#but make no mistake. entire neighborhoods burned down

[mxwhore]

so right now a whole ass chunk of chile is burning down and it is really Fucking Bad. it hit and spreaded so fast im like. 90%!!!!! of the jardín botánico de viña del mar burned down in one night. four in ground workers died. i am absolutely heartbroken for them and the treasure in biodiversity gone. and thats just 4 out of +100? lives lost in this chaos, that is still ongoing.

because of this, i will be splitting my patreon income evenly between care for gaza and techo chile, for the foreseable future. donate if can you can! it would really make a difference

[starryriize]

so pretty | riwoo

— ✧ • ˳೫˚ part of my valentine event!

೫ pairing: bf! riwoo and fem! reader

೫ genre/word count: fluff, really suggestive (my bad y’all) 703 words!!

೫ summary: a typical late night drive with riwoo turns into something more

೫ author’s note: ngl this was so 🤭 i had a lot of fun writing and editing this <33 also this isn’t proofread bc i was falling asleep trying to edit this :((

Reaching your hand outside, you sigh happily feeling the cool night air rush against your skin. The city was bustling, a passerby chattering as they left the shops, another laughing with friends as they strut down the sidewalk. Oh, how you loved driving through the city as it allowed you to admire the good-natured fun of strangers. It was easy for you to forget just how dazzling Seoul was since you’d simply gotten used to how beautiful it was. 

However, your mind was focusing not on the skyscrapers, the traffic, or the organized chaos of the city center. Your eyes were fixed on how Sanghyeok’s hands flexed against the wheel, how the veins tensed as his finger flicked the turn signal on. He takes a glance at you, a slight smirk rising on his face. 

God, you hated how fine he looked. You fidget with the Tiffany bracelet he gifted you, mind racing the more you look at his hands. You look forward, opting to try and think about something else. Something besides how good his hands look in your- you shake your head, forcing your eyes to look at the now red light. 

“You like what you see?” His voice snaps you back to reality, honey practically dripping from his lips. Your muscles tense, feeling shy at his sudden question. Taking a breath, you face him, replying, “Yes.” His deep-set eyes burn into your figure as the moonlight reflects a captivating glow against the side of his face. A smile grows on his lips as he leans toward you, the smell of his cologne making you dazed. His breath fans against your lips before he presses a soft, yet desire-filled kiss against your plush lips. It was only a moment and only one kiss, yet...you wanted, no, needed more. 

He pulled away, the stain of your lipstick clearly on his lips. Not bothering to rub the smear off, he drove through the green light, focusing on the road again. Feeling a blush rise on your cheeks, you collect yourself, adjusting your skirt, shooting a glance at Sanghyeok as you try to compose your pounding heart. He looks too fine to not fantasize about, sitting there in his pressed suit. You cross your legs, unable to distract yourself from the way his fingers tensed on the wheel or how his eyes were so intense a moment earlier. 

He takes one hand off the wheel, firmly placing it on the expanse of your thigh. You shiver at the feeling of his hands, the cool metal of his rings a sharp contrast to the warmth of your skin. The car had been blowing warm air in your direction the entire ride, and now you wished the air was off. You could feel everything burning, the passion, and it was making both you and Sanghyeok lose your composures. 

Distracted by his hand slowly moving up and down your thigh, you don’t realize that the car has stopped. You tense. Pressing a soft kiss to your lips as he brings his hand off your leg to undo the seat buckle, the slight click barely registering in your mind. Making the mistake of turning, you lock eyes with Sanghyeok.

Smiling softly, he whispers in your ear, “We’re home, sweetie.” Blinking in surprise, you turn away, noticing the familiar neighborhood and the door to your house. Sighing disappointedly, you adjust yourself, putting your hand on the door handle to leave the car. Right then, you feel a hand on your chin, gently turning your head towards your boyfriend. He stares at you, eyes dazed with a hint of desire as his gaze flicks from your face to your lips. He breathes deeply, lips a few inches away from yours as though he was trying to resist kissing you. What seems like an eternity passes, he gives in, capturing your lips in his in a delicate yet desperate kiss. It was a soft, innocent enough kiss until he pulled away, muttering, “Oh honey, the night isn’t over yet!” The corner of his lips turns into a smile, giggling as he opened the car door.

Safe to say, that night Sanghyeok showed you all the various ways that he loved you.

[fizzigigsimmer]

Mob Boss!Steve and Cop!Billy Au

Billy’s a legacy cop. His dad wore the badge and his dad before him, and he’s never really had much of a choice about it. Cause on the one hand, Neil’s a piece of shit who beat his mom while the entire precinct looked the other way; but on the other hand he can’t let Neil be right. He can hack it. He deserves the uniform. Maybe he’ll even track his mom down one day, just show up on her doorstep and not say a word. Just give her back the only thing she left him as a final fuck you - proof he didn’t need her to stay even though she should have. In the meantime he can put lowlifes and thugs like Neil behind bars, break their bones in the back seat of his cruiser with impunity because none of his brothers in blue are going to opose a little private justice. He knows first hand just how good they are at looking the other way.

Chicago is a tough beat. The mayors got the entire department busting up neighborhoods and sprinkling crack over the bodies of latin kings and small time gang members while he smokes cigars and drinks wine with the old crime families who have run this town since the days of Capone. Billy’s never been too sure where the line is between right and wrong, but it’s getting hazier by the year. This can’t be all there is. Shitty people shitting on other people, grinding each other into the dirt, and getting richer all the time off the grind.

One night he decides he’s gonna put a gun in his mouth, cause fuck it. Why not? But he wants one last drink at his favorite bar. He doesn’t know it, but someone’s been watching him. Paying attention to the young hot head who did a number on his enforcer because good talent and loyalty is hard to find and while Benny had both, here’s livings proof that he can do better. Steve Harrington always wants the best and always gets what he wants. It’s because he’s able to read people, wind them up and watch them go, and make them do what he wants. It’s laughably easy getting Billy right where he wants him, hooked on big lonely eyes, fearful confessions in the dark and soft neck kisses.

The man who offers to buy Billy a drink that night is deceptively normal looking. His suit says 9-5, and he’s got a soft nervous smile like he’s not used to trying to pick up guys in bars but he’s hopeful that Billy will be interested. He’s too soft for this world. Billy would break a guy like him in no time flat but he figures since he’s checking out anyway maybe it would be nice to have one last bite of something sweet. It’s a mistake because from the minute he and Steve touch, Billy’s sure no one has ever responded to him like that - like he’s unmaking them and putting them back together all at once. No one looks at him like he’s their entire world, like they’d let it all burn around them and keep their eyes on him the entire time. Like he’s the water of life in the dry dry desert.

Billy’s shocked when some instinct wakes him in the middle of the night and he finds Steve with his gun in his mouth, ready to take his own life. He stops him, doesn’t know much but knows one thing - he cant stomach the thought of the light going out in those doe eyes and live in a world absent of that hesitant laugh for even a single minute. Steve breaks down about how his dad is the head of the biggest crime family in Chicago and how far George Harrington is willing to go to control his life. He tells Billy the man Billy broke and put behind bars was the only one standing between Steve and his father. He’s a dead man walking and he’s tired. Tired of the bullshit. If this is all there is then it’s better to die. Isn’t it?

Billy realizes that no, it wouldn’t be. Beauty is always a terrible thing to waste, and Steve is terribly beautiful inside and out like a complex math problem without a solve. One whose numbers keep stretching into infinity, tickling the brain, whetting the appetite for what comes next.

It’s hearing words he thought himself not long ago as if they were plucked right out of his head… it’s that searing look in Steve’s eyes that peels back his skin and leaves him open like a wound… he knows this is no coincidence. Knows he has been seen. That he’s being manipulated and played with, and that Steve’s not the guy who coaches kids and admited a secret preference for girly drinks after the third beer. There’s so much more to him than that. He’s a viper. A snake poised in the grass. A dangerous man to refuse and a foolish one to love.

Billy doesn’t. Refuse him.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

David Horsey, The Seattle Times

* * * *

Great democracies don't fail when they are tested. We haven't before, and we won't this time either.

LUCIAN K. TRUSCOTT IV

DEC 7, 2023

Have you ever thought about the role guilt has played in our national life?  It’s not omnipresent, it’s certainly not felt by everyone, most especially those sinned against, but I would say guilt rivals pride as the thing that has most motivated us.  Think about it for a moment.  The founding of this country wasn’t an immaculate birth – for one thing, there wasn’t a Founding Mother among all those long-heralded Founding Fathers, and one of the two greatest mistakes they made the day they came to an agreement on our founding document was what they left out.  They didn’t award women full citizenship, and they failed to deal in any way with the sin of slavery.

But an important portion of what makes America exceptional is how we have endeavored to fix our mistakes.  We have yet to make adequate amends to the Native Americans who were here before we were and were systematically murdered and kidnapped and abused as this country spread West before and after its founding.  But in fits and starts, we’ve been trying – some of us have, anyway – to make amends. 

Out of the frying pan of the abject mistake of slavery and into the fire of the Civil War went our first attempt to deal with what we may as well call our founding errors.   It took a century that included decades of Reconstruction and Jim Crow and tens of thousands of dead black bodies and burned-down churches and homes and seized land and wealth until the moral clarity and power of the Civil Rights Era forced us as a nation to begin to repair the damage we had done to our fellow citizens who were Black.  Even then, the passage of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Act faced massive resistance.  Laws against segregation had to be enforced in some cases by armed soldiers to be carried out in schools and colleges in the South.  We stumbled through fights over busing in cities like Boston and neighborhoods like Canarsie.  White flight from cities across the nation – Detroit and Baltimore among them – damaged tax bases, hurt schools, and let’s not forget the continuing PTSD of having been on the receiving end of the racism behind it all.  How would you like to have been a Black family that moved into a white neighborhood anywhere – South, North, East, or West – and watched the “For Sale” signs go up around you and the schools to which you sent your kids nearly empty of white kids?

And we must not forget what this country did to its women.  It took until 1920 and the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution for women to get the right to vote.  That is more than 130 years that women were what is commonly called second class citizens in this country.  But I would go further:  the everyday work of women was used to build this country. By giving birth to new citizens, women, alongside immigrants, created the population that made possible the formation of territories and then the new states that would comprise the United States of America – all 50 of them.  When men went off to war, women stepped up and did every single job a man had done in their place.  And what did they get in return?  For decades, a one-way ticket back to the kitchen and the nursery.  Women had to start an entire new movement, the Women’s Movement, to begin the long process of realizing some modicum of equality with men in the workplace and in the home, and as we all know, it’s not finished.  Women earned 57 cents for every dollar earned by men in 1969.  Today, the gap has closed to women’s 80 cents for every male dollar, but jeez, 23 cents over 54 years?  That’s an improvement of only a half-cent a year.

It would take a lengthy book to discuss gender inequality in the eyes of the law.  Before the Women’s Movement made rape an issue with the publication of Susan Brownmiller’s epic “Against Our Will:  Men, Women and Rape” published in 1975, complaints by women that they were raped were often brushed aside by police and prosecutors.  It took decades for laws to be passed against using women’s sexual history against them in rape cases.  Women are still dealing with inequality on college campuses on countless grounds – how charges of harassment and abuse are dealt with, inequities in sports, inequities in employment of women by colleges and universities.  And practically every time women have thought they have secured a right they have fought for and won, it is either challenged or taken away altogether, the right to abortion being the prime example.

We have made great strides in the rights of LGBTQ people, but with the right wing attacking trans people and forbidding the teaching of LGBTQ books in schools, we’re not finished.  We’re not finished with any of it – with how we treat Native Americans, Blacks and other minorities, how we treat women, how we treat immigrants…we could go on and on and on. 

The only people who haven’t been crapped on in the 236 years of our history are white Christian males, and now with God only knows how much of the nation’s wealth and land, they are whining about being discriminated against by the people on whose shoulders they have been standing, if not stomping further into the ground.

We have been tested before and found wanting, but as a people, we have found a way to rally and at least attempt to overcome the problems we have faced since our founding.  Often the tests we face boil down to politics, because within the political process has lain the solutions we have found, often by enacting laws to forbid the bad and elevate the good. 

We are being tested yet again.  The Republican Party, which was once the party that stood against slavery and for equality, has made an about-face on so many issues, it’s hard to list them, but race, equal rights for women, gay rights, immigrant rights, and equality of economic opportunity are certainly among them.  And now they have chosen a leader, and even elected him president for one term, who not only wants to turn back the clock of progress on so many of the things that have made this country a shining light to the world, he wants to destroy the democracy that has haltingly, imperfectly, but steadily made progress possible. 

What I’m here to tell you today is this:  look back at the long and often difficult history of our country.  Almost all of these things that have been problems since the day of our founding are still with us in some measure, but we have accomplished the end of our original sin of slavery and we are at least still trying to make amends for the original sin of the slaughter of the people here on this continent before us who are now our fellow citizens.  We’ve done the same with the other people and issues I have cited here.  We must look at the victories we achieved in these fights with pride and renewed determination to overcome what stands before us in the next election.

He is one man.  He may lead a movement, but it’s a movement that has lost the fights we fought to get where we are.  He, and they, are not the future.  They represent the dead, rotting flesh of our disreputable past, the awful instincts of man to which we first had to admit guilt and then find a way to put behind us. 

I am telling you that if you look back at our accomplishments as a people, you will see our democracy is stronger than maybe we have been thinking.  We keep hearing that our democracy is under threat, but our democracy has been threatened before. We defeated Hitler and Hirohito and saved the world from a monstrous end, just for starters.  We are strong.  We have united in the face of adversity before.  It’s not all of us who will rally in defense of our democracy this time, but so what?  It wasn’t the entire nation who rallied behind Civil Rights, either, but we did it, and we can do it again, not with guns and bombs but with our ideas and our ideals and our votes.  There are more of us than there are of them.  Remember that.

[Lucian Truscott Newsletter]

[checkoutmybookshelf]

Of Fire and Featheringtons: Chapter 1

Well hello friends, and welcome to my second Polin fic! This one builds on The Polin Fic (I Could Have Told You 'Bout the Long Nights on Ao3) so be sure to read that before diving into this one!

Like the other one, this fic is safe for work, but a few warnings do apply! If house fires, house fire injuries, mild gore, and mild blood aren't your thing, then don't be afraid to give this fic a pass. I'll be updating it every week here and on Ao3, so check back for updates.

I hope you enjoy this Polin fic, I had a blast writing it!

Penelope jerked awake to the sound of watchmen’s bells and shouts, which were quickly echoed and amplified by the voices of their neighbors and servants. The bed flexed beneath her, and she shivered as the warmth of Colin’s bulk lifted from the mattress. She waited beneath the covers as she listened to the rustles and grumbles of Colin pulling on breeches and a shirt; if their butler didn’t knock to wake them, she wouldn’t need to—

A sudden flurry of polite knocks sounded at their bedroom door.

Penelope sighed and rose, slipping a pelisse over her chemise and collecting an unlit candle from a small table to light from the one their butler would be carrying. She heard the door open and Colin’s voice, still thick with sleep but carrying an undeniable tone of urgency.

“Whose house is it this time?”

“The Earl of Chatteris, sir,” replied the butler.

“Oh no,” gasped Penelope. “Lady Holroyd is with child. I’ll take Anna and collect her immediately.” The butler stepped back to allow Penelope to pass, but Colin caught his wife’s hand as she slid past him.

“Be careful, Pen,” he said quietly, pressing a quick kiss against her temple.

“Don’t worry, Colin,” she replied. “If we are very, very lucky, this has just scuppered next week’s Smythe-Smith/Holroyd musicale.” Colin’s soft snort of amusement faded behind Penelope as she trotted down the hall to collect Anna and some blankets to keep Honoria Holroyd, née Smythe-Smith, Countess of Chatteris, and her maids warm while the men of the neighborhood tried to save as much of their Mayfair townhouse as possible.

Penelope had little hope of the latter; it was mid-July, and they had seen precious little rain all summer. Things were dry as kindling, and several families’ townhomes had had their burned to the ground. That there hadn’t been any fatalities yet was three-quarters of a miracle, particularly because the Queen, Lady Danbury, and Penelope were beginning to suspect arson.

It was not uncommon for fires to break out in summer; however, the small fire brigades were highly effective, and it was rare to lose entire structures, even in the poorer parts of London. Losing an entire building in Mayfair was typically a once-a-decade occurrence. Five buildings had been lost in three months this season, and there had been increasing numbers of false alarms as people began to panic and mistake flickering but controlled firelight as an imminent emergency.

The ton was beginning to panic.

That more than any particular affection for the Countess was why Penelope had taken to making sure she was on the scene of any ton house fires where women and children were present. Panicked would-be firefighters tended not to notice if they knocked to the ground and trampled small children or women. The Bridgerton carriage that Pen and Colin maintained, while not as substantial or fancy as that of the Viscount’s, was still substantial enough that it would not be casually knocked asunder, and had the space to get any maids, ladies, or children out of the way and keep them safe. They couldn’t plan ahead for hot bricks, but with sufficient blankets and bodies, the carriage ensured that nobody died of exposure while waiting for the fire to go out or while being transported to the homes of family or friends.

The carriage slowed and stopped after a brief ride, and Penelope opened the carriage door on a sadly familiar scene.

The structure was fully ablaze, and the flickering light of the fire at night made things glow and move in an almost unearthly fashion as it completely ruined the night sight of all and sundry. The fire brigade for the neighborhood was already on site. and Penelope caught sight of a shock of Featherington red hair next to a set of shoulders that were intimately familiar to her among a group of other neighborhood young men running buckets back and forth. Colin had fetched her cousin, Felix, who was staying with them that summer as a favor to a branch of country Featheringtons, before heading to the fire. Colin and Felix would have been on horseback, unencumbered by the carriage, and beaten her and Anna to the scene. Penelope spared the second to sigh at the whining she would undoubtedly hear from Felix once all this was over. The young man had a disappointing lack of awareness of community and fellowship, which was made sharper and even less admirable by a disagreeable nature. But Felix would be a problem for Penelope later.

A scent reminiscent of bonfire pervaded the air, but it was somehow bigger and more violent than the friendly scent that accompanied the roasting of marshmallows, a new French confection that had gained instant popularity as a treat at country-house balls. This fire—like the others she had been present for—also had a greasy undertone to the scent. Penelope wouldn’t be at all surprised if an investigation revealed that delicate containers of oil had been planted and lit throughout the house to encourage the conflagration. Once they began looking, each fire that was investigated showed evidence of accelerant use, although Penelope’s sources disagreed on what precisely was used.

She couldn’t immediately see Lady Holroyd, and she didn’t bother calling for her; the roar of the fire nearly drowned out the men’s shouts. Her voice would be lost the moment it left her mouth. Instead, hand locked with Anna’s, Penelope circled the perimeter of the action, eyes sweeping for a stationary figure. Her experience as a wallflower served her alarmingly well, and she picked her way through the chaos quickly and with purpose, avoiding men whose eyes simply slid over her and Anna. Anna was tucked in so close behind Penelope that she barely had to yell for Penelope to hear her.

“There, to your left, Penelope!” Pen’s eyes swiveled as she tucked them briefly against a wall. Just as Anna had said, to Penelope’s left was a point of stillness, where a clump of maids surrounded an extremely pregnant, sooty, shrilly keening Lady Holroyd. Penelope’s stomach sank for a split second as she realized that Lady Holroyd was clutching her violin to her prominent belly.

So much for avoiding the Smythe-Smith/Holroyd musicale.

Seeing a break in the parade of running men, Penelope made a break for the clump of women, Anna practically glued to her hip to keep them both clear of men carrying buckets and ladders. What looked like three kitchen or house maids were clutching each other’s arms and crying. A lady’s maid, who looked to be made of slightly sterner stuff, had one arm around Lady Holroyd and the other clamped around the upper arm of an absurdly small young woman who was wearing the apron and cap of a cook. They were all sooty and had small burns from embers in their nightgowns and the various shawls and cloaks they were wrapped in. Standing in front of all of them was a woman Penelope recognized as their housekeeper.

“Mrs. Cooper!” yelled Penelope, over the noise. “Bring the maids, follow me.” She quickly took the blanket from Anna’s arms and with the lady’s maid’s help, got it wrapped around Lady Holroyd, who was still keening and whose eyes were darting back and forth, panicked. Anna had taken the maids in hand as soon as Penelope had taken the blanket, and Mrs. Cooper had taken charge of the very young cook. Rather than waste time trying to get through to Lady Holroyd herself, Penelope caught the eye of the lady’s maid as she took Lady Holroyd’s other arm. Once she was sure she had the girl’s attention, Penelope yelled, “Stay close, follow me.” The maid nodded, chivvying her mistress forward and keeping her pressed against Penelope.

A sudden groaning creak sounded behind them, followed by a shuddering, howling crash.

The roof, Penelope realized as she kept moving toward her carriage. A rush of hot air and sparkling embers like demonic fireflies hit their backs and blew past the group of women. Penelope was grateful for the long sleeves on her pelisse; they protected her from hot debris. The maids behind her shrieked and whimpered as embers brushed bare skin, and she briefly heard the sound of fabric slapping fabric, as though someone was putting out a smoldering patch on a shawl.

Some instinct made her stop dead in her tracks; six men in a pack barreled by within scant inches of her nose. Lady Holroyd screeched right in her ear, and Penelope winced, reaffirming her grip on the other woman’s arm. One more push, and they could get to the relative safety of the carriage. Penelope looked back and caught Anna’s eye; the other woman nodded, ready to follow. Taking a deep breath and looking to either side of her, Penelope sprinted the final stretch to the carriage, ripping the door open and bodily shoving Lady Holroyd in. The lady was rapidly followed by her maid, and Penelope packed the other women into the space before Anna planted a hand in her back and shoved, indicating that everyone else was in. Penelope squeezed into the packed space, caught Anna’s hand, and pulled her up. Anna slammed the door behind her.

Penelope pounded on the roof, and the driver pulled the carriage further down the street. They were still in sight of the burning house, but they were clear of debris and the widening circle as the men gave up on the townhouse and focused their efforts on a wider radius to ensure that no other townhouses caught fire. Penelope hoped that Colin stayed at ground level this time and let the more experienced firemen take positions on the roofs of adjacent houses to ensure that no clumps of burning matter landed and sparked a second conflagration. Two fires ago, she had watched him run a roofline with sopping wet sacking in one hand to beat a small patch of flame into submission. Her heart had nearly stopped then and there at the thought that he could slip, fall, and break his neck on the cobblestones before her eyes.

Now, as she had then, she wrenched her thoughts away from her husband and focused on the frightened, sobbing women before her.

“Did everyone get out, Mrs. Cooper? Is anyone hurt?” she asked, as Anna was checking small burns, wiping tears, and gently shushing the maids.

“As far as I can tell, the household made it out,” the housekeeper replied, her voice hoarse and scratchy from yelling and smoke. “My lady and the girls are all right; I can’t speak for the menfolk fighting the fire.” Anna was pressing biscuits into the hands of the maids and the cook now. The lady’s maid took hers and put it in Lady Holroyd’s hands, murmuring softly to her and encouraging her to have a bite. Lady Holroyd herself seemed lost now that she was safe and out of the immediate line of the emergency. The neck of the violin was nearly on a level with Penelope’s chin, and she kept half an eye on it to prevent it from poking her as she asked the next question.

“Once we collect the Earl and the rest of the household, where can we take you?” Taking a breath to answer, Mrs. Cooper was overcome by a fit of coughing, and Lady Holroyd, who’s head had come up when Penelope mentioned the Earl, piped up.

“Where is Marcus? We cannot leave him, I will not!”

“It will be all right, my lady—” began her lady’s maid.

“We will not leave him—” started Penelope, simultaneously. Both women were interrupted by a renewed yelp from Lady Holroyd in a significantly different tone, accompanied by the sound of liquid dripping onto the carriage floor.

“Now is not the time!” declared Lady Holroyd. “I want Mama. She promised she would be here for this!” Pen met the eyes of the lady’s maid and saw her own horror reflected back at her.

“Right, change of plans,” said Penelope, banging on the carriage roof to bring her driver to the door. Cracking it open, she ordered him to take them to the Smythe-Smith house, which was only a few streets over.

“Wait,” barked Mrs. Cooper. “I should stay to let my lord know where you have gone. Emily has my lady well in hand for now.” With an agility Penelope wished she possessed now, let alone at Mrs. Cooper’s age, the housekeeper extricated herself from the pack of bodies amidst Lady Holroyd’s moans and snapped the door shut behind her. The carriage leaped forward, and the end of the violin hit Penelope in the face as Lady Holroyd crushed her hand.

As they pulled up before the Smythe-Smith house, Penelope was briefly worried about how precisely she was going to explain arriving with a group of singed staff and a laboring Lady Holroyd, but a bellowed curse from the latter as soon as the carriage door opened that would not have sounded out of place in the sketchiest part of London’s dockside district brought Lady Smythe-Smith herself running. Within ten minutes, a footman had been dispatched for the doctor and Lady Holroyd had been bundled off to her childhood bedroom, and Anna had chivvied the female Holroyd staff members down to the Smythe-Smith kitchen for food, tea, and borrowed day dresses.

Penelope was left standing awkwardly in the foyer, clutching the violin until John and Daniel Smythe-Smith were shooed from the family’s rooms and invited Penelope to rest in their sitting room, where she abandoned the violin on a side table. Daniel rang for tea before awkwardly sitting next to his brother across from Penelope, both in rumpled breeches with untucked shirts under haphazardly buttoned waistcoats. Both lacked stockings, having shoved bare feet into shoes to get to their yelling sibling sooner. Lord Smythe-Smith soon wandered in, looking positively poleaxed.

“The doctor is here,” he announced vaguely to the room. A few moments later, a maid and Anna entered the room, both holding laden tea trays. The Smythe-Smith maid put down her tray, curtsied, and scuttled from the room, but Anna put her tray down and then came to stand before Penelope.

“Pardon me, Mrs. Bridgerton,” she murmured, as she plucked charred bits from Penelope’s curls. “Are you all right, my lady?”

“I’m fine, and you?” Penelope asked under her breath.

“Fine, my lady. The Holroyd maids are settled. Will you be needing me for anything?”

“No, go get yourself something to eat.” Anna curtsied again—which, like her formality, was for the sake of the Smythe-Smith men; she and Penelope were on easy first name terms in private—and left for the kitchens, leaving Penelope and the men alone. Periodically, Lady Holroyd’s cries could be heard from upstairs as the four sat silently, occasionally sipping on tea.

Now that everyone was as well taken care of as she could make them, Penelope felt exhaustion creep into her bones. Her role was never as physically strenuous as that of the men who actively fought the fire, and she never felt the emotional strain of staying cool and in command in the moment, but the aftermath never failed to exhaust her. It was as though her competence wrote checks when it counted, and her body paid the bill once everyone was safe. She wanted nothing more than to return to her home and let the sound of Colin’s heartbeat lull her to sleep, but if Mrs. Cooper was going to tell the men that she had brought Lady Holroyd here, then she had best stay put; Colin would collect her here.

The Mayfair fire brigade was extraordinarily competent. They would remain and watch the ruined house until the ashes had cooled, but they would send the gentlemen and neighbors home as soon as the danger of the surrounding houses catching fire had gone. In the meantime, none of the Smythe-Smith gentlemen seemed interested in talking, so Penelope dozed on the settee, pretending to be intensely interested in her half-drunk cup of tea as the windows lightened with the oncoming dawn, and Lady Holroyd’s yelps grew more frequent.

John was gently snoring in a chair when there was hammering on the front door. He jumped so hard that he fell from the chair, and Penelope started so hard that she nearly dropped her teacup. The pounding was punctuated by an exhausted shout: “Honoria!”

“That will be Lord Holroyd, then,” said Penelope, as Lord Smythe-Smith stumbled out of the room, followed closely by his sons. She listened as doors banged and feet pounded across the floor and up the stairs. She was so focused on listening that she didn’t notice anyone else was in the room until a warm hand cupped her cheek, and a kiss was pressed to her forehead, filling her nose with the scents of smoke, burned wood, and singed cotton and wool.

Colin.

He straightened, and she smiled up at him.

“Do you know that you are absurdly tall up there?” she asked. He gave her a lopsided smile, which never failed to make her weak at the knees.

“Well, we can’t have that, can we?” He flopped down next to her in a distinctly ungentlemanly fashion, his body leaning toward hers without transferring any weight to her. As he did so, Felix was revealed, arms crossed and face pouty. He was no more singed or sooty than Colin was—indeed, a less generous eye would have said he was less smutched—but he bore it less well.

“Felix, please sit before you fall over. It’s been a difficult morning,” she said, gesturing to an empty but comfortable-looking chair. Where Colin had flopped comfortably, Felix minced toward the chair, and sat on its very edge. His body language was completely closed off, but Penelope could count on one hand the number of times she had seen his body language open since he had arrived on their doorstep in April. With a smile and a “there now, isn’t that better?” for her cousin, Penelope leaned forward carefully, maintaining as much contact with Colin as she could while still being able to pour both men cups of barely lukewarm tea and fix two plates of biscuits and finger foods for them. Colin downed the entire cup of tea and inhaled three biscuits by the time Penelope poured a second cup for him. His mouth was still full as she handed him the cup, and he spoke through a mouthful of biscuit.

“Mrs. Bridgerton, you are a queen among women.” Penelope giggled tiredly as Colin drank about a third of the cup and then sat back and really looked at her.

“Are you all right, Pen? You’re pale.”

“I’m just tired, Colin. Well, tired, and mourning the survival of Lady Holroyd’s violin,” she whispered, playfully. “She will teach the baby, and we shall be subject to a second generation of off-key musicales.”

“Dear God, how shall we survive?” Colin asked, through yet another mouthful of biscuit. Penelope was saved from answering by the arrival of Marcus Holroyd and Lord Smythe-Smith.

Lord Holroyd—who, by all rights, should have been thoroughly exhausted—seemed unable to sit still. In the time it took Lord Smythe-Smith to pour three drinks and hand one to Colin, Holroyd had transitioned between four seats and took up pacing before the windows. He was equally as disheveled, smutched, and singed as Colin, if not more so, and he had clearly shoved a nightshirt carelessly into a pair of breeches to fight the fire; only the front quarter was still tucked. The fabric over his arms and shoulders was speckled with tiny burn holes, and a few of them seemed to have burned through to leave angry red weals on his skin.

As she watched Lord Holroyd pace with Lord Smythe-Smith wordlessly following him back and forth, drink extended, Penelope fought giggles. Some combination of the absurdity, the tea, and the relaxed tension in her chest that Colin was here and not splattered across the cobblestones allowed her mind to grind slowly into gear. She wouldn’t get useful information from either Lord or Lady Holroyd; they were justifiably distracted from their house burning down by the birth of their child. She likely wouldn’t be able to get anywhere near the lady’s maid, and the other maids and the cook were unlikely to have useful insights. She would visit the fire brigade later in the day with a basket of cakes and ask questions, but for now… Penelope rose, murmured something about finding Anna, and made a beeline for the Smythe-Smith kitchens to find Mrs. Cooper.

The Smythe-Smith house was one of the older ones in Mayfair, and the servant’s halls and kitchens were an old-style warren of narrow, twisting passageways and compact spaces. However, the current Lord Smythe-Smith’s grandfather had wanted to “modernize” his kitchens, so like the minotaur’s chamber at the center of the labyrinth, Penelope turned the final tight corner, and a spacious kitchen opened before her. It was packed with two households’ worth of staff, but they did all fit.

Not wanting to discomfit anyone in what was arguably their territory, Penelope kept her face down as she crept along the wall to where Mrs. Cooper was seated on a bench with a cup in one hand, a handkerchief in the other, and a couple of the Smythe-Smith cook’s famous honey and lemon lozenges in a half-open twist of paper in her lap. Taking advantage of a coughing fit to ensure that Mrs. Cooper wouldn’t have the opportunity to recognize her and try to rise, Penelope slid onto the bench beside her and took the cup so the other woman could use both hands for her handkerchief.

“Are you well, Mrs. Cooper?” asked Penelope, once the woman’s cough subsided. The housekeeper raised an eyebrow at her, which told Penelope that under other circumstances, she might have earned herself an excruciatingly polite scolding for being there and flouting propriety. Slowly, the eyebrow came back down, however, and Mrs. Cooper’s shoulders twitched slightly, as though she wanted to sigh but did not trust her lungs not to rebel if she did.

“I shall be, Mrs. Bridgerton. The fool girls panicked and hid in the kitchen, and I breathed more smoke than I meant to fetching them out.”

“You were very brave to fetch them out once the conflagration was clearly out of control,” said Penelope, passing the cup back. Something that would have been called a growl in a less dignified figure escaped Mrs. Cooper, try as she did to cover it with a sip from the cup. She did not bother to cover the grimace after the sip.

“Lord, that’s bitter,” she muttered.

“I thought it would be tea, but that is not the case?”

“Mrs. Hurst’s concoction, meant to help expel smoke from the lungs,” replied Mrs. Cooper, coughing briefly into her handkerchief again. “But you aren’t here to ask after my welfare, are you, Mrs. Bridgerton?”

“Not entirely,” admitted Penelope. “But I meant it when I said you were brave, and I am truly glad you will recover.” Mrs. Cooper’s evaluative gaze rested on Penelope long enough that, were Penelope any less than she was, she might have wilted. But as formidable as the experienced housekeeper was, her gaze failed to hold a candle to the queen’s fury.

“I understand why your Anna left a royal post for you, Mrs. Bridgerton. If it’s not too much license, ma’am, I trust I don’t need to say that you have a loyal lady’s maid in her, and I am sure you treat her accordingly.” Penelope smiled, nodding as Mrs. Cooper continued. “That conflagration was out of control before our fool chit of a cook tossed water on a cooking oil fire. I haven’t the faintest idea where my lady found her, but anyone with a nose should have been able to smell the spoiled cooking oil underneath that fire, and anyone with a lick of sense would have known not to sling a full bucket of water on it.”

“You believe the fire was an accident?” asked Penelope.

“Hardly. We don’t use cheap vegetable oil, and that’s what the kitchen smelled like. And no matter how much water the girl threw at a kitchen fire, it wouldn’t set the attic on fire. And the attic was on fire before I knew about the kitchen fire.” Mrs. Cooper did sigh then, her breath rasping. She took another deep sip of the bitter liquid before continuing. “The only reason for opposite ends of the house to be on fire at the same time is if someone set it, Mrs. Bridgerton.”

The pair was interrupted by Anna and a footman in Smythe-Smith livery. Anna dropped a curtsey, and if Penelope didn’t know her maid as well as she did, she wouldn’t have seen than Anna was as exhausted as she was.   

“Pardon me, Mrs. Bridgerton, but Mr. Bridgerton has asked after you, ma’am. I think he wishes to turn toward home.”

“Of course. Thank you, Anna.” Penelope turned to Mrs. Cooper as she rose, gesturing for the older woman to stay seated. “If you need anything, please don’t hesitate to send to us. Mr. Bridgerton and I are happy to assist. Thank you for speaking with me.” Mrs. Cooper half smiled and lifted her cup in a ghost of a toast in acknowledgement as Penelope, Anna, and the footman left the kitchen.

Returning to the sitting room, Penelope found a much calmer ambience than she had left. Lord Holroyd was slumped in a chair across from the couch that Colin and Lord Smythe-Smith occupied, and the plush chair Felix still sat in seemed to be slowly swallowing him. Holroyd was staring into a glass of whiskey and chewing mindlessly on a bite of a sandwich that he held loosely in his other hand. Before she could drop the requisite curtsey, however, there were rapid footsteps behind Penelope that did not quite cover soft burbling noises. She stepped rapidly to one side as a doctor bearing a small bundle entered the room.

“My lord,” he announced, “may I present your son?”

All four men rose, and Colin clapped the new father and grandfather on their shoulders in congratulations. Lord Holroyd was awkward as he took his son from the physician, holding him like porcelain and at an awkward distance from his body rather than cuddling him close, as Colin always did with Daphne and Simon’s son, Augie; Kate and Anthony’s boys, Edmund and Miles; and even Benedict and Sophie’s newborn, Charles.

“What shall you name him, my lord?” the doctor asked. His high-handed tone and utter disinterest in Lady Holroyd—who had performed the hard work, in Penelope’s opinion—made her intensely appreciate the Bridgertons’ insistence on doctors speaking to the patient, whoever the patient may be. The rest of the ton looked on that as a peccadillo that was better not mentioned in polite society, but Penelope found she preferred the Bridgerton’s method. It made her feel more human.

Lord Holroyd looked poleaxed by the question. “Honoria and I had not—not made a decision, we expected to have more time…” Lord Smythe-Smith laughed at that, extended his arms for his grandson, and held him far more competently than his son-in-law had.

“The first one always comes sooner than you expect, Marcus,” he boomed, grinning. “Best to be prepared.”

Colin took Penelope’s clenched hand and slipped it through his arm; his other hand went to Felix’s neck in a gesture that he would vehemently disagree that he had picked up from Anthony.

“Our congratulations, Holroyd, Lord Smythe-Smith,” he said. “We wouldn’t dream of intruding on you any further, given the circumstances, so Mrs. Bridgerton and I will take our leave.” Both men nodded, still focused on the baby, as Colin steered Felix and Penelope, flanked by Anna, from the house and into the carriage in full morning light. Colin and Felix’s horses were on long lead reins.

Once safely in the carriage and out of the public eye, Colin held Penelope close, studiously ignoring Felix’s rolling eyes. One of his hands snaked around her waist, coming to rest over the place where Penelope carried a palm-sized mass of scar tissue from an attack that revealed her to the queen as Lady Whistledown. Early in their marriage, Colin had often found his hand there, as though to remind himself that Penelope was with him, had survived. He did not imagine that Pen had not noticed that habit, but neither had she said anything about it. Once he had noticed that he was doing it, he had shortly thereafter noticed that when he did, Pen tended to tuck more closely into his embrace. 

“I am grateful Mrs. Cooper remained behind to tell us where you ladies had disappeared to. My heart nearly stopped beating altogether when we couldn’t find you, and I think Holroyd would have burned the rest of Mayfair down to find his wife. Not that I would have blamed him,” said Colin.

“You don’t trust Anna to look after me?” teased Penelope.

Anna, voice and expression perfectly schooled to textbook lady’s maid’s politeness, deadpanned, “Mrs. Bridgerton makes keeping her safe and within the bounds of propriety an eminently simple task.” Colin laughed outright.

Underneath Colin’s laughter, Felix grumbled, “I see no reason I had to be dragged from my bed tonight. I am no firefighter, and I have no acquaintance with these people.”

Penelope’s momentary flash of hope that Colin wouldn’t hear Felix was dashed, and her own ire rose as Colin’s shoulders tensed, subtly squeezing her. Generally affable, extroverted, and far-too-willing-to-see-the-good-in-people Colin Bridgerton had, for some inexplicable reason, taken an immediate dislike to Felix. For Penelope’s sake, Colin had spent the first month going well out of his way to be cordial and to include Felix in his trips to White’s, daily activities, and even an early hunting trip. Unfortunately, that hunting trip had revealed Felix as a bluestocking; he had fallen from his horse to the general laughter of all the gentlemen present.

Colin’s attempt to make up for it by introducing Felix to Lumley and his extensive personal library ended in catastrophe—Felix somehow managed to drop an entire pot of tea over Lumley’s first-edition printing of Byron’s The Corsair and showed poor grace in his apology. Penelope had gone so far as to appeal to Lady Danbury for help in tracking down a replacement tome once Colin had washed his hands of the matter and would have simply covered the cost of the original. The two men seemed at odds, no matter the circumstances. And yet, through that initial period, Colin and Penelope had worked together to try to make Felix a welcome, comfortable part of their lives.

That had changed after the first fire of the season. Fife had nearly suffocated in his bed in his bachelor lodgings; only the presence of mind of his valet had saved the young lord’s life. Fife had taken over Colin’s bachelor lodgings after Colin and Penelope married, so once the alarm was raised, Colin had collected Felix and the men of the household to help contain the fire. Felix had—unintentionally, he protested—managed to constantly be in the way of the fire brigade, tripped Colin several times, and had so badly fouled the bucket chain that a second structure ignited. The second building was singed, but structurally sound. Fife’s lodgings had burned to the ground, and Fife himself had been ill from smoke inhalation for a month. To top it all off, Felix had gone on a tirade as Colin watched his gasping friend be rushed to a doctor about how inconvenient the entire affair had been for him personally.

Colin had hauled off and punched Felix when the younger man had groused, “men let each other go hang all the time; why should we bother to ignore that simply because of an inconvenience?” In the end, Colin had returned home alone, waked the household with shouting, and Penelope had collected Felix and seen to it that he had a steak for his black eye.

In the light of the morning, Colin had calmed himself enough to explain that a house fire was a threat to the community, which meant that everyone had a duty to pitch in. It was truly more than Penelope had expected of Colin; he had been raised with that Bridgerton ethos, and it had been solidified during his travels, particularly the ill-advised trips through unstable regions where not pulling together would have killed the entire party. He had little patience for selfish scheming—as had been amply demonstrated by his handling of Cousin Jack’s would-be ruby scheme—and he tended to feel that the Bridgerton perspective was self-evident and required no explanation. She had attributed his willingness to explain his reasoning to Felix as a combination of relief that Fife would recover and a desire to make this arrangement work for her sake.

Felix possessed sufficient self-preservation instincts not to argue with Colin during the impressive lecture he was read. He had also learned to stay out from underfoot at subsequent fires. None of that stopped him from privately grousing to Penelope about all the reasons he should not be required to perform menial labor that the fire brigade was paid to perform for people who sniggered at him behind their hands in public.

Penelope felt herself caught in an untenable situation. She knew all too well the feeling of being ridiculed, how it ate at a heart and soul. And yet, there was a feeling of poison in Felix that was unfamiliar to her, and it seriously concerned her. Lord knew that Penelope had her insecurities and things she did not like about herself, even the odd thing that she had thought her detractors were perhaps not wrong in identifying as deficient. And yet, she had always had Whistledown, the one thing she could hold on to when she thought she might simply fly apart into dust at the cruel laughter or her mother’s careless barbs. Felix seemed not only to lack such a certainty, but he was also transplanted. Penelope had always had familiar surroundings and refuges, but Felix had been sent from his home. Despite her best efforts to make her home Felix’s, he never seemed truly comfortable. None of that was any excuse for acting the scrub, but Penelope thought she could perhaps understand, if not excuse, his behavior.

That sense of understanding had steadily dissolved with each fire and each incident in which Felix had the option to respond with grace and simply did not.

The vibrations of a growl deep in Colin’s chest pulled Penelope from her reverie. The growl was low enough that even she did not hear it over the clatter of wheels and hooves on cobblestone streets, but it left her in little doubt of her husband’s temper.

“I am not having this conversation again,” he snapped. “You will keep your tongue behind your teeth, Felix. Have I made myself clear?”

Felix rolled his eyes, crossed his arms, and sighed, slumping back into his corner of the carriage. “Eminently, Mr. Bridgerton. Would you care to punch me again?”

Colin’s face went scarlet. Without a word, he pounded on the roof of the carriage, and bolted from it once it slowed enough not to break his legs. Moments later, Penelope watched him canter away on his horse toward their home. Colin had not apologized for the initial slap, and Penelope had not asked him to. He had privately confided in her that he was ashamed of the slap; he had allowed his temper and the situation to overcome him, and he felt he had behaved in an ungentlemanly fashion. How Felix had sussed that out, she could not imagine. She had initially thought that Felix had the same unfortunate tendency as Portia—to wound with words through a lack of sensitivity—but that barb had felt aimed and deliberate. Had she misread him? It had happened before, rarely. Penelope did not realize she had lifted an eyebrow to study her cousin until he glanced at her face, and an abashed look flitted across his countenance.

“I suppose you shall want me to apologize, Cousin?” he asked.  

“Not if you’re going to enjoy it.” As she heard herself say the words, Penelope’s brain caught up with her gut memory of the same expressions in Prudence and Philippa’s faces when they felt proud of a clumsy, backhanded apology. Had she not been exhausted, she might have raised her voice to her cousin for aiming such petty cruelty at Colin of all people. “It has been a trying night for everyone, and we are none of us at our best. Once we have slept, we should talk about this, you and I.”

“Cousin,” he protested, a whine creeping into his voice. “There is nothing to discuss. I simply feel no obligation to help a community I am so clearly not a part of.”

“Then we must work harder to bring you into the fold,” Penelope said, with what she hoped was enough finality to end the conversation there. As the carriage rounded the final corner, a familiar carriage parked before their home caught Penelope’s eye.

It seemed her rest would have to wait until after she and Lady Danbury had discussed the latest possible case of arson in Mayfair.

By the time Anna had gotten Penelope into a dress that was on the comfortable side of respectable for daywear, Lady Danbury had been settled in the front room with a cup of tea and a plate of biscuits. As Penelope walked in, she and her guest shared a smile.

“I could almost thank our arsonist twice over,” Lady Danbury remarked, without preamble. “Not only has he spared the ton a Smythe-Smith/Holroyd musicale, but he has spared you and I her Majesty’s displeasure about the amount of fuss Lords Holroyd and Smythe-Smith would have put up were they not distracted by the baby.”

“Lady Holroyd managed to save her violin, so I fear the musicale is less a reprieve than a stay of execution,” said Penelope, pouring herself a cup of tea and settling into her favorite chair, a battered, low-backed thing that had originally been overstuffed but softened with use to gently cradle anyone who sat there. It did nothing for proper posture, but after a sleepless night, Penelope could not have cared less.

“Ah.” Lady Danbury no longer tried to hide eye rolls from Penelope, who giggled.

“Surely you’re not here only to thank our arsonist,” she said. “Has something been found?”

Lady Danbury set down her teacup and reached into her pocket, pulling forth a bulky package wrapped in oilcloth. As she unwrapped it, Penelope’s sensitive nose wrinkled. Smoke, charred wood, burned paint, and—as Mrs. Cooper had mentioned—cheap vegetable oil that had turned and burned. In the package were a twisted hunk of charred metal and a slimy looking chunk of wood.

“I had my man in the Mayfair fire brigade on alert, and he delivered these to me early this morning,” said Lady Danbury. “He hasn’t any idea how the maids and that absurdly incompetent cook survived; that bit of metal is from a cast-iron frying pan. He thinks one of them flung a bucket of water on it, and the temperature shock shattered the metal.”

“I’ll have to drop a word in Lady Holroyd’s ear about her cook,” muttered Penelope.

“I’ve already spoken to her mother,” said Lady Danbury. “The girl is a menace. The wood, however, is somewhat interesting. I am told it is from a roof support beam of the kind commonly used in attics. It was found in a puddle of grease in a corner of the attic that fell away from the main house so it did not burn completely.”

“I spoke to Lady Holroyd’s housekeeper; she thinks the fire was set using cheap vegetable oil,” said Penelope, using a corner of the oilcloth to protect her hands as she turned the chunk of wood over. “This is the third incident we know of in which two fires were set at opposite ends of the house.”

“Have you found anything that can tell us how these fires are set?” asked Lady Danbury. “No one I have cajoled, bribed, or terrified into talking has had any theories; even the fire brigade is unsure how this is occurring. There are never any suspicious visitors or break-ins, and as far as anyone can tell, the fires begin simultaneously. I’m beginning to fear a pair of arsonists. One couldn’t set both fires and escape without notice, not with how quickly the fires spread.”

Penelope continued to turn over the shards for a moment before answering. “I see no way for a single person to achieve these results, but you know what they say, Lady Danbury. Two people can keep a secret if one of them is dead. I cannot imagine we should have lost six homes in Mayfair and not heard some rumor, some whisper of arson in the city. The problem with fire is that it consumes evidence, and it does so quickly. I have no alternative theory, but I also have not visited the Mayfair fire brigade today.” Lady Danbury’s lip curled at that.

“Yes, I am aware of your unique way of currying favor with them.”

“I’m sure you have also found that appreciation of a job well done can elicit information,” said Penelope.

“Yes, and without leaving a financial or paper trail,” said Lady Danbury. “Well, I shall not need to update the queen immediately, but she will not be happy to be without information for more than a day or two, Penelope. We must have a working theory for her soon. The ton are beginning to clamor to her for protection, and we still do not know who or what they need protecting from.”

Penelope sighed. “Yes, it seems that we have nothing but problems with no solutions.”

Lady Danbury raised an eyebrow. “That sigh seems to have more behind it than even the weight of an unknown number of arsonists. Is everything all right, Penelope?”

Penelope didn’t try to hide the small, ever-so-slightly sardonic smile that crossed her face at the question. It had not taken Lady Danbury long to be able to read her nearly as well as Colin and Eloise did. “Colin and Felix are firmly at loggerheads, I’m afraid,” she said.

“Ah. Is this the hunting incident or the Byron incident?”

“Either. Both. And Felix has been somewhat reluctant to come around to Colin’s way of seeing things when it comes to helping with the fires. I admit, I find myself at something of a loss.” Penelope picked at some invisible lint on her skirt. “I’m afraid I’ve read the entire situation wrong, Lady Danbury.”

Leaning across the small tea table, Lady Danbury took Penelope’s hand, interrupting her fussing. “Penelope Bridgerton, you listen to me. For all your remarkable gifts, you are still young, you are still newly married, and—forgive me for saying so—your mama’s family is still a thicket of brambles and nettles. I know you have heard the same rumors and gossip as I have. You and your Mr. Bridgerton have done everything—more—than could be reasonably expected to help Mr. Featherington acclimate to the ton and London society. I’ve never liked Cassius, but he is correct in his assessment that, for some men, the fault is truly in themselves rather than their stars. My second son was like that, and I suspect your cousin is as well. He will simply have to find his own way through the world. You may support him if you wish, Penelope, but he is not likely to thank you for it. I don’t believe you have read the situation wrong, my dear. Your instincts and your mind are top-notch; trust them.”

“I would trust myself, except… Colin mistrusts him. The only other person I’d ever seen Colin mistrust was Cousin Jack, and you know how that ended up.” Penelope’s gratification at Lady Danbury’s affirmation left a warm feeling in Penelope’s chest, but she still could not shake the feeling that she had misread something. Lady Danbury sat back, picking up her teacup.

“It could simply be frustration. Your Mr. Bridgerton is the rare generous soul in the ton, and your cousin is the antithesis of that. I shouldn’t worry too much, Penelope. After all, we have an arsonist to find.”

“Yes, I suppose we do,” said Penelope. The women spent another quarter hour chatting before Lady Danbury excused herself to meet with Queen Charlotte.

Despite her plans to visit the fire brigade with treats after Lady Danbury’s call, when Penelope put her teacup down, she found sitting in her comfortable chair in a sunbeam immensely appealing. When Colin entered the sitting room, Penelope’s head was pillowed on her arms, which were supported by one arm of the comfortable chair, fast asleep. He took a moment to admire how soft her expression was, and how the sunbeam she was sleeping in reflected off the fire that was her hair. He couldn’t remember a moment when she had looked more beautiful than she did just then. She did not so much as stir as he gently kissed her temple, scooped her up in his arms, and took her into their room. She murmured something incomprehensible when he put her down on their bed.

“Go back to sleep,” he whispered, climbing into bed beside her and pulling a light blanket over them. She burrowed into his side and settled once again.

[mythicalmongoose]

For a while now, I’ve seen complaints that Johnny hasn’t changed as a character. Or has changed but regressed in s4 or retreads old patterns ad infinitum. And I always get a little confused by that take because I feel like his has been one of the better character arcs on the show?

I’m not sure what people are waiting for. Character development =/= a character no longer making copious mistakes or having some big epiphany where they greet the world like Ebenezer Scrooge the next day and jaunt off to make amends with everyone they’ve wronged. Not all of their flaws go away and if they lessen, it’s gradually.

Johnny is always going to be a dumbass with a low emotional IQ. But he’s still a long way from where he started. For the most part, he’s not aimlessly meandering through life miserable anymore. He has a purpose. He can totally be derailed from it, but so far he’s gotten back on track. It happens; it would be unrealistic if it didn’t.

He’s more reasonable, better at recognizing when he fucks up and taking responsibility for that. To grab a couple of the more recent examples -- In season 4 he impulsively challenges Daniel to a fight and, despite initially handwaving away Miguel’s disappointment with his usual macho rhetoric, does ultimately realize that there’s probably a better way to work things out with Daniel.

But he’s technologically illiterate, accidentally drew an audience, and Daniel has had 24 hours to handwave Sam’s disappointment and decide, ‘No, this needs to happen, actually.’ He’s stubborn and refuses to take the out... Which is a character trait that’s part of some larger Daniel meta on the horizon, I’m sure.

Without going off on a Daniel + complicated grief + he’s a petty bitch (affectionate) tangent, “Don't you ever think you might be wrong about anything?“ is asked pretty reasonably. He’s willing to try talking it out again, but Daniel doesn’t want to hear the same “baseless argument” from the night before. And he has his reasons for feeling that way, but you really can’t expect Johnny to suss those out when even Daniel can’t and, even if he could, Daniel’s hangups aren’t his responsibility.

And then you’ve got what happens with Miguel at the end of the season. Johnny doesn’t have the context for why Miguel is so upset, and his emotional IQ is still perilously low. He fucks up but, when faced with the repercussions, immediately recognizes that, admits to it, and takes responsibility.

And, no, that isn’t something to applaud anyone for, but it IS character development. He can’t go back in time and fix past mistakes and he has a pretty limited skill-set when it comes to mending what he can. (Everything with Robby will go smoothly in s5, I am sure /s) He’s not a great person. He has fucked up and will, undoubtedly, continue to fuck up. At the same time, he is still markedly different than the Johnny we saw in s1. And, realistically, I’m not sure how much more you can expect without him becoming an entirely different character. Which I don’t really want, personally. I’m fond of this dumpster that is still on fire... but the fire is smaller now, less likely to burn down the whole neighborhood.

[abookishdreamer]

Character Intro: Hestia (Kingdom of Ichor)

Nicknames- Tia by the other Gods

The Heart of Olympius by the people of Olympius

Age- 30 (immortal)

Location- Hearthwood district, New Olympus

Personality- Hestia makes it her mission to be friendly with all the gods and the people. She’s very humble, down-to-earth, caring, and friendly. She’s definitely the most level-headed of the gods. She never turns away anyone who might need her help, but don’t mistake her kindness for being a pushover. She’s known to get angry if she sees someone less fortunate being taken advantage of. Hestia’s also known to be the peacemaker and voice of reason between the gods- giving unbiased advice. Hestia’s an aromantic asexual. She’s one of the eternal virgins. She doesn’t see the need for romantic and sexual relationships, instead dedicating her life into helping the community.

Being the goddess of the hearth, home, and family, Hestia can show people past visions of their family history. She also has the ability of pyrokinesis (her fire being a rich deep red color). She can also communicate/shapeshift into one of her sacred animals- the donkey, as well as mules, hinnies, and domesticated animals. She also has the ability of typhogenesis (smoke generation/manipulation), fire/heat immunity, & fire mimicry. She can also induce the feeling of serenity in others and can even turn one singular ingredient into an entire meal (for example- one egg into an omelet).

Her immediate family includes her mother Anchiale (Titaness of fire), her father Hecaterus (Titan god of manual labor), her older brother Ktesios (god of the household), her younger brother Adranos (god of fire), her sister-in-law Soteria (goddess of safety), & her nieces Eleos (Ellie) (goddess of mercy, compassion, & pity) and Eulabeia (goddess of caution).

She lives in this cute quaint cottage estate in the Hearthwood neighborhood of New Olympus. There’s also the family log cabin made out of mahogany (that she owns with her parents & brother) located in the state of Argos. Their cabin has a hearth that perpetually burns a deep crimson eternal fire- perfect for roasting marshmallows!

Hestia is probably one of the top three gods that have the highest approval rating amongst the people of Olympius!

Her signature dessert, the honey cake, is Olympius’ national dessert!

She’s also one of the busiest too. Hestia operates many businesses including nationwide bakeries (Hollyhock's Bakery), diners (The Hearthside Diner), coffee shops (The Roasted Bean), pottery studios (Sparkling Ember), food banks, & homeless shelters. Hestia was also a major supporter of Queen Hera’s bill, The HHI (Harpies Housing Initiative). She has a home decor business a.k.a home furniture stores (A Hearth Design)- including kitchen appliances, dinnerware, and bathroom products. Hestia also co- hosts her brother’s home improvement show on TV & does online cooking shows on Fatestagram. She also runs a popular magazine called Hearthside.

Hestia also has an official glamour doll collectible. The sales from those went towards charity.

Her bakeries and diners are very popular in Olympius. Even though she has the ability to generate & conjure up delicious food without a second thought, she opts for cooking the “mortal way," enjoying the actual process of making food.

Her eternal flame (which burns a rich red- the same color as her own fire) is situated in the city's square.

She gives free cooking classes at the local community center in downtown New Olympus on the weekends.

Hestia once gave each deity a quilt she made herself!

She’s always the champion of inclusivity & diversity when it comes to hiring people for her businesses.

Hestia is a HUGE animal lover! She has many pets including a yorkie named Brownie, a siberian husky named Lulu, two french bulldogs named Salsa and Guacamole, two guinea pigs named Peach and Coco, three cats named Daisy, Honey, and Lavender, and four rabbits named Blueberry, Hazelnut, Princess, & Yum Yum.

She generally has a good relationship with the other gods in the pantheon. She was the first to reach out to a formerly exiled deity- Rhea (Titaness of fertility, motherhood, & comfort). The only person she's not in contact with & doesn't seek out is Priapus (god of fertility, vegetable gardens, livestock, sexuality, & masculinity). Hestia was an official mentor to Pandaisia (goddess of banquets).

Her favorite milkshake is the hazelnut caramel with a honey swirl. She also enjoys red wine, hot chocolate, sparkling water, white wine, sparkling lemonade, mimosas, iced tea, lemon drop martinis, & the french blonde (a drink made with elderflower liqueur, gin, white wine, grapefruit juice, and orange bitters).

Hestia’s even taken up beekeeping as a little hobby.

Hestia’s proud of her plus-size figure! She’ll rock the most fashionable vintage bathing suit while out on the beach. Her personal style is a perfect mix of late 40's/early 1950's vintage.

After a long day at work, when she gets home, Hestia’s favorite meal to make for herself is honey-lemon glazed fried chicken, baked mac n’ cheese, roasted potatoes, and spinach & kale feta salad topped off with a glass of red wine.

In her free time she loves doing pottery, spending time with friends & family, gardening, bike riding, reading, writing in her journal, knitting, sewing, roasting marshmallows or popping popcorn by her fireplace, baking, and cooking.

“I just want people to know when they see the eternal flame, no matter how lost they are, they are never far from home."

[thefvllsun]

jaemin

here:

❥ "touch me, tease me, feel me up" - love talk

actual name: talk to my skin

❥ "rebound"

actual name: on your rebound

synopsis: A public, handsy encounter with your schools’ star shooting guard sparks a string of run-ins on campus that can’t simply be downplayed as coincidences. After acknowledging the sudden spike in brushes, a connection blossoms between the two of you.

❥ night night

actual name: game night

❥ "yes, i can"

actual name: can you keep a secret? ♡

summary: after an unresolved conflict with photography club president na jaemin leaves him feeling sour, he's more than elated to find you head to toe in a skimpy maid dress at a cafe in the next town over.

fearing that your reputation as student body president is about to crumble right in front of you, jaemin assures you that he is more than willing to keep a secret.

but at what cost?

❥ stars 🌟

actual name: like the stars

summary: you'd had a crush on renjun for as long as you could remember, but your lack of experience always stopped you from taking the first step; it's a good thing you have your trusted friend jaemin to help you out

❥ “speak of the devil”

actual name: be there for you (m)

preview: “How can you be so ungrateful?” Jaemin pinches your chin with a sneer, jerking your neck back to look at him. “I’ve always been here for you. I watched over you, I made sure you survived.”

“You dragged me to hell!” You shout trying to twist out of his death grip.

“I saved your pathetic soul.” Jaemin snaps, pressing his nose against yours. “I sculpted you into everything you’ve become.”

“What do you want from me?”

Jaemin dips in further, blackened orbs burning straight into your mind. Lips writing words over yours with a low hiss ringing in your ears- “Everything.”

❥ the🦉& the 🌙

actual name: the owl and the moon | n.jm

synopsis: You’re stuck living a life that you don’t want, but when the boy with the owl tattoo catches your gaze from across the parking lot, you feel like you finally have the chance to be free.

❥ “Back 2 U (AM 1:27)”

actual name: back to you | n.jm

synopsis: They say whatever happens in the past comes back to haunt you in the future, but you don’t expect it to come in the form of the man who once loved you all those years ago.

To make things worse, he just so happens to be your daughter’s second-grade teacher and as your sudden crush on him grows, you have to face the fact that he’s got a ring on his finger and you don’t.

❥ thin walls

actual name: thin walls

summary: you try your best to keep quiet since you know jaemin’s room is right next to yours. turns out you’re not as quiet as you think.

❥ good morning

actual name: kiss you goodnight | n.jm

summary: you wake up, horny from a dream, only to witness your beloved boyfriend sleeping next to you.

❥ mission impossible (?)

actual name: rock me

summary: When you're hired as the band's hair stylist and don’t fall for Jaemin's charm immediately, he takes special interest in you, and makes it his mission to break you down and get you on your knees.

❥ truth or dare

actual name: all mine

summary: a ridiculous dare has you pushed back into the company of na jaemin, the true bane of your existence.

❥ oops!

actual name: oh! my mistake ; na jaemin

preview: ❝ this is such a girl code violation ❞

na jaemin, the college heartthrob and a part of your large friend group. he was also your best friends long term ex boyfriend. that's what you should've reminded yourself before you started sneaking around with the boy. oh god... when the truth comes out you're gonna be so done.

well, thats IF the truth comes out.

❥ backseat chronicles - n.jm | ridin' club

actual name: backseat chronicles - n.jm | ridin' club

synopsis: There is no reasonable explanation as to why or how you always end up in the backseat of Na Jaemin’s beloved car.

Almost routinely, he picks you up around ten in the evening with the stereo blasting the raunchiest lyrics for your entire suburban neighborhood to hear. The entire night remains purely friendly, a dabble of flirtatious comments because well, it’s Jaemin for fuck sakes. But all it takes is one suggestive gaze from his dark, lustful eyes and a drop in his voice that rumbles your core to have you climbing over the seats to get to the back.

❥ you're the only one

actual name: jaemin: the confident

synopsis: Stumbling out into the dark hallway, you didn’t expect to encounter the one housemate that only ever has eyes on you. Jaemin finally makes you realize just how special you are to him.

❥ something to prove

actual name: something to prove

warnings/summary: enemies to lovers, smut, mentions of drinking, vaguely dub con, fingering, oral (reader receiving), penetrative, degradation, public. And where Jaemin is kind immature dick, the reader is an emotional masochist, and together they’re both fucking morons, so I hope you enjoy. (Also sorry Jeno I used you for story development)

❥ “everywhere i go, bring the beatbox”

actual name: beatbox (m)

preview: “Hey hey, you a new transfer?”

The boy next to you appears horrified, offended with his jaw hung loose. Round eyes more pronounced behind bifocal frames, he splutters, licking at his prominent two front teeth.

“I’ve been in this class all year! You transferred into my grade! 10 years ago!”

“Huh?” You shrug, prodding the inside of your cheek in thought. “Really? Weird.”

“Y-yo-you have to be joking!”

“Anyway,” you flick his chin, smirking. “I need a tutor.”

❥ to the rescue

actual name: nothing more? | jaemin x y/n

summary: you were always getting into all sorts of trouble at your new apartment. and the person to always help you as if he was your hero - it’s na jaemin. your hot neighbour was always ready to drop whatever he was doing to come sort out your problems. But, he’s just your neighbour, nothing more. So you assume...

❥ love so sweet

actual name: hometown sugary ; na jaemin

synopsis: when she was fifteen, three crooked front teeth, acne line on her cheek, hair cut short around her ears and baggy clothes on her frame, kity kim left her hometown. she left the perfect kimchi fried rice of her too curious but oh kind neighbour, her school's music room with the worn piano that still smelled of damp rain, the roof of the old abandoned building, so high it could almost touch the sky and the stars, her messy but lovely group of friends, but more importantly ─ she left them.

. . . in which! twins kity and blair, despite their difference, shares the fact of having always been inseparable with their big honey eyes, jawline sharp, pretty smile childhood best friend, na jaemin ; until kity left town. years later, she’s back, and oh, so much changed. like, how for an unknown reason, jaemin seems to hate her guts more than anything.

❥ heart for two

actual name: heart for two

summary: you're in love with both jeno and jaemin

❥ love me

actual name: too good for me ── ・ ♡

❥ reputation

actual name: 𝔯𝔢𝔭𝔲𝔱𝔞𝔱𝔦𝔬𝔫 — a luvpuffcore collab.

inspiration: ❝ let me say it again, louder for those in the back... we think we know someone, but the truth is that we only know the version of them that they have chosen to show us. there will be no further explanation. there will be just reputation. ❞

❥ [MASQUERADE]

actual name: [MASQUERADE]

summary: An incubus created a subliminal to feed off humans sexual energy, what happens when you become one of his victims?

❥ "missed you <3" na jaemin × fem.reader ☆ nsfw

actual name: "missed you <3" na jaemin × fem.reader ☆ nsfw

summary: w/ unprotected sex, filthy shit

❥ DUNK SHOT

actual name: DUNK SHOT

synopsis: you had no intent on getting into a relationship but then you bump into a familiar face, na jaemin, who has an offer your sex craved self simply can't resist.

❥ the way life goes

actual name: the way life goes

synopsis: for three months, after a hard breakup with your ex, you refuse to let another man worm his way into your life even if it was for love or pleasure to avoid that ugly feeling of heartbreak... but then you bump into jaemin

❥ 💃🏻

actual name: dirty dancing

❥ off limits?

actual name: — NO LIMITS , JAEMIN

synopsis: out of all the people in the world, you seem to have fallen for the one you swore was off limits.

[christophersenlopez48]

Interested In Investing In Real Estate? Try These Tips And Tricks

As with any new business venture, knowledge is truly the key to power. The right investments can make you lots of money. Continue reading to learn the basics of investing in real estate. Know that your reputation will be incredibly important when you enter into this endeavor. Thus, you must consistently keep your promises and maintain complete honesty in your dealings. This gives you credibility and will help people to be loyal to you. Get a feel of the values of properties near yours. Knowing what the rent and mortgage if other properties is will give you a better idea of what the value of your property is. Looking at the situation from the street level helps you make better decisions. Join online forums, blogs, or other groups. This helps you stay privy to valuable information concerning the real estate market. meyer blue of the bloggers may be interested in mentoring you. Obviously, you want any property that you invest in to go up in value. Purchasing a home near a body of water, for example, is generally a good idea. Figure out how much the price is likely to rise in a given amount of time. Look over the entire neighborhood before buying a property. If it is a good neighborhood then chances are the value will remain high, but property in a bad area could end up being a bad investment. Location is a top factor when it comes to property value, even more than the actual property itself. Having a good handyman will facilitate the process when you buy an investment property. If not, you may find you cash going to unnecessary repair expenses. A skilled handyman can handle lots of different jobs. It is also a benefit to have a handyman on call for your tenants. Don't purchase real estate that is in a less than desirable neighborhood. Location is extremely important when buying real estate. Do your homework before you make a decision. Try to avoid areas with a lot of crime. This can lead to problems down the road when trying to sell the property. You may want to use a property management service. Even though you have to pay for it, the services are worth your investment. An experienced property management company can effectively screen potential tenants as well as managing repairs and maintenance. This frees up time to look for more properties. You must consider location when you look at real estate. Even a run down home in a great location is better than a nice home in a bad one. Think about the location of the property you want, and consider ways to work with this to maximize your profits. Never go into freehold condo sg with the all-in mentality as you will need a financial cushion in the bank when things go awry. When you invest in real estate, you'll often not be able to access the money for a while. Don't invest in real estate at the expense of daily living. Think about stepping outside your comfort zone and investing in both residential and business properties. Business properties provide opportunities in rental income, and these investments can be lucrative. You can even get a small strip mall or a complex for a business, and this presents a lot of options when you decide to invest in properties. If you want to start a side business or build a career in real estate investment, you should get started right away. Procrastination is a big mistake in the real estate market. You may miss out on investment opportunities if you wait too long. Don't spend all of your money on the actual purchase. Always make sure you have reserve cash in case something happens that you do not expect. If you fly by the seat of your pants with no capital on hand, you will eventually crash and burn. Check the economic outlook in the area you want to buy a house in. Property prices will stay low if the unemployment rates are high. This can cause you to get very little on your return or none. Property values are higher in areas where the economy is booming. Learning more about the benefits and pitfalls of real estate investment is a very wise decision. The information listed above will help you make wise choices and help prevent failure. Be methodical and plan out your moves so that you can succeed in achieving your goals.

[justalildumpling]

the amount of typos i made help😭

anyways the answers to those questions forever shall be a mystery

and LMAO trust me I'm scared too but I'll be like it's just a ghost in the game no way it's gonna come out and do smth but I'll be getting nightmares abt ir but i still play it the very next day

And HAHA HELP

He rlly would burn down the entire neighborhood if he could fr

brooo don't even worry, i make so many grammar mistakes on a daily basis it's actually concerning😭😭😭

i can't even, i will legit stay up all night because of one scary story/photo/game etc💀

my god hyuck is both a menace irl and in game frfr

[sandersolsson14]

Interested In Investing In Real Estate? Try These Tips And Tricks

As with any new business venture, knowledge is truly the key to power. The right investments can make you lots of money. Continue reading to learn the basics of investing in real estate. Know that your reputation will be incredibly important when you enter into this endeavor. Thus, you must consistently keep your promises and maintain complete honesty in your dealings. This gives you credibility and will help people to be loyal to you. Get a feel of the values of properties near yours. Knowing what the rent and mortgage if other properties is will give you a better idea of what the value of your property is. Looking at the situation from the street level helps you make better decisions. Join online forums, blogs, or other groups. This helps you stay privy to valuable information concerning the real estate market. One of the bloggers may be interested in mentoring you. Obviously, you want any property that you invest in to go up in value. Purchasing a home near a body of water, for example, is generally a good idea. Figure out how much the price is likely to rise in a given amount of time. Look over the entire neighborhood before buying a property. If it is a good neighborhood then chances are the value will remain high, but property in a bad area could end up being a bad investment. Location is a top factor when it comes to property value, even more than the actual property itself. Having a good handyman will facilitate the process when you buy an investment property. If not, you may find you cash going to unnecessary repair expenses. A skilled handyman can handle lots of different jobs. It is also a benefit to have a handyman on call for your tenants. Don't purchase real estate that is in a less than desirable neighborhood. Location is extremely important when buying real estate. Do your homework before you make a decision. Try to avoid areas with a lot of crime. This can lead to problems down the road when trying to sell the property. You may want to use a property management service. Even though you have to pay for it, the services are worth your investment. An experienced property management company can effectively screen potential tenants as well as managing repairs and maintenance. This frees up time to look for more properties. You must consider location when you look at real estate. Even a run down home in a great location is better than a nice home in a bad one. Think about the location of the property you want, and consider ways to work with this to maximize your profits. Never go into an investment with the all-in mentality as you will need a financial cushion in the bank when things go awry. When you invest in real estate, you'll often not be able to access the money for a while. Don't invest in real estate at the expense of daily living. Think about stepping outside your comfort zone and investing in both residential and business properties. Business properties provide opportunities in rental income, and these investments can be lucrative. You can even get a small strip mall or a complex for a business, and this presents a lot of options when you decide to invest in properties. If you want to start a side business or build a career in real estate investment, you should get started right away. Procrastination is a big mistake in the real estate market. You may miss out on investment opportunities if you wait too long. 문화전당역 중흥s클래스 spend all of your money on the actual purchase. Always make sure you have reserve cash in case something happens that you do not expect. If you fly by the seat of your pants with no capital on hand, you will eventually crash and burn. Check the economic outlook in the area you want to buy a house in. Property prices will stay low if the unemployment rates are high. This can cause you to get very little on your return or none. Property values are higher in areas where the economy is booming. Learning more about the benefits and pitfalls of real estate investment is a very wise decision. The information listed above will help you make wise choices and help prevent failure. Be methodical and plan out your moves so that you can succeed in achieving your goals.

[kiilerich82cowan]

Interested In Investing In Real Estate? Try These Tips And Tricks

As with any new business venture, knowledge is truly the key to power. The right investments can make you lots of money. Continue reading to learn the basics of investing in real estate. Know that your reputation will be incredibly important when you enter into this endeavor. Thus, you must consistently keep your promises and maintain complete honesty in your dealings. This gives you credibility and will help people to be loyal to you. Get a feel of the values of properties near yours. Knowing what the rent and mortgage if other properties is will give you a better idea of what the value of your property is. Looking at the situation from the street level helps you make better decisions. Join online forums, blogs, or other groups. This helps you stay privy to valuable information concerning the real estate market. One of the bloggers may be interested in mentoring you. Obviously, you want any property that you invest in to go up in value. Purchasing a home near a body of water, for example, is generally a good idea. Figure out how much the price is likely to rise in a given amount of time. Look over the entire neighborhood before buying a property. If it is a good neighborhood then chances are the value will remain high, but property in a bad area could end up being a bad investment. Location is a top factor when it comes to property value, even more than the actual property itself. Having a good handyman will facilitate the process when you buy an investment property. If not, you may find you cash going to unnecessary repair expenses. A skilled handyman can handle lots of different jobs. It is also a benefit to have a handyman on call for your tenants. Don't purchase real estate that is in a less than desirable neighborhood. Location is extremely important when buying real estate. Do your homework before you make a decision. Try to avoid areas with a lot of crime. This can lead to problems down the road when trying to sell the property. You may want to use a property management service. Even though you have to pay for it, the services are worth your investment. An experienced property management company can effectively screen potential tenants as well as managing repairs and maintenance. This frees up time to look for more properties. You must consider location when you look at real estate. Even a run down home in a great location is better than a nice home in a bad one. Think about the location of the property you want, and consider ways to work with this to maximize your profits. Never go into an investment with the all-in mentality as you will need a financial cushion in the bank when things go awry. When you invest in real estate, you'll often not be able to access the money for a while. Don't invest in real estate at the expense of daily living. Think about stepping outside your comfort zone and investing in both residential and business properties. Business properties provide opportunities in rental income, and these investments can be lucrative. You can even get a small strip mall or a complex for a business, and this presents a lot of options when you decide to invest in properties. If you want to start a side business or build a career in real estate investment, you should get started right away. Procrastination is a big mistake in the real estate market. You may miss out on investment opportunities if you wait too long. Don't spend all of your money on the actual purchase. Always make sure you have reserve cash in case something happens that you do not expect. If you fly by the seat of your pants with no capital on hand, you will eventually crash and burn. Check the economic outlook in the area you want to buy a house in. Property prices will stay low if the unemployment rates are high. This can cause you to get very little on your return or none. Property values are higher in areas where the economy is booming. Learning asfalt kesim makinası about the benefits and pitfalls of real estate investment is a very wise decision. The information listed above will help you make wise choices and help prevent failure. Be methodical and plan out your moves so that you can succeed in achieving your goals.

[abildtrupbain8]

Interested In Investing In Real Estate? Try These Tips And Tricks

As with any new business venture, knowledge is truly the key to power. The right investments can make you lots of money. Continue reading to learn the basics of investing in real estate. Know that your reputation will be incredibly important when you enter into this endeavor. Thus, you must consistently keep your promises and maintain complete honesty in your dealings. This gives you credibility and will help people to be loyal to you. Get a feel of the values of properties near yours. Knowing what the rent and mortgage if other properties is will give you a better idea of what the value of your property is. Looking at the situation from the street level helps you make better decisions. Join online forums, blogs, or other groups. This helps you stay privy to valuable information concerning the real estate market. One of the bloggers may be interested in mentoring you. Obviously, you want any property that you invest in to go up in value. Purchasing a home near a body of water, for example, is generally a good idea. Figure out how much the price is likely to rise in a given amount of time. Look over the entire neighborhood before buying a property. If it is a good neighborhood then chances are the value will remain high, but property in a bad area could end up being a bad investment. Location is a top factor when it comes to property value, even more than the actual property itself. Having a good handyman will facilitate the process when you buy an investment property. If not, you may find you cash going to unnecessary repair expenses. A skilled handyman can handle lots of different jobs. It is also a benefit to have a handyman on call for your tenants. Don't purchase real estate that is in a less than desirable neighborhood. Location is extremely important when buying real estate. Do your homework before you make a decision. Try to avoid chothuenhapho.vn with a lot of crime. This can lead to problems down the road when trying to sell the property. You may want to use a property management service. Even though you have to pay for it, the services are worth your investment. An experienced property management company can effectively screen potential tenants as well as managing repairs and maintenance. This frees up time to look for more properties. You must consider location when you look at real estate. Even a run down home in a great location is better than a nice home in a bad one. Think about the location of the property you want, and consider ways to work with this to maximize your profits. Never go into an investment with the all-in mentality as you will need a financial cushion in the bank when things go awry. When you invest in real estate, you'll often not be able to access the money for a while. Don't invest in real estate at the expense of daily living. Think about stepping outside your comfort zone and investing in both residential and business properties. Business properties provide opportunities in rental income, and these investments can be lucrative. You can even get a small strip mall or a complex for a business, and this presents a lot of options when you decide to invest in properties. If you want to start a side business or build a career in real estate investment, you should get started right away. Procrastination is a big mistake in the real estate market. You may miss out on investment opportunities if you wait too long. Don't spend all of your money on the actual purchase. Always make sure you have reserve cash in case something happens that you do not expect. If you fly by the seat of your pants with no capital on hand, you will eventually crash and burn. Check the economic outlook in the area you want to buy a house in. Property prices will stay low if the unemployment rates are high. This can cause you to get very little on your return or none. Property values are higher in areas where the economy is booming. Learning more about the benefits and pitfalls of real estate investment is a very wise decision. The information listed above will help you make wise choices and help prevent failure. Be methodical and plan out your moves so that you can succeed in achieving your goals.

[ratsoh-writes]

@scienceisfood has spoken lol

More oddly specific things that could kill the skelebros!!

Sans: being mistaken as the Michelin tire man

Papyrus: being gifted a tooth necklace only to find out the teeth are real

Star: a small room where all the walls are white plaster and the only thing left for entertainment is a single crayon that is also white

Honey: no matter how hard he cleans, his oven has this weird meaty smell that just won’t go away like something crawled and died in there.

Red: being trapped in a room full of extroverted happy soccer moms

Edge: getting coughed on multiple times in public but his hands are full so he can’t smack a b*tch

Mal: putting on face paint only to find its permanent. He has become the clown he’s always feared

Cash: biting into a pepper and not being able to taste the burn. In fact, nothing is hot anymore, there’s no spice in his life, everything tastes like sugar, god is dead

Oak: a roomba that has flashing lights, smells like windex and has a butter knife taped to the end at ankle height

Willow: one day, chaos acts like a normal chihuahua and never goes back.

Charm: watching cats 2019 while eating some edibles

Sugar: when that little sh*t with the Cheeto dust fingers sprints into the wedding dress closet

Lord: those packed subway trains in Tokyo. And the creepy old guys have mistakes lord for a schoolgirl

Mutt: having his fan base find the 50k word hunger games smut fanfic he wrote as a joke

Wine: kfc deciding to change their gravy recipie to make it more “low fat”.

Coffee: every single goddamn McDonald’s ice cream machine in ebott being down

Pop: a 12 pack of Red Bull and a bag of pixie sticks

Rhythm: parents demanding a twerk class for their kids

Pluto: finding out that the earth really is flat

Jupiter: waking up one day, looking in the mirror, and seeing that his beautiful muscly arms have become twigs

G: getting every single red light on an hour long bike ride. Every. single. light.

Green: scooping up one of those spiders with a piece of paper and having it explode into hundreds of tiny spiders

Peaches: always breaking the yolk of an egg when he crack it open. Never being able to make a proper omelette again

Rancher: finding out someone made an onlyfans for his farm animals

Snipe: being sent an untraceable package. Inside the large box is a series of smaller boxes until finally he opens the smallest box and inside is a single Kit Kat. There’s a bite taken out. No dna signature was left behind

Bruiser: having to jump an electrified fence while running from the cops. And on the other side of the fence is a pack of small angry dogs

Butch: being told he looks just like his father

Boss: getting a brand new suit and getting splashed by a car the second he steps out the door

Ace: a whole year where nothing illegal happens, no death, no murders, no mysteries. Just boring uneventful peace

Slim: wario x waliuigi brony style fanart

Rust: being about to fix the blockage in the sink when he sees one of the kids reach for the drainage disposal switch

Noir: going out of town to come back and find that a leak in the roof has spilled into his entire bookcase

Lilac: all of his prosthetic legs mysteriously being two inches shorter

Basil: one nice big neighborhood holiday barbecue would do the trick. The ones with the burgers, hot dogs and bacon sizzling on the grill filling the neighborhood with that delicious scent of freedom

[sturchling]

First off I love your Miraculous Ladybug fics. Also I don't know if you are a Black Butler fan or not. But if you are could you please do a fic where Lila causes a that destroys Marinette's home/bakery, which kills Marinette's parents and severely injures Marinette. While in the hospital recovering Roland finds out what Lila did and talks with Gina, both recently have been diagnosed with cancer and want to make sure Marinette is taken care of when they die. Gina or Roland remember a story told to them by a descendant of the Phantomhive servants (In this fic it follows season 2 with Sebastian being able to get Ciel's memories back before Claude tried to brainwash him and was able to eat Ciel's soul) (either from when Gina was in traveling in England or someone who Roland's father knew during WWII) about a demon who acted like a caretaker for a child in the late 1800's. They both decide to sacrifice themselves so Marinette can be cared for. One summons Sebastian the other summons Claude. The terms of the contract are simple, in exchange for eating the soul of the person who summoned their specific demon the summoned demon would care for Marinette, act as her guardian, help her achieve her dreams, and care for her, her husband and their children until Marinette passes away from old age. The contract is accepted with both demons. While caring for Marinette it becomes sort of a contest between the two demons of them trying to out do each other in different ways (if Claude gets her multiple roles of different color spider silk fabric, Sebastian "accidentally" gets Marinette introduced to several high ranking nobles ["Hello, my ancestor worked for your ancestor's peer. What a small world. Might I introduce you to my ward?"] that become her clients. Due to the two demons' shenanigans Lila gets exposed, the Butterfly and Peacock are recovered, Adrien's mother is awakened, Marinette gets some real friends (Will, Ronald, Grell, and the Undertaker got reincarnated and regain their memories after a while) and falls in love with her future husband (either Will, Ronald, or the Undertaker. The only reason I don't do this fic myself is I can't write Black Butler characters even though it's one of my favorite animes.

Sorry this took so long, I wanted to try my best to make the characters accurate, so I had to rewatch some of the show. I hope I did good, but I am pretty rusty, writing these characters. But I tried my best! Hope you like it!

Lila was getting more and more dangerous. She didn't just want to ruin Marinette's social life anymore. Now she wanted to ruin her entire life, or even end it. One night, when everyone was asleep, Lila broke into the bakery and started a fire. She made sure that it would spread to the upper floors and then she raced from the building before she was spotted.

The fire spread quickly and soon the entire building, bakery and the apartment were completely engulfed. Marinette woke up to the smell of smoke and Tikki yelling in her ear. Despite the kwami screaming at her to leave the apartment, Marinette raced down to her parents room, to see if they had gotten out, but the door was blocked by debris falling from the ceiling. The thick black smoke was choking Marinette as she tried in vain to get to her parents. By the time Tikki managed to convince Marinette that they had to leave, Marinette was severely burned on her arms, legs, and back. As she blindly felt her way to the exit, a now exposed wooden beam in the ceiling, came crashing down, landing on Marinette's legs. With her legs pinned and unable to move, Marinette passed out. Thankfully firefighters had already been called and pulled Marinette from the flames before it was too late. On lookers from the neighborhood watched in horror as the bakery went up in flames. Once the fire was put out and Marinette was sent to the closest hospital, the firefighters went into the apartment and found Tom and Sabine. They had died in their room, unable to get out because of the debris blocking their door.

The next morning, the whole city seemed to be grieving. Tom and Sabine were well loved people in the city and everyone was distraught over the loss. But no one was more distraught than Marinette and her grandparents. Roland and Gina heard about the fire early that morning and were horrified to learn that Tom and Sabine were gone. But their one piece of solace was that Marinette had survived. They both raced to the hospital and comforted their granddaughter. But they had a bigger problem. Both Gina and Roland were getting older, now both in their late 80's. Both of them also had several severe health conditions and likely wouldn't be around for much longer as it is. And then who would take care of Marinette? That is when Gina remembered a story she had heard when she was in England. A story of two boys in the Victorian era who had made deals with demons, and those demons took care of the boys. Soon after, both boys' souls were eaten by their respective demons. As much as Gina and Roland didn't want to leave Marinette, they thought that this was the best thing for her. The only way to know that she would truly be cared for.

That night, after they left the hospital, they summoned the demons the same way as in the story Gina heard. The room became dark with shadow and two voices spoke from the darkness, asking the two elderly people why they had been summoned. "We summoned you to make a deal. Our granddaughter has recently lost her parents and we likely will not be around much longer as it is. We heard stories about how you two cared for two boys in the Victorian era in exchange for their respective souls. In exchange for our souls, we want you to take care of our Marinette. To help her achieve her goals, protect her, and care for her until she dies. Both demons agreed to the deal. After all, they had already cared for children before, so they had the skills to do it, and the souls of these two people who would willingly do this for their granddaughter would be nice to have. With the contract sealed, Gina and Roland wrote in their wills that Marinette was to be cared for by Sebastian and Claude, claiming they were old family friends. They also took the two demons to meet Marinette, so that Marinette would at least meet the two before they began caring for her. Once the legalities were taken care of and Marinette had met the two, Sebastian and Claude took their payment and Gina and Roland died.

Marinette was overcome with the grief of not just losing her parents, but now her grandparents as well. Sebastian and Claude, who her grandparents had recently introduced her to, were declared her guardians and began watching over her. Roland had left Marinette his house, so she had somewhere to live. While Marinette began to settle into the new normal of her life, Sebastian and Claude got to work on the first order of business. They were going to get justice for Marinette's parents. They knew that the fire was not an accident and that someone had set it on purpose. The evidence was obvious, but the police were stuck. They didn't know who did it. But Sebastian and Claude quickly learned that it was a girl named Lila who had been tormenting their charge for years now. All they had to do was phone in an anonymous tip to the police about the girl, and the police searched Lila's apartment. Mrs. Rossi kept sayin this was a mistake and her daughter couldn't have done this, but the police soon found evidence of her involvement, including the accelerant used at the bakery. Lila was confused, sure that she had gotten rid of it all. But Lila was arrested quickly, as a crowd had now grown outside of her apartment building. Several members of Mrs. Bustier's class were there and saw Lila being dragged out in cuffs. As Paris looked on in horror at the arsonist that had killed the Dupain-Chengs, no one noticed the shadow like figures standing to the side, smiling coldly at the scene.

They also quickly figured out that Marinette was Ladybug and even figured out that Adrien was Chat Noir when he came over to check on Marinette. They learned this by sensing the souls of the kwami. Since the kwami's souls are obviously not human, and Marinette kept disappearing during the akuma attacks, it didn't take long for the demons to be sure of their suspicion that Marinette was Ladybug. After confirming this, they felt that defeating Hawkmoth fell under their duty of caring for Marinette so they set out to find out who Hawkmoth was. They were able to sense the souls of other kwami in the city. They sensed two other kwami in Adrien's house. With only two kwami present in the house, they were certain that this was the location of Hawkmoth. To confirm this, Claude used a smaller version of his demon form to enter the manor and watch the residents of the house. Claude soon saw Gabriel and Natalie transform with the missing miraculous. Now that they had confirmation, it was time to end Hawkmoth.

The two demons began to plague Gabriel and Natalie with nightmares and torment them constantly. In each nightmare, they made it abundantly clear that this was because of their actions as Hawkmoth and Mayura. Soon, Gabriel and Natalie could hardly sleep and were almost driven completely mad. They surrendered to Ladybug and the miraculous were recovered. Gabriel and Natalie were sent to prison for their crimes. When Marinette learned why Gabriel had done everything and what happened to Emilie, she used everything she had learned about magic to help revive her. Sebastian and Claude lent some of their power to this endeavor as well, not wanting their charge to exhaust herself in the attempt. Adrien had his mom back, and the two moved to England to get away from all the trouble Gabriel had caused as Hawkmoth.

With all the major problems in Marinette's life taken care of, Marinette could relax a bit and focus on her fashion. While she thought it was odd that her grandparents had left her in Sebastian and Claude's care, she did think they were doing a wonderful job. They helped to support all her dreams, any way they could. Claude once brought her several different rolls of fabric made from spider silk. This of course, renewed the rivalry between the two demons. Sebastian brought Marinette to England, making the excuse that it was to see her friend. While there, Sebastian made sure to 'run into' the descendants of some old friends. Several nobles and aristocrats found a charming man and young girl in front of them at many parties. The man seemed familiar to them all, especially the older guests at these parties. They were sure they had encountered this man before. When asked if they knew him, the Sebastian always responded with "My ancestor worked as a butler for one of your ancestor's peers. He worked in the Phantomhive manor as the butler to Ciel Phantomhive. It truly is a small world for us to meet. May I introduce my charge, Ms. Marinette Dupain-Cheng." Sebastian spent the whole night talking up Marinette's fashion business and Marinette would leave these parties with several more clients than when she arrived.

Claude and Sebastian kept trying to out do each other in their attempts to care for Marinette. Helping her with her designs, getting her fancy fabrics and equipment, even convincing several major fashion magazines to feature her work. As odd as the arrangement was, it did work. Marinette met several new friends, thanks to Sebastian and Claude's interference. She even met the man that she would marry. A man who looked suspiciously like Will, from all those decades ago. As the years went by, even after Marinette was an adult and didn't need caretakers anymore, Sebastian and Claude continued to watch over and protect her, as per their contract. And they would watch over her, for the rest of her life.

[hargrove-mayfields]

Everyone likes to pretend Billy was never even there. Life goes on, people change, the past gets forgotten.

A year isn’t enough time for Max though. Right now it feels like the rest of her life wouldn’t be enough time, but Neil and Susan, they were doing just fine.

It’s almost like they like not having him around, that extra burden they couldn’t shake. The plan only Max knew was that Billy was going to stay at home until she was old enough to go with him so she’d be safe.

She knew he was fed up and looking at some local apartments within walking distance of Cherry Lane anyways, but then July happened, and Billy died.

Now it’s July again, and her hair is in twin braids of red with pure white ribbons on the end, and her and her mother are wearing matching blouses. There’s bruises under the bangle on her mothers wrist and one under Max’s own sleeve, and she just wants her brother back.

It’s a holiday they told her, her father (he’s not her fucking father, they never made her call him that when Billy was around) is a veteran, they have to celebrate. Better just dry her eyes and get over it.

Her mother invites all the family they have in the area over to their house for a little get together picnic, and they do their little happy family routine for a while, but Max can only handle so much of it.

Billy should be here by her side, flicking watermelon seeds at her face and putting ice cubes from the cooler down the back of her shirt, being an asshole to distract her from the reality of her family.

And that was that she didn’t really have one, a family. It was always just her and Billy.

Even at these events made for bonding with family, they were off to the side, messing around while the adults talked like they weren’t even there, and she knew she was a little naive then, but it stung more than ever, knowing that even after she’d lost her brother, nobody even stopped to say hi or check up on her, it was just straight into gossiping about the neighbors and those disrespectful bastards across the street who weren’t flying a flag for the holiday and family members who couldn’t be there.

But Max never heard Billy’s name come up even once, and not even in a respect to the dead boy and his grieving sister type of way, but rather, in the way that they just didn’t want to acknowledge his existence. None of these people had come to his graduation in May of last year, or his funeral two months later.

Billy was a taboo that the Hargrove-Mayfields didn’t dare taint their celebrations of freedom and justice with. The irony made Max sick to her stomach.

Or that was at least, until Neil couldn’t help himself.

His words are slurring already, with an excuse to party he’s on what Max would guess to be his fifth or sixth beer that afternoon, and someone just made the mistake of mentioning their own son, Billy and Max’s third cousin or something, and it spurs Neil off on a tangent about his.

“That boy was always good for nothing anyways. It’s almost the same now that he’s dead, ‘Cept maybe now I get some more quiet around the house.”

Nobody knows what to do when he says that, there’s a couple awkward laughs and one shocked gasp, that one was probably from her mother, but Max knows exactly what she wants to do.

What she wants is to watch Neil choking on his blood instead of her brother, his body being lowered into the ground instead of Billy’s, and in the moment she feels like she could be the one to make that a reality, but instead she just stands abruptly, a plate of the food her mother worked so hard to prepare for them she’d been too queasy to eat falling off her knees to the grass, and she says everything she’d bottled up for the past year.

“Don’t talk about Billy that way!

“Now, Maxine-“ Neil starts, but Max is livid, can’t hold back all the things she wished she had said before Billy died, when she got grounded after the funeral, when Neil started beating her, “No! I’m not going to let you do to me what you did to my brother! You don’t get to control me like you did him, it’s your fault that he’s dead!”

It’s her mother’s turn to try to stop her, slender hand covering her mouth painted red, “Maxine..”

“Stop trying to reason with me! I’m sick of pretending to be a family when I had to watch my own brother die! And I’m sick of being treated like I’m crazy for being the only one that cares about Billy!”

More than one person chimes in on that one, offended by the notion they don’t care about family, though it’s Neil that insists, in that faux calm, close to snapping voice of his, “We do care, Maxine. We’re all grieving in our own ways.”

She fires back, “Grieving what? The loss of your punching bag? You hated Billy! You don’t care that he’s dead, all that matters to you is having someone to hurt, and you no trouble adjusting to beating up on your wife and step-daughter instead!”

She catches a backhand to the face for that, and all the background chatter comes to a halt, Neil gritting out through his teeth, “Inside. Now.”

There are tears in her eyes that sting almost as much as the knuckle marks on her cheek, but Max feels like she won, getting her step dad all riled up in front of their family, she feels almost invincible, and she sneers all smug like and bitter, “I can’t go inside yet. I’m celebrating your service to our country, dad. You know, as a family.”

But when Neil's face turns as red as the blood that dripped from his wife’s nose the night before and he stands from his chair and drags her inside by the wrist himself, she realizes that it wasn’t exactly a win.

And when her brain goes numb trying to focus on both the repeated slaps and punches that explode like firecrackers across her skin and the way Neil is yelling and lecturing her until his voice is raw, giving her the same lessons her brother had burned into the back of his mind, she feels like she’s lost everything instead.

When she has to choke back her tears and apologize for embarrassing Neil and for making him hit her as punishment, she realizes, this isn’t a game that can be won or lost at all.

Max isn’t allowed to go back outside to the party. That rule goes unspoken, but words aren't necessary with the way Neil storms off without another word, slamming the back door behind himself. She’s slowly starting to figure out what the things her step father does instead of says mean.

She misses being allowed to be clueless, having someone to protect her or take what punishment she had earned. She wishes she wouldn’t have asked so much of Billy though.

Her own room isn’t safe anymore, what once had been the place she’d be ushered off to when Neil got bad had become more like a trap, the place Neil went to first when he was angry. Everything that had been hers felt wrong, so she goes to Billy’s room and doesn’t come out for the rest of the night. Even now that he’s gone, he still kept her safe.

There’s a welt on her face and fresh bruises forming everywhere, hot tears wetting her sunburnt cheeks and the pillows that smell like Billy, or at least used to before Susan decided his room needed cleaned and washed away every trace of her brother.

All night long there are fireworks going off, a big show put on by the city downtown has her shaking, unable to close her eyes for fear those distant explosions would take her back to the mall, bring back memories she’d never forget, and covering her ear with her hands.

The cracks and booms that shake her windows and her entire life, a headache and a heart break even stronger.

She tries her hardest not to think about Starcourt though, so instead she thinks about how Billy would’ve been proud of her for standing up to Neil. He would’ve called her an idiot, but he would’ve cleaned up her scrapes and held her through the panic attack after, and he probably would’ve liked to see the person Max was becoming too.

That makes Max’s heart hurt, the fact that he won’t get to. She cries harder, and she feels so alone without Billy.

Some part of her knows that she isn’t though. She isn’t the only one that lost somebody last July.

Hawkins’ cemetery was alive with flowers and wreaths and decoration, and more than anything the grieving. All of the victims had families, or in the case of the Holloway’s where their whole family was killed, they had friends and neighbors in the tight knit community who remembered them. El was still grieving Hopper, and Max knew Billy had people like that too.

Billy was popular, his death had a huge impact on the younger population of the town, but not only that, he had his closest friends, Steve and Tommy and Carol and Nicole and Adam from the pool, and of course Heather couldn’t be there, but those people were all keeping her brother alive.

As much as it felt like everyone was trying to forget him, they weren’t, and that brought Max a little bit of hope.

Hope that Billy would be remembered for the things he did right, and who he was behind the boy he had to be to keep them safe.

Hope that with his memory kept in the hearts of so many, the burden of grief wouldn’t fall solely on Max forever and make things a little easier.

Hope that the wound would someday heal, and she could look back on the time she did have with Billy, those seven too short years, with a smile on her face.

For now, she wraps herself in Billy’s jacket and comforter, listening to his music to drown out the distant fireworks, and dreams of the day when things won’t be like this, when she can leave Hawkins and all it’s bad memories and the “family” holding her back to live a life her brother would be proud of, a life that would honor his.

Max decides then with determination, flinching when a bright flash lights up her window, a loud echo through the quaint neighborhood, that she was going to do what Billy hadn’t been able to and break the cycle.

Tomorrow, she’d tell the school counselor she’d been assigned when her depression was at its worst all about Neil Hargrove.