warren County and the adjoining counties.”

To ensure compliance with the rule, No Time To Spare will have to keep track of information related to each dog the shelter brings in, and provide that info to the county in monthly reports.

The commissioners also chose to substantially increase the amount of liability insurance coverage that the nonprofit is required to carry for the shelter. The planning board had previously required $100,000 in liability coverage; the commission is requiring $1 million.

Gildehaus and Flake also chose to narrow the hours that dogs are allowed outside by two hours, in response to neighbors’ concerns about noise disturbance. Outside hours were reduced to 9 a.m. to 8 p.m.

The commissioners also set an upper limit on the number of adult dogs at the facility.

Here’s a full list of new restrictions being enacted by the commission:

• Dogs from Warren County and surrounding counties only, excluding St. Charles County. • No out of state animals or exotic animals. • Minimum $1 million liability insurance. • Maximum of 50 dogs with the exception of a pregnant/nursing female and its puppies. • No animals outdoors earlier than 9 a.m. or later than 8 p.m. • Monthly report provided to P&Z administrator tracking the dogs taken in and adopted out, along with each dog’s point of origin. • The planning and zoning administrator may inspect the shelter for compliance on any day during regular business hours.

Additionally, the county planning and zoning board in July had set requirements that the shelter address issues with a building setback violation, outstanding county fees, and wastewater runoff control. All three of those issues were quickly corrected before the matter even reached the county commission, noted Planning and Zoning Administrator Bill Roemer.

Staff Writer John Rohlf contributed to this report.

[pepprs]

also the way a student (🤮 @ me calling someone “a student” btw. Omg) said straight to my face “ppl are gonna keep thinking ur a student” today and i had to sit there like 😀

[nevermindirah]

Do you have any thoughts on the use of AAVE for Nile (or lack thereof) in TOG fanfiction? I've been reading some Book of Nile fic and some writers seem to write her as a Millennial™ (using words like "fave" and "woke") but never acknowledge her Blackness in her patterns of speech. I know we don't see her use as much AAVE in the films, but I would argue she's in situations where code-switching would be valued (first in a "professional" environment in the army, then around a group of non-Black strangers).

Hi anon! I have many thoughts on this and I'm honored you asked me! But I should start by saying I'm white and any thoughts Black fans and especially Black American fans have on this that they want to share would be beyond lovely. (I'm not gonna tag anybody bc that feels rude but please add onto this post if any of y'all see this and want to!)

The main reason I personally avoid AAVE for Nile in my own fics is because I'm not Black. But Nile-centric fics by Black writers tend to avoid using much of it too, at least from what I've noticed/understood, and my guess is it's largely for the reason you mention, that she's in situations that encourage code-switching.

In movie canon Nile is highly competent at tailoring her language to each situation she finds herself in. This fantastic linguistics analysis meta shows how skillfully Nile chooses her vocabulary and grammar to meet her goals with different conversation partners in different contexts. In comics canon Nile had a bunch of different civilian jobs before joining the Marines, so she would've had experience code-switching in the ways that made sense for all those different contexts as well as the Marines and her family and high school and wherever else she spent her time before we met her. And now she's spending her time with a handful of immortals none of whom are native English speakers and a fellow Black American but one with a Queen's English UK accent whose professional experience is in the CIA where high-status code-switching is often an absolute must for success or even survival.

Fics featuring Nile are charged with extrapolating from that to how it might show up in her use of language that she's coping with a traumatic separation from her family and her career and pretty much everything she's ever known and now she needs to be able to make herself understood to people who seem to care about her and each other but are super duper in crisis, three (soon to be four) of whom predate Modern English entirely and the only one who's anywhere near her contemporary she's not supposed to talk to for a century. All of these people are telling her that pretty much any contact with any mortals poses an existential threat to her and the rest of the group. How the FUCK is she supposed to cope with that, like, generally? And would it be a more effective way for her to cope if she talked to Andy Joe and Nicky using the speech patterns that she used to use with her mom and brother, to at least retain that part of her identity even if it means having to do a lot of explaining, or would it meet her needs better to prioritize Andy Joe and Nicky understanding what she means with her words over using the particular words and grammar forms she used with her family?

I've seen several fics, both Nile-centric / BoN and otherwise, explore this a little bit in how/whether Nile uses Millennial™ speak. It's often a theme in Nile texting Booker despite the exile because of the popular headcanon that he as The Tech Guy is the only other immortal who understands memes. But Nile's much-younger-than-Booker mom probably uses Boomer and/or Gen X memes and Andy has been adapting to new communication styles for forever as evidenced by her canon high level of fluency with standard-American-accented English.

Which brings us back to people avoiding AAVE because they're not Black and they don't want to make mistakes (or they're not Black and they don't want to get yelled at for making mistakes, though I think many people overestimate how much they'll get yelled at while underestimating how much these mistakes can hurt). I can imagine some Black fans hold back from using much AAVE in fic because they don't want to share in-group stuff with white people who are likely to then adopt and ruin it, as white people so often do with Black cultural stuff. Some links about this including a great Khadija Mbowe video. I'm saying this gently, anon, because you might not know: woke, an example you cited as Millennial™ speak, is AAVE, and that's gotten erased by so many white people appropriating it and using it incorrectly online.

And also there's the part where fandom is a hobby and you never know when you're reading a fic that's the very first thing someone's ever written outside of a school assignment. This cultural considerations of language shit takes a level of effort and skill that not everybody puts into every fic, or even could if they wanted to because they haven't had time to build their skills yet. It's definitely easier for non-Black fans to project our millennial feels onto Nile than to do the layers of research and self-reflection it requires to depict what Blackness might mean to Nile, and it's not surprising that often people sharing their hobby creations on the internet have gone the easier route. There's not even necessarily shame in doing what's easier. It's just frustrating and often hurtful when structural white supremacy means that 3-dimensional Black characters are rare in media and thoughtful explorations of them in fandom are seen by the majority of fans as not-easy to make and therefore Nile Freeman, the main character in The Old Guard (2020) dir. Gina Prince-Bythewood, has the least fic and meta and art made about her of our 5 main immortals.

I've been active in different fandoms off and on for twenty years and I barely managed to write 5,000 words about Sam Wilson across multiple different fics in the 7 years since I fell in love with him. There's an alchemy to which characters we connect with, and on top of that which characters we connect with in a way that causes us to create stuff about them. Something about Nile Freeman finally tipped me over the edge from a voracious reader to a voracious writer. It's not for me to judge which characters speak to other individuals to the level of creating content about them, but I do think it's important for us to notice, and then work to fight, the pattern where across this fandom as a whole Nile gets way less content, and way less depth in so much of the content that's in theory about her, than any of these other characters.

Anyway, back to language. My two long fics feature Nile with several Black friends — Copley and OCs and cameos from other media — but all of those characters except Alec Hardison from Leverage aren't American. It's very possible I'm guilty of stereotyping Black British speech patterns in I See Your Eyes Seek a Distant Shore. I watched hours and hours of Black haircare YouTube videos in the research for that fic and I modeled my OCs' speech patterns on what I heard from some of those YouTubers as well as what I've heard people like John Boyega and Idris Elba saying in interviews, but the thing about doing your best is you still might fuck up.

I'm slowly making progress on my WIP where Nile and Sam Wilson are cousins, and what ways of talking with a family member might be authentic for Nile is a major question I need to figure out. For that, I'm largely modeling my writing choices on how I hear my Black friends and colleagues talking to each other. I haven't overheard colleagues talking in an office in a long-ass time, but back when that was a thing, I remember seeing a ton of nuance in the different ways many of my Black colleagues would talk to each other. Different people have different personalities! And backgrounds! And priorities! A few jobs ago my department was about 1/3 Black and we worked closely with Obama administration staff many of whom were Black and there was SO MUCH VARIETY in how Black people talked to each other, about work and workplace-appropriate personal stuff, where I and other white coworkers could hear. There are a few work friends in particular who I have in my head when I'm trying to imagine how Sam and Nile might talk to each other. From the outside looking in, God DAMN is shit complicated, intellectually and interpersonally and spiritually, for Black people who are devoting their professional lives to public service in the United States.

One more aspect of this that I have big thoughts on but I need to take extra care in talking about is the idea of acknowledging Nile's Blackness in her patterns of speech. There's no one right way to be Black, and Nile's a fictional character created by a white dude but there are plenty of real-life Black Americans who don't use much or even any AAVE, for reasons that are complicated because of white supremacy. (Highly highly recommend this video by Shanspeare on the harms of the Oreo stereotype.)

Something that's not the same but has enough similarity that I think it's worth talking about is my personal experience with authenticity and American Jewish speech patterns. My Jewish family members don't talk like they're in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, and I've known lots of people who do talk that way (or the millennial version of it), some of whom have questioned my Jewishness because I don't talk that way. That hurts me. Sometimes when another Jew tells me some shit like "I've never heard a Jew say y'all'd've," I can respond with "well now you have asshole, bless your Yankee-ass heart," because the myth of Dixie is a racist lie but I will totally call white Northerners Yankees when they're being shitty to me for being Southern, and this particular Jew fucking revels in using "bless your heart" with maximum polite aggression, especially with said Yankees. But sometimes I don't have it in me to say anything and it just quietly hurts having an important part of me disbelieved by someone who shares that important part of me. The sting isn't quite the same when non-Jews disbelieve or discount my Jewishness, but that hurts too.

Who counts as authentically Jewish is a messy in-group conversation and it doesn't really make sense to explain it all here. Who counts as authentically Jewish is a matter of legal status for immigration, citizenship, and civil rights in Israel, and it's my number 2 reason after horrific treatment of Palestinians that I'm antizionist. But outside that extremely high-stakes legal situation, it can just feel really shitty to not be recognized as One Of Us, especially by your own people.

It can also feel really shitty to be The Only One of Your Kind in a group, even if that group is an immortal chosen family who all loves each other dearly. Sometimes especially in a situation like that where you know those people love you but there are certain things they don't get about you and will never quite be able to. I'm definitely projecting at least a little bit of my "lonely Jew who will be alone again for yet another Jewish holiday" stuff onto Nile when at the end of I See Your Eyes Seek a Distant Shore she's thinking about being the only Black immortal and moving away from the community she'd built with a mostly-Black group of mortals in that fic. Maybe that tracks, or maybe that's fucked up of me.

Basically, this got very long but it's complicated, writing about experiences that aren't your own takes skill which in turn takes time and practice to build, writing about experiences not your own that our society maligns can cause a lot of harm if done badly, it can also cause a lot of harm when a large enough portion of a fandom just decides to nope out of something that's difficult and risky because then there's just not much content about a character who deserves just a shit ton of loving and nuanced content, people are individuals and two people who come from the exact same cultural context might show that influence in all kinds of different ways, identity is complicated, language is complicated, writing is hard, and empathy and humility and doing our best aren't a guarantee of avoiding harm but they do go a long way in helping people create thoughtful content about a character as awesome and powerful and kind and messy and scared and curious and WORTHY as Nile Freeman.

[rainieclown]

DEADLY OBSESSION

michael myers x reader - chapter 3: blood pill

when you're in your room, you feel tired and lonely. it's been a long afternoon with doctors running around to find a new carer for you while miss burnham went home to recover. most of all, you were terrified that michael was being treated unfairly. there were sick rumours of doctor loomis mistreating patients, but you'd have to wait and see.

tags: angst, morning sickness, pregnancy/pregnancy tests

warnings: forced abortion, vomiting, angst, crying, yandere themes

huge trigger warning for (forced) abortions this chapter, i want to go into how patients are treated by the hospital as this is set in the 1980's and people in mental hospitals were treated cruelly around that time (esp in the halloween franchise) if you can't read this chapter, that's completely fine! i hope you're doing well, drink plenty of water and eat three meals - rin <3

michael had been gone for 4 weeks now, and you felt terrified. when you woke up this morning, you started vomiting and found that you can't move too quickly as you'll grow nauseous. miss burnham had visited, and was on crutches, only to be sent home by the administrator of the hospital. you felt lonely, they still hadn't found a free nurse as the hospital was pretty full, causing most of the staff to be overworked and unable to fit you on a schedule. so, doctor addison took you in on his more light schedule, he was simply researching cotard syndrome, and had three patients under his care for therapy and interviews about how they felt and how they became the way they are today. so, when you got up, after checking michael's room for any sign of him, you headed to the rec room where one of doctor addison's patients sat. they were talking, and the poor girl was truly convinced she was a vampire, referring to herself as "the mistress of the dark." you believed her name was thelma, but you weren't sure as she was never interested in talking to you and you just left her be. "thank you for your time, miss howcroft. i shall leave you to your undead activities." doctor addison bows his head before heading over to you.

"good morning, y/n. you look a little rough." the doctor greets, and you huff. "mhm. i feel sick, just spent 5 minutes throwing up." you sigh, and doctor addison hums, beginning to scribble down notes on a new page. "tell me your symptoms?" he suggests, and you hum. "nauseous, just feeling generally ill. i feel like i'm going to throw up." you tell him, and he hums, writing down the information you gave him. "morning sickness?" he suggests, looking up at you. "pfft, yeah maybe." you sigh, grabbing a cup to fill up with water. "is there any chance you could be pregnant?" he asks, and you choke on your drink. growing flustered, you stammer slightly, looking away from the man. "i'm guessing so from what i witnessed." he teases, nudging your side. "shut up..! i'm not pregnant." you huff, glancing at your stomach. "you could be, i'll get a test for you." he says, leaving the room.

you sigh, looking over at thelma who was staring at you. she makes a small noise as she realises she's been caught gawking, and you furrow your brows as she slinks away out of the room. you had noticed her wandering around curiously, sometimes spending her time with a burn victim. they seemed to get on pretty well, and you and doctor addison made a bet that they were secretly dating. when doctor addison returns, he hands you a thin box. "take this, and tell me the results asap." he smiles, pushing the box into your hands. "fine.. but i don't think i'm pregnant as morning sickness normally happens before this time." you note, but doctor addison corrects you. "no, morning sickness starts around the 4th to 6th week of pregnancy." he smiles, and you roll your eyes as you walk into the bathroom.

your heart dropped when you saw the results. you were pregnant. terrified of how the doctors would react, how miss burnham would react, but most importantly.. how would michael take it? would he be happy or would he ditch you? "fuck.." you whimper, tears streaking down your face. a few gentle knocks sound through the bathroom and you flinch. "y/n? are you done?" doctor addison calls through the door, and you whine as you open it up for him. "so..?" he asks softly, and you hand him the stick. "oh my... congratulations!" he smiles brightly, pulling you into a hug. you cry into his coat, and addison's smile drops as he rubs your back. "how will everyone react?" you whimper, and the blonde man sighs. "that i can't say, but we have to tell the board of your pregnancy. i'll leave it to you to tell mr. myers. come on, i'll take you to solitary to see him." he says, his british accent gentle and soothing. "thank you.. i'm scared but- i have to tell him at least." you sniffle, letting him lead you out of the room.

you've never been to solitary, as you normally stayed in your room or stowed away in the corner of the room. so seeing all the patients locked away and seemingly bored or distressed scared you. "is he okay?" you ask softly, and doctor addison shrugs. "i'm not sure.." he says softly, glancing at one of the more erratic patients in his cell. all of them were sound proof, inside and out, and were dark and cramped. "oh god.." you mumble, grabbing the doctors arm tightly for protection as you rest a hand over your stomach without realising. you get to michael's cell, and you see doctor loomis sat with him. michael spots you immediately, and his eyes brighten a little. you give him a small wave, upset at the bruises on his face and neck, desperate to get in there and hold him tightly. doctor addison gets his master key and unlocks a small panel on the door. "doctor loomis, i need to borrow mr myers." he says firmly as the older doctor turns. "ah, doctor addison. what a surprise." he grins, standing from his chair and turning his back to michael. "i'm just about done here. keep a close eye on him, he's deemed dangerous." doctor loomis says as he steps out.

you slip past the doctors and latch onto michael tightly, wrapping your arms around his neck, forgetting about his bruises. he doesn't seem to care as his shackled hands find your hips, holding you closer. "i've missed you.." you mumble, moving away to cup his face in your hands. "me too. are you alright?" he rasps, voice rough from lack of use. you nod slightly, leaning your forehead against his as you gently brush his hair with your fingers. "how peculiar. i've never seen anyone get a positive reaction out of him." doctor loomis notes, and addison hums. "they have a special bond, but we need to let them have a private conversation as i tell the board the situation." he says, closing the door to speak to loomis privately as well.

"are you alright?" you ask, still resting one of your hands on his cheek. "mhm. i'm fine." he replies, nuzzling into your neck as he pulls you fully onto his lap. the two of you sit in a comfortable silence as you curl into his chest. "how long until you get out?" you ask after a while, and michael hums. "soon." he responds, kissing the top of your head. "can i tell you something..?" you continue, voice quiet. "of course." he says, tilting your chin with his finger so you would look at him. "i'm pregnant.." you announce, averting your gaze from his. michael smiles, the thought of you swelling with his child was so hot to him, a true marking, but the thought of having a kid annoyed him. he doesn't like kids... but he'd make an exception for you. "michael..?" you mumble, tears welling in your eyes.

"don't worry, i'm happy." he smiles, nuzzling his nose against yours. you smile, kissing him softly. "thank you for not turning me away.." you sigh happily and michael rolls his eyes. "i would never. you're mine now, forever." he mumbles, resting his large hand on your stomach. you feel warm inside, and despite being terrified of the teen pregnancy, you felt happy that you weren't in this alone. the door opens abruptly, and you jump. "y/n, please come with me so we can talk." doctor loomis crosses his arms and you feel unsafe as you shuffle closer to michael. "talk to me here.." you say quietly, not willing to leave michael again, and he clearly feels the same way as he holds you tighter- this time being careful of your stomach. "fine. i'm assuming you've told him of your predicament." doctor loomis adjusts his glasses before continuing. "the board just won't allow a pregnancy between two patients, let alone between two 17 year olds." he continues as doctor addison looks away. "i'm sorry, but we're going to have to perform an abortion." the blonde sighs from where he stood. "what?! no!" you protest, draping your arms around your stomach protectively. "don't worry, y/n. it'll be over before you know it." doctor loomis smiles.

michael moves to stand, putting you down carefully and moving in front of you. "don't touch them." he says, voice rough as he speaks up. "i'm afraid you have no say in the matters, myers. hand them over." loomis says, folding his arms. "no." he furrows his brows, feeling you clutch the back of his shirt as you nuzzle into his back. "myers, this is crucial. let me take y/n to my operation room." loomis says sternly, taking a step closer. "over my dead body." he growls, and loomis simply smiles again. "we'll dig one hole." he shoots back, grabbing michael's wrist and stabbing a syringe into his vein. michael feels himself growing weaker slowly, but his urge to protect you- to protect his baby- is too much. tugging on his shackles, he tries to lunge for the doctor, but alas, he slumps to his knees as you gasp, moving to help him.

"now then, y/n. come with me please." loomis smiles at you, taking your arm into his hand to pull you from michael. "no! michael, help!" you yelp, trying to struggle. "enough, doctor loomis! you can't hold my patient like that." addison steps up, trying to pull you from the older doctor. "now now, addison. you don't want to get in trouble for stopping the process now, would you?" loomis teases, and you feel dizzy at how fast the doctor had pulled you. michael tries to grab you again, but he collapses fully onto the floor, unable to help you as you cry. eventually, a needle pricks your neck and you cry in pain before growing dizzy. "michael..!" you whimper as your world goes dark.

when you awaken, you're lay in your bed, snugly wrapped up in your blankets but something's wrong. you feel... empty. you can just tell that your baby was gone, and you start to sob. you cry for hours, feeling no motivation to get up to dry your tears or get some water for your dry throat. you just cry, clutching your stomach as you roll onto your side. your baby wasn't even a month into development, and they had stripped you of them. you barely got to experience pregnancy with michael, barely got to feel like a parent. your door clicks open, and you don't even react as you sob into your pillow. "y/n." a gruff voice starts, and you finally turn. michael moves over to your bed, and you scramble to hug him tightly. "they- they..!" you wail, and michael sighs as he holds you close to his chest.

michael didn't feel anything, but the sight of you mourning made him feel sick. he wanted revenge on the facility for making you feel like this, wanted to murder anyone who hurt you. "my baby..!" you cry, still clutching your tummy as he holds you. michael kisses your head softly, rubbing your belly for you. "it's okay. they won't get away with this. i'll make sure of it." he grumbles, a tinge of anger in his voice. "they killed my baby.." you whimper, hands coming up to grasp onto michael instead, his presence comforted you as you guessed he was feeling the same way. "it's alright.. i'll make sure they never hurt you again." michael states, laying down with you carefully as you settle with him, letting you cry yourself to sleep into his chest.

time passes, and doctor addison grants michael access to stay in your room whilst you mourn. he feels rage boiling his blood as he has to force you to eat, to drink, to shower, to take medication, to take care of yourself at all. they made you like this, and he was going to make them pay for every ounce of distress that filled your mind. currently, you were fast asleep against his chest, mumbling something incoherent in your sleep. michael can't sleep, and he doesn't mind staying awake until you feel better even if it kills him. you were his top priority, his obsession. he loved you deeply, and cared about what happened to you.

they had destroyed all progress you had made, you couldn't even get out of bed to go to therapy. michael gives you a small kiss on your forehead as you shuffle in your sleep slightly, your hands clutching his shirt tightly. tears are slipping from your closed eyes as you sleep, and michael gently rubs them away, leaning in again to kiss you softly. you relax slightly, but when he pulls away you whimper. "my baby..!" you cry despite being asleep. michael lets out a small breath as he rubs your back, fluttering soft kisses over your face so that you would settle again. "michael..?" you mumble, and he hums softly. "it's okay, i'm here." he says back, unsure if you're still sleeping or not.

you doze off again, content in your dream, still grasping his shirt tightly to keep him close. michael checks the time behind him, it was 3:41 am, time was going so slow. michael's throat was dry, and he can't fight the urge to go get water. slowly, he slips from your grip and gets up, unknown to the fact that despite unconscious you knew he left. as he gets a drink from the tap in the bathroom, you cry softly, curling in on yourself. your cries grow distressed as you lurch up, wide awake. "mike!" you yelp, hands trembling as you search for him. the other patient steps from the bathroom quickly, stalking over to grab you tightly. you settle with your head on his chest as he bundles you up into his arms. "it's okay.." he mumbles as your tears wet his shirt. "why did they do this to me..?" you cry, looping your arms under his to pull him closer. "because they don't care about anyone in this hospital." michael's reply is sour, and he moves back to the bed with you.

you sniffle as he lays you down, and you make grabby hands at him. chuckling, michael joins you and wraps you both up in the covers. "thank you for being here.." you mumble, nuzzling into his chest as you wrap your arms around his middle. "mhm, i love you." he smiles, kissing your head softly. "i.. i love you too." you reply softly, smiling brightly. after a few moments of silence, michael assumes you've fallen asleep but your small voice mumbles his name. "hm?" he looks down at you. "if we get the chance, would you like to have kids?" you ask softly, and michael is slightly taken aback. "in here or when we get out?" he questions back and you shrug. "either." you mumble, and michael thinks. "absolutely. i'll do anything for you." he says softly, "besides, the thought of you being full of my kids is hot as fuck." he adds teasingly, enjoying how you fluster. "thank you.." you mumble to the first part as he gives you a soft kiss.

michael pulls your leg over his hips and you hum, happily shuffling closer to him. "you're so cute.." michael whispers as you settle on him. "stop." you whine, hiding your smile. "mm, no." he teases, lifting your head to give you a soft kiss. three soft knocks interrupt your moment, and you sit up. "it's almost 4 am, who..?" you trail off as michael gets up, gesturing for you to stay put. slowly, michael peels the door open and is surprised to see doctor addison standing there. "may i come in?" he asks softly, and michael looks back to you. you seem uncomfortable, yet nod, so michael lets him in. "i just want to apologise.. i shouldn't of told them, i just... my research means anything to me and if i slip up it will mean nothing." he explains, and michael hides you protectively behind him.

you sniffle slightly, leaning against michael's shoulder. "however, if anything were to reoccur... i promise i won't tell as long as i can keep doing my research." he says, placing another pregnancy test on your bedside table. you eye it curiously, and despite feeling a lot of pain you know it's always possible to try again. "thank you.." you mumble, circling your arms fully around michael as he continues to watch the doctor's every move. "i hope you can find it in you to forgive me, y/n.. i think miss burnham is coming back soon so hopefully you both can do art therapy again." he smiles, leaving the room after bidding farewell.

michael grabs the test, offering it to you. "what do you think?" he asks softly, and you take the box from him. "i might still need some time, but i will happily try again." you smile, and michael smiles back.

[defractum]

A thing I've been sitting on for a while so thought I might as well pour it out as a headcanon for post-CQL. (If anyone wants to write this as an actual fic, please do)

 -

So the entire Mo family is dead right? And that kind of gets forgotten, because ~plot happens~ but what if after canon, when WWX has finished travelling the world and come back to Lan Wangji, a very disgruntled messenger arrives at Cloud Recesses looking for Mo Xuanyu

And WWX is like I mean. I guess that's me.

And he gets handed a whole bunch of paperwork, some contracts, a seal, and he's like ?? what is all this?

And the messenger is from the local administrative office and he's been travelling ALL OVER trying to track down Mo Xuanyu because he's the only surviving member of the Mo family, which means that the entire estate and the land and the village is now his

And WWX's like Haha, well I'm not… technically Mo Xuanyu, except the administrative office doesn't care what fucking name he's going by now. So what if he's decided to tell everyone to call him by some dead evil guy's name (they're like '...weird flex, but okay'), he was born Mo Xuanyu and in the eyes of the law, the estate is his

(They just really want to get rid of it: lots of disputes are coming up, the staff have questions about getting paid, someone has to pay for the funerals of all the family members lying around embalmed in the funeral home, and it sure ain't gonna be the administrative office, nope.)

And WWX is like Okay, well, it's kind of not really my responsibility, but also I do feel bad for all the people just trying to do their jobs and survive, and also those dead bodies probably really need taking care of, it's been a year, oops, so he heads down there to take a look at things

LWJ is busy being His Excellency and can't go with him and is super put out because he just got WWX back! They have just about managed to admit some Feelings! WWX was going to stay in Gusu with him! Was the 16 years of misery not enough?? Must he suffer? again?? Woe is him. Giant sulking baby Lan Wangji, essentially

WWX heads to Mo Estate with the intention of sorting everything out ASAP because he is also desperate to get back to LWJ and get dicked, you know? Except legal administration is a bitch. There's taxes, and salaries, and tithes, aka things he knows nothing about because he was never gonna be a Sect Leader

Plus, the villagers hear that they have a new lord and come to pay their respects and also bring all of their problems. He gets through most of it with common sense and an air of sounding like he knows what he's talking about.

He does not know what he's talking about.

(He does, actually, know more than he thinks, because heading up a small village of Wen gave him more practical experience in helping people than being Jiang Head Disciple ever did)

(He also finds out Mo Xuanyu's birth name for the first time because it's on some forgotten, crumpled paperwork and is slightly stunned with the realisation that literally no one alive even knows it, because wow, did you not want to be punched by Mo Xuanyu feelings in this post? Too bad.)

LWJ eventually comes looking for him after a month or so, having finally managed to rearrange all his meetings and clear out a week or two, and finds him holding audiences. LWJ waits, very patiently he thinks, for him to sort out property disputes over pigs and donkeys, and then drags him into one of the bedrooms for some private time

(Sex. It's sex. It's loud, passionate kinky sex, followed by equally loud but slightly less kinky sex, followed by slightly quieter cuddly sex.)

LWJ can see what a great job WWX is doing running the estate, and also has come to the realisation that WWX is now stonking rich! A titled and landed Lord! No longer has he the need to rely on LWJ and his Gusu coffers! He can pamper himself now! LWJ is possessed by a completely irrational fear that WWX no longer has any need for him and, like the uncommunicative gremlin he is, just tells WWX that he is doing a very good job of running the estate

WWX is like Aw, LWJ said I'm doing a good job!! Also, hey, Lan Wangji, you're a competent, competent man, would you like to stick around for the interviews? I'm trying to find someone who is a good match for me and you can give your opinion

LWJ, silently: ME. IT'S ME. I AM A GOOD MATCH FOR YOU. D:

LWJ, outwardly: Mn.

So he follows WWX to these interviews and WWX has all these criteria like Listens carefully to people and Good with numbers and strategy and Level-headed and Fair and Communicative and LWJ is sitting grumpily next to him internally pouting like 'I match all of these criteria, hmph'

(After some self-examination, he maybe concedes on the 'communicative' point.)

Anyway, WWX listens to all his opinions on all of them, and he seems pretty keen on his one woman who, well, under normal circumstances LWJ would also quite like her, she seemed a very practical and intelligent person, but given current circumstances, he's just going to go back to Gusu and maybe cry for a few days

WWX cheerily waves him goodbye, LWJ wishes him all the best and goes home and drowns himself in Chief Cultivator work

When WWX turns up at Cloud Recesses two weeks later, he is super confused. WWX starts telling him off, saying that the juniors told him how hard he's been working and not sleeping and honestly, it's only been two weeks of WWX not looking over his shoulder, but it's okay because he's here now and doesn't intend on leaving ever again, and also he brings treats because he's not poor and he can afford to spoil his Lan-er-gege now!

LWJ: ??

After the nth round of misunderstandings, LWJ finally, finally realises that the interviews were for someone to manage the estate for Wei Wuxian so that he doesn't have to stay there. Understanding dawns. LWJ's crops are thriving, his skin is clear.

There is some shouting, there are tears, there's a fair bit of wailing. There's a cracked teacup and the dramatic thwump of WWX throwing himself across the room onto LWJ's lap. There's some more loud, enthusiastic kinky sex. The end.

(Buy me a ko-fi)