#like many pp leave her and she used to it now

[tonyspank]

LOST IN THE FIRE

black!singer!reader x jenna ortega (they/them pronouns, but there’s mentions of them having a pp, lol)

warnings: fluff and a tiny bit of angst i guess, my poor attempts at humor again, social media w a bit of irl

a/n: i’ve always wanted to do a social media book. so this is just something fun i came up with, i hope you enjoy :) it’s also a way i can put u guys onto my fav songs 🤭

faceclaim: khalil beth

Is Percy Hynes White Dating Jenna Ortega?

Jenna and Percy have yet to confirm or deny dating rumors, but they have posted many cute cast photos of one another on Instagram. On top of that, Jenna took Percy as her plus one date for the 2023 Golden Globes — and they're set to star in a movie together!

━━━━ iMESSAGE

3 talented artists + jack lani - kehlani jackie - jack tae - matteo

lani Y/N sweetie..

jackie 🙁

tae what'd i miss??

jackie Y/N's fav ex is dating an ugly man 🥺

tae JENNA? NAHH

tae let's hope she leave him too 🤞

tae she'll miss the bbc 🥲

lani omg wdf 😭😭

you ...

jackie now the dots was a lil dramatic

lani JACK 😭😭

you jack stfu before i shave ur beard

tae got his ass

lani LMFAOO

jackie 🤐

tae ok ok but Y/N how are u rn?

lani frr like talk to us

you wdym?

you we broke up why would i be bothered

jackie

🤨

tae 💀💀

lani i've never met anyone who still likes their exes posts

you it's called being mature

you i am able to support her regardless of what happened

tae it's called being delusional

jackie laughed at "it's called being delusional"

jackie i have an idea

jackie

tae fam what is ur camera roll? 💀

lani what's ur idea jack

jackie i'm gonna ask demi for an invite to the scream 6 premiere

jackie then me and Y/N gon jump percy in front of jenna right

lani

side-eye…

jackie and then jenna gon be like

jackie oh my god not my mans getting his ass beat by my ex & their bsf tf

you please stfu 🙏

jackie bro

jackie i'm tryna help you save ur gf from a guy who looks like the definition of pervert

tae laughed at "i'm tryna help you safe ur gf from a guy who looks like the definition of pervert"

lani 😭😭😭😭

lani i can't breathe

you it's literally just a rumor that they're dating tho

you & i'm not going to the premiere

jackie mhm

━━━━

y/nhart posted on Instagram.

Liked by jackharlow, devyn_nekoda, and 7,891,103 others

y/nhart what's your favorite scary movie? 🔪 #ScreamVI @screammovies

View all 12,793 comments

screammovies You, of course. 🔪🩸 > y/nhart can we kiss?

jackharlow what did you say in the group chat? > y/nhart that jack harlow is a flop 🤫

user15 bro doing everything but dropping an album 💀 > user1 ong. right my wrongs ep was amazing but it's been 8 months 😭

mrmatteo where was my invite? > y/nhart drop a song then let's talk > user3 what a hypocrite 💀

user8 bite me

kehlani you could never be ghostface > screammovies Its always someone you know. 👻🔪🩸

user11 GO TO THE STUDIO

user992 i have $1,000 frank will drop before this mf

user90 MORE JENNA AND Y/N CONTENT??? > user78 i missed them :')

━━━━

            Your eyes were starting to water due to the number of flashes from the cameras that were going off around you. The bright lights made it difficult to keep your eyes open, but you knew that this was just part of being in the spotlight.

  Jack places a hand on your arm, slightly shoving you towards the exit. You ignore the yells of your name and continue to make your way off the carpet.

Your bodyguard, who had been standing nearby, steps in to create a path through the crowd, shielding you and Jack from the relentless paparazzi.

  "Did you talk to Jenna?" Jack asks, leaning close enough for his voice to be heard.

You send the bearded man a glare, shaking your head. "No. I don't even think she's walked the carpet yet."

Jack raises an eyebrow before turning his head to the carpet, which is still filled with celebrities and flashing cameras.

He scans the area, searching for any sign of Jenna among the chaos. He then turns back to you with a smirk on his lips. "I think you're just ducking her."

You roll your eyes at Jack's teasing remark.

"Please, like I have time to play hide and seek with Jenna. I'm just trying to avoid the relentless paparazzi."

You gesture towards the swarm of photographers jostling for the perfect shot.

Jack hums, his smile widening. A thought clicks into his head, causing his smile to drop.

"Oh, yeah! I talked to Melissa, and she is fine as fuck."

You thin out your lips. Jack probably didn't know she was married.

"I'll tell her husband you said that."

"You know what they say. Don't let your husband distract you from finding the love of your life."

You chuckle at his joke.

━━━━

"May I say you look amazing tonight?" The interviewer states, smiling as they admire your appearance.

You smile, bringing your hands together to calm yourself before responding.

"Thank you so much."

"Are you a big fan of the Scream franchise?" The interviewer asks, moving their microphone closer.

You nod, your eyes lighting up with excitement.

"Absolutely! Ghostface is such an iconic character, and I love the twists that they put in the movie. It just always keeps you on your toes."

The interviewer chuckles, sharing your enthusiasm. "I completely agree! The Scream franchise has definitely left a lasting impact on the horror genre with its clever storytelling and memorable characters. Speaking of memorable characters, whose is your favorite?"

You pause for a moment, looking up at the sky as you bite down on your lip.

"Uhh... It's hard to choose just one, but if I had to pick, I would say Roman Bridger. I didn't suspect him at all, and his reveal as the mastermind behind everything in Scream 3 was a total shock. Plus, Scott Foley's performance was absolutely chilling."

The interviewer nods, appreciating your choice. "I couldn't agree more. He's surely one to remember."

You nod again, smiling. "For sure. I've always wanted to play Ghostface. Taking off the mask and revealing your plan must be so fun."

The interviewer laughs and says, "I'm sure you'd do great."

Before you could respond with a thank you, the interviewer speaks up.

"Jenna! It's so nice to see you." You turn to see Jenna, your heart dropping at the sight of her.

You force a tight-lipped smile at the brunette. "Hey Jenna, long time no see," you say, trying to sound casual.

Deep down, you can't help but wonder if she still thinks about you.

Jenna returns the smile. "Yeah, it's been a while," she replies softly.

Memories of your past together flood your mind, and you can't help but wonder if there's still a chance for reconciliation.

"You guys are so stunning, I can't even!" The interviewer gushes, snapping you out of your thoughts.

Jenna chuckles, her eyes meeting yours briefly before she turns her attention back to the interviewer.

"Jenna, I've gotta ask. Are you a fan of Y/N's music?" Jenna nods her head, glancing at you again before answering.

"I am. They're very talented musically, and I'm waiting for another album."

You try to fight back a smile, but it fails miserably. The interviewer notices your failed attempt to hide your smile and chuckles.

"Seems like there's mutual admiration here," they remark, noticing the subtle connection between you and Jenna.

You tilt your head, shrugging a bit. "I guess you could say that. Jenna's very talented herself, both musically and in acting."

Jenna feels the butterflies in her stomach erupt as you compliment her.

She's missed you, and she wants nothing more than to reconnect with you. She blushes slightly and responds, "Thank you."

━━━━

You walk over to Jenna, interrupting her conversation with Percy. "Jenna."

Jenna turns towards you, a surprised expression on her face as she pauses mid-sentence.

"Come home with me?"

Jenna's eyes widen as she processes your unexpected request, leaving her momentarily speechless.

After a brief moment of hesitation, she nods slowly, her curiosity piqued. "Sure, why not? Let's go."

Percy furrows his eyebrows, watching you and Jenna walk off together.

When you arrive home, you take off your jacket and help Jenna with hers.

Jenna mumbles a thank you before making herself comfortable on the couch.

She looks around the unfamiliar surroundings, seeing as you've changed a few things since the last time she was there.

Jenna's eyes linger on a Polaroid of you and her, capturing a happy memory from months ago. Of course, Jenna still loved you, but was she ready to take the risk of getting hurt again?

She couldn't bear the fact that things might not work out between you two, causing more heartbreak.

Fame had always been a double-edged sword for Jenna. While it had brought her success and recognition, it also came with constant scrutiny and pressure.

It's what ruined you two. Jenna being constantly busy due to acting and you constantly being busy due to singing made it difficult for you both to find quality time together.

Despite the love that still existed between you, the demands of your respective careers created a growing distance that neither of you knew how to bridge.

You walk into the living room, two glasses of wine in your hand. "Actually," Jenna speaks up, and you raise your eyebrows in anticipation.

She continues, "Could we sit on your balcony?"

You nod, a smile tugging at the corners of your lips. "Of course," you say, leading the way to the balcony.

As you settle into the comfortable chairs, the city lights twinkling below, Jenna takes a deep breath and says, "I miss moments like this, just being together without any distractions."

You take a sip of your wine, pausing to savor the flavor before responding. "Me too," you say, gazing out at the night sky.

"I missed you."

Jenna's eyes soften, and she reaches over to gently touch your lap. "I missed you too," she whispers.

"I hope you know that I'm not dating Percy."

"I know," you reply, a small smile forming on your lips. "I knew you wouldn't downgrade like that."

Jenna chuckles softly, her dimples beginning to show. "That's hilarious."

A silence falls over the two of you.

"I couldn't imagine being with anyone other than you," you snap your head towards her, your heart swelling with love at words.

She always knew the right thing to say.

"You're the only one who truly understands me, Y/N." Jenna's eyes meet yours, her brown pupils glistening in the moonlight.

"I can't find myself being vulnerable or trusting with anyone else." She finishes off, breaking away from your gaze.

You don't say anything, you just place your hand over top of hers, which was resting on your lap.

━━━━

y/nhart posted on Instagram.

Liked by jennaortega, jackharlow, kehlani, bnyx, and 13,829,100 others

y/nhart 12...??...23...lost in the fire...earned it...all mine...confident...all mine...oui...greece...get me...kiss land...for free

➕➕➕.

meltdown...i'd do anything to make you smile...boyfriend,girlfriend...rambo...let em'know

@chancetherapper @djkhaled @kehlani @travisscott @jackharlow @feliciathegoat @theweeknd @bnyx

View all 46,829 comments

user12 OMFG BRUH

user99 AOTY

jackharlow deluxe 🔜

bnyx 👨‍🍳🔥🎶

theweeknd 🫡

user77 couldve had better feats tbh > user880 STFU

djkhaled 🔥🔥🔥 WE'LL NEVER STOP 🛑!!! 

>user14 TELL EM BRING OUT THE ALBUM ALREADY

user67 i'm about to cry.

━━━━

y/nsrealwife posted on Instagram.

18,782 likes

y/nsrealwife i stand by what i said

View all 138 comments

user11 unknown? it's jenna😭 > y/nrealwife me when i'm delusional

user45 there's no misses on the album + they ate down in the deluxe > user89 came in my pants when they came on the track w that "t-time, t-time, t-time.."

user66 can we talk abt for free? bro had like 10 viagra pills before pulling up to the studio > user77 💀💀💀

jackharlowsbeard kehlani & jack on the album made me so happy.

━━━━

y/nhart posted on Instagram.

Liked by jennaortega, jackharlow, mrmatteo, kehlani, arianagrande, and 17,839,138 others

y/nhart mega christmas dump 🎄@jennaortega @jackharlow @mrmatteo @kehlani

Comments have been limited.

tonyspank had to put it in a collage due to the 10 photo limit 🙁

—

jennaortega has posted a story.

[wandsandwheezes]

NASCAR IV | G.W //F.W

WARNINGS // 8.6k // SMUT 18+, George x Reader // Fred x unnamed OC, Angry Fred, Racer!George, light angst, fighting, rough sex, soft sex, breeding kink af, mentions of alcohol, cars, sex, possession, praise kink, a (tiny) amount of degradation, oral, unprotected sex.

A/N // Ladies n gents we are back n better than everrr!! This has legit been sat in the WIPs for a year and I have not had the energy or motivation to get back to it until now. ps.. thank you to @darthwheezely for helping me out on this one as my co-writer, idk what i'd do without you!! pps.. stay tuned for more works in the future!

It was always good to be home. As much as George adored being on the road, there was something so blissful about waking up in his own bed, with the woman of his dreams curled tightly into his chest. This was what made it worth it. 

“Good morning, muffin,” you muttered peacefully, hand reaching up to push the messy tufts of hair from his sleepy eyes. He threw his head back and groaned at your use of the corny nickname so early in the morning.

“That divorce and sweet sweet alimony cannot come soon enough,” he grinned, soon getting whacked in the face by the pillow next to you, his own hand reaching to pull you by the scruff of your neck into a sloppy kiss. 

Like most mornings, George was already out of bed, walking around aimlessly in his low-slung plaid pj bottoms as he searched sleepily for either his shop uniform or at the very least something that would easily pass without Fred throwing a fit.

“Are you sure you want to leave me?” You teased, pushing yourself out of bed, letting his t-shirt fall past your hips as your feet patted along the wood floors, taking you to him. You wrap your arms around his waist groggily, forehead resting against his back as you take in his warmth.

“I’m never sure about leaving you, angel, I doubt you’ll take much convincing if I suggest lunch?”

“I’ll make your favourite sandwich and swing by later, yeah?” You smiled, giggling as he spun you around, strong hands holding your arms as he leaned down to kiss you.

“They say you’re the lucky one, but lord, woman you make me the luckiest.” 

The sun was not Fred’s friend today. But honestly: no one was Fred’s friend today, not when the sun was over a hundred and two degrees in a shop with shitty A/C with his wife away playing hostess for god knows how many interviewees in that pretty black dress.

He probably wouldn’t even be this angry if she hadn’t been an insufferable prime American tease, waking up to her lips wrapped around the base of his cock and sending delicious vibrations throughout his body before pulling off right as he was about to release:

“You’ve got work today, ace, I need you to be a good boy.”

So there was Fred, as horny as a fourteen year old, deprived as a fourteen year old, and about as pouty as a toddler. Even George knew how pissy his brother had been, eyeing him rather sharply. 

“You know, Freddie, It would be nice to come into work one day with you having not woken up on the wrong side of bed.” George chuckled, pulling up the bottom of his already oil-stained shirt to wipe at his jaw. The older twin stalked around him and hit him in the chest with his rag.

“Actually, I was sleeping quite well on my lovely and rosy smelling side of the bed until I got fucking booted like a small boy and-” he was briefly aware of George laughing at him and made to punch his younger brother over the hood. “- it’s not funny, you know...it’s…” he swallowed, the familiar feeling of his strawberry tint rising to the surface, “...ithasn’tbeenasrecentasyou and before you ask me how I know that, remember you’re the other half of my DNA in mum’s womb,” he childishly spat. He slid into the driver’s seat of the Mustang they were working on and began drumming the dash, his knee bouncing against the side door - a tell tale sign of his frustration.

“I thought we established that you are in fact half of my DNA, just because you were born first doesn’t mean shit.” George rolled his eyes, throwing the rag on top of the car before joining his brother in the passenger seat.

“No, because I, in fact, am the prettier twin, which means I not only had sex first, but also get more privileges such as Denny’s coupons, discounted smoothies, and more phone calls with my mother than you.” Spotting you walk into the workshop area he honked the horn a couple times and giggled, whistling when you walked in.

“Ahoy my lovely sister-in-law!” He grinned and honked once more, a loud and obnoxious greeting - so uniquely Fred.

Rolling up to the side of the car, you laughed, seeing George rub at his temples, sighing to himself over the continuous blaring horn. You leaned in against the window, poking your head into the car with a smile, pressing a kiss to George’s cheek while Fred’s smile dropped, his face forming into a stare of jealousy, quickly forcing a smile again to hide his obvious frustrations. 

“Oi! Get a bloody room you two!” He huffed, honking loudly when George leaned in to kiss you again.

“Do you mind?” George gritted out.

“Yes, a bit, actually, you may have the back office for now to do somewhat lovey and sinful things but please try to be discreet, kids!” He winked salaciously and leaned forward against the wheel, his elbow cocked on the dash as he fought to not think about destroying his wife to be the second she got home. Usually racing helped, kept his mind (and libido) wandering if he felt a bit pent up - but at least for a few months or so, there wouldn’t be any release. The thought alone had him throw his head back and groan in displeasure.

“I brought lunch, wanna eat with me?” You grinned, batting your eyelashes, a move that practically had George falling out of the car, grabbing your hand as he followed you out to the back office. It was definitely hotter in the back, if you were being honest, yet that had nothing to do with the blazing sunshine but the way your fiance could have practically drank you in whole by the way he was staring. 

“Stop staring, George, your eyes will go square.” You laughed, setting your bag on the table, pulling out the sandwich you had made for him, pushing it into his chest as you pulled out your own lunch. 

“You know that doesn’t work with staring at humans right? Just TVs.” George retorted, walking backwards before plopping himself down on the sofa. “You didn’t happen to bring my-” You had already reached into your bag, pulling out his water bottle, something he not only had a habit of leaving at home but something he nearly always drank with lunch. Props to him for staying hydrated but after so long together you had managed to pick up on nearly all of the smaller things about him. 

“What would I do without you, huh?” He smiled, taking the bottle from your hand as you slipped onto the sofa next to him, legs swinging over his thighs as you unwrapped your sandwich. This was normal for you, reminding you of the days before racing and before America, a part of you growing fond of those memories. 

“You seem lost, Angel.” He muttered, hand reaching up to tuck a strand of hair behind your ear, a worried look painting his expression. Shaking your head at him, you pulled yourself up to be straddling his hips, your nose bumping against his softly before capturing his lips into a kiss. 

A part of both of you needed this, the locked lips while his hands held your hips in their place, effortlessly controlling the way they would rut against his growing bulge, both desperate for the friction. He was moaning into your mouth, his hips bucking up to meet yours as the innocence in the kiss quickly slipped away, his own desperation to have you ruling how his hands had practically ripped your shirt off of you, his lips messily pressed against the newly exposed skin of your chest. 

“Shit, baby, I just wanna get those tight little fucking shorts off of you.” He groaned, hand snaking up to tangle in the hair at the back of your head as your hips continued grinding relentlessly. You were ultimately putty in his hands, moldable and pliant only for his skilled grip and teasing touch. 

“No time for that though.” He chuckled, his quick fingers effortlessly slipping the material to the side before the pad of his thumb found your clit, rubbing in teasing circular motion, a loud and lewd groan falling from his lips at the feel of just how wet you were already. Your hand flew to his mouth, finger pressed against his plump lips to keep him silent.

“Not so much noise, Georgie.” You giggled, a faint moan falling from your lips as his fingers began to tease your entrance. Your own warnings of silence had fallen short the second you found yourself wrapped around his fingers, his long digits pulling desperate moans from you by the second.

“Not so much noise, angel.” 

—

The elder twin had watched his brother follow you out, had seen the way his twin’s eyes had smoothed over the curve of your ass, how he’d admired your shorts and in utter and complete disdain Fred kicked the inside of the car. It was dumb, the way he was wishing he could have his girl thrown in front of a bathroom counter and force her to watch him fuck that pretty pretty cunt of his, and unknowingly slid his hand down to his jeans and started to palm.

His jaw was clenched at the thought of her slutty little stunt she pulled this morning when they both knew how wet she would get when she had her mouth around him, and gritted in a groan as he squeezed his clothed erection.

“God, fuck, love,” he panted, unbuttoning and unzipping his jeans half way to slide his boxers down, his cock springing free instantly. He thought about how her cunt fit perfectly to his cock, how no matter how many times he’d slipped deliciously into her, she always seemed just as tight as the first time, meanwhile his hand loosely pumped back and forth on his shaft. This was pathetic, he knew it was pathetic, but still the idea of her underneath him while her breasts heaved and her smokey chocolate hair was strewn about the pillow had him grunting.

“God, I’m so surprised you’re not pregnant yet, with the amount of cum I stuff you with and the rounds we do in a day,” he growled, all eleven inches sunk deep into her.

“Oh, shit, baby, god, you feel so good,” he panted, his thumb tightly rolling small circles on his tip. 

“Want it so bad, baby, wanna be so full and round soon as we can,” she had moaned, arching so far into his hold that he had thrusted at the same time a nipple brushed his lips and into his mouth, biting the sensitive flesh and causing her to whine.

“Such a fucking whore,” he snarled, his hips bucking up to meet each stroke of his fist, his head thrown back in ecstasy as he imagined his palm to be nothing but her - no, his - soft and soaked pussy. 

His hips were jerking at the speed of sound, he didn’t really care if anyone else could hear, if anything it made him more turned on, let ‘em hear, he could give less of a shit and especially if she were here, he’d make damn sure everyone from Houston to L.A. knew exactly which racer she was getting boned by each and every night.

“Freddie, honey, please, I need you to so bad,”

“I’m right behind you, baby, goddamnit so fucking good,” and with a faint shout of her name he released, his dick twitching under his own rough touch, his eyes screwed shut at his own frustration, none of it was real, the memory of it and the smell of sweaty sex in not only hotel rooms but in cars across the country dimming his mind back to square one. He laughed harshly at his own predicament, assessing his own situation before whistling lowly.

“Fuck, I need a drive.”

—

“George, for the love of God, stop fuckin’ with the carburetor, we already checked it an hour ago,” Fred whined, leaning against the back of the car. The day had been relatively slow beyond that one car, the hour approaching about 4:30, Fred eagerly awaiting until those hands hit 6.

“We did? I could have sworn we didn’t but I wouldn’t know, would I?” George rolled his eyes, pushing himself away from under the hood, heading over to you to take the tool you aimlessly held from your hands, not before his hands pressed against your neck, pulling you into a quick kiss.

Fred went to retort, interrupted only by the grizzly rotary of the engine rev close by. He knew exactly what the sound was, the same kind of rev that ecologists blamed on the hole in the ozone, the smell lewd and hungry for attention. 

It wasn’t just any old car, it had to be for racing. And sure enough it was, two in fact, fully souped up in high gear and brand new paint blinding in the Arizona sun. Fred held a hand above his eyebrows to see who it was, and George leaned back around Fred trying to do the same thing. When the cars pulled up and swerved albeit messily into the lot the twins broke into grins.

“Is that-?”

“-yeah, it’s-”

And then the car doors opened, one man rather lanky and lean and the other shorter and stocky, the rather lean one putting both his hands on his hips and clucking: “Well, I’ll be damned, freshen up then lads,” and grinned mischievously.

“DEAN!”

“SEAMUS!” They both yelled and jumped at their friends, a chorus of rowdy hugs and how are yous being traded from each of the boys.

“Alright then, boys?” Seamus quipped.

“Well, Jesus, we sure hope so, haven’t seen you since, shit what March?” George ran a hand through his hair, looking at Fred to confirm that and he nodded in response.

“Sounds about right, we’ve had to keep to ourselves - don’t want a bust like what happened to Diggory, y’know,” Seamus smirked.

“That arsehole from - shit what was his sponsor, Georgie?”

“Wonderbread,”

“Yeah, I never liked him, hits on everything that moves he does, my girl included,” Fred made his way to their mini-fridge swinging out a couple of bottled cane-sugar Coke (the only kind he and his wife ever drank, unfortunately for their bank account), and distributing them to each of the boys, passing around the bottle opener.

Dean scoffed. “Fred, you think everyone flirts with your girl and Y/N.”

“I’m a protective man, Thomas, not my fault I see a douche bag and-”

“Anyway,” George cut him off, leaving a rather pouty Fred in his place, and leaning back to sit on the hood of the car. “What brings you two ‘round then?”

Seamus and Dean visibly held their bottles a little tighter, then looked at each other.

“Well, we um...we have this thing we do on Thursdays down behind Tucson-” Seamus started.

“-not the raceway...it’s a bit more shifty, if you get it.” Dean finished, taking a swig of Coke. George studied the two for a second and finally leaned back on the car hood.

“Boys, what is this?” He asked softly, Fred shifting uncomfortably on the minifridge.

Seamus opened his mouth again, his face a great shade of crimson when Dean leapt in again.

“We do it in secret because if Indy or Nascar found out we’d all be dead but...we never really stopped racing you know. We just...we do it in the backwoods area of town-”

“Where it’s basically just sand and flat land for miles,” Seamus added, nodding vehemently. 

“Count me in.” Fred spoke quickly, pushing himself up off the mini fridge and over to the two boys, a smirk hanging off his lips in anticipation of being able to put his foot to the floor again on a track, albeit a dirt-road track, it was a course nevertheless.

“Yeah, no, Fred you can’t, if the Wood Brothers find out you are never racing again.” George cut in, fingers pressed to his temple in fear of his brother’s own recklessness.

“Come on, baby brother, I think you need to loosen up a little, what do you think, y/n?” Fred’s smirk only grew as he raised his eyebrow, hoping to entice the younger twin into his lure.

“You know, Georgie, I think it would be good for you and Fred to race together, you know, just for fun...” You shrugged, staking over to George, arms wrapping around his waist, as you looked up at him with a pout.

“I suppose if those two big brains can still have jobs, we’ll be fine, right?” George sighed, feeling himself giving in, purely from a look from his girlfriend.

“That’s the spirit!” Dean smirked, a smile cracking up on Seamus’ lips as the four boys looked among each other, almost silently communicating a plan until they had erupted with laughter.

—

The clock had said 9:34, roughly 26 minutes before Fred would be ecstatically waiting for George outside his studio apartment. His neck was tilted upwards, covered in shaving cream with a bath towel wrapped loosely around his waist. The sink was littered with expensive cologne and aftershave, the first purchase he ever made after his first check at the shop, his scalpel grifting smoothly up his jawline. 

Fred had learned very early on that preparation was absolutely everything, and after his little twelfth place charade - he felt his mates needed to remember that he was, for all intents and purposes, that bitch. 

“Fred, baby, you home?” He heard her call out, the clanging of keys falling into the empty fishbowl on the coffee table.

“Yeah, cupcake, I’m in here,” he called out stiffly, listening to her start to rant on about the interviews at hand - none of them were ever any fun, he’d been to enough to learn that all they cared about were raunchy questions geared at his wife and female reporters flirting with him in front of studio audiences. 

“...and god my feet were killing me, she wanted to walk with me all the way down the block and-“ she stopped analyzing his posture, his broad and freckled back still slightly covered in drops from the shower, his V-line angled to the side to a point where if she tugged on his hips juuuust right it would be sure to drop in one fell swoop, combined with the fact that he was shaving. 

“Honey?” 

“Yes, dear?” He side eyed her and smirked before turning his eyes back to the mirror, finishing the last of the area around his upper jaw and by his cheekbones.

“Are you going somewhere tonight?” She questioned, standing next to him now, looking at him directly through the mirror. He licked his lips at the sight of her minorly aggressive position and broke contact.

“Just for a bit, love, I’ll be back probably when you’re asleep.”

“And were you planning on telling me?”

“And were you planning on being a tease this morning after I gave you such a lovely time last night?”

He watched her mouth open and close as if she were about to say something and faltered, and snorted. “Yes, exactly, I thought so,” he said, turning around to grab a hand towel, splashing water on his face to rinse off the cream.

“Oh...I see what this is,” she purred. He stopped and slowly pulled his face up to the sink, setting a hand down on the sink to ground him from the massive hard on that was occurring under his towel, and turning towards her.

“What was that?” 

“I think you’re a pent up, horny teenager that doesn’t like being told no,” she smiled cruelly at him and watched as Fred’s jaw tensed ever so slightly. 

He rolled it gently and went to move past her but she was quicker, and pushed him backward with five painted red nails to his chest. She looked up at him and roughly scratched down his torso, causing Fred to hiss at the fresh red stripes. She slid a hand up his chest and stopped at the column of his throat, gripping ever so slightly, before leaning up to kiss him and pulling away just so he could feel her exhale.

“Have a nice night, Freddie,” she whispered before quirking a brow and grinning, prancing off to their bedroom alone.

When she was out of earshot he shakily breathed out, trying to steady his breathing and his yearning cock - he’d deal with her later for sure, regardless of his behavior or not.

It was 9:32, approximately 28 minutes before George would pick him up outside his studio apartment…

—

The twins arrived at around 10:15, the drive there filled with only uncomfortable silence at what was to come. George was a bit pissed to say the least, once again Fred was getting his way for an adrenaline run, and this time Y/N had backed him up.

George’s last place he would be right now is behind the wheel of his own fucking car.

He parked it next to Dean’s sleek, jet black chevy, his hands gripping the steering wheel ever so slightly as he leaned back against the headrest.

“You realize if we get caught we could never race again, right?” George prompted quietly.

“Here’s an idea; don’t.” Fred rolled his eyes, reaching over to flick his brother in the ear, eyebrows raised playfully.

“Yeah, no shit, sherlock.” George grumbled, turning off the ignition, listening to the signature growl of his engine grind to a stop. 

“Why is it always such a bad idea to do anything fun once in a while, Georgie,” Fred grumbled, his knee bouncing against the floor of the car. “It’s not like we’ve had anything to do as of late, you know.”

“Of course, besides, hmm, I dunno, not making our sponsors upset? By like possibly following the very slight and basic set of rules we’ve been given?” George snipped, his fingers drumming on the steering wheel. He sighed to himself and went to get out of the car when Fred grabbed his arm.

“Hey, you agreed to this too, you know-”

“Yes, at the behest of my lovely fiance and my snot nosed, ant thorax of a barely older brother and as such, I’m driving this thing when this shit factory of a drag race starts.” He whacked Fred’s arm away and exited the car, immediately all but smiles on his face as he went to greet his friends, a sporadic and adrenaline heated Fred on his tail.

“Well if it isn’t the two most obnoxious bastards in NASCAR,” Fred turned to see his best friend and ex-pit crew member, Roger Davies, and excitedly gripped him in a hug, hands clapping backs and tears falling down cheeks at the renewal of friendship.

“Georgie! Look, it's Rog!”

“Holy shit, not my first husband-!”

“Your only husband, Weasley number 5, and Fred can disagree all he wants,” Roger grinned and pulled both boys into a hug before whispering in their ear, “watch out for Finnegan and Thomas, boys, the cheating hasn’t stopped since last season,” leaving the twins utterly confused.

“Oi! Not another sleepover without me?” Boomed Dean from behind them. Roger immediately pushed past the two entirely confused twins and went to clap Dean on the back.

“Just getting them acquainted with the rules before a race...you know how hard it is to follow all the rules, don’t you, mate?” Roger winked and headed back to the twins, moving them back to the car as all the other drivers retreated to theirs.

“Rog, what was all that?” Fred whispered.

“Dean has been known to be a bit...well, shifty as of late with these. Always been a bit of a windy bloke, you get it, but ever since Target dropped him from the sponsorship he hasn’t really been...getting off as much in racing as he used to.” Roger nervously laughed, rubbing the back of his neck, leaning against the back of George’s car.

“By ‘cheating’ what does that entail?” George crossed his arms in repose.

“He’s always been a thrill chaser, you know this, Georgie.”

That was true, Dean had always been after a nice high. An adrenaline junkie back at primary school, Dean and Fred (as George unfortunately remembered) would feed off each other like invasive flowers, the group think of two singularly aggressive and needy young boys clouding the canopy of their friends (and brothers) with misfortune. Anything from groundings to almost arrests to nights spent aimlessly wandering the London streets in the wee hours of the morning - to Dean’s favorite: bets.

Dean would bet and bet and bet if his life depended on it and when it came to racing, if there was a bet out in his name to win, he was sure as shit going to make sure that he was the winner, this led to more and more alterations to his cars, some that even street racing frowned upon. The media never got their hands on the true reason Dean had lost his Target sponsorship; just one simple, illegal, engine part. One that gave him the lead in a race that caught him out. 

“How hasn’t someone banned him then?” George laughed, looking over at his friends, only for Roger to clear his throat with a chuckle himself.

“You can’t ban someone from street racing, Georgie, not without the authority that NASCAR has.” Roger explained, pushing away from George’s car to head towards his own. “See you on the track, boys.” 

“Track?” Fred choked over the words, confused thoroughly at this point.

“I don’t think we’re in for just a drag race, Freddie.” George gulped, watching Roger slip inside his car, the lights flashing on and the sounds of rumbling engines echoing through the air. 

—

“What do you mean I can’t drive your car.” Fred practically whined, if his eyes rolled any harder they would be in the back of his head.

“I mean what I said, dumbass, you’re not driving my car.” George protested, his arms crossing over his chest as he stood protectively in front of the driver’s side door.

“But you’d let me drive it in a drag race, that doesn’t make any sense, like at all.” 

“That was when you had to drive in a straight line, you are not putting my baby in danger just to race her round a track.”

“Your baby? George, you do realise I race too right?” 

“Fuck off. You’re not driving, that’s final.”

“Yes the fuck I am, now move.” Fred was practically pushing his brother out of the way as he tried to get himself in the driver’s seat. “Twenty minutes ago you didn’t even want to be here, now you want to drive?”

“Fine.” George sighed, finally stepping aside, only to grab the back of Fred’s shirt. “One scratch and you’ll be fixing it, either that or I’ll break you.” 

“I’m not gonna crash the car, George, now get in.” Fred slid inside the car, George following suit on the passenger side. Fred went to pull out of the space that George had parked the car in, only to stall, dropping the clutch out of excitement, causing his younger brother to yell, out loud and quickly. 

“Nope! I’m not doing this.”

“Fucking hell, George, shut up I can drive.” 

—

There was something about the way tires kicked dust up as they sped around the dirt track that had Fred on edge. This race was unlike anything he’d ever seen or been a part of before, if he was being brutally honest it was exhilarating to be doing something like this, much more so when his brother was sat in the passenger seat. He didn’t need to look over or even take his eyes off the road to know that George was already being hypercritical of Fred’s driving skills, especially when the livelihood of his pride and joy of a car lay in another’s hands.

If George were gripping the steering wheel in that moment, his knuckles would have been well and truly white, watching clouds upon clouds of dust spray over the freshly washed exterior of his car. Instead, George’s hand was dripped tightly on the door, bracing himself for the sharp corners and bumpy jolts, thinking about how all the up and down was surely going to fuck his suspension. 

Fred laughed to himself, but mostly at the way his twin was acting, almost as if George hadn’t spent most of his adult life behind the wheel of a car driving faster than any other man would dream of. Fred shouted over the roar of the engine “Jesus, Georgie, let loose a little will you?”

“I’d be way less uptight if you would have just let me drive.” George replied, sighing to himself, a small ‘woah’ falling from his mouth at the feeling of the back wheels spinning.

“It’s a bit fucking late for that decision.” Fred laughed back, passing a car that had the unfortunate and untimely end of spinning themselves off the joke of a track. Once the dust parted and George saw the mess in front of him, his eyes widened, heart racing if it could have beaten any faster.

“I will kill you if you do that.” the younger man grumbled, watching Fred speed past car after car, pushing them up the ranks. 

“I told you I won’t crash your precious car… I’m starting to think you love her more than your lovely lady.” Fred bit his lower lip to stop himself laughing at his own comment. Looking up in the rear view mirror, he spotted the glistening black and bright blue of Roger and Dean gaining on the lead the twins had.

It was nearing what Fred hoped to be the end of the track, watching as the finish line grew nearer with every second. In what seemed to be all at once, a loud revving came in from Fred’s Left, The lightning bolt blue car overtaking George’ in a matter of seconds, pushing right past the finish line without a care in the world. Following closely in second was Dean’s beauty of a car, Fred managing to keep right behind his two friends, pulling third rank in the race. 

—

Fred was the first out of the car, slamming the door behind him as his rage was starting to bubble out from his lungs. George hurried to catch up with his older brother, the look in his eyes and his body language evident that nothing short of violent impulsivity would amount from the situation. Fred pushed past Roger, ignoring the pleas for peace, he was never mad at Rog, Rog deserved a top rank, but his anger was centered towards Dean.

Dean needed a nice loss.

“Oi, Thomas.” He got closer to the man, Dean turning around slowly, a haughty sense of pride glazed on his face. “What’s wrong, Freddie, I’d figured after your little twelfth place at the table third should be a nice welcome to you,” he drawled, before Fred lunged at him, getting held back only by Davies.

“Aw, does poor little Freddie still need a babysitter?”

“Open that mouth one more fucking time-”

“Fred-” Roger stuttered.

“No,” he pushed from his grasp and proceeded to get inches from Dean’s face

Dean smirked and leaned back to grab a beer from the cooler beside him. “Fred. Your little tough guy act doesn’t scare me anymore, you know that.”

George stepped up next to Fred, “It’s not an act, mate, I think you know us well enough by now to get that we don’t take kindly to cheaters,” he said softly, rising to his full height.

Dean immediately leaned back at the sight of the two gingers, and even going as far as shrinking at the pure sight of Roger Davies, not as tall but definitely as intimidating, standing between them.

“The track never did cater to a liar, Thomas, we figured you’d know that by now,” Roger added quietly. 

Dean scoffed, the adrenaline clearly rising in his chest, as the men behind him started to eye each other, the violence of the situation reaching a silent all time high. “I’m not gonna take shit from a losing tosser, his stooge of a younger brother, and a dumb blonde-“ 

Fred had launched himself all the way forward, his index and thumb forming a U shape as he grabbed Dean’s face, slamming it directly into the window. Dean struggled in Fred’s grasp, lifeless and sloppy fists flying in every direction possible. When Fred finally pulled off the boy and began to walk off, a smug and bloody smirk gracing his haughty face, Seamus lunged forward, a punch matching the back of Fred’s head. 

A full on fight occurred, George rushing forward to slam Seamus to the ground, dust flying in every which way under the artificial lights. Fred had taken to pummeling Dean as if he was losing himself entirely in aggression.

The twins had always had an aggressive streak - but it had rarely been released in their current younger years of “adulthood.” 

Amongst the mess of brawling fists and kicked up dirt, Roger had managed to summon the presence of one of the two Weasley girls - you, the understanding quick thinker with a tendency to be for whatever your boyfriend did and Fred’s Wife, the american firecracker who rarely took no for an answer.. When you had arrived, Rog and George were stopping Fred from lurching at Dean once more, Instead you were focused on the graze that lay above George’s brow, taking a deep breath and shaking your head at just how reckless he had become. 

“George Weasley, I swear to fucking god you bastard.” You shouted, pulling him up by his bicep and pushing him back against his dust-covered car. “One night I leave you, One night and you end up in a back street race nearly getting your ass handed to you by Dean fucking Thomas-”

“It was Seamus, actually-”

“Not the fucking point, George.” you slapped his chest, only for him to wrap his arms around your waist, keeping you pulled close, a small smirk hanging off his lips.

“Fred said I needed to let loose, and I did and it was the best fun I’ve had since the end of season… but that obviously isn’t what I should be saying… I’m sorry, really am.”

You rolled your eyes, a sigh falling from your lips as you rested your head on his chest, with all the stress that NASCAR had given him, it really was the best thing that he was getting some actual joy in his free time. “At least you had fun.”

-

You knew you couldn’t be mad at him for long, not with the puppy dog eyes he was giving you as he knelt down on the floor, elbows resting on the mattress to look at you. Part of him realised that he needed to not piss you off any more than he already had, after all it was a little more than what you were expecting from him and with so much on the line after all of his hard work you were more mad at the fact he would so easily chance it.

“Stop looking at me like that.”

“Like what?” He quipped, a small smile on his lips as he stretched his back out, leaning forward across the mattress, fingertips grazing over your knee.

“You know what you’re doing.” You sighed, trying to look away from him, only to feel his full firm grip squeeze at your thigh.

“I’m just trying to apologize to you.”

“Yeah right.”

“I know how much you gave up to be here with me, for us, for me to achieve my dreams and I only went and nearly threw it away for a cheap race and I’m sorry.” 

His eyes were glassy, filled with a sadness that you only recognised from the day he left for America, he truly was sorry for what had happened. 

“I want to make it up to you, princess.” He pushed himself up onto the bed, his head resting on the pillow, your eyes never leaving him as you watch him shift to get comfortable. 

Your hand reached out to brush the hair out of his eyes, watching his eyes flutter closed as a small sigh fell from his lips. You were quick to shift so that you lay next to him. 

“There’s nothing to make up for, Georgie.” You smiled softly, shifting slightly closer to him, feeling his hand drape lazily over your side. Something about seeing him so vulnerable made you want to protect him with your whole heart and yet he was always the one to protect you.

“There’s everything to make up for, my love.” He smirked, leaning in to nudge his nose against yours softly before pressing a small kiss to your lips. “Just let me make you feel good.”

“George you don’t–” You went to protest, but he was quick to cut you off with another kiss, this time his hand gently pulling your hips closer towards him.

“I know just the way to make things up to you.” He pushed himself up slowly, arm wrapping around you to lay you down on your back, finding his place between your thighs, your legs either side of his hips.

His hands slowly raked up your thighs, finding his way up to your hips, fingers hooking underneath the waistband to pull the material down your legs, leaving you bare from the waist down. You had almost forgotten how much of a tease George could be, the way his fingers had quickly found your clit, the long digits finding your entrance soon after, only to warm you up.

Positioning himself with your legs hooked over his shoulders, he drew in a breath, releasing the cool exhale over you as you sighed frustratedly, hips bucking to try and get some friction if any, only for his hand to push your hips back down, a chuckle falling from his lips.

The second his tongue was licking a prominent stripe along your aching pussy, you were well and truly putty in his hands. Each flick of his tongue had you squirming, unrestrained moans falling from your lips as the pleasure built.

It didn’t take him long to attach his lips to your clit, sucking relentlessly at the bundle of nerves, his fingers pushing knuckle deep into you, curling up to hit your favourite spot, having you a wordless mess of nothing but moans of his name.

“Such a pretty thing you are, baby.” He hummed, thumb coming up to circle over your clit as he watched the way you had thrown your head back, your hands finding his hair to pull him back down needily, earning a chuckle from him.

His tongue continued its work, pulling you closer and closer to release with every flick. He didn’t let up until your thighs were shaking and your chest heaving, mind clouded only with thoughts of him and how lucky you were.

—--

Fred Weasley got home all too late, the door closing a bit louder than the man had wanted behind him. The slightly elder Weasley crept from the doorway to the bedroom, careful to mind the light creaks in the hardwood floor, taking every ounce of stress on his feet to avoid any miscalculations. 

When he got to the bedroom, he saw the woman he loved, asleep no doubt by the sight of her mussed hair and lightly agape expression on her lips. Fred exhaled slowly, what he thought was quietly, until he heard her voice clearly say:

“So where were you?”

The man before her felt his heart thump harder than he felt when his own mother would corner him in the kitchen, the memories of sneaking out and sneaking back only to return with a-

“So are you going to tell me where you were?”

“Out.”

“No, really?” She spat, sitting back up and clicking the lamp on, her face etched with rage.

“I waited up for you the entire night, the least I probably deserve is an explanation.”

“Well, love, you didn’t seem to want to talk to me earlier, so I guess the lack of communication goes both ways, now move over.” he said briskly, beginning to take off his shirt. When she didn’t move, her face unwavering in anger, he rolled his jaw, swallowing back and refusing to feel the light effervescence of guilt in his throat.

“I said m-”

“I’m aware. See, Fred,” his wife exited the bed, and unfortunately for him, she was clad in only the black satin nightie he had gotten for her after his first big win. The guilt was rising now, as was something else low on his hips.

“Sweetheart, I’m sorry, okay? I am, I-”

“Interrupt me again, and you get the couch, got it?” He nodded, his eyes drawn to the tears welling up in hers. “Fred, I’m your wife now and-and knowing my husband, my husband was out doing god knows what or who for that matter and has the audacity to come back in at three in the morning and be pissed at me? Who the hell are you?” 

“I was racing! I was racing alright, and I’m sorry, I’m sorry I-I came in late and made you pissed because I love you and I am never going to do this again but God can you please put something else on so I can focus correctly-” and then he was kissing her, and somewhere deep in his cerebral cortex, this was probably unbearably toxic, for him to start apologizing angrily for the shit that he put her through but-

“God, you are a piece of fucking work aren’t you?” She snarled, already beginning to unbuckle and unzip his pants. 

“But ‘m your piece of work, and currently,” he spat back, mouth melding in a messy and unkempt addition to hers, the entire situation wholly and completely Fred in every way possible, as he shed himself of his shirt and picked her up, “-I’d like to be fucking you.”

It didn’t take him long to pitch her body on the bed, his wife scrunching delectably at his fiery hair and his own ropy and iron hands squeezing at the bottom of her bare thighs. It had been long, too long, and with the already latent tension from their little bathroom incident earlier in the day - there wouldn’t be any denying Fred nor his girl of a quick, ravenous fuck tonight.

“Missed you so much, baby,” she whined, yanking his head up to mold herself to him in a heated kiss, the man atop her not needing to be shown twice at her action. “Missed you more, had me fuckin’ twitching and creaming in a car earlier, you did,” he chuckled, arousal thick and evident in his tone.

“Really?”

“Yeah,” He rasped, his eyes scrunching close as one of her delightfully un-dainty and gently calloused hands palmed him over his boxers. “God, wanted you so bad, baby, wanted to just drop the towel and have you on the sink, then ‘n there.”

“You mean that?” She said shakily, as he kissed her one last time before sliding down her body, his lengthy digits trailing down above him.

“God, absolutely, and if I look under here I wonder if - oh look at that, ‘was right, wasn’t I?” Much to her disagreeing whine, he sat up on his heels, his damn near naked body covered in sweat, his myriad of constellations adorning his chest like only the finest stars in the night sky. He looked up at her, the face only him or his twin could make, rum eyes bright and full of mischief, but also something else more sinister as his fingers trailed up her thighs.

“Fred, please-”

“‘Got you, baby, don’t you worry about me,” he mused, lazily almost, while his fingers drifted higher up the apex of her thigh before-

“No.” She said simply.

“Shit, I’m sorry do you want me to stop-?”

“No.” Fred’s wife, almost too fast for him to register, threw her left thigh around his waist, gathering momentum from her other leg fast enough to get him on his back, effectively pressing her hand to the center of his chest before all he could say was:

“Didn’t know you could do that, love,” he drawled, a quirk of a brow and a little smile on his face.

“You didn’t know I could do a lot of things, Freddie.” She shot back, bringing her nails up and in to scratch at his bare chest, her hips rolling to his and rubbing his tip under his boxers so well he thought he was going to explode.

“You have any plans beyond making me cum in m’pants, dear?” He hummed, his hands reaching up and under her satin to cup and squeeze at her bare ass.

“I was planning on making you cum so hard your ears pop, actually.”

“Merlin, woman, get on with it then,” he groaned, her laugh bubbling in his ears like champagne as her nails abandoned their spot on his broad chest to the hills and valleys of his v-line, the light grazing and nimble touch causing a wanton moan to erupt from the back of his throat along with a small, “fuckin’ hell, petal.” He watched with rapt but seemingly pained eyes as she slowly - too slowly, for his personal taste - began to lift her hips and grind the tip of his erection, his palms getting more clammy as he waited with need for her to sink onto him - if she’d even give him that.

But all too soon, she stopped her rolling onto his cock, making him swear at the loss of contact. “Goddamnit, fuck me already.”

“Oh, Freddie,” she preened, moving a hand back to cover one of his own sliding it to her soaking cunt, “after how bad you’ve been today? And you think I’m gonna reward you? Baby…” she drawled, reaching down to squeeze his thick cock, the action alone making him grunt and his neck veins pulsate with life.

“‘Do anything y’want, anything,” he whined, desperately trying to fuck his hips up to meet her friction. He knew his wife would push him, push him to the absolute limit until his dick exploded and his throat gave out from how hard he’d be screaming, she’d done it before, but it was so late, and God, he needed to bury himself deep in the milk and honey of her sex before it was too late.

“Then you have to be a good boy, Freddie, remember?”

“I know, I know, ‘m sorry, ‘m sorry, ma’am,” he babbled, the pleasure and lack of stimulation running through his veins. “Please,” he whimpered, his voice small and pliant like rubber.

She cocked a brow at him, curling her shiny red nails around his chin and gently tilting him toward hers. 

“Been so bad, baby boy, but I guess ‘m gonna have to give you a treat some time…you just look so delicious like this,'' she purred, moving her hands to the swell of his bulge, delighting in the whine that escaped his throat like the rush of water in a stream (or something a bit more sinful in its entirety.) Fred’s wife swiftly lifted his cock free from it’s confines, his hands coming immediately to steady at her hip bones and kneading greedy circles into the tough skeleton. 

“Ready f’me, precious?”

“Fred, don’t be pretending you’re the one on top at present,” 

“Good Lord, woman, stop the banter and rock already.” The two chuckled breathlessly at Fred’s words, his wife pressing an airy kiss to his red and puckered mouth before bringing her cunt to just barely graze his tip, a movement that had the ginger subjected to her ministrations roll his eyes back and murmur a throaty “fuck” against her lips. 

“Baby, please-“

“I know, Freddie, my love ‘ve got you,” she whispered before finally sinking down onto him, both partners releasing hisses and throaty moans at the feeling of being one.

It took no time at all for the ginger beneath to bring his hands to her now bouncing ass, guiding her roughly to every ridge of his cock. She was sloppy, the ride of pushing Fred’s high further and further to the forefront of his system. Fred oh the other hand had started to spastically fuck up into her now, moaning out her name the more he listened to the sound of her wet cunt being slid up and down on his thick cock. 

She was close, dangerously close, the feeling of his balls clapping against the bottom of her ass in time with her pants. Fred was in nirvana, the way the light graced the sides of her face making her look like the most fallen of angels when-

“Fred, I can’t, I, please”

“I know, bub, ‘m right there with you,” he coaxed, all too soft in contrast with the rampant fucking he was giving her, waiting until he could feel her about to soak his cock before flipping her over, almost too quickly throwing her legs around his waist and thrusting further than what he thought was possible. His hands gripped hers and somewhere in his mind he blacked out against the feeling of the black satin rubbing against his torso. 

“Baby-“

“Fred-“

Fred relished the feeling of her collapsing around him, his back fully extended as he rolled softly and slowly into her to push them through their conjoined high. He loved this, he always had, how her body heaved gently under his and his hands and mouth could whisper sweet nothings into her skin, soothing her form and giving her all the love he could possibly muster. 

“I am sorry you know, bub.” He finally said after a while, his hands rubbing back and forth on her thighs. 

She leaned up and pressed a kiss to his nose and then his lips, smiling lightly against his mouth as her eyes fluttered shut, “yeah, yeah, I know.”

“Just…don’t do it again okay-?” She whispered.

“Baby, you know I won’t. Scout’s honor ‘n all-“

“You didn’t let me finish, Weasley!”

“Well, then what’s the rest of it?” 

She smiled at him before craning her lips to his ear: “next time you drag race, I better watch.”

She giggled when he threw the covers above their heads.

—

It was two days later, the sun blaring just as brightly as it had when Dean Thomas proposed a drag race, and now, as the front door bells jingled an entrance, the twins had done something they didn’t last time.

“We’re closed,” they both said flatly, not looking up from the respective cars.

“Even for me?” A familiar voice asked the boys, causing them both to raise their heads.

“Sirius!” They both squawked, the lanky men scrambling to their feet to hug their favorite agent, the older man hugging them back immediately.

“Why’ve you come from LA?”

“Yeah, is something wrong? I can guarantee you whatever it was it was 100% George’s fault-”

“Fred.”

“Sorry.”

Sirius released a small smile that had been tugging at his face the whole interaction. “Boys, I’ve got a bit of an announcement for you.”

“And what would that be?” George asked suspiciously. Fred looked out the corner of his eye at his twin, and all Sirius did was throw his hands out and up.

“Boys: we’re going to Monaco.”

[the-fandom-is-now-my-life]

The idea that future Leo and mc having bouts of "was that past Leo just now??? Smh" is SO funny to me like

Imagine past Leo keeps coming back to take a look at his future, and it's starting to piss Leo off like ??? Man he just wants to cuddle with his wife after work, and now there's this little shit coming in to steal his cuddles AND he's treating his wife semi poorly??? (Future Leo can't fathom that it's his own damn self that's the problem LMFAO)

Future Leo starts to leave notes and passive aggressive comments on his body so past Leo can find it. Past Leo doesn't know what's going on but every time he goes to the future he keeps finding angrier and angrier notes (first it's "treat her well, you're a guest here" and "you love her more than life itself even if you don't know it yet" but after a few rounds he gets impatient and starts going nuclear "listen you little shit you make my wife uncomfortable again I'll remember this shit and shave your head in the past" "get the fuck out and leave me alone I'm gonna make you binge eat and make you fat")

Imagine future Leo being so pissed off about the "stolen" time that he insists that he gets EXTRA loving from his wife for it (it's really not that bad, he's just being dramatic again) and whoops it looks like all those extra rounds have gotten his darling wife pregnant 🥴🥴🥴

if past Leo manages to come back in the middle of a sesh with a very obviously pregnant mc he might just have a heart attack then and there pp

The diabolical streamer might be peeking into the future too much

Leo has gotten used to popping to the future for a little while. Leo is neither used to the interruptions to his life and very upset about it

Wc: 1,6K

Notes: nah but he would actually die jsjsjsj he knew he was married to her but not that he was that down bad! This was so fun to write

Cw: she/her for the reader, implications of sex and Leo comes when his future version has sex with his wife

Leo recognizes he can be hard to get along with most of the time, he is snarky, snoops around for secrets and extorts people with them, can be cruel, among many other things. But he never expected to say that he got himself fed up with his existence.

He seems to be getting on his last nerve, Leo notes at the greenish bruises on his midriff while changing clothes after bathing. He once again visited the birdpond even if his trip was a rather short one as Sho pulled him away when he (or rather whatever consciousness from his future self he had in his body) started hitting and scratching himself on the stomach.

Sitting down on his bed, he starts spending cream on the small wounds, he would hate to have any sort of scar.

“And you want to go back tomorrow after that?” Sho asks besides him, watching the reddish and purple splotches and thin red lines across his abdomen.

“Well, yeah, I want to see what number will be drawn on the influencer gala” he says, as nonchalant as ever, as if whatever damage he did to himself was nothing more than a light annoyance.

“You are crazy, dude”

“Hush, I'm learning a TikTok dance”

And as he said, that night as soon as Alan turned off his light they both sneaked off to the hedge maze centered around the birdpond.

“So, you remember what we are doing?”

“10 minutes in and I take you off. If you start hitting yourself I'm just allowed to hold you but not lift you”

“Good! If I see one more bruise and it will be all your fault, m'kay?”

“Hey, no, wait-!” But before he is able to complain he already dipped his head underwater.

Already used to the ache inside his lungs and the feeling of drowning, it doesn't take him much longer to settle on the current situation.

There is a colorful movie playing on the 65 inches mounted tv and he feels a comfortable weight on his lap. When he looks down he sees your head on his chest and legs thrown over his own, most of the weight must be from the sleeping toddler on your legs. A string of spit threatening to spill on his leg makes Leo recoil away violently, almost making you fall off the sofa and your daughter too.

Now awake and in a bad mood Emmy pouts and kicks her little legs “Daddy!” she waddles towards him so he would pick her up and lull her to sleep as always.

With the same coldness as you remember his first year version having, he spits venom at the, honestly quite messy, child “Don't even touch me, you have spit and sugar all over yourself, you are going to mess my clothes” and he barricades himself inside the bathroom, leaving you to calm down an upset toddler.

Hidden away inside the bathroom, he sits down on the bathtub rim and swipes around his phone, looking at his TikTok account and looking for videos that are around 10 years old. For once he curses being so active in social media as when he reaches his current year Sho was pulling him up to the past.

“So? Anything good?”

“Hardly anything and her kid almost slobbers all over me”

“I think that is also your child, dude”

‘stupid child’ Adult Leo growls mentally. Each and every time his past himself would rudely interrupt in his few soft domestic hours he has with his family and treat them like shit his head would be splitting down the middle with an unbearable headache, no matter what he took or if he drank water he would have to sit down for hours until it passed. Luckily his wife and daughter would comfort him while they watched tv with very low volume.

Wobbling out of the bathroom and aiming for the modular sofa he whines for any scrap of affection he believes he is entitled to “LI, Emmy, let's watch a movie, daddy doesn't feel good”

Plopping down on ‘his’ side of the sofa he just noticed Emmy was too busy getting calmed down to watch a movie with her dad.

“What happened, Emmy? Want to tell me while we watch Cinderella?” and even after attempting to bribe her with her favorite movie she just looks the other way with a pout before stomping towards her room, slamming the door.

Noticing your husband was back you smile, a part in relief of not having to take care of your toddler alone and another part of mocking delight “Emilia is very angry at you because your past self told her you weren't going to carry her because she was dirty and was going to mess your clothes”

Mortified, Leo grasps his forehead, he doesn't remember himself as one to be that mean to kids. When he feels you sit next to him and hug his shoulder he starts acting for affection and attention.

“That stupid brat is going to make my baby hate me”

“honey, that brat is you”

The attempt at reasoning with him is met with more whining. After years of marriage he learned that there wasn't anything he couldn't get from you with enough whining “my head hurts” he digs himself a space on your clavicle “I just want to sit down and enjoy myself with my family but now I can't even do that”

Combing some fly away hairs and planting a kiss on his helix honeyed words lure him closer “Emmy might not want to be close to you now but why don't we have some personal time together”

And with a devilish smile his hands dip down your back and butt while his mouth attached itself to whatever patch of skin he can get close to.

Family vlogs are something Leo found himself doing weekly, complying with his fans' demands. There is rarely anything interesting, sometimes doctor's visits, minor sickness, projects he had to say nothing about yet still hype, that sort of day to day things.

After going over a possible trip to Spain for a gaming convention he was invited to, Leo looks over the most frequent questions of the last vlog. He is so thankful that he coded a bot to group comments with the same or similar key words.

“So, for the last question… YN they are asking if you were hungry when we filmed the last video, they say you were scrolling UberEATS for a while”

You shrug while playing with your phone, not paying him much mind “well, when I was pregnant with Emmy I was pretty hungry, it is normal that I would be now too”

It is hardly one second before his usual fake smile dropped, eyes wide and mouth slightly agape. In an attempt to turn off the video his hands fiddle with the button but it takes a few extra seconds than he expected. It is going to look awkward when he uploads it but why act as if he has ever cared about it and more so especially now?

The last few seconds it's possible to hear an ‘are you serious?’

His fans did go wild in the comment section after he posted

Leo_simp76: damn, he is locked down for real, let's cry simps

User_8274849: He already had a kid and is married, did you truly think he was free???

Leo_simp76: I would delulu into thinking he got babytrapped and was going to leave her!!

T.B.d.e: wasn't his child's first birthday one week ago?? How did she let him hit it?

Leo_simp76: I would let him as soon as I could stand. If anything it's weird it took that long!!

The last day before he took a break from looking into the future,as soon as he dips his head down to the water the usual annoyance in his lungs is overpowered by a different kind of ache caused by breathlessness like in Gym class.

“Leo, stop teasing~” a breathy moan begs from beneath him. Looking down he finds his hand snug against the column of your neck, lips connected to your skin just below your collarbone.

You were splayed under him, legs hugging his hips and one arm drawing figures on his biceps. Bodies close enough to notice your swollen stomach against his abdomen. Thankfully enough you had your eyes closed shut and couldn't notice the switch.

He on a technical level guessed this future version of himself and you fucked (as awkward as that image is for him) there was Emilia, or Emmy, that looked very much like him and you; when he snooped around he found condoms and there were multiple pregnancy tests in the en suite bathroom. But he had never barged in during the act.

Such a great fucking time he gets in, balls deep inside the nerd and an orgasm threatening to wreck him. Or so he would think if a wave of dopamine didn't swallow him whole in the same breath.

Quickly he leaves the water, if Sho had to say he almost looked horrified, eyes wide, breathing quickly, face red and… oh, he was just suddenly horny. Any teasing he might have wanted to do is cut short with Leo's nasty side eye but no explanations.

On the other side of the timeline there is a married couple with a sulking husband.

“Are you feeling alright?” opening your eyes you manage to see a very clearly upset Leo resting his forehead against your sternum and a hand on your breast.

“I can't even have sex with my wife without that brat ruining it”

“What? He was here just now?!”

“Once again, I didn't get to enjoy it”

“Wait a second! I'm still sensitive! ~~!”

[notchainedtotrauma]

I wrote this public essay as a response to this image below, an image that brought forth a racialized and antiblack pornotropic sexual violence I was already quite aware of but which became vertigo inducing upon seeing this tweet. In this essay, I write about the hypersexualization and pornotroping of the Black body, and resulting fragmentation. I write about the use of power through miscegenation, the thrill of the forbidden desire, and reproduction as the mechanization of the racial stain. At the time the essay was written, K*** hadn't lifted the mask in terms of his affections towards Nazism and his admiration, even worship of Hitler. And he was still with Kim Kardashian, which is to keep in mind when reading specific paragraphs. If you'd like to tip me, Pp ccd4t@virginia.edu and K0fi.

Yeahhhhh...

Kim Kardashian by Jean-Paul Goude

This screenshot and photograph best visually sum up the whole essay. Here are excerpts:

The bedroom slashes through certain interracial sexual encounters, leaves an elemental wound. Sperm and blood. The room is haunted and there's no escape possible. Nor is, in many cases, escape wanted. Hysteria's lurking behind the faintest gleam of civility; the sexual rupture at the heart of miscegenation puts in relief the pained, dislocating hi(story) of Black flesh.

and

A meager antiblack imagination has cast Black bodies not only as ugly but as grotesque; the obsessive reordering of its sexual physiology as inherently violating and aggressive derives from and feeds on the deep anxieties around interracial coitus. Yet, domination forecloses neither proximity, nor violent intimacies (h/t Christina Sharpe); sexual terrorism traverses the color line(s), engendered by the inchoate fantasies of antiblackness. 

and

Jean-Paul Goude photographs Kim Kardashian for Paper, citing an earlier photograph by him, Carolina Beaumont, excerpted from the aptly named book "Jungle Fever".  Both photographs coalesce, crystallize around the violated, visually cut through body of Saartjie Bartman; she's everywhere and nowhere. Violently present in and through her spectral absence. 

The photograph blurs, details collapse; Kim Kardashian's now holding a penis, certainly Kanye's Black dick, as it shoots ropes of sperms onto her store bought bottom. The act of consumption's manifold; Kardashian's performing a twisted, unrecognizable reflection of Black femininity; she's casually consuming the cultural residue of visual Black female representation (h/t Sydette Harry); she's gleefully, cheerfully even, taking in Black masculine sexuality. The Black man doesn't need to be there for the fantasy to operate. Like Saartjie Baartman, his absence scars the image.

and

Once again, Black cishet men utilize race as a device to rid themselves of the dirt and funk of Blackness (h/t Toni Morrison); they wield their lover's racial ambiguousness, or her perceived exoticity as a way to (re)produce an offspring awash of any visible racialized Blackness. Racially ambiguous, or appropriately "mixed looking" (often meaning light skinned, clear eyed, bouncy haired) girl children dwell in a space of simultaneous increased value and disturbing commodification. In many ways, they're indeed factory items, the result of a reenactment of breeding, widgets whose socially constructed beauty had been cooked out through the obsessive looking at little girls like them. In one of the photographs above, a  girl child is wearing a shirt announcing she's playdate material as the camera catches her in the act of lifting her curly, abundant mane. 

The gestures are innocent, the child unaware, but the user of the photograph, the photograph itself ( and the photographer) are eloquent in their quiet sexualization. She's all at once already marked as a potential (re)production machine, made to push out identically racially ambiguous widgets, a trophy, symbol of the erasure of a tainted and shameful Blackness, and an exotic artifact whose implied Blackness still ensures the assumed absence of innocence. Race's a prosthesis and the Black man's a cyborg, an automated figure whose sexual consumption's tied to a devouring hunger for power. But who's screwing who ?

[musicalmoritz]

More on Aoimei 2.0

Whenever I talk about Aoi x No.4 Mei it’s usually an analysis on their compatibility + me giving the correct take that they’d be enemies to lovers, but I’d like to discuss what I think they’d be like in an actual relationship!

So for Aoi, I think she’d be a bit anxious about dating Mei at first. There’s no getting around the fact that Mei has already seen the worst of her personality, and that for some reason she still likes her. That confuses Aoi and makes her wonder where the line is, is there anything she could do to push Mei away?? She does a total flip from her initial bickering dynamic with Mei and starts being overly nice to her, set on being the perfect girlfriend. Mei catches onto this quickly and tries to reassure Aoi that she loves her the way she is, but it still takes Aoi some time to stop walking eggshells

Mei is nervous too but she’s less willing to admit it. She doesn’t really seem to have any friends or hang out with anyone in canon, likely due to self-isolation. She has a lot to work out regarding her own mental health and confusion surrounding her existence. Going from being a total loner (with a handful of friends she met after the PP arc) to suddenly having a girlfriend that wants to be with her 24/7 is a rough adjustment. It helps that Aoi doesn’t push her too much to change, most of their dates happen in the art room and neither of them have many friends. The worst she has to do now is hang out with Teru and Akane

Neither of them think they’re good enough for each other so there’s a lot of anxiety on both ends about screwing things up. But they manage. Aoi’s used to loving people in a way that’s intense and consuming, leaving her in constant need of reassurance. With Mei things are different, calmer. She feels strongly about her but in a way that’s far more gentle, like a quiet walk at night. Mei has her own feelings of uncertainty surrounding relationships, so she and Aoi are weirdly perfect for each other. They understand each other’s fears so there’s no judgement, plus they know exactly how to comfort each other when they need it. They both go in expecting things to turn toxic but they match each other’s red flags so well that they’re actually able to work through their problems instead of letting them build up. That’s right gang, this is healthy yuri

I like the headcanon that Aoi’s family is LOADED so it’s funny to imagine her taking Mei out to expensive restaurants. Mei feels so out of place but she’s trying to be supportive so she just lets her girlfriend spoil her. Then when it’s Mei’s turn to pick a place, they end up going to a fast food place. Mostly they just hang out at the school though, in the garden or the art room. They like to teach each other their hobbies, Mei is learning to garden and Aoi is learning to paint. She has a whole stack in her room of paintings she’s done of Mei. It works out great because Mei has a distaste for fiction, so gardening makes her feel grounded to the real world; whereas fiction provides a much-needed escape for Aoi, so she feels at peace when she paints

They would still bicker but in a less mean-spirited way, and they wouldn’t be shy about showing affection. Mostly I picture them as one of those couples who love to gossip, in every group setting they’re standing off to the side whispering about people. They’re not overly physically affectionate besides kissing, and when they are Aoi is the one to initiate it. Sometimes she’ll grab Mei’s arm or intertwine their fingers, and if they haven’t seen each other in a while she’ll hug her. But these aren’t common instances, I don’t see them being as big on PDA as some of the other ships. Aoi expresses her love through quality time and Mei does it through acts of service

Healthy yuri aside I could see Mei growing codependent overtime, but Aoi helps her work through it. No relationship is without struggle and they would have their own set of problems, but above all they want to help each other

[canmom]

Animation Night 179: Unicorn Wars

Hey everyone! Real brief blurb tonight because I talked about Alberto Vázquez last week - tonight I'm going to be re-running Unicorn Wars since last week it was way too late for people to attend!

Unicorn Wars could be roughly described as Apocalypse Now with teddy bears. We encounter a world in which a militaristic country of teddies is locked in a revanchist forever-war against the unicorns who now occupy the Magic Forest. It is a conflict in part religious in nature: the bears are convinced that whoever drinks the blood of the last unicorn will enter into a transcendant state of being.

Our story concerns a fresh batch of recruits, sent on a mission that none of them know is sacrificial. Led by a sergeant who has no idea what he's in for and a reserved priest, they set out with grenades and bows and arrows to find out what became of a lost unit.

Our main characters are a pair of brothers, Azulín and Gordi, or Bluey and Tubby as the English sub renders it. Both of them are deeply screwed up by their parents separation and their mothers' death; Azulín in particular, who took more after their father, has a determination to prove himself at whatever cost, and a contemptuous, bullying relationship to his brother.

But we also encountere the rest of the doomed bears and there are some real characters. The bear culture is a fascinating blend of cute fluffy signifiers and militaristic ones, joined into one nihilistically eugenic competition for status. There's a real fascination in the animation with the physicality of the bears' bodies, the way they squish around, messy scenes of eating, and of course a great deal of gore. You see quite a bit of teddybear pp.

Naturally the mission goes south fast. A lurid trip on colourful bugs brings the first casualties - a fantastic blast of psychedelia - but the teddies are also completely unprepared for fighting the unicorns. Or their willingness to murder each other. In the end, Azulín and Gordi are the only survivors, surviving off the land - and then things really take a turn.

Of the unicorns, we learn much less. One unicorn, María, is something of a deuteragonist - desperately searching for her missing sibling, she finds an old church, where the apes of the forest worship a strange, morphing fleshy entity. We do not immediately see what becomes of this - but María ends up falling afoul of the two surviving bears. Azulín attacks Maria while Gordi can only watch; Azulín hits María multiple times but is ultimately pierced by a young unicorn and cast into the river, leaving María alone with Gordi. (In contrast, in the original short, the Gordi analogue kills the Azulín analogue after they kill a unicorn.)

Azulín, horribly injured, washes up back at the main teddybear base, where the military higherups attempt to make a figurehead of him - completely failing to anticipate his capacity to turn their own forces against them and stage a coup. Where the previous command was simply using the war as a way to stay in power, vengeful Azulín is a true zealot and mobilises the full teddybear army against the unicorns. Meanwhile, Gordi has managed to forge an unlikely friendship with the unicorn María who he has nursed back to health after Bluey's attack.

Vázquez is no stranger to blending cute imagery and extremely dark themes. In contrast to Psiconautas, which felt like a story of the forlorn hope of escape against the bleakness of the world, Unicorn Wars seems more bleak and nihilistic. You know none of this is going to end well; the ending pushes it into a direction of alchemical synthesis, and we'll talk about it when we get there in the film.

Unicorn Wars generally looks amazing, vividly coloured and elegantly blending 2D and 3D animation. And well, there's a reason for that: like I Lost My Body, which shared many of the same animators, this is an all-Blender production, using Grease Pencil for 2D animation, and a very inventive process for the unicorns where the 3D render is converted to a 2D grease pencil drawing which can be further edited by the anmiators. The result is that the unicorns get the sense of life that comes from the slightly imperfections 2D animation, and yet the precise perspective of 3D animation. It's a fantastic showcase of what Blender's 2D-in-3D can enable, and it honestly just makes me really happy to see from a tech-art perspective.

In short, Unicorn Wars is an intense, bleak and also very funny film, I loved it. If you have a reasonable threshold for gore, I hope you'll come to see it with me!

Also check out this cool pixel art of Azulín I found in the gif picker, by @none-dc. (He's such a little shit and this captures it so well.)

Animation Night 179 will be going live now at twitch.tv/canmom, going live now with the film to start in about half an hour (21:50 UK time) - hope to see you there!

[indigosunsetao3]

Would It Be Enough?

Chapter 4 - New Job

Masterlist of Chapters

Warnings: 18+ - No minors Rated E - Please read the tags on A03 for any of your triggers

Johnny "Soap" MacTavish x Original FMC 7.2k words - AO3 Link

Emma woke up from her sleep and stretched out slowly, her eyes still closed to the bright sunlight that was coming in the windows. She was surprised that she hadn’t woken up when the people around her had risen for the day, even for a heavy sleeper she never could ignore the hustle and bustle of the early morning. Maybe she was the first awake and that was why. Taking a deep breath through her nose, smelling the scent of Soap’s jacket, she rubbed her eyes before opening them to find herself staring out at a room that was definitely not the room she was sharing with others. She was the only person in there, and it was small.

Scrambling into a seated position Emma took in her surroundings and the evening before came flooding back in. She had been on the couch with Soap watching television and now she was in this room she had never seen before. Emma looked around taking in the small desk covered in papers, the reading lamp on it, the wooden portable closet that was standard issue with the door open and clothes hanging in it. Men’s clothes from what she could tell. Then the nightstand next to her that had a piece of paper that looked like it was ripped from a notebook sitting on top of a pile of clothes.

You fell asleep on the couch and I wasn’t going to leave you there. I tried to wake you a few times but you sleep like the dead. I managed to scrounge up some standard issue scrubs for you, hope they fit, Maricela said they should anyway. Don’t worry about rushing out, I’ll be gone for the day. But if you don’t want Gaz teasing you until the end of time, I suggest you slip out before we get back. Meet us for dinner in the mess hall? We should be back around six. -Soap PS You talk in your sleep PPS Don’t be embarrassed

Too late. Emma could already feel the burn rising up from her neck to her cheeks and ears. She couldn’t believe she had fallen asleep on the couch. Then the fact she didn’t wake up and she was certain she probably cussed Soap out fully, her family used to tease her for how heavy she slept and how angry she would be if anyone tried to wake her. But the icing on the cake was the fact she was certain he had carried her to bed like a little toddler and tucked her in.

“Oh my god,” Emma muttered to herself as she flung back the blankets off of her. “I’m an idiot,” she groused to herself as she turned around and made the bed she had slept in. Even if it was the most comfortable sleep she had in months, this bed a true bed and not a cot, she couldn’t believe he had done that for her. He had given her his bed and just left, probably to sleep on the couch or not sleep at all and now he was out doing whatever it was he was doing on little to no sleep because of her.

She changed quickly into the scrubs Soap had found for her and debated writing a message back to him on the blank side of the paper. But she had no idea what to write, what wouldn’t sound pathetic or weird. In the end, she just folded up the paper and slipped it into her pocket before slipping out of the room and shutting the door. The area was quiet, all the bedroom doors shut and the common area was also empty and the television off. It was almost noon; she had slept the whole day away and she had so many things to take care of. First was finding Maricela and giving her back the clothes then checking in with her job to see if there were any updates.

Deciding first stop was to freshen up, Emma stopped where she should have slept last night and used the comb to brush out her hair as she sat on her cot. She kept glancing at Soap’s jacket as she did so, trying to recall anything else from the night before but nothing came. Next was the bathroom to fully freshen up. As she walked out of the community bathroom with her still damp toothbrush one of her coworkers caught her in the hall.

“We’ve been looking for you,” the older woman said, her hands folded across her chest in a disapproving manner.

“I, ah, well I went,” Emma stammered looking for a good answer. She didn’t want to tell this woman exactly where she was or what had happened.

“It doesn’t matter,” the woman supplied, “you’ve got messages in the communications hall and they seem pretty important since they sent a bunch of us to find you.”

“Right,” Emma replied feeling her heart start to hammer in her chest. What was so important that she needed to be found right away. That they sent people looking for her. “I’ll just…go there now,” she supplied.

“I suggest you do,” the woman answered and she turned watching Emma rush down the hall.

Doing her best to not assume the worst Emma sped walked to the communications area and when she was outside the door, she paused to catch her breath and run a hand through her hair. What was she going to do with her toothbrush? Looking for a trash can and finding none she just shoved it in her pocket before opening the door and walking in. There was someone working the main desk and she walked over and smiled, “I’m Emma. I heard I have some messages?”

The person working looked up at Emma instantly before grabbing a clipboard and handing it over to her. “You’re a very in demand woman today,” the man said as he fished around in a drawer and pulled out a lanyard with a clip on it. “John Price was here this morning stating you needed the badge. I’ve had Laswell call me twice now asking where you were,” he was muttering as he continued to work on the computer before looking back at her again. “I’ll need to take your picture if you could,” he gestured to the camera on the counter, similar to when you had your license picture taken at the DMV.

Emma nodded and finger-combed her hair as best as she could before he snapped the picture and went back to his computer. Looking over the clipboard it was standard issue paperwork, confirming information, signing off you wouldn’t give anyone else the badge, and all the other security stuff. She signed and initialed where it was needed before handing the clipboard back to him. “You said Price was here this morning?”

“Here you are,” he handed her the lanyard with her new ID badge on it, not answering her question and Emma didn’t know if he heard her or not. Then he finally responded after clicking a few more things on his keyboard. “Oh yes, he was here, then I had the head of the hospital asking about your progress as well, wanted to make sure you had all your clearance.”

Emma could feel her cheeks turning red again. All these people looking for her and she was nowhere to be found, sleeping like a cat in the sun on a bed instead of being up and useful. “Sorry I worried everyone,” she mumbled before the man handed her an envelope. The outside had her name scrawled on it in messy handwriting and she tore open the taped back to find slips of paper inside. Looked like it was all her messages. “I’ll just, get to answering all these,” she muttered but the man had already moved on to his next assignment.

There was a message from her job to call them back about an update on her contract. A message from some person called Laswell for her to call them as soon as she got the message. A message from her mother, who somehow had tracked down the base she was at and called, so typical of her. Then her job again, and another message from Laswell. This was going to go swimmingly.

Emma decided on her job first since that seemed most important, it was her and her family’s, livelihood after all. The phone only rang twice before it was picked up and the person on the other side seemed relieved but still angry that it took her so long to call them. It turned out that her contract was picked up, she was going to be staying on that base but there was a catch. She was also going to be an asset to another team but her employer couldn’t tell her exactly what it was. It was above their clearance. Emma felt her heart pounding again, that had to be the Laswell person that was trying to reach her. Her employer gave her the number to call and checking back on her messages it was the exact number Laswell had left her.

Hanging up with them she instantly dialed Laswell’s number. This time it took a few more rings before it was picked up. “About time,” the woman on the other end stated before Emma could even say hello. “I’ve called twice now. Third time I would have told Price never mind.” She didn’t sound too angry though since she finished with a small laugh.

“Ah, Price?” Emma asked confused as to why Price would be calling this woman about her of all people. She had barely spoken to the man. “I’m sorry can you tell me what this is about? My job said I have a contract to stay here but it comes with a catch and that catch was tied to you.”

“Right to the point,” Laswell responded before pausing and typing on a keyboard. “I’ve sent you a contract and some other paperwork. Look it over, take your time, and read everything.” She stopped talking again for a second, it sounded as if she covered the microphone of her phone to talk to someone else before coming back. “If you agree sign everything and send it back to me and we’ll get started. If not, well, we’ll have to figure something else out.” Then the phone line went dead.

Emma stared at the phone receiver in her hand before hanging it up herself. She still needed to call her mother but that could wait. She wanted to see what this paperwork was all about and what contract. Moving from the phones Emma found an open computer and logged into it using the credentials that she received when she got her badge. Emma assumed Laswell received her email from her job so she logged into that and found the email at the top of her mailbox. There were two emails from her mother right below them but she’d get to them later.

It took her almost two hours to read through everything, print it out, read it again, and sign all the dotted lines on the contract. Then she had to sign off on all the paperwork so she could get her security clearance to be part of the team that she just agreed to work with. She was still extremely confused as to why they chose her of all people. Surely there were others here that were better trained, had combat experience, and knew how to handle themselves in a fight without throwing up. Yet they picked her and she wasn’t going to say no, not to how much money was involved. She could do this contract and go home without any worries about her finances for her, or her family.

Taking it over to the front desk for them to sign off as witness Emma scanned the paperwork back in and stared at it for a few more minutes before sending it to Laswell. She wanted to send it back before she second guessed herself or backed out. Then she went to her mother’s email and skimmed it before replying she would call her tomorrow, she had too many things to do today which was true.

Another brief call with Laswell had her getting instructions on where to go on the base to get fingerprinted again and then for questioning. It was standard procedure, something Emma had already done to get her first contract job but now that she was getting higher security clearance, they needed to be more thorough. Laswell had warned her in the email that if she didn’t pass the contract was null but Emma had nothing to hide. She had never lied on her paperwork including why she had been discharged from the military after just only two years of service, so she wasn’t worried about that. An hour and a half later, her hand cramped from signing more documents, she was released from questioning and was to report to the hospital wing. She was starting there first thing in the morning and needed to get acquainted with her working area, as well as get her uniform.

She hadn’t eaten anything all day so she made a quick stop in the mess hall to see if she could find anything and settled on a rather bruised banana that was left in a bowl. She scarfed it down and headed to the hospital hoping that her tour and instructions wouldn’t take too long. Soap had indicated they would be back for six and she wanted to meet them for dinner. She had a ton of questions she wanted answered, first being why her.

Turns out her supervisor was the doctor that she had accosted to stitch up Soap’s arm. He didn’t seem too impressed with her attitude that day, she had basically told him where to go, what to do, and how to do it, but Emma didn’t apologize. She had a job that needed to get done and they were all moving too slow for her liking. The doctor took her back to the small office they all shared to fill out yet more paperwork and go over some basic regulations. Her true training would begin tomorrow, seven am sharp. He emphasized the time to Emma as if he doubted, she could be punctual given what had happened today.

Scooping up a few sets of scrubs and two lab coats, plus some closed-toe shoes, Emma glanced at a clock on the wall in the medical bay area to see it was five-thirty. Thirty minutes until Soap said they would be back at in his note which gave her a little time to compose herself and get some of her racing thoughts and questions in order. She hustled back to the shared sleeping area she had been given with the others and deposited her scrubs and lab coats onto the cot. She still had Maricela’s clothes to return back to her as well but that would have to wait a little longer. She needed more space for the things she was acquiring and wished she had her tote that she used to hold all her stuff and shove it under the bed. She’d deal with that later when she went to bed.

Heading back out the door, preferring to be early rather than late, Emma headed to the mess hall. Her stomach was growling profusely now at the lack of food and the fact she could smell it now was not helping. She ran a hand over her stomach to quiet it when she heard someone call out her name. Looking over her shoulder she spotted Alex walking up the hall toward her, he looked like he had been outside rolling around in the dirt all day. His clothes were marred and he had streaks on his face where the sweat had washed away some of the dust.

“What happened to you?” Emma asked stopping in her tracks to look at him so he could catch up.

“Work,” Alex said simply with a grin before reaching down to the scarf around his neck to wipe at his face and hair. It didn’t help much; the scarf was also filthy. “We just got back; we need to catch a shower before dinner then we’ll meet you. Didn’t want you to think we stood you up.” He said smiling a bit again, stepping off to the side as more people filtered by headed to dinner.

“Oh right, okay,” she replied, her eyes darting down the hall to see if she could see the rest of the team but it looked like Alex came on his own. “I’m starved, I haven’t eaten all day. I’m going to go ahead and eat while I wait on you all. Well, I’m assuming all of you?”

“That’s fine, shouldn’t take us long,” Alex replied, “well maybe Price. He likes to take long hot showers. Don’t tell him I told you.”

Emma laughed before Alex turned and headed back toward their area jogging a bit. She resumed her walk toward the mess hall and walked in to find the place in full swing again. It was loud and full of people already but she loaded up her plate and attempted to find a corner that was out of the way but could accommodate another six people. She felt a bit better today about the noise versus the night before, the exhaustion had played a huge part in her anxiety being off the charts. She still didn’t enjoy how loud it was but she could at least tolerate it now.

Eating her meal Emma watched the main door for any sign of the group, while nicely telling a few people that the seats were taken when they stopped to try and sit. She wished the group would hurry up, she didn’t like turning people away, especially when they looked back at her and saw the spots were still empty a few minutes later. She was almost done with her meal when the first of them walked through the door, Gaz followed by Crane. They looked different out of their field uniforms, which is all she had seen them in so far except for Soap in his pajamas.

She waited for them to look her way before she waved a hand, feeling a bit silly, but Gaz returned the wave before getting in line for food. At least they knew where to go now and she didn’t feel as ridiculous eating alone. The line took them a while and she had just finished her meal when Gaz and Crane took a seat on the bench opposite of her, setting their overfilled trays down with a clatter.

“Evening,” Gaz said with a grin before stuffing almost an entire roll into his mouth. “Heard you were miss popular on the base today,” he said around the roll once he managed to swallow half of it and moved on to crack open his water.

“I, ah, how do you know that?” Emma asked him raising an eyebrow, “I thought you were all gone today?” Her eyes darted up to the food line to see that the other four had shown up, Ghost still in his face mask and were presently being served their food. How Ghost was going to eat with that she wasn’t sure but that was the least of her worries at the moment.

“Oh, we were,” Crane replied as he stabbed at his plate, also smirking like a cat. “But Price was on comms most of the day and you were brought up. A lot. Something about not being able to find you. Then needing to know how far along you were in your clearance interview.” He stated before looking at her and chewing on his food as if waiting for an answer.

“Yes, well, I didn’t realize anyone had been looking for me,” Emma answered feeling her neck heat up a bit. “And I haven’t heard back about that just yet, I only finished it a few hours ago doesn’t that take a while to come back?”

“Not when Laswell wants answers, it doesn’t,” Gaz supplied as he adjusted his ball cap on his head so it was flipped backward. “I’m sure Price has already heard, he’s not exactly patient when he wants things done.”

As if summoning them out of the air, Price, Ghost, Soap, and Alex were there all moving to take their seats on the bench. All of them were in their casual clothes, though it seemed most of their casual clothes were still some sort of military fatigue and a t-shirt. Price took a seat directly opposite Emma next to Gaz, tossing a folder he had tucked under his arm onto the table before he sat. Alex took up a spot on one side of Emma, Soap on the other, and Ghost on Soap’s left.

They all smelled of shampoo and fresh laundry and she noted that their hair was all still damp which was probably why Gaz and Price had hats on. Emma looked at the envelope that sat in the middle of the table, it was thick and stamped across it in bold red letters ‘confidential’. She swallowed and waited for someone to say something but everyone was quietly eating and looking at her if they wanted her to lead this conversation. Though Gaz was still smirking to himself and Soap was glaring at him as if daring him to try and say something. The silence was growing heavy and Emma finally gave in.

“Can someone tell me what this is all about?” She finally stated, pushing her tray away from her and crossing her arms. “I woke up this morning to a bunch of messages, my job stating I needed to renew my contract by today, the earlier the better. A woman named Laswell sent me a contract and packet that took me two hours to get through, but she didn’t tell me a whole lot of what was happening either. I had to be reinterviewed and fingerprinted to receive top-secret clearance and now I’m apparently being talked about all over the base?”

“This morning?” Price asked her raising an eyebrow. “From what I understand you were nowhere to be found until after lunchtime,” he stated matter-of-factly before taking a bite of his own dinner.

“They would have found her if they just looked in MacTavish’s room,” Ghost ground out as he picked at his food with his fingers on his plate. Everyone looked up at Ghost then, including a red-faced Emma. “Didn’t realize I was the only person who knew. He needs retraining on his stealth if he thought that was sneaky,” he added before wiping his fingers on a napkin and looking at the rest of the group.

If Emma could have melted into the floor she would have, right then and there. Just disappeared to never be seen again. Her ears felt hot and she thought she could hear faint ringing in them. The rest of the group was smirking into their food, not daring to make eye contact with one another, let alone Soap.

“Listen it’s not what it,” Emma started but Soap interrupted her.

“She fell asleep on the couch and I wasn’t leaving her out there for you louses to find her and wake her up,” Soap answered, not looking the least bit embarrassed. “And why not my bed, wasn’t like I was using it anyway.” He shrugged before moving to eat his meal, but he gently knocked his knee into Emma’s under the table in a silent reassurance.

“Right, well now that’s out of the way,” Price stated as he pointed toward the file on the table with his fork. “Your clearance is in. I need you to go over this file this evening then your training starts tomorrow.”

“My training? You mean in the hospital?” Emma asked as she unfolded her arms reached for the packet and pulled it toward her. She felt items shift inside as if there were multiple files inside of it and some loose pieces of paper.

“Yes. You’ll start your day there then you’re with us,” he answered her. “It’s all in there. You can read it after dinner in your new barracks. It’s not for anyone else’s eyes but ours. When you are done reading it needs to be locked away in your gun safe in your room. No one is to know what is in that file or what you are up to.”

Emma could feel her heart racing again, the burn of embarrassment in her cheeks gone but still feeling hot from the anxiety. What had she gotten herself into? All these secrets and now extra training. She hadn’t held or shot a gun in years, after her injury discharged her from the Air Force, she gave all that up and focused solely on school.

“New barracks?” She inquired because that seemed like the only thing she could ask about at the moment since everything else seemed so secretive to the point she had to read this file alone.

“You’ve got a room down with us now. Your stuff’s already been moved in there,” Price explained before pointing at Alex and Soap, “anything’s missing it’s their fault. They collected it all.”

“I don’t have much besides my new work uniform so I doubt anything is missing,” Emma answered.

“We found your tote,” Alex chimed in and Emma turned to face him, her face obviously displaying her confusion. “We went back to the hospital today. There were a few,” he paused, “loose ends to tie up. While we were there Soap and I found the old living quarters and pulled out a few things that we could find and brought them back. A tote with your name on it was one of them and we found a few others.”

That explained why Alex had been so dirty and dusty, he must have been crawling around in fallen rubble all day. All of them probably had been and while she knew it hadn’t just been for her, she was a little overwhelmed at the gesture from them to try and find her things and bring them back to her.

“Thank you,” she said quietly looking from him then over to Soap who just nodded a welcome to her. She didn’t know what else to really say as she sat there waiting for them to finish eating. She wasn’t ready to get up just yet since while she knew where their area was, she didn’t know which room was hers. Luckily the group started talking amongst themselves, filling in the silence that had fallen until it was no longer there.

Ghost hadn’t touched any of his food and eventually, he was the first person to get up, taking a few items off his tray with him and leaving the mess hall. That answered that question, of how he ate. He must do it alone, hiding his face for whatever reason was more important to him than eating. No one in the group even acknowledged what had happened, so this was a normal occurrence then. Emma took note of it if she was going to be working with them, she had to get to know them and how they worked.

“Come on, you’ll need a uniform then I’ll show you your room,” Soap said as he wiped his face with his napkin and rose from his seat. The rest of the team was still talking but Emma could have sworn she saw Gaz give Alex a look when Soap made the offer to show her. She bit the inside of her cheek to tamper down another wave of embarrassment, and maybe annoyance, at the look. “I guessed at the size for your scrubs but those are a little more forgiving than military uniforms.” He grinned rising from his seat, ignoring Gaz who had choked on his water at the last comment.

“Another uniform?” Emma asked as she grabbed her tray and packet from the table and followed him toward the trash then out the door. “What do I need another uniform for?”

“For your training with us. Your scrubs aren’t going to hold up very well outside of the hospital setting,” Soap explained as he hipped open the door and allowed her to walk past. “It’s just standard issue stuff nothing fancy.” He gestured to his own pants and boots that he was wearing to indicate that is what hers would look like as well.

Emma’s eyes roved over him, taking in the pants and boots before moving up to his chest then finally his face. “Yes, well I doubt I will fill in my clothes as well as you do yours,” she responded. She was going to feel utterly foolish wearing military clothing when she wasn’t part of the military anymore, it was going to feel like she was an imposter. She wouldn’t even wear civilian clothing with fatigue print on them.

“I think you’ll fill them in just fine,” Soap said with a laugh and a wink which caused Emma to feel that creeping blush again. “It’s just protective wear for when you’re out in the field. No one is expecting you to be as brawny as us,” he joked.

“Out in the field?” Emma nearly squeaked but Soap put a finger to his lips to silence her, his eyes looking around the area to make sure they were alone. “What do you mean out in the field with you?” She asked again a little more quietly. “I’ve never seen combat. I was only a few years into my service when I was injured and discharged and that was years ago. The most action I saw were military games.”

“You need to read your packet, it’s all in there. Don’t worry about all that just yet. Remember what we talked about last night? About the fact you were unprepared before? We’re going to make sure you’re more prepared this time. And you aren’t going to be sent out there to fight on your own,” he grinned before coming to a stop outside of the laundry. “We’ll talk more about it later after you’ve read.”

Emma had been too engrossed in their conversation and all the questions in her head to even realize the path they had taken to get here. She would need to know where this was eventually and she made a note to try and find it again on her own.

The attendant had Emma walk back with her to get her measurements. Soap offered to wait for her outside, taking a spot on a bench and holding her packet for her. She made him swear he wouldn’t open it which only made him laugh since he probably already knew everything inside. But the last thing she needed was on day one confidential packet being compromised. He promised to be good and put the packet in his lap and that’s where Emma found him ten minutes later, his head resting on the wall behind him with his eyes closed.

She paused for a moment, he hadn’t seemed to realize she was there, and Emma looked at him. He looked exhausted, the dark circles under his eyes stood out in the dim lighting of the hallway. His hair was mussed, even in a mohawk she could tell he must have just towel-dried off before coming to dinner versus combing it out. He had his arms crossed over his chest loosely and she could see the bandage over the cut on his arm had been freshly changed so he was keeping up with that thankfully. But she also took in the fact of how massive his arms actually were as they rested across his broad chest. Her eyes flicked down his stomach to his waist then finally down his legs which were spread comfortably in front of him, her packet sitting neatly over his belt buckle and lap.

“You ready?” Soap asked her quietly with his eyes still closed, but a smile on his lips.

Emma jumped and cleared her throat, so he knew she was there and just sat there waiting for her to finish ogling him. Jerk. She should have known he would have picked up on her standing there, he probably heard her coming from a mile away in these damned flip-flops. “Ready,” she answered doing her best to not flush. She extended her hand out to take her packet from him and he handed it over before pushing up off the bench. She saw the smirk lingering on his lips before he straightened his face, he must have enjoyed the fact she had been staring at him, but he didn’t say anything else about it.

“Your room is at the end of the line,” he explained on their way there. “You’re next to Gaz. He snores so I suggest moving your bed away from the shared wall, they are thin. That’s what I had to do, I’m on the other side of him. Alex is next to me, then Crane, Ghost, and Price at the other end.”

“You snore too,” Alex stated as he came up the hallway behind them having left dinner himself. “But the worst is Price, that’s why he’s down at the other end and Ghost is next to him. He’s the only one that can take it,” he grinned as they made it to their little area common room. Ghost was sitting at the small table, his food eaten and mask on in its usual place. Ghost looked up at their arrival but didn’t say anything and instead went back to the book he had propped on the table.

“This way,” Soap said gesturing with his right arm toward the sleeping area. Emma followed as Alex broke off from them to go talk with Ghost. Emma could feel Ghost’s eyes on her as she walked but they turned around a wall and he was out of sight.

“There’s a small bath at the end of the hall, no shower but a sink and toilet so you don’t have to go all the way to the communal bathroom in the middle of the night,” he pointed to the door at the opposite end of the hall they were in before stopping at another door.

“Home sweet home,” Soap said as he opened the door. The room layout was exactly like his had been, down to the little desk and the propped open portable closet. There was a safe down by where shoes were stored, something she hadn’t noticed in Soap’s before but he had a bunch of stuff in his closet compared to her barren one. “Gaz’s bed is on the other wall so you should be good,” he grinned before pointing at the tote on her desk. “I grabbed everything I could find that looked like it could be yours. Most of it was already in the tote. And of course, everything that you had on that cot in the makeshift sleeping area.”

“Thank you,” Emma replied with a small smile, turning to look at him. “I really appreciate you all doing that. I’m sure that cost you extra time,” she replied, “and wasn’t exactly safe either.” Her eyes looked over at the tote that was sitting on the desk. It was dusty and dirty; one side had a giant crack in it and she could see where someone had slapped some tape on part of it to hold it together.

“It was Alex’s idea. Price said we had an hour so we made the most of it,” he shrugged. “We found some other stuff that belongs to your coworkers and brought it back too.” He followed her eyes to the tote before looking back at her when she spoke again.

“Did you find any,” Emma hesitated before plowing on, “any bodies?” She finished a bit numbly, moving to take a seat on her bed not sure how she would handle the answer. On one hand, she hoped that the bodies were still there to be recovered but on the other the thought of them lying there for that long was dismal.

“Ah,” Soap rubbed the back of his neck, “some, yes. That wasn’t our objective though but there was another crew there on retrieval. I don’t know if they found your friend, we walked the same path you all took that night. They had already cleaned out that area by the time we got there.” He was sparing the details of what he had seen. Such as the trails of blood where bodies had been dragged, all the flies that were still lingering, and some of the threats written on the walls in what he assumed was some of the victim’s blood.

Emma nodded and pushed back the tears in her eyes, “I need to reach out to his wife. I didn’t really know her so I have no idea what to say but I need to send my condolences.” She would tell her what happened, not all the gory details, how her husband had died helping someone else in need. It’s what Ronald did and while he shouldn’t have been dead at all it was a fitting way for him to go.

“I’m sure she’ll appreciate it nonetheless,” Soap said with a reassuring smile. A silence fell between them before he tacked on a bit more cheerfully, “you need to get to reading. That packet is pretty thick and if you’re going to be prepared for tomorrow you need to study up.” He grinned; he knew exactly what she was getting into when she read the damned packet. He almost seemed excited at the prospect of what she was going to find in there.

“Right,” Emma said as she pulled the envelope into her lap from where she had tossed it on the nightstand and moved to break the tape sealing it shut. “Am I allowed to discuss it with you after I read it?” She asked as Soap moved to exit the room.

“This time, yes, I know exactly what is in there and already have most of it memorized anyway,” he grinned, “but who knows you may surpass me with your clearance one day and not be allowed to talk to me about anything.” He was in the hallway now and his hand was on the door handle. “Read up and get some sleep. I’ll answer any questions you have tomorrow.” And with that, he shut the door leaving Emma alone in her new room.

“Goodnight then,” Emma said sarcastically to the now closed door, and on the other side she heard Soap laugh and return the sentiment.

Deciding to just get right to it and start reading, she peeled off the scrubs she had worn that day and opened her tote to pull out a t-shirt of hers. It certainly didn’t smell like fresh laundry but it wasn’t horrendous either. She would need to send all of her meager clothes to the laundry she suspected, especially since the side of the tote had been cracked open letting in dirt and dust. Pulling back the blanket on her bed she moved to hop in when she spotted something under her three pillows. She lifted one pillow up and smirked a bit, it was Soap’s jacket tucked neatly under everything. She knew Soap had to of put it there, as well as snagged her the extra pillow.

Leaving the jacket right where it was, she propped two pillows up settled into the bed, and pulled out all of the paperwork. As she suspected there were multiple files inside, each one with a person’s name written on the tab. They were all the 141 task force members she realized as she thumbed through and read through all the names. Then there was some loose paperwork as well. She flipped the loose paperwork around properly and stacked it neatly on her nightstand, she would get to those later. She was more curious about these files on the men she was now working with.

Starting with Alex first, she flipped open the file and began to look it over. There was his picture paperclipped on the left-hand side and on the right was paperwork. Some of the files still had redacted things in them but overall, it seemed it was a summary of his life. Where he went to school, his training, what military branch he served with, his ranking, missions he accomplished, his specialties, his psychology testing, where he worked after the military when he started with the task force, and things he accomplished with them. It delved further into personal things as well, some that seemed like the military would need to know and others filled in on post-it notes over the years from either Alex himself or his teammates. Such as his favorite flavor of coffee, something Emma suspected the military could care less about.

It took her a few hours to get through the stack. Ghost’s file had been the smallest with no pictures and it had the most redactions. She had saved Soap’s for last, not really sure why but she kept shifting it to the bottom of the pile as she finished each one. It was all an insightful read that she knew she’d need to refer back to multiple times before she remembered everything. She realized when she closed Soap’s file, her eyes lingering on his picture for a moment before she did so, that they probably all had a file on her as well. What would they find in there? Would they even find it interesting? She was sure it would seem so pathetically short and small compared to everything they had all done. She guessed she would have to fill in the more personal touches herself because there was no one else to add that to her file.

The clock on the wall showed it was almost eleven and she still hadn’t gone through the other stack of papers. Groaning she reached for those next and went through them. They were all about the work she would be doing with the 141, the training she would receive, how the group functioned together, what they needed from her, how she would fit in, and what she could expect from them in return. She mused over all of it for a few more minutes before getting up and putting all the paperwork in the safe in her closet. She used her badge to lock it, tugging on it to make sure it was secure before standing up.

She needed to get to sleep, her shift at the hospital started at seven sharp then she was meeting the 141 at one to begin her work with them. Digging around in her tote for the old-fashioned alarm clock her father gave her since electricity wasn’t reliable where she was at before, she pulled it out and cranked it. Setting the alarm for five thirty, to have enough time to shower and eat before work, Emma flipped off her light to the room and crawled into bed in the peaceful dark.

Emma’s hands slid under the pillows as she stretched out on her stomach and she curled her fingers into the fabric of Soap’s jacket. Distantly she could hear snoring, she assumed it was Gaz, but it was quiet enough to be ignored between the sound of the air system running and the soft ticking of her alarm clock. She adjusted a few times in the bed, but her hands never let go of the jacket before sleep found her.

[ghostiegamer]

Had a Steven Universe AU bounce around my brain a little bit so here's what I have so far of it

PD- Queen of a very prosperous and peaceful kingdom. Lush and beautiful. Refugees come to her kingdom to thrive. Gained the nickname Rose Queen from her subjects because of how kind and beautiful she is. Throws lavish balls as an excuse to hire refugees for new jobs within her kingdom. Her kingdom is mainly fields, forests, and mountains. Lots of farmland and mines. Main export is food and gems.

WP- Head of PD royal guard. Is PD personal knight. Used to work for WD as a part of her royal guard but WD traded her for PP. Is extremely loyal to PD. Is very good with all kinds of weapons. Also has a green thumb and if not by her queens side or training, she can usually be found in the garden tending to her roses and medicinal herbs. Is also pretty good at alchemy. Is an orphan.

BD- Is generally considered a pretty merciful Queen. Will swoop in to kingdoms that desperately need help and offer to help in exchange for them joining her kingdom and acknowledging her as their queen. If they refuse, then she doesn't mind going to war. Kingdom is fairly big. A lot of her kingdom is coastal. Main export is fish.

BP- Is BD lady in waiting/heir. Very knowledgeable in other kingdoms culture and goods. Personally attends to all of BD needs. Knows how to make other kingdoms rulers lower their guard so BD can try to sway them into giving up their crown. Knows all the stuff about kingdom relations and is very knowledgeable about trade and commonly sits in and helps lead meeting about what to do with new territory's goods. Loves painting in her free time.

YD- A war queen. She tears through kingdoms either taking them for herself or leaving them for Blue or Pink to swoop in and pick up the pieces. Her kingdom is mainly mountainous. Main export is metal. Is extremely smart and very determined. Is very good at navigating a battlefield but not so much at navigating the workings of her court.

YP- Is YD lady in waiting/advisor/heir. Knows her way around a battlefield just as well as a ballroom. Tells YD everything that goes on with the commoners and nobles of the land. Is very devious and cunning. Often sits in on war meetings offering advice. Runs the court whenever YD is away at war, which is a fair amount of the time. Is very good with handling conflict and solving disputes. Often models for BP when the diamonds get together.

WD- A distant Queen. Her kingdom is very prosperous and large. She does not make many public appearances. Her pearl makes them for her. Her kingdom has several different biomes within it but it's mainly forest. Main export is lumber and weaponry. Does not often go to war, but when she does, she decimates whatever kingdom she goes against. Very few survivors. She's very blunt and tends to not waste time dancing around a subject when she can just get straight to the point. This has earned her a reputation for being cold from those who have met her. Secretly is a big softie for the other diamonds and their pearls. PD pearl use to be apart of her royal guard. Knows that she's the reason why PP is an orphan and has a disability and that's part of the reason why she adopted PP. Feels guilty for hurting a child like that.

PP- Use to be a royal jester in PD court. WD saw her at one of PD balls and thought she looked absolutely stunning. WD traded her pearl in the royal guard to PD for PP. Is an orphan. Now is WD lady in waiting and heir. Makes public appearances for WD and handles most of the ongoings of court and day to day life. Is a very skilled blacksmith and enjoys experimenting in her forge. Is also a very good dancer. Doesn't speak much when she doesn't have to. Parents were killed in an attack on PP kingdom of birth when she was a baby. This left her with a big scar across one of her eyes and partial blindess in it. Kingdom was attacked by WD forces. She is one of few survivors. Despite her scar, she's widely regarded as one of the most beautiful women in WD kingdom. Is extremely kind.

The Diamonds and Pearls travel between the kingdoms often and the 4 Diamonds are often referred to as The Sister Queens even though they're not really related. They did all grow up together though as their parents were close friends. Their parents all died due to a mysterious illness that plagued their land long ago. They're all unmarried. Most of the world is run by them with a few small countries still existing, mainly due to treaties with one of the Diamonds kingdoms.

If anyone wants to know more, please ask. I would love to talk about this and flesh it out a bit more.

[neoyi]

We've reached a point in our lives where nostalgic bait is at an all-time high. From the thousands of reboots; remakes; and sequels to beloved cult classics from the 80s, 90s, and early 2000s, it is shameful how many of these we have, all varying in terms of quality and almost always with the intent to pocket money off of us peons.

What can I say? We were desperate for anything because we hardly ever got anything back then.

Even the darling favorite of many a fandom back in the mid-2000s, Avatar: The Last Airbender, was hurting for merch back in the days. And Danny Phantom's was practically non-existent. It is astonishing this comic exists, but not at all surprising because now, Nickelodeon knows to cash in on the products that fans have carried a torch for decades later.

I'm sounding really cynical here, I know. And while Ol' Nicky is seeing dollar signs, it is worth noting A Glitch in Time was clearly made with the most utmost love and respect for the show. Gabriela Epstein gave so much of a damn crafting this near 200-page behemoth, covering almost 90% of the hanging plot points the show never got the time to answer and simultaneously wiping off the backwards series finale that left a bad taste in a lot of people's mouth.

Like altogether, this comic explored Danny's story and what his purpose is post-"PP", Vlad's redemption arc, Pariah King's artifacts (and why Vlad was collecting them), and Dark Danny's return, all while working around a plausible narrative that retooled "PP" using time manipulation and newfound lore. And it's amazing how seamless it flows.

This comic isn't just incredible, it's a miracle.

And in spite of all that, the author still had the balls to leave some of the dangling plot threads and character arcs unfinished for a potential sequel hook, as if they knew this comic would sell enough to justify one.

Well, as of this writing, this motherfucker is still the #1 top seller in Amazon's all-age for graphic novels. Fool on me to rely purely on that hell site's sale counts to accurately know how well it did, but I imagine that's pretty damn good. If you had told me years ago anything DP-related beyond lame ass Box Lunch shirts would officially come out of the woodwork, I would have laughed. That the possibility of a second comic book seem plausible would be chuckly-worthy, but now... damn, I think it genuinely could happen.

And I hope it does, because A Glitch in Time still finishes with a couple of snags left to untangle.

The first major incident is the controversial matter of a one Miss Danielle Phantom. Now that Vlad has been given a second chance to raise a child, and do it right this time, what does that mean for Danny's clone? How will she feel knowing Vlad has changed? Or that he has a son? Would he have been a better father by the time she flies back to Amity Park? What has this kid been up to in the few years since "PP?" How would Danielle feel when she reunites with a Vlad that looks to be genuinely trying? Distrustful on his true intention? Angry that this man had the gull to change? Jealous that Dark Danny had Vlad's unconditional love when his fatherly affection is all Danielle ever wanted?

Dani is never mentioned at any point in the comic, with any hints that she still exists the Danny clones lingering in Vlad's secret base. I understand why she wouldn't be relevant for this comic. Dark Danny, for one, is such a huge entity that an entire spotlight dedicated to him and him alone would be worthy of a full graphic novel. But Dani's existence, her dilemma as a lone wanderer with only a distant relationship with Danny, and the unresolved tension between her and Vlad means her story is worthy of a full comic, too.

Now that Vlad is on the path of redemption with promises to be a better person and a father, his relationship with Danielle is going to invite a lot of questions, conflicts, and hurt feelings before it presumably and hopefully treads into happier paths. And Danny is likely gonna be stuck playing the awkward monkey-in-the-middle family member in all this. But damn, the setup is there.

The other Big Huge Plot left is Valerie.

In her last major role prior to this comic, Valerie was confronted with a moral dilemma: will she take the life of a human if said human is a half-ghost? Danny, in desperation, had to confess to Valerie that Dani is a half-ghost, meaning Valerie would have the blood of an actual mortal on her hands should she kill her.

And mind, this was the best Danny could do. We've seen that ghosts in DP are their own species with their own (dead) lives and free will. I'm not sure if Valerie has killed any ghosts or if she's just thermos'ed them back into the Ghost Zone, but her unscrupulous and, by the end of the show, downright brutal nature, seem to imply if she hadn't already murdered any ghosts, then she's more than willing to should the issue arise.

And so we have Val in A Glitch in Time, still doing her ghost hunting thing (her father hasn't been seen since season two, is he okay with her doing this or is she hunting ghosts regardless of any concerns he might have), a job I'm sure she's positively thriving in now that Amity Park is gung-ho for some ghostbustin'.

Indeed, though she's not as prominent as the main trio and Vlad, Valerie gets enough time in the spotlight to meet Dark Danny. In a particularly brilliant callback, she gets a couple of one-on-one battles with Dark Danny, with both the tone and even color scheme echoing so much of what her alternate, older counterpart has countered with Dark Danny from that timeline.

And I'm sure Dark Danny is just thrilled at the deja vu.

The damning part is how Valerie reacts when she realizes Dark Danny is, well, Danny.

Keep in mind, this is post-"Phantom Planet." This is post-Valerie has known Danny Phantom is Fenton. She says this after knowing the town's hero was a fellow student she once liked and dated, and whom she nearly gave up her ghost hunting career for.

Yeah.

This has implication.

Valerie's first reaction to meeting a future Dark Danny is to straight up tell him, "you're evil." Is that how she felt about Danny Fenton after "Phantom Planet?" Did she feel betrayed that the boy she fell for was secretly half-ghost? Did she feel manipulated into saving Dani? Given the exceptional story Gabriela Epstein has expertly crafted, this one piece of dialogue cannot, under any circumstances, be accidental.

Valerie saying this straight up to Danny fuckin' Fenton after everything that has transpired is one of the biggest bomb drops in A Glitch in Time.

The end of the comic implies she remembers the old timeline, meaning she's still aware of Fenton as Phantom. The tragedy of her character is that Valerie has always been strictly one-minded in her goal. Her downright hatred for ghosts and the absolute destruction of Amity Park before Clockwork fixed everything means in her eyes, she has justifiable cause to kill Danny Fenton. The current Danny Fenton. After all, if he is capable of turning into Dark Danny, then why shouldn't she get rid of him before it's too late?

Valerie is also intricately connected to Dani through "D-Stabilized", meaning there could be a way to tie all of these into another Big Damn Comic Book down the line. And while I had problems with how Valerie's dialogue was written in that episode (sounding deviously supervillainy as oppose to her feeling like her actions are justified), having her as the central villain in the next book sounds about right.

I've always been opposed to the idea of Valerie being an outright baddie (as oppose to a just being a dangerous obstacle), but the potential dynamic and high stakes tension for her to be the biggest obstacle to Danny, Dani, and Vlad (since she also knows what the latter is, too) in her pursuit to kill all ghosts and protect her home has nuances and character exploration that I think Gabriela Epstein is more than capable of dissecting.

Whatever the outcome may be, should another DP graphic novel come to light, I, for once in so many, many, many years, look forward to it.

[bengiyo]

I Told Sunset About You Rewatch Ep 2 Stray Thoughts

Continuing the rewatch for the retrospective, lets pick back up with my favorite crybaby boys. Coming back to ITSAY I'm floored again by just how fucking good the score, sound mixing, cinematography, and the editing are. This was the first Thai gay drama I watched that felt like it believed in its talent and trusted them to carry the scene. The shots are patient, and the story is so legible. It's not doing any slapstick to make sure you laugh in case you're getting bored. It makes you sit up and take notice.

They really had Bas dropping Oh-aew off at his romantic rival's house.

Once again loving the almost-Japanese approach to depth of picture with these static shots where they let the actors move about the frame. I just love seeing people act and exist relative to each other in the same space. I love having details to focus on at every level.

Teh's mom was very correct that Teh needed to not just blow off school.

Hoon may tease Teh sometimes, but he still got that boy a plane ticket. Makes me sad that Teh has so many hangups about his big brother.

Frustrates me to no end that Oh always viewed Teh impressively, and yet Teh has such an inferiority complex.

Billkin has multiple angles, and those dimples. It's not fair.

That's right, Tuty. Nothing gay better happen on your watch! Keep it up, you homophobic pup!

PP plays the shift in Oh to relax around Teh again really well this episode. He's so charming when he's not tensing. Billkin responds well by having Teh pretend he isn't a sap.

Man, this talk of boobs on the saleng is also worrisome foreshadowing.

Also, hilariously, there were so obviously on a trailer for most of that.

I just really love the shot of them running down the ramp to the pier.

Smile really was just so good as Tarn. I really liked her, and she's so lovely to watch this time too.

I feel the need to state very clearly here again that Teh did genuinely like Tarn. We know he had been flirting for two years. Even if he's brightening up and his blue is coming through loudly again because he reconnected to Oh-aew, he is still trying to be good to Tarn.

Truly the leitmotif of Skyline is unparalleled.

Oh, Teh, he doesn't even know why he's jealous of their oldest friends.

I also don't think any other show has used text chats and IG better than this show. Texting someone at the table with your friends is so real.

Teh is just so pouty with Oh. Just no effort to shield his feelings.

This boy is still being salty as shit about this at school the next day, and now is going across the damn city to sneak into their school because he doesn't feel close enough to Oh.

Absolutely incredible that he says it so plainly that he was jealous of their friends because he didn't feel like he was the BFF anymore. Teh is unreal.

Whoever was in charge of lighting for this scene where Oh and Teh talk at Oh's school? You did an incredible job. PP looks amazing.

I get so anxious every time we get to Teh trying to help Oh flirt with Bas. I think he was serious at first, but it gets complicated so quickly. Also, I remember being this age and any slight form of physical contact being so, so much.

The MoRaoYuLok chemistry workshops really paid off. They feel like dudes who've been around each other forever.

Hold fast, friends. Teh is about to do something to provoke Bas.

It's interesting that only Bas looked at Oh after Teh's admission. The rest of them focused only on Teh. Bas immediately schedules a hangout with Oh.

And now it's these two knocking knees under the table. I'm going to go insane again.

Now, PP, you did not need to drink from that coconut like that whole looking at Khunpol.

That transition from Oh's and Bas's backs to Teh's and Tarn's backs gets me every time.

PP and Khunpol have great legs.

Teh posting Tarn on IG like, "After tonight, don't leave ya girl around me. Real playa fo' real."

But on the real, we get mad about the situation in IPYTM, but Teh misuses Tarn's feelings repeatedly here and again in this show after he gets jealous of Oh.

Truly incredible performances from Billkin and Smile on this kiss. I love that they got this on one take after falling on each other the first time. Contrast that with the athleticism required for the underwater kiss later and you appreciate that Boss only asked for what was necessary from his actors.

Teh can be so mean sometimes, and often Oh has no idea why Teh is suddenly being grumpy or petty. Poor Bas can read what's happening, but also has no idea what's going on.

Excellent timing on battery death there, phone. I always love Teh doing donuts to get some power back just to angst over Oh again.

We talk about Skyline a lot, but Lost in Translation is used so well in the background of this show.

Here there go again holding the shot and letting people act again. I love how they trust Billkin to play Teh's nervousness and anticipation in extended takes. Oh-aew's return is also timed perfectly with the song.

My goodness. Oh will be begging Teh to just tell him what's bothering him for years.

They really were determined to make PP and Billkin glow this episode.

"Don't give my time to others." I'm just gonna go ahead and lay down again.

Coconut scent got this boy telling on himself. This final scene is just so much. Many of us fake wrestled as an excuse to touch.

I gotta stop for now. I can't go immediately into episode 3, because this episode always does me in. Despite both Oh and Teh making progress with their respective love interests, so much of this episode ends up being about their forward progress with each other. Both of them are checking in or checking on with the other while basically on a date, and both are thinking about the other while with Bas or Tarn. There's just so much here about their need to affirm their importance to each other after all this time.

[hematomes]

Fighting the urge to murder I wish YouTube had a proper blocking function there are so many people just being completely wrong and I can't keep fighting the urge to correct them.

This is about Baizhu leaks.

I just...why are Genshin fans like this?why can't we just learn to make sure of stuff before we start throwing opinions all over the place like they're true?

Like Baizhu as a character seems to either be the second dendro unit in a bloom team(and all other variants,which in turns gives them the dendro resonance so more damage) or the second dendro or only dendro in an aggravate/spread team right? he's a support/healer/shielder(though his shields seem more for interruption resistance than actually shielding but that doesn't matter because he heals) I'm not wrong to come to that conclusion correct?

So then why are people saying he isn't good because he doesn't play a role he wasn't meant for??? JUST GOD I HATE IT HERE (can leave at any time,is too stubborn to do so)

Don't mind me I've just been having this rant going in my brain all week

probably bc a good chunk of loudly wrong players only care about big pp numbers

i think the inherent issue with dendro rn is that every support character coming out after nahida is (understandably) compared with her. but what ppl who just idk play brainlessly or smth fail to understand is that different supports will have different roles

nahida is mainly a buffer and a driver. if you privilege dmg input then yes, she's better than baizhu. but she doesn't provide a shield (which is needed, especially in bloom scenarios), and she only provides healing with the craftable hp catalyst, which in turn demands additional effort into balancing her build bc she otherwise doesn't benefit from hp.

baizhu is primarily a shielder and a healer. he has a weak dendro application because, as you said, you'll want him to be the 2nd dendro in a bloom-based comp (typically paired with nahida but DMC is a viable alternative). in quicken scenarios his dendro application can be enough as long as you build him to have his ult in every rotation. he could use a battery, which makes him a perfect fit in double electro + double dendro comps. he's therefore really good for cyno, who's uptime is so long no one except zhongli can keep up. now you get a shield and a heal in one character (so it's not as important if you don't have 100% shield uptime), who's the perfect element to pair w him.

then they compare him to yaoyao. she's a good f2p alternative, but he's objectively better (as in comfier). she doesn't have a shield, and her healing requires her to be on-field.

anyway the "theorycrafting" (as in fake TCs who don't know shit and just watch zy0x with their hand down their pants) scene is a nightmare, and everytime a character comes out in the beta there's doomposting etc etc. honestly i stopped caring after kokomi's beta 💀 pulling for her was one of the best decisions of my life, not bc she's now meta but bc she's my special girl

[wagmi-mga2024mi5014]

Character Bios: Katya Novikov

The grip of fear had become a constant companion for Katya Novikov, youngest daughter of the infamous lawmaker Novikov, whose name was synonymous with pride and ego. In stark contrast to his daughter, Novikov’s twisted political agenda, fueled by arrogance and a delusional sense of superiority had disadvantaged over hundreds of thousands, leaving some homeless, hungry, and helpless. Though she condemned and spoke against her father's actions and the laws he'd enacted, his influence clung to her like a wound.  

Katya's world had been meticulously engineered by her father to favour the Russian faith, all to get the coveted Exalted status, however, the recent genetic test had shattered their carefully constructed facade. The revelation – a bitter pill of truth – exposed them as impostors; their privileged existence was built on a lie. Now, haunted by the guilt she feels for her father’s crimes, Katya woke to the chilling sight of armed men tearing through her home. The screams of her family echoed in the chaos as she fled, the terror gnawing at her soul. Though she was not to blame, this was her new reality, a chilling consequence of the sins of her family.

Research: Real-world Inspiration.

After searching many resources for a compelling backstory for Katya, I had come to a dead end since most of my story is original, it doesn't have much to go on in terms of "research". However, I did want to have some sort of real-life inspiration for her as this would give her life more depth and essence.

As I kept researching more on Russian Law and its history, I came across Nikita Khrushchev, the first secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Khrushchev fell from power and his life turned upside down in a matter of months. This real-world figure spoke to me and gave me the inspiration to base Katya's dad loosely on him.

This fictional retelling of a person, affected greatly by the actions of her father, whose life somewhat resembled that of Khrushchev. It would also make sense, that Novikov (Katya's father) would look up to these figures and try to emulate them as Khrushchev was born and raised in Soviet Russia. Katya's life is plunged into disarray as her dad's mistakes take a toll on her life.

"By the early 1960s however, Khrushchev's popularity was eroded by flaws in his policies, as well as his handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis. This emboldened his potential opponents, who quietly rose in strength and deposed him in October 1964."

Nikita Khrushchev - Wikipedia

By using my Northumbra Access to JSTOR, I also read excerpts from the book "The Fall of Nikita Khrushchev by William J. Tompson" which highlighted the state that Khrushchev was in at the time of his dismissal.

Tompson, William J. “The Fall of Nikita Khrushchev.” Soviet Studies, vol. 43, no. 6, 1991, pp. 1101–21. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/152407. Accessed 11 Feb. 2024.

[alethealt-context-studies-yr2]

ALWAYS ON Reading Report

I chose to read “Always On” by Sherry Turkle. It discusses how our relationship with technology has changed over the years and how it shapes our everyday lives.

There is a balance between negative and positive aspects throughout the text. Even when discussing a negative point, like on pages 156-157, she admits to following the same behaviour she is criticising. In these pages she talks about how people are always on their phones no matter the time or situation. She brings up being on holiday with her daughter and how after that, she noticed people were always distracted by their phone when at work, school or just in life. It’s interesting that after this critique she talks about how she now does the same, and a hotel on holiday “cannot compare to the constancy of online connections.” (p.157)

Some of her points feel generational; she’s part of a generation who didn’t grow up with technology and had to adapt to a changing world. This comes across in moments where she is nostalgic for things that seem mundane and confusing, for things that haven’t really changed. An example of this is on p.155 with “I grew up in Brooklyn where sidewalks had a special look.” This point is odd; I understand her reminiscing on a time where people would pay attention to the smaller things in life, but I feel a better comparison could’ve been made as this makes her point feel weak, which it isn’t.  

It’s interesting that despite the text being dated, many of the points still apply to today. It mostly talks of blackberries and outdated online games, but the general points are still applicable. She makes an interesting point on p.168-169, where she discusses how our constant connection to the net leads us to becoming “depersonalized”. We don’t see online friends as “real” friends as they all meld into one, conversations and interactions online lose their meaning. It describes how “Online, we invent ways of being with people that turn them into something close to objects.” (p.168). It’s also discussed how the internet makes it “easier to play with identity” but “harder to leave the past behind.” (p.169).

I chose this text because I find it interesting to look at how our technology use has changed over the years and the implications of it; I’ve always been around technology, but I feel my generation had a perfect level of exposure to it. What I mean by this is that generations before mine had less, so struggled to adapt to the changing world but the generations after mine had too much exposure which has led to the phenomenon of “iPad babies” and significant behavioural issues in children.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Turkle, S. (2011). Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other (New York: Basic Books), pp. 151–170.

[mariespeaksg-dsgrace]

What Marie Likes.....

What Marie Likes: Books, Abundance by Sena Jeter Naslund. Is Lady Liberty astare? Does Torah prove the history of nations?

Video link to classes regarding idolarty: Soul ties: https://youtu.be/jXT-BeH8ShM?feature=shared Curses :https://youtu.be/jQ7ce4dtAQQ?feature=shared Tammaz: https://youtu.be/nLVV4CMUbxw?feature=shared False prophets: https://youtu.be/aH1GkhXfZLU?feature=shared Rome 325: https://www.youtube.com/live/ImiUwIMj3gY?feature=shared Let them eat cake: https://www.youtube.com/live/sjXwtW_19ZQ?feature=shared

Abundance Sena Jeter Naslund, 2006 HarperCollins 560 pp. ISBN-13 9780061208300 credit: https://www.litlovers.com/reading-guides/21-abundance-naslund

Summary Marie Antoinette was a child of fourteen when her mother, the Empress of Austria, arranged for her to leave her family and her country to become the wife of the fifteen-year-old Dauphin, the future King of France.

Coming of age in the most public of arenas—eager to be a good wife and strong queen—she warmly embraces her adopted nation and its citizens. She shows her new husband nothing but love and encouragement, though he repeatedly fails to consummate their marriage and in so doing is unable to give what she and the people of France desire most: a child and an heir to the throne.

Deeply disappointed and isolated in her own intimate circle, and apart from the social life of the court, she allows herself to remain ignorant of the country's growing economic and political crises, even as poor harvests, bitter winters, war debts, and poverty precipitate rebellion and revenge. The young queen, once beloved by the common folk, becomes a target of scorn, cruelty, and hatred as she, the court's nobles, and the rest of the royal family are caught up in the nightmarish violence of a murderous time called "the Terror."

With penetrating insight and with wondrous narrative skill, Sena Jeter Naslund offers an intimate, fresh, heartbreaking, and dramatic reimagining of this truly compelling woman that goes far beyond popular myth—and she makes a bygone time of tumultuous change as real to us as the one we are living in now. (From the publisher.)

Dear Friends and Families,

In an effort to create a shared reading experience throughout our whole community, we have selected to share some of the many books we have enjoyed on a variety of topics. Some might be chapter books, some books are religious, educational, or just to enjoy with a hot cup of tea. The goal of this project or page is to encourage home reading experiences by supplying every family, friend, co-workers, strangers in the grocery store, and subscriber with the opportunity for a motivating, exciting, shared book adventure!

Some might be thinking, ” purchasing books is expense.” There happens to exist several location both online and in person to purchase books or even get books for free.

I use Thriftbooks.com (discount link: https://www.thriftbooks.com/share/?co… ), to purchase used books online. #Funfact Teachers get a discount, yes even homeschool teachers. I also enjoy library book sales, local book fairs, book clubs, friends of the library by city, as well as free library under a tree; just to name a few when searching for low price books. … just a glimpse.

Click page link for more https://mariespeaksgodsgrace.live/wha…

With Love, Marie

[thoughtsofafeverishmind]

R.K. Thorne - Mage slave

PP. 330/331

Suddenly, he remembered how weak they´d gotten after they´d healed the boy. Maybe there was a way he could use Sorin´s foolishness to his advantage. As she took his hand and heaved him up, he did in fact see stars and dizziness swam through him. It did not take much pretending to allow himself to fall back to the ground like a sack of potatoes and pretend to pass out. "Damn it," she swore. "By all that is good and holy. Sorin, look what you´ve done."

...

Many curses from Miara later, she and Sorin had managed to get a comatose Aven onto the horse and tied such that he wouldn´t fall off. Pretending he was unconscious throughout the process might have been one of the hardest things he´d ever done, requiring him to ignore both the awkward, painful positioning and nearly being dropped a time or two.

P. 335

And then suddenly - the outpour stopped. Stopped so fast, that he had emptied nearly all the energy in him at that horrible little spot in her shoulder - he felt his chest grow cold, then suddenly icy. The world whirled and went dark.

P.341

She stroked Cora´s nose and mane and stole a stroke of Aven´s hair and cheek out of Sorin´s sight. He was still out cold.

P.344

She and Sorin ate as they rode, trudging on even though they needed to stop. Aven, strangely, did not stir. She hadn´t thought Sorin had hit him that hard. Perhaps it was also just the fatigue of the journey. Hopefully, they could rouse him before they arrived - she didn´t want to explain an unconscious Akarian to the Masters. Damn Sorin.

P.422

He couldn´t remember Daes leaving or even passing out, but it must have happened at some point. Even now, he felt himself teetering on the edge of consciousness, wether it was from pain, the lack of sleep, the mental exhaustion. One more quick jerk, and perhaps he could have the shirt on - He felt himself fall to the ground and into darkness.

"He has his father´s eyes." A man´s voice. Cold stone pressed against Aven´s cheek. His body lay uncomfortably sprawled on it´s side. He kept his eyes closed, hoping to hide that he´d awoken.

[aurrai]

Story beats: Showing the main character's mindset change at the start of Act 2

Summary of the story so far:

In Act 1, Chiyo was forced out of the Normal World of her hometown where she lived with her father, mother, and older sister into the Special World of Kyoto where she lives in an okiya, a geisha house, and is in training as an apprentice geisha. Chiyo's goal is to run back to her hometown with her sister but she is caught and sent back to her okiya where her punishment for trying to run away is for her geisha training to be forfeit and her status reduced to that of a maid. She then finds out both her parents have passed away and her sister has run off. Now she has no Normal World to return to. Here is how Act 2 begins:

From MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA by Arthur Golden, Chapter 9 pp. 105-108.

---START OF TEXT---

Around the time of my sixty-fifth birthday, a friend sent me an article she'd found somewhere, called "The Twenty Greatest Geisha of Gion's Past." Or maybe it was the thirty greatest geisha, I don't remember. But there I was on the list with a little paragraph telling some things about me, including that I'd been born in Kyoto—which of course I wasn't. I can assure you I wasn't one of Gion's twenty greatest geisha either; some people have difficulty telling the difference between something great and something they've simply heard of. In any case, I would have been lucky to end up as nothing more than a bad geisha and an unhappy one, like so many other poor girls, if Mr. Tanaka had never written to tell me that my parents had died and that I would probably never see my sister again.

I'm sure you'll recall my saying that the afternoon when I first met Mr. Tanaka was the very best afternoon of my life, and also the very worst. Probably I don't need to explain why it was the worst; but you may be wondering how I could possibly imagine that anything good ever came of it. It's true that up until this time in my life Mr. Tanaka had brought me nothing but suffering; but he also changed my horizons forever. We lead our lives like water flowing down a hill, going more or less in one direction until we splash into something that forces us to find a new course. If I'd never met Mr. Tanaka, my life would have been a simple stream flowing from our tipsy house to the ocean. Mr. Tanaka changed all that when he sent me out into the world. But being sent out into the world isn't necessarily the same as leaving your home behind you. I'd been in Gion more than six months by the time I received Mr. Tanaka's letter; and yet during that time, I'd never for a moment given up the belief that I would one day find a better life elsewhere, with at least part of the family I'd always known. I was living only half in Gion; the other half of me lived in my dreams of going home. This is why dreams can be such dangerous things: they smolder on like a fire does, and sometimes consume us completely.

During the rest of the spring and all that summer following the letter, I felt like a child lost on a lake in the fog. The days spilled one after another into a muddle. I remember only snippets of things, aside from a constant feeling of misery and fear. One cold evening after winter had come, I sat a long while in the maids' room watching snow falling silently into the okiya's little courtyard. I imagined my father coughing at the lonely table in his lonely house, and my mother so frail upon her futon that her body scarcely sank into the bedding. I stumbled out into the courtyard to try to flee my misery, but of course we can never flee the misery that is within us.

Then in early spring, a full year after the terrible news about my family, something happened. It was the following April, when the cherry trees were in blossom once again; it may even have been a year to the day since Mr. Tanaka's letter. I was almost twelve by then and was beginning to look a bit womanly, even though Pumpkin still looked very much like a little girl. I'd grown nearly as tall as I would ever grow. My body would remain thin and knobby like a twig for a year or two more, but my face had already given up its childish softness and was now sharp around the chin and cheekbones, and had broadened in such a way as to give a true almond shape to my eyes. In the past, men had taken no more notice of me on the streets than if I had been a pigeon; now they were watching me when I passed them. I found it strange to be the object of attention after being ignored for so long.

In any case, very early one morning that April, I awoke from a most peculiar dream about a bearded man. His beard was so heavy that his features were a blur to me, as if someone had censored them from the film. He was standing before me saying something I can't remember, and then all at once he slid open the paper screen over a window beside him with a loud clack. I awoke thinking I'd heard a noise in the room. The maids were sighing in their sleep. Pumpkin lay quietly with her round face sagging onto the pillow. Everything looked just as it always did, I'm sure; but my feelings were strangely different. I felt as though I were looking at a world that was somehow changed from the one I'd seen the night before-peering out, almost, through the very window that had opened in my dream.

I couldn't possibly have explained what this meant. But I continued thinking about it while I swept the stepping-stones in the courtyard that morning, until I began to feel the sort of buzzing in my head that comes from a thought circling and circling with nowhere to go, just like a bee in a jar. Soon I put down the broom and went to sit in the dirt corridor, where the cool air from beneath the foundation of the main house drifted soothingly over my back. And then something came to mind that I hadn't thought about since my very first week in Kyoto.

Only a day or two after being separated from my sister, I had been sent to wash some rags one afternoon, when a moth came fluttering down from the sky onto my arm. I flicked it off, expecting that it would fly away, but instead it sailed like a pebble across the courtyard and lay there upon the ground. I didn't know if it had fallen from the sky already dead or if I had killed it, but its little insect death touched me. I admired the lovely pattern on its wings, and then wrapped it in one of the rags I was washing and hid it away beneath the foundation of the house.

I hadn't thought about this moth since then; but the moment it came to mind I got on my knees and looked under the house until I found it. So many things in my life had changed, even the way I looked; but when I unwrapped the moth from its funeral shroud, it was the same startlingly lovely creature as on the day I had entombed it. It seemed to be wearing a robe in subdued grays and browns, like Mother wore when she went to her mah-jongg games at night. Everything about it seemed beautiful and perfect, and so utterly unchanged. If only one thing in my life had been the same as during that first week in Kyoto ... As I thought of this my mind began to swirl like a hurricane. It struck me that we-that moth and I-were two opposite extremes. My existence was as unstable as a stream, changing in every way; but the moth was like a piece of stone, changing not at all. While thinking this thought, I reached out a finger to feel the moth's velvety surface; but when I brushed it with my fingertip, it turned all at once into a pile of ash without even a sound, without even a moment in which I could see it crumbling. I was so astonished I let out a cry. The swirling in my mind stopped; I felt as if I had stepped into the eye of a storm. I let the tiny shroud and its pile of ashes flutter to the ground; and now I understood the thing that had puzzled me all morning. The stale air had washed away. The past was gone. My mother and father were dead and I could do nothing to change it. But I suppose that for the past year I'd been dead in a way too. And my sister . . . yes, she was gone; but I wasn't gone. I'm not sure this will make sense to you, but I felt as though I'd turned around to look in a different direction, so that I no longer faced backward toward the past, but forward toward the future. And now the question confronting me was this: What would that future be?

The moment this question formed in my mind, I knew with as much certainty as I'd ever known anything that sometime during that day I would receive a sign. This was why the bearded man had opened the window in my dream. He was saying to me, "Watch for the thing that will show itself to you. Because that thing, when you find it, will be your future."

I had no time for another thought before Auntie called out to me:

"Chiyo, come here!"

// SCENE BREAK //

Well, I walked up that dirt corridor as though I were in a trance. It wouldn't have surprised me if Auntie had said, "You want to know about your future? All right, listen closely . . ." But instead she just held out two hair ornaments on a square of white silk.

"Take these," she said to me. "Heaven knows what Hatsumomo was up to last night; she came back to the okiya wearing another girl's ornaments. She must have drunk more than her usual amount of sake. Go find her at the school, ask whose they are, and return them."

---END OF TEXT---

Some things I noticed:

Paragraph 1: The chapter, the start of Act 2, begins with distant narration and then circles around to Chiyo's current situation.

Paragraph 2: A summary of events that have occurred so far

Paragraph 3: Introspection and summary of the rest of the spring and all that summer following the letter. Story moves forward.

Paragraph 4: Introspection and summary of early spring, also showing that Chiyo is starting to transition from child to teen through her looks. Story moves forward.

Paragraph 5: Introspection and summary of very early one morning that April. Story moves forward.

Then onwards we start to get into the scene, though there is still a lot of summary and introspection. The summary helps convey a lot of information in few words and the introspection helps make the character feel more human.

Chiyo's change of mindset explicitly stated: I felt as though I'd turned around to look in a different direction

Grounding in the new scene:

I had no time for another thought before Auntie called out to me:

"Chiyo, come here!"

Come to think of it, I think I've seen something similar in another book.

From PRINCE'S GAMBIT pp. 331-334, the start of Ch. 4

LAURENT, JUST TURNED twenty, and possessing an elaborate mind with a gift for planning, detached it from the petty intrigues of the court and set it loose on the broader canvas of this, his first command.

Damen watched it happen. It began when, after their long night of tactical discussion, Laurent addressed the troop with a portrait of their shortcomings. He did it from horseback, in a clear voice that carried to the farthest of the gathered men. He had listened to everything Damen had said last night. He had listened to a great deal more than that. As he spoke, there emerged nuggets that he could only have obtained from the servants and armourers and soldiers to whom, over the last three days, he had also been listening.

Laurent regurgitated the information in a manner that was as scintillant as it was scathing. When he was done, he threw the men a bone: perhaps they had been hampered by poor captaincy. They would therefore stop here in Nesson for a fortnight to accustom themselves to their new Captain. Laurent would personally lead them in a regime that would tax them, trim them and turn them into something approximating a company that could fight. If they could keep up with him.

But first, Laurent appended silkily, they would unpack and make camp here again, from kitchens to tents to horse enclosure. In under two hours.

The men swallowed it. They would not have, had Laurent not taken on their leader and beaten him, point for point, the day before. Even then, they might have baulked had the order come from an indolent superior, but from the first day, Laurent had worked hard without comment or complaint. That, too, had been calculated to within a hair.

And so they got to work. They hauled out tents and hammered in posts and pegs and unsaddled all the horses. Jord gave crisp, pragmatic orders. The tent lines looked straight for the first time since they had ridden out.

And then it was done. Two hours. It was still too long, but it was better by far than the sprawling chaos of the last few evenings.

Re-saddle, was the first order, and there followed a series of mounted drills that were designed to be easy on the horses and brutal on the men. Damen and Laurent had planned the drills out together last night, with some input from Jord, who had joined them in the grey hours of the morning. Truthfully, Damen had not expected Laurent to take part in the drills himself, but he did, setting the pace.

Reining his horse alongside Damen’s, Laurent said, ‘You have your two extra weeks. Let’s see what we can do with them.’

In the afternoon they switched to line work: lines that broke again, and again, and again, until finally they didn’t, if only because everyone was too weary to do anything but mindlessly follow commands. The day’s drills had pushed even Damen, and when they were done, he felt, for the first time in a long time, as though something had been accomplished.

The men returned to camp boneless and exhausted with no energy to complain that their leader was a blond, blue-eyed fiend, curse him. Damen saw Aimeric sprawled by one of the campfires with his eyes closed, like a man collapsed after a foot race. The stubbornness of character that had had Aimeric picking fights with men twice his size had also had him keeping up with the drills, no matter the barriers of pain and fatigue that he had had to push through physically. At least he would not be able to cause trouble in this state. No one would be picking fights: they were too tired.

As Damen watched, Aimeric opened his eyes and gave an empty-eyed stare at the fire.

Despite the complications Aimeric presented to the troop, Damen felt a stirring of sympathy. Aimeric was only nineteen, and this was obviously his first campaign. He looked out of place and alone. Damen detoured.

‘It’s your first time in a company?’ he said.

Here, too, the start of Act 2 begins with a new chapter

Paragraph 1: the chapter begins with distant narration

Paragraph 2: Summary of events (eg, their long night of tactical discussion,) but also moving forward with the story (Laurent addressed the troop)

Paragraph 3 onwards: Summary and introspection (Damen's interpretation) of events. Story moves forward.

Eventually the Writer grounds the scene: Damen saw Aimeric sprawled by one of the campfires with his eyes closed.

Where is the main character's mindset change? Maybe it's that Damen is starting to feel hope that the company he's found himself in might actually be able to be trained to win a fight? The day’s drills had pushed even Damen, and when they were done, he felt, for the first time in a long time, as though something had been accomplished.

So I guess this is a technique for starting Act 2 if you've got nothing else:

Start a new chapter

Summarise events in the story so far

Move the story forward by summarising some event/s leading up to the character's mindset change

Be sure to show the main character's feelings about everything through introspection and voice

Explicitly state the character's mindset change

Ground the next scene