#i should start a list of all the advice my grandma has given me

[gateskp]

Libraries are important

My Silent Gen grandparents like to write me long emails and letters about everything going on in their lives. Today my grandma sent me an email and told me about how she negotiated for a lower internet/phone bill and got free cell service for a year, and she traded in her old cell phone (I think it was a flip phone, my grandparents didn't get a cell phone until 2013 and that was because when I was visiting, the car broke down and I had a phone that we used to call AAA) for a new one (a Samsung 14G? idk, I don't think she knows either)

ANYWAY. Grandma signed up for classes at the library so she can learn to use the phone because she's afraid of doing something that makes it not-work. She goes to the library to check out books and has taken classes there before.

SO: this is a reminder that public libraries are critically important. They're social centres, they teach important community-based classes to people (esp older people), they provide resources...I could keep going.

Libraries are so much more than just Book Castles. Support your local library. Protect it from those who seek to destroy it and the treasures stored within.

[jackmfvegas777]

Trans Guy Tips #4; Socially Transitioning

Now this one is a tricky one, and it's a situation almost every trans person has to go through at some point in their life, unless they stay in the closet for life, but if you're planning to come out, and you don't know how to approach the situation and don't know how to judge if it's safe, I hope I can be a reliable guide for you on this journey.

This is usually the first step in any trans person's journey, before they physically transition, (which some don't as well). However here we're talking specifically about trans men.

So while some of the things I say could apply to trans women, always remember I'm writing about trans men from a trans man's point of view, so that's the targeted demographic here.

Once I learn more about trans women's struggles and things they go through, since I don't have the personal experience of it, I will definitely write trans women articles as well, and as well non-binary people.

So let's begin, with a list of important things to keep in mind whilst coming out to the world or at least to your family and close friends.

1. Safety is everything.

Always no matter what.

A good way to test if someone is going to be safe to come out to, is to casually bring it up in in a conversation topic, something like "What are your thoughts on lgbtq people, or specifically what are your thoughts on trans people?"

If they become aggressive and violent about it, and start being transphobic or defensive or any of the signs of bigotry, do not and I mean do not come out to them yet.

If it's a parent, I'd suggest at least wait until you're of age to move out, or have moved out, to come out to them. Sometimes people will get verbally and physically violent towards you if you come out to them and they're not accepting of it, so the most important thing is to always judge the reactions of people, and if they react well, then you can come out to them.

2. Always choose trustworthy people to keep your secret whilst you're in the closet.

There's been a lot of people who trusted idiots who they thought were their friends and they ended up outing them to the whole school they were in, etc. etc. But there was a lot of stories about this happening multiple times.

Make sure the people you tell would take the secret to their grave, especially if you're in an abusive household and can't come out for fear of violence.

3. If you're in a very abusive household, especially one that's openly homophobic and transphobic, as hard it is, please wait to come out as long as you possibly can until you have a place of your own and you're safe for sure.

A lot of people have been known to kick out their own children on to the streets because of them being LGBT, or do much worse...

Now of course these are some of the worst case scenarios, but being LGBT you always have to think about every bad thing that could occur so that you can prevent it.

4. When it comes to actually coming out, I would always recommend bringing a good friend or close family member who supports you, so that you have backup, not only for them to chime in and tell their piece and defend you, but just them being there makes the other person not want to be as violent towards you, because they fear what others will think of them.

If you're coming out to an extended family member or anyone, don't trust to do it alone, always bring a good friend.

5. One of the best ways to come out that I've seen are ways that are jokey and hilarious!

It seems to smooth over and make it a much more pleasant transition for everyone, and usually even homophobic people won't get too mad, they might even laugh!

I've seen people bake cakes with the words "Surprise I'm gay!" on it, things like that.

Just little cute things that are nice to do for your parents or people you're coming out to, but make it a surprise and that you're actually lgbt!

Now remember though, always follow the first rule and make sure safety is priority, but if you know you're safe, but you're just not sure they understand, starting out with jokes helps a lot.

6. The second step you should do after coming out is always try to explain your side of the story.

If there are people who don't let you get a word in, let them know that you have important things to say and that they need to listen to you and then they can say whatever they need.

Explain how it feels to be trans, explain why you know you're trans, of course you shouldn't have to ideally, but unfortunately a lot of people won't understand unless they're given more information, as the subject is completely foreign to them.

I know my grandma specifically reacted so well, all she did was ask me questions about it, and once I answered all her questions, she hummed in satisfaction and she never questioned it again and completely accepted me.

And a lot of times you'll get people who are pretty neutral, people who will call you by your chosen name and gender but don't really totally care as much as you want them to, but they still go along with it and just kind of assume you know what's best for you, which is a really kind thing really.

I've had a few people react neutrally and it's actually relaxing, there's no pressure put on for being gay, either over positive or over negative. but I have to say as a trans person and gay person, and grey-ace person, I love the people who ask questions the most.

I don't mind answering, and it means they're trying to learn more about something they don't understand, which means they have a huge heart and huge open mind.

Some people may get annoyed at the constant questions, but I absolutely adore them.

To me, every time someone asks about me, they're showing interest in my life and my feelings.

7. Next the scientific method.

Look up on any scientific article anywhere, and you'll find studies done on trans men and women's brains.

It was shown factually multiple times, over and over, whenever they repeated it it did it again, that trans men have the same brain structure as cis men, and trans women have the same brain structure as cis women, and non-binary people have somewhere in the middle. This was factually proven, you can look it up, so if they try to use science to defend against you, educate that that science is actually for LGBT rights and has explained how it works even.

8. Try to be gentle when it comes to pronouns.

For a lot of people, especially people of foreign languages where some languages don't have genders, or will have different genders, or other things like that, or even just English speakers that aren't used to saying 'they', or your family not being used to your pronouns yet.

It can take a while, and I know it's frustrating, it could take even a few years for them to finally get it right every time.

It's not supposed to be an attack towards you, it's genuinely hard to reprogram yourself when you think someone is one thing your whole life and then it turns out they're the other thing! So be sure to be gentle with them while they're practising, remind them every time they make a mistake, but remind them gently, as they are trying to do the right thing, they're just slipping up due to habit.

In general, be patient with non-lgbt folks, if we're mad at them, it just drives them away, rather than driving them toward us to help and assist us.

We should be grateful for our allies.

9. Once you've come out and your parents probably still have questions, I would recommend sitting down and having family night where you read together some good articles about transgenderism, and LGBT+ in general.

If they're not familiar with it, this type of education can help them a lot to understand the terminology and how to address you, and basic respect for trans & lgbtq+ people.

Overall it's a learning experience for both of you, and it would be amazing to do if they're willing to learn.

Remember that it's a journey for all of us, and everyone has a lot to learn.

10. When selecting your name, I have one piece of advice/a question for you; "Does it spark joy?"

The most important thing, it doesn't matter how odd sounding it is, or differently spelled it is, or whatever your name is, if you enjoy your name, that's what matters.

Always pick the one that calls out to you.

And it's okay to change it from time to time, people need time to figure out who they are!

And with that, I conclude my fourth part!

I hope you were helped by this in any way, and thanks for reading.

[today-only-happens-once]

Boy Band AU is Romantic LAMP (eventually)

Or, I was thinking about the boy band au and was like, y’know what? Could be gayer.

warnings: cursing, kissing, some miscommunication and angst, mentions of/fear of resentment and divorce, running away from problems as an anxiety response, getting together, happy endgame romantic lamp stuff tho

This got so long I’m so sorry, y’all. It started as just “listing fun facts about it” and evolved into a bulletfic. Woops. 

It doesn’t happen right away. In fact, it’s... a very long, slow process for them all getting together. Years down the road, actually.

They all have moments of Gay Panic when it comes to the others throughout those years, but... especially at first, none of them are really feel like they’re in a good place to enter any kind of committed romantic relationship.

And since those feelings don’t really develop strongly and complexly until later on in their lives, they fortunately already know about polyam people--though at first, none of them know that the others are also that way.

So there’s several years of sort of figuring themselves out and learning about one another in a tight-knit-friendship kind of way, and then a few more years of romantic pining and uncertainty before they figure it out haha

It’s seven years into their band career that Grandma Foster places a bet against Remy on who confesses first. Grandma Foster’s money is on Roman. Remy’s money is on Patton. 

It’s ten years from meeting each other, within the month, that the ice finally breaks. And when it does, they’re both wrong. Logan confesses first. 

though the confession happens within, like, minutes of each other. Because well--

Logan had started acting weird. And weird like, distant? And it was bothering all of them, but any time one of them tried to talk to him about it, Logan just pretended like he didn’t understand where they were getting that from. 

And eventually, they all corner him (figuratively, but kind of literally too because Logan is chilling on the couch when they talk to him) and Virgil is like “cut the bullshit, Logan” 

And it’s a long, messy conversation between all of them. Because turns out, Logan does cut the bullshit, and confesses to feeling attracted to all three of them, and he doesn’t want to make them uncomfortable and he definitely doesn’t want to lose them. and if they don’t like him back, that’s fine, honestly, he’s sure the feelings will fade (which Logan thinks might be a lie, he’s not sure, but... the alternative is losing them, and Logan doesn’t think he could handle that)

Roman confesses next. It’s like opening the floodgates of his feelings and he waxes poetic about all of them but he says it so earnestly, how he’s known he’s loved them all for years, and think he’s loved them all for a lot longer than even he realizes--

Patton is next. How Logan couldn’t possibly get rid of him that easily, not when he loves them all too and yes, yes in that way, hadn’t it been obvious?

Virgil, though... Virgil freezes. 

Because yes, yes of course he has these feelings for them all. But suddenly it feels like everything is changing, all at once, and Virgil knows he should feel relieved and happy because they feel the same way about him that he feels about them but all he actually feels is fear. Because Virgil doesn’t do well with Big Sudden Change and this feels like a Very Big and Very Sudden Change. 

On top of that, in the back of his mind, is Virgil’s parents and how they used to talk about how in love they were with each other once upon a time and somehow, along the way, that dissolved into fighting and arguments and divorce and resentment--

So Virgil bolts. Not quite literally, but close to it. He stammers out a “I-I need some air” and grabs his keys and wallet and leaves and tries not to feel the weight of their gazes on his back. He pretends he doesn’t hear Roman say his name when he closes the door behind him.

Virgil drives. He doesn’t really know where he’s going, he’s just going. By the time he’s done, he’s at the coast. He leaves his shoes and socks in the car, trying to ignore the churning in his stomach. He does have enough wherewithal to text the other boys a quick message ( “sorry. went to the coast. just need to think”) and tosses his phone in the backseat before the sense of guilt crushes him completely. 

He walks to the shoreline. The sun is setting at this point and the feeling of the sand under his feet and between his toes, plus the cool waves lapping at his ankles, helps ground him enough that his breathing doesn’t feel quite so tight anymore. 

He’s not sure how long he’s standing there, looking out at the horizon line, but he figures it must be a couple hours because he hears footsteps stepping up behind him and when he looks over his shoulder (expecting maybe Patton or Logan or Roman or all three), he’s surprised to find it’s Remy.

It’s almost 8 in the evening, so Virgil arcs an eyebrow at the iced coffee in his hands, but says nothing about. Remy stands beside him, also without shoes/socks, and stares out at the horizon line with him for a long moment before he says anything.

when he does, all remy says is, “wanna talk about it?”

Virgil just shoves his hands into the pockets of his hoodie. “how much do you know?”

A sip of coffee. “Not much. They’re worried. Wanted me to check up on you. Logan said something about ‘respecting your need for space’ but Roman said something about ‘walking into the ocean’. He was hard to hear in the background.” 

Despite himself, Virgil snorts and glances down at the water lapping at his ankles. “Only a few feet.”

Remy’s mouth quirks. “So. Do you wanna talk about it, babe, or should I just tell the boys that you’re all right and you’ll go back when you’re ready?”

And Virgil takes a deep breath that shakes a lot on the exhale, and finds himself explaining everything. About how he feels about them, how they said they feel about him, about his parents, about how everything changes and he just wasn’t ready for it and he as much as the love is present he’s afraid--he’s so afraid--that will change down the road. 

And Remy just stands there and listens. When Virgil sits down, still talking, Remy stays standing for a moment before sitting beside him. Virgil talks until the sky is mostly dark. 

When he’s done, there’s a long stretch of silence. And then all Remy asks is “have you told this--any of it--to them?” 

Which, no. He hasn’t.

“Why?”

Virgil isn’t sure. At first, it had just been sudden and overwhelming and he needed a break from the suddenness of it all, so he left. It wasn’t until the drive and staring out into the ocean getting his breathing under control that Virgil was able to sift through the minefield of his fears and thoughts. 

Remy sighs, taking his sunglasses off now that the sky was practically nightfall--only the faintest traces of dusk still kiss the horizon line--and watches the waves roll in. “Free advice is worth what you pay for,” he begins.

“That’s what Gram always says.”

“Yeah, well. She’s a smart lady.” He takes another sip of mostly-melted iced coffee. “Look, Virgil. Are you your parents? Or, for that matter, are Roman, Logan, and Patton your parents?”

“No. Thank God.”

Remy gives him a pointed look. 

“Oh.”

Remy shrugs. “Look, your relationship to those boys is whatever you want it to be. I’ve known you all for the past ten years, and I’ve been watching the way you four care for and about one another evolve. It’s become an ingrained part of who you all are as a unit. I don’t think that’s liable to change, romantic relationship or not.” 

“But--”

“And,” Remy adds pointedly, “if you want a relationship with them, and you don’t go for it because you’re afraid it will end badly... well. It sounds like you’re ending it before it’s even given a chance.” 

And, well, Virgil finds that maybe Remy has a point. The two of them sit together a bit longer, and Virgil is pretty sure it’s just Remy’s way of making absolutely sure Virgil is really, actually okay, before he gets up and leaves. 

Virgil leaves only a minute or so after Remy does. He jumps in his car, checks his phone (and tries not to wince at the missed calls from all three of them) and sees a text from Logan sent through the group text that signals to Virgil it’s probably a message from all three of them. 

It’s relatively long--unusual for Logan texts--apologizing if they overwhelmed him, a heads up that they’ve sent Remy to check on him and they understand if he wants space, reassurance that he doesn’t have to be part of their romantic relationship if he doesn’t want to and that nothing has to change (that note about change is repeated a couple of times in the paragraph of text and Virgil is reminded of how well the boys know him at this point) for Virgil if he doesn’t want it to.

Virgil feels a little bad but he’d really rather have this conversation face-to-face (er... really, his anxiety would rather do it over text, but he feels like he owes it to the other three to talk about it in-person) so he just texts back “on my way back”. 

When he gets back, they’re all still awake. Patton is in his cat onesie, Roman in PJs (with his head in Patton’s lap, and if that doesn’t make Virgil’s chest warm with unexpected affection), and Logan still wearing what he had been when Virgil left, pacing in front of the TV. 

They all look up and freeze when Virgil steps through the door and Virgil closes it behind him, kind rubbing the back of his neck and is like “guys... I’m sorry for freaking out--”

which Logan immediately jumps in with “it’s completely understandable. A lot was happening in that conversation, a lot of things probably percieved to be changing--”

“I still shouldn’t have left,” Virgil says firmly. “That was unfair to you all. I was... It was a lot, yeah, but... I should have explained more before leaving. But... I... I can explain now, if you all... have a moment?” 

They all nod, and so Virgil stammers through his conversation with Remy, if slightly more coherent this time because he’d already spilled it all from his mind once today. And he ends with what Remy had said before he left, about how none of them are his parents, and while he’s still worried and afraid of what kind of end they could all conceivably reach, it’s also not fair to not give the four of them a chance. 

So... that’s how they all become official! Also, Logan kisses Virgil first. 

Boy Band AU Taglist: @virgil-is-the-moodiest-mood, @withspaces, @iampengwing, @thecatchat, @northern-borealis, @panicatthebiggestpartyofthefall, @trans-demon-king, @sapph-writes-sanders, @flamingfawkes, @andreaissy, @legalitiesiwthabiscuit, @h-m-t-w-n, @i-didnt-say-liar-i-said-lawyer, @hazbin-hotel-has-my-soul, @nerdleafeon, @wynniwirt, @creativenostalgiastuff

[geekns]

last night’s breakdown or...spectrum confessions

So i just wanted to saying something about the meltdown that some of you might have noticed last night (i know a couple of you did, though i think i managed to keep most of it under wraps).

I have a medical condition. It causes me to feel anxious and depressed. Constantly. To varying degrees. I take medication for it. I’ve tried to learn how to manage it. I try to hide it because the general public does not understand this condition. Furthermore, i don’t want to share the underlying trauma with anyone and everyone. I want to come across as a functioning adult as much as possible.

So even while I have spent fifteen years learning how to forgive the people who hurt me. And something like six months in therapy. And around two years being medicated...I still have occasional breakdowns.

Sometimes i still have a night where everything that i’m trying to keep copacetic, and acknowledged but not given free reign, takes over. It refuses to be medicated or meditated or prayed into compliance. It takes over me and pours out of me whether i want it or not. Suddenly i am not functioning, i am sobbing uncontrollably, and terrified, and feel guilty, and unloved, and imprisoned. And in those moments i want nothing more than to die. A part of me does not even trust myself not to harm myself. I want to be held (but am always alone). I want to protected (but never am). I am normally the person who takes care of others, no one ever takes care of me.

And i feel physically sick. Nausea, a headache, and body aches. Full body grief. Last night i was seeing flashing lights behind my eyelids as if i was having a seizure or on a bad trip. And the panic: the panic is in control, I cannot think straight. Even if i tell myself positive things, or try to use strategies for calming down, try to quiet my raging thoughts, the panic has free reign. It is in full control. And the only thing i can do is curl up in bed hugging my stuffed animal, clutching my blanket, waiting for it to end. And it won’t end until after I’ve slept it off. And I can’t sleep because I’m in fight or flight mode.

Maybe I should do some kickboxing when I get like this.

I’m going to confess, it was probably the worst it’s been in years last night. I was even trying to go to my safe place, and was kind of getting there (i usually can’t do my best safe place visualizing anymore, i think it’s the meds), but the person who normally talks me down from these things was not feeling safe last night. (His likeness was part of the reason i was freaking out tbh.) But even though i didn’t really want him there he didn’t go away, he stayed with me until i fell asleep.

I have imaginary friends sort of. Apparently they’re called tulpa? Though i don’t create or really control them, they just show up fully formed. Mostly when i’m panicking or worried. Whenever i need to talk things through that i have no one to talk to. The thing is, they always wear the likeness of real people, usually celebrities that play characters i strongly identify with. I used to get advice from Picard and Gandalf and Archer for instance. All of us sitting around a campfire on a beach. They’re always men, i don’t know why. (Hmm maybe that goes to daimons?) 

For example: one time i was on a train in Japan, underground, and a drunk man started yelling at two women halfway down the car. And i had a panic attack. And suddenly i was visualizing Twelve/PC talking me down from it, telling me to breathe, that i was safe, etc. Distracting me from the danger. (Two things: i read a story about him talking another fan down from a panic attack outside a convention later. And another male passenger escorted the drunk off the train at the next stop, but i was still panicking for a while. I still had to change trains and it would take me another hour to get home for the night.)

So part of the thing is that the thoughts i usually keep under control, don’t allow myself to dwell on, acknowledge but keep muted with optimism, become deafening and take over when this happens. I think way back when it would be 1-2 times a month, then 1-2 times a quarter, and now it’s 1-2 times a year, but it still happens. I used to just let all of the darkness come pouring out, usually through writing. I’m always alone. And i suppose it’s cathartic, but it’s horrific while it’s happening. I don’t recognize myself, the girl who never gives up and is always glass is 100% full. I don’t want to let others see it even as i’m desperate to be loved and held and accepted as i am.

It’s hard to explain.

When i wake up the next morning the darkness is gone. It’s quiet again, and i feel “normal” (normal for me). It’s hold is gone. Now i always live with a baseline amount of anxiety and depression, even while medicated. If i take too much medication i can’t sleep (i’m already an insomniac, i don’t need drugs making it worse) and so i can’t feel any sexual arousal at all...it really bothers me. It’s hard enough for me to become properly aroused without suppressing it entirely. I generally have to fantasize about something very specific (which let me tell you, the majority of you wouldn’t find to be sexy at all).

When i first went on the meds i spent months where i didn’t feel anything (other than that i was suddenly very chatty and animated in a completely uncharacteristic way) and i hated it. My mom doesn’t understand, doesn’t see repressed sexuality as a downside when i’m not married.

Re: asexuality. My grandma was on the spectrum (we always joke she had sex at least four times...resulting in four kids) and my mother probably is, too. I have had two short-lived dating relationships in which my only sexual desire was to satisfy my partner really. I don’t enjoy kissing. I do have a libido that’s greater than either my mother or grandma’s...but like i said, it’s fucked up and not initiated by any of the conventional methods. Kissing doesn’t make me feel like getting down, for instance. At least in my (so far limited) experience. I keep hoping that i’m actually demi and just need to meet the right person to make this a little bit easier for me. But it will probably just be something i have to work through for the rest of my life. 

Perhaps i should stipulate that I want to want to have sex. And when i do want to have sex i am always alone. And when i am with someone else the things that attract me are just odd. Being read aloud to, or talked to about nerdy things, got me farther than anything else. But it’s not the content so much as the mind that’s behind what’s being expressed.

I am certainly no expert on this subject. My therapist had never heard of demisexuality and had no input on asexuality. In other words, they were absolutely no help when it came to working through these issues, which is where I wanted to go (partially because i feel it may be tied in with my PTSD and is being repressed by fear).

Five types of attraction:

Romantic attraction: desiring a romantic relationship with someone

Aesthetic attraction: being attracted to someone based on how they look

Sensual or physical attraction: wanting to touch, hold, or cuddle someone

Platonic attraction: wanting to be friends with someone

Emotional attraction: wanting an emotional connection with someone

Most of my attraction is towards fictional characters (and to a varying extent the actors who play them). Both of my RL partners would only be physically expressive in private. They wouldn’t touch me in public. Or even in private spaces with others present. There was one i didn’t really know all that well and another who had hidden a lot from me up to that point even though he claimed he didn’t believe in hiding things from the person you’re dating. And we would be physical in private to varying degrees but i was left feeling largely unfulfilled. I kind of struggle with these definitions. Both of the guys I dated i had zero aesthetic attraction to but did have physical attraction to whereas they only wanted to express themselves sexually.

I strongly desire having a romantic relationship with someone but have for a very long time only had romantic attraction for fictional characters. I fairly recently had a physical and romantic attraction to someone for the first time, at first based on sapiosexual attraction that later became aesthetic attraction (why is there no listed attraction for this? I am usually attracted to people’s minds first).

I have very strong aesthetic attraction to certain actors...and this is a large part of the reason that i know i’m bi. But it isn’t only aesthetic for really strong attraction because i am sapiosexual and also strongly attracted to damaged, often misunderstood, people/characters. Case in point: Loki and Missy. In these cases i have strong physical attraction but not sexual attraction. I cannot fathom having sex with most characters or actors or people I meet in RL. I sometimes wonder what casual sex would be like but know that i could never...

I can only remember kissing someone (also a character) in a dream once and immediately put a stop to it, not because i wasn’t attracted to that person, but because they were unavailable in my mind. They were part of an OTP that i was not in. So there’s a strong romantic component for me.

Sensual or physical attraction is actually something I fantasize about a lot but have never experienced...outside of one platonic relationship. I had a friend when I lived in Japan who I wasn’t even particularly close to. But right away she would ask me if she could lean on me, lay against my lap, later link arms with. I can’t remember if we ever held hands. She was Chinese, and for an Asian girl this is very normal to do with platonic friends. Koreans call this “skin sisters.”

It was really weird for me because my own sisters don’t even want to do those sorts of things with me. I sometimes want to lean against my mother but most of my sisters would punch me rather than let me touch them affectionately. My youngest sister, once I came back from Japan, had reached a point where she was bolder and will goose, grope, grab, poke, pinch, try to pop my toes...it’s very disconcerting. She does things to me in front of others that i consider to be more sexual than platonic. Possibly because my only frame of reference is my father doing the same to my mother. She’s the only sister who will sometimes lean against me. But that was only after this friendship in Japan that was more physical than any of my “romantic” but-definitely-not-romantic partners. No kissing, but the sort of physical expression that i most long for.

Platonic attraction is rare for me. Extremely rare. Any platonic relationship i have pursued has always inevitably ended with spectacular heartbreak. In high school i was always on the outside. One platonic friendship ended dramatically (she had been hiding things from me, which is fine, but it ended badly and she moved away suddenly). Another platonic relationship fizzled because she was my best friend but i was just another friend for her. And whenever this happens to me, i am the friend that all plans will be cancelled with because the other friends have preference. And there was no big break there, i was old enough to not be heartbroken by it as i had by earlier examples of this. We still converse on FB and i am the person she came to first when she accidentally got pregnant in college. Have i mentioned that i’m the should people come to when they need emotional support? I’m a good listener and not judgmental and know when to give advice and when to stay mum.

Which brings me to spiritual attraction. We aren’t merely physical or mental beings. There is something else there. And my empathy, my spiritual center...there are times that i know things that i have no logical business knowing. I don’t always understand it, sometimes it’s a feeling, but my intuition is something that i’ve learned not to ignore. 

My last boss, i could tell he had anger issues. I only caught a glimpse of them once. He really liked me so i was fortunate. But every conversation we had after our initial meeting i could tell (spiritually) that he was potentially very dangerous to me emotionally. The more we interacted the more nervous it made me. Familiarity could lead to a loss of professional discretion.

Latter friend: i knew when she IMed me out of the blue after a six month drought that something big was up. She demurred that she couldn’t talk about it. I knew that the only reason that she had come to me was because she needed to tell me. Again, i had a feeling, and it turned out to be correct. She was pregnant. BF wanted her to abort. She didn’t believe in abortion. One conversation gave her the strength to stand up for herself and give her baby up for adoption.

Grandma: I was unable to go home for thanksgiving. Sister (roommate situation) went to her in-laws. I stayed home alone and worked. I was having panic attacks. I had the most heinous period of my entire life. A couple days later my dad calls me up and says: “Has anyone told you that Grandma is in the hospital? She had a heart attack.” No one had told me anything, I somehow knew something was wrong anyway. My brain just couldn’t make sense of it.

Kate Mulgrew: I somehow knew that she was looking for her daughter. Then-me interpreted this as Janeway having a missing daughter, expecting her to show up on the show and join the crew. What i didn’t realize that this was a real longing and need. I have carried this knowledge with me for over twenty years. I found out sometime within the past year that she had become pregnant early in her acting career, while on Ryan’s Hope, given her daughter up for closed adoption, regret it, and it was while she was on Voyager and coming into my awareness she was desperately searching for her, trying to find her, and did in fact find her. I had no rational way knowing any of that deeply personal information. I felt it anyway; deeply. In fact, it changed my life.

Which comes to emotional attraction. I really wanted to be an actor or an author. I don’t think I can memorize or anymore, my aphasia makes it extremely difficult to ad lib/improvise because there are road blocks where i cannot spontaneously retrieve the words i’m looking for. I don’t know if i’ll ever finish a novel, i’m hoping just to finish a lengthy fanfic at this point and then see what comes. A year ago i was doing much better, now it just feels like i’m under attack on all sides. But i feel a strong emotional attraction to artistic people in general.

This sometimes manifests as a sexual attraction for a short time. Sometimes. I can fantasize about a physical attraction...usually in the form of me comforting or being comforted. Sharing burdens. If i know that someone i’m attracted to or love is hurting then it hurts me, often with actual physical sensations (again with the spiritual connections). This tends to cause me to feel as if i “know people” or am kindred spirits with actors, authors, singers, etc. Again, i will sometimes know things that there’s no reason for me to know and is often pointless since it doesn’t enable me to comfort them when they don’t even know i exist.

I am generally okay with this, though it’s sometimes overwhelming. Sometime it feels like an inside joke or shared experience (rare for me outside family members) and gives me ecstatic joy. It’s really weird being an empath.

But again back to being demi: characters (or even the actors who play them) will sometimes feel like friends or family. Sometimes it translates to romantic or sexual attraction: this is very rare. It’s happened a handful of times, but it leaves me feeling completely broken. Why can’t i just be a normal person with normal relationships? Generally it is a positive thing because getting to share their experiences (through reading or watching) gives me a fair amount of feeling accepted, having someone to care for, and hope.

I am a very isolated person. I don’t currently have any RL friends. Most of my support network tends to be online but i don’t really have that going on for me since my last breakup (mutual friends seemed to stick with him, though one friend that was my friend first has since decided that he’s completely nuts and conveniently forgotten that she was the one to introduce us and encourage the pairing). And i know i’m weird but i actually don’t mind that. Having friends that live around the world? That have similar interests? But that i don’t have to get dressed and go outside my comfort zone to hang out with? Awesome.

A year ago i was living somewhere very isolated but i was in a good place because i was supporting myself, had been working full time and making career progress for the better part of a year, was okayish with being single, I had my new kitten, I was mostly happy. It would have been the ideal time for me to start a relationship. And i was actually feeling attracted to a coworker! Like that hadn’t happened for me in nearly twenty years!

But he didn’t want to be more. He wanted me to be the friend he went to to unload his emotional issues on. He didn’t want others to know. He didn’t want to be more than “professional” (it wasn’t professional what was going on, not really). And then COVID hit and everything started falling apart. Things had been wrong with that job that i was trying to stay separate from. Drama, potentially criminal actions, emotional outbursts. I got singed a few times. I knew that another coworker hated me. 

The second time they laid me off i packed everything up and moved back home. Upper management had been getting scary. I could tell that Grandma was reaching the end of her life and wanted to be near family. Which led to my last job, which i loved at first but couldn’t keep up with physically and that started to degrade my mental/emotional state. And then grandma died and i fell apart.

I’ve been trying to pull things back together. I really enjoy my current job but i don’t know if it will work out in the long term. The way the economy is going again...it’s scary. When Obama became president his policies were really punishing for the area. I had just graduated from college and couldn’t find full time work. I worked 2-3 part time jobs and lived with my parents because that was all i could afford. 

I went out on a couple of very large limbs trying to better my situation (teaching in Japan, CLD school) and neither has really. They were amazing opportunities but i get homesick. But then when i am here that’s bad for me emotionally. I need to find some sort of balance, and it’s looking like that balance is for me to live somewhere removed from family and only visit a couple times of years. Which i hate to do but i think i need those boundaries for my emotional well being. But i don’t know how i have a hope in hell of affording any of that. I have a couple of months left to figure it out before my lease is up on my apartment, i need to figure things out by then.

So all of this...i’m not trying to complain here. I know that i tend to come off that way because i’m just honest and matter of fact about things. This is the way things are in my experience. I’ve tried various ways to improve them. The reason i’m recording them is not to illicit pity. It’s so people who don’t have to deal with these issues can catch a glimpse of what it’s like and for others who deal with anxiety and depression can see that they’re not alone. That’s a huge deal. Wherever you are in your journey, you’re not alone, it may be a fight unique to your situation, but you’re not alone. Other people are suffering, too, and it’s not a competition. It’s okay.

I know that being single has its benefits. Living alone with a cat is not something i hate as a rule, let me tell you. What i do hate is not having two or more incomes coming into a household. It is extremely difficult in this day and age to make it alone. I don’t want to worry about anything but money is probably that biggest temptation. It leads to feeling like i’m trapped.

That’s probably why many relationships develop (a need for security) but i’m...i say it is like being broken. Maybe i am because of the PTSD. Maybe it’s just my normal for someone on the spectrum (and let me tell you that even claiming this as part of my identity triggers my imposter syndrome...all of this does really. I didn’t have to deal with the same level of physical abuse that many do so why can’t i just get over it, right?). But i dealt with enough that i cannot form relationships on convenience. I have to feel safe. I want to find someone who i could trust to raise kids with, to go the distance with.

Have i said yet that i tend to overthink things? 

I know that there’s not many of you who will have read this far. Thank you. Writing is part of my process in getting things reorganized in my shit show of a brain/heart/etc. The bottom line of this...i am improving grief wise, last night not withstanding. But i still want more. It’s my birthday and Christmas and it’s the hardest time for me in a way. Because it feels like i’m out of time. Another year has been lost forever. Have i made any progress at all? And it feels as if it’s already too late. My main goal in life was to become a mother and i can’t even have casual sex to manage it. I just can’t.

But there are spiritual things i’m trying to work through. That i don’t feel comfortable sharing here, really. Just i wonder about soul mates and twin flames and dreams/visions. I don’t know what the right choice is. Not for sure. And that is killing me because i want to know God’s will and do it. And i’m an impatient person who’s been waiting a particularly long time and i can’t say that i’ve gotten any better at it.

[lovenliterature]

evermore thoughts

willow

I wasn’t sold on this on first listen but I really liked it on second listen with more attention to lyrics

video is also really lovely, big fan of that

really really like the difference in melody for the diff appearances of “life was a willow and it bent right to your wind”

favourite lyric: “I come back stronger than a 90s trend” - the look she does at the camera cemented this as my fave line even more

champagne problems

down as one of my faves from the start

love love love the narrative

proper late night with cider, melancholy vibe

kind of like a grown up/worse feeling august in terms of vibes?? as in like the experience described feels like a more intense heartbreaking august in a way

really like the conclusion too

favourite lyric: I really struggled to pick here but: “you booked the night train for a reason/so you could sit there in this hurt” for sheer visceral emotion, “dom perignon you brought it” for the way its sung, “How evergreen, our group of friends/Don't think we'll say that word again” and “she’ll patch up your tapestry that I shred” for lyricism

gold rush

again, one i wasn’t super sold on the first listen, music and the vibe didn’t really interest me

first notes made me think of epiphany

but then i listened to it watching the lyric video and holy shit

now v appreciative of the melody and bass and the pace of the lyrics

really really like her embracing talking about jealousy

love love love the ending and beginning being the same holy shit

favourite lyrics: “at dinner parties, I call you out on your contrarian shit” and the way she sings “with your hair falling into place like dominoes”

‘tis the damn season

again preferred on second listen, wasn’t on the list of early faves

the best xmas late night walks vibe, walking through frosty streets at home between houses, embracing the only time you get to think, losing yourself in music and nighttime with freezing hands and cloudy breath

would’ve fit my 2019 xmas vibe too

melancholy and nostalgia

favourite lyrics: “sleep in half the day/just for old time’s sake” and “and the heart I know I’m breakin’ is my own”

tolerate it

god girl you deserve better

kinda like a sad last great american dynasty in terms of searching for approval

naive innocence taken advantage of

drunk in my garden walking round to try and forget my life kinda vibe

favourite lyrics: “i know my love should be celebrated/but you tolerate it” and “now I’m begging for footnotes in the story of your life” 

no body no crime

holy shit did i sleep on this at first but oh my god its so good

start gives me show of hands vibes which is great

her husbands acting different and it smells like infidelity - just the way she sings this is so so fucking good

this is the easiest song to listen to and holy shit its just great

favourite lyric: “she said “that ain’t my merlot on his mouth/that ain’t my jewellery on our joint account”

happiness

“all the years I’ve given/is just shit we’re dividin’ up” - v v true, you have to rebuild your life after every relationship and taking it all apart is so much more sudden than building it up

like an alternative to the 1 which I LOVE

but also some parallels to this is me trying: “I hope she’ll be a beautiful fool..... sorry I didn’t mean that” vs “my words shoot to kill when I’m mad”

the whole bridge is iconic - “I can’t make it go away by making you a villain” - in the short term, anger at an ex can help, but eventually you have to move on, and its easier to accept that there was good in the relationship after a while, and it makes looking back on it better

“no one teaches you what to do/when a good man hurts you/and you know you hurt him too” - blame on both sides is much harder to take and grieve and its hard to know how to cope with that. it also makes advice more complicated because there isn’t much you can say to help

favourite lyric: “both of these things can be true” - always love duality and nuance in literature and its nice to hear it acknowledged in a climate of binary oppositions and no shades of grey

dorothea

nostalgia for the future

now prob my most listened, gets stuck in my head and one of the few i do listen to in isolation - like august

Reminds me so much of Ella - each other’s history, not each other’s whole future but in there somewhere

again sapphic vibes, real strong esp because of the ella vibes its the whole in between romantic and platonic affection

“hey dorothea, do you ever stop and think about me” - that’s the way I think of people I love esp ella and people from that era of my life, and anyone where its kinda open ended or just grown apart

favourite lyric: “and damn dorothea, they all wanna be ya”

coney island

instant fave - marked down from first listen and probably still one i actively look forward to 

much like with exile, the male vocals GOT me

“did I shatter you” that line broke my goddamn heart

favourite lyrics: both for the sheer feelings of the vocals and the lyricism “were you standing in the hallway/with a big cake, happy birthday/did I paint your skies the darkest grey” and “and when I got into the accident/the sight that flashed before me was your face”

ivy

the way she sings goddamn could be the whole fucking song its so beautiful

“my pain fits in the palm of your freezing hand/taking mine, but it’s promised to another” - the passive here is great

“he wants what’s only yours”

the trilogy of these lyrics “what would he do if he found us out?”, “he’s gonna burn this house to the ground”, “and drink my husband’s wine”, the recklessness, the drinking his wine like a secret defiance

“my house of stone/your ivy grows/and now i’m covered in you” - fucking hell this is the best imagery - even with the strongest walls and foundations, the love crept through and grew inside her til she was covered in it

favourite lyric: quite literally just the words “oh, goddamn”

cowboy like me

“dancin’ is a dangerous game” - hell yeah I get so many feelings from this, it just reminds me of the intimacy of dancing and the feeling of swaying in someone’s arms

“and the skeletons in both our closets/plotted hard to fuck this up” - both like active interference of exes or just simply trauma, unresolved issues

“forever is the sweetest con” - believing hurts and everything ends but its worth it for the time you have

favourite lyrics: “now you hang from my lips/like the gardens of Babylon”

long story short

first notes make me think of between the saltmarsh and the sea even though its SO different but also a bit like august idk why

“if the shoe fits walk in it/til your high heels break” - i just love the imagery of this line

“fell down the rabbit hole” - living for this line and the wonderland vibe

“but if someone comes at us, this time i’m ready” - the vibe of like not looking for a fight but defending what you love

favourite lyric: “past me/I wanna tell you not to get lost in these petty things” - YES BITCH also the energy I give to past me and future me gives to me now or “long story short I survived”

marjorie

another song I come back to on its own

this is the exact wistful vibe i look for in calm ish songs, can be sad, can be happy depending on a mood and this is perfect

the video is incredible and marjorie providing the backing vocals made me cry also it being in the same place on the record as epiphany was on folklore

“never be so polite/you forget your power/never wield such power/you forget to be polite” - love the use of wield, it also feels like the medium women try to find between being a “bad bitch” and being ladylike, but not a medium society will accept bc fuck that, the exact way THEY wanna do it instead

really the song i needed after the year of so much grief, and i know it’s gonna bring me comfort when grandma goes, especially the line “what died didn’t stay dead”

favourite lyric: “watched as you signed your name: marjorie” - the way this is sung will literally stay with me forever, its like a legacy in one line

closure

again, instant fave

the vibe of you don’t owe someone shit just bc they feel guilty is so good

“yes I got your letter/yes I’m doing better” “I know that it’s over” - I’ve moved on and I don’t need your permission for that or your well wishes thanks

Moving on doesn’t mean forgiveness

I just love the melody so much and its such a good song agh

favourite lyric: “I know I’m just a wrinkle in your new life/staying friends would iron it out so nice”

evermore

“grey november/I’ve been down since July” - most explicit pandemicy vibes i get, I was home and it was almost possible to just regard it as a normalish summer, looking after the dog and living at home and now its coming up to Christmas and I’m living away from home, our family is split across 5 homes in 4 cities and its fucking hard (not even sure if its that type of down but that’s how it made me feel)

“writing letters/addressed to the fire” - literally just picked up on this lyric and has kinda a dual meaning for me. 1 -feeling shit about things you create, putting in effort, just to throw it away. 2 - tactic for tackling anxiety, just getting rid of thoughts and releasing them from my brain

“Cannot think of all the cost/And the things that will be lost/Oh, can we just get a pause?” - again, v pandemicy and so relevant to the fam’s 2018-2019, we just needed a pause, we had to keep going and not process what we’d lost or we’d never carry on

such a good depression song

favourite lyric: “staring out an open window/catching my death”

[starship-squidlet]

The Green Fields of France: Chapter Two

Summary: We meet our speaker. He begins his quest.

Word count: 2,218

Disclaimer: The Green Fields of France Preface

Tag list: @the-cowbi @aggressive-bucky-barnes-stan (ask to be added/removed!)

A/N: Whoo, actual scenes in this one, not just Charlie monologuing 😅

Previous chapter: Chapter One

Next chapter: Chapter Three

I suppose I should introduce myself. My name is Charlie O’Dell. I was one of only two children who lived in that tiny house in Harlem who could say they were related to Grandma Ellie—since that’s what almost everyone called her—by actual blood.

My mother, Robin Nickola, was born in late 1917. She and Grandma Ellie did not have a good relationship. She felt closer to the person she always referred to as her surrogate father.

Charlie Morris moved into the tiny house, which was often just called Starling Mission, in 1917, after Mush and Finch left. He was exempt from the draft due to lingering effects of a bout with polio when he was a child. Grandma Ellie, along with literally everyone else who ever knew him (whether they called him Charlie or Crutchie, the latter being more common due to the crutch he needed to move around for most of his life, not that he ever let it slow him down) described him as one of the kindest, gentlest people they’d ever known, and also as an impossibly strong person who would fight tooth and nail for the people he loved or who couldn’t fight for themselves. My mother was often one of them.

She spent most of her life—beginning when she was a teenager—fighting with her mother, rejecting any aid offered to her by Grandma Ellie, full of anger and impetuousness. While I know my grandmother loved my mother with all her heart, there were also times when she found Robin difficult to handle. When my mother left Starling Mission, entire years would pass where they never spoke. With Charlie, it was different. The only father that my mother ever knew, she loved Charlie dearly. There are few people in the world who I would rather have met than him, but he died before I was born, much to my mother’s sorrow. His death sent her into the spiral that would eventually take her life, when I was a little over two years old.

I know my mother loved me, but I wish that I could remember her. Her face is little more than a hazy image in my mind, preserved and occasionally refreshed by the handful of photographs Grandma Ellie has of her. I hardly remember JoJo either; he died when I was small—around six, I think—and was buried in the graveyard behind the cathedral he was raised and worked in, along with many of his friends who had passed at that point, including Charlie.

I was eighteen before I finally got the full story about what happened in 1917 particularly. Once again, it didn’t come so much from my grandmother but from her friends, Uncle Tony and Uncle Al, who had come to help her with Starling Mission after Charlie’s death, until it closed. For the next three years, until I graduated high school and left for college, it was just the four of us, even after Uncle Tony and Uncle Al moved out. They had raised me on stories of the newsies that they had known and grown up with themselves, including Finch, Mush, Charlie, and JoJo, as well as themselves. I idolized them all, and would have given anything to meet any one of them. The story of 1917 waited until I was eighteen because, during my first semester of college, I had a class assignment that drove me to ask questions I had never pressed for answers to before…

.*.*.*.*.*.

“Hello? Grandma, Tony, Al!” Charlie called, smiling as he pushed open the worn wooden door of the tiny Harlem house he had always called home. He heard a loud bark and a giant ball of fur came barrelling through the hall to slam into him, effectively knocking him onto his back. The dog weighed easily as much as the teenager, half of that in hair alone, and, despite being over a decade old, still had the same boundless energy he’d had when he was a puppy. Charlie laughed and tried to wiggle out from under the dog as it licked his face vigorously. “Bear, that’s enough—stop it!” he squealed.

“Bear, down!” Elaine scolded, hot on the dog’s heels. Her grey hair was swept back into a long French braid, and she shuffled along the battered wooden floor in a pair of handmade house slippers. When the dog finally climbed off of Charlie and he stood up and brushed the loose fur off of himself, Elaine stepped forward and wrapped the boy in a tight hug. He smiled into the top of her head. Charlie had outgrown his grandmother when he was eleven years old, and was nearly ten inches taller than her now. He had never looked much like her anyways; where Elaine had been all dark hair and pale skin and dark eyes, while Charlie was red-tinted blond curls and soft brown eyes, although he had the same smear of freckles across his pale cheeks. Elaine reached up and cupped his cheeks in her hands, giving them a pinch as she smiled up at him. “Welcome home, Charlie. We missed you.”

“I missed you too, Grandma. Are Uncle Tony and Uncle Al here?”

“They’ll be here a little later,” Elaine said over her shoulder. “Come have something to eat; you must be hungry after that train ride.”

The kitchen was warm and familiar, whitewashed cabinets and counters, worn appliances, a table full of dents and scratches and other marks, every one of which had a story behind it that Elaine would happily tell. Charlie sat down and ran his thumb over one of the deeper scratches, remembering what had caused it. “How have you been, Grandma?” he asked as Elaine joined him, carrying two plates of food.

“I’ve been fine, sweetheart,” she smiled. “How is school? Have you been getting enough to eat?”

“Yes, don’t worry,” Charlie laughed. “Although it’s not as good as Al’s cooking.”

“Not much is as good as Al’s cooking, my own food included,” Elaine laughed.

“I’m sorry I haven’t been calling much; we have final papers and projects due starting right when we get back from Thanksgiving break,” said Charlie. “I’ve been spending most of my time working on them.”

“I figured as much,” Elaine nodded.

“There’s one I haven’t started yet, though,” said Charlie. “I wanted to ask you for some help on it while I was home.”

“Of course,” Elaine perked up. “What can I do to help?”

“I was wondering… Would you mind telling me more about what happened to Mush and Finch? We’re doing a family history project, so I have to make a family tree and write a paper about a major event in my family’s history. I think I have the family tree pretty much sorted out; we only have to do immediate family, not go into extended, so I just did what I could with that, but I wanted to write the paper on what happened to them in World War One. I know you don’t like to talk about it, and I understand that, but I also think it’s time I know what happened. I’m eighteen now. It’s a part of my history, too. I just want to know.”

Elaine was uncharacteristically still and silent for a long moment. Finally, she forced a smile and looked at him, although her eyes were distant and full of sorrow. “Maybe… maybe another time, Charlie. Ask me again tomorrow.” She stood up, scraped the rest of her food into the trash can, set her dish in the sink, and wandered off, leaving Charlie alone in the kitchen.

.*.*.*.*.*.

A few hours later, Charlie answered the door—struggling to hold Bear back from leaping out of it—and let his adoptive uncles into the house. “Hi,” he laughed, dragging the dog away from the door as Albert closed it.

“Hey, kid!” Race beamed. As soon as Charlie released Bear and stood up, Race scooped him up in a massive hug. Despite the fact that he was nearing eighty, Race was still as strong as he had ever been, and easily lifted Charlie several inches off the floor in a back-cracking, bone-grinding, lung-crushing hug. Once-blond curls had faded to white streaked with sand, and had thinned over his temples, but blue eyes still sparkled with mischief above wrinkled cheeks. Albert, on the other hand, still had a full head of deep red hair, cut shorter than it had been when he was young, and hardly had any wrinkles—a few worry lines on his forehead, and deep laugh lines around his mouth and crow’s feet in the corners of his eyes—nor had he paled with age like Race had, cheeks still flushed red to match his hair. He waited until Race had set Charlie down and stepped away to lean in and wrap an arm around the boy’s shoulders in an informal hug, turning him towards the kitchen and starting down the hall.

“You’re going to tell us everything about school, right?” Albert teased.

“All the juicy details!” Race piped up from behind him.

“Met any cute girls?” Albert teased.

“Or boys!” Race added.

“No, nothing like that,” Charlie laughed. “I’ve been too busy with work and homework.”

“Good,” Albert nodded. “Focus on your studies.” He winked and leaned in to whisper: “But there’s no harm in having some fun every now and then.”

Charlie laughed. “Thanks for the advice, Uncle Al. Hey, I have a question for you two.”

“What’s that?” Race asked.

“Well… I asked my grandma for help with a school project; I have to write a paper about a major event in the history of my family, and I wanted to write about what happened to Mush and Finch, but when I asked her about it, she just sort of… left. She’s never talked about it. Do you two know why that is?”

Albert and Race traded glances. Race leaned against the kitchen counter and shrugged. “Probably has something to do with the fact that she doesn’t know what happened.”

“Anthony!”

“What? It’s the truth,” Race shrugged again and turned towards Charlie. “Elaine got a pair of notices informing her that they’d been killed in action, but was never able to find out any details. Not even where they were buried.”

Albert had taken a seat at the table and folded his hands, staring down at them with a grim look on his face. “We didn’t find out until we came back. Didn’t find out about them, or about any of the others who didn’t make it. And a lot of us didn’t make it… We tried to help where we could, looking for more information through contacts we had, but we could never find anything about Mush or Finch. All we were able to find out is that they deployed to France—we know that for sure—but not even where in France they went, except that it wasn’t where we were, or where Tommy and Spot were.”

“Eventually, we had to just give up,” Race’s voice was low. “There was nothing more to be done. It was like after they left New York they just disappeared. It broke our hearts to stop looking, but it was even harder on Elaine. Not that she ever said anything like that to us—she would never. But you could see it in her eyes after that. Something was gone. Some sort of light. It never really came back. It started to, a little, when you came to live here, but… Never fully.”

Charlie sat quietly. Bear came over and rested his head on Charlie’s leg, drooling a little onto his knee. Charlie petted his head absently, mind whirling. It had never really occurred to him that the reason Elaine had never told him anything was because she didn’t know herself. He swallowed hard, his throat tight, and bit his lip. He didn’t know what to say.

“Thank you,” he croaked out finally. “For explaining. I’m sorry… I’m sorry to bring up those memories.”

Race walked over and rested a hand on Charlie’s shoulder, giving it a squeeze. “It’s alright, kiddo. You’re right; you deserve to know. They’re your family.”

.*.*.*.*.*.

Grandma Elaine and I never spoke about Mush and Finch again—at least, not in that way; she still told me her stories of when they were young, but they always tapered off as they got closer to 1917. I didn’t press. It was clear how much the topic hurt her, and I didn’t want to cause her more pain. What I did, however, and without saying a word to her, was begin my own investigation into what had happened to Patrick Cortez and Nickolas Meyers.

For three years, my search bore no fruit. I wrote letters, sent requests for records, and did everything else I could think of. I even put ads in papers asking for information from anyone who was in France at that time, and reached out to anyone in France who would listen to me—in my broken French—to beg for their help in my search.

It wasn’t until 1968 that I began to have hope. I returned home from the day’s classes to a letter, stamped with several postmarks, from a young woman in France who thought that her grandfather’s journals and stories from the war may have the information I was searching for…

[shon-ha-lock]

Sweater Weather (harry/niall)

It’s that time of year! I had a blast participating in this year’s 1D Secret Santa. @silveredsound i hope you like my gift! 

It was a super cheap flight, in Niall's defense. A real deal. So what if the connection was in a tiny regional airport? In Wisconsin. Three days before Christmas. In the middle of a week of record low temperatures and snowstorms. 

Okay. In retrospect, maybe he should have expected something to go wrong. 

Niall's plane is the last to touch down in Chippewa Valley before it starts rerouting its incoming flights to airports not currently being blasted by the polar vortex. This is also, of course, when it grounds its outgoing flights “indefinitely”, leaving him and around one hundred other travelers stranded.

The whole airport has just two gates, with one shared, cramped waiting area. A line has snaked itself around that entire space, leading up to the customer service desk, where everyone is waiting for a chance to yell at a single beleaguered United Airlines employee about their flights being cancelled. 

Niall contemplates joining the line, but he’s more the type to wait until he can vent his anger by giving the lowest scores possible on a ‘how did we do?’ survey. And besides, just standing near the desk for a few minutes gives him all the information he needs to know, on repeat. 

“We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience this is causing our loyal customers,” is the current opener every time someone storms up to the little old lady working the desk. Her reedy voice is placating and increasingly nervous as she assures everyone that United is “currently working with Chippewa to arrange accommodations for anyone whose flight has been delayed by the storm.” 

This is comforting until Niall realizes that this means they don’t currently have hotel rooms set up for travelers with missed connections the way larger airports do. No shuttles, no vouchers, not a goddamn thing. 

They’re only twenty minutes outside of the little city of Eau Claire, Wisconsin, which probably has at least a few hotels with vacancies, but the odds of finding an Uber driver to brave the storm and get him there are slim to none. 

Niall’s not really the type to just stand around in a crisis and twiddle his thumbs, but if he’s being honest with himself, he hasn’t a goddamn clue what to do right now. He flies relatively frequently but he’s never actually had to deal with a flight being cancelled because of the weather, and he’s struck by a childish urge to call home and ask his mother for advice about what to do. 

At the moment, it’s looking like he might actually need to call her anyway, because she’s expecting to pick him up from Albany International in five hours, and that’s definitely not happening now. God, he hopes he’ll make it back to New York at some point within the next three days. He’s never spent a Christmas away from home in his twenty six years of life, and he doesn’t want to start now. 

He’s well on his way to an anxiety spiral when he notices that there’s one other passenger besides him not angrily crowding around the service desk. He looks to be around Niall’s age, and he’s pawing through a backpack with a resigned expression on his face. After a minute, Niall figures that he must be searching for warmer clothes to put on; the man’s short sleeved shirt is well-equipped to show off all the strange tattoos on his arms, but isn’t exactly appropriate for December in Wisconsin. 

Niall, by contrast, is dressed and packed for two weeks of winter in upstate New York. He looks down at his own backpack, aware that it’s stuffed with four different Aran sweaters, and makes a decision. It’s the season for doing good deeds, after all. Making a stranger a little less miserable surely counts. 

“Hey there,” Niall says as he walks over to the man, who’s given up looking through his luggage and is now sitting forlornly on one of the waiting area’s cheap plastic benches. He looks up, and Niall’s breath -- well, it honest to God catches in his throat. This guy must be some kind of model, because he’s got just about the most gorgeous face Niall’s ever seen. Green eyes, red lips, the works. 

“Hi?” the guy ventures after a few seconds of Niall staring down at him like a lunatic. 

Niall can feel himself go red as he hurriedly unzips his backpack, feeling around until he grabs a fistful of wool.

“Here,” he says, pulling out a sweater at random and basically throwing it at the guy’s head. 

“You looked cold, so.” He shrugs. He watches this ridiculously good-looking stranger hold out the sweater to examine it, smiling widely for a second before his expression shifts to concern. 

“Oh, this is hand-knit, isn’t it? I couldn’t possibly take this,” he says, trying to hand it back to Niall, who takes a step backwards and shoves his hands in his pockets.

“Really, I insist,” he says. “Seriously, you’d be doing me a favor. My grandma still thinks we live in Ireland and makes one for me every year; I’m drowning in the things.” This seems to make the guy only more determined to hand it back to him, but Niall perseveres. 

“I’d feel guilty just getting rid of them, but if I tell her I passed one on to a chilly traveler I’ll be grandson of the year, so.” 

Niall narrowly avoids pumping a fist in the air in victory when this makes the guy giggle, bite his lip, and finally, reluctantly pull the sweater on over his t-shirt. It’s a sea green that matches his eyes perfectly, which is great, because what Niall really needed was to be even more distracted by a random person’s good looks. 

“I can’t thank you enough,” he says once it’s on, his chin-length hair now attractively rumpled. “I was worried I was going to freeze solid the second I went outside.”

He holds out a hand; Niall takes it. Soft palms, manicured and painted fingernails -- this guy might really be a fashion model. 

“I’m Harry,” he says. He smiles wide enough when he says it that his cheeks dimple. Niall’s heart is in some serious trouble now. 

“I’m Niall,” he replies, letting go of Harry’s hand a second later than is probably appropriate. 

He’s not sure how, but he wants to keep the conversation going somehow, just so he has an excuse to look at Harry’s face for a little longer. Before he can come up with something, an ancient intercom crackles to life and makes them both look around.

“Attention, travelers. In two hours, the storm is expected to dissipate enough to start offering shuttles into Eau Claire. Chippewa will be providing vouchers for the following lodgings.” 

The announcer rattles off a list of local hotels before repeating the entire message over again. This announcement seems to renew the stranded travelers’ agitation, and they start swarming the service desks with complaints about the wait. Harry and Niall both stay where they are, clearly on the same page about not bullying the elderly. Harry doesn’t seem any happier than the people yelling, though.

“I didn’t manage to sleep on the plane because I was so nervous about the weather and the turbulence,” he confesses to Niall. “I’m pretty sure I’m going to pass out before that shuttle actually gets here.” 

“Where are you coming from?” Niall asks. They’re making small talk! Success! 

“Well, I started out in Italy thirteen hours ago,” Harry says ruefully. “Then I had a connecting flight in Boston, and from there, I should have gone all the way out to LA, which is where I’m spending Christmas. But I had to book last minute, and the only flights left had an extra connection. So I took a chance on this one, and of course now I’m stuck here.” He pouts as he says it, and it should make him look immature but instead he just looks like he’s posing artfully for Covergirl or something. 

“So we’re heading in opposite directions,” Niall says. “I’m coming from LA, and I’m on my way to New York.” 

Harry’s eyes light up at this.

“Oh my god, do you live in NYC? I love spending time there, it’s one of my favorite cities in the world.”

Niall sighs and shakes his head in mock-disappointment. 

“Everyone loves NYC so much but they always forget about the actual capital of New York.”

When Harry just stares at him blankly, Niall relents and laughs out, “I’m from Albany. My whole family immigrated there from Ireland when I was six months old." 

Niall feels a bit awkward at first, talking about his life with someone he just met, but he quickly learns that Harry is the type of old soul who loves to make conversation with strangers. And by the time the shuttles start actually arriving he can't say that the two of them are strangers anymore. 

He learns that Harry's lived in LA his whole life, and so traveling anywhere that's cold knocks him off his feet. Niall's only lived in California since he started attending UCLA (at first as an undergrad and now for post-graduate work) but it turns out he and Harry have several mutual acquaintances, which delights Harry to no end, and he seems more interested in Niall's classes last semester than Niall was, asking questions about what he learned and whether the professors were cool or boring. 

He's in the middle of a rant about early morning lectures when the intercom starts announcing that they'll be able to start shuttling people into the city soon. Which of course means that the two of them are going to have to go their separate ways. 

Harry starts fussing with his luggage again, seeming almost shy now, and thanks Niall again for the sweater.

Niall scrambles for something else to say to forestall a goodbye. 

“How did you know it was hand-knit?” is the only question he comes up with, but it's effective.  

"Oh!" Harry exclaims, going all smiley again. 

"The pattern was really detailed, and I could see how tight the stitches were. Didn't seem likely that a machine made it," he says. 

"Wow, you've got a real eye. Do you work in fashion or something?" Niall asks, wondering if his initial impression was right after all. 

"Or something," Harry says, seeming embarrassed for some reason. "I um, do modelling work sometimes. Shoots for Gucci, mainly, but other brands too. It's why I was in Italy, actually." 

Holy shit. There’s an actual Gucci model wearing one of his grandma’s sweaters right now. What a thought. His mom is going to flip when he finally gets to New York and tells her all about this. 

"That's really cool," Niall tells him, scrambling to think of a segue into asking for his number that doesn't come off like he's just trying to hook up with a model.

As luck would have it, Harry provides one for him - by asking for his grandmother’s phone number.

“Or even just her mailing address,” Harry rushes on when Niall bursts out laughing. 

“I’d like to personally thank her for making such a pretty sweater that’s doing such a good job of keeping me warm.”

“Well, I’m going to be seeing her for Christmas in a few days, if the weather calms down. You could call me and I could just hand my phone over to her.” 

It’s not particularly subtle, but luckily Harry doesn’t call him out on it. In fact, his face goes a bit sly, and he looks Niall up and down for a moment.

“Sounds like a plan to me,” Harry says, and then whips out an honest-to-god gel pen from nowhere to physically write his phone number on Niall’s hand. 

“Text me when you get a chance, and we’ll have each other’s numbers that way,” he says cheerily. 

A few minutes later, they go their separate ways - Niall with Harry’s phone number written in bright green ink on the back of his hand, and Harry with a signature Grandma Horan sweater to keep him warm. 

As he passes the service area, Niall cheerfully plucks a survey card from the desk. Seems like he’s going to give United a glowing review after all. 

[sugar-petals]

If you don't mind going for a more soft topic for a moment, what are your favorite ways of showing/receiving affection? Be it in bed or just in general.

my tags are a good starter but for the sake of compiling the softness and exposing myself:

— giving

forehead kiss headquarters speaking how can i help you

brushing the hair’s pretty relaxing

shampooing

squishing the cheekies… my designated life purpose

massages: back/shoulders, legs, scalp, hands, face

attention to the neck, you know me

cooing at baby hairs probably

holding ze hands, kneading with the thumb included i’m no fool

spooning

wrapping the bae into a blanket, equipping them with pillows, making hot cocoa if you know that i mean

got my hand in your hair 24/7 😴

tickling

i can whisper to you in 8 languages so you can choose whatever, if you want compliments in spanish no problem

squeezing. just a little. or lots, up to you

intertwining feet under a table

not just the forehead gets kisses. the crown of the head, too

just in case. i have some free purring noises in stock

um… praise bot right here.

i might just grope away if i have the permission

i have no tavern girl cleavage but i’ll smother tons regardless for the sheer fun of it. say goodbye to the light of day anime nerd

should i ever re-learn playing the guitar…

obv chopping it up in the kitchen tell mama your favorite dishes you know my caro’s culinary adventures tag

esp sweets like if you want self-made popcorn, pancakes, brownies, pastry, cookies, cupcakes etc

given that i do psychology and tarot i am ur personal divinator and psychic so if you are looking for answers i got em

well well my biting kink is rather… erm raging but i can tone it down for soft hours and just nibble

something that i can’t do but kinda wish for is carrying sb but contrary to popular opinion i am not the rock 

styling your hair

cuddling while watching a movie

holding sb by the waist is nice

i like making occasional gifts and keep a secret list of things someone gushes over in a store so i can buy it later

reassurance, advice, you know the deal

if u like conversations and hearing me out i can talk your ears off once i get started as you can tell by this post

i was graciously gifted a hand-forged tibetan singing bowl so i’m gonna use that on u, it has v mysterious powers

having an emotional meltdown over someone’s cuteness is my specialty 

since i have a bunch of DIY skills passed down to me by my grandma i might just knit you a cute hat for winter. if i have time and my tendonitis doesn’t go on strike it might be an oversized scarf. i promise it won’t look antiquated there’s some nice yarn on the market

with a little practice i can revamp my portait sketching and immortalize u

buying flowers, yes for the guys too

no limits to smooching

i like to dance and according to others very well apparently so cue that favorite music and i shall entertain

making tea

the obvious one… i can write you almost any fic in the world. if you ever wanted to be part of a story i make all wishes come true ✍️ esp if you have troubles articulating your fantasy i can flesh it out.

head pats. head pats all day. and more head pats. lastly, head pats.

— receiving

butterfly kisses

getting nuzzled is literally so cute 😭 this might be one of my favorites

i have nice hands i’ll probably let you do whatever

i’m being serious here if u know how to do reiki i won’t say no this is pretty cool

oh honey. i am too skinny to be used as a pillow like this is just a bag of rattling bones but i can dream so i include this here

me being a weirdo: i like my legs hugged

talk about asmr: if you have a set of soft brushes hmu

i can’t sing too well but my partner might so, being serenaded. you might have heard me melt over baekhyun so u know the kind of effect a voice has on me

once someone knows my taste well: yes, small presents why not

gentle shoulder massage. a writer’s tense area RIP

i have a strange obsession with someone using shy and adorable emojis. hoseok on twt and weverse basically that’s really cute, a real caro treat 

like every feline i am sensitive behind the ears just rub ur thumbs there rrr

u can braid my lion’s mane cuz asmr

pouty faces cheer me up 

i get cold easily. if someone turns up the heater or switches on the electric blanket that’s love for me

this counts as semi-receiving i believe: similarly, if i can warm my hands under your sweater i’m already happy. might end in feeling you up tbh 

getting me a glass of water

i fancy someone baking a cake

all sorts of uwu antics have an aphrodisiac effect on me

if you know these round boxes with deep red roses? i like these. they’re expensive though i don’t wanna drain a wallet for something that fades so fast

team efforts: i am a laundry fairy and u maybe like to iron

i sleep on my belly = a whole free back stroking area

ordering takeout for me/us… kind of a sucker for that

park your face under my chin 🤗

[meganharperr-blog]

COVID-19 Day 3

Why did I start on day 3 you might ask? Well day 1 was reserved for crying, self pity, deep bouts of depression, restless anxiety, and a shit ton of edibles. Day 2 was consumed by coming up with a plan. So let’s back track to what I can remember about those days and the questions I have been asked:

1.  What made you get tested? Did you have symptoms? I very honestly get routine tests. If I am exposed to larger groups of people than my norm, I get tested. If I have a bunch of makeup gigs, I get tested. I get tested for my clients and customers. It is my moral obligation and civil duty to make sure I am 100% healthy to perform justifiably in all the fields I conduct business…which is a vast amount of service based income. I am a makeup artist, and Esthetician, and a Bartender. I either have my hands physically on someone or I am serving masses of people at a given time. Now doing all of this I have become insanely hyper aware of sanitation. In my studio I have Clorox wipes at arms reach, I sanitize with Barbicide and I am Barbicide certified, all sheets and blankets get washed after every client, and if you have had your makeup done by me before you know I wont use the same brush twice and it must be sanitized in-between clients. This has all been second nature to me for years. So when I had a bunch of photoshoots and clients on the books I knew it was time to get tested for peace of mind. Only a week and 1/2 after my last COVID test. The only thing I can even consider a symptom would be the night before I had a headache. I took Advil and it went away no problem. I was also on my cycle and having cramps…or could they have been “body pains”? Shit idk. All I know is I made a joke about having COVID on my way to my rapid testing…

2. Have you heard that the rapid tests are not as accurate? When I got my results back in 15 min and it was my first ever positive I was shocked. I did not trust it right away and pretty much everyone in my circle said get a second opinion. So I got 2 more. One was another rapid test. The other would get back to me in 3 days. I mentally claimed it was a false positive. 

My brain: “shiiiit. There aint no way. No way in hell girl. You careful as shit. You got all these blessings coming your way. Business is booming. Opportunities are rising. Aint no slowing down for 2 weeks right now.” 

I of course made my partner come with me and get a rapid test as well as the test that would take 3 days to get back to us. While waiting for the results I wanted to get vitamins and snacks and what ever else I may need if this does become my reality. We get to Publix and my heart sinks into my asshole and I’m like…. SHOULD I EVEN GO IN THERE?! The anxiety started building right then and there. I thought to myself “Just keep your mask on, Social distance, you know wtf goin on just be safe” … as we get into the store I wasn’t feeling it. I saw older people around me and I just didn’t feel right and in that moment my phone started to ring. I bursted into tears and couldn’t even stay in the store. I just knew it. It was legit.. 

The lady on the phone was so nice. She asked if it was what I expected to hear and I honestly said “no”. Because I just knew I didn’t have it. I knew how careful I had been.I am not a perfect person by any means but I see y'all reckless ass Mfer’s out there and we are not the sameeeee man shit nawwww this couldn't happen to me. But it did. 

3. How did you get it? OMFG IDK! I have exhausted my brain with this question. How could this happen to me? Shit did I drop my mask at some point? Did I get too close to someone outside at ( insert bar name here ) when I went to have a drink on Saturday night? But it was outside? 

Googles : “Can you catch COVID outside? “

    “Can you catch COVID with a mask on?”

    “Can you catch COVID from  it being on your clothing?”

    “Can you catch COVID from a toilet seat?”

I mean you name it I Googled it. And the unfortunate answer was yes to all of the above. I got tested on the 4th. So I know I got it sometime after that. I of course contacted everyone I came in contact with….which was horrible! I felt freaking terrible!!! I swear it was worse than narrowing down an STD culprit. It’s like shit… you get an STD…you hit up your top 5, or top 10…look idk your life like that…and have everyone get tested. Let’s be real though you got it narrowed down and think you probably know who did you dirty….Get the results back and boom its over with. Take the meds move on with your life no-one has to know. COVID on the other hand can fucking KILL YEW, PEOPLE YOU CARE ABOUT, GRANDMAS THAT THEY CARE ABOUT, CHILDREN WITH PRE-EXISTING ISSUES, IT CAN KILL PEOPLE. So you gotta back track back track. Make sure all bases are covered especially when you work multiple outlets which is mad important these days. THE MORAL of all this is… idk. Idk how I got it. I am mad careful. I be judging you on social media for being out and reckless without a mask on. I get tested frequently. I have hand sanitizer in every bag I own, in my car, and all over my home. I AM A NEAT FREAK and a GERMY! I am careful. To say the least..but not perfect I am sure after working 10 hours in a mask I have let it fall for a few min! I am sure on my bike I have dropped it out of pure exhaustion. I know I have tried hard, but I am still human and this is all new.  So y’all non-maskers out there think you on to something…in reality you could have it too and not even know. Psh. Anyways. Next question…

4. Does your partner have it too? No. Somehow no. This is where we had to start coming up with a plan. We work together so this puts us both out of work. LUCKILY we have been saving incase of a shut down and we also have back up savings for a home we *hope* to purchase next year so that plan was solid…. But how to keep him healthy? Just because I do not have symptoms does not mean his body will react the same way. I need to make sure he does not get infected as well. We are going to continue to get him tested for the next several days to monitor that. He is quarantining and I am in what is called “isolation”for a minimum of 14 days. We try our best to stay in different rooms. We have a tiny apartment with one bathroom, so I am just constantly sanitizing right now. Everything I touch or may have touched gets a Clorox wipe. We both wear masks 24/7 in the house. Even if he goes outside to walk the dog, I am keeping a mask on. I have learned so much in the past 48 hours about contracting the virus that I do not even want to risk a drop of my saliva in this house. I am doing disposable masks every day. I luckily have plenty of masks and gloves from working on clients. If I cook I wash my hands, sanitize, then put on gloves. We eat in separate rooms or at the edge of the room so it feels like we are eating together. We are really trying our best and that is some shit they do not prepare you for. Your partner has to be careful around you. They cannot touch you or even come near you and sometimes have to remind you of that. Try to do chores in separate rooms. Try to not get your feelings hurt because its not that they don’t want to be around you, but it is dangerous and they cannot be. So my poor lil feelings keep getting hurt, but I’m a tough gal it’ll be alright I just want to make sure he stays healthy. 

5. Can you breathe? So this brings us to day 3. We have a plan. It has been working. I have my little cleaning things I am doing in one room, he has his in another…and I am pretty much in Go Mode. Before all of this I had a Cleaning Babe coming to help me with things so I had a list for her. I just embodied her and did the list myself plus some major decluttering. I have a ton of clothes to donate (that I am letting sit bagged up for 14 days just to be cautious before donating…some shit I read idk…might get anxious and throw it all away…tbd) so while I am going to town cleaning out my abyss I start to get really short of breath and kinda lethargic. I laid down on the bed to catch my breath for several minutes then took a little break from cleaning. This is the first time I have felt any type of crazy. I still have a lot of anxiety about the days to come. Will it get worse? Will I start to feel like actual hell on earth? Will I be able to keep my partner safe? Shit idk but I am trying really hard. They simply do not tell you about the anxiety that you will have. It is normal. You are going to be generally overwhelmed if you are a good person. Just stay good. and Stay aware.... and Stay tuned. I may not write every single day. But I will keep you updated. If you have any helpful stuff for me to read, please send it my way! If you have any questions feel free to ask. If you have been in this situation with a live in positive and negative… what’s your advice? My DM’s and PM’s are open. 

[hoeassproductions]

Break A Leg: Chapter 8

Masterlist Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. I do not own, possess, or have any links to Chris Evans, nor do I profit off of this work. Any claims otherwise are grossly misleading. This work is not to be posted anywhere else without my explicit permission. If you would like to be added to the tag list, reply here or send me an ask. I’d be happy to add you! Happy reading! Word Count: ~1,400 

Unexpected Relations

Arriving at the retreat, I feel cautiously optimistic about this unintended getaway.

He just made it clear he wants to be friends, take this opportunity to clear your head and get some distance. Your heart depends on it.

Resigning myself to the turn of events, we begin to unload to the car, and are met with Eric greeting us.

“Hey guys, glad to see you made it in one piece. Everyone is still getting settled, so let me show you to where you’ll be staying.”

He grabs a bag, and walks towards a row of small cabins, beckoning for us to follow.

“Everyone got to pick their cabins, but since you’re the last to arrive, you get the leftovers.”

Walking past all of the other cabins, we get to the very end to find the last two cabins available.

“Here you are. You each have your own but at least you get to be close to each other,” Eric throws over his shoulder with a smirk. “I’m sure that won’t be an issue?”

“All good here” Chris replies before I can get a word in.

“Great. You two get settled in. Festivities begin in about an hour in the Main Rec Hall. Come prepared to do all of the boring introduction stuff. The real fun begins tomorrow. See you guys in a bit.”

Eric leaves as Chris and I exchange glances recognizing we have no idea what we’ve gotten ourselves into.

Eager to get inside and have a few minutes to myself, I tell Chris to take the cabin on the end. “It’s probably a little quieter for any...projects you may need to work on.”

I walk up the porch and enter my cabin. I set my suitcase down on the end of my bed, pop a squat next to it, and release a breath I didn’t realize I was holding in. Attempting to rid my muscles of the tension in my body, I begin to stretch until I hear a noise coming from the back of my cabin. As I get up to take a look in what I can only assume is the bathroom, a man walks out from around the corner.

Taken completely off guard, I scream loudly and shuffle to grab something to serve as a barrier between me and the intruder.

“Hey, HEY! Calm down! I’m supposed to be in here. I was inspecting your bathroom for leaks. I’m the groundskeeper. The others said there would be some time before you guys showed up. I was just finishing getting things squared away for you... in there….Y/N? Is that you?”

For a brief moment, the panic subsides and recognition begins to enter my brain. “Jessie?”

“I thought that was you! Come here and Give me a hug!”

Just as we embrace, Chris comes barrelling through the door. “Y/N? Y/N, are you ok? Hey, Get your hands off of her!

Just before Chris’ right hook reaches Jessie’s face, I stop him. “Chris, this is my friend, Jessie. We met one of the many summers I spent here visiting my Grandma and we kept in touch. WOW, it’s nice to see you. You said you’re the groundskeeper here? When did you leave the Boston area?”

“A couple years ago. I got tired of the city life, and my Dad wanted some help down here so I figured it was exactly the change of pace I needed. I love it here, and now that you know a guy on the inside, I can show you all the cool spots visitors don’t know about.”

Jessie and I continue our conversation until I hear the clearing of Chris’ throat. “Oh right. I’m sorry. Jessie, this guy right here with the prepared right hook is Chris. Chris meet Jessie.”

As I introduce the two men to each other, Jessie outstretches his hand. “Hey man, I appreciate you coming to the defense of my girl here so quickly. She was lucky to have you here if there was actual danger.”

Tensely, Chris returns the handshake,”Of course, Y/N means the world to me. ‘Your Girl’, Huh?

Sensing the two begin to size each other up, I quickly step in.

“Ok macho men, let’s simmer down. Everything is good here. Now, I hate to cut this little reunion short, but I need to get ready. So do you Chris. Jessie, I’ll come find you later, and we can catch up some more.”

I usher the two to the door, and kick them out to the porch. “I mean it, you two. Scram!” I close the door and pause for a few moments to take in everything that just happened. Before I go to change my clothes, I can hear Chris and Jessie exchanging words on my porch.

“I meant what I said in there. She’s lucky to have you. You seem like a great guy and all, but I know Y/N. It's clear there's something going on between you two. We have a long history so if you break her heart, Pretty Boy, I’ll make you regret it. Captain America or not.”

“I only have the best intentions with Y/N. You have nothing to worry about here.”

“Yeah, we’ll see about that.” As Jessie leaves, I can hear Chris is still on the porch.

“Shit!” he says to himself, before he walks off to his cabin.

Later on in the evening, we get through all of the introduction stuff as Eric warned, and went through all of the formalities of the purpose of the retreat; what we should want to get from it and some small group exercises to get to know each other better.

Given how the trip here started, I was thankful to have some time away from Chris. He played along with all the exercises of the evening, but I could tell more than once that his attention was on me. I ignored it as best I could, but his presence isn’t exactly something I practiced tuning out these last couple of weeks.

We end the group structured activities fairly early with the warning that most evenings will be similar while we are here. Part of the point of being here is to get some R&R before the “Real Work” for the show begins when we get back.

As we all gather our things to leave, Chris makes his way over to me as I’m walking out with a couple other people.

“Hey-”

“Chris!” Sandra calls. “Stay back. I need to talk to you about the week. It’ll only take a few minutes.”

“Y/N, let’s talk later?”

“Yeah, I’ll be around. We’re talking about having a fire down on the patio. Probably be there for a while. Come find us.”

“Will do” he says as he turns to face Sandra.

A few others from the group and I decide to meet up in an hour for a bonfire. I go back to my cabin to change my clothes and clean up. I head down to the patio before too long to find Jessie bringing firewood up.

“Hey Stranger. Need some help?”

“Oh, I’ll never say no to some help.”

I meet him down the hill at the wood stack, and we make a few trips back and forth with loads of wood. Catching up as if no time has passed, we fall in sync just like every time we’d see each other before.

“You know Jessie, I was not at all prepared for this retreat. I’ve not even been on this job for a month. It’s a little nerve wracking coming out here with all of these people I barely know. I’m happy you ended up being here. A familiar face and all.”

“Really? You and that Chris guy seem to know each other pretty well.”

“It’s...Um…..we’re just friends.”

“Good. Because I’m happy that you’re here too. Gives us a chance to...reconnect. Like old times.” I nod happily at this.

As we grab one last load, we notice that a few others have joined the party, settling into the patio.

“Hey Y/N, If you have an early night tomorrow like you did tonight, I’d like to show you something on the grounds. Are you free?”

The history and comfortability between Jessie and I raises butterflies in my stomach. “Yeah. They told us we should have the evenings to ourselves most nights. Come by my cabin around 8 and we can head there together.”

Once we’ve reached the others, and get the bonfire started. A couple people brought some beers and we begin forming our own conversations. I ask Jessie to stick around and I introduce him to everyone the best I can.

In the middle of introducing him to Beth, I hear someone call out behind me, “Chris! Come grab a beer!”

Everyone turns to see him walking towards us as he scans the group.His eyes land on me with a smile on his face, but when he recognizes the person to my left, I can see it falter a bit.

“Hey everyone! Thanks for the invite but I think I’m actually going to head back to my cabin for the night. I have a few...projects to work on. Another time guys.” With this, a few hugs and boos are exchanged before he turns to leave.

Not paying attention to anyone in particular, I say I’ll be back and follow quickly behind Chris before he gets too far.

“Chris. Hey, Chris, wait up. You said you wanted to talk earlier? Everything ok?”

Turning back towards me, I can tell his usual animated self is missing from this moment. “It’s uh, it’s not important. I can tell that you’re busy now I’ll catch you later. Go enjoy your night.” He sulks away before I can make heads or tails of what is up with him.

Deciding to take his advice, I go back to the bonfire to ring in our first night with a badly worded and slurred singalong. It’s like we’re all at summer camp as kids again. While good-natured, I decide to cut out before they begin telling their spooky stories. I tell everyone good night and I head back to my cabin.

Not too far from my resting place for the next two weeks, I can see that the light is still on in Chris’ cabin. I decide to check in on him, maybe get some answers to his roller coaster of a mood today.

I walk up to his door and knock. After a few moments, I knock again, still without an answer. I decide to chance it, and open the door as quietly as I can. Scanning the room, my eyes quickly land on a passed out Chris on his bed with his glasses still on and a script laying on his chest.

Taking in the scene before me, I know I will not see him like this again in any relatively near future, if at all. I do my best to commit the mental images to my memory before removing his glasses, and laying them with his script on the nightstand.

I briefly kiss him on his forehead, and turn out his light.

“Goodnight Chris.”

Previous

A/N: OOOOOOOh Snap. Hey everybody! Things are starting to take a turn here huh? these two always keep things interesting!

As always, let me know if you would like to be added to the taglist. Read on!

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[gumnut-logic]

Gentle Rain (Part Eighteen)

Title: Gentle Rain

Warm Rain Series

Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four | Part Five | Part Six | Part Seven | Part Eight | Part Nine | Part Ten | Part Eleven | Part Twelve | Part Thirteen | Part Fourteen | Part Fifteen | Part Sixteen | Part Seventeen | Part Eighteen

Author: Gumnut

28 Feb – 1 Mar 2019

Fandom: Thunderbirds Are Go 2015/ Thunderbirds TOS

Rating: Teen

Summary: Sometimes it is so gentle, you don’t realise it is happening.

Word count: 3119

Spoilers & warnings: Virgil/Kayo, Scott/OC, Gordon/Penelope, spoilers for Warm Rain up to this point in the timeline.

Timeline: Six months after ‘The Proposal’, almost a sequel.

Author’s note: For @scribbles97 ​ Oh, this was fun to write. It may be called a trope, but I don’t care, it was fun :D Nutty got to blow something up, mwhahahahaha! I hope you enjoy it.

Disclaimer: Mine? You’ve got to be kidding. Money? Don’t have any, don’t bother.

-o-o-o-

She eased herself slowly back into her life. She worked through a list of shocked friends, the necessary sympathy regarding her latest injury, questions about where she had been, how she was and what she was going to do next.

There were catch up lunches, new clients and Uncle Crispin.

He cornered her as soon as he could, which considering the state of the Siberian gas fields, wasn’t anywhere as soon as he would have preferred. He finally made it to her house two weeks after her month of seclusion.

The fact he actually visited the house was an indication of how worried he was. He hated the place, given all the memories of the family he had lost echoing through the hallways. His relationship with her deceased grandparents probably didn’t help either.

He hugged her the moment he saw her.

“How are you, honey?” He was the only person she would allow to call her ‘honey’.

“I’m getting there.” She smiled.

“What about the Tracy boy?” Sure enough, straight to the point.

“What about him?”

“You seemed pretty set on him at Christmas.”

“Yeah, well, that was Christmas and a lot has happened since.”

“Sally says Virgil is doing well.”

It took her a moment to connect the dots. Sally was Grandma Tracy. “As long as he gives himself the time to recover, he should be fine. It was close.” She shifted in her ‘scoot. “So, what’s the deal with you and...Sally?”

She couldn’t help but grin at the shy smile that spread over his face. That was the thing about Uncle Crispin. He was all tough adventurer on the outside, tough as nails, but on the inside, he was really just a soft, goofball.

Life had been as hard on him as it had been on her and his demeanour reflected that.

Sally had obviously wormed her way under his leathery defence system.

“She and I...Em, she makes me happy.” He grinned. “And I like to think I make her happy too. I can’t really ask for more than that.”

That sparked off a little self-reflection. “No, that’s exactly how it should be.”

Her uncle frowned. “Do I need to go park some dynamite under his ass?”

“You and your bloody dynamite.” An exasperated sigh. “It’s fine. I’ll be fine.”

“Sally says he’s pretty messed up.”

She blinked. “What?”

“Some big effort to decentralise International Rescue, expand the service somewhat and take the strain off the Tracy family. He’s not sleeping and not talking. She’s worried about him.”

A stare. “He took my advice?”

“Your advice? No idea. But the man is obsessed. Sally reckons you should check on him.”

“She does, does she?” She eyed her uncle. “What do you think?”

“Em, I’m with you. Whatever makes you happy.”

Whatever makes her happy? She had a list, but only a few of those listed things were entirely in her power, so she would focus on those.

“I’m going to give it time.” The words were said quietly and slowly.

His hand landed on her shoulder and squeezed.

Uncle Crispin inevitably couldn’t stay long. It was a reminder of how close his job was to that of International Rescue as he was called out to Siberia yet again. She missed him, but it was necessary. Besides, she had her own life to get back to.

She closed up the house in Margaret River, moved back to Perth and back to work.

It was a lunch date with a colleague that saw her on the pedestrian bridge right at the moment it exploded.

-o-o-o-

Scott hit the comms room at a run. “Report!”

John’s hologram was in the centre of the room. He had only returned to TB5 three days earlier after an extended training session with his extremely small team. Gordon had snorted loudly when Scott commented on the personnel involved. He must remember to ask him about that.

“There has been an explosion on a pedestrian bridge across the Swan River. Em is on the bridge.”

“Explosion? How do you know that Em is involved?” He felt like grabbing his brother and shaking him.

“Kayo, put a tracker in her hoverscoot.”

“What?!” This came from both himself and Virgil behind him.

“Regardless, the bridge has been destabilised at one end. We’re needed.”

Scott didn’t hesitate, heading towards his chute. Virgil didn’t either and that was enough to bring him to a halt. “Virgil!”

“You’re going, I’m going.” And he didn’t stop moving.

Damnit! “John, get Alan and Gordon to Thunderbird Two.”

“Already on their way.”

He yanked the fake light fittings down just that bit harder than usual just as Virgil tipped up backwards on his painting and disappeared.

Fear churned in his gut.

Em.

-o-o-o-

Virgil’s chute, by the nature of its design was rough on his body. It had been at least a couple of months since he’d flown down it, so along with the adrenalin that always accompanied the ride there was a pleasant sense of accomplishment when it didn’t actually hurt.

His feet hit his ‘bird’s deck with a reassuring thump and no pain ricocheted anywhere. His heart was thudding and his breathing had spiked, but that could be considered normal.

Slipping into his seat, he automatically started pre-flight, the sequence so familiar, he didn’t even have to think.

The selector trundled out the modules and TB2 settled on the familiar Four. Moments later he heard Alan and Gordon rise up into the cockpit.

Kay sat down beside him in the co-pilot’s seat. What?

“Before you say anything, my presence is non-negotiable.”

Her eyes pinned him. “Okay.”

And his attention was taken with the launch. Thunderbird Two rolled out of her hanger and he opened the runway to let her through. Her familiar rumble vibrated through his bones, the adrenalin still pumping, his heart-rate matched her thrum.

Loaded onto her ramp, he pointed her towards the sky.

The clunk of external machinery.

An indrawn breath.

He fired her thrusters and she leapt off the platform, clawing her way into the blue.

-o-o-o-

There was a flash of light and a wall of sound hit her.

Her ‘scoot slid sideways and the people around her screamed as the bridge beneath her suddenly tilted sideways towards the water below.

At the far end of the metal and concrete structure a cloud of smoke was rising into the air.

Dust and debris rained down around her. Time froze in shock.

It started again as a woman to her right suddenly went down with a scream, clutching her arm. More screams erupted as the walkway wobbled again.

The only escape route was the other end of the bridge.

“Move! Move!” And she was grabbing people and pushing them in the direction of land. Em lowered herself to the woman who had fallen. There was blood pouring down the sleeve of her dress and she was terrified, but there wasn’t time to do anything about it. She got her to her feet and hurried her across the paving. “Run!”

The bridge shook again and there was an almighty screech of stressed metal as one of the spans arching over the structure broke off at its base. The sharp ping of support wires snapping and the massive arm of steel pendulumed, swinging down and along the edge of the walkway. The concrete groaned and cracked under her ‘scoot.

“Move!”

They ran.

It was a busy bridge in the middle of the day, even more so because a local market had been set up along the length of it. There would have been at least a hundred people walking across or browsing the stalls. As the walkway tilted further, craft items and marquees began to slide across the paving. Em used her ‘scoot to her advantage. It had grip where feet may not have had and her arms were strong.

She sped up, darting to grab a child falling towards the railing. She hustled people along, supporting them if they fell. As a whole the crowd moved at a frantic pace down the length of the bridge.

Until the other end of the bridge exploded.

She couldn’t help it, she screamed.

The whole structure shuddered and a large portion holding many of those fleeing people collapsed into the river below.

“No!”

She struggled to keep her ‘scoot steady as the walkway shuddered and tilted even further. She looked behind her. Both ends of the bridge had been destroyed. There was no way off the structure.

A man not far from her slipped and fell, the tilt of the bridge saw him slide all the way to the railing. He screamed as his foot caught in the grill and twisted, taking his weight.

Her hoverjets whined, struggling with the heavily angled surface.

Only to be joined by the sudden roar of rocket engines.

Thunderbird One tore up the Swan River, screaming to a halt above the bridge. Her underbelly opened and a grapple shot down and caught the walkway as it teetered further. VTOL roared.

And she heard his voice.

“Please keep calm. International Rescue is here to assist.”

-o-o-o-

His heart leapt into his throat.

The bridge had been decimated. Two explosions, one at each of the main pylons had mangled the steel spans that supported the bridge. The pylons themselves were fairly secure, but the walkway was swinging loose, its structure never designed to take its own weight without the support spans.

Wires were snapping and springing apart.

Human figures were falling into the water below.

“John, tell me what caused this.”

“Initial results still coming in.” A pause. “Incendiary. Likely a bomb or a series.”

“Shit.” A breath. “Tell me there are no more.”

“In depth scan in progress.”

“I need that information now.”

“Working on it.”

He bit his lip as numbers spun across the space between the bridge and the Thunderbird in orbit.

“No further explosives detected. Eos is repeating the scan as we speak.”

“Thank you, John. Advise the GDF. Thunderbird two, we need you here now.”

“On approach.”

And she was. The great green behemoth swooping low over the river, her VTOL churning the surface below. She came to an abrupt halt and released her module. She waited long enough for Thunderbird Four to dart into the river, before gathering the module back to her belly once again. She was going to need it. A flare of VTOL and she rose up and over the bridge.

“Virgil, deploy rescue rafts and stabilise the walkway. Gordon, you’re on victim retrieval. Watch for falling debris. Alan and Kayo, send down TB2’s grabs and start picking people off the bridge. I’ll be doing the same once you have the walkway stable.”

Virgil’s baritone followed by the rest of his family’s voices were a chorus of FABs.

Thunderbird Two quickly dropped a series of large self-inflatable support rafts onto the surface of the river on both sides of the bridge, before deploying her grapples to secure the walkway. The whole structure straightened under the strength of the Thunderbird.

“Scott, it’s too heavy for Two. We lose much more structural support, it’s going to drop.”

“FAB, Thunderbird Two.” Time was crucial.

The green ‘bird lowered her nosecone grapples geared with her rescue rig. The small figures of Alan and Kayo leapt off and started gathering people.

Scott disengaged his grapple and began deploying harnesses. As he was working, he couldn’t help but ask. “Where is she?”

John answered without hesitation. “On the main walkway, near the centre. She appears unharmed.” A hologram flashed up and there she was, her ‘scoot shooting back and forth gathering people and ushering them towards Two’s rescue rig. Something in his gut clenched. “Keep an eye on her.” And he resisted the urge to swoop down and grab her immediately.

“FAB.”

And the rescue effort began in earnest. Fly down grab a victim, reassure them, assess for urgent injury, harness them, transport them to one of the rafts, make sure they are secure, grab the next one. It was simple pick and grab. Thunderbird Two was filling Module Four with rescuees, Alan and Kayo darting across broken concrete and gathering people to the rig.

Gordon had the hardest job. The majority of persons who had fallen off the bridge were injured, and there were a lot of injured.

Fortunately, some more help arrived.

“International Rescue Australasia Oceania reporting for duty.” They arrived in a GDF flyer, but they had their uniforms and suddenly there were more hands to help. Gordon was joined by several of the aquanauts he had been training on the other side of the continent just the previous week. Figures supported by jetpacks not unlike his own darted out from the carrier’s underbelly and began snatching survivors alongside him. Field Commander Davis flickered up on his holographic display. “Commander, thought you could use a hand.” She didn’t smile, she was too professional for that. “IR AO is supplemented by several of our other recruits so we have more hands. Your orders?” The grey of her baldric sash shone dully in the holographic light.

Scott, however, couldn’t help but smile. “Pick and grab, Lauren. We’re on a time limit, so make it fast. Thunderbird Two can’t hold the bridge forever.”

“FAB.”

It was odd hearing that response from a voice outside his family.

The rescue sped up after that.

But not enough.

“Scott, we just lost a crucial support! It’s going to go!” Virgil’s voice wasn’t panicked, but it was damn close. Far above him Thunderbird Two’s VTOL screamed as his brother desperately attempted hold so many tonnes of bridge.

“Slave TB1, use her grapples.”

“FAB.” It would give them a few more minutes at least.

They almost had it. As John called the final evac, the rafts had been dragged to a safe distance, there were only a handful of people left on the bridge, several of them IR personnel attending to victims with life threatening injuries...

Em.

He caught sight of her just as Virgil swore over comms and Two plummeted several metres, the bridge sagging.

One of the support wires near her snapped under the sudden strain and whipped around... “Em!”

He was moving before thought, but still it played in slow motion just out of his reach. The wire slashed through the air, missing her, but catching her hoverscoot. A spray of sparks and she was flung sideways and over the edge.

-o-o-o-

It became a blur of terrified people.

When the rescue rig landed on the tilting deck, she took only a moment to acknowledge Kayo and Alan. Both attempted to evacuate her, but she knew she was useful where she was and refused. There were others who needed help more than she.

That didn’t stop them from trying several more times, each person she delivered to that rescue rig was accompanied by a visual plea from Kayo. Perhaps she had suspicions why, but this wasn’t the time to think about it.

The Thunderbirds above were joined by a GDF flyer and suddenly there were more IR personnel on that bridge. Her heart leapt as a man in blue swooped in to land, but it wasn’t Scott. He wasn’t even a Tracy and she realised that this was the embodiment of Scott’s strategic plan.

She handed him a baby along with the boy’s mother and she darted off to grab another child clinging to a crumpled market stall.

More and more terrified people were airlifted away. Soon it was down to the critically injured, those who couldn’t be moved without further injury. She and another IR operative had a teenage girl showing all the signs of a spinal injury when Kayo called out for final evac. Far above, even Em could hear the sudden strain of Thunderbird Two’s VTOL as the bridge trembled.

The concrete beneath her shifted and fell and her ‘scoot lost traction for a split second. She grabbed for purchase, but her fingernails scraped useless across the pavement. A screech of metal, movement, and she was thrown sideways. A blur of bridge railing, the world spun...

And she was falling.

Fast.

She may have screamed, but the rush of air stole it from her throat.

Her hands clawed at nothing. There was nothing, nothing-

She was surrounded by blue fabric. Warm, strong, breathing and, oh god, so familiar. It enveloped her, slowing her plummet, saving her.

She gasped and it came out a sob.

“It’s okay…okay, I’ve got you.”

She looked up and there were those eyes. Those gorgeous blue eyes that haunted her dreams.

Furrowed in fear.

“Scott?”

He didn’t answer, just pulling her in closer as if he was clinging to her as much as she was to him.

-o-o-o-

He caught her mid-air, his arms wrapping around her, pulling her close, slowing her spin and her fall. Oh god, he had caught her.

His breath hitched as she let out a frightened sob. “It’s okay...okay, I’ve got you.”

As he shifted into a hover, she looked up, ice blue eyes fixing on him. “Scott?”

Such hope and fear in his name.

He didn’t answer, just pulled her closer, holding on so tight, he felt he may never let go.

“Scott! Get out of there! It’s collapsing and I can’t stop it!” Virgil’s voice in his ear was drowned out by a roar and the shadow of the bridge above fell towards them.

Shit!

Holding Em close, he accelerated away from the tangle of falling steel and concrete. The shift in air pressure threatened to drag them in as the mass gained speed as it fell. Scott spun, darting to avoid the steel span that was following the walkway into the river. Em clung to him and he wished he’d had chance to harness her to himself.

He had never held anyone so tight.

Thunderbird One loomed, no longer attached to the falling bridge, her hover unaffected by the now churning river below. Flying through her open hatch, he was finally able to draw in a breath as it closed behind him.

He lowered her gently to the passenger seat. “Are you okay? Are you injured?”

Em didn’t answer and he realised she was trembling. He crouched down, his gloved hand reaching for her.

She stared at him for a moment, but still didn’t say anything, her hands going to the harness holding her to the ‘scoot.

Her fingers fumbled with the buckles until he reached in to help. Without a word, she slid herself free and he lifted the dead piece of equipment away.

Something dark glistened in the empty seat.

He spun back to find her staring at a spreading red stain on her skirt.

-o-o-o-

End Part Eighteen.

[flydotnet]

Impromptu Nursing

VRAINS Rarepair Weeks 2018-2019 - Day 12: Pets/Sickfic

Summary: Kiku and Takeru have planned on seeing each other after weeks and months of not doing so because of the distance. There is, however, kind of a knack with it: he doesn't show up at their meeting point. Instead, she goes to his place and decides that he needs to be taken care of instead of apologizing to her. 

Fandom: Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS Ships: Entrustshipping (Takeru/Kiku)

Wordcount: 1.9K words

Notes: Justice for Shoichi, the best wingman ever. YOOOOOO BEST PROMPT IS HERE You gotta have to thank Michevalier for the sudden Entrust inspiration. I'm writing almost the opposite as she does (with my floof and all), so make sure to check her fic too, xoxo, Fly. It's very fluffy for once, considering I slapped a thing from a Cardcaptor Sakura special manga chapter on there for good measure. 

Event hosted by @vrainsrarepairweeks

AO3 version available here.

Winter break’s cold winds blows through Den City as Kiku steps down from her train. Still very little used to the city’s busier atmosphere compared to her countryside hometown, she made sure to plan where she had to meet up with Takeru: a park downtown, in front of a hotdog truck named Café Nagi. He also accompanied the explanation with a picture of some of his friends from the city:  on it, Takeru was smiling, arm wrapped around the shoulder of a blue-haired boy around their age named Yusaku. Right behind them was an older, purple-haired man named Kusanagi who couldn’t be that much older than them.

 Takeru has almost insisted for her to meet them and not just with him. He has told her countless stories about them, how they had all met. His eyes were shimmering whenever he talked about Aoi’s exploits, how they saved Miyu, how Yusaku was a great friend to have, how Kusanagi’s advice was either fantastic or hilariously terrible, and then there was this little guy in his Duel Disk that’d say something witty and she’d giggle. He was so excited for it, how could she not be as excited herself?

And then it turns out he wasn’t at their meeting point.

 She does see Yusaku eating a hotdog and Kusanagi asking what she wants to get for herself, but there is no Takeru to be seen. She has to apologize: she’s sorry, she isn’t here to order anything. At first, the man looks confused, and she wonders if she hasn’t stumbled upon very coincidental identical people. That would be very unfortunate, because she’d have bothered people who have nothing to do with whomever she is searching for. Soon after, however, he remembers what Takeru has told him and greets her with a great smile.

“Oh, you’re Takeru’s childhood friend, ain’t ya? Sorry to tell ya this, but he isn’t here today!”

The astonishment is full on her part.

“Ex… Excuse me?”

“Yeah, he just… didn’t come here, for some reason… He isn’t responding to neither Yusaku or me.”

“Oh, I see…”

 Kusanagi seems down from having to tell her this as her mind starts racing. If Takeru isn’t here, it may be because he’s slipping back into his shut-un lifestyle, and she doesn’t want that to happen again. This is bad…

She’s starting to panic when the hotdog seller’s voice breaks her away from her thoughts and brings her back to reality.

“Hey, I’ve got an idea! Why don’t you go pay him a visit? I’m sure he’d be very happy to see ya!”

“Ah, I’d love to, but I don’t know where Takeru lives here. He hasn’t given me his address…”

“That’s nothing! Gimme two sec’, I’m gonna grab ya a piece of paper and write it there, you can use your phone’s GPS to get there! Don’t forget to give us some news when you’ll be there, okay?”

 Kusanagi doesn’t fail to deliver. Barely minutes later, she’s back on her feet, phone in one and the piece of paper in the other in case her map app bugs on her and she has to input the address again. What a resourceful man… She can perfectly see why Takeru was so happy to introduce him to her. Yusaku didn’t say much, but his little thumb-up to her was very charming to see anyway. They do seem like very nice people, she’s glad Takeru is their friend, that he can count on them when he’d be otherwise isolated in a busy, bustling city. It means he has people to rely on whenever he needs help.

 On the other hand, Kiku feels a great deal of anxiety when she notices Takeru still isn’t responding to her text messages. She has attempted to call him several times since arriving in Den City, sometimes even if just to ask where to go (and have an excuse to hear his voice yet again, goodness she loves hearing his voice so much), but he has never picked up either. At first, she thought he was busy with his friends at the café, and considering how forgetful he was, it was totally plausible. However, knowing he wasn’t there and has never been, she felt shivers going down her spine. It sounds like an ominous recipe for disaster, if you ask her.

She clutches her phone in her hands whenever she isn’t looking at map instructions, hoping it’s just because he’s too busy and is late, but the worried glance Yusaku and Kusanagi exchanged earlier didn’t indicate it was any better than that. Maybe he’ll call her back or respond to her message, so she keeps the vibrator turned on.

Please be alright, Takeru, she often finds herself whispering under her breath as to feel less alone.

 After feels like too much time spent in unknown streets, she finally finds the apartment complex where Takeru lives. Her phone not being able to track his exact position down, she instead relies on instincts and following number logic. His mailbox seems to indicate a floor and a flat number: that hads to be where she’s headed. Even climbing the stairs, as the elevator is broken and out of commission as a result, doesn’t feel like a chore and more like a time loss. She senses that something’s wrong, a feeling that is fogging her mind to the point all she can think about is reaching his flat and know what was wrong. Once facing the door, which she almost misses because her attention has been hindered, her hit isn’t a miss: his name is indeed on the small nameplate next to the door and right over the ringbill.

 There is no immediate response, and she’s very much tempted to ring again, until the door opens and she gets faced by her precious Takeru and his… sickly appearance, to say the least.

She has known him for long enough to know it when his skin is paler, and even then, it’s obvious enough for anyone to see it. A thick red hue covers his otherwise cadaveric face, his glasses are covered in fog (she’s surprised he’s even wearing those…) and there are deep dark rings under his eyes. Sweat is pearling down his temples and his half-opened pyjama top can only mean he’s feeling very hot in early spring.

 “Ah, h-hi, Kiku…” he exhales as he realizes it’s her, a tiny smile appearing on his face.

“Takeru, are you okay?” she immediately asks, not waiting for any answer. “You look terrible!”

He looks on the side, embarrassed, and coughs in his elbow.

“C’mon in… Sorry, I slept through my alarm and…”

“It’s all fine, don’t worry, let’s get you to bed again,” she puts her hands on his shoulders and tries to get him to his room by relying on her instincts alone, but in the end, he still indicates her where to go. The flat itself is small, truly sized for one person, so it doesn’t take her more than a few coughs from him too much to find the bedroom.

 Once she has made sure Takeru was back in bed and propped against pillows, she noticed a little red creature rising from his Duel Disk. It soon disappears back into it, however, and she is left wondering if it was her or it was real. Oh well, it’s not important.

“Have you eaten something yet?” she asks as she mentally makes a list of what she could have to be going out to buy.

“Well, not really, I just got out of bed… And Flame can’t make breakfast…”

Oh, so this was probably the little guy inside his Duel Disk! Takeru has described Flame as before!

“I’ll make you something with what you have then, okay? Your grandparents once told me about what they’d make for you when you were sick!”

 She ran to the kitchen, which seems to be a hybrid with the theorical dining room, and takes a look through the fridge and other places to find a way to make something quickly. She settles for a cup of honey milk, not too big in case he isn’t hungry and warm enough to feel good on the throat, and a moderate bowl of oatmeal. She doesn’t really know why he had this in here, but she’s grateful for it: it’ll be just fine for her sick friend. There is no proper tray to put these on: instead, she just uses something similar found nearby. She isn’t sure what it is, but it can hold a bowl, a mug and the pills she found in his pharmacy.

 Takeru gives her a smile as she puts it on his lap, making sure it isn’t burning to hold.

“Thank you very much, but you really didn’t have to…” he tells her, but she dismisses it quickly.

“Who else was going to take care of you? Your friends had no idea you were missing because you were sick… You should tell them, so they can take care of you when I’ll be back in our hometown…”

He looks at the red mug with blue stripes, holds it in his hands and, after taking a sip, looks back at her and smiles again.

“You remember this mug, Kiku?”

“Of course I do! It’s the one I gave you before you left for Den City!”

Ah, she’s so proud of him too for moving on from the Incident and rebuilding himself!

 This is only for her to get restless again.

“Wait, Takeru, I don’t think you have medicine…”

“I don’t think it’s much more than a cold… Plus, I’m not gonna make you pay for this, seriously, Kiku…”

“I was only able to find fever reducers, but maybe you want cough pills?”

“I’ll be fine, I promise…”

She stares at him with the intensity of a thousand doctors and the legendary force of a hundred grandma’s remedies.

“You’re really sure about that? I saw a convenience store and a pharmacy around the corner, they’re not too far for me to get there…”

 The little laugh she hears from Takeru, slightly soured down by his congested throat but still adorable to hear, almost innocent. She puts a hand on his forehead meanwhile, and sure enough, he has a fever running. It doesn’t seem to bad, however, so she just quickly grabs a washcloth in his bathroom (which is right next to the bedroom, how convenient). Once filled with cold water, she can go back to the bedroom and put it on his forehead.

“Ah, that’s annoying… I’ll have to pay you back again for this too…”

She giggles.

“You don’t owe me anything, silly! I’m glad to make sure you’ll be fine!”

“Can I ask you a last favour, Kiku…?”

His voice sounds more hesitant. Is there something wrong?

“Of course you can.”

“Can you stay with me for the day? Flame is a nice company to have, but you’re even better to have around…”

Her heart skips a beat and her cheeks heat up.

“I’ll stay here as long as I can then!”

 As if synchronized, they take each other’s hand in theirs, fingers sometimes detaching so they can do other stuff on the side, like daling with the tray. They, however, enlace each other almost right afterwards, and she cannot help but feel like a guardian angel at the moment.

Takeru’s grandparents have told her before she was his guardian angel, after all, but never had she pictured that idea so much than now.

[bugheadfamily]

Bughead Family Discord Member Spotlight

This week the spotlight is on Mari ( @writeraquamarinara )! Click the read more link below to get to know our member!

Spotlight by Mila, @jughead-jones | Graphic by Katie, @betty-cooper

Mari | @writeraquamarinara

Name: Mari

Age: 18

Location: Montreal, QC.

Any other languages aside from English people can contact you in?: Italian.

Favourite Riverdale characters and ships?: Betty, Jughead, Pop, Fred, Mary, Kevin, Joaquin, Bughead, Joavin, and Choni.

Favourite moments from S1 & S2?: The scene that got me hooked to the show was when Reggie questioned Jughead about killing Jason, and he replied with a snarky little “It’s called necrophilia, Reggie. Can you spell it?” Other favorite moments are pretty much any Bughead scene from S1, but especially their first kiss. I had been shipping them together since the Blue and Gold scene in 1x03, but 1x06 really hit me hard. They’re both two broken kids who find solace in each other. As someone whose mother is all too similar to Alice Cooper, hearing Jughead tell Betty that they aren’t their parents made me so emotional. I rewatched that scene on repeat when the clip came out on Youtube the next day. To this day I can’t listen to Emily Afton’s Lost without crying. I also really love the hug from 1x13 after Betty, Veronica, and Archie go to Southside High for Juggie. S2 favorite moments are also only Bughead scenes, but not all Bughead scenes, if you catch my drift.

What are your hopes for S3?: Are a coherent plotline and consistent characterization too much to ask for? Also maybe have the parents on the show (other than Archie’s) actually respect their children and treat them well, but that’s never going to happen. On a more realistic note, I’m hoping to watch some fun interactions between Josie and Kevin now that they’re going to be step-siblings.

Other fandoms you’re into?: I don’t really have an online presence in other fandoms, but I do love to geek out over Percy Jackson, That 70s Show (specifically JackiexHyde), The Office, Parks and Rec, To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, and nearly all of the Marvel movies.

What are some of your favourite movies/TV?: As I mentioned: That 70s Show, The Office, Parks and Rec, To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, and Marvel. I’m currently bingeing The Good Place and The Mindy Project. I also went to watch Crazy Rich Asians in theaters and loved it. So basically I’m trash for rom and com. Sue me. (Or don’t. I’m a broke college student who can’t afford that ish.)

Favourite books?: The Book Thief, The Color Purple, Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women, Pride and Prejudice, and, most of all, The Glass Castle.

Favourite bands/musicians?: Nina Simone, Alicia Keys, ABBA, Of Monsters and Men, Christina Perri, and Imagine Dragons. 

If you could live in any fictional world which one would you choose and why?: I thought a lot about this question. The obvious answer would be “one with magic, or mermaids, or superheroes”. But then I thought that I’d rather live in a world like ours, more realistic, but where women are equal to men, diversity is celebrated, people accept each other for who they are. That’s a very idealistic world, I realize, and (if my preteen love of dystopian novels has taught me anything) one that’s most definitely unattainable, but it’s still nice to think about it. If anyone knows of a fictional world like that, sign me up.

Favourite food?: Gosh, that’s a hard one. Probably my grandma’s lasagna.

Favourite season?: Fall, definitely. It’s my birthday season, and I love the colorful leaves and breezy weather and going apple-picking with my family and friends. Unfortunately, Canada’s fall doesn’t last much more than a day, so I missed out on all that this year.

Favourite plant?: Nelumbo nucifera, aka the Lotus Flower.

Favourite scent?: Aftershave? Weird, I know, but it reminds me of my childhood and my father.

Favourite colour?: Periwinkle.

Favourite animal?: Hummingbird.

Are you a night owl, an early bird, or a vampire?: Night owl, definitely.

Place you want to visit?: The Alhambra Palace in Granada, Spain, the Jameh Mosque of Isfahan in Iran, and Ryoanji in Japan.

Do you have pets? If you do, tell us a little about them: I don’t have any pets that live with me currently, but I’ve got a pet back home with my parents. She’s a rescued pup from Mississippi, probably some kind of mix between a Pointer and a Labrador Retriever. Her name’s Sassy and she’s super energetic. If you had asked me this question a week ago I would’ve also said I had a cat named Puma but he was twelve and had cancer, so…yeah.

Tell us a little about yourself?: Um, I never really know what to say to that question. Like, what do you really want to know? I’m Mari (the name comes from my AO3/tumblr username, and not my real name). I was born in New Jersey, grew up in New York and Italy, now go to university in Montreal. I’m super passionate about art history, women’s rights, and politics. I hope to be a dermatologist, but honestly, who knows where life will take me. I’m the oldest of four and the first in my family to go through the American school system, so my parents have always referred to me as their “guinea pig”, and that totally hasn’t given me a weird obsession with being the perfect child, perfect student, perfect daughter. For some very obvious reasons, I relate way too much to Betty Cooper.

Fun or weird fact about you?: I fenced competitively for eight years of my life, traveling all around the US and to Europe for training and national competitions, including the Junior Olympics.

Asks for fanfic authors:

How long have you been writing?: I’ve been writing since I was little, but they were always stories with original characters. I didn’t start writing fic until I was sixteen, nearly seventeen, so it’s been a little over a year.

Which is your favourite of the fics you’ve written?: Geez, that’s a tough one. As much as I love my little one shots, I’d have to say Little Talks. It’s largely based on my own high school experience, and therefore my own way of coming to terms with the end of that chapter of my life.

Favourite fic/chapter/plot-point/character you’ve ever written?: Oof. Another tough one. Um, I’d have to say that I really love my characterization of Alice in Blue Sunshine and Golden Rain. She’s a villainess, but hopefully one you love to hate.

Which was the hardest to write, and why?: Again, Blue Sunshine and Golden Rain. I have a bit of a plot twist planned for the story, but I’m really not sure what kind of reception it’s going to get from readers, so I’ve had the chapter half-finished for months. I just need to get the motivation to finish it, and the courage to say “I don’t care if people hate this, or think it’s weird.” I’ll get there eventually.

How do you come up with the ideas for you fic(s)? (examples: Do you draw inspiration from real life? Listen to music? Get inspired by TV/movies?) Do you have an process to your writing?: I’ve answered this in a tumblr ask before, but I get inspiration from anywhere and everywhere. Mainly from real life, because I like to observe and speculate and ask a bunch of “what if”s and go from there. So, like I mentioned, Little Talks is largely based on my life. But there are definitely some plot points in the story that are a result of me going “well, what if I had done this? Or he had done that?” Another example of a real life-inspired fic is my oneshot I <3 You, which was inspired by that instastory (Cole or Lili’s? I can’t remember) of a cake with bright orange frosting that spelled out I <3 You. I also take inspiration from other creative works, such as books or movies. One of my many upcoming fics is based on How To Train Your Dragon, and another is a crackfic based on the Suite Life. Other times, fic ideas come to me out of nowhere. I was in the lab last summer, waiting for my breast cancer tumor slides to go through antigen retrieval, when I came up with the idea for Blue Sunshine and Golden Rain. My brain works in very strange ways.

Idea that you always wanted to write?: I’ve always wanted to write a lot of fics (I have a whole list of them), but they’re in the works so I won’t spoil any more than I already have. The main fic that I don’t even have an idea for but just want to write is a heartbreakingly angsty fic. One that makes me cry while I write it. Here’s hoping it comes to me soon, because I feel like that could be a really interesting experience as a writer.

Favourite character to write?: Alice. Which is strange, because I don’t like her in the show, but there are so many different directions you could take her character that she’s always so interesting to me.

Best comment/review you’ve ever received?: Oh, well, all of them? Is that an answer? Because all comments and reviews make me super happy. But if I had to choose one then I’d say any comment from @earthlaughsinflowers, @mothermaple, @dottie-wan-kenobi, or @notanotherotherone. I kind of cheated by not picking one, exactly, but oh well.

Best and worst parts of being a writer?: The best part of being a writer is putting a story that you put a lot of your soul into and getting support and love for it. Because I only put stories out there that I’m happy to write, happy to read, but to see that they make other people happy, too? That’s an amazing feeling. The worst part is the amount of time it takes to do absolutely anything, especially when you’re not in the right headspace to write. When I’ve had the worst week ever, and I have to physically push myself to spend time that should be spent resting to write because an update needs to come out soon, it goes from being a fun hobby to being a stress-inducing chore.

Do you have any advice to offer?: I haven’t been a fic writer for a long time, so I wouldn’t say that I’m going to offer up the wisest advice, but here’s what I’ve garnered so far: Do what makes you happy. That goes for all of life, not just writing, and is often hard to follow, but here’s how I see it: If you want to write a story because it makes you happy, write it. If you want to quit your WIP to start something else because that makes you happy, do it. If you need to take a break from writing altogether because it’ll make you happier, take it. Write what you want to write, at the pace you want to write it, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

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This is the twelfth instalment of Bughead Family’s Member Spotlight series. Each week, a member’s url is selected through a randomizer and they will be featured in a spotlight post. In order to participate, please join the Bughead Discord (more information found here). Thank you.

[notonafacebookwall]

Just Because

We moved in March. Cars move slower with trailers. And babies. We got here at 1 am. Corporate housing and I have different ideas of what “furnished” means. We gave our money to Ikea and I told myself that rugs and pillows would make it better. I can do this. The weeks go by and the scruffy one and I argue. He likes the fruit. It is big and powerful. It is full of smart people and an abundance of resources. Inside, I am afraid of what that means. We fuss about the future. He tells me to be flexible and open to new possibilities. Being open is hard. I miss my people. I miss my home. I miss the way it was.

We travel. A lot. Brene crosses off her 30th flight in 15 months of life. A trip a month. I scramble to piece together childcare and hope that my brave girl won’t resent me too much for leaving her with strangers. It’s raining one morning. I sit next to a fire in a country club waiting for a board meeting to start that I have dreaded for weeks. It’s warm, but I am freezing. The meeting begins and I can’t breathe. My chest tightens and my vision blurs. Is this what death feels like? I hear myself telling them that I have to leave. A coworker takes me home and gives me something for anxiety. I miss my flight home.

A month later I receive an email from a lawyer. The subject line includes the words “cease” and “desist.” Someone else owns the right to give advice to girlfriends. This is my greatest nightmare - the grownup version of being called into the principal’s office. “It’s their fault” everyone says, “they should have caught this for you. That’s what you paid them for.” But it doesn’t matter. I feel embarrassed and ashamed anyway. But it has to be fixed. So I fix it. I retitle everything. Regroup. Rebrand. Pick up the pieces. Tape them back together.

The summer drags on. More travel. More talk of change. More conflict and tension. Brene discovers her feelings. They are overwhelming at times - those feelings. She expresses outwardly what I feel on the inside. I am tired and worn. We spend the days on the couch watching HGTV and Rockies baseball. Bryan Shaw and Wade Davis ruin many nights. 

Tom is faith walking. I can’t faith walk because I forgot to attend the retreat. But I am not deterred by such logistical obstacles. I walk alone. I have lots of free time to think about myself and how I view the world. I hone in on a particular preference for fairness. The more I ponder it the more I discover all the ways it colors my life. I think about how it secretly makes me happy when people get parking tickets for breaking the rules. I confess to my spouse that I resent him for the times he’s made me choose something less than I felt I’ve deserved. We argue about strollers and buying used cars. I follow the fairness story back through college, high school, all the way down to grade school where I discovered the transactional joy of turning hard work into awards. It’s a delicious power; a form of control - being able to force a desired outcome. I recall all of the times it didn’t turn out the way I wanted and the frustration I still have for those instances. 

I stumble at grace. An unfair transaction. There is no trade. Just a gift. Why? For the first time in my 20 something years of singing the songs and flapping around the good book I find myself truly and deeply puzzled. It doesn’t make sense. I still believe in the theology but I am less convinced of the personal, intimate relationship part.  It’s my understanding that the grace is given without regards to my awards or degrees or designations but I have relied on those for so long. That is who I am. If someone does not love me for who I am, then what do they love me for, if they even do at all?

Tom tells me to think about blessings so I make a list. It starts with dumb things like my job and my education and my possessions but deep down those are all still things I believe I have earned and deeper down and I know that it’s all rubbish. I move on to people. Surely family is unearned. But even some of them like me for my talents and skills. I move down the list and come to rest on her name. I see her soft face that hid such a stubborn will. I think of the gifts. So many lavish gifts - a piano, a downpayment on a car, a semester of college - all given without explanation, always in secret, left with a simple card that read “Love Grandma Fritzie.” I remember the times I was a brat to her, the times I shoved my brother and called him stupid, the times I demanded things and disrespected her. It dawns on me that I was entirely undeserving of her love and yet it was poured out on me so honestly and purely with no regard for my accomplishments or awards. Just because she loved me. The next day the pastor talks about mentors. At the end of the service he asks us to think of someone who has loved us well, to consider the gift that they are as a reflection of the love He has for us. How dare he corner me like that. Get out of my soul you Fred Rogers look alike!

A week later we sit waiting for the nurse. She is an hour late, but she is kind and thinks I am funny. I forgive her. She looks at my chart. Do we have questions? No, not really, though I’d like to stop barfing soon. She wheels the machine over and we all listen. She finds my heartbeat, a steady thump thump thump. It takes a minute to find the other heart - the tiny, fragile, newly formed heart - and I hold my breath. Then we hear it. A whirring. She leaves it there and we listen and I am undone. I love you stranger baby. Not because of who you are or what you will be but because you are mine, made in my image, created in my likeness. I love you just because.

And maybe that’s it. The whole story. The conclusion to the grandest, most extravagant tale ever told. All the covenants, so many sacred promises, a reckless people endlessly ransomed. The reason for unfair grace. You are loved just because you are His. 

It’s August now. In three weeks I get to go home. In 27 weeks I get to meet my little stranger baby. I feel empty; overwhelmed by so much uncertainty. The ground feels shakier than ever before. “Let go” a voice whispers. But it is difficult and it hurts. Letting go feels like defeat. I have given so much of myself to stability and achievement. What if I am nothing without them? I resist the urge to buy an “adulting is hard” mug. I wish the hot water heater would quit breaking.

I watch my curious, daring girl stumble at the park. She trips over a pile of mulch and faceplants into a bush. I race to pick her up, identifying with her situation in a million ways. But she is undeterred. I dust her off and whisper “I love you” before she takes off again. I love you. Just because.

O Lord, you have searched me and known me! You know when I sit down and when I rise up;    you discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down    and are acquainted with all my ways.  Even before a word is on my tongue,    behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.  You hem me in, behind and before,    and lay your hand upon me.  Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;    it is high; I cannot attain it.

 Where shall I go from your Spirit?    Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there!    If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! If I take the wings of the morning    and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,  even there your hand shall lead me,    and your right hand shall hold me.  If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,    and the light about me be night,” even the darkness is not dark to you;    the night is bright as the day,    for darkness is as light with you.

For you formed my inward parts;    you knitted me together in my mother's womb.  I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works;    my soul knows it very well.

February 2019.  Three become four. I can’t wait to meet you little one. You are so very loved.

[postvibesofficial-blog]

This Isn’t Going to Be Your Forever

Tips for Queer Youth Stuck at Home With Trans- and Homophobic Parents The global COVID-19 pandemic has put a huge amount of pressure on a huge number of people. In many households, the strains of closed schools, lost jobs, health issues, and close quarters mean that tensions are high, tempers are short, and privacy has become a luxury. If you’re a young queer person who is now isolated with trans- or homophobic family members, you probably know that better than anyone. Maybe things are normally okay at home, but now it feels like everything you do is under a microscope. Maybe an environment that usually just felt tense, now feels unsafe. Maybe you’ve been holding everything in for so long that you feel like you are about to burst and have nowhere to go let off steam. Whatever your situation looks like, the fact is, you could probably use a little support. So here are a few ideas to help you stay as physically and emotionally safe as possible during these difficult days. Stuck at Home During high school and college, there were plenty of times my parents and I butted heads, or got under each other’s skin, or found ourselves in epic screaming matches. One of the things that helped the most was getting some space. These days, many of the self-care strategies that you probably use to manage everything from dealing with microaggressions to flat-out dangerous situations just aren’t going to be possible. Those might have been things like escaping to a friend’s place, being at school, participating in your GSA, going to a movie or a coffee shop, staying at your grandma’s, or even just taking a walk. So what can you do? For Darid, a high school senior who's a member of GLSEN’s National Student Council, what has helped most has been staying connected to the outside world. They say, “I am fortunate to have my own space and my own room in the house to get away from everything, and just focus on myself. I’ve been keeping in contact with friends. We FaceTime almost every day. We even developed a routine; every Saturday, we get together virtually and have movie nights through Netflix Party. Finding a group of friends and starting a mini routine or picking out an activity to do together virtually has been helping me hold on to some type of normality.” That will resonate for a lot of young people. But for others, connecting virtually is going to be a bigger challenge since it is estimated that almost half of all Americans don’t have reliable Internet. That can be tough under normal circumstances. But as everything from school to socializing has moved online, it can make you feel even more isolated. Depending on where you live, you might be able to borrow a device or get online via your school. WiFi may also be available through a public place, like outside a library or a McDonalds. Some young people have also been given the okay to safely connect in real life by doing things like taking a physically distanced walk or bike ride, or having a distanced picnic with friends. Being Yourself If you are like a lot of people, your home self isn’t identical to the self you share with friends, teachers, or at your job. For some of you, being at home might actually be a relief and a nice break from the stresses of your regular life. I teach middle and high school health and I was surprised to hear from one of my students who said they were actually happier at home than at school because they weren’t dealing with daily drama. But for a lot of young people, especially LGBTQIA+ youth who have trans- or homophobic parents, home is anything but relaxing, especially if you need to constantly think about how you are acting, talking, or presenting yourself in front of your family. That is often called code switching and it is a crucial survival tactic for a lot of queer youth. But it can also be an exhausting and stressful one, especially if you have to do it 24/7. As Darid says, “I am a senior in high school, so I currently live with my parents. At first, it was difficult to adjust. For me, I code-switch a lot. The way I act and express myself with my family is completely different from the way I express myself with my friends. So it was hard, not having supportive and queer spaces that I often occupy.” If you are modifying how you present yourself to avoid triggering hostility from your family, it is also a good idea to try to find ways to express yourself authentically. That can be with friends over a video chat, dressing up alone in your room, writing in a journal, or even watching a movie or listening to music that speaks to you. Coming Out and Being Outed Coming out should always be your own choice, done on your own terms and timeline. But being isolated with your family, especially if you don’t have any privacy, can increase the chance of being outed before you are ready. Your sibling could pick up your phone and see a revealing text. You could get overheard on the phone. Your parents could be watching your every move looking for “signs.” For one college student, being home from school right now meant being pushed to come out by religious parents. As she wrote on Reddit, “A couple of months ago my mom asked me if I was gay and I said I wasn't because I did not want to be forced out of the closet.” However, being at home has changed the dynamic and after being asked and confronted repeatedly about her sexual orientation, she came out. The result? “My parents are not really taking it well,” she wrote. While some of you are probably terrified that your families will find out about your identity, others of you might be desperate to come out to them. That can be the case if you feel overwhelmed by the difficulty of keeping everything inside. Coming out can definitely be an amazing experience. But it can also be a risky one. So if you are leaning in that direction, you really need to think about whether or not now is the best time. Here are a few things to ask yourself: How do I think my family will react? How will coming out impact my situation at home? Is it safe, physically and emotionally, for me to come out to my parents? Do I have resources available (both emotional and financial) if coming out changes my situation at home? Do I have people whom I can talk to before I come out to my parents? What will waiting to come out until after the pandemic ends do to me? What are the upsides of waiting? What are the downsides? If you go through this list and decide that coming out at home it isn’t the best choice right now, you should know you still have options. For example, there might be a friend or family member whom you could call and talk to. If your school or college has a GSA, or something similar, you could also reach out to the person who runs that. Many communities have LGBTQIA+ community centers that have programs for youth. You can find your closest one at Centerlink. If you have privacy online privately, there are also a lot of places you can find support. For example, you can ask for advice on the Scarleteen message boards, live chat or via text. There are also groups like the Trevor Project or the LGBT National Youth Talkline which are geared towards queer and questioning youth in crisis, and sites like Q Chat Space, that can help you connect with LGBTQIA+ peers. If you hadn’t been involved with the queer community before the lockdown, getting involved now could actually be a good way to ease in since there are more virtual spaces around than ever. When Life at Home is Unbearable Sometimes a person’s family of origin is just so toxic or abusive that being at home is unbearable or unsafe. Some young people suffer verbal or physical abuse. Others are forced into conversion therapy. This practice, which falsely claims to be able to change sexual orientation and gender identity, had been banned in almost half the states. However, minors are still being put into these dangerous programs by parents. Getting help from a supportive community, an affirming school guidance counsellor, an understanding family therapist, or an LGBTQIA+ - friendly religious congregation can help families work through many of their issues. But there are plenty of situations where needed help isn’t available, or it just isn’t safe for a young person to live at home. As a result, some choose to leave. Others are removed by the state. Far too many get kicked out by their parents. That generally isn’t legal if a person is under 18. But, sadly, that doesn't stop it from happening. Whatever the reason, if you can’t live at home, the first thing to do is to see if you can stay with a friend or family member. That option is really going to be impacted by the state of the pandemic and by the rules about physical distancing where you live. If finding someone to live with doesn’t pan out and you are facing homelessness, or if you are already unhoused, try to locate LGBTQIA+-friendly services. When dealing with a crisis like losing your home due to trans- and homophobia, the last thing you need is to hit up against the same prejudices in the outside world. These days, you can find LGBTQIA+ focused services for youth in cities around the US and Canada as well as in many countries around the globe. Lambda Legal has a good list of resources for LGBTQ youth by state. In some areas, there are even LGBTQIA+ shelters and residences. One of those is the Ali Forney Center in New York City, which is committed to staying open throughout the pandemic. They also have a list of resources specifically for youth facing homelessness around the country. In extreme cases, teens can seek legal emancipation from parents. This gives minors the legal rights and responsibilities of adults. But with courts closed, jobs hard to come by, and schools shut down, this probably isn’t the best bet for most people. What it All Comes Down to Being a young person queer with trans- and homophobic family can present challenges during the best of times. But right now, living with parents who are hostile to your identity is probably just about one of the hardest things around. So it is crucial that you find ways to stay safe, honor yourself, and get support. Sometimes talking to a friend you know in real life, finding your people online, or reaching out to an organization that supports queer youth is a good option. Other times, just being able to step outside your front door by yourself can give you the headspace you need to get through the day. This isn’t going to end overnight. But try to remember that what you are experiencing right now, and whatever you are doing to survive it, also isn’t going to be your forever. Source link Read the full article

[choiceswhodunnit]

Murder One-Welcome, welcome

Kenna shows everyone where they will be staying for just the night. The guests place their suitcases and bags in their rooms before freshening up and returning down the stairs. Everyone files into the dining room at Kenna’s request. Nametags are laid out on the table and everyone finds their own name, sitting next to strangers. They all sit down, the wine already served in their glasses. The conversation starts quickly as everyone introduces themselves, trying to find something in common, talking over the noise of everyone else. Becca and Michelle find out they have friends in each other's sororities, Jess talks to Quinn and Ryan Summers about the cruise she was on and her grandma’s crazy list each of her siblings and her cousin had to do. James discusses his time on the school newspaper with Victor and Daniel. Leo and Hana catch up, talking about Hana’s time at court, Madeleine trying to get in every word she can in the conversation. Poppy and Ben sit next to each other, discussing the latest hero comic that was released a few days before. Brooke gives work out advice to anyone that will listen, Brandon is the only one that seems half interested in what she has to say about yoga. A few minutes of light chatter and laughter pass before servers bring out the food, placing fancy china at everyone’s place with the food covered with a silver lid. 

Kenna stands, tapping her fork on the side of her glass and everyone turns to look at her. Kenna looks around at the guests in her dining room, all of them probably have questions in their heads about why they’re here. But even she does not know why. 

“I want to thank you all for coming,” she says raising her glass, speaking for the first time since they all got seated. “I know this may seem like a weird mix of people but…you are all connected somehow. I hope after this meal tonight you leave with at least one new friend. Cheers!” Everyone lifts their glasses and giving a collective cheers. They bring their wine to their lips, taking a short sip before setting it back down. 

Madeleine groans, looking down at the front of the dress she is wearing and a brand new bright stain is spilled down the middle. Everyone looks around for some napkins but she shakes her head, standing. “No worries please eat without me, I’ll be right back to change.” 

She hurries to her temporary room, she knows she will have something in there to wear, she goes alone. Everyone shrugs it off, digging into the meal presented in front of them. Silverware clinking on the china and laughter sings throughout the dining hall. 

The conversation starts again, ignoring the blonde that had just left the room, no one thinking twice about it. Soon, the conversation turns into why they’re all here. No one can figure it out, Kenna and the other servants seem rather quiet about it all, not willing to speak up about why they’re here. 

“She said we’re all connected, didn’t she?” Brooke questions, speaking in a rather hushed voice. 

“I don’t see how we are,” Ben chimes in. “The only one I knew coming in here was Brooke.” 

“I knew Sean and Michelle,” Quinn adds and a few other guests comment on who they knew too. 

“It doesn’t make any sense,” Leo says, his body leaning over the table as he tries to look at everyone around him. 

Their conversation is interrupted by a scream and a crash, everyone freezes, looking at one another. They stand and head towards the stairs, Kenna leading the way. They find themselves outside of Madeleine’s room and Kenna enters with a knock. She returns a moment later, her face whiter than a ghost’s. “My dear friends,” she says with a shaky voice, “Our friend Madeleine… is dead.” 

No one speaks. Michelle pushes past everyone to find Madeleine sprawled out in her closet, her face is already pale as the blood begins to stop throughout her body. Michelle tries to find a pulse but is unsuccessful, confirming to everyone else that the blonde is in fact dead. 

“Wait, there’s a note,” Daniel comments, pointing to a closed envelope in the corner of the closet. 

Kenna snatches it up, opening it up to find the letter stained with red ink and nice handwriting, a wax seal holding it closed. She reads it over quickly before reading it aloud. 

“Dear mortals,” she begins. “You are probably wondering why I brought you here. You are all going to die. Except one of you. It is your job to discover who I am. After each person I kill, you will be given the opportunity to go to one and only one location—the morgue where you will examine my job well done, the crime scene where you will search the active scene for clues, and the last known whereabouts where you will look over where the victim last was. After everyone has regrouped you will have a riddle where you can solve it for an extra clue… then I would much appreciate it if you all dressed up for dinner and gave your theories as to how you think the crime happened and to who you think I am. Once that is all done I will look over your theories and I’ll decide who is worthy of solving the other crimes by sparing them from death and I’ll decide who should be scared. The closer you are to figuring out the details of the crime, the more likely you are to being spared. If you have an awful theory, you will be scared. Don’t try to run or call the authorities, you will all be killed if you try to pull a fast one on me…Make sure to create alliances with the other members who are here in order to collect all of the information you need to solve the case. Just be careful… I am among you. Best of luck. –Your killer.” 

No one speaks and they all exchange uneasy looks with each other, eyeing each other up and down, trying to find out who the murderer is. 

“Please,” Kenna says, escorting everyone out of the room. “Pick a location quickly and we’ll try to solve this crime.”

Guests, please pick ONE location, Crime Scene, Morgue, or Last Known Whereabouts to go to. Message me when you have a location picked. You have 24 hours to let me know where you want to go, if you fail to do so you will be placed randomly. The faster you get them in, the faster clues will be sent out!