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feuqueerfire · 1 year

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April 2023 Movies/Shows Wrap-Up

A little monthly (spoilery!) wrap-up of all the shows, movies, and shorts I’ve watched or am watching in April 2023, general thoughts, and ranking of them all.

Recommendation of the month: Dirty Laundry was fun!

Ranking

The Merciless

Kiss Me Again: Pete-Kao cut (rewatch) = Dirty Laundry

Midnight Museum

Average Rating: 6.125/10 [lowest for the year so far :< hopefully better next month]

MDL Updates - Added to Watchlist:

A section because I’m curious about how many shows I decide to add to my Watch List a month and also the ratio of watching them:adding them.

Midnight Museum

I Go to School Not by Bus (2015): There’s this one tiktok I liked a while ago and haha yeah

Bed Friend

Unintentional Love Story

The Eighth Sense

To Watch List At Start Of Month: 56

To Watch List At End Of Month: 57 [Currently: Our Skyy 2, Bed Friend]

Removed from To Watch List:

None

Watching On-Air

Our Skyy 2

Country: Thailand

Release Dates: Apr 19, 2023 - ONGOING

Watch Via: GMMTV YT (free)

Watch Dates: Apr 22 - ONGOING, 2023

Never Let Me Go: It was cute and fun and I'm happy to have seen Nueng and Palm one more time. Goodbye, Palm and Nueng. [6.5/10]

Star In My Mind: In Ep 1, they were soo cute and I liked scheming Daonuea. Ep 2 is boring rip. Also glad that Nuea initiates or reciprocates Kluen’s advances often enough it’s an uncomfortable dynamic otherwise. [5.5/10]

tags: our skyy 2, never let me go, gmmtv 2023, star in my mind

Also Appears In: Our Skyy 2 Live Blogging

Completely Watched

The Merciless (2017) - non-queer

Country: South Korea

Release Dates: May 17, 2017

Watch Via: Netflix, so :>

Watch Dates: Apr 1, 2023

Rating: 6.5/10

Overall Impression: I do like going into shows and movies knowing very little, so every twist was fun for me; none of it blew my mind but I was still surprised nearly every time because I wasn't trying to predict the twists or anything. Im Siwan is just really good at these sorts of roles I guess, his situation, dynamic with the other male lead, and ending had similarities to Strangers From Hell for sure (or I should say it the other way around because this came first). I wish so much of the movie wasn't in such darkness though, I can't fucking see rip. I wasn't that into the bromance aspect but did like how intertwined they were and how willing to trust the other and how that trust got betrayed.

Also Appears In: The Merciless Live Blogging

My School President non-rewatching rewatch because I'm watching the reaction by ReactionsByJavi. I've been obsessed with FourthGemini recently and am excited for OurSkyyxMSP and just want more of them (23.5 when?). I might watch some FourthGemini interviews and stuff too, who knows, but I've been following translation accounts for them and they've been so funny in their events this early April lol.

I watched all 12 eps reactions by ReactionsByJavi and 2, 3 + parts of 1, 12 by ธีร์สนุกสนาน [T sanuksanan]. I'm gonna raise my rating to 7.5 because I really liked this show :> and my favourite ep is 3. April 4: Gotta update rating in liveblogging, monthly wrap-up, 2023 masterlist, my spreadsheet, MDL, whew.

Midnight Museum - non-BL

Country: Thailand

Release Dates: Mar 6, 2023 - Apr 4, 2023

Watch Via: GMMTV YT (free)

Watch Dates: Apr 5 - 7, 2023

Rating: 5.5/10

Overall Impression: I liked the first half with the artifacts and side stories more than the second half where they tried to do too much for a short runtime, not too much budget, and mediocre writing skills. I couldn't make myself care about Khatha or Dome and also it was funny how they kept emphasizing phi-nong with words but so romantic in action. I wish the fantasy and magic and parallel universes and time travel and cult and God and whatever else made more sense together.

tags: midnight museum

Also Appears In: Midnight Museum Live Blogging

Agh, I have barely been watching anything this month.

I think after focusing on less romantic shows the first few months of the year, I’m just craving some regular old familiar cheesy low-stakes BL but I also don’t really wanna start a new show (and Bed Friend seems a little too stressful). Wasn’t sure what I wanted to even rewatch, so I rewatched Gifted S1 via ReactionsWithJavi reactions and on April 16, watched ep 9-11 of Love In The Air SkyPai story.

Can’t wait for Our Skyy to start so that I can at least have that to fulfill my romance BLs but with familiar characters but also not rewatch a whole show; wanted something new with the familiar and Our Skyy really is made for that.

Kiss Me Again: Pete-Kao cut

Country: Thailand

Release Dates: Jun 19, 2018 - Aug 9, 2018

Watch Via: GMMTV YT (free)

Watch Dates: Apr 18, 2023

Rating: 6/10 [I’m not changing it from before]

Overall Impression: continuing on my can’t-watch-anything-new-that-i-have-high-hopes-for. I’ve been kinda craving like a very typical school BL that doesn’t have much going on outside of the ship dynamic and this delivers. Repressed and insane Pete who does stupid shit like get together with Mint again bc he thinks he’s jealous of Kao and then crash Kao and Sun’s dinner is so funny. Also the background music in this is jarring. Pete’s father continues to be great.

Rewatched Moonlight Chicken Heart/LiMing scenes via ReactionswithJavi and ahhh I love them so bad like T.T

Dirty Laundry

Country: Thailand

Release Dates: Jan 18, 2023 - Feb 2, 2023

Watch Via: GMMTV YT (free)

Watch Dates: Apr 25 - 28, 2023

Rating: 6/10

Overall Impression: Personally worth watching just to see the plethora of the gendered terms used with Night in drag/pretending to be kathoey (esp with Momey). Also liked the ending with “but who’s gonna direct?” [look into the camera] [screen with Directed by Jojo’s name] This was really fun and kept my attention well. I’ve seen people say that the humour didn’t work for them but it did for me. Also fun to see actors like Nanon, Film, Pond in these roles.

tags: dirty laundry

Rewatched SOTUS eps 9-13 and the second half of 15 lol I think I’m just maybe in a typical uni BL mood. rewatching is so fun though, I get to lament that there were so many girls in this engineering friend group and even a lesbian unlike these days where there are 0 to 1 female friends. Also, I didn’t know the Thai honorifics as much when I watched this over a year ago but now Kongpob being like “Then you can drop the formality of khun and phom and change to Phi and nong instead” and Arthit being like “That’s totally up to me. You got a problem with that?” ahhh it’s so alskdjak younger pursuer/seme/top/1/whatever my beloved

Started watching Bed Friend rip should’ve done earlier or waited 2 days but it is what it is.

Wonder how much I’ll get to watch shows now that I’m gonna have a 9-5 for the next 4 months oof

Worked on GeminiFourth April Roundup this month, will try to do it for next month too

#tracking #general bl #midnight museum #dirty laundry

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himbeaux-on-ice · 3 years

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KK deserves more than 6mil for 1 year and there is no way Habs CAN'T match that. It was so low I thought it was a joke of an offer as petty revenge for the Aho one. Literally had a $20 signing bonus tf. With both teams picking up racists this is good PR frankly to excite fans.

Sorry, I actually disagree pretty solidly with almost all of this, but the reasons are complex and lengthy to explain, so I’m going to put it all under a cut.

Listen, I personally believe based on what we’ve seen from him in the playoffs that KK can eventually develop into a $6.1 million dollar player — it seemed like he did well once the team had been put through Ducharme’s mini-training camp before the playoffs that actually allowed the chance to cement his systems, and put up good numbers generally during the run for someone his age. If they can find a way to get that kind of stuff out of him in the regular season, he could very well be worth $6.1 or more down the road. I really truly think he has it in him with the right coaching and the right work put in.

The problem is, owing possibly to how the Habs have chosen to develop him (remember, he came to the NHL pretty much straight out of the draft) and how very young he actually is, he has not yet actually PROVEN that he can be a player of that value consistently for most of a season at any point. I’m willing to put an asterisk on his struggles this year, because it was a weird fucking season and the Habs had a rough go of it in several points, especially down the stretch, and because we’ve seen the ability is there in the playoffs. But given what we’ve seen while he’s been on his ELC, there has been no guarantee so far that a team that signs him to $6.1 million is going to get $6.1 million in value out of him this coming season.

Like, set aside league-wide valuations for a second, and think about what the Habs, based on their budgeting and philosophy and management choices, are paying some of their top foundational players right now in terms of cap hit. Toffoli makes $4.5 million, so will Hoffman. Anderson makes $5.5 million, as does Drouin. Petry makes $6.2 million. Edmundson makes $3.5 million. Jake Allen, a player so valuable to this team that we risked “Price to Seattle” to keep him, is $2.87 million against the cap. Gally, the lifeblood heart and soul of this team who has given his literal blood sweat and tears to it for almost a decade, only makes $6.5 million against the cap. They apparently weren’t even willing to offer Phillip Danault, defensive cornerstone of the playoff run, the $5.5 million he got from LA. With Weber on the LTIR, if KK signed with the Habs at $6.1 million, he would be the third-highest paid player on the active team when you exclude dudes named Carey Price (who is an outlier and should not be counted). I love the kid. I think he’ll be a bonafide star someday. He has NOT earned that kind of payday yet, based on the established scale of how the Habs reward their players.

Based on my amateur understanding of NHL contracts and the market, a reasonable deal with KK from the Habs would have been somewhere in the area of $2-3 million (so, what they pay for players like Lehkonen (2.3 mil) or Byron (3.3 mil) or just signed Armia to (3.4 mil)), for maybe about 2 years. By the time that runs out, he’d be 23 years old and heading into the prime of his career, and you would probably have a better idea of whether he’s made that big next step or not — if he has, you probably just got two years of great hockey out of him at a STEAL, and can at that point sign him for a nice juicy contract that will pay him to that level and lock him up through his prime years (which is what you would dangle to entice him to take the short deal for now). And if when that short deal is up he hasn’t made that next leap, then you either sign him back at what he is worth, or if that’s an impasse, part ways. He has said he wants to help bring a Cup to Montreal, and do it with the core of young guys they’re assembling (and close friends like the other Finns on the team) — with that, maybe some performance bonuses if he really kills it, and the promise of something bigger down the road once he proves himself (plus the knowledge that he might not get higher offers elsewhere because of how he’s struggled) you could probably get him to sign a deal like that with the Habs.

HOWEVER.

Now that he has signed this offer sheet, he WILL get $6.1 million. Not only for this year, but once the one-year deal expires, any extension offered to him by anyone is required to start at that number. Regardless of how he performs. Unless he has the breakout year of all breakout years, this will really screw him over — because if he DOESN’T perform to the $6.1 million level, a team (be it the Habs or the Canes) is not going to want to sign him to a second deal at that pricetag. He’ll have to go hunting as a free agent, or get traded before he expires and become another team’s problem. (Note: I’m not exactly sure if the offer sheet process allows Montreal to match with a contract at the same value but longer term, but that doesn’t really solve the problem of being locked-in at $6.1 million after next season even if they can). I understand why he signed the offer sheet — his career earnings so far total just over $2 million, and of course both he and his agent would jump at the chance to guarantee adding triple that in just one year, with the promise of more of the same on his next extension. I’m sure he probably thinks he’s worth it, or can prove he is worth it. He probably thinks the Habs believe in him enough to match it, too — I don’t think he wants to leave Montreal, but he probably sees this as simply an earlier achievement of what they would hopefully be paying him anyway someday, in his eyes.

But even if he DOES perform up to that level, if he remains on the Habs that creates another massive problem crunching up against the salary cap: Nick Suzuki and Jake Evans are both RFA’s at the end of the 2021-22 season, and THEY will be looking for their “grown-up” contracts at that time, the SAME time KK will need to be signed again. Nick is probably going to develop into the better player between him and KK (look at where he already is right now), so even if KK performs excellently next year as say 2C, Nick looks like he will be even better at 1C — and if I’m Nick’s agent, I’m definitely starting my contract negotiations with what the Habs would be paying KK as my absolute lowest starting figure, if not higher. Jake probably has more of a 3C/4C upside, but if KK struggles and plays at a 3C/4C performance level and Jake does that well or better, then if I’m Jake Evans’ agent I am definitely putting my starting figure for negations right around $6.1 million, because I can argue “well, you’re paying Kotkaniemi that much, why not my client?”. Romanov is due up for his post-ELC RFA deal after next year too — because he’s more of a defensive defenceman who isn’t expected to score much, he likely can’t command the kind of figures that an offensively productive centre does, but you still need to have enough cap space to actually sign the guy for what he’s worth; Romanov is eligible for arbitration in that negotiation, so lowballing him too hard could get complicated and contentious fast. And all of this isn’t even including factors like depth players on one-year deals who will need to be replaced or brought back after this year, etc.

Accepting/matching this contract creates a dozen new problems the Habs didn’t have before at all. It carries massive risk and could cause problems for the cap and for roster construction even if KK takes off like a rocket and lives up to the figure on the sheet. I didn’t even touch on the absolute hell the fanbase and media will put him through if he is in Montreal on that kind of payday compared to the rest of the team and fails to live up to it. Alex Galchenyuk only made $4.5 million while he was here and struggling. Look how that turned out for him. You’ve seen how people get when Carey has a rough patch, how the $10.5 million gets brought up and thrown around, and that’s with Carey goddamn Price. I have been around this fanbase long enough to see what happens when people don’t feel you’ve lived up to your pricetag. It gets nasty. Think whatever you’ve seen hurled at Mitch Marner this year, then multiplied by a factor of “fanbase whose expectations have been disproportionately raised probably beyond what’s realistic by the miracle playoff run” and “the Montreal hockey media eats people alive even in good years”. He has been lucky so far in his struggles because he’s still young enough to be cheap. And I’ve still seen plenty of people already writing him off anyway.

Make no mistake: I love KK, I love what he brings to the team, I love how he fits in with the rest of the young core and their dynamics, and I really believe he has the potential to break out into a formidable 2C lowkey-superstar. And I was really, really looking forward to hopefully watching that growth and achievement happen with the Habs, as part of the super exciting future that has been building here. I will be heartbroken if this leads to him leaving, genuinely. My biggest worry with having this bright and shiny new core was always that I would have to watch it get torn apart and turn sad just like the last one.

But now that this contract, right now, at this point in his career is going to be the price of keeping him? I don’t know if matching it will be what’s best for the team as a whole, or even what is best for KK. I don’t know if Carolina actually gives a shit about him as a player enough to use and develop him right if they keep him, or what their end goal here even is other than definitely very literally getting petty revenge for the Aho thing, just look at their Twitter (I think the idea of this as DeAngelo counter-PR has become a bit overblown as an explanation, because surely they MUST know they could end up holding the tab for this and all the risk of it in the end, and that this will die down eventually, so either they’re incredibly stupid or there’s some other benefit here).

And regardless of which way everything goes, I can’t think of anyone I trust less to make the best choice for everyone involved than Marc fucking Bergevin.

#long post #sorry not trying to be mean just literally don’t agree with this at all #habs #Jesperi kotkaniemi #wnylanderthals #asks #montreal canadiens

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storiesbymads · 4 years

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HOT SUMMER NIGHTS ( haydn fleury . )

Haydn and Y/N are childhood friends that take their families tradition of summers at their cabin into their own hands when their parents decide they aren’t going this year

warnings: sexual references, alcohol

wc: 4.1k

add yourself to my taglist!

Summer was your favorite time of the year. It’s been your favorite since you were six when your parents decided that you and the Fleurys were going to spend every summer from then on at a cabin they’d purchased together. It was situated on a small lake—that could really be considered a very large pond—and it had enough yard to let your golden retriever run five miles before it had to turn around and come back.

John had enlisted both sons to build some semblance of a fire pit when you turned fifteen. Haydn and Cale finally had a good and functioning pit… two summers later. That started the tradition of the three of you sitting down by the pit when both sets of parents had tucked in for the night and sharing stories into the early hours of the morning. And you may or may not have snuck into your dad’s supply of Natty Light while you did so.

Your days at that cabin were filled with probably the happiest memories you’d ever made. Haydn always forced you to go paddle boarding with him or canoeing during the day—you preferred the canoeing since he would just let you tan near the front while he did… whatever he did. Your parents pretty much left you to your own devices until dinner where all of you would gather around the enormous dining room table and spend an hour or two just talking. There was also the occasional game of Monopoly that totally didn’t end in Cale flipping the board that one time when Haydn gave you too much money as banker for six rounds in a row. You thought you were being really sneaky.

All of that being until your parents decided that they weren’t going up to the cabin this year. And neither were the Fleurys.

“Can you believe this,” you groaned into the phone. Haydn chuckled at your response to his phone call. You’d been on the call approximately 3 seconds at this point.

“I know but did you really expect us to go up there for the rest of our lives,” he replied.

“Uh, yeah,” you said. “We’re going to continue the tradition forever and before you know it we’ll be bringing our own kids up there. They’ll be best friends just like us.”

You really only included that last part to keep Haydn from knowing that you didn’t picture the tradition going on as it was right now. You did imagine the two of you going up to that cabin for the rest of your lives but you only pictured one family being involved in the whole ordeal.

“You know we could always just go by ourselves,” he said.

And the idea sparked joy into your heart. Until he picked you up from your house and you realized that you’d be spending all summer with him. Alone.

“You ready for this?” he asked as he helped you put your two duffel bags into the trunk of his car. His right hand found your thigh as he started up the engine. “Time for the summer of our lives.”

“Hell yeah,” you said as you hooked your phone up the aux in his car. That was one of your undisputed rules. On road trips, whoever wasn’t driving picked the music.

The ride down to the cabin felt shorter than usual. You liked to chalk it up to the fact that you were just older now and car rides didn’t feel as interminably long as they did when you were eight but it was probably due to Haydn making you laugh harder than you’ve laughed in six months the entire time. It seemed like you’d just pulled out of your driveway when you pulled into the gravel one of your cabin.

“Do you remember when Cale jumped over the bonfire and almost lit his ass on fire,” you giggled as you lugged your luggage up the wooden steps to the front door.

“Yeah, yeah I do,” Haydn said as he found the key under the welcome mat. He remembered exactly the moment you were talking about. The two of you were sixteen and testing out the unfinished fire pit and he was seconds away from spilling all the feelings he’d had for six years when his brother decided to test fate.

You inhaled deeply the second you stepped into the living room—out of habit of course. It was exactly like you remembered seeing as you’d been there just last year. It was odd not having your mom there to shove you the rest of the way through the door and forcing you to help put up the groceries before you got a chance to put your stuff in your room. Now that you thought about it, you could totally take your parents bedroom for your own and sleep in a California King for the next two months.

You hadn’t even noticed Haydn had gone back to the car until he lugged the yeti cooler in behind you and dropped it by the kitchen island. The two of you would definitely have to go to the grocery store in town for the rest of your food but you could push that off until tomorrow.

“You wanna head down to the dock?” you asked, readjusting the duffel bags on your shoulders. There was a side compartment in one of them full of nothing but bikinis and you were just itching to start using them.

“You’re ready to go down already? Don’t you usually ward off going outside for the first 24 hours of the trip?” he asked, grabbing his own bags and following you up the stairs that led to the small second level that housed three of the four bedrooms.

“Let me get changed and I’ll go down all by myself if I have to,” you scoffed, pushing open the door to your parents usual bedroom and dropping the duffels on the bed. It seemed that Haydn had the same idea as you had because he was currently dropping all his luggage onto his parents bed. You’d be lying if you said you didn’t sneak a peak at him taking his shirt off before reminding him his door was wide open for the world to see. Of course, all he said in response was that it was just you before shutting the door quietly and changing into his swim shorts.

You tried to shake the thought of Haydn seeing you in the same position. You tried to shake the thought of Haydn being the one taking your shirt off. It didn’t work.

You shut your own door before grabbing a red set out of your bikini compartment. It made your ass look great, not that that was your whole goal in wearing it, but it couldn’t hurt.

A soft knock at your door alerted you to the fact that Haydn was already done. You let him know he could come in while you pulled your hair up into a ponytail. You eyed him in the body length mirror that faced the door and, man, did you wish his mom still dressed him. The 5.5 inch inseam shorts did wonders for his thighs and he had on a canes snapback on that you were determined to steal from him later.

You weren’t doing Haydn any favors either. The thong bikini had to be his new favorite shade of red and you had your hair pulled up to reveal the small tattoo the two of you shared at the base of your shoulder blade.

“You ready?” he asked.

“Did you bring claws?” You walked past him to the hallway closet that held all of your bath and beach towels. You grabbed one for both of you, tossing him one, before making your way down the stairs.

“The mango ones,” he replied as he followed you, only about a step or two behind. You gasped in delight as you skipped the bottom step, rushing to the cooler and grabbing said mango white claw out of it. You grabbed Haydn one of his beers while you were in there, too. You weren’t heartless.

The dock was probably your favorite part of the cabin. Your mom had had it installed two summers ago and it was big enough to hold about six lawn chairs and a few beach towels across—which, by the way, was way too big for the lake but you did tan every single day while you were there.

The water was fully up to the dock when you got down there. You definitely could submerge like half your leg if you sat on the edge.

Haydn hooked up his phone to the speaker he’d mounted to the singular wall the dock had. He’d made sure the small roofed area kept the weather from dealing too much damage to it over the time you were gone.

“What music do you want?” he asked, squinting as he scrolled through his various playlists on spotify. A good ⅔ of them had been made by you and forced into his library but that didn’t matter to him. He listened to all of them.

“Do last year’s. I haven’t gotten around to making one for us this year yet,” you said as you laid out your towel. “Hey, do you think you could sunscreen my back for me?”

“Yeah, yeah, hold on,” he said before MKTO started flowing through the speakers. He grabbed the SPF out of your beach bag of sorts before sitting himself down on your thighs.

“Undo the strings, I don’t want lines,” you hummed, already enjoying the feel of the sun on your skin, and the feel of Hayden’s weight on top of you.

His breathing stuttered slightly, not enough for even you to notice, when he undid the thin tie that held up the cherry red bikini top. Squirting the lotion straight into your back, he rubbed it in. God, he could’ve spent the rest of his vacation right here.

“There you go,” he whispered once he was finished, pushing himself up from you and walking back over to where the rest of his stuff was. He grabbed his own towel, laying it out beside yours.

“Do you want sunscreen?” you asked him, opening your eyes slightly only to see him starting to lay down.

“No, I’m not staying here for long,” he replied. “The lake is calling to me.”

“You can still burn in the lake, Hay. You should know, we go over this every time.”

“This time’ll be different,” he said and he sounded so sure of himself.

If only it had worked out like that.

“Oh my god I can’t move,” he groaned into the leather of the living room couch. Your eyes were glued to the incredibly red skin of his back that you’d already lathered in aloe vera. You’d already commented on the fact that he matched your bathing suit. “The sun fucking hates me.”

“I’m sure he does.” You patted his calf twice before grabbing one of the seven remote controls on the coffee table in front of you and turned on the small box tv situated in the corner of the room. If the two of you kept this up, you’d need to do some serious renovations in the coming years.

It took two whole weeks for Haydn’s sunburn to heal enough for him to spend time outside without a shirt on. And seeing as he was your only company, the two of you had spent a hell of a lot of time inside. One thing Haydn’s lack of sun protection didn’t affect, though, was the nightly bonfire you had out back in the fire pit. You’d be surprised if you had enough firewood to last you through July with your evening antics as they were.

Haydn crumpled his Bud Light box and set it at the base of the fire pit before stacking the night’s supply of wood on top of it. He had the fire going strong in a solid ten minutes.

“I honestly don’t know how you do it. If i was stuck in the wild without you I’m pretty sure I’d just not survive,” you said when he took his spot in the fold out chair beside yours. He was close enough to you that you could smell his cologne and you could practically feel his body heat.

“Fire God,” he said, waving the extra long stick he always used as a poker. You were sure he’d had that stick for close to ten years at this point.

His eyes stayed glued to you as you told him about one of the bonfire’s you’d had when you were still back in high school. The two of you had gone to different schools then and it was probably why you’d looked forward to these trips so much.

About an hour later, the fire had diminished down to embers but neither of you cared. The two of you were so lost in conversation, you could care less about the dwindling flames. Or, at least, Haydn didn’t care.

“Oh, shit. I think it’s time to head inside,” you chuckled as you gestured to the pit. He nodded, getting up from his spot and pouring the rest of the water he’d switched to for the night before you guys came outside over the embers. He held out his free hand when he was done for you to take, helping you out of your chair. You were thankful for the lack of light or you’re sure Haydn would’ve seen the way your cheeks were burning red.

The next few days passed like clockwork. You woke up half past nine, Haydn at ten, and you made breakfast together. He was, surprisingly, not half bad at making an omelet or really anything that primarily involved eggs so you gave him most of the reigns in the kitchen. When the two of you finished eating, it was straight out to the dock until Haydn got bored and either forced you to swim with him or to get into the canoe tied off to your right.

“Y/N/N, I am begging you,” he whined. He was completely covered in sunscreen this time, you’d made sure of that, but at least he’d ditched the t-shirts. You’d chosen a white bikini today. They had full coverage bottoms and Haydn didn’t know whether to rejoice and silently hate the manufacturers.

“Hay, I just need five more minutes,” you sighed, turning your head so that you could face him from where you were laid out on your stomach. You’d already done your other side and you just wanted it to be even.

“Fine,” he said. You smiled at him in thanks, thinking that’d be the end of it and he’d make you paddle board with him when you were finished. Then, you felt his hands push underneath you and suddenly you were off the towel and pressed into his chest, bridal style.

“What the fuck!” you shrieked in the midst of the havoc. Haydn laughed briefly and before you knew it he’d jumped off the dock with you helplessly in tow.

The water was warmer than you expected but it still jolted you awake. The lake was just deep enough that you had to wade to stay afloat but not much deeper than that.

“I was almost done,” you whined, smacking him lightly on the chest when you resurfaced. You’d separated underwater but you were still incredibly close to him.

“I told you, I was bored,” he said, moving your wet hair with his fingers and tucking it behind your ear. Your breath caught in your throat at the contact. His eyes have never looked bluer than they have in that moment with the water reflecting in them.

Haydn’s fingers were still tingling, electrified with the skin to skin contact and he was desperate that you felt it too. His eyes flickered down to your lips. He wondered if he’d be able to taste the banana chapstick you’d applied before breakfast this morning.

Without even thinking about it, you‘d shifted closer to him. You contemplated wrapping your legs around his torso, seeing as it was growing more difficult to tread water with how close you were. Your body acted before you’d even made up your mind, but his hands found your thighs faster than your brain could function and your arms were already tucked behind his head.

The two of you were seemingly locked in a daze. No words passed between you but your whole world was screaming excitement. Every nerve ending in your body was shooting off as you held him close, allowing yourself to admire him in a way you’d previously held yourself back from.

Your fingers traced the deck of cards on his left arm. You knew the tattoo meant a lot to him, he’d told you what it meant when he’d forced you to come along with him when he’d gotten it done.

“I think we should head in for lunch,” Haydn said after a minute or two, mentally cursing himself for ruining the moment but he had a bigger problem at hand. Particularly the one below the belt.

He allowed you to climb the ladder to the dock before him, claiming it to be a ladies first ordeal, and watched as you made it halfway to the house before following you out himself. You were already inside making sandwiches when he shuffled inside and into the half-bath downstairs without so much as a word. He knew it was risky but you couldn’t potentially walk in the way you could if he took care of things in his bedroom. He had already contemplated just trekking upstairs to take another cold shower but he’d taken enough of those in the past week to last him a lifetime.

You hadn’t been able to get the moment from the lake out of your mind since it happened. You caught yourself wondering if Haydn had wanted to kiss you the way you’d wanted to kiss him more than a time or two.

June was drawing to a close but you felt like your summer with Haydn was just beginning.

You’d had two too many white claws—plus one of Haydn’s beers—for the evening and you were really starting to feel it when you struggled to sit upright near the fire pit. You’d been trying to finish off the box before your weekly grocery run in the morning but you were starting to regret your decision.

“We’ll get some more firewood in the morning, too,” Haydn said, throwing the last big piece of wood from the pile onto the top of the blazing fire.

You stared at him in your drunken haze when he sat back down next to you. The stories were coming out slower tonight but the silence was not completely unwelcome. It was hard to have an awkward silence between the two of you after all the years you’d spent being friends.

“Why didn’t you kiss me?” you whispered just loud enough for him to hear. His heart skipped a beat at the insinuation.

“What?” he asked. He’d heard you perfectly.

“That day in the lake. Why didn’t you kiss me?” you asked again, though a tad slurred. And in that moment he wished he could travel back in time and kiss you the way he’d dreamed about so many times. Maybe he’d be able to show you how in love with you he’d been since he was ten years old. Maybe you’d actually feel the same.

It was oddly reminiscent of when you were fourteen and you’d been in the same predicament with a boy named John. John had taken you out to the movies—or, at least, his mom had. He’d been the first boy to ever really ask you out and you thought if you prettied yourself up enough you might be able to finagle a first kiss out of it.

Of course, later that night you’d been in the same predicament on the phone with Haydn asking why this stupid freshman boy couldn’t man up and kiss you.

Had it been because of you? Had you misread both situations in your life. Had you seriously misjudged where you stood with both boys to the point that you thought you were getting a kiss only to be left high and dry and wondering why.

Maybe all of this was just the alcohol in your system talking. Or, maybe it was just because both boys had been scared.

“We should go inside,” he said as he repeated his fire ending ritual. It sizzled and sparked before erupting in a cloud of smoke. Then it was silent.

“Haydn,” you mumbled as he helped you up from your chair. You staggered when you fully reached your feet partially from the heartbreak of Haydn not responding to your question and partly from being drunk off your ass.

He helped you up the stairs and into your bedroom without another word. There were too many thoughts running through his brain right now for him to get a coherent sentence out, anyway.

The only problem was that you started stripping down to your underwear the second you stepped into the room.

“Woah, uhm,” Haydn said, wide eyed, before he clamped his hand over his eyes. He figured it shouldn’t matter that much, he saw you in a bikini just about every day, but this just felt so much dirtier.

“I’m decent,” you hummed as you threw yourself face first onto the duvet.

“Well, I’m just gonna-“

“Stay,” you said. “Please.”

“Alright,” he sighed before helping you both under the covers of the California King bed. You were asleep almost instantly and he just smiled fondly as he watched you curl up into his side. Maybe he’d be able to really explain everything in the morning. When you were sober.

The light pouring in from the open curtains caused a string of profanities to ungracefully fall from your lips as you smacked at your bedside table in an attempt to find your phone. You opened your eyes, barely, and squinted when you couldn’t find it in a few slaps only for your eyes to be met with a small glass of water and two gel caps of Advil with a note in Haydn’s scrawl.

I figured this would help the hangover. xx

You popped them in your mouth quickly, downing the water in about two gulps before grabbing the first piece of clothing you saw on your floor and heading into the en-suite to get somewhat presentable. You could hear the stove being used when you made your way down the stairs for breakfast.

“Thanks for the pills,” you said, making yourself somewhat comfortable at one of the island stools as Haydn hunched over the stove. You could smell the bacon but not much else. You eyed the clock over the fridge and noticed you’d slept way past your usual nine am wake up call.

“I went to the store already so we don’t have to worry about that,” Haydn chimed in when he saw you eyeing the new loaf of bread next to the fruit bowl.

“Do you remember what I asked you last night?” you asked, your heart dropping into the pit of your stomach as you vaguely recalled your own question.

“Yeah,” he said. He moved the pan of eggs to the eye that was shut off before turning to face where you were seated at the island.

“Why didn’t you say anything,” you continued.

“You were drunk-“

“Then, why didn’t you kiss me?” you asked again. It was already out there. You couldn’t take anything back you’d said last night so all you could do from here was push forward.

“I should’ve,” he said finally. “I should’ve kissed you.”

You got up from where you were sitting, moving around so that you were practically chest to chest with him again. You were right before. His eyes were definitely bluer in the water.

“Kiss me now,” you whispered. The dull aching your head was replaced with the intense feeling of his lips on yours. His lips were chapped, expectedly so, but they felt incredible against your own. He tasted like crest toothpaste and coffee and the combination was intoxicating.

His hands were on your hips in a second, lifting you to set you on the countertop so you were fully level. They were moving quickly, up your sides and back down again, digging into the flesh of your waist.

“Nice sweatshirt,” he said after pulling back slowly. You looked down to see you’d grabbed his from the night before rather than your own.

“I love you,” you whispered. And it was true. You’d loved him since you were fourteen when he comforted you after your first date with John. You’d loved him every day of the past ten years and you weren’t afraid of it anymore.

“I love you,” he said. “I’ve loved you since I was ten.”

tags @ptersparkers @annedub @corebore123 @damndunner @kiedhara @watermelon05 @sidscrosbyy

#haydn fleury #haydn fleury imagine #nhl #nhl imagine #hockey #hockey imagine #imagine #haydn fleury x reader #nhl x reader

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bokunoheroanalysisforthefuture · 4 years

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Chapter three! I already skimmed through it and just. Holy fuck I’m falling in love with this series all over again, and this is just the opening arc, how the hell is this so good??? I’m genuinely just in awe and fuck is it making it hard to decide where to have a cut-off point for this chapter. I suppose we’ll just have to see what fate decides.

(Also, the temptation to just paste in all of the last three pages of the chapter is so incredibly strong, you don’t understand.)

[No. 3 - Entrance Exam]

We start off with some exposition: UA’s hero course is designed to give students all they need to go pro, and is the toughest and most popular hero course in the country, with only a 1 in 300 acceptance rate. Discounting the four slots that are recommendation students, that’s 36 slots a year, which is about…

Yeah. That’s a lotta applications, and that’s just for the hero course!

Several alumni are mentioned: All Might, who declined the people’s choice award; Endeavor, who’s stopped more crimes than anyone else in recorded history; and Best Jeanist, who’s won the Best Jeanist award eight years running. (One of these things is not like the other~ One of these things just doesn’t belong~) The exposition suggests that graduating from UA is basically a requirement for becoming a great hero - something which we’ll learn soon enough isn’t quite true.

But yeah, Endeavor with the record for crime handling, even above All Might. Quite the impressive hero, though that face…

Not precisely reassuring.

So yeah, Izuku here mentions the date of the exam - February 26th. I figure that this has to be a Sunday, for the simple fact that Japan has a slightly different school schedule than us. Most notably: Japanese schools (some of them, anyways) have 5.5 day school weeks. Yes, that means the first half of Saturday can still be a school day.

While I couldn’t confirm for sure whether this is more common among the higher end schools, I feel like a school like UA, with its ‘Plus Ultra’ motto, would definitely be a school to have a half-day (or even a full day) on Saturdays, and since they also have to accomodate for middle schools that have Saturday morning classes, I figure that it would make the most sense for UA to schedule this exam on a Sunday.

The benefits of this, as we’ve already seen, is that we can then narrow down the timeline for the rest of the series, just based on that single, confirmed date. We know from the last chapter that the Sludge Villain had to happen on a Thursday or Friday of the first week of school (April 14th/15th), with the first training session two days later (the 16th/17th). But what this also gives us is when Izuku’s first year of UA starts, AND the possible years it could start on.

Since we see the glowing baby is in a modern hospital, we can assume that’s correlated to about our times. Give it a few generations, and we can guess that we’re in the 2200s or 2300s for the current era. Based on that assumption, we get the following years that have February 26th on a Sunday:

23rd century potential years: 2204, 2209, 2215, 2226, 2232, 2237, 2243, 2254, 2260, 2265, 2271, 2282, 2288, 2293, 2299

24th century potential years: 2310, 2316, 2321, 2327, 2338, 2344, 2349, 2355, 2366, 2372, 2377, 2383, 2394, 2400

As a side note, when I got into the series, my brain weirdly latched onto the idea that this had to all be happening in the year 2317. I don’t know why I decided on that number, but that’s what I rolled with, and hilariously I could be RIGHT about the year the current manga arc is happening in, provided Izuku’s first year is in 2316. Sometimes you just know, ya know? I know at least one other friend made these calcs independently of me and chose to run with 2237, which is totally valid! Probably makes more sense to be in the 2200s, but there’s room depending on how much time one thinks has passed.

As for when Izuku’s high school school year starts, we know that Japanese schools start on the second Monday of April. Since we don’t know if this is a leap year or not, we’ll end up with two dates, but that’s fine!

Feb 26 (Sun) -> Feb 27 (Mon) -> March (6/5, 13/12, 20/19, 27/26) -> April (3/2, 10/9)

Therefore, Izuku’s first day of classes (not counting the orientation, which I’ve seen a few other timelines assume is on the Sunday before classes start) is April 10th (or the 9th if a leap year)! I know this is all in the future from this chapter, but still, I wanted to share this at some point and figured now was as good a time as always.

Math!

Sorry, I’ve just wanted to share this math I did for a while now, I put a lot of work into it and I am very proud of it. Let’s get back to the chapter.

So Izuku lives a 40 minute train ride away from UA, and has made it just in time for the exam. Apparently, this is only the practical portion? Or well, that’s the part that gets focused on in this chapter, with no mention of the paper exam. I would imagine they’d be the same day, though? But I suppose one can do whatever they like with it.

He’s standing there looking at the school, thinking about how he didn’t have a chance to test the power, while the other students head in-

Excuse me, Toga?? I know that hairstyle is just a bit off, but… ???

...right, anyways. Izuku is wondering whether the hair really did anything (also, it was apparently sour, which, ew.) Katsuki comes up behind him and tells him to move aside.

Truly a flattering image. Izuku panics a bit and greets him, but Katsuki just walks by without another word or gesture, leaving Izuku confused as he watches him head on into the building. The narrative notes that since the villain incident, Katsuki hadn’t bothered Izuku, while the unnamed characters in the background apparently recognize Katsuki from the ‘sludge’ incident (well, not shocked how the fandom held onto that name).

Izuku notes that he’s gotta stop flinching instinctively, and then tries to hype himself up, noting that it’s not like before, and think about the past ten months while taking a wobbly step forward- and then tripping over himself.

I’m sorry Izuku just has so many fantastic faces in this chapter I am crying trying to limit myself to just a few. But yeah, that little derp as he realizes what’s happening is adorable, especially while Ochako gently sets him back on his feet. She mentions that it’s her quirk, and apologizes for using it, but that it’s a bad omen to trip and fall. (I wonder if that gets played with again during later parts of the series… will have to check to see.)

While Izuku freaks out over talking to a girl, Ochako notes that the exam is nerve-wracking, and then heads off while wishing both of them luck as Izuku stares after.

This fucking kid. I love him so much. His flustered excitement gets him some weird looks from the others still outside.

We transition to a new character (Present Mic) who immediately shows off his performative side by calling for a ‘hey!’ which… is met with silence from the crowd. He doesn’t let this throw him off, instead letting them know that he’ll present the guidelines for the practical, followed with a ‘YEAH!’ that gets met with an even heavier silence.

Izuku and Katsuki are seated next to each other, with Izuku descending right into excited muttering over Present Mic and how he listens to his radio show every week. Also with the assumption that all the UA teachers are pro heroes, which I mean, true, but still. Katsuki tells Izuku to shut up.

Present Mic explains the test: ten minute long ‘mock cityscape maneuvers’, with the applicants split among seven arenas, labelled ‘A’ through ‘G’. With more than 10k applicants total, that’s about…

Yeah, more than 1500 per arena. Fucking hell, no wonder the robots deplete so quickly in only a few minutes. Also of interest:

“Bring along whatever you want.” So technically, if Izuku were able to procure the tech and training to handle the robots, there would be nothing keeping him from getting into UA quirkless… though I imagine any kid who gets in mostly on tech probably gets side-eyed… though if said kid made their OWN tech, they might also get an offer from the Support department.

(AU where Mei accidentally took the heroics exam and got a shitload of points, but she ended up taking the offer for Support instead despite setting the record for most points in said exam. Katsuki forever wants to fight her. Izuku and her are good friends.)

Also, another thing I love is how Katsuki just told Izuku to shut up a moment ago, and then:

He’s the one to initiate conversation on the details of the test, basically agreeing on the reasoning behind dividing up the students between arenas. Katsuki is annoyed at not being able to crush Izuku, which has Izuku awkwardly silent.

Also mini-Mic.

Poor, poor Mic. He just wants audience participation. Anyways, he continues on to explain the points system, with the help of cute little Mario-themed silhouettes. There are three kinds of faux villains, with different points awarded for defeating each based on their difficulty levels. Also, attacking other examinees is prohibited!

A student (cough Tenya) raises their hand to ask a question, going on to note that the handout sheet appears to have four varieties of villain, and that such a blatant error (if it is one) reflects poorly on Japan’s top academy. He then spins around and points at Izuku, calling him out for his muttering and how distracting he’s been, and that ‘if this is some sort of game to you, then please leave immediately!’

Is that… Mineta seated behind Izuku? I can’t find another panel that disproves that theory, so. Whelp. If you ever for some reason want to have Izuku accidentally deal with the grape early, he’s right there.

Anyways, Present Mic brings the convo back to the initial question/comment, noting that the fourth villain is worth zero points, and is more of an obstacle. He then brings up Super Mario Brothers, the old retro game, and compares the Zero Pointer to a thwomp. There’s one per site, serving as a gimmick that’ll rampage in close quarters. Tenya thanks Mic and apologizes for the interruption.

And so we get our final words from Present Mic:

??? either he's referencing the original guy (which I think would be a misquote because I doubt OG Nap ever noted anything like that) or some French hero or the like who took on the name.

Discord offered this to me while putting together the post:

So there you have it. Tentatively confirmed.

Those EYES man, dude’s got the Rinnegan going on.

Honestly, I have to end on this panel just because of that last line from Present Mic. Like, look me in the eyes and tell me this isn’t the exact point to end on.

The discord’s takeaway from this:

#chapter 3 #opening arcs #readthrough #boku no hero academia #my hero academia #midoriya izuku #bakugou katsuki #uraraka ochako #yamada hizashi #iida tenya #I seriously cannot believe they actually said 'break a leg' while Midoriya Izuku was in the area #like talk about tempting fate #and that little bow #like 'yes sir i will do my best to break a leg'#'in fact i will break both legs AND an arm'#'Plus Ultra!'

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meteor752 · 5 years

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Modern gAyU 6.0

((Part 5.5 here))

The kids grow, and the oldest start College

‘Soka studies Mechanical Engineering, Asajj Law, Maul English and Barriss Nursery

This also means that Leia and the gang starts High School

And Leia’s all about that because in her English class there’s this stupidly hot girl

Amilyn Holdo is a student that’s just trying to get through school without distractions and then study to become a politician

And that five foot Fierce brunette is not helping in any way at all

Leia did manage to get a date after a year or so, and then another, and a third

And all of a sudden that five foot fierce brunette is Amilyn’s girlfriend

And Anakin finally finds out who Han is dating when Leia brings home her own partner

Artoo and Cee gets bullied for a while, Cee for his stuttering and Anxiety and Artoo for his mismatched eyes and that he’s in a wheelchair

Leia, Han and Luke does not take that lightly however and beats up anyone that comes close

Lando also starts hanging around the group more as well

Kylo finally gains enough courage (With a lot of help from Jess) to confess his feelings for Hux

And Hux just kinda nervously and awkwardly rejects him

The two start ignoring each other after that, Hux going back to reading by himself while Kylo still hangs out with Rey and the gang, all the while being very quiet and sad

That goes on for two months, and the gang just says that they should work it out themselves

Rey grows more and more frustrated though and eventually confronts Hux about it because what the hell man, talk to him at least!

Hux reveals that he was raised in a homophobic household by his father, and as a closeted gay he did not know how to deal with that

He’d never before thought of Kylo as anything more than but a friend, but after he confessed Hux started to think of the small things he liked about Ren

And before he knew it himself he was crushing, which scared him a lot

Rey calmed down, and just sorta tried to push him to talk to Kylo

Which he did, he got a ride on Rey’s bike to Kylo’s house and the two talked

Then Hux asked him out on a date

And Kylo answered by kissing him firmly

And they never spoke about it to Hux’s father or Kylo’s foster father Snoke, because getting disowned at fourteen would not have been pretty

The gang celebrated it with Pizza night though, and Finn and Poe came clean about their relationship that had been going on for four years, and the others got playfully mad

Jess also took this opportunity to ask Rey out, and she just shrugged and said Ok, because what has she to loose really

The two are a very down to earth couple

Since Poe’s and Finn’s relationship is out, Phasma insists on meeting her sons boyfriends

Yeah right umm, Bee Bee and Benine started dating, forgot to mention that

The night ends up being very chill, Poe and Bee Bee got along really well which made their boyfriends happy and Phasma liked them both

#Phasmaapproves

Sabine and Zeb starts to push Ezra into having a relationship too, one because they want to win the bet and two because their brother needs to get out of the house more

Ezra complains to Jai and Zare about this, and also tells them about the apparent bet that he’d overheard them talk about, and Jai gets all smug and suggests an idea that makes both Ezra and Zare all flustered

So the next day during the Syndulla-Jarrus household, Ezra announces that he, Jai and Zare are in a relationship

Sabine and Zeb grumble as they give Hera their money, as her bet was on both

Ezra gets annoyed

When ‘Soka finishes collage with a high degree and looks for a job, she gets a sudden impulse to get contact again with her childhood best friend/girlfriend Barriss Offee

So she drives to where they had moved and knocks on the door while her Anxiety is screaming at her to get the fuck out of there

Aayla opens the door with a surprised expression, and Ahsoka nervously asks where Barriss lives nowadays

Aayla replies with a wide grin, and when ‘Soka had left she immediately tells Luminara and Shaak

Ahsoka takes two hours to must up the courage to knock on Barriss’ apartment door

And when Barriss opens they both just stare at each other for at least a minute

Barriss hardcore blushing cuz Ahsoka got HOT

And TALL

Ahsoka nervously says hi, and Barriss invites her in with an extremely red face

They both sit awkwardly with a cup of tea in front of them for a while, before Ahsoka ends up apologizing for breaking their contact

That’s when they get talking

And set up a date the next day

And boom, two years later wedding invites are sent out

The pair ends up adopting a girl named Ashla, because she’s got Vitiligo like me Barriss, how can we not?!?!

And yeah, this is kinda where the AU ends. I can keep adding stuff, but it will be kinda dragged out after a while.

Hope you enjoyed it, and feel free to send me asks about Ideas and thoughts you had about it

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prorevenge · 6 years

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After months of putting up with my roommate from hell, I got the revenge of lifetime and screwed her over out of a fuckton of money and got her to pay rent and life has never been sweeter! (This is a long one)

This is a long one but very much worth the ride, so buckle up. (also, English isn't my native lang, sorry if there are any mistakes)

This story takes place a couple of years back. During college, I lived with several roommates, all of them were nice and we got along well, except for this one bitch, let's call her Karen. if Satan and Hitler had a child and that child had a child with Stalin and Cruella de Vil, that would be Karen for you, she is a loud-mouthed stupid, egocentric bitch who has the face that scare the shit out of a toilet. She would never clean up after herself, she would always leave her plates and things at the spot where she last used them. I have lost counts of how many times, I caught her stealing my clothes without asking and if you so much as touch her clothes she loses her shit on you, or her drinking our lactose-intolerant roommates almond milk and any time we confronted her for drinking it, she would shrug and say "I only had a sip, stop being so stingy." She plays her music loud at night, invites stranger without giving any heads up, a time or two she didnt pay rent even though her parents are FILTHY RICH and she is wearing gucci and prada shit, Karen also fucking lies about everything, even things that are not worth lying about. like if she woke up 7, and you ask her, she'll lie through her fucking teeth and say she rose with the sun rise because she is a natural. (ps, this is something i actually heard her say to her parents while she was skypeing them....so cringy, who the fuck says that? but i digress)

Months we have fucking put up with her, of course we tried to get other roommates but unfortunately when we all moved in everything, all documents and contracts were done in her name so kicking her out would require a lot of effort and most of us were busy with school and work and life happens. So we ignore it as much as we can and try to move on.

We are now all seniors and in our final semesters, meaning graduation was coming, AND Karen is planning a backpack trip across Europe with her friends as a graduation gift to herself, this is important so remember this.

One of our roommates and my closest friend, Sasha, has had a crush on a guy that lives down the hall. Any time the two of them are together, Sasha and the Guy keep giving each other googly eyes and blushing faces; it was sooo cute. Sasha is a verbal autistic person and has never dated anyone because she has a hard time with socializing and understanding social ques and subtlety, which lets face it, that is the core of dating, especially flirting but with a lot of encouragement from me and the final roommate, Lola we got her to ask him out. He said yes. She was so happy, you guys, she flew back into the apartment and did an hour of happy dance with her arms flailing about and a shit eatin grin on her face; needless to say we were all so happy. Karen caught wind of this and it just so happens at that time she was having relationship problems, I guess her bf finally realized he's dating human garbage. Not one to be outshined, Karen behind all of our backs went to the guy's place and spun lies about Sasha, saying she is a serial cheater and even made a fake account for Sasha's so called bf. the guy never called Sasha, and eventually weeks passed by he told us why but by then Sasha felt like the damage was done and lost interest in him.

I. WAS. FUCKING. FURIOUS.

This, this level of dickery and bloody pettiness is the straw that finally broke the camel's back and I vowed I wouldn't fucking leave until I served my slice of justice. Here's another character that you must know about, Prof C. His wife two years ago was in a horrible car accident and as a result is in a wheelchair, this is especially problematic because she was a stay home mom that took care of their two special needs kids and they have a toddler at home. Home life is a mess for him, he is running ragged between working and single-handedly is taking care of his family, the uni took pity and also feared the workload would see one of their best and most beloved teachers leave the school struck a deal with him to help him out. In all of his classes there will be quizzes and midterms, this doesnt change, but assignments you submit and he corrects at the end of the year, this is important cuz our uni has zero tolerance on proffs that dont constantly update the students course works so that students have the chance to improve their grades.

Karen, the lazy and stupid bitch she is, is somehow skating through his assignments, even though they require a shit tone of research and writing. I accidentally learned that one of her older friends told her that she only needs submit the paper on its due date and to only write the first 3 pages and use a paraphrase tool for the rest of the paper so the plagiarism software wont detect it and would think its original material and when the end of the year comes, submit a hard copy but with the first pages being her actual work and the rest being completely plagiarized, professional work. Prof C won't know cuz the likelihood a man as busy as him thoroughly checking the work of 120+ students is pretty low. I grinned. A plan was beginning to formulate in my head. Oh, sweet mother of Jesus, she is going down! All semester long I let her do this for all of the 7 papers, one of them which is a term paper that has 20% on it alone, all the while I spied and gathered all of her pass codes, social media, her student ID, everything.

The end of the year came and I compiled all of her assignments, both the original one with the paraphrasing tools she used to circumvent plagiarism and the one she finally handed them in, and I even made photos were there are side-to-side comparison of the assignments. This is a good start but not enough. So, One day chillin at the living room I open a conversation about relationships, Karen is two timing her new boyfriend and is sleeping with some other Person. so, I ask her questions like "don't you feel guilty for cheating?" and "You do realize this is wrong?" and I even paraphrase my words in a way that is vague but also clear, for example I would say "It's not fair, so many people work so hard everyday to be successful and you are here cheating and lying your way to success." Karen, narcissistic as fuck, would respond with snippets of I dont care and how she isnt cheating, she is only having fun and that everyone does it so why not her too. This is too good to be true, even her answers are vague, its like god put his hand on my shoulder, looked me right in the eyes and said, "burry this bitch". and Id be damned if I didnt. As you probably have guessed it by now, I was recording EVERYTHING. The recording plus the photos, and her assignments were more than enough evidence, I sent an anonymous email to the Professor, and i tell the girls so that they can prep for the shit storm thats coming. Three weeks later, results are out. she failed and LOST HER SHIT. She was screamin, crying, wailing, what a sight to see! you best believe, the girls and I were laughing. She tried to talk to the prof, but he was not having it. she cried and begged for a second chance but he said a hard no. So now she has two options: she goes ahead and doesn't graduate with us, and takes on a whole 'nother semester for one measly course or take summer course and cancel her trip to Europe, which mind you she spent a fuckton on, something like 13, 000$ and I know it could have been much cheaper but Princess Karen only wanted the best so yh. The next couple of weeks she spent sleepless nights because she was calling and cancelling all the reservations she made, tryin to get her money back BUT (again, GOD really was out for blood that day) because the cancellation was so close to some her trip most places refused to refund, or some charged her cancellation fees. She only managed to scrap 5.5 K back together, lossin 7.5 K. OUCH!

Its not over, having damning evidence I, with earned gusto, told her she was going to pay all of the bills till we move out, which was in two months, payback for all the times she was late on payment or defaulted and she would from now do her part of the house chores or else Im gonna send it all to the admin and faculty dean and she will fo sho be kicked out and all those uni years will have been for nothing. She hated it, she fucking threw tantrums and cussed me out but my god if she didnt do whats told. she cleaned her stuff, apologized to Sasha for what she did, I forced her to come clean to her BF (dont know the guy but the few times i met him he was super sweet to us and i felt bad for the guy), I watched her actually do the dishes for the first time in like years. IT was fucking amazing and I don't regret it one bit. In fact, anytime I feel sad now as an adult, i kick back my feet and reminiscine and a slow shit eatin grin draws itself upon my face.

tl;dr roommate was super mean, i found out she was cheating on her assignments and so i snitched on her and as a result she had to stay the summer and retake the class again or else she wouldn't graduate.

(source) story by (/u/let-the-write-one-in)

#prorevenge #by /u/let-the-write-one-in #pro revenge #revenge stories #pro revenge stories #pro #revenge #last10

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that-shamrock-vibe · 5 years

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TV Review: Crisis on Infinite Earths (Spoilers)

Part 3: The Flash

Spoiler Warning:

Overview:

Okay, now that is how you do a cliffhanger! While this crossover may not be delivering on a couple of really built up plot points, I’m talking 5 year build-up, as a whole the episode has still managed to kick the gear up and, quite fittingly being The Flash episode, accelerated the story and the anticipation for what is to come in the two-part finalé next month.

But with all but several individuals remaining in reality, is it really down to seven Paragons to save the Multiverse?

Vibe Returns:

I can’t decide whether I’m thrilled or annoyed Cisco has his Metahuman powers back, because whether or not he wanted them...let’s face it he didn’t, he now has them and I don’t think they’re going anyway.

On the plus side, I am happy with this as it gives him something to do, I mean seriously if you’re just going to have a non-powered tech whiz, bring back Felicity Smoak. Cisco is Vibe and he should always be Vibe.

Also he didn’t seem to contribute much to the science in this episode, I mean okay he seemingly helped Ray with his Paragon Detector when Team Flash arrived, who by the way contributed nothing in their own episode as a whole, but even when they were down in the Anti-Monitor’s lair...the reason for him to have his powers back was simply to open the door? Because he didn’t contribute any assistance in destroying the Antimatter Speed Cannon.

I am still waiting to see what The Monitor’s dynastic plan is for bestowing Vibe with his powers again because, we know he’s not a Paragon and as I said all he did was open a door.

I don’t know whether or not Carlos Valdes has served his purpose in the Arrowverse and after de-powering should have simply left last season, but I don’t really see a use for him anymore.

A Flash of Black Lightning:

Alright so Flash, Vibe and Frost go to the Anti-Monitor’s lair where Pariah arrives to bare witness to great pain because that is his job now.

It’s not until we get into the lair that we realise what this great pain is because it is revealed that powering the Antimatter Speed Cannon is The Flash...of Earth-90. John Wesley-Shipp is back after randomly disappearing during Elseworlds but I choose to believe it was for this purpose.

Barry saves Earth-90 Flash from the treadmill of torture but the Anti-Monitor has a fail safe of simply having the cannon blow up wiping out reality instantly if no one is powering it, this leads to what could have been quite an emotional moment had I not predicted the outcome as soon as we saw who was originally on the treadmill.

So Earth-1 Barry sees this moment as his time to “Vanish in Crisis” by reversing the speed of the treadmill thereby destroying the cannon.

While this is going on, Pariah brings in Jefferson Pierce aka Black Lightning from “His Earth”...despite being on the same network his is the only Earth we don’t get a number for...and to temporarily prevent the cannon from blowing up and wiping out reality, he is instructed to either absorb the energy or stabilise it.

As Earth-1 Barry says his “emotional” farewells to Cisco and Caitlin, Earth-90 Barry seizes the opportunity to temporarily steal his speed so that he can be the one to return to the treadmill and “Vanish” stopping the Antimatter...because as he pointed out that newspaper article that we have seen now for 5 years and been reminded of constantly said “The Flash Vanishes in Crisis”, it didn’t say which one...

I call bull! I am sorry but they built this moment up for 5.5 seasons, numerous mentions and the last half a season has been all about the emotion of Barry destined to die in Crisis...yet now he doesn’t die and John Wesley-Shipp’s version who has only been in it once before does?

This “emotional” moment of Earth-90 Barry remembering his wife Tina with a clip from the 90s Flash series was only serving to those who remember that series and as someone who was born a year after it finished I have to say I did not. I contemplated it after the crossover last year but decided not to.

So Earth-90 Flash is now dead and was the prophesied one who “Vanishes in Crisis”, Earth-1 Flash reunites with Iris and Black Lightning joins the crusade.

Dealings With the Devil:

Meanwhile Diggle finally learns that Oliver died and was brought back by the Lazarus Pit as well as Lyla going missing and the need to find Oliver’s soul...because you miss out on two episodes and suddenly you’re out of the loop.

He, Mia and Constantine travel to Earth-666 in the City of Angels Los Angeles, why? Well it seems Tom Ellis is a rather good liar despite his character never lying because Constantine is acquainted with none other than Lucifer Morningstar.

Now I saw an interview just after watching this episode that Tom Ellis did with ET which I will link to here, basically how they’ve made up for the fact that Lucifer is supposed to be ruling hell is that where we meet Lucifer here is during that 5-year period before the start of Season 1 of Lucifer and before he meets Chloe Decker and starts working for the LAPD.

Anyone thinking this is simply a Lucifer doppelganger is incorrect because while there can be doppelgangers of Earths, Humans and Aliens, there is only one Heaven, one Hell, one Limbo, one God and one Devil just as there is only one Monitor and one Anti-Monitor.

Lucifer presents Constantine with a tarot card which grants temporary passage to Limbo but expires quickly which would damn the users souls for all eternity. Oliver’s purgatory is, surprise surprise, a version of Lian Yu and when the trio reunite with Oliver it is Diggle that breaks through to him.

The only issue with bringing him back however is that a new player appears Jim Corrigan, now as Constantine points out this is not Earth-1 Jim Corrigan as that is Emmett J. Scanlan from Constantine and you don’t mess with Scanlan...although it would have been cool to see Lobo in some form here.

No, this is Stephen Lobo...ironic...and he has become The Spectre...who I know absolutely nothing about other than Corrigan is the first of three hosts of Spectre in the comics with the other two being Hal Jordan and Crispus Allen and that one of his enemies is the Anti-Monitor.

However, Lobo seemingly passes on the Spectre to Oliver through a flashing eye sequence and the trio who risked their souls to come and save his vanish leaving Oliver to wander off with Corrigan...what does this mean? We shall find out hopefully.

Paragon Peril:

Alright so, I have no clue how to feel about the Paragons, I said I would wait to make up my mind until all seven had been revealed and now they have.

In addition to the Paragons of Hope, Courage, Truth and Destiny being Supergirl, Batwoman, KC Superman and Sara, Ray’s Paragon Detector reveals that the Paragon of Honor is Martian Manhunter, the Paragon of Love is Earth-1 Flash and the Paragon of Humanity is Ryan Choi...who?

I will get to him shortly but I want to point out that Mar Novu in his rather expositiony voice stated “These Paragons are spread across the Multiverse”...well his dress is clearly on too tight because four of these Paragons are from Earth-1, two are from Earth-38 and one is from Earth-96...how far spread is that exactly?

As for Ryan Choi, who lives in Earth-1 Ivy Town, all I know about him in the comics is that he is the second Atom and an admirer of Ray Palmer. I know him best from Injustice 2 and to be honest think as much of him as I do Ray so...not a lot.

Also the fact he has a wife and daughter reminds me too much of Scott Lang’s Ant-Man, He doesn’t even have a family in the mainstream comics and the fact this is one comparison where Marvel did it first it’s annoying.

My other note is I know Ray is at least stepping down as a main character in Legends of Tomorrow this season, so if they’re setting up Ryan to be the new Atom they’re going to need to establish his likeability a whole lot better.

Anyway, Iris, Ray and Elongated Man...because he needs something to do, go and recruit Ryan Choi who only agrees after Iris reasons with him on a human scale.

Back at the Waverider, everyone reunites as Barry, Cisco and Frost return to inform them all that Earth-90 Flash saved the remainder of the Multiverse, Earth-1, by sacrificing himself. KC Superman has been trying to save other Earths but failing, Constantine, Mia and Diggle return to tell everyone they failed and the attention turns to the fact they now have all seven Paragons.

However, this is where it gets interesting!

So Lyla/Harbinger has been missing all episode and we as fans know she’s with the Anti-Monitor. When she does eventually appear on the Waverider she originally seems to be fine...but then it goes horribly wrong as she is revealed to have been taken over by the Anti-Monitor and, just like in the comics, kills Mar Novu and uses the energy from that to wipe out the rest of reality.

But just before his death, Mar Novu encourage Pariah that this is what he is truly meant for and Pariah discovers he has the ability to transport all seven Paragons to a place the Anti-Monitor cannot reach, the Vanishing Point.

So the seven chosen are saved while everyone on board the Waverider is obliterated. But then it gets even twistier as it is revealed that while in possession of the Book of Destiny, Lex Luthor foresaw the seven Paragons in a safe space and so decided to rewrite himself as the Paragon of Truth which causes KC Superman to switch places with him...meaning Lex Luthor is now the Paragon of Truth...

So just to clarify that is now 4 Paragons from Earth-1 and 3 from Earth-38...the main Earths heavily featured in the Arrowverse in a crossover that features literally every DC Continuity in film and TV...can you see why this plot point pisses me off yet?

This is the cliffhanger we are now left on until June 14 when Arrow and DC’s Legends of Tomorrow return, all I can say I hope for right now regardless of the outcome is that we see Martian Manhunter actually be Martian Manhunter because so far in this crossover I have just seen John Jones/Hank Henshaw.

So that’s my review of Crisis on Infinite Earths: The Flash, what did you guys think? Post your comments and check out more DC TV Reviews as well as other TV Reviews and posts.

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furbyfubar · 5 years

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How's Sweden? 🇪🇺🇸🇪❤️

In what context? Do you mean for the country as a whole or what? Big question...

Never mind, I get few enough asks here that I can give you a more comprehensive answer. I'll use it as an excuse to take stock of my personal trends against those of my country? Sorry not sorry for the incoming wall of text. Note, this is why you shouldn't say "How do you do?" to anyone from Sweden; we're tragically likely to give you an honest answer!

Weather for Sweden: You're UK based, so lets go by stereotypes and start with talking about the weather I suppose? It's winter, so the weather here is *usually* quickly summed up as "dark". Right now Sweden has between ~7 hours 15 minutes of time between sun up and sun down in the far south of Sweden, and "fuck you" minutes of sun on the far north, where it's currently polar night until about two weeks into January. On top the normal lack of sun, Sweden got an early Autumn this year and had less actually sunny days than usual in October and November due to clouds. So yeah, vitamin D deficiency for about 25% of the population according to my doctor. And many of the ones avoiding a deficiency are doing it by eating supplements. On a longer time scale, ”climate” not “weather”... Yeah, we’ve been having heat records broken and all that shit here the past few years as as well while having some winters be worse due to the Gulf stream being messed up..

Rating: 3.5/10 – It sucks, but it's not much worse than the expected level of suckiness?Weather for me personally: I'm based in Stockholm and we're currently at 6½h of sun up time per day, but like I said, it’s been cloudy. Not so cold so far though. The problem for me personally is that when the sun goes down at 14:52 I often miss out on the sun completely due to my fucked up sleeping patterns. Or the sun is up but covered while I’m going to work and that's it for sunlight that day. I'd likely suffer from winter depression if only I could separate it from my normal depression. We’ve had some snow that stays on the ground, but we’re somewhat surprisingly not in the hell that is streets filled with snow-water slosh yet.

Rating: 3.5/10 – I don’t think the weather sucks more or less for me than it does for the country on average. (Places north of the polar circle excluded; I would really no be able to stand months of polar night.)

Health for Sweden: Sweden made #6 on the Bloomberg 2019 Healthiest Country Index, up two positions from 2017. Up from a score of 88.92 to 90.24 out of 100, so apparently it's not just other countries having worse health, things have gotten a bit better here.Rating: 9.24/10 – Well, Bloomberg hopefully put a lot more effort into their score than I’ll ever do, so I’ll just re-scale and steal it.

Health for me personally: I had to basically skip a year due depression and exhaustion. Not being able to work due to a non-functioning brain obviously sucks, but to bring this back to how Sweden is: Being able to be on sick leave for almost a year and thus being able to focus on getting medication that works for me and not being worried about getting evicted for not making rent is a blessing. I'm back to working part time since October while still on sick leave for 50%, trying to ease me back in to the productive work force. So far going well. If I’d been forced to somehow work or starve, or live off my parents or something instead, I’m pretty sure I’d either be much deeper in depression right now, or be dead. I’ve still not really found meds that work great for me, but I'm feeling much better than I was a year ago.

Rating: 3/10 – I'm as optimistic as a clinically depressed person gets to be.

Status politically for Sweden (as I see it personally): It's getting more fucked by the day. The Moderate party just broke their campaign promise to not cooperate with the Sweden Democrats, a party born from neo-Nazi and white power movements. For UK context, think of the British National Party. Now imagine them going from a fringe group in the '90s to getting 20% of the votes in recent polls. They've been doing this all while having a whole bunch of scandals that would've hurt or killed the credibility of any non-fascist party. They're racist, homo- and transphobic, and operate their own alternative media that have ties to Russian disinformation efforts. So yeah, as a gay guy who's seen the inside of a few history books: Outlook not great.

Rating: 2/10 – If only because it can still get worse. Think first act of Cabaret.

Love life for Sweden: Hmm, check in on satwcomic.com I suppose?

Love life for me personally: Yes please? I've been single for longer than I'm willing to admit. I've barely dated anyone for ages due to my aforementioned depression making me not feel like someone worth dating. Also, there's some types of vitamin D deficiencies that eating supplements won't cure...

Rating: I really don't want to put a number on this so I won’t. Honestly, graphing out my love life numerically doesn't sound all that productive. But somewhere at the edge of the Bell curve is the guy for me?

Economically for Sweden: Sweden's been in a upward business cycle since 2016, but it's ebbing out and is expected to be balanced sometime next real. Ie, things have been good, but things aren't quite yet bad. Rating: 5.5/10 – I suppose? Not really my area of expertise.

Economically for me personally: Not complaining at all on this front. I got an IT job four years ago after having worked part time in retail for a bunch of years and having been a student before that. I've managed to not raise my monthly expenses even nearly as much as my pay went up. So while I’m not wealthy, I'm still surprised by being able to have a savings account that grows steadily and still having more spending money over each month.

My rating: 8/10 – This quote by Charles Dickens comes to mind: “Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pound ought and six, result misery.”

Social life in Sweden: According to this article I just Googled up from half remembering reading in 2015, “The expat quality of life survey" published by HSBC, Sweden was the worst country for the category "Making friends". Looking at the data on HSBC's website we're apparently no longer dead last as a place to be making friends, we're now 31st out of the 33 countries listed, with Japan at 32nd place and Saudi Arabia last at 33rd. The United Kingdom is at 29th.

It is close to impossible to make friends here by talking to random strangers in most situations, as only weird people talk to strangers. Of course that mentality is self-fulfilling since if you assume any stranger talking to you is weird, drunk, or high, you will not want to make friends with strangers that talk to you, and you won't want to talk to strangers more than you have to or risk being branded weird. Even striking up random conversations at a pub will be more difficult here.

But don’t despair, there’s a trick! Find the few social situations where Swedes want to talk to people they don't know: This is done by joining some organization or club of some sort. It doesn't really matter if it's a board gaming group, a student group, doing volunteer work for the local Pride or some other NPO or if it's a club for people who really like a certain breed of dogs. Once we've decided that we're among our own kind of people (and I don't mean "other Swedes") we'll happily talk to strangers, and not only about subjects related to that specific organization. Step two is converting them to be your friends and not just some randos you can talk to at some club meeting. I’m sad to say that traditionally this is done with alcohol, either by dragging people along to a pub/bar, or by inviting them or being invited by them to some sort of party. Without alcohol the fallback is fika. If the organization you’ve joined is something that you will naturally be spending time doing outside of the organization or club meetings that’s also ideal. Once you’ve invited or been invited to a few things outside of the organization it’s not strange to invite them to other social things than what the organization cares about.

For fairness to anyone reading this that didn’t read the article: I should probably also mention that the same HSBC study had Sweden as the top country in Europe for “overall quality of life” for expats here. And third best in the world, just behind Singapore and New Zealand in the same category. "Swedes make great friends but terrible strangers”.

My rating for making friends in Sweden is : 3/10 - Join a club, any club.

Social life for me personally: I have a few great close friends and a bunch more not quite as close friends who are also great. Come to think of it, many of them I've met through one of the three different organizations I've been most active in, and most of the rest I met through those friends. I'm really thankful for having friends who are still around even after I've spent way too much time feeling too bad to be very social or friendly at all.

My rating of my friends: 10/10 - No, I'm not biased.OK, so let’s average those numbers up and pretend the averages mean something!

Sweden: 5.81Me: 6.63Wait what? I’m winning?

#personal #depression #Sweden #Stockholm

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spnjediavenger · 5 years

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Chapter 9: Something’s Wrong With Sam

Disclaimers: I do not own Supernatural or any of its characters, I also do not own Jenny

Time frame: Mid S6 (SPOILERS FOR S6 AND ANYTHING BEFORE), after “Live Free or Twi Hard”

SLIGHT TRIGGER WARNING: short implication of past sexual assault

Notes: If you read, please give a comment and let me know what you think! I really love writing this!

Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 5.5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Elliana’s Journal, Chapter 8

A/N: So i’ve had these next couple chapters written for awhile but were put on pause while collabing with @sarimaposthumous and then i kind of dropped writing for awhile. So i’m gonna hopefully put up a chapter a day for the next couple days. Please give me feedback if you read! Much love xx

THE ROAD SO FAR… (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2X_2IdybTV0 listen while reading)

“Who are you? Are you an angel?”

“I’m more of a…guardian if you will.”

Gabriel handed Elliana a small necklace. She took it and laid it over one of her hands and examined it. It had a silver chain with a silver crescent moon, a circular pendent with a white wolf hanging in its center.

“Wolves are strong and tough and smart. Just like you. I believe in you, little wolf.”

“I know you won’t quit hunting, and that you’ve been doing it for awhile now, and you’re fully capable of taking care of yourself – but why don’t you come with us for just a few hunts? Give you the chance to get to know us and maybe come with us from now on,” Sam said hopefully.

“All right. I’ll come with you. But,” she said, catching the victorious smile on Sam’s face. “Don’t get your hopes up.”

“Look, kid – whatever else happened to you, you’re safe. And I know you’ve only known us a couple weeks but you’ve grown on us, squirt,” Dean continued, earning a quiet chuckle from Ellie. “If you decide to stay with us, we’ll always protect you.”

“We promise,” Sam came in, confirming Dean’s words.

“Nooo! Gabriel!!” Ellie shouted, jumping up from her chair, only to be pulled back by Sam. “No!” she cried, fighting against the younger Winchester, who only held her tighter. She eventually stopped fighting but stared at Gabriel’s body as tears streamed down her face.

“Sam, Dean. Good to see you again. And who’s this with you?” Lucifer asked, tilting his head in curiosity as he looked at Elliana. “New travel buddy? I’m Lucifer - though I’m assuming you already knew that.”

“After all this time, you weren’t even hard to catch. It’s a bit disappointing, really,” a voice said from beside Elliana, in an almost bored tone.

“Damon,” she said, trying her hardest to keep her voice from shaking. The demon she had been running from for a year. The demon that possessed her brother. The demon that came back years later to possess her father and kill both her parents.

“Lucifer,” Ellie said a bit distastefully. “What do you want?” she snapped.

“Now now,” Lucifer tisked. He leaned down again to grab a handful of Elliana’s hair to pick her up by. “Damon, here, wanted to just kill you. But I had him bring you here instead. So you should really be thanking me,” Lucifer said, nodding.

“You said Ohio was your ‘adoptive’ home,” he mused. “Let’s see what happened at your real home.”

Ooooh, what’s this? Lucifer’s voice practically purred in her mind - and Ellie could hear the smirk in it. Let’s play with this a little.

“You’re too weak. You’re powerless. There’s nothing you can do to stop me,” the vamp had smirked. He fed off her until she passed out. The rest of that day was filled with feelings of fear, powerlessness, and struggling. Her body being overtaken by his. Whatever innocence she had left from Ellie’s last run in with him being stolen from her.

“Ellie, what happened? Are you ok? What did he do to you?” Ellie collapsed into Jenny and squeezed her eyes shut, not even bothering to try and stay strong. Sobs shook her whole body as Jenny held her.

“Thank you guys,” she said. “I know I’m gonna be going through hell with this stuff but…thank you for giving me today. I had a great time.”

“No problem, kiddo,” Dean smiled.

“You’re family, Ellie. And we’ll be with you through this thing; every step of the way,” Sam said, placing a kiss on her temple. She smiled.

“You guys promise?”

“Hunter’s promise,” Dean said.

Chapter 9: Something’s Wrong With Sam

Elliana remembered Sam telling Bobby he came across his deceased grandfather and was going to start hunting with him; and she remembers feeling hurt he didn’t ask her to go too. Though she didn’t think she would even say yes if he had offered. She felt something was off with Sam. And she didn’t trust Samuel or the others.

Elliana remembered the long months of finding herself again; going on hunts with Bobby, visiting Jenny from time to time, Jody helping her with her panic attacks and flashbacks, and having to hide Sam’s resurrection from Dean.

Elliana remembered when Dean arrived with Sam when he came to drop Lisa and Ben off for protection. And how angry he was that they didn’t tell him Sam was alive. How she tearfully explained to Dean she had wanted so badly to tell him but Sam and Bobby made her promise not to.

Elliana remembered turning down the offer to hunt with the boys again. She didn’t tell them the main reason – that she didn’t want to be around the new Sam. Part of the reason she did tell them was because she wanted to stay away from the Campbells. She was relieved that Dean shared her suspicions.

Thinking back on all these things, Ellie missed how things were before Sam was in the cage. When they just hunted.

When they were together.

Now it was mid-October; a little over a year since “Sam” had been back. Elliana was hunting more regularly again but still wouldn’t go on her own. She either went with Bobby, occasionally Jenny or Jody, or with Garth.

Right now, Elliana was walking into Bobby’s place after taking Anaya for a walk with Jody. She heard Bobby on the phone in the kitchen and quietly crept to the doorway, staying out of sight for the moment.

“We tested him. Salt, silver – everything…Well, then he’s something we ain’t ever seen before…Did you call Cas?...Look, I get it. You’re rattled. But let’s be professional-…What you saw..are you sure that’s what you saw?...Well, “you know” ain’t the same as proof. ‘Cause we’re talking about-… …Alright. I’m with you…Yeah. I’ll hit the books. Hard. Just don’t shoot him yet, all right? Watch him. We need facts. ‘Cause if it ain’t Sam…we don’t know what it is. And if we’re gonna put him down, we need to know how… Get in the car. He’s your case.”

Bobby sighed as he put his phone down. He wiped a hand down his face and looked over to see Ellie standing in the doorway, holding her crossed arms.

“That Dean?” she asked absently before Bobby could get a word in.

“Yeah. We were-“

“Talking about Sam?” she interrupted. Bobby nodded. “I told you something was wrong, Bobby. I could tell practically the second he got here. So could Anaya. I tried telling you, Bobby! But none of you believed me! And then it goes and puts Dean in danger and lets him get turned into a freaking vampire!”

“Alright, alright, calm down, girl,” Bobby said. He gently placed his hands on her shoulders, only for her to shrug them away.

“This is getting so messed up,” Ellie said, voice cracking. “Jenny, Garth, and I went through so much to get Sam back and it’s not even him…I just want my brothers back.”

With this, Elliana turned and ran up the stairs to her room, shutting the door and plopping on the bed with Anaya and letting tears slowly spill from her eyes.

A couple hours later, Bobby lightly knocked on Ellie’s door. “Ellie, I know you’re upset, alright?” No answer. Bobby sighed. “Garth is comin’ around soon. Said he wanted to see you.”

Ellie couldn’t stop the smile that crossed her face. Her heart felt a little lighter as she thought back to first meeting Garth and how she quickly became close with him.

“Elliana, this is Garth. It’s ok, you can trust him. Wouldn’t hurt a fly,” Bobby said soothingly as Ellie somewhat hid around the corner of the wall.

“Well, not unless it has fangs,” the younger man joked with a wide smile on his face.

Ellie let out an airy laugh and a small smile crept onto her face; she moved into the living room, feeling comfortable enough to leave the wall.

“Wow – you already got a smile,” Bobby said, impressed. “Takes a lot to get one from her these days.” Elliana threw Bobby a Winchester bitch face. He knew the reason she didn’t. But Ellie knew he was only teasing her.

Garth simply shrugged, smile never leaving his face. He then turned to Ellie. “Elliana is a beautiful name,” he said kindly.

“Thanks,” the girl said, blushing a bit. Elliana quickly grew comfortable around Garth, his demeanor friendly and lighthearted. How was this guy a hunter? she thought.

“Noooo!” Elliana’s scream pierced the night air, echoing through the trees. Garth turned from the vampire he just beheaded and ran in the girl’s direction.

This wasn’t supposed to be a vamp case; so when the two arrived, nothing went as planned.

Garth finally got to Ellie to see her pinned to a tree by the vamp nest’s leader. He quickly ran over and swung his machete. The vamp’s head rolled off and Ellie fell to the ground, hyperventilating. Garth’s eyes widened a bit when he remembered Bobby mentioning she had past trauma with vamps (though he left out any other details).

Garth wasted no time in crouching down and helping Elliana through her panic attack. After she had calmed down enough, she lightly pulled away from the older hunter.

“I’m sorry,” she said, wiping her nose on her sleeve. “I must look so weak.”

“You don’t look weak,” Garth replied, confusion written on his face as he didn’t know how Ellie could think that. “You look like a girl who’s been through more than anyone should have. And who needs love and compassion. For people to be there for her and remind her how strong she really is.”

Elliana’s tears ran again as she collapsed back into Garth, hugging him tight. She had only known him for a few weeks now and he was so caring with her.

Garth rested his chin on top of her head and wrapped his arms around her protectively. Ellie had grown on him quickly as well.

Ellie and Garth just finished a hunt in South Dakota and Garth pulled his car over to a grass field so they could eat before going back to Bobby’s.

Ellie sat on the hood with him, just staring at her plate, pushing the food around absently. Garth noticed and gently nudged her with his elbow.

“What’s up?” he asked caringly. When she didn’t say anything, he spoke again. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. But it’ll feel better if you let it out.”

The girl sighed and looked out at the long grass, which swayed lightly in the wind. “Sam and Dean took me here once,” she said quietly. “This exact field.” Ellie looked back down at her plate, though not at all interested in her food. “They took me out for a fun day since I was still really off after…Lucifer got me…”

Elliana looked up to meet Garth’s eyes now. He stared intently at her, taking in every word. “They promised me they’d be with me through everything. That they’d help me every step of the way.” Ellie’s voice started quivering now. “They promised me,” her voice cracked. Tears quickly filled her eyes and she couldn’t stop them from spilling over. “Why did they have to leave, Garth? They promised me. They promised.”

Garth placed a caring hand on Ellie’s arm and pursed his lips. “Ells, I know it sucks not having them here. But they didn’t leave things like this on purpose. Did Sam go to the cage to hurt you?”

Ellie’s brow furrowed in confusion. “No,” she said. She knew he wouldn’t.

“He did it to defeat Lucifer, right?”

Ellie nodded.

“Did Dean leave to hurt you?”

Ellie shook her head, starting to see where Garth was headed. “He went to keep his promise to Sam. He offered for me to come but I said no.”

“See? They’re not trying to make things bad. But sometimes, the ones we love and who love us the most, can hurt us the most. Even if they don’t mean to. But you have others around who care about you, too. Including me.” Garth finished with a kind smile that Ellie returned to the best of her ability. They had known each other for a couple months now and to Garth, she was already starting to feel like his little sister. And Ellie was beginning to see him as a brother, too.

Another soft knock brought Elliana out of her thoughts. She wiped her tears away and sat up. “Yeah?”

“You don’t sound too happy to see me,” Garth said jokingly as he opened the door, letting a goofy grin spread on his lips.

“Garth!” Ellie exclaimed, jumping off her bed to run into the hunter’s open arms. Garth’s goofy smile turned into a warm, happy one as he hugged her back. As soon as Bobby told him Ellie was feeling down again, he hurried over to try and help her in any way he could.

“So what’s on your mind?”

“I mean, Jenny and you and I almost died to get Sam back, ya know? We spent so much time, did so much research.”

Garth, as always, kept his eyes on Elliana while she vented to him. He wanted her to feel and know that he was listening. That he truly cared about her and what was troubling her.

“And I was still afraid of going out with everything that happened only a month before…but when we finished the job, I was so excited to see Sam again…and when I did…it wasn’t him. Not really. He didn’t smile. Didn’t really hug me back. Nothing…

“And I tried to tell Bobby. Then Dean when he found out Sam was alive. But they brushed me off. Said ‘he’s just in shock’. They let it go and Sam let. Dean. Turn into a vampire! Only now do they realize there’s something wrong with him!” Ellie let out a big sigh, her feelings exiting with it. “I just don’t know what to do now,” she said, meeting Garth’s eyes in a softer way.

“Well, what do you want? If you don’t know what to do, start by figuring out what you want,” he said simply, giving a small shrug.

Elliana looked at the ground, thinking for a moment.

“I want Sam back,” she whispered. “I want my brothers.”

“Ok. So what has to be done to get him back?”

Ellie sighed. “Research. Lore. Try to figure out what might be wrong.”

“Well, there you go,” Garth said like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Another sigh.

“But what if…what if it doesn’t work?” the girl asked meekly, looking back up at Garth.

“What if it does?”

Silence.

“Ells,” Garth placed a brotherly hand on hers. “It’s one thing to look back and say ‘I wish I could’ve found a solution.’ But you don’t want to look back and say ‘I wish I would’ve tried.’* Look, I know you love those guys. I know you love Sam. I also know you’re really hard headed.” Garth smiled when he earned a small chuckle from Ellie. “And you won’t let yourself off easy if you don’t try to get Sam back.

“Either way, you know I’m with you,” Garth finished with a reassuring squeeze of her hand.

A few days later, Ellie was in the library with Bobby and Garth, reading through lore to see if they could find out what was wrong with Sam – if it was Sam. Ellie just picked up a new book when the sound of fluttering wings came behind her. She turned around to come face to face with Castiel.

“Elliana, come with me,” he said, reaching a hand out, which she promptly shoved away.

“What the hell, Cas?! I’ve been praying to you for a year, trying to get you here, and after all the dead silence, you just appear out of nowhere and expect me to go with you when you don’t even greet me or give an explanation or an apology for ignoring me during the worst year of my life?!” Ellie shouted angrily at the angel.

Cas looked to Bobby and Garth, who held their hands up, not wanting to join the argument. Though they were siding with Elliana anyway.

Cas let out a partially impatient sigh as he looked towards the windows then back at Ellie. “I am sorry for not responding to you. I can explain later but time is of the essence,” he said, holding out his hand again. When Ellie still made no move towards him he spoke again. “We’re going to find out what’s wrong with Sam.”

Ellie’s eyes finally shot up to meet Cas’. She looked over to Bobby, who looked equally as shocked, then to Garth. She wanted to find an answer, but Garth had come all the way to be with her and help her with this.

As if reading her thoughts, Garth smiled reassuringly. “You need to be with him,” he said. He didn’t mind if Ellie left; he just wanted whatever would help her. He was glad Cas came, though he had no idea who he was. Elliana needed to be there when they found out what was wrong so she could get her brother back.

Elliana ran to grab her bag and whistled twice to signal for Anaya to follow her. She gave Bobby a hug, then Garth, whispering a ‘thank you’ to him as she squeezed him a little tighter.

Then Cas transported himself, Elliana, and Anaya from Bobby’s house.

“Hey, kid,” Dean’s voice said. Ellie quickly turned around to see Dean and ran into his arms, hugging him tightly.

“I’m sorry about Lisa,” she whispered, truly feeling bad that Dean had lost her and Ben (metaphorically). “I’m so sorry.”

When Dean stiffened a bit, she hugged him tighter before leaning up to place a kiss on his cheek. Anaya came over and pressed herself against Dean, wagging her tail happily, making the older Winchester smile.

“You’re right, he looks terrible,” Cas said. Ellie and Dean turned to him and Ellie’s face dropped. “You did this?” Cas asked.

“Jeez, Dean, what’d you do to him?” Ellie said, looking at a very beaten and bloody Sam.

He began to grunt and move his head, regaining consciousness. “Cas?” he said, confusion written on his face; even more so when he realized he was tied up. Cas began inspecting him, asking questions about how he’s been feeling to try and determine what was different. Anaya stood stiffly by Ellie since Sam came to, not taking her eyes off him. And Ellie couldn’t help but jump a little when Dean snapped at his brother, sick of him beating around the bush.

“How much do you sleep?” Cas asked Sam.

There was a pause before he answered. “I don’t.”

“At all?” Dean asked, eyebrows raised.

“Not since I got back.”

Now it was Ellie’s turn to jump in. “And you didn’t think there was anything off about that? You just keep going like everything is normal?!”

“Of course I did, Elliana. I-I just never told you guys.”

“Sam… What are you feeling now?” Cas came in again, narrowing his eyes a bit at him.

Sam huffed a bit. “I feel like my nose is broken.”

“No, that’s a physical sensation. How do you feel?”

“I think-“

“Feel.”

“I don’t…I don’t know.”

The other three in the room looked at each other. Cas removed his belt, confusing everyone at first.

“This will be unpleasant,” he said, then placed the belt in Sam’s mouth. “Bite down on this. If there’s someplace you find soothing, you should go there…in your mind.”

Sam looked at Dean for help, but Dean stared straight at him (though Cas’ actions confused him as well).

Cas reached down and put his hand inside Sam, making him shout in pain. Ellie looked away and Dean pulled her into his side, running a comforting hand down her arm. After a few moments, Cas pulled away and looked around a bit contemplatively, putting his belt back on.

“Did you find anything?” Dean asked. His brother’s pained gasps not going unnoticed.

“No,” the angel replied, eyes downcast as he rolled his sleeves back down.

Dean raised his brow, turning his head to look at Cas. “So that’s good news?”

“I’m afraid not.”

He paused again.

“Cas, please,” Elliana said exasperatedly. She was sick of everyone avoiding giving answers today.

“Physically, he’s perfectly healthy.”

“Then what?” Dean asked.

“It’s his soul,” Cas finally met his gaze. “It’s gone.”

“What?!” Ellie snapped her eyes to him.

Dean cleared his throat, taking a few steps away. “I’m sorry. One more time – like I’m 5. What do you mean he’s got no-“

“When Sam was resurrected, it was without his soul.”

Everyone looked at said man, and Sam looked almost lost.

“So where is it?”

“My guess is it’s…still in the cage with Michael…and Lucifer.”

The mention of Lucifer sent an involuntary shiver down Elliana’s spine. And this whole thing was already making her very on edge. How could Sam be taken back, but his soul wasn’t?

“So, is he even still Sam?”

Cas looks over his shoulder to Sam, still addressing Dean. “Well, you pose an interesting philosophical question.”

As he, Sam, and Dean get into a conversation about getting his soul back, keeping him tied up, and Elliana didn’t even pay attention to the rest; she just began pacing the room as she ran her hands through her hair. Things just seemed to be getting more and more complicated.

“Samuel.”

Ellie’s interest was torn back to the boys’ conversation.

“Alright, let’s go then,” Dean said, grabbing his things together.

“Wait, what?” Ellie said, crossing her arms as she went to stand in front of him.

“If Samuel was brought back too, then he might know what’s going on. It’s the only lead we have right now.” Dean paused from his bag and looked at Ellie. “I know you don’t trust him, kid. But I know you want Sam back as much as I do,” he continued in a hushed tone. “Now, you don’t have to come with us if you don’t want, but something tells me you do.”

His eyes searched hers and she sighed reluctantly, looking down at the ground. Dean patted her arm and gave her a quick kiss to her head.

“It’ll be alright. We’re gonna go in, get what we need to know, then we’ll be gone. Ok?”

Ellie looked to Dean’s eyes again and, seeing his reassuring smile, nodded and grabbed her things as well. She still didn’t like it. But after all that’s been done to get Sam back, and being this close, she guessed now wouldn’t be the time to throw in the towel.

Chapter 10 ->

Forever tags: @bellero

A/N: *This is a quote I used and modified a bit from Fuller House (spoken by Aunt Becky). Credit goes to the Fuller House people.

#supernatural #supernatural fanfiction #Supernatural fanfic #Sam Winchester #sam and dean #Sam and Dean Winchester #dean winchester #oc #original character #castiel #cas #bobby singer #Garth Fitzgerald IV

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winryofresembool · 6 years

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Love Can Melt the Ice, ch. 12

Aka ice skating au ch. 12!

A/N: That’s right my peeps, this fic /finally/ has a name. I hope you find it fitting! (Obviously I’m not referring to literal ice this time, but instead a certain character who’s acting a bit cool sometimes :P) I don’t really have much else to say this time, enjoy and review! This chapter continues directly from the events of last chapter :)

Previous chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5.5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11

Companion pieces (note: these are all post Olympics happenings so reading the main fic first is recommended): 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Next chapter: [x]

Words: 1940+

Genre: flooof in this chapter, even a tiny bit of humor? (I feel we are back to ch 1 in a way)

Warnings: swearing and some drinking on the background

“So, how’s everything going, brother? How’s your leg?” Al asked when he and Ed made their way into a quieter corner in the room. With the room full of Ed’s teammates and music playing loudly, it was hard to hear your own thoughts, but the brothers decided to at least try since they had a lot of catching up to do.

“I wish I could already get rid of the cast, but other than that, it’s fine. I just want to skate already.”

“I’m sorry, brother,” Al said with genuine sympathy. “Hey, I brought something to cheer you up.”

Al handed Ed a gift bag and he took it curiously. Inside it was a book that Ed recognized as one he had wanted for a long while, Advanced Biochemistry, but much to Ed’s surprise, it wasn’t the only gift. There was something between the book. Two small, thin foliage packages that must have had…

“Al!” Ed yelled with a red face. “How the fuck did you… why… what the hell is this supposed to mean?!”

“Thought you’d need some extra protection with the way your love life has been progressing…” Al chuckled. “I know you well enough to know that you’d never have the guts to get them by yourself.”

“Oh my God. I can’t believe you. We aren’t even dating!”

“It’s funny you say that when you both are practically undressing each other with your eyes every time you look at each other.” Al pointed out, nodding towards Winry significantly.

“I’m not… Fine, she’s hot,” Ed said through his teeth, “but surely I’m not the only the only one who’s noticed that! Just look at Havoc trying to tell her jokes…”

“She doesn’t look too impressed,” Al noted. “Oh, look at that, she’s coming here. Hi there, Winry!”

“Hi guys.” She turned to Ed and noted his mortified expression. “Why are you so red? You sure you don’t have a fever or something?”

Ed didn’t have time to answer when Roy started speaking into the mic and everyone turned their attention to him.

“So, as you all know, we have all gathered here to celebrate the 18th birthday of our very own Fullmetal Forward, Edward Elric. Congrats, kid! Now that you’re officially allowed to buy alcohol, don’t forget the promise you made me!”

“Hah, you haven’t won anything yet!” was Ed’s immediate response, and everyone burst out laughing.

“Anyway, I’d like to suggest we sing for the birthday boy. Everyone, on the count of three. One, two, three.”

Roy gave his sign, and the choir of more and less talented singers started: “Happy biiirthday too you, happy biiirthday too you…”

Ed felt a bit overwhelmed when a room full of people sang for him but waved his thanks when they finished. Soon Roy continued speaking to the crowd:

“Before we let Fullmetal give us, without a doubt, a very amazing speech, there are a couple of other people in this room as well we should congratulate. The little birds have told me that in less than a year this team will have a brand new member. Congrats, Maes and Gracia! Your kid will without a doubt become an amazing skater.”

Nearby, Maes started rambling about the greatness of his future wife to anyone who was willing to listen, but Winry barely noticed because she squealed happily at the news and rushed to hug Gracia who had been approaching the trio.

“A baby! That’s absolutely wonderful! I’m so happy for you guys!”

“Aw, thanks Winry-dear. I got the confirmation from my doctor about an hour after the free skate. I’m gonna have to discuss this with him and Maes, but with this piece of news, I think I might skip the individual competition.”

“But you would have done amazingly…” Winry said, upset for her friend.

“Maybe, but I’ve seen you skating and I dare to say you would beat me 9 times out of 10 these days. And I already won gold 4 years ago, so really, I’m not too upset. How could I be when I look at him?”

She turned to see her fiancé flailing as he told Riza, the only person patient enough to listen to him ramble for ages, how he would decorate the baby’s room and how he secretly (or not so secretly) wished the baby was a girl.

Ed hadn’t had a chance to say anything while the women were chattering, but now he decided it was his turn to get himself heard.

“Congrats, Gracia! I’m sure you’re gonna be a great mother, but I’m a bit worried about your fiancé. I bet he’s that person whose locker will be 100% covered with photos of the kid and he’ll forget how to skate when he keeps staring at them.”

“Don’t worry, I will make sure to kick his butt if he starts slacking because of it,” Gracia smirked.

“That’s good to hear. But seriously, I’m happy for you guys. Babies are amazing!”

“Thank you. I think someone’s gonna be one lucky lady to be a mother to your kids in the future, Edward.” Ed wondered if it was just him or did Gracia look at Winry one second longer than necessary when she said that. And did she emphasize the word someone? He felt himself getting flustered for the second time within minutes and he was about to turn away when Winry asked, pointing to the pack still in Ed’s hand:

“Did you get a present from Al? What did he give you?”

“J-just a biochem book…” he stuttered and left before she could ask more questions. Damn Al. He’d show him. Speaking of the devil, Ed noticed his little brother was snickering almost uncontrollably nearby after seeing the scene between Ed and Winry unfold.

“Are you trying to kill me?” the older brother growled and punched Al on the shoulder when he got close enough.

“Relax, bro, it was just a joke! I won’t change my mind about you two though, I have never seen you this flustered over a girl before. It’s adorable. I didn’t have a chance to ask you earlier, so did you tell her?”

“Yeah, I did. I hate to admit it, but you were right. I do feel better now. And things… are going quite nicely.” He turned his head towards the spot where Winry chatted with her friends (Paninya and Rose had joined her and Gracia now) and Winry gave him a small smile.

“That’s great to hear,” Al interrupted Ed from his thoughts. “Hey, I heard Mustang saying something about a speech, so how about it?”

“Do I have a choice?” Ed sighed and wheeled to where the captain of his team was clearly waiting for him. Taking the mic from his hand, he started:

“It’s so weird to see so many of you here! To be honest, if it weren’t for a couple of friends, I wouldn’t even have remembered what day it is. And the worst part is that I’m not even allowed to drink because of my condition!”

Many of Ed’s teammates laughed. They knew Ed had never particularly cared about drinking.

“I’m not one for long speeches, so I guess thank you everyone for coming, and special thanks to that one gearhead who made this happen.” His gaze met Winry’s for a moment, and he thought he could see her blushing slightly. “Now, let’s have some fun! But not too fun…” His gaze stopped at Havoc this time. “… because some of you have a big game tomorrow!”

The guests chuckled and continued their partying. Mustang was now dancing with Riza, Havoc was having a drinking contest with Breda despite Ed’s warning, Armstrong was wiping his tears into a huge tissue, Paninya was trying to sneak a small bottle from Roy’s back pocket and Al was probably telling Winry some embarrassing stories about Ed. For some reason, all of that made Ed feel calmer than he had felt in a long while.

Later that evening, Winry was sitting alone on the balcony, enjoying the fresh, cool air when Ed appeared behind her.

“Hi.”

“Hi. Why are you sitting here alone?”

“I guess I just wanted a moment to hear my thoughts. No offense, but you hockey players are loud.”

“You’re not wrong about that.” Ed rubbed the back of his head. “But your friends are kinda interesting bunch as well. You should have seen Havoc’s expression when that Paninya chick made a show of kissing Rose right in front of him. It was almost as if his hopes and dreams had both been shattered into pieces and fulfilled at the same time.”

“Oh, that definitely sounds like a Pan thing to do,” Winry laughed. “They’re great though. After losing my parents they’ve become like a new family to me. I guess you could say the same about your team.”

“I guess…”

“You said you have tried to push people out of your life, but you know, one way or another, you have affected all of them,” she gestured towards the full room. “They all care about you. And for some weird reason, so do I. You don’t have to carry your weight alone.

“Yeah…”

“I guess what I really wanted to tell you after our chat earlier is that if you think you’re the only person in this world who’s feeling guilty about something, I have some news for you. For so many weeks, I kept thinking that things would be so different if I had simply told my parents to not go into that car. Finally, my granny wrenched some sense into me and told me that I can’t change my past, but I can chance how it affects my future. It didn’t sink into me right away, but I understand what she meant now. I’m not saying that I’m never thinking about it anymore, because that’s a lie, but I know my parents would want me to live my life, so that’s what I’m doing. And that’s what you should do as well.”

Ed stared at her with surprise. He realized Winry’s words were very similar to the ones he had used when confronting Rose, but he wasn’t living by his own advice.

“I probably deserved that.”

“Yes, you did.” Her tone got softer when she continued: “By the way, I want you to know that I’m not going anywhere. We are way past that point now.”

For some reason, Winry’s statement made Ed remember the realities of their situation, and he asked: “How are we gonna stay in touch after the Olympics, though? We are both busy with our sports, traveling on different sides of the country and sometimes even out of country.” “Phones exist, Elric. If you know how to use one. And it’s not like I’m always gone, there are off-seasons, breaks, and so on… And to be honest, at the moment I can’t say how long I’m gonna continue my skating career. I’m kinda itching to move onto mechanics soon enough.

“Sounds like you have already given a lot of thought to your future.”

“What about you, though? Do you have any plans?”

“I want to continue playing as long as I can and study as much as I can. Maybe I have some other wishes as well, but… one day you might know.”

“You think so?”

“Yeah.”

Ed leaned his head against hers and wrapped one of his arms around her shoulder. They stayed like that for a good while, until the tender moment was interrupted by a crash inside the restaurant.

“What was that?” Winry asked worriedly.

Ed just sighed. “I think it’s time to take Havoc back to the hotel.”

#edwin #edward elric #winry rockbell #my fics #fullmetal alchemist #ice skating au #that has a name wooo!#i'm so stupid happy about that #ps. sorry for the possible typos

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homestuckhomestuckhomestuck · 7 years

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Summary of Homestuck fandom after [S] Cascade.

(2011) Homestuck as a general phenomenon was very active and developed at a swift pace from the time it was published (2009) onwards, especially in 2012-2013, including and past the first years of the Homestuck Kickstarter Project, a.k.a Hiveswap.

Between 2009 and 2012, Homestuck as a webcomic was infamous for updating daily, constantly, multiple times a day, at all hours, for years. There was a calculated average that Homestuck updated 5.5 pages per day, dropping entire bundles of updates of character interaction and plot reveals frame by frame, posted as fast as Hussie could write it. Though it wasn’t immediately obvious, this pace was sleeplessly breakneck, Hussie allegedly didn’t do anything but live, breathe and dream Homestuck for at least four years straight. I’m serious when I say updates came at all hours. I would wake up 2am on a week night and idly check MSPA to see if there was a new update, sort of like a trained parrot. Then in five minutes I’d tab back over to the Homestuck tab and refresh, just in case.

This lead to an phenomenon appropriately dubbed “upd8 culture,” which became the basis of the sheer evangelical furor people still associate with the Homestuck fandom. Quick history: MSPA/Problem Sleuth fans originated and migrated over from the Penny Arcade forums, Reddit, and 4chan to nestle permanently within the bowels of 2011 - 2013 tumblr, and were best described from a distance as ‘zealous.’ Even remembering it now almost feels like recalling a distant riot. If you didn’t cosplay, write up a detailed theory post, or scribble up a crazy level of appropriately detailed fanart within 10 or so minutes any given upd8, you were buried under the force of post overload and were officially late to the party. After years of this, fans had some idea of just how dedicated it came off as, which was used to further spur on fandom and made Homestuck into the most meme filled in-joke community you could possibly imagine.

What’s frustrating about describing Homestuck and Homestuck fandom is they both heavily affected each other and were both unique experiences within themselves, which makes actually trying to get across the atmosphere of the early 2010s a wordy process. Homestuck heyday updates regularly crashed tumblr servers, which became an actual fake rss way of seeing how much the plot progressed that day, which is unusual even if the tumblr servers 2011-2013 were not funded by the corporate might of Yahoo. The bigger the update, the faster the crash. I could tell you Homestuck dominated tumblr to the point it had a virulent hatedom of people who had never even read it and constantly saw it and never understood what was happening in it, and fans couldn’t stop themselves from chattering about it all the time. One thing that has to be noted is all this continual bickering and movement and development and competitive content production was honestly fun as hell.

Besides constant updates and a continual stream of new content, the story was completely unpredictable. Game-changing plot twists continued to happen up until the very ending, and while this made Homestuck’s plot happily convoluted, for fans this meant one thing they never lacked for was barely solvable mystery. Even the (fan)artists and (fan)musicians hired to work on Homestuck had to guess what would happen next even if they were part of animating the next update. Under similar principles of an ARG, story presentation was created with the vague expectation fans would work together to explain to each other what just happened.

What this meant in conjunction with Hussie’s oddly accurate tabs on fandom theory was that when an update dropped you had to release whatever you were doing fast, or you would be outdated, wrong, inaccurate, or irrelevant at some undisclosed unspecific time, very soon. Canon and fanon directly pulled from each other, especially in the small character details. The very fact the comic spun on such accurate knowledge of fandom that was purposefully fostered between fandom and canon means that even now reading Homestuck while updating is considered an experience different from an archival read, even though Homestuck was always a self-contained story.

Upd8 culture followed like this: Popular fan theories had multiple fanfictions written on them just to better explain what could happen next, and fan projects from voice acting to art to music to fiction were constantly being corrected, updated, and replaced by a deluge of new information and characters to pore over every single detail with a fandom magnifying glass. An endless amount of hyper ambitious fandom projects, games, animations, multi media fanstories made in rotating teams were abandoned for new starts JUST because the information they were working off became too outdated by the newest few weeks of updates. Cosplays were mocked up in hours (for the next morning of con,) art in minutes, theory in seconds. You threw everything out as fast as you could so someone else could build off of it. It did give a strong impression of collaboration and possibility. As the fandom grew bigger and younger Hussie seemed to shade more politic in his fandom communication, but Homestuck managed to maintain an “open channel” like feeling between fandom and comic for a long time.

Innovative form encouraged innovative output. The point was to create. Another aspect feeding upd8 culture was in the way Homestuck was told. Not only were Homestuck’s detailed plot points hard to predict, but so was what would happen to the site in a meta way. A page could range from a scribble to a 3 hr fully programmed rpg or 18 minute asset heavy style swapping animation, or most commonly, sprite art followed by several hundred words of dialogue and character interaction. Pages came by different artists, different styles, different mediums, different paces and focuses, but with a breadth-spanning understanding of memes and the internet. Factors of style, innovation and novelty affected the diversity of fan output. Part of my extreme willingness to take part in Homestuck fandom was that Homestuck was so crammed to the brim with open ended creative potential, just the multiplicity of cool ideas and plot mechanics and vivid characters and weirdly novel framing that had really good ideas and existed literally nowhere else, and I say that as a huge sci-fi fan. Time travel in Homestuck was excellent. It was an ambitious story and I really do think it pulled it off. Homestuck was once described as the fossilized excrement of someone’s personal creative experiments, and I think that’s a good way of putting it. Enthusiasm and confusing daring teemed off the page, and translated into a wide variety of fanfiction and art, in style, content, theme, and pov.

Lastly, Hussie had a tendency to canonize fan content and hire fanartists and fananimators if their output was solid enough with a gentle horse kiss of approval and a naturally internet-transparent hiring process, like a forum. This was a purposely fostered atmosphere in the spirit of experimental adventure, and was just fucking nuts. Fans never wrote the story, but they did heavily influence aspects of how it was told and where it went (by design, fans were pretty much involved in making the comic) and even get to actually flesh out the details, like the main character’s names, memes, romances, character, and scope. Everything from canon sprite art to bits of the Midnight Crew to Caliborn’s character to Calliope’s art skill to music and trickster arcs were all originally based on years of fan jokes and fandom. Homestuck was definitely Hussie’s sole property and precious baby, but he built it as interactive-ish and creatively as he could. It added an extra layer of galvanizing egging on to fandom purpose. I don’t know how else to explain everything that came of it. Fandom was like a roiling morass of bullshit activity, like a breaking news bullpen 24/7, there was so much energy sparking off of all facets of fandom because it was just so fun. Fan output was borderline insane in 2010-2013.

Hussie said fandom grew exponentially at the introduction of the Trolls in Act 5 in mid 2010, but I can honestly say I think fandom really started treating Homestuck like a hidden gem worth proselytizing right after the events of [S] Cascade at the end of 2011. Before then, Homestuck was tenuously good, and had a rep on tumblr for having weirdly ubiquitous fans and over- detailed fancontent, but [S] Cascade was the moment every single gamble asked of the reader in the story actually paid off. In fact, Homestuck’s plot was generally constructed to climax at [S] Cascade, as was apparent from the big explosion of fan reaction after the fact. At this point, you would be hard pressed to find a fan that wouldn’t say, “Homestuck is good.”

THE KICKSTARTER (2012)

Right after [S] Cascade, a lot of things happened in quick succession. Act 6 started, revealing what endgame would probably look like. It was slated to be shorter than Act 5, envisioned as a kind of denouement. Lord English, the final villain, was revealed. Hussie stated he thought the comic would end the following year. I think Hussie saw the ending was in sight and started trying to merchandise for real at this point, god tier hoodies started releasing at a faster rate, Homestuck book 1 came out (in addition to Problem Sleuth book 3), there was a Homestuck music (and track art) contest announced with hundreds of fan submissions, and the incongruous but hilarious public induction of Dante Basco, Hollywood superstar, who was instantly whisked into the Homestuck fandom’s fold as soon as he formed a tumblr. Homestuck had a bit of a reputation by then so the fandom (+ Hussie) was legitimately trying to woo him gently. This was entertaining for everybody, including Dante Basco. (For those who haven’t gotten that far, Dante Basco is a character in Homestuck.) (As some trivia, Grey DeLisle also briefly made a tumblr in this time, influenced by the instant rapport Dante Basco had, voiced some Vriska lines, then left due to some unrelated but tumblr-typical drama.)

There probably weren’t even specifics on who was going to be programming, illustrating, producing, and writing Hiveswap- and I’m still vaguely convinced Hussie scrolled through Promstuck and then hired deudlyfirearms (Calliope’s official artist) on the spot to illustrate all his future creative endeavors. I know Guzusuru got hired at least partially due to Lullaby for Gods, not to speak in the least for Paperseverywhere or Toastyhat (tumblr usernames used just in case, dril), plus a literal list of artists you could follow through various Homestuck fan production to official product lines. With Hiveswap, Homestuck went from hobby to full time job for some people. But before all that, in 2012 Homestuck as source material was apparently endless and constant, and let’s just say by 2013, Hussie never had to ASK for specific fan content, assets, musicians, artists, programmers, writers, even money. He just had to allow fandom a place, an address, an email, anything, to let them throw it at him. I have actually never seen anything like it, this weird businesslike use of talents within and out of comic. This is why mid 2012 art assets and minigames suddenly start becoming more populous, culminating in the nearly entirely guest art illustrated, programmed, and animated EOA6 and A7 and guest written post-canon snapchats in 2016. (This is also the time the MSPA forums crashed.) Also the art, programming, and music team for Hiveswap seem comprised of former fan musicians and artists.

One thing that’s no concern for Hiveswap: it will be was beautifully illustrated, scored, and animated by people who loved Homestuck.

In sum: 2012 Homestuck was in full swing. Homestucks flooded cons, more than usual, to such a volume of painted gray tweenagers that cons in general (and hotels) had to rewrite the rulebooks surrounding such things as panels, photoshoots, and draw meets. MSPA servers were still barely holding up, especially after big upd8s, and were constantly being upgraded. Tindeck made a whole genre tag on their site for Homestuck fanmusic. What Pumpkin and Topatoco couldn’t keep up with demand, everything was constantly out of stock. Staff and even Hussie didn’t announce when new products were released until weeks later because if they did, the entire store server would immediately crash for long periods of time. This remained true even into 2016, apparently. There were homestuck plushes, furniture, tattoos, rooms, board games, video games, cards, dolls, products you wouldn’t even think of– a whole years long scrum about establishing copyright and what could sell where to who. Promstuck was a once-a-year reality in random cities around the US or otherwise. Art Team and Music Team had quick fame gain, I know at least Music Team members could feasibly live off of Homestuck revenue as their day job. Ben Nye grey paint actually sold out before a con, and even to this day any gray paint on amazon will be utterly dominated by troll cosplay reviews. Even small trivially related products like the record of the guy who posted “I’m a Member of the Midnight Crew” on youtube was convinced to list the record on ebay for a couple hundred dollars in a sprightly fan bidding war. This was completely unremarkable at the time.

The most interesting thing about Homestuck is that it was a) entirely spread by grassroots efforts and word of mouth, and b) a free webcomic. Though unlike the T.V syndicated and advertised shows like Sherlock or Dr. Who or anime, or the multi-billion dollar industries of Marvel or Nintendo, with nearly zero effort to be anything but weird and internet obscure, Homestuck seemed just as bafflingly popular and literally impossible to avoid as professionally advertised hollywood blockbusters, popular anime, television serial shows, and multi million video games, at least on tumblr, reddit, and 4chan, and conventions. Because of all the factors that went into it’s circuitous development, if you hadn’t read through a huge chunk of Homestuck, you wouldn’t even understand and you couldn’t even properly explain why such a niche but undeniable popularity existed. It was such a phenomenon.

People who had (reasonably) never even heard of Homestuck would stumble upon a fandom antic and observe with growing confusion the busy masses hard at work. Bright blue horse dildo fundraised and sent dutifully to creator? (At least three different dildos on 3 different social media homestuck fan sites were fundraised publicly.) Gruesome artwork of puppet fetish websites carefully placed with pages of critiqued meta with way too much attention? Even the usual deluges of upd8 fanart and fantheory? Entire forum sites and rp sites and chat clients enthusiastically founded just for the constant need to discuss the story? Homestuck became recognizable by horns and grey paint and terrifyingly huge meetups, a nearly frantic aura and art meets or prom dances just for fans - “What the fuck is Homestuck?!” became a fandom catchphrase, because it was always being commented on. Tbh, Homestuck is the r rated precursor for Undertale in memetic inclination and story framing style. Memes, man.

And in the midst of this, in September 2012, Hussie suddenly announced a Homestuck Video Game Kickstarter. The long awaited scalemate plushes were introduced as a reward tier. And unexpectedly, a lavishly illustrated ostensibly Kickstarter exclusive Homestuck tarot deck by popular fanartists as one of the reward tiers.

For context: The entire premise of Homestuck is that it was a transcribed gaming session of a video game that didn’t exist. Opening a Homestuck Video Game Kickstarter was a fitting sequel, the equivalent of waving an 8th book prequel in front of Harry Potter fans, as illustrated by the cream of the crop, if every previous iteration of the Harry Potter series was also free. In addition, the goal was $700,000, and Homestuck had over 2 million online fans. There wasn’t a question if $700,000 was going to be feasible as a funding goal, it was more a question of how far the fandom could goad itself into trying to overshoot it. In fact, I remember being kind of disappointed we didn’t reach 3 million. We capped just below 2.5 million including the paypal donations. Homestuck started making “official” waves in news articles and such, of people who noticed a completely incomprehensible kickstarter got a lot of money somehow, and this in addition to the typically update culture-fast result (the funding goal was reached in about 30 hours of a month long campaign,) was regarded as very bizarre by everyone who didn’t know what Homestuck was.

Trivia: there was even a $10,000 tier introduced as a joke, where “your fantroll will become canon (for one panel, and then die),” which was hastily closed after two people actually took it. (One was an army vet who thoroughly enjoyed the story and basically wanted to donate as thanks, and the other has remained impressively anonymous.) First time I saw Hussie publicly searching for words. I really could say 2012 Homestuck was approaching some kind of mania. Considering how Homestucks were, if someone named their firstborn off a Homestuck character, I wouldn’t have been shocked. The game was funded.

Homestuck hiatus’ started in earnest. This was due to the increased production schedule of both the Kickstarter game being punted into development, the troubled indie game development cycle, and more detailed HTML5 games (openbound) in the comic, and product production, which is, you know, was fair enough. Updates were frequent enough to keep fandom active and frothy well into 2013, where the lack of Game Updates in conjunction with comic hiatus’ were both uncharacteristic and concerning.

Homestuck was abruptly shifted off of regular upd8 schedules, and upd8 notifiers were sadly put to rest.

HIATUS FANDOM (2013-2014)

Here was a unique factor of 2013 Homestuck fandom, for the lack of content, fandom moved en masse to an alternative ‘hiatus fandom,’ in some kind of effort to keep together over the wait. This literally singlehandedly boosted the popularity of games like OFF, Dangan Ronpa, etc. Homestuck hiatus fans were already pro at boosting popularity through word of mouth, and these obscure-but-popular video games were fun to pimp in the meantime. A more recent, toned down example would be 17776.

Here was also something weird. In December 2013 Hussie apparently (as creative director only) had some kind of mysterious would-be trial run with Shiftylook with Namco ips, resulting in Namco High, the Homestuck and Namco character dating sim, where you could date Davesprite (who had a surprising amount of meta character development,) Terezi, Pacman, and Galaga. It was so out of nowhere nobody knew what to do with it. It was an indication of what Homestuck as a franchise was probably going to expand into, though, and an intriguing move on the part of Bandai.

In the comic hiatuses and throughout the roadblocked kickstarter game development, canon-side, the Paradox Space quasi-canon side project and WeLoveFine (later ForFansByFans, who took over merchandising,) continued on the spirit of fandom support- notably the original Art Contest to make new merch- now streamlined into a “fan forge” where any fan can go through a voting process to say, pitch a new product and later be hired on the most recent calendar, then show up working a new Friendsim.... etc.

After this a new generation of internet fans appeared to ‘notice’ Homestuck, hearing it was ending, and joined in, making the Kickstarter garner a kind of shadowed conspiracy-riddled rumortale more than anything, which really outstripped the simplicity of what happened: hardworking but troubled development.

The End of Homestuck was hanging like the sword of Damocles over our collective motivations, you can still find mournful farewell Homestuck fanart floating around to this day! In fact, the fandom believed it was the End of Homestuck several times in 2014-2015. Fandom was tamping down on the corners, cleaning up fanart (relatively), tucking away the crazily ambitious scifi world spanning AU fic. The wild, raw creativity that used to be so rampant through all corners of the internet seemed vaguely diminished, tidier, more understandable, trackable, and efficient. Big Projects never showed their roughs and drafts until the final products anymore, small circles of discourse popped up in pretty polite language and with almost no capslock. The discussions weren’t on What Hussie Would Pop On Us This Time To Overhaul The Entire Plot Of Homestuck, it was more like, did he make the gay Gay Enough™? Vriscourse remained eternal, though.

And it isn’t just nostalgia talking. I’ve noticed some Homestucks still think fandom is a rush of collective community like they’ve never before experienced, that upd8 celebrations are pretty dang wild, and Homestuck convention presences are well-established, but now? In 2015-2017? This is calm and active, there are still some cool projects going on, but nothing like the insanity that was associated with Homestuck. Homestuck was the ‘biggest’ fandom I’ve ever been in, in terms of sheer forced commiseration and activity, and it just has not reached anything close to the levels of 2011-2013 bullshittery and spark plugs.

But the fandom is still present- people treat it like a phase, but Homestuck is still a clever story that retains all the aspects that attracted readers to it in the first place. Also, the fandom still regularly accomplishes minor feats of economics like this even in 2016:

because that is the level of fan fervor that Homestuck inspires, forever, apparently.

I’d last like to note I’ve skipped a lot, I tried to keep it as zoomed out and as general as possible. I’d like to explain the true foibles of 2013 Homestuck fandom, such as the forced formation of entire rp websites, apps, programs, and platforms dedicated to fanning Homestuck more efficiently, how fans formed new mediums and literal ways of expression and vast organized contests on how to express themselves and collaborate better, how there was almost a fan project-pipeline system in place, and how exactly Homestuck influenced Undertale (think of the meta) and an entire mini generation of webcomics and tv show story boarders spiritually, and I haven’t even tried to explain the aspects of Homestuck’s use of framing and how genuinely interesting it is from a storytelling perspective, and how the interaction of Hussie and the fandom and serial updates affected people’s connectivity because out of scope.

...But just for posterity and context of update culture: Quoth Gankro, programmer:

So the biggest thing to keep in mind with MSPA is that it's based entirely off of collaboratively riffing off eachother's ideas. It started out as a faux text-based adventure where people would post prompts, and Andrew would take the ones he liked and riff off of them. As far as I'm concerned this is Andrew's super power: the ability to take a pile of things (comments, art, music, ideas, people) and rapidly recombine them into amazing things. The chatlogs in Homestuck full of amazing back and forths? That's just what talking to Andrew in chat was. Constant riffing and feedback loops....

Anyway, this is all to say that the genesis of ideas, and even how things got developed, is honestly really murky with Homestuck? Everything was kinda adhoc, a riff-on-a-riff, and done in incredibly little time....

I can't emphasize this scramble enough. Andrew was a ceaseless content machine, and I don't think I was ever "blocked" on him producing content. Which is ridiculous considering how much content is packed into our games. (like, hundreds of pages of dialogue)

Michael Bowman, music team:

Volume 5 going out of its way to include gobs and gobs of material definitely changed the project; the floodgates opened. I think people admired Andrew's astonishingly prolific pace from 2009 to 2012, and between 2010 and 2011 the music project had the same vibe: we released one or two albums monthly.

-fan interviews courtesy though the efforts of u/drewlinky

Homestuck and it’s fandom has the unique distinction of being nigh unexplainable, as in, it took this long just to fully outline how the Homestuck Kickstarter was always going to be wildly successful, and how development was always going to take years even without the incident with the Odd Gentlemen, who clearly didn’t understand why Homestuck was popular or even why that mattered, (pre- Undertale), in the first place, but with the news of Viz taking on Homestuck’s license on account of that viral-like marketability so now there’s an actual possibility that Homestuck will finally become…… anime, why not hearken back to the good ol days and be relentlessly picayune for the hell of it?

Happy 10/25!

#HAPPY 10/25!#homestuck #hiveswap development is such a saga too #i also didn't talk about specifics of recursive fandom (fans of fans of fans) but wow #2012-2014 #hscom

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spider-bih · 7 years

Text

Ugh P.6 [Peter Parker] [Soulmate AU]

Pairing: Peter Parker x Female!Reader

Warnings: Cursing, more angst, mentions of pain etc

A/N: I don’t know shit about helping patch someone up. Also- I’m an ass and I know it and I’m not sorry asdfghjk I love you guys! Seriously, when I wrote the first part to this, I had no idea it would lead here or become so well liked! <3 This ones a little long to make up for the shit I may or may not pull 👀

Part 5.5, Masterlist

There he was, fingers weakly tangled into the end of your shirt, gently pulling with what strength he had left. He was face down and obviously beaten. Why did you always meet in such frustrating or bad ways? The first time was because you screamed. The second because he slammed his foot upon his own and broke his toes- and now this.

He was bleeding.

“God- you idiot.“, you whispered to him after you’d calmed yourself. It seemed like he loved to find you at the worst times- like he lived for causing you pain and frustration. Slowly, you pulled him further into the alley, not wanting him to be seen in such a state. Any thug would take the opportunity to kick him while he was down and you would not have that. You weren’t sure if you could protect him- but you’d try. You’d try with all your might, and damn anyone who had the audacity to try you.

Still- he was bleeding- quite a bit too. What were you supposed to do though? You couldn’t pick him up and drag him to your place- not only were you sure you couldn’t carry him that far, he was also still in the suit. People would go ballistic if they saw you dragging a bleeding Spider-Man into your apartment. You also weren’t about to undress him. Skin tight suit? Yeah, no chance he was wearing anything under. Plus you weren’t even sure how it came off. You were stuck in this alley with a bleeding boy.

That thought struck something in you. He was just a boy- a fifteen or sixteen year old boy. Just a boy, risking his life daily to save the people of Queens. You wondered now, who saved him? Who picked him up when he was down like this?

Did heroes need saving?

Now you wondered if anyone else knew of his secret. If anyone helped him patch up or let him vent about the bad side of being a super-hero. Surely it wasn’t all rainbows- surely he’d seen things no one his age should have to.

Surely he was still fucking bleeding. You dug around your bag, searching for anything to help, but you had nothing. No extra shirt or any kind of string or fabric to make a makeshift tourniquet of some sort. All you had were textbooks, notebooks, some pencils and a half empty water bottle. The only helpful thing would be water, but he wasn’t awake to drink. The lenses of his mask were shut, telling you he was unconscious. His breaths were shallow and you were growing scared. What were you supposed to do? What- oh hey. He had a bag clutched in his other hand. Maybe it was his?

Sure enough, it had been his. It held his clothes, some school work and thank goodness- some first aid supplies. Obviously you couldn’t clean him in a dirty alleyway- and you couldn’t drag him away in the suit, so you did the next best thing. You dressed him in the clothes he had in his bag, managing to figure out how to remove the gloves and shoes of his suit, as well as his mask. You slipped those back in his bag and then proceeded to put his bag on his back so you could move him. To say that you struggled would be a huge understatement. He was heavier than he looked, and you guessed that must be because he was more muscular than he looked- he sure as hell felt muscular. You had to lean his front against your back and drape his arms around your shoulders. It took a few tries to lift him up though- you even dropped him once but no one needs to know that.

You had to ignore the stares some people gave you as you trudged along with a bruised and unconscious boy slumped against your back. You stumbled and almost fell three times, but somehow you made it. For once you were thankful for the dingy old elevator in your apartment building. You’d have died if you had to drag him up eight flights of stairs. You were even more thankful to find your apartment vacant. No one was home- your parents were still at work. Still, you needed privacy just in case. If your parents came home early to you patching him up on your couch, the questions and lectures would be endless. You couldn’t just tell them that your soulmate was a super-hero. They would freak out just as much as you had. With that said, you trudged along into your room, letting him fall off your back and onto your bed. He bounced a bit and landed face first, for a moment he began to slide off, and so you had to pull him fully on the bed. You scrambled around your room, looking for rags no one would notice going missing and something to hold some cool water. His bag only contained some bandages, peroxide and what looked like gauze. You couldn’t be sure, but it wasn’t everything you needed.

Once you grabbed what you needed- or what you could find that was useful, you propped him up against your headboard and pulled off his shirt. It clung to him a little because he was still bleeding- and honestly you were sure you were covered in his blood but that didn’t matter right now. He was starting to grow pale, you needed to stop him from bleeding. However, you couldn’t do that so easily since his suit was still on. You just needed to top off- but how did it come off? You didn’t like the idea of undressing him- but quite honestly this was life or death so you had no choice.

“This is such fucking bullshit..”, you murmured as you tried pulling his suit off. This wasn’t how you wanted to kick off your three-day weekend. Your fingers dug into his suit at his neck, attempting to pull or tug it down, but it wouldn’t budge. You searched his back for a zipper and his sides- and his front- but you found nothing. You were starting to panic- you could feel him fading, “C’mon- get up- please for the love of everything just get up and tell me how to take this stupid thing off! You asshole! Get up!”, you started shaking him, grabbing his face in your bloody hands. This- this right here was what you were talking about. You didn’t even fully know him but you were losing your living mind. He couldn’t die here- not in your home- not in your arms- not ever. “Please, Peter..”

It was as if you saying his name struck something in him, because he groaned lowly and started trying to speak. He must’ve been punched in the mouth because he was bleeding from his lip and spoke a little funny, “Where...you.. why? I-..gotta go-”

“No. No you don’t. You’re hurt, you stay here and you let me fix you- god.. how do I fix you? I can’t get the suit off. How does it come off?”, you made him look at you, trying to ignore the way his brown eyes seemed to look glossy. You didn’t know anything about first aid, at least not anything extensive- but you guessed you’d have to learn in the moment.

“Button.. the button..”, he tapped at his chest lazily, “M’sorry...ngh..hurts..”

“I know. I feel it.”, you said, but for once you weren’t too mad. Him feeling pain meant he was alive, so you’d bear through it with him. You tapped at the spider on his chest, surprised when his suit grew in size and simply slid off him with a small hiss. “Wow. I would have never found that on my own.”, you murmured- only to gasp when you saw just how bad his cut was. It was deep and long, running straight down his side. How had he managed to get cut this deep- but not have his suit ruined- hell did it matter? It was still bad and you could feel how much it was hurting him.

“You.. you have to..clean it..first.”

“And then?”

“Stitch..stitches or..suture..”

“What? I can’t- I can’t do that! I’m not a nurse or a doctor- you have to go to the hospital!”

He swallowed and slowly shook his head, “No.. no no.. I can’t..they’ll.. call cops and..my Aunt will.. and Mr.Stark... I can’t..please.. you have to.. I can’t.. myself..”

You stared at him- hating that he was right. If some teen shows up to the hospital this beaten, cops will be called- DCF will get involved and it would be an entire shit show for him and whoever his family might be.

“It’s like..sewing..”, he spoke drowsily when you were still silent. The clock was ticking.

“It is not! This is skin and muscle and god- you’re bleeding so much what the hell, Peter?! This is insane! I don’t- we need a suture kit and disinfectant and- just- I didn’t- ohmygod..”, you started panicking again.

He pointed to his bag, to the front little pouch you neglected to check. It must be hiding what you needed, “Please..”, he pleaded with you. He had no one else right now and he was too out of it to do it himself, “I can’t do it.. please..”

You grabbed the suture kit from his bag with shaky hands. Could you really do this? You knew how to sew, yes- but a suture? For a wound this big?

“It just.. has to close.. so my healing..can take over..”, he grunted out, and you could feel his pain beginning to fade, “Gotta..gotta be quick..please...I’m begging you..”

This was crazy- this was too much- but you had to do it. You had to or he’d die, right here- right on your bed and in your room. You couldn’t blame the world if he died now because it’d be your own fault for refusing to do this.

You started sterilizing the needle and cleaning out his wound, hissing with him. You could feel his pain, so it was difficult to work, but it also made it easier to avoid hurting him more. You cleaned out his wound until your bowl of clear cool water turned bloody and dark and your blue rag no longer looked blue. The disinfectant stung- but it was doing it’s job. Now to suture.

“This is going to hurt..”, you whispered to him.

“..it already does..”, he replied, and you didn’t know his words had another meaning- just as yours had another meaning to him.

The yells he had let out in your room when the pain got to be too much shook you to your core. You bit your tongue to the point of bleeding just so you wouldn’t scream with him and also so you could focus on something other than your aching side. His pain was your pain and fuck- it hurt so bad. It hurt so much- but somehow you pulled through. Somehow your shaky inexperienced hands managed to close his gash.

Somehow you saved him.

You lay on your back next to him, catching your breath and desperately trying to ignore the burn in your side and the copper taste in your mouth. You were sure he was asleep- all that yelling and pain had to have worn him out. It had worn you out as well but you couldn’t sleep. Your hands were caked with dried blood, some of which was smeared on your face and shirt. Your nose was filled with it’s copper smell and a slight whiff of the disinfectant. Your hair was a mess- your teeth were bloody and you were exhausted. Is this what your life would be if you let him in? Would he come to you late at night- bloody and broken and in need of fixing?

Who would have fixed him if you weren’t here? What would have happened?

You sighed and turned on your side to look at him. His coffee brown curls were a wild mess on his head. His face was bloody and bruised, eyes shut as he slept soundly next to you on his back. His bare chest rose and fell with his breaths. This was it- this was the moment- the one everyone talked about. Stubborn soulmates were a thing, and it seemed like you were one of them. All stubborn soulmates had a story to tell- a moment they could describe in vivid detail. It was when they’d started falling for their soulmate- when they’d given up the fight they didn’t know they were putting up. Whatever the universe had in store with you, you were sure you could take. He was right, you were supposed to be his. It made sense now- he wasn’t just a hero. He was a boy- a boy who’d seen such sad things and felt such loss. He needed saving too and that’s why the world made you to be his. You weren’t strong enough to lose him and you never would be- but you were strong enough to lift him when he fell. To bear his pain with him and fix him when he was broken.

“I can’t leave you.. I can’t not want you..”, you whispered to him, starting to drift off now.

This time though.. he didn’t hear you..

Part 7

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shirlleycoyle · 3 years

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There Is No Escape From America’s Robocall Hell

Every single day Americans receive more than 131 million annoying robocalls, or roughly 5.5 million robocalls an hour. And while a new FCC proposal takes helpful aim at the obnoxious menace, recent Supreme Court rulings, corporate lobbying, and the complexity of the problem means it’s not getting significantly better anytime soon.

The FCC this week unveiled its latest attempt to address the robocall scourge after a parade of past agency efforts failed to make a dent in the problem.

New FCC rules mean phone companies must block traffic from phone companies that fail to implement cryptography-based identity authentication systems like STIR (Secure Telephone Identity Revisited) and SHAKEN (Signature-based Handling of Asserted Information Using toKENs). Such systems help thwart robocallers hiding their identities and real numbers using spoofing technology.

The new FCC announcement proposes expanding those restrictions to “gateway providers” that link overseas callers to U.S. phone networks, and requires phone companies to document their robocall-fighting efforts via the FCC’s Robocall Mitigation Database. But it’s just a drop in the bucket of addressing the broader problem, experts say.

“The plan as-is consists of good ideas, but I don't think it's going to make a big difference in the next couple of years,” Brad Reaves, an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at NC State University told Motherboard.

The proposal is just a proposal for now, and “gateway providers” still aren’t covered by existing rules. Neither are smaller providers with less than 100,000 customers, who’ve been exempted from the rules until 2023. “These two types are the providers that most in the industry believe are serving the robocallers,” he said.

But our failure to police robocalls goes beyond the technical. And it stems from our failure to understand the problem is far bigger than just bogus car warranty scams.

In addition to outright scams, there’s also corporate telemarketers that aren’t technically scammers, but often behave just like them. There’s also unwanted robocallers that are annoying but legal, such as debt collectors or charitable foundations looking for donations. Then there’s the legal robocalls we do want, like doctor or pharmacy reminders.

“When we think about these problem robocalls, the way to address the first three has to be cognizant of allowing the fourth,” Margot Saunders, Senior Counsel to the National Consumer Law Center, told Motherboard in a phone interview.

Saunders has testified several times before Congress on robocalls, and is usually quick to highlight how the problem goes well beyond just scammers. She told Motherboard that while the FCC has been aggressive in combating some aspects of the problem, its authority to do so has been greatly constrained by existing law and recent Supreme Court rulings.

“The rules were, until April 1st of this year, that our cellphones were protected not only from pre-recorded calls, but unwanted texts, and unwanted live calls made by an autodialer,” Saunders said, referring to the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA).

But in April a Supreme Court ruling (Facebook, Inc. v. Duguid) effectively nullified the TCPA’s ban on autodialed calls and texts to cell phones without your consent. So while there are growing but sometimes inconsistent restrictions on pre-recorded robocalls, annoying spam texts and many live calls made with auto dialers remain perfectly legal.

“A lot of the live calls that are survey calls and debt collection calls to cell phones that are so annoying to people are made with automated dialers,” Saunders said. “There is at the moment no way of controlling those calls unless the called party individually blocks the caller.”

With its policing of “legit” telemarketing calls boxed in by law, the FCC has focused primarily on scam calls. And for good reason; FTC data indicates U.S. consumers lose an estimated $224 million every year just to government imposter scams alone, most of which are conducted over the phone.

But the sometimes exclusive focus on combating scam robocalls also means there’s an awful lot of unwanted calls—deemed “legitimate” under U.S. law and regulations—that still wind up annoying you in the middle of dinner.

“It’s really very difficult to tell the difference between what is a legitimate telemarketing call and what is a scam call,” Saunders said. “Legitimate telemarketers use pretty scammy, scummy ways of supposedly complying with the law of consent.”

Saunders’ Congressional testimony has highlighted how scammers often comprise the minority of overall robocalls. Many are debt collectors working for banks or telecom providers, who relentlessly harass consumers they know can’t pay their bills. Efforts to rein in those types of calls have often taken a backseat thanks to lobbying pressure.

Margot Saunders 2018 Congressional testimony

Shoring up existing robocall rules means relying on a Congress that’s heavily lobbied by companies and industries that aren’t keen on stricter rules. Meanwhile, the government’s history of robocall fine collection also leaves something to be desired.

While the FCC often makes headlines for issuing “record” robocall fines, the vast majority of those fines are never collected. A 2019 Wall Street Journal investigation found that the FCC has collected just $6,790 of the $208 million in robocall fines imposed since 2015. Of the $1.5 billion in robocall fines issued by the FTC since 2004, the agency collected just $121 million.

Some of that is thanks to the untraceable nature of scammers using spoofed phone numbers and fake identities. Some of it’s because large corporations have actively lobbied for policy solutions that keep the focus on outright scams. But it’s also because U.S. regulators often lack the staff and resources to police corporate America, something that’s often by design.

“The biggest issue is that regulators—including FTC and FCC—don't have the manpower or budget to pursue even a fraction of illegal robocallers,” Reaves said. “Even if they had the

technical means to identify every robocaller, they wouldn't have the ability to take action against them.”

That’s not to say the FCC’s latest efforts aren’t helping. YouMail, a robocall-blocking service, notes there was an 8.6 percent dip in robocalls thanks to adoption of SHAKEN/STIR authentication tech since June. But whether that will be a permanent improvement is unknown, and the overall problem remains a tidal wave—with U.S. consumers collectively receiving 1,515 robocalls every single second throughout the month of August.

There Is No Escape From America’s Robocall Hell syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/

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