#she misses counselling so badly

[angstyaches]

also 80 for shayne because he needs it 💀🍄

Oh my god, I was so hoping someone would request that for Shayne because I've had this knocking around in my head for so long!

100 Word Drabbles

80. Therapy

CW: anxiety, therapy session.

___

Shayne couldn’t make his hands stop shaking. God fucking damn it.

Maybe he should have chosen someone else, but this had sounded easier when he’d agreed to it. It didn’t feel easy now. Familiar, maybe, but not in a comfortable way. Familiar like the shadowy edges of a bad dream.

He wanted her to say something snarky to break the tension. Instead, she prodded her front teeth with the end of her pen, observing him.

He hugged himself, wishing he could fold up and vanish.

"It’s been about… two years," Lucy McDonagh said. "Let’s pick up where we left off."

[buckyalpine]

always you’s angst only ending … feed us a tiny lil drabble of maybe bucky not stopping until he and bruce and maybe even shuri (cause bby’s the smartest) find a way to bring her back?

like he enters the portal, scoops up her body, and kisses her back to life. then throws her over his shoulder, locks her in his bedroom, and makes love to her for like a week straight.

“she’s barely been back for a month- AND SHE’S ALREADY PREGNANT?!”

- ur local angst slut who’s actually hella sensitive and cannot handle this shit, gossip girl 💋

Always you angst alternative ending 

18+

Okay YES, if your a pure angst fiend, you may ignore this but I'm here to mend hearts from the sadness that was this fic.

Warnings: Angst, FLUFFFFFFF, Smuuuttttt, happy ending 

5 years later

Bucky refused to accept you being gone. He tried to heal, going to therapy, grief counselling, medication, writing letters, everything under the fucking sun to help him come to terms with the fact that he’d never see you again. 

It was impossible.

It ate him alive.

He was physically stronger, pouring all his time into the gym to find a way to numb the pain but he was more mentally fucked than ever.

It had been 5 years, nearly 6 and the raw pain he felt was still fresh. Every night, he'd wake up searching for you. He couldn't let go, holding onto the pieces you had left behind. He wrote to you as often as he could, keeping a locked diary of things he wanted to tell you, letters he knew no one would see but what else could he do when he wanted to talk to you so badly but you weren’t there. 

That didn’t stop him from finding a way to pour his heart and soul somewhere. 

_________________________________

Happy Birthday babygirl,  I wish I could wake you up with kisses today, tell you how special the world is with you in it, make you pancakes, feed you in bed because I know you’ll cuddle up in the sheets until noon. Buy you a pretty dress, take you out, maybe even go dancing, even if its just me and you and Steve’s playlist of songs from the 40′s. I’d hold you close to me all night until your feet were sore or until Tony told us to turn the cheesy music off. 

I know he secretly ships us (Peter taught me that word) 

If it were up to Stark, he’d throw you the biggest birthday party ever; that wouldn’t stop me from trying to sneak you away for some more birthday kisses. birthday cuddles. Birthday sex...is a new song Sam introduced me to. 

I wanted to do so much with you today sweet girl. Show you how much I love you on your special day. I should have shown you before it was too late. I regret it every single day. I’d give anything for just another day, just so you’d know. 

It was always you. 

Steve brought you some flowers today, Sam brought some balloons. I hope you see them from wherever you are. It’s not the same without you here angel.

We miss you baby. 

I miss you. 

Till we meet again,  JBB 

_________________________________

Hi Baby, I know it’s not a special occasion, I have no real reason to write today. I missed you though. I wanted to tell you about how I jumped out of a plane today and all I could think of is how much you would have laughed because I didn’t use a parachute. You’re laugh is the sweetest sound in the world and I’d give anything to hear it just one more time.

Sam recorded it all, you would have been the first person he showed the footage to. I’d probably ignore you both and then you’d probably tease me about being grumpy and I’d want a kiss to feel better. And a hug. Maybe some cuddles. Please? 

Also you’d be proud of me today, Red Wing broke and it wasn’t my fault. Promise. I even apologized to Sam after but he doesn’t think I’m being sincere. And I’m not because red wing is a little shit. So is Sam. 

I miss you sweets. I wish you were here. It hurts. Everything hurts. 

I hope we meet again. I’ll never let you go. 

Yours, JBB

_________________________________

My y/n,

I’m sorry. I should have told you. I regret it everyday. I’ll never stop trying to find a way to get you back. 

I love you,

JBB

_________________________________

It’s been almost 6 years. It still hurts.

Till we meet again, JBB

_________________________________

I can’t anymore. I need you back. 

JBB

_________________________________

There were some days where Bucky was able to focus, writing as much as he could, spilling all of his feelings onto the paper, a tiny part of him hoping that one day he’d be able to give you all his letters so you’d know you were all he could think of. 

Then there were the days where sobs tore through his body, his breathing labored, only managing to scribble three words before crumbling into a dark abyss. Bucky wracked his brain every single day; if you were able to go back once, there had to be a way to get you back again. Bruce and Tony had spent countless hours in the lab trying to find a way to reopen the portal but nothing led to you. 

*****

Bucky stared at his burner, pressing call and ending it before it could go through multiple times before finally letting it ring. There was only one other person he could turn to. He knew he wasn’t going to be immediately welcomed back into Wakanda but this wasn’t just about him. Everyone wanted you back. Nothing was the same without you there. If there was a 1% chance to get you back, he had to try. His chest felt tight as the jet landed in a secluded area having arranged a private meeting with Shuri, the one person he trusted with his life. 

"I-I have a favor to ask" Bucky's eyes were already pleading with her, his heart racing as he approached her, ready to fall on his knees. 

"Anything Sergeant Barnes" Shuri smiled, sensing he was there for something urgent, nodding for him to continue. There was zero hesitation as she immediately agreed to come back with him to try and get you back, bringing her own lab equipment with her so she could work with Bruce. After filtering through a number of timelines and timestamps, she’d managed to pinpoint the portal to find you but it wasn’t without its consequences. 

“You understand you may not return” Shuri whispered as Bucky threw on his tactical gear, insisting on getting you all on his own while rest of the team watched in pin drop silence, reluctantly letting him go alone “And y/n...we can get her back but there's a chance she may not...” 

She squeezed his hand before he stepped onto the platform, not wanting to finish the sentence but he already understood. He knew it was possible he’d find you again but it didn’t mean he’d find you alive. 

“Then at least I get to say goodbye” He gave her a strained smile; he had to bring you home one way or another. If this was how he had to go, he would run happily to his death; he’d be at peace knowing he died trying to find you. With the push of a button, he was instantly thrown into a warp, transported to where you had last been with Nat. Everything came to a halt as he found himself at an abandoned hydra base, the cold nipping his skin. Bucky blinked, his vision focusing on the fuzzy figure laying on the ground, his feet moving before he could process anything. 

There was no one else around. 

It was you. 

His doll. 

His y/n.

He sprinted to you, tears clouding his vision as he approached you, dropping to his knees, both fear and hope fighting for dominance. He found you. You were there. But would he ever actually get you back? Were you even breathing? 

“Y/n?” Bucky cradled you to him, scooping you in his arms and chasing the portal that had already began to close. He held your face to his neck, his metal hand protecting your head, holding you securely against his body as you both fleshed back to the present. 

The team gasped as he appeared on the platform again with you safely tucked in his arms. They didn’t dare move, everyone holding their breaths while Bucky laid you down with you still in his arms, his hand softly stroking your cheek. 

“Y/n? Doll?” His heart was beating erratically, your skin was warm, a glimmer of hope burning stronger as he gently shook you, pressing his cool metal hand against your face. “Please” 

“C’mon doll, come back to me baby, I have so much I need to tell you” He pleaded, his warm breath fanning against your face, tears brimming his eyes. Tony and Steve itched to whisk you off to the medbay while Sam silently shook his head, wanting to give Bucky an extra minute, hoping you’d be able to wake up in the super soldiers arms where you belonged. 

“Baby, wake up sweets” Bucky couldn't help himself, pressing his lips softly to your forehead, trailing feather light kisses down your face while cuddling you. “C’mon I l-love you” His voice cracked, his lips finally pressing against yours. They were still soft, warm, you had to wake up, you had to-

Your lips stirred, your eyes cracking open, taking your first breath as your eyes focused on Bucky. 

“Sweetheart?” Bucky's eyes grew wide, unsure if he was dreaming or not, scrambling to hug you closer, cupping your face gently.  

“Bucky?” Your voice was a raspy whisper, leaning into his touch, feeling his tears fall onto your skin as he pulled you into his chest. 

“My doll” He let out a soft sob, cradling your head as you buried your face into his neck, moved to cling onto him, the last thing you remembered was darkness and now you were in his arms again surrounded by his warmth, his scent. Everyone stayed rooted in place, tears falling freely, dying to grab you, hug you, hold you again but they were not about to separate the two of you, not after how badly Bucky had yearned to get you back. 

“Bucky” You wept, your mind still piecing together how you were back but it didn’t matter, not when he was holding you again. 

“Hi baby” He whispered against your hair, wiping your tears with his thumb, cupping your face, kissing you all over before capturing your lips again, relishing in your touch, feeling your fingers card through his short locks. You lost yourselves in each other, the rest of the world no longer existing. 

“Okay white wolf, When do we get to say hi to our girl” Sam snorted, sniffling seeing you tucked in Bucky’s arms, the brunettes lips curved into a smile for the first time since you’d been gone. Bucky loosened his hold around you, helping you to your feet, giving you one more kiss before letting go. 

“Come here” Steve scooped you up immediately after, struggling not to squeeze you tight, “We missed you sweet heart, so much”

“Hasn’t been the same without you” Sam gave you a once over, determining you were well enough for a slightly bone crushing hug before having you grabbed away by Tony. Tony wasn’t able to say much, biting his bottom lip to keep it from trembling, hugging you the longest, reluctant to let you go. You were engulfed in Nat’s arms as she wept, squeezing you like her life depended on it. 

“You saved me” She whispered in your hair, her tears falling onto your skin, “Don’t ever do that again” She hissed sternly, grabbing your face to look at her, “Don’t ever ever do something like that again” 

“Give me my baby back” Bucky grabbed you, tossing you over his shoulder as soon as everyone had gotten their hugs and kisses, not interested in giving anyone a second longer when he needed you so badly. You squealed, giggling as he carried you straight down the hall towards his room without glancing back. As soon as he locked the door, his hands were all over you, holding you tightly to him. 

“Your baby?” You shyly whispered as he rested his forehead against yours, nodding and chasing your lips. 

“M’never letting you go again doll, never” He trailed kisses down your neck while unbuckling the straps of your gear letting it drop to the floor. “I want to love you, I want to hold you, I want to make love to you, I want it all with you” 

Bucky tore your clothes off, hoisting you up to wrap your legs around his waist as he carried you over to the bathroom, turning the hot water on, hot water pouring over both if you. The steam made you woozy, your body turning into jelly under his touch as he massaged your muscles with delicate touches, his lips ghosting over every bruise and scar that had marked your skin. You let out a needy whimper, staying close to him, your butterflies erupting in your tummy every time he touched you. 

“Bucky please”

“I want to love you so badly baby, love you the way you deserve” Bucky willed himself not to take you right there, focused on rinsing off and grabbing a towel, carrying you over to his bed. He tossed to towel off, climbing on top of you, neither of you having the patience for a slow build or teasing. Your belly clenched feeling his hard length rut and rub against your bare cunt, your slick coating his cock. 

“I need you” He rasped while you whined, wrapping your legs around him, bucking your hips up. “You have no idea baby, God I need you” His eyes were pleading with you, his cock starting to leak feeling your arousal. 

“Wanna feel you Bucky” You spread your legs for him, your breath hitching feeling the tip of his cock rub through your folds before pressing into your entrance. 

“Gonna make love to you so good sweet girl” Bucky whispered as he started to push his cock in, his heart beating faster, cock growing harder feeling your heat pull him in deeper. He groaned, letting his body weight fall onto you as he started to thrust, pleasure consuming both of you immediately. 

“JAmessss” Your gasp melted into a moan, your head pressed against his pillow as he filled you, stretching you open, letting you feel every ridge and vein of his cock. “Stretching me to so good Buckyyy” 

“Yeah? You feel so good wrapped around me baby” He rasped, his orgasm already creeping down his spine as he pressed sloppy kisses all over your face, overwhelmed with emotion and the feeling of you under him. Your moans made him twitch, nearly growling when he felt your nails dig into his skin as he kissed your cervix with each roll of his hips. 

“I missed you so much baby, didn’t know what to do with myself, I-I couldn’t breathe without you, couldn’t live-” Bucky could feel tears brimming his eyes, struggling to keep them away, “Fuck I missed you so much, I felt like I was drowning every single day” 

You sniffled over his words, your heart connected with his, squeezing your thighs around his waist, desperate to keep every inch of his body pressed with yours. 

“It-it was always you” He kissed your forehead, as he kept you caged under him, moaning against your skin.

“I love you” you cupped his cheeks, brushing his tears away, his nose lightly bumping against yours. You pulled him down for a sweet kiss, only pulling away for air. All of it was so much all at once, the quietest cries and softest kisses, feeling every inch of each other, making up for lost time. Bucky pulled the covers over you both, wrapping you in a cocoon of warmth, hiding you from the rest of the world, savoring this moment with just the two of you, his sweet girl back in his arms again. 

He let his arms roam across your body, stroking your waist, your thighs, gently cupping your breasts, softly suckling your nipples, his body trembling as he tried to hold his climax off and make this moment last forever. 

“M’gonna marry you, you know that?” His hands came to lace with yours, pinning you against the bed, eyes locked with yours. His pace didn’t falter, thrusting into you, loving the way your pussy fluttered around his cock, rolling his hips so he could push into you deeper. “W-will you? Will you marry me babygirl” 

He knew you had just come back but he wanted nothing more, unable to stop the words from slipping out. You let your own tears fall down your cheeks, pulling him impossibly closer. 

“Yes” You whimpered, sniffling back sobs as he stroked your head, smiling against your lips. 

“Gonna make you my wife baby, marry you and take care of you until my last breath” He started to fuck you faster, panting, the muscles in his body tensing. 

“Tell me more Bucky, please?” You whined, your heart aching for more, everything you’d always wanted with the one person you’d always been in love with. 

“Oh baby, M’gonna get you pregnant sweet girl, have a family with you, everything with you, take care of your swollen belly, make love to you even when you’re full of me, show you how much I adore you princess” You gasped as he braced himself, his grunts growing louder, his body heat radiating off him, unable to stop the pleasure that was growing. 

“Tell me your mine baby” He whined, wrapping his arms around you while you threw your head back, your eyes rolling back at the feel of his pubic bone rubbing your sensitive bundle of nerves with each thrust. 

“I’m yours Bucky” 

“Fuck don’t stop y/n, please, I need it” His voice was needy, desperately clinging onto your body, craving to hear nothing else. “Say it again doll”

“I’m yours Bucky, all yours soldier” You moaned louder, your legs shaking around him “I’m gonna cum” 

“Cum with me baby, same time, please” 

“BuckyBuckyBucky- You cried our, your walls staring to flutter, ready to fall off the edge with hi. 

“M’right here, I got you, togther, c’mon, cum with me princess” Bucky rolled his hips, pounding you into the mattress, biting down onto your neck as he felt your nails scratch down his back while white hot pleasure tore through you, your pussy milking his cock. 

“FUCK JAMES” Your body trembled as he fucked you through your high, burying his face into your neck, his lips brushing by your ear. 

“YES, Yes baby, my good girl, my sweet girl, s’perfect for me, yes, I’m gonna give you my cum, get you pregnant, have a baby with you, take care of you, love you, all of it with you baby, fuck- I LOVE YOU- UGGHHH- 

Bucky collapse on you, filling you with his cum until the bed was damp, his body jolting from sensitivity each time you fluttered around him while kissing his temple. He hardly moved, a steady stream of cum still pouring into you, staying connected to you the entire night, cuddling you next to him. 

“I finally have my baby back, my sweet sweet baby, she’s back” 

It has been nearly a week since you were back but you hadn’t left Bucky’s room once. You only took a few moments to eat and sleep, the rest of the time wrapped up in each other, connected in the most intimate way possible, while whispering sweet nothings, 

It was everything Bucky needed. Emotional. Warm. Soft. Loving. 

He couldn’t help the tears every time he was inside you, he finally had you back, wrapping his arms around you every time you made love, making sure you knew exactly how much he had always adored you. As much as he wanted to take you apart in every way imaginable, he couldn’t help but slip into missionary every single time, wanting to see your pretty face, feel your body, have your legs wrap around him as he came inside you. 

*****

You threw on your coat while Bucky slipped his arm around your waist while you both made your way down, passing through the living room on our way out. 

“Damn future Mrs. Barnes” Sam whistled, along with the rest of the team, everyone gathered for a night for a movie. “Where you off to?” 

“The three of us are going out for dinner” Bucky smiled with a child like grin, snickering to himself while the team looked at you with confusion. 

“Three?” Steve cocked his head, noting the way you shied into Bucky’s chest, giggling while he kissed your head, his hand slipping down to brush over your belly. “THREE?”

Steve’s eyes grew wide as he shot out of his seat, pointing at your tummy. “THREE” He whipped his head to Tony, Nat, Sam and Clint who slowly connected the dots. “THREE” 

“For fucks sake, it hasn’t even been a month Barnes” Tony snorted, while everyone pilled onto you both, a large mess of hugs and tears. 

“You didn’t waste any time, huh” Sam wiggling his eyebrows while Bucky wrapped his arms around you, his hands splayed on your tummy. 

“Never again” He whispered, tilting your chin to kiss you deeply, “Never ever again” 

Tags: @glxwingrxse  @hungryyeyess  @sebsgirl71479  @beabutterfly987  @teambarnes72  @witchywhore @jamesbuckybarneswify @slutforsexyseabass  @chrisdrysdale @littlemarvelmenfan  @buggy14  @whimsyplaty92  @sergntbarnes @inkedaztec   @pono-pura-vida   @moonlightreader649 @brooklynscherry-z  @elle14-blog1 @justsebstan @littlelightnings @psychomanniac-blog  @happyt0exist   @emmabarnes  @bethyruth @matchat3a  @cjand10   @getwellsoontana  @cherryschaos   @lokisasgardianvampirequeen  @ashenc-blog  @buckybarnessimpp   @potatothots  @goldylions  @high-functioning-lokipath @morganemorganite-blog  @kingfleury   @peaches1958   @spiderman-stilinski   @peaceinourtime82  @gublur   @wintersmelodie @geeky-politics-46   @lolawassad  @almosttoopizza   @a-poor-gryffindork @alternativeprincess   @buckycallsmeaslut    @kamaria-sweet-writes  @charmedbysarge    @xnorthstar3x  @kryoee7 @alina02  @gh0stgurl    @polishprincess999 @jessybarnes @alltheficsiwant @chemtrails-club  @eralen   @perdidosbucky-yyo  @clqrosmgc      

[thejujvtsupost]

Can you plz do a geto surguru x sorcerer reader story maybe a bit angst like from him leaving and the reader heartbroken but doesn't care and joins him cuz she loves him, something of that sort? I'm not picky I just wish for my of geto surguru 😭🥺

He Left You // From Afar

Hiiii anon I’ve got a drabble for you! I struggle with Geto angst of any kind especially from his defection era because he really just needs a hug and some counseling but I did my best 💗

Notes: F!reader, angst, reader is a sorcerer, established relationship, light stalking, comfort??, don’t be like them they’re both a little crazy making wild choices, Geto doesn’t start a cult- he just leaves the jujutsu world behind, We live in a river in Egypt bc none of that is canon forgive me.🥴

Geto leaves overnight and thus leaves you behind. You were suffering too, you were depressed too, and he had the audacity to leave you and Gojo- his supposed best friend- behind. You hated him for it.

For months you were bitter from the abandonment and his defection. No news of his whereabouts, zero contact. He left you.

Geto couldn’t stay. He couldn’t watch his friends be exploited and killed too young. Just like Haibara, sent out alone on a mission he had no business being involved in.

He couldn’t stay but he couldn’t completely leave either. Unbeknownst to you, he was hiding but never too far.

Of course he couldn’t leave you behind truly. You held his heart, and after two months, he cracked and started looking after you.

From afar. Far enough that you wouldn’t pick up on his energy, far enough that you wouldn’t be reminded of his abandonment.

It hurt to stay away but he made his bed to lie in. That’s what he told himself every time he was tempted to reach out to you or Satoru. He let your graduation pass by and soon your lives were moving forward without him.

But you… eighteen months after he left- he returned.

He returned to your apartment and waited for you to come home from the stupid date he spotted you on. You were wearing that little red dress he loved so much on you to meet with some other man.

Fine, he would admit that he was jealous. Leaving meant he couldn’t keep you. But you were still his. Still his doll, his love.

And his love was unlocking her door while bidding her date farewell. At least he was a gentleman.

“What the fuck are you doing here?!” This was the first time in eighteen months you laid eyes on him. You were furious.

“How did you even- what. No. Get out. Now.” Your voice was already cracking.

God he missed you so badly, the fire in your eyes was captivating even if he was on the receiving end. “You’re dating?”

“Are you stalking me or something? That’s not your business, you left me. You left me and I was alone- not even a breakup text-” the tears started flowing freely, your heart couldn’t take it.

“I’ve been checking on you every so often, wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“Do I fucking look okay to you?” You left him standing in the living room, a man wasn’t going to prevent you from being comfortable in your own apartment.

“Gorgeous actually.” He followed you, only waiting outside your bedroom door so you could change. He at least had the civility to not cross your boundaries. You hated that you were blushing so easily.

Once into your comfortable clothes, you slam the door open and cross the hall into your bathroom to remove your makeup before it could stain your face further.

Of course he followed you, taking a moment to lean against the door frame and admire you closer than he had in over a year.

Then his arms were snaking around your waist from behind. “But you should know you’re always gorgeous.” He continued his thought from a few minutes prior. He knew he couldn’t sway you with a few compliments but that wasn’t going to stop him from telling the truth.

You were paralyzed and unable to meet his gaze in the mirror, you could easily push him away and you didn’t want to. You hated that he still felt like home.

You hated that you turned around and were relaxing into his embrace, spiraling down into sobs when he held you tighter against him and rubbed his hand down your back in a soothing manner. “I hate you so much. You can’t pop in and out of my life Suguru, I won’t let you break me again. I can’t handle it.”

“I want you to come with me, doll. I didn’t want to leave you behind but I couldn’t stay there- I just couldn’t.” He started choking up, “I’ve been off the grid in a cabin, come with me? Please?”

Could you actually just leave like he did? Your friends, job, entire life? All to be with Suguru?

“I won’t cut all contact.”

“You don’t have to, phones exist.”

“And I’m not giving up Netflix or the internet.”

“I live in a cabin, not the wilderness doll.” This wasn’t a laughing matter but he couldn’t help but be fond of your stubbornness. “I have power and internet.”

Could you really leave everything behind?

Yeah. Yeah, you could.

Thinking of making a request? Check my bio to see if they’re open! <3

[charlotteharlatan]

I need everyone searching for Good Omens 2 easter eggs to know about this film right here:

A framed poster for this movie, A Matter of Life And Death (alternatively titled “Stairway to Heaven”) (1946) can be seen inside Maggie’s record shop.

For those interested in the possible parallels with GO, I’ll summarize the plot of the film here, so don’t read the below if you’d rather watch it on your own! I recommend it, it’s a fantastic watch.

The film follows Peter Carter, who is an RAF bomber pilot - a Squadron Leader - during WWII.

After a bombing mission, his plane badly damaged and actively on fire even as he flies it, Peter makes contact with June, a radio operator stationed at a US Air Force base on England’s coast. He tells her he’d ordered his crew to bail out with their parachutes, never revealing to them that his own parachute is unusable and he cannot escape.

As he tries to keep his plane in the air, he and June have their first (and what they both expect to be their last) conversation. He waxes poetic, telling June she’s the kind of girl he could love, and June cries for him, knowing there’s nothing she can do other than hear his last words and pass along his messages to his family.

As it becomes clear he’s out of time, Peter decides to bail out of his aircraft without a parachute rather than go down with the burning wreckage. He tells June goodbye and jumps, fully expecting to die.

It is at this point that he’s meant to be intercepted and guided to the afterlife (the “Other World”) by Conductor 71, formerly an aristocrat who died in the French Revolution. However, Peter falls into a thick fog that has come over the English Channel, and Conductor 71 cannot find him in it. Peter quickly turns up missing from the Other World’s balance sheet.

When he wakes up on a beach, Peter initially believes he’s in the afterlife, but he quickly realizes he’s still alive as he wanders around.

In a serendipitous turn, he runs into someone familiar - June, the radio operator. The beach he woke up on is apparently near the base where she works. They recognize each other instantly based on the sound of each other’s voices, and share a kiss.

When Conductor 71 finally tracks Peter down nearly 20 hours later, Peter and June are on a date. The Conductor stops time in order to explain the situation to Peter.

He was supposed to die in that plane crash, and presumably there is some grand cosmic balance, some plan, that Peter is throwing off with his continued existence. By remaining alive, Peter is breaking celestial law. The guide urges Peter to accept his death and accompany him to the afterlife.

Peter refuses. He has something to live for now. Someone to stay on Earth for. He demands an appeal, which Conductor 71 reluctantly grants after consulting his superiors. He tells Peter his appeal will go to trial, and that he has three days to prepare his defense; he may pick someone - any human who has died before him - to be his defense counsel. Peter struggles with choosing someone to do this.

But in the meantime, June has begun to worry about the “visions” he’s been having (the conversations with Conductor 71, who no one except Peter can see) and has her friend Dr. Reeves examine him.

Dr. Reeves suspects that the visions are the result of complications from a concussion Peter suffered two years prior, and tells him he must receive brain surgery to fix it; it quickly becomes clear how necessary the surgery is as Peter’s condition worsens, becoming increasingly delirious and disoriented.

A major storm begins, and the ambulance that’s coming to bring Peter in for surgery seems to be lost. Dr. Reeves goes out looking for it on his motorcycle, but soon disaster strikes: the doctor almost collides with the ambulance due to low visibility. He steers off the road to avoid hitting it, and dies in the ensuing crash.

When he finds out what happened, Peter chooses Reeves to be his defense counsel; now dead, the doctor can do so.

On Earth, Peter’s surgery begins, and in an amphitheater in the center of a spiral galaxy, so does Peter’s trial. Reeves argues that it is not Peter’s fault that he cheated death, but because he did, he now has an unintended earthly commitment. He has fallen in love. Reeves insists on these grounds that Peter should be allowed to remain on Earth with June. To see if the love between June and Peter is genuine, the tribunal decides they should hear directly from the couple.

Back on Earth, Conductor 71 has made June go to sleep so that she can testify. Once the trial has changed location to the operating room where Peter is still undergoing surgery, Reeves tells June that the only way to save Peter from this fate is for her to climb the Stairway to Heaven and take his place on the balance sheet. Peter tries desperately to stop her, proving he’s willing to die for her. After he is restrained, so that she can make her own decision, June gives him a tearful goodbye and steps onto the staircase with zero hesitation.

The stairway, moving like an escalator, begins to take her away to the afterlife, but then suddenly grinds to a halt. With this reprieve, she runs back to Peter and embraces him.

Reeves, triumphant, says, “nothing is stronger than the law in the universe. But on Earth, nothing is stronger than love.”

The tribunal’s jury rules in Peter’s favor, and Peter is granted a “generous” lifespan. The trial ends, and back on Earth, the surgery is declared a success.

“We won,” Peter tells June when he wakes up from his surgery.

“I know,” she answers. Film ends.

…..

I mean…come ON. This show, I swear. I continue to be so normal about it.

[strawb3rry-gone]

𝒯𝒽ℯ 𝒜𝓃𝑔ℯ𝓁 ℐ𝓈 ℬ𝒶𝒸𝓀☆ 𝒫𝒶𝓇𝓉：2

“Zamia was packing her bags not wasting anytime trying to say here longer the hell hole that she hated.”

“After all the counseling, the other crazy patients, pills, and the doctors prescribing her with stuff she was done and just wanted to go home….. home the place where “it” happened with all her loves one who had to witness “it” she felt guilty and nervous to see her family again”

“‘Well Zamia I guess this is it’ a voice said from behind Zamia looker behind her and saw her first doctor that she’ll actually miss Ms.Daliva was a single woman and she was like a mother to Zamia when she was in the hospital ‘Your the only one I’m gonna miss in this hell hole’ Zamia said’Well im gonna to miss you too kid ‘ Ms.Davila said hugging Zamia.”

“Zamia walked out of the hospital waving goodbye to Ms.Davila but she still had her number in case she needs her as Zamia was walking she saw her dad standing there. Zamia paused for a minute looking at her dad until he spotted her and they stayed looking at each other for a bit until her dad breaks the silence “ How you doing baby let’s go home” her dad said going up to her and taking her bags and putting them in the trunk.”

“When they got home Zamia got more and more nervous to see her mom she can only imagine the pain her mother went through to see her child try and unlive herself and her brother who found her on the ground with a split throat she was scared of what they would think of her and what they say “sweetheart we’re here “ “Well shit” Zamia thought she had more time to prepare but oh well. She got out of the car and started moving to the door as she opened the door she alerted their Bernese mountain dog Meatloaf. They got Meatloaf back when Zamia was 5 years old anytime she was sad he would cheer her up. He immediately jumped her and started licking her face Zamia started laughing “ I get it I get it you miss me really badly “ when her dad came back with the bags he putted them down and started pulling meatloaf off of her “Go see your mother and see how she doing “ her dad said sadly smiling Zamia nodded at him and went into the kitchen to see if her mother was there.”

Zamia saw her mother cooking dinner she just stared at her until her mother noticed her “Zamia “Her mother said in a soft toned voice that was one of the things she loved about her mother she always had that soft toned voice anytime. “Mama” Zamia said running up to her hugging her and of course her mother hugged her back Zamia mother started crying tears of joy see her daughter was back “ oh I miss you my baby “Zamia mother kept chanting.”

“As soon as the hug was over Zamia mother started looking at her up and down there was two things she noticed Zamia got so much skinnier and her hair got longer and less wild “They didn’t give you good food up there didn’t they.” Zamia shook her head she had to admit what they served up there taste like crap so she mostly didn’t eat it she missed her mother’s seasoned and favored food a lot “Well I’m making your favorite dish tonight so how about you go settle in your room”Zamia’s mother smiled going back to cooking Zamia nodded and went upstairs to her room which haven’t changed it was still the same (the picture up in the top is her room) she set down on her bed and took one of her many plushes in her arms. Zamia smiled she was glad to be back home and ready to see her friends.

[alynnl]

Over the past few days, I started The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles case 2-4 and wrapped up the first investigation phase last night.

At first it was all fun and games. I saw the obvious reference to the Red Headed League from the original Sherlock Holmes stories and Herlock's dyed hair was so over the top for him. But Sholmes will do anything to solve the greatest dilemma (where the rent is coming from.)

But it quickly became serious and dramatic when Ryunosuke and Susato went asking about the missing prison warder, Daley Vigil. The guy was fired from his job and it happened ten years ago! And apparently his wife Evie didn't know. (But she might be lying.)

Mr. Vigil was involved in the Professor case. He was the one who was supposed to walk The Professor to the gallows.

And who else was involved?

Inspector Gregson!

And before we could find out anything else about the case of the missing warder, we hear from a very tear-eyed Gina that Gregson was shot and killed. And Barok van Zieks has been arrested for his murder.

(Gina is not the only one grieving Gregson either, all the other officers on scene are also mourning him and speaking highly of him. He was as much of a legend as Herlock Sholmes.)

But if I look at the facts, it looks like a lot of people involved in the case ten years ago are disappearing one way or another...

Dr. Courtney Sithe - Arrested and awaiting a separate murder trial after she failed to frame Professor Harebrayne for her crime.

Enoch Drebber - Arrested for being an accomplice to murder.

Odie Asman - Murdered during the Great Exhibition by Sithe and Drebber.

Daley Vigil - Missing and not found yet. He apparently tried to help a convict escape (likely Genshin Asogi) and was fired for it.

Genshin Asogi - Sentenced to death ten years ago and apparently shot after he "rose from the grave."

Considering what happened to Gregson and Van Zieks just now, I think it's safe to assume that there's a massive cover-up taking place, and a gag order isn't enough. Someone wants people permanently silenced. And Lord Stronghart has a big hand in a lot of these deaths, arrests and disappearances.

He's behind it all. I know he is.

And it's even worse when you consider that he has a pattern of bringing a prosecutor against a defendant with whom they have an axe to grind: First Barok van Zieks against Genshin Asogi and then Kazuma Asogi against Barok van Zieks, respectfully.

I feel like the Lord Chief Justice is not only pulling the strings, but happily making new ones and getting everyone to dance to his tune.

But it's hard to know why Kazuma agreed to prosecute this trial.

I thought Kazuma wanted revenge on Van Zieks for his father's execution, but if he really wanted it that badly, he could have just faced a hopeless public defender or even went forward with Van Zieks having no legal defense at all! But he doesn't do that. Instead he tells Ryunosuke what little he knows about the man he was an apprentice to, and hands him a photograph of Barok in the good old days before this decade old tragedy.

This photograph is enough for Van Zieks to finally let down his walls and accept Ryunosuke's legal counsel.

Kazuma wants to face Ryunosuke in court for...what?

The honor of a fair trial his father never got?

Playing the long game in exposing the cover up (and only trusting Ryunosuke to do it?)

For amusement??

I suppose I'll see when I get to the first part of the trial. I've never been so eager to start up a game again!

[love-islike-abomb]

Renegade: Part 12

Roman reigns x OC Scarlet

Gif credit: @romanreigns

Warnings: SMUT!! errors I may have missed

Tag list: @angelreigns444 @acknowledge-reigns

______

Joe's pov

"Scarlet please come back to me" I said gently trying to shake her away. "Baby girl please wake up!"

Her eyes slowly began to flutter open "Joe?" She mumbled "oh thank the gods you're awake!!" I said holding her in my arms.

"My head is pounding!"

"Did you play that song again?" I asked her

"No I didn't! Loki took over in his own because I let him. I knew you were in danger and I clearly was as well and I heard him in my head saying 'scarlet let me out!' So I did and he showed me the truth kf what Jonathan had been doing.  He went to a bunch of other witches and had them chanting but I broke the circle!" She smiled

"You what?"

"I broke the circle! Yes may witches chanting together is powerful but all it takes is making 1 stop and the circle is broken!"

"What do you mean?" I asked

"Loki told me everything. I awoke who I truly was because of you and Loki just helped me hone it more! Josh has taken Jonathon to the counsel to be tried for his crimes and you and I are free to do whatever we want to!" She smiled. "I'm the dream walker Joe!"

"Oh you amazing, beautiful woman! I know there was a reason I loved you!" I smiled

She smiled a big bright smile "I love you to Joe!"

Before either of us could think we were in a deep make out session and I wanted her so badly!

Scarlet's POV

"You're so fucking beautiful Scarlet!" He growled. My clothes along with his soon came flying off and he crawled on top of me "watch me baby!" He said. I watched him slowly kiss down to both my breasts, taking each nipple in his mouth before continuing lower, never breaking eye contact. I bit my lip watching hip kiss around my belly button then my hips before center his face between my legs "fuck!" I groaned.

Running his thick fingers through my folds "damn baby you're so wet for me!" He growled before sticking those same fingers in his mouth "oh my gods!" It took everything in me not to grab him, pull him up and turn us over so i could ride him like rodeo! Watching his tongue flick in and out made it nearly impossible to resist the urge and I grabbed his hands trying to pull him up and he just held my arms down "I wanna taste you baby!" He groaned. Fuck!!

Each flick of his tongue made the pleasure more intense I grabbed a handful of his hair and pushed his face deeper into me "fuck! Joe don't stop!" I screamed. My grip on his hair tightened but he didn't seem effected. Finally the knot in my stomach burst "fuck! Joe! I'm gonna-" I couldnt finish my sentence before my orgasm rocked me and I screamed his name!

A few more flicks after he helped me ride out my orgasm and he slowly crawled on top of me stroking himself before sliding inside me "fuck baby that pussy is hot! Oh fuck!" He groaned. I wrapped myegs around his waist pushing him In as deep as possible "oh fuck baby girl that pussy is squeezing my cock so fucking good!! Uhh fuck! You're so delicious Scarlet! I can't get enough of you!!"

Fuck his damn dirty talk!! I wasn't gonna last long between his lustful voice and those delicious strokes I was gonna be a goner! My my eyes rolled back a deep chuckle escaping him again "am I hitting that spot Baby? Do I make this pussy feel good?!" I couldn't handle anymore and my body locked up as another intense orgasm rocked me. "oh fuck baby! Uhn!! you milking my cock that I'm gonna cum!! Oh I'm gonna fill that pussy!! Fuck!"

His orgasm intensified mine and ropes of hot cum spilled into my pussy. A few more sloppy thrusts and he stilled inside me. Both of us panting heavily, completely satisfied and in each other's arms. "That was incredible!" He said

"It was!" I said as he slowly pulled out of me and collapsed on the bed next to me. "I need to tell you something" I said.

"What is it baby?" He asked

"I'm pregnant!" I smiled

"Are you serious?" He smiled back.

"I found out yesterday that's why Loki was protecting us" I said rubbing my belly. "He knew before I did!"

He pulled me into his arms, giving me a passionate kiss "you are the most incredible woman ever and I will protect both of you with my everything! You're mine!"

[tiodolma]

Who do you like more, Eva Green's Morgana or Katie McGrath's? 🙆

Thank you for the ask! @the-king-and-the-druidess

I have been pondering this myself for a few days now, especiallg with all the camelot x merlin shenanigans happening in my asks.

I like the Morgans I’ve seen so far. They all have qualities that make them the best in different categories.

Most accurate backstory and relationshit with merlin - Excalibur 1981 Morgana (Helen Mirren)

Best in becoming "loosest woman to ever live” - Starz Camelot Morgan (Eva Green)

Best in politics - Eva Green

Best sister/adversary to Arthur - for now Katie Mcgrath but I honestly think the Morgana from Mists of Avalon wins this even though I havent seen it.

Most compelling and logical backstory/reasons for war- Katie Mcgrath (coz her story deals with racial persecution and not just the "women=bad” narrative)

Best in fun shenanigans - Katie Mcgrath.

Katie’s is my fave adaptation coz she got to do all the really fun morgana stuff (minus the sex). Fun traditional Morgana stuff like:

Being really into fabrics

Loving apples

Necromancy

Healing/caretaker

Benevolent and smart

Loving Mordred

Acted as counsel to arthur for a time

Chasing after Merlin hungry for his knowledge, trust and also magic (first honestly then eventually in order to spurn him)

Sullying Guinevere’s honor/revealing gwencelot to arthur

Torturing and the unjust imprisonment of Guinevere and the knights for little reason

Loads of court intrigue

Takeover camelot more than once

Use old crone persona

Use birds for her plans

Healing people just to torture them again

Employinh other/younger girls to seduce knights and spy for her.

Build a community of loyalists sympathetic to her

Playing with Lancelot in a shtty manner

Taunting Gwaine

Having a lot of familiar arthurian allies working with her like morgause, agravaine and mordred

That self-righteousness and feminine fury

Her plans keep getting foiled so she comes up with even better more convuluted plans

Virtually unkillable (until that cop-out execution at the end of DotD)

Like i said before, i appreciate how they jampacked what little i know of legendary morgana into bbc’s adaptation.

Though i dont think this next part is faithful to traditional arthurian morgana, the tyranny part was a good bonus for me coz it’s very accurate to what radicalism/insurgency looks like irl. Plus with BBC Merlin’s premise, it really really works.

Imho The magic ban/persecution actually gave katie’s morgan le fay character more depth coz she now had more solid justification for the awful things that she does...compared to in the legends where it’s basically “morgan le fay retaliating really badly or exacting her sadistic brand of justice when she did not get what she wanted or when she was slighted.”

Also.... I just appreciate the dualistic nature of Katie’s Morgana the most. Katie played her hatred and rage with so much humanity, pain, loneliness, desperation and sadness. Hers is one of the coolest acting performances I have ever seen. (s5 especially)

Tbf tho she had been blessed with 5 seasons to really truly embody the essence of morgana from the legends (except all the sex and being an actual mom). Eva green was also good at this but with only one season given to her, eva green didnt get to play around as much as katie did.

The only thing that was missing was really katie’s morgana taking arthur’s body to avalon. (Mists!Morgana wins this one).

[somedayonbroadway]

How to lose a guy in the days au ?

I love How to Lose a Guy so much. And I haven’t written Jatherine in a while, so here we are. Let me know what you think!

Jack Kelly as Benjamin Barry

Katherine Plumber as Andy Anderson

Katherine is a How To girl for People magazine in New York City. She loves journalism but wants so badly to write about politics and government and things that really matter. And she does, but her boss won’t publish it.

She has two very close friends, Smalls and Buttons. Smalls is a hopeless romantic who is constantly getting her heart broken and Buttons is more of a tomboy who is more level headed and ready to fix things. When Smalls is late for a meeting, Katherine has to pull her out of her apartment and get her into work only for their boss to want to exploit Smalls’s love life for a story. So Katherine takes the heat and says she will write an article titled “How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days”.

And her and her friends go out and look for the lucky guy.

Jack is a man in advertisement. He is very successful and wants control of his own project. He is the hottie of the office, always riding in on his motorcycle and changing shirts with the window open. He tries to get on a project with his boss and he tries to take control of it, but his boss wants to give it to the Delanceys who have relations with a Diamond company that they’re going into work with. So Jack insists that he can make anyone fall in love with diamonds and Oscar challenges him and says he thinks he could make anyone fall in love with him.

So Jack makes a bet with his boss. His boss gives him ten days to make a girl fall in love with him or he gives the project to the Delanceys. So Jack agrees and the Delanceys, who recently met Katherine and know her next project, tell him that she’s his target.

So Jack goes up to this beautiful stranger in the club and takes her out to dinner.

Things start off very well. Katherine and Jack seem compatible and Jack actually ends up taking her home, not knowing that Kath actually thinks he’s a conceded jerk.

And so Jack sends her flowers takes her to a Knicks game the next night and Katherine makes him miss the end of the game, sending him on a wild goose chase to get her a Diet Coke. But Jack isn’t too upset about it as he asks to see her again.

But the next day, Katherine flips the switch. She calls him constantly and stalks him on his very private social media, asking him about his ex’s and his past and Jack is very reserved but still asks her to dinner that night and when Katherine comes over, she reorganizes his entire apartment, making everything pink and girlie. Jack is frustrated but doesn’t comment as he serves dinner only for Kath to burst into tears saying she can’t eat meat, which is just a flat out lie.

Katherine manages to get Jack accidentally beaten up, cops called on, game night ruined, and so forth. And eventually, Katherine thinks she’s won when she breaks up with him only to be sad about it. But Jack’s friends suggest he win the bet by going to counseling. The counselor, Smalls, takes Jack suggestion for him to take Katherine home to his family in Brooklyn and Katherine is stunned by this, and mad at Smalls, but does go with him that weekend where she can’t help but want to be normal in front of Jack’s family.

And she finds out things she probably wasn’t meant to. Jack grew up in the system with his little brother who was ten years younger than him, Race, who greets Katherine excitedly when she first arrives. They have an adopted middle brother named Charlie who is paralyzed from the waist down. Medda is their adoptive mother who pulled them out of the gutter.

Katherine plays card games with them and when Jack is inside making snacks, Race tells her that Jack hasn’t brought anyone home ever because of his past with sexual abuse by one of his old fosters. Medda cuts him off, but Katherine gets the picture. Race is embarrassed and Medda whispers to Katherine that he is autistic and he only rambles when he really likes someone. Katherine melts at that and Jack comes back out to serve snacks not knowing the conversation had happened. But later, when Jack is showing Katherine the shower, she asks to see the scars that his brother had mentioned. And Jack shows them to her before the have relations in the bathroom.

That weekend, Katherine falls in love. Jack takes her out on his bike and teachers her how to ride and takes her to all his favorite spots and opens up to her about how he was a father at ten years old to his baby brother and never had anyone looking out for him. He even tells her that he hates advertising and wants to be an artist and shows her his art.

And by the time they get back to the city, Katherine is ready to come clean, but they have an event to go to where both of their companies will be, waiting to see who won.

The Delanceys know they’re losing and out Jack to Katherine who has a very public breakdown about it before she leaves and Jack is just as mad at her for toying with him like that.

The next week, Jack reads Katherine’s article and finds that their feelings were real and Kat really did love him, so he goes to confront her, only to find she’d quit her job and was moving away to find something else, so he chases after her and stops traffic in the middle of Brooklyn bridge to tell her he loves her too.

For more mood boards and AUs, click here!

[thekimspoblog]

"Sheepdog" (Kim Wexler Pregnancy fanfic) Chapter 3: "Kafkaesque"

“One side, everybody! The parade float’s coming through!”

That’s what they were all probably thinking. Pregnant women were a common sight in the hallways of the courthouse, but they were usually dressed appropriately in mumus or jumpers. Pudgy, soft, anonymous. The other women hadn’t attracted enough fame for anyone to take notice, if they had clearly not been pregnant the previous Friday. But now they were all staring at her. They were all staring and whispering. It set her ears on fire, and sent a prickle up the back of her neck.

Fucking Howard! Today started off badly, but she could have recovered by now if that prick hadn’t shown up to undermine her. “Don’t let him get to you,” Kim reminded herself, “You don’t even have to answer to him anymore”. In another week, her plan would go into effect, Davis and Main would drop Sandpiper like a hot potato, and if he still couldn’t see how much stronger she was than him, that’d be his problem. He and his condescension would be in the rearview mirror. She had to keep her eyes forward: Lynn Percival, 31. At issue were the material facts; the chain of events during her arrest. The prosecution was probably going to call attention to her wrap-sheet, but that had no relevance to her interaction with this officer. The cop was expected to deny that he had any prior relationship with her off-duty, but she would be able to get the voicemails he left on her answering machine admitted into evidence, so long as… It’s just insulting, you know?! Ok, Howard never liked Jimmy, and that was understandable. Jimmy was an acquired taste. But when it came to her, Howard couldn’t even grant her the dignity of being his enemy. After all these years, he had still deluded himself into thinking she had a modicum of an iota of an interest in what he thought of her. Why did he think he was any authority on what made someone a respectable professional? And why did he think she was ever that person, before Jimmy corrupted her pure-as-the-driven-snow morals? He was such an insignificant toad, and yet he still somehow found exactly the wrong thing to say, to have her fuming for the rest of the day.

She regretted not buying any antacids on her way to work. It was difficult to focus, when her stomach was a tempestuous ocean of venom. She was starting to regret not wearing sweatpants either. Cobbling together some fitting business attire had been hard, but not impossible. Jimmy had fished this XL gray pencil skirt from the top shelf of the back of her closet, and even so, it was a tight squeeze. As long as she kept her suit jacket buttoned, nobody would notice how badly her blouse was forced to ride up over her turgid bump. What if this wasn’t even a pregnancy? It would make more sense if she had an ovarian cyst. Oh well, the doctor’s appointment was this afternoon, and if she found out she had cancer, Kim wasn’t even sure whether she’d be that upset. She didn’t want to die when life was just starting to get good, but if she had to, dying happy was better than the alternative. She could still put a full day in before the dreaded appointment.

District Attorney Ericsen charged at her, briefcase in hand. “Kim! Do you know where Officer Kirk is?” Ericsen’s eyes were worried, stern, and just a little bit suspicious.

“He’s your witness. Contact his precinct if you can’t find him. Let them know he’ll be held in contempt if he doesn’t show up. This is completely inappropriate to be asking opposing counsel”

“Does Saul Goodman know where Officer Kirk is?” Ericsen made no pretense of the fact that she was asking the same question twice, just slightly reworded.

“No! He does not! I think he would have told me if he did” Kim was under no obligation to answer that last question, but she didn’t feel like playing games. The honest truth was she had shown up today, fully expecting to face the brute on the stand. It was short notice, but if she could file a missing witness charge, that would be good news for Lynn. But the fact remained that the pig’s disappearance was a coincidence! This one was clean of any meddling, from her or her partner.

“Two months! Two months I’d been speaking with him, and he was nothing but willing and able to testify against Percival. I know the signs of when a witness is getting cold feet. When an officer goes missing right before a trial, he doesn’t answer his phone, there are no reports of being injured-on-duty, no hospitalization records in the whole county, and even his relatives can’t explain why he never came home from work yesterday, that starts to look like something else. I’ve seen it before, but this is not cold-feet”

“If you’re accusing my defendant of foul-play, I’d remind you that she cut all ties with gang affiliation after she was released on parole. Putting herself at great risk too, I would add”

“No, I might not have as much sympathy for Percival as you do, but I do pity her. Living in the gutter, getting by day-by-day. If I were writing the laws, I’d categorize severe depression as enough to reduce someone to an animalistic state, to the point where mens rea can’t be proven. But I don’t. And the fact is that Percival struck Kirk in the stomach first, and even if Percival is not a sophisticated criminal, she was still sane enough to understand what she was doing. The point being I agree; she’s not a mastermind, and she currently has no connections to someone who would do this for her. So no… I’m not accusing your client of anything” Ericsen shot Kim the side-eye.

“Again, I’d blame the precinct,” Kim deflected, “It’s not like there’s any shortage of organized crime in this city. Who knows who might have intercepted him, or what he might have done to provoke them? It’s a hazard of the occupation. OR! Maybe he was cooperating with you, then realized how hard perjuring himself would be when the rape was caught on camera, and he decided to hop a plane to Grenada instead. Because frankly I wouldn’t be that worried if I were you. There wasn’t going to be much benefit to having him testify anyway”

Ericsen changed her posture. “How are you feeling, Kim? Are you ok?”

“I’m fine!” she snapped, “You’re like the eighth person to ask me that today. So if I’m sick of anything…!”

“I only ask because it seems like there’s something going around. Just the fall flu season, but a lot of people are out today. I’m kind of under the weather myself”

“I’m sorry” Kim shrugged.

There was a moment of impasse where it seemed the older woman was going to try to feel her belly.

“That’s alright,” the district attorney huffed, “I was just thinking to myself this morning, ‘You know what I need? More paperwork. I hope someone intimidates my officer so I can have to explain to Papadomian why my witness is a no-show’ “ She wandered off muttering to herself. She herself seemed a little off today.

An amorphous hope, a blip of a thought began to bubble up, that if Lynn’s hearing was postponed, maybe Kim could take a sick day after all. But before the hope had words, it was already dashed. The mobile phone in her jacket pocket began to vibrate. It was the office.

“Hello?”

“Hey Kim,” Franchesca fought through a yawn, “I’ve been trying to reach you. Your motion to bump up the Estrada trial was approved, but they insist on trying him as an adult”

“I’ll take it as a victory anyway. When is the date?”

“Next week, Monday the… um… the 15th!” rustling papers could be heard on the other end of the line.

“Today’s the 15th!”

“Oh crud… I’m really sorry. I’m really really sorry! The letter came in, and it sat on the pile, and you know usually I’m so on top of things, but-”

“Franchesca, Franchesca! It’s fine. It’s fall flu season. What’s the time?”

“12:15. Right now it’s 10:4-”

“I know. I only have a little over an hour to prepare. I think I can make it work”

“You’re really not mad?”

“A little”

“I’m sorry”

“Thank you, Franchesca”

*Click!*

She dialed Jimmy; she’d delegated the task of updating the Estrada brief to him, and even if he didn’t have it, she just needed to vent.

________________________________

But the cell phone was sitting on the car seat next to Saul’s briefcase, switched on silent mode. He didn’t hear it buzz.

“What do you mean Lalo’s not dead?” he asked Mike.

“Turns out he had a trap door installed in his bathroom, and a tunnel leading out from under his compound”

“Turns out” Jimmy repeated incredulously.

_____________________________

The phone just rang and rang and eventually went to voicemail. Kim gave up and started to seek out somewhere to sit down and write on the older version of the document, when the parasite in her belly decided to do a summersault. Suddenly a foot was on her bladder.

“Women’s Restroom Out of Order” said the sheet of notebook paper scotch-taped over the door.

“UNISEX” read the sign over the men’s room.

…

When she stepped out of the stall, Bill Oakley was loitering at the sink, washing his hands at the next basin over. It was a bit awkward having the bathrooms desegregated like this, especially given the lack of soundproofing, but they were all adults. Anyway, she was so nauseous she almost didn’t notice he was there at first. “Keep it together!” she commanded herself, “Get this done, then I have permission to pass out”. Something was wrong with her skirt. Ever since she had pulled it back up, it was painfully tight. She adjusted it and adjusted it in front of the mirror, but no matter what, the seams at the waist were threatening to split open. Was she still growing?! Totally illogical, Captain. Then again how did she account for last night? This whole thing felt like science fiction. And if her clothes couldn’t keep this existential crisis contained, what chance did her mind have? Too many questions were pulling her in a million different directions; it was better to keep them stuffed into the confines of the fabric and deal with them later when she got home. Bill looked her up and down, ponytail to flat dress shoe, with a nonplussed expression, and then finally broke the silence.

“Hey Kim… New haircut?” he asked with a tone drier than a saltine.

For the first time this morning, it cracked a smile across her face. “I know right?” she played along, “Probably the only thing left recognizable about me. Lop this off, and I could disappear into the crowd”

“Not on the 19th, you can’t! Martinelli? Let’s just say some details are going to come out in discovery, which I’m pretty sure you were trying to conceal. I was looking forward to the damage I was going to do to your pride”

“Not conceal! You and I just have differing opinions about whether the spring-gun should be treated as an assault with a deadly weapon. Because Martinelli thought it was a toy gun and it went off by accident, blame shifts to the manufacturer. When plead down to products liability, which is all this is, I’ve already given you all the relevant facts. Freely and openly! Anything more would be an unnecessary invasion of the defendant’s privacy”

“Yeah yeah, you can keep singing that song!” the DA taunted, “Until Wednesday! I recommend bringing some bactine!”

“All locker-room talk” she chuckled. She turned for the door, but stopped. “Thank you”

“For what?” Bill straightened his tie in his reflection.

“For not getting all touchy-feely about it. Everyone’s being sickeningly sweet to me today, and you’re the first person who’s talking normally. Even Howard’s being nice to me, but you know… it’s Howard. Even when he’s trying to be nice, he’s an asshole. It doesn’t even matter if he’s right about understanding what I’m dealing with; it’s none of his business. But he is right… My kingdom for a cigarette right about now”

“He’s probably just jealous,” Bill assessed.

“He’s welcome to trade places whenever he wants! I’m sure his life is so hard”

“He’s getting divorced, after all,” he shrugged.

“I didn’t know he was married,” Kim was taken aback.

“Yep. Looks like you get to have it all. Profitable career, big house, stable marriage, baby on the way? While some of us are about to lose everything. Some of us never had that much to start with”

Maybe she couldn’t bring herself to feel sorry for Howard, but she did feel pity for Bill! “At least you said you were moving to an office with a window, right?” she tentatively asked.

“They gave it to someone else”

“Jesus! I wish there was something I could do”

“Not unless you have any female friends you could set me up with?”

Kim thought for a moment to consider the question seriously. “Well I think you and Steph could potentially hit it off. But I doubt her wife would appreciate me giving you her number”

“Eh. I’m no-one’s type,” Bill had resigned himself to this fact years ago, “Honestly I’d settle for any male friends you have too. I don’t have any of those either”

“On second thought,” Kim retrieved a paper towel and a pen from her bag, “If you just want someone to talk to, I guess I don’t see the harm. The three of you kind of have the same sense of humor”

Oakley took the flimsy brown napkin with cherishment. Before the conversation could end, he had one last thing to add:

“Speaking of Howard,” he cleared his throat, “and speaking of butting in where I don’t belong, I might have been eavesdropping when Howard was making some rather frantic calls earlier this morning. He mentioned you more than a couple times”

“Who was he talking to?” she leaned against the wall.

“If I had to guess, probably Rebecca, right? There’s still unsettled business about McGill’s estate the four of you have been sifting through?”

“Howard’s been talking to Rebecca?”

“Kind of a lot. I assumed you knew”

“I haven’t been involved since the reading of the will. After the meeting with the scholarship board, we both decided we didn’t want anything else to do with it”

“Well whatever it was, he pretty adamantly wanted to call off the whole thing. Said something about not wanting to destroy an innocent life”

Kim’s stomach gave out an audible gurgle. This had been a nice distraction, but now the sinking feeling was back worse than before.

Between the heavy book bag slung over her shoulder and her shifting center of gravity, each step was becoming an increasingly precarious balancing act as she waddled back down the hallway, but Kim felt like she was starting to get the hang of it. She kept her free hand supporting the underside of her belly, both to keep her passenger calm and to keep the gray pencil skirt from beginning to ride down her hips.

Her house wasn’t that big - she thought - Howard’s house was still bigger. That wasn’t the point of course; she only needed one square acre to call home - one square acre she couldn’t be muscled out of - but still. She didn’t think she was being a pedant, to point out that anyone who still had a car to sleep in had not, in fact, lost everything yet. Hyperbolic claims of victimization like that only proved how sheltered someone really was. She knew so many people who were at the absolute bottom, and she’d been there herself; Howard was nowhere near that point of humility yet.

And as far as her profitable career? That wasn’t what it seemed either. She had money now, sure, but at what cost? Never being able to dismiss a bump in the night again. It’d cost her peace of mind, sleep. Ever since childhood, she’d wanted to live in a movie, but now that the movie had finally begun, she’d do anything to go back to normal. Ever since her husband had retrieved that bail money for the cartel, they were both on a merry-go-round they couldn’t get off of. Really, it was the state of New Mexico’s fault. If they just paid their public defenders a living wage, this all could have been avoided.

The stability of her marriage? That was something that was hard to quantify. It wasn’t close to perfect, but she didn’t necessarily expect better. Of course she and Jimmy were always on the outs, of course they argued constantly; they met at work; fighting was the relationship. But they did see eachother, in ways the rest of the world didn’t, so she really wouldn’t have had it any other way. The man was so much more than a 2-bit con-artist. He was sweet, and loyal, and he actually gave a damn about people. He gave a damn about the depths of rage she concealed under her smile.

... And the baby? The baby! … was a Metaphor…

Somewhere nearby, someone’s cell phone was going off. At least that’s what she thought at first; the tinkling bells were oddly familiar…

La la la la la la la. La la la la la la la…

In the periphery of her vision, an old woman was sitting on one of the benches holding a hand mirror. As Kim walked past her, the mirror caught a light beam from the window and… OW! Kim’s hand flew to cover her right eye. The flash was worse than blinding; something sharp had buried itself under her eyelid. She wanted to dismiss it as an eyelash refusing to lay flat, but no, she was pretty sure she was bleeding. Limping, blinking frantically, trying to avoid suits coming the opposite way as she found a corner of the hallway to pull over. And then as quickly as it had started, the pain was gone. The tears in her hand were crystal clear, no blood, so she couldn’t explain what had just happened. But the air in the hallway was suddenly several degrees cooler, and as the buzzing of the fluorescent lights overhead pulsated in and out, the sound resembled a gravelly voice.

WITCH! WITCH!

The chill passed. Nobody else seemed to have noticed the power surge.

David Estrada (16) was waiting to meet her, standing just inside the bounds of the metal detectors.

“What the hell is this?” Kim criticized his wardrobe as she approached, “David, I thought we talked about this. Suit? Tie? Loafers? Professional clothes! Jeans and a dress shirt at worst!”

“I’m sorry, Ms. Wexler,” came his mealy-mouthed answer, “You know I tried to look for some church-clothes, but your secretary only called me today saying the court hearing was today. And besides, last time you lent me a tie. I wasn’t sure if we were doing that again”

She had been very explicit about the fact that David needed to get his own tie. She looked over his outfit; the camo cargo shorts, the white wifebeater. “At least give me the gold chain,” she ordered.

“Isn’t the whole point of court to represent yourself as you are?”

“Nope!” Kim kept her palm outstretched expectantly. David groaned but relinquished the necklace.

“Well this is who I am…” Estrada stubbornly finished the thought under his breath.

There was no time left for debate. The defense scrambled to their table just before the bailiff announced the entrance of the judge.

“All rise. The honorable Judge Toledo presiding”

The justice was an unfamiliar face to Kim. Weathered and sagging, though he couldn’t be more than 55. It looked as if his pale jowled face was sculpted by filling a nylon stocking with tofu. Maybe he had lost weight recently, but his skin had not yet gotten the memo. A broom of fire-engine red hair sat lopsided on his head like a crown of straw. His eyes were tiny blue marbles.

“David Estrada…” Toledo began, but the defendant shot to his feet and blurted out, “Not guilty!”

Kim put a hand on his shoulder to let David know he should sit back down; “Please excuse my client’s exuberance. As you can see, he’s very young and his only experience with criminal procedure comes from television. (. . .) We are actually prepared to take a plea deal on counts 1 and 2; the malicious mischief and the criminal trespass. We are only contesting count 3; larceny”

“I see. And in pre-trial, you stated that you also wished to contest count 4. Is that still correct?”

**Count 4?**

The color began to rise in her cheeks as she burrowed back into her notes. She found the old brief, but it only mentioned charges 1-3! What was Count 4?! Clearly, she knew enough about it at some point to submit a plea. The domino effect of the day’s failures, delays, procrastinations and miscommunications were finally gaining momentum. Was this the result of deliberately pouring alcohol on her memory each night, or was 221 cases maybe just too many cases for any one person to juggle in a month? Hard to say whether her nerves upset the fetus or the other way around, but now there was a dull stabbing pain developing under her kidney. Toledo glared at her before impatiently turning his attention back to the district attorney.

“Hello, everyone,” began the prosecutor, “My name is Simon Rodriguez. I represent the district of San Berndillio county and the state of New Mexico, and it’s ironic the defense should characterize her client as ‘young and inexperienced’, as Mr. Estrada has in fact committed this exact crime already once before. The prosecution will show that at 2:43 pm, Tuesday, October 19th, 2004, Mr. Estrada picked up a cinder block and threw it through the front window of Jared's Jewelry on 2260 Louisiana Blvd. It was his intent to smash the glass of the property then, during the confusion, enter and steal a diamond and silver necklace costing $3,850. This act constituted a criminal trespass and Mr. Estrada did this while the business was open and operating. As a result, the victim, Ms. Bellamy, sustained lacerations on her face and arms from the broken glass…”

Ok now Kim was sure this was the first mention of a fourth charge against David. If Count 4 was a battery, which is what the prosecution seemed to be asserting, they would have needed to notify her about the witness ahead of time. And she was certain she’d never seen this woman before in her life. The prosecutor was a stranger too. Rodriguez kept smugly staring daggers at her as he gave his opening argument. It wasn’t clear what, but he seemed to expect something more than to just win the case. The man looked like an elf, with warm brown eyes, a sharp little face, and a cap of black hair greased down like he was Dracula. While his stature was reminiscent of a lawn jockey, something about the way he smoothly paced the floor made his legs look much longer than the rest of him. In truth, something about him reminded her of Lalo Salamanca, and that only made the baby kick more anxiously in protest.

“Objection!” Kim heaved herself into a standing position, “m-MMMs. Bellamy is a surprise witness. The defense has not been given time to prepare a cross examination, and therefore her testimony should be inadmMMMhis…able”

“Overruled. You had the opportunity to object to this witness in pre-trial. The court cannot make exceptions to accommodate your lack of organization, Ms. Wexler”

That was odd, she thought! She’d been nervous in court more times than she could count, but never before had she developed a stutter like that. She coughed repeatedly, trying to clear her throat from whatever had caused her to get caught on her M’s like that. When she glanced back into Mr. Rodriguez’s eyes, the ethereal tune from that horror movie last night started to ring in her ears again.

La la la la la la la. La la la la la la la.

“The court will now hear the opening arguments of the defense”

She stood up again and cleared her throat. “Good afternoon. I’m Kim Wexler, co-council for the defense. Yes, it is true that David Estrada broke the window of the jewelry store. Yes, it is true that because he entered the store illegally, this was trespassing. But! Any intent to commit larceny had already been abandoned by the time he entered the premises. Store security footage shows that the defendant touched the necklace, but never asported it. The burden is on the prosecution to prove that Estrada at any point intended to permanently deprive “Jared’s” of its property. At worst, he is guilty of an abandoned attempt. As for the battery charges? There is an issue of transferred intent because her injuries occurred during the commision of a separate crime, but my client is innocent until proven guilty”

At this, David interjected, “Yeah! And let the record show I only grabbed the necklace as an act of protest!”

Kim rubbed the palms of both her hands against her forehead slowly. With a gritted smile, she requested a recess.

“Sustained. But you only have three minutes”

She grabbed David by the arm and pulled him back out into the hallway outside the courtroom. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” she confronted him.

“Do you know where that diamond necklace came from?! I Googled it! De Beers relies on slavery in the Congo to this day to make a profit. And then more slavery in India to assemble the jewelry. And the courts’ attitude is that as long as it happens overseas, and as long as they’re importing the rocks from middlemen, it’s legal! I wasn’t trying to hurt that lady, but if I ruined her fancy romantic shopping spree because she was standing too close to an artifact of human rights abuses, I can’t sincerely say I’m sorry”

“Do you really want to do the ‘This whole system is out of order!’ thing today? Fine! I’ll go home and eat Cheerios, and you can represent yourself. I would love to be doing that instead right now”

“Not like it would be much difference! All you’ve done is sit there and agree with the prosecutor. Is that what they teach you in law school? How to take it like a bitch?!”

“I have done nothing but bend over backwards for you since we met. Most public defenders would have mentally checked out the moment you rejected a full plea deal and insisted on taking this to trial. I told you it was a bad idea. And yet here I am. Angry that you were stupid enough to commit the same crime twice, angry that you couldn’t just keep your nose clean and work for your grandfather like I told you to, angry that all the strings I pulled for you the first time have been thrown out the window. But I’m here!”

“Oh yeah, thanks so much for that, by the way! That’s right, I took your advice the first time. I went back to my grandpa and begged for a job. I mopped the floors like you said. I scrubbed the toilets like you said. Picked up a pretty nasty stomach virus in the process too. But what you might not have counted on is that my grandfather is an abusive prick!”

“He was the only one who was willing to bail you out for the first cinder block, and he bailed you out this time too”

“You’re right! He has money! He must be a saint. Look I don’t know what nice-guy act he gave you, but you don’t know what he’s like behind closed doors. Are you really going to tell me to go back to him? Like that’s helping keep my life on track? Do you want that on your conscience? If so, I think I’d rather go to jail. I can’t drop the soap no matter where I go; at least in prison it wouldn’t be incest. I mean we all knew it was alway going to be this way anyway, right? Forget protecting people; god forbid an international corporation loses a few shiny stones”

Kim sighed. This was at the same time the most rewarding aspect of working with minors, and the most exhausting. The world hadn’t yet sanded their dreams and principles down to a tiny nub. The job meant having to convince them that putting a little faith into the justice system to work as intended was not, in fact, emblematic of the rise of a fascist dictatorship. Only when we lose faith and start resorting to extralegal methods of expression, is fascism empowered.

“... How much do you need?” she asked in a hushed tone.

“Huh?”

“I can get you emancipated. We can press charges against your grandfather. Find a motel room to move into. I can support you if you promise to stay out of trouble. I’ll write you a check every month. You can start looking into correspondence school. You made a mess in there trying to self-advocate, but you clearly have critical thinking skills. You could go be a lawyer too. I don’t want to see you throw your life away. I admire your passion, and it’s not even that you’re wrong about De Beers. All I’m asking for is a little patience, and for now you let me do the talking”

“I don’t want your money. I want you to do your job. There’s an angle to this, about how I wasn’t stealing the necklace, I was stealing it back. Or… or it’s a free speech issue or something. There’s an angle that could work”

In terms of rule statements, David was objectively wrong. Even if the courts weren’t corrupt, larceny of stolen property was not a defense. A defender would have to be out of her mind to try that strategy. But it was hard not to respect the mischievous, optimistic glint in the kid’s eyes.

“Come on, Ms. Wexler. You know I’m right!”

After much grumbling, she nodded and gave a flat “OK”. Just as her phone buzzed that the three minutes were up.

…

The prosecution called the witness, a glassy-eyed woman named Dawn Bellamy, to the stand. Mostly, Dawn just stared off into the distance with a naive grin, but while being sworn in, she perked up at the mention of god. Her testimony revealed that she had been standing over twelve feet away from the window when it broke. In fact, in Kim’s opinion, the “lacerations” on her face and arms looked more like acne. On cross examination, Kim asked Dawn if she had seen any medical experts about her injuries. Dawn said she did, and presented a note which was (a) written on blank paper as opposed to any physician’s stationary, and (b) not at all specific about what happened to her skin. When Kim requested that Toledo read the letter himself and wait for verification that Dr. Patcher was a licensed doctor before admitting it into evidence, the judge took one brief glance at the note, stated “It doesn’t look like anything to me”, and treated the note as admissible. Then the case took a sharp turn! The witness revealed that she was one month pregnant at the time of the larceny. This led to a protracted and uncomfortable debate about whether Estrada should have known she was pregnant based on her appearance. And Rodriguez acted supremely smug as he made an extremely bizarre decision; he drew a parallel to Sherwood v. Walker to argue that because Dawn’s status as a pregnant woman was a substantial fact, the court should rule based on her status at the time, not based on Estrada’s mistaken belief.

Oh come on, she thought. He didn’t have to make it so easy: “Motion for jury instruction: Sherwood v. Walker set the precedent for mistake of fact in contract law. It has no holding on a criminal case. Not to mention it’s a Michigan case and has no control over New Mexico jurisdiction”

“Motion Denied. Legal precedent can be extrapolated from contract law”

“I’m not even asking that Mr. Rodriguez should amend his conclusion. McDuffie v. State sets a clear precedent that battery against a pregnant victim is a violent felony under the American Career Criminal Act. But McDuffie had reason to believe his victim was pregnant, plus he punched her in the stomach, plus she suffered a miscarriage. Here, the victim suffered no damages”

“Motion Denied”

“Mm- (cough) My concern, your honor, is that when you bring in comparisons to Sherwood, you treat the value of life as too specifically quantifiable. The crime of battery is no longer an offense against a person, but against their value as a commodity to produce value in the future. It’s important to treat a battery against an individual woman the same as a battery against a lone man, and take into account any additional statutes elevating the victim’s status as a protected class. We must treat these protected class statutes as what they are - nothing more, nothing less - when determining a fair sentence. Because the alternative is a double standard in the law that does not, in fact, elevate a pregnant woman’s value above a man’s, but cuts the value of every nonpregnant woman in half. After all, before Walker knew Rose was a fertile cow, he was preparing to send her to the slaughterhouse. I can’t imagine translating such a precedent for livestock onto humans”

She was sweating profusely under these lights. She wanted to take her jacket off, but underneath, she could feel that her boobs had outgrown and spilled out over the top of her blouse. Her shirt and her bra had twisted together into a bunched up wring of fabric, and her skin itched. It was breaking her concentration something awful the way beads of moisture dripped from her underarms.

Toledo beckoned her close to the bench and growled, “Do you want to be held in contempt?”

“NoooOOOOOhh!” The sound that came out of her was deep and animalistic. It worried her how good it felt. That is to say, it made the stomachache much more bearable as a wave of pleasure radiated through her.

“Good. As I was saying, I am prepared to adopt that precedent. As recent as Dred Scott v. Sandford, the US has recognized a value innate to the labor a person could potentially provide in the future…”

She couldn’t believe what she was hearing! She had stood at this table plenty of times, and tolerated old white men vomiting bad standup comedy or failed slam poetry in place of judicial analysis. But this… this was something new! What was even happening?! Who was this guy and what did he think he was doing?!

She opened her mouth to point out the painfully obvious - that the case had been overturned by constitutional amendment over a century ago - but the words wouldn’t cooperate. Her own throat and tongue were betraying her, and all she could say was “Moo! MOOOO!”

Rodriguez continued to lecture the jury about how frail and fragile Ms. Bellamy was. How - seemingly as an act of property damage against Mr. Bellamy - the battery was a serious offense. Kim wanted badly to interrupt him by screaming that the woman was not weak and by extension neither was she, but it was hard to say that convincingly, when she was gripping the banister, fighting vertigo just to find her way back to her seat. The cramp refused to let up. She felt incredibly bloated, and the muscles in her thighs and abdominals were straining under the building feeling of pressure.

She was being scrutinized from every angle; the stubborn incumbency of Judge Toledo, the vacant, placid gaze of the witness, Mrs. Bellamy, David - who wanted to be respectful and avert his gaze, but as a teenage boy - he lacked impulse control, the malicious stare of the district attorney, and finally, the jury, who were seeming more and more 2-dimensional by the moment.

Rip! Rip! Ping! Ping! Ping!

The pencil skirt ripped in two places on both sides of her ass, and the buttons on her jacket shot off in the direction of the gallery. Her massive ripe melon of a stomach hung out for the whole court to see. Veiny stretch marks which hadn’t been there this morning were sprouting up from her pelvis. With her naked breasts exposed, it was obvious that the dampness was not just from her sweat. Her tits felt huge, pendulous, and sore, and milk was starting to leak from her browning nipples. She gasped for air, finally able to breathe freely for the first time this morning. Toledo had abandoned all pretense of professionalism and was leaning out of his seat to get a better view of her. Rodriguez was visibly pitching a tent, and he was just shaking his head side to side as if to say “I told you so”.

At that moment, she was released from the hex on her vocal chords. She straightened her posture. Kim’s face was beet red, nevertheless she tried to keep her head held high.

“If I may please,” she spoke slowly, loudly, and deliberately, “request a recess to change my clothes”

“Uh… Sustained…” Toledo banged the gavel, “I think we got everything we needed. This trial will resume at some time next month”

“Thank you” our heroine said with as much decorum as she could muster. She marched out, holding her left arm over her boobs and keeping the dregs of her skirt together with her right.

David watched her leave, and it took a minute before it occurred to him that he should follow her into the hallway. He found her gulping down water at the fountain and tugged on the sleeve of her jacket.

“What the hell happened?!”

“I don’t know,” Kim answered, exasperated.

“Well are you going to be okay?!”

“I don’t know”

“What do I do now?!”

“The trial will resume in a month. Silver lining, this gives us more time to prepare… I must be having a bad dream. This is all just too weird”

“You think?”

“No. I mean I know every judge in this court. Every district attorney. And I’d never seen either of those guys before. That man did not conduct himself like an experienced judge”

“What does that mean?”

“I don’t know. Best case scenario, we can file a complaint and appeal. Worst case scenario… I just don’t know. Nothing about this was normal”

“Are you scared?”

Their eyes locked, “Don’t do anything until I figure this out, promise? Then you can throw as many bricks as you want”

She turned and headed for the exit at the end of the hallway. When she started to feel tears of humiliation run down her cheeks, she picked up her pace. By the time she reached the door, she was running to escape.

[siderealscribblings]

Devil Summoner: Akechi Goro vs the Phantom Thieves Chapter 14: Suffer for Your Art

The Residence of Madarame Ichiryusai Akasaka, Tokyo

"Madarame-san? It's Officer Yoshizawa with the Cyber Security Task Force…are you home?"

Sumire's knuckles ached from rapping on the door so much without answer. The longer she and Shiho stood on the stoop, waiting to be allowed inside, the more she had to pretend to ignore the flurry of questions coming from reporters over her shoulder.

"Miss, have you spoken with Madarame-san?"

"What is his reaction to the Sayuri's change?"

"Is this disappearance part of the exhibit? Did Madarame-san plan this in advance?"

"Are the Phantom Thieves responsible for this?"

"Remain calm," Morgana purred from the backpack on her shoulder. "You don't have to give them an answer."

"I know," Sumire muttered, trying to ignore the flashing camera lights coming over her shoulder. "Can't the police move them back a little?"

"There's no room on the street," Shiho sighed, slamming her palm hard on the door. "Madarame-san, our colleague is meeting with the prosecutor to determine how to proceed with this case; he will either give her your explanation for the Sayuri's transformation or ours !"

"What's our explanation?" Sumire whispered.

"That's for Madarame to worry about," Shiho said, perking up as the locks clicked open. "See?"

A slim, dark-haired teenager stuck his face through the crack in the door, carefully hanging in the shadows to avoid the lenses of the cameras. "A-Apologies…sensei isn't feeling well enough to answer the door at the moment."

"We can come in if that's easier," Sumire suggested, offering her badge. "But I'm afraid this is official business; your master's painting has been defaced, and-"

"Sensei is already aware of that," the boy mumbled, eyes trained on the stoop beneath Sumire's feet. "H-His lawyers are reviewing his statement; please be patient as we…as we consult our counsel."

Those aren't his words, Sumire thought, trying to see into the darkness of the house behind him. Someone told him to say that…

"Put me down," Morgana whispered from the bag. "I have an idea."

"We have reason to believe the Phantom Thieves will make another move tonight ," Sumire lied, lowering her backpack to the ground behind Shiho's legs. "If there is any information your sensei can give us; anything to suggest why he was targeted like this-"

"Thank you for your work, officer," the boy mumbled, moving to close the door. "W-We will make our statement when we are ready…"

"Wait." Shiho's hand slammed on the door as it started to close, badly startling the boy in the process. "Look at me for a second."

The boy's jaw quivered, and for the first time Sumire noticed how tired he looked. The skin on his fingers was puffy, red, and cracked where it wasn't completely stained with white paint. For a moment, it looked like he wanted to say something, but before he could work up the courage, he slammed and locked the door again.

"...he's scared of something," Shiho said with absolute certainty.

"How can you tell?" Sumire asked.

"I know what scared kids look like," Shiho said softly. "Something or someone is terrifying him…and he feels like he can't even ask for help."

Something seemed to lend weight to Shiho's theory; something that concerned Sumire but not quite enough to ask about it. As she bent down to pick up her sack, she found it curiously several pounds lighter.

Where did he...no, he didn't.

"That old painter is really gonna make us get that warrant, isn't he?" Shiho sighed.

"Maybe we won't need it," Sumire said, nodding at a cafe across the street. "Let's get some tea while we wait."

"For what, Madarame to have a change of heart?" Shiho asked.

"No…for Morgana-senpai to finish his investigation," Sumire murmured, glancing back at the house behind her.

Read More >>

Start From the Beginning >>

[liketolaugh-writes]

“O Fleecy, do me a solid. Show me Raine Robins at St. Joan’s.”

Percy kind of liked being able to do his therapy cross-legged on his bed, using the rainbow from a prism on his windowsill. It was kind of nice, or at least, it had been for the two sessions he’d managed to fit in before Hera whisked him away.

Raine’s office shimmered into view, resolving into an image of Raine flipping through her old notebook for him, frowning in concentration. Looked exactly like she had the last time he saw her, except with maybe a couple new pictures on her desk.

“Hey, Raine,” he said, smiling wearily when she jumped and looked up, eyes bright behind horn-framed glasses. “Sorry I missed our last appointment.”

It was a weak joke. Their last appointment had been scheduled nearly a year ago now, and instead of Percy, Raine had gotten a call from Annabeth, demanding to know if Percy had said anything worrying lately.

“Percy,” Raine said, with so much relief that Percy was touched. “I’m so glad you’re safe. Is everything okay? Your mother said you wanted to return to two-hour sessions.”

“Yeah, sorry.” Percy tried to smile. “It’s been a really rough year. Is it okay? I don’t want to be a pain.” He fidgeted, picking at his sleeve. “Never mind, one hour is a lot already, it’s fine. Forget I said anything.”

Concern shadowed Raine’s face, and then she packed it up and allowed composure to take over, straightening in her seat. “Two hours is fine. I would have mentioned if I didn’t have the time. Where do you want to start?”

Percy relaxed, thought about it, and then surrendered a shaky chuckle. “I have no idea,” he admitted, reaching up to thread his fingers through his hair. “So much happened. Can you, uh, can you help? Please?”

Raine’s brow pinched, but she complied. “Why don’t you start with why you went missing? What happened?”

Percy nodded absently, staring at the floor, and then leaned over and dropped his face into his hands, elbows propped up on his knees. “Hera-” His throat closed up, and he gritted his teeth. “Damn it. This is the easy question.”

“Take your time,” Raine coached softly, though the furrow in her brow said he was worrying her.

Percy nodded without looking up, waited for his stomach to stop churning, and tried again. “Hera... kidnapped me. She put me in a coma for six months, then sent me on a quest. We just got back from that, like, the week before last.”

Raine nodded slowly, flipped to somewhere in the middle of her notebook, and started writing. “And how are you doing with that?”

“Raine,” Percy said, causing her to look up again and meet his eyes. He smiled, knowing it didn’t do a thing to hide the anguish in his eyes, too much for him to express in any natural way. “This is the worst I’ve ever been.”

Raine exhaled, then nodded. She considered for a moment, and then prompted, “What do you most need help with right now?”

“I’m having flashbacks,” Percy rushed out. He realized he’d balled up in the middle of his bed, decided that was fine, and dropped his chin onto his knees. “A-and panic attacks, and really bad nightmares. The, the trauma counseling was good, last time. Can we do that again?”

“Of course,” Raine murmured. “Do you have your pictures, or would you like help with that?”

“I made some,” Percy said, glancing at the box. “Not enough, and not the worst ones. I, I couldn’t. Sorry.”

“It’s alright,” Raine reassured him. “We’ll work up to that. What else? What do you need help with?” Percy’s breath hitched, and he looked away, and after a moment Raine clarified gently, “What are you feeling, Percy? Do you have anger that needs to be dealt with? Do you feel badly about yourself?” With a faint, teasing lilt, she added, “I’ll let you rant against yourself just this once, if it’s the only way you can tell me what you need.”

Maybe she meant it as a joke, but if that was the only out Percy had, he was going to take it.

“I’m useless,” Percy blurted out, shifting to hug himself tightly. “I’m pathetic. I’m, I’m even scared of drowning now, what kind of r-” He choked, covered his mouth, and hated himself even more. “What kind of stupid son of Poseidon is scared of water? I hate everything and I want to kill myself and I should because I deserve to die.”

Raine was blinking at him in undisguised shock. “Percy, were you about to...?”

“Shut up,” he said miserably, and then immediately covered his head with his arms. “Damn it. I’m sorry. I- I feel like shit, Raine. It’s been such an awful fucking year.”

When he looked up again, Raine’s expression had smoothed over into cool calm.

“Alright,” she said softly. “It’s alright. We’ll get through this. You’re going to be okay.”

Percy shrugged. “Sorry I made you work so hard last year for nothing.”

“It was not nothing,” Raine said. “The skills you learned then will help you work through your trauma now, and the relationship we built will help you feel safe doing so. And you knew to come to me right away instead of floundering on your own. This is progress, Percy.”

Percy managed a halfhearted smile. “I guess.” It was too hard to hold. He let it fall. “I just, I don’t want to feel like this.”

“Of course not,” Raine soothed. “You did the right thing, asking for help, and I’m proud of you.” She tapped the notebook. “First thing, let’s help you find ways to calm down.”

“But the flashbacks-” Percy protested, then cut himself off and dropped his chin to his arms, looking defeated.

“I know,” Raine murmured. “I know, I’m sorry. I would love to be able to sit with you and make those go away in a couple of sessions. But we can’t. The process will be slow. So you need to be able to feel yourself again when they do happen.” She paused, and when Percy didn’t respond, continued, “Do you still have your safety plan?” Percy nodded. “Hold on to that. And, Percy...”

She hesitated. Percy’s heart dropped.

“You want me to go back to St. Joan’s,” he said, feeling hollow. Raine’s lips pressed together.

“I won’t force the issue,” she said. “But your mental health is much worse now than it was even when we first met. I’d like to be able to give you the intensive treatment you deserve.”

Percy hiccupped and scrubbed at his eyes furiously. “I want to stay home,” he protested, his voice breaking. “I miss my mom.”

He hadn’t meant to say that, but he couldn’t be upset that it worked. Raine looked away quickly, blinking hard, and it took her a moment to find her voice.

“A compromise,” Raine said. “We’ll meet twice a week for a few months. When you feel up to it, then you can come to St. Joan’s. Alright?”

“Alright,” Percy mumbled, trying to smile. “Thanks.”

Raine smiled back, then looked down. “Let’s talk about seeking support from others first...”

[arthropoda-artistry]

The thought of home hurts like the scab

that killed my friendship, that I’m only refusing to reopen

Out of misplaced loyalty to someone who will never care.

Misplaced loyalty, the thought of caring, love hurts, I don’t want to

I don’t want to be loved ever again. I don’t want to - but

I want to be missed if I give up. I want my escape hatch to hurt those I love

And isn’t that ironic? I can love someone who doesn’t feel the same, maybe because-

No, not breaking that promise, not again the only person who has stated undeniably

My death would matter, would mean something went missing from their life. This poem isn’t about them.

No, I just feel too much, constantly, and I can’t fathom a way out.

I’m only scared of failure, of my body being resilient and those who demand

I stay alive and pretend I exist realizing I failed again to love them.

I don’t want to be loved, please don’t touch me ever again, my corpse might scream

But my live body will silently sit in the car, survive the trip home

Take the hugs and handling and I don’t exist, this isn’t real, he’s not

Laughing and touching and teasing, aroused wanting no

Denial (a stage of grief, I want so badly to die)

and I’m not attractive, I’m not I’m not I’m not

I’m not going to die; I’m not actually unsafe

Bargaining is the counseling office, the cryptic messages

The inability to concentrate, as if maybe if I had no brains they’d protect me

I don’t deserve this I don’t deserve this

But when has anyone ever gotten what they deserved?

My scab itches, but I made a promise. They will probably never talk to me again.

I deserve this. I’m selfish. I’m not fifteen with a bottle of mouthwash anymore.

Grow up. Eventually I’ll have to (he never will, he will always be innocent)

I’m not dead. Inhale. Exhale. Home is an asthma attack, a risk, like

Suppressing coughs to avoid unnecessary hospitalizations.

I just need to suppress the fear, the all-consuming feeling of being watched, wanted, without control

I just need to find a way to accept my fate.

I’m going to be on his mind, even if I’m not beneath his hands

I don’t want this. I don’t want this, but the alternative is failure.

Failure at family, failure at the little girl who failed to grow into adulthood

That little girl was never afraid except when actually unsafe. Beatings, drowning, she only feared death and pain.

I miss being able to be loved without a beating heart attempting to escape my chest.

The thought of home hurts like there’s something rotting inside me

Probably that little girl’s corpse. I wish I had died as her.

She deserved protection. I don’t.

[addictedtostorytelling]

I miss your csi insights so I thought I’d post a question…

What do you think Grissom meant when he asked Sara if she has completed her counseling?

I’m reading a fic and the author’s take is that Grissom doesn’t want to be part of a twelve step program for closure.

This question has really stomped me as to what Grissom meant...obviously everyone is allowed to have their own interpretation, but I'm interested to hear yours 😊

hi, anon!

so my take on that line is that grissom is trying to remove unnecessary guilt from sara.

i draw this interpretation not only from grissom’s body language and tone—while some fans read him as trying to shut her down, to me, he seems much too bright-eyed and forward with the way he’s talking to her to really be in that business here; as he says the line, he looks her right in the eye and nods at her encouragingly—but also from the wider gsr context of early s5 and where they’re at in their relationship trajectory at this point.    

back in s4, grissom had been trying to impose arbitrary social distance between himself from sara in order to “set them both free;” however, he had been wildly unsuccessful in his efforts to do so, not only in the sense that he was never actually able to move on from sara emotionally or to encourage her to do the same from him but also insofar as he eventually ended up causing damage to sara by being so aloof/curt/harsh with her over the course of the year. 

come the events of episode 04x23 “bloodlines,” he finally realized just how badly he’d stepped in it with her when she narrowly escaped getting a dui. 

from there, he decided to change tacks: to step up and show her how much he actually did care for her, as opposed to trying (and failing) to pretend that he didn’t.

so going into s5, we see a much more open grissom when it comes to sara—one who is personally involved with her, who wears his heart on his sleeve, who not only unabashedly flirts with her but who is quick to remind her just how much she matters to him and to check in with her emotionally.

and, thankfully, it makes a world of difference: while all of sara’s life problems aren’t magically solved just because grissom is giving her the time of day again, she does really benefit from having his friendship and support, and their relationship at the start of the season especially is very strong, perhaps easygoing as it’s been since late s2.

so.

cut to episode 05x12 “snakes.”

on sara’s side of things, i think she’s looking at the last few months of interaction between her and grissom and going, “okay, so, i fucked up and scared the shit out of grissom with the whole drunk driving thing. immediately afterward, he felt like he had to be very hands-on with me and check up on me all the time. it took me a while to convince him that i didn’t need the kid glove-treatment, but now (after months of me toeing the line) i think he feels pretty confident in the fact that i am okay™—and not only okay but cool. i’ve shown him that i am capable of being friendly, collegial, chill, etc. honestly, things have been going pretty well for us. we’ve gotten to a place where we can be friends again. but now i have to be careful, because this is the point at which i would normally screw things up by coming on too strong with him. having his friendship again has been so amazing, and i don’t want to do anything to jeopardize it. i need to make sure that i don’t overstep, so i’m going to just talk to him and be up front—to tell him flat-out that i understand what’s what so he’ll know that i’m capable of maintaining the good status quo and not pushing.”

meanwhile, on grissom’s side, i think he’s looking at everything from the perspective that he was the one who was in error leading up to sara’s near-dui because he was being a weird, standoffish jerk who didn’t know how to manage his own hang-ups and emotions around her and that now it’s on him to “do penance” for it. while he knows he’s made progress toward being a better friend to sara ever since that turning point, he also feels as if the burden is still very much on him to finally do right by her. he knows he has a long way to go before he will finally undo all the damage he did to her self-esteem.

so then she walks into his office one day and starts apologizing to him for all sorts of things which he knows are not actually her fault, acting like she’s the one who’s not only to blame for the team split but also for whatever awkwardness there has been between them in the past (and, certainly, here, grissom can’t help but think about how he treated her during s4).

not only is she apologizing on professional grounds, but she’s also apologizing personally, insinuating that her personal feelings for grissom are part of the overall problem.

and, honestly—

grissom hates that he’s made her feel that way.

he’s given her such a guilt complex about their whole relationship dynamic, putting it in her head that she’s the one who’s been out-of-bounds, when in reality he’s been the one who’s been leading her on and confusing her and constantly changing the rules up on her for years.

so.

to break the interaction down:

sara comes into his office and leads off with, “we really haven’t had a chance to talk since the staff changes. i, uh—i wanted to let you know that i said some things to ecklie that might have done the team a disservice.”

grissom, quite sensibly and accurately, assures her, “ecklie wanted to break up the team, and he did.”

in no way is the team breakup her fault.

however, sara still feels (undue) guilt. she admits, “he asked me if you and i had had our post-peap counseling session—”

“—and we didn’t,” grissom acknowledges. however, the fact that they haven’t is hardly on her, and he tells her as much. “regardless, you should never have to cover for your boss. i’m sorry.”

here, sara’s façade of professionalism slips. 

she starts to get personal. 

very personal. 

“you’ve always been a little more than a boss to me,” she tells him, offering a timid smile. “why do you think i moved to vegas?” she smirks, trying to play off the enormity of what she’s just said. however, grissom isn’t oblivious; he realizes the nature of what she has just admitted to—not only in the sense that she’s just told him she’s (still) in love with him, but also in the sense that she’s attempting to take the blame for their whole impossible situation, which is exactly what she tells him in the next breath. “look, i know our relationship has been complicated. it’s probably my fault. it’s probably definitely my fault.”

check out sara’s body language and tone here: she is so skittish, blinking a lot, stammering; the self-consciousness is rolling off of her in waves.

but here’s the thing: in the past (and particularly during s4), grissom might have allowed sara to feel as if her feelings for and behavior around him were the problem—that she was the one who’d been out of line; that they had so much trouble being “just supervisor and subordinate” because she couldn’t rein herself in and just act normal™ in his presence.

not now, though.

grissom knows that he’s the one who has spent the last four and a half years giving her the runaround, always keeping her at arm’s length from him while at the same time never letting her fully go. he’s sent her so many mixed signals. been simultaneously too much and not enough. prioritized his needs at the expense of hers. made her feel guilty about things that never would have even been an issue if he could have just been honest with her from the start.

so to hear her sitting there, castigating herself, making it out that she’s the problem—

all he can think is that she needs to know it isn’t her fault.

that she isn’t in the wrong.

they’re not in the right environment and he’s not quite brave enough for him to tackle the larger implications of what she’s said regarding their feelings for each other and the course of their overall relationship immediately in this moment. however, he can talk about the more micro-level issue—which in a way is symbolic of the larger thing, anyway.

“you, uh, completed your counseling, right?” he asks, and he’s trying to point out to her is that she hasn’t been remiss in anything; that there’s no reason for her to feel guilty.

he means to absolve her: not only did she complete her required counseling, just like she was asked to, but, lest she forget, she even tried to approach him to talk about it earlier in the year (see episode 05x01 “viva las vegas”).

—he’s the one who failed to follow up.

so when she can honestly answer yes, she did do all her sessions, he hopes that it will make her feel better.

he also hopes, when he asks her how her sessions went, that he’s repenting a bit of his misstep—finally doing now what he should have done back in september.

that’s been his whole mo with her, ever since he picked her up from the waiting room at pd eight months ago: to try to undo whatever harm he’s inflicted a little bit at a time, as much as he can; to apologize for the things he’s able to; to change his behavior and do better.

and his hope is that eventually he’ll get to a place where he’s not just in a position to try to make up for past mistakes but where he can proactively be the thing he needs her to be—where he can finally step up and be brave and own up to their feelings for each other in a way that would really mean something.

he doesn’t quite make it there in the course of this conversation—though, personally, i think that if sara had given him just a few more seconds before she got scared and cut the conversation off abruptly, he might have—but he’s definitely trending that way.

the very next episode is, of course, episode 05x13 “nesting dolls.”

he’s working up to finally saying what he should have told her years ago, to finally doing what he should have done years ago.

it’s a process.

“it’s not your fault” > “it’s my fault, and i’m sorry” > “now i’m going to do what i should have done before.”

anyway, that’s my take:

“you, uh, completed your counseling, right?” is grissom’s way of reminding sara that despite what she might think, she’s not the one who blew it. it’s him shifting the blame off of her and back onto himself—or at least that’s what he means it to be.

thanks for the question! please feel welcome to send another any time.   

[dangermousie]

S2 ep 1

1. This show continues its belief in lack of clothes and work outs. This is our first shot of Marcos this season.

2. Hector making up with Elsa out of duty while he and Maria stare at each other is a total visual parallel with Carol making up with Ivan out of pity while she and Marcos stare at each other. In both cases, NEITHER relationship leg of that triangle works out, which is surprisingly realistic.

3. Some of the creepiest things were constantly associated with Paula. Btw, pls tell me I am not losing my mind and she’s the clone of Irene, Marcos’ mom?

4. The one thing that can consistently, shamelessly make me cry in this show is not any ships (not even my beloved Ivan x Julia), not even Maria’s maternal relationship with Ivan but the way Marcos is the best brother to Paula. That just hits me straight in the softest, most vulnerable part of my heart. He may have been a lousy boyfriend, but an excellent friend and a brother without equal. This scene, where he tries to explain to Paula what death is and why she should enjoy life even though death is inevitable by likening it to her loving her birthday party even though she knows the candles will be blown out, the clown will leave and the party will end - ooooof. And the way he answers all her difficult questions (can children die? why do we not live forever? etc) and somehow manages to smile and make it all a good talk and not a horror...

5. Fermin, our amazing super agent, is so so so SO soft for Maria.

6. The thing that I always loved about Marcos was how unbreakable and unbroken he was. (I think he’s inherited it from his mother and Hector.) You could break Ivan (show delighted in doing just that tbh) though he’d be able to glue himself together somehow - continuing despite being in pieces was his trademark. But you could never break Marcos, not in any way that mattered (unless they took Paula away I suppose - shudder.) But also, when he tells Hector he could never be like his father - the bitter irony of that in retrospect. He’s right in the worst, best ways.

7. It’s pretty telling that Ivan on the run felt safe to call Maria and ask for help. Even if it all turned badly (Hector followed and brought him back to school and now Ivan is back to loathing her feeling betrayed), it speaks volumes about his instincts being on point.

I am also amused to note that this is the start of them not even bothering to pretend he looks like a high school student. Hi there, leather and designer stubble!

8. He’s only been on screen for a minute in this new season and he’s already being broken down. This show def catered to its strengths!!!!

I do so love Maria tentatively trying to console him. I looooooove how slow they took the mother-son thing.

9. Noiret! We did not miss you. I do love Ivan basically hiding behind Hector and asking to stay. It’s pretty telling that, as @theseasasleep​ pointed out, the school that might as well be a portal to hell is Ivan’s haven.

10. “I hate you!” Poor Maria, having to deal with teen acting out without having even gotten the cute baby years.

11. Marcos telling Ivan he’s glad Ivan’s OK. Awwwww, another step on your road to eventual cuddling bros!

12. The first and last time we see parents care about what is going on at the school. Apparently it’s drugs that’s the deal breaker. Not corpses or plagues or a convicted child abuser running the place or literal Nazis!!!!

Somehow with those parents that tracks however.

PS Have noticed that this school has provided zero support or counseling to minors whose classmate and friend supposedly overdosed and died suddenly? It’s business as usual!

[lcveruin]

   the mortal sun has risen and set a thousand thousand times, and aphrodite is yet bound to the earthly realm, the reincarnation loop continues. this time their mortal coil has taken the shape of adeline rudolph, a human born on 8 of april, 1995, an ares and named elowen ‘winnie’ meyers.

PINTEREST 

TW:DRUG USE , TW:MINOR PILL ADDICTION TW:PILLS

hey loves ! please forgive my lateness for getting this out, but i’m here and i cannot wait for you all to hear about my new lovechild ! she’s still being fleshed out so i don’t have her bio 100% done so please enjoy the bullet points that i do have. i have some connection ideas listed at the bottom so if you’d like to plot like this and i’ll pester you on discord or tumblr im’s

S T A T S :

full name: elowen meyers

nicknames: winnie, win, el

deity: aphrodite

age: 27

birthday: April 8, 1995

zodiac: ares

sexuality: bisexual

pets: kitten named goose

occupation: former surfing prodigy. Cashier at the golden lyre and paddywhack

current residence: white poplar village

hometown: magnetic island

time on island: her whole life but she’s been back for a year

unlocked abilities: effortlessly charming & put together, sensing peoples attractions/desires, matchmaker extraordinaire, keepsakes from the sea brought into the home bring peace and safety. And enhanced swimming abilities

locked abilities: aid people with falling in & out of love during rainfall, strengthen marriage bonds, and amplifying peoples passions and desires

B I O

 elowen was adopted by the meyer’s when she was three years old and her little brother was one. she doesn’t really know anything about her life before them and she’s never been one to announce her adoption.

 life growing up was relatively easy, jasper and ida meyers were the type of couple romance authors aspired to write about. winnie has always aspired to have that kind of love in her life. the home was welcoming and they always believed in winnie and her brother..

 surfing has been her passion since her dad had her on a board at four. she had amazed him at how well she took to it  so it was only natural for them to push for her to compete. she competed at an all star level through adolescence which meant she missed some school 

 had average grades in school. however when she became a teenager she realized that while she never put any effort she was rather popular always seemed to attract people to her and that her swimming was better than some adults. she really started to read up on the lore of the island around that time.

TW:DRUG ADDICTION & USE  around sophomore year ?? she went to a party & was given Adderall which lead to a minor addiction. she realized if she took a pill she could not only focus on getting all her work done BUT also extracurricular activities it was a dream come true for her tired brain.

 eventually her parents found out about it around the end of her junior year and got her the help she needed and then elowen was off to graduation and to the next surfing competition. vowing she was going to stay away from pills & drugs.

. elowen didn’t have any college plans so she decided to travel from competition to competition. A year In She fell in love with a fellow competitor which ended badly due to them hiding their steroids in her bag and she got disqualified.

 heartbroken she came back home only her mother didn’t believe that it wasn’t her using so she cut contact with her which absolutely gutted winnie & is still a big rift in their relationship.

 she didn’t touch surfing for awhile and is going back to college for psychology, met some people who helped her develop a dating app called golden apple.

 it currently is sitting at number one in the App Store and she’s honestly very proud of it. On the side she’s finally dipping her toes back into surfing and is dreaming to start up her own counseling/matchmaking services so she can make her app better. 

H E A D C A N O N S  &  P E R S O N A L I T Y

 winnie really wants know about her birth family, but she’s actually terrified.

 loves water, swims/surfs daily no matter what. if she doesn’t she feels funky the whole day

 since her family isn’t really in contact with her she’s clung to her friends who she loves a whole lot though her little brother still talks to her. he’s her favorite person.

 she’s most honest late nights when tequila is in her veins.

 goose is her tabby cat that she simply adores. she just adopted him so she’s a new cat mom.

 hopeless romantic x10000

 has a habit of trying to set her friends and family up.

 tries to befriend everyone as well and will flirt with anyone.

 mom friend but also isn’t??? The lines blur a lot.

 owns a vw bus named roscoe that she treats like her child as well. she’s had it since getting her license and takes it on roadtrips & camping trips whenever she can.

 she’s very brash and impulsive at times but she’s trying to be better for herself and everyone else.

is trying really hard not to relapse with the pressure she’s putting on herself to be be the best again. 

C O N N E C T I O N S ??

roommate connection please or a neighbor one where they’re just at the other’s place all the time do weekly dinners or late night grocery runs. just domestic platonic fluff please i’d die.

best friend or ride or die type of friendship.

exes current fwb’s lovers whatever she loves love alright.

someone she is always trying to set up with blind dates. 

pet friends?  this is all new terroitory for her.

hiking/camping buddies.

honestly anything and everything i’m sure we could figure something out!