#sorry if this is your first introduction to Andrew

[chloesimaginationthings]

The actual lore in FNAF ultimate custom night

[dragonnarrative-writes]

Part 2 - Work Introductions

Autumn Embers Masterlist

CW: Mentions of child loss, mentions of medical neglect/abuse, mentions of reproductive abuse, mentions of pregnancy complications and death, mentions of racism, sexism (in an omegaverse way), Brandon (unfortunately living), real world references

Data entry and analysis isn’t the most exciting job in the world, no matter what kind of fancy title you’re given, but it pays the bills. Working on a military base isn’t ideal, but the benefits are nothing to sneeze at. And most days, you get to sit alone and uninterrupted, in your own office, instead of in a cramped cubicle.

On Tuesday, you’re startled out of your audiobook by a gentle knock on your desk. Sherry, your immediate superior, gives an awkward little wave and waits for you to finish your line and mute your music.

“Hey, I’m so sorry about this,” she says, as soon as your headphones are clear. “You remember those port reports from Honduras? Some of the senior analysts have some questions for you? They’re currently in a meeting and requested some clarification…?”

You wait, but she doesn’t say anything else. “…what do they want to know?”

“Oh, they didn’t tell me, I’m sorry,” Sherry says. “They asked if you could… Well, they need you to attend the meeting. Right now.”

“Do I even have the clearance for that kind of meeting?” You stand without waiting for an answer and disconnect your laptop from the dock. With it tucked under your arm, you grab a notebook and pen, as well as your water bottle.

Sherry leads the way out of the office. “I know you submitted these reports two weeks ago, and your notations are excellent. I think the problem is with one of the flagged ship manifests, but they wouldn’t clarify why they were concerned. Couldn’t get a word in edgewise.”

Her apologetic air suddenly makes sense. “Brandon’s in there, isn’t he?”

Sherry grimaces. “I’m so, so sorry. It’s him and a few alphas. There’s an American CIA agent as well.”

“So I absolutely don’t have the clearance for this meeting,” you sigh. “Great.”

A short elevator ride and two halls away, you take a fortifying breath before you step into an occupied meeting room. Brandon’s is the first face you see, and when he sees you the corners of his lips turn up in an infuriating smile. Next to him, another senior analyst’s eyebrows pop up, but Andrew actually looks happy to see you.

Before the door can close behind you, a blonde, American alpha stands and offers her hand in a no-nonsense shake. “Kate Laswell. We appreciate you being so prompt.”

“Of course,” you answer. Unfortunately, your attention is a little torn. All four members of the 141 are sitting at the table, looking at you curiously. Sergent MacTavish grins like a wolf. Captain Price tips his chin up just enough that you know he’s scenting you. Lieutenant Riley, face covered from the nose down in a black neck gaiter, gives you a quick once over that makes you want to shiver. But you’re a professional, so instead of fleeing you take the nearest seat, across from a smiling Sergent Garrick. You fold both of your hands on top of the table, the very picture of accommodating and helpful, “What can I assist you with?”

“Why’d you flag this shipping manifest,” Brandon asks. The projector at the front of the room switches to a document that would be barely legible, even without the distortion of zoom.

“You’re going to have to be more specific,” you tell him, flipping your laptop open. “What’s the file name?”

“Honduras,” Brandon says, Port Cortez.”

“Puerto Cortes,” you correct. And seeing as it’s the largest seaport in Central America, I’ve combed through literally hundreds of manifests, you think, but don’t say. “I’m going to have to ask you to be a bit more specific. The projector isn’t easy to read.”

“You flagged this manifest for a Korean ship.”

You jump when Sergent Garrick says, “Christ, mate, just give her the file name.”

Lieutenant Riley gives a cough that sounds suspiciously like a laugh. You think you see MacTavish still grinning at you out of the corner of your eye. Laswell rattles off the document name without looking.

As soon as the document loads, you know exactly why Brandon and Andrew are confused. And you know that the following conversation is going to be so unpleasant that you shoot off a quick email to take the rest of the day off once this meeting ends.

You take a deep breath, let it out slowly. “The manifest is inconsistent with previous patterns from that particular port and that particular captain and crew. As I noted, the four containers from Venusian Pharmaceuticals wouldn’t have made it on the ship do to political and economic pressures.”

Brandon doesn’t bother to look at you when he asks, “What pressures?”

Laswell interjects before you can answer, “Leaked internal communications provided evidence that Cloudstone Pharm was selling tampered heat suppressants and birth control in various black markets. The 4B movement in South Korea had been calling for an investigation for years by that point. A lot of omegas were killed because of mis-labeled medications. Pregnancy and birth related complications.”

“I remember that. It was, what, five, more years ago?” Lieutenant Riley asks. “Had an entire re-brand. Cloudstone to Venusian. Everything went from blues and whites to greens and yellows.”

“Okay, so the containers had a bit of extra security to get onto the ship,” Brandon says, before you can get over the shock of two alphas in a room who know anything about even the broad strokes of omega health care. “There’s protesters at every major port for one thing or another.”

“Even if they’d gotten on the ship, they wouldn’t have made it to Puerto Cortes,” you counter. “The captain lost two of his kids because of their medications. He’s had his crew dump the containers and alter manifests before. He was investigated for it, but his crew wouldn’t speak against him.”

Brandon frowns. “How do we know he didn’t get paid off?”

How do we know the omegas weren’t worth less than a cash payment? Your throat feels like closing in on itself. You keep your voice as steady as you can. “He wouldn’t have been.”

“How do you know?”

Andrew, eyes darting between you and Brandon, tries to interrupt. “Well-”

“Because he made the autopsy reports for both of his sons public,” you answer. You have to force your jaw to unclench. “Along with pictures and videos of how sick they were before they passed, before anyone knew what was really wrong with them. And the executives of Cloudstone, an American company, laughed. Called them slurs and ignorant animals in emails and meeting memos that were later leaked to the public.”

Across from you, Garrick is not smiling anymore. “That’s… disgusting.”

“Cloudstone struggled to recover in eastern Asian markets, even with the re-brand,” you continue, then take a deep breath and let it out slowly. “And all of this was in my report.”

“Your job isn’t to provide those kinds of references. You’re not trained for it. There were a couple of links to articles,” Brandon dismisses. “Not enough to-”

“One of his sons experienced total organ failure,” you interrupt, closing your laptop. You know your scent must be all over the place, but the subject matter was already touchy. Now he’s questioning your work and misrepresenting your job duties? Oh, fuck him. “Because he was on incorrectly administered fertility treatments that were disguised as birth control, he had a high-risk pregnancy with multiples. And then his medications were switched with heat inducers. His other son had rapid onset neuropathy and multiple strokes within a week. Neither of his sons wanted to have children. One of them couldn’t, biologically, because it would have killed him anyways. And their partners decided that they didn’t care.”

Brandon wrinkles his nose at you. “No need to get so worked up.”

You practically feel the way your scent goes hot and acrid. Where most omegas have a distress scent that is sickly sweet, yours is much closer to an alpha’s shock scent. Your parents used to call you “Wildfire” because of it. You watch the hairs on Garrik’s arms stand up.

You can barely smell Andrew’s nervous distress over your rage. “Okay, yeah, that’s plenty. The captain wouldn’t have taken the containers.”

“Is there a reason you didn’t consult the references I added into the report?” You know the sudden calm in your voice, the relaxing of your posture, is at odds with the way your anger scent gets stronger. You’ve been told it’s a sensory nightmare, so you only do it when someone tells you you’re not calm enough. You fold your hands on the table again. “Because I included original and translated sources, according to the standards of the department.”

The room is silent. All seven alphas are agitated. You can only pick out MacTavish’s scent, muddled and frustrated. Andrew opens his mouth, closes it. Finally says, “I didn’t receive the references.”

“Senior analyst Lawrence received the full report directly,” you say, holding eye contact with Brandon. “But I know how emails can get lost. I would be happy to send them again. I’ll CC you, and request that your access to the full drive be confirmed. Sir. Is there anything else I can assist the team with?”

Laswell scrawls something on a sticky note and passes it over to you. “Please also include me on those emails.”

You give her your most demure smile. “Unfortunately, Agent Laswell, I don’t have the clearance to send reports outside of the department. I would be happy to help you coordinate that with senior analysts Lawrence and Bennett.”

You pluck the sticky note from her hand, stand, and gather up your laptop, notebook, and water bottle. When you have everything, you pass behind her to where Brandon and Andrew are sitting. Deliberately putting yourself at Brandon’s back, you hand the note to Andrew with a placid smile. “Agent Laswell requests that you provide her with the full report.”

Brandon smells disconcerted, trapped in his seat with your scent roaring as you stand just inside of his blind spot. Andrew, for his part, only hesitates for a moment before taking the offered sticky note, looking from you to Laswell to Brandon and back. “Thank you.”

“Of course, sir.” Butter wouldn’t melt in your mouth. “Is there anything else I can assist you with?”

“I… believe that will be all…?”

“Of course, sir. Thank you, sir.” You cement your little performance with a perfectly deferential partial curtsy to Andrew, then to the rest of the room. “Please do not hesitate to let me know if there’s anything else I can do the support the team.”

As the door shuts behind you, you hear Captain Price’s voice for the first time. “Goddamn. That is a woman capable of murder.”

[padfootagain]

Love in Verses (V)

Chapter 5 : ‘But here comes the lyrebird passing through the sky’

Hi, everyone!!! Here we go with the fifth chapter! Introducing new characters, and spending some time at Trinity for this one…

Also, chose a French poem for this one because it fit the theme very well, but I couldn’t find a decent translation, so I translated the poem myself… it isn’t particularly good, sorry about that, but it’s not worse than the other translations I’ve found, sadly…

I hope you like this new chapter! Tell me what you think!

****

Pairing: Hozier x fem!reader (professor!AU)

Warnings: slow burn, angst, hurt, hurt/comfort, tooth-rotting fluff in later chapters, some scenes in later chapters will have heavy sexual themes even if it’s not explicit nsfw description, so minors here

Summary: Your life seems perfect. You're engaged, your career is thriving as you become an assistant professor at Trinity College, and this Andrew Hozier-Byrne you're sharing an office with seems to be a nice guy you hope to call a friend soon. Life seems to be smiling at you... until everything goes sour. When your fiancé breaks up with you, your perfect world shatters. And when your colleague also gets his heart broken soon after, your shared office seems to be a curse rather than a blessing. But Andrew seems determined to mend your broken hearts... Will things finally go according to plan?

Word Count: 2110

Masterlist for the series – Hozier’s masterlist – Main masterlist

Writing Page

Two and two four Four and four eight Eight and eight make sixteen…

Repeat! Says the teacher

Two and two four Four and four eight Eight and eight make sixteen…

But here comes the lyrebird Passing through the sky The child sees it The child hears it The child calls it

Save me Play with me Bird!

So the bird descends And plays with the child

Two and two four…

Repeat! Says the teacher

And the child plays And the bird plays with him…

Four and four eight Eight and eight make sixteen And sixteen and sixteen what do they make? They don’t make anything sixteen and sixteen And especially not thirty-two Anyway And they go away.

And the child has hidden the bird Inside his desk And all the children Hear its song And all the children Hear the music

And eight and eight leave as well And four and four and two and two In turn go away And one and one don’t linger once nor twice One by one they leave too

And the lyrebird plays And the child sings And the teacher cries :

When you are done fooling around!

But all the other children Listen to the music And the walls of the classroom Peacefully crumble.

And the windows turn back into sand The ink turns back into water The desks turn back into trees The chalk turns back into a cliff The quill turns back into a bird.

Jacques Prévert, Paroles, 1946 – original title : “Page d’écriture”

September was grey and rainy, or rather, it withheld the doom of a storm within its dark clouds. The ground was drenched, making the curb darker than usual, the earth smelling sweet and rich with water and life, the leaves glistening in darker shades of green. As Saoirse finally entered the grounds of Trinity College, her steps echoed louder than usual on the glistening pavement.

Finally. Finally, Saoirse was a college student, independent and entering adulthood. That was how she felt, anyway. Even though she still lived with her parents on the outskirts of Dublin, was still a student… at 18 she felt like entering university was the beginning of womanhood, of adulthood, and she was excited about it. Excited, and terrified.

If she knew a few people on the campus, she was the only one studying English, and the loneliness that came with the new experience of university was adding to her anxiety. She looked around, a little lost but trying to look like she knew where she was going. She was trying to reach her first meeting, this first day being dedicated to integration, an introduction to the life on campus and a quick presentation of the classes they would follow this year. The classes themselves were only starting the following week. This orientation week was focused on the ways of university, on clubs and other useful information for students.

But Saoirse had been on campus for less than ten minutes and she was already feeling overwhelmed, with the small white tents along the lawns that presented clubs for students to join in, with the crowd and its loud chatter pulling her attention in all directions…

All of a sudden, there was another undergraduate student staring down at her, an amused smile on her lips.

“You look lost! Want some help?”

She was wearing a badge from a theatre club, a tired look on her face and an hyper-active glimmer in the eyes that revealed she drank too much caffeine.

“Erm… I’m fine, I just…”

“That’s alright! It’s your first day, you’re allowed to be lost. Let me help! Where is it you’re going?”

“Erm… the English department…”

“Ha, no worries, I’ve got you! I’m an English major too! Come on!”

Before Saoirse could speak another word, this stranger had turned on her heels and was making a bee-line through the crowd. Saoirse followed her the best she could, bumping into students and apologising profusely in the process, until they had reached a second yard that was much calmer. She hurried after her guide, almost running to catch up with her.

“There is the library,” the stranger said, pointing at a large building, a sculpted globe decorating the space before its door. “Note where it is, you’ll spend most of your time there while studying here. And no matter what you do, avoid the tourist attraction around the Book of Kells. Busiest place on campus, and some real chaos over there. This side isn’t as fancy, it’s more concrete and metallic shelves than beautiful wood and carvings, but it’s quiet and withholds all the information you’ll need for your classes. We often see some of our teachers hanging around there too. Who is it you’re gonna have this year?”

“Erm… I’m not quite sure…”

“You should have your schedule during the week. If you can, avoid Mahon and Patterson. They’re not bad teachers, but they are terrible human beings. Proper gobshites the two of them. I heard H-B is teaching about Yeats this year; if you can, take this class, and avoid Mahon’s lecture about science-fiction. Trust me. On paper, it sounds that poetry is harder and more boring, but Mahon is going to reap you apart, when H-B is probably the sweetest teacher at Trinity.”

“H-B?” Saoirse asked, trying to keep up with both the fast pace of her guide and her precious information that she delivered at a relentless speed.

“Hozier-Byrne. Everybody calls him H-B around here, name’s too long. Or just Hozier. Anyway, he’s a sweetheart. He’ll actually care about whether or not you pass his class. Also, he’s got the prettiest mug on campus, so it doesn’t hurt to see him once or twice a week,” she laughed, throwing her head back like a child.

The two girls kept on chatting while they were waiting in the corridor for the meeting to start, and Saoirse tried to get as much information in as she could.

Before leaving, her guide had one last advice.

“Come to the S2S mentoring program this afternoon. I’m part of the mentors, we’ll give you a full tour and help you register for your classes. Also, we’ll help you to find your tutor among the academic staff, to get into a club or society… stuff like that. Oh, the name’s Gabi, by the way! I’m one of the mentors for the English department, so if you want, you can come and find me at the meeting.”

“Thank you so much,” grinned Saoirse.

“Hey, no worries! I used to be a lost freshwoman too, back in the days! You should go in for the boring meeting, General Session… Tomorrow’s meeting about your classes will be more interesting.”

With one last thank you, Saoirse finally entered the room, found a seat, remained silent, not daring to speak with the students around her.

She looked at the blackboard, the desk and chair and microphone for the absent professor.

Fucking hell, she was starting university…

Saoirse listened to Gabi’s advice, looked for the S2S Mentoring meeting, scheduled for 2:30 pm. It was easy to spot the exuberant student, as she laughed with her friends, and she greeted Saoirse with a grin. She followed Gabi’s group for the full tour of the campus, along with a small group of freshmen. She chatted with a couple of them, especially Donal, whose colourful nails and vibrant make-up matched his buoyant personality. They then settled in a large classroom, scattered into small groups and each mentor helped their students with registering for their classes, gave them advices and a little bit of gossip.

Gabi helped Saoirse log into the orientation website and access the right page for her to register to her classes.

“You can change the classes you’ve selected up to the 23rd,” explained Gabi, “and after tomorrow’s meeting with your tutor and the presentation organised by the department, you’ll have a clearer view of what to choose. But you can still take a look now. Also, pay attention to the schedule. You can’t select classes that are happening at the same time. You can select a few classes now already if you want, just to be sure you’ll have a spot.”

Saoirse nodded, went through the list of classes.

On the schedule, the classes about Yeats’s poetry and science-fiction were clashing. She hurried to select the class about poetry, following her mentor’s advice.

She also selected a class about modernism taught by the same Hozier-Byrne, trusting Gabi that it was worth skipping a class about Shakespeare, not that she held much regret about avoiding that class, to be fair. She registered for a class about ‘the use of gender-normative language and patriarchal norms in modern literature’, excited about this class already.

“Erm… sorry…”

She turned towards the student by her side.

“Can you show me how to get into the schedule? I didn’t understand where I should click…”

He looked a little lost, a little overwhelmed, like most people in the room, and certainly as she felt herself. Dark hair, brown eyes. An attempt at a stubble colouring parts of his cheeks.

“Sure!”

She showed him how to log into the schedule, he thanked her, a little shy.

“I’m Sean, by the way.”

She grinned.

“Saoirse.”

He seemed nice, they kept chatting for the rest of the day. She hoped they would have classes in common…

Y/N Y/L/N.

Saoirse read and re-read the name of her tutor. There was a small group of students in the classroom, ready to meet the member of the academic staff who would be in charge of their well-being for the year. Sean was part of the group too, and they sat together on the third row. Donall was there too, he joined them as soon as he spotted Saoirse.

Y/L/N. Saoirse had recognised the name immediately, belonging to the teacher in charge of what seemed to be a very feminist class.

And indeed, when you entered the room, looking tired but benevolent, Saoirse liked you immediately. There was something in the way you spoke that was gentle, patient, that sounded like you actually cared, that you were happy to meet your students, too.

You gave your students some extra-information about their classes, gave them advices depending on the majors they wanted to select for the rest of their degree. You helped them register, you answered their questions. The meeting took longer than expected, but you didn’t seem to mind.

You smiled when you noticed Saoirse had already selected your class.

“Looks like we’ll see each other every week for a couple of months!” you smiled at her and Saoirse was even more excited about your class now.

“Yeah… the class seems very interesting.”

“I’ll do my best to make my babbling interesting, indeed,” you joked, before moving to Sean’s computer to check that he was managing.

And Saoirse had such a good feeling about this year. Things would turn out great, she was certain of it.

You let yourself fall into your office chair, letting out a tired groan. You heard Andrew’s chuckle, but chose not to acknowledge it. His meeting with the students had been a little briefer, he was already in the office when you had come in.

“You’re alright?” he asked, checking on you with an amused smile still tugging at the corners of his lips.

“Exhausted.”

“It was to be expected…”

“Aren’t you exhausted too?”

“I’m on my fifth coffee of the day.”

You laughed at that.

“Hmm… looks like professors are as addicted to coffee as students.”

“It’s standard sleep-deprived diet.”

You looked over at him, and you exchanged a smile.

You weren’t friends, per say. Your break-up had made you more distant, and Andrew’s reaction to his own heartbreak had been to close in on himself. But you still got along, even though you weren’t close. A shame, you kind of regretted that. You could have been closer already, if it weren’t for your pain. Still, you chatted, and he helped you get used to Trinity, and you discussed your classes and his. You simply weren’t more than colleagues, and for now, it was fine. You couldn’t handle getting your heart broken and finding friendship at the same time. Your life was too messy for that. It was easier to build professional boundaries, and Andrew seemed to be in silent agreement. You hadn’t discussed much about your two separations, both preferring for that part of your lives to remain private, and outside the walls of Trinity.

The Heartbreak Department. You had joked about renaming your shared office that way, and Andrew had had no choice but to agree, it was quite on point. Perhaps it was this office, indeed. Maybe it was bringing bad luck, to both of you, when it came to love…

“I can’t wait for the weekend,” Andrew heaved a sigh, rubbing at his eyes before he would readjust his glasses.

“My weekend will be busy, though…”

Indeed, you had agreed to attend a party that Frank was hosting on Saturday night. He said that he had a big announcement to make, and you wondered what he meant by that. Also, his new girlfriend would be there. You hadn’t asked her name, weren’t interested in knowing anything about her, but you wanted to meet her, to see who had stolen your life away. Because that was what you had lost when Frank had left. It wasn’t just a break-up, it wasn’t a simple heartbreak… you had lost a wedding, a life you had planned and thought you would get to live. If you could have forgiven the pain of getting your heart broken, you couldn’t forgive the life that you felt had been stolen from you.

So, you were curious. Also, you were desperate, addicted, and wanted to see Frank, no matter why, where, or when…

“Mine is busy too, but orientation week is a lot.”

“It is, indeed.”

You closed your eyes for a moment, your head thrown back towards the ceiling.

You pictured Frank’s face against your eyelids, and couldn’t imagine that it had been over a month already that he had shattered your whole world…

[slightlyhozy]

“Through the Cold, I’ll Find my Way Back to You” || Chapter One - “Honey, Don’t Feed it, it Will Come Back.”

Characters - Púca! Andrew Hozier-Byrne x Original Female Character

Summary - Maisie Quinn, after inheriting a home in Ireland from her late grandmother, slowly learns a dark past about the land in which it was built on.

Word Count - 2,184

Warnings - Nothing for this chapter other than light animal death!

A/N - SO EXCITED FOR THIS!! I will try to be consistent and write interesting chapters, we will get a real introduction to Andrew in the next chapter, I just wanted to introduce Maisie first and the setting. Please leave thoughts!

If you don’t know, a púca is a monster across European mythology that tends to be a shapeshifter, commonly taking form as a horse, goat, dog, cat, ect. They also take forms of humans which tend to have animalistic traits. They are known to play tricks on humans but never truly harm them. There’s a lot on them, so if you’re interested, I recommend looking into it. I am pretty consistent with the traditional idea of them but I will add my own elements as well. I will also explain any important information or facts if I feel is needed, feel free to ask as well!

“What’re you doing now?” I can hear Elsie snacking on carrots through the phone.

I sigh, hauling another box off of another, using my earbuds, we had been able to call all day despite the time difference. “Right now,” I grunt, setting the box on the ground, moving to search for my box cutter. “I am unpacking everything for the studio…” The room in question was a beautiful conservatory with beautiful glass windows curving upward. Outside, bushes with thorns and small berries could be seen, desperately in need of a trim.

“How different is it over there? I mean, you must’ve noticed something by now.”

“Well,” I huff, stepping back to appreciate the natural light coming into the room. “I live 40 minutes from Wicklow, which is nice…But I do miss the city already; it feels all so stretched out now.” It was terribly ironic of me to complain about Europe being big in comparison to America, but after being raised in downtown Seattle all my life, to be thrown into a village where I have to drive to get my groceries was different.

“We miss you.” Elsie pouted. “Who’s going to bring disgusting vegan dishes to every game night?”

I let out a laugh straight from my chest. “Sorry, babe, you just need to find another pretentious vegetarian then.”

Carefully, I pulled out my easels and canvases I hadn’t used yet. The room was mostly boxes, with only two work benches being built and a random spinny chair thrown out. Making this house look like the ones on Pinterest was going to be a process.

“Say, are you and Lydia going to be able to make up here for Christmas?" I ask, fighting the wooden easel to unfold.

I can hear her hiss, disappointment sinking in. “I… I don’t know, May…It’s just…busy right now. You know, if we can’t this time, we just will come up for our anniversary! We’ve always wanted to go to Ireland.”

“Oh, that’s alright.” My voice came out a bit more upset than I hoped, and I could feel the burning in my eyes, a small sniffle escaping me.

“Maisie..” Elsie said sweetly, making me butt in immediately.

“No! No, it’s ok. I get it. You two are working…married, busy, have all your friends there, it’s fine.” I hated how I reacted—so reminiscent of a child, I didn’t even notice the tears on my face.

“Maisie, I…” She paused, seemingly looking for the right words. “It’s going to be hard for a while, ok? But you’ll make lots of friends! And we will still talk every day, ok? Don't feel bad because you’re upset; it’s okay to be upset.”

“I know, thank you.”

I had moved from Seattle to New Castle, County Wicklow, a few weeks ago. A year before that, my grandma had died, who, other than Elsie, had been my best friend. The loss still hurt, but hopefully something good was coming out of it. In her will, I was left to this beautiful property near Greystones. The house itself was pretty humble but charming and well kept. The garden was very large yet outgrown. After living in the hustle and bustle of a city like Seattle, I needed this, something different, it was like she knew.

My grandma inherited the house from her grandmother, who’s grandmother owned the home before the "famine." My Irish family had left Ireland some time in the 1840s to New York, where we eventually found ourselves in Washington. Thinking back on how hard it had to have been to just be Irish in either country made me a bit proud to find myself back at this house, just like how the women before me wanted.

While modest, the home was well built and was a good distance from the beach, which I had been utilizing for walking Lenny. Since the 80s, our richer part of the family had used it for a vacation home, but as my grandmother got older, the only thing she made sure of the home was keeping it clean, despite the fact it was empty now.

——————————————————————

A while later, still unpacking, now in the kitchen, Lenny began doing circles around the kitchen, licking at my leg. “Shit, you’re out of dog food.” I whispered to myself, leaning down to pat his head. Now that I had actual utensils, pots, and dishes, I could finally move on from adapting to their version of Chinese takeout and cook myself a proper meal.

At the grocery store, I spent a lengthy time deciding which shape of pasta was the most appealing.

In my pasta-induced haze, a voice broke me out of it. “Gosh, you look just like her, all grown up.” I turn my head to see an older woman, around 70 or so, smiling up at me.

“Oh, did you…”

“Know Evelyn? Of course, I met you when you were just a wain.” Heat rose to my cheeks, It was always embarrassing to meet someone who knew you from your family in public. All I could think about was getting out of it. “I saw your…pictures on Facebook, and I mean, it was identical until…”

My hand instinctively went up to my head. “Oh? My hair? Yeah, uh, I mean, at least it’s going to a good place.” A few months ago, I had completely cut off the long hair I had growing down near my waist into a pixie cut; liking how it’s growing out, I plan to keep it.

“Such a shame what happened.” The older woman shook her head. “She was a good woman, ye grandmother.”

Awkwardly, I nodded along.

“Nice to see the property put to use, I hope the stories don’t get to you though.” That caught my attention.

“Stories?”

“Oh? You don’t know? There’s a saying that hundreds of years ago, when your family bought the land, it belonged to a monster…called a púca…Something about it torments the humans who lived on the land in an attempt to scare them off.” A small giggle escaped me; I was no stranger to legends and myths.

“It’s all coincidences though; lots of dead animals are found near the property; I’ve never heard of any real trouble happening.” She smiled sweetly. “God is on your side.” Obviously, being a devote atheist for over 10 years, I had no real fear of any monsters.

“Oh!” The woman beamed, reaching into her purse for a pen and notepad. “Here’s my number if you need anything, love, just a call away.” I watched as her shaky hands scribbled down her home phone, pressing it into my hands. Mary.

“Thank you, Mary; I’ll be sure to get in touch.” I smile as we part, my mind drifting back to the word. Púca… It sounded like puta. I stifled back a laugh.

——————————————————————

Later that night, while Lenny was eating out of his dog bowl in the kitchen, I guarded my large bowl of pasta on the makeshift pillow-blanket couch I had crafted for myself. I sighed softly, checking my phone every minute in case someone wanted to ask me how I was or send me a funny video. Instead, I sat alone in the room, rewatching episodes of Gilmore Girls until there was nothing left in my bowl.

As I washed out my bowl, laying it on the rack, Lenny ran around my legs with a toy, eagerly waiting for me to throw it across the house for him. I smiled fondly down at my boy, the only thing keeping me from losing my mind. “Hey boy, want me to throw it?” I cooed at him, kneeling down to his level, excited by my tone. He wagged his tail and did circles, coming back to me with the small rope. Taking it, I tossed it across the floor, enjoying his nails scraping the tiles as he ran towards it, prompting returning it.

After a few rounds of this, a scratch on the door caught my attention, causing my brow to raise and my anxiety to heighten. It’s fine. I thought to myself, tossing the toy again, watching him retrieve it. It could be anything. Anything? Like a…no. Stop. Wiping my face, I waited for Lenny to come back. As he trotted to me, the scratching was louder, more aggressive.

Setting him off, the small retriever began to bark at the door, his little body jumping back each time. Shushing him, I walked to the window, looking out; there was nothing I could see. Púca. I scoffed, shaking my head; it was just my brain. I took a deep breath, opening the door slowly, unreasonably anxious about what I might see.

As I did, my leg instinctively went to barricade the door, Lenny barking at the small creature in front of me. I didn’t know how to react to the fox in front of me; it stepped back slowly, looking at me, making sad chirp-like sounds. My brows furrowed at the sight. “Ok…” I drifted off; my initial thought was that the animal was hurt, but the way it walked around my patio indicated otherwise. Perhaps whoever took care of the house before fed it, but it hadn’t come before.

Being a natural animal lover and suck up, I close only the glass door, letting me see him still. The fox pranced around still before sitting down in front of the door, clearly with no intention of leaving. Lenny stood, his tail high on alert. “Lenny!” I called out disapprovingly as I heard his familiar low growls. In a small bowl, I scooped some of his food with a few pieces of left-over pasta on top.

Laying the bowl down, I went back inside; even if it wasn’t aggressive, I didn’t want to invade its space, even if I was guilty of interfering with nature in the first place. My eyes drifted over the animal’s fur; it was a warm brown all around, and the ears and feet were black. Under the jaw and belly of the fox, the fur was white, as was the tip of its tail. Mostly, I was looking for signs of mange—anything to indicate it was sick. On cue, it looked up; the way its green eyes flashed at me caused my face to stiffen as I saw the reflection of light in it’s eyes. I looked back; there was no light to cause the eye to shine, and as I looked back, it was gone. The house was silent except for the low growling of my dog and the crunching of the fox’s feast.

——————————————————————

“It was so weird!” I complained to Elsie over the phone, clutching my colorful robe, tea in the other hand.

“Maisie, usually you make amazing choices, but this was dumb.” She said it matter-of-factly.

I shake my head, pacing around the cold floor. “How? It was hungry, Elsie; what was I supposed to do? Let it starve.”

“No, you’re supposed to call the Irish Animal Control, obviously. It could have had rabies.”

“Rabies? I don’t think so.” I chuckled, so sure of myself. “It wasn’t like…foaming at the mouth or aggressive.”

“Maisie, when animals have like…early rabies or something, they act oddly tolerant to humans, was there mange? Was it dehydrated or anything?”

“No… It looked really healthy, actually. It just wanted food; no one got bit, no one got hurt. Elsie, It isn’t that big of a deal; it’s a one-time thing.”

I heard a deep, disappointed sigh escape her. “Maybe you should’ve been raised in the mountains…Look, when you feed animals, they expect that you will give them food; they’ll come back. When I was little, growing in Bend, I accidentally fed a raccoon once, and she brought generations of baby raccoons for years.”

Walking to my porch, wanting to enjoy my tea with the cool air, I open the door. “If it comes back, I just won’t feed it; I learned my lesson, ok.” My eyes immediately drifted down in front of me.

“Maisie?”

“Uh, sorry…” Carefully, I set my tea on the railing. On the concrete, I stared at a small rodent in front of me, absolutely gutted. “There is a mutilated mouse on my porch.” I said breathlessly, always hurt by any dead animals.

“Oh, see! Now it’s rewarding you!” She complained over the phone as I stayed silent.

“Do you think they’re like cats? Like, they’ll bring you dead stuff because they think you stink at hunting or something…” I wasn’t too sure what to do with the body.

“I don’t know,” Elsie said flatly. “What I do know is that you should stop feeding it; just for your and Lenny’s sake, I don’t want you calling me at 3 am because you have to get rabie shots in your ass, ok?” On my side of the phone, I nodded, immediately looking for a reason to hang up. “Oh shit, it’s already so late, ok, Maisie, I love you; I’ll call you later, ok?” Thank god. Is all I could think.

After using a poop bag to toss the animal into the outside bins, I went to pull out my laptop, pulling up my laptop and searching: What is a Púca?

[sleepyconfusedpotato]

Question; is it okay to write a series with your Call of Duty Ocs? (Jade and her kids as well as your mother CoD Ocs.)

It wont be any x reader, nsfw, or sexualization since I too feel uncomfortable sexualizing someone's Ocs.

The series is called: Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare - The Next Generation of Soldiers Fighters.

Also, full credits are handed to you since I really don't like making series and not crediting the creator of the original Characters.

The series sounds good, but I want to get permission from the creator before I do it since I don't want to be disrespectful.

(Ps, hope my British English sounds good since it's not my first language <3)

Hello! I just read this today, and I'm grateful and thankful that you admire my work, but I'm afraid I must decline and say to you to not do this :(

I think I got tagged in a post today, and I saw your post of your OC's introduction and the story that involves Jade and Andrew. While I'm flattered, it appears to me that the OC bio has a lot of similiarities to my Jade Bio post, and the fact that GhostJade's kids is still in the far future and I myself haven't even written much about them, and Andrew is still written as a kid -- it's just that you're a bit ahead of me of my own characters here 😔

To add to that, I didn't remember giving permission to use my character and create stories with them to anyone except a few people I'm close to and put trust into.

And if you're indeed the one that tagged me in that one post, I saw that your present story revolves a lot around my own OC universe. While, again, I'm glad I inspire you, I would encourage you to create your own OC universe first without it orbiting around other creators' stories.

With all that being said, I'm sorry, but I can't allow you to do the story you mentioned. I kindly ask you now to please change your post to not include my characters, including Jade and Andrew. Like every person in the fandom, you're totally fine to make content with the canon characters, but Jade and her kids are mine. Sorry to disappoint 🥲

---

P.S. - If you wish to make a fic that includes my characters, please ask me first, and please, PLEASE don't use anon. I don't know you. It's like you're wearing a mask and hoodie and then ask me to trust you with my character that I've built for a long time. I need to see how you write first to make sure it's not out of character. Again, my apologies, but I hope you understand. Thank you!

[nicohischierz]

love at first sight: nolan moyle

tagging: @ivy-34, @francesfarhadi, @hzstry8, @cixrosie, @itsnotgray, @estapa94, @trevs-swiftie, @heartz4hisch

tani speaks: for some reason this didn’t post last night 🤷‍♀️ so here it is now!!

"okay y/n, the guys have just finished up training so I'll do a quick introduction and then we can do a formal introduction next session," your supervisor explained.

you nodded and followed her along into the locker room where some of the boys were just walking in.

you recognised some players from going to games and from some of your classes.

one of the boys, johnny, had waved over at you as he remembered you from his history of michigan athletes class.

as you were making your way over to the boy you were met with two sticks hitting your face.

one of the players had tripped and dropped their sticks causing them to hit you smack on your face.

"oh shit, i am so sorry," the guy apologised.

you handed him his sticks and gave him a smile.

sure you wanted to cry about it but you decided to be a big girl and suck it up. just until you got to your room at least.

"don't worry about it. i should've known the hazards of working with hockey players," you tried joking.

"yeah... um, my name's umm nick," he introduced himself.

you furrowed your eyebrows. you knew you got hit in the head but surely your memory wasn't that bad.

your supervisor had sent you the team roster and you were sure there were only two nicks and none of them looked like the guy standing in front of you.

"oh, i didn't know there were three nicks on the team," you mentioned.

'nick' started sputtering as he realised his mistake.

"oh, umm i'm not nick. that's nick i'm nolan," he corrected.

out the corner of your eye, you could see some. of the guys trying their hardest not to laugh at nolan.

"hi nolan, i'm y/n."

over the year you worked with the team you grew close to all of the boys. you cried when the seniors left and welcomed the freshmen with open arms.

but there was one freshmen you knew would annoy you as if his life depended on it.

"i just don't understand why you won't cook me food. don't you love me?" he asked.

"brendan brisson, i swear if you ask me to cook you dinner again your father will start receiving your body parts every month," you threatened.

the young boy put his arms up and backed away from you as you held a pair of scissors in your hand.

"now, you promised we would go out for dinner today so we will be going out for dinner," you repeated.

brendan nodded and smiled at you.

"aren't you lucky to spend so much time with your favourite godbrother? "

"i didn't know jordy was here,"

you were getting ready for your dinner with brendan whilst at the hockey house, brendan was having a meltdown.

"you don't understand, this. is lacy andrews. she is the hottest girl I have ever seen," brendan complained.

nolan just shook his head. in his opinion, brendan was already going to meet the hottest girl in the world.

"well, i'd go in your place but I've got to finish some work," owen apologised.

it was nick who volunteered nolan for the job.

"nolan's free so. he can go,"

before nolan could even react to the statement, brendan had pushed him out the front door with some cash in hand and the location of the restaurant.

inside the house, brendan gave nick a high-five as they watched nolan kick the ground before getting in his car and driving off.

nolan sat in his car for two minutes outside the restaurant before he gained the confidence to go in and see you.

you hadn’t noticed him walking in as you were on your phone, trying to figure out where brendan was. but the sound of the chair scrapping against the floor got your attention.

“oh, hi nolan!” you greeted as the older boy took a seat in front of you.

nolan smiled “hi y/n/n,”

the two of you didn’t mention the fact that he wasn’t who you were meeting until after you ordered your food.

“so, how did briss get you to come here?" you asked.

nolan almost choked on his drink at the abruptness of the question. you tried not to laugh, but the trails of coke falling from the side of his mouth caught you off guard.

“umm, he kinda said he was meeting you and i just agreed with him,” nolan explained after wiping his mouth.

you didn’t reply to him.

you just smiled at him and placed your hands on top of his.

the rest of dinner consisted of you and nolan poking fun at each other.

“so umm aren’t you mad brendan ditched your date?” he asked finally.

you turned in the passenger and raised your left eyebrow.

“me and briss on a date?”

“yeah, isn’t that why you guys were meeting tonight? i mean he went on a date with lacy andrews but i thought you guys were you know together,” nolan mumbled.

you let out a laugh, falling back into the passenger seat.

“that’s the funniest thing i’ve heard!”

“what do you mean?”

“brendan and i aren’t dating silly,”

“wait, what?” “but you guys are so close,”

you had to take a moment to stop laughing before you explained to nolan.

“briss’s dad is like best friends with my dad. when he found out i was going to mich and so was briss he wanted me to make sure i look after his son,”

“plus, i’m into older guys,” you added.

nolan just nodded.

an awkward silence filling the air as he pulled into your driveway.

“well i had a really fun night y/n,”

you leaned over the middle and placed a kiss near the corner of nolan’s mouth.

nolan didn’t let you get out the car as he pulled you in for a deeper kiss.

[lexusiswriting]

A love you deserve (Ricky Olson) - Part 1 of ?

Hi guys! Long time no see.

I missed writing so much and here I am, trying to make a comeback. This will be a Ricky Olson/ Horror love story and we will see together how many parts it will have.

NOTE: Ricky will not be present in the first part, being more of an introduction to the story.

Warnings: none.

I hope you'll enjoy it and by box is open if you think I can put your ideas into something nice.

__________________________________________________________

“Lexus, you’ve got 5 minutes!”

“Alright, I’m coming!”

I am rushing to the stage while trying to dodge the many people that were on my way. Today was a big day for us, our second studio album being released on the last day of our American tour. We tried to keep it a secret and tonight the fans are going to hear one of the singles.

Being a little nervous is a misunderstanding, because I am terrified. The whole band united to make something better than the first album, where we tried different things to show we can do more. We are not dreaming of going #1 on the charts, we only want to hear our fans saying they are proud of what we want to become.

Now I’m in the backstage, waiting for the guys to prepare my entrance. We always try to do something different and today, Seth, the drummer, came with an idea. He will play a little solo, giving a little hint about the first song on the setlist. After that Andrew, who plays bass, will do the same thing. In the end, Xander, the guitarist, will be the last one to have his moment which will mark my entrance. And that moment is happening now.

I only hear screaming and I can barely see any faces from the lights. But I always feel like home while on stage. In that moment all of my fears disappeared, being replaced with excitement for doing what I love.

“Let’s rock this place out!”

If there is a thing I hate about myself is that I will never be a morning person. My alarm started to ring so loud that I could feel the vibration in my brain. I tried to stop it and I failed miserably when the phone fell on the floor. When I reached out for it I saw a message from Xander:

~ Wake up you piece of sunshine, we have business to do. ~

Getting out of bed was my main business at the moment. I went to the bathroom and saw that I completely forgot to take my make-up off last night. Tried to repair the damage and made myself look a little more presentable I made my way up to Xander’s room.

“Look who finally decided to show up looking like a mess.”

“Such a sweetheart. I’m sorry I did not get all glammed up for your poor little eyes.”

“At least you are not losing your sense of humour when you barely sleep.”

Well, that’s true. About both things, of course. My sense of humour? One of a kind. Sleeping schedule? A completely mess. This tour got all the life out of me but I know now we have a couple of months free to prepare the international tour for the new album.

“The manager called and apparently we are going to play some shows.”

“Where? Last night we finished the tour, isn’t that enough?”

“Don’t give me this attitude cause you’ll love it. It’s about Warped Tour.”

We had a thing that I hate and now a thing that I love. I always loved Warped Tour because I don’t see it as a job I have to do, but as a place where I can hang out with my friends every day. Maybe I will not regret that much the sleep I will still not get.

“Oh and a little birdie told me your boyfriend will be there as well.”

“Then it will be one hell of a summer.”

[easypeasylindyvesey]

APRIL 2027- PART 18

The room falls silent, with the exception of muttered chatter. I stare up at the clock on the wall. It’s close to 11, so there’s a few minutes before the service starts. I want to walk out. I want to run. I want to flee this place and these people and this situation. I want to escape myself from all of it. However, I can’t.

My throat goes dry, which is the indicator of me beginning to cry, but as I attempt to swallow, I let out a little involuntary shriek instead, feeling hundreds of beady eyes staring at me with judgment. Shit. Sorry.

“You all right?” Jimmy whispers.

I nod. “Never better.”

Yeah, like that’s the actual truth.

The side door on the left opens, and in enters who I presume the funeral officiant. He’s got a medium stature with brown hair and glasses. He makes his way to the podium, located next to the flowers. He adjusts the microphone to tilt it upwards toward his mouth.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we would like to thank you for joining us on this day of remembrance. Today, we honor the short, yet successful life of Ryan Lindgren. Ryan was a friend, a teammate, a bother, a son, a cousin, a girlfriend…”

I take hold of Jimmy’s wrist again and dig my nails into his cufflink. I don’t think it can get through to his skin, so I hope I’m not hurting him. Then again, we’re already hurt. He doesn’t flinch or subtly react. He remains still, focused on the officiant’s introduction.

“...and we are gathered together to send him off to Heaven, to grant him a peaceful, yet eternal life, where he is free from future hurt and distress. We thank you for your presence in the event of today’s proceedings. For anyone who is planning to share about the impact Ryan had, we will let people share row by row. We ask for brief speeches, as our end goal is to have everyone share if they’d like. We will begin with Bob and Jennifer Lindgren, Ryan’s parents.”

I feel as if I’ve punctured one of Jimmy’s veins as I watch the couple approach the podium. I free myself from his hold and move my hand back onto my dress, but I don’t get that chance as Jimmy reaches across my leg and grabs hold of my hand, slightly interlocking his fingers and giving a light yet gentle squeeze. He remains gripping onto it as I start to zone out.

“...always determined to reach his goals, his dreams, one of which he got to fulfill by playing in the National Hockey League. He rarely, if never complained about the scheduling or how the game went or if he didn’t get a point. He was always having fun. That fun was shared by his teammates, who always had nothing but wonderful things to say about him, and that makes us feel like we raised a wonderful son, and even more wonderful of a human. Ryan would truly be honored if he saw this entire room being full of people that love him, and we can’t thank each and every one of you enough for coming out this morning. If I could give you one piece of truth that I’m sure Ryan would abide by, it is to not give up under any circumstances. You are meant to have that dream and to live this life with people you care about. We can be at ease knowing he was able to achieve his. Thank you.”

Damn it, I didn’t even catch the first half of that. I don’t even know if I’m going to be able to focus for 10,000 more of these. I just might eat myself alive before it gets to be my turn.

My awareness comes back into the room, listening to Andrew and Charlie’s speeches, along with one from a cousin of Ryan. We moved to the right side of the room where we heard from, Lavi, Jacob, Chris, and Adam. All of them had really great things to say, but it was difficult at times to get some words out. My body tenses with the anticipation that I’m next to speak, and I’m not even remotely prepared.

“Miss?” I hear a male voice standing outside the row. I think it’s the funeral director. “Would you like to speak?”

My eyes start to burn and a tight feeling in my chest makes its presence known. Am I having a heart attack or something?

“Y-yeah, sure,” I reply, releasing my grip on Jimmy’s hand and walking in front of him to make my way toward the front of the room. I feel like everyone’s staring at me. They’re judging me. They’re wondering why I’m even speaking. They’re wondering what I’m going to say. They’re wondering how long I’m going to take. They’re wondering if I’m going to stutter over my words, lose my train of thought, skip over sentences and not finish them, look down at my hands, start rambling, maybe cry unpromptedly.

I lift my feet onto the step located behind the podium so I can get a good view of the room. I move the microphone down to where my mouth is, tapping on the cord. I don’t even know where to look.

“Uh, hi,” I start, my voice making a meek appearance. “I’m Abby, and I was, uh, I was Ryan’s teammate and his girlfriend.”

I look around the room to see if I’ve even remotely grabbed anyone’s attention. Turns out I have. They’re all staring me down. God, I wish I could read their minds right now.

“I forgot my speech, so I’m just gonna make this as short and sweet as I can,” I continue. “Um, I know how important Ryan was to all of you, and to myself as well. He was, uh, he was strong-headed and, uh, very goal-driven. You would, uh, you’d always see him giving 110% effort on the ice, whether it be at practice or a game. He was never the guy to slack off. He always wanted to be his personal best, and I know that he was able to accomplish that. But as a person, I, uh, he was certainly a hidden gem, I swear, one of God’s biggest blessings, not just to my life, but to everyone’s in here. He would always be there for you, always showing his supportive side. There’d be days where he would have more faith in you than you did yourself. He truly was one of my biggest advocates, one of my primary cheerleaders in this uncertain world we live in. From the perspective of being his girlfriend, he, uh, he couldn’t have been any better. He was calm, attentive, gave me space, and he always, and I mean it, always made an effort to make me happy before him, and given where we are now, I just, I wish-” 

The crack of my voice instills in my throat and echoes over the microphone, following the bridge of my eyes lighting up with tears already to escape. I look around the room and flick my eyes up to the ceiling and then back to surface level, where I look at the team, and then meet Jimmy’s sad brown eyes. You’re okay, he mouths.

I take a shaky breath and wipe my eyes, giving myself another chance to compose myself. “I just wish there would be times where he put himself first, but he was the type of person that never expected anything in return. He would always do something, God-willingly make a sacrifice in order to see someone else happy, and that was one of his qualities that was most noticeable when I first met him. It never went away. His generosity, his compassion, his love, his attention, everything about Ryan is truly irreplaceable, including the love that I held for him, both platonically and romantically, and I feel as if I will live with the regret of not telling him that I loved him, but I’m sure he knew, and he sure was worthy of hearing it. And, uh, I hope he’s able to rest knowing that he was solely the definition of it. Thank you.”

I step back to the ground and speedwalk back to my row. Jimmy gets up and lets me in to sit. I scoot over to make room for him to sit back down, but instead, I see him making his way to the podium. What the hell is he doing? He’s actually going to speak?

He adjusts the microphone before opening his mouth. “Hi, I’m Jimmy,” he begins. His voice echoes throughout the room and I shiver in my seat. “First off, I want to thank Abby for that speech. You, uh, you did a really great job.”

My heart speeds up, this time a tear breaking out of my eye and down my face.

“I was also one of Ryan’s teammates and friends, and I’ll just say that he was the ideal person that you would want to surround yourself with. He had such a great effect on the people that were around, he had a voice in the locker room that truly emphasized commitment and dedication to this sport. He’d always look out for you, both on and off the ice, putting himself in harm’s way if he got the chance to defend you. Um, like Abby said, he always pushed himself to be better, and though at times, it did result in injuries, some of which were less severe than others, but he always came back as if he never left. He was the type of person whose absence could be noticed, whether on the ice or just out and about, and you’d always be waiting for him to come back and continue working on his play. If he could win MVP every year, I think we’d all be able to unanimously agree on that decision without any hesitation. That shows how positive of an impact we had, and I don’t think we’ll ever find another person like Ryan in this lifetime. He meant so much to us, and we will thank him for it by keeping his legacy alive, on and off the ice. Thank you.”

Did he come up with that on the fly? If he did, that’s impressive.

He walks back and sits down next to me, letting out a quiet puff of air. His face is slightly tinged red, his hand running through his hair. He lets out another breath to steady himself.

“That was good,” I whisper to him.

“Yours was better.”

“Call it even?”

“Yeah.”

I tap my hands on my dress, looking uneasily around the room. The officiant returns to the podium. “Ladies and gentlemen, let us honor the life of Ryan through song, one of his favorites. You may choose to sing along, if you know the words, to “Follow Me” by Uncle Kracker.”

I fucking forgot about that song. It was considered his go-to for karaoke.

As the music starts, my heart speeds up in beat, moving my hand to find Jimmy’s. I feel his warm fingers clench my own, soothingly rubbing his thumb on the top of my hand. “You’re okay,” he repeats. 

I feel my mouth open, as if I’m panting like a dog. It feels like panicking. Am I? Is this all a simulation? Am I dreaming? Is this the moment where I wake up?

“Abb,” he whispers into my ear. “Look at me.”

I feel my ears bleed listening to Uncle Kracker’s voice as I tune it out and look at him.

“Take a breath,” he instructs. “In, and out. In, and out.”

I follow his directions, somewhat returning to a normal feeling, but not really.

“Yeah, that’s it,” he responds. “Good. Just like that.”

I do a few more breaths before loosening my grip on his hand, but not letting go. I just want to give us a little room to breathe.

Follow me, everything is alright

I’ll be the one to tuck you in at night

And if you want to leave, I can guarantee

You won’t find nobody else like me

That verse alone brims my eyes with tears again, but I manage to stop them by zoning out on his portrait. He’s staring right at me. He’s probably wondering why I’m crying. Why are you sad? Don’t be sad. I’m okay. I’m at peace. I’m free. You’ll be alright without me. Go. I’ll see you soon enough.

[des2dream]

Allow Me To Teach You Something!🌹✍

Reader X Andrew Marston story written by DesDaydream

It was the first week of a new semester and you've finally grown accustomed to the university environment. You recently moved out of your parent's house and found a place not too far from campus grounds. It took a lot of planning, a lot of spending, and a lot of time to adjust, but you feel like you can be able to manage now. Before you left for your studies, you promised your loved ones that you would do your best. You promised that you would have a good experience. You promised that you wouldn't let them down. You even made a promise to yourself that you would graduate no matter what. You can survive a couple years at university....away from your old home....in a new place....full of so many people young and old. You weren't used to this, but you knew that you had people who are willing and able to help you. You just know that you can do this! You meet up with your friend at one of the lounges in The Student Center for lunch and listen to them ramble about what happened yesterday.

"So this guy walks up to me and asks if I want to go to his party this weekend to "welcome the new students", but I know he's just using that as an excuse to lure people into his bedroom or something. I tell him 'no' and he has the nerve to say, 'Whatever, ugly! You'll be sorry when you're missing out' and I just.....No! I won't be missing out! I heard your wifi sucks anyway!"

You listen to every word they say, but you're more focused on your schedule this semester. You were given a fair amount of classes and nothing seems out of place. You want to make sure you know exactly what time your classes start so you don't make a bad first impression by being late.

"It is nice to have you with me. Things were starting to get a little boring around here. There's so much I want to show you. You're gonna love it! I've made a few friends here and they've been asking about you constantly!"

You nod in response as you continue to gaze at your schedule. Your friend notices the lack of eye-contact, but continues to speak.

"There's some cool places near campus that we can check out. The park? A few cafe's? We might be able to crash at my friends' dormitory once in a while if they'll let us. There's also this museum I've been hearing great reviews about! That sounds fun, right?"

You nod once more, but your attention is still focused on the list of classes you were given. Your friend now getting annoyed, sits up and swipes the schedule out of your hands in the blink of an eye.

"Hey! Earth to human being, are you in there? Are you feeling nervous? You've only got a few classes this semester and the first week is basically introductions. All you have to do is sit there and listen."

You apologize to your friend before admitting that you do feel a little nervous about the new semester and being so far from home. You're in unfamiliar territory and you want to make a good first impression on your professors and the other students. Your friend takes a moment to sympathize with you as they recall their first semester. They put a hand on your shoulder and reassure you that everything will be okay.

"You're smart! You've made it this far so what's stopping you now?"

Before you could respond, you and your friend are met with the president of the art club who is also good friends with your friend. There were plenty of clubs on campus, yet you weren't sure if you were going to join any of them. Your friend was well acquainted with different kinds of arts so it's no surprise that they'd be a part of the art club. You heard that they often had snacks on standby which was always a plus.

"Hey!" said The Art Club President as she took a seat next to you and your friend.

"How are we doing? Are we doing okay?"

She looked directly at you before asking,

"How has university been treating you so far?"

You're not sure how to say, but luckily your friend has got you covered.

"They're a little nervous, but I'm here to tell them that everything is gonna be alright and they're being a worry wart! You've been here for a while. Tell them how good campus has been to you!"

"Trust me, you're going to be fine. It takes time to get used to everything, but soon you'll have it all sorted out. You can call me if you ever feel lost," said The Art Club President.

"There's also plenty of professors and staff who can help you too. We even got some new faces recently. I'm not gonna lie, they look kinda cute. We have this T.A., Mr. Pearce who is very kind. A little timid, but very sweet and helpful. We have a wonderful dean. All the professors are cool. Hey, what does your schedule look like? I might recognize some names."

Your friend hands over your schedule for The Art Club President to examine it. She nods as she examines the professors you were assigned to, but she stops for a moment after reading the last name. She rubs her eyes and take a minute to look again. Her face went from cheery to concerned and that only made you tense up. Your friend is confused by this sudden reaction.

"Um, what's wrong?" they asked.

"Is there a problem?"

The Art Club President tries to muster up a smile, but you can still see the concern in their eyes. They burst out a fake laugh as they go to pat your back.

"No! I wouldn't say there's a problem! Everything's gonna be fine, kiddo! All these professors are great for you!"

"You don't sound so convinced," said your friend.

"Cut the bullshit and tell us what's up!"

The Art Club President lets out a defeated sigh.

"Okay, fine! You've been assigned a literature professor, correct?" she asks you to which you respond with a nod.

"Right......well......your professor.....he's.....well......"

Your friend swipes the schedule out of her hands and reads through it. Not even a minute later do they groan before collapsing into their seat.

"Ohmygoddamnit!" they groaned.

You're a little uneasy by this reaction and you ask what's going on. The Art Club President takes a deep breath before giving you an expanation.

"The university recently had a new literature professor since last semester, I believe. His name is Professor Marston. He's actually very smart to have become a professor at a young age. He seems to know what he's doing. It's just....."

"HE'S A BUZZKILL!!!" your friend yells.

"Some of my friends have taken his classes and they have their experiences. He's strict, he's incredibly serious, he's intimidating, and he's a buzzkill! He actually scolded one of my friends for being a couple minutes late like.....it's not that deep, sir!"

"Professor Marston just wants to ensure that the students can be able to take in as much information as possible. He means well, but....he's....um.....I promise he's not a monster or anything." said The Art Club President.

Great. Just great. Your first semester and you've already got a difficult professor coming your way. Just as you were getting ready for your future. Your breathing starts to get heavy. Your heart rate feels like it's pacing like the speed of sound. Beads of sweat are starting to form atop our forehead. You need to get out of there! You need to find a restroom or somewhere quiet! You excuse yourself from your friend's table and rush out. Unfortunately, you're not sure where some of the bathrooms are. You had a map of the campus, but now you've got tears in your eyes and your vision is blurry. Your eyes are looking down at your shoes, but you don't care. You need to run! You need to hide! You need to find somewhere to take a breather! You need to calm down!

Suddenly, you feel something collide into you before hitting the ground. You look to see your bag next to a puddle of someone's drink and spilled papers on the ground. You look up to see two eyes staring down at you in shock and disapproval. Today just wasn't your day! You frantically apologize as you gather up all the papers trying not to cry. You try to explain yourself, but you can't put it into complete sentences. Your practically shaking! A hand reaches down to you waiting for you to take it. Once you do, you feel a warm sensation travel through your body. You look up to see those same disapproving eyes you were scared of turn soft and compassionate. Your eyes travel to see beautiful locks of brown (or dirty blonde) hair and two perfect windows that protected those compassionate eyes. Those eyes, hair, and "two perfect windows" belonged to a tall man in professional clothing while holding a briefcase. His features were too captivating for you to look away. Your heart rate lowers and you're no longer shaking.

"Are you alright?" you hear a voice that sounded smooth like honey but slightly tough as nails.

You nod in response before apologizing again.

"Allow me to teach you something," said the man who owned such a distinct voice as he picked up your bag.

"Eyes are meant for observing. I would advise you to look up where you're going. Check for your surroundings, understand?"

You nod again before apologizing one more time and walk away in an opposite direction. You look back to see someone walk up to the man and look down at the mess on the floor you caused.

"Marston, what happened? Is everything alright?" they asked.

"Yes. I had a run-in with someone. Likely one of the students. It was an accident so it's nothing to fret over."

Did you hear that right? Marston? As in.....Professor Marston?! The person your friend just trash-talked a moment ago? The person who was said to be strict and intimidating? Sure, you felt a little scared at first, but that couldn't be him! Could it? You touch your hand and the thought of his touching yours gives your body another wave of sensational warmth. You feel your heart pounding and your face feels hot. This was going to be your new professor? Well......things just got interesting.

End Notes: Nothing like a "meet-cute backstory" to make things interesting, right? People like a "meet-cute" story, right? This was HARD! I don't usually write Fanfiction. I'm more used to writing my own creations, but I wanted to give it a shot. People seem to enjoy this type of art so why not give it a try? Also, this timeline is supposed to be Listener's first week and semester while Andrew is currently in his first year of being a professor and he's spent more time in university than Listener (if that timeline makes sense). Oh my gosh! I hope this turned out good! I'm a little embarrassed, but I hope you enjoyed it! That's it! Have a nice day! Bye now!

[pashterlengkap]

As “Love Actually” season begins, let’s not forget about its (almost) lesbian storyline

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the release of Love Actually, director Richard Curtis’s star-studded, cloyingly sentimental 2003 holiday rom-com. While reviews of the film at the time of its release were decidedly mixed-to-negative, and many aspects of its various intersecting storylines have aged poorly in the two decades since, it has nonetheless become an undeniable Christmas classic, a problematic fave that many fans across the country will undoubtedly be queueing up as soon as the Thanksgiving dishes are done. Related: Hallmark’s first-ever gay Christmas movie will break your sugarplum-addled brain “Young love is tough. Old love’s not much better.” Touché, Hallmark Channel! Centered on the romantic foibles of a sprawling cast of characters primarily in London during the holiday season, Love Actually, it must be said, is aggressively white and straight. Among what feels like dozens of main characters, there are only a few people of color (future Oscar nominee Chiwetel Ejiofor is more or less relegated to a side character in Kira Knightly and Andrew Lincoln’s glancingly underdeveloped story), and not one character identifies as LGBTQ+. Get the Daily Brief The news you care about, reported on by the people who care about you: Subscribe to our Newsletter Curtis himself has admitted that the film’s lack of diversity is a problem. “There are things that you would change, but thank God society is changing,” he said last year in an ABC special about Love Actually. “My film is bound in some moments to feel out of date. The lack of diversity makes me feel uncomfortable and a bit stupid.” But that didn’t have to be the case. According to this 2021 video essay, the original cut of the film was over three hours long, and Curtis ended up cutting scenes from each of its storylines to get it down to a more manageable length. As the director explained in a bonus feature discussing the deleted scenes on the DVD release of the film, one particular cut led to the excision of what would have been Love Actually’s only queer storyline. The film’s original version featured a story involving Emma Thomas’s character Karen’s difficult relationship with her surly young son. In one cut scene, she’s called in to see the boy’s headmistress, played by Anne Reid, to discuss an essay he’s written. With Reid’s character’s introduction and context removed, her entire story also got the axe. “The idea was meant to be that you just casually met this very sort of stern headmistress,” Curtis explained. “And the idea was meant to be that later on in the film, 15 minutes later, we suddenly fell in with the headmistress, and you realize that, no matter how unlikely it seems, that any character that you come across in life has their own complicated tale of love.” A later scene would have seen Reid’s character arriving home and interacting with her partner, played by the magnificent Frances de la Tour, who is dying of cancer. Then, towards the end of the film, we would have discovered that de la Tour’s character has died when Karen offers her condolences to Reid at the big climactic school Christmas pageant. “We had a lovely scene,” de la Tour said of Love Actually in an interview with The Independent last year. “And I think it was the only gay scene. It’s odd that they cut it. Maybe it was too dark to bring into it. Because it ended up being quite a light and fluffy film, didn’t it?” For his part, Curtis said in the film’s bonus content that he was “really sorry to lose” Reid and de la Tour’s storyline. http://dlvr.it/SzK9nr

[ampleappleamble]

EPISODES 1 - 4: THE INTRODUCTION

EPISODE 1: OPERATION ANTELOPE

meet our protagonist, Detective Chief Inspector Tessa McCallister and her commanding officer, John... something. his surname and job title are revealed in a later episode and i can't remember it rn sorry

hold up holy shit is Tessa's boss played by Dr. Jonathan Reid from Vampyr?????? imdb does not have a credit for this character, and Anthony Howell's imdb page doesn't credit him in this but god damn does that sound like him

first mention of the victim, Dr. Andrew Fairfield. found in a crevasse 30 minutes away by foot from his workplace, Bowers Wilson Research Station in Antarctica, with severe blunt force trauma to the head. body discovered via a gps tracking device sewn into his company provided coat

John mentions the "Antarctic Treaty" here, so i read up on the Antarctic Treaty System of 1959 a lil bit. in short yeah Khione Industries is a USAmerican company, but the victim is a UK resident from London, so it falls on the UK police to investigate. whoever the perp/perps is/are will be subject to punishment according to the laws of the country in which they currently hold citizenship, according to Wikipedia.

side note: the wiki article on the Antarctic Treaty System lead me to another article called "Crime in Antarctica" and 1. you can see some of the real life influences on this story ( a kitchen worker assaulted another kitchen worker with a hammer you say???) and 2. this is a fucking fascinating article what do you mean an Australian astrophysicist died there in 2000 and only when his autopsy was performed 6 months later did they discover it was methanol poisoning???? what do you mean his death was never properly explained?????? what do you mean there was a stabbing in Antarctica

John has already listened to the post-mortem that we will hear in episode 4. good job John!

first mention of Johan Gunnarsson and Matteo Lombardi

Tessa is familiar with Khione from her military days; John says yeah they're moving into space exploration. interesting.

number of times Tessa is told vehicles can't run at Antarctic winter temps: 1

first mention of Mark Renwick

Drew thought Mark's breakdown was not winter-over syndrome, but rather something else entirely. he thinks maybe Mark was being drugged? but why?

12-hour time difference between the UK and Antarctica... bummer Tess!

first mention of Det. Sgt. Naseen Bulsara, who will be assisting Tessa during the investigation

setting up talking to a psychologist wrt Mark and Drew's objection to his treatment. this will pay off later!

EPISODE 2: KHIONE INDUSTRIES

Tessa interviews the CEO of Khione Industries, Michael Lafarrel (sp?)

is this actor really USAmerican? his accent sounds just a little off. no credit on imdb for this character, natch

Tessa's dad was an oil rig man

CEO's very quick to defend his employees... but of course he is

boy he likes interrupting her to ramble about how it's real fucked up working down there (so even if this is a murder it's totally not their fault detective!!!!! it's the Antarctic Madness)

Frank Martinez, deputy general counsel for Khione jumpscare!!!! shady af that he only introduced himself a few minutes into the call. and only after Tessa corrects the CEO's use of "very" to modify "unique". lmao

he pronounces his own name as Martin-ez. not Mar-TEE-nez. no one draws attention to this. okay

"WE DON'T NEED TO SAY MURDER!!!!! UNEXPLAINED DEATH!!!!!!!!!" hooooooo boy here we go

CEO: "Frank, please." playing good corpo bad corpo with the cops?

"unwind, don't unravel" yeah yeah we know you totally don't allow getting too drunk on your base. there's a thread on the something awful forums where a person talks about their experiences going to work on McMurdo Station in Antarctica, and they brought up the booze system down there. apparently, you get three "drink tickets" a week. a six pack of beer is one ticket, a bottle of wine is two tickets. op states that, even though they weren't big drinkers before, this is "a limit that chafes" in Antarctica. Khione doesn't appear to have a limit like this that i can remember hearing about. and yet they say they care soooo much about encouraging responsible drinking... right.

Johan confirmed for company man

number of times Tessa is told vehicles can't run at Antarctic winter temps: 2

Tessa wants Mark's blood. CEO says no prob. isn't it???? we'll see about that later!

corpos trying to ensure company lawyers are around for the crew interviews... a bit shady, but not totally unexpected. DCI McCallister sez: "no corpos sitting in on my interviews. i need these people to feel like they can talk to me"

"duty of care" and "protocol"– terms that we will hear many, many, many times in the episodes to come

establishing the extremely volatile phone connection between Antarctica and the UK. is it meta foreshadowing for the unreliability of the crew's testimony...?

EPISODE 3: BOWERS WILSON

meet Johan Gunnarsson! meta commentary: hi Vatnir ♡ love when an actor and the character they're portraying have the same name in some capacity. wonder what it must be like to have to say your own name while acting. boy he really rolls the fuck out of those Rs. is that an Icelandic thing?

"I've seen a lot out here on the ice..." Johan already waxing poetic lmao

number of times Tessa is told vehicles can't run at Antarctic winter temps: 3

"we took a sled and put his body on it" this is so important to me. when? before they found the body? or after? how long did it take to get the sled and come back, if that's what they did? if they didn't do that, why did they bring a sled with them initially? it's not super suspicious for them to suspect Drew of being incapacitated from the get go, especially as it's condition 2 out and his gps tracker shows he's not moving. but still.

Johan doesn't think Mark's breakdown was drug related; insists it's just winter-over syndrome, which he has seen many times before. u sure about that Jojo

revealed that Drew was a human behavioral scientist conducting a psychological study for Khione, possibly as preparation for their burgeoning space program. not a bad idea, in theory!

she wants that Mark blood! Johan says no biggie, too. WE'LL SEE ABOUT THAT WON'T WE

weather was condition 2 on the night Drew died. not great but not terrible, still pretty difficult traveling off base

Drew and Mark spoke about a week before Drew's death, with Johan supervising. Johan insists that Drew "wanted to study" Mark, feels that wasn't ethical

first mention of Maria Flores! "Ice wife" to the victim

Johan seems... guardedly eager? to talk about his dead wife, mostly unprompted. goes on for juuuuust a little too long about his empty nest. this will not be the last time

Drew and Maria had a fight last time they spoke, apparently about "stuff couples fight about". how would Johan know?

the existence of the baseline interviews Drew conducted with the crew are revealed, these will be episodes 5 - 21

Drew's phone is in Johan's safe after he found it on Drew's body during the post-mortem examination. he was also present for the post-mortem. he sure is in control of a lot of key evidence 👀

the way the victim was dressed was unusual: not enough layers to combat the cold. he was wearing his coat though

reminded myself of that "every Scandinavian murder mystery show ever" comedy short. "i'll have to interview everyone in the village." "that's nearly seven people!" "hello, this is Gunnar Gunnarsson. is this about the murder of my son, Gunnar Gunnarssonson?" i need to watch that again lmao

the base is currently under lockdown, as per Khione protocol. no one allowed to leave their rooms after 18:00, they eat in their rooms alone, and although research has been pared down to essential work only, it hasn't stopped completely. Matteo has implemented shift rotations that minimize contact between crew members too

Johan: "you like podcasts? i've got some recommendations" Tesa: "i prefer movies, actually" aww c'mon Tess i wanna hear his recommendations :( how about Cold Tapes? love that one

this is gonna be long. lots of thick, juicy info steaks in this one 🥩

EPISODE 4: POST-MORTEM

meet Dr. Jasleen Batra! she's kind of prickly, but it's understandable here because she has to do an extremely important and complicated procedure that she has never done before and is not actually properly qualified to do with only about 3 hours of prep time and probably only a few hours of sleep! not to mention the extreme emotional shock of a colleague's murder

oh boy oh boy i get to draw a dead body and all the wounds/markings on it

(edit: i did not draw the body. i did draw on a few diagrams of bodies though! see above ☝)

Andrew Lewis (or Louis?) Fairfield, born Nov. 23, 1990. he was just a baby!!!!!! ...okay he's about four years younger than me. also, hell yeah boy Sagittarius represent ♐

we get a date i believe for the first time! June 22, 2023. Drew died the previous day/night, on the winter solstice

who is Patricia Cornwell. i feel like i should know this

edit: it seems she's a USAmerican novelist who writes murder mystery novels with an emphasis on forensic pathology. okay! she was (is?) also personal friends with George H.W. Bush, and nicknamed him Big George. gross!

Johan is photog. is he using a Polaroid? judging from the sfx it's definitely a mechanical camera of some sort

victim's clothes: red Khione parka (this has the gps tracker sewn into it), sweater, t-shirt, snow pants, jeans, boxer shorts, woolen socks, work boots. no hat, mask, goggles, or gloves. not enough layers, according to Johan

boy oh boy does Johan want to speculate! boy oh boy does Jasleen have to keep reminding him not to!!!!

trousers have two tears: upper left thigh, right knee. coat has one tear in right shoulder, ~8cm

they both seem pretty emotionally distraught over having to do this, and understandably so. still, they're both awfully snippy with one another

five head wounds: 1. blunt force trauma to temporal bone behind left ear, did not break skin but caused significant bruising. 2. left frontal bone close to coronal suture. broke the skin, arachnoid mater and dura mater (two of the membranes surrounding the brain), and fractured the cranium, causing substantial subdural hemorrhage, possibly bone fragments in brain here. 3. left parietal bone, similar to blow #2, in that it penetrated the skin, both membranes, and the bone, causing fragmentation. 4. squamous suture above right ear, did not break skin, significant discoloration. 5. nasal bone driven into interior nasal concha, no bruising or bleeding, suggesting this is a post mortem injury. see my super helpful and not at all disrespectful or amateurish diagram above :)

lots of blood dried onto the face, suggesting he laid facedown in his own blood for a while

no signs of strangulation or suffocation

left hand has minor grazes, probably post mortem; right hand has a fracture and bruising on the middle finger near the proximal pharangeal joint, with grazing on the surrounding index and ring fingers, plus a significant contusion on the thenar, all almost definitely ante mortem

Johan: "ough yucky the body's warming up" :( Jasleen: "yeah... i think we're gonna have to get these clothes off." Johan: "what." Jasleen: "what did you think we were gonna do." lmaoooo love this exchange. his flat "What."

found Drew's phone! also he's nude now.

tattoos: 1. above right ankle bone, reads "COOKIE" (not "COCKLE") 2. between shoulder blades, 5 "Chinese characters", meaning unknown

first mention of Greg Fortin! he "knows a few words" of Mandarin. i don't think that's gonna cut it for a translation of that tat Jojo

laprascopy scar from appendectomy performed in 2019, noted in Drew's medical records

after the head is shaved, the blows are more clearly revealed: each injury is very similar in size and shape and almost definitely made by the same object, each wound is about 3.5 to 4cm in diameter. too big for an ordinary hammer, but just the right size for a mallet or similar. (or a meat tenderizing hammer... ahem.)

after a cursory glance, "mechanical fit" (or "physical fit" as it seems to be referred to now) more often seems to be a term used with "tool mark cases," meaning a forensic investigator putting a broken tool suspected to have been used to commit a crime back together to prove that it was used (and broken) in the committing of said crime, not to match a murder weapon with the killing wound/wounds on a victim's body. nice one, Cornwell. whatever, Jasleen only had comms for an hour

"3 blows on the left side of the skull, suggesting someone who's right-handed." the introduction of the handedness obsession

blood test results: BAC 0.12%. my dude was partyin'! so just how difficult would it have been for him to walk somewhere between 30 minutes to an hour to get to the crevasse? yeah he didn't die there.

listening to this makes it clear why Tessa's boss is under the assumption that this was a murder. four uniformly shaped and sized injuries to the head, plus a pretty obvious and sloppy attempt at a cover up by trying to make it look like he'd gone for a walk and ~accidentally~ fell down a crevasse, but failed to properly dress the victim or obfuscate the injuries that killed him. suspicious af.

broken nose was probably caused when Drew's body was thrown into the crevasse. or maybe when he hit the floor after suffering the blows to the head. or maybe, as Jasleen helpfully remarks, when Johan and Matteo got Drew out of the crevasse and onto the sled

Jasleen wants the key to where the body will be stored ("in case [she] need[s] to run more tests"), but Johan balks at this and simply tells her she can get the key from him if she needs it. once again: he sure is in control of a lot of key evidence!

"I'll try to answer speedily. if comms are up." kinda flippant there Jasleen!

and that's all the set up! next up: Drew's baseline psychological interviews with the crew of Bowers Wilson Research Station!

COLD TAPES: WINTER OVER

holy shit i can't believe barely anyone is talking about this podcast. i've recently listened to it and i'm going fucking insane wanting to talk about it. its publisher Free Turn was dropping new episodes weekly up until just recently when they released their final episode until their ongoing contest to correctly guess the killer is over and they can reveal who it was sometime in late february. i don't want to sound like an advertisement because in no way shape or form are these people paying me to say this, but i really cannot state enough how fucking crazy i am about this good good podcast and i need to talk about it. so since this is my blog my house my rules, i'm just gonna go ahead and rant about it here.

okay here's how let's do this: first i'll write a summary of the overall plot of the series, then i'll start a lil profile on each character (well, most of them) and as i relisten later i'll add details including any meta commentary i might have about them, and then i'll finish off with a timeline, a theory (maybe a few theories), and a j'accuse with as thorough an explanation of my thought process as i can muster. so uh. okay here we go

PLOT SUMMARY

Cold Tapes: Winter Over is a police procedural/murder mystery podcast. set between Antarctica's Bowers Wilson Research Station and Scotland Yard, it is presented as a series of audio recordings of phone calls, spoken diary entries, and other conversations/interactions between the base crew members at Bowers Wilson (and their corporate bosses at parent company Khione Industries) and the police officers 9000+ miles away who are attempting to uncover the truth of the circumstances surrounding the death of one of the researchers at the station: Dr. Drew Fairfield, a human behavioral scientist and citizen of the United Kingdom who had been running a psychological experiment on/with the rest of the base crew. but because he died right in the middle of the unforgiving and totally sunless Antarctic winter, it is impossible for police to physically travel there, so they must essentially solve his murder over the phone, relying almost entirely on clever and thorough interrogation of the suspects and their own powers of reasoning. as a listener who is also privy to all these conversations, you are invited to attempt to solve the case yourself alongside the police investigation team (although this aspect is entirely meta and not at all mentioned in the show itself). our protagonist is DCI Tessa McCallister, a seasoned investigator from rural Scotland with a good amount of police work and some military experience under her belt.

the story is told in three phases: first, we listen to the recordings of the victim's baseline psychological assessment interviews with each member of the Antarctic base team, second, the initial police interviews with each suspect, and third, a round of secondary follow-up police interviews with a selection of suspects. there are transitional episodes before and after each of these major phases, starting with an introduction to the case, a post-mortem examination of the victim performed on base by the base medic, and later on a talk with the victim's family, professional testimony from toxicology, etc. most episodes run between 5 to 30 minutes long.

i'm gonna plop down a readmore here in a minute (EDIT: I PLOPPED IT DOWN 👆UP THERE👆 INSTEAD BECAUSE THIS GOT KINDA LONG) before i start my character profiles, in case you want to listen to it yourself (oh my god please do) with as fresh a perspective on the characters as possible to begin with. it's all available for free (with ads) wherever you get your podcasts, but if you wanna pay £5 and get the series with no ads and a few extra goodies like suspect dossiers and episode transcripts and (if you live in the UK) a chance to enter a contest to correctly guess whodunit and possibly win £10K, you can. i've read about folks outside the UK saying they were unable to purchase the subscription for some reason, but i can't confirm because in no universe do i think i could find it within myself to try to figure out how to go about paying for free entertainment, attached to a contest i'm unable to enter. sorry, Free Turn.

again i promise i am not being paid to promote this podcast, i just really really enjoy it and only maybe like 20 people total are talking about it on some tiny subreddit and my thoughts and feelings regarding it are clawing a hole through my chest in a desperate effort to get out into the world. you can blame my offputtingly fervent enthusiasm mostly on the excellent writing and incredible voice acting. also partially on actor Atli Gunnarsson for lending his voice to a prominent character in this podcast as well as to my very favorite character from my very favorite game ever (Vatnir from Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire for those of you who are new to me and my bullshit). i watched The Terror while on xmas vacation at my in-laws' house and looked it up on imdb only to find him listed in the cast, which then lead me to look up his imdb page which is how i found out about this podcast in the first place. so rest assured, i'm not a shill, i'm just a fucking weirdo.

anyway Please Listen to Cold Tapes. my final message. goodb ye

THE VICTIM

Andrew Fairfield. 33 years old. Behavioral scientist. British. Had been conducting a psychological research project on behalf of Khione Industries using the crew of Bowers Wilson Research Station as his subjects. The experiment ended prematurely when someone bashed him in the head with a blunt object and killed him. This was his third year wintering over at Bowers Wilson.

THE SUSPECTS

Johan Gunnarsson. 57 years old. Officer In Charge. Icelandic. Former military special forces and freighter ship/oil rig veteran. Somewhat recent widower and empty-nester. This year marks his tenth winter over at Bowers Wilson.

Matteo Lombardi. 27 years old. Deputy commander. Italian. Formerly of the Alpine Rescue Service.

Jasleen Batra. 30 years old. Base medical officer. Indian. Doctor of medicine/general practitioner. Most recently worked on-call for A&Ds in London. Aspires to return to India and open her own practice there.

Maria Flores. 28 years old. Climate researcher studying glacial ice melt. Argentinian. Openly in a romantic relationship with the victim, whom she first met during the preceding summer at Bowers Wilson. Was not originally planning to winter over but changed her mind and chose to stay.

Sienna Cooper. 29 years old. Biochemist studying extremophiles and fungal infection of microalgae. Australian. 6'1" and can fly.

Greg Fortin. 26 years old. Glaciologist focusing on beryllium isotope movement in glacial ice. Canadian. Passionate about climate change. This is his second year wintering over.

Hera Karlsen. 26 years old. Marine biologist specializing in the study of married to krill. Norwegian.

Anders Sorensen. 48 years old. Base plumbing engineer. Danish. Triathlete. This year marks his ninth winter over at Bowers Wilson.

Victor Chabal. 32 years old. Base electrician. French. Recently divorced from a former Bowers Wilson researcher he met on a previous winter over.

Kristoff Schulz. 24 years old. Astronomer studying neutrino generation. German. TikTok enthusiast.

Bridget Meissner. 22 years old. Geologist studying the "Blood Falls" phenomenon in a particular glacier. German.

Jack Anderson. 38 years old. Base mechanic. American. Texan, specifically. Former military, a knee injury from an IED in Iraq ended his military career. This year marks his third winter over at Bowers Wilson.

Luca Coetzee. 26 years old. Base radio technician. South African. Gamer nerd. His mother basically forced him to apply to winter over at Bowers Wilson, going so far as to fill out the paperwork for him.

Felipe Hernandez. 32 years old. Volcanologist studying glacial melt in relation to volcanic heat. Chilean. Massive conspiracy theorist. This is his second year wintering over.

Mark Renwick. 43 years old. Base engineer. British. Primarily maintains the heating systems at Bowers Wilson. Former military, history of PTSD related to his service, treated with medicine and therapy. This year marks his third winter over.

Scott Williams. 36 years old. Base chef. New Zealander. Aspires to own and operate his own food truck in Christchurch. Recovering alcoholic, sober for 6 years.

[nyeddleblog]

It's Always the Quiet Ones. [Final Part]

Word count: 3,727 Pairing: Andrew! Peter Parker x Fem!Reader. Warnings: heavy make out, smut, swearing, long chapter, unprotected sex, oral sex (fem receiving), fingering, penetrative sex, lots of interruptions, probably unrealistic sex, reader's past sex life isn't really clarified because i believe it isn't relevant in the character; but you can think of her as a virgin or not, whatever makes you comfortable. Summary: You couldn't help but bring him home.

PART 1. PART 2.

You sat down at the edge of the building, careful not to slip on your way; he inhaled sharply at the sight. And so, to make sure he could catch you if anything, he sat beside you.

There was some ease on just letting his feet hang, but he wasn't sure you could feel the same he did. You didn't have the certainty that if you just let go, you could survive.

No, you would probably die instantly if you fell.

"When I first met you" you started to say, looking into the distant store located in front of the street downstairs "I really thought you were taken out of some fiction book, you seemed too good to be true..."

"But you said I was an irresponsible ass...!" he laughed, you smiled fondly at him.

"Oh, you were" you clarified "But I'm talking before that, when we were in first year and you took pictures for the yearbook and you were still being picked on by Flash"

"Oh, right, the old times."

"Yeah" you shrugged "I guess that impression of you got stuck on me for the rest of high school, I had a big crush on you and it didn't matter how many times you would fail me, I still longed for you to come..."

Peter opened his mouth to say something, but only a frail sigh fell out of it.

"But then I met this dude online after our last day of high school, thought I got over you and I guess the love was replaced with resentment."

You started moving your legs, swinging them back and forth. Peter wished he hadn't been that much of an asshole so he could be able to brag about how adorable his girlfriend was.

"Yeah, that's... That's understandable" he nodded, biting his lip "Hope I still have time to bring those feelings back, though"

You widened your eyes, finally looking back at him "Oh, no. You misunderstood me. I was saying that kind of as an introduction. I guess I never really got over you."

There was a nurtured silence between you, where the realization that you were confessing finally sunk in. He, at a loss of words, licked his lips and put a hand on your thigh in a careful, yet comforting gesture.

"I really... I wish I could..." he sighed, frustrated "I guess I wasn't expecting that."

Some disappointment shone itself through your eyes "You really don't have to say anything..."

"I know, but I want to, I just..." Instead of completing his sentence and impulsively, Peter Parker took your face in his hands and kissed you.

The feeling took a few seconds to be processed. From the disappointment of thinking he was rejecting you, you really weren't expecting his lips against yours just now.

Peter had amazingly soft lips, and yours had been chapped from so much biting on them; but as you were sinking into your insecurities, separating from him, you could see him instinctively getting closer, as if longing to kiss you longer.

"I'm sorry" he breathed in, his voice deeper "I should've asked..."

You wanted to say that he could take you right there and you wouldn't mind because suddenly you were all his, but it was better to just kiss him again.

Fuck your chapped lips, or your fear of rejection; you were kissing your high school crush, on top of your favorite place, wearing a cute dress and after a perfect evening together.

You were a good kisser, you put all of your feelings on it and he could almost taste the want, and the loving way you thought of him. He actually could smell your arousal.

He moaned unconsciously when he felt your grip on the back of his head, trying your best not to pull on his hair.

You said he was an asshole, but you didn't really feel that, did you?

And it was when he gripped your thigh once more that things started a little bit out of hand. You both noticed, because you parted your kiss with uneven breaths and the look on your face made him want to forget about everything else except you.

"D-do you want to walk me home?" you murmured, your voice sounding so little, yet so needy.

He caressed your cheek, putting a strand of your hair behind your ear and leaning for a longing yet short kiss.

"Yes"

The walk home was surprisingly quiet; a few giggles when you went down the stairs, but every time he thought about joking, or about talking even, he remembered that... If you invited him over, he could be able to stay... He could be able to feel you.

He really needed to find a place to take the suit off if those were the plans, though.

"Fuck" you practically yelled, waking him up from his daydreaming.

Beside him, and half of your dress soaking wet, you were standing.

"Ugh, right on my best outfit" you murmured.

He tried his best not to laugh, but going from a rather needy and desperate mood, to seeing you covered in plant water and ready to lose your shit was a fun change of plans.

"I'm sorry!" A woman yelled from a balcony, holding the empty base from where the water came from.

You looked up, down to your dress and sighed loudly "It's okay."

Peter shook his head, trying to stop his laughter. "And just when we were so close to your place" he giggled to himself.

"Oh, fuck you..."

He leaned in, unsure if he wanted to do the joke but playfully going "Fuck me, then."

You froze in place, just in front of your building's entrance. You quietly turned around, and signaled the stairs "Wanna come inside?"

He blinked in surprise. "Oh, uh, yeah..."

Nervously, you blurted your possible plans as you went upstairs. Asking if he wanted to watch a movie, while your ordered some pizza; saying that you didn't get to have dinner as he promised, so he owed you that... And when you finally went inside, there was nothing left but the shyness by the knowledge that you both wanted to fuck.

"I'm gonna go change" you murmured, looking down "You can search for a movie meanwhile, the password is my birthday."

Peter didn't really know if you wanted to watch a movie, or if it was just because entering your place and fucking each other in the couch wasn't that much of a turn on as it was in the top of a building after a heartwarming confession.

He took your laptop either way, and tried to write down the first movie he could come up with, surprising himself on your browser history.

He didn't find any bizarre porn movie, but he did find a few tumblr blogs on bondage, and he was surprised by how many of them coincided on the same.

This wasn't just a curiosity search of one day, was it? You were into this stuff...

He felt your footsteps coming back from your bedroom, and he closed the page. Excusing his lack of movie on the fact that he didn't know what you wanted to watch.

But then he took a look at you and he couldn't help but close the laptop.

"Aren't we watching a movie...?"

He left your laptop aside, standing up and pulling you in by the chest. He hand caressed your cheek like you were getting used to him doing, and he lightly touched your nose with his.

"Do you really want to see a movie?"

With the confirmation that you didn't, in fact, want to cuddle on the couch and watch a movie, he kissed you once more. Your unsteady balance and the need he put into crashing his lips to yours made you stumble back against the wall.

He riled up the oversized skirt you had put on and teased over the edge of you bra without touching anything you didn't give him permission to.

"Fuck, I really like you..." he almost whined, in a breathy tone that made your thighs press together "I fucking love every part of you."

His lips trailed onto your neck leaving gentle kisses until he felt he couldn't help himself, and his grip on you became tighter, practically pushing you against the wall.

His tongue savored the taste of your perfume, and the heightened senses should have made him at least wrinkle his nose; but focusing on your soft noises and your scent was making him obsessed with it.

As your soft hands went on pushing his jacket off his shoulders, and started unbuttoning the flannel, you could feel his leg locating itself between yours. "I really want you" he said weakly "I need you."

The flannel fell to the floor, right beside his jacket. You kissed him again, wanting to feel the skin of his chest, but yet another fabric retained your desire. You whined, frustrated.

"How many shirts are you weari-?"

You looked down. Him, distracted with the hickeys he was creating on your neck, suddenly froze.

He was wearing a Spider-man suit.

He was wearing the Spider-man suit.

He was Spider-man?

"What the fuck...?" you panicked "What the fuck? What...? Why...?"

He got away from you, trying to deny it. He took the fabric, baffling, but your panic persisted and he seemed to feel the tension on the air.

"That's why you never showed up in time..."

"This is a costume..."

"That's why you always disappeared..."

"No, no, Y/N, I'm preparing for Comic Con..."

"Why the fuck did you put the suit under your clothes?!"

He realized you weren't buying into his lies.

"Because I wasn't planning on fucking you tonight!"

You blushed, taking your head in your hands. "Why...? How did you forget you had it on when we started...?"

"Well I was kinda distracted..." he said with a defensive tone, signalling to his pants with his stare.

"Oh, god! What do I do now?"

He let out a frustrated growl, letting himself fall on the couch. And even though the situation had suddenly complicated itself, he couldn't help but look at you and want you even more.

"I... " you blushed softly "I really like you, Peter, and this won't ruin that but...Fuck"

He peaked between his fingers, starting to try and figure out what you meant.

"I desperately want you Peter, can we discuss this tomorrow morning?"

Needy and almost touch starved, you took the steps separating yourself from him and sat on his inviting lap.

"Fuck... Yes, yes we can. Please"

He instantly took it right where he left off, but taking no regret on pushing your shirt out of the way.

"You're gorgeous" he muttered, his fingers burning to touch you more "Can I...?"

"You can do whatever you want to me." you stated. He let out a needy gasp at your words, and went right into taking your bra off.

You could feel yourself getting wet as your eyes couldn't help but look at him. His fingers were tracing every inch of your naked skin, worshipping you; as if you were so frail his touch could break you.

And you wanted him to.

"Fuck, I don't even know where to begin" he said, entranced by the view. There it was again, the look of disbelief that now you understood; he couldn't understand how you were real, how someone so great could be right in front of his eyes, under his touch "I just... I want to make you feel so good."

His grip focused on your thighs once more, surrounding his torso with your legs and pulling quickly so you wouldn't be sitting on him on top of the arm rest anymore, but laying down on the soft pillows of your couch.

By the movement, his erection was making direct contact with your panties, and you could take a good guess on how much he was enjoying this too.

"Can I taste you?" The doubt in your eyes was cleared once he followed: "Please"

His eyes were dark, his pupils dilated. He needed to have your pussy on his tongue.

You nodded shyly, opening your legs to welcome him. He almost came just by the view.

He caressed your soft thighs, his fingers travelling to the mild bruises he had just provoked. You couldn't help yourself when your hips jerked upwards, dying for him to touch you.

"I'm going to take good care of you, okay?"

He traced your skin from your shoulder to your panties, starting to play with the edge of it. And just as you felt yourself move to feel him, his mouth left a kiss on your lower tummy.

Peter was soft, he was gentle, but overall, he knew what he wanted, and he wanted to break you. He wanted to get you to the point where you would be begging for him. And so the trail of wet and frail kisses was all over you, avoiding any pleasurable spot but getting close enough to have you a sobbing mess.

However, Peter was human. He could tease you for a long time, but not as much as he wanted, because even if he thought you'd look ethereal pleading for him to finally be inside you, his whole body was also begging for him to do it.

His mouth finally reached your breasts and his tongue circled around your nipple. You moaned and his hips bucked into yours with a need to be closer to you.

In a matter of seconds he had marked you up, left you with dark purple bruises everywhere. He couldn't help it, it was the easiest way to contain himself and please you at the same time.

His hand traveled into your panties, desperately pulling them down your legs. Between your agitated heartbeat and your strong scent, he needed nothing but just a confirmation to know what you wanted.

"Peter, please."

He moaned against you, incorporating himself at the level of your femininity. Between seeing you all vulnerable, and how wet you actually were, dripping for him, Peter chose not to make you beg.

He left a wet kiss on each side of your inner thigh and drove himself into eating you out. His eyes closed as his tongue made its way on your folds, to your clit. Then, you cried out his name.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck..." You saw his hands reaching into your thighs and pulling closer to him "Fuck, please keep doing that..."

He hummed against you, making you close your thighs and arch your back in the prettiest way. He loved it.

"A-ah! Wait-" A tingling sensation, almost like a burning but oh, so pleasant, came over you. Your legs were suddenly shaking, and you were sure you were reaching a breaking point. "Baby, I think I'm gonna cum..."

Peter didn't separate from you until your trembling stopped, and kept going just a bit longer in case you hadn't reached your climax.

Once you could finally see his whole face, mouth glistening with your cum, he teased you. "Baby, huh?"

He licked his lips, but you weren't able to answer. Your legs would still shake from time to time and he didn't seem like he was over with you yet.

"I like the nicknames" he whispered, getting on top of you "You should keep thinking of new ones, while I make you cum again, would you?"

Your lips trembled before you could say anything, and once more he was kissing you.

His thumb quickly reached your overly sensitive clit, and dragged itself down your folds to come back up once more.

"Or you can just moan my name, love. I like it either way"

But he didn't abuse the small bundle of nerves; you felt his finger reach into your entrance and the need for permission written all over his face.

"Can I...?"

"Yes, please..."

The finger slid inside easily, Peter was dying from the tightness and the warmth radiating inside of you. He wanted to feel you surrounding his cock and pulling him inside over and over. He wanted to stretch you out for him and feel you cum around him.

"God" he groaned, sliding another finger inside. "Love, I really want to fuck you..."

Your hips bucked upwards once more. He used his other hand to keep them grounded.

"You want me to move them faster, baby?" Peter asked. You nodded, he bit his lip "Be a good for me and say it."

"P-please, I want you to move them faster..."

"That's my girl."

His fingers went in and out of you quickly, with the slick sound of your wet folds. He reached down his pants and palmed himself through, in painful need of touch.

Once you were ready enough to have a third finger inside you, and your body started trembling like he was noticing it did when you were close, he ran out of patience. The steady pace became messy, rough. You cried out how good it felt and the curling of his fingers finally made you see white.

He surprised himself on how loud he made you cum, you were almost embarrassed from yelling his name so much.

"Okay, maybe you're not so quiet..." he joked.

And you let yourself rest there for a few seconds, until you saw him standing up and reaching for your shirt.

You frowned, he smiled.

"What?"

"I haven't even... I want you to fuck me!"

Biting his lip, and tentatively considering it, Peter located itself between your bent legs and put his hands on your knees. "Love, you already came twice, don't you think you're being a little greedy?" he joked, but you could hear a mild nervousness shine through the teasing.

"I want to make you cum." you answered, leaving your shyness aside "And I want to feel you inside me when you do so"

He breathed in, shaking and pulling you close once more "Are you sure?"

"Yes, Peter, I'm sure."

His lip trembled before he roughly kissed you. As if he was waiting for you to ask this whole time. His hands groped you desperately, finally losing himself on the way you were naked in front of him.

You felt the denim against your sensitive cunt and you yelped. He mumbled something, directing his shaky hands to messily unbutton his jeans. "I really want to fuck you... I really want to feel you, wanna' be inside you so bad..."

Yanking you into him from the grip on your thighs, Peter let you feel his naked length rubbing between your folds.

"Fuck, I need you Y/N."

He directed his cock into your entrance, rubbing softly and looking up at you for once final confirmation. Your face only told him how much you wanted this too.

He finally let himself in.

"Ah, baby..." you whined in anticipation, wanting to feel the rest right away but being held back by the burning stretch.

"Y/N, you're so tight" he spoke helplessly "Fuck, you were made for me."

And, even if he was dying to feel more, he kept his pace slow and gentle. He hated the thought of hurting you, but his body was screaming for him to just rail you.

"Shit, Peter, you can be rougher on me" you laughed between whines, not expecting his hips to immediately crash into yours.

"Love..." He kissed your cheek, trailing down into your neck.

He felt your hands caressing his back, but as his cock drove in and out of you, desperately looking for the same pleasure he gave you, the soft touches changed into your nails digging on his skin.

It didn't bother him, but the thought crossed his mind, and he just needed to take your wrists and keep them over your head.

"Baby, there's no need to hurt me... I'm giving you what you want" he teased you with a breathy tone.

He kissed your forehead and went back to abuse the weak spots on your neck.

The thought of you was becoming too much. Feeling you, and realizing he had the girl of his dreams at his will was overwhelming.

And he couldn't keep his composure, he just needed to feel all of you.

"Do you mind if I, you know, use these to trap your hands there?" he inquired, stopping his movements to signal at his webshooters on his wrists "I really, really want to feel your pretty body and your hands are kinda... Getting on my way."

Agreeing, the next thing you knew was that Peter wasn't taking his hands off of your skin. He pressed his fingers onto your hips and thrusted deep enough for your body to react.

Fuck, he was big.

"Fuck, baby, you feel so good..." he groaned. "I really just want to see make a mess, wanna make you cum on my cock, do you think you can do that?"

"Y-yes, Peter-"

He bit his lip, getting a hand on the crook of your neck to direct himself inside of you while the other had two fingers circling tightly on your clit.

He knew he wasn't going to last longer, but he needed to make you cum first. He wanted you to tighten around him, and between the wet and skin to skin sounds, you were sure you weren't lasting much longer either.

"Ah-! I love you!" you heard yourself yell, and you felt your orgasm rushed over you once more.

It was enough to take him over the edge, making him cum and fill you up from the inside.

His breath was rushed, his forehead resting over yours. And when a few minutes had gone by and you were sure he hadn't heard you, Peter said:

"Did you mean it?"

"What?"

"Promise me you weren't just saying that because you were getting fucked out."

The serious look on his face intimidated you, but did you love Peter? That was probably one of the easiest questions you could ever answer.

"I promise."

Peter bit his lip, letting his head fall beside you. "Fuck, I really, really love you too" he whined "What took me so long to take you out on a date?!"

"Oh, it was probably the suit... You know, being Spider-Man is kind of a big deal" He looked back at you, terrified "Yes Peter, I haven't forgotten about that."

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[dinobae]

Caught In Their Webs (Part One)

Warnings: fluff, some angst, swear words, some steamy stuff

Nothing to interesting yet just some set up for the next chapter. Things start to get steamy, next chapter. I'm very exited for the spice!

Andrews!Peter= Peter Toms!Peter= Parker Tobeys!Peter = Pete

You were sat in your bed, staring at your door with an intensity, petrified that at any second the door would open, or someone would knock, and you’d have to deal with the inevitable.

After your Peter left, you were left alone with the two other Peters. Your head, still absolutely reeling in shock from the new information, as well as the fact that there were now two handsome boys or Peters in front of you. You said nothing, and simply walked past them awkwardly, walking to your room with haste. Slamming the door shut behind you and falling onto your bed.

That had been three hours ago. The sun had set, and you were started to get hungry as dinner time came, yet you were still glued to your bed. Staring at the door as you had been for hours, unaware of what exactly you should do. You had texted your Peter at least 30 times, but he had simply replied with a ‘I’ll be back late tonight, after 10’ a text that had done nothing to calm your nerves.

You sighed dramatically, falling back into your pillows, and checking your phone. A bright picture of you and Peter hugging in the snow greeted you, along with a blaring 7:47pm. “Ughh!” you groaned. Slowly you sat up and walked to your dresser tossing of your shirt and pants with the intent to change into something more comfortable and talk to the other Peters, before a knock startled you and you turned to see the door opening slowly opening, to shocked to shout out.

Peter 3’s head popped in “Hi um, we were just wondering if you were…. Oh my gosh oh god I’m so sorry!” he yelped, turning, and slamming his head into the side of your door frame in his rush to shut your door. You heard a hard thud on the other side of the door once it was shut, along with a rushed whisper of ‘what the hell happened?’ from the other Peter.

“Oh my god, what the fuck even is my life!” you yelled at your roof, turning back to the and staring at in anger, now even less keen to exit your room. Not that you thought that could’ve been possible a moment ago. Quickly dressing, in some of your nicer clothes, which you totally didn’t do on purpose, you walked to your mirror. You gave yourself a once over, and quickly fixed your hair, for absolutely no reason ‘god stop it Y/N, you don’t need to look cute’ you snapped internally. Walking to the door you halted at the handle. You took a deep breath in, mentally preparing yourself, before you opened the door and stepped out into the hall.

You walked into the loungeroom, where the two Peters sat on your couch. Peter 2, looking at you kindly a small smile gracing his handsome features. Whilst the Peter 3 was staring at his feet, face beet red. You sighed, before walking in and sitting on the table in front of them, folding your hand into your lap.

“Ok, this um needs to happen I guess,” you spoke, a sudden determination filling you.

Peter 2 coughed softly, “Well perhaps formal introductions are in order. Um, I’m Peter 2 to you guys, but in my universe, I’m known as Peter Benjamin Parker, I was bitten by a genetically modified spider at a school trip, and I became Spiderman. And three of my old villains, who I fought very long ago are now here in your universe as well.” Peter 2 spoke softly, nudging Peter 3 softly after he was finished.

Peter 3 sat up straight, a faint blush still on his cheeks as he avoided your eyes, “I’m Peter 3, and well I’m also Peter Parker, I snuck into Oscorp industries, and I was bitten by a radioactive spider, and I became the amazing Spiderman. Um, two of my villains are here as well.”

“Wait, there are others from your universes here. Villains?” you questioned. “Is that where my Peter is?”

Both Peters sat up straighter, Peter 2 spoke first, “When your Peter had the strange doctor do his spell something went wrong and we were suddenly in this universe. We found each other quickly, but where still not sure how many others there are yet, but so far we pretty sure that there is just five others.”

Peter 3 leaned forward, face suddenly serious “Your Peter and the doctor have found and captured two so far, but the other three still have to be caught,” he spoke seriously.

“Um, so once the other three are caught things will be fixed then, and you two will go back to your universe?” you questioned softly.

The two Peters glanced at each other before turning back to you. “Unfortunately, It’s not that simple, there are certain conditions in which the spell was first created, those conditions need to be met again for the spell to be fixed” Peter 3 spoke.

“That and the doctor said he had no clue how to fix the spell, said something about unusual complications not mentioned in the books. He was uttering something about refusing to go to Wong and that he can do this all himself,” Peter 2 spoke pensively, leaning back in his seat. “First, we actually have to catch the others villain's, but we have no clue where they are. Which is what your Peter is working on now.”

Peter 3 clapped his hands together, “Then we let your magician do his magic spell, and bam we go back home,” he grinned.

You pursed your lips, nodding your head softly, “and who are these villains exactly? Are they dangerous?” you questioned softly.

The atmosphere shifted instantly, both Peters suddenly tense in their chairs. After a few moments of silence Peter 2 spoke up, “There’s Doctor Otto Octavius an…. He has already been captured. Flint Marko or the Sandman, and worst of all is Norman Osborn or the Green Goblin.” He turned away softly a sad look on his face, “They were once great men. All three of them”

Peter 3 placed his hand on Peter 2’s shoulder in comfort, before turning to you, “My foes are Doctor Curt Connors or the Lizard.” Your eyebrow shot up in question at that one. “As well as Max Dillon or Electro. They were my friends once” he spoke softly, a saddened look in his eyes as he looked at his shoes.

Your eyes went between the two handsome boys, heart heavy as you looked at their saddened faces. “Hey.” You whispered softly; both the boys looked at you intently. “Let’s order some pizza huh!” you said standing up.

Walking away from the two boys you turned your head back to them, “hmm, I wonder… three pepperoni pizzas, extra cheese?” you questioned, giggling when both the boys sat upright immediately, excitement clear on their faces. You walked into the kitchen pulling out your phone, “Oh, and I am not calling Peter 2 and Peter 3 so I’m going to have to figure something out with that” you cried out. Drawing out a chuckle from both the boys.

------------------

An hour later all three of you were sat on the lounge, watching TV whilst waiting for your Peter to return. “Wait, so you’re telling me that neither of your universe have Rick and Morty? That is a travesty!” You cried out, from where you were sandwiched between the two boys. Both enthralled by the show on your tv. “Oh my god I wonder what else you guys don’t have.” You spoke in shock.

“Hmmm, it’s reminding me of mick and molly, in fact its quite identical,” Peter 3 mumbled, grabbing a handful of popcorn from the bowl in your lap and stuffing it into his mouth.

“What the fuck.” You mumbled out, bewildered. Peter 2 chuckling beside you. “Hmm that reminds me, I’ve thought it through and I’m calling you” you pointed at Peter 2, who raised an eyebrow at you smirking softly. “Pete!” you chirped, poking his chest softly, to which he chuckled softly. “And I’m just calling you Peter, and my Peter shall be foremost called Parker or bug boy, both names are used by my friends more than his real name anyway” you laughed, poking Peters chest as you spoke. Face flushing when he shot you a giant grin.

“Hell, yeah I get to keep my name” He cheered, making Pete snort beside you. Pete’s hand reaching into the popcorn just as you did. Your hands brushed each other, and a bright blush covered your cheeks whilst a low blush covered his face. You turned back to the TV, with a cough.

“So um, going back to the topic of things that are different in your universes,” you started. “Umm, well do either of you have… um significant others waiting for you in your universes,” you mumbled out, cursing yourself internally for your awkwardness. Both the spiders tensed suddenly tensed, a sad look in his eyes.

Before you could question it, Pete spoke out, “Well, I had my fiancé MJ, but well were kind of taking a very long break at the moment… we haven’t spoken in over a year” he mumbled out. You bit your lip, internally screaming at yourself for asking the question and ruining the mood. Your eyes strayed over to Peter, who had tears in his eyes, and every bone in your body was screaming at you to hold him but you stopped yourself.

“I um, had someone. Her name was Gwen…” he struggled to get the words out.

“Peter its ok, you don’t have to.” You started, but he cut you off quickly.

“No its ok… i had Gwen uh, well she was my MJ, and there was a fight and I… I wasn’t fast enough to catch her and she… she… she um died,” he finally chocked out, clearly trying so hard not to cry. Before the rational part of your brain could register it, you were wrapped around him tightly. Holding onto him as if he would fall, if you let go. He stilled for a moment before he let out a deep sigh and hugged you back tightly. A few moments passed and you felt Pete behind you, hesitantly hugging you both from behind your back. You reached one arm back to hold him as well, a silent confirmation that his touch was welcome. He hugged you tighter after which.

"My Peter, has an MJ to," you mumbled out softly, both the Peters hugging you even tighter after which, as if they knew that it made you sad.

You sat there for ages, simply holding each other and breathing softly. You didn’t know why you felt so comfortable and content in their arms, and you sure didn’t know why you felt so protective and caring for these boys you had just met. But everything in you was screaming give these boys the world. You held each other till the tv went silent. You glanced up from Peter’s shoulder, looking at the Netflix’s are you still their prompt. “Do you guys have the office in your universes,” your whispered, mind randomly suggesting a movie name of the top of your head.

Peter sniffled softly letting you go gently, “no, what’s that?”

Pete also softly let you go, "we have the workplace. Maybe its like that," he uttered

You looked at him bewildered, "seriously, what the fuck even."

------------------

And that’s how your Peter, or rather for this week, your Parker found the three of you when he arrived. The three of you practically sitting on top of each other, watching finding nemo, your hand still resting on Peters arm gently. Something he bristled at, before silently chastising himself, confused as to why a simple thing enraged him so.

“Hey, I’m back!” he called from the window, jumping in with a grin. “Got some progress about the spell. Um mister strange says he knows of a book that has information about how to fix the spell. Uh he just needs to fix it.” Parker started. “Oh, Y/N um I should probably explain everything now, well you see…”

“There’s no need Parker, they’ve already filled me in on the villains, mixed with the fact that doctor strange, is apparently a stubborn man who helped you break the multiverse and refuses to ask for help. Very inappropriate for a time thingie if you ask me. The real question is did you find any more of these missing villains or no?” You stood as you spoke one hand on your hip, and another pointed at Parker accusingly.

“Um, well there still missing.” Parker said, hands wringing together anxiously. “But we seem to think that we might now where one might be… tomorrow” he said anxiously. Both the other peters letting out a sigh at his words. “But don’t worry, MJ and Ned are coming over tomorrow and were going to figure everything out. MJs already got some great ideas.” Peter started, a loving face on his features as he spoke of MJ. You tensed sharply, something that did not go unnoticed by the other two Peters.

“Alright then Parker, so is there anything that we can do tonight?” you questioned Parker, failing to keep the attitude out of your voice.

“Um, well no… why are you um calling me parker,” he questioned softly, his features falling into a soft frown.

“Well, I refused to call you numbers… So, your Parker, he’s Peter and he’s Pete,” you pointed, accordingly as you spoke. “Now, if there’s nothing else, we can do tonight… then I guess we should just call it a night then. So I guess you can just leave now,” you sighed, stalking towards the hall for your bedroom before halting.

You turned to face Pete and Peter, “um, I guess Peter can take the guest room and the Pete can take my parents room,” you stated, pointed to the doors down the hallways as you spoke. “I am going to bed,” you sighed, walking away from the boys without another word.

Parker stood frozen at the window confusion evident on his face. He’d noticed you had been straying from the group, recently and was missing his best friend. The poor boy had no clue what he was doing wrong. But he knew it was him that was causing your distance from the group. The other two Peters were giving him knowing looks, like they knew exactly what he was going through. He gave them both awkward smiles, and quickly left through the window. Intent on clearing his head, with a few hours of patrol.

----------------------

You were getting dressed into your pajamas, teeth brushed and ready to go to sleep. Already anxious for tomorrow when you heard a soft knock. You turned to the door, scared to be caught changing again but the door remained shut tight.

“Um come in,” you shouted out, after you’d quickly dressed.

Peter stuck his head in, “Hi, I um… I waited for you to tell me I could come in this time,” he said a proud look on his face.

You giggled softly at the look on his face, “well, yes that is what most people do,” giggling even more as his face flushed and he rubbed the back of his neck.

“Yeah, sorry about earlier, I’ve always been really bad at that aha… done it to you way to much” he whispered the last part so softy you barely caught it. You were confused by the phrase but decided against saying anything. You both stood in silence for a while.

“Did you need something, or?” you questioned, after an awkward length of silence had passed.

“Oh! Um I just wanted to say goodnight, and just let you know if you need anything just let me know ya know aha,” he laughed out awkwardly.

“Oh, well you’re the guest shouldn’t you tell me if you need something?” you questioned with a laugh.

He froze, a bright red blush on his cheeks, “yeah right of course, you’re a fucking idiot Peter!” he said smacking his head as he spoke. “I’m just going to go. Um, goodnight” he said as he stumbled back to the door. You laughed at his soft and gentle awkwardness, staring at the closed door with a fond smile.

‘he’s really cute’ you thought, before shaking your head. ‘Woah girl, where the hell did that come from! You can not get a crush on the damn alternate universe Peter Parker’ you said shaking your head as you crawled into your bed. ‘I suppose all of them are very cute. Arghh stop it bad thoughts!’

“Ugh,” you groaned out, before you finally fell back into your bed falling into a fitful sleep. Not wanting to deal with tomorrow already.

[ladysarah1blog]

Welcome to my blog and biography,

A brief introduction about myself.

I am Lady Sarah, I am an educated woman, please remember that I am not some 20 year old bimbo, I have my own money and do not want yours. I have a job and earn my own money.

I am a woman first and foremost and I should be treated with respect at all times, I am dominant in my relationships and have a slave whom I enjoy playing with.

I am not looking for new slaves and I am choosy about if I will accept another as a slave as one slave and submissive is more than enough.

I enjoy music, entertainment reading and world travel amongst other things, I am kinky and demanding of my property. I live in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. I am over 40 years old and I know about life.

I do NOT give you permission to contact me and If you solicit me with direct messages with unworthy sexual advances etc then sorry I will block you and report you for sexual harassment not just to this application but also to the police.

This is a lifestyle I have chosen and I am happy with the dynamics of my relationship with my toy Andrew Tommie.

I hate text messages as they are so impersonal, I am not likely to reposed straight away if you do contact me but if you do contact me I will respond at some stage. Do not just hay hello, take your time and write why you are contacting me, what you want of me and I will decide if to reposed. I expect you to be respectful at all times, mistress or goddess or mummy is not respectful, I am a Lady and you should treat me as such in all correspondence.

Thank you for sparing the time to read my brief biography

💋💋Lady Sarah

[denimbex1986]

He’s lounging on a couch in a small, windowless room in a Manhattan studio, where he’s been dutifully shooting promotional material for Birdy all day. But he seems bright and alive, his broken foot long since patched up. In a way, the injury may have helped him tap into the psyche of his character, an increasingly broke medieval lord whose sartorial and aesthetic tastes set him apart from the “draconian, macho atmosphere” of his realm, Scott says. There’s a sense of vulnerability alongside complex masculinity at work in this decidedly feminist film, aided by Scott’s tender rendering of Lord Rollo.

In an interview with Vanity Fair, Scott chats candidly about tackling the role, what it was like working with Dunham, and how playing the instantly iconic Hot Priest in Fleabag has left an eternal stamp on his career. 

Vanity Fair: What was the first thing that made you say yes to this project?

Andrew Scott: It was definitely Lena. I think Girls is extraordinary. I remember seeing it and thinking, Wow. Such a singular voice. That’s the stuff that you look for. A writer that’s not scared to put their autograph on something. Whatever she puts her mind to, she’s going to have a vision and she’s going to deliver a message. 

Did you have a favorite Girls character?

It was more the spirit of it. I remember that extraordinary scene where they break up—Lena’s character and Adam Driver’s character. It was such a sad, brilliant scene. And the fact that she did it at that age [is impressive].

Your character gets a memorable introduction from Birdy. She writes: “He’s often vain, usually drunk, and always greedy.” It’s her perspective, but there are those elements to him, which you tackle in a fun way. How did you approach a character who is so louche?

Oh, with absolute abandon. [Laughs] We talked about costumes that he should be wearing. It was incredible working with [costume designer] Julian Day. Lord Rollo would be wearing Gucci now if he could. He likes to spend money, he’s interested in art. He’s just one of those straight men. 

Going back to the costumes, I was watching this thinking you must be so comfortable. You’re wearing robes on top of robes. Was this the most comfortable movie you’ve ever done?

It would’ve been, but, unfortunately, during the movie I fell down stairs and I broke my foot.

Oh god! I’m so sorry.

Yeah. I think that’s an exclusive. [Laughs] There were these very slippery mahogany stairs and I just fell and smashed my foot. So for a lot of the movie, I’m walking around with a big boot. I was very grateful for [the costumes] and that I wasn’t putting on a pair of skinny jeans or something. 

Have you ever worked on a film where you had that kind of injury before? Or was this a first?

No, it was my first time that’s ever happened. It’s amazing how much it fucks things up.

Did you learn anything about yourself as an actor through working through that kind of challenge?

A little, I think. When you’re in pain, you feel so weirdly vulnerable. I had to take [the cast] off at times. You’re in crowds saying, “Please don’t stand on my foot, please, please, please.” 

The first AD is like “Be careful around Andrew!”

Yeah. But we did okay. We managed it! 

I’m curious what Lena is like on set. How does she give a note?

We did a lot of improvisation. She’ll come back and say, “I love that line!” Like all the best directors, you reward the good and you ignore the bad. [Laughs] She’s incredibly effusive and fun. She understands performing as well. You’re not required to do 75 takes of something with diminishing returns. You feel confident because she feels confident. 

I noticed at TIFF that she said she turned you from “Hot Priest” to “Hot Medieval Dad.” I wanted to ask about the phenomenon of getting “hot” prefixed to your characters after playing Hot Priest on Fleabag. I imagine it’s flattering, but also strange. Does it happen a lot?

It only happens when you are talking about things [at festivals], or doing press. There are worse things to be called, I suppose.

Right, it makes sense that it happens with press. It’s not happening in your day-to-day life, where your friends are like, “This is my friend.”

“This is my hot Irish friend.” [Laughs]

If they were true friends, maybe they would do that.

If they were true friends, exactly!

People loved Fleabag Season 2 so much. Hot Priest left such an indelible mark. It made me wonder how present the legacy of that show is in your day-to-day life.

It’s definitely a piece of work that people just love. They love it. It’s a symbol, a little bit like this movie, of the people that create it, and that’s why it’s joyful. I feel very proud of it. Fleabag is so generous and wonderful and adds to the feeling of compassion in the world, but it’s done through the prism of comedy. It influences people with a sleight of hand that takes such skill. 

I did a rewatch recently and it’s just so good. 

It’s a gorgeous thing. And men respond to it as well. Men really love it because it’s inclusive. It’s really inclusive. 

That’s another thing to say about Lena as a director—the set was incredibly inclusive. Movie sets can be macho places, so to have people in key positions, it changes the atmosphere.

How does it change it for you?

It’s just novel. The thing I love about working in movies, or just working as an actor, is that it doesn’t require a certain class of person, or certain sex, or gender, or race. You can be working with lots of people. I love the idea that if you’re in a play about grandparents and 16-year-olds, then the people that you have to surround yourself with for a two-month run on the West End are 80-year-olds and 16-year-olds. That’s where our empathic instincts can grow. When you’re on a set where everybody is very different, but you all feel the same joy through work, you all run away to the circus together. Lena has insisted on certain jobs being fulfilled by different types of people and it makes a difference.

Have you had the experience of being on a super macho set? How did that impact you?

It’s not particularly that it was ever awful, but I do think I’ve come to question [it.] You go, Oh, this job doesn’t just belong to this type of person. You can have a female DP. Why not? What, they’re not interested in cameras? It’s just not true. The only thing that matters is that you’re able to do your job. As long as we don’t confuse that with tokenism. As a gay person, I never want to get a job because they think, Oh, we’ve got to tick a box here. I want it because I’m good at my job.

I just worked with Andrew Haigh on a film and it was wonderful. I haven’t worked with a lot of gay directors and it’s nice. That’s not to say one is better than the other. It isn’t a sin to be a straight white male. There are many talented people who deserve a place at the table. It’s just that other people should be included as well. And also, we’re allowed to make mistakes. I think we live in a culture where mistakes aren’t allowed to be made. I really do believe the idea of being able to say, “I don’t know” is the basis of every artistic or scientific breakthrough there’s ever been. All the really brilliant artists that I feel I’ve been lucky enough to work with are comfortable saying, “I don’t know. What do you think?” The culture of “Never make a mistake and if you do make a mistake, you’re gone” is dangerous.

It closes off art. But to that point, I feel some people make those mistakes by being hyper-visible and being on social media and saying things they don’t need to say. I feel you’ve taken yourself out of that equation by not being on social media.

I refute the idea that you have to be on social media. Don’t tell me what I have to be on. If that’s a basis upon which I’m going to be employed, then I’ll look at something else to do. [Laughs] You’ve got to not be bullied.

There’s so many more questions I could ask about that. But I did want to ask about Ripley coming up. Can you say anything about your interpretation of the character?

It was a very tough thing to do, and it was an enormous undertaking. I haven’t seen it yet. I feel like it could be really extraordinary. It’s certainly beautifully written and we shot in some absolutely extraordinary places; Italy and here in New York. I hope I haven’t fucked it up.

For a lot of people, the frame of reference is the movie adaptation, but I imagine this is quite different.

This definitely takes its source material from the Patricia Highsmith novel. The movie, which is extraordinary, changed some things from the novel that we’ve reinstated. It’s got a very singular atmosphere. I remember when we did Hamlet, we would go, Are we just doing this scene like this because 15 other productions have done this? My job was to go, Okay, throw all the famousness of it away. How would you play this if you weren’t afraid? Or if you weren’t weighed down with people’s expectations of what you should do? That’s the challenge of it. I’ve done a lot of literary adaptations and I actually very rarely go to the original source material. The writer does so much for you. Their job is to get the book and interpret it into the script, and my job is to interpret the script. It’s just a cleaner way of working for me. I don’t want people to think I can’t be bothered reading the book, but I never wanted to veer too far from playing as a child. When you’re a kid, you’re so encouraged to play. You go, “You’ll be this and I’ll be this,” and you begin to play. I suppose I don’t want to academify, to make up a word, acting too much. [Laughs]

I’m sure there are plenty of people who would like to hear you academify acting.

You can only do what feels right for you. I know a lot of incredible actors who like to journal and do the research. That’s a really important part of it. I totally get that. [But] what works for me? What gives me access? Sometimes, it’s just being able to jump in without a parachute so that you can be alive and free.

In Catherine Called Birdy, Andrew Scott plays Lord Rollo, a man of supreme leisure who dresses like the founding father of medieval comfort. He swans around in silky robes over silkier caftans, lounging his days away on soft, fluffy poufs as he plots ways to marry off his teenage daughter (the titular Birdy, played by Bella Ramsey) to a wealthy suitor. The film, written and directed by Lena Dunham and based on the novel by Karen Cushman, was almost the most comfortable shoot of Scott’s life. But then, early on in the production, the actor fell down a flight of stairs and broke his foot.

[i-used-to-wear-the-fedora]

Claudia Starts to Notice Billy's Bruises

Claudia's husband Trevor Henderson was a rat bastard. The only good thing that came out of her marriage to him was Dustin. She put up with a lot to keep her baby boy safe and give him a nice, normal life. Trevor was barely home most of the time, and when he was, he was usually passed out drunk in the disgusting man cave he made of their basement. She only ventured down there when the smell got so bad, she ended up cleaning up dozens of half empty and moldy beer bottles. It was fine. Really. She could deal with a dead beat husband.

Then she came home one day to find her five year old son, hiding in his bedroom closet.

"Dusty honey, what's wrong?" Claudia asked as she pulled her child close to her chest. Noticing the aggressive red mark on his face, she frowned as be sobbed out.

"D-daddy got mad...called me a crip...cripple an-and..." The child cried as she rocked him. "I'm sorry."

"Shhhh, no baby, you don't have to apologize. You didn't do anything wrong." Claudia comforted her son. She was a patient woman, but she refused to allow anyone to hurt her boy.

When Trevor Henderson disappeared without a trace, the police chalked it up to him running off to avoid some of the people in town he owed money to. No one really asked about the new garden Claudia started in her backyard a few weeks later. When Dustin officially started to go to school she found that the house was far too quiet. Adopting a cat to fill the space but sometimes it wasn't enough.

When Karen said she was starting a new jazzercise class at the mall and couldn't take Holly to the swim lessons she already paid for, Claudia was more than happy to volunteer to take the young girl. Holly happily swimming with the help of a young lifeguard. Claudia didn't pay too much attention to the swimming lesson at first. Instead, reading the Stephen King book she borrowed from Karen when she heard some of the other moms talking.

"-e's so handsome."

"Did you see the way he flips his hair? It's like he knows we're watching."

"And a cute little butt. God. Imagine what he looks like without those swimtrunks."

"He's coming this way!" Looking up from her copy of Carrie, Claudia's eyes followed the other swim moms to the man they were talking about and she frowned at what she saw. Holly's swim instructor...Billy something or another. She couldn't remember exactly but she knew he was young. Like, around the age of Joyce's son, young. Sure he was a handsome boy. But still way too young to have the women her age eyeing them like they were. Mrs. Andrews from the PTA had her eyes glued to the boy's ass as he brought her son to the woman.

"Oh hi Billy." The woman fluttered her eyes at the teenager, leaning forward on her lounge chair and puffing out her swimsuit clad chest in a way so obvious, even Claudia knew what she was trying to do. "I hope my little Jay Jay wasn't too much trouble."

"No, but he does have a sunburn." Billy said as the child turned around to reveal the peeling skin on his back. "I'm supposed to remind you that we do require parents to provide sunscreen at all times before the kids get in the pool."

"I, ugh...right..." The woman was flustered for a moment before grabbing her son's arms and taking him to the nearby changing rooms.

Claudia waited until the rest of the class was gone, giving Holly a One and sending her over to the vending machine before approaching the blonde boy. He was cleaning off one of the paddle boards when she called out.

"Excuse me." She called and he looked up. "You're Billy right? The one giving the kids swim lessons?"

"Ugh. Yeah." He asked almost defensively. He looked way too skinny for a boy his age.

"Well I, just wanted to thank you. For helping. You don't see that many boys your age doing something like this. My name's Claudia by way. Claudia Henderson. "

"Yeah, well, gets me out of the house." He shrugged, not acknowledging her introduction.

After that they only talked occasionally between lessons and he seemed like a nice kid. He reminded her of Joyce's older son.

It was Thursday when he started wearing sunglasses, even in the water. One of the kids accidentally knocking them off to reveal a shiner on his right eye.

"Here." She handed him a bomb pop put off the box she brought for Holly and her friends. "Hold this on your eye, it'll help with the swelling. If it's still there in a few days, try a warm compress. That looks nasty." The boy hesitating before lifting his sunglasses again and holding the popsicle over his bruise. "How'd you get it?"

"Pulled a guy out of the pool. Accidentally hit me in the face."

She believed him at first. But then he kept showing up with bruises. The black eye lasted a little longer than it should have. Cuts and scrapes along his knuckles. Red marks on his back he claimed was a sun burn but Claudia knew that sun burns didn't have the distinct outline of a belt buckle on the side. Her suspicions were only confirmed when she came back one day as the pool was closing to retrieve the book she left behind when she pulled into the parking lot to see Billy arguing with an older man. Presumably his father. They were both shouting loud enough for her to hear from a distance. Watching as the Billy's father raised a hand and slapping him across the face. Snatching the keys out of his son's hands and driving off in Billy's camaro.

When you lived in Hawkins, you turned a blind eye to a lot of things but Claudia absolutely refused to ignore this. Pulling up to the boy still frozen in place and rolling her window down.

"Hey." She caught his attention. "I saw what happened." She admitted and he visibly stiffened. "How about you come home for a nice, hot meal? Then I can take you home...if you want."

The teen looked uncertain for a moment before nodding as he got into the passenger seat of her car. Claudia making mental note to find out the name of the bastard who thought it was okay to lay hands on his own son later.