#headlines we would have written

[headspace-hotel]

Problems like climate change, where solving them requires millions of people to collectively work at hundreds of different solutions at once, are black holes for internal peacefulness because they give you a type of frustration where you alternately become bitter towards yourself or everyone around you. "If only I could work harder to fix the problem!" makes you exhausted, so you must become angry at others: "If only they cared about the problem!"

People who are already working on fixing climate change need to convince more people to work on it. And a popular thing is to share writings that describe how doomed we all are if climate change is not fixed, how terrible everything will be because of climate change, and how quickly all the treasures of our world are being lost.

There is a particular understanding of human behavior that is being accepted here without thinking about it hard enough. Popular news media shows headlines with terrible prophecies, written that way in hopes of getting the attention of otherwise disinterested people, who will then be "motivated" to fix climate change.

The trouble is that fear is no good for motivating thoughtful, patient, steady commitment to solving a problem. Fear is made to cause an organism to avoid things that might harm it. It creates a brief and explosive pulse of action where the organism's energy pours out as it instinctively, thoughtlessly reacts to escape the danger as fast as possible.

It's silly to blame people for avoiding thinking about climate change. The point of an organism responding to stressors is to avoid them. Oftentimes, the only tool people are presented with is personal choices about what products to buy, which inevitably is horribly frustrating and stressful, since a person will frequently be coerced by their situation into buying a certain product, and even if they don't they see others doing it all the time.

Relentless exposure to imminent threats that cannot be escaped causes Trauma, which severely impacts a person's ability to be resilient to stressors.

I think there is definitely a type of trauma associated with being constantly aware of the destruction of the environment and feeling helpless to do anything about it, especially since we as humans have a deep need for contact with other living things and aspects of the natural world, such as trees, water, flowers, and animals—a need that is often totally denied and treated as merely a Want or a hobby meant only for certain people who enjoy particular activities, like Hiking or Gardening.

We need to expand our minds on how this disconnection can hurt a human being. Imagine if a child's need to be loved by their caregivers, a person's need to be loved by their friends and family, was treated as a desire for indulgence or luxury, or a certain use of free time!

Yes, yes, one person has a condition that makes it hard to walk up hills, another doesn't like the bright sunshine, another is allergic to the grass or fungal components of the outdoor world, but WE ARE PART OF THE FAMILY OF ALL LIFE ON EARTH and WE EXIST IN SYMBIOSIS WITH THE ENVIRONMENT WHICH TAKES CARE OF US. Who showed you what beauty was, who taught you to feel peace and relief inside you in the form of a caressing breeze and rustle of leaves, who gave you awe and wonder at seeing the stars or the mountains? Where does every delicious food come from but the soil teeming with creatures? Isn't the most perfectly sweet berry grown from a plant, nurtured by the soil and pollinated by the bugs? Don't you feel delight at seeing a springy carpet of moss, a little mushroom, or a tiny bird? Think of all that the trees give us. Whose breath do you breathe? Whose body frames your home?

The writings of Indigenous writers such as the book by Mary Siisip Genuisz I am reading right now show me that the other life forms are our family. They take care of us and provide for us, and they would miss us if our species disappeared. Isn't that a powerful, healing fact? I think everybody is so enthusiastic about the book Braiding Sweetgrass because it is a worldview that those of us coming from the dominant colonizer culture are straight up ravenous, starving to death for.

Maybe, I think to myself, humans can experience a kind of trauma from being deprived a relationship with their Earth, just as they would experience trauma from being deprived relationships with other humans.

I really believe that it hurts us to be surrounded by concrete instead of soil, to see a majestic tree cut down on a whim without any justice possible, to see wild animals mostly in the form of mangled corpses on the roadside, to have poison sprayed everywhere to kill the insects that life depends on, to hear traffic and lawn mowers and weed whackers instead of birds and flowing water.

We KNOW that this is physically bad for our health, the stifling, polluted, and stressful environments of a civilization that doesn't know the ways of the plants, but I think it's a kind of moral injury too, right? To see a beautiful field turned into a housing development of ugly, big, expensive houses—no thought given to the butterflies and sparrows and quail of the field? To see a big old tree cut down, a pond full of frogs obliterated and turned into a drainage ditch beside a gas station? They aren't just things, they are lives, and while expansion and profit and progress are "necessary," a nice old field of wildflowers or a pond full of frogs are a different kind of necessary. I remember feeling this as a child without words for it—the sheer cruelty of a world that is totally without reverence for the other creatures.

"They own the property, they can cut down the tree" "They bought the land, they can do what they want with it" <but it can also be wrong, and many people know this on some level, even though our culture doesn't provide us with the framework.

Fear could never give people the motivation to fix climate change. Constant fear of what will happen in the future forces a person to protect themselves from the relentless stress by shutting it out entirely or developing apathy.

A fear based argument for fixing climate change either causes a worldview of nature with no bond of kinship at all, based on the physical and practical dependence on Nature as a "resource," or forces people to experience their kinship with Nature only through grief.

Fear tells us that we want to live—it does not tell us WHY to live. If a person tries to live on fear alone, they will eventually find the desire to live burdensome and painful in itself. I see this emerging on a society wide scale in the USA, feeding on influences from the Christian evangelicalism that sees the Earth as something already sullied and worthless, to be thrown away like a dirty tissue, and on the looming monolith of nuclear winter that gave our parents recurring nightmares as children.

If you go to r/collapse on Reddit (don't do that) you will see a whole community of people who cope with the threat of climate change by fantasizing about it, imagining it as a collective punishment for all humanity and a cathartic release from the present painful situation.

We cannot learn to live without seeing the reason for living. We cannot save the Earth without loving it. We cannot heal nature without caring for it. In order to collectively take action against climate change, we must be moved by something other than fear—and that something is love. Not just love of the outdoors as an activity, but love of the Earth as something that loves us.

The dominant Western culture cannot borrow Indigenous land stewardship techniques as though they are just one climate resilience strategy, without being also willing to change its dreadfully impoverished way of viewing human relationships with Nature.

What right have we to think, "Huh, maybe those guys were on to something with the multi-level polyculture systems and controlled burns" while still thinking humans are nothing but a disease on the Earth, and that Earth would be happy to be rid of us? The sustainable ways of using the land practiced traditionally by cultures who have lived in relationship with their ecosystems for many generations work because humans can exist in mutualistic symbiosis with the life forms around them. We care for them. They care for us.

I know for a fact that plants seek relationships with us, and I was taught by them to see how interconnected everything really is, and how I was made to be a caretaker of my ecosystem. I was, a few years ago, just as I describe above. Too scared and pessimistic about the future of nature to bother loving it, and because of this, I could not realize my niche in the ecosystem. It felt for many years like I could do nothing—i believed in climate change, but I felt hopeless, so I put it out of my mind. But when I began to cultivate a love and reverence for the sad, scraggly, beaten-down fragments of Nature around me, everything changed. So much became possible.

I am still learning and exploring, trying to open my mind to ideas totally different than the ones I knew growing up, paying close attention to every plant and learning its ways. And it stuns me to think—some people write about climate change without this process.

The author of the book "The Uninhabitable Earth" (a scary book about how doomed the Earth is because of climate change) says in the beginning of the book that he is not very much of a nature lover. You fool, love is our most powerful evolutionary adaptation!

[solecize]

𝐓𝐇𝐑𝐎𝐔𝐆𝐇 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐌𝐈𝐒𝐓 | 𝐣𝐮𝐧𝐠𝐤𝐨𝐨𝐤 𝐱 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫

ten years of being one and the same with jungkook as the country's it couple is the perfect disguise for the reality of a tumultuous relationship hidden behind the scenes.

𝐒𝐔𝐌𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐘: you welcome your boyfriend back to the country with a surprise party, just as the clock is ticking to say goodbye again. the big day is almost here and enlistment brings couples either one of two things: a ring or a breakup.  𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐒: idol!jungkook/female idol!reader and fictional versions of various idols 𝐆𝐄𝐍𝐑𝐄. idol au, on-and-off relationship, angst, i swear there's fluff, and themes of first love, growing up, struggles with fame, and marriage (ish) 𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒. portrayal of a toxic couple (implications of emotional abuse and control), infidelity, foul language, substance use, underage drinking, mentions of the covid-19 pandemic, sexually suggestive content  𝐍𝐎𝐓𝐄. based off of "you're losing me" by taylor swift. this is a fictional portrayal of real-life people that implement some aspects of real-life events. the series is told in non-chronological order. note that the main character is a member of a fictional idol group. more warnings may be added as the story is written. join the taglist here! ㅤㅤㅤㅤ   ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ   ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ   ㅤㅤm.list | next

you say, "i don't understand, " and i say, "i know you don't" we thought a cure would come through in time, now i fear it won't

TODAY’S TOP HEADLINE: bts’ rm, jimin, taehyung and jungkook set to enlist in the coming weeks! ㅤㅤㅤㅤ   ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ   ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ   ㅤㅤautumn 2023

the confrontation   when it rained, it poured and you felt like you haven't seen even a glimpse of the sun in ages. there was a nagging feeling in your gut that it was too far gone, but like everything else for the past ten years, you swallowed it down and swept it under the rug. bad feelings didn’t exist in your relationship. that was the unspoken rule. yet, it was growing more and more difficult to mask the disappointment in your eyes or the frown fighting your lips. today marked the worst of your attempts.

  seoul was unusually calm tonight and it scared you. when you moved to the city ages ago to begin your journey as an idol trainee, it was nothing but intimidating for your meek, pre-teen self. eventually, over time, your love for the city bloomed and it was truthfully because of jungkook. once young teenagers that arrived to seoul alone, you found solace in each other and embraced the change as one. he made you fall in love with seoul the same way he made you fall in love with him. dates, nightclubs, late night adventures, and years worth of moments within the city limits. 

  however, the streets were as hushed as you were, as you gripped your steering wheel like a robot. 

  the decision had been long made and you knew it was going to come around at some point, so there was no use in fighting it. after going without seeing your boyfriend for months, it should have been nothing but pure excitement.

  “you’re awfully quiet,” murmured jungkook, glancing over at you from the passenger seat.

  you were already annoyed to begin with, when he mentioned that he was going to have a driver pick him up from the airport, instead of asking for you. it felt like he didn’t even expect to have you waiting for him, considering the two of you had been apart due to his time working in the united states. you thought he’d be insisting for you to be the first person he saw once he came back. these frustrations were on top of several other things, which you’d been dreading to confront for even longer of a time.

  and then, there was also the velvet box you spotted in the background of one of your facetime calls. you didn’t bring it up, but it was living in your mind everyday since. with jungkook’s big day fast approaching, there were a lot of conflicting ideas in your head.

  you shrugged. “i’ve been filming long hours. not getting that much sleep.”

  the look jungkook gave you read that he knew that you weren’t being a hundred percent honest, but he didn’t say anything. his eyes returned to being fixated on his phone.

  after over ten years of knowing each other, you and jungkook could see through each other like glass. the only problem was that nobody ever wanted to speak up. you feared the glaring possibility of other buried conflict dating further back into the relationship because of this dynamic.

  you didn’t think you deserved the blame for the tension in the air. there were several things in your mind, but jungkook wasn’t exactly a person who could easily mask their emotions. something was off with him, too, and you needed to figure out what it was. you could only hope for the best case scenario because otherwise, it was going to be your worst nightmare. there was no situation you could fathom where his behaviour was a result of an in between. 

  keeping your voice casual, you asked, “who are you texting?”

  “my mom.”

  you held back a sigh - jungkook was never particularly keen on involving you with his family. though you’d been together since he was sixteen, you always felt like he kept you an arm’s reach away from that part of your life and you never understood why.

  “oh. tell her i say hi,” you said and he hummed in response. 

  whilst you weren’t in a talkative mood, it wasn’t like jungkook was doing anything to keep the conversation flowing either. you guys obviously texted and called during his time away, but the present atmosphere was awkward, like there was nothing to talk about after his grand return. you hugged and kissed at the airport, asked how his flight was, and that was that. driving him felt like a business endeavour, rather than welcoming your long-term partner back to the country.

  after a few minutes, jungkook finally looked up from his phone. upon peering out the window, he grew confused and turned to you.

  he questioned, “where are we going? the apartment is in the other direction.”

  “just wait,” you assured, forcing a small smile. “take off your hoodie and put on what i have for you in the backseat.”

  there was a shopping bag sitting behind jungkook’s seat and he reluctantly reached over, revealing a silk ysl shirt that you picked up that very afternoon. sighing, he did as you asked and made the change. you didn’t care to look over at your boyfriend’s shirtless body, too irritated at the curtness of the conversation.

  you just wanted to get to the destination, the heavy silence becoming too much for you. there wasn’t even music on. you found yourself focusing too much on it, as you finally pulled up to the infamous hotel azure. somehow tucked away in the busy songpa district, it is unassuming to the civilian eye, but a well-known name amongst the circles of south korea’s entertainment industry. you didn’t “make it” in entertainment until you attended a party at hotel azure.

  jungkook shifted in his seat. “what is this?” his tone was demanding, which immediately put you off. “the plan was to go home.”

  to be fair, the last time that the two of you were at the azure hotel, jungkook wound up with a bloody nose after getting into it with an not-to-be-named yg idol at one of jackson wang’s wild parties. you weren’t even sure what happened yourself, bleary eyed for the majority of the night with several substances in your body. hotel azure was for idols at the top of the world with everything to lose, a favourite place of yours around 2018. it was now a place that you actively tried to avoid, but made an exception for the special occasion.

  “calm down,” you shot back, not letting him get away with the voice he used. “just wait, i said.”

  “i’m tired, y/n,” jungkook pleaded, as you stopped the car for the valet to take. 

  you ignored him - it wasn’t like it was up to you - and unbuckled your seatbelt, not waiting a second for jungkook. 

  not only did you pick up your boyfriend from the airport, you also spent hours meticulously preparing your appearance for the night. it didn’t seem like jungkook noticed, other than at the airport, when he questioned why you were wearing high heels. 

  you never wore heels unless you were working, but that changed when you met jungkook. he loved it when you wore heels and by the time your respective trainee debts were paid, made it a point. you bought platforms with the anticipation of how your boyfriend would go crazy over them. jungkook gifted you designer jimmy choos and pradas whenever you guys got into a fight. it made you feel your prettiest and he showered you with compliments every time.

  now, he looked at you oddly for it, like you were doing too much.

  jungkook eventually gave up and followed you in without a word, watching you take off your trench coat to reveal a stunning baby pink two-piece dress. the colour glittered under the low lighting of the hotel lobby and the corset accentuated your curves in all the right aways. except, he still did not say a word. this made you frown.

  you handed off your coat to an employee and jungkook did the same. the lobby was empty, but you and jungkook knew exactly where to go, making a beeline for the elevator and pressing the button to move up to the penthouse suite. 

  “why didn’t you warn me about this?” he grumbled under his breath, adjusting his shirt in the mirror.

  because that’s how surprise parties work, you wanted to reply. unfortunately, this was not a surprise party that you wanted to celebrate, so you didn’t even try to keep jungkook excited. you were both quiet, irritable, and only wanted to go home. 

  you said, “this is the part where i cover your eyes and lead you out.”

  jungkook complied and you placed your perfectly manicured hands over his line of vision. other than sharing a hug and kiss earlier, this was the closest you’d physically gotten to your boyfriend in months. your hands were cold and you were close enough that he could hear your breathing - all too uncomfortable. 

  the elevator dinged and you nudged jungkook to step forward. the penthouse’s lights were off, but you could make out the shuffling of feet from behind the kitchen counter. it looked like everything was set up and pristine. then, in just a beat, the entire room lit up and you removed your hands from jungkook’s eyes.

  “SURPRISE!”

  the floor rumbled, voices roaring and bodies popping out from different places - behind pillars, couches and the bar. jungkook’s eyes brightened in a way that you had yet to see since reuniting with him earlier and it made your heart sink. you hadn’t realized how dull his demeanour was around you until something else actually made him smile.

  his closest friends and family gathered in the penthouse and there was a large, golden banner that hung from the walls that said “welcome back jungkook!” the other wall was decorated with another banner, but this one said “good luck rm, v, jimin and jungkook!” 

  jungkook’s older brother was the first one that enveloped him into a bear hug, nearly squeezing the life out of him, then his mom. this was followed by the remainder of his band mates that managed to make the party. you awkwardly stood off to the side, a wide smile plastered on your face to mask your despondence. it seemed like jungkook’s exhaustion only existed when he was sitting in a car with you, as his laughter echoed throughout the room.

  you caught jungkook’s eye and he already knew how you were feeling. while he exchanged words with other friends, it was namjoon who pulled you to the side.

  “hey. you guys did a really great job with the party,” you started, looking around.

  the penthouse of the azure hotel was a thing of beauty, with ceiling high windows that looked over the lights of seoul. everything shone and glimmered - the city skyline, the perfect marble floors, the expensive liquor bottles, and hell, even the perfect teeth of the myriad of a-list south korean celebrities gracing this exclusive party. there wasn’t a wrong way to ever throw a party there, but the group made an extra effort to make jungkook’s homecoming a special one. 

  jungkook was swarmed by several people, all asking about his time in america and how exciting it was. those were the words you used to describe it for him, too, when you sent him off months ago. you watched him take shots with mingyu and eunwoo. 

  namjoon shook his head, “no, no. this wouldn’t be possible without you,” he said and then glanced at jungkook, “and i’m sure he knows it, too.”

  the boys, despite it also serving as a goodbye party before their enlistments, had been helping you plan the surprise for weeks leading up to jungkook’s arrival. it was one of the longest times jungkook had been apart from them and from the country in general, so they wanted to make it extra special. though you were the main mastermind behind the gathering, you initially didn’t want to do it at all. 

  “yeah, i hope so,” you replied, as you poured yourself a glass of white wine. “you guys all deserve it.”

  over the years, jungkook’s band mates slowly became some of your friends, as well. it was somber goodbye for you in all kinds of ways. everyone was preparing to send them off with good luck and high spirits. 

  the boys were also preparing in their own way. you noticed that taehyung and jimin’s girlfriends were missing from the party, which only confirmed your speculations. 

  “it was just bound to happen,” said a voice.

  it was taehyung who joined you and namjoon in a quiet circle at the corner of the living room. all of the boys looked a little bit sad, despite the celebratory atmosphere, but you read a different kind of story in taehyung’s eyes. 

  he smiled with a hint of gloom. “you’re looking around for her, right?”

  as a fellow idol and also a girlfriend to a member of one of the biggest groups in the world, taehyung’s girlfriend grew to become one of your close confidants in the past few years. you guys were polite before, but this connection created a specific bond that couldn’t be understood by anyone else. however, you hadn’t heard from her in a few days and with her absence at taehyung’s goodbye party, you put two and two together. 

  to his side, namjoon clapped a hand on his friend’s back. “sorry, man.”

  “i hope it was cordial,” you mustered up, ignoring the growing heaviness at the pit of your stomach. you could only hope you weren’t next.

  taehyung replied. “she understood, but she wasn’t happy. regardless,” he sighed, “we’re still so young. her career is just blowing up even more, i feel like i’d only be holding her back.” 

  that was the way it went. when enlistment rolled around for most couples, it was either breaking up or a ring. you looked at your feet, not knowing what to say. 

  “jimin also told me that he broke things off with - “

  a loud yelp squeaked from taehyung, who was abruptly jabbed in the side with namjoon’s elbow. the latter cleared his throat and you recognized that look. namjoon only made that face when he pulled the leader card and needed to put someone in their place. you figured that your worries were transparent to those around you.

  namjoon cleared his throat. “not in a chatty mood?”

  while you greeted people during the set-up of the party, you realized that you had yet to actually try socializing. things were awkward with jungkook’s parents, who you long suspected didn’t approve of you for various reasons. in general, most people were interested in chatting with the boys, which you didn’t mind. it was a gathering to send them off, after all.

  “not really. you guys should go mingle with your friends,” you said, taking another sip of your wine. “it’s your party.”

  “i hope i’m not overstepping, but did you and jungkook get in a fight?” taehyung asked.

  you blinked slowly. “no. does it seem like it?”

  “just seems like he’s nervous about something,” he commented and you noticed namjoon glare at him once more, as if to shut up.

  for the first time that night, you felt a glimmer of mixed feelings that left you wondering. why would he be nervous? the big visual forming in your mind was a diamond ring. you and jungkook had contemplated marriage in the past year, but it was also the source of many arguments. you weren’t even sure you wanted to get married now, but your mother had been getting into your ear about you getting older. then, there were your respective companies who lost their shit at the idea. but, what really mattered, was jungkook’s opinion. he seemed to wave it off or change the topic at every opportunity, so your hopes for a ring lived in the back of your mind. 

  despite this, taehyung was right. jungkook looked nervous. he’d been irritated at being dragged to his surprise party - you wondered if it was delusional enough to believe that he had plans for the two of you, instead. 

  for the rest of the night, you continued to keep to yourself. you weren’t lying when you told jungkook you were tired, but you were determined to stay as long as you could and pretend that you and jungkook weren’t stealing mysterious glances at each other for the entire evening. it was obvious and only made you anxious. 

  a few hours later and the party only grew in numbers and in noise. you thought you lost him in the crowd, until you left to refill your nth drink and found him talking to his cousin.

  the two were smiling and laughing, as his cousin appeared to be showing jungkook pictures on his phone. you assumed it was her newborn daughter - she gave birth just two months before her fiance was to be discharged and now that he was back, the wedding was just around the corner. you remembered jungkook telling you that she was proposed to on the day of his enlistment. 

  jungkook caught your eye and he immediately looked away - what the hell was that? he even turned slightly and you couldn’t read his lips. something was going on. you watched him shove his hands in his pockets and you swore you saw the shape of a small square inside.

  eventually, you grew tired of the tension in the air and the music began to make your head pound. the longer you thought about your partner, the greater your anxieties grew. there was a chance you even just although it was late in the year and a fresh sheet of snow adorned the streets of seoul, you decided it was best to step out into the balcony to take some time to breathe. 

  nobody else was there, thankfully, and you let out a shiver when you stepped out. the peppermint air dispelled the haze in your head and in your heart, as taking a deep breath was the greatest relief you felt all night. though your muscles remained tense and you knew you wouldn’t last out in the cold, the balcony was a welcome change.

  you weren’t sure how long you were outside when the door creaked open and just by the footsteps alone, you knew who it was.

  “your guests will miss you,” you said, not even looking behind you.

  at this point, you were hugging yourself to stop shivering. a rustle later and you felt a thick blanket drape over your shoulders, the wool of its make completely enveloping you with much needed warmth. you relaxed your shoulders, but couldn’t look jungkook in the eyes.

  “something’s wrong. tell me.”

  jungkook’s wine stained lips were pulled into a frown and although he hid it well when he was chatting away with his friends and family, you could see the exhaustion in his eyes. he sniffled a few times and you knew why, but you decided to bite your tongue. it was his party and he was an adult who could celebrate whatever way he wanted. it was also clear that neither of you had the energy to argue. instead, to his surprise, you raised an arm and gestured for him to come closer.

  he sidestepped towards you and although you were shorter, let you wrap some of the blanket around him. his cold arm snaked around your waist and you tensed up again at his touch.

  you continued to look out into the skyline. “i was going to say the same for you.”

  “i’m really thankful for the party, love,” he ignored your question and pressed a kiss against your temple.

  you mumbled under your breath, “it wasn’t easy." this was the first time all night that you were comfortable enough to physically touch jungkook and you suspected alcohol played a role in relieving the tension between you two, but it was always going to be easy to fall right back into routine.

  and just like that, you felt a stinging sensation in your eyes. tears welled up and blurred your vision, which only made you turn your head away further from your boyfriend. he caught this immediately, his instincts nothing but natural when it came to you, and pulled you right into his chest. 

  the sound that came out of your mouth sounded nothing like you. the sob was desperate and helpless. it was akin to a toddler who couldn’t do anything by themselves. your voice cracked with each body-shaking sob and you didn’t have the guts to conceal it. your head was buried into jungkook’s new shirt, ruining it, but he only stroked your hair and wrapped the blanket tighter around the two of you.

  “it’s okay. . .” jungkook cooed and for what seemed like the first time in a while, he sounded like himself. 

  it wasn’t like jungkook had undergone a drastic change from his time in america, but it was a gradual shift that you felt over a longer period of time. you attributed to the fact that you were no longer teenagers and things weren’t going to be the same as it did ten, even five years ago. that was what you told yourself, but you weren’t sure why you still held on to the old jungkook you knew.

  in that moment, he sounded like the fifteen year old boy you met in a convenience store again. he sounded like the jungkook who wrote you disgusting love songs that were horrible, but you adored anyway. he sounded like the man who you talked about children and a big house and an annoying dog with. 

  as you found the bravery to finally pull away from jungkook’s comforting embrace, you looked up and saw that future in his eyes. his features softened, but he looked sad. your heart sank once again.

  “you’re not just crying because i’m enlisting, are you?” he finally spoke, just above a whisper. his tone was certain, barely a question - after ten years together, jungkook knew you better than you knew yourself.

  you froze. there was nothing else you could do but shut your eyes tight, pretending that this wasn’t really happening.

  after a beat, you found your voice. “listen. . .we both know what happens after a man enlists. look at taehyung and jimin. look at your cousin.” 

  over the years, you and jungkook had gone through hell and back. you thought the worst day of your life was when dispatch leaked the news that you were dating five years ago, but you were able to recover. you thought it was the worst day of your life when your breakup was witnessed by the entire world, but you were able to recover. you even thought the worst day of your life was when word got out that you and jungkook got back together, effectively proving that you were weak and were the type of girl to crawl back to her ex. you recovered then, as well.

  at the second part of your sentence, you felt jungkook physically tense up.

  “is that why you’ve been acting weird lately?” he replied.

  you don’t know where it came from, but something triggered a spark of anger in you. still, with a tear stained face and a runny nose, you opened your eyes and met his. this was not something you would be able to recover from.

  you said, “it hasn’t just been lately, jungkook. you know exactly what’s on my mind, we’ve been talking - “

  “ - and you know what my answer has been, baby. you know what kind of position i’m in,” he interrupted, breaking apart from your hold and the blanket he brought for you.

  he wasn’t wrong. you did know what kind of position he was in. one of the biggest stars in the world and he had everything to lose, especially with the anxieties looming in the air for him and the rest of his group. every one of them were on their toes as soon as their enlistment dates were finalized, fearing their fade from the spotlight. you and the rest of the world knew that it was bullshit, that the bts was going to be forgotten just because they were going into the military for a few years. 

  marriage would surely ruin that further, right?

  you said, “and you know what position i’m in.”

  the careless joys of your early twenties had come and gone, which left you at the mercy of your mother’s constant talks about marriage. not just her, but other family members and even some of your friends. after all, you and jungkook had been together for ten years and you were pushing thirty sooner or later. 

  you also had your own fears in regard to your career. jungkook once laughed when you expressed your worries about the public no longer finding you young and pretty, but it was a real fear. most girl groups didn’t last more than a few years. many of your contemporaries had long said goodbye to their idol persona and went their separate ways from their band for a new life. you were considered a lucky one to remain with your group and maintain relevance, but for how long? was it time for you to finally settle down? you weren’t granted the same longevity as jungkook’s renowned group and you weren’t bitter about it, but nervous.

  snowflakes began to fall once again and as one fell on your eyelashes, you noticed jungkook’s jaw clench. 

  “we’ve talked about this,” he said and you knew your wandering thoughts about a potential proposal were too good to be true.

  you began, “look, i know that things are different for people like us. . “ but, things were changing. in recent years, you watched several of your peers get married and have children without losing their spot in the limelight. 

  “y/n. . .what made you think i changed my mind?” jungkook sighed, pacing back and forth to calm himself down.

  “i just thought. . .”

  “i’m sorry, but i wasn’t going to propose before my enlistment.” this time, jungkook’s frustrations melted away and there was genuine sadness in his voice. 

  he stepped closer to you and put his hands on your waist. you didn’t know what to say. you really had been pretending that his strange behaviour was because of a hope that seemed impossible now. 

  you took a deep breath. “you never said no. you made it seem like you were considering it.”

  that was what silenced jungkook. it was true, there was never an outright refusal from jungkook. he would say things that implied he would talk to his company again or “with time” it would come. he gave you just enough reassurance, but never confirmation. 

  continuing, you said, “and you even indulged in keeping the fantasy alive with me. you’re sick for talking about honeymoon destinations with me and suggesting songs we could dance to.”

  “hey. i’ve said time ands time again that there is no future where you aren’t by my side,” jungkook tried getting you to look at him, but every time he moved, you turned away. 

  there was no reason for you to make eye contact. you felt like a fool and if you met his eyes, you knew you would just burst into tears again. then, you thought about your conversation earlier with your friends and your vision became wet again.

  “were you planning to break up with me before you enlisted?”

  “what? no,” he responded, but you weren’t convinced. 

  you responded, “it was going to be inevitable, wasn’t it? like jimin and taehyung. you were going to be done with me.”

  this time, jungkook forced you to look at him by the chin and your shoulders dropped. there was a crease in between his eyebrows that you don’t remember seeing even just a year ago. he looked more tired than he did as a rookie with barely survivable living standards. 

  “time really goes by, huh?” you murmured, fighting to keep your voice stable.

  “we were never going to break up, love,” jungkook maintained.

  still, his words didn’t penetrate further than surface level. you were left numb and the chill of winter in seoul had nothing to do with it. you wished that someone would just call jungkook away, but the party inside continued on without him. 

  “you bought a ring. i saw it when we video called.”

  jungkook’s lips parted. you knew it. you knew you weren’t losing your mind. over the last ten years, you made some crazy accusations for all kinds of reasons. this time was different and you saw it on his face.

  even after what seemed like forever, jungkook couldn’t find words to say. the longer he waited to speak, the faster your heart began to race. 

  he rubbed his temples and finally, he spoke. jungkook spoke and you immediately dropped the blanket he brought for you, dashing right back inside. you walked past every single attendee and ignored the few that cried out your name. you didn’t care what it looked like. you just knew you had to get out of there.

  jungkook said there was a ring. he began to open his mouth and explain further, especially when he read the horrified expression on your face, but you wanted no part in it. there was no room for you to think about what that meant. you only saw red.

  you weren’t sure why you wanted a proposal so badly. you knew you didn’t care that much about what your mother wanted and getting married was no solution to the prospects of a dying career. you were second guessing if your wishes for a wedding were even genuine. 

  on the other hand, maybe you intended for the wedding to be a solution to a dying relationship. 

LATEST NEWS: hybe dismisses reports that bts’ jungkook and S.IREN’s nova are engaged, seeking legal action against gossip website that went viral for spreading the false rumour

@butnotmontana @rinkud @kookiescutie @nlr1606 @claireshelby @xtrataerrestrial @whoa-jo @tinyxrose @lavendersugarplum @bangtans-momma @firelcrds @sstrongstyle

[genericpuff]

Lore Olympus just pulled off the biggest whiff in webtoon history.

I promised I would choose one of two headlines and of course, this is the one we wound up with. But should we really be surprised? Rachel herself seemed to be telling on herself down to the minutes leading up to the finale, fully confirming to us that yes, she's been writing this comic at the last minute, by the seat of her pants, for ages now.

(that second one was literally posted TWENTY FUCKING MINUTES BEFORE THE COMIC UPDATED.)

Welp, let's get into it. Possibly the last essay I'll ever write about this dumpster fire of a comic (but probably not, let's be real LOL)

CONTENT WARNING: DISCUSSION OF SEXUAL ASSAULT AND FASTPASS SPOILERS FOR THE SERIES FINALE AHEAD!

Holy crap, where to even start with this. I knew it was going to be bad. I knew it was going to be rushed. I knew it wasn't ever going to live up to what I had hoped it would be years ago when I was still a diehard fan.

But I didn't think it was going to fall quite this hard. Despite bracing myself for the worst, Rachel has once again let my expectations down through a final display of explosive mediocrity and disappointment.

Yes, the episode is called "You're Welcome", and yes, that instant "ick" you're feeling is the exact same as what we're all feeling. This title plays into the dialogue later, but what a shitty, lowkey mean-spirited title for the series finale.

Now, before we get into the actual episode, the WT ads for this are just... so desperate and misleading.

They are trying SO HARD to hype up something that isn't there, and at the last minute to boot, because Rachel definitely hadn't written any of this ahead of time.

First off, the bit about the gods being in "eternal chaos" of course isn't a stake worth worrying over because Gaia literally does away with Ouranos in the first 5 panels.

Did you really think I was joking about that 5 panels thing?

That's it. That's the death of Ouranos. As mysteriously and quickly as he arrived, he was gone, after Gaia ripped out of him what appeared to be some purple sunny side up - but it's actually, in fact, Apollo.

And that's when we start to get some of the worst dialogue I've ever seen throughout LO. Remember when I said LO's dialogue was like Shenmue 3? Welp, the finale decided to continue that tradition and further fuel the suspicion that this entire thing was written by ChatGPT.

Oh, by the way, that "thank you, ma'am" was Artemis' first and last line of the episode. So once again, just like in Episode 248, we're completely robbed of her reaction to Apollo being a rapist piece of shit and the character development she could have had as a supporting character. The women in this "feminist retelling" really couldn't be more half-baked.

Gaia stumbles upon Persephone, and I'm not even gonna fucking bother showing the panels where Gaia says it's time to "make things right" because they literally don't matter. Why don't they matter? Because Rachel just had to get in one more pointless time skip.

We're shown a sequence of pointless images that I'm not gonna show as I don't want to waste my image limit on them, depicting Hades having a sad day because his small wife isn't with him and oh nooo what could have happened?? Did Persephone finally divorce him ??

Nah, we couldn't possibly have an actually happy ending in this comic. Instead we get a completely pointless phone conversation between Hades and Hecate-

Not only is the grammar particularly bad in this episode, but the actual script-writing is atrocious. We literally did not need this phone conversation to happen because-

-we're cutting BACK TO THE PRESENT THAT WE JUST CUT AWAY FROM FOR A 3 MONTH TIME SKIP. FOR NO REASON BESIDES SHOWING HADES BE SAD OVER SOMETHING THAT ACTUALLY ISN'T THAT BIG A DEAL, AS YOU'RE ABOUT TO SEE.

I- I LITERALLY HAVE NO WORDS. I HAVE NO WORDS TO DESCRIBE WHAT THE FUCK THIS IS. ALL I CAN HEAR IN MY BRAIN IS THE LEGEND OF ZELDA ITEM GET MUSIC-

-BECAUSE THIS WHOLE THING SUDDENLY SOUNDS LIKE SOME CONTRIVED FETCH QUEST. WHAT DO YOU MEAN HADES AND PERSEPHONE HAVE PROVEN 'TRUE LOVE' IS REAL? WHAT DO YOU MEAN THEY HAVEN'T USED 'LOVE' AS A FORCE FOR DESTRUCTION?? ARE WE FORGETTING THAT HADES MUTILATED A GUY IN THE NAME OF 'LOVE'? THAT PERSEPHONE LITERALLY INVADED THE HOME OF HADES' CANONICAL FIRST WIFE BECAUSE SHE FELT MILDLY THREATENED BY HER?

This whole concept of "true love" that Rachel is trying to convey feels so juvenile especially for a series that has sold itself as being mature and thought-provoking and progressive.

HAHAHA SO FUNNYYYYYYY why does Rachel write like this. this is, at best, the writing of a 13 year old on fanfiction.net, which I SHOULD KNOW, because I WAS ONE OF THEM. BUT I'M 28 NOW AND RACHEL HAS ANOTHER 10 YEARS ON ME.

Okay, this is the part where I'm CONVINCED Rachel either just mashed this into the episode in the MINUTES leading up to its release, or she used ChatGPT or something. Because NONE of this dialogue makes any sense. Beyond how stilted and lifeless it is (seriously, this dialogue reads like something from Empress Theresa) Gaia is clearly meant to 'replace' Erebus here which I SHOULDN'T HAVE TO EVEN EXPLAIN IS SO FUCKING DUMB, but ALSO what is even Persephone trying to communicate here? "That is true, but it was a deal I was willing to make and ties me to the Underworld. Please don't change me." What? Gaia hasn't even insinuated that she's going to do anything to Persephone, why is Persephone immediately jumping to this conclusion? What does 'changing' her mean? Is she asking Gaia not to force her to sacrifice something (which she never did)? Or is she asking Gaia not to strip her of her Underworld status? Because again, why is that even something Gaia would do?

Maybe this is harsh but I'm pretty sure even Empress Theresa is more coherent than this, what in the flying fuck is Gaia talking about?

"I can just see the potential for conflict! To relieve you from the burden of the whats, the hows, and wheres." Like... okay, first of all, that second sentence isn't even a complete sentence, it's a dependent clause left hanging, but also what the fuck does this MEAN. Is she EXCITED for the conflict but then contradicting herself by saying she wants to relieve Persephone of that conflict? Or is she saying she can see the conflict it would cause for Persephone to have to perform duties in both realms and trying to insinuate that she's going to relieve her of those complications?

Here's what I think happened - I think that second 'sentence' wasn't supposed to be a sentence, but the start of the sentence to the next panel-

So with that theory in mind, the sentence becomes, "To relieve you from the burden of the whats, the hows, and wheres, you are to spend three months in the Mortal Realm to do spring and the rest of the year in the Underworld. That seems fair to me."

It's still a very poorly written line of dialogue, but at least with that fix in mind it makes sense. But man, you can really fucking tell this episode was submitted at the last minute because that's a serious syntax error that should NOT have happened in this two-time-Eisner-winning comic.

Errors aside, it's clear that Rachel is following through on having Persephone spend only three months in the Mortal Realm, rather than the traditional six. There ARE other translations that have that number closer to four, but those four are the time she spends in the UNDERWORLD, meaning she's always spending either equal or MORE time in the Mortal Realm. Of course, Rachel doesn't want her self-insert small wife power fantasy to actually have to be separated from Hades despite this being a retelling of The Abduction of Persephone, so instead of her spending three months in the Underworld, she's now spending them in the Mortal Realm, literally doubling the MINIMUM amount of time (four months) she was originally meant to reside in the Underworld.

But oh no, apparently those three months are STILL NOT SHORT ENOUGH FOR PERSEPHONE-

Of course, Rachel "Retcon" Smythe had to have her cake and eat it too. I always worried something like this was a possibility, but I never thought she would actually prove me right - not only is Persephone only separated from Hades for three months out of the year, but actually he can visit her any time he wants to, so really, they're not separating at all.

I think Rachel needs to look up "reunion" in the dictionary, because if you can visit each other any time, then that means the 'reunions' are no longer special occasions. This completely removes any semblance of depth or meaning from all of the storytelling leading up to this, all of it with the expectation that this was a retelling of the Abduction of Persephone, because that's what Rachel said it was going to be. At this point it's safe to say that Rachel has zero business attempting to "retell" mythological stories, because she doesn't even seem to grasp the concept of why they were written the way they were to begin with. Either that, or she really just doesn't care, and the only reason for making LO a Greek myth comic at all was to propel her career.

This also brings me back to those promotional ads, the other one that posed the question, "Will sacrifice be enough to bring these two back together?"

This is stating the obvious, but I need to make it perfectly clear - Hades and Persephone have never sacrificed a single thing. The only thing they could POSSIBLY quantify as a "sacrifice" is "not being tied at the hip for a few hours", because even Persephone going on the equivalent of a work trip next door is apparently enough to make Hades sad as we saw in the 3 month time skip panels. Why is Hades so sad and lonely if he can visit her any time? Why is he acting like he hasn't seen her in years when he's actually on his way to reunite with her? Why is Hecate calling to ask him if he's "okay" as if he JUST got separated from her, but actually he's about to literally go to the Mortal Realm to reunite with her?

Hades hasn't 'sacrificed' a damn thing, neither has Persephone. They've both always gotten exactly what they wanted, even at the cost of breaking the story's own established rules. Their 'sacrifice' is equivalent to what billionaires think are 'sacrifices' when they can't buy another yacht or go on that third overseas vacation for the month.

And even outside of this episode, when have these two ever sacrificed anything?

I've tried so hard to think of what sacrifices have been made by the characters within LO, and I genuinely can only think of one - and that was when Artemis chose to go to the Mortal Realm with Persephone instead of staying with her family in Olympus. That was a genuine, selfless sacrifice, made by a character who has been shelved in favor of focusing on the self-centered pink and blue airheads.

Being forced to be apart for a couple days to do the equivalent of a day job and whining about it the whole time is not a 'sacrifice'. Neither of these characters have ever sacrificed anything, they just feel like sacrifices because they have the integrity and empathy of soggy cardboard.

sigh Anyways, we're back in the present and Hades and Persephone immediately decide they're gonna have sex because ofc, and then we get this gem of a panel-

MMMMMM

FUNNYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY JOKE

For some reason it's just a common thing for people to just be in Hades' home, and they can't seem to get any privacy as a result of this, but I digress. Turns out they still need to have that coronation for Persephone.

There is... so much wrong in these three panels.

First, to state the immediate issues - why the fuck are they mentioning Apollo at Persephone's coronation? Like first of all, no shit Apollo isn't gonna be there, but also, if this is supposed to be an event for and about Persephone becoming Queen of the Underworld, then why in the WORLD is Apollo even being mentioned? This is supposed to be a "feminist retelling" where the victims are empowered and heal from their trauma, but LO once again can't try to show any sort of positive growth for the victims without bringing up the assaulters and giving them screen time. It just goes to show that Rachel's idea of "healing" is purely rooted in the revenge, and not the growth. It's a very high schooler approach to this subject, hellbent on showcasing how all the meanies from the past are losers now and life just sucked for them forever, but inadvertently proving its own point that the victims haven't and can't move on because the narrative is spending so much time on caring what's going on with the abusers. It's the "I don't care! Look at how little I care! I'll prove it to you by putting in the effort of showing you how little I care!" approach, it doesn't really feel like moving on.

It's not about how Persephone and his other victims could have grown and healed, no, Rachel always needs to highlight just how much worse the bullies and haters and abusers are doing to make the victims seem like they've healed by comparison. Don't get me wrong, I can understand wanting to showcase the downfall of a character like Apollo, but this just... isn't the right context for that? Because it's once again taking attention away from the victim to focus on the abuser. It's once again spending screentime on the voices of the oppressors rather than the oppressed.

And speaking of, what the fuck is this punishment even? I knew Rachel wasn't gonna be able to resolve this plotline properly, she never had the capability to, but ... community service? Are you fucking for real? What is this even a punishment for even? Was this EXCLUSIVELY the SA, or does this ALSO include his attempts to overthrow Zeus by poisoning him, nearly killing Daphne, Eris, Eros and Psyche, trapping Eros and Psyche in an enchanted basement, and framing his father's 'death' on his half-sister? Because if so, how in the world is anyone content with community service? He hasn't even been turned into a mortal, HE'S STILL A GOD, so what's to stop him from going "WE'LL MEET AGAIN, SPIDERMAN" and trying something else? How is this a reasonable resolution in ANY context?

This is why I talked at length about what an issue it was to hide what Apollo really admitted to. Because now we really don't know what exactly he confessed to, and thus we can never really see the point of views of the victims outside of just Persephone - and we still don't even get Persephone's, because she just walks away from him and then he gets eaten by Ouranos and next we see of him is him doing community service! Once again, any emotional development that could be given to Persephone and the other victims is stripped away to make room for the point of views of the oppressive men. In this, the two-time-Eisner-winning "feminist comic" that is LO.

And that brings us to the "where are they now" segment. Yes, as we all feared, there's a "where are they now" segment, and it's as rushed and underwhelming as we ought to have expected it to be.

There is just... so much to unpack here, and yes, all of it is delivered in the dumbest way possible that only raises more questions than answers.

So Rhea and Metis are just back and we're not gonna talk about the implications of them being alive again?

Dionysus is a 3 month year old in the body of a teenager / young adult, and his mom is just alive now because Hades conveniently got his hands on more ambrosia and brought her back to life offscreen? But somehow Triptomelus and Hedone are still child-sized relative to their ages?

How did they 'heal Zeus'? And why is he so content with losing his power as King and Apollo being sentenced to community service after making an attempt on his life? How does he feel about the letter that Hera gave him? Did he even read it?

Where the fuck is Hebe in all of this? Is she okay? Do people still think it was her who put Zeus in a coma? Or did Apollo confess to that, too?

You're telling me Hera and Echo are just in a relationship now despite the fact that Hera is literally racist towards nymphs and there is ZERO reason for them to have a relationship in the comic beyond the fans making gratuitous headcanons out of it? How is Rachel, a bisexual woman, so bad at writing actual lesbian relationships and giving them the same amount of attention as the heterocis ones without shoving them into the background as props for insincere queer rep? And what about Hera herself? How did she overcome her role as the Goddess of Marriage to finally divorce Zeus?

"Ares is still a dog!" Haha! Ares is still a Persephone simp! Happy end!

Why is Eros just standing there smiling at the camera struggling to be seen past Hedone who's just floating right in front of him? You're telling me there wasn't a better place to put her out of that entire panel?

"Hades and Thanatos have been making more time for each other. Sometimes they even have a conversation." I'm sorry, is this supposed to be funny? The man abused Thanatos for years, treated him as just a lowly employee when he was literally his adopted son, and now you're trying to play it off as a joke that they're "making more time for each other"? What the fuck is this?

TGOEM disbanded? Why? What about the women who were genuinely a part of it?

Also, Artemis and Selene are just good friends now because reasons? Because they're both affiliated with the moon, I guess? Why is Selene even in this comic-

"They are still looking for Kassandra". Who? And why? This feels like such a last minute addition to acknowledge a character that the comic spent WEEKS foreshadowing only to have her finally appear as a pointless McGuffin, but it's so last minute that it does nothing. I'm assuming it's Eros and Psyche looking for her, but like... why can't they find her? They're gods, tracking down one mortal shouldn't be that difficult LOL ???

And also, where the fuck is Leto?? You're telling me she was an accessory - maybe manipulating Apollo, maybe not - but we don't see what happened to her? Is she just back to being a social outcast then? jesus christ this comic isn't finished-

Kassandra is where the "where are they now" sequence ends, and we're treated to one final horribly written dialogue scene between Hades and Persephone, where they tell each other how much they love each other in a desperate attempt to convince the audience that this is, in fact, a romance.

There's this thing in romances called chemistry, and if you're good at writing it, you shouldn't have to write dialogue like this. You should be able to see how much the characters love each other through their actions, through their small behaviors around each other. It's not always about what they say out loud, it's about what they don't have to say, because when two people really share that close of a bond based on love and trust and chemistry, words often aren't necessary.

Hades and Persephone do not have that chemistry. It has been apparent for years now, but this final exchange really is the nail in the coffin. There are no microexpressions or subtle emotions, no subtlety in their word choice, and nothing unique setting their voices apart. It's all just "wow thank you for being such a wonderful amazing partner, you are amazing and I love you" word salad that has to do all the heavy lifting for the completely non-existent chemistry that's been at its absolute worst throughout this entire season.

And worst of all, despite this story trying so hard to be focused around Persephone, around her story, her trauma and her healing, her voice... it's still all just about Hades. In the end, she's thanking Hades, and forcing him to say "you're welcome". All of it is trying so hard to convince us that Hades has been a positive addition to her life, that she 'owes' so much to him, but we've obviously seen plenty throughout the comic that begs to differ. And even if he were a better person than he is, it still doesn't change the fact that once again, the men are being held up above the women, with the women being grateful to the men who choose them. LO can try its hardest to convince people that it's feminist, but it is, at best, reinforcing the very same structures of the patriarchal system that it claims to despise and rebel against.

We do get one line from Hades acknowledging Persephone's part in the relationship-

-and it falls so fucking flat because it's still about him and what she does for him, and because nothing about their relationship was built on any sort of organic chemistry. There was a lot more chemistry back in S1, but it was still predicated on Hades lusting after a vulnerable 19 year old girl.

Yep, and that's it. That's the end.

Except it isn't because Rachel wanted to try and be smart by including an 'epilogue' that's really just stretching the episode out pointlessly for another few panels. And of course, we had to get another time skip, just a final dose of salt in the wound, this time to years ahead when we inevitably had to reconnect with Persephone and Hades in the future after Melinoe was born.

To recap, Melinoe doesn't remember... because Hades had Morpheus erase her memories.

This plotline has really started to give me the ick because it actually feels very familiar. Bear with me here, because I'm gonna go on a bit of a tangent about my own original work, but it's because I wrote a plotline exactly like this years ago.

There's this... turning point, in Time Gate: Reaper, when the main character Uzuki is kidnapped by a Reaper (see: undead) who wants to experiment on her in the hopes that he can somehow gain her abilities to bond her soul with others (which later allows her to literally possess people after she becomes a Reaper herself). Mitsuhiro, the male deuteragonist who kickstarts the plot by telling Uzuki she's got a limited amount of time left to live (which he knows thanks to his magical death timers that mark themselves on his skin), feels an immense amount of guilt after finding out she was kidnapped by the Reapers (at this point she's been gone for three months), as they were originally after him; he worries that she was made a target simply due to him associating himself with her, and vows to rescue her.

With the help of some other spunky teenagers and anime trope characters, Mitsuhiro does eventually rescue Uzuki - but for the three months she had been gone, she had been tortured, abused, and experimented on, causing her mind to split and for her to lose any sense of awareness of who Mitsuhiro or her other friends were. She was no longer herself after the hell she had been through.

Mitsuhiro's solution to this is to have Springlock - another Reaper with motivations that are not yet clear to the cast - erase her memory. This is not a light decision that comes without consequences - for the remaining duration of the story, Uzuki is plagued by night terrors and panic attacks, unable to really remember what happened to her aside from whatever brief flashbacks her brain recalls in its haze of memory loss. She is traumatized, both physically and mentally. She has lost three months of her life and memories, and doesn't know how to explain why she's covered in scars that are still healing, why she's missing organs, why she's now blind in one eye, and why the sound of scraping metal and ticking clocks gives her panic attacks. Mitsuhiro has convinced her friends that she's suffering from memory loss due to trauma, but only he knows the truth that he forcefully took her memories away from her, without her consent. This was not the right choice to make. It was not noble of him, it was not a grand gesture of love, he made a decision on her behalf without her consent that has now resulted in her becoming a nervous wreck. Sure, she still would have had PTSD if she remembered what happened, but at least she would know why and could then seek adequate help. Without those memories, she has nowhere to begin to heal. And so we see the consequences of this throughout [AFTERBIRTH] and even the upcoming Thread of Fate. It is a long-term problem that is not going to be solved overnight, especially not with Mitsuhiro withholding information from her.

Reading about Melinoe having dreams about her experiences trapped in Tartarus with Kronos ... it felt familiar enough that I had to talk about why the insinuations of this are so fucked up. I know there are people who are gonna handwave it away as "she's just a kid", "these are gods so what does it matter", etc. but ... it just feels like such an oversight to have Hades effectively erase her memory of her trauma and then hint at them still being present in her mind through her dreams. She did not ask for that. And the fact that she's now dreaming about it all does not bode well. But we're supposed to think Hades made the correct choice, regardless.

But none of this is effectively expanded on or explained, because we get one final scene of Melinoe and Demeter visiting Persephone, who has just given birth to... Makaria?

So it turns out Persephone and Hades are just able to have biological children now. Don't know why, but of course they both look exactly like Hades.

What I was really confused by though is the fact that it's Makaria and not Brimos. Do you remember Brimos? The child that was foreshadowed in Hades' original fantasy dream sequence about his future children about Persephone?

Either Rachel completely forgot about him, or she saw all the criticism over the fact that Brimos isn't a confirmed child of Hades and Persephone (rather, an epithet that can apply to basically any Underworld god including Persephone and Hades) and that her "research" was dependent on a book she read when she was 13 and decided to axe that. But she went to the effort of establishing that all the dreams Hades had were , in fact, canon visions of the future, so good job Rachel, you created yet another plothole on top of the hundreds of others.

And that's where the series ends, on a final nuclear-family-photo of Persephone, Hades, Melinoe, and Makaria. Of course, Dionysus and Thanatos aren't present in this shot because this is Lore Olympus and only biological children count /hj

Why Rachel couldn't move the "the end" portion to THIS part, I don't know, but I'm also expecting way too much of the person who finished this 20 minutes before it was due.

So that's it. Six years and that's what we get. I didn't expect much, but I was still incredibly disappointed, as were many others who walked away from this dazed and confused. Maybe it's all the "haters" deserve at this point. But what of the fans? While many of them are celebrating this ending at best and tolerating it at worst, I can't help but think of the fans of this comic who hung on for so long in the hopes it would "pay off", just for it to go out as gloriously as a wet fart.

As for me, I have such mixed feelings about Lore Olympus ending, but none of them pertain to the comic itself. Most of what I'll miss from this comic isn't the comic itself, but the people who have made reading it every week so fun, the artists and writers who have enriched the content with their own interpretations of what could have been, and the experiences of being part of such an amazing community made up of people who are as long-term-obsessed about this piece of media as I am.

I get people who ask me a lot if it's "worth it" to be so engrossed in the LO slander, who assume that I'm going to "regret" ever being a part of it all... but from where I'm standing right now, I couldn't ask for a better view.

Even if I didn't love every minute of it, everything I have here I owe to this comic. This stupid, wonderful, boring, amazing, pile of shit comic.

[cryptidghostgirl]

Make You Wish Chapter Two -- Where Is She

Pairing: Alastor x Reader

Warnings: really super mild versions of cannon violence.

Word count: 2,072

Previous Part: Make You Wish Chapter One -- Seven Years

Master list link:

Master Lists 

Hazbin Hotel Master List 

Make You Wish Master List

A/N I accidentally posted this before I was ready tooo ahhhh!!! it's fine. Everything was already written I just had to format it properly and stuff.

Alastor had been at the Hazbin Hotel for only a few days and was already enjoying his time there greatly. It was an entertaining place, to say the least, and now that he had his feet under him, he was intent on making it even more so.

Charlie was pacing around the sitting room, stressed beyond belief. She had gone to speak to Adam the previous day to try and get his support for her plan, only to wind up with the news that the next extermination was coming in six moths, rather than the usual twelve. Alastor watched her duress in amusement as he sauntered into the hotel lobby, side stepping Angel, Charlie, and Vaggie to take a seat at the bar.

"It's nothing we can't handle," Charlie was explaining, trying to convince herself as much as anyone else in the room, "just angels cutting our timetable in half. But who needs a whole year to save souls? Am I right? And next time, when they cut the time in half again and again, we'll just handle it, right?!"

Vaggie got to her feet, grabbing her girlfriend by the shoulders and stopping her from her relentless pacing.

"Yes, we will." she confirmed.

"Oh please," Angel cut in from the couch, his eyes fixed on his phone, "ya had less than half a chance when you started all this salvation bullshit. And now...? Ain' no silver lining this time, toots."

"Sure there is." Charlie turned to him, "We just have to look a little harder for it."

"Well, while you're lookin', the rest of Hell is going nuts."

Angel turned his phone to Charlie, showing all the news headlines of terror he'd pulled up.

"People are already freaking out about the news. Look at what's happening in the Doomsday District."

He scrolled down to a video of a burning town just as a text notification popped up.

"Uh, what is a 'donkey show'?" Charlie asked in confusion, having read the text.

"Ah, heh, nothing." Angel pulled the phone from her line of sigh, trying to come up with a quick lie, "My boss, Val, is just freaked out about the news too. Like I said, everyone's losing their shit."

"Yeah, that is true." Vaggie hummed thoughtfully, a hand to her chin, "Sinners are desperate. Maybe desperate enough to try anything to escape extermination?"

"Speaking of sinners," Alastor said, drawing the attention in the room to him as he turned towards Husk who was busying cleaning glasses, "I think it's time I look up my old partner in crime."

"And what do I have to do with that?" the cat demon gruffly replied, not sparing Alastor a glance.

"Your partner in crime?" Charlie asked, taking a step towards the bar, "I always thought you... you know, worked alone?"

Alastor's grin widened.

"Oh never you mind, dear." he replied, throwing her a glance over his shoulder, "Just a lost soul I'm acquainted with is all."

"Yeah. You've been trying to get her to sell you that soul for what, the past seventy years is it now?" Husk scoffed.

Alastor's eye twitched slightly at the implication of his failure.

"If I wanted it, I would have it." he hummed threateningly, and Husk backed down.

"That's great!" Charlie exclaimed, "So she's a friend of yours? Do you think she'd help with the hotel? Oh! Or maybe that she'd want to be a guest?!"

"Charlie-" Vaggie began but Alastor quickly cut her off.

"I don't see a harm in asking." he cheerily replied.

"And you know her, Husk?" Charlie asked.

He looked up as he placed a clean glass on the shelf, shooting Alastor a glance before nodding.

"Do you think she'd be a good fit?"

He sighed, crossing his arms as Husk turned to face Charlie fully.

"She's a sweetheart, I think you'd get along well." he admitted, "But she's trouble, just like him."

Husk gestured towards Alastor and Charlie's smile widened.

"Well, with all Alastor has done for us so far, I think we could probably use more trouble like him."

"Oh you flatter me." Alastor waved her off, looking away in a false show of humility.

"No really." Charlie insisted, "You-"

"Show yourself, Alastor!" a dramatic call cut Charlie off mid thought.

----

"Um. Alastor?" Charlie hesitantly began, peeking out from behind his shoulder as she watched the havoc he was wreaking on the snake shaped sinner, "I think he's had enough."

Alastor cackled joyfully, not even watching as his shadows destroyed the air ship.

"Nah, he's got a few more hits in 'im." Angle disagreed, enjoying the show immensly.

The shadows tilted the ship forward, dropping Sir Pentious out through the broken windshield. He hit the ground with a thud, right before Alastor's feet. Stopping in his fit of laughter, he looked down at the man, spinning his microphone like a baton.

"Thanks for another forgettable experience." he teased as one of the egg creatures fell from the ship, splattering on the ground beside Charlie who took a step away.

"Thank... you..." Sir Pentious began, his voice pained as he raised his head slowly, "for letting your guard down!"

Almost before Alastor could register what was happening, the snake had grabbed onto his coat with his tail and torn a piece from its hem. Alastor took a menacing step forward, his eyes narrowed.

"Oh shit." Pentious' triumphant laughter died out.

Slowly, Alastor sprouted a pair of shadowy horns. With a snap of his finger, the ground under the snake detonated, throwing him up into the air and far away from the hotel with a scream. He watched as Pentious flew away, retracting his horns and standing with a hand behind his back. Once the snake was out of sight, he at last turned to Charlie and Angel, as well as Husk and Vaggie who had come out to join them.

"Well, it looks as thought I need a visit to the tailor." he hummed, "Husk?"

"Yeah?" Husk grunted.

"Where did you say she was again?"

"I didn't."

Husk crossed his arms defensively and Alastor took a step towards him, his smile a little smaller than normal. There was an odd air between the two of them, a tension every one present could feel biting into their skins.

"Whats that?" Alastor asked lowly, his head cocked slightly to the side.

Husk sighed.

"Last I heard she was working for some imp in Pentagram City." Husk reluctantly admitted, looking away, "As an assassin or something, I don't know the details."

"An imp, you say." Alastor thoughtfully replied, his expression unreadable.

"Look, Alastor." Husk turned back to his master, "Don't fuck this up for her. She seemed pretty happy last time I saw her. You disappearing like that wrecked the poor girl."

"Just means she'll be all the more happy to see me."

Alastor turned, beginning to walk away. At the sound of Husk speaking again, he paused, keeping his back to the quartet.

"Alastor, ju-"

Alastor turned his head, shooting Husk a critical look over his shoulder. It shut the cat demon up almost immedeatly.

"Best of luck, chums!"

"Wait, you're leaving?" Vaggie exclaimed, taking a step forward.

Irritation prickling beneath his skin, Alastor turned back to them once again. It had been seven years, he didn't know how much longer he could wait. Sure, he'd had time in Hell on his own, nearly twenty years of it. He didn't need her per-say, she just made things more interesting, more enjoyable. It just felt odd for them to be parted.

Sure, when they had first met, he had thought she was just an easy steal of a soul. Young, naive, frankly undeserving in his opinion of eternal damnation. But smart, smarter than she looked. Y/n had refused any and all deals with the man and so, he had taken it as a challenge. What had begun as a game: Alastor trying to gain ownership of Y/n's soul ended up as an after-life long friendship.

Alastor would never admit it to anyone but, in his absence, he had even missed Y/n the smallest bit. She kept things interesting, he told himself, that was all. Always causing discreet mischief, always quick with a joke. A true pleasure to have on the show, as he always used to say.

"Alastor, we need your help. We need you to do your job." Vaggie continued.

"We need a wall." Angel finished for her, gesturing to the portion of the hotel Sir Pentious had destroyed in his attack.

"Of course." Alastor replied, keeping an irritated remark at bay, "Can't let my new project fall into disrepair already. What would the papers say?"

With a snap of his fingers, minions made of shadows pulled themselves from the ground at his feet. So as not to give anyone another chance to stall him further, he quickly turned on his heel and walked off.

Alastor was a man of image, he kept his pace slow and firm. Couldn't have any of them getting any ideas in their heads about the nature of his relationship with Y/n. That had always been trouble in the old days. The minute people saw the pair together, they started assuming things. He had already decided he was going to be more careful about that this time around and this was the first step.

There was a slight bounce in his step as he headed into the city's center, an odd anticipation fluttering in his chest. Alastor pushed it to the side. It was simply the thrill of being back in his old stomping ground that was to blame. It didn't matter he'd already been back a few days and it should have worn off by now, he should just feel lucky to still be so entertained by this place he'd known longer than he'd even been alive. Right?

----

Y/n was sitting at Blitzo's desk, reading through paperwork he had neglected to fill out or file correctly. It wasn't like any one in Hell really payed their taxes, but the mess still stressed her out. She let out a sigh, leaning back in her chair and rubbing her eyes in irritation. She had never had to do this type of work before, not since she'd been alive anyways. How the times had changed.

Noise of Blitzo and Moxxie fighting filtered in through the closed door. It wasn't anything special, anything new. The pair were always at one another's throats, she wasn't worried. What would be worrying, was if things were quiet. This was just the way life sounded now: inelegant and brazen. Nothing like it used to.

The buzzing of her phone on the desk beside her pulled Y/n from her reveries and she picked it up. The collar lay heavy around her neck as she read the message. Y/n had made some bad choices along the way, figuring out how to be on her own. She wasn't pleased with them, but it was what she had had to do. Back then, she hadn't had the need to fight for herself in over sixty years. It was the only thing she could think to do.

She double tapped the text, marking it with a thumbs up before shutting her phone off and leaning her head down on the table. There was no point in wishing for things to be different than they were but, it was just that time of year and the text had pushed her over the edge. A few stray tears trickled out of her eyes.

"Goddamnit, Al." she sighed into the empty room, "Where the hell are you."

Silence pressed its hands against her ears, blurring her perception of the world around her. Y/n had a few seconds, a few nearly peaceful moments before, again, her thoughts were interrupted. This time, not by her phone but by Blitzo calling for her from the other room.

"Y/n!" he yelled and she lifted her head off the table.

"Yeah?" she called back through the closed door.

"Get your ass out here!"

"Why? A client? Can't you handle it?"

"Y/n!" he insisted again, a sense of urgency to his voice.

If this was anything less than an absolute emergency, he was never going to hear the end of it. She was not in the mood for his games today.

"Fine." she groaned and pulled herself from the chair, "I'm coming."

----

Next Part -> Chapter Three -- A Reunion

[ashwhowrites]

Can you please write Older! Eddie x reader, where Eddie presents Reader with Wayne or his friends but they don't trust in reader, but then she proves them wrong, and they're like, she's good for Eddie or something like that? (Maybe Wayne will be more interesting to me personally bc he's Eddie's uncle, but I can completely see the Hellfire Club and Wayne all being like, we don't trust her!)

-🩷

I had most of this written in the beginning of the month but couldn't find the motivation to write the perfect ending. But! I just finished it and hopefully it's an ending that made the story worth it. Thank you for requesting and I hope you enjoy it 🫶🏻

Young girls and trust don't mix

Eddie was in his 40s and struggled to find anyone. He'd been single for years and never found out what falling in love was. He slept around and never had an empty bed, but there wasn't a spark or anything. He was a rockstar and his life was on the road. He prepared to never be tied down.

It was a shock to everyone when Eddie released to the world that he had a girlfriend, and more of a shock when they learned she was in her twenties. The headlines went crazy and girls were filled with envy. The most wanted bachelor was now off the roaster. And when Wayne heard the news, he was immediately concerned.

He wanted Eddie to find a nice girl and have a family. A young girl? Wayne didn't believe she was going to lead him into a marriage. She was too young for that and Wayne feared she was around for the fame and fun.

~~~

"Wayne, I don't want to talk about this again!" Eddie groaned, he sat on the small couch in his tour bus. Y/N's head rested on his lap as she skimmed through a magazine.

"Eddie, I'm just telling you! Dating a girl that young doesn't seem logical. Look into the future, like five years, do you think she'll still be around?"

"Yes," Eddie said without missing a beat.

"Edward, you met her after your show, right? She's a fan and you know how dangerous and manipulative a fangirl can be." Wayne warned. A conversation both men had over and over. Yet, none of it changed Eddie's mind.

"Night Wayne." Eddie sighed and hung up. He took a deep breath to calm his anger and chucked the phone across the bus.

"Still doesn't like me, huh?" Y/N said as she skimmed the magazine, but her eyes looked up to meet his.

She couldn't lie, it pained her that the most important person in Eddie's life didn't have positive thoughts about her. She understood Wayne's worries and she wished she found a way to prove him wrong. She knew she was young, but there wasn't a doubt in her mind that she'd walk down the aisle to Eddie. She wanted his hand in hers forever.

"I just don't get it! I've been with you for almost a year and he still fights me on it. He thinks you are a groupie since you go to all the shows with me."

"I know, babe," Y/N sighed, she sat up and cuddled into his lap. "but! He hasn't met me yet. Your last show is in Hawkins, then we'll have a few months for me to win him over. He might need to meet me to trust me. All he has is tabloids, of course, he's skeptical."

"But why isn't my word good enough?" Eddie groaned, his face in her neck as he breathed in her sweet scent.

"Because only idiots fall in love." She teased as she poked his side. "He just thinks you blinded, love."

"I'm going to make him love you. Just like I do." Eddie promised.

"Maybe not like you do is a good idea." She joked.

"Haha." Eddie faked a laugh as he nibbled at her neck. She giggled and squirmed.

Y/N vowed to make Wayne accept her.

~~~

After a few more days of sold-out shows and arguments over the phone with Wayne, Eddie's show in Hawkins arrived. Eddie was extra nervous about the show since Wayne would be there and Y/N was supposed to be meeting him. Eddie wasn't sure what he'd do if Wayne didn't change his mind about her. He didn't want to break up but he didn't want to live with the pit in his stomach of the two most important people in his life not getting along.

Y/N was focusing on Eddie's eyes as she applied the black eyeliner when Wayne was escorted into the dressing room.

"There the big rockstar!" Wayne joked, Y/N stepped back to allow Eddie to stand up and embrace the older man in a tight hug. She smiled at the moment as both refused to let go first. Y/N knew how important it was for Eddie to have Wayne here. To see him perform after years and years of not making it. Tonight was the first night Wayne would see Eddie as the rockstar he finally was.

Wayne pulled back with a smile, his eyes never looked to the right to see Y/N.

"I can't wait to see ya perform!" Wayne said the anxiety in Eddie's stomach tightened.

"This is the biggest crowd of the tour. I think I might barf." Eddie admitted. He was terrified. He hated coming back to Hawkins, to a town where he was nothing but scum. The rest of the world loved him, but what if home still didn't? What if he went out there and everyone hated him?

"Baby, you will do amazing," Y/N reassured him, her words caused their heads to turn. Both Wayne and Eddie looked at her with two different expressions. Eddie, who looked grateful and soft. Wayne, looked like he wished she didn't speak.

"Wayne, this is my girlfriend, Y/N." Eddie proudly said as he wrapped his arm around her waist. She smiled and held out her hand, Wayne stepped forward and shook it.

"Pleasure to meet you, Sir." She said as their hands released each other.

"Right, so Eddie! Where will I be sitting?"

"Next to my girl," Eddie said with a big smile

~

Y/N walked silently with Wayne as they were escorted into the front row of the stadium. People screaming as she passed through. She waved and smiled, being as polite as she could. Wayne tried to not roll his eyes as she soaked in the fame. Another thing Wayne was always telling Eddie about.

"So we'll sit and he gets about half an hour to do his vocal exercises then he'll be out," Y/N said, sitting down in the small chair. She tried to ignore how awkward the air felt. She took a minute to look at the crowd, and it truly was the biggest crowd she'd ever seen.

She and Wayne sat in silence as they waited for Eddie to come on. But Y/N couldn't help but notice the clock struck 8, and Eddie still wasn't on the stage. She tried not to worry and figured the stage management was running behind.

She stood up when Eddie's manager came rushing towards her.

"Y/N? Eddie is asking for you." Eddie's manager said as he whispered into her ear, she nodded and turned to Wayne. "I'll be right back!" And raced after his manager. Wayne didn't think twice about standing up and following behind her.

~

Eddie was panicking. He made the mistake of looking at the crowd, and now he couldn't feel his legs. He sat on the floor, hurdled up, and ate at his fingernails.

"Eds?" He heard Y/N call from outside the door, and she softly knocked. She waited a second before she opened the door, her heart cracked seeing a nervous Eddie huddled on the floor.

"What's wrong?" She asked as she sat on the floor. Eddie didn't speak but moved to be in her arms. It was like their bodies communicated as Eddie began to relax.

"It's okay to be nervous, but trust me, they will love you. They are your fans and here to support you." She encouraged them as she rubbed his hand.

"What if I'm not good enough to be something good in this town," Eddie confessed. He was too ashamed to look up at her and to see Wayne.

"Nonsense. You were always something good. They never learned who you were, because if they did, they'd love you. They'd see how sweet, creative, and funny you are. But this is their chance to treat you the way you always deserved. Go show them what they missed out on."

Wayne watched as Eddie jumped up with a new confidence, the atmosphere of the room lifting as he threw his guitar over his shoulder. He felt ashamed of the way he acted, it was easy to tell Y/N was the best thing that ever happened to Eddie. In a shitty town that only gave him hell and a family that was filled with betrayal. He still managed to find someone to bring his spirits up.

Maybe she deserved more credit than Wayne thought.

~

Wayne watched as Eddie performed his life. And he couldn't help but embrace the energetic energy Y/N brought. She sang every song, knew every lyric, and danced perfectly to every beat. It was clear that she had every part of his songs memorized. He also noticed how much Eddie looked back to her, his eyes landed on her every few minutes. Then a small smile appeared before his eyes moved on.

There was something really special about the relationship Wayne was seeing, and he knew he accepted it right then and there.

~~~

After the show, Wayne apologized for his actions and words. But Y/N didn't hold it against him. She understood where he came from and was happy to have changed his mind.

Eddie was grateful Wayne gave her the chance because the sight of them getting along was the best thing Eddie got to experience.

Tags!

@bmunson86 @mxcheese @ladymunson @michaelfuckinglangdon @z0mbie-blah @biittersweet @mirrorsstuff @somethingvicked @micheledawn1975 @ago-godance @magnificantmermaid @tlclick73 @hargrovesswifee @cityofidek @manyfandomsfanvergentreblogs @silky-luxe @lokiofasgard616 @loving-and-dreaming @eddiemunsonsbitch69 @thegemaqua @ashlynnkennedy @strangerthingsstories5255 @harringt8ns @pleasinghellfire @whoscamila @stusdollface93 @gretavankleep37 @bellaisswagger

[writingwithfolklore]

Writing Fictional News

              Eee this is one of my biggest pet peeves in movies, games, stories, anything… As someone who reads and edits a lot of news articles for my job, I can tell soo instantly when fictional news articles or broadcasts were written by someone who has never written news before. I’m constantly saying, “hmm, they’d never publish that.”

              So here’s what you gotta know about writing (fictional) news stories.

1. They’re to the point… but not like that

This is the biggest thing I see in fiction that has news in it. People tend to write headlines that have the worst, gory details. For example,

“Student Sadie Walker murdered by 50 stabbings last night.”

While dramatic (and informative), I don’t see this as a news headline. The same situation (Sorry Sadie) may actually be reported as,

“Young woman passed away after involvement in stabbing late last night.”

              While news articles are to the point and informative, remember that they’re written for the general public. We often don’t get the super gory details (at least, not in the headline).

2. They have a pretty specific voice

While most journalism is meant to be free of bias, news is the most importantly objective. This tends to result in articles written in a more formal tone. They also follow a structure: the most specific details to the most general.

              Imagine you’re writing a piece that you’re expecting the reader to drop out at any moment. The headline is the attention grabber so your first line has the most important details of the story, so that someone can read it and know the jist.

Following our example, the first paragraph might be,

“Last night in June County a young woman was found unconscious, having suffered severe injuries. The woman was identified as Sadie Walker, a 21-year-old student attending June County University nearby. According to police reports, Walker had been walking between campus and the student dorms around midnight when she was struck and stabbed 30-50 times in the chest and back. Walker was found by a peer returning home an estimated hour after the attack and taken straight to Red Mill General hospital, where she passed away shortly after. The perpetrator is still unknown at this time.”

       Remember the 5 W’s and 1 H. Your first few lines should inform the reader of Who, What happened, Where did it happen, When did it happen, how it happened, and maybe why if you know—though since news is so timely, often the answer isn’t known right away.

3. Where the article is found in the news is telling

While a story like our example might make the front page of the paper (especially if nothing else is really going on in June County), only one story can make this top spot. Some papers are divided between the top and bottom of the page, known as “above the fold” and “below the fold”. It’s a bit more traditional format, but the ‘above the fold’ spot is the best one, because that’s the story people see when they’re passing by the newsstand, while ‘below the fold’ is another important story making the front page, but one would have to pick up the paper and unfold it to read it.

Not to mention all the stories found inside the paper. Consider how important your article is--not to your characters/plot, but to the general society your fictional newspaper is serving. Would your MC’s win at the local dog competition make the front page of big city news?

Any other news writers on here? What did I miss?

[wardenparker]

Hummingbird Has Landed, ch 1

Marcus Pike x female reader Co-written with @absurdthirst

After the debacle of his failed engagement and relocating to Washington to take charge of his task force, newly minted Special Agent Marcus Pike is ready to get back out into the dating pool once more. A slew of bad dates has him feeling a little down, and he takes an old friend up on an invitation to get away and get his head on straight. Imagine his surprise when he finds not only fresh air, but his soulmate as well - hiding in plain sight but in the unlikeliest of places.

Rating: Mature, but this blog is always 18+ Word Count: 14.4k Warnings: *Blanket warnings for this series: occasional mention of American politics, pregnant character, food/alcohol consumption, mentions of clothing/regulated dressing for occasions, mentions of therapy because we believe in self care here, reader is in a previous relationship, love triangle* Not much for this chapter! Mostly fluff, a little flirting, and playful but on-point use of the term 'tramp stamp'. Summary: On a failed date at the local market, Marcus runs into an old friend and gets an invitation to visit. The beautiful inn and fantastic food were explicit in the invite -- but you are a complete surprise to him. Notes: Welcome, welcome, welcome my lovelies! As a girl who grew up on The West Wing and fosters an unapologetic love of all things romance, a story like this has been on my wish list to write for a very long time. I hope you're all ready for a cast of new characters and the grand appearance of Pedro's character from Graceland, because it's time for Marcus Pike to meet his soulmate! 🧡🧡🧡

There’s something about the hustle and bustle of D.C., that while it can invigorate someone and inspire them to live life as fast as possible, it can also drain them. At least, that’s what Marcus Pike has learned from the last three years of therapy. That and he’s prone to rushing into relationships, being in love with love, as Dr. Barnes would caution him.

It seems sometimes as if he’s unlucky in love, despite the universe providing a perfect match for him, he’s never found her. Always looking, but also being open to loving someone who doesn’t share marks or scars. Someone who just wants a stable and steady man to worship them and give them the world.

He hasn’t dated in almost three years. His therapist had advised him to focus on himself. To work through his emotions of a failed college marriage, a failed engagement. To make himself happy with who he is before introducing another person into the mix. He had thought that’s what he was doing, but apparently he had been wrong.

Finally feeling ready to date again, he had dipped his toes back in the water. Only to have it backfire tremendously. So much so, that he finds himself walking around the Eastern Market on his own. His idea of a farmer’s market casual date obviously not a good one, according to the woman who had tossed the drink he had bought her on the trash and stomped off, abandoning him to feel like a fool.

Smiling faces beam back at him from the covers of glossy gossip magazines, flashing headlines critiquing fashions worn to the recent inauguration ceremony and parties. The new president and her family wave from above the fold of newspapers — the happy family that Marcus himself doesn’t have. Ignoring the rude reminder, he wanders through the stalls and vendors of Eastern Market aimlessly until he reaches the family-owned sweet shop that he’s been coming to for years now. They know him, and like him, and his sweet tooth knows no bounds. There’s another man at the counter just before Marcus so he stands back, but Jenny waves hello from behind the counter. “Morning Marcus! Gimme one second and I’ll be right with you.” She says, turning back to the order marked Juan in her big, looping handwriting. “Six cannoli, right? Two pistachio, two double chocolate, and two cherry chocolate?”

“Right.” The man in a corduroy jacket with his short hair trimmed neatly nods. “Thanks, Jen. The girls are going to be over the moon.”

Another reminder of a life he craves. Marcus frowns slightly and tries to remember what his therapist has told him. Everyone moves at their own pace. Just because he’s not juggling two kids, a dog and a lovely wife with his workload doesn’t mean he’s failing. It just means he’s not met the right person, soulmate or not.

The other man pays for his order and turns to leave but stops dead in the middle of a cordial nod when he sees Marcus standing a few feet away. Sure he had heard Jenny say hi to someone…but he hadn’t looked. Now though? He huffs a laugh at the ghost of his past. “Pike?” They’d been mistaken as brothers — or for each other — so many times back at the Academy that it would be impossible not to recognize Marcus Pike.

“Badillo?” It’s amazing to see the other agent, although he had heard that he had left the Bureau after a friendly fire shooting. He looks good though, and Marcus cracks into the first real grin of the morning since being left high and dry. “What the hell? How are you doing, man?” He asks, coming in for a friendly hug while being mindful of the box in Juan’s hand.

“Good! Good. Errands.” Juan huffs, returning Marcus’s hug with equal surprise and affection. The men had been quite good friends at one time, more than a few years ago now. “Pregnant wife gets whatever pregnant wife wants, ya know?” He grins, bright and shining. “When did you get back to DC?”

“Pregnant wife, huh?” Despite the knife to his heart, Marcus paints on a grin, happy for his old friend. “Three years ago.” He shrugs slightly. “Heading up Art Crimes now. How about you? I heard you got out.” He lifts his eyebrows, allowing Juan to talk if he wants or brush it off if he doesn’t.

“I did.” Juan nods, knowing that various stories circulated after he left the Bureau. Most of them false. “Decided to take a little road trip vacation to clear my head and ended up meeting my soulmate in Yosemite on day two of the whole thing, and I followed her East.” He shrugs, ever the unapologetic romantic just like Marcus. They had had that in common. “How’s Lara?” He asks, remembering the woman that had been Mrs. Pike during their Academy days. Marcus had been over the moon for her. “Is she liking being back?”

Marcus grimaces a little and shrugs. “She’s, uh, we got divorced about ten years ago.” He tells him. “She found out she did have a soulmate.”

“Ah shit.” Blowing out a breath and shuffling his feet, Juan rubs the back of his neck self-consciously. “I’m sorry, man. That’s—there’s just no easy way to get through something like that.”

“It’s okay.” Marcus had loved Lara, but he wasn’t going to stand in the way of soulmates. It wouldn’t be right. “It was actually a very easy divorce; she hated hurting me. More than I can say for the last date, or last fiancée I’ve had.”

“Shit.” Juan huffs again, shaking his head in disbelief. “It’s eleven in the morning but I feel like I ought to be buying you a drink, man.” Hearing that someone as genuinely good as Marcus Pike is has had his heart bashed so often is a fucking bummer, and Juan chews on his lip for a second before his head tilts in that Universal signal of natural curiosity. “I’ve got time today. If you want to hang out? Catch up?” He offers, knowing that drinks will most likely come later if the two old friends spend the day getting back on the same page.

Marcus chuckles, shoving his hands in his pockets. “Do I look that dejected?” He asks, even though he’s not really looking for an answer. “I was supposed to be on a date, I figured a farmer’s market/brunch date would be easy enough and yet thoughtful, but I was ditched.” He snorts. “I have zero luck it seems.” He nods his head towards the cannoli. “But you can’t leave your pregnant wife waiting on those.”

“No, I can’t.” Sydney is waiting back at the restaurant with bated breath, he knows that, but he does offer Marcus a smile. “But she does run a restaurant, so you don’t have to be brunch-less unless you choose to be.”

“Yeah?” He perks up at the idea of trying out a new place, always loving brunch foods. “Where at? I might have to take a spin over there.”

“Her place is called Il Corvo.” It takes a second, but Juan digs a business card for the restaurant out of his jacket pocket and hands it over. “It’s the in-house restaurant at The Inn at Jones Point in Alexandria.” He reports proudly, always ready to brag about his soulmate’s amazing success. Running a restaurant is no small feat. “I know the card says the dining room opens at 4pm, but ignore that. She does brunch for guests at the inn and for special guests from time to time.”

“Are you sure?” Marcus frowns slightly. “I don’t want to impose.”

“It’s not imposing, trust me.” Knowing his wife as well as he does, Juan is more than certain she’ll be doting on Marcus in no time. “As long as you’re on board for Italian food, come by any time you want.”

“I’m out on the bike.” Marcus tells Juan, remembering how the other agent also loved to ride motorcycles. “I might swing by sometime. Normally go for rides on the weekend.”

"Anytime you want," Juan repeats, and he hopes Marcus understands how entirely he means it. "It's good to see you again, man."

“Good to see you too.” Marcus means that, smiling at the former agent. “Nice to see that you are okay.”

The two men part with a smile and a nod, and Juan hustles away to get his precious cargo back out to his soulmate. Maybe he'll pitch the idea of inviting Marcus to their next board game night if Sydney and her best friend don't mind the extra company. Not that they ever mind extra company.

Marcus doesn’t mean for it to be two weeks from the chance encounter with Juan before he steers his bike down the country, winding roads towards this inn that he had been told about. He had a case that required him to travel. Then it was reports and the never ending budget fiascos that new presidencies always bring, his boss wanting a new projections for the fiscal year for some reason.

Now though, he’s enjoying the scenery as the wind blows over his face and he leans into the curve, enjoying the small thrill that races up his spine from the inherent danger.

The winter has been mild so far and all the snow left behind by the storm the area had gotten while he was traveling has melted, making the ride an easy and calming one. He had intentionally driven a long route around Alexandria and the surrounding area, letting him arrive at his destination a little after noon on that cold, sunny Sunday. The inn is a large brick farmhouse, probably originally colonial but it looks like it was redone sometime during the Federalist architecture craze of the early 1800s. Now its clean white painted window frames and front porch are as welcoming as the pristinely kept front garden. The Inn at Jones Point proclaims a sign out front, which is accompanied by a smaller complimentary sign with an impressionist painted black bird that reads Il Corvo in an artistic script. There are cars in the lot with a plethora of states listed on their license plates, another motorcycle that he has to assume is Juan's, and a very government-issued-looking black car parked close to the building.

Marcus is enough of a romantic to fully appreciate the appeal of the property and more importantly, grounded enough to be able to appreciate it without having a partner here to enjoy it with. Since working with his therapist, he's spent a lot of the last three years 'dating himself'. Instead of waiting to make a date to try out a new restaurant, he goes by himself. Not limiting himself to new experiences with partners, he has found that he enjoys the hunt for the perfect spots to eat. The little Indian restaurant he had found is an absolute gem and he is looking forward to discovering a new little brunch spot. If this place is half as good as Juan says, he might make it a monthly habit while he can spend some time with his old friend.

Inside, the lobby of the inn is bustling. Guests sit in plush chairs with travel brochures or excitedly type on their phones. A family is gathered around a display of pamphlets for different travel experiences and tourist attraction. Another guest is hovering around the front desk, seemingly waiting for someone to return.

From the rooms off to the left, wave after wave of stunning smells wafts past Marcus as he looks around. A set of French doors stands open but the hostess stand for Il Corvo stands empty while a small number of diners sit inside, happily chattering over their meals. The scent of fresh coffee permeates everything else just a second before he can see why, as a woman in a blue silk shirt comes around the corner with two travel cups — presumably full of coffee — for the guest standing at the desk.

“Here we are, Mrs. Richards. Thank you for your patience, the pot was just finishing brewing. These will keep you nice and warm while you walk around Old Town.” Smiling as the woman walks away, your eyes survey the room and land on the new arrival with a touch of confusion. “Good afternoon,” you greet, in your typical sunshiny tone. This man isn’t a guest and you genuinely almost thought it was Juan for a second — even though you just saw Juan in the restaurant. “How can I help you today?”

“Hi— uh, I—” Marcus realizes he knows you. Your mother’s picture hangs on his office wall next to the current FBI director’s, and furthermore, it’s hard to not see the darling First Daughter in some news story – although it doesn’t seem like you enjoy the press. “Yeah, sorry, Juan said that brunch is served here?” He asks with an apologetic smile. “I’m Marcus, uh, Pike. We were in the Academy together and I ran into him a few weeks ago.”

You’re prettier than he ever imagined the pictures and news reels, your voice curling into his stomach pleasantly. In true, Marcus Pike fashion. He finds himself instantly intrigued by you.

“Oh, you’re Marcus!” As bright and cheery as you sound, something flips in your stomach and clenches at your chest and you swallow down the oh god he’s really hot impulse that you haven’t felt in…well, in years. This guy looks like someone took Juan and gave him broader shoulders and better hair, and put a little bit more James Dean in his style. “It’s really nice to meet you.” You introduce yourself, probably unnecessarily, but it’s good manners and keeps you from getting nervous or going off track. “Come on this way. Juan said you might be stopping by but he wasn’t sure when.”

“I’m sorry, should I have called first?” He asks, feeling guilty and slightly in the way. The last thing that he wants is to cause an imposition.

“Not at all.” You slip out from behind your desk and wave for him to follow you. “He’s been excited to introduce you to everybody.” The inn is a decent size, with the ground floor being public spaces and all the rooms upstairs being ready-made for guests except for the attic apartment, and you quickly lead the way through the rooms toward the restaurant kitchen.

“It’s been a long time since we’ve caught up.” Marcus admits. “We were close in the academy, most people through we were twins to be honest.” He chuckles slightly.

“I almost thought you were him when I saw you,” you admit, glad to know you aren’t alone in it. Juan had said they look alike but it really is extreme. “Here we are.” Humming as you push open the door to the restaurant’s bar, you huff a soft laugh when a woman slightly taller than you with masses of curls in a tight bun at the nape of her neck in a black suit sidesteps the pair of you and opens the kitchen door to look inside before letting you in. “Thank you, Agent Bailey.” As odd as it is to have constant supervision like this, you’re doing your best to be patient and understanding with it. “Come on into the kitchen,” you offer to Marcus. “Brunch is almost over and this is where Juan sits when he hangs out.”

“Really? The inner sanctum already?” The tone is joking, but Marcus knows that for a lot of chefs, the kitchen is their sacred place. He wouldn’t know, because his kitchen is used to make coffee, but he’s had a few relationships with amateur gourmet cooks.

“Marcus!” There’s no question that this is where he’s supposed to be, when Juan is waving from a corner of the kitchen and immediately zips over to say hello. “How are you, man? Good to see you!”

“Hey.” He grins when he sees the other man, obviously happier here than any time in the Bureau and he’s happy for him. He seems like a completely different man, just from the quick glance. Perhaps it’s the fact that he found his soulmate. “Sorry it’s been a few weeks. Got caught up on a case.”

“I completely get it,” he assures his friend. “It’s been kind of crazy around here anyway. Weddings booked every single weekend and the restaurant stuffed full with reservations.” He beams, proud as a peacock, and waves slightly as you disappear back out through the bar to return to your counter. The inn is full up with last night’s wedding party and you have your hands full. “I want you to meet my wife,” Juan says, clapping Marcus in the shoulder and pulling him further into the kitchen.

There are only two people cooking right now and they are both winding down. Enough that the petite woman with tied-up hair and a look of intense concentration on her face can look up and smile. “I hear you talking about me,” she warns with a laugh.

“Syd, this is Marcus Pike.” Juan introduces, bringing his friend out in front of him. “Marcus, this is Sydney. The gorgeous goddess the universe decided to grace me with.”

“Nice to meet you.” Again that pesky pang of longing lurches inside Marcus but he throws her a smile and takes her hand after she offers it immediately. “I’ve only heard angelic things about you, so rest assured, he’s not talking ill.”

“He’s does nothing but tell stories about you since you guys ran into each other at Eastern Market.” Sydney tells him honestly. “Can I make you something to eat?”

“I was hoping to experience the brunch option that Juan was bragging about.” Marcus admits as he glances around, admiring the state of the art kitchen. “Didn’t expect to see this from the historical facade.” He admits. “It’s charming though.” He adds, hoping that neither one of you take offense.

"Charming is her specialty." Sydney points her thumb in the direction of the door, indicating the main lobby of the inn. "We took over running this place about three years ago now. The previous owners weren't able to keep up anymore so they sold to her and we updated the restaurant. Modern Italian dinners and brunch for the inn's guests. It's a big step up from the B&B that this place used to be." Grinning proudly, Sydney moves over to the nearest counter and plops a paper menu down at the stool beside her husband. "What would you like?"

Marcus looks at the menu and lifts a brow, impressed by the sophisticated menu. This isn’t some little spaghetti shop that pretends to be Italian. “It’s been so long since I’ve had good Uova in Purgatorio.” He moans. “Since the last time I was in Naples.” He clicks his tongue. “But I want to try the ricotta pancakes too.”

"Then you will get both," Sydney insists, clicking her tongue and getting to work. "A G-man in Naples, huh?" She barely glances up from her work as she moves. "Art crimes must be the fancy branch of the Bureau."

“I work on international cases with Interpol and Scotland Yard.” He explains as he sits down and admires the fluidity of her movements in the kitchen. She’s completely at home in her space and it’s evident she’s in command. He’s slightly envious of her comfort in a kitchen, if he’s honest.

"Oh, so it definitely is the fancy branch." She laughs. Juan hops up from his seat to grab coffee for himself and Marcus, brushing a kiss on her cheek as he moves past, and the other woman who had been cooking moves away to the other end of the room to work on cleaning up from the brunch rush.

"Fancy branch of what?" The kitchen door swings open again and you come strolling back inside looking infinitely more tired than you had just a few minutes ago but still in a generally good mood. "The wedding party is finally gone. I am officially taking my break."

Marcus stares at you for a moment and then looks down at his hands, feeling like he might be bragging if he were to tell you what they’ve been talking about. There’s something about you that is knocking him off kilter, he’s normally a little more confident than this.

"Art crimes is swanky, apparently." Sydney tells you, never stopping or slowing as she moves around like a controlled whirlwind. "Eggs in purgatory and ricotta pancakes for your brunch? I'll make up a big batch." They're two of your favourite things anyway and it's easy enough to just make a double serving of each when she knows that your break time is always mealtime.

"That sounds incredible," you moan in agreement, making a beeline for the industrial refrigerator in the corner of the room to make yourself an iced latte that is far more espresso than milk. A generous swirl of flavored syrup joins your cup before you plop down on the edge of the counter and sip your drink with a happy sigh. Normally people exclaim over you when they realize they recognize you but Marcus Pike hasn't said a word — and you wonder if he doesn't recognize you from the papers or if you even care. It's nice to not have someone make a fuss for once. To just be nice and not suck up to you for being the President's oldest child.

“Weddings take it out of you, huh?” Marcus asks, smirking a little at the drink in your hand, although it looks delicious. “Or were they just demanding?”

"It was a big party. Very specific needs." Sipping your drink and finally sitting is immediately relaxing, and you're always ready to meet new people. Especially when they're someone that your best friend's husband speaks of so highly. "Nothing I can't handle, but weddings are always tricky. It's the most important day of at least one person's life, so you always want to try to make it as perfect for them as you can. Thankfully," you gesture around you. "I have an incredible team. Syd is the best Italian chef in the Chesapeake Bay and Juanito is an incredible event coordinator."

Marcus snorts and cuts his eyes over at Badillo. “He always did have an eye for details.” He admits, snickering at the nickname you’ve bestowed on the former federal agent. “Although it’s surprising that it’s manifested in wedding planning.” He teases playfully.

"Event planning," Juan clarifies, but he's grinning regardless. "We host a lot here. Weddings, anniversaries, holiday parties, all kinds of personal events. I get to put my organizational mind to work on it. It's actually pretty rewarding."

"Don't let him sell himself short. Juan plans a hell of a wedding." There is pride on your face, pride for your friend and in your work "We've gotten written up in a bunch of bridal magazines and on websites the last few years."

“Good job, Juanito.” If there’s anything that Marcus enjoyed more than the courses in the academy, it was busting his friend’s balls. All in good fun of course, he had taken his share of ribbing as well. It was par for the course. “That sounds like a hell of a job, making people happy and sharing in their special moments.”

"We do our best." Juan will never take the credit for himself, always attributing the effort to the team as a whole. This time, though, he flashes a knowing grin at you. "Although the next one we plan might be a hell of a lot bigger than what we do here."

“Oh?” Marcus asks, turning towards you. “Are you getting married soon?” His eyes drop discreetly to your hand and he tries to remember what he’s read about you but for some reason, he’s drawing a blank.

“No, Juan just likes to tease.” You shake it off with a roll of your eyes, knowing that — unfortunately — your friend is completely right. If or when it does happen, it will be a damn circus. “It’s this…guy that I met last year, and it’s been really good and he really took all the stress of the last year in stride, and these two love to tease.” In truth, you’ve been intentionally moving forward slowly with the junior Congressman from Maryland that you met at a campaign event you attended with your mother last year. Sam is a good guy and has big ideas for the future. It’s just that you normally dive into relationships so fast and so deep that your heart does all the talking before your mind can catch up. And now that you’re a public figure, you can’t afford to have that happen again. “I’m perfectly content to watch other people have their big days for now.”

“I can imagine that it’s hard to have a relationship right now.” He sympathizes. “The press either treats you like a darling celebrity or some kind of public spectacle, right?” He asks, curious as to your view on the entire thing. Personally, he hated the idea of politics taking on a celebrity flare and you aren’t on politics, your mother is.

“I’m honestly lucky that my younger siblings take some of the focus,” you admit. So he did recognize you. It’s nice that he didn’t fuss. You’re grateful for that. “My brother is in law school and my sister is in undergrad and they’re both living in the White House while they study but…yeah. We all agreed to give up our privacy for a while so Mom can do some good work. That means relationships aren’t easy right now.”

“It’s good you had a choice.” Marcus admits. “Sometimes I watch the campaigns for some of the politicians and it’s obvious the family would rather be anywhere else and are putting on a facade.” He shrugs, not wanting to delve too deep into a subject you probably are uncomfortable with. “Nice that you don’t have too much interference here, except for the Secret Service agent.”

"Agent Bailey's okay." In fact, she's sitting outside the kitchen door right now, giving you a bit of space and privacy to try to pretend you still have a halfway normal life. "We're still getting used to each other. I had somebody else during the campaign, but she's been assigned to my sister now. It all works out in the end." Smiling, you take another sip of your coffee and wonder why your stomach is fluttering over this very kind man who has been introduced into your lives very much by chance. It's...unsettling. To say the very least. "But that's plenty about me. How about you, Special Agent Marcus Pike? Where're you from? How are you liking Art Crimes?" You grin, throwing him a mischievous expression. "Who'd you vote for, for president?"

Marcus laughs, a real laugh that comes from his belly and he relaxes. “Let’s see…I’m from the great state of Texas - Go Rangers.” He ticks off. “I love Art Crimes, especially when we can recover sentimental pieces and keep “collectors”,” he uses air quotes, “from locking away art from being enjoyed by all.” He grins at your last question. “And my momma told me never to discuss politics or religion in social settings….but….my candidate is currently hanging on my office wall.”

"Rangers, huh?" Glossing over the not insignificant tidbit that he did, in fact, vote for your mother, you find yourself thoroughly enjoying getting to know this friend of your friend. It's usually not this easy to click with a new acquaintance, although you've become an expert at seeming interested just to be polite. That doesn't seem to be necessary at all with this man. "When we get our Phillies/Rangers series this year we'll have to come up with a bet of some kind."

“It’s gonna be a losing bet on your end.” Marcus predicts. “We’ve got Darío Álvarez and then Elvis Andrus is going to continue stealing bases.”

"Oh thank god," Sydney huffs, flipping ricotta pancakes on her griddle top and grinning as she throws you a wink. "She's finally got someone else to drag to baseball games. I'm free!"

"My alleged best friend," you smirk and decide to tease her back. "And her husband are both hockey people. So I'm generally either stuck watching the game on my own or dragging Syd along with promises of beer and ballpark dogs."

“Nationals aren’t my favorite team. Since they are National League.” Marcus smirks. “But I have season tickets since it’s too expensive to fly back to Texas for every game.”

It would be bragging to admit that you've been asked to throw the first ball out at the Nationals opening game this season as the most vocally baseball-loving member of the new First Family, so you just smile. You know it can feel like a big sacrifice to leave something about home behind. "Maybe I'll see you there," you offer instead. "The Nationals aren't my team either, but the game are pretty fun."

“Oh they always are.” He admits wholeheartedly. “Plus the Navy Yard is close so it’s always interesting.”

"Heeeeere we go." Onto the counter in front of you, Sydney heaps four plates of food – making each of you identical breakfasts. "The fruit compote for the pancakes right now is cranberry lemon. And I threw a little extra chili into the sauce for the eggs." She grins. "Some folks who stay at the inn say it's too spicy but it's how we like it," she tells Marcus.

Marcus chuckles and Juan snorts, hooking his fingers towards the agent. “This man ate his way through a five alarm chili contest and didn’t even touch his beer.” He boasts to the two of you. “If it’s not spicy, I don’t want it.” Marcus confirms with a grin. “Thank you. It smells amazing.”

"Then next time you're getting Calabrian chili instead of just the wimpy flakes." Sydney promises with glee. "That's how our girl likes it, but that's too much even for me most of the time. I have to be in the mood for it."

“You like spicy?” He asks, smirking towards you. “How do you feel about the Indian food around here?”

"There's a place in DuPont Circle that is probably the best Indian food I've ever had in my entire life." Even as you're getting ready to dig into your best friend's comfort Italian fare, your mouth starts watering thinking of curries and dal. "The kind of place where they don't make it really spicy until you've been there a couple of times and they know you can handle it. I swear I've eaten there more than I've cooked my own food since moving out here."

“Rasika’s?” Marcus groans, nodding. “I love that place. They make the best curry I’ve ever eaten in my life. I’m sweating, but I never tell them to bring me the yogurt sauce.”

"If you don't sweat while you're eating there, you're doing it wrong." It's a slight point of contention with Sam, who generally considers mustard to be too spicy most of the time, but you ignore the side eye you're getting from Sydney and dig in to your brunch. Having come in early today, this is halfway through your shift and you're going to be excited to head upstairs to your little attic caretaker's apartment when the time comes this afternoon. "Mmmmm," you groan happily and do a little wiggle in your seat unconsciously. "Syd, I swear. If you hadn't already married Juan, I'd marry you for your brunch."

Marcus takes that as the best kind of advertisement and cuts into his own meal to fork up a bite of the eggs. “Christ.” He groans as soon as the flavors hit his mouth. “That’s amazing.”

"I told you," Juan boasts, sitting up in his seat a little taller with pride for his soulmate. "She's amazing."

“You weren’t kidding.” Marcus huffs, taking another bite. “If this got out, you could run on brunch alone.”

"We're considering offering an incentive package for events." Starting to clean up, Syd watches the two of you eat while she wraps the kitchen up from brunch to get everything prepared for dinner service. "Wedding brunches are coming back in fashion, but a lot of people are wanting to do morning after brunches for their families before everyone goes their separate ways."

“I can see that.” Marcus nods. “Lara and I had a lunch thing before we all said goodbye, but that was casual.”

"Your wife?" You guess, struggling to remember if Juan had mentioned that his friend was married. He's not wearing a ring, but some men don't — a habit that generally rubs you the wrong way because those men are always the ones who basically want their wives to walk around wearing a giant 'I'm married' sign but will never show any outward signs of commitment themselves.

Marcus gives a small shrug and smiles self-consciously. “Ex-wife.” He admits, knowing that soon enough the pitying looks will start. “We divorced a while ago.”

Sydney clicks her tongue, having remembered that fact, and says nothing more. You, though? For some reason you can't help yourself. Something about Marcus Pike compels you to offer comfort in whatever way you can. "If you ever find another Mrs. Pike, you let us know. We've got you covered."

Marcus chuckles. “So far, that search has been in vain.” He admits. “Apparently it’s not in the cards for me.”

"She's out there." Juan offers with confidence. "If I remember correctly, you've even got a couple of tattoos to prove it."

Marcus rolls his eyes. “Yeah, I do.” He snorts. “If I ever find her, I want to know why there is a hummingbird tramp stamp on my lower back.” He laughs. “I get why, but why???? Why a hummingbird?”

A glare of questioning moves soundlessly between you and your best friend — the perpetually meddling woman who sat next to you when you were eighteen and challenged you to answer trivia questions while you had your own hummingbird tramp stamp inked onto your skin in celebration of your high school graduation. "Oh yeah?" She asks, raising an eyebrow at you while you furious try to communicate with nothing more than wide eyes that you do not want her to ask what she's about to ask. "What kind of hummingbird? How trashy are we talking?"

“It’s not exactly trashy.” Marcus defends. “It’s actually a pretty blue and green.“

"Interesting." Sydney hums, practically giggling with glee as she cleans up the kitchen and you bury your face in your meal like it will help you escape the entire conversation. "Maybe hummingbirds are her favourite bird?"

I'm going to kill you in your sleep says the glare you send your best friend's way.

“Totally trashed my punk rock image.” He laughs. “Although I didn’t think of that at the time. Thinking I’m this hardcore next Kurt Cobain rocker and I’ve got a hummingbird tattoo on my lower back.” He snorts, shrugging slightly. “But it’s always been a question I’ve wanted to ask. What made her choose that? What’s special about it to her?”

"Hummingbirds symbolize love and devotion," you murmur next to him, not quite looking up and wondering if the world is really turning on its ear right now or if it's just that you've been thrown off kilter by the possibilities. It's not like you're the only girl in the world with a hummingbird tattoo, after all. Far from it. "And they're supposed to be good luck."

“I like that.” Marcus hums softly. “It’s wistful, hopeful.” There could be a thousand different reasons why his soulmate chose that symbol to etch on her body and in turn, his, but he would rather it be a loving sign. You aren’t looking at him, and miss the small smile he throws you. “Poetic.”

"So she's gotta be out there somewhere." Sydney needles the point a little bit, sounding breezy as hell but just about ready to pounce on any clues Marcus offers up. "Maybe a hopeless romantic with a stubborn streak and an encyclopedic knowledge of Lost Generation authors and impressionist painters?" She shrugs like she's just pulled the example out of thin air. "Who knows?"

Throwing Juan a look, Marcus smirks. “Sounds like your husband has been talking about favorite kind of woman.” He jokes, although he’s pretty sure that he would love it if his soulmate turned out to be just that. “I just want to have someone that wants to be build a lift together. A partner.” He shrugs. “Most people think that it’s crazy, but I think that your significant other should be your best friend and your lover.”

"Absolutely crazy." With as clearly sarcastic a tone as she can possibly muster, Sydney practically deadpans in Marcus's direction. "So weird. How dare you want to spend your life with someone you loves you as much as you love them?" Every single thing she's described has been about you, and while neither of the guys are picking up on that for even a single second, the fact that you have your head down over your plate means you're reading her loud and clear. "I bet your dream girl will even have a thing for your old rockstar days," she goes on, as if she's stringing out a hypothetical and not explicitly describing your opinion that musicians are sexy as hell. "Don't tell me. You were a bassist, right?"

“And vocals.” He admits, shaking his head ruefully. “It’s alright if she doesn’t like that. God, it’s been years since I’ve picked up my bass.” He realizes. “I should do that. Between the bass or the motorcycle, I just spent more time on the bike.”

Bass. Vocals. And motorcycle? You practically groan out loud but barely manage to swallow the sound and instead hop up from your seat immediately to hopefully combine the noise you just made with all manner of other commotion. "Just grabbing another drink," you explain, when all three of their heads turn toward you at once. "You, uh...you should do what makes you happy, Marcus. If that's not overstepping things for me to say. We just met today. But I've always heard that the best things in life tend to fall into your lap when you're not looking for them. So maybe just...enjoy yourself? And who knows what can happen."

“That’s what I’ve been trying to do.” Marcus admits. “My therapist agrees with you. That we need to enjoy ourselves and not just search.”

"Our therapists agree with each other, then," you admit with a chuckle. "I started seeing someone when Mom decided to run for president. I figured it would be good to have someone to check in with and make sure I was handling my stressors in a healthy way." The conversations you had had with them about whether or not to factor your soulmate into future plans when you had never met them were slightly less straightforward.

“That’s always a good thing.” He nods quickly. “I’ve never been one to think that therapists are a waste of time.” He shrugs. “My mom was a therapist all my childhood.”

"It's an incredibly important profession. And an incredibly important resource to have." Seeing as Marcus's mug was empty as well, you bring back two glasses of water to the counter and sit down again, hoping that Sydney won't keep pushing. Or at least that she won't reveal things if she does. "My little sister is a psychology major. She's thinking about medical school next, and talking about different paths she might taken with her studies. Therapist being one of them."

“It’s a good profession.” Marcus admits easily. “Just- let her know, most therapists have their own therapists they see. It’s draining to take on everyone’s secrets and burdens, trying to do the best you can to give them the tools to help themselves. So tell her that there’s no shame in that.”

"I will." It isn't worth negating the kindness of Marcus's thoughts and advice by telling him that all three of the First Kids started therapy at the start of the campaign. It's the care he has for other people — people he has never met and may never meet ever in his life, that touches you so very deeply. "Thank you, Marcus. That's very kind of you."

He nods and picks up the glass of water, needing to wash down the remnants of the eggs before starting on the pancakes. “So, Juan, how did you and your lovely wife discover you were soulmates?” He asks curiously.

"Uhm..." Juan chuckles, rubbing the back of his neck and looking to Sydney for her permission to tell the story.

"Go ahead," she laughs. "I've go to start dinner prep. Tell him as much as you want."

"It's not exactly PG," he admits, still laughing softly to himself. "The polite version is that we compared tattoos."

Marcus isn’t the head of his department because he’s dimwitted. “One night stand?” He asks, lifting his brows in surprise. It wasn’t like he had never had them himself, but both men had preferred to be in relationships rather than sleep around. Not that he’s judging.

“I was willing to take whatever that goddess was willing to give me,” Juan admits without shame. “One night would have been a memory to cherish. But the universe said it should be a lifetime, instead.”

“I’m happy for you.” Marcus promises with a slap on the back for his old friend. “You deserve it. Glad you found her.”

“You say that now.” His friend smiles happily though, beaming at the commendation. “But now it’s going to be my mission to find you that girl with the hummingbird tattoo.”

Marcus smiles, a little sadly, but he just shrugs. “I’ll find her when I’m supposed to.” He reasons. “Knowing my luck, she’s happily married.”

“Not as happily as she would be with you.” He’s confident in that, and Juan looks to you to bolster his encouragements. “How could anybody not be ecstatic to have a guy this good, right?”

It feels rude. Like a trick from the universe that you do not like one bit. Like the powers that be are rubbing your nose in your defiance of their plans. “They’d have to be blind.” You offer, with a smile that doesn’t quite reach your eyes. Sam is a good guy. He’s been a good boyfriend and has made you happy. Why are you suddenly thinking about someone else after an hour of knowing them? That’s utterly ridiculous. “You…never really know how the universe is going to have things work out.”

She’s just being polite. Marcus realizes that when he sees your smile, his stomach churning unhappily. It doesn’t matter, you’re seeing someone. A woman in a relationship has always been off limits to him. He doesn’t like, nor respect cheaters and yet he’s upset that you don’t seem that attracted to him. Or, you’re reluctantly attracted to him. He stares down at his pancakes and sighs. “All that matters to me if that my soulmate is happy.” He decides.

Juan and Marcus talk about this and that for the next few minutes, but you quickly finish your pancakes and excuse yourself. It was very nice to meet Marcus, and you tell him so, but you’re a little rattled by the possibility that was just laid out in front of you and you need a few deep breaths of fresh air before your break is over and you have to go back to solving guest’s dilemmas.

Juan doesn’t miss the way Marcus’s eyes follow you out of the room and he smirks. “Thinkin’ about it?” He asks, knowing you are the other man’s type.

“No.” He shakes his head quickly. “I mean, I would if she were single, but she’s not.” Deciding to change the subject, he leans in. “Did they heighten security here, or just the one agent?”

“Updated cameras and increased security personnel. We turned the spare office into a surveillance room but her Secret Service detail doesn’t butt in on anything they don’t need to.” Juan shrugs, knowing that things always change over time. “So far.”

That’s good and Marcus nods. “Sounds like you might have had some input.” He knows that Juan is very analytical, he would know what the weakness were in a place like this.

Juan snorts, taking a sip of his drink and shrugging vaguely. "My wife's childhood best friend is the First Daughter of the United States. If I can help her be safe, I'm going to."

“I can certainly understand that.” Marcus admits.

"It's a good system." Juan acknowledges. "She always has a detail agent nearby and the place needs the security because we've gotten a hell of a lot busier since the campaign last year."

“I’m sure.” Marcus snorts. “Everyone wants to claim they have some insider pull.” He says, a little cynical, but he looks around. “And I’m sure a lot of it is the fact that this place is a little gem.”

"272-year-old farmhouse with restored gardens and a barn and a gazebo from 1823. The place has had so many owners and been used for so many things." It's clear that Juan has nothing but affection for the place, and that he really has leaned into a fully civilian life. "I'm glad you came out to say hi," he tells Marcus honestly. "Hopefully we'll see more of you around here."

“With food like this?” Marcus groans, throwing his buddy a grin. “Those are the best damn pancakes that I’ve eaten in forever.”

"And considering you're a certified pancake expert, that says something." Juan chuckles. When Marcus hadn't shown up for a few weeks he was afraid that maybe he had said something wrong or that his old friend had moved on from the comradery they used to have, Apparently, neither was the case.

“Still love pancakes. It’s finding the time to eat them, that’s the problem.” He snorts. “It’s getting better now that I run the department, but after I ran into you? I was flying out two days later.”

"Sounds like you earned a day to relax." Sounds like he earned a lot more than just one day, but Juan knows how the Bureau works. A single day can sometimes be a miracle to come by. "There's books and board games in the library if you want to stay and spend some time relaxing."

“What do you have going on?” Marcus asks, tilting his head curiously.

“It’s…board game night.” As silly and domestic as it sounds, it’s a nice tradition that they’ve managed to keep going among friends. “Every month we have a group of friends over and we do a potluck for dinner. Just to unwind and be social. Just catch up, eat some good food, and play board games. You’re more than welcome to join us.”

“I don’t want to impose.” Marcus shakes his head, wondering if he’s so desperate that it sounds like great evening or if it just really was.

“It’s not imposing,” Juan assured him. “We bring new friends all the time. There’s about six of us usually, so it fluctuates depending on how many other people we bring or if someone can’t make it.”

“Well, is there a store or something?” He asks. “I can pick up some wine or something to contribute.”

“Old Town has some good liquor stores.” The historic district of Alexandria has become increasingly popular in the last several years, and the revitalization of the neighborhood has helped the inn as well.

“Anything else you could possibly want?” Marcus asks seriously. He’s willing to go get anything that could be thought of, the prospect of not spending the night alone incredibly cheering.

“Get whatever you want,” Juan encourages. “Every once in a while someone will show up with something they’ve never tried just try to it together. So really — anything you want.”

“Okay.” Marcus grins, excited about this and reaches out to slap Juan on the back. “Do you still ride bikes or have you given that up?”

"Hell no." Juan tuts, glad to see the smile back on Marcus's face. "My Indian is back at our house. We take rides when we've got time off together."

“That’s good. Although the rides have taken a pause since the pregnancy, right?” Marcus asks. “I can’t imagine a doctor signing off on a pregnant woman on the back of a bike.”

“Yeah…these days we take rides in the station wagon.” He chuckles at that, and Juan knows how ridiculously domestic it sounds but he really doesn’t care. He’s in love with his life in a very unexpected way, and that’s okay. “It’ll be nice to have someone to ride with again.”

“I can imagine.” Marcus is missing that, but on the bright side, he rides when and where he wants. “Do you guys know what you’re having yet?” He asks.

“Not yet.” Juan is excited, though, as evidenced by the way he lights up when asked about it. “It’s still too early to find out. Obviously we don’t care, as long as they’re healthy and happy.”

“Congrats, man, you’re living the dream, you know that?” As envious as he can admit to being, he’s also incredibly happy for Juan. “You deserve it. Especially after, you know…”

“Life is totally different now.” Leaving the Bureau is what was best for Juan. He knows that now, even if it was a painful decision to make back then. “I’m not going to ever downplay the things in my past, but the future is looking pretty fucking good, man.”

Completely understanding the fact that Juan doesn’t want to talk, he nods. “I’m happy for you. Truly.”

“I appreciate that, man.” Juan grins and pats Marcus on the shoulder. “Enjoy some time in town and come on back here around seven tonight. Syd isn’t working the dinner rush tonight so we’ll all be able to relax.”

“That sounds good.” The comfortable jeans and a sweater will still look sharp enough for game night and he sends his friend a smile before he walks out of the kitchen.

Things have calmed down in the lobby when you return to the front desk to pick up a few papers and check in on your concierge before retreating into your office for the rest of your shift. The inn may have calmed down but you're still spinning wildly on the idea that your soulmate might have walked through the door of the inn this morning with absolutely no fanfare and a nervous smile on his incredibly handsome face.

Nope. Stop it. Sam is coming for board game night tonight and you really fucking like him. Don't give up your whole stance on freedom of happiness just because some absolutely dishy FBI agent has your tattoo.

"Everything going okay, Malachi?" You will be professional, and not a blithering mass of nervous energy. Even if it takes all the energy you have to force it.

“Everything’s fantastic, we had another couple call to book a room for next weekend. So we officially will have no vacancies.” He reports proudly, like he had recruited the couple himself.

"Good. That's actually excellent. That means we have no vacancies at any point for two week on either side of Valentine's Day unless someone cancels." It's always possible. After all, break up happen around that particular holiday. But with the way they've been booking rooms lately, they should be able to fill a hole more easily than not. "I'm going to go to my office and work on the schedule. If you need me, just call."

“Of course.” Malachi cranes his neck as that handsome guy walks out to a beautiful motorcycle. “But before you go.” He hums. “Who is that?”

You can't help but chuckle, your concierge's obvious interest making you recognize the ridiculousness of the whole situation all over again. "That's Juan's friend," you tell him, gathering up your paperwork. "He'll be around more, and he's allowed into the kitchen. So you know he's special."

“And does Juan’s friend have a name?” He asks, smirking slightly.

"Special Agent Marcus Pike." You smirk right back at him, giving Marcus's title along with his name. By now Agent Bailey has probably done an entire workup on the agent. Why wouldn't she?

“Special Agent.” Because it’s the two of you and there’s no guest around, Malachi watches out the window with unabashed interest. “He can mount me like he mounts that bike any time.”

"Mal!" There's no reason for you to be taken aback by that comment considering how well you know Malachi Debose, but you still find yourself stifling a laugh with wide eyes. You tell yourself to joke, ignoring the twist in your chest at the idea of Marcus with anyone else. It's not up to you. He's his own person. And he might not even be your soulmate to begin with! "I'm pretty sure he's straight, honey, but you never know. It would not be the first guy you've swept out of the closet who didn't even realize they were in there in the first place."

He sighs dramatically, even though he’s smirking proudly. “You’re right.” He admits. “We’ll see how mister Special Agent Marcus Pike acts and then I’ll decide.”

"Behave yourself." Is the playful warning you give him before turning and nodding to Agent Bailey. "Time to sit in the office while I swear at my computer," you tell her. As the Secret Service agent who is with you most of the time, Kendra Bailey has learned your past, your friends, your job, and your habits like a book. She appreciates that you're not throwing yourself into politics because it means her days are a little calmer than they could be, but the coming and going of all sorts of people through the inn on a daily basis presents its own challenges.

She nods, already curious about the FBI agent that she’s encountered here. It’s not unusual to run background checks on people who continuously hang around the inn, and it sounds like he will become a fixture for the foreseeable future. “Of course, Hummingbird.”

You groan softly, realizing that that is going to get said around Marcus Pike at some point or other, and just try to shake it off for now. "You can call me by my name around here, you know." She won't. You've had this conversation more than once, but sometimes you think you'll never get used to being ma'am or Hummingbird at all times to your Secret Service detail.

“Yes ma’am.” She nods, both of you aware that she’s not going to break protocol like that. Instead, she’s turning to the chair that has been placed outside your office, tucked into a discreet corner so it’s not completely obvious that you are being guarded. Giving you the illusion of privacy.

"Someday I'm going to get you to at least come into the office." There are rules. A hell of a lot of them, in fact, and you know that they exist for a reason. But Agent Bailey is allowed to be in your office with you, and you hope it won't take your mother's entire first term in office for her to get comfortable enough with you to do that.

“I understand that, but if I’m in your office, you won’t concentrate.” She reminds you with a small, unseen smile. The first time you had insisted, you hadn’t gotten anything done.

"Too social for my own good, I guess." With a small smile exchanged between the two of you, you nod in agreement before heading down the hall to your office. She's right, and you both know it.

Outside, a snazzy sports car pulls up. Not too flashy, because a junior congressman from Maryland can’t be seen throwing money away frivolously, but sporty enough to make him grin as he changes gears. The door pops open, sunglasses tossed on the dash and Sam hustles out of his car, eager to see you.

"Hey Sam." Malachi looks up from the desk when the door opens and offers up a smile. Professional, but friendly. So far, Congressman Chase hasn't done anything to warrant the cold shoulder. "Is she expecting you?"

“Not until later, but I was hoping to surprise her.” He admits, sending the concierge a wink. “She in her office?”

"Just went in to work on the schedule." Malachi reports, but his smile morphs from professional to earnest in half a second. "The new software is giving her a headache and a half. I bet coming in with a cup of coffee with also be a welcome surprise."

“You are a good man, Malachi.” Sam slaps the antique reception stand and grins. “Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.” He lifts his brows and points at him as he changes directions to the kitchen to beg a cup of coffee from Sydney.

A knock on the kitchen door is odd but not unheard of, and Sydney glances back over her shoulder when the swinging door pushes open to admit the six-foot Congressman she now affectionately calls, "Sam Sam! As happy as I am to see you, your lady friend is not in the kitchen."

“I know.” Sam tosses the chef an easy grin. “A little birdie told me that she might appreciate a cup of coffee, so I’m here to be her runner.”

Sydney smirks, never ceasing in her work but nodding to the coffee pot in the corner of the kitchen. “Go right ahead. I’m sure she’ll be grateful.”

“Thank you.” He immediately beelines for the coffee maker, intent on also making himself a cup. Though he would prefer a cocktail. “It smells great in here, like always.” He tosses over his shoulder.

“Flattery will get you everywhere.” She hums happily in return. “I made a lasagna for game night. Are you staying?”

“Unless an emergency session is call.” Sam snorts. “And you know half those crusty old bastards don’t want to work.” He adds some creamer and sweetener to his, doctors yours and turns back. “Is this the lasagna with the pancetta?” He asks, giving her a pleading look.

“It is, and I did a little something different with the ricotta layer this time, so you’ll have to tell me what you think.” One hand shoos him playfully away, but she does laugh. “I’ll feed you later. Go see your lady.”

“Thank you!” He laughs as well, zipping out the door to head in to see you. Hopefully you aren’t working on anything too important that you can’t steal away some time for him.

Two short knocks on your door could be anyone, but you save your progress in working on next week’s schedule and call for them to come in. It’s probably Malachi with a guest accommodation question, which is no problem. You can hit pause on scheduling the housekeeping staff around their various class schedules to answer just about anything.

After getting the okay to enter, Sam juggles the cups and pokes his head in the door. “Can you spare a few minutes, beautiful?” He asks.

The grin that spreads on your face is surprise and relief, and you hop up from your dream to open the door fully. “If that’s coffee in your hands, I can spare more than just a few.”

“Of course it is, fixed just the way you like it.” While he doesn’t drink it nearly as sweet as you do, he also doesn’t make fun of you for it.

“To what do I owe the early visit?” The door clicks shut behind him and you sit back in your chair with a happy sigh.

“We let out early.” Sam explains. “Figured we could spend some time together .”

“I’m always glad to see you.” It’s true. It genuinely is. Which is why you hate the nagging guilt of the fact that you had just been telling yourself to stop speculating about your possible soulmate and focus on work.

“That’s a good thing.” Despite the idea that dating the First Daughter was good for his career, Sam genuinely cares for you. It might not be the passionate love he had imagined years ago, but he’s mature enough to understand that a solid connection was a good thing.

“So your meeting went alright?” The committee that he’s on had an unofficial lunch meeting today, which must have gone well if he’s already here saying hello. “I was afraid they’d have you all day and you’d miss out in lasagna and the new Clue game that Sydney’s sister picked up.”

“No.” Sam snorts. “They wanted it done as quickly as possible.” He tells you. “I’ve got to admit that I’ve never seen people that hate to work more than politicians.”

“Well that’s hardly encouraging,” you snort, and shake your head before taking a sip of hot coffee. “I guess you’ll just have to whip them into shape, Congressman. No two ways about it.”

“I’m trying.” He laughs and shrugs. “Right now I equate it to herding cats.” He jokes, sitting down on the other side of your desk and watching you for a moment while you savor your coffee.

“That’s the nicest thing anyone has ever called a member of the House of Representatives.” The two of you share a laugh, and you shift in your seat a little with an awkward expression before talking again. “I…got an email this morning. From Mom’s office. Informing me of my first few expected photo ops as First Daughter.” It’s a big part of the job, for you at least, to look the part and play the part and help the country to see your mother as not just the president, but a family-oriented professional as well. Being the first female President has its challenges and your mother is plowing into them head on. Which, honestly? You give her a lot of credit for. “They asked if I would be willing to release some social media photos from our Valentine’s date…” The fact that you hadn’t planned one yet is slightly beyond the point. Now you pretty much have to.

“Well, what kind of pictures would you like?” Sam asks easily, aware that you don’t relish the attention, but it’s part of the job. “We can do a dinner at home, appeal to the base of Americans.” He suggests.

“I don’t love the idea of someone recognizing an aspect of your house or neighborhood and you getting doxed for it,” you admit ruefully. It would have to be Sam’s house, since you don’t actually have one. You can’t exactly put out photos of your attic apartment and expect the White House press core not to make noises. “I was thinking we could put the spotlight on a minority-owned small business or go to some low-key arts event? If they’re going to ask me to be in the spotlight then I want to use it for good.”

“Do you want to decide?” He asks, aware that you can be quite choosy at times. He doesn’t really mind. “Or do you want me to come up with something?”

“It’s probably easier if I figure it out.” You admit. It’s not your favorite option, all things considered, but since it’s dumb for you to be even vaguely upset that your boyfriend didn’t announce he had secret plans already in the works — which your stupid romantic comedy loving brain had hoped for but knew was a longshot — it’s better to just be practical. “So the Secret Service can tell me if wherever I pick is insecure or something like that. Even though I can’t imagine that anybody is out to get me. That’s absurd.”

“You’d be surprised what humans are capable of.” Sam reminds you, having read some of the most horrific reports imaginable. He likes that you are practical, even if you are a bit naive.

“Not a super fun thing to hear from your boyfriend, but okay.” It’s nothing you can’t brush off, and you do so with a wave of your hand. “There is also a state dinner coming up in a few weeks that I definitely do not want to go to without you.”

“I’m available.” He promises. “I’ve got a couple of events in my district coming up. But I’ll mark that on my calendar.”

“Thank you.” Though you aren’t blind to the ways that attending these things helps him, you appreciate the company. You aren’t effortlessly charismatic like your brother or a star student with enigmatic insights like your sister. You’re the least comfortable in the public eye out of your whole family, and that is what it is. At some point in the night when he inevitably veers off to shake hands and schmooze politically, you’ll sit quietly at your table and smile politely while you wait for Sam to come back, and that’s okay. “I really really appreciate it.”

Sam huffs, sending you a small smirk. “A night where you are wearing a beautiful dress, we eat an elegant dinner, what’s not to love?” He leaves the part about making connections unspoken, both of you know how this game is worked. “And maybe you can come spend the night at my place after.”

"What an absolutely scandalous suggestion." One hand clutches your nonexistent pearls, pretending to be aghast, but you throw him a wink. Intimacy in your relationship unfortunately does have to be scheduled at a certain point...just on the basis that you have a Secret Service agent you can't simply ditch, and he has a personal assistant that might be even more invasive than the Secret Service. "I love it."

“Good.” Sam smirks back at you and sends you his own wink. “I’ve missed a cute little snore, and I need to get some cuddling in.”

"I do not snore." Despite pouting at him – and knowing that you do, in fact, snore – you end up grinning. "But we have been low on cuddle time lately, I agree."

“Yeah, I know my job is hectic and yours isn’t a walk in the park.” He acknowledges wholeheartedly. “But I want this to work. Maybe we just need to move in together.” He hadn’t meant to just blurt that out, but he’s been thinking about it.

“I—what?” You nearly spit out the sip of coffee you had just taken and sit up arrow straight in your chair, staring at him without the ability to stop yourself. “You—you want me to—to move in with you?” It’s never been discussed. Not really. At least not with a timeline, and that’s probably your fault. You’re so prone to jumping into relationships head first that you had told yourself you would move slow with Sam. That…seems to not be the case now.

“It doesn’t have to be now.” He promises. “Just something to consider. That’s all. We would get more time together.”

"I can honestly say I was not expecting that today." It's shaken you up a little, if you're honest, but you reach over your desk and squeeze his hand before leaning out of your chair to kiss him.

“That’s not a bad thing, is it?” It’s not quite the reaction he was expecting, if he is honest with himself.

"No, not at all!" You're quick to reassure him, realizing that Sam's expression is a little more guarded than usual. You've disappointed him. That's not a feeling you like at all. Not even a little. "I'd say the fact that my boyfriend wants to spend more time with me is a very good thing." If it's such a good thing, why is your mouth dry and why are you all tense with nerves? "And I want that, too. You just surprised me, that's all."

“Of course we need to talk about it more in depth.” He relaxes slightly, happy that you are at least open to the idea.

"Is that...something you want to talk about soon?" There are ideas rolling over in your head with varying levels of comfort, but the fact is that you hadn't realized that Sam was already there. Sure you had said your I love yous already, but you really had been trying to go slower this time, and that pace had seemed to suit Sam just fine. And why is it suddenly now that your mind is stuck on the idea that he isn't your soulmate? Is it just because you met a man who could be? You had always told yourself it didn't matter before now...

“We are coming up on our one-year anniversary of dating.” He reminds you, wondering why all of a sudden you look like you’ve seen a ghost. He’s been patient, letting you move slowly since you were afraid of diving in too much too soon, but this is the natural next step. Otherwise, it will be random sleepovers whenever you can manage it for the rest of your lives and Sam doesn’t want that. “I figured we could discuss what our next steps were.” He smiles softly. “I want the next steps, whenever you’re ready.”

"You're right." He is right. The logic is there, and the sweetness, and you do genuinely like him. In fact, loving him came easily and naturally. It's just that today has you a little shaken up and you don't want to admit it to yourself. Any other day and you would have been ecstatically throwing yourself into his arms. "You're absolutely right. This is definitely next." Composing yourself into a smile and reminding yourself to goddamn relax, you pick up your now cold coffee and finish the cup. "Why don't we pick a night this week to cook dinner together and talk through what we want our future to look like?"

“That works.” He flashes you the boyish grin you claim to love and nods. “Little food. Little wine, little….cuddling while we talk. It’s exactly what we need. You’ve been peddle to the mettle lately, and so have I. It will be good to decompress and hash out our concerns.”

"Perfect." And you will, you tell yourself sternly, get your shit together by then.

“But tonight…” he winks at you. “I’m going to whoop your ass at Clue.”

Because it's your turn to host, your small apartment has been cleaned top to bottom in preparation for the night. Sydney took care of making dinner, you have dessert in the refrigerator, and you have it on the authority of the group chat that garlic bread and salad are both coming as well. Juan said he and Marcus were supplying drinks, so everything is set up with plenty of time for everyone to arrive.

Agent Bailey is sitting on the couch waiting for her evening relief so she can go home to her own family and Sam is setting a stack of mismatched plates on the dining room table when Juan, Marcus, Sydney, and her sister Anna Leigh all show up very promptly on the turn of the hour.

Marcus is a little nervous aware that he has a tenuous tie to the game night, but he is quickly at ease when everyone starts greeting people like old friends. He hadn’t quite known what to get, so he had bought several bottle of whiskey and wine, figuring someone would appreciate it. The bottle of ‘76 Statesman Reserve a personal favorite of his and the little store he had stopped at had one last bottle.

"Hey, we didn't scare Marcus off!" Maybe you're a little happy to see him, but you excuse that as being glad that Juan has his friend back and ardently ignore the way your chest clenches when he walks into your little apartment.

“Hope you don’t mind.” He offers instantly, holding back from flirting like he wants to. You are seeing someone. “But I brought gifts.” He holds up the bottle, the others in his bag.

“Statesman.” You practically groan with delight at the sight of the bottle. “When we were campaigning in Kentucky, my little brother and I toured their distillery, I love this stuff.” Fighting the instinct to offer him a hug — and it really is an instinct — you grin and wander toward the kitchen to complete introductions. “You already know Syd and Juan, of course. The beautiful agent of chaos currently throwing garlic bread in the oven is Syd’s sister Anna Leigh, and the intimidating lady on the sofa with the New York Times crossword in her lap is Agent Bailey. I don’t know if you two officially met earlier or not. Looking around, Sam is not in sight, but you chew your lip for a second and smile. “My other half seems to have disappeared, but I’m sure he’ll be right back.”

“Oh, okay.” He shouldn’t be disappointed that your boyfriend is here. That’s what he keeps telling himself. “Congressman from Maryland, right?” Okay, he might have read up on you.

“Right.” There’s a note of something off in Marcus’s voice but you can’t figure out what, so you just smile. “I promise we don’t use official titles over board games.”

“Good.” He cracks a lighthearted grin. “I hate when I’m made in charge of the jail in Monopoly.” He jokes. He hands you the bottle and looks around the little apartment. “Anything I can do to help?”

“I think we’re just waiting for Issy and then everyone will be here. So for now if you want to maybe pour drinks while we all get settled?” This is always an informal setting and you want everyone to feel relaxed as much as possible. “Let me give you the grand tour first?” What a stupid thing to say in your little, tiny space. But now you’ve said it, so you just have to pretend it was something charming to say instead of awkward.

“That sounds good.” Marcus quickly agrees, although it’s obvious that there’s not much to the small space. “The private sanctum.”

“Eat it kitchen.” Is the space you’re standing in, with a too-big dining room table that is also your prep counter because there is basically no counter space — just enough to put a few grocery bags on and nothing more. “I have an unholy love of dinner parties, hence the big table. Over here is the living room. Mandatory bar cart with the tv, and as many throw pillows as the couch can hold.” Agent Bailey currently has her arm resting on the head of a pillow shaped like a horse that you brought back from a campaign trip out West. “Bathroom is down the hall, just here.” The door is closed, so that must be where Sam is. “And just turn the corner and you’re in the bedroom-slash-library.” You have to call it that — you really have to, because the entire room is covered in wall to wall bookcases that are pretty much entirely full. The only exceptions are where your sleigh bed and writing desk sit on opposite ends of the tight room. “It’s more library than anything else.”

“Obviously like to read.” He nods. “What genre? Or is it too embarrassing to mention in company?”

“I’m not embarrassed at all to read romance novels.” A whole section of the shelf by your bed is dedicated to them, in fact. Healthy sexuality and healthy explorations of that sexuality are vital, but you won’t get that far into the topic. “I have a lot of various things here, but the majority are probably mystery, thrillers, and classics from all over the world.” The shelf you’re standing by has your collection of writing by both F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, and you smile. “Of course, some of the classics are romances. That’s to be expected.”

“They are. I find that if you limit yourself in what you read, you are missing out.” He looks over your shelf with interest. “It looks like a wonderful collection.”

“Thank you. A compliment for my books is the highest compliment possible.” There’s a warm smile on your lips when the bathroom door pulls open a few feet away and you feel like you’ve been caught although there isn’t a single thing wrong about showing a new friend around your apartment. There’s no reason to jump out of your skin, but here you are with burning cheeks feeling embarrassed.

“Hey, sweetheart.” Sam doesn’t frown, but he wonders who this man is and why he is in your bedroom.

"Hey." Your smile does widen of its own accord, and you motion between the men in a sort of vaguely formal way that is definitely odd for you. "Sam, this is Marcus. One of Juan's old friends. He came by the inn earlier today and we thought it would be nice to introduce him to the group." It's awful, and very unnecessary, how heavy your tongue feels when you go to make the introduction the opposite way. "Marcus, this is Sam. My boyfriend."

It’s a little awkward, Marcus can admit that but he extends his hand. “Nice to meet you, Sam.” He offers, smiling in a friendly, first meeting kind of way. “My connection to the group is through Juan.” He explains. “We were at the academy together.”

"Ah, a government man." That seems to win Sam's approval, though his handshake might be just a hair tighter than it would otherwise be based on the tension in the air. "Well, welc—"

"Babe!" Sydney's voice comes loud and clear from the other room as the door opens and the sound of chaotic friends can be heard. "Issy's here! Let's gooo!"

The introductions are interrupted and it’s probably not a bad thing. Marcus lets go of Sam’s hand and immediately makes for the door. “Guess that’s our queue.”

“Coming!” You call back, eager to be standing anywhere but your doorway between these two men. “Issy is a friend from college.” That’s the easy explanation you give Marcus as Sam steers you back to the kitchen with his hand on your back. “Syd, Anna Leigh, and Issy and I were suite mates at Mount Holyoke.”

Marcus nods, committing everyone to memory. “Nice to meet all of you. Thank you for letting me join you tonight.”

Getting everything set up doesn’t take much longer, and a buffet of cheesy garlic bread, a huge salad, Sydney’s pancetta lasagna, and the lemon tiramisu you made for dessert is all laid out on the counter. Everyone digs in and says a loud chorus of rowdy good nights when your Secret Service detail has its changing of the guard in the middle of it all. It’s a lot, and it’s chaos, but it’s so comforting because these are all people you love to spend time with. Even Marcus, as new as he is, fits right into the group effortlessly.

“Oh! Sydney.” Marcus dives back into the bag and pulls out a bottle of sparkling white grape juice and some sodas and grenadine. “I figured you might like my family’s version of Shirley Temple’s?” He offers. “So you can have a mocktail with the ladies?”

“Absolutely!” Syd’s eyes light up at the offer, and she brings her overstuffed plate over to the table to sit beside her husband. In her favorite baggy sweatshirt, no one could ever tell she’s pregnant, but one of her hands rests on the side of her belly anyway. “That sounds fantastic.”

“So my grandmother used to make these for all the kids, so we could feel special too.” Marcus explains as he grabs a wine glass and starts to mix together the non-alcoholic drink. “It had to be sparkling grape juice because of the bottle shape.” He chuckles now, but back then? He had felt grown up. “When she died, we served these at her wake.”

“That’s so sweet.” Sydney awes softly as Marcus carefully pours out the drink. “These are Birdie’s favorite, actually,” she points her thumb back at you while she chats at him. “We usually spike them with rum, of course. To be a Shirley Temple Black. I can’t remember the last time I just had a regular old Shirley Temple.”

“A dirty Shirley?” Marcus gasps in faux horror. “The best way to spike that is with Statesman.”

“On it!” You hop up from the table immediately to grab a glass and line up next to Sydney at the counter. “I’ve heard of people doing them with rum and vodka, but never with whiskey. I have to know.”

He chuckles and nods. “You won’t regret it. The grape juice plays off the smoky, oaky flavors very nicely.” He tells you. “It’s almost better than a robust bouquet on a red.”

“I can’t claim to know anything about wine, but I’m trying to learn.” Sam prefers wine, and you’ve been trying to not feel foolish when people discuss wine pairings at official dinners. It’s been a fairly deep learning curve. “But I’ll take your word for it.”

“More of a whiskey girl?” Marcus asks, filing away the information even though it’s not like he’s going to use it. One of those odd little quirks of his time in the Bureau, he tries to read people.

“Always have been.” As evidenced by the Whiskey Makes Me Frisky sweater still stuff in your closet from college, which won’t see the light of day again until your mother is out of office. “You too?” Your eyes widen immediately and you stumble over correcting yourself. “Guy, I mean? Whiskey guy?”

Marcus laughs and gives you a guilty grin. “I learned to enjoy wine. My ex was a wino to the point where we honeymooned in Napa Valley.” He snorts. “But my first love was a Jack and Coke.”

“The next time you’re sick, have a whiskey and ginger beer.” The advice comes as he hands you your glass but he looks skeptical. “I mean, it’s a good drink no matter what, but I swear it knocks out my colds faster than anything else.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” Marcus hums and decides that he will make one for himself. “Tell me what you think.”

One sip has you groaning, and you bring the glass back to the table like you’ve found the Holy Grail. “Sammy, try this. I know you’re not usually big in whiskey, but this is fantastic.”

Sam wrinkles his nose, really uninterested in trying it, but he politely takes a sip. Pleasantly surprised, he makes a face. “Huh. That’s not as horrible as I imagined.”

“And that,” you look back at Marcus and laugh. “Is the highest compliment he’s ever given a whiskey drink.”

Marcus chuckles politely and motions towards the table. “There’s a nice Cabernet that he might like better.” He offers.

“That sounds perfect.” You move back to the counter to collect a wine glass, corkscrew, and the bottle to bring back, knowing that Sam will open it far more neatly than you can.

“So how has everybody been?” Prompting conversation once everyone is at the table gets the ball rolling nicely, and conversation starts as everyone starts to eat their dinner.

“Well, everyone knows that Sydney is expecting.” Juan boasts proudly, obviously loving the prospect of becoming a father. “But she started experiencing her first cravings.”

“Oooo, what are they?” Issy sits up in her chair immediately. “Please tell me it’s something non-gourmet. If this baby is a food snob I’m not going to have anything to tease you about.”

“Right now….” Juan grins and sends his wife an utterly besotted look. “Ranch flavored bugles.”

“Oh my god!” Both Issy and Anna Leigh practically scream with laughter immediately and your jaw hits the table with maniacal giggle.

“I know,” Syd moans in embarrassment. “I know! The baby likes ranch!”

“There must be a joke there somewhere.” Marcus laughs, enjoying the lighthearted atmosphere of the group and how they are all so easy with each other.

"Syd's current greatest fear is having a kid who doesn't care about food." You explain, picking up a forkful of lasagna. "If they turned out to not like food or hockey, she'll be doomed."

“I see.” He chuckles, although he himself had a less refined pallet when he was younger. Now he enjoys trying new things.

"They're exaggerating." Sydney promises, not wanting her husband's old friend to think she's that much of a snob. "Obviously no kid comes out loving caviar and oxtail."

“No, I can see why you would expect your child to give you cravings for something like this.” He praises, lifting a forkful of the lasagna. “I gave my mom cravings for salami and bologna. Which she couldn’t eat.”

"My mom had a lot of cheese cravings." Not expecting baby-oriented conversation was probably an oversight on your part, but it's fun and your best friend just absolutely glows whenever it's brought up. "With me it was gruyere, with my brother it was cheddar, and with my little sister it was asiago." The memory makes you grin, and you laugh a little, mostly to yourself. "She ate so many asiago bagels when she was pregnant with June."

“Ohhhhh I could see how that could be an easy craving.” Issy snorts. “I have cravings for those all the time and I’m not pregnant.”

"Right?" You're nodding in agreement instantly. "I'm honored that my pregnancy craving was gruyere. That's quality cheese."

“Maybe the craving will change to truffle cheddar fries.” Marcus suggests with a grin. “With ranch.”

“See, this is the kind of encouragement we should be thinking about. Positive thinking all the way.” Sydney grins, beaming across the table to her husband’s friend. Even if her hunch about the true nature of Marcus’s soulmate marks isn’t true, he’s still a good addition to the group. “What’s everybody else been up to.”

Everyone starts talking and Marcus leans back. Watching the dynamic of the group and it’s obvious that everyone is comfortable with each other. Talking over one another and laughing, poking fun in a gentle way. It seems as if Juan - and you - have a solid friends group.

The tempo of the night is unchanged from any other — there is as much laughter and fun as any game night you’ve had in years. The joy of having your friends nearby is never tempered, but tonight it is…just a little bit different. As for first time ever — with your boyfriend sitting next to you — you have to wonder if maybe your soulmate is actually sitting there at the table. And what will you do when it isn’t the man with his arm around you?

______

Master Tags: @pixiedurango @chattychell @winter-fox-queen @lady-himbo @artsymaddie @princess76179 @paintballkid711 @missminkylove @pedrosbrat @ew-erin @sarahjkl82-blog @sharkbait77 @justanotherblonde23 @lv7867 @recklesswit @mylittlesenaar @f0rever15elf @gallowsjoker @steeevienicks @athalien @sherala007 @skvatnavle @thatpinkshirt @jaime1110 @girlimjusttryingtoreadfanfics @goodgriefitsawildworld @greeneyedblondie44 @littlemousedroid @harriedandharassed @churchill356 @ajathegreats-blog @haylzcyon   @beardsanddetectives @kirsteng42 @ladykatakuri @adancedivasmom @madiebear @tanzthompson @emilianamason @bigsdinger @xocalliexo @pedr0swh0r3 @avaleineandafryingpan @charlyrmv @avidreader73 @iceclaw101 @loveslide @elegantduckturtle @becsworld @julesonrecord @its-nebuleuse @itsrubberbisquit @mikeyswifie @guelyury @lizzie-cakes @for-a-longlongtime @vabeachazn @purplerain04 @weho2kcmo @madnessofadaydreamer

HHL: @haileymorelikestupid

My Masterlist!

[an-s-sedai]

babes. darlings. wot series readers.

I get it. I've read the books more than twenty times through. I was on theoryland. I was on dragonmount. I was am on tarvalon.net. I was on the grey-tower rp site. I was on irc with multiple registered wot usernames. I've gone to RL wot parties to meet wot fans I'd only hung out with online. I'm such a fucking wot nerd that I've visited wot fans on three continents to hang out with them in person. I have a Badali officially licensed Aes Sedai ring I wear most days, and I have had multiple Aes Sedai shawls. I've written wiki pages and articles for online WoT newspapers. I've literally taught WoT classes. I put the fanatic back in fan!

The show is different. the show has problems. the show has idiosyncracies and fuck-ups.

just. like. THE BOOKS!

fuck, I love it. I'm having such a good time loving it. I can love it and have criticisms. All I've done for over 15 yrs is lovingly critique the books! Why would the show be any different!

We are so lucky. Our showrunners love the source material! We don't see headlines like the Witcher, where the writers and directors literally hated the source material. We have real, handmade costumes and handmade sets like the much-lauded LotR movies, and unlike the much-maligned Rings of Power.

It's so much fun loving WoT. It's so delightful having theorizing back!! I get to make crackpot theories about the Wheel of Time again! how cool is that?! is the show perfect? Certainly not! but we're WoT fans! Since when have we needed perfection??

[corrodedcoffins-blog]

Royal News

quinn hughes x royal!reader

note: these two. i just-

November 22, 2023

Written by TMZ team

Her Royal Highness, Princess Y/n of Cambridge as well as the Duke and Duchess of Sussex made a surprise appearance at the Vancouver Canucks game last night.

The Princess has been on quite the anticipated tour, starting in Ottawa this past spring, heading east then ending in Victoria where she'll leave for later today.

Before the game the prince and princess had dropped the puck at the ceremonial puck drop, or rather not dropped the puck as Prince Harry had to be told to.

But it wasn't the prince's embarrassing story that's making headlines today, it's the Princess of Cambridge leaving with the Canucks captain, Quinn Hughes.

Hughes is an American hockey player, a couple years younger than our princess, but nonetheless we would love this couple together.

We know King Charles is never one to come become his children and love, we can only assume the King will be even more supportive than he was with the Duchess of Sussex. Hughes has never been married and on paper would make a great fit for our outgoing and adventures princess.

-

Quinn was on FaceTime with his brothers, they were in a hotel room in Michigan just having come back from their morning skate. Luke happened to go on his phone and see articles about his brother and the princess.

"Were you ever gonna tell us your dating a princess?!"

"We're not dating. That was my first time meeting her." The oldest said, rolling his eyes slightly, though his brothers ignored his obvious annoyance and continued their questions.

"And she came home with you?!" "Damn, Quinny!"

Rubbing his hand over his face, Quinn defends himself, "Shut up. It wasn't like that. We just talked, and got to know each other."

“Yeah? ‘Got to know each other’ how?” Jack said in his usual teasing voice with a smirk on his face.

“I don’t know, just talked- she’s coming out to Seattle in a couple days and-” “Shit! No way, dude.” Luke came into frame now, sitting next to Jack on the hotel bed. Jack elbowed Luke slightly, telling the boy to give him space before he looked back at Quinn on the screen, “And how exactly did you pull this off?”

“I have no idea, she was just waiting outside the dressing room after the game and asked me out. It was a little awkward ‘cause her security guys were right there the whole time.”

“In your apartment?” “No Lukey, outside the dressing room. They were outside the apartment the whole night though.” Jack’s head shot up at this, “She stayed the night?!”

“Yeah, but nothing happened. I’m not you.” “Fuck off.” “We talked all night and we watched a couple movies.”

Jack and Luke seemed to have got, maybe not exactly what they wanted, but got out all the questions they wanted to ask out.

-

Abby

@/abby_hughes43

Quinn is with a LITERAL PRINCESS????

Elaine @/rowdy8643 replying to @/abby_hughes43 if this is who beats me to him? i respect it

maddy @/speaknoww replying to @/abby_hughes43 Y/n 😍😍😍

georgia @/i.love.ur.son replying to @/abby_hughes43 she's a princess??

jenny @/dysdale_hughes11 replying to @/i.love.ur.son she's apart of the british royal family

Jay @/colefeeling22 replying to @/abby_hughes43 we don't know if they're together

emma @/87_crosbysgf replying to @/colefeeling22 girl...

~taglist~

@inejghafawifesblog @ghostwritermia @shallow678 @definitly-creative-words @caro8409 @anotherfan07 @books-hlmc @reminiscentyearn @bunbunbl0gs @flairupdatess

[gothhabiba]

A few months ago, an article by Just Like Us about a survey of young UK adults regarding LGBT topics (and other articles on The Pink News and Gay Times UK that reported on that article) did the rounds on here.

The headline of the Gay Times article, written by Amy Ashenden (a cisgender butch lesbian and the interim CEO of Just Like Us, who hired the consultancy that conducted the survey) was "Lesbians being anti-trans is a lesbophobic trope"; of the results of the survey, she writes "I’m so glad that we finally have the research to demonstrate what most lesbians already knew: this narrative is completely false."

A lot of this initial reporting focused on the claims that "most anti-trans adults don’t know a trans person in real life" and "lesbians are the most supportive of trans people of any identity group, and it's a lesbophobic trope that they are anti-trans." These articles were written before the full report of the survey's data had been released.

The full report that these claims are based on is now out, for anyone who wants to take a closer look at the results for themselves. The pdf appears to be OCR readable but not image-described. The survey deals with many topics including being "out" and "feeling supported" at school and at work, but I'll just try to break down the evidence for the above-mentioned two claims.

How respondents were selected:

Just Like Us's report says that "Participants were drawn in partnership between Just Like Us and from Cibyl’s independent database of UK students and young adults" (p. 69). Cibyl offers "bespoke studies and focus groups," and says that "Using our Cibyl-ings student panel, we can source specific students to look at themes and topics important to you and ask the unique questions you want the answers to." This is rather vague.

Sample group and size:

3,695 young adults aged between 18 and 25. 86% cisgender and 12% transgender; 47% LGBT and 53% non-LGBT (used as a control group to compare LGBT responses to); 72% white; 79% students; 54% "female" (self-declared), 36% "male", 8% non-binary (pp. 69-70).

Support for the articles' central claims:

There is no full breakdown of the data resulting from the survey that would allow anyone else to do their own statistical analysis. Here's (what Just Like Us gives of) the data that the "most anti-trans people don't know a trans person in real life" claim is based on:

[ID: Headline reading "Attitudes towards transgender people. Question reading "How supportive are you of transgender people? Of people who "know a transgender person," 64% said "very supportive"; "supportive" 23%; "slightly supportive" 10%; "not supportive" 3%. Of those who "don't know a transgender person," 33% said "very supportive"; "supportive" 28%; "slightly supportive" 20%; "not supportive" 18%. Second question "Do you know any transgender people?" Result: 28% "Yes, someone I'm close to"; 38% "Yes, someone I'm not close to"; 34% "I don't know any transgender people." Further breakdown of the question "Do you know a transgender person?": 49% of "non-LGBT+" people said "yes"; 84% of LGBT+ people; 94% of non-binary people; 93% of transgender people; 82% of asexual people; 85% of bi/pan people; 80% of gay men; 92% of lesbians; 75% of questioning people. End ID]

The "do you know any transgender people" question is worded slightly differently each time—plus, the Just Like Us article and the report (p. 8) adduce the phrase "in real life" to "know a trans person," but this page doesn't—so I don't think we're getting the exact wording for that question that the survey respondents saw. The data for "how supportive are you of transgender people" isn't broken down according to whether the respondent said they were "close" or "not close" to the transgender person or people they knew; it also doesn't seem to be broken down into trans or nonbinary versus cisgender respondents.

"How supportive are you of transgender people?" was the only question dealing with this issue, and the responses "very supportive," "supportive," "slightly supportive," and "not supportive" were the only options available; there's nothing breaking down what "support" means in terms of policy (e.g. support versus non-support for consent-based clinics, national funding for transition care, non-discrimination laws, bathroom laws, &c. &c.). There is also no distinction made between "support" for trans women and trans men.

The claim "UK adults between the ages of 18 and 25 who answer 'not supportive' to the question 'How supportive are you of transgender people?' are several times more likely to also answer 'no' to the question 'do you know a transgender person' (or maybe 'do you know a transgender person in real life')" is supported, in my opinion. The sample size is large enough for that 3% to not be random noise.

The analysis in the Just Like Us article groups together "very supportive" and "supportive" when providing percentages of respondents of given identities who support trans people:

Of all LGBT+ identities, other than trans and non-binary people themselves, lesbian young adults were most likely to say they know a trans person (92%), and most likely to say they are “supportive” or “very supportive” of trans people (96%). In comparison, 89% of LGBT+ people overall said they were  “supportive” or “very supportive” of trans people, and just 69% of non-LGBT+ people said the same.

There is no full breakdown of how many people are "very supportive," "supportive," "slightly supportive" or "not supportive" of trans people by identity label. The relevant data is on p. 63 of the report:

"Looking at who was the most supportive of transgender people:

non-binary respondents were 97% supportive or very supportive with 1% of respondents indicating they were not supportive;

lesbian respondents were 95% supportive or very supportive [everywhere else in the report and in the reporting says 96%, so perhaps this is a typo] (3% were not supportive);

bi/pansexual respondents were 92% supportive or very supportive (2% were not supportive).

Of respondents who were gay men, 82% were supportive or very supportive of transgender people, with 7% indicating they were not supportive.

Among non-LGBT+ respondents 69% were supportive of transgender people, with 12% indicating they were not supportive."

It's not clear to me how they dealt with e.g. lesbians who were also transgender. Pages 69-70 of the report go into the questions that people were asked to identify their identity label for the purposes of statistical analysis ("Is your gender identity the same as the one you were originally assigned at birth?"; and "What is your sexual orientation?"). The fact that these are separate questions (as they should be) tells me that there's overlap between groups throughout the study; any data that says e.g. "83% of lesbian respondents" is combining cis and trans lesbians, and any result that says "67% of trans people" is combining heterosexual and LGB trans people.

So, while narrowing the respondents down to just cisgender LGB people to compare their support for trans people would have been one way to analyse the data, I'm guessing they didn't do that (plus, there's the article's wording of "LGBT+ people overall"; it wouldn't make statistics-analytical sense to compare cis lesbians with all LGBT+ people, plus it would presumably make the higher support % of lesbians less stark, which seems like the opposite of what Ashenden wanted to do).

When the article says "other than trans and non-binary people themselves," they don't mean that they excluded trans and non-binary people from the percentages given; they mean "other than the number you get if you measure support for transgender people just from trans and non-binary people." We're not given the number that would result from doing this. The number we're given in the report for non-binary people is 97% supportive (this number is not included in the article); we are not given a number for just trans people, but we can probably assume it also approaches 100%.

This means that the 96% support presumably measures support from cis and trans lesbians; the 82% of "supportive" and "very supportive" gay men includes cis and trans men; &c.

There is a major statistics-analytical problem with acknowledging that trans and non-binary respondents have the highest rates of support for trans people, but then not controlling the results of this question for whether the respondent was cis or trans. If a higher percentage of lesbian respondents were trans than the percentage of gay men respondents that were trans, this would itself skew the numbers for lesbian support higher. There's no reason to suppose that this did happen, but there is not enough information given about the data that Just Like Us collected to rule it out. Again, at no point are we given information about overlap between LGB and trans groups or a breakdown of what that overlap looked like (how many trans respondents were heterosexual versus LGB, &c.).

As I mentioned above, some of the survey focused on whether respondents "felt supported" at home and at school. Some snippets on the results of these questions can be found on pages 45-49 of the report. "[M]ore than 1 in 4" LGBT+ respondents "felt unsupported" in school compared to "1 in 10" non-LGBT+ respondents; 37% of transgender respondents and 39% of nonbinary respondents said they felt unsupported in school. Despite the survey's focus on the outcomes of felt support, and despite all respondents being asked if they were "supportive" of transgender people, no question asked transgender respondents if they "felt supported" by cisgender LGB people.

Generalisability of claims:

The sampling of the data (which is drawn entirely from people in the UK aged 18-25, mostly students) also means that the claims are not generalisable to the entire UK population; you can't say the "majority of anti-trans adults don’t know a trans person in real life" (the headline of the Just Like Us article) or "Most anti-trans adults don’t actually know a trans person in real life" (the headline of the Pink News article), since the survey did not take a representative sample of all adults. You can't say "lesbians are not anti-trans" (the url of the Gay Times article), since the survey is not representative of all lesbians.

Funding sources:

The report was sponsored by Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited, a firm offering professional services (accounting, auditing, consulting, financial advisory, litigation consulting, and other services offered to businesses).

Cibyl, an independent research firm in the UK, "led on research design and delivery, then worked in partnership with Just Like Us to produce the report." They include the report ("Positive Futures") as an example of their work on their website. Their summary of the study focuses on the claim that "support in LGBT+ young adults’ teenage years" is necessary to the future development of their careers, and on what "employers and careers professionals can do to help LGBT+ young people feel safe and supported." This is the same kind of thing that Deloitte talks about when it comes to LGBT+ issues (namely, inclusion versus exclusion and support versus non-support in the workplace).

A video that Asheden produced with Mags Scott (partner at Deloitte) also focuses on how "support" for LGBT+ people "at home, in school, and in the workplace" leads to confidence in "career prospects" and ability to be onself "at work," and is necessary for LGBT+ people's mental wellbeing.

Just Like Us has an interest in promoting research that suggests that support for LGBT+ people in school will benefit them in their careers, since they sell training resources on forming LGBT+ groups, and talks with LGBT+ speakers, to schools. Just Like Us is a non-profit organisation.

Declaration of conflicts of interest and peer review:

This is an industry-sponsored study and not an academic one. There is no declaration of conflicts of interest required, and the study was not peer-reviewed.

Tl;dr:

Some breakdown of data was revealed in the report. The exact questions that respondents saw were not given. The data is not given with enough granularity to allow for anyone else to conduct statistical analysis based on it.

There is not enough evidence to say whether the study supports the claim that (cis?) lesbians are more supportive of trans people than any other identity group, since the survey was not clear what "support" means (someone may claim to support trans people as individuals while not supporting transition care, for example, due to some kind of "love the sinner, hate the sin" logic).

There is also a statistical problem with the support for this claim, since overlap between "transgender" and "cisgender" respondents is not controlled for. There is not enough data given in the report to allow anyone else to control for this factor. The results would hold if we assumed that similar percentages of e.g. lesbian, bisexual, and gay male respondents were transgender.

The results apply only to people in the UK aged 18-25 and cannot be generalised to all adults in the UK.

Summaries of this report given by the firms that funded and conducted it centre on the idea that "support" of LGBT+ people at home, at school, and in the workplace is necessary to allow them to thrive in the workplace. Just Like Us, who put out the report, sell LGBT+ talks and training to schools.

[matan4il]

Daily update post:

There's not a lot of details yet, because this happened less than an hour ago, but it's being reported that a terrorist shooting attack took place today, at least two people are said to have been wounded and taken to the hospital, and the terrorist has been neutralized.

A little over a week ago, I wrote that Marwan Issa, Hamas' 3rd top leader in Gaza, might have been killed in an IDF strike, but there's no final confirmation yet. Since then, no one has been able to contact Issa, and the Israeli assessment is that his body is buried under the rubble. Now, there's been private conversations where Hamas has said the same thing, though officially they're still saying they don't know. Hamas has motivation to present Issa as alive, and thus Israel as having failed, but at the same time, if he actually hasn't been killed, just wounded in the strike, then Hamas has reason to want Israel to falsely believe he's dead. In other words, I wouldn't take Hamas' double position as confirming anything, and from what I know, that's the general thinking in Israel. If Marwan Issa is dead, one of the sides will get to his body sooner or later, and then we might know (if it's Israel, or if it's Hamas, but for whatever reason, they decide it serves them better to confirm his death). That said, it's kind of funny, how the US doesn't seem to get the complexity of Hamas' contradicting motives here, and takes their word as final confirmation that Issa is indeed dead. The concept of "terrorists lie if it benefits them, in this case they just seem currently unsure if it does" shouldn't be that hard to grasp. Like yes, we all are inclined to think Issa's dead, but there's a reason why no Israeli official has yet come out and publicly said it as a fact. This vid reports how Hamas both confirms and rejects the claim that Issa's dead, and the way it's subtitled with both positions says it all IMO:

Also amusing is how the international press doesn't not the ranking within Hamas Gaza. Marwan Issa is NOT Hamas' #2 in Gaza, he's #3. I saw headlines saying Israel might have killed Hamas' second top senior in Gaza, which is Mohammed Deif, and was disappointed to learn that nope, the media is just confused. Quick reminder: Yahya sinwar is Hamas Gaza's leader and #1, Mohammed Deif is the military leader and #2, Marwan Issa is Deif's right hand man and #3, while international media is way too clueless on some very basic stuff regarding this conflict.

Here's the international press giving Issa a postmortem promotion:

For comparison, here are those who correctly referred to him as Hamas' #3:

The operation at the Shifa hospital, which I wrote about yesterday, continues. The number of terrorists killed there has risen to 50, and 180 suspects were arrested. Another soldier has been killed during this recent operation, 51 years old Sebastian Haion, after we already lost one during it. Just a small reminder, that if there had been only unarmed civilians at this hospital, there would have been no dead Israeli soldiers in this raid.

This tweet was too long to fit in one screenshot, but here's the essence of it. The IDF's spokesman in Arabic has published on Twitter evidence that just like Hamas, Hezbollah along with fellow Lebanese terrorist organization Amal are also misusing medical ambulances and organizations for terrorist activities.

I've written about a British Jewish director who, at the Oscars, hijacked the Holocaust to denounce hijacking the Holocaust for political positions he does not agree with, based on a false and ignorant narrative, which is harmful to Jews. I also mentioned that the biggest organization fighting against antisemitism, the ADL, as well as an organization of Holocaust survivors has come out to denounce this director. I've been seeing even more denouncements. Here's a short recap. I just wanna clarify, this isn't about him personally. This is a reminder that people like him don't get to erase the voices of the majority of Jews, while using his own Jewish identity to do so, without us speaking up, too. The sad thing is none of these voices will be heard as loudly or be as applauded as he was, for throwing most Jews (and Holocaust victims) under the bus, in favor of what's trendy to say these days.

I'll start with another Jewish director, László Nemes, who had also won an Oscar for a Holocaust movie, Son of Saul (I have to admit, Holocaust movies will never be truly able to capture the full horror and brutality of the Nazi camps, but of all the ones I've seen, and I've watched way too many, Son of Saul comes closest, probably aided by the fact that it's based on testimonies of the survivors who had seen the worst of the worst with their own eyes). Nemes said: "[The] director should have stayed silent instead of revealing he has no understanding of history and the forces undoing civilisation, before or after the Holocaust. Had he embraced the responsibility that comes with a film like that, he would not have resorted to talking points disseminated by propaganda meant to eradicate, at the end, all Jewish presence from the Earth. It is especially troubling in an age where we are reaching pre-Holocaust levels of anti-Jewish hatred – this time, in a trendy, ‘progressive’ way."

Another Jewish creator, Richard Trank, wrote a whole op-ed about how offensive he found the speech. Trank is a producer who won an Oscar for Holocaust documentary The Long Way Home (a movie that follows the struggle of the majority of survivors to get to Israel at the end of WWII, despite British opposition and Arab violence). Trank wrote, among other things: "Upon hearing [the speech], I thought about the assistant camera operator who has worked on three of my films, and whose 79-year-old father was kidnapped. This man had been spending his retirement years volunteering to drive Gazans needing medical care into Israel, care which Hamas could not provide for them despite billions in aid that has been sent to the area since the terrorist organization took control of it in 2006. I thought about the young people I have met in the last few weeks who survived the massacre at the Nova music festival. And then I reflected on this incredibly arrogant man who equated Israeli Jews to Nazis, and then left the Dolby Theatre with his statue when the awards show ended to party the night away."

And then, it turned out that the man who denounced hijacking the Holocaust for political causes, had not only hijacked the Holocaust itself with his little stunt, he also hijacked the Holocaust movie he had directed, from fellow Jewish co-creators who disagree deeply with his speech. Among them is Danny Cohen, an executive producer of this Oscar winning Holocaust film, and the article about his objection mentions that another Jewish producer of the movie, Len Blavatnik, who was standing on stage during the speech and was specifically referred to as if he agreed with it, did not sign off on it. Cohen made his position clear: "My support for Israel is unwavering. The war and the continuation of the war is the responsibility of Hamas, a genocidal terrorist organization, which continues to hold and abuse the hostages, and which doesn’t use its tunnels to protect the innocent civilians of Gaza, but uses it to hide themselves and allow Palestinians to die. I think the war is tragic and awful and the loss of civilian life is awful, but I blame Hamas for that. And any discussion of the war without saying that lacks the proper context that any discussion should have."

Now, there's an open letter condemning the director's speech, with the signatures of over 450 Jewish Hollywood creators, from different fields in the film industry. The letter says: "We refute our Jewishness being hijacked for the purpose of drawing a moral equivalence between a Nazi regime that sought to exterminate a race of people, and an Israeli nation that seeks to avert its own extermination. Every civilian death in Gaza is tragic. Israel is not targeting civilians. It is targeting Hamas. The moment Hamas releases the hostages and surrenders, is the moment this heartbreaking war ends. This has been true since the Hamas attacks of October 7th. The use of words like “occupation” to describe an indigenous Jewish people defending a homeland that dates back thousands of years, and has been recognized as a state by the United Nations, distorts history. It gives credence to the modern blood libel that fuels a growing anti-Jewish hatred around the world, in the United States, and in Hollywood.  The current climate of growing antisemitism only underscores the need for the Jewish State of Israel, a place which will always take us in, as no state did during the Holocaust." Here's a link to the full letter, and list of signatories, which includes 4 rabbis. Please don't let all of these voices go unheard and lost.

This is 19 years old Oz Daniel.

I was listening to a TV interview with the family of Oz Daniel yesterday. For many months, he was thought to be kidnapped when wounded (they found traces of blood), but not dead. The main reason for the latter assumption, was that Hamas had uploaded on Oct 7 a video of him where Oz is seen being taken away while alive. I wrote about him in one of my daily update post when it was published that the army had enough to determine he had actually been murdered during the massacre, and it's his body that's being held hostage in Gaza. His parents mentioned yesterday, that as the IDF is fighting Hamas in Gaza, it also gets to a lot of their computers. And on one of them, they found the original, unedited footage of Oz being kidnapped. It shows the part they'd seen before, where he's being taken away still alive, but then it continues to show him fighting back, and the Hamas terrorists murder him. That means that they took the time to go over the footage before they uploaded it, and edit it in the cruelest way, to give Oz's family false hope. For months, the Daniel family waited for any sign of life from their child, without knowing there will never be one. It is heartless and abusive, it is torture to put people through the ordeal of thinking that they have a chance of seeing their son alive, knowing it's a deliberate lie. I don't know if I can think of any worse form of torment.

This is (on the left) 40 years old Shlomi Ziv, with his wife Miren.

Shlomi finished his interior design studies a month before Hamas' massacre, and on occasion, he worked in security. On Oct 7, he worked at the Nova music festival as a guard, together with Aviv, who's Miren's cousin, and a friend of Slomi and Miren, Jack. Shlomi saw both of his friends murdered, while he himself was kidnapped. Miren shared that they had wanted kids, and tried fertility treatments, but after years of repeated attempts, she had to give up, and how rare and incredible it was, that Shlomi understood and accepted her decision, and stood by her. "We only have each other," she said, "we're each other's world. Please bring him back to me." In the last phone call that Shlomi had with her, he was running away from the terrorists, and could barely speak. Since then, Miren hasn't had any sign of life from her husband.

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

[chrollohearttags]

make a movie • e. jaeger

“𝘭𝘦𝘵’𝘴 𝘮𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘢 𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘵𝘭𝘦 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘰𝘶𝘤𝘩 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘧 𝘵𝘰 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘐’𝘮 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘢𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥..”

even on vacation, the most famous of celebs can’t escape prying eyes and paparazzi..in more ways than one..

cw: black fem reader, recording, eren on X GAMES MODE, implied shower sex, oral (m/f receiving), use of sex toys, anal play, pet names and name calling, choking, bondage, size and breeding kinks go brrr, some other things too

📝: nsfw, some very debaucherous filth.. possibly the nastiest thing I’ve ever written..minors dni!

the headlines were everywhere…thousands of tweets being sent out by the second and the number one trending topic across all platforms. Not to mention the plethora of Google Searches. You couldn’t escape it and if you were (y/n) (l/n) and eren jaeger right now, it may have been all but inevitable to avoid: online and in real life. The two of you sitting hand in hand, faces pointing opposite of one another as you sat before the desk of your PR manager, who was absolutely fuming. “Hip Hop’s Hottest New Couple Exposed in Sex Tape Leak.” “EJ The Don and (social media name) sex tape leak.” You wanna explain why the fuck I have to do damage control first thing on a Monday morning?” to say she wasn’t happy would be a gross understatement. After all the hard work to build your brands and images both separately and together, it may have just been shattered by some dumb punk intercepting an airdrop between you two. However, the reception on it was that of positivity if looked at in a different perspective. Perhaps the fact that people were foaming at the mouth..chomping at the bit for only a preview. Saying that the sex was so good in comparison to other celebrity videos..claiming that this was what the Kardashians wanted Kim’s to be and that they would pay top dollar for you guys to make an Onlyfans! However, your manager was not amused…nor was she keen on the idea of you two stealing snickers and laughs over your shoulders. “How the hell did this happen..?”

one week ago…

“You know this is the last time we’re gonna be together like this for a while…”

“Yeah, I know…”

it were the last words that either of you wanted to hear but it was an inevitable reality that you had to accept. In some of the only free time that the two of you had been allotted, Eren decided to whisk you away for a two week-long getaway in the islands; the Maldives to be exact. A breathtaking paradise with dozens of villas and luxurious resorts lining the ocean shore. Practically ethereal waters without a single impurity littering them, swaying palms and the prettiest sights to take in.

throughout your tenure there, the two of you had enjoyed delicious food, dancing, swimming and a plethora of other adventures. It had been a wonderful time and honestly, you weren’t prepared to call it quits. Once you guys got back to the states, you’d be a part for a while. He’d be busy with his next album and you had a string of modeling jobs lined up across the country. dating as people in the industry, it wasn’t always easy as people would think. You had to be willing to sacrifice a lot that normal couples didn’t. You’d go two to three weeks before you were in person again, weird times to talk..one may have been sleep while the other was wide awake and even seeing them with another person as part of a music video or something would drive you crazy, so naturally, when you got time to yourself like this, you wanted to enjoy it.

and at this point, you wanted to stay with him forever. Especially after fucking on him for two weeks and it being the best you’d ever had. You needed that in your life everyday! with your face fixed into a pout, Eren cupped your cheek and brushed the side of your face before kissing you.

“Don’t look like that, princess. It’ll be okay..I promise, I’ll fly out to come see you as soon as I can and we can make it work. We always have, right?” You wanted to agree but you were upset..just dreading the moment. Still, you’d be a big girl about it and nod.

“Yeah, I know, baby..”

“Good. Now c’mere..”

currently, the sun was setting over the island and you guys were cuddled up on the villa’s deck. Enjoying the picturesque view of the ocean and the clouds after a nice swim. Tomorrow, you’d be back on a jet, headed to your hometown and he’d be back in Miami. For now, you wanted this moment to last forever.

with a hand resting on his chest, (y/n) bridged the gap of space between your bodies. When he beckoned you towards him, Eren entrapped your lips into a soft kiss, barely grazing the brine before biting down gently. He knew what that did to you..knowing it was just one of the many weaknesses he drummed out. Curling his own into a smirk, he’d place a hand around the back of your neck and deepen the peck into one much sloppier.

your tongues swirling and twisting around one another in a haze of passion. Eyes shutting as you’d become entranced in the moment. Bringing your palm to rest on his cheek, you’d find yourself damn near shifted over into your man’s lap; even letting your free hand graze his crotch.

with his guard down and arousal up, you’d snake that limber little hand into his bottoms and began wrangling his shaft around.

“Mmm…keep touching me like that and I might not let you leave, shit..”

mumbling against your mouth as it was obvious you had gotten him riled up through those swim trunks.

“That a promise? ‘Cause I’ll pull that shit out..suck that dick right here..”

“..my nasty girl..I love you.”

to which, in response, he’d then snake his fingertips between your thighs and part them open, rubbing against the warmth of your panty seat. Brushing the tips of his fingers against that clothed clit..it was a little soaked and not just from the water. That let him know exactly what time it was..

“Aye, why don’t we go inside? I got an idea..”

and without hesitation, you’d follow his lead and let him usher you in, ready for whatever he had up his sleeve; sure to be a night that neither of you would soon forget.

══✿══╡°˖✧✿✧˖°╞══✿════✿══╡°˖✧✿✧˖°

naturally, it didn’t take long for you two to resume your heated makeout session and with complete solitude in the sequestered suite, you had ample room to go all out! To enact on your most carnal and filthiest desires; the perverse thoughts that plagued each of your minds about one another on a daily basis. It was something about being away from home in an environment other than your own that brought out your salacious sides.

only thirty minutes shy of having been outside, your nude bodies clung to one another like moths to a flame. The heat of pure love and lust burning rampant inside of you..it was such a shame that you wouldn’t get this for a while. Luckily, Eren had quite the solution for your dilemma.

“Let’s make a movie…a little something for you to touch yourself to when I’m not around..what you think, baby?”

propositioning with his finger underneath your chin as his muscular frame towered over you. your first initial thought was how sexy that was..and how you couldn’t possibly say no. Especially when he already had you worked over so well. Taking you straight to the shower where he hoisted your leg to his shoulder, a hand around your throat as he fed you slow strokes with water cascading down your bodies. It was a no brainer…

“Yeah, come fuck me on camera..”

with that very bold declaration and a smile on your pretty face, Eren made haste in setting up the ‘equipment’ for this little homemade film, including his phone and a tripod you had brought along for vlogging purposes, which worked out perfectly. And what would a good flick be without a few props? There were some goodies you had brought along that would prove useful for your last night.

a silk rope for binding wrists, a bottle of baby oil, a small bottle of lube, a vibrator wand and a heart shaped plug..he was going to enjoy playing around with all of these!

getting the device in the right position and ready to record, all he needed now was his lovely costar. (Y/N), already lying on the bed, touching yourself…rubbing that pretty little pussy between your fingertips. Gliding them up and down your slit until he made his way over to take control.

the way he towered over you just turned you on more than anything. Your man had bulked up quite a bit in the past few months, a result of hardcore workouts with his trainer and although he was starkly taller, he was much bigger as well. In his arms, you were practically weightless and that shit got your pussy so wet..

“Having fun without me, princess? That’s just mean..”

“Mmmm…I’m sorry. Just couldn’t help myself..need you in it.”

with the cameras rolling, it was time to give his greatest performance thus far! popping your legs completely open without so much as disconnecting eye contact, Eren glided his hand south to the same spot where yours was and began massaging that clit himself. he wanted dominion over you..for you to look him in the eye and tell him that one more time with his digits deep inside of you. Working his index into your tightness and his thumb to your aching bud..

“Yeah? What you need, baby? Talk to me..”

at the moment, you were too busy spilling out moans to meet his request..but he wasn’t going to stop until he heard the admission from your own mouth. Meanwhile, he’d finger you with his right hand and fuck his own palm with the other..pumping that cock in and out until you spoke up.

“I can’t give you what you want if you don’t tell me, mama…”

cooing to you in the sweetest of tones as he sped up his maneuvering. Knowing that it drove you insane..he’d watch as the incoherent babble spilled from your mouth. This was amusing..he was going to enjoy making that pretty little brain go blank tonight!

truth was, you couldn’t decide if you wanted that dick first or to fuck his face..to let him slide that big ass tongue against your slit and devour it until you came.

“While you’re thinking..let me put this in..”

amid your little episode, he’d reach over to retrieve that plug and lube. Flipping over the cap, he’d let the gooey liquid coat the gleaming metal. The two of you had done anal once and it was practically life changing. You had never come so hard in your entire life and since then, you wore those little toys occasionally to make things interesting. And of course to stretch yourself out.

after all, he wasn’t an easy fit into such a tight orifice!

your beloved boyfriend continued slicking it up before sliding it in, adjusting it to your comfort. The pastel pink jewel contrasts perfectly with that gorgeous dark complexion. “Took it so good, baby..” That puckering hole was begging to be filled as was your needy little cunt. So he made your decision for you.

“F-fuck..fuck me, please!”

“What was that?”

“Fuck me, please! Give me that dick!”

letting out a soft chuckle, Eren leaned down to kiss you before pulling out his fingers and stuffing them between your lips.

“Good girl..”

whilst you tasted the remnants of your own flavor, he’d grasp your ankle and tug you closer until you were at the edge of the bed. From there, he’d pin your legs back in one fell swoop before tapping himself against that warmth. You were dripping wet and with that toy added, he’d probably be slipping in and out! Still…it wasn’t going to stop him from putting that dick, balls deep inside of you.

he’d tease you for a few moments; grazing your folds with that pre-ejaculating tip..the thickness of his girth and length causing your eyes to dilate, watching carefully in anticipation. “Swear I can’t wait to fuck you, baby..give you all this dick..all this nut. That’s what you want?”

rhetorically questioning to see you chewing your lip and nodding your head in response. “And how deep do you want it? Show me..” prompting you to glide your hand across the bottom of your stomach; the expression on your face being one of innocence when he knew full and well you were begging to be fucked like a slut!

still, it was so cute when you pretended because ‘corrupting’ you, became all that more fun.

“Then keep that hand there and don’t move it until you feel me, alright?”

“Y-yes!”

commanding as his cock head began making home between your dense little entrance. He was all but impaling you on those eight and a half inches until he had enough in to make you feel it. “I’m ‘bout to start..can I?” Ensuring that you were alright above anything but once you did, those thrusts commenced.

the first half of that thick cock slowly drilling in those walls..just enough for both of you to get acquainted… “ooh..fuck. You so tight, baby, damn..” truthfully, it couldn’t be helped. The sensation of being dually stuffed was something else. Even so, you didn’t take your eyes off of him once and let it be known you could handle it.

“Mmmm…it feels so good. So fucking good..”

whimpering as you kept that hand planted to your lower belly. He hadn’t quite made it to the designated spot just yet but he was damn sure carving out his path..feeding you deep, fluid strokes to get you worked up. That much evident by the sheath of cream all over his shaft.

that flash was beaming directly at your intertwined bodies; capturing the essence of every facial expression you made, as well your movements.

“Yeah? I’m making you feel good, princess? Fucking you the way you wanted?”

“Yes daddy..you get this pussy so wet!”

(Y/N) admitting as you became dizzy and only filling your brain with thoughts of him; going completely dumb on his dick this early in..exactly as he wanted! Regardless, with your calf resting on his shoulder and the other leg being cusped by the ankle, Eren sped up exponentially, deepening those strokes until your head fell back.

“Then open that shit up for me..let me in it, baby.”

that name seemed to have incited something inside of him because he was pumping harder; pounding that little pussy until you were housing every inch of him. He might’ve gotten carried away..

hell, you might’ve been limping or carrying his first child by the time you got to the airport tomorrow but he was going to fuck you for every night he’d be away so that when that urge hit again, you’d remember all that he done to you..the good dick he gave and how you’d never be satisfied until you had him again.

maybe that was his toxic flaw..he wanted you to be so addicted that you’d always find your way back, regardless of what happened.

“Ugh! Fuuuck…I can feel it!—feel it so fucking deep in me..”

and right now, he was well on his way when you felt that tip prodding at your g-spot, making your legs quiver and that cunt squelch around him; noises getting louder by the second.

“..make it talk to me, princess..tell me where I’m at..” his deep voice and dominating tone quickly drummed out your submissive side. As if you were just begging to be used in the worst way.

“It’s in my stomach!..oh shit..”

“And how that dick feel?”

“It feels so fucking good! You’re fucking me so good.”

“That’s right, let me know then.”

gasping and breathing heavily from the sensation, even having to laugh because there was no way you should’ve fit all of that this soon! Yet here you were; legs dangling in the air and his dick buried inside of you. Those full, heavy balls slapping against your bejeweled asshole..such a sexy sight and one that was sure to drive you both crazy when you rewatched.

but right now, he wanted to make good on your little agreement..now that he had put it where you asked, he wanted to see it for himself. Even if you were pushing on his perfect physique; pawing at his abs to slow down.

“Move that fucking hand then, lemme see it..” roughly pushing that arm to the side to reveal his own tip press through your skin. It was so attractive, honestly. With a half cocked grin on his face and strands of hair dangling over it, he’d lean down and reward his good girl with a plethora of sloppy kisses.

just to make it all that more intense, he’d grab that vibratory, flick it on and stimulate you even more! Clawing at the sheets, his chest..anything to help you stay grounded, (y/n) let out an ear shattering moan in response.

“I know, baby..I know.. but you’re taking me so good just like you said. I’m so proud of you, (y/n)..”

praising you whilst pulsating between your walls. He knew how much you loved that and to be driven further into sub space. As long as you felt safe, comfortable and affirmed, you’d do anything he asked. He learned that early on into your relationship..and exploited it every chance he got!

“Mmmm…thank you, daddy. Thank you so much..” crying as that toy whirred against your clit!

“You’re doing amazing..just like that, baby..there you go, squeeze that dick..like you want me to stay in it..”

smirking with a loving peck to your forehead and your faces only centimeters apart. At this point, you wanted to live in his skin. The way he talked to you, held you..encouraged you?! All of it had you swooning.

meanwhile, (y/n) began to tremble, stuttering over your own words and tearing up from the overstimulation. “Don’t leave me, please..I need you so bad..” when you begged him like that, he couldn’t help but to make love to you like it was the last time. Grasping your hand, your man intertwined your fingers and placed a kiss on it to quell you.

“Shhh..I’m right here, pretty girl. All yours..all this dick..just for my baby..”

the touching moment being shared between lovers, making it even harder to come back to reality. This man had you on a cloud, floating through air and fueled on ecstasy.

but that tenderness could only be temporary as he had something to prove! He knew rough sex was what you really craved..to be fucked so good, you’d cry.

while holding you close to his chest, he’d force you up by the back of your head and tell you to keep your eyes focused strictly on him…next came his hand clutching your throat, slightly restricting your air for his pleasure and your own.

once he had you in position, he’d double down; making that puckering hole pulsate with each stroke.

“Ooh..shit! Eren, I’mma fucking come, oh my god!” all you could do was grasp and claw at that muscular, tattooed forearm..bracing yourself for his brutal fucking.

“Well look at me…look me in the eye when you nut on this dick.” grimacing with a tightened grip that had your tongue dangling and eyes stuck in the back of your head. What was apparent was the smile on your face. The harder he squeezed..the more pain he inflicted, the happier you were; like a grade A masochist!

but soon, you’d be reaching your peak and pushing him out when that heavy stream of juices came barreling forth. Amidst a mind numbing orgasm, (y/n) flailed in his grasp and nearly fainted..something that had occurred a couple of times. It was a sign of how good he fucked you and an indicator to take it easy..

unfortunately for you, he wasn’t all that much in the mood for being gentle. Instead..“Wait, wait…let me taste some of that, baby. Squirt in my fucking mouth.” Immediately retracting his cock only to make haste in bending down to catch the brunt of that climax. Sticking his tongue out, Eren suckled on your twitching clit and coaxed more out.

God, were so sensitive and overstimulated but he couldn’t get enough of his girl. He wanted to lick, slurp and suck you dry after already rearranging your insides!

“ ‘Ren…I—oh my gosh..”

but when you ate pussy as skillfully as he did, you didn’t attest! Rather, just grabbed his hair and guided him along. Glancing down to see him drinking in that sweet nectar so subtly. Kissing and flicking his tongue all throughout your folds. Enjoying his greedy feast of your slick filled cunt..

lifting his head up momentarily with a mouthful of that arousal, he’d pat your cheek to prompt your mouth open before spitting a portion into it.

“You taste so fucking sweet… ‘can’t get enough.” mumbling against your sex as you moaned his name and clutched his hair. You were still dripping, leaving remnants trickling down his chin but he didn’t care. It was his reward if anything. But he figured it was best to stop before you really collapsed on him.

“Let’s give this little pussy a break..c’mere.” Tugging you up once more with a final peck to your clit and lips before positioning you on the floor. From there, his six foot four Adonis-like frame towered over you as you sat on your knees. right in front of the camera, (y/n) let his length dangle in your face, tongue extended out and mouth agape with a huge smile because you couldn’t wait. You loved sucking him off, especially to taste yourself on it.

“I ain’t even gotta tell you what to do with it..eat this dick up for me, baby. You know how I like that shit..”

opening your mouth with your hands on his hips, you’d twirl your tongue around his tip a couple times before kissing it. You knew better than to tease him or he’d be fucking that throat for you. But you wanted your revenge for him nearly fucking you unconscious. You wanted to hear him moaning now..

eventually, you’d begin to take him a little further..pursing your lips around that shaft before swallowing over half. It took no time for you to get your rhythm..bobbing that head back and forth, and even massaging his balls. As you started getting more into it, Eren clasped your hair back, keeping it from your face to make sure you had no distractions.

sounds of slurping and gagging began to erupt from your mouth; pace going from slow to sloppy in less than a minute and the strings of saliva and precum trickling to your chin and breasts were proof. Not caring how you looked or how nasty it got, as long as he was satisfied. Exhaling heavily through your nose, (y/n) sucked profusely until you could move your head further down his cock.

“Oh..shit! You not playing, huh?..” laughing from the incredible sensation and your insane work. After only a few minutes, that face was plastered with your own spit; a sopping mess but one well worth it! He’d try to buck his hips forward to help you but made it very clear you were in control now..

even winking at the camera in an air of confidence before devouring him again.

“F-fuck. That’s my dirty little slut.”

you’d gain that rhythm and keep it..brushing the underside of his shaft, licking his sack and even taking him to the base until you spat up all over him; your forehead pressing to his pelvis until you came up for air. You felt it pulsate in your throat and knew you were killing him. It was only when you pulled it out to jerk him off did he lean down to kiss you and further slick your jaws with more spit. Not that it wasn’t slippery enough as is.

“Damn, (y/n)..You’re so fucking nasty, baby. Sucking my shit like that..”

“Told you I would..don’t play with me.”

with your eyes glazed over in that slutty glare, you’d just continue pumping him in your palm. Meanwhile, you’d return your tongue to his balls, flicking your tongue around the sensitive vein to really get him yelping. Eren’s chest heaved, his breaths getting louder as his peak grew closer. He wanted to paint that pretty face and titties so bad but he had to hold back..

for selfish reasons if nothing else..to stuff you full of his seed and have him with you wherever you went. That’s when he’d halt you, grasping your throat to kiss you once more. It was so hot how he always shoved his tongue in your mouth after giving him head.

“Fuck..that was so good.”

declaring before catching his breath and grasping you in his arms. Lifting you as if you were nothing more than a weightless rag doll, he tossed you onto the bed and flipped you until you sat on all fours. It seemed you had brought out his aggression, which meant you were about to fucked beyond belief.

“Arch that back, hurry up.” commanding with a heavy slap to your right cheek. Which you were quick to do..whilst you did so, Eren reached for the silk rope and oil. He had plans and couldn’t wait another second to execute them. The thought of giving you backshots and inevitably fucking that pretty ass was making him feral.

once you were in position, he’d pop that cap open and pour the clear liquid all over that brown bottom, slowly rubbing it in circles. The sight was beautiful..almost akin to something from an actual porno. And of course, you’d put on a bit of a show for him, bouncing it in the air and making them clap.

“Yeah..you know what I like. Look back at me while you do it, mama.” Twerking whilst twisting your head around to glare up at him. It was a shame how many times he had busted a healthy nut just from watching that big, round ass bounce alone..less known watching it slathered in oil.

“Mmmm..can’t wait for you to fuck this ass..wanna be so full of you.”

making his cock twitch with your declaration. He had no issue fulfilling your request and then some. Moving closer with his palm stretched out, he’d place it into the small of your back and then proceed to press your head to the mattress so that you were exactly as he needed you.

“Don’t worry, imma give you all this dick..have you dripping with this nut when I’m done..”

assuring you along the way while binding your hands behind your back. He wanted to make certain you didn’t run or try to get away. You asked for it as far as he was concerned! Aligning himself with your puffy, sore pussy..you found that tip splitting those lips open and entering you yet again.

only now, he wasted no time prepping you because that slick greeted him the second he put it inside. Letting out an audible moan and tossing his head back. It still had a whole lot more grip than he expected so he could only imagine how tight your other hole was. He wasn’t going to last anytime at this rate!

especially with the way you were shaking that ass against him and the sounds grew louder? This is why he always came so quickly with backshots..

still, he’d feed you full strokes with that plump backside colliding with his pelvis. Keeping his hand cuffed around your wrists, Eren met you halfway..slamming and rutting his hips into you so hopelessly. The moans coming from his mouth were absolutely cute and pathetic, and yet..he persisted!

“Fuck me! Yes…right there, ‘Ren! So deep in this pussy..”

“Yeah? Well I’m about to come, baby! I’m fucking—ahh!”

all of his restraint and resolve wore thin..a result of that warmth clasping around him. And soon, it’d catch up with him and eventually, you found yourself finally filled with his first load! Those hot white strings spilling into your aching cunt. He had quite literally beaten it up at this point..

you thought for certain he’d tap out after that but there was a little more left in his tank for the final round! hovering over your back now, he’d place a foot into the mattress and tap into his second wind. This time, you’d find that plug discarded to the floor and that ass spread wide open.

“..give me this ass..bet it feels so goddamn tight.” growling with a firm grasp on your arms as he teased that opening. Your eyes were fluttering, hair and lash extensions completely disheveled but he was going to get one more nut out of you no matter what.

“F-fuck..daddy, I can’.. ‘s too much, no more..”

but your whining and tears were of no absolve to him and instead, you found that foot gently planted to your skull. All while teasing that tip against it.

“Shut the fuck up…” grunting so aggressively that his words alone almost made you come!

“You asked for it, princess, so take it..”

placing both hands to your cheeks to give himself ample room; letting a trail of saliva fall onto it before pushing it in.

“Take this fucking dick in that ass, you can do it.”

You were more than ready for it now and if you weren’t, he’d make sure you were well stretched when he finished! (Y/N) on the other hand was gasping for air, eyes extended out of your skull and drool seeping down the corners of your mouth. The sensation was one that you’d never quite get used to but it was euphoric.

something that everyone should try at least once in your opinion. He wanted to go slow..pace himself and you but the pressure swelling in his cock just wouldn’t allow it.

it was so incredibly tight and that spongy flesh didn’t want to give but you’d relax that anus for him to fit at least four inches..enough to drive you both crazy!

he had to keep moving before he blew his load prematurely. The two of you exchanged huffs, moans and heavy cries but the best stride was saved for last. Fortunately, he’d find his rhythm and before long..he had mounted you like a fucking animal..not letting up until he had you taking all his knots.

“I’m coming! I’m coming..please!” wailing out from underneath his clutch. That ass arched all the way in the air for the camera to get a clear view of you taking it this way…as well as another splash of squirting, just waiting to exit your body. It was so powerful, and the pressure was too much to bear but he wanted you to meet him there;

“Wait for me, baby. We’ll come together, okay…”

“Okay!..”

trying his hardest to be dominant and hell, keep it together but that was all but useless. Finally though, he’d give his signal and the two of you would fall into those blissful climaxes as one..

for a moment, thought you’d seen stars. Right then and there..you practically went limp, proving that this position was no joke..

you were out for the count, spent and tired but both of you mustered up enough energy to kiss ever so passionately. Discreetly snaking around to untie your hands, he’d pull you into his arms as if he never wanted to let go. Coming down from your insurmountable high, he’d brush your face and smile at you with all the adoration in the world. Exchanging ‘I love you’ s in the process.

“Are you okay, princess? How you feel?..”

“I’m feeling like I want us to stay here forever.”

giggling softly into his chest as you collapsed onto one another. Eren couldn’t help but to dote on you while holding you close and kissing your forehead. He admittedly got a little rough but it was out of sheer love. Besides, you knew you were always safe with him.

“Well I don’t know about forever but hell, I think we can wait one more night.”

ready to ditch all forms of responsibility just to stay by his lady’s side..that’s how he was but now you had this beautiful memory to treasure when you eventually did have to part ways.

a memory just between you two to enjoy when prying eyes weren’t around.

or so you had hoped!…

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if you made it this far, thank you so much for reading! please check out some of my other stuff in the masterlist. Likes are appreciated but reblogs would mean the world and help me out a TON! Also, considering leaving a little something in the tip jar if you’re feeling extra generous! 🫶🏾

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taglist

@prodbybrianna @cherrylovesyou222 @lovelyyceleste @l0vr-girl @xoxodaniie @shamelesjaroflaffytaffy @chromestar @spaceforher @jadyriah

[ilovelovewithallmyheart]

When the strongest isnt quite the strongest anymore...

“Keep on fighting! One day, I hope we can both climb higher in the ranks!” 

You got challenged in a duelling ring by a random white haired and blue eyed jujutsu sorceror. You knew you were a weakling, (your family never fails to remind you of that) but man! That man was so easy to defeat!

He put up a good fight, but he was no match for you. Since you were apparently a grade 4 sorceror, this poor man must have been on the most bottomest rank possible.

After the initial shock of realising he had an infinity around him, you bypassed it quite easily and took the victory home.

That very man now stared with you with shock written all over his face. “You…beat me?”

You nodded. You felt bad for him. You knew how hard life was being weak. “Well, I am a grade four sorceror though. I still have a long way to go.” You felt embarrassed for some reason. At the big age of 24, you were still a grade four sorceror.

You’ve lived a sheltered life up until that point, your clan operating anonymously and therefore homeschooling you on jujutsu techniques. Everything you knew about jujutsu was from them.

“You’re a grade four sorceror?” Amusement tinged his voice. Annoyance caused you to clench your fists. “Yes.”

“Says who?” He started laughing. “My family?” You began to pack up your belongings as you planned on leaving the fighting ring. You needed to get back soon, or your family would find out you weren’t, in fact, grocery shopping.

They hardly ever allowed you to use your technique outside of the training room. You needed actual training, and that was why you signed up for one on one duelling. This was your first match - and already the ring was destroyed.

He looked thoughtful for a second. “What family?” You didn’t feel inclined to answer him, but pity for his sorrowful state compelled you to. “It’s not a big jujutsu clan. We’re called the Norikamis.”

HIs face became more and more animatedly amused by the minute. “Huh. And your name is?” 

You zipped up your bag and took a big gulp of water. “Norikami Y/n.”

“Ah. Hello Norikami Y/n.” He looked at you expectantly, as if he wanted you to ask who he was. You only stared back.

He pouted. “My name is Gojo Satoru.”

You spat out your second gulp of water. “You wish buddy.” You said, laughter shaking your shoulders. He stood up and put his hands on his hips. “What makes you think I’m lying?”

“Gojo Satoru is the strongest sorceror of our generation.” You glared at him pointedly. “I beat you in like, two blows.”

He sighed like he was dealing with a child and dug around in his pockets, before pulling out a wallet. He slid out a card and held it out to you.

A picture of the white haired and blue eyed male was headlined with the name Gojo Satoru. An ID card.

Your jaw hung open.

“I’m not the liar in this situation, Y/n.”

His mischevious smile looked so punchable.

“I think It’s time for a long family discussion.”

[sgiandubh]

From barf bag to pity party

The whole 'Kick in the hornets' nest' involuntary series was started by this Anon, received by the de facto leader of the Disgruntled Tumblrettes yesterday evening (in Europe):

The next morning, another Anon chimed in, on the same page, with what prompted the First Kick: S has a child with 'a woman', but God forbid, not with C 🤣🤣🤣.

And then, one of their group felt the need (then the clearly irritated urge) to come back and comment on the above Anon. No less than 5 (five!) long and plethoric comments were written, prompting my Second and Third Kicks - as you all know, the woman practically begged for them.

I feel it's time to show some mercy and draw the line here.

This blog is read (and trusted) by many. Comments were received. Very interesting, matter-of-fact submissions, to say the least. You know: FACTS (🤣🤣🤣). People who have rich and full and loving lives, people who travel. People who don't even agree on many things, yet spontaneously concurred on what things very probably looked like, on that Palm Sunday morning.

Exhibit 1: Mom and Traveler #1 (a mom I am not - but I was a child, unbelievable as it might sound, and I absolutely confirm every single bit of it)

I am not yet ridden with dementia, and I remember very well waking everyone up at ungodly hours and refusing my mandatory afternoon siesta (a very bad habit we have in Southern Europe). I wish I would still have that same insane energy now. I also wish I would have kept my 3 year old fashion model food quirks - but that is another story.

However, I am a dog slave (not owner) and as such, I am taking Baby out for his short (but excruciating) morning routine at 7:30 AM. Come rain or shine. Beg him to finish his business with grace and dignity. He never listens. Labs are a charming, addictive handful and my Greek boy is no exception:

Exhibit 2: Mom and Traveler #2. Who happened to be in GLA on Palm Sunday, March 24, 2024 (for the thick people at the back!):

All that trip was abundantly documented on her own page. I am reasonably sure she might be reblogging this with her own pics from that day.

And now, for the real questions at stake:

Why make such an unbelievable fuss over an Anon with no pic, that I was reluctant to publish myself?

Why have a cosmic meltdown, in public nonetheless, if you do think this is such a pile of unbelievable nonsense crap? (*imagine the freakout in DMs, if this made the headlines!)

How many times has/have S (or C, or SC) been seen by Antis in GLA in similar postures, without a word being uttered in public?

Why would such an occurrence be An Event, outside of this (help me, I have no words) fandom?

Why insist with your crappy arguments, when it is plain to see you have got all your facts dreadfully wrong?

Why mention 'central Glasgow', when it is public lore (and included in Waypoints!) that S does not live there anymore? (* I blacked out the exact reference, which makes total sense - the least thing I would like to see happening is freaks like you stalking them)

One last time, you insist - comments 6 and 7 (wow, girl!):

First comment is a lie and if you read my Anon (and you know you all did and discussed it to oblivion) you'll have also read this:

Which part of 'he didn't approach' you don't get, in plain English, madam? I am lousy at drawing, but hey - for the cause (open in separate page, questionable humor included):

Second comment, I won't even get into it. God only knows what the hell you meant. I am Romanian and we tend to be a very sarcastic bunch - especially the Southerners.

You posted those at about 2:45 AM, local time (if you are, indeed, a Scot). That's 4:45 AM my time.

I am a lifelong sufferer of insomnia. You, madam, you are mad wae it, as they say in Glasgow.

Don't drink and post, seriously. It makes for a very #sorry hangover show.

And with this, I am done with you. All of you, in that corner. You showed me more than enough. You know there is substance to that Anon, despite the lack of a picture - hence the collective freakout.

From barf bag to pity party. Who knew?

[Later edit:] re-reading the sixth comment, I think she wants to imply it was the 'other child' - I was literally blind with sleep when I first saw it. Well, there is no evidence of whatever she is trying to explain (has she contacted The Climber? between midnight and 2 AM, local time?). Also, a 5 year old child is not a toddler anymore: kids are considered toddlers up to 3, only. That boy, as we all know (and I am sorry we do), has dark hair - where is the resemblance Anon noticed?

Desperate, grasping at straws, lying through her teeth and mad wae it, all the way.

@pamalissou, thanks for bringing us a third mom's POV in your reblog.

[pokopippitypop]

I've literally never read any of this segment Gerard Way wrote (?) for Rolling Stone about Queen before?? lowkey got jump scared by his name while reading this article /pos

My dad was a mechanic. He worked on a lot of bottom-of-the-rung cars that didn't have cassette decks. But they had 8-tracks. Somebody left an 8-track tape of Queen's Greatest Hits in a car — the one where they're wearing leather jackets on the cover, and Freddie's got the mustache. I loved it immediately, and I came to emulate Freddie both as a child and as an adult.

"Bohemian Rhapsody" is arguably the greatest song ever written. I'm sure people told them it was too long or had too many movements. But then it came out and just took hold of the world. When you're in a band and you find something that breaks every rule, it gives you creative hope. And Queen were always trying something new; none of their hit songs were paint-by-numbers.

When My Chemical Romance were making The Black Parade, we watched tons of documentary footage about A Night at the Opera, Queen's best album. We used Brian May amps and wrote songs with different movements. But we didn't try to make another "Bohemian Rhapsody." Whenever someone tries to do that, they fail.

I love the way Freddie performed. He would strike amazing poses; maybe he practiced them in front of a mirror, but he wasn't pretending to be somebody else. That was him telling the world, "This is who I am." I remember when the surviving members of Queen were looking for a singer a few years ago, I was like, "I would love to try it." Freddie's songs are just so much fun to sing, and he had such stamina. I would definitely have to quit smoking to be able to do what he did.

Queen fell in and out of being cool, maybe because they were so sincere. Rock music is all about being phony sometimes. And they weren't. They were obviously so psyched to be doing what they were doing.

They had a polarizing quality. I heard a story — maybe apocryphal — that Queen played a festival and got booed off the stage. Freddie vowed they would return as the biggest band in the world. And they did. When we played the Reading and Leeds festivals, we had to follow Slayer, and got bottles of piss thrown at us. I thought, "If we ever come back here, we're gonna headline it." I've always held on to the same dreams as Freddie.

Best Musicians, Artists of All Time According to Rolling Stone – Rolling Stone

[eclipse89]

really hate when mainstream astronomy journalism does this

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/saturns-rings-disappear-from-view-march-23-2025-nasa-expert-says/

this entire article feels like it's written from the perspective of a space skeptic getting confirmation from nasa that it's real

even in the title, they say "nasa says" like the new york times says "palestinians say"

the entire article would come off so much better if any of this (correct!) info was said with like 1% confidence in it, it legit feels like they intentionally included the "nasa says" parts to feed into pseudoscience. it comes off so horribly to anyone with some knowledge of astronomy

"Saturn's rings will seemingly disappear from view in 2025" the addition of "seemingly" here is totally unnecessary and only adds more apparent skepticism from the author (and by extension, the reader)

"Saturn won't actually lose its rings in 2025, but they will go edge-on, meaning they will be essentially invisible to earthlings, NASA confirmed to CBS News." correct info, but adding "nasa confirmed" instantly makes us think this was just a random theory before nasa told them that it's true, when it is not by any means a random theory

the article gets noticeably more scientific as it goes on, which makes it even worse that they put the most clickbaity skeptical stuff in the headline and opening paragraphs

it perpetuates the weird idea that info about astronomy in particular is like, sacred to people that are in the field, and can't be reported on without contacting 5 people at nasa to confirm it in your article

it's so wrong because most stuff about basic astronomy is totally definitive and can be predicted 100% of the time using basic math, we shouldn't need top scientists at nasa to confirm that there's a full moon coming up on the day the moon will be full (something i have actually seen happen!)

and overall, it also perpetuates the general stigma on astronomy as somehow harder or more complex than most other fields, something that average person can't get into and that's reserved for genius level intellects

not great stuff cbs!