#also this was just an excuse to use that photo somehow i think it’s legitimately the funniest thing on the internet

[sieglinde-freud]

had these two fire emblem engaged for 90% of my first run and this is how i think their dynamic was

[internalsealpanic]

Cosmonauts

Summary: You always call Tim space related nicknames. No one knows why.

A/n: This is technically a follow up to Art Gallery Smile but it can be read on its own. This was posted on mobile so Idk how bad it got formatted. Will edit when I get to my laptop.

Warnings: mentions of panic attack and anxiety. No graphic detail but just in case. (Yes, I gave Tim anxiety. Fight me.)

Masterlist

Series Masterlist

“IT WAS ZOMBIE ADJACENT,” Roz protests, shoving another one of Tim’s fries into her gaping maw in a vain attempt to stop the petulant pout retching its way to her lips. You roll your eyes hard enough that your entire head follows along with their movement, taking a nibble of your own fries. Roz scowls, mouth twitching the way yours does (4 times to the left and 4 and a half times to the right) it was honestly the only way to tell that you two were related in any shape or form. 

“It wasn’t even close, you deep-fried stick of margarine,”

“It shambled, didn’t it?”

 

“So does Space Case over here when you don’t funnel enough caffeine into his system, what’s your point?” You bite out leaning back, slinging your arm over the back of the bench and over Tim’s shoulder making his breath hitch. Tim can feel his skin heat up. For once, he’s thankful for just how much Roz hordes your attention.  He’s starting to run out of excuses for the color of his cheeks. Not that you ever fell for any of it from the way you hummed every time he stammered out his excuse. 

 

Based on the way your hand flexes and not so subtly moves away, you noticed his flush but made no comment. Instead, you grin- all sharp teeth and cocksure and smug bastard- leveling your older cousin a look which roughly translated to ‘Checkmate, motherfucker’. Despite his apprehension, Tim can’t help the smile that twitched on to his lips. Your eyes flickered to him. It might just be his imagination but Tim was pretty sure he saw fondness chip away at your smug grin. Tim kind of wants to lean into your arm but instead, he leans forward pretending to pay attention hiding his smile in his hands. His face is gonna get tired from smiling too much around you. 

"It wasn't even close,"

"It was freaky looking,"

"Damn woman, you're being real judgy there,"

“Back me up here Duckie!” Roz screeches, shoulders hiking up making her look like a frazzled cat about to hiss pulling Tim away from his reverie. You roll your eyes all the way to the back of your head while Steph just snorts. Tim sighs. None of you have stopped calling him ‘Duckie’ or ‘Ducktective’ after that stint of being ‘Drake’.  Admittedly, it wasn’t his best idea but you didn’t have to laugh that hard and slap your knee. When you were done laughing, you vehemently protested the name change by wearing your precious, well-kept, one of a kind Red Robin hoodie for the duration of the ‘Drake’ thing. You had said it was to bring him back to his senses (sense of fashion).  Maybe you just wanted to fluster him. He certainly couldn’t put it past you. It worked. Oh, it definitely worked. Now, all he could think about was how nice you looked in his colors which inevitably lead him to think about how nice you would look in his shirts, in his clothes- Damn it. He’s doing it again. 

Roz clears her throat. It is loud and rough and it makes all of you wince despite the already loud atmosphere of the cafeteria. Really what does Roz expect him to say? One, Tim wasn’t fully paying attention. How could he when you two are smooshed together on a cramped cafeteria bench with you still wearing your Red Robin hoodie? Tim’s surprised he isn’t keeling over. Two- 

 

“See! Even our darling-” Tim’s brain short circuits. “Space Cadet can’t even defend your bullshit,” you laugh reaching over to Roz’s drink leaning a little too close to Tim’s face. He can almost feel the heat radiating off your skin. 

 

If I lean in just a little more, I could probably…

 

“It isn’t bullshit!”

 

“You’re right! Bullshit has more substance-”

 

“Sooooo, what’s with all the space nicknames for Tim? When do I get one?” Steph asks casually, popping another of Tim’s fries into her mouth. 

 

Has he even eaten any of his fries? It’s almost gone and he’s eaten at most one.

 

You choke making a pained noise, likely due to said carbonated drink going into your nostrils (and possibly your lungs), as you turn away. Your neck visibly red from where Tim is sitting. Based on the sparkle in Steph’s eyes, she can see it too. A manic grin spreads on Roz’s face wide enough that Tim legitimately worries that it’ll split her face wide open. A shrill sort of giggle escapes her which has you whipping your head to her direction to scowl at her. It does absolutely nothing to deter the sheer glee on her face as she sneers back to you. Some secret conversation passes between the two of you. Tim and Steph watch in slow motion as mortification creeps on to your face. 

 

Suddenly (not really), Tim’s thankful that his only sister is practically a saint. At least compared to the horror that is Roz. 

 

Actually, now that he thinks about it, you have a plethora of space-themed nicknames for him when you aren’t busy calling him whatever endearingly aggravating name Steph came up with that week. 

 

Cosmo

 

Space Case

 

Space Nuts

 

Rocket Man

Martian Manhunter

 

ET

 

Marvin (the Martian)

 

And your favorite, Cosmonaut.

 

At first, he figures it was because of his obsession love for Star Wars and Star Trek but no, that couldn’t be it since you had started calling him that long before you two ended up marathoning the entirety of Star Trek instead of working on your project. He can still remember just how engrossed you looked while watching as you hugged your knees to your chest leaning forward as you waited for the next episode to start up with bated breath. Your features highlighted by the glow of the laptop screen making it very easy for Tim to memorize the contours and angles of your expression. Yet another moment Tim really wanted to capture with a photo. You even did your mouth twitch thing without noticing.

 

 He really wanted to just keep an entire album of all the different expressions you made. Wait. That sounds weird. Does it sound weird? It probably does.

 

 Then again, maybe you called him those because of just how much of a weirdo he was. He couldn’t blame you if you did. But he found that highly unlikely. Sure, you can be mean at times (a lot of times) but you were too oblique for that. Years in customer service made sure of that. Your jabs were usually of the subtler, more needling variety. The type that makes you pause for too long.  Plus, you said every nickname with a fondness that made his heart skip a beat. It was like when you called Roz or Steph ‘Fucker’. Maybe a little warmer. Or he could just be imagining that. Probably. Hopefully not. It was hard to get the honey-sweet way you said them out of his head.

 

Maybe they were just jabs. Lighthearted one. They could have just had easily been comments on just how much he spaced out. Tim has a tendency to live in his own head and it shows especially when he’s stressed or tired or both. Sometimes he would completely shut down as a result of excess anxiety. He can still remember the number of times he had let his anxieties run rampant letting them drag him away from the moment. His breaths were too quick to back then. He felt like he was gonna faint but then you just smiled at him like you were there for him which as it turned out you were. You gently squeezed each segment of his fingers until his breaths slowed. Even when he did fully calm down, you didn’t relinquish his hand. You held them firmly in your own even as you looked entirely unsure of what to do and what to say. You didn’t whisper the usual ‘you’re ok’ or the classic ‘you’ll be fine’. No, you just sat there with him quietly. Letting his feelings ebb and flow as he needed them to. 

 

Tim really isn’t sure what he did to deserve even knowing someone like you but he would do it again and again if it meant being able to stick close to you. 

 

Roz, ever the agent of chaos, throws a conspiratorial smile around the table like a flail. You look like you’ve been hit by one.

 

“Sorry, Steph. You won’t get one,” she says glancing at you. Steph pouts before she and Tim follow Roz’s gaze expecting you to glower or snarl or get up to deck her. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time. You just kind of sit there frozen and mortified with a face that simply says ‘Oh. God. This is happening.’. All you can really do is mouth a ‘fuck you’. This obviously pleases Roz. Say what you will about Roz, but there is abso-fucking-lutely no denying that she is petty as hell when it comes to revenge. Nothing is sacred to this woman. Nothing.

 

“Why’s that?” Steph asks innocently, smiling around her bendy straw also enjoying this rare chance to torment you. 

 

“I’m so glad you asked!” Roz answers her voice twisting into a horrifying facsimile of a daytime talk show host. You peel your arm away from the backrest and place your arms over your head and neck as you do in an earthquake drill bracing for impact. By the way, you were shaking, you’d think there was an actual earthquake. Your reasoning can’t be that stupid. 

 

“My dear Stephanie-” Steph scrunches her nose at the overly sweet tone Roz lathers on her name but makes no move to interrupt. “(y/n) only uses space-related nicknames for people they think are- and I quote- ‘waaaaaay outta their league’,” You let out a pained groan and Steph’s face unfurls as she lets out the loudest snort, loud enough to draw the attention of several tables around them. 

 

Tim’s mind is still reeling, still trying to process what Roz just said. 

 

Him?

 

Out of your league? 

 

Excuse him, isn’t it the other way around? 

 

What the hell? 

 

“Tim, for the love of Alfred, please unhear that,” you plead wetly, parking your head out just enough for Tim to see just how red your face has gotten. “God, please unhear it or I might just die,” Tim kind of didn’t doubt that you would. Steph somehow laughs even louder at this. Roz, not one to miss pouring salt in the wound, laughs along with her. You look like you wanted to implode out of existence.  You could certainly try but Tim seriously doubts the universe is kind enough to let you escape. 

 

Yeah, Tim’s brain has officially left the building. He’ll be back at 9 o’clock sharp tomorrow. Promise. 

 

“You mean to tell me that-” Steph chokes, unable to control her laughing fit. “-You’re telling me that you’ve been watching them pine for each other for over a year now and you just let them?!” Steph wheezes still holding her stomach.  

 

Roz looks offended and makes a whiny little noise. “Weeeell, technically I offered to wingman-”

 

“YOU WERE GONNA CHARGE ME FIFTY BUCKS,” 

 

“Hey, matchmaking is hard,”

 

“It isn’t worth fifty bucks!”

 

“You’re right! It is worth so much more,”

 

“God, I hate you,” you groan into the table. 

 

“God can’t help you now, kid,”

Tim frowns, mind backtracking to dissect the information. Apparently, his brain decided to clock back in. 

 

They knew. Even Roz ‘I don’t give a shit what you do as long as it doesn’t affect me’ Andrada, noticed. Was he that obvious?

A year? Wait. No. Over a year. They knew about this for over a year. 

Lastly, what do you mean each other?! As in mutual? Mutual pining? 

As if reading his thoughts, you ask “Wait… what do you mean each other?”

 

Roz blinks at you not entirely sure if you’re being funny. When you give her a look, she slumps back in her chair. “I’m related to a dumbass,”

 

“That you are. Speaking of dumbasses-” Steph whips her attention to Tim giving him a shit-eating grin.”-You said you were waiting for the perfect opportunity to ask (y/n) out, right?” Steph waves her hands doing jazz hands as she points at your still dumbstruck figure. She’s smiling as if she was the world’s best wingman at the moment.

 

 Tim suppresses a groan. “This isn’t exactly how I pictured it,”

 

Roz reaches into her pocket and produces a lighter. Grabbing the last of Tim’s fries and lighting it. “There. Mood lighting. Do the thing.”

 

“Ah yes, because surely the scent of burning potatoes is gonna sweep (y/n ) off their feet,”  Tim said flatly crossing his arms. He knows he’s definitely focusing on the wrong thing but as with all things it was easier to procrastinate. This is especially true when you’re afraid of the outcome.   

 

Roz huffs, waving the fry to extinguish it and muttering something about beggars and choosers. “Trust me kid that isn’t hard to do. Besides, did you not hear the part where I quoted (y/n) about you being ‘outta their league’,” You open your mouth to protest but slam it shut when Roz gives you a lopsided grin looking like she had a mountain of dirt on you which she likely did. He was definitely thankful that she has never met his family. He’s pretty sure Gotham wouldn’t survive. 

 

“How could I possibly be out of (y/n)’s league. I- I don’t- I mean- I’m not-”

 

Your body twists his way fast enough that he’s sure you either have whiplash or a twisted spine. Your eyes are set on him glowering as if he’d said something wrong. He’s pretty sure he didn’t although he did have a talent for putting his foot in his mouth. Your jaw is set tight, your teeth almost grind. He could see the tight hitch in your shoulders. He is 100% sure you’re going to deck him. 

 

“Do you want it listed alphabetically or what?”

 

“What?”

 

“Structure it like an argumentative essay. Speak nerd.” Roz instructs, earning her the full force of your glare. Your face pinches even more. Maybe this was the part where you implode. 

 

You suck in a calming breath before turning back to Tim. 

 

“Timothy Jackson Drake-Wayne, you are a fucking moron, and here’s why:” Taking another breath, you turn to face him fully your cheeks reddening but you press on either from pure unadulterated spite or determination. 

 

“You quite literally co-run a multibillion-dollar corporation. You’ve been doing that since you were seventeen apparently. You know several languages and you are not only fluent but proficient. You’re well versed in an insane amount of fighting styles. You are the smartest dumbass I know-” 

“Preach!” Steph jokes. 

 

“-You can basically operate any machinery I put in front of you. I have no doubt you can Macgyver one up if you fucking wanted. You could hack into any system you want just as a joke. You could probably throw the entire global economy into the toilet just for shits and giggles. Need I go on?”

 

Tim looks at you wide-eyed and speechless. You shrink a little as he continues to gape at you but you keep looking him in the eyes daring him to refute your claims. Really what was there to say? As much as he wants to come up with something witty to snap back at you, his chest is too crowded with warmth from the absolute sincerity of your voice. He knows you didn’t set out to make him fall deeper in love with you but he feels like he’s in free fall with your gravity pulling him downwards. Tim can feel the heat rising to the tips of his ears. 

 

You shrink again, your mouth twitching. “I-” Another calming breath. “I said too much. But my point stands!” The infinitesimal gap he felt between the two of you practically vanished. Still, he could do nothing but stare. Words fail him in the most inopportune moments even when you look so desperate for any kind of response.  You swallow thickly looking like you think you’ve ruined everything when the fact was you haven’t. Quite the opposite really. Tim feels like he could take on the entirety of Gotham’s rogue gallery right now. Still, his brain was drawing a blank. 

 

“Mood,” His brain has short-circuited and is now beyond repair. His palm is in his face before he even sees your reaction. You give him an entire speech about how great he is and all he can say is ‘mood’. Looking over at Steph and seeing her phone on her hands, he can tell she’s already transcribing the events to the group chat. Well, It can’t get any worse. 

 

You giggle snort eyes slamming shut from the force of your laughter. Joy suffuses throughout your tense body, loosening your tense muscles. “Thank you for proving my point,” you say between gasps.  

 

Tim falls victim to the infectious smile spreading on your face. He feels the warmth crowding his chest grow fuzzy. 

 

Now’s your chance.  

 

Tim takes a steadying breath. He rolls his shoulder back to straighten his posture. He waits for you to calm yourself a bit. When you do, he asks as confidently as he can “Are you free this Saturday?”

 

“No,”

 

Oh crap. He knew he screwed up. He feels cold seep into his feet.  

 

You shake your head at his panic. “I work Saturday, ET,”

 

“Oh, I-”

 

“I have all of Sunday off though,” A hum of excitement spreads through his limbs. “Name your time,”

 

“9 AM?”

 

You give him a look roughly translating to ‘You aren’t going to lose sleep over a date, so help me’.

 

“11:30?” He corrects. You smile and hum seemingly making the oxygen in the atmosphere disappear. He finds that he doesn’t mind, not when he feels like he’s floating on zero gravity. 

 

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

Bonus: 

 

Steph: Tim’s a dumbass😌🙃

Damian: Thank you for stating the obvious, Brown. 

Step: 🙄 Do you wanna hear about it or not?

Dick: 👀We’re listening…

Steph: (Y/n) made this whole speech about Tim and all Tim could say was 'mood' cycgu9c8ychic8td 5d8fcouv9ygpuv

Jason: F

Duke: F

Cass: F

Babs: F

Dick: F

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

Thanks for reading!!!!!

Taglist:

@idkmanicantenglish, @batarella, @batarella-mini, @birdy-bat-writes, @anothertimdrakestan, @founduebitches , @lucy-roo

[akvtsuki-ari]

Sweetheart (Ch.1)

Warnings: Mentions of BDSM and bunch of other kinks but nothing sexual in this chapter lol. Sub!Spencer and Femdom!Reader 

Length: 5.3k 

Authors Note: this is hands down the most self-indulgent shit ive ever wrote but do i care? the answer is no dsjk  but this that series i had planned where the reader introduces spencer to proper BDSM and all that. hoping to make this fic kinda informative also lol. also im uploading this fic on ao3 as well. also no tags for this fic bc its really specific and ill probably be writing for it for a while! sorry about that

Plot Summary: Spencer Reid just wanted to be.., well, you know. He doesn’t expect to find much when he signs up for a BDSM dating website but somehow he manages you and he couldn’t be more delighted

Spencer Reid was certainly a lot of things. He was a lover of the arts, someone who had a particular affinity for 15th-century literature, a magician at best, a theater nerd at worst, and a teacher when life called for it. He loves the world even when it's really dark and he loves sleeping in even more. He loves his friends and they love him too - even when they pretend that his random facts annoy them. Spencer Reid was a friend, an FBI agent, a genius with an IQ of 187, and a son to a mother he loves wholly. He was a lot of things and for the most part - he knew a lot about what he really loved to do. He supposed that it's been like that his whole life.

It's not everyday that he discovers something new about himself. About everything else? Always. He loves to learn, but about himself? There's never all that much on the frontier.

It's hard to say, because of that, when Spencer discovered he was a sub. It's difficult to pinpoint a specific time and place, or even how the pieces got put together. He just remembers how it felt when it hit him, like a freight train going 100 miles an hour into a concrete wall. Or a plane crashing onto an island. Or like a fly hitting the glass panes of a delivery truck. He remembers the feeling when he was deftly reminded of this fact. Spencer Reid was a sub - through and through and he wasn't really sure what to make of it.

Surprisingly to most of his direct peers, Spencer wasn't a virgin. He'd had sex with 2 people who he'd been kinda friends with at some point, but it always got a little weird after that. The second time though, the girl ended up choking him a little bit when she got off and Spencer thought he had died. Not in a bad way, more in a "I'm so turned on by this I feel like I've genuinely gone to heaven," sort of way. He didn't think it was possible for a sexual encounter to make him feel like that but it did. It didn't stop after that either, which was the most agitating part. 

Spencer doesn't consider himself a sexual person. Sex is about intimacy and companionship, and hopefully love when he finds that someday. Sex isn't necessarily about pleasure but that wasn't an easy lesson to learn.

Spencer just wanted to understand - so like any great genius he participated in thought experiments. It's normally a female superhero/supervillain that crosses his mind (he has an affinity for Poison Ivy), and he just kinda imagines what it would be like if they did what she did. The choking turned him on, but it wasn't enough. Through that, he figures out that he had more than a choking kink and that he was more than a little interested in a partner having complete access to him. He thought about it for weeks and the getting off was working for him but he couldn't get the fantasy out of his head. He wanted more - he wanted someone to fulfill his wishes.

It was too much for him to ignore. Those months of being able to hold off through masturbating are over and he's just sorta itching. Aching to act on those impulses with another person who can give him what he needs, and he doesn't want it to be transactional. Maybe it's too ideal to want a partner out of such an endeavor but was it so wrong? To want real affection and romance from someone who could also overpower him wasn't a crime and he'd be damned if he pretended to want any less. Spencer was just searching, even if it was rather desperately. 

So, when Spencer finds himself on a BDSM dating site and he feels like his life is in shambles, he can only blame himself. It's not something he'd normally do but he's getting a little more than relentless about it but he also just wants to see what's out there. He's so out of it was it happens, it felt like he was being possessed as he made a fake email and wrote out his account information. Definitely blaming it on possession, he thinks. 

It's too late to go back, as he scrolls through tons of profiles of rather intense looking people. He's not surprised, this is where people go to express themselves. They're entitled to that, it just sucks since he's just not ready for such levels of intensity. He wonders if he's in too deep yet, but he figures he'd hit that mark a long time ago and keeps scrolling through profiles. There wasn't much to go off of, many people not choosing to use photos for the sake of anonymity, which was good for Spencer. He clicks onto his own profile, reading his own bio carefully.

USERNAME: DOC187 

SUB/ SWITCH / DOM 

M / F / O

FETISHES: N/A

BIO: Interest in a dominant female companion. Completely inexperienced.

Spencer feels ridiculous, but he doubts anyone would even message him. He doesn't have much on his profile and he keeps things short for that purpose. He wanted to stay as low to the ground as possible - more curious to explore what was going in the world than to find anything legitimate. He scrolls through hundreds of profiles, mostly of people who were BDSM vets looking for new connections or fun. Some people catch his eye but they don't match his interests so he doesn't bother.

Except, one profile. The bio was beyond interesting to Spencer.

USERNAME: MISS—LILAC

SUB / SWITCH / DOM 

M / F / O 

FETISHES: Sadomasochist, Degradation, Humiliation, Pegging, Overstimulation, Edging, Crossdressing, Exhibitionism, Mutual Masturbation, Dacryphilia, Shibari/Gags/Bondage, Wax Play, Impact Play, Breath Play, General Sensation Play, Discipline, Collaring, Begging. Willing to try most things. 

BIO: Interested in submissive males of any experience level. Helps if you're interesting and like to read and watch indie films. Looking for genuine connection and plenty of good banter. Curly hair is nice too. lol.

Before Spencer can think about it for too long his mouse clicks over that stupid little message button next to your profile. Spencer shakes his head at his own existence as he types you a message. Says you're online right now, but Spencer's sure he won't get a response for a while.

DOC187: Seems I fit who you're interested in. I even have the curly hair.

Spencer chews on his nails anxiously before he sighs at himself. He has no clue what's gotten into him belle before he can think he sees your 3-dotted bubble pop up. He feels his body wracked with nerves.

MISS—LILAC: I'm guessing you like to read and watch indie films too?

Spencer smiles. You seem interesting and the fact that the two of you were just talking normal was making Spencer happy.

DOC187: Indeed. I'm a sucker for 15-century literature and anything in Russian and foreign language. You?

MISS—LILAC: 15th century huh? I'll assume Chaucer. And Russian? You're interesting, doc. I'm more modern and English, hope you're not deterred.

Spencer smiles, surprised that you recognize an author as niche as Chaucer. He shakes his head at your commentary. He almost forgets that both of you are on a BDSM dating site and the irony doesn't escape him.

DOC187: Deterred? Never. I think you're rather interesting too, Miss Lilac.

MISS—LILAC: Ever the gentleman doc. I'm hoping you won't run away if I ask you more personal questions.

Spencer swallows. He types back quickly.

DOC187: What kinds of questions?

MISS—LILAC: If it's okay, you're real name and what you do. My names Y/N, and I'm a florist. I live in DC and I love romance novels.

Spencer smiles. He appreciates you laying down the path for him, knowing the stakes.

DOC187: My names Spencer and I work for the FBI. I also live in DC, and I love magic.

MISS—LILAC: Magic? I'd love for you to show me sometime.

Spencer swallows. Part of him feels like it's a stupid idea to ask you out so early but if you asked, he'd likely say yes. He decides to wait it out.

DOC187: I'd be more than happy to show you.

MISS—LILAC: I suppose you could send me a video but that's not the same as seeing the magic in real life, now is it?

Spencer is smiling like an idiot at this point. He shakes his head a little, jittery.

DOC187: Infinitely better live, I would say.

MISS—LILAC: Seems like I've found an excuse to ask you on a date then. Saturday's work for me but I'm sure it depends on you, FBI man. Before that, I'm gonna drop my number and I'll be expecting your call. (XXX-XXX-XXXX)

Spencer giggles. It's a little out of range for things he's used to doing, giggling aloud for someone else is certainly new. Spencer picks up his phone and dials away, anxious to call you but excited nonetheless. He heard you pick up the phone and his heart catches in his throat.

"Hello?," Your voice is smooth, and a little bit lower than he was expecting. It sounds pretty.

"Hello, Y/N," Spencer says back. He heard you laugh on the other side and can't help the way his heart flutters.

"Lovely to talk to you doc,"

"Still Doc? Not Spencer?" Spencer questions. You smile on the other side of the line.

"Doc seems to fit you. But, for the sake of formality, hello Spencer,"

"I like Doc too, but it feels like I should have a nickname for you as well. Only seems fair," Spencer says laughing quietly.

"If it's your prerogative you can call me Miss Lilac, or just Miss but..." you trail off for a minute. Spencer squints.

"Miss is a title, you know? Doesn't seem fair for you to call me that when I haven't earned it from you yet. I'm sure we'll get there but for now you can just call me Y/N," you say softly. Spencer blushes bright red, his voice betraying him as he speaks.

"O-Oh, well um - where does the name Lilac come from? Normally people go with their names when it comes to stuff like that," Spencer says shyly. He heard you laugh on the other side of the phone and blushes again, grateful you can't see him.

"I love the language of flowers and flowers themselves. It's a way to speak that not many people know - but I like the meaning and look of lilacs. White lilacs represent purity, so that was a bit of irony, but light purple lilacs mean first love," you say carefully.

"First love?," Spencer asks. You bite your lip for a moment.

"I joke that BDSM is my first love since it's such a big part of my life. Not as big as some but not small for certain. It gave me much needed confidence so I joke that it was my first," You say lightly. You hear Spencer giggle on the other side and you smile.

"What about your username? Any significance to DOC187 that I should know of?," you readjust your seat on your couch as you talk. Spencer grows a bit embarrassed.

"I normally introduce myself as Doctor Spencer Reid for work, not a medical doctor but I have three PhD's," Spencer admits. You raise your brows but hear the hesitation in his voice.

"Very, very impressive doc. What about the 187? It could be a plain ol' number but my guess would be otherwise,"

"That's my IQ, actually. I don't think intelligence can be boiled down and quantified like that but I couldn't think of anything else," Spencer explains.

"So you're a certified genius with 3 PhD's? To say I'm impressed is an understatement. Anything else impressive you'd like to tell me before I totally pick your brains," you say a little shocked.

"You wanna pick my brains?," Spencer asks. You wanna laugh at the irony of such a silly question from such an intelligent man but you refrain.

"Who wouldn't?," you say incredulously. Spencer smiles shyly.

"The only other thing is that I can read 20,000 words per minute," Spencer says trying to deflect. Your jaw dropped before but it manages to unhinge a little further.

"There's a lot to get to know about you Doctor Reid,"

"I'm sure it's the same for you," Spencer replies.

"Guess we'll have to find out won't we?," you say smiling.

Damn, Spencer got lucky. Hopefully he'd get to find out soon

_____

"Reid, are you listening?," Derek's voice snaps Spencer out of his entranced state. His smiling expression snaps up to look at Derek who looks a little exasperated.

"Sorry, what was that?," Spencer asks back. Derek puts down the case file they were working on. They had just finished a case and needed to complete some paperwork before submitting it for review and to be used in court. The job was given to him and Morgan and Spencer was evidently distracted.

"Alright, kid - what is up with you? All case you've been checking your phone non-stop and spacing out, all smiles and giggles. C'mon now kid, seriously. You got a little lady at home waiting for you or is there something else I don't know about?," Derek interrogates. Spencer doesn't really know what to make of it, though it's not really in his interest to hide you, it hasn't really come up with anyone on the team yet so it was proving difficult to decide what to do. The smile on his face manages to appear again as he starts to think about you, the tips of his ears red.

"Reid," Morgan says again, with a small look of irritation.

"Her names Y/N," Spencer blurts out faster than he can't think. Derek gives him a huge grin, holding his hand out to dap Spencer up. Spencer just looks at it confused for a second before getting the memo.

"'My man," Derek says chuckling. Before Spencer can continue Prentiss, JJ, and Garcia walk in. Hotch is the only one missing, and Spencer's a little grateful.

"What are we celebrating in here you guys?," Prentiss asks first. Spencer goes to say something to move away from his sudden confession but Derek is quick to cut him off.

"Our boy genius over here got him a little lady," Derek announces. The whole team erupts in questions and Spencer wants to bury himself.

"Congratulations, Spencer!! How long have you two been dating?," Prentiss asks.

"You guys are so dramatic. It's only been two months but no first date because well..." Spencer trails off. JJ just nods her head.

"Duty calls, I'm guessing" JJ finishes. Spencer nods deflated hearing Emily draw a breath between her teeth.

"That's tough, Spence,"

Just as Spencer goes to give a response back he gets a text from you that makes his day a little better. It's a selfie of you at work, a picture your employee must've taken of you in a room full of new flower deliveries. You're giving Spencer a toothy grin as you hold a bunch of gardenias in your hand.

Y/N 🌸: *image attachment* 

Gardenias// You're lovely + Secret Love <33

Spencer cannot control the way his whole face bunches up in a smile, as if there's no one else in the room with him. Everyone just looks at him surprised, Garcia giving him a side-eye.

"How can you guys trust this stranger? We don't even know who she is! I haven't even run any background checks on her," Garcia complains. Prentiss nudges her side.

"I don't know if it matters - look at how hard he's smiling over there," Prentiss says. Garcia reluctantly looks and can't help but sigh.

"Okay well he seems really happy but still! We don't even know her," she pouts.

"I'm sure we'll meet her soon," JJ snickers at Spencer's lovestruck expression. Derek leans over Spencer's shoulder and raises his brows.

"Is that her, kid?," Derek asks. Spencer nods, simply staring at the picture you sent. Derek whistles when he sees you - you're genuinely stunning and he's surprised to say the least.

"Hot mama, pretty boy - how'd you manage that?," Derek asks, dumbfounded. Emily rolls her eyes.

"C'mon Derek, I'm sure - oh wow," Emily leans over Spencer's shoulder to see you and is met with the same reaction. JJ and Garcia are quick to follow thereafter, both looking equally as surprised.

"She's..." JJ trails off. The rest of the team just nods as Spencer grins ear to ear.

Spencer 🐻: Beautiful, as always.

Spencer ignores the rest of the team as they look at each other in disbelief.

Y/N🌸: Me or the flowers, Doc?

Spencer🐻: Both, but mostly you.

"Wow, Spencer you're really -" Prentiss starts

"You're whipped, kid. I mean seriously whipped," Derek finishes, nodding in agreement. JJ can't help but smile, giving Spencer a small pat on the back.

"She seems lovely, Spencer. How'd you two meet?," JJ says. Garcia stands around looking rather suspicious. A blush creeps onto Spencer's neck as he's reminded of how you two met.

"Online," Spencer says shortly. No one decides to question it, and Spencer thanks every god he can think of.

"Have you two FaceTimed yet? How can we know she's not, I don't know - catfishing you? Or scamming you in some other cyber criminal way?," Garcia sounds distressed. Spencer gives a small smile.

"We fall asleep over FaceTime every night," Spencer admits. Penelope's expression falls, and Prentiss gives a smile.

"That is disgustingly cute," JJ says laughing.

"Okay, well - I'm still running a background check on her," Garcia says stubbornly "But, I'm happy for you,"

"Thanks Garcia," Spencer mumbles out as he texts you again.

Y/N🌸: I wanna see you, love

Spencer blushes red as he reads your message. The word love makes his whole face hot.

Spencer🐻: I can't take a selfie for my life

Y/N🌸: You're with your team aren't you? Get them to take a picture of you.

Spencer wants to fold away, not ever really being the picture type, but how could he ever deny you.

Spencer🐻: How could I ever say no to you?

"Hey guys, can one of you take a picture of me for Y/N?" Spencer asks embarrassingly red. The whole team sends him a look of surprise.

"I'll take it Spence, try not to look as uncomfortable as you do right now," JJ says. The whole team refrains from laughing as Spencer gives an awkward smile. He thanks JJ who hands him back his phone before texting you again.

Spencer🐻: *image attachment* You owe me one

Y/N🌸: you're stunning as always. hadn't seen you in so long I almost forgot what you looked like.

Spencer🐻: stunnings an interesting choice of words.

Y/N🌸: I said what I said, doc. 

Spencer can't help but do a little giggle, that causes the whole team to give him a look. Morgan just shakes his head, shrugging. Emily, JJ, and Garcia just look at each other before the room draws into a subtle but comfortable silence as Spencer just smiles, totally unaware of how whipped he happened to look. He didn’t seem to mind either way. 

___

"How was work?," Spencer asks over the phone, kicking his shoes off as he looks into his fridge for something to eat. He hears you sigh on the other side of the line.

"Busy today - wedding season is coming up so tons of calls for centerpiece designs and costs. It's going well though, business couldn't be better," you say, clearly tired yet content. Spencer gives a small smile and feels relieved that things are going okay for you.

"That's really good. I'm glad you're feeling alright," Spencer replies. You ease into the couch as you talk to Spencer, relaxing by the second. 

"What about you, FBI man? You have an okay day?," Your voice is full of a gentle concern that Spencer appreciates.

"Yeah, just paperwork and JJ said that we shouldn't have any upcoming cases this week to be worried about so I have the weekend off," Spencer says without thought.

"Have any special plans for the weekend?," you say cheekily. Spencer, still not having caught on, shakes his head for a second.

"No, why?,"

"Hm... well - would you like to go on a date with me then Doctor Reid?," You ask, giggling. Spencer's eyes widen in realization as he facepalms for a moment.

"Wow, I didn't even think... yes - yes I would love to go on a date with you Y/N," Spencer says laughing at his own misfortune. You shake your head instinctively, but the growing smile and even further growing adoration makes it hard to sit still.

"Hey, Spencer," you say, butterflies filling your stomach.

"Yeah?"

"I really like you,"

____

Saturday comes quicker than Spencer can really understand. You told him not to worry about what the days plans would be but he can't help it. Anxiously awaiting you in front of the cafe that the two of you were supposed to meet at, in a part of town Spencer hasn't really seen before. You said that you'd lead the way and the irony isn't lost on him.

"Spencer?," Your voice is small, as you call out to what you think is Spencer Reid. Of course, you'd seen him before but to see him in person like this was still so unfamiliar. His head shoots up, eyes searching for you. He's delighted to have found you, certainly that was true as he walks towards you. Your arms envelop him in a friendly hug and he can't help but find himself sinking into. You smelled sweet, like fruit and flowers (which makes sense, the more he thinks about it)

"Lovely to finally meet you, Y/N,"

"Same goes for you, doc. Would you like to be informed of our plans for the day, or do you prefer the element of surprise?,"  You ask smiling. Spencer laughs at your question.

"Details would be appreciated, but I get the feeling you're not gonna give me those."

"You're right! It's a trick question, since it's a surprise. But, promise it'll be good,"

"I'll take your word for it then," Spencer says with a small smile. You hold your hand out for Spencer which he accepts, locking his hands with yours. The affection makes him feel full of warmth, as you lead him away for the day you had planned for the both of you.

___

Spencer underestimated how well you knew him. He really, really did. It's hard to explain since Spencers been on a date before but this was so profoundly different. He's a little touched, but beyond that he's just.. surprised? Every date he'd been on before this, he'd have to play the gentleman but it never seemed like the other person was interested in just him. It was always casual small-talk over dinner, or a mid-day coffee date or something else that just felt mundane but this was beyond Spencer's imagination.

The first place you took him was a bookstore - which was in Spencers mind already a winner for best date he'd ever been on. You walked inside with him and told him he had to pick up a book for you and you had to pick up a book for him and to say his heart absolutely fluttered would be an understatement. He picked up up a copy of "The Screwtape Tales," by C.S. Lewis for you, and you gave him a copy of Shel Silverstein's "Where The Sidewalk Ends." For you, you got a glimpse to see what Spencer's sense of humor was and you gave Spencer a piece of your childhood. Both equal but opposite forms of intimacy. The only thing was Spencer had to wait to read his book because it's relatively shorter than yours and he reads 20,000 words per minute.

The next place you took Spencer was an indoor butterfly garden. Does he have to explain why that's a good date? He heard you talk about all the scientific names for the different flowers and why they attract butterflies and he wasn't sure he could crush any harder on you if he tried. A particular moment sticks out to him on which a butterfly landed on your shoulders and just stayed there like it didn't want to leave. Spencer's eyes were fixated on it the whole time - and he had never wanted to be a butterfly in his life before but he figures there's a first time for everything.

The last place, where the both of you were at now was just a small coffee shop, locally owned and supported by the community here. You told Spencer that when you started up your shop, you'd come in here to work on big orders before you'd expanded enough to have employees. Spencer admires your work ethic, much more than he could ever anticipate as he sits down at a small booth, totally covering the both of you as you return to the table with a little plate of banana bread and two iced coffees. Spencer pouts as he looks up at you, watching you flash him a grin.

"I could've helped you carry this over," Spencer complains gently. You roll your eyes.

"Maybe next time doc," you say softly. You hold back your commentary often on the date, and Spencer pretends not to notice for your sake but he'd be lying if he said he didn't wanna know. You always had something sly to say but you'd kept it from him so many times now he figures it's better if he didn't ask.

Spencer looks at you as you push a plate of banana bread towards him. He looks at you with curious eyes before reading your clearly excited face and laughs. He picks up a piece and examines it, before taking a bite. If it tasted as good as it smelled then he would be more than obliged.

The involuntary moan that escapes Spencer's throat makes you choke with laughter. Shit, you weren't kidding when you said this was the best banana bread in the city. Spencer just looks up at you like he's about to cry with joy as you double over in giggles.

"I know," You say softly, taking a bite yourself eyes filling with joy "I ordered some more for us to take home - you're welcome," you say with confidence. Spencer smiles because that is genuinely thoughtful, but it was more endearing to see you pretend it wasn't. He just shakes his head, a blush arising to his face as he looks at you. You're staring at him with intent. He quirks his brow at you in question.

"I had a good time today, Spencer" You say warmly. You only called him Spencer when you were saying something affectionate and a bit serious. He gives you a toothy smile.

"I haven't been on very many dates, but this was easily the best one I'd ever been on," Spencer says honestly. You grin ear to ear, hands carefully holding Spencer across the table, running your thumb over his knuckles for a few seconds. You couldn't say for sure whether it was too soon to ask him to be your boyfriend, but you'd be damned if you said it didn't cross your mind.

Spencer was mind-numbingly unaware of what good boyfriend material he was, but beyond that - what good submissive boyfriend material he was. It was driving you nuts, but you knew this was all new for him and you didn't wanna freak him out. Even when guys say they're interested in being submissive, they're still often times uncomfortable with you being fully dominant. Dominant in public and in bed, if you will. You wanted to pay for dates, and buy him flowers, and make him feel special too - at least on the occasion. That role came naturally to you, that let me make you feel owned type affection that only a dominant person can give. It scared men off - out of relationships, and you totally got why - but you liked Spencer too much as a person to risk iit.

Spencer holds your hands together, gathering your attention. You looked at him spaced out and he gives you a look of concern.

"You okay?," Spencer asks. You nod, chewing your lip in debate of whether or not you should express your concerns. Spencer just tugs on your hand and looks at you intently.

You sigh, looking at Spencer softly.

"I'm okay I just really like you," you say a little exasperated. Spencer laughs but is filled with relief.

"I'm glad to hear that. What else is on your mind?,"

"I really like you - like in an, I want you to officially by my boyfriend way and I hope it's not too soon but I'm just, worried I guess," you say nervously. Spencer can't help the way his heart beats in his chest when he hears you say boyfriend. God did he want to be your boyfriend.

"What're you worried about?,"

"I'm worried about freaking you out. I can be a lot since I'm... you know?," You say nervously. Spencer looks at you  to continue.

"I'm more than just dominant in bed, and for a lot of guys it's not their thing and that's their right but I like you so much. I really don't want that to happen if I ask you out now and you realize that it's not for you," you say in clear upset.

Spencer looks at you in disbelief. You were worried that he was gonna freak out over that? That you were too dominant for him? It feels like such a silly concern but the expression on your face tells him you're speaking from experience.

"I mean, it's all kinda new to me but, well - I do like how you treat me? It's a nice change, I can't imagine myself getting tired of it, or of you. I really like you too," Spencer tried his best to reassure you without totally embarrassing you. You smiles at Spencer but your face is still full of doubt.

"If that ever changes, I'll tell you but I'd really like to call you my girlfriend," Spencer finishes. You can't help the warmth that spreads in your stomach at the offer. You just nod, looking up at him. You stand and walk to Spencer's side of the booth, sliding in next to him, leaning your head into his shoulder for a few while seconds. You sit back up, and Spencer turns to you.

"Hey, doc," you say softly. Spencer hums in acknowledgement.

"Can I kiss you?," you ask softly. Spencer chews his lip and nods, looking down at your lip. You're wearing lipgloss and it makes them look pretty - you are so pretty to Spencer.

Kisses are their own language, Spencer figures. The way someone kisses you can tell you a lot about who they are - so, when you put your hands on the side of Spencer's face, pulling him closer to you with such care and adoration - Spencer can feel what you were referencing earlier. The word Miss rings out in his mind, the way you pay attention to him with your hands. He feels your lips press against his, slowly gliding your fingers in his hair, thumb brushing agains the side of his cheek. Your other hand rested on his inner thigh and he has to think about anything other than that not to get hard. Spencer didn't get how much he'd been thinking about touching you until you'd do with no hesitation and he lets out a small whine. You pull back and Spencer has to catch his breath.

His lashes blink up at you and you're absolutely beaming.

"You're cute baby,"

Baby? Spencer wants to cover his face when you say it. You kiss him again and he can't help but feel flush.

You were Spencer's girlfriend and then some and he couldn't be more happy.

[yoon-kooks]

Tie Me Up

Pairing: Yoongi x Reader

Genre: Fluff & Agust D

Summary: While planning the promotional shoot for Agust D’s second mixtape, you’re visited by the man himself who seems to have a lot of ideas for a “baddie” aesthetic. One suggestion in particular sounds a bit risky, but somehow you’re tempted.

Word Count: 1.3k

Warning: Yoongi may or may not have a bondage kink

A/N: i know what the title says but this is straight fluff, fam :^)

-

As the countdown begins for Agust D’s return, it’s up to you, BigHit’s resident art director, to make preparations for the photoshoot and music video. After playing the mixtape on repeat for the past few days, you’ve come to the conclusion that the visuals need to be bold, in your face, and for lack of a better word, badass.

The only problem is that you know Yoongi. You know how he likes to present himself as the hardcore underground rapper that he is. And you know his Agust D persona is quite raw and outspoken. But more than that, you know that Min Yoongi is actually a softie. Especially around you for some reason.

You’ve seen and experienced it with your own eyes. Because whenever he casually drops by the art department of the BigHit building, he always makes up some pathetic excuse about “enlisting your help for a personal art project” or “needing a change of scenery” just to visit you. And then he’ll just sit there, working next to you on the spare desk that somehow became his second office. He even goes out of his way to buy your favorite dessert “for himself,” only to share half of it with you on late nights in the office.

With the knowledge that Yoongi’s that soft, you struggle to envision him as the badass that Agust D is supposed to be. If only he weren’t so dang cute all the time.

“Fucking Yoongi,” you mumble to yourself as you study photos of the shooting location and several props to spark any sort of inspiration.

“Y/N.” You look up from your computer screen at the boy you’d just cursed out. “I can hear you, you know.”

“What brings you here today, Min Yoongi?” you ignore his comment.

“Ah, me? I just needed a change of scenery,” he shrugs with a whole ass keyboard in hands. “Helps the creative juices flow better.”

“You used that excuse like two days ago. Try harder,” you tilt your head.

“Oh, I did?” he ruffles his hair.

“No, I’m just fucking with you,” you crack into a giggle. “You did say it last week, though.”

“Oh, so you’re keeping count?”

“You could say that.”

“Anyway, I just thought I might as well stop by to make sure you’re not goofing off, young art director.” He makes himself comfortable on the spare desk beside yours. “How’s the planning going?”

“The most goofing off I’ve done all day is bickering with you,” you pinch the rapper’s cheek because that’s just what your fingers do. “As for the planning, it requires a big brain to make someone like you look badass.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he narrows his eyes at you. “Doesn’t it help that I’m naturally scary?”

You blink at the “scary” boy without answering his question. Then an idea pops into mind. “Want to help me plan? It is your music video after all.”

Yoongi nearly shoves his keyboard off the desk. “Sure.”

You turn your screen towards the boy to fill him in on the details. “So what I’m thinking so far is to have some fire involved…you mentioned Bang PD, so maybe like a cameo from him… oh, and it’d be cool if you had an eye scar like Kakashi.”

“Who’s Kakashi?”

“I was also thinking of inviting Seokjin and Jungkook to make a brief appearance?” you continue, again without answering his question.

“Yeah, maybe it’s better not to,” Yoongi sighs. “You know how those two are. They’ll probably just start fighting each other for the hell of it.”

“It would be good to have some of your friends on set to support you, though.”

“Are you saying you’re not a friend who will support me?”

“You know I’ll support you, Silly,” you chuckle. In addition to being a softie, Min Yoongi is also a funny guy.

“Right, right,” he says as one of the sample props catches his eye. “What were you planning on using the rope for?”

“Oh that… You know how Bruno Mars uses a rope to drag a piano around in that one music video? I was thinking something along those lines, but like with something to symbolize your achievements.” You start gesturing as though you’re playing charades. “It’ll be like ‘I had to work my ass off for this motherfucker.’”

“Interesting. I like that,” Yoongi nods, casually picking up the rope. “Or, what if we tied me up?”

“What.”

“Wouldn’t that be kinda badass?”

You attempt to envision a soft Yoongi all tangled in rope, but it’s a little too much for you to process. “Maybe it’s not best to broadcast your bondage kink to the entire world.”

“It’s not a kink, it’s an aesthetic.”

“Right,” you roll your eyes. “It’ll make you look like a real baddie, Yoongi.”

As soon as you snatch the rope out of the boy’s hands, he offers up his wrists to you. But all you can do is stand and stare, wondering if he’s legitimately serious about the bondage kink.

It takes a good minute or so, but Yoongi finally budges. However, you’re caught off guard when his hands wrap around yours���not that you’re complaining. If there’s one thing that you’re weak to about Yoongi, it’s when he completely breaks down his “scary” front and goes full soft boy on you. You’re not sure what triggered the handholding all of a sudden, but you’ll take what you can get.

“I still think it’s a good idea, yeah?” He tilts his head at you with a slight pout. A pout!

Aha, you see what’s going on.

“I’m not going to let your adorable face sway me, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

Yoongi drops your hands and sighs. “I don’t get why you always think I’m cute.”

“Because that’s just what you are,” is what you want to scream. You swear the boy drives you crazy sometimes. “It doesn’t matter what I think, Yoongi. You are what you are.” It’s not an opinion. It’s a fact.

“So no rope?” he blinks at you with that pout again. Stay strong, Y/N.

“Fine, we can try the rope if it makes you happy…” It’s your turn to pout. His cuteness always wins. It’s too powerful. Even more powerful than Agust D himself.

As you fumble around with the rope to get it around the boy’s wrists and body, he has the audacity to snicker.

“What?” You shoot him a look. You’ve never seen someone so delighted to be tied up. Then again, bondage isn’t really your area of expertise.

“Nothing,” he hums.

“You know, if someone walks in right now, they’ll get the wrong idea.” You tie a neat bow at the small of Yoongi’s back.

“I don’t care what anyone else thinks.”

“You seem to care when I think you’re cute.”

“You’re different.”

“Is that so?” you giggle, backing up to get a full view sample photo of the tied up boy. You honestly don’t get the appeal. He just looks like a bigger dork than he already was. Then again, you are pretty smitten for that adorable dorky side of his.

“Did it work?” He waddles over to you in the restraints. You show him the photo and he nods in approval. “What do you think?”

“I think you’re the biggest dork ever, Yoongi,” you tease.

“You’re not affected at all by this?” He tries to lift his wrists.

“I’ll admit you’re right about it fitting the Agust D aesthetic. I can respect it to that effect,” you try to keep it professional for 0.2 seconds. “But on a personal level, I can’t unsee how dang soft you are.”

“I’m not soft,” says the soft boy as you untangle him from the rope.

“Right, and you’re not going to treat me to my favorite dessert after this.”

“I’m not?” The first thing the boy does when his wrists are free is take your hand once more. “Because I’m headed there right now if you want to tag along.”

You smile, shake your head, but follow him nonetheless. You’ve proven your case. The world may see and fall for the hardcore badass in Agust D all tied up with scars and shit, but you’ve fallen long ago for the dork who simply hangs with you for a nice change of scenery.

[welllpthisishappening]

Where the Love Light Gleams

Killian was going to kill his brother. 

Which wasn’t very festive, but neither was being away from his girlfriend on Christmas Eve and this was all Liam’s fault. Or so he would claim. While rationalizing his current tendency to wallow, and stare at his phone and he’d spent far too much time on his phone that night. 

Whatever, it was Christmas Eve. That was definitely a reasonable excuse. 

---

Rating: Teen, with banter and friendship and kissing Word Count: 5.1 K AN: It’s me! Someone who can’t seem to write an MC to save her present life, but loves few things more than Christmas-type fluff and is therefore filling Christmas-type prompts again. Today’s comes from @shireness-says​​ who is always wonderful about replying to these sort of things and requested: 

"you had a business trip and i missed you so much that i kind of tore up the house in your absence like a dog with separation anxiety… sorry?" and “we’ve become the clingy newlyweds you always complained about. "

Both of which I almost legitimately filled. Just kind of—twisted. As is tradition. If you are so inclined to send a prompt from this very long list, you can pick one here, and I’ll do my best to write it before Christmas. 

This one is also on Ao3 if that’s your jam, where I’ll be posting all of ‘em. 

---

“Are you moping? It kind of looks like you’re moping.”

“Wow, such unparalleled observational skills. You should become a private investigator.”

Sticking her tongue out, Ariel made some sort of objection-type noise in the back of her throat, which probably would have made Killian smile in any other situation. On any other day. A day that wasn’t Christmas Eve. 

When he was absolutely, positively moping. 

It was a miracle he hadn’t frozen like this. That would have done irreparable damage to his spine, he was sure. 

He wasn’t really sitting up very straight. 

“There can’t possibly still be private investigators in the world,” Ariel challenged, brushing a wayward strand of hair away from her face and it was far too windy on the docks. If Killian didn’t get off the docks soon, he was going to scream. 

Or mope for the rest of the holiday season. At least until the New Year. That seemed reasonable, honestly. 

He was going to strangle Liam. 

This was all his fault. 

“You’re kidding me, right? What—what kind of world do you think we’re living in?” Ariel shrugged. “One that’s progressed past the need for private investigators, obviously. And I object to the notion that I would require any sort of PI-type skills to know that you’re being an absolute and complete, although also kind of understandable, idiot.” 

“Those words don’t go together.” “What do people hire private investigators for, anyway?” “Loads of stuff.” “Give me one example.” He huffed, irritation rattling around his skull and mixing in with a begrudging appreciation because he knew Ariel felt bad and maybe he’d kick Liam too. “Missing kids.” “Yeesh, that’s awfully negative.” “What was that about accusing me of moping before? I’m playing to those accusations.” “Ok, but we already decided they were observations, so you don’t get to rename them now that you’re feeling particularly jerk-like.” “I’m here, aren’t I? Makes it seem less jerk-like.”

Another shrug. And a specific quirk of her lips that Killian was far too well-acquainted with. The muscles in his cheeks were almost starting to ache. 

Presumably from holding them in this position for so long. 

He was absolutely moping. 

But he’d already been in Boston two days longer than he planned on, and none of this was really going according to plan. He’d checked his phone no less than forty-seven times in the last forty-five minutes. He hated that. Staring at that screen made him feel like a clingy freak, who couldn’t go more than a few minutes without talking to his girlfriend, and Killian had complained about those people enough times that his current tendency to do it made him despise himself just a bit. 

And yet he couldn’t stop. 

His thumbs flew across the keys, sending complaints and updates and smiling in spite of his own situation. 

Like a psychopath. One who was quite obviously frustrated. 

With several thousand things, it seemed — the most pressing of which was his distinct lack of festive nature, caused almost entirely by the issues with the expansion in Boston and adding another ship in Boston was supposed to be easy. 

Until Eric got the flu, and it was understandably difficult to captain a sightseeing holiday cruise when you couldn’t actually stand up for more than two minutes at a time, and Killian couldn’t say no to his brother when they both had so much money tied up in this, and if Liam was going to fly in to make sure everything stayed the metaphorical course, then the least Killian could do was drive in from New York. 

Or so Liam had told him. In no uncertain terms. 

Except Liam had also brought Belle with him and that somehow seemed like cheating, and Killian should have asked Emma to come. 

She had to work. He’d missed Mary Margaret and David’s Christmas Eve party. 

Which normally wouldn’t have felt like the end of the world, partially because Mary Margaret’s fruitcake was notoriously awful, but this year it made Killian’s heart feel like it was fragmenting in his chest and Emma’s photos had gotten progressively more and more blurry as the night went on. Mary Margaret also notoriously bought a questionable number of Prosecco bottles for the Christmas Eve party. 

“You are,” Ariel agreed, a string of words that caught Killian off guard when he was so deep in his own wallowing. “Which is super nice, but—” “—How can there be a but in this situation?” “There are several, actually, except the biggest one is how three different people on tonight’s cruise wanted to know why the first mate was so obviously distracted.” “They called me first mate?” “People think it’s funny to use nautical terms in real life.”

Slumping forward did not do anything to help the state of Killian’s spine, only managed to make sure his hair fluttered in front of his eyes when a salt-tinged breeze blew off the Harbor and he briefly wondered how dramatic he could get. He needed to exhale some more. 

He needed to go home. “Anyway,” Ariel continued, “they wanted to know why the first mate was on his phone all the time, and if the first mate was available and—” “—I’m sorry, what?”

“You have a face, you know that right?” “Now you’re just saying words.”

If she kept sticking her tongue out at its current rate, it was going to get frost-bitten. “These are compliments, you’re an ass and I owe you just—a metric ton of rum, the good kind, for doing all of this.” “Giving me whiplash,” Killian muttered, but one side of his mouth tugged up despite his best efforts to remain as depressing as possible. Ariel’s eyes got brighter. Rivaled the lights still flickering along the railing of their very nice, very new, decidedly expensive multi-level ship, and it had only taken about fourteen seconds for Killian to make that one photo Emma had sent him his phone background. 

That probably wasn’t weird.

“So, people wanted to know about you,” Ariel said, “and your previously discussed face, and rather than employee a PI because it’s not 1947—” “—Oddly specific.” “I will kill you.” “God bless us, everyone.” “Your very helpful and exceedingly sure of his own obnoxious brand of humor brother was very quick to inform all the interested parties that the first mate was distracted because he unfortunately wasn’t with his wife for Christmas.”

Ariel’s murder threat was not only out of place considering the date, it was pointless because he was going to guarantee he died all on his own. Killian nearly fell off the edge of the dock. 

One of his knees buckled, gaping at his friend and business partner like she’d only recently grown a few extra heads. She didn’t shrug again. Smiled, in her best impression of a variety of fictional and overly confident cats, but her shoulders stayed frustratingly still and that was—

“Emma and I aren’t married,” Killian sputtered, not entirely stunned to find those particular words difficult to say in that order. Half a plan rattled around with the rest of the emotions circling his skull, and he hadn’t really acted on the plan, but he’d been pondering and considering for at least a few weeks before his phone had rung. 

And that was only kind of a lie. 

He’d been doing a lot more than pondering for much longer than a few weeks. Considering had flown out the imaginary window, like—as soon as he and Emma had moved in together. 

Liam didn’t know any of that, though. 

At least in theory. 

Maybe strangling his brother was something of an overreaction. 

He still wanted to go home, though. 

“Liam knows that,” Ariel reasoned, “and I know that. And obviously you know that, but none of your on-water admirers know that, and you were playing your part very well.” “What?” “Glued to your phone, all night. Like a clingy newlywed.” “That’s ridiculous.” “Is it? Because while not technically true—” “—Or true at all,” Killian interrupted, and he wondered if he was getting used to the feel of his heart doing whatever it was doing, or he was just growing more melodramatic by the second. At some point in the last twelve minutes the idea of walking back to New York had become rather appealing. 

“Well, whatever. It was a good excuse, and it’s not like it was one-sided texting and it’s kind of romantic. All things considered.” “What are all the things, exactly?” That shrug came with another smile — far too knowing for Killian’s liking, but he also knew Ariel wouldn’t go back on her rum-buying word, and he supposed there was something to be said for that. Especially if it was good rum. “If you’re going to play the part…” “Look who’s being a romantic now.” “I’ve spent most of the lead-up to Christmas trying to force-feed Pedialyte on my husband. Got to get my romance from somewhere and you’re like—Hallmark Channel ready.” “Probably couldn’t have as much alcohol, then.” “How many bottles of Prosecco do you think Mary Margaret bought this year?”

Tugging his phone out of his pocket, Killian scrolled back through the more than two dozen photos he’d been sent over the course of the night until he found the one he was looking for. Of a table covered in green-hued bottles with plastic champagne flutes that Mary Margaret must have bought in bulk and— 

Ariel’s laugh hung in the air around them, louder than it probably should have been considering the time, but they were also by themselves and he was still kind of moping. So. The world could cope with their collective volume. 

“Do you think she gets a discount for buying so many?” Killian shook his head. “If she doesn’t, she’s being robbed.” “Get the private investigators on the case.” “Challenge Liam to a comedic battle.” “Not if we’re calling it that,” Ariel argued, bumping her shoulder against Killian’s leg. And he wasn’t sure if he was actually smiling, but his lips were moving and his heart didn’t appear to be shattering quite as much anymore and he hoped Emma fell asleep. 

On Mary Margaret and David’s couch. 

They wouldn’t let her go home, he was sure. 

He hadn't gotten a text in awhile. 

He was less sure about the shadows moving towards them, though — because he’d been a little distracted when they docked, but he watched Liam and Belle get into their rental car and there was absolutely no reason for either one of them to be back on the docks, but anyone else showing up on the docks at eleven o’clock at night was probably a sign that Killian and Ariel were about to be robbed. In a far more literal sense than whatever happened with Mary Margaret and her plastic champagne flutes. 

“You guys good?” Ariel asked, sounding more aware of what was going on than she should have been. Killian’s eyes narrowed. 

That made it only slightly difficult to see the overall width of his brother’s answering smile. 

Plus, it was dark out.

“Better,” Liam said, “she's an absolute natural.”

Scrunching her nose, Belle waved off the compliment. “Please, all I have to do is stand there and be helpful.” “Yeah, but that’s more than Killian was able to do today, so…” “He was distracted.” “And standing right here,” Killian muttered, although standing was a little generous. His left knee was still awful bent. In an unnatural sort of way. “Doesn’t that hurt?” Liam asked. Gesturing towards Killian’s posture, he tilted his head and that was even more judgmental than any of the words Ariel hadn’t bothered saying. “Can’t be good for your ACL or whatever.” Belle clicked her tongue. “Adding the whatever makes it sound less official, really.” “And we’re trying to be official,” Ariel chipped in, clamoring to her feet. By using the side of Killian’s jacket for leverage, tugging on fabric until she threatened to tear it and that also would have been impressive if it didn’t feel suspiciously like he was about to pass out. 

She wrapped her arms around Killian’s middle. 

That kind of helped, honestly. 

He’d never admit to it.   

“Official about what, exactly?” Killian asked. “What are you guys doing here?”

Liam’s smile got wider. “We could ask you the same question, but we’ve already claimed way too much of your time and—” “—Wait, what?” “Killian seriously,” Ariel sighed, “if you keep interrupting, we’re never going to get to the fun and passably romantic part of the plan.” “Oh, no it’s definitely more than passably romantic,” Belle argued. 

“Depends on him, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, but he was glued to his phone and I’ve got at least twenty bucks on this happening before New Year’s Eve, so—” “—New Year’s Eve would be really romantic, actually!” “No, no, no,” Liam objected, voice rising on every repeat, “I’ve got Christmas morning, and that means he’s got to go now.” Not having anything to drink made it impossible for Killian to claim intoxication as a reason for the current spin rate of his head. Metaphorically, at least. Even so, he felt a little dizzy and slightly out of breath, trying very hard not to topple into the water. 

There was no way he’d be able to disentangle himself from Ariel before he did that. 

And then she’d get annoyed. 

“What is going on?” Killian demanded, pausing between each word for emphasis. Liam’s lips disappeared. Behind his teeth. 

While he failed spectacularly at containing his laugh. “We’re kicking you out,” Belle said simply, like that made sense and they hadn’t all but required his presence in Boston less than seventy-two hours earlier. 

Killian blinked. Once, twice. Half a dozen times. Nothing changed. Ariel’s arms tightened, maybe — but Liam didn’t move, and Belle’s nose still had that scrunch-like effect, and the lights on their ship really did make it appropriately festive. 

“And apologizing,” Ariel added. “We should make that more obvious.”

Blinking more was stupid. 

Talking probably would have helped. But Killian’s tongue suddenly took up far too much space in his mouth, next to all the imaginary cotton balls that were impeding his ability to breathe and it could not have been healthy for so many body parts to consistently fail like that. 

“This is really my fault,” Liam admitted, taking a step forward to clap Killian on the shoulder. His right knee bent that time. At least his reactions were symmetrical. “And I—well, I...I was so worried about the money and the party and—” “—We didn’t really think about your plans,” Belle finished. Opening his mouth, Killian genuinely could not come up with a word to describe whatever sound he made. Something between a scoff and that huff he was trying to accomplish before, but also drifting dangerously close to laughter borne of disbelief and his back actually had the gall to pop when he leaned forward. 

“I don’t have plans.” “Please,” Ariel scoffed, “you have at least the hope for plans, and that’s nice in a way that deserves a better adjective and all that rum I promise.” Liam’s eyes widened. “How much rum are we talking?” “Enough that you stop spending so much time talking about the proper light to string ratio.” “What does that even mean?” Killian balked. 

Shaking her head, Belle moved into his space as well. Both her hands landed on the front of his jacket, and Killian wasn’t exactly cold per se, but there was something inherently comforting about his sister-in-law’s smile and the way she always smelled a bit like vanilla. 

As if she were just minutes away from baking something, at all times. 

“Telling you to come here was a dick move,” Belle announced, Ariel’s head finding Killian’s shoulder when she started to cackle once more. They were all standing too close to each other. Someone was going to step on someone else’s foot. “And,” she continued, “Liam was right. This is totally his fault, but he’s running on like...no sleep, because we’re—” She grit her teeth, another unfinished sentence that frustrated Killian for about eight and half seconds. Before it all clicked at nine. “No, shit.” “Shit,” Belle confirmed, another smile and her left foot landed on Killian’s right when he pulled into a far-too-tight hug. Ariel had to move her arms. “Babies are expensive you see,” Liam said, “and we’d already funneled so much money into this, the party had to happen and I wasn’t sure if Belle was going to be able to come with me because—” “—They don’t tell you morning sickness lasts all day,” she grumbled. Killian’s laugh had an almost manic edge to it, suddenly happier than he thought he could be and that was more appropriate for the time. Of both the day and season. 

“So,” Liam added, “I kind of lost my mind about Eric, and didn’t think about you or Emma or how stupid you’d be when you weren’t around Emma at Christmas because it’s so goddamn obvious what you’re planning.”

Heat rose in Killian’s cheeks, a questionably large inferno that suddenly flared to life in the pit of his stomach. “I haven’t totally decided.” “Yeah, well that’s dumb.” “Rife with opinions tonight, aren’t you?” “We’re kicking you out,” Belle repeated. “With our apologies that I wasn’t on the ship tonight because that shrimp appetizer smell made me want to die a little.” Ariel sighed. “Do all our statements have to be so violent? There should be more positivity to all of this.” “There will be if Killian can get me my twenty bucks.” “Why are you betting on this?” he asked, but the distinct lack of frustration in his voice was obvious even to him. Belle laughed. “Because calling you a newlywed was not nearly as unbelievable as it should have been, and if you get with the program you could probably have your rehearsal dinner on one of our very accommodating ships with an appetizer that does not include shrimp.” “I’m not really a huge fan of shellfish.” “See, the perfect plan.” An objection sat on the tip of Killian’s tongue — if only because he was decidedly stubborn and now a little worried about his brother’s expanding family, but his own family was not in Boston and he’d really like Emma to be his family. In an official sort of capacity. 

“But what about—” “—No, absolutely not,” Belle cut in before Killian could finish, “that’s what we were doing. Going over the plans for tomorrow’s lunch cruise, and everything you were supposed to do, which I’m pretty confident I can do now, mostly because my husband is here and I won’t be tempted to text him the entire time.” “At least not much,” Liam quipped. The pinch between Killian’s eyebrows was going to stay there forever. If not longer. “And then I’ll also text you, at an appropriate time tomorrow, to apologize for being a massive Christmas bastard.” Hair hit Killian’s cheek. Not his. Distinctly red and smelling like shampoo she’d definitely spent far too much money on, Ariel’s hair blew around her when she threw her head back. With laughter. The catching sort, spreading like wildfire through their tiny group, until Belle had to wrap her arm around her middle to stay up, and Killian’s stomach ached just a bit and it took him a moment to realize he’d made another fire pun. 

In his head. He needed to go home. 

“Was Ariel a distraction?”

She kicked his ankle. “Rude, and yeah obviously. Liam is so goddamn overprotective with his unborn child, it’s disgusting.” “And nice,” Belle grinned. 

Exhaling, Liam tugged on the back of his hair. A tell, and an apology without the words. Killian wanted the words. Even if it took a few extra minutes. “Seriously,” Liam said, “a Christmas bastard, which is not an excuse, but—I’m sorry. For the batard’ness, and bringing you here, and not explaining the reasons behind the bastard. And also for ruining your plans.” “I really have no plans,” Killian promised, but that fell a bit flat and he at least had rather specific wants. Of the desire-type variety. 

“So fix that. Like as soon as possible.” “For my twenty bucks,” Belle said with another yank on Killian’s jacket. The poor jacket was not going to last much longer. 

Ariel rolled her eyes. “She’s obsessed with the twenty bucks.” “Because your husband will have to pay it!” “Should you have bet with an invalid?” Killian asked, trying without much immediate success to take a step away from either one of them. “And what kind of Pedialyte flavor are you forcing?” “The purple kind.” “Blue’s definitely better.” Liam looked frustrated. 

That felt like something of a victory. “Were you going to go, Killian? Or—” Kissing the top of Ariel’s hair and pulling Belle into one more hug, Killian flipped off his brother, muttered Merry Christmas, don’t sink the boat, and would never admit to running back towards his car. Or how quickly he drove home. 

It took at least twenty-six minutes to find a parking spot. 

Four blocks away. 

Still, Killian assumed he was running on holiday-fueled adrenaline and something almost resembling romance and the distinct lack of anything in his pocket was a challenge he viewed as quirky more than anything else. 

He bounded up the steps, nearly dropping his keys more than once before he managed to unlock the door only to be immediately hit in the face. With what felt suspiciously like garland. 

And Killian hadn’t really planned on spending much time in their apartment, only thinking about a few hours of sleep before driving to Mary Margaret and David’s house on the Island because he might have come up with half a list of sweepingly romantic things to do, but he wasn’t a total jerk who would show up on someone else’s doorstep in the middle of the goddamn night, and it obviously did not make a single ounce of difference. 

While he was being strangled with garland. 

Blinking against the darkness of their living room, Killian’s brain couldn’t quite come to terms with what he was seeing. Like the ninth floor of the Herald Square Macy’s had exploded. Tinsel hung from what appeared to be actual ivy, pinned along the top of the wall with startling accuracy. Lights meant to resemble icicles reflected against every window pane, and there was an actual tree in the corner. 

Every one of his inhales had a distinct pine-like scent to it, like he was standing in the middle of a forest, and Killian did not think they owned that many ornaments when he left. 

They hadn’t owned any ornaments, so it was a rather easy number to remember. 

A star was balanced precariously at the top of the tree, paper snowflakes dropping from the ceiling and—

Emma curled in the corner of the couch. 

With at least four blankets covering her. She was a notorious blanket thief. 

Mary Margaret hadn’t woken up either, twisted into the other end of the cushions, and Killian couldn’t fathom how they were comfortable, but he was also admittedly a little distracted by the desire of his lungs to keep providing oxygen to the rest of his body and David’s eyes were alarmingly wide. 

“What are you doing here?” “I live here,” Killian hissed, swatting away the garland. Bits of it fell onto the top of his sneakers. “What are you doing here?” “Helping.” “What?” “Helping,” David said slowly, like Killian simply did not understand the word and not all the meaning behind it. “She—well, the decorations left something to be desired, and you know Mary Margaret. There’s a project, so she’s got to help and—” “—Wait, wait, wait, did Emma do all this?”

Waving both his hands in the air, David didn’t bother to say obviously when the movement made it so abundantly clear. Killian’s jaw dropped. 

Something popped there as well. Which probably wasn’t what woke Emma up, but thinking that was almost nice in another way that deserve a better adjective, and the overall force of her smile as soon as her eyes landed on him made every bit of splintered heart still lingering in his chest knit itself back together. 

Immediately. 

“Should I be concerned that you’re deserting?” she asked, hooking her chin over the back of the couch. As if she’d been expecting this exact situation. Killian shook his head. “Nah, this is a wholly authorized shore leave.” David’s groan very likely hurt the inside of his throat. 

“What happened here, Swan?” Pink immediately colored her expression, every one of her teeth obvious when she grit them. Mary Margaret must have been the soundest sleeper in the Universe. Or she’d had a questionable amount of Prosecco to drink that night. “Christmas?” That was as good a reason as any, honestly. Although that stubborn streak of his ran several nautical miles wide, and nearly tripping over the garland on his few steps towards the couch made Emma’s shoulders shake. 

Killian knelt in front of her.

Step one accomplished, then. 

“It’s super lame,” Emma warned, but Killian’s heart was doing more biologically impossible things and his eyes fluttered when she brushed his hair away from his forehead. “I just—well, you weren’t here, and that kind of ruined any of my festive-type feelings, which as we all know are shaky at best.” “Work in progress, love.” Her tongue sticking between her lips was not as annoying as Ariel’s had been. Killian figured that had something to do with the desire to kiss her. And not Ariel. Who would have smacked him at even the allusion to such a thing. “Well,” Emma mumbled, “the lack of appropriate holiday spirit reared its head like—as soon as you closed the door behind you, but then I went to the party and you kept texting me and—” “—I’m sorry, I was texting you? You were texting me!” “God,” David grumbled, dropping into the only chair left in the living room. There should have been more chairs in the living room. “It’s ridiculous, the pair of you.” Killian narrowed his eyes. Glaring was too difficult. “Why are you here?” “I told you, helping.” “He did,” Emma said. “Both him and Mary Margaret, really. I, ok—well, whoever was texting who, it doesn’t really matter. Just that Ruth thinks we’re married.” Of all the ways that sentence could have ended, Killian was loath to admit hearing that David’s mother believed the same lie Liam had been spouting to Boston tourists was not one of them. 

“She does,” Emma continued, rushing over the words, “for some reason. But she kept saying how nice it was that a young couple like us was able to keep in touch when we weren’t together for the holidays and I was really kind of drunk, and even more upset that you weren’t going to be here, so my mind just kind of latched onto things and—” Pulling in a deep breath made her shoulders shift again, Killian’s eyes taking in every moment so he could commit them all to memory and the question was out of his mouth before he realized Emma was still talking. “Will you marry me?” “Do you want to get married?”

David fell out of the chair. 

Slid, technically. Directly onto the floor and next to presents that were almost perfectly wrapped with color coordinated bows on each of them. 

“What?” Killian breathed, Emma’s hand flying to her mouth. Left one, so that helped too actually. None of his fingers shook when he reached up, pulling that same hand down and kissing the bend of her knuckles. Tears clouded Emma’s eyes, falling on her cheeks faster than he could brush them away. 

With his mouth. Killian tried all the same. 

While ignoring the increasing volume of David’s rather uproarious laugh. He was texting someone. Probably Ariel, who very likely was requiring play-by-play. And had timed Killian’s drive home. 

“That was kind of...this,” Emma explained, nodding towards the living room. “I—I wanted to decorate, and make it Christmas when you got back because...well, I blame the alcohol and your brother and—” “—That’s fair, honestly. Belle’s pregnant, by the way.” “No shit.” “Shit,” Killian confirmed, a repeat he’d share later. Once they got all this engagement business sorted out. “They’re pretty incredible decorations.” “Yeah, well flattery will get you everywhere.” Huffing out a breath, Emma’s head dropped to his, and that made it easier to get his fingers in her hair. “This made a lot of sense when I was drunker. But, uh—I needed to do something with all that energy and sudden holiday thoughts and I’ve got a lot of thoughts about your face, you know that?” Ariel was going to be insufferable. 

Killian would make her buy some Moscato, too. That was Emma’s favorite. “Gave me something to do,” Emma added, “and then I figured you’d get home and there’d be some sweeping and we could do something about Ruth’s assumptions and I think we’d be really good at being married.” Kissing her was the only reasonable option. Even as David sounded like he was in physical pain. 

Surging up, Killian’s mouth all but slammed into Emma’s, tilting his head so he got to that one, perfect angle that allowed his tongue to swipe across her lips and draw that even more perfect sound out of her, and he was only dimly aware of Mary Margaret waking up. The couch creaked when she moved. 

Killian didn’t. 

His fingers carded through Emma’s hair, only breaking apart to appease his lungs and the requirements of his body before kissing her again, and his knees kind of ached. Presumably from supporting most of their collective weight when Emma was kind of draped across him. “Don’t go in the bedroom, ok?” Humming against her only guaranteed David made another noise of protest, but it was nice that they’d helped decorate and Killian could only imagine how they’d gotten all that ivy on the wall. 

“That’s, uh—” Emma leaned back, one of her eyes squeezed closed. “Where we put all the extra non-holiday stuff, and it’s kind of a disaster.”

“Tore up the apartment, like she had separation anxiety,” Mary Margaret slurred, and Killian refused to be held accountable for whatever his face did at that. 

David rolled his whole head. Emma shrugged. He liked that one the best. “So, uh—” “Yeah,” Killian finished, before he could stop himself and any qualms either one of them had once had about clingy relationships or relationship qualifiers appeared to disappear before their eyes. Like frost on the window. Which was seasonally appropriate. “I think we’d be really good at marriage.” “Yeah?” “Yeah. Where’d you get the decorations from, though?” “You’re welcome,” Mary Margaret replied, sounding a bit more coherent and just as exhausted. That was fair. It was close to four in the morning. 

Emma nodded. “Definite separation anxiety. So we should probably not do this again, and then you can help decorate.” “Deal,” Killian promised, and they didn’t bother waiting for an appropriate time to call Liam. Or Ariel, who crowded into the video call because, as she claimed, it was her living room and her twenty bucks and her shriek probably affected the structural integrity of her house. 

The rum showed up two days later. 

And made for a very good toast, as soon Killian slipped the ring onto Emma’s finger. They picked it out together. 

[matterofperception]

MUSTAT LESKET FINAL MUSINGS

Okay, so I finished the second (and last) season of Mustat Lesket (Black Widows) a little while ago. It ends on a significant cliffhanger, and with a number of loose ends, but the series was never renewed despite the success of its first. Excuse me while I rant into the void, because there is zero fandom here for me to bounce things off (it’s an old show, 2014/16 AND not in English, so...) and I have so many thoughts...

Firstly, I actually really enjoyed the first season of Mustat Lesket, and would recommend it based on that (and because I think Pihla Viitala is wonderful). It had just the right balance of mystery/thrills and drama, but also black/dry humour (I laughed a lot in S1). A lot of it was far-fetched and beyond belief, but you could kind of let that slide because the show never took itself too seriously. As far as character introductions went, I loved Veera and Johanna, and could understand the trajectories that had led them to feel like killing their husbands was a viable way out. Kirsi, well, she just felt like a necessary caricature, designed to milk the drama for everything it was worth. The dynamic between sweet, gentle Veera, emotional, crazy Kirsi, and strong, wilful Johanna somehow worked in S1.

And when Jukka returned, his redemption arc in S1 was done fantastically. Suddenly, you could understand (although not necessarily condone - same as with the widows and the boat) why he’d been such an asshole, and you could also see Veera start to come to that realisation too. The build up to their reconciliation at the end of S1 was the most authentic and believable in the entirety of the series (with the possible exception of Johanna and Petri, though they didn’t have the romantic chemistry that Veera and Jukka had).

S2 however, was an odd and fragmented ride. With the truth of the boat blast that bonded them no longer a looming threat, suddenly the widows were thrown into very separate storylines. Kirsi, despite Veera and Johanna inexplicably taking her back into the fold after her betrayal, spends half the season away from them locked in a genuinely abusive marriage to a man she’s known for about half a minute. She pushes so far past the point of what is forgivable in terms of her friendships with Veera and Johanna, and becomes increasingly difficult to sympathise with. The bulk of Veera’s storyline is focussed on her weird open relationship with a high-profile MP/author who she has absolutely no chemistry with (I used to think Pihla would have chemistry with a rock - she’s had it with basically everyone else I’ve ever seen her paired with - but I don’t see it at all with this guy) while her own husband becomes a mere inconvenience, and Johanna...well I can’t even remember what Johanna was doing half the time, besides the will-they-won’t-they dance with Petri. The widows then intersect at the tiniest dribs and drabs to talk about the DVD. That’s really it.

And Jukka, oh my god, did they write him into the ground or what? S1′s redemption arc shows him falling back in love with his wife, so much that he’s willing to leave her to make her happy, and then to go to jail to keep her and their daughter safe. And S2 opens with him trying to drown her, not even stopping to question the legitimacy of what Kirsi - who has just been coming on to him behind Veera’s back - is saying? He then spends half the season locked in a basement, and when he does finally get free and worms his way back into Veera and Siiri’s lives, there isn’t a single proper conversation between him and Veera about all that’s gone down between them. Yeesh. By the end of the season, he’s gone legitimately off the rails. Even if there had been a S3 (and Jukka hadn’t been shot in the S2 finale), it would’ve been really hard for him to redeem himself.

I honestly don’t know what drove the storyline decisions here. You’d think that logically, the Veera/Jukka conflict and relationship would have the most potential for drama and rich storytelling (not to mention the strongest bond to the underlying trigger plot of the show - the boat blast). We saw nothing of it in S2. Nothing. It was just swept under the rug. They barely even interact.

I guess I’m just really disappointed in where they took this. I wonder if even the writers/actors were in the dark about where they would take that relationship in S2, because the way they played Veera and Jukka’s reconciliation in S1 was just so…emotionally romantic? In that post-sex scene where they’re talking by the fire, Jukka looked like he absolutely adored her, like he’d have done anything for her. The show had also made an interesting decision to not show them having sex (only the prelude, which was incredibly loving and tender), in contrast to Veera/Erno and Veera/Anttu who we quite graphically see having sex... For a while I’d wondered if they were using the whole ‘making love vs having sex’ contrast to highlight that her relationship with Jukka was special, but that quickly got blown out of the water in S2.

(An aside - it’s interesting that Veera and Anttu barely ever kiss throughout the whole relationship, and I wonder if there was a recognised chemistry issue between Pihla and the guy who plays Anttu).

Based on what they’d shown us about their feelings, realistically both Jukka and Veera should’ve been way more devastated by Kirsi’s reveal. Surely, he would’ve wanted to understand. Surely a part of him wouldn’t even believe it until hearing it from her (especially bearing in mind Kirsi has just been coming on to him behind Veera’s back)? Surely he’d have been heartbroken as well as angry? And surely Veera would’ve been more hurt by his reaction, would’ve understood his anger, and would’ve wanted to explain things to him (they basically wrote S2 as if she didn’t care enough to try)? S2 made a huge mockery of the redemption arc of S1. It made Veera look fickle and unattached and Jukka regress into the volatile asshole he’d been presented as at the start of S1. And perhaps most significantly of all, it denied Veera of a redemption arc of her own. The reality, is that she should’ve wanted that redemption - she was wrong about him, and had nearly killed him because of it. Why didn’t the writers address that?? It really pissed me off that they just had Veera brush that whole thing under the carpet.

And Anttu, oh my gosh I don’t even know what angle they were going for with this storyline? Were we supposed to be rooting for him? Because I was really not. First off, I don’t believe that Veera would ever be so desperate to seriously pursue the relationship in the first place - she is fiercely protective of her daughter (to the point she was willing to kill her husband to protect her) so I doubt she would’ve engaged in a relationship that she knew would never provide any stability for Siiri. 

And Anttu himself, what the hell? He takes her out for a public dinner, and then everyone acts like it’s such a shock when the media snaps them out together and reports on it as gossip? Veera’s humiliated and hurt, but doesn’t even have enough pride to walk away from a) him b) the job she has working for his wife until way later on? All the while, her own husband is popping in and out of her life and it’s like she’s just flicked the off switch on her feelings for him? It just makes no sense to me! 

And then there’s the fact that we aren’t shown any great emotional connection between Veera and Anttu. They basically had no emotional or sexual chemistry. We’re meant to believe that the pull between these characters is so strong, and the audience is told by way of the characters that Veera and Anttu are supposedly so attracted to each other, but the chemistry is so non-existent that we don’t see it. The clincher though, is that he was actually kind of an asshole. The show tried to present him as this wholesome guy, but he didn't actually seem to give two shits about her wellbeing at all - he showed up at her house the first time she broke it off basically to convince her to keep sleeping with him on the side (telling her how attracted he was to her while her kid was in hearing distance, wtf), took her out to dinner knowing that people would likely talk, brushed off her concerns about the photos, outed her name to the press against her wishes, stood by his wife and basically belittled her and treated her like the other woman on live television, then when she tried to break it off for good he kept pursuing her because he wanted her, like she was some kind of trophy (and ‘I’m not used to being dumped’ - OH PLEASE!). He had no regard for her feelings or wishes at all. The scene where he shows up at her house with the party invite and wouldn’t even let her speak raised my hackles - I mean, was that supposed to be romantic? Him constantly stalking her despite her saying ‘no’ on multiple occasions, and showing up at her house (and scaring her kid) despite her wishes? Honestly, it just about killed me seeing Veera allowing herself to be treated like that. She deserves so much better, and it was really unsatisfying to see the series end with her going back to him (the fact that he left his wife is really the least of the issues).

So maybe I wrote all that just to come to the conclusion that - I’m actually kind of glad that we’ll never see beyond the ending of S2. Perhaps I’ll just pretend that this universe concluded at the end of S1, before Kirsi had the chance to make that phone call. I’ll pretend that Veera eventually told Jukka of her own accord, that they fought and got angry, and made up and were able to understand each others’ circumstances. That they talked and kissed and made love at the villa, and plotted a way to keep the police off Veera’s back. And then they lived happily ever after with Siiri. Sigh.

[b4civility]

August,7

fanfic based on the “teenage love triangle” on Folklore, “Betty”, “August” and “Cardigan”. Still releasing new chapters, stay tooned! 

[NO WARNINGS] 

summary: Betty doesn’t realize she is touching James the first time she does so. James doesn’t realize she is everything he wants the first time he paints her sink red. Alisson doesn’t realize she wasn’t part of the plan. August slipped away like a bottle of wine, as quick as it could,staining everything it reaches.

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

Chapter 1: Betty 

Whenever I have to pack, my head gets cloudy. Always seems like I got everything I need, except that the Object That I Take For Granted But Actually Use Everyday stays behind, like a bath sponge or a coffee pot. I know this will happen, but get a bit of a headache every time trying to fight it. All the boxes in mu checklist are checked, but this anxious feeling still buzzes inside my head. 

‘Check under the bed to see if there’s something there’, mom says. 

I check. There is, but nothing that belongs to me. 

I am moving from a house of girls to another house of girls, but at least I get to have the unspoken individuality of my belongings, the entitlement to my schedule and to have “ I would rather not talk about it” or “I want to keep it to myself” as a legitimate answer this time around. My sisters are pretty sad about it- Skyler says she will miss my closet the most. “ So I am supposed to buy my own earrings now? How much do they cost? Do you try them on at the store? Is it ok if I get them wet by accident or will they be totally ruined?” she shoots at me as I finish packing my jewelry. “ Did you not care to not spill water on my earrings when you wore them?”, I ask, but she just looks away and plays with the ones that are in her ear, that are, too, mine. They are the silver with some dark green balls at the end. I stole them from a fancy boutique when I was 14, igniting my addiction to this accessory. I stole a couple more until the guilt finally kicked in,and then became an expert on finding cheap and not that bad ones at Aliexpress. I’ll just let her have it, looks better with her short hair than with my long one. Even though we have the same kind of curls, mine weren’t as defined as hers when I had short hair. A little bit shorter than the earrings, makes her look so edgy. She loves it. 

Eliza, in the other hand, despites my wardrobe, but worships my baking skills. One Sunday or the other we bake together, she makes sour doo biscuits and I bake a cake. This is our stack for the week, and then we try a different recipe for the dessert that day. We have a nice dynamic in the kitchen by now-she hates making cake but loves eating mine and I feel the same way about her biscuits, ans since both of us have a sweet tooth, baking is taken very seriously under this roof. 

The four of us get in the car, I get the backseat since Eliza is our official DJ (not that we gave her the title, rather she took it),plus, mom likes her by her side. Never have I ever sat behind the wheels when the entire family was in the car, for some reason mom would always get cautious about it when I asked if I could drive in these situations, even though I have been each and everyone’s chauffeur at some point. 

Tomorrow, at this very hour, I would be waking up to none of them. The closest thing to not being a sister I ever had was before I was seven, when Skyler wasn’t born yet, the bedroom was all mine and dad only had one volleyball player in our backyard. The closest thing I ever got to not being a daughter when he left. I was 12, Skyler was 5 and mom was in no condition to deal with her and our loss at the same time. Grandma was around a lot for the next 2 years. I couldn’t say the same about our mother, even up to this date. 

So I was reading her body expression, her smile at what my sister was saying about the music she chose, her thin neck, blurred by some hair strands that got out of her pony tale and eventually felt on her shoulders covered by her green cardigan, and how easily breakable her peacefulness appeared. Not because of my departure,no, she has been looking like this everyday since that last day. I don’t believe the other two ever notices that, not when they got their hands full with the colossal mess they make to get their older sister’s attention. It does work, I’m even moving houses because of it;college is just a social-acceptable excuse. 

Three hours later we have completed our journey from Mendax to Verum, the college town just 20 minutes away from campus. Five other girls were to live with me, none that I have met yet, but their facebook page tells me I got another Political Science major in the house, two English majors, a biology southmore and soon-to-be-graduated journalist. I sort of hoped I was going to be the first one to arrive so I could get my stuff in place first, not have all the stubbornness that run through my family’s DNA thrown at them as a first impression and possibly bake a Homecoming/Welcome/If My Words Fail Me At Least I Have This Going For Me cake. Plus, I own Eliza this last/ first moment, so I’d ask for her help. 

 The house was unapologetically pink. The pastel tone suited the wood-revested building very well, so much it felt like Barbie Dream House: College edition. The family house energy of it, the immense porch space, the spacious interior corridors,two livingrooms and the hugh gress space in the backyard were the opposite of what you would expect of a college girls’ residency, yet everything you wish they all looked like. Besides, this was a very prospect location for an off campus party, so I think I got the upper hand with this one. 

“ You are in a Barbie movie scenario for your entire graduation. I’m so jealous I can’t barely put it into words” Skyler said, staring at it, blinking as if she was waiting for it to disappear the next time she opened her eyes. “ Yeah,I will be sitting at the porch waiting to see if Ken shows up anytime soon,too.” I answered as I stood next to her, holding boxes. “Yeah, be sure to look very carefully for him at the massive Homecoming barbecue you guys are going to be having in this abnormous big backyard of yours”.So it was that obvious.” But don’t get attached to the first cutie you see, ok? Someone better could be just around the corner... ”. I don’t even want to imagine how her college years are going to be like. Probably a little cooler than mine; she always knows how to make a fun moment even funnier. Is it legal to bring your underaged sibling to a uni party? 

“Don’t worry. I’ll keep you in mind whenever I get more-than-two-dates invested in someone here”

Did Skyler really thought that my next romance would just fall into my backyard, like that?  

Chapter 2: James 

The sound of the wheels rolling on the concrete always get people looking, even when you are far from them. Anyone in top of a skateboard becomes a model in a suburban street, whose streets turn into a red carpet filled with paparazzi. I try to say something like “good morning” or “hello” to whoever I am passing by in an attempt to make my politeness overcome the annoyance of the loud noise, and convince myself that it works. Somehow, I often end up in a situation where it would be better not to be seen: whether is when I am riding my board and I get loud or in places I shouldn’t be attempting to land a trick at, or when I am pointing my camera at someone, trying to get a picture without them noticing. As if it isn’t happening for the hundredth time, I awkwardly pause, try to wave at them so I don’t come out as a stalker and gesticulating an apology all at once. People generally frown and move some place else, as a anyone in their right mind would. But only my headphones come with me for the ride when I know I will be taking The Pink House road. Two years ago I was riding by for the fourth time in the same week - ok, that was pretty stalker-y - getting shots of the house, the thing that struck me at first, and then the feature that actually grabbed my attention: the girls. There were four college girls living there, all who seemed so bubbly,so full of life, so enjoyable to the eye, so hot. By that time I had the count in my head, and one of them was missing. Didn’t mind much, got some rather good photos of Claire, the only one that I(oddly,but actually) knew. We made out at a uni party that I had sneaked in to the year before. As soon as I looked forward, A bloody face jumped in front of me,screaming, scaring me enough so that I felt in the concrete, scratched an elbow and hurting my feet. 

“THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU DON’T WEAR PROTECTION PADS!!!!! AND ALSO WHEN YOU ACT LIKE A CREEP FUCK,BASTARD!” 

As I pointed my head to the sky, the bloody shadow took away the mask, to reveal the fourth girl missing. “I-I-I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to.. I was just… The house, I-”

“Oh God ,it’s a creepy kid”, she said, throwing a hand to help me get up. “ So just because you are a cute teenager you think you can spy on stranger’s house like that?!?”- she said I was cute- “Yo, it’s no stalker”- kinda was- “just a random kid with a camera. Partially broken camera, you might wanna pick that piece up”. That was the day I met Inez. We got quite acquainted since that day, and photographing a place that you are allowed in got boring after the first two times so we just became friends.

I searched for her, but instead saw a brown girl istead. A new girl. Someone I was not ready to see. I stopped breathing the second she raised her head and I could see her almond eyes better, the spark on her cheeks reflecting the sun. The next thing I knew I had my face on the concrete, with the same elbow scratched, again. 

“Shit, are you ok? You're bleeding” she (yes, she!) said to me.

“I-I’m cool, I’m cool… you know,just...whatever, happens all the time and shit...” . My mouth doesn’t know how to work when my brain is in complete shock with the view, apparently. 

“You should at least wash it, your elbow could get infected, come on inside” she said, as she held my hand and arm very softly. You could see she was trying not to touch the injury much, but I swear I wasn’t feeling my entire body. 

Chapter 3: Betty 

“I suppose we should have a first aid kit here, somewhere…”- he’s painting my sink in red as the water runs in the wound. What a way to start. “Eliza, Skyler, help me; you go look if you find anything in the bathroom and you, keep at the kitchen cabinets”.

“It’s on the upper shelf, actually”, he answers.

It was.What the fuck?

“So you live here now?!?!” I hear a voice from behind that isn’t my mother’s. It’s the biology major,even though she is blonder than her facebook pictures.

“I-I-I just… arrived…. I’m sorry he… I was just...” Was I ever going to come up with the right sequence of words to explain that I, a girl she never met, had got into her house with a bleeding,also strange boy and two teenagers running wild looking through her stuff? The chances are beyond unlikely,at its best. 

“Not you, I was expecting you- I mean  him”, she arched her eyebrows.

“Inez ! long time no see, girl!”, he replies with a sort of laughing, trying to lighten up the mood. I wasn't understanding one bit of what was going on.

“ You couldn’t wait for the party so you just brought it right in yourself, huh? Look at the mess you made in my kitchen! You know, I am leaving here next year so you better make a good impression of yourself for the other girls if you want to keep falling in our doorstep and getting aid” 

“I don’t think I’m their first option but I can make it work, never smile at someone and didn’t get a smile back” he says softly, kind of taking advantage of it, as he smiles at Inez, and she tries to hold it, but smiles back. I smile a little bit too, but still- what the fuck is happening?!?! 

“ You believe that your white teeth will get you anywhere, don’t you?”

“It got me aid the first time I ever felt in your doorstep. Also got you letting me teach you how to skateboard,which was super cool” he started sounding a little bit more teenager-y. How old was he? 

“ I always wanted to skate, you just happened to have a skateboard”. The air in the room was decrisealing chaotic. What he did worked. 

“Oh, like we were the only two people here, I am so sorry; hi, I’m Inez, welcome home,Beatrice!” she turns to me, shaking my hand, with a relaxed smile on. 

“Thank you, you can call me Betty” He really softened the mood, the words even came out of my mouth normally. 

“Ok, sure. I was meant to be here earlier but I had a salon appointment. But you met the house mascot already,so that’s one thing out of the list”- she points at this skater, sitting on the sink- “ This is James, he’s around more than he should. Do you need help? with the boxes?” And then I remembered of my sisters, running loose around the house and my mom, probably on the car outside. 

“ My sisters and I got everything by the porch already, there aren’t many”

“Fine, I will just wrap up this skater’s arm in a band-Aid and then I’ll show you your room. Clem is your roommate. You are enrolled in political science too, right?”

“Yeah”

“Nice, I think you two will be quite a match then. James, get your board rolling outta here, you are done, you can stop scarring my new roomate. 

“ Thanks, ‘Nez” he hopped out of the sink. “ It was never my intention to scare you. Nice meeting you, Betty” he gives me a quiet smile, looking into my eyes just for a second before looking at the ground. He ran a little bit down the hallway, got on the skateboard and went out of sight. He had this boyish posture, stubborn, unaware of his own size. His broad shoulders moved along with his waist as he strolled away. It was nice meeting you,too,James.

[secretgamergirl]

Abuse I’ve just had to sit with forever

Right now I can’t look anywhere without seeing people speaking up about abusive monsters in various positions of power and it’s really triggering a lot of PTSD for me about all the times I’ve been in positions like that where nobody has ever listened or tried to help so... I’m just going to rattle off all the ones that come to my head, anonymously, and I don’t know, if anyone who knows me wants to ask me about any of these and/or try to really do something to help, maybe come talk to me about it through whatever private channel we talk in sometimes.

Family stuff. There’s a lot, and there’s no real way to talk about any of it anonymously because I mean being members of my family it’s already narrowed down way too much.

Someone once put me in the temporary care of a woman who savagely beat me because her own children were making too much noise when they should have been asleep. Bad enough that when I went back to school I was almost ripped out of my home by child protective services on the assumption that’s where it happened. Oh and she also force-fed me rotten food with maggots in it. I ended up pretty sick as a result, lost a whole lot of weight, and ended up with a serious eating disorder that’s plagued me since. I did eventually get out of there but I don’t know that I’ve ever really conveyed the full extend of it.

One of that woman’s children had some sort of torture kink, very nearly killed me, did put me in the hospital from injuries, and might have raped me. Hard to say because I was like... 7? Hard to translate those memories now that I have the context and vocabulary. I tried to explain that to anyone who’d listen at the time but, again, I didn’t have the vocabulary and I don’t think it came across that like... ropes and tools were involved, not just fists. Never got into that with therapists, because the first one I had really loved playing gatekeeper with trans stuff and liked the “maybe you just think you’re a girl because of abuse as a child” line of thinking too much already. I think I heard he eventually landed in prison though, so that’s something?

The first job I ever had. Games website. I was too young to be working but nobody ever thought to ask about it, and my family needed the extra income to avoid homelessness besides. The owner of the site... was really into open sexual roleplay in workplace text chats. I was so young and weirdly sheltered that I didn’t even process that that was even a thing, and 90% of it went straight over my head, plus I was in a weird state at the time with the whole trans thing where oh yeah, if anyone’s doing any roleplaying stuff on the internet, I’ll be in the character of me-but-a-girl but everything is pretend here right? So... there was a whole lot of mounting and thrusting being described and it took a few years to sink in that that was not in fact about him pretending to be a knight with me as a horse or something. And there was also a lot of... failing to pay me for years of backbreaking work, outright stealing from me, and I mean, I was up until like 4 AM every night working while still in high school. So, yeah. that was a lot. Never told anybody about any of this. So far as I know he still runs the site and nobody’s ever confronted him about anything.

Used to try to play various RPGs with some people in this extra niche-y game space. Sort of the first place I was ever read as a woman without offering anyone “corrections.” And... there was just this one guy who whenever he was GMing had some weird creative excuse for my character (usually the only woman in the party) to... be raped and/or impregnated just all of the sudden and totally out of left field. Which everyone was OK with somehow. And when he wasn’t GMing he was all over my character of course. Never really spoke up to anyone. I just left one day.

Ended up... in the inner circle of someone very famous. Mostly famous for being a victim of abuse. Which is why I ignored... every single red flag there is that someone is an abusive person and taking advantage of everyone around them. They controlled every aspect of my life for years. Had me do a whole lot of work for them, place myself in real physical and psychological danger, regularly. Directly asked me to severe ties with most people in my life. Install kill-switch sortware on my laptop for their piece of mind that none of our conversations would ever be seen by anyone, while also making me talk only in privately managed chat services where they logged everything and my screen wiped at regular intervals, and insisting I use an untraceable alias in it. All of this I was constantly assured was for my own safety as much as theirs, somehow, and that I was their most valued friend who they would keep safe, start paying a huge salary to soon, as well as help secure me a safe place to live and get properly started on medical transition stuff that I was unable to do in the increasingly unsafe place I was living at the time. I could keep going with this, but again, I don’t want anyone playing guessing games. Eventually, as serial abusers do, this person got sick of me, cast me out, and said presumably unspeakable things about me to everyone in that social circle, because everyone quite promptly cut all ties to me without a word. I once mentioned some small fraction of this publicly in defense of... multiple people attempting suicide as a result of this person’s abuse, and it was made very, very clear to me that this is not someone I will ever be able to safely speak about in public.

Another person who is very famous, with ties to abuse prevention stuff, added me to a blacklist to kill my career prospects and then kinda put a hit out on me on a neo-nazi website, but I’ve written about that incident. Nothing happened as a result of speaking out aside from the violence I was already being subjected to ramping up and more people cutting ties with me. Oh and those who didn’t are still quite friendly with her.

Several women with ties to... dangerous people randomly got it into their heads several years ago that I posed some sort of threat to someone I am told they “feel very protective towards” and... unleashed a hell on me unlike anything I have ever seen. I have spent the past 6 years now dealing with death threats from far right terrorist organizations who in some cases have very sizeable body counts, and those groups don’t scare me anywhere near as much as these people. Anyone else I have seen them paint a target on completely withdrew from the internet their careers and any sort of public life to try and stay off their radar. I have had multiple people privately confide in me that they had been threatened never to speak to me again before proceeding to make good on that. I have individually thrown myself at the mercy of every single one of them, explained that I have absolutely no ill will towards any of them, and had never even heard of this person they’re “protecting” before they started coming after me. Nothing has worked. They’ve never stopped. I’m legitimately afraid someone connected to them is going to murder me some day, and I don’t know what to do. I’ve confided in all of maybe 3 people about this. One might be dead, one is a total hermit, the third briefly tried supporting me, received threats, and promptly retracted everything, replacing it with a fire and brimstone speech about how I am an evil monster who tricked them. I have regular nightmares about this, and collapse into a shivering heap just seeing any of their names mentioned.

I... spent a good deal of time in social contact with a person I have been told I need to be friends with to advance in a career I would like to pursue. While doing so, he sabotaged a project that was fairly important to me, and I saw some him mistreat someone else in ways I find quite disturbing, but that’s her story to tell and not mine. I don’t feel comfortable around him, and have no real choice but to give up on those dreams. Haven’t really discussed this anywhere. The sort of work I can get would definitely vanish completely if I did.

The sort of work I can get also involves working for a variety of companies with people very high up the ranks who have seriously harmed a number of people I consider to be very good friends, in ways that in some cases include sexual abuse, and I... really would prefer not to ever work for anyone employing such people now that I am aware of this.

Yet another famous person, but one who I feel perfectly comfortable naming, Graham Linehan, used to follow me on social media with a level of enthusiasm that could arguably be better referred to as stalking. Then later he joined some extremist anti-trans hate group and rose to the top pretty quickly. And some years after that, it finally sank in that worshiping a trans woman while also leading a group of people bent on killing us all, so he has been very loudly and very publicly rambling about his hatred for me specifically. I don’t really have to speak up about this one because he’s doing plenty of that on his end, but I do have to note that while this famous person terrorizing me hasn’t really earned me any sort of public defense or sympathy, it has encouraged a whole lot of people to invent an alternate timeline of events where I am directly responsible for him being a bigot, leading to me getting dangerous threats from both horrible bigots and people who claim to hate horrible bigots but have suspiciously poor aim.

Hey speaking of celebrities, one of the stars of Firefly used to regularly send me photos of violently distended testicles. One of the stars of Star Trek once posted something encouraging millions of social media followers to attack me and left it up for a weekend. One of the producers of World of WarCraft once threatened to sue me for libel and went on a big PR tour about it, speaking on podcasts and such, and so many fascists pretending to be journalists have dumped so much crap on me...

And not to long ago in something of a wacky mixup, someone ELSE rather famous, who does diversity consulting no less, confused me for someone else and cut loose with a horrific bit of hate and gossip and throwing me under the bus, and misgendering me, saying random harassers baselessly calling me a pedophile were probably onto something. Privately told a handful of people about that, because I thought she was a friend and that was so heartbreaking, but anyone I told is just pretending not to have seen it.

Someone was once offering me help because I was in a dangerous situation, financially. I explained that things had been extra hard since coming out as trans. Suddenly he goes from helpful and concerned to just... violent. Screaming a me, openly trying to chase me out of the space we were both in. I reported this to the proper people. They tried talking, he left. The whole community mourned the loss and wondered who could have driven him off. Still doesn’t feel like a safe place for me.

I don’t really know why I’m bothering with all of this. Nobody is actually going to help. I’d say nobody is actually going to read this, but I’m sure plenty of people who hate me will to see if I’m talking about them and use it as justification to make things worse. Plus some people I’m not talking about I’m sure. I get plenty of that all the time.

Nothing ever helps and you can’t ever win. If you try to keep the abusers appeased by not outing them, the abuse never stops. If you try to speak up, their fans and friends treat it like declarations of war and pile on. If you just try to be there for other people when they’re being abused, you get singled out as a “troublemaker” and added to hit lists and black lists and... nothing works.

I don’t want a lot out of life. I want to know I have enough food, and have a place to live where I’m not at risk of dying from either temperature extreme, a bathroom, enough room for my book shelves, a bed, a couch, a dinner table, and a yoga mat. Maybe a space where my cats can run around a little enclosed semi-outdoor area for the fresh air and sun. I want to be able to deal with my medical problems. I want to see and talk to friends sometimes. If I’m really greedy, I’d like to have all that for a particular friend too who I’m constantly worrying about dying of poverty. And I’d like to be able to work on games. Maybe play them sometimes. Maybe watch things.

And that’s the really messed up part. Because abusive people and people supporting the structures of abuse always say they just want to focus on getting work done, or having fun, and it’s a lie. What’s most important for them is perpetuating abuse. They could just stop, or get rid of the people doing it, and the rest of us could live our lives and everything would be fine. But no instead we have to drop everything and make sure no woman anywhere feels safe enough to even breath.

[anubislover]

Of Friendship, Captains, and Wedding Dresses (Part 2)

“Should we show this to Law?” Penguin whispered. He, Shachi, and Jean Bart were huddled in the corner of their shared quarters, closely studying the newspaper. It had arrived only minutes ago, but the second he had seen the front page he’d pulled his two companions away from the galley, needing someone to assure him he hadn’t gone crazy. Everyone else was at breakfast, so they weren’t expecting company, but it still felt like they spoke too loudly, the horrible image before them would be real.

Shachi skimmed the article with concern. It was short on details beyond time, place, and a few quotes from witnesses, but the headline and photo were damning enough. “Probably, but who knows how he’ll react?”

“This has to be a mistake,” Jean Bart grumbled, crossing his huge arms. “Straw Hat’s not the kind of guy to move in on another man’s woman, and Miss Nami would never cheat on the Captain. Maybe it’s a set up by the World Government?”

“What reason would they have to make up something like this?” Penguin asked incredulously. “No one outside the alliance knows about Law and Nami, so it can’t be to sabotage our partnership.”

“And it doesn’t look like the photo’s doctored,” Shachi added, studying it closely. “It’s definitely them, too, so they couldn’t have staged it with lookalikes.”

The former slave frowned in disappointment. “So, you’re saying that you think Straw Hat really…”

“I’m saying I’m not seeing any evidence that he didn’t.”

“It doesn’t make sense, though!” Penguin said, glaring at the paper. “I didn’t think he was even into girls! And if he were, he’s got the Pirate Empress herself itching for a piece of him. Why would he go for Nami?”

“Because she’s awesome and gorgeous and smart and they’ve known each other for ages?”

“Well, yeah, but she’s also taken! Even a guy as dense as Luffy can see Law’s serious about her. Hell, this is the longest I’ve ever even seen him be with a woman, and we’ve known him since we were teenagers.”

Frown deepening, Jean Bart’s brow furrowed. “Yeah, the Captain seems…happy whenever he’s with her. At first, I thought it was just because that Doflamingo guy was gone and he was getting laid, but I think he’s got legitimate feelings for her.”

“Which is what makes this,” Shachi growled, slapping the newspaper distastefully, “even worse! I don’t want to believe Nami or Luffy would betray him like this, but if it’s true, I’ll kick their asses myself!”

“As if you could,” Penguin replied with a roll of his eyes, even if he felt the same way. He, the ginger, Bepo, and their captain had been friends for years, and Nami was the first woman they’d ever known that managed to make the grumpy, sadistic man smile so softly. Law was falling head-over-heels, and while his gut was telling him to trust her and her captain, the facts were pointing in a very uncomfortable direction. “But back to the original question; should we show this to Law?”

“Captain deserves to know,” Jean Bart said, scratching his chin. “He’ll be pissed, but a man should hear this sort of thing from his friends, not the paper.”

“Yeah, but if it is just a misunderstanding, he might do something rash and ruin the alliance.” Shuddering, images of the Straw Hats cut to pieces filled his mind. Depending on how angry Law was, he might not even use his Ope-Ope Fruit powers when doing it.

“Rash? Guy lives by the saying ‘revenge is a dish best served cold.’ It took him how many years to go after Doflamingo?”

“That was different. Love can make even the calmest man irrational. And he was able to take his time with Doflamingo because he didn’t have to see him for thirteen years. I’m not sure he’s got enough willpower not to murder Luffy on sight if we ran into him.”

Shachi nodded in agreement, adjusting his hat. “We should wait for a bit; see if new info comes out. Could be it clears up on its own and Law never finds out.”

“We can’t hide it from him forever,” the big man replied. “Straw Hat’s the Fifth Emperor! Every little thing he does makes the news. You think this is the only article there’ll be about his upcoming wedding?”

“Luffy’s getting married?” came a voice from the door.

The trio froze, realizing they were no longer alone in their quarters. Turning in unison, they found Bepo looking at them curiously, and behind him, their captain.

“So that’s where the paper went,” Law chuckled, leaning against the doorway, his morning cup of coffee in hand. “I was worried the News Coo missed us. Have to keep up with Mugiwara-ya’s antics somehow, don’t we?”

“Eh, sure, Captain!” Shachi said with a salute. “But there’s nothing interesting in today’s news, so—”

“But you just said Luffy’s getting married,” Bepo pointed out. “How is that not interesting?”

Law’s grin widened, amusement dancing in his gold eyes. “Yeah, did Hancock finally get her claws in him? I’d say that’s worth a read.”

“Not at all, Law! It’s a super boring article!” Penguin insisted, instinctively hiding the paper behind his back.

“Yeah, the photo’s terrible, too,” Jean Bart supplied. Much as he felt Law deserved to hear it from them, he absolutely agreed it shouldn’t be at that very moment. They needed at least another hour to figure out how to break it to him gently so hopefully he wouldn’t do as Penguin predicted.

Suspicious, Law raised a dark eyebrow at his companions. He would have thought the guys would be all over mocking their ally’s weird relationship with the Amazonian queen. None of them would meet his eyes, and they’d been conspicuously absent from breakfast.

It didn’t take a genius to figure out they were hiding something.

“Room. Shambles.”

Shachi shrieked as the paper was replaced with the mug of coffee, which proceeded to spill all over the back of his boiler suit.

“Don’t read it, Captain!” Penguin cried but was too late.

Silence fell over the room as the dark doctor’s eyes roamed the front page, tattooed knuckles turning white as his fingers tightly clenched the wrinkled paper.

“Bepo,” he finally said, voice colder than the waters of the North Blue as he pulled a vivre card out of his pants pocket, “set a course for the Thousand Sunny.”

A shiver ran up Jean Bart’s spine as the navigator hesitantly took the white scrap of paper. “Captain, I’m sure it’s just a misunderstanding!”

“Oh, I’m sure it is,” he replied, tone eerily calm. “Someone seems to have misunderstood that Nami-ya is mine. So, we’re going to go remedy that.”

XXX

A few days later, Luffy was relaxing atop his favorite spot on the lion head. A thick fog had settled, making it impossible to see possible dangers or obstacles, so Nami had insisted they drop anchor until it dispelled. Despite the bad weather, she’d seemed quite chipper at breakfast, grinning mischievously when he’d caught her looking at him out of the corner of her eye. Afterwards, she’d told him to come to her cabin in a couple hours, as she had a new game they could play.

“You can’t tell the rest of the crew, though,” she’d giggled with a wink. “After I teach you the rules, we’ll surprise them with it together.”

A smile stretched his face. It was good to see his navigator was happy. He’d felt a bit bad for ruining her shopping trip and was especially worried when, the next day, she pretty much locked herself in her room, refusing to tell even Robin what was wrong. He’d thought she was mad at him, but maybe she’d just been working on this new game? He couldn’t wait to play!

His thoughts were derailed when a familiar yellow submarine surfaced next to the ship, the bright color particularly garish against the thick, gray fog.

“Tora-o!” he called, excited as the dark doctor emerged on deck. “How’re ya doing, buddy?”

Ordinarily Luffy was immune to Law’s glares, but even he felt a small shiver go up his spine at the look the Surgeon of Death gave him. The bags under his eyes seemed particularly pronounced, as if he’d been sleeping even less than usual, and his intense gold pupils bore into him like Admiral Kizaru’s light beams. The rest of the Heart Pirates filed out behind him, heavily armed and equally as grim. In a blink, Law activated his Room, teleporting himself up onto the figurehead and grabbing Luffy’s red vest in a white-knuckled grip.

“Mugiwara-ya,” he ground out through clenched teeth, holding a newspaper up to the younger captain’s face, “what the fuck is this?”

It took Luffy a few moments to comprehend what he was seeing. It was the issue from almost a week ago; the front page was dominated by an image of him on one knee in front of Nami, the wedding dress boutique perfectly framed behind them. The copper-haired woman’s face was shocked, hands clasped over her mouth, but from an outsider’s point of view it wasn’t the expression of disbelieving horror it had been. The headline was just as damning:

Fifth Emperor Straw Hat Luffy Proposes to His Navigator

Heavy silence fell between the two captains, Law seething with rage as Luffy skimmed the accompanying article.

“Well?” the doctor hissed, ignoring the way the rest of the Straw Hats had moved towards them, on guard due to the doctor’s threatening aura and his crew’s cold expressions. “You said you weren’t in love with her! That she’d make a scary wife, remember? What the hell—”

His furious questions were cut off as Luffy burst out laughing.

At his captain’s outburst, Zoro’s grip on his swords relaxed. The murderous aura the dark doctor radiated had immediately put him on guard, ready to defend his captain if Law had chosen to violently end the alliance. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Sanji had crept closer to the railing, ready to dive into the ocean to rescue the Devil Fruit user, though he was sure he was more eager for an excuse to kick the ass of Nami’s boyfriend. Luckily, Luffy appeared to be in no real danger, as Law’s grip on his vest loosened in shock.

“Oh, man, wait until Nami sees this!” the rubber man guffawed.

“Is this a joke to you, Mugiwara-ya?” Law snarled, fists clenched. It was extremely tempting to punch his rival at that moment, but he’d noticed the green-haired swordsman and the cook were on high alert. Meanwhile, his own crew awaited his signal on the Polar Tang’s deck, ready to storm the ship and take back their captain’s woman by force. Not that he wanted to end their alliance like that, but if Luffy didn’t explain himself in the next five seconds, things were going to get violent fast.

“Sure, because it’s hilarious! You think Nami and I are getting married?”

The rest of the crew gasped, and an arm bloomed out of Luffy’s chest, grabbing the newspaper and tossing it down to Robin, who proceeded to show it to her companions, an amused smile slowly turning up the corners of her lips. Within seconds of reading the headline, Sanji burst into flame, Zoro, Brook, and Franky cracked up, and Chopper and Usopp stared at the article in inarticulate shock.

Letting out a deep breath, Law replied, perhaps a little hopefully, “You’re not?” He hated to admit it, but when he’d seen that headline, his heart had stopped. He’d long worried that the younger captain harbored feelings for the fiery navigator, considering their unshakable bond and history, but Nami’s assurances and Luffy’s general cluelessness about the fairer sex had mostly put those concerns to rest. But when he’d seen that photo, he’d been overwhelmed with the crushing fear that he’d lost her, mixed with fury at his ally’s betrayal.

As sneakily as the Cat Thief herself, Law’s feelings for Nami had grown past physical desire. The sex was still amazing, but as of late he’d found himself just as content simply being in her presence. When she tutored Bepo on cartography, he was happy to read a book in the corner, calmed by the sound of her voice. He’d volunteer to help in the mikan grove, filled with pride that she trusted him with her precious trees. Law found he even slept easier with her beside him, her warm, supple body providing comfort he’d never felt from another woman.

Was that love? He suspected so but hadn’t dared say it aloud. Both he and Nami had rather painful memories associated with the word, so he’d been holding off, not wanting to spook her or ruin the first truly good thing (besides his crew) he had in his life for a long time. He’d take his time, ease them both into it, and maybe, someday, he’d be able to use that word without his heart twisting.

Had his hesitation cost him? They’d declared themselves exclusive, but what if she’d changed her mind because he wasn’t yet ready to put his feelings into words? What if she didn’t see a future with him and decided to settle for Luffy? Moreover, had the Straw Hat captain’s talk of friendship been so hollow? Did he really think it was ok to move in on another man’s woman like that, to betray his hard-won trust? Had he decided that the doctor wasn’t worthy of the navigator and sought to end their relationship? Had Nami even said yes? Whatever the case, it was time for them to have a long-overdue talk. With luck, he wouldn’t have to kill her captain first; he doubted that would encourage her to stay with him.

Goofy grin fixed on his face, Luffy linked his hands behind his head carelessly. “Nope! Definitely not getting married.”

“Then you didn’t propose,” he confirmed, relief washing over him. Behind him, he could practically sense his own crew’s tension ease, the younger captain’s response a balm to their frayed nerves. Sailing for five days with a furious and heartbroken captain to potentially kill their allies had been beyond stressful.

“Oh, well, I did do that!” Luffy said cheerfully.

“What?!”

“Hey, she turned me down! I didn’t even get her a ring.”

“Why did you even want to marry her?”

“So you wouldn’t steal her heart and make her join your crew. But Nami promised she’d never leave us, even if she did marry you, so it’s all good!” he said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

Law had so many questions, most of them he was pretty sure he’d never get a straight answer for if he asked the rubber captain, so he simply settled on, “Where’s Nami-ya?”

XXX

Inside her room, Nami chuckled to herself. She normally wasn’t the type for silly pranks, but after seeing the headline brought by the News Coo a few days ago, she couldn’t help herself. At least, she couldn’t once she’d calmed down from the secret freak-out she’d had when the paper had been delivered. It was pure luck that none of her nakama hadn’t seen it yet; Sanji would probably be going for their captain’s throat and Usopp, Brook, and Zoro would tease her mercilessly. Well, she was going to turn the tables and beat them to the punch.

Much as she hated her experience on Thriller Bark, she’d kept the wedding dress in case she ever needed it for a disguise. Admittedly, she’d had to make a few alterations, as her body had changed in the two years since she’d worn it last, but with a few late-night sewing sessions, it fit well enough for her purposes. Really, the hardest part of the past few days had been removing any mention of hers and Luffy’s “engagement” from the papers before Robin or Sanji could get them.

She’d also been nervous that Law would call the ship demanding an explanation, but the transponder snail had been mercifully quiet. It wasn’t uncommon for the Heart Pirates to miss a few newspapers due to being deep under the sea, but Nami knew it wouldn’t last forever; once she’d had her fun, she planned on ringing him and filling him in on the situation. He’d probably be much happier hearing it from her than the News Coo, or at least less likely to murder Luffy.

Faintly, Nami could hear her captain’s voice outside the door, and she grinned deviously. His reaction would be hilarious, she was sure, and then she’d clue him in and they could mess with the rest of the crew for a while. With luck, it would permanently put to rest his silly worries that she’d leave the Straw Hats for a lover.

There was a knock on the door, and Nami giggled. Luffy was a little early, but she had expected he’d get impatient, so she’d gotten ready ahead of time. Hopefully he’d be too speechless to alert anyone on deck.

With a final inspection in the mirror, she gave herself a thumbs-up before flinging open the door.

“I do!”

As she’d hoped, her captain was silent, but Nami barely noticed as her eyes were fixed on Law, who gaped at her, jaw dropped.

Internally, the Cat Thief was screaming in horror. She’d heard commotion out on the deck, but she’d assumed it was just Zoro and Sanji’s usual post-breakfast argument. Instead, she was faced with the crippling realization that she’d just greeted her lover in a wedding gown. Even if he hadn’t seen that article, there was no way this could end well.

“Um, hi, Law-kun,” she squeaked.

Before anyone could react, Nami was thrown over the dark doctor’s shoulder. In a blink, they were on the yellow submarine’s deck, Law carrying the woman towards the door like a sack of potatoes. “Prepare to dive,” he ordered Penguin, who could only nod mutely before running inside.

“Hey, put me down!”

Ignoring his crew’s shocked expressions and Nami’s fists pounding against his back, Law growled, “Not a chance. You’re going to tell me what the hell’s going on, and then I’m ripping this damn dress off you. Then we’re going to find that reporter and make sure they know exactly who you belong to, because like hell you’re marrying anyone but me!”

Bright red spread across her cheeks while her heart fluttered. Did he really just say that? Did he really mean that?

However, her flustered response was cut off by a pair of rubber arms wrapping around her waist and yanking her back onto the Thousand Sunny. “No fair, Tora-o! Nami said you can’t marry her without my permission.”

Grabbing his nodachi from Bepo, Law yelled back, “Mugiwara-ya, you give me my woman or I’ll cut you into so many pieces not even Nico-ya and Tony-ya combined will be able to put you back together!”

“Well if you don’t quit tearing apart my navigator’s clothes, I’m going to bash your face in! Do you have any idea how many shopping bags I had to carry?” Luffy replied as he swung up onto the mast, bursts of haki keeping his rival’s Devil Fruit abilities from stealing Nami back, forcing Law to climb up after them. “It was awful, Tora-o! I couldn’t talk about meat and she spent twenty minutes deciding between two pairs of shoes that were exactly the same!”

“Hey, she likes it when I rip off her clothes! And if you can’t handle a woman’s shopping habits, you shouldn’t be asking to marry her!”

“Shishishi, well, you’re still not marrying her because I say so!” As he swung them up even higher, narrowly avoiding the doctor’s attempts to grab them, Luffy turned to grin at the redhead clinging to him for dear life. “This is way more fun than shopping, huh?”

“Luffy, I’m going to kill you!” she screeched, the bottom of her wedding gown whipping about in the wind.

“But this way you know he loves you! He wouldn’t get this mad otherwise, right?”

“Still going to kill you!”

The rubber man just laughed, more than happy with this new game. It probably wasn’t what she’d intended, but he sure wasn’t complaining. Honestly, he’d decided after his talk with Nami that if Law asked, he’d let them get married so long as she stayed the Straw Hats’ navigator. He had to ask, though, not kidnap her.

The younger captain had also decided that if Law didn’t propose by the time Luffy became King of the Pirates, he was going to beat the crap out of him and make him marry Nami. She wasn’t getting left behind like Makino-chan.

Down below, the rest of the Straw Hat Pirates were recovering from their shock at seeing Law carrying off Nami in a white wedding dress, only to be stolen away by their captain, leading to a rather intense but amusing chase above them. This was a far more eventful morning than any of them had expected, but the pure ridiculousness of the situation was certainly entertaining.

“Shitty captains! I’ll kill you both!” Sanji screamed as he tried to leap after them, only to be held back by Franky.

“I hope we’re invited to the SUPER wedding!”

“That poor, miserable bastard doesn’t know what he’s getting into,” Zoro chuckled, shaking his head as Brook began playing a wedding march on his violin.

“I think it’s cute,” Robin replied with a faint chuckle. “Though I get the feeling Luffy’s proposal will be haunting us for a long time.”

“What do you mean?” asked Chopper.

She raised an eyebrow at him. “You don’t think Trafalgar-san is the only one who saw this article, do you?”

As if summoned by her prediction, the battle between the two captains was immediately halted by an ominous bellow.

“WHO’S THIS PIRATE TRAMP MARRYING MY GRANDSON?!”

The silhouette of a familiar Marine battleship broke through the fog, the imposing dog head glaring down at the smaller pirate vessels. Atop the figurehead was Monkey D. Garp himself, a maniacal expression on his face and a cannonball in his hand, signature white coat billowing behind him.

Eyes wide with terror, Luffy leapt off the crow’s nest to shove Nami into Law’s arms. “Take her and go! Take her and go!”

“But what about—”

He grabbed the shocked couple and practically threw them down onto the deck. “You can marry her! You have my permission, just get her out of here before Grandpa kills her!”

“LUFFY! HOW DARE YOU GET MARRIED WITHOUT MY APPROVAL! THE LEAST YOU COULD DO IS MARRY A NICE MARINE GIRL! YOU’RE BOTH GETTING A FIST OF LOVE FOR THIS!”

As he spoke, Garp wound up his arm before launching the cannonball through the air, the projectile whistling almost merrily until it crashed into the mast, missing Luffy by mere inches.

Wide-eyed but not about to argue as a barrage of cannonballs began to rain down on the two ships, the Surgeon of Death held Nami tight as he teleported back to his submarine, rushing inside after his crewmates who were frantically preparing to dive.

“WHERE ARE YOU GOING?! COME BACK WITH MY GRANDSON’S BRIDE!”

“Grandpa I can explain!”

No one on the Polar Tang heard their ally’s explanation to the former Vice-Admiral as Shachi slammed the door closed behind them, twisting the hatch as tight as possible as the sub was rocked with the impact of several cannonballs. Within seconds, thankfully, they could see water through the portholes, and after a few long, terrifying minutes, they all let out a collective breath, relieved that they were deep enough to be safe from Garp and his ridiculously strong throwing arm.

Brushing his ginger hair out of his eyes, Shachi gave Nami a sheepish grin. “Nice dress.”

Still in the Heart captain’s arms, she returned the smile awkwardly. “Thanks. Think this is what they mean when they say it’s bad luck to see the bride before her wedding?”

“Maybe. If I get married, I’ll blind myself to be safe.”

“But if you did that, you’d never get to see your wife,” Bepo noted.

“Shut up, Bepo. It was a joke.”

“Sorry.”

Jean Bart shook his head and ushered the rest of the crew down the hallway. “Alright, back to work, men. We need to make sure none of the engines got damaged and no one’s injured.”

Happy for an excuse to give Law and Nami some much-needed privacy and escape the uncomfortable and frankly bizarre situation they’d found themselves in, the crew eagerly rushed down the hall. Only Bepo hesitated, glancing between his two friends.

“What’s our course now, Captain?” the Mink navigator asked.

“Away,” Law said tersely. “As far and deep as we can get. I don’t want us stopping until the Marines are off our trail.”

“Aye-aye, sir.”

At last out of danger and alone, silence reigned between the two lovers, Nami nervously fiddling with the skirt of her dress while Law slumped against the wall, lightly banging the back of his head against the thick steel. That was not how he’d expected their confrontation to go, but really, he should have. It was the Straw Hats, after all.

After a while he finally looked down at the woman still tightly encased in his arms, eyebrow raising as he looked her over. “So, Nami-ya, I guess you’ll be borrowing my clothes for a while. Unless you want to stay in the wedding dress?”

Unable to help herself, she gave a teasing grin. “What, you weren’t planning on just keeping me naked in your quarters?”

“I mean, I was, but I thought I’d at least pretend to be a gentleman.”

As nice as it was to hear him trying to make light of the situation, Nami couldn’t help but glance up at the ceiling, her brow furrowed in concern. “Do you think they’ll be ok?”

“Worried about your groom-to-be?” he asked sourly.

She smacked his chest in irritation. “Be nice. Stupid as Luffy was to do it, you’re lucky he proposed instead of kicking your ass. He…overheard us in the cargo hold and kind of panicked when I called you ‘Captain Law.’ He’s not a fan of you calling me a whore, either.”

Law groaned, burying his face in her hair. Well, that explained a few things. He vividly recalled that particular rendezvous; Nami had looked so damn good pinned to the wall, bikini top barely covering her heaving breasts, that he hadn’t been able to help himself. He hadn’t even used observation haki to scan for any potential voyeurs like he normally would, confident that her crew would be too busy with the party Luffy had insisted on throwing. In all honesty, he was lucky his fellow Supernova hadn’t murdered him over the filthy things he’d said in the heat of the moment. “Damn. So, dirty talk is limited to my ship, huh?”

“To say the least. Also, you’re admitting you two are friends. No more of this ‘alliance’ crap. If our relationship’s going to last, you need to accept you’re stuck with all of us Straw Hats, not just me.”

“Fine,” he grumbled, pulling away from her sweetly scented locks, “but I think you owe me an apology. I told you Mugiwara-ya was staking his claim.”

Nami nearly groaned. She knew he’d bring that up. “You’re never going to let that go, are you?”

The smug smirk he gave was answer enough and she rolled her eyes in exasperation. “You’re both such dramatic idiots.”

“Says the woman who greeted me in a wedding dress.”

She had the humility to blush. “I thought you were Luffy.”

“Not making it better.”

“It was supposed to be a joke! I thought we could mess with the crew a bit!”

“So, you wanted to give Black Leg-ya and Nose-ya heart attacks? I think my sense of humor’s rubbing off on you.”

“Hey, if it made Luffy feel better, it’d be worth it.” She nibbled on her lip, glancing up at him sheepishly through long eyelashes. “You really picked the worst time to show up.”

Gold eyes narrowed in irritation. “Considering how I just rescued you from Mugiwara-ya’s insane grandfather, I’d say otherwise.”

The corner of her mouth twitched up in a smile. “Fair. I’m guessing you saw the paper?”

With a sigh he lowered her so she could stand, though he continued to hold her curvy figure tightly against him. He had no intention of letting her go anytime soon, in any sense of the term. “I did. You can thank my crew for convincing me to ask your captain about the article first instead of simply slicing him to bits and dropping him into the sea.”

“Did you seriously think I would hurt you like that?” she asked, glaring. “Or that Luffy would betray your friendship?” She knew he was paranoid, particularly when it came to her, but her heart clenched in disappointment at the thought that he didn’t trust her. She knew she could be capricious and selfish, but she thought she’d made it clear that she was unwaveringly loyal to those she cared about.

Realizing what he’d implied, he hugged her tighter, softly kissing her temple as an apology. “I didn’t want to, but that photo was pretty damning. It’s why I wanted to ask in person; I knew neither of you would lie to my face, at least.” That, and he’d refused to be dumped over the phone. If she’d decided she’d tired of him, Nami would at least have to do it in person. Cupping her chin, he gave a meaningful glance. “And he did propose, even if you didn’t say yes, so was I wrong to be upset?”

Nami hated that he was technically right, even if it hadn’t been Luffy’s intention. Resting her cheek against his hard, warm chest right over where she could hear his heart pounding, she sighed, “He did it because he was scared I would leave the Straw Hats, not because he wanted to hurt you. He’s more insecure than you’d think, and I guess he was starting to believe I considered you the stronger, smarter, better captain, so he did that dumb guy thing where he assumed getting married would be the best way to keep me around.”

Ever-so-slightly Law relaxed, trailing his fingers thoughtfully up and down her spine, smirking when she arched into him. If nothing else, he could always take comfort in the knowledge that Nami would never react to Luffy’s touch like that. “I won’t argue that I’m smarter, but Mugiwara-ya hardly seems like the sort to doubt himself. How many times has he boasted about becoming the Pirate King?”

Squeezing him tighter, she replied softly, “He hides a lot of pain behind that carefree grin, and even the strongest men can’t always protect the ones they love. Marineford taught him that.”

Much as he wanted to remain bitter at his inadvertent betrayal, Law felt a surge of sympathy for the younger captain. He’d seen firsthand what Ace’s death had done to him. It really was easy to forget sometimes that Luffy wasn’t invincible, and that he wasn’t immune to loss. Maybe he and the captain should have a little talk to get some things out in the open. At the very least, they should discuss how to ensure the beautiful navigator would not have to choose between them during their eventual battle for the One Piece. “Such is the life of those who carry the Will of D.” Gently kissing the top of her head, he bent down to nuzzle her cheek. “He still should have known better.”

“He should have, but he let his insecurities mess with his head and acted like an idiot. I’m beginning to think that’s part of the Will of D., too,” she replied with a raised eyebrow, turning her head to stare up at him challengingly.

“Harsh analysis, but I suppose it’s not without merit.” Capturing her lips with his, he allowed himself to indulge in a long, slow kiss. How could he not when she was right there, and he’d spent the past several days agonizing over whether or not he’d lost her? The way she enthusiastically returned it further lightened his heart, knowing that she didn’t hold his jealous overreaction against him.

When he pulled away for air, he took the time to truly take her in. Now that she was in his arms and not her captain’s, Law could appreciate how stunning she was in a wedding dress. Of course she looked elegant, but the tight bodice accentuated her full bust and the bare shoulders were tempting him to lean down and taste her skin. Admittedly, he had a thing for a hot lady in white, and it seemed it wasn’t solely limited to nurse uniforms. He’d already planned on ravishing his woman to remind her why she’d chosen him; now he was especially turned on at the thought of defiling her while she wore something so virginally pure, even if he knew she was anything but.

It could wait until they’d finished their conversation, though. He was in no rush, and he had a burning question he needed to resolve before he could fully devote himself to worshipping her goddess-like body. “Out of curiosity, are you against marriage in general, or is it something that, in the very distant future, you might consider?”

Nami’s delicate fingers trailed across his chest, tracing over the heart motifs she’d long memorized. “Hmmm, I suppose after I’ve drawn my map of the world, made Luffy Pirate King, and amassed an enormous store of treasure, I’d consider it. I won’t marry just anyone, though. My man would have to be incredibly smart, confident, tall, handsome, a doctor, and able to make even a fuzzy white hat look good. I have a very specific type.”

He couldn’t quite keep the smile off his face at her playful affirmation. “Clearly. At least I don’t have much competition to hunt down and eliminate.”

“You’re already ahead of the curve, since you’ve got my captain’s blessing.” Hot lips peppered kisses across his throat as she added, “But Luffy’s permission or no, I’m not saying ‘yes’ to any ring with a diamond under 200 karats.”

“Noted.”

For a moment, a declaration of love was on the tip of his tongue, but he swallowed it back down. Considering everything that had happened in the past week, he doubted she’d take it seriously. Even if she did, she deserved a more romantic setting than the damp hallway of his submarine. Instead, he’d bide his time, wait for the perfect moment when she’d know his feelings were true and not some cheap ploy to keep her around. Maybe he could set up a moonlit dinner for two with candles and her favorite tangerine dishes, then present her with a treasure chest full of gold and jewels, his still-beating heart at the top of the pile.

For now, it didn’t need to be said; Nami saw a future for the two of them, and as far as he was concerned, that was a far better confession.

Pulling away, she gave him a serious frown, full lips pursed in concern. “Hey, you don’t have an insane Marine Admiral grandfather who’ll want to kill me, right?”

Furrowing his brow, he thought it over. “Well, apparently Sengoku was like a father to Cora-san, so maybe? Though, I’d think he’d want you dead just because you’re a pirate.”

“Well, I suppose it’s still better than a Fist of Love from Garp.”

“Most things are,” he agreed, leaning down to steal a quick peck from her lips. “Now, since it looks like you’re going to be here for a while,” he murmured, lightly biting along the exposed column of her throat, “how about I get you out of that dress?”

Manicured fingers dug into his shoulders as fire shot into her belly. As insane as the morning had been, Nami was happy enough with how it had turned out. She was in her lover’s arms, reassured that the feelings that had taken root in her heart were returned. Sure, her crew probably wasn’t having the best time right now, but she was certain they’d be safe once Garp ran out of ammunition and Luffy managed to explain himself. For now, she’d enjoy the downtime she’d initially been denied by her foolish captain’s proposal. “Mmmm, I like the sound of that. Then you can take me shopping.”

“Nami-ya, I thought we established that I’m keeping you naked in my quarters?”

“But Law-kun, you’ve been talking so much about marriage, yet you haven’t even found out if you can handle my shopping habits,” she teased, sneaking her hands under his shirt drag smooth, polished nails along his abs.

He could never decide if he loved or hated how his clever little minx could twist an offhand comment to her advantage. Currently, he was leaning towards “love,” since her playful fingers were sending electric shocks through his nervous system. “Fine. I suppose it’s only fair, since it’ll be a while before we meet back up with your crew.”

“You have Luffy’s vivre card—”

“—since it’ll be a while before we meet back up with your crew,” he emphasized, chuckling at her pout. “I guess I can spare a few hours on the next island. But you’re wearing my hoodie while we’re out. I want everyone to recognize you’re my woman. Especially nosy reporters.” As much as the vindictive side of him wanted to make Luffy suffer longer for his mistake, he wasn’t sure he could handle seeing that damn picture plastered in every newspaper for much longer, or continued speculation on their upcoming nuptials. Law would clear up this mess, stake his claim, and accept whatever chaos came of it.

No matter how annoyed she might get at his possessiveness, Nami would always get a thrill at the hungry gleam that shone in his gold eyes when he talked like that. And, admittedly, she was happy he was so eager to make their relationship obvious. It really helped shake off those nasty, lingering doubts that clung to her heart like cobwebs. “If we really want to convince people, we should be seen making out in a romantic restaurant.” Warm brown eyes met gold as she palmed his growing bulge through his jeans, relishing the way his pupils dilated. “And if that’s not enough, I think a trip to the lingerie store might be in order. I’ll even be a good girlfriend and let you pick out a set.”

Their mischievous, shameless grins were perfect mirrors of each other. “Make it two.”

“Why would I let you pick two when you’re just going to rip them off me anyway?”

Large, tattooed hands gripped her pert rear as he rolled his hips against her. “Considering how I know you’re going to make me pay for them, I think I deserve that much,” he growled. “Besides, I probably won’t rip off anything that marks you as mine.”

Much as she wanted to argue, his touch was setting her skin on fire, and at this point she just wanted to get to his quarters and finally take off that wedding dress so she could feel him between her legs. “I guess I can live with that since your taste isn’t entirely questionable.”

Nipping her ear in retaliation, he had to chuckle. “You know, this might lead to people thinking you’re some insatiable gold-digger playing both the Fifth Emperor and the Surgeon of Death.”

Her grin could have put a trickster god’s to shame. “Or that we’re all tangled together in a scandalous threesome.”

“Nami-ya, as hilarious as that would be, I don’t share.”

“Well, a girl’s got to have a little fun, right?” she giggled, teasingly planting a kiss over his heart. “Why settle for one captain when I could have two? I am a greedy pirate whore, after all.”

“Maybe, but you’re my greedy pirate whore,” he said affectionately, picking her up and carrying her down the hall bridal style. “Now, let’s get you out of this dress and into the Captain’s bed. I’m sure as hell not waiting for the honeymoon.”

“Good, because neither am I.”

The End

[leoninapelliolovesconchitawurst]

ENGLISH TRANSLATION (by me)

Wurst in the old FM4 Studio

Photo by Lukas Lottersberger

"I am both Conchita and WURST."

By Daniela Derntl

https://fm4.orf.at/stories/2995448/

Songcontest winner Tom Neuwirth has on his new album "T.O.M. - Truth Over Magnitude quasi reinvented "as WURST. Instead of Conchita's glamorous diva ballads, evening gowns and wigs, there's now danceable electro-pop, vinyl, leather and sex. A conversation about the new record, self-discovery, the jurors activity on "Queen of Drags" and the upcoming tour.

FM4: Recently your new record "T.O.M. - Truth Over Magnitude "came out. And that's also your debut album for your new project WURST. The CD has been out for a few weeks. How were the reactions?

WURST: The reactions were very positive. I think I was the least nervous. Probably the people around me a little more, because you do not know if that happens or not. I was extremely pleased that what was happening was understood , and the music is also liked. I love this album, I can hear it up and down, which is not so obvious to me. I'm more of the category: I do not look and listen to my own stuff. But I love this album!

FM4: Which song is on Heavy Rotation right now?

WURST: Currently it's "Can’t Come Back" because I'm going to perform live soon, in a very special cast. And that's why I have to listen to it a bit, so I know the text. It's always a story with the text. Sometimes I like to improvise.

FM4: I also wanted to talk to you about this song anyway. Because it is interesting that you speak now also as WURST in dialect, and before as Conchita only spoke High German. Are there any other entrances when singing? Because in this just mentioned "Can’t Come Back", you also sound quite different, especially at the beginning of the song.

WURST: I sing so deeply, like never before, and that's actually not that easy. So to intonate is a challenge. But that's also a point of this album that I can really show my full range. And also show a bandwidth that I did not even know I had.

WURST about the start of the new project

FM4: When was it clear to you that Conchita could not go on like that - and you have to change. When was the starting signal for the new project?

WURST: The starting signal came after the decision that things could not go on like this. I think - quite banal - when I got up, and was no longer happy and had no mood for anything. I put that on for a few months, and I thought, yes, that will be all right. But it did not happen again. And then I dealt with myself. Then I also started talking therapy because I thought I could not go on alone, I seemed to need a new input somehow. That helped me a lot. And then I also really understood that I am responsible for my own life and I cannot fool around and say: They do not understand me. And they did not understand me. No! I did not understand it anymore and that's why I had to do something new.

FM4: What other insights have you got there, especially on the artistic path?

WURST: First and foremost, I looked closely at my ego and thought about how I go through the world and how to deal with people. Whether I'm really as fabulous as I think? And unfortunately we are not all! (laughs) We hurt people with our behaviour, and seeing and accepting that in its entirety has given me, I believe, this freedom boost to do something where nobody would have said, yes! Electropop! Great idea! And with that freedom it was ‘wurst’ (not important) for me. I did not care, I just had to do it, and then it all happened.

WURST about working with Eva Klampfer and Albin Janoska

FM4: So you had to go through a dark tunnel and then, together with songwriter Eva Klampfer aka Lylit and producer Albin Janoska, saw a light together at the end of the tunnel? Can one say that?

WURST: Definitely! I have wandered through many songwriting camps in recent years. Unsuccessful, because I'm not terribly talented when it comes to it. And then, by some coincidence, Severin Trogbacher, who plays the guitar in my band and is also my band leader, introduced me to Albin Janoska. And Albin says: Would you like to work with Eva? And I thought, that is not possible. You travel all over Europe to somehow write songs, and then they're all sitting there waiting.

FM4: Albin Janoska maybe known from Count Basic ...

WURST: He also produces Count Basic and son. You listen to the record, and understand what it's all about!

FM4: Eva Klampfer aka Lylit wrote the songs for you. And I've read - and I'm asking you now if that's true - that the character WURST was created while working on the album. So it was not clear at the beginning who the songs would be written for now?

WURST: Exactly! Eva and I have talked a lot about who this is for now. What is my name? Is that somehow okay? Actually, some songs were finished and I knew that "Trash All The Glam" would be the first single. That was the moment we sat together and kind of wondered what the video might look like. And I'm a very visual person and it just came suddenly. We went on location scouting and we just saw this shot that I was driving down the escalator, and then I said: There must be WURST in red letters like an exit sign. That was a moment when everything was clear to me. That's it: I'm both Conchita and WURST. It's so absurd, if you think about it in hindsight. It all happened to me by accident. But that's me. I love kitsch and pomp, and all the madness that the show business brings with it, but I like it a bit rude, simpler, clearer and without much frills.

WURST has reconciled with Conchita

FM4: You've reconciled yourself to Conchita through this metamorphosis? Can you say that?

WURST: Yes. In fact, I almost fell into the same trap again, because at the beginning of the project WURST I thought to myself: Now there are no high heels and wigs anymore, and the look is that, and blah. And then I'm like this: Oh wow! I'm doing the same thing again as I did before and restricting myself again. Of course, then came this TV show "Queen Of Drags" where it was all about showing all facets. Then I painted myself, and thought: Oh, there she is! And she is more beautiful than ever! And I think I did not get away from the mirror for half an hour because I thought: Oh yes! (Laughing). I love it!

WURST about his future plans

FM4: I have the impression that your metamorphosis is far from complete. You have a lot more sides, people, maybe even a whole ensemble in the quiver?

WURST: Yes, I also believe that there is still something in me that I do not yet know about. I also do not think that for ever and ever I'll just "stay in the music" under quotes. I also want to design sets, I also want to do fashion, I want to be a director and scream at actors. I want to write a musical about my life, because the boy from the mountains who wins the song contest is like "Sound Of Music". Sorry! And that's the way it will sound (laughs). Of course I'm wondering what the next one might be because the album is out now and I'm going on tour with it next year. I'm looking forward to it, but I do not want a standstill. I stir around a bit ...

WURST about "Queen Of Drags"

FM4: You're now also a juror on the new German TV show "Queen Of Drags", and there it hails from the queer community criticism of your co-juror Heidi Klum, because she has nothing to do with Queer and Drag. You clearly defend your colleague. But it's pretty much off, right?

WURST: Yes, fully. For one thing, I think everyone has an opinion. Hey, awesome! What this outcry from the community has just shown is that your character does not depend on your sexual orientation, because this community wants so much inclusion and understanding, and then somehow that does not work out. I find that a bit contradictory now. Yes, of course, there are not only fans of Heidi Klum, and I did not know her before either, and I have to say that this collaboration was just easy. And she was fully aware that it was somehow controversial, and she was just so respectful and so inside, asking questions without end, just wanting to be a part of it. I think that when it comes to judging candidates, we've always wanted to judge whether they're getting better. Because I would like to have all these ten Queens have a career after that and live on it. And I would like to give them what I have already learned.

FM4: Drag culture is also about body positivity. And that's just Heidi Klum as an executioner of "Germanys Next Top Model" not necessarily the right thing for something?

WURST: Yes, "Germanys Next Top Model" is a completely different format. And absolutely right there was a body awareness that was mediated, which is definitely not healthy. But even in this program, there was a learning process that has seen over the last few years.

WURST about pink-washing

FM4: Another reproach on the show was also the so-called "Pink Washing". So that now a broadcaster and a presenter who otherwise have nothing to do with this queer culture and scene capitalize on it. And you're almost the queer fig leaf on the whole. What do you say?

WURST: That's an absolutely legitimate comment. I want to say that I use it as well. Because I did not know Heidi before either, but she gives us the best slot on one of the biggest private channels to show what the queer community has on it to show people what's left. Of course! Excuse me! I get it - pinkwashing, et cetera. But I also take advantage of it to show how cool it is to be casual with each other, and how great it is to be supported. And how great it is when everyone can just be what he wants to be. And I love that too on this show. It works like nothing else. But when it comes down to it, keep it together. And I think that's exactly what it's about!

WURST about the Eurosonic Festival

FM4: Let's talk about your upcoming tour. In January you play at the Eurosonic Festival in Groningen, and that's a showcase festival for newcomers. And you're not really a newcomer anymore! But how is it for you to start from the beginning? Smaller halls to play, maybe not so many amenities to have. What is it like for you playing at a newcomer festival?

WURST: I think it's so cool that I'm allowed to get involved with the cool kids, and of course I'm really looking forward to this festival because it's something new for me. I do not know this kind of festival. Especially not as an artist. And I do not know the audience. And that's why I feel like a newcomer. But I'm no longer a newcomer in that sense, I realize. But I said it aloud, and now everyone believes it! (Laughing).

WURST about the concerts in Poland

FM4: No one believes you! It will also be exciting for you at the beginning of February, as you will play twice in Poland, in Warsaw and in Krakow. And the head of the Polish governing party PIS this year has declared homosexuals and transgender people to be "enemies of the state". So you can only be there with massive protective measures and safety precautions. How are you doing there? On the one hand you want to set a signal, on the other hand it is not without danger.

WURST: Yes, on the one hand, I am a pretty unconscious lamb when it comes to that, because in my opinion I always see only the good. I once had personal security for 24 hours when I was in St. Petersburg. That feels weird. I do not know if it will be the case in Poland. I do not want to sound cynical, but I - as such a public person - already have some protection because of this publicity, because if anything should happen then it would attract a lot of attention. And that's why I may not see my safety in the foreground right now. I'm just happy that I can play there for my fans, because I have so many from the East, and I just want to have a great time with them!

FM4: Thanks for the interview and all the best!

[the-wlw-cafe]

Lena Luthor Fluff A-Z

it’s not the angst that I promised, but here we go.

A = affection (how affectionate are they in day to day life? Do they show affection publicly or keep that more in private?)

If you were to look up the phrase ‘touch starved lesbian’ in a dictionary, Lena’s picture would most certainly accompany the article. She doesn’t dare to show much affection in public for fear of making you end up on the first page of all of National City’s gossip magazines, but she can’t keep her hands off of you in private. She is constantly playing with your hair, intertwining your fingers or just mindlessly drawing patterns on your skin, as if you were her life line making sure she doesn’t drift away.

B = best memory (what is the best memory they have with you)

The first time you told her you loved her. She hadn’t dared to tell you first, her self-hatred was just that strong. Before you told her, there wasn’t a single day where she didn’t second guess herself, thinking you would eventually find someone else and realize that she didn’t deserve you. You, of course, took it upon yourself to destroy every last piece of doubt in Lena’s mind, again, and again, and again.

C = cat or dog person

I can totally picture Lena with a pair of fancy greyhounds.

D = dreams (what do they want to do in life?)

It’s clear as day that even though none of it is her fault, she carries a heartbreaking amount of guilt for the crimes her family has committed. She just wants to find a way to absolve herself of all the harm her family has done, and do something good with that cursed name of hers.

E = evenings (how do they spend their evening? So they go out? Do they read?)

Lena isn’t the best at taking care of herself, so it’s not an uncommon occurrence that she mercilessly overworks herself until she falls asleep at her desk. You have to frequently remind her to take it easy and treat herself to a nice meal, a good book, a relaxing bath and a full night’s sleep. She not-so-secretly loves spending evenings at your place, since her own apartment, expensive as it may be, never really felt like a home to her.

F = first date (what was it like?)

Poor Lena was totally overthinking every detail. She wanted to treat you to something nice, but she also didn’t want to come off as if she was flaunting her money. She took you out to a very fancy restaurant, where you sadly didn’t even manage to get past the appetizers before very disrespectful paparazzi tried to take candid pictures of Lena Luthor’s lesbian lover and you were forced to leave. Lena was apologizing profusely for supposedly ruining your first date, assuring you that she wouldn’t blame you if you never wanted to see her again...you had to cut her off with a kiss. After that, you decided to make it a lazy night full of takeout, mediocre movies and falling asleep on the couch.

G = giggle (what is their laugh like? What makes them laugh?)

Lillian Luthor made sure to chastise Lena for every laughter that wasn’t a pleasant, ladylike giggle hidden beneath the palm of her hand, which is why it is seldom to really hear her laugh unabashedly. But when she does, it’s the most beautiful sound you’ve ever heard, and also surprisingly deep.

H = hugs (do they like hug? What kind of hugs do the give?)

Touch starved as she may be, it takes Lena a while to acclimatise to being able to be as affectionate as she likes, but as soon as she does, her hugs turn from short and sweet to an almost desperate cling to you. She never wants to let you go.

I = instrument (do they play an instrument?)

Lillian made her take up lessons in playing the violin, the piano, and the harp. She despises all three of these things with a passion, even though she will admit that she would probably have enjoyed playing musical instruments if it hadn’t been her mother forcing her to perform flawlessly.

J = joy (what brings them joy in life?)

You. On days where she can’t find a reason to try anymore, when she just wants to drink herself into a stupor, she thinks of you. You are her strength and her reason to keep fighting.

K = kisses (what kind of kisser are they? Shy? Passionate?)

Nothing in heaven or Hogwarts is better than Lena’s kisses. Be it a quick, chaste goodby-kiss before she has to head off to L-Corp, passionate, almost needy kisses when you’re in private, or lazy, languid kisses in the morning.

L = love (how do they act when they have a crush)

It takes Lena a long time to even admit to herself that she has a crush. She flip-flops back and forth between smooth flirting and romantic gestures (you might just find your office filled with flowers), and guiltily finding more and more ridiculous excuses to see you. She may have perfected her facade of the unflappable business woman, but somehow you always find a way to get under her skin.

M = memory (what’s their favourite memory?)

None of her childhood memories are particularly pleasant, especially now in hindsight, as the only person she ever saw as a friend has turned out to be a murderous psychopath, so every good memory of hers involve you or her new friends in National City.

N = no (what is their pet peeve?)

She can’t stand surprises. She always has to plan ahead, and surprises always tend to screw up her perfect plan.

O = occupation (what’s their dream job?)

It’s always been Lena’s dream to become a scientist, to help make the world a better place with everything her mind has to offer, and she’s still working on that, but she can’t abandon L-Corp, not now, when she’s already changed it so much for the better.

P = parent (what kind of parent would they be?)

It would take some time for Lena to warm up to the idea of being a parent, not because she doesn’t like the idea of having children, but because she is terrified that she will end up like her mother. But as a mother, Lena would be wonderful, because instead of letting her mother’s influence corrupt her, she makes sure that her children can always feel safe and loved in their home. There will be no raised voices and no passive aggressive comments, no malice and no pressure on her children as long as she’s around.

Q = questions (do they believe in the super natural? Aliens? Anything along those lines)

Lena doesn’t believe in the supernatural, because if definite proof for it could be found, it would simply become natural, maybe in a way we would never understand, but natural nonetheless.

R = romantic (are they romantic during the relationship?)

Romantic is Lena’s second middle name, right after Lutessa. Flowers? Sent. Fancy chocolates? Ordered. Picnic on a private beach? Get in the car, her chauffeur will drive you there.

S = smile (what makes them smile without fail)

Your smile is so contagious, it never fails to make her smile. She loves seeing you happy.

T = together (how clingy are they? How long do you two spend together per day on average)

Her duties as a CEO are very taxing and take up a lot of her day, but after every hard day, she longs for nothing more than to come home to you, hold you in her arms and never let you go.

U = unbearable (what habit do they have that’s unbearable? What habit do you have that they find unbearable)

Her constant self-doubt is unbearable for you, as in you simply can’t bear seeing her putting herself down like that. And no matter how hard you try, there are days where nothing you say or do can cheer her up, and all you can do is assure her that you will never leave, in good times or in times like these.

Lena knows you mean well, but because she’s not used to someone caring so deeply about her, your efforts to help her out of her negative mindspace can seem smothering to her.

V = videos (do they take lots of videos or photos during your relationship?)

Lena doesn’t take many photos, because she has no doubt in mind that she can commit every second with you to memory anyways. She’d rather not ruin a quiet moment by forcing it onto a picture that will never be able to say as much as the real moment. Her phone lockscreen, however, is a silly picture of you kissing her on the cheek on a whim in the midst of a selfie.

W = wedding (what was the wedding like?)

It’s a spur of the moment thing. One minute you’re huddled together on the couch in a fancy hotel room, exchanging slightly tipsy and clumsy kisses, the next minute the words “marry me” have somehow slipped past your lips without authorization by your brain, and now that they’re in the open, you find that you don’t actually want to take them back.

Lena doesn’t take it seriously, at first. “Oh, you mean right now?”, she grins, her voice shaking with mirth.

“I mean it”, you reply, “marry me. Please.”

And her mouth drops open.

So yeah, it may have been a slightly drunk spur of the moment decision, but you don’t regret it one bit. That is, until Kara finds out that she wasn’t there when you two finally tied the knot, and it’s the first time you’ve ever seen her legitimately pissed off at you. You decide to renew your vows on your second anniversary, and you make sure Kara gets a front row seat this time.

X = eXtra (what’s an interesting fact about them that they don’t tell anyone about?)

Lena actually prefers the taste of beer to that of wine – her go-to poison of choice is of course scotch, but she really can’t stand the sour taste of wine.

Y = yuck (what do they hate? Could be a food, sent, word anything)

Cracking knuckles is the worst sound ever to her, to the point where she will give you the silent treatment if she catches you doing it.

Z = zzzz (how heavy of a sleeper are they? How do they sleep? What mood do they wake up in? Really any sleeping headcanons)

Lena Luthor is the littlest of spoons and you can fight me on that. She isn’t used to sharing her bed with someone, however, and on bad days you touch can be overwhelming, but when she’s in the mood for cuddling she loves to fall asleep with your arms wrapped around her.

[hbwqvompzowq-blog]

New Way To Know I Forgot My Gmail Password Online

Recoup Google account, discover how to recuperate Gmail nameless phrase tips and clues past you have a obsession to recoup your unnamed key, acquire dash path, a notable unmemorable gmail forgot password recovery key chief, and never lose it in any case. photo album recuperation Google is quite great at giving its clients the approaches to recoup their information, Gmail secret word recuperation is a breeze on the off unintended that you gave enough security data during sticker album enrollment. The principal matter you craving to attempt is Google's cassette recuperation page. pick the "I don't have the foggiest idea nearly my unknown word" every other and enter your Gmail address, click upon proceed. In the situation that you partnered a telephone number to your Gmail account, you can request a affirmation code sent in an instant broadcast or you can dwelling security inquiries below "check your personality" area. on the off unintended that you overlooked your email residence and haven't set happening any recuperation data, for example, a telephone number or security questions, you may in any engagement have the substitute to discover your username in the situation that you have as of tardy utilized your email account in your internet browser. Quest your internet browser archives for inbox or Gmail to check whether it uncovers your location. In fact, your full email quarters or the initial segment of it back the setting is your username.

Gmail Password Recovery

In the matter that you don't admittance your recuperation email, telephone, or further unusual you may in any raid have the unconventional to recoup Gmail undistinguished key by physically checking your personality. First matter you have to reach is visit the Google account recuperation page. Whenever there, enter your email quarters and snap "proceed". Snap "I don't have the foggiest idea" unusual for the ordinary key and pick the "check your character" choice, which is a little association under all further accessible alternatives. answer every one of the inquiries as far afield as you could possibly know and in the issue that you can present the data that is precise ample you'll acquire a fruitful Google account recuperation. Google account recuperation later than perform change gmail password Google accounts, g suite or Google applications, it might be simpler to reestablish your collection access, as you can generally admission the running of your tell to reset your ordinary key and recover your record. Ensure your guidance today. The best Google account recuperation strategy is normally failing to lose any information. Things brute what they are, how to guarantee a 100% Gmail recuperation? We recommend utilizing instruction security and recuperation arrangements that can save track upon your document comings and goings and can recoup fortuitously erased information. dish drill is a splendid recuperation application that offers release assurance for all your ordinary word director documents, outdoor and inward opinion stockpiles. find the money for us a unintended to pressure this security and recuperating ensured counsel is forgive as soon as circle drill for Mac! even though circle drill can't recoup your Gmail unexceptional phrase legitimately, it might back in recuperating your shadowy phrase stockpiling on the off chance that it was out of the blue lost. Plate drill deals in the manner of your circle wellbeing, screens it intently and will reprimand you if there is a plausibility of any dish disappointment. It gives you a unintentional to discover copy documents, clean some plate expose and offers unquestionable reinforcements. moreover to Gmail recuperation you can gain by workstations and put it on areas, iPhone/iPad/iPod, enlightened cameras, interior and outer hard drives, USB blaze drives, and android gadgets (established) recuperation. Presenting the collection recuperation structure is the best realizable way in to approach Google in these cases. answer all number inquiries as would be prudent, and ensure the take control of responses are correct or near it. In the situation that unclear more or less an answer, offer the best conjecture. For instance, your cd more likely than not been made simple the date you bought the telephone. You can check your receipts for a surmised date. upon the off fortuitous that you have utilized your book fairly effectively, you ought to have the complementary to recall or theory behind sensible exactness the responses to every other inquiries. Out it an attempt and perceive how things tilt out. You can't be any more unpleasant off than you as of now are. My all the best in imitation of you. You would infatuation to know some data approximately the cassette to start the recuperation procedure and stir responsibility for record. In the concern that you don't recollect any recuperation email address, or didn't enter any during set-up, or don't recall significant recuperation data and dull phrase, at that reduction you'd have to ask any right to use you've sent messages to verify what the username is. as soon as you get affirmation, you can log on making an commotion to recoup that account. select the principal choice, I don't have the foggiest idea very nearly my ordinary key. Enter the herald of Gmail account.

Learn From Introduction

Are you thinking to reset my Gmail password when you don't remember my recovery information? Unsurprisingly, Google has unconditionally unquestionable account security. accompanied by the finest in the world, in fact. If you have at a loose end or forgotten your Google/ Gmail password, or if your account was hacked, you have exactly one pretension to get put up to into that account. The automated process that starts here. Ive answered variations on this additional get older and places, and supplementary a lot of supplementary detail. But it every adds up to the thesame thing. If you have a g suite account thru a issue or school, you can call your administrator. If you own a g suite hosted domain (cheaper and easier than you think, and worth doing) or if you are an paperwork on a domain, then you can call tech preserve at Google, directly. Theyre genial 24/7, and trust me, they are good. But in the manner of a clear Gmail account, if you acquire locked out, you absolutely cannot right to use a human swine at Google practically it. You cant call, text, email, snail mail, carrier pigeon or pony tell them. next set up 2-step verification, using every feasible safety option, including printing your recovery codes and stashing them in several places. Used properly, step can and will prevent your account getting hacked. You are taking someone out for a date and you don't know what type of restaurant she fancies and you air awkward asking her. Just say, guess what restaurant I'm taking you to . She will declare a place; every you have to reach is proceedings surprised and say, how did you know? There is a supplementary product, Google one. It offers new account storage - and tech support, for Gmail addresses, including conscious phone support. Which of course made me unquestionably eager if this could be used to unlock accounts. thus subconscious as I already pay for new storage and was so automatically enrolled in Google one, I filled in the little form, and had them call me. And the respond is no. The tech maintain folks you can accomplish as soon as the Google one further complete indeed feint for Google. But they attain not (and cannot!) manage to pay for any instruction for locked out accounts, supplementary than to saunter you thru the automated process. If that process fails to get you in - you in limbo the account. Side issue: the excuse there are consequently many collapsed answers here is because there are a ton of scammers out there who want you to call them, and they pretend hard to get their friends into quora answers. They will with use all trick there is to convince you they are somehow affiliated in imitation of or sanctioned by Google. They arent. They can by yourself use the thesame automated process I amalgamated above - and court case you fine allowance for appear in something you can get yourself. Again, there is by yourself reset gmail password one way to recover a release Gmail/Google account. If you cant get in using that process, you in limbo the account, forever. thus the best advice I can offer you is to purposefully go thru the security checkup process upon your Google account page. You can set going on a recovery phone number and email address. I strongly recommend you use both, and create the recovery email habitat one that belongs to a close relatives aficionado or obedient friend. Not one of your own, that you may forget or lose!

Summary

Also set taking place verification, using every doable safety option, including printing your recovery codes and stashing them in several places. Used properly can and will prevent your account getting hacked. You are taking someone out for a date and you don't know what type of restaurant she fancies and you setting awkward asking her. Just say, guess what restaurant I'm taking you to. , I filled in the little form, and had them call me. And the answer is no. The tech maintain folks you can attain how to recover gmail password when the Google one serve attain indeed action for Google. But they complete not (and cannot!) pay for any instruction for locked out accounts, extra than to saunter you thru the automated process. If that process fails to get you in - you at a loose end the account. Side issue: the defense there are correspondingly many collapsed answers here is because there are a ton of scammers out there who desire you to call them, and they decree difficult to get their contacts into Quora answers. They will with use every trick there is to convince you they are somehow affiliated once or sanctioned by Google. They arent. They can lonely use the same automated process I partnered above - and feat you fine grant for behave something you can realize yourself. Again, there is and no-one else one way to recover a free Gmail/Google account. If you cant get in using that process, you drifting the account. She will make known a place; all you have to accomplish is war amazed and say, how did you know? as soon as bothersome to acquire as much guidance as practicable from someone during a conversation, whenever they discontinue and seem to have said every they designed to, resist the temptation to say all and otherwise node attentively and see them in the eye. They will continue talking and say you as much as you habit to know. If the professor asks a question that would embarrass you in tummy of the class if you attempted to answer, or the boss demands for suggestions during a meeting and you obviously have nothing in mind, but he looks at you as if expecting to listen something from you, straightforwardly position your perspective and look at a colleague. He will subconsciously follow your gaze and ask the person you looked at. The social dominoes effect. If incharge of a bureau and you are wondering how you can get them to reach something you want, create it look gone everyone else is play a role it even if no one actually is. This creates an unreal peer pressure and gets people upon board. To growth your odds of getting the upper hand at a bargain, appreciation your head everytime you present your suggestion. The other party will easily attain in imitation of your offer. If you are the kind of person that people don't once to recognize seriously and you in fact compulsion to steer a narrowing across, handily tell what you desire starting in the same way as a phrase when roosevelt later than said that... or as with opined... . create it sound similar to those were the opinions of a renowned person and they will gain credibility.

[mooneyedandglowing]

Okaay Weldon Kees lines with being the first thing to barrage my brain upon startling awake in the middle of night: "Have I ever told the truth to you? I did not ask for this. A new disease threads in."

I think I truly cannot just sit with myself to think or process or get over something unless I first feel as if I've already done something about whatever it is. Usually, doing something equates to isolating myself to the extent of worrying others + them asking if I'm having a crisis because I don't have a WhatsApp photo up +/or haven't responded to messages. I can't help myself much in that regard. My need to take some type of action - no matter how minor the action I choose - is too large. + I see often only two options: to speak + perhaps be too forceful with it or flee, slamming the figurative door on my way out, for at least as long as I need to know how I feel or what I believe + speak it in a measured fashion.

I need to feel as if I've come to a conclusion or a decision + done so swiftly, whenever anything has freaked me out, + then I need the time + space to scale back. I need to decide, + then I need to think. + then I need to decide something else or the same thing, but it is this other decision process. + the whole scheme of it all, I absolutely must give to myself or it stacks + stacks until it turns into a landslide of junk I have not internally dealt with. I also must express it somehow. I must write. I must write it + send it into this ether. I must storm all through my mind. I bounce back only when I give myself such freedoms. Otherwise, I become paranoid. I become more easily wounded by those around me. I become prickly. + I become quicker to anger. I build an island. I put up a flag. I bury mines all around me.

It is the middle of the night, + I had realized on waking why that poem kept coming to me so relentlessly. I myself had never been genuine with another (speaking to them; using them as a base for writing material, which always means exaggerating or twisting to some degree; being around them in person - hardly was I ever *truly* free, authentic, genuine), or at least any moment was too rare to add up to much. I myself can only recall the most simple + quiet moments when I, myself, was there along with them. + I used this other person's closed-ness as an excuse for my own. It bolstered me up quite well to position myself so as to never be known by them + feel not a single unit of guilt for any hypocrisy displayed when I get indignant over feeling cut off or misled or whatever it is at whatever time (which still isn't to name them as some immutable innocent being - I'm nuanced always).

I could say whatever about whatever. Who cares, right? What's it matter? They aren't really a part of my life + that's their choice (but in reality partly my own choice). + that is a terrible way to approach no matter what reason I might give it. Because the real reason has so many more facets to it. One facet is that I don't need anyone, + I have relied on this lack of need. I have taken pride in my ability to be fiercely alone + separate. Much of it is because I once had to be that way. I once had to learn, + not by my own choice, how capable I could be, how I could save myself, without anyone to help or even speak to. I knew that I could do it + be fine, + thus I can be quick to pull the trigger that casts me out + launches me far away.

Either way though, I need to not base what I do on what others do or do not do. Nothing works like that. It is something I really need to take a look at - something to stay aware of. It isn't often as exaggerated of an impact as it has been on several occasions with this specific person I speak about, but that is because others are usually not so closed-off/etc within our interactions + thus I do not have certain things triggered by them (which isn't to say I don't still hold back plenty of my parts within those connections either, but it is moreso that it isn't as noticed by them, by myself, by anyone). Sometimes it is not wholly bad to have those things triggered or noticed though, because I realized ... Of all things, that is what I am truly the most sorry for. Sorry to the other person, yes, but mostly to myself.

+ of course, I do not wish to be mistreated, disrespected, shut out, misled, etc - all of that stands as it will always stand - but I also do not want to be someone who hides in such a cunning way that others may not even register it for what it is: islanding. + I do not want to continue giving myself any excuse for covering my body with so much sand. To work against this impulse is a choice that will benefit me. Perhaps not in regard to this specific person, as I think our difficulty in relating will not be solved until they too are done with their defenses or at least willing to legitimately combat those defenses that in their own right also create specific dramas, but it will benefit me somehow. I know that much. I also know I must express myself. Always. I know this person may not like my doing so, but I know that if I feel unable to, everything begins to flame.

For now I am going to tuck myself cozily back into bed.

I am so thankful, so infinitely grateful. I am thankful I can learn. I am grateful that I have.

[perksofbeingsidnee]

Perks of Being Sidnee Episode 2:

I have decided to put all of my problems here because I know that no one I know personally will see this unless I let them read it. 

This will be a series of the perks of being me, Sidnee.

Now on with episode 2...

So this episode I’ll talk about another toxic person in my life. Let’s call her Spice. I met Spice when I was in seventh grade. We were okayish friends but didn’t really start to hang out until last year.

Something you should know about me is that I’m an AP kid. All of my friends are mostly in AP and I travel around with the same people all day. My sophomore year I had a hard time and decided to give myself a break during my junior year and take only one AP class. 

Because of my dumbass decision, I didn’t have lunch with my group of friends. The science I took last year was a CP course and I was only really friends with one person in the class. Spice. We were closish and had lunch together. We would chill in the school’s library during the lunch period. Over the course of the first semester and the fact that we were already friends, we became closer and started to hang out more outside of school. 

One weekend we decided to paint rocks, cause that was a thing at some point in time. Somehow I ended up spending the night. Her mom wasn’t home for most of the night which left her place for us to do whatever. 

Spice is really into photography, more specifically modeling. I enjoy doing people’s makeup and my own. I was already planning to do her and her sister’s, we’ll call her Mega, makeup, so she decided she wanted to get pictures of it. I thought it was fun and went along with the idea. We all put on cute outfits that matched our aesthetics and she used their camera to get photos. 

By the end of the night, we had a lot of different photos. I’ve never really like being in front of the camera or liked photos of myself, but I did like some of the ones we had gotten. I was looking to get a new profile pic for Instagram so I thought I would use one that we had gotten. Spice then came up with the idea of sharing an Instagram profile to post all of our photos and future photos. 

Again I went along with it for two reasons. One: the pictures we had gotten weren’t actual garbage. Two: it would be a place for me to post my makeup looks. In my head, at the time, it sounded like a great idea. 

We made the profile and posted the photos we got of each of us. If they posted something, I would post a makeup look. We had a few followers and I thought everything was fine.

But shit happened.

Before I go into any more detail about what has happened between Spice and me, I want to go over a few things. I have now realized that Spice is a very toxic person who I don’t necessarily want to be friends with. I wish her all the best in life, but we were never meant to be close friends. There were a lot of red flags that I should have noticed. They now scream at me ‘SIDNEE YOU ARE A COMPLETE DUMBASS’. 

Let’s go through them shall we:

1. The fact that she was never interested in what I was into

If you do not know me personally, you should know that I am a huge fangirl. I’m not afraid to admit it. I love music and a shit ton of bands (5sos is my fav no shame). In the past three years, I’ve been to three music festivals and seven concerts and I’m going to see Waterparks in literally a week, just to give you a glimpse of how much I spend on bands/music. I’m constantly finding new artist and a lot of the time I’ll show my friends if I think they will like them. Of course, since I thought we were close, I would try and show Spice new music. 

Spice was a huge K-pop fan, still is. I don’t understand it. Personally, I can’t enjoy it. Sure, it has a good beat and is easy to dance to (btw I’m a dancer), but I like listening/analyzing lyrics and your girl doesn’t know Korean. 

Whenever I would go to Spice’s house, we would watch youtube on her TV cause she can do that. I would always suggest music to listen to or videos to watch. She would let me show her like one or two, but she never liked it or cared to pay attention. Eventually, she would just play what she would want to watch or listen to (which was mostly K-pop) and not let me watch anything I would want to.

I understand that it was her house and all, but I was a guest. It would have been polite of her to let me watch a few of my videos as well. I also understand that my videos aren’t always going to be enjoyable to others. I don’t have a problem with that. You aren’t going to offend me if you think 5 seconds of summer is complete trash. You are completely entitled to your own opinion. It just bothers me now that she never really cared to watch or pay attention to what I wanted to show her. I put up with all her suggestions. 

2. She ditched my Christmas party to go to someone else’s party

I have always been the planner of my group of friends. I plan all of our events/outings. For these last two years, I’ve done Christmas parties. The first party I ever hosted was my birthday party (which Spice went to) with all of my friends. I thought it went pretty well. I invited a lot of my friends from my different friend groups and everyone meshed well. 

Later that year, when Christmas rolled around, I decided to throw a Christmas party with those same friends. I had so many fun things planned and everyone was supposed to bring something for the potluck. During lunch, Spice and I talked about the party and what she was going to bring. I guess Spice and Mega’s friend, let’s call her Sausage, was having her birthday party that same day, however, Spice didn’t sound like she was invited and was still planning to attend my party.

The day before my party, Spice cancels on me. Keep in mind I have her signed up to bring food for the potluck. Her excuse was that her mom told her she couldn’t go anymore and she was grounded. Mega and Spice’s mom is a bit strict and the excuse seemed legitimate. 

I figured out how to fix the situation with the food and thought I had everything under control. I felt bad that Spice could no longer come.

It’s the day of the party. Everything goes fantastic. The activities I had planned ran smoothly and I had a great time with my friends. We’re all taking stupid Snapchats of the party and posting them to our stories. By the end of the night, after everyone leaves, I go on my Snapchat to see what they had posted. 

Then I land on Spice’s story.

Guess where she was.

At Sausage’s party. I was pissed. I wasn’t jealous that she had ditched my party for Sausage’s. No, I was angry that she had lied to me about why she wasn’t going to mine. Sure, I wasn’t thrilled that she wasn’t at mine because she said she was going to go to it, but she could have been straight up with me about it. 

The Monday after that weekend I confronted her about it and she said that Mega couldn’t go unless she went which I thought was absolute bullshit. Except I put it behind me and moved on. No need to dwell on it, I guess.

3. Desperately tries to fit in

Spice is a for sure wannabe. No doubts. She tries so hard to be popular and look trendy. Honestly, I don’t care enough about her now to keep up to date on what she is trying to do now, but last year she was going to try out for cheer. I told her thousands of times that she shouldn’t and wasn’t going to make the team for multiple reasons. Of course, she ignored me, and like expected she didn’t make the team.

Those are the biggest red flags I can remember before shit happened.

So onto our falling out.

There was another girl in my science class that I am now friends. We started to hang out more and I invited her to sit with Spice and me at lunch. Spice and this girl, we’ll call her Trickle, were friends before Spice dropped out of the class at the semester. I thought Trickle joining us wouldn’t be a problem.

Every day we would sit in the same place during lunch. From first to third quarter it was the same table. But all of a sudden during the fourth quarter, Spice and Mega started to move locations almost every week. I would have to search for them. And there was sometimes not enough seats for Trickle to join us. 

Slowly but surely I stopped sitting with them because I wasn’t going to leave Trickle by herself. It seemed like they were trying to ditch us on purpose and it sort of ticked me off because it was out of the blue. 

Remember our shared Instagram page. Yeah, out of nowhere she deleted all of my photos, changed the username, and started to post her own makeup looks on there. She didn’t give me a heads up on any of it. I would occasionally go on there to see how my posts were doing and if I had gotten any new comments. One day I went to find it and everything was different.

When I would post something on there, I would instantly delete it from my camera roll in order to save storage. Everything that I had ever done/posted was gone. To say that I was angry would be an understatement. I only had one makeup look saved. One out of like the ten or so I had posted on that account. 

It pissed me off more was that she was posting her own makeup looks on there. Let me tell you a few things about Spice’s makeup. It isn’t good. And it isn’t like she has shit products. I literally gave her an extra set of brushes for free that my stepmom had given me. She just had an extra set lying around and asked if Spice wanted them after I sent her a picture of the eyeshadow look I did on Spice. And she has like three Morphe pallets and Tarte shape-tape concealer and a lot of products you can find at Ulta and Sephora. I get my products from fucking Target and occasionally Ulta. Makeup is expensive and I’m broke. 

She acts like she is this talented guru when she isn’t.

Just, it pisses me off that I ever spent time dealing with her. 

Anyways, that is it for Spice. There is probably a lot more I could go into more detail about, but I’m lazy and don’t want to so... yeah.

xx

Sidnee

[d2kvirus]

Dickheads of the Month: April 2020

As it seems that there are people who say or do things that are remarkably dickheaded yet somehow people try to make excuses for them or pretend it never happened, here is a collection of some of the dickheaded actions we saw in the month of April 2020 to make sure that they are never forgotten.

Remember when Donald Trump thought he knew better than the WHO and said the CDC would do all Covid-19 testing...because nobody told him that would set back testing by at least three weeks?  You did?  Well that’s a problem, because he’s cut WHO funding because he’s trying to blame them for the risking death toll in the US rather than accept that it may have been his own incompetence that should be held accountable

...and you know he fucked up given Kellyanne Conway was dug up to speak absolute bollocks to try and pin the blame on the WHO by ignoring the fact that it;s called Covid-19 as the disease was discovered in 2019 and instead trying to claim that the WHO didn't tell us about eighteen previous outbreaks so Daddy Trump is justified in being a sociopath

But the President of Jonestown The United States Donald Trump didn’t stop there, as his next genius idea was to suggest that people inject disinfectant into their veins to combat Covid-19, apparently unaware that a 100ml dose of Dettol is...what’s that word again?  Oh yeah, now I remember: lethal

Does anyone remember that Matt Hancock tested positive for Covid-19 on March 27th?  I have to ask, because on 2nd April he was on press conference duty instead of self-isolating, and because he was on press conference duty he was risking infection of the two people flanking him during the conference who had to squeeze past him on their way to their lecterns

It says a lot about the British press and their motivations that they were all running headlines saying “Huzzah!” because Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson had recovered from Covid-19 after spending two nights in intensive care...with no mention whatsoever to the fact that, on both of the days he was in intensive care, the UK death rate was over 900

...of course we shouldn’t be surprised that Alison Pearson responded to the news of proven liar Boris Johnson being moved out of intensive care with an even more enthusiastic “Huzzah!” than her boot-licking peers, but to make a direct equation between his health and the health of the nation is the sort of thing usually reserved for works of dystopian fiction

Yet as soon as proven liar Boris Johnson slithered back into Downing Street after self-isolating the first thing he spoke of was “our apparent success” - because 20,000 deaths, and that’s just the number in hospital (aka the official figure) is a “success” now and definitely not a reason to ask why the fuck the absolute fucking cretin sat on his backside for six weeks and skived off a string of COBRA meetings instead of, oh I don’t know, bother to come up with a fucking plan for an impending pandemic

There was something utterly bizarre about how the Department of Health and Social Care responded to the revelation that one of Dominic Cummings’ troll farms had created dozens of Twitter profiles purporting to be those of NHS staff but were actually a group of his underlings using fake profiles to direct the day’s media narrative by claiming that the story was “categorically false” in spite of the wealth of evidence that the story was categorically true, especially in the case of the figurehead of this latest dirty tricks campaign “NHS Susan” as the profile photo was clearly of somebody clearly not named Susan that was nicked off of Unison’s website

So not only does Matt Hancock say it is not the time to talk about increasing NHS salaries at the exact time when they’re overworked due to having to try and stem the tide of the Tory’s lackadaisical attitude to preparing for Covid-19, but he also thinks he can blame NHS staff for their lack of protective equipment by saying it;s their fault they don’t have enough as they’re not using what little equipment they have until it’s literally falling to pieces...which is hardly what any normal human being would call “protective”, is it?

Mayor of Amity Island Governor of Florida Ron DeSantis continued his campaign of being the villain of every disaster movie ever when he decided that WWE shall be classified as “essential business” in Florida, which of course has nothing to do with DeSantis being in Trump’s pocket and the wife of the bloke running WWE being in Trump’s cabinet

...although Racoon City Las Vegas mayor Carolyn Goodman soon one-upped even this stupidity when she suggested re-opening Vegas’ casinos not just so people could get back to work, but also so there would be a control group to test just how necessary social distancing measures really are amidst widespread protests from ignorant cretins loudly demanding a haircut

Yet after the $18m bung from WWE had cleared and they were classified as an “essential business” in Florida, the next phase of the plan was releasing a glut of talent from their contracts - which is certainly not related to how WWE head honcho Vince McMahon lied to WWE stockholders about how WWE definitely did not hold a stake in the revived XFL...only for it to come out when the XFL went belly up for a second time in twenty years that WWE held a 23.5% stake in the franchise

Naturally the response from the “centrists” of Twitter when Labour Leaks got out wasn’t one of the dawning realisation that they had been duped by those who so vociferously campaigned against Jeremy Corbyn after a wealth of evidence that the likes of Tom Watson, Mike Gapes, West Streeting and Chris Leslie were among the names sinking to new lows trying to force out Jeremy Corbyn up to and including gaslighting MPs, tipping off journalists to the whereabouts of Diane Abbott so the press could keep hounding her and actively slowing down investigations into antisemitism to make Corbyn look bad - no, instead their response was howling indignantly that somebody would dare blow the whistle on everything that was going on behind the scenes that had long been suspected but now there was proof that those suspicions didn't even scratch the surface

...which was less baffling than Emilie Oldknow responding to her being revealed as one of those responsible for the hounding of Abbott and various other attempts to cost Labour the 2017 election by threatening to sue the Labour Party, as if the information about what she, Iain McNicol, Tracey Allen, Julie Lawrence, Simon Mills, Patrick Heneghan, Sarah Mulholland, and John Stolliday were up to - as if the leak didn’t come from one of that group forwarding their entire WhatsApp log to their Labour email account  

Are we supposed to ignore how Matt Hancock said that four doctors “and some nurses” dying of Covid-19 made it look uncannily like he was saying that nurses were expendable?  Just like we’re supposed to ignore Matt Hancock saying that 19 NHS staff have died of Covid-19, at a time when the figure was somewhere between 28-31?

...but of course smirking cretin Priti Patel crawled out of the hermetically-sealed bunker she spent several weeks hiding in to announce "Three hundred thousand and thirty four, nine hundred and seventy four thousand tests” for Covid-19 had been carried out across the UK, which somehow hasn’t led to three years of dogpiling for flubbing her figures like Diane Abbott got

After all the talk form Keir Starmer saying he would unite the Labour party, when choosing his shadow cabinet he made it quite clear that he had no intention of doing so: the likes of Lisa Nandy, Jess Phillips and Wes Streeting all got nice jobs after years of sniping at Jeremy Corbyn, Rebecca Long-bailey and Emily Thornberry got clear demotions, which was better than what Barry Gardiner, Dawn Butler, Andy McDonald and Richard Burgon got as they were all dispatched to the backbenches PDQ

A book can be written about how Stephen Moore somehow equated those protesting stay-at-home orders with Rosa Parks, for the simple reason that an entire book needs to be written to try and engage with the complete lack of anything approaching knowledge, logic or common sense that would enable to say something so utterly moronic that it’s legitimately painful to read

The worst thing about the selfish cretins who hate lockdown taking to the streets...okay, that’s a multiple choice question on its own, but the fact they keep hollering into people’s faces that being in lockdown violates their Freedom of Speech because they can’t have some minimum wage peon cut their hair on the third Tuesday of every month like they used to is so utterly pathetic that it means there’s two reasons why guards at the Michigan capitol should have opened fire when the selfish morons descended upon them

Smirking cretin Priti Patel decided that, just as it was announced that 20,000 people had died in hospital of Covid-19 in the UK, the best idea was to announce that there had been a decrease in arrests for shoplifting in the UK compared to this time last year.  Just a thought: maybe it’s because there’s been a dramatic decrease in shops to shoplift from compared to this time last year due to the vast majority of them being closed?

When it dawned on the Professional Footballers Association that their stance of telling players to not accept any wage cut at a time where clubs were furloughing staff, they took the only available option to them: act like a bunch of spineless cowards and claim that, if footballers took a 30% wage cut, that would mean money was being taken out of the NHS’s pocket...a claim that was slightly undermined by them clearly pulling a figure out of their backsides when trying to say how much money that would be 

Not even a pandemic can stop Margaret Hodge and her tiresome vendetta against Jeremy Corbyn, judging by how as soon as Keir Starmer got his feet under the desk as Labour leader she was demanding a full and thorough investigation into how Jeremy Corbyn owned her at a public event in the mid-90s and made her look like a shrieking harpy with no understanding on any subject

While me singling out Amanda Holden for making herself the public face of the batshit insane 5G Truthers is a little bit mean, the fact that she made herself the public face of the 5G Truthers justifies her inclusion - with Eamonn Holmes also deciding to get in on that action a week or so later

...although she was soon put in her place when David Icke resurfaced to show people what batshit insane looks like and made himself the face of the 5G Truther movement while screaming how he’s being censored after vomiting misinformation in a livestream that Youtube promptly took down

Of course Alan Sugar was going to give his £0.02 about the Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdown at some point, at he didn’t disappoint when his take on the whole thing was journalists shouldn’t question the government (as if that’s been an issue in the last ten years...) and everyone should just shut up and not complain as if the 20,000+ deaths are a mere inconvenience and shouldn’t be referenced at any point because we are so much better off with a Tory government, even one that can’t be fucking bothered to do things such as prepare in any way for an impending pandemic reaching the country

It’s natural that Guido Blog responded to that NHS doctor who put his name and face to criticism of the government’s complete lack of supplying the NHS with enough protective equipment to keep NHS staff safe during a pandemic in the most Guido Blog way possible: by pointing the finger and calling him “anti-Britait”, “anti-Israel”, “pro-Palestine” (as if one doesn’t usually go without the other...) and a “socialist” - which simply asks the question that, if he was a pro-Leave, pro-Israel capitalist, would they actually be criticising them?

NASCAR’s virtual season hit a bump in the road after Kyle Larson momentarily mistook himself for PewDipShit and used a racial slur during the stream, getting himself suspended by both NASCAR and his team - and also got bitched out by literally every other NASCAR driver who was in the live chat

Apparently the worst thing that Paul Joseph Watson has had to endure in recent weeks isn’t the worldwide pandemic that’s affecting everyone but the most lunkheaded of people who hate not having minimum wage peons serving them every day, instead the worst he had to endure was getting blocked on Twitter by Piers Moron - and boy, did he have one hell of a meltdown about it...

Nothing sums up the “journalism” provided by The Sun than their front page bellowing how pubs might not reopen until Christmas, a front page embellished with the quote “596 dead: see page four” superimposed on a Covid-19 microbe graphic in the small piece of real estate left by the headline.  If ever there was an image that summed up why their hacks are taking to Twitter to literally beg people to buy their rag, this would be it

The determination of Alison Pearson to be on the wrong side of every story continued apace with her tweeting about a couple of her friends leaving lockdown due to being bored, and when asked if she would report them her response was to harrumph that they’ll be fine as they’re healthy people in their 40s and 50s...the problem being that, a few weeks before this, she was posting an article in the Telegraph howling about the selfishness of people who believe that self-isolation need not apply to them

Of course Randy Pitchford waited before the focus was elsewhere, such as the Covid-19 epidemic, before telling the Gearbox employees who worked on Borderlands 3 that, actually, those bonuses they were promised wouldn’t be coming as the game didn’t perform as expected even though their bonuses weren’t tied to sales or review scores, but of course if they had a problem with this they were free to quit...and by complete coincidence that would see them forfeit the scaled-back bonus entirely

On the one hand Steve Rotheram may have a point about Atletico Madrid fans flying into Liverpool for their Champions League tie being responsible for bringing Covid-19 onto Merseyside...but on the other hand, isn’t it funny how he made no mention whatsoever of the Liverpool fans going to Madrid two weeks earlier potentially bringing it back with them?

Irrelevant twat LeafyIsHere decided that now was the best time to make his return to Youtube, in which he made it clear he's still not over getting torn several new ones in by Idubbbz three years ago, somehow failing to understand that by making it obvious he cut his own throat as soon as he started

And finally, adding piracy to his resume is Donald Trump judging by him thinking that stealing Covid-19 supplies destined for Germany for American use is the sort of thing that doesn’t make him look like a dictatorial twat, nor does it sound like the sort of thing wars have legitimately started wars in the past

[anneedmonsonus]

Spray Painting Our Old Colorbond Sheds

Recently I tackled a DIY project at our place that had been on my to-do list for a LONG time – spray painting our old Colorbond sheds black. Woohoo! I know they are just sheds, but they look SO much better now that it legitimately thrills me. I had it in my head for months how much nicer they would look black, and they turned out even better, which is always a nice surprise. I’m totally revealing the absolute dag I am here, but do you guys get the same way about house and garden projects? You think of something you want to make over, and then you cannot get it out of your brain. Every time I looked at those old sheds I would think about how much more sexy they would look if they were black. (Can I get away with using the words ‘sexy’ and ‘sheds’ in the same sentence? I think so).

AFTER

  BEFORE

I think it’s because those sheds backdrop our new deck and outdoor living spaces, and our house had this gorgeous new look with the Scyon cladding, and we had this beautiful new patio and deck, but behind it were these really average old sheds. They’ve been there since we bought the place and you see them from every single back room of our house. Practical, but not very pretty. The small shed was maybe made from Zincalume (I’m guessing?) and the large one was cream Colorbond, with bore water stains.

Mr Nerd is generally supportive of my crazy endeavours, but I can’t say he quite understood my obsession with painting them black. “Why would you want to bother painting the sheds?” he asked.

He ate his words when he saw the results. There is just something about black paint, isn’t there? It has transformative powers. Especially in a garden – plants look so brilliant against black; it makes buildings – even big sheds – seem to recede; it sort of ties everything together and it just looks bold and deliberate. I can’t get enough of black houses and sheds.

The kids have been consuming a good chunk of my energy, time and soul lately but the perfect excuse to finally paint came when Dulux put the word out about their new Jelly Beans campaign. This year from September to October everyone who buys 8L of Dulux paint from Bunnings or an independent hardware store receives a tin of jellybeans, one-of-five collectable Dulux puppies and helps support the company’s $140,000 donation to Second Chance Animal Rescue in Melbourne, and I was happy to put my blogger hat on and do my bit.

Nala was happy to put her hat on and be a MODELLE

So, I got my black Dulux Weathershield paint (Dulux Monument – to tie in with our house’s cladding paint scheme, which we did in Dulux Monument and Dulux Natural White) I cleaned the sheds with a hose and an old broom, and then I began painting.

With a brush. With the kids at my feet. I know.

I’ve done a bit of spray painting – all our old aluminium windows, chairs, planters, small things like picture frames etc – but can you believe I actually had to get up the nerve to spray paint the sheds?

I think it’s because an aerosol can seems so easy, but an electricity-operated spray gun just seemed so intimidating. I felt like if there was someone in the world who could muck it up and somehow whip that spray gun around and spray paint themselves in the face, it would be me. And I thought there would be much more backspray than there actually was. Even when I spray painted our old aluminium windows, I couldn’t believe how much the backspray went. I looked in the mirror afterward and realised the backspray had coated my eyebrows and nostril hairs white. I was horrified. I looked like a fiercely ageing Oompa Loompa.

I legit thought that painting with a brush – at least while the kids were underfoot – would be the more doable option. You can see how well THAT idea turned out on my Instagram Stories. (I saved all my progress to a Highlight reel called Shed Makeover, if you want to see videos of my fails and eventual progress). If you want the short version, just imagine Little Nerd asking me his daily 48,000 questions and telling me he wants his 34th snack of the day while I try to paint and Little Miss Nerd climbs up my ladder behind me and joyfully dips her chubby arm into the paint tin (and me screaming and admitting defeat).

The next day I begged my mother to take my spawn for the day, and then I faced my fear, got a spray gun (I used this Dulux Rapid Finish Spray Gun) and BALLSED UP.

Me with BALLS UP…. wait

I read the manual, got it going and was so delighted with it I wondered why on earth I had been so wary about it before. It was SO much faster and the finish was good. I did two coats, and it was done! It was deliciously satisfying seeing the shed transform before my eyes. I think refilling the plastic container on the spray gun took longer than painting the shed did.

I also fixed up this ugly corner of our garden that’s been bugging me for years (because it’s what my eye would be naturally drawn to when you’re standing at our kitchen sink looking out the window) and I wish I’d remembered to take a proper before photo because it was such an unattractive patch with just some dead straggling plants in it. But as it is I only thought to take a photo of it when I’d cleared it (with the aid of my small, useless assistant). I filled it in with plants I already had – potted palms and some agaves and dracaenas I’d found on the side of the road (God I love green waste pickup) and added some brushwood fencing I got from Bunnings.

When I shared this makeover to my Stories, I got so many DMs – it seems I’m not the only one thinking of painting an ugly Colorbond shed or fence! – so here are a few of those questions and replies. I’m definitely no painting expert, so please feel free to weigh in in the comments section if you are.

HOW TO SPRAY PAINT COLORBOND 

What colour did you use?

Dulux Monument – same as our house.

How many tins of paint did it take?

I used up two 4L tins of Dulux Weathershield in a low sheen formula. You need to choose a paint that is compatible with your steel. It needs to be exterior-specific, water-based acrylic paint.

Do you have to use a special paint for spray painting?

Dulux DO make specific formulas for spray painting but you can also use other paints to spray paint with a spray gun. You just need to dilute them with 10 – 20 percent water.

Did you prime the Colorbond first?

After researching this topic online and talking to friends who’d done it before, I decided not to worry about doing a primer beforehand. I did apply an SLS metal etch primer on high-wear areas (like around the handle to the shed door and on the hinges) but aside from that I applied the paint directly to the Colorbond (and metal of the rear shed). The reason for this, is that it’s old Colorbond, which over time has more adhesion than new. If you have a brand new Colorbond shed or fence, some people seem to recommend adding adhesion by either sanding it or using a primer. And you have to make sure you get rid of all the manufacturing residue if it’s a new fence or shed. A warning, if you paint a new Colorbond shed or fence, Bluescope Steel (who manufacture them) say that it will void any of their warranties issued.

If I look tired it’s because I am. Thanks Mr Nerd for the photos, you did reasonably well at finally becoming a good Instahusband and I saw a remarked improvement on your usual”one-shot-is-all-I-got” attitude

How bad was the backspray?

It wasn’t as bad as I had been expecting however if you are painting outside I would one hundred percent recommend you wait for a very calm day (no wind) and make sure you’ve moved your cars away or taken in your washing if it’s close by! If you’re spray painting a patio etc I would make sure you cover up your paving or decking.

Thanks Dulux for gifting me the paint for this post. If you have any questions, please let me know in the comments! Do you have a project you’re dying to spray paint? Maya x

The post Spray Painting Our Old Colorbond Sheds appeared first on House Nerd.

from Home Improvement https://house-nerd.com/2019/10/08/spray-paint-colorbond-shed/