#this is such a low point for bill and he deserves it 100%

[doctormori]

hey wanna see a silly fucked up headcanon I had

HYPOTHETICALLY him drawing these triangles is a mindless cry for his parents, that maybe, if they weren't entirely gone, they'd be there watching him.

[wack-ashimself]

John Oliver taught me new things on student loans debt.

1-last summer, biden did try a small bail out for student debt. The supreme court OVER TURNED IT. I hate our supreme court. Entirely. Hope they all retire, by choice or force. They work 100% EXCLUSIVELY for the rich.

2-Old people are going into debt. So...when I was a kid going into college, I was furious my parents refused to cosign on my college loans. At 38, I AM SO GLAD they didn't. They were rigged! It would have FUCKED THEM out of retirement, and THEY DESERVED TO RETIRE; they're so happy. In the show, he shows a guy who paid his kid's loans from 2004....and they wouldn't be paid off till 2040!!!!

3-I guess there's low income payments. See, I knew of the 10 year program: make regular, consistent, semi large payments for 10 years, NEVER MISSING A ONE, and whatever your debt was is forgiven (however, if you missed ONE PAYMENT, I am not exaggerating, you're fucked forever). But I guess there's another one, same premise, but for 20+ years (show hinted 25 years!), where you get a TINY payment and, after 2 decades, all is forgiven. Here's the problem: of the 2 MILLION people who qualified recently, only 32 (literally 32) actually got it forgiven. What the ever loving fuck!?

4-We all knew these federal loan programs were garbage, but, intentional or not, debt services 'forgot' or were late on mailing out bills, and over 800,000 people were late on payments due to it. THAT IS MALICIOUS!

5-So the last summer biden dismissal of student loan forgiveness had ads against it. It was ironic. Cuz first it said don't forgive rich people's loans, when, logically, historically, rich people don't HAVE loans for college cuz their parents pay for it. DUH. Secondly, it was mocking theater degrees....with actors paid to play 'regular' people hating on theater degrees. Like, irony squared.

5-He pointed out how we can have tax payers pay for stadiums not everyone uses, but we can't forgive student loans?

6-Oliver, like normal, jerked off the government anyways at the end. He does this EVERY FUCKING SHOW. 'The government/the rich/the media are to blame for everything, but I promise they will get it right THIS time if we just give them patience and power.' I fucking hate his sell out ass in that regard. He never demands immediate action from us; trust those who originally cause the problems to fix them. Dumbass. I watch cuz he is informative, but he is a sell out too.

7-As I said on other posts, forgiving ALL major debt (public/personal) would ONLY fuck the banks who WE BAILED OUT, so they owe us anyways. PERIOD.

8-I know this is me watching too much of this show, but I could tell, by his tone alone, he was going to say they were off next week. Serious.

[handeaux]

Cincinnati’s Poorhouse Kept The Impoverished Out Of Sight And (Mostly) Out Of Mind

It was once a ubiquitous cliché in your own home or on your favorite TV sitcom: Beleaguered Dad, in the middle of a pile of bills, yells, “You’re sending me to the poorhouse!”

Do fathers still yell that? Does anyone even remember poorhouses? It is long forgotten now, but Cincinnati maintained a poorhouse for more than a century out in Hartwell where today stands the UC Health Daniel Drake Center for Post-Acute Care, known informally as Drake Hospital.

From the earliest days of pioneer settlement, Cincinnati was compelled to care for poor and indigent residents. For the city’s first 60 years, that care was managed by two “overseers of the poor” appointed by the trustees of the now-defunct Cincinnati Township.

Cincinnati made a strict distinction between those people unable to fend for themselves, mostly widows and orphans, and those people who simply had no money or had gotten themselves into debt. The city confined debtors to jail until they settled their financial obligations. The “deserving poor” received allocations of what was termed “outdoor relief.” This involved supplies of food, coal and clothing delivered to the indigent in their own homes. Those unable to care for themselves at all were admitted to the city hospital.

By the 1850s, the city fathers realized that the system was strained to the breaking point and voted to construct a facility out beyond the fringes of town to house the needy and infirm. According to Charles Greve’s “Centennial History of Cincinnati”:

“The City Infirmary was opened for the reception of inmates in the year 1852. Previous to this time the paupers of the city had been provided for at the old Commercial Hospital and by a system of outdoor relief. The institution was located near Hartwell not very far from the County Infirmary near Carthage on property formerly belonging to Maj. Daniel Gano.”

Despite the official name, the facility housed many people who were not infirm, just impoverished. The Infirmary building was surrounded by a quite extensive plot of farmland and those residents capable of at least some minimal exertion were put to work growing food. Other residents assembled brooms, baskets and clothing.

At any given time, there were somewhere between 700 and 1,100 inmates at the poorhouse, and it cost a lot to feed that many people. Every meal required 525 pounds of meat, 65 gallons of soup, 10 bushels of potatoes, 100 pounds of prunes, 100 pounds of rice, and stacks of bread loaves, each weighing 22 pounds. Every man got a tot of whiskey before dinner – for medicinal purposes, of course.

Every couple of years, one of the city newspapers would send a reporter out to assemble something like a journalistic freak show, describing the outlandish and often tragic residents of the City Infirmary. The Enquirer [5 July 1885] briefly inventoried some of the people housed there:

“There are many people that it would seem hardly belong here – insane people who require the constant care of experienced nurses, a small army of bastards, abandoned infants, and poor, betrayed women with offspring, who are allowed to remain a year.”

The old Enquirer thrived on sensationalism and the poorhouse surely provided it. The reporter found several formerly wealthy men now reduced to penury and isolation, a mechanical genius who constructed elaborately functional clocks from scraps of wood and bits of bone, and a deluded idiot convinced he was irresistible to women. And then there was Mary Butler:

“Of all the horrid-looking, repulsive creatures that were ever condemned to a miserable existence, perhaps Mary Butler is entitled to the belt. Toothless, nose and chin nearly touching, low forehead, wizen eyes, she squirms around like a snake, and edges up and wants to hug every man who comes within gun-shot. She has no mind, never had any.”

Ten years later [23 June 1895], the Enquirer was back again, and again dredging up oddities for the delight and revulsion of its subscribers:

“Over there on the grass, down on ‘all fours,’ is the most horribly disgusting creature I have ever seen – Mad Sophy – a creature whose 55 years of life have been passed in hunting for vermin. It is her mania. She grovels in the grass all day long in her vain search. They keep her hair cut short, like a man.”

Mixed in among the freaks, the newspaper recounted maudlin tales of lost grandeur like Mme. Sophia Helrigel, born to nobility, wed to a German cavalry officer, and educated at the finest schools. When the Civil War erupted, Mme. Helrigel volunteered as a nurse with the Ninth Ohio Infantry and spent a fortune caring for wounded soldiers only to be denied reimbursement by the government.

There was the blind broom-maker, Charles Globig, who manufactured every broom and mop used to sweep the poorhouse. Mr. Globig was worried about the disposition of his earthly remains because, as a matter of course, few inmates were buried when they died. Most bodies were donated to the local medical schools. The superintendent took pity on “Blind Charley” and bought him a plot in Wesleyan Cemetery, where he rests today.

The poorhouse was a sure thing whenever a newspaper needed a “weeper” to attract readers. The Enquirer [12 December 1902] related the story of Anna and James Ghee, who had married in Virginia and moved to Cincinnati, where James thrived as a plasterer. The couple raised several children. And then, one by one, each of their children sickened and died. James fell injured and became an invalid. Anna couldn’t support him, so he was admitted to the poorhouse. After years of trying to make a living for herself, Anna accepted the inevitable. She asked to join her husband so they could live out their days together at the City Infirmary.

The City Infirmary or poorhouse was stuck out in Hartwell intentionally to keep the unfortunate residents out of sight and out of mind. Unfortunately, the management, out of sight and out of mind as well, succumbed to temptation. According to Greve:

“Another very unpleasant incident of the year 1886 was the exposure of the corruption of the officials in charge of the City Infirmary. This was brought about by the Board of Revision and as a result of the investigation 36 indictments were found, followed by a number of convictions.”

Eventually, changes in medicine and social services transformed the old poorhouse into an entirely different sort of institution. The last remaining indigent residents were exported to private nursing care facilities in 1962. The poorhouse survived only in the breadwinner’s futilely metaphorical complaint.

[mcalhenwrites]

Some personal stuff below, but... basically, I'm trying to figure out how to find any happiness in my life, since... I kind of hate it so much I don't want a life rn. (Would trade what's left of mine to someone else?)

I badly need somewhere to live. It's just... day-by-day survival. Quality of life is seriously low here, and I don't make enough money to fix anything. (Note that I'm going to food pantries and I'm on food stamps to help, but it's not enough. I mean, if I didn't buy anything and put 100% of my monthly income toward rent, I'd still fall severely short.) I'm going to release some short stories before the month is out. One should be out next month. I'm going to stop crocheting so much for income, I cannot deal with that. I have a blanket I started for a dear friend that I'd love to focus on instead of making table merch! I'm going to publish Rascal eventually, but I feel like my focus is entirely shot. I would kill for ice that didn't taste funky, for a decent shower with somewhere to sit immediately after (or even during) due to my health, for laundry to not still smell bad after I've run it through, for a clean kitchen to cook meals in advance on days I do have spoons so I can freeze/reheat for days I don't have spoons... I miss my dog. I miss having cats. I miss having animals at all. I have no home to go to and no one to come home to, and that hurts so badly I just wonder what the point of doing it all is. (There isn't one. That's the problem. Lately, there is so fucking little merit in my life that I don't see the point in continuing it.) I've been thinking about how I struggle to work even three days a week. Why am I looking forward to working less when March starts? (I lost one of my full days for front desk at one of our locations, but I'm going to be transferred to a half-day of baking assistance at the same shop. It'll severely impact my current abysmal income.) But health-wise, I just can't do this, and even if I did want to surrender my privacy and autonomy for disability, what makes anyone think I'm going to keep that with how things look rn in the US? So please don't even suggest it. I will take some help, but I'd like to move away from help. Not because of pride, but for control of my own life. I want to save for a house. I want to save for vet bills for pets I want to have or the dog I want to get back. But am I even deserving of life? I struggle and struggle, and I don't know what to do anymore. I'm nearly 40, and it's like... maybe this is proof I was never meant to be anything at all. I'm too stupid. Too undereducated. I am forged from poverty and the impacts of child abuse on my mental and physical state, and I don't think there's any "getting better" when that just... never happens. I'm losing hours at work in March, I'm going to stop selling crochet, so what do I do with myself? I love writing. I miss the guy who would get so excited that he would sink hours into writing, so caught up in worlds that chapters would pour out of him. That passion... I miss that. Why am I here, in this world? I don't know. There's just this huge part of me that really fucking wishes I'd been good enough at writing to have at least made enough of a career that between that and my job and my rare art commissions, I'd have a small house and a few pets and houseplants.

[stupid-stew]

Boiling Rain

my finger slipped again oopsies idk if this is 100% in character but like what if eda kicked lilith out right away and ended up regretting it later

There was nothing worse than a knock on the door for Eda. Especially not in the middle of the night, during a boiling rain storm, when she was fresh out of magic, and she had a kid in the house, and there was no hooty noise to warn her beforehand. What was he up to?

Eda was still new at defending herself without her magic, but she knew her way around a bat, just ask that guy at the bar from her 20’s and his massive medical bill. Whatever she thought, laughing to herself, that jerk deserved it, no medical bill was larger than his ego. Bat in her left hand, doorknob in her right, she simultaneously swung the door open and raised the bat into a defensive position, ready to strike, that is until…

“Lily?”

What she saw before her definitely wasn’t her sister, but that was Lilith on her doorstep. Well kind of, Lilith collapsed in front of her, drenched in steaming water, clearly out of breath, nothing like the perfect prissy Lilith she knew, and what was she wearing? Where was her dress and cloak? Oh, Eda realized, that is her dress and cloak. The clothes were nearly melting off of her sister, riddled with holes. That couldn’t have made her injuries any less severe. Eda had been stuck in her fair share of boiling rain storms, even with the thick skin of the owl beast it had still taken her weeks to heal, she couldn’t even begin to fathom the state her sister was in.

“I’m sorry” came a hoarse whisper from the pile at her feet

“Lily oh my titan-” Eda dropped the bat and turned her head to yell up the stairs, hoping she was loud enough to wake her sleeping apprentice “LUZ, WAKE UP” Her head snapped back to the door frame at the movement of Lilith flinching at her loud voice. What happened to her.

Eda bent down to at least try to get an idea of the injuries her sister had suffered, but before she could get her hands on Lilith, Luz appeared at the base of the stairs. “What’s going on?” she asked, clearly still half asleep. “I need you to go up to the bathroom and grab the first aid kit, not the one in the first aid kit box, the one in the lunchbox.” Eda instructed.

Luz went to move up the stairs but suddenly snapped awake, “Is that Lilith?”

“Luz, later, first aid kit now, please” Eda responded, back turned to the now fully attentive teenager

“Got it…” Luz ran up the stairs, “...the blue or the purple one?” she shouted

Eda sighed, now that Luz was going to be here a while she should make a point to show the kid the ropes around the house “The purple one please.”

Not even a half minute later Eda had the box in her hand and was sorting through the bandages, what was she doing, she didn’t even know how badly wounded Lilith was. Eda set the supplies down and moved to touch Lilith when a pale, terribly blistered hand shot out of the mound in front of her and grabbed her wrist.

“No.”

Eda was confused and jerked her hand away “What do you mean no?”

Lilith took a couple ragged breaths before weakly responding “I don’t want your help, I don’t deserve it”

They sat there in silence for a moment before Eda remembered Luz was still behind her, “Luz, sweetie, could you go grab some blankets and maybe draw up some of those healing glyphs you’ve been working on?”

“Sure” the girl replied softly before quietly stepping back up the stairs

“Edalyn I sai-” Lilith started

“I heard you. I don’t want to hear it. You need help.”

“Not your help-” Lilith inhaled painfully “not after everything I did to you.”

“Oh for titan’s sake Lily, you think just because you made a mistake I’m going to let you lay here in pain? I haven’t even seen your face yet and I can tell you need help, mine or not.”

“No, I shouldn’t have come here, it’s all my fault, I’ll go.” Lilith moved to get up, but the burns weren’t having it and she barely got a push-up’s distance off the ground before her arms gave out.

“Are you kidding me right now? You come to my door in the middle of the night, after having gone through titan-knows-what, covered in burns, your clothes are barely intact, and you expect me to just let you leave?”

Eda wasn’t having any more of it, and reached out and grabbed Lilith’s arm, who hissed in a combination of pain and protest.

“Not on my watch sister” Eda spoke through her teeth. For someone so frail, Lilith was definitely a bit heavier than she looked, though the fact she was drenched probably didn’t help.

She managed to drag the complaining witch all the way to the couch before Luz made her way down the stairs, blankets and a stack of healing glyphs in hand.

“Kid, drop those and come help me please.”

Together they were able to get Lilith into a lying position on the couch, and for the first time see how bad of a state Lilith was in. Not an inch of the witch’s skin was spared from the rains, red blotches and boils acted like massive freckles over her whole body. While taking in the sight of her sister, Eda managed to meet the injured witch’s eyes for a split second, and what she saw scared her more than anything. Of course Lilith’s face was contorted in pain, but there was also shame and embarrassment in her eyes. If I showed up in her state I’d be embarrassed too, but did she really think I wasn’t going to help her?

“Kid can you go upstairs and grab Lilith some clothes from my dresser? Anything you think will fit her is fine, and…” Eda leaned in next to Luz’s ear and in a low whisper “could you take your time? I’d like to talk to my sister in private”

Luz looked at her with understanding “Of course, if you need anything just yell up the stairs.” She eyed Lilith one more time before retreating back up the stairs.

Eda then turned back to Lilith, who seemed unwilling to meet her eye again. “Alright. Let’s get started, you look a mess, so this might hurt a lot more than a little.”

“Edalyn why are you doing this”

Eda chuckled “Have you seen yourself, I’ve never been the best at responsibility, but I think it would make me a bad person to not help someone in your condition.”

“No Eda, I mean why after everything that I did to you, to Luz, why are you still helping me when I am the last person you should want to help, I don’t understand.”

There was a heavy silence followed by a long exhale from Eda. She didn’t respond, instead moving for the pile of glyphs that Luz had left them. “This is going to hurt a lot, and I’m not going to be able to get it all without my magic, the glyphs only do so much, but I think I can make the worst of it at least better.”

For the second time that night Eda was stopped from touching Lilith by a pale shaking hand.

“Edalyn, why?”

“Ok here’s a deal, you let me help you and I’ll tell you why in the end? Sounds fair enough?”

“You really aren’t going to budge on this are you.”

“Nope.” Eda replied, popping her lips on the last syllable.

Lilith flopped back onto her back, shutting her eyes and exclaiming at the, without a doubt, excruciating pain the impact with the couch had caused.

“Real smooth Lils”

“Oh shut it.”

Somehow the older witch’s face turned even more red through the burns and boils.

Eda managed to get through placing glyphs along Lilith’s arms and legs with minimal issue, Lilith didn’t seem to be enjoying herself very much, but even she had to admit it was starting to look better. At some point Luz had come back down with a cream colored shirt and black patchwork skirt for Lilith to change into along with some more glyphs. Eda had sent her back to bed, the kid did have school in a few hours.

“Ok, we are going to have to take off your dress so I can reach your back, looks like that’s where most of the damage is, and…” as Lilith sat up Eda caught a glimpse of her full back “there also doesn’t seem to be all that much dress left to remove. You really got caught in the rain huh?”

Lilith didn’t respond, but instead met Eda’s eyes again, which made Eda suspicious.

“Do we have to?”

“Yes Lilith we have to treat your injuries.” Eda rolled her eyes at her sister, what did she expect when she was out in the rain without protection?

Lilith didn’t look amused, instead she seemed to pale out. She pulled down the top half of her dress and rolled over onto her stomach.

Eda gasped.

Lilith’s back was covered in burns and boils sure, but what shocked Eda was the array of scratches and claw marks all over Lilith’s back, not only her back but they seemed to go up and down her whole body in varying degrees. Some of them looked healed, or on the way there, some of them fresh, some of them even seemed to be infected.

“What the hell Li-”

Was all she got out before she was interrupted

“Forest demons aren’t as nice as they seem. Ever.”

Oh. Eda snapped her mouth shut and silently applied as many glyphs as she could to Lilith’s back and upper arms as she could. Of course, Eda thought, I didn’t let her stay here, she’s got no friends outside the coven, she doesn’t look different enough to find somewhere safe from the coven guard in town, especially not with her posters lining the alleyways, she’s been sleeping in the woods. Where else would she have gone. With their mother? Any number of nights in the forest without a roof was better than one night under their mom’s.

“Thank you.” a voice interrupted her thoughts.

“Huh? Oh.” Eda had been so busy thinking that she didn’t realize she had finished. “I’ll go to the kitchen to make us some tea, you can change in here, don’t worry about hooty he seems to be asleep.”

Lilith nodded and Eda made her way to the kitchen. Once the water was on the stove, she dove back into her thoughts. All these nights? I kicked her to the curb the night of the incident, it’s been at least a week, it’s rained almost every night. Oh titan, not all of those burns were fresh, that’s probably why Lilith was able to move at all, she was used to it. How has she been eating, bathing, sleeping? She’d been weakened by the splitting of the curse, could she have even defended herself? She could have come around any time- wait. Eda realized that she had told Lilith not to come anywhere near the house… ever again. That’s why she was so convinced she wouldn’t get help at the owl house. Maybe if I had been less harsh, it I hadn-

The whistle of the water being ready pulled Eda back to reality. She quickly placed the tea bags into the mugs and filled them with water and left the kitchen. When she got back to the living room, Lilith was already sitting in her dry clothes, a dim blue light escaping through the thin fabrics from the glow of the healing glyphs. Eda handed her a mug and brought her own to her lips, taking a long sip before sitting down next to her sister.

They sat like that for a while, sipping and waiting. Eventually, much to Eda’s surprise, Lilith broke the silence.

“So why?”

“Huh?” Eda replied, still deep in thought.

“Why did you decide to help me?” Lilith asked, looking into her mug as if it held all the answers “We both know I didn’t deserve it.”

“You’re right.” Eda replied simply. “You don’t deserve my help.”

Looking up from her tea and at her sister with genuine confusion, Lilith asked “So why did you help me then?”

“Let me finish. You don’t deserve my help. You cursed me, you kept your mouth shut about it for decades, until it was far too late, and in a desperate attempt to save your own ass you captured not only me, but my apprentice. My apprentice who I might as well call my own daughter at this point. You hurt her you know?”

Lilith’s eyes reverted back to her mug in shame.

“Oh yeah, she’s got bruises that aren’t even healed yet, that’s why she got looking into the healing glyphs. Plus, she faced Belos. She had to burn her only way home, she’s stuck here now. And me? I lost my magic. The most powerful witch on the boiling isles, now without the witch part.”

To emphasize her point, Eda drew a golden spell circle in the air, only for it to crumble into a pile of dust at her feet.

“Edalyn, I-”

“But,” the younger Clawthorne interjected, “that doesn’t make you a bad person, and I refuse to let it make me a bad person. I don’t know what your reasons were for cursing me, not telling me, I don’t know what Belos promised you, but it had to be pretty big to do what you did. And it’s my fault for not knowing. I kicked you out without even hearing you out, and you got hurt for it, I never even gave you a chance to explain yourself.”

It was Eda’s turn to avoid eye contact now, staring contemplatively into her now empty cup.

“It’s my fault you got hurt. That’s why I helped you. I was so caught up in my own anger that I didn’t think about the consequences of my actions. I’m still mad at you, and you’re far from forgiven, but I think you need help. Let me help you.”

For the first time in a long time, the two sisters met eyes in a moment of understanding.

“Ok.” Lilith said after a moment of comfortable silence.

“Good because I wasn’t really giving you a choice.”

They both laughed at that.

They sat for a moment, before it was finally Eda’s turn to speak first.

“So why’d you come here if you didn’t want my help?”

Lilith picked at her fingers for a moment before responding.

“I don’t know, I guess I just didn’t have anywhere else to go. It was so dark and so hot, I could barely even think, none of the other storms had gotten me this bad.”

Ah, so I was right. Eda regretted.

“It was like my feet took me here, all I knew was I needed to get out of the rain, and before I knew it I was in front of your house on my knees. I expected you to turn me away, I wanted you to turn me away.”

Eda didn’t know how to respond to that with anything other than “Why.”

Lilith thought for a moment.

“I guess I needed you to turn me away, I thought it might feel better to know that for once you would be the one leaving me in pain after 30 years of the roles being reversed, I think after all of that I deser-”

“No.” Eda interrupted. “I might not be the best sister, neither are you, but I will not ever let you suffer in any way remotely close to the way I did. Nobody deserves that, I sure as hell didn’t but neither do you. You will always have a place to stay with me, no matter how mad I am at you.”

They sat for a while longer, both deep in thought. Eventually Eda took both mugs back to the kitchen and rinsed them before going back to the living room, sitting next to Lilith one last time to help her out with the blankets.

“I think the shed is livable, the tower might be a bit too overgrown at the moment but we can work something out. You can stay on the couch tonight, no way you’re going back out into that. We can set ground rules in the morning, just try and get some sleep before the kid wakes up. She’s very excited about the new day, every day.” Eda spoke fondly.

“You really care for her, don’t you.” Lilith asked, a sad smile tugging on her lips.

“That I do. Goodnight Lilith.” Eda responded before stretching and cracking more joints than any one witch should physically be able to. “Woof, even sitting on that couch is enough to make me sore”

“I’m sure it’s just fine, thank you Edalyn, for everything. And goodnight.” Lilith said while trying to find a comfortable position on the lumpy couch. Her injuries, while significantly better, weren’t doing anything to help the situation. It wasn’t long before the soothing warmth of the healing glyphs lulled Lilith into a deep, dreamless sleep, much better than any she’d gotten on the forest floor.

Not even a few hours later, the sun shone on the owl house, waking Luz first, and if she was any quieter than normal that morning, or if she saw a certain gray haired owl lady sleeping on the floor next to Lilith’s position on the couch on her way out the door, she never mentioned it to a soul.

[houseof-harry]

pleaseee do a back story on why Y/N has trust issues. I’m so CURIOUSSSS🥺

Trigger warning: emotional manipulation, daddy issues basically lmao (and a complacent mom but I don’t want to spoil any more), mental health issues

Most children grow up thinking their parents are perfect. That they can do no wrong, they’re always right, and you can always trust them to be there for you, to take care of you. Y/N was no different. She had a mother who loved her, packed her lunch every single day for school, who took her to all her activities, who cooked her dinner and brought her shopping. She had a father who loved her, made sure she always had somewhere to sleep, a place to do homework, a cheerleader to push her to do her best.

When Y/N was 15, she became a lifeguard for the summer. Easy money, always in the sun, and lots of cute boys swimming around under her watchful eye. It was the ideal job for anyone who was her age, and her parents even offered to drive her so that she could work at the fancy country club to add a few bucks to the low hourly wage she’d be making.

And it was going pretty well. She liked her coworkers, got to know the regulars quickly, and even got a few babysitting gigs out of it.

What she wasn’t sharing with the world was her anxiety. Her crippling, maddening anxiety. The anxiety that almost made her fail her sophomore year of high school, the anxiety that made her nauseous whenever she was awake, the anxiety that had completely taken over her body and locked her soul far far away in the depths of her brain.

She didn’t know how she got to this point. But one day it became harder to breathe, and that heavy weight in her chest never went away. That didn’t stop her from trying to live her life, though, because she wanted to do anything she could to try and make it better.

After a particularly long day at the pool, she was exhausted, sunburnt, and dehydrated. She just wanted to go home, shower, eat dinner and go to sleep.

When she got into her fathers car, he didn’t even give her a second glance. She sat in silence with him for the entire drive home, him not responding to anything she tried to say to him. It was an eerie feeling, and one she would soon become used to whenever she was around her dad.

When they got home, he got out of the car without a word, walking into the house with a huff and a puff, Y/N trailing behind in confusion. Her mom gave her a look of pity, which not only made her more confused, but made the pit in her stomach even more prevalent. What could have possibly happened in the 8 hours she'd been gone?

She soon found out when she walked into her room to find it completely destroyed. Her bed off the frame, pictures shattered, dresser drawers thrown around the floor, the contents strewn everywhere.

She stood in shock, the warm tears quickly falling down her face as she began to panic. Everything had been ransacked, destroyed, completely ruined. She went to close her door to keep out whoever had done this, her one safe space tainted. 

But she couldn’t. The door had been taken off the hinges, no where to be found. When she looked down the hallway to see her fuming father, arms crossed and waiting for her to say something.

“Did you do this?” She whimpered out, like a lost and scared puppy.

“You think you can fuck around with school? Blame it on some mental illness? The principal called to make sure you would be better for this coming year. Don’t go blaming your lazy ass decisions on mental health. You take care of yourself and your responsibilities, and when you don’t I’ll be here to remind you.” His tone was level, almost robotic as he lectured her.

“Where’s my door?”

“Gone. You don’t deserve it, not until you can get your shit together.”

And before she can respond, he was turning and walking away.

Her mom came into view, the same sympathetic eyes she had when Y/N had walked through the kitchen glazing over as she sees her fragile daughter in the door frame, scared and alone.

“Why didn’t you stop him?” Y/N asked, the anger in her voice unintentional but she has no energy to control it. She grabbed the door frame to hold herself up, waiting for some type of explanation.

“You know how your father gets,” is all her mother could think up.

Y/N does the only thing she can think of in the moment, storming past her mother and to the bathroom, closing and locking the door before sobbing uncontrollably. That’s the day she realized neither of her parents were perfect

It took Y/N two years after that to finally get to therapy. Only after years of working with her therapist did she realize how imperfect both of her parents really were.

Like all the times Y/N had been sick as a child, when her father had blamed her for making a mess while she had a stomach bug, complaining that she should know better than to miss the toilet. She was 5 the first time she remembers him doing that.

Or the time she had a stomach ulcer at age 8, and instead of taking her to a doctor, her father told her to just eat more and that she was faking the pain for three months. Only when she was uncontrollably crying did her mother finally speak up.

Or the time she was scared to compete in the state championships for swimming, and her father told her she was being stupid and that he wouldn’t talk to her until the race was over before walking away and to the stands, sitting so far back she couldn’t see him while she waited for her turn.

Or the time she got a 99% on a math exam in 8th grade, and her dad asked why she didn’t get a 100% before throwing the exam away.

Two years of therapy opened those memories back up, and many more, of times she needed love and care from her dad, and all she got was cold, emotionless responses. She had never felt safe around him. She only realized it wasn’t normal to constantly worry your dad will stop loving you if you forget to do your dishes, or leave your cleats out instead of putting them in your closet, or miss a day of school when you have strep throat, when her therapist told her that wasn’t normal. She said that, “a parents love should never be conditional, and should never be used as a punishment.” That’s when Y/N realized she only heard of her father’s love for her when he threatened to take it away.

And her mother was scared, too. Reasonably so, because her father was a scary man. Hell, whenever Y/N did something that made him angry nowadays, he threatens to cut all ties with her, the silent treatment still a favorite of his. The last time he threatened that was when she asked for help paying for a medical bill. He’d called her greedy, telling her she needed to be financially independent at all times, because you never know what could happen.

She always wondered if her dad truly loves her, or if he felt forced to have kids like half of his generation. And she still wonders why her mother never loved her enough to stand up for her.

And why she didn’t trust anyone, especially new people in her life? If her parents couldn’t love her enough to hug her when she felt sick, to sing her to sleep when she had nightmares, to tell her she would be okay when she got nervous before any big event, why would anyone else be able to?

[chilling-seavey]

Anything But Mine - Daniel’s Important Purchase

A/N Daniel had always second guessed almost everything in the past, but now, at only twenty-one years old, there’s nothing he’s more sure of than wanting to marry the love of his life.

Daniel stood in front of the glass case, biting nervously on his bottom lip as he scanned the sparkling contents, the small LED lights making each tiny stone glint and shimmer impressively. He tapped his fingers anxiously on the metal trim of the case and tried to find a price tag on any of the items.

“Can I help you find something?”

The voice startled Daniel a little and he looked up wide-eyed at the older lady behind the counter.

“Uhm,” he swallowed nervously, glancing back into the glass case, “Yes. Please. I’m…I’m looking for an engagement ring.”

“How lovely. Do you have a style in mind?”

“No…I don’t know.” Daniel shook his head.

“That’s alright. We can figure that out together. What about a budget?”

Daniel took a shaking breath and nodded, sliding his backpack off his shoulder and bent down to pull out his old music theory textbook from first year. He set it on the counter and opened the front to reveal a messy pile of bills. He had been saving for a few months, sneaking all his tips from work or stray bills from playing a few songs on city blocks into his old textbook in perfect secrecy. 

He wanted to propose in Vancouver so he only had a few months to save as much as he possibly could to buy the most perfect ring for her; the girl who was raised in the ultimate luxury and whom he thought deserved the absolute world. He had it all planned out too: he would drive her up to his favourite hiking spot in the city at sunset and take her down to the lookout where you felt like you were at the top of the world and he would ask her to marry him right there. In picture perfect romance. But December was approaching quickly and Daniel needed to turn in his savings for a ring as soon as possible otherwise he would need a whole new plan.

To say he was stressing himself to make this perfect was an understatement.

The lady at the jewelry store eyed his open textbook with raised eyebrows and she sent him the calmest smile she could muster. This was a first for her.

“Okay, how much is all of that?” she asked.

“$385.” Daniel mumbled.

“$385? Okay.”

“I don’t know how much they cost and…this is all I have. I’ve been saving since, like, April but I need to buy one today.”

“That’s okay. We have plenty of options in your price range. Follow me over here.”

Daniel shut the textbook, sandwiching the bills tightly away as he slid it back in his backpack and zipped it up before rushing after the lady to another glass case across the store. His hand held tightly onto the strap of his backpack as he watched her slide out the tray and set the array of rings on the top.

“All of these are our sterling silver engagement rings, mostly all under $300.”

Daniel skimmed the display, pursing his lips in thought and tapping his fingers against the edge of the velvet tray. There were a few larger ones but they looked cheap and clunky or had black diamonds which Daniel thought was incredibly weird. He shifted nervously under the expectant stare of the lady.

“We can keep looking.” she offered.

Daniel sighed in relief, “Yes, please.”

She set the tray back in the case and moved them over to the next one, “These are a bit pricier but have more carats on the sterling silver bands.”

Daniel scanned the options but his eye caught on something in the next case over like it was fate. He leaned over a little to get a better look out of the sparkling glare of the LEDs that reflected off it, being met with a small simple diamond ring.

“What about that one?” Daniel asked, pointing carefully to it, glancing up at the lady with nervousness all over his face.

“The small one there?” the lady pulled open the case and lifted off the individual velvet stand it was tucked onto.

“Yeah.” Daniel breathed, staring at it like it was just what he had pictured. He licked his lips nervously as he asked the question he was almost too scared to ask, “How much is it?”

“This one is .23 carat, the middle stone of the three being .15 carat alone, on a 10k white gold polished band. It’s $545.”

Daniel let out a deep sigh, hanging his head forward in disappointment as if the number physically hurt him. He pouted slightly, looking back up at it sitting in front of him on the glass countertop, sitting pretty on the black velvet stand. He could almost see it on her finger, feeling as if he could see it sparkle on her hand as she smiled.

“I need this one.” Daniel breathed. “Is it on sale? Or is there, like, a coupon?”

“I can check.”  the lady couldn’t help but smile to herself at the young man’s obvious determination to the woman he wanted to marry, and she turned to the computer near by to check for any promotions.

Daniel literally held his hands together and rested them against his face and prayed for it to be at least down to $400, swearing to God to never do anything wrong in his life ever again if he got this one thing the way he wanted it-

“It’s your lucky day. It’s on Christmas special. 30% for a total of $380.”

“$380?” Daniel gaped. “That’s less than…I have more saved than that.”

“You do.” the lady chuckled. “Is this the one you want then?”

“Oh my gosh.” Daniel whispered, biting back a grin, “Yeah. Yeah, I’ll get this one.”

“Alright! Do you have her ring size?”

“I brought another.” Daniel reached into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out one of Florence’s old rings that he snuck out of the back of her jewelry box.

The lady held out her hand for it and when he passed it to her she took a quick look, “About a 7. Give me one second.”

She handed him back the ring and then took the new one from the display to the back.

Daniel bit back his nervous but excited grin, pulling his phone from his pocket to see a few messages from Florence. He had told her he was working later at the studio so she wasn’t suspicious to where he was running off to after class, exam season approaching making his lie much more believable. He leaned against the case and opened her messages, finding a video of Penelope walking messily across the living room rug to Florence’s outstretched hand. The sixteen-month-old was a late bloomer so she was still wobbly on her feet but her cheesy grin brought a smile to Daniel’s face as he watched the video on low volume in the store. Penelope grabbed onto Florence’s hand to steady herself as she almost fell forward, earning plentiful praise from her mother. Daniel’s eyes lingered on Florence’s empty left hand that their daughter clung onto. He couldn’t wait to just put a ring on it already.

“Is she yours?”

The lady’s voice made him startle again and Daniel looked over at her as she was staring at the video on his phone screen, “Yeah.”

“She’s so cute.”

“Thanks.” Daniel grinned, taking one last look at the video before sliding his phone back in his pocket.

“So, we have it all here.” the lady opened the black velvet box to reveal the small diamond ring, the light from the store sparkling off the polished stones and shiny band.

“It’s perfect.” Daniel smiled and she rang it up into the cash register.

He paid for it with the messy stack of bills, with $5 left over to slide in his pocket, and he was passed over the small bag and his receipt.

“And you’re all set. No refunds after 30 days, only store credit, and if you fill out the survey on the back of the receipt you can be entered for a chance to win a $100 gift certificate.”

Daniel thanked her honestly before heading out of the store. He tried to ignore the nervousness that her statement about returns set on his conscience, suddenly wondering if Florence even wanted to marry him. He let his brain stew for the amount of time it took him to roll of the bag and slip it in to the bottom of his backpack before heading for the subway to go home, pushing any negative thoughts out of his mind.

He called Florence on his way to the station to say he was coming home, stopping in his tracks when he passed the florist. The dial tone rang steadily against his ear as he smiled to himself and went inside, quickly purchasing a single red rose with the remaining $5 in his pocket. He only smiled wider as Florence answered the phone.

“Hey, baby,” Daniel replied, rose in his free hand as he leaned back against the metal doors to step out of the mall and into the winter weather of the busy city, “Yeah, I’m coming home now. I bought you a little surprise…”

[al-in-the-air]

Drip

HBP missing moment - Hermione has imposter syndrome and Ron tries to ---comfort her. Day something of the challenge im failing to :) As always on AO3

-----------

“Oh Ron!”

It has been happening all morning. His mother was getting far too over excited about the OWL results, more excited than even he had been! It was a nice surprise, sure, for him to have only failed 2 of the nine exams, but he really didn’t think it warranted his mother squeezing him to within an inch of his life.

“Mum, stop.” Ron whined, for the fifth time.

“I can’t help it Ron! 7 OWLs! I’m so proud of you!” His mother gushed, wrapping her arms around Ron’s shoulder as he sat at the kitchen table.

It was a nice feeling, being praised by his mother and the first time he had even welcomed it,  he had leaned into her embrace feeling happy and grateful but now it was just getting ridiculous. He could feel his cheeks flushing and his ears reddening in embarrassment as she refused to release him from her grasp. “Thanks mum, you can let go now.”

She did as she was asked, reluctantly, but quickly set her sights on another target. Instead of fully moving away, she stepped just inches to her left and threw her arms around his black haired best friend. 

“And you!” she proclaimed, “Well done Harry.”

His face was priceless, shocked and confused and almost frightened at the sudden force in which the woman had thrown himself at him.

“Er, thanks Mrs Weasley.” said Harry with trepidation. Ron sniggered to himself at the tone of his voice.

“I still can’t believe you got seven OWLs.” Ginny said then, “I genuinely didn’t even think you had a brain.”

Now it was Harry’s turn to laugh as Molly scolded her daughter.

“I’m not taking it back, it's true!”

Ron kicked his sister under the table and smirked as she swore at his foot colliding with her shin. She deserved it, even though she knew she was - mostly - joking, it was still mean.  

They both opened their mouths to retort at the same time, but sensing trouble Harry managed jump in first. “Wanna play a few rounds of 2 on 2 then?”

“Yeah!” Ginny replied quickly, though she was still scowling dangerously. “I’m not going on his team though.”

“I don't want to be on yours either!"

Harry laughed, rolling his eyes exasperatedly, “Okay fine, Ginny, you can be on my team and Ron, you can go with Hermione. Sound good?”

Ron thought about it for a second and knew instantly he was about to lose spectacularly, though that tended to be the case with Hermione was paired up with anybody.

“Yeah cool. Where’s Hermione?” He hadn’t noticed Hermione leave the room, though now that thought about it, she hadn’t been at the table for a while.

“Writing to her parents.” Harry and Ginny said in unison, they both laughed as they caught each others eyes.

Ron scowled. Since when had those two gotten on so well anyway?

“I’ll go get her. You two go get the brooms.” Ron said, secretly a tiny bit excited at getting a few moments alone with Hermione. They’d had a great two days before Harry had arrived. Not that he didn’t love it when Harry was there too. It was just nice sometimes, to have some one on one time with her, after all, she was his best friend too.

It actually took quite a while to find Hermione, she wasn’t at the writing desk in the living room where Ron had assumed she’d be, nor was she holed up in Ginny’s tiny bedroom. He had all but given up and assumed she’d made her way downstairs already when he passed the middle floor bathroom.

The door was ajar, opposing, normal, but as he passed he heard the faint dripping of recently turned off taps that told him someone was in there.

“Er, Hermione, you in here?” he asked, rapping his knuckles on the wood. The door creaked open at the knock. “Oh, er, sorry.”

“No, it's fine.” Hermione said, though it was clear in everything about her that it wasn’t. She was on the edge of the bath, head ducked low and shoulders hunched together. She sniffed as she spoke, and rubbed quickly at her eyes, flinching as she hit the tender skin on her left eye. She looked annoyed at herself as tears started filling up in her eyes again.

“Er, what’s up?” Ron asked tentatively. He couldn’t cope with crying girls. “Do you want me to get mum?”

“No, no! I’m fine!” Hermione replied hastily, rubbing at her eyes more gently this time and raising from the porcelain edge.

“What about Ginny?”

“No honestly, I’m okay.”

She clearly wasn’t though. Ron knew this girl well enough to know when she was about to burst into tears.

“Look, if this is about the black eye, I’m sure Fred and George will have something for it.”

Hermione nodded for a second, turning her head to sniff loudly. So it wasn’t the black eye she was upset about.

What was it then, because it wasn’t like Hermione to just randomly get weepy in the middle of the afternoon? Ron wracked his brain for a second, still standing dumbly in the bathroom doorway. Oh! Bloody hell.

“It’s not a girl problem is it?!” He said hurriedly, hoping against hope he’d manage to keep his sheer horror out of his voice and that she knew what he meant.

“Really Ron? Straight to blaming my period?”

His face and ears flushed again. He could feel his pulse beating in his cheeks. Yep, cool he was wrong. Cool, cool, cool. He wished the floor would swallow him up, or at the very least someone would just avada him. He’d lived a good life, this seemed a reasonable place to end.

“Sorry,” he mumbled. “What are you upset about then? You can tell me.”

“You’ll laugh at me.” Hermione whispered to the floor. After what he just said, she was worried he’d laugh at her ?

“I won’t,” he said, and he meant it.

“I’m disappointed in myself for not getting better OWLs.”

“Are you mental?”

The words were out before he even really had a moment to process them and he kicked himself at his insensitivity.

“See!” Hermione shrieked, “I told you you’d laugh at me.” She made to push past him but he was quicker than her, not to mention taller and stronger now.

“No, Hermione I’m sorry. I just don’t understand how you can be disappointed. You got more Outstandings today than me Fred, George, Charlie and Bill combined!”

Tears welled in Hermione’s eyes again, “I just should’ve done better. I have to be good at everything.”

“You are good at everything?” He was being sincere, perhaps more sincere than he had ever been in his life. He wasn’t confident he knew a lot of things, but he was confident he knew that.

“No, you-you don’t understand Ron. I have to be better. I have to do better. I can’t fall behind. I can’t start losing points in exams! I just can’t! I should have gotten an O in ‘Defence’. I should have done better in ‘Runes’.”

She was right, he didn’t understand. He was genuinely confused, he just couldn’t wrap his head around it. Hermione was the smartest witch he had ever known, including McGonagall and his mother. He knew it, Harry knew it. The entire faculty at Hogwarts knew it, and she was the only one oblivious to the fact that she was bloody brilliant.

“Why?” He asked eventually, after a long moment of silence filled only with dripping tap and Hermione’s shuddering breaths. “Why do you have to be the best at everything? You got 9 Outstandings and you're not even happy about those? You could’ve got 100% in every exam you ever did and do in your life and you still wouldn't be happy. You need to give yourself a break.”

“I can’t. I just- I just.” The tears began freefalling. Hermione was gasping in her hysteria and looked as if she was going to collapse to the ground any second.

He didn’t know if it was the distress of seeing her like that, or the fact that she really did look unsteady on her feet but before he could even think about it he did something he’d never done in the five years he’d known her - he pulled her into a hug.  And instead of reacting with horror and confusion like he was half convinced she would, she reciprocated quickly, wrapping her arms around his waist and sobbed into Ron’s t-shirt.

He didn’t like seeing people cry, he always felt uncomfortable and awkward and like he needed to run from the room immediately. Usually he did anyway. While he absolutely felt uncomfortable and out of his depth, the thought of leaving Hermione alone and upset in the state she was in outweighed everything.

They stood there for an unknown length of time, Ron holding onto her tightly and her clutching him as if he was her lifeline. He didn’t know how she did it, but she always managed to smell like ink and honey.

“I’m being silly.” She murmured after a minute.

“If it upsets you it's not silly.” Said Ron with a sensitive that surely didn’t belong to him.

“I just always feel like it's all going to get ripped away from me. I am constantly waiting for someone to realise they made a mistake. That I shouldn’t have gotten my letter and it was all one big joke. I always feel like I have just been lucky this whole time and don’t actually belong here. I’m scared every day that someone’s going to pull me away and tell me it was all some stupid mistake.”

“Don’t be daft Hermione, no one in the world could ever look at you and think you don't belong here.”

“But they do!” she squeaked. “There’s loads of people out there who not only don't think I should be here but want to kill me for it. I feel like I have to fight every day to prove that I am good enough. And I’m not. I’m never going to be good enough! That’s why I'm always so scared to fail exams. I don't want to give them any more ammunition or a chance to tell me I don't belong here. “

All of a sudden it was like every single ‘Hermione-ism” she’d ever exhibited made sense, the time she’d crammed in so many subjects she made herself ill from lack of sleep. The panic and obsession with good grades and her boggart telling her she was a failure.

“You do belong here Hermione. I know it’s not a lot coming from me, but you do. And me and Harry and Ginny and the entire bloody Order are willing to fight anyone who ever makes you feel like you don't.”

They didn’t speak for a while after that but after a few seconds of silence, Hermione’s breathing seemed to return to almost normal and after another couple of moments she pulled away. Eyes dry and once again standing steady on her own.

“Thanks Ron.”

“Don’t mention it.” He said with a smile and wrapped his arm around her shoulder. He had found it oddly nice to be that close to her, even if the circumstances were off. She was warm and shit nicely against him. Plus this is something friends did right? This was friendly? “Anyway Hermione, I really wouldn’t worry. I heard Dumbledore got a T in his ‘Care of’ OWL.”

“What?” She spluttered, looking up to meet his eye.

“Yeah.. His bird kept setting on fire.”

She laughed despite his terrible joke and smacked his stomach lightly. Ron laughed too, happy that she was happy again. Happy that he had made her happy again.

[dreamaboutwhathappens]

the man was FILLED with easter eggs and metaphors. here they are!

1. being in the room where it happens

in the lyric video for the man, we see a woman working so hard to try and get to where all the men are -- on top, both physically and metaphorically. in the music video, we see The Man starting out here, just another normal day at the office. another normal day in charge, and on top.

2. “i’d be a fearless leader”

The Man not so much as walks into the room and makes a few comments before getting applause for his work. at the same time, every desk in this office can be seen with a mountain of papers, files, and books stacked on top of them. for all the hard work that these people are doing in this office, The Man gets all the applause for a fraction of it.

3. the subway

now, obviously what we have here is what you have on any and every subway or other form of local transportation -- that one asshole who feels entitled to take up as much space as he wants at the discomfort of everyone around him. while i could get into how mansplaining is a metaphor for men feeling the right to take up more space in society then women, i won’t. instead, i want to focus on all the little details on this subway that tell men they can. at the very, very top of the frame, we see text at the bottom of an ad that says “because you DESERVE what you want” and the posters on either side of The Man tell us “mother nature doesn’t stand a chance” and “capitalize on the feeling”. this is how society treats men. they should get to do whatever they want, based only on their feelings or wants. this notion will become important in the subway station.

shoutout to the girl in the miss americana hoodie! i think we can safely say she’s listening to lover on her headphones.

4. the newspaper

for this image, i turned the brightness WAYYY up so we could read the newspaper. the leading headline is “what man won the year in celebrity dating?” with the caption “who crushed it this year?” one headline says “years most eligible CEO’s” and another says “men in love in sports”. now, i don’t have to tell you that taylor swift was vilified for her relationships. these headlines show the difference between how men and women are treated when it comes to relationships. what’s it like to brag about getting bitches and models?

on the back cover, we see a contrast between how men and women are viewed in society. the ad dedicated towards men has a very strong and tough vibe to it, and the article beneath it carries the title “it’s men against boys with no ladies around.” in fact, the only mention we get of said “ladies” is in the “style section” where we see two sexy, rail thin women posing at fashion shows. while society views men for their strength, women are supposed to be objects of beauty and desire, and nothing more. 

5. here lies taylor swift’s reputation (and all her previous albums)

now, obviously, the sign says “missing, if found, please return to taylor swift” and grafitied on the walls are the names of the albums whose masters taylor does not own. remember when those ads on the subway told men that you DESERVE what you want? that’s what empowered The Men who stole taylor’s masters to take them. they wanted them, after all! let’s also remember that The Man is can be seen pissing on the wall in this shot. it’s a metaphor for The Men who own taylor’s old albums and are essentially pissing on all her hard work. we can also see “KARMA” written in big letters in the middle of all the albums, which invokes a lyric from look what you made me do: “all i think about is karma, and then the world moves on but one things for sure, maybe i got mine but you’ll all get yours”. pretty sure karma is coming for The Men who own taylor’s masters.

if you look closely, you can also see a sign to the left of The Man that says no scooters! sc*oter bra*n is not welcome at the 13th street station

6. “i’d be just like leo in st. tropez”

for your viewing pleasure, i have included an image of leo in st. tropez. we can see women in bikinis, and every sort of expensive, luxurious form of leisure you could think of. during the verse where we see The Man on the yacht, she sings “they’d say i hustled, put in the work, they wouldn’t shake their heads and question how much of this i deserve”. this is reminiscent of The Man when he was in the office and how, no matter how much work he did or didn’t do, he is heralded as a genius. the point of saying she’d be just like leo in st. tropez is not to try and call out leonardo dicaprio for going a cruise and having some fun. people should be entitled to celebrate and vacation however they please. the point is that women should be able to do the same thing.

7. The Man’s “walk of shame”

this is a metaphor for how men in society are treated when they take a misstep. while women can be criminalized and thrown the wolves, it appears that men always have people on their team, and in this case, hands lining up to be high-fived. men often are not held to the same standards as women, and even when they do something wrong, they face very little backlash for it, and normally have their own set of groupies or supporters telling them that they were really in the right (and they are allowed to believe it).

at the back of the hallway, there hangs a portrait of The Man pointing at the camera, as if to say “you ARE the man.” it feels like uncle sam, but in a “ i want YOU for us army whatever your heart desires” kind of way.

8. world’s greatest dad

the bar for men is so low that when they do the very minimum (in this case, merely look after their own child), they get commended for it. imagine if this were a woman. would she be applauded? no, she would probably be reprimanded for being on her phone and ignoring her child, like The Man did here.

9. bragging

this one is pretty self-explanatory. what’s it like to brag about raking in dollars and getting bitches and models? what’s it like when it’s all good if you’re bad and it’s okay if you’re mad? in this scene, we see The Man telling all his buddies about the bitches and models and dollars, and then freaking out on somebody. 

10. raking in dollars

who's on the 100 dollar bill? he is! the serial number on this bill also ends in 13. i thought there might be more hidden goodies here, but if there are, the video isn’t in high enough resolution to tell. the only other thing i can make out was that it said “for motion picture use only” which i thought would be an easter egg until i rendered it in photoshop and could read it clearly. oh well!

11. raising money for the women’s charity

a problem we see in society a lot is people of privilege being an ally only by action, not by everyday behavior. here, we see The Man benefitting a women’s charity, but all throughout the video we haven’t seen him go out of his way to respect or give a voice to women. even in this shot, a woman stands on the sidelines while The Man takes all the glory. while he raises money for women, he has no other character traits that show he actually cares about them. 

in a different shot of this scene, a water bottle from taylor’s merch can be seen on the sideline.

12. the unimpressed umpire

this is taylor’s dad! his name is scott. in a video full of mediocre men, scott is our resident Good Man :)

13. the freakout

in 2018, serena williams unleashed on an umpire who accused her of cheating and stuck her with her third penalty of the game -- penalties the whole crowd was certain she did not deserve. she even said at the time “To lose a game for saying that, it’s not fair. How many other men do things? There’s a lot of men out here who have said a lot of things. It’s because I am a woman, and that’s not right.” this is a DIRECT representation of this. it’s as they say, it’s all good if you’re bad, and it’s okay if you’re mad.

14. the hat

the hat our tennis attendant is seen wearing says “TS” in big letters, and in a circle around it, it says “i’d be a fearless leader, i’d be an alpha type.” taylor’s dad can also be seen wearing this hat.

15. the one where lover is NOT the happy couple’s first dance

first of all, this shit makes me SO uncomfortable. this is obviously an allusion to all the men who marry MUCH younger women, which is poignant because, again, taylor suffers mercilessly for her relationship choices, and they’re nowhere near as abhorrent as this. something also worth mentioning: scott borchetta is turning 58 this year. i’ll let you figure the rest out.

16. mr americana

any taylor swift fan will know that in january, taylor released a documentary with an intimate perspective on her life titled “miss americana” which focused a lot on the struggles taylor has overcome in her career. choosing miss americana to be a part of this video is a wise choice, because it highlights those same struggles that taylor is tackling in this music video. we can probably assume that mr americana faces significantly less struggles.

every part of this poster has been revamped to be man-centered, even down to the star role - tyler swift, not taylor.

17. take two

here, our director tells The Man that he needs to be sexier, and more likable. this reflects criticism that taylor and other women in the public eye hear almost daily. as i mentioned before, women in society are valued only as objects of beauty and desire, and here, we see the script flipped to bring that to light. 

in this final scene, we leave the fantasy world of the music video that The Man is starring in, and go to what appears to be a woman-dominated world, insinuating that the universe of the music video is one opposite to our own. this drives home the claim that if taylor were the man, she would be the man.

18. dwayne the rock johnson

i thought that having the rock voice The Man was really poignant. think about the rock’s career -- started out as a wrestler, is now an actor, but he’s known for his kindness and his dedication to social justice. if you asked me if he had ever been a part of any scandal, i would tell you no. and that’s exactly who The Man is. that’s exactly who this song is about, and that’s who taylor is. she has had an insanely successful career spanning over a decade, crossing into multiple different genres and fields, and excelling at all of it. she’s friendly, hard working, a social justice warrior, and a philanthropist. but all of those things are pushed aside in favor of the negative. using the rock as The Man was the perfect way of finishing off the statement,

“if i was a man, i’d be the man.”

[baby-impalas]

who you are

pairing: richie tozier x reader

warnings: angst, swearing, sexual references, crying (should that be a warning? idk but i’m putting it here just in case), self-loathing, unedited

word count: 2160

sorry this ending is kinda shitty I didn’t really know how to end it :(

normally, you loved any opportunity to spend time with your boyfriend. he was your safe place, the one person you could be 100% yourself around. although he was hyper-active and constantly making sexual jokes, he accepted you for who you were — even loved you for it. and you loved him for who he was completely.

but sometimes he pissed you off.

like last week — you had all been hanging out at bill’s house, not really doing anything in particular. conversation steered in the direction of school, then people at your school.

eddie brought up how a girl named jess garcia was said to have given the star quarterback a bj under the bleachers after practice. bill said he heard she’d gotten an std from him.

to which richie said, “that’s what she gets for being a slut.”

you’d gotten used to richie’s off-color humor over the years, but this crossed the line from joking into just being an asshole. you’d scolded him for it immediately, telling him how it was a shitty thing to say. 

“it’s not like she’s gonna know what i said,” richie said, shrugging his shoulders. 

“that’s not the point. it’s the principle of the thing.” 

“what thing?” 

“respecting women.” 

“are you joking? i respect women. i respect you, don’t i?” 

“and not being a dick.” 

at that point the room had grown quiet save for your arguing. ben and bev’s separate conversation in the corner had ceased as the tension grew thicker and your voices grew tighter. 

richie’s eyes tightened, then, and he gave you a sarcastic smile. 

“you think i’m a dick?” 

“rich-” 

“no, say it. i want to hear you say that because i made one joke you didn’t like, you now think i’m a dick and you can never look at me the same.” 

until then you’d forgotten about everyone else. they were all staring between the two of you, none of them daring to intervene. 

you dragged richie outside, not wanting to make anyone anymore uncomfortable than they already were. he stomped up the stairs behind you, being the drama queen you knew he was. 

“what the fuck?” you said once you’d gotten on bill’s porch. 

“answer my question,” richie said. his voice was stiff, almost cold. goosebumps erupted on your arms, which you crossed over your chest. 

“what question?” 

“do i respect you?” 

honestly, he really did respect you. he never spoke over you, never pushed you into doing anything you didn’t wanna do. he’d even stood up for you and bev once right to henry bowers’ face. 

henry had said you two had come over during the weekend and given him a bj together. 

“we all know it’s your dad you’re talking about,” richie had said. “you’re not fooling anyone.” 

he got a black eye. you’d tended to it for him, holding ice to his face. when you asked why he’d done it, he said it made his blood boil to hear bowers talk so crudely about you two, said it killed him inside. 

which was why you were having such a hard time processing this argument. 

“yes, richie. you respect me a lot,” you said, leaning back against the wall of the house. 

“so what’s the problem?” 

you raised your eyebrows, to which richie gestured with his hands in a “what?” motion. he was starting to get real angry, you could tell by the growing blush on his cheeks and his locked jaw. his eyes were staring daggers at you and it made your blood run cold - you weren’t used to him looking at you like that, like you annoyed him. 

suddenly you felt uncomfortable in your own skin. 

“the problem is that you made a lewd comment about a girl’s sex life, which you have no business judging, for the sole purpose of-” 

“being a dick?” he finished for you in a haughty voice, a smug smirk playing at his lips. though there was a fault in his snarky demeanor; an air of sorrow behind his cocky appearance.

it went silent for a minute. richie sighed, pressing his back against the porch lining. the air around you settled down, both of you processing your anger. 

“what the hell’s wrong with you?” you asked, your voice tired. you were past yelling, and just wanted to get to the bottom of what was going on with your boyfriend. 

richie looked up at you, his hands in his pants pockets. he almost looked apologetic. his shoulders were sagging and his face had a shadow of guilt that was barely noticeable. you ached to hold him. to run your hands through his hair and tell him that everything would be okay, that you would get through this.

but you were still angry.

you could barely see from where you were standing, but richie’s eyes were filling with tears, a couple spilling over that he paid no attention to. and your restraint snapped. you walked over to richie, and took his hands in your own.

“rich,” you said in a calming voice. he wouldn’t look at you. “talk to me.”

his foot scuffed against the ground. you waited patiently for him to speak, and noticed his face begin to soften.

though instead of opening up, he dropped your hands.

“just leave me alone,” he said.

richie glared at you harder than he had all night, then walked off the porch to his truck, leaving you dumbfounded and heartbroken.

you didn’t realize how long you’d been standing out there by yourself until mike came out to check on you.

he asked if you were alright. you turned to him and shook your head, then said, “i think something’s wrong,” and began to cry. mike held you, resting his chin on your head and stroking your back, easing your sobs.

only then in the heat of his arms did you realize how cold it actually was outside. every part of your body was frozen, your hands, your legs, your nose, your feet,

your heart.

+

the more you thought about it, the more you realized how stupid of an argument it was. it was just a stupid joke. did you really wanna lose richie over some stupid joke?

yet at the same time, did you wanna date someone who didn’t share the same morals as you? but everyone has their differences, right? this felt like a pretty important difference.

your head was a mess.

you didn’t see richie for a week. you had no idea where you two stood. you didn’t even try to contact him, wanting to give him his space, though that was the last thing you wanted. he’d pissed you off big time, but you couldn’t get past the feeling there was something under the surface, something else that had made richie act the way he had; an internal conflict he was struggling with. you longed to talk it out with him, help him any way you could.

so, you nearly burst with relief when you got a call from him one friday night a week later.

“hey,” he said.

he sounded tired.

“hi,” you said.

a pause.

“so, i think we should stay friends, for everyone else’s sake—“ richie said.

“what?”

another pause.

“you wanna break up?” you said.

“you don’t?”

“richie can you come over?”

another pause.

“sure.” then he hung up.

fuck. richie wanted to break up?

to the best of your ability, you tried to not think about it while sitting in your kitchen waiting for him to arrive. he did, nearly twenty minutes later.

he looked like shit.

his curly hair was flaccid on his head, and there were purple bags under his eyes. he was wearing a hoodie, for fuck’s sake. richie tozier. in a hoodie. it had to be his father’s.

“richie,” you said, barely holding in a shocked gasp. if this were any other day, you’d tell him that he looked like shit, he’d say ‘you should see the other guy,’ then he’d let you play with his hair while he told you what was wrong. this wasn’t any other day, though.

“hey,” he said with an awkward little wave and a half smile that was gone as quickly as it appeared.

you opened the door all the way and he stepped in, shifting around like he didn’t belong. it was odd and not at all typical richie behavior. he was a king at treating every place he walked into like his own home. he never felt an inability to be himself, that was one of the things you admired about him.

you figured you could either drag out the awkward conversation so it took half an hour to the answers you wanted, or you could get right to the point.

“why would you think i wanna break up?”

“we had a fight,” richie said after a moment with a shrug, his eyes trained on the floor.

“we’ve had fights before. why would this one be any different?”

he thought for a moment, shrugged again.

“i don’t know.”

“please look at me.”

richie paused. finally he met your eyes. you weren’t sure if he’d been crying before, but there were definitely tears in his eyes now.

“rich,” you walked towards him and tried taking his hand in yours, but your boyfriend flinched away. you weren’t gonna give up, though. you wrapped an arm around his waist and cupped his face in your hand, wiping away the tear that rolled down his cheek with your thumb. “talk to me, baby. i’m not mad anymore, okay? i wanna help. even if that just means listening.”

richie looked at you, scanning your face for you didn’t know what.

“why aren’t you mad?” he said in a voice barely above a whisper.

“what?”

“why aren’t you mad at me anymore? i was an asshole. i made a nasty comment that i shouldn’t have been forgiven for. why do you keep forgiving me? stop forgiving me. you shouldn’t forgive me,” his voice dropped low on the last line.

“why do you think that?” you brushed a rogue strand of hair behind his ear.

richie locked eyes with you, his broken soul brimming on his irises.

“you deserve better,” his voice was cracking at this point as he tried not to cry. you’d never seen him so vulnerable. he’d opened up to you before, sure, but now his pain was right on the surface. “you deserve someone who’s not a dick. someone who doesn’t have to follow every stupid fucking impulse that arises in them. i mean i can’t keep my mouth shut to save a life. half the time i don’t even know what i’m saying! it’s just every thought that pops into my head rolling off my lips at a thousand miles an hour. i’m... explosive. i’ll end up saying something that will really hurt you... and i don’t ever wanna hurt you.”

richie put a hand on your face, stroking his thumb along your jaw.  his eyes were red with tears by now, and it nearly killed you inside to hear him speak so low of himself when he was practically the light of your life. 

“hey,” you spoke gently. “i know you, rich. i know who you are. when I told you I loved you for the first time, and every time after that, I knew who you were. I love you for every flawed and wonderful element that makes up richie tozier.” 

his gaze held restricted adoration; as if he wanted to love you but something was holding him back. and suddenly it hit you. 

“you knew that comment about jess would get under my skin,” you said, carefully watching richie’s face for any reaction. his lip twitched just barely. “you said everything to make me mad so I would break up with you, didn’t you?” 

he didn’t speak, but his face was shadowed with guilt. 

“it’s up to me to decide who and what I deserve. and I know I deserve you, rich. wanna know why? because you’re caring and thoughtful and you want me to be happy. I truly, truly couldn’t ask for anyone better,” richie was crying harder than ever now, though he wasn’t making any noise - just watched you speak and let the tears spill from his lids. “as long as you still want me, we’re staying together. and if you ever have any doubts I will always be here for you. always.” 

it was silent as you wiped richie’s tears, standing on your tippy-toes to kiss his cheeks. he wrapped his arms around your waist and pulled you into him. he was holding onto you for dear life, like you’d run away if he let go. 

you two would be okay. 

it was an unbelievably selfless act to give up someone you loved so deeply because you believed they would find happiness outside of yourself. you truly did love him to the ends of the earth. 

if you have any requests feel free to send them in :) also I promise I will improve as I write more!

[queernerdywitch]

100 reasons to vote for #JoeBiden that don't mention Trump. I didn’t compile the list, and I think there’s LOTS more on climate science, but anyway, what are your favorites? 13, 18, oh geez, all the 50s and 70s... not that he can DO all this....

1.) $15.00 federal minimum wage

2.) Reinstate DACA – allowing new applicants to apply

3.) 12 Weeks federal paid family leave

4.) Universal Pre-Kindergarten/Childcare for ages 3 and 4

5.) Tuition free college for those with household income less than $125,000.00

6.) Allow student loans to be relieved in bankruptcy

7.) LGBTQ+ Equality Act in the first 100 days in office

8.) Rejoin the Paris Climate Accords

9.) Decriminalize cannabis use and expunge convictions

10.) Eliminate cash bail system

11.) Eliminate mandatory inimum sentences

12.) Outlaw all online firearm and munition sales

13.) Restore the voting rights act

14.) Create a new $20 billion competitive grant program to spur states to shift from incarceration to prevention.

15.) He’ll triple funding for Title I Programs

16.) Appoint the first Black Woman to the Supreme Court of the United States

17.) Reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA)

18.) Ensure the US achieves a 100% clean energy economy and net-zero emissions no later than 2050

19.) Protecting Biodiversity, slowing extinction rates and helping leverage natural climate solutions

20.) Develop a plan to ensure that America has the cleanest, safest and fastest rail system in the world, for both passengers and freight

21.) Expand the safety net for survivors

22.) Confront online harassment, abuse and stalking

23.) End the rape kit backlog

24.) Address the deadly combination of guns and domestic violence

25.) Change the culture that enables domestic violence

26.) Support the diverse needs of survivors of violence against women

27.) Protect and empower immigrant women

28.) Lead the global effort to end gender-based violence

29.) End capital punishment

30.) End federal private prisons

31.) End all incarceration for drug use alone and divert individuals to drug courts and treatment

32.) Invest in public defenders’ offices to ensure defendants’ access to quality counsel

33.) Expand and use the power of the US Justice Department to address systemic misconduct in police departments and prosecutors’ offices

34.) Reform qualified immunity for officers

35.) Ban choke-holds/neck restraints by police

36.) Launch a national police oversight commission

37.) Stop transferring weapons of war to police force

38.) Free access to testing for all with national testing board

39.) Double drive through testing sites

40.) 100,000 contact tracing workforce

41.) Guarantee first responders have priority access to PPE

42.) Emergency paid leave for anyone who gets COVID or needs to take care of a loved one

43.) Free housing for health care workers to quarantine

44.) Ramp up large scale manufacturing of as many vaccine candidates as necessary

45.) Nationwide vaccination campaign to guarantee fair distribution

46.) Ask every American to wear a mask

47.) End the mismanagement of the asylum system, which fuels violence and chaos at the border

48.) Surge humanitarian resources to the border and foster public-private initiatives

49.) End prolonged detention and reinvest in a case management program

50.) Rescind the un-American travel and refugee bans, also referred to as “Muslim bans.”

51.) Order an immediate review of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for vulnerable populations who cannot find safety in their countries ripped apart by violence or disaster

52.) Ensure that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) personnel abide by professional standards and are held accountable for inhumane treatment.

53.) Revitalize the Task Force on New Americans and boost our economy by prioritizing integration, promoting immigrant entrepreneurship, increasing access to language instruction, and promoting civil engagement.

54.) Convene a regional meeting of leaders, including from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, and Canada, to address the factors driving migration and to propose a regional resettlement solution

55.) Raising the corporate tax rate to 28 percent.

56.) Requiring a true minimum tax on ALL foreign earnings of United States companies located overseas so that we do our part to put an end to the global race to the bottom that rewards global tax havens. This will be 21% — TWICE the rate of the Trump offshoring tax rate and will apply to all income.

57.) Imposing a tax penalty on corporations that ship jobs overseas in order to sell products back to America.

58.) Imposing a 15% minimum tax on book income so that no corporation gets away with paying no taxes.

59.) Raising the top individual income rate back to 39.6 percent.

60.) Asking those making more than $1 million to pay the same rate on investment income that they do on their wages.

61.) Tackle the crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women

62.) Ensure tribal nations will have a strong voice and role in the federal government

63.) Restore Tribal lands and safeguard natural and cultural resources

64.) Joe will dramatically increase funding for both public schools and Bureau of Indian Education schools.

65.) Invest $70 billion in Tribal Colleges and Universities and Minority Serving Institutions.

66.) Ensure full inclusion of people with disabilities in policy development and aggressively enforce the civil rights of people with disabilities.

67.) Guarantee access to high-quality, affordable health care, including mental health care, and expand access to home and community-based services and long-term services and supports in the most integrated setting appropriate to each person’s needs and based on self-determination.

68.) Expand competitive, integrated employment opportunities for people with disabilities.

69.) Protect and strengthen economic security for people with disabilities.

70.) Ensure that students with disabilities have access to educational programs and support they need to succeed, from early interventions to post-secondary education.

71.) Expand access to accessible, integrated, and affordable housing, transportation, and assistive technologies and protect people with disabilities in emergencies.

72.) Advance global disability rights

73.) Double the number of psychologists, guidance counselors, nurses, social workers, and other health professionals in our schools so our kids get the mental health care they need

74.) Invest in our schools to eliminate the funding gap between white and non-white districts, and rich and poor districts

75.) Improve teacher diversity

76.) Support our educators by giving them the pay and dignity they deserve.

77.) Invest in resources for our schools so students grow into physically and emotionally healthy adults, and educators can focus on teaching.

78.) Ensure that no child’s future is determined by their zip code, parents’ income, race, or disability.

79.) Provide every middle and high school student a path to a successful career.

80.) Start investing in our children at birth.

81.) Double funding for the State Small Business Credit Initiative.

82.) Expand the New Markets Tax Credit, make the program permanent, and double Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) funding

83.) Improve and expand the Small Business Administration programs that most effectively support African American-owned businesses.

84.) Increase funding for the Minority Business Development Agency budget.

85.) Make sure economic relief because of COVID-19 reaches the African American businesses that need it most

86.) Reserve half of all the new PPP funds for small businesses with 50 employees or less

87.) Help families buy their first homes and build wealth by creating a new refundable, advanceable tax credit of up to $15,000

88.) Protect homeowners and renters from abusive lenders and landlords through a new Homeowner and Renter Bill of Rights.

89.) Establishing a $100 billion Affordable Housing Fund to construct and upgrade affordable housing

90.) Fully implement Congressman Clyburn’s 10-20-30 Plan to help all individuals living in persistently impoverished communities

91.) Expand access to $100 billion in low-interest business loans by funding state, local, tribal, and non-profit lending programs in Latino communities and other communities of color and strengthening Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs

92.) Expand broadband access to every American.

93.) Protect and build on the Affordable Care Act to improve access to quality health care in rural communities.

94.) Expand access to high-quality education in rural schools.

95.) Transform our crumbling transportation infrastructure – including roads and bridges, rail, aviation, ports, and inland waterways.

96.) Expand bio-based manufacturing to bring cutting-edge manufacturing jobs back to rural America.

97.) Strengthen antitrust enforcement

98.) Introduce a constitutional amendment to entirely eliminate private dollars from our federal elections

99.) End dark money groups

100.) Ban corporate PAC contributions to candidates, and prohibit lobbyist contributions to those who they lobby

Compiled by David Frree

***EDIT*** thisis all from his website. I, David, literally copy pasted the bullet points from his website. If you go on his website, click Joe’s Vision, he has different themes. “Criminal justice reform, helping America’s farmers, etc.” I clicked through a bunch of those, and tried to get the quickest bullet points from his website.

[horanclouds18]

Weekend - Liam Payne Analysis

I spent all night yesterday analysing Weekend because Liam mentioned it being a memorable song to him because he was vulnerable while talking about what he wanted to say in this song. He mentioned this in his last Instagram live:

So I decided to dig a little. I still don't get all the lyrics but I'll do my best. I'm sure someone else has already done this but I wanted to do it so bare with me.

“I said it wrong, but I meant it right

But you're the only one who would know

Yeah, so I'm faded, right, but I was the one

I almost lost my nerve for less than I deserve, yeah

I got it wrong, but I made it right

You know I made it right

We said it's done, but it's not done”

So the first verse, he's talking to someone “I said it wrong, but I meant it right, but you're the only one who would know” he's clearly close to this person because they are the only one who know what's wrong about him and he meant to say it. My theory is that “I said it wrong” is because he is drunk/high and he can't talk coherently but he means what he is saying.

So he is “faded” which according to urban dictionary:

Word used on the west coast for being high/stoned/blazed.

I'm pretty sure he is talking about being high because in an interview he said this: (x)

And in a podcast where he talked about mental health (here) he said the solution he put to his problems a lot of times was to drink alcohol. His textual words “I was drunk %90 of the time”.

“I almost lost my nerve for less than I deserve” it's self explanatory I think. He lost it with this problem he had. And then “I got it wrong but I made it right you know I made it right, we said it's done but it's not done” he had a problem but he “solved” it. I think he means he solved it by drinking and “we said it's done but it's not done” means he is always saying he'll stop drinking, he'll stop solving his problems this way, but it's never the last time.

“I come alive on the weekend

I might die on the weekend (might die, might die, might die)

Another line for my demons

I might die on the weekend (might die)

I talk low, but I mean it

I say, "Keep up, " she can't leave it

I come alive on the weekend

I might die on the weekend”

He “comes alive on the weekend” that means partying and then “might die on the weekend” because he drinks too much and doesn't feel so great. “Another line for my demons” I struggled to get this one at first, is he talking to his demons? But then following the same narrative, I went to urban dictionary to search the meaning of line and I was unpleasantly right about it: (x)

A 'line' (for lack of better word) of any powdered drug that is snorted, often through a rolled up 100 dollar bill.

So he wants to stop the voices in his head and for that he does drugs.

(This is so hard to write my baby Liam being so unwell and us not even knowing about it and also I didn't really see the meaning of this song as this until he pointed it out to me and I feel like I let him down)

“I talk low but I mean it” I think this is the reference to “we are the quiet ones” Liam always says to refer to him and Zayn. (Here)

Or just simply that he is high and he is mumbling about his problems. These lines are up to interpretation I guess.

“I say keep up she can't leave it” again we can simply think he is talking about keeping up with his drinking and she can't follow him. If we think in ziam terms Liam telling us to keep up is to please continue analysing and keeping up with what is happening to them at the moment. And so “she can't leave it” the “she” is us and we can't just stop not keeping up with him, you know?

I don't know if the ziam interpretation is thinking about it too much or not, you tell me about this, what do you think? Am I giving it too much thought thinking about ziam here?

“How did we end up here like this (Yeah)

I see the midnight on your lips

Every time you come around

And if there's nothing more than this (Nothing more than this)

That's okay, but one more time before you're gone

You said it's done, but it's not done”

“how did we end up here like this” how did we end up in this mess, problem wise and drunk wise too. Notice he uses ‘we’ and in the podcast about mental health I mentioned earlier he talked about struggling while he was in the band. So ‘we’ could be the band but the next lines I think suggest otherwise because “I see the midnight on your lips” is only ONE more person so in my opinion “we” is two people.

I struggled to understand the meaning behind “I see the midnight on your lips” a lot. First, I thought about it literally, does it mean midnight=partying=alcohol ? But I thought this was impossible because further in the song he tells this person “only you can stop the hurt”.

So what is it?

I thought that it had to have a double meaning of sorts. It had to be a metaphor. So I searched “The midnight” on google and the first search was a band called The Midnight, so I thought this might be the right place. (You can search it up for yourself). So I started analysing the lyrics of some of their songs (all which were released BEFORE LP1) and I found some interesting songs:

River Of Darkness

Glowing windows in the buildings from the elevated train

I see a thousand different stories pass

And faces without names

I forget why I came here

And forget why I stay

And wonder if they'd notice

If I slipped away

What if I kept going

What if I don't get off tonight

What if I ride this to the edges

Through the darkness to the light

Could I find you there?

Could I find you there?

If I slipped away?

What if there's no answer

We're all just hearts that have to fight

Through the dangers of the rapids

Through the darkness to the light

Could I find you there?

Could I find you there?

If I slipped away

Looking at the lyrics at first glance I noticed:

Reference to Through The Dark: “through the darkness to the light”

“A thousand different stories and faces without names” I remember Liam saying in the mental health podcast (please go and listen to it if you haven't) that he used to play different parts of himself in front of different people that weren't necessarily him and that in addition, he hid other parts of himself. Also he mentioned how the media portrays him isn't always true. And well this sentence really speaks that to me.

“I forget why I came here I forget why I stay”: it's like a parallel to “how did we end up here like this”.

“What if I kept going” again do I continue being someone I'm not? Do I continue with this stunt? Or do I stop this once and for all? If we think about ziam it makes perfect sense. They are playing parts, media portraying them as this person they are not (think about the bad boy image they put on Zayn) and the stunts (zerrie, sophiam...)

Let's look at another one:

Los Angeles

One, two, three, four

Fire on the beach

Face to the sky

The stars dance around like Gods in the skies

The gold silhoutte

You take off your clothes

And my heart feels the weight of all I don't know

Memories and mountain tops

Drunk on sunset boulevard

With the city of angels singing on

Maybe this is just a dream

And maybe we are still asleep

But I, I will miss you when I'm gone

Flickers of the canyon fire

It's hands raised like a gospel choir

If we live forever, let us live forever tonight

Helicopters against moonlight

Our holy mother of the midnight

And if we live forever, let us live forever tonight

Tomorrow we'll go

Back to our lives

With sand in our skin and sun in our eyes

But I know the truth

I've seen the signs

And I've seen the golden Gods in disguise

Memories and mountain tops

Drunk on sunset boulevard

With the city of angels singing on

Maybe this is just a dream

And maybe we are still asleep

But I, I will miss you when I'm gone

Flickers of the canyon fire

It's hands raised like a gospel choir

If we live forever, let us live forever tonight

Helicopters against moonlight

Our holy mother of the midnight

And if we live forever, let us live forever tonight

Flickers of the canyon fire

It's hands raised like a gospel choir

If we live forever, let us live forever tonight

Helicopters against moonlight

Our holy mother of the midnight

And if we live forever, let us live forever tonight

Flickers of the canyon fire

It's hands raised like a gospel choir

If we live forever, let us live forever tonight

Helicopters against moonlight

Our holy mother of the midnight

And if we live forever, let us live forever tonight

Things to notice at first glance:

Reference to live forever

Right after the reference to live forever there's a reference to Tonight

Mention of “the midnight”

“The stars dance around like Gods in the skies” this reminded me of You & I “not even the Gods above can separate the two of us” which we all know it's a really special song for ziam. (x)

It's a beautiful love song

This song made me compare the songs Live Forever/Weekend/Tonight and I think there might be some parallels in those songs! But I'll leave that for another post.

There are other songs like “Sunsets” that says “I just feel like I've been stuck here my whole life” and “we could run away just leave never look back I don't care where we go just far away from here” or there is also a song called “Lost Boy” that talks about “I was a lost boy when I met you” and “we were rebels, lone survivors” and did I say there's a reference to fool's gold?

These were just so many coincidences it couldn't just be coincidences right? And then I found a song called “Memories” and it clicked. The band is “The Midnight” and the song was “Memories” looks like a joke right? Another reference to One Direction.

Remember that there was a reference to Through the Dark, a song which Liam co wrote with Louis and we all know the meaning behind this song. There's also You & I in there which is VERY special to ziam. And let's not forget about the song “Alive” which Liam said it was HIS song in the LP Show and that it basically resonates with him. This song could have a queer interpretation (following the ziam narrative) so go and look at the lyrics and think about that: “my mother told me I should go and get some therapy” and “hey it's alright if it makes you feel alive” and “we gotta live before we get older, do what we like we got nothing to prove”. So it was coincidence after coincidence and thought I was in the right place. Remember “I come ALIVE on the weekend”.

So in short “The midnight on your lips” is a bittersweet reference to all that encompasses the life in One Direction and his relationship with Zayn.

And right behind the midnight lyric we have ANOTHER reference to One Direction with “if there's nothing more than this” which the song “more than this” starts with “I'm broken do you hear me?” and this is basically what Weekend is about. Also, Liam sings that part.

“Everybody's got their own vice

Do you think about me when you're alone?

It kinda got to me last night after everyone was gone

If there's one thing that I've learned:

Only you can stop the hurt

Yeah, it's 'bout time that I realize it's a lost fight

I said it's done, but it's not done

No, no, I said it's done, but it's not done

Yeah, yeah, I said it's done, but it's never done”

So this verse made a lot more sense after searching the meaning behind “the midnight on your lips”. So Liam is thinking about this person after everyone is gone (and the party has died down) and he wonders if he (Zayn) is thinking about him too. Why did I think of Zayn here? Because of the parallels I found in Tonight with this song. I will analyse it better in another post but there's this lyric in Tonight: “No matter where you are or where you'll be, when you're feeling yourself, I know you are thinking of me”

When I noticed this I was like:

This is huge because “when you are feeling yourself” could mean something like “after you sober up” or in this case “when everyone was gone” referencing to the party being over.

Only you can stop the hurt Zayn and it's a lost fight to keep solving problems with alcohol and drugs.

Now let me go and cry peacefully in a corner.

[queenlists]

A Year of Tate

A/N: We’re at 92! Thank you to everyone for the support, I really appreciate it! Almost to 100, I love it! I love you all. I can’t thank you enough.WARNING: abuse, character deaths, suicide, and murder. The normal AHS warnings. Also, this is a long fic! The masterlist will be located at the bottom in case you would like to check out more of my work! I hope you all enjoy this fic ✌

Post Date: 1/24/2020

JANUARY

He was different. Not in the quirky teenage boy kind of different, but he was a real ticking time bomb. He said things that I should have taken much more seriously, but I didn't. I never did. I always thought Tate Langdon wouldn't do that. He could never. He means well! I defended Tate with every bone in my body. I even defended him when my parents tried having me steer clear of him. He said he wanted to do two things: teach the school a lesson they'd remember and make a statement that'd shake the town or maybe even the country. I rooted for him, thinking it'd be something crazy. Something wild, but I never thought it would be this. My Tate? The boy I stole many kisses from. The boy who surprised me with my favorite snacks. The boy who told me he loved me every second of the day. I couldn't believe it. I still can't. Helping Constance move out of that evil house after Tate's funeral while Addie ran around the house was the least I could do for the Langdons. She allowed me to keep one thing of his, so I kept his sweater. I put it on as soon as I grabbed it. It still smelled just like him. I knew she was having a hard time living without him as well as she knew I was dying without him. Putting down a box, I sighed and looked at Constance. Even in grief, she held her head high and walked in strides. Constance turned to me with a small smile spread across her face, wrapping me up into a tight hug before putting her warm hands on my face, staring into my eyes with a smile "You're a good girl, (Y/n). You always have been!" This was one of the only times I could say I saw the mother in Constance.

We were ready to leave the house when all of a sudden Addie came running to me with the biggest smile on her face "Tate's here!" Sighing, I let her take my hand and lead me to wherever. Figuring that Addie was coping by playing pretend because there was no chance that Tate would be here, I willingly followed. However, much to my surprise, he was here. He was actually here! He stood there with that same goofy smile plastered on his face. His eyes lit up as they got familiar with me once again. My heart sank to my feet as I began to back away from the man I once loved. Holding onto Addie's hand tightly, telling myself that I'm crazy and that I am so sad that I must be making up images of Tate. His smile faded as his eyes began to water and redden before squeaking out "(Y/n)?"

I was gasping for air at this point. There was no way he could be here right now! I can still hear those heavy boots padding the floor. I can still see those heavy guns rushing to Tate's room. I can still feel them rip me away from Tate and take me out of his room. I can still hear those deafening gunshots. I can still taste my salty tears. I can still see the blood splatter that remained in his room before the cleaners made it. I remembered his death so well. Constance was moving houses. We were just at his funeral days prior. So, how is he was here perfectly the way he was before?

FEBRUARY 

"Never leave me," He whispered in my ear. His grip on me was tighter than it had ever been. "You can never leave me. You will never escape me," he muttered with a wicked grin before giving me a quick kiss on the nose. He's always had a weird way with words, but something told me he meant exactly what he said and meant it exactly how it was said. It's been a month since we reunited and he was different. His possessive words used to send butterflies to flutter around in my stomach, but now all they do is send chills up my spine. "Promise me right now that you're mine forever," he gripped my face in his hands as his eyes burned into mine. He began to uncomfortably squish my face in his hands as he shook my head "Promise me!" The tone in his voice startled me as I quickly nodded "I-I promise. I promise that I'll never leave you. I'm yours!" I gasped out, cocking an eyebrow at my dead boyfriend who laid down on his back pleased with my answer. I bit my lip as he stared up at the ceiling. He came back different. Very different.

MARCH

I drummed my fingers against the cardboard box as I tried to breathe. Sniffling as tears ran down my face, I've been pacing in this gas station bathroom for thirty minutes now. "Just use it, (Y/n)! There are only two possibilities: you're either pregnant or you're not," I muttered to myself in hopes of gaining some courage to take this test.

Finally, I was able to. I set the test down, refusing to look at it. I didn't want to know yet. I wasn't ready. I examined myself in the mirror. Who am I anymore? My face was blotchy and my eyes were reddened from the constant tears. My lip was busted along with bruises peppered up and down my arms. I pulled down my sleeves as I ripped my eyes away from the harsh reality. Tate Langdon has always been the same kind of person. Unstable and unpredictable. This time, he had nothing to lose. The nothing to lose part only made him even more dangerous and wicked. I was scared to leave him in fear of what he might do, but also I just couldn't bring myself to leave him as I loved him too much. Even if he hurt me.

Constance knew just what her son was capable of. She warned me to leave Tate. Hell, she warned me to leave Tate before his death! She knew who her son was. She tried. She tried and I thought she was the most cold-hearted person there was, but she was right. I should have left, but she knew just as well as I did that I couldn't bring myself to leave Tate. Addie never bothered to come over anymore once she saw what her big brother had done. "He hurt you! I'll never forgive him!" I remember her yelling as she ran home. I watched her leave, wishing I could do the same. Toss Tate to the side and move on, but I couldn't. I glanced at the test: positive. I slid to the floor, sobbing. He was always right there. Right here. Inside of my heart and now a part of him lived inside of me.

Coming home, I saw Tate waiting for me. Glaring at me from the window. Hatred and disgust burned in his eyes as he watched me stop walking and stand there on the sidewalk, looking at him. That look used to be foreign to me. Before his death, I only got smiles from Tate. His eyes used to light up at the very sight of me, but now..now that was history. That look of disgust and hate was the new norm. I remember when he first looked at me that way.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" I sniffled, wiping away the tears that fell during our fourth huge argument of the week. "You make me sick. I should've shot you when I had the chance!" Tate spat at me, shoving me away from him before storming out of the room.

Oh, how I wish he would have. We locked eyes for a few moments before he turned around, vanishing from the window. He didn't deserve to be a father. He didn't deserve anything good in life. I had to do right by my baby. I had to leave for good.

APRIL

I ran.

I ran as fast as I could.

I ran as I heard his voice rattle that old house to its core.

"Come back, you're all I have!"

Even after I turned the corner, I still ran.

I knew I was well out of his reach, but I kept running until I felt that I was safe.

I loved him.

I loved him so much that it hurt.

I loved him with every fiber of my body.

With every inch of my soul.

But, Tate Langdon was, is, and always will be bad news.

I should've known it sooner.

Why'd I ignore the signs?

No one comes back from the dead the same!

I should've left.

I should've left when Constance first told me to.

I should've left with Addie.

I should've left when he first hit me.

But, I didn't.

Now, I have to.

For you. 

"Bus 6290 arrived! If you are on bus 6290, please head towards the terminal with your ticket ready!"

I smiled at the sound of the staticky voice blaring through the speakers as I tried to catch my breath. Running a hand down to my stomach, I nodded "We made it!"

MAY

Settling into a new house can be rough alone especially when it's a new house in a new city in a new state!

The murder house was loud. Laying in bed, I could hear everything minus Tate screaming at me. I could hear everyone. It was so crowded and so loud day in and day out, but here it was quiet. It was just my baby and I. It was a relief. For once in months, I've had some relief.

I found a doctor here. Apparently, I've been pregnant since February! This baby is going to be born sometime in October. October was the month Tate and I made our relationship official. I remember telling Constance and Addie like it was yesterday:

"I knew it! I knew it! I knew it! I told you mom, Tate and (Y/n) are in love!" Addie exclaimed, looking at Constance with a smug smile on her face. "Yes, I know. You were right. I just didn't think Tate would stoop so low," Constance rolled her eyes and took a long drag of her cigarette. "Why are you such a bitch, Constance?" Tate spat, shaking his head. "Oh please!" Constance scoffed. "You're so unbearable! Let's get out of here, (Y/n)" Tate grabbed my arm, leading me out of the house as Addie followed us. As Tate practically dragged me out of the house, Constance locked eyes with me as her eyes began to redden before she looked away with her head low.

I always took Constance's expression as she felt bad for ruining the announcement, but now I knew better. She was upset that I got wrapped up in the grasp of her beloved son.

JUNE, JULY, AUGUST, SEPTEMBER

Not much has happened these past few months. I got a job, fixed up a nursery, got the hang of keeping up with a house and bills.  I made myself and my son a home here. Now all there was left to do was wait until his arrival.

As I relaxed on the couch, my phone began to buzz beside me. Picking it up, I instantly began to smile "Hey Addie! How are you?" "Oh, I'm great. How about you? How's my nephew in there?" Addie and I talk every single day. We have for the past few months now. She cheered when I told her I left the state, telling me it was about time. She kept me up to date on everything including the family that moved into the murder house. The Harmons. Apparently, the daughter of the Harmons, Violet, is heavily involved with Tate. Addie told me that she went over there to warn Violet, but it was too late. She was wrapped up in Tate just like I was. 

"Would it be awful of me to admit that I'm jealous and that I miss Tate?" I muted the phone, facepalming hard as I realized I said my thoughts out loud. "You don't miss Tate. Not this Tate. You miss the old Tate," Addie explained, sighing at the end. She was right. I missed our memories. The laughter, jokes, music, dancing, and extreme puppy love. I don't miss the yelling, the dirty looks, the hitting, and the arguments. She gets to have those now. She can have them forever.

OCTOBER

I've had pains for a while now, but I've been pushing through. The pains aren't enough to set off any alarms in my doctor's head. They're normal at this point. Braxton Hicks are what they're called. Since everything checked out, I was given the go-ahead! This pregnancy had been easy so far. He is a quiet boy and I love that.

"Now, you should not be traveling at this point!" Constance declared through the phone. "We can come to you instead!" I smiled as I rolled my suitcase towards her house, unknowingly. "Too bad because I'm already here!" I laughed as I heard shuffling before the door swung open.

Constance didn't hesitate to hug onto me tightly with Addie joining in seconds later. I decided I've gone through this alone long enough and I was ready to have a family nearby when he decided to make his arrival.

-------

"I want to be a pretty girl, mom!" "No!" They were at it for so long now. I tried to intervene, but I thought it wasn't worth it. I've witnessed them go at it many times before. I didn't think this fight meant any real significance. I thought this would be forgotten in a day's time, but I was wrong.

I was so wrong.

Screaming, I watched as Constance began to drag Addie's lifeless body to that wicked house. "Constance, no! You know she would hate you for this. You know she would hate it there!" I knelt down beside Constance and pulled her hands away from Addie "She would be so unhappy, Constance. Let her go!" I sobbed before holding onto Constance. I should've done more. My vision blurred with tears as I looked over at Addie. My best friend was gone. I held onto my stomach as the Braxton Hicks began to intensify. Before I knew it, I was hunched over gasping for air as sweat dripped down my face. A paramedic grabbed me before I could hit the ground. I could hear Constance crying out, but my vision began to double as everything spun.

The world began to turn black as I frantically looked around. Through the swirls and distortion, I saw him. Tate. Just standing there, looking at me. He wasn't looking at me from inside of the house nor was he on the lawn. He was across the street, perfectly blending in with the rest of the gasping bystanders. He watched me with intensity. What the hell is going on?

---------

There was so much going on. I knew I was screaming, but I couldn't hear it. There was blood everywhere. I wanted to faint. I felt like fainting. Sweat dripped down my face as the nurse held my hand tightly. "What's happening" I manage to scream loud enough that I could hear myself. "You're having your son!" The nurse exclaimed, gently dragging her gloved thumb against my knuckles. Constance had her hands over her cheeks as she watched in amazement. My eyes wandered around the room until they found him. Tate was standing there in the corner of the room. I knit my eyebrows together and squinted at him. His eyes were watery and red-rimmed. His lips were red and swollen. His face was blotchy. Tears slid down his face like a constant running waterfall. He stood behind everyone else and watched the birth of his son. As I laid there, watching the birth of a new Tate Langdon.

NOVEMBER

The smell of freshly brewed coffee filled the air as Constance flipped pancakes "He's a growing boy! He needs his food," Looking at (B/N), I knew he wasn't a normal baby. I'm no expert, but something just isn't right. "He's a month old. I don't think he should be this big," I knit my eyebrows together as I watched my one-month-old son walk towards me. "He's a Langdon! Tate was the same way. They move fast. When is that girl coming over to take my grandson from me?" Constance handed (B/N) a player with pieces of pancake on it which he happily took. "You mean Violet?" I giggled, packing the last of (B/N)'s clothes "She should be over soon. Don't worry, he'll be back in a week. The Harmons are great with him," Constance rolled her eyes as she assisted (B/N) with his feeding.

--------

"It's past dinner time! (B/N) is asleep. That girl is no good! Tell her she can't take my grandson anymore. On Halloween, Tate can come over instead or you two can just communicate on that laptop screen. He is too fragile to be stood up at such an age! I would never trust-" Constance rambled on about how Violet lied and how she deserves another cupcake. Though, I'm not sure what kind of significance a cupcake is to their relationship. I never got cupcakes from Constance. Maybe Violet hates them? I don't know. All I know is that Violet never came and that just was not like her.

------

I refused to go back to that house and I refused to be alone with Tate. Violet knew this, so she agreed to bring (B/N) to Tate and back again. Every other weekend without fail, Violet would be there at the front door with a big smile on her face.

I grabbed my laptop and requested a video call from Violet, but it failed. Something was wrong.

DECEMBER

It's December. I don't ever hear from Violet anymore. The visitations stopped. I see Mr. and Mrs. Harmon in town and they always tell me she's acting weird at home as well. Every bone in my body told me to not do it, but I had to. I had to know what was up.

I stared at that wicked house, sighing before walking up to the door. Before I could open the door, I heard the infinite chatter. It was louder than I remembered. "It's fine. They're just restless right now. I sense more than before," Billie Dean sighed, looking at me. Constance recommended that I go to the house with Billie Dean as she is seen as a friend there. Steadying my breathing and regaining composure, I opened the door slowly. Stepping in, my body froze in place. I couldn't move. I couldn't take a step forward nor could I take a step back. "It's the trauma. You don't have to move any further," Billie rubbed my shoulder gently before proceeding to walk further into the house. "Violet!" Billie called out. Nothing. "Violet?" Billie called out again, this time a wave of concern washed across her face. As if she was hearing something or someone, something or someone that I could not hear. Billie looked at me defeated, whispering "Will you please show yourself?"

Show yourself?

Soon, Violet appeared with tears streaming down her face. Billie wrapped Violet into a hug as Violet began to sob loudly. "How did you pass?" My heart shattered as Violet pulled out her phone, waving me to come closer. There was no way that Violet was dead. No way! I carefully moved closer as we all watched the video.

The Harmons put surveillance cameras in every room including bathrooms after the house was broken into. Just so they could check footage from anywhere whether they were home or not. I watched as Violet took a lethal amount of pills. I watched as she laid down in the bathtub to die. I watched as Tate ran in, screaming and crying. I watched Tate try to make her puke it up. I watched Tate succeed, but it wasn't enough. I watched as Violet went limp in his arms. I watched Tate accept her death and drag her body out of the bathroom. Violet quickly ended the video afterward "I didn't really want to die. I couldn't accept it. My parents don't even know. Don't tell them, please!" Violet begged as she looked back and forth from Billie and I. Agreeing, we wrapped Violet in a big hug.

Losing Violet made me gain trust in Tate. He tried to save her. He tried his hardest. He did everything he could until the very end. Tate hid it from her in fear of what that news could do to her. He only ever blamed himself. Tate really was a new person. Where did all that evil disappear to?

JANUARY

"Constance!" I screamed as I ran, following the blood smears "(B/N)!" My heart sank as I followed the endless trail of blood. My throat ached as I screamed their names, hoping for someone to say something. Hoping for a sound. Hoping for a cry. Hoping for something! I pushed the door open that the blood seemed to lead to, bracing myself for the worst. Constance stood there in her silk robe as (B/N) sat on the floor in a pool of blood, giggling. A pool of blood that belonged to the babysitter I had hired for the night.

"I told you. Langdons don't play well with babysitters."

masterlist

[nocturnal-jeon]

𝚋𝚝𝚜 𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚌𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 ➛ 𝚜/𝚘 𝚜𝚝𝚛𝚞𝚐𝚐𝚕𝚎𝚜 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝚖𝚘𝚗𝚎𝚢

Kim Namjoon

Namjoon didn’t think that you were stupid. Shit, if anything, he knew that you were far from it. It was the first thing that attracted him: your brain. When you were talking about a topic you were passionate about, your mouth moving faster than your brain, he would watch in awe as your eyes sparkled with every eloquent and intelligent word you spoke. 

You were astute. 

But for the life of him, he couldn’t figure out why you didn’t realize how deep of a grave you were digging for yourself. Just like you, Namjoon wasn’t stupid. He knew that you were struggling for money. He had seen you count pennies in your purse just to pay for something that cost a few dollars. He had seen you eat nearly expired food hidden away in the cabinet because you didn’t have enough money to buy more food. He had seen you argue with the landlord because you were only a day late with rent. 

He offered to pay for your food. He offered to pay your bills. He offered to take care of you both emotionally and financially. 

But for the life of him, he couldn’t realize why you would work yourself to your breaking point just to pay the utilities bill when you had a loving and doting boyfriend right there, waiting for you to give him the word so he could take care of you. 

For the life of him, he just didn’t understand that. 

He tried his best to remain calm about the situation, though. He knew that you liked to handle things on your own; you were just driven like that. But he wondered what had to happen for you to finally turn to him for help. 

But something did happen. 

Namjoon was lounging around on his day off while you were at work like you usually were. He always found it ironic how given his job as an idol, you spent more time working and away from home than he did. 

When his phone rang and it was an unknown number, he was a bit hesitant to answer because he immediately thought that it was some crazed fan who got his number, but his gut was telling him to answer the call for some reason. 

So, he did. 

And it was good that he did.

It was your coworker. Namjoon had met them before and always thought that they were nice. They called extremely worried and concerned given the fact that you fainted while waiting for a cup of coffee to brew. And even though you had only been out for a minute or two, your coworkers tried to get you to go home so you could rest, but you insisted on working. You even added another hour to your shift so you could make up for “lost time.”

It was at that point that Namjoon’s worry for you evolved into anger. He just couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He knew you weren’t stupid. He knew that. But for the life of him, he couldn’t figure out how careless and neglectful of your health you could be. 

And that’s why Namjoon stood in your living room, placing all of your books into large brown boxes. He was tired of constantly worrying about you. He needed peace of mind. 

Stumbling into your apartment, exhausted, you were pleasantly surprised to see Namjoon standing there since the two of you weren’t planning to see each other. The brown box resting at his feet caused your eyebrows to raise. “What are you doing?” you hesitantly asked, your eyes slowly scanning the rest of the space, growing even more confused when it looked a lot more empty than it usually looked. 

“You’re coming to move in with me.”

Your head spun on a swivel at hearing him say that with such conviction. 

“What?”

“You’re moving in with me,” he said, simply reaching to grab another book and neatly stack it in the box. “Um,” you said, too shocked. Walking over, you reached in and grabbed the book he had just put there, looking up at him with eyes of disbelief. 

“Namjoon, we didn’t discuss this,” you said. Rather harshly, he grabbed the book from your hand, but the look in his eyes as he stared at you showed that he was sorry for his aggression. “We don’t need to. It’s done,” he said, lacking emotion. “Namjoon, what’s going on?”

His grip on the book tightened. 

“What’s going on is that you’re not taking care of yourself.”

Your eyes widened. 

“I know that you fainted today. I know that you asked for a longer shift even after losing consciousness. I know that you weren’t even gonna tell me. Am I right?” he asked, watching you with serious eyes. You said nothing, so he took that as a yes. 

“I know that you come home to a cold house because you can’t pay the heat bill and I know that you come home to an empty fridge because you can’t afford to go grocery shopping.” For some odd reason, tears grew in your eyes. Yes, all those things were right, but you just didn’t really realize it. 

“So, I’m done watching from the sidelines as you practically destroy yourself, y/n. I need to know that when I’m away that you’re taken care of. I need to know that you’re happy and living a life that you deserve. So,” he said, gently placing the book back into the box with a much softer demeanor. “You’re moving in with me.”

Defeated, not wanting to turn this into an argument, you nodded shamefully. You reached past Namjoon to grab another book to help him out given the fact that you basically owned all of the books in the world, but gently, his hand wrapped around your wrist, stopping you. 

“No,” he mumbled, leaning down to place a warm kiss on the back of your hand. “Go sit on the couch and rest.” Normally, you would protest and help him, but your body barely made it to the couch before you collapsed, eyes fluttering closed within seconds. 

He sighed deeply, upset with how short and firm he seemed with you, but as he watched your adorable yet exhausted figure sleep sprawled out on the couch, he felt a pang in his heart. He needed to protect you and he wasn’t doing his job. 

So, by you moving in with him, while he was away, he could at least ensure that the lights stayed on, the water remained hot, the fridge was stocked with food, and that you had a warm, comfortable bed to sleep in every night. 

He knew that he would need to have another conversation with you about the hours you worked, but for right now, this would suffice. 

You didn’t have very many things so it didn’t take him long to pack the rest of your belongings. Sealing the last box, he left them all in the center of your apartment for the moving people when they came tomorrow. 

Carefully, he transported your sleeping body back to his apartment, not wanting to wake you up. He knew that you needed rest. With delicate hands, he discarded of your clothes and managed to pull one of his shirts over your half-naked body before putting you in his bed, tucking you in like a child. 

Kissing your forehead, he vowed to take better care of you. 

Kim Seokjin

Jin practically showered you in love and gifts every chance that he got. He loved seeing the surprised look on your face when he presented you with something he knew you always wanted and how most times, you would be at a loss for words, so you would just plant the sweetest most passionate kiss to his unsuspecting lips. 

You always felt bad whenever Jin spoiled you, but he would always boast about how proud he was of you, so for his sake, you tolerated it.  But there was always a small part of you that wanted to return the favor, regardless of the fact that Jin always said no. And with each gift he bought for you, that small fraction grew until you were 100% determined to return the favor. 

So, after a beautiful date at a pricey restaurant, you quickly gave your card to the waiter, catching Jin by surprise, causing him to stop midway as he reached into his pocket for his wallet. “What are you doing?” he asked lightheartedly, tilting his head to the side as he shoved his wallet back into his pocket. “Just let me do this,” you whined, a playful pout on your lips. Chuckling, he put his hands up innocently. “Okay, fine.”

The waiter walked back swiftly, an unreadable look on his face. “Ma’am, your card has been declined.” The smile was wiped from your face immediately as you grew uncomfortable. You felt embarrassed and that was evident on your face as your cheeks grew to a dark red tint. “Here, I got it,” Jin said as he lifted himself off of the seat momentarily to take his wallet out. Using his long fingers, he grabbed his card and gave it to the waiter who stood awkwardly with his hands clasped behind his back. 

“Y/n,” Jin said in a low voice as you, with shaking fingers, put your card back into your purse. You held up that same shaking hand to silence Jin. Looking up, your stomach turned at the concerned expression on his face. “I don’t want to talk about it,” you practically whispered. 

He opened his mouth to say something else, but ultimately nodded. 

In a low voice, you asked to go back home and Jin obliged, not wanting to upset you. 

You went radio silent for a few days, and while Jin could understand why you felt so embarrassed he grew a bit worried when you hadn’t contacted anyone in four days. Yes, that was a short amount of time, but you and Jin were used to spending every day together. So this was a drastic change to his routine. 

So, on Friday night, he texted you to invite you over to the dorms for a weekly movie night with the boys. You lied and said that your car was in the shop and Jin simply replied with an okay, so you figured all was well. 

But twenty minutes when you heard knocking at your apartment door, you opened in, in a full pajama set and grew shocked when you saw and angry Jin standing there. “Hey, what are you doing here?” you asked, a small smile on your face. “I came to pick you up since you said you car was in the shop. But funny thing. Your car is right in its usual parking spot,” he condescendingly said, clearly livid. You swallowed hard. 

“I don’t want to talk about it,” you mumbled, staring down at your feet. He scoffed. “Yeah, you never want to talk about it. But when you are, let me know,” he spat before turning around and walking down the hallway out of your apartment building. 

Slowly closing your door, silent tears slid down your cheeks as you once again felt embarrassed.

Jin took the rest of the day to calm down before thinking about what happened the day before. He wanted to fix things. He knew there was something up with you, and while he really wants you to tell him, he realized that verbally explaining your emotions wasn’t going to work. 

Returning to your apartment around noon, he slid a notepad under the door with a small little message. He knew that you probably didn’t want to see him after the small outburst he had, so hopefully you would just read what he wrote. 

You woke up extremely late and realized you had no milk to put into your coffee. With a loud groan, you pulled on shoes to walk down the street to the convenience store to get more, but when you saw a yellow notebook with scribbles on the front, you forgot all about the milk. 

I know that you might be mad at me and I’m sorry for raising my voice like that with you. But I can see that something is wrong and I’m getting pretty worried. So, please, if you can, just write out what’s wrong and slip it out of the door at 5pm. I know you might not want to see me, which is fine. 

I love you. Please don’t forget that.

Jin

You sat at the dinner table in your kitchen not knowing what to write at first, but soon you found yourself filling almost all of the pages with all the worries clouding your mind. You felt stupid reading some of the sentences you wrote, realizing it was stupid for you to be so upset about certain things. Yet here you were, lying to Jin about your car being in the shop because you were too embarrassed to tell him that you didn’t have money for gas and didn’t want you car to breakdown mid-drive. 

And when 5pm came around, you found yourself scribbling your own little message too. Sliding the now-filled notepad back under the door, you went into your room, emotionally drained. 

Jin really had been waiting out there since he left the notepad there, just sitting in the hallway. He was too worried to leave, if he was being honest. He needed to know that you were alright. So when he saw the notepad slide into the hallway, he grabbed it and smiled a bit at the message you wrote on top. 

I would never not want to see you Jinnie. I’m sorry I’ve been rude and that I’ve lied to you. It’s all explained in here, though. Again, I’m really sorry for lying to you, it kinds just happened, but I hope you can forgive me. 

And of course, I love you too. 

Y/n

Reading the words you wrote with wide eyes, his heart began to fill with guilt after learning that you had been suffering alone for so long. You were eerily good at hiding your emotions. And after reading maybe twenty minutes about what was really just financial problems, Jin found himself watching tears that dripped onto the pages. 

He sniffled and closed his eyes, trying to figure out what to say to you when he knocked on the door. But he needed to see you. He just needed to look at your face, so there he found himself knocking on your door. 

You opened the door, groggy from the sleep you were just yanked out of. 

Before you could even register that it was Jin, he was pulling you into his chest as he held you close. But you weren’t even mad at it as you melted into his much-needed touch. 

“I’ll help you financially. I’ll help you emotionally. I’ll be better, I promise,” he whispered in your ear. You nodded, tears soaking through his shirt. 

Min Yoongi

It wasn’t typical of Yoongi to ask you to accompany him to company events, let alone a whole celebrity event. Some music award show was coming up, and Yoongi had gone in the past and didn’t think to invite you. But now that your one year mark has passed, Yoongi realized that his relationship with you was forever.

So, when he asked you to be his date, at first you were a little nervous because you’ve never been to a place like that, but you knew that if Yoongi was asking you something like that, then he really wanted you to be there. 

So, you said yes. 

And though Yoongi would never admit it or show it, fireworks were going off inside. He wasn’t a fan of PDA, so he wasn’t going to kiss you or anything like that at the awards show, but just showing off the person he wanted to spend the rest of his life with would mean the world to him. 

As you sat at your desk one day, bored at work, you thought about the event and a smile formed on your face at the simple fact that he even asked you. Since the beginning of your relationship, he made it very clear that he wasn’t going to publicly flaunt your relationship; he just wasn’t that person. 

So this was a big development in your relationship. 

But your thoughts began to drift from the invitation to what you were going to wear. And that’s where you began to get stressed. You didn’t have very many clothes. And it wasn’t a personal choice. You just didn’t have the funds for clothes, so you worked with what you had. 

You racked your brain for any formal clothes you had, but all you could think of was a sundress your sister had loaned to you many years ago. You sighed, knowing that you don’t wear a sundress to something like a celebrity award show. 

You figured that you would just have to find something online once you got home. 

You at around seven pm, absolutely drained. You hated your job and the pay was shit, but if you worked enough hours in a week, you would just manage to scrape by. 

You gathered enough energy, though, to smile when you saw Yoongi’s shoes at the door. You made your way to the bedroom, content when you saw Yoongi lounging under the covers, his phone in his hand as the bright screen lit up his face. 

“Hey, baby,” he said, looking up over his phone. “Hey,” you said with a smile, letting out a sigh as you sat down at the bottom of the bed and instantly began to discard of your clothes. 

“Hard day at work today?” he asked, his voice closer. Suddenly, three open mouthed kisses trailed along the skin of your shoulder. “Yeah. And fucking long, too,” you breathed, falling back into his warm embrace. “You work so hard,” he mumbled, arms wrapping around your front. 

“You know, you can just sleep in this.” You looked down at your bra and panties, thinking about changing into some sweatpants because you were a little cold, but that’s why you had Yoongi, so you shrugged and nodded. 

Leaving his grasp, you crawled up into the bed and Yoongi crawled up about half way, his head coming to comfortably rest on your lap. Running your fingers through who you thought was a sleeping Yoongi, you reached over onto your nightstand and grabbed your laptop, looking for ballgown-like dresses, cringing at the prices. 

You found a dress that you thought was appropriate for the occasion but also sexy and sleek. You added it to your wishlist. That was a habit of yours. Since you never had the money, you would save things to your wishlist in hopes of one day having the funds to buy it. 

Yoongi knew this too, and as he watched you hover the cursor over a dress he knew you wanted, his heart ached at the sounds of you muttering. “It costs so much..and if I buy it, how will I pay the light bill?” Yoongi didn’t want to say anything, though. You thought he was asleep and he wanted to keep it that way. 

So, with a heavy sigh, you closed your laptop and put it back where it belonged. 

Maybe five days later, as you entered your bedroom after coming back home from yet another long and tiring day, your mood lifted immediately when you saw Yoongi resting comfortably in your bed, the tv on the wall across from him on some random show. 

Just as you opened your mouth to say something, an item of clothing on the bottom of the bed caught your attention. Upon closer examination, you saw that it was the ballgown you wanted to buy. Your mouth dropped open in shock as you turned to Yoongi. 

He gave that cute little side smile. “Do you like it?” he simply asked. “How did you know I wanted this one?” you asked, in complete and utter shock. Sliding out of bed, he stood beside you and looked at you. “Magic powers,” he joked, fluttering his fingers, causing you to chuckle. 

“Seriously. Let me pay you back,” you quickly said reaching into your purse, but his hand held onto yours and brought it up to his lips. “There’s more coming,” he said before placing yet another kiss on the back of your hand. Your eyes widened. “More? What?”

“You’ll just have to see,” he speculated, his eyebrows rising. Tears prickled your eyes. “Yoongi, I don’t know what to say..” you mumbled, on the verge of tears. “Then don’t say anything. Just go try it on so I know it fits,” he said, a cute little boyish smile on his lips. You took the dress into the bathroom and put it on, tears streaming down your cheeks when it fit perfectly as you gazed at yourself in the mirror. 

When you opened the bathroom door, Yoongi looked you up and down, his tongue passing through his lips. “Damn, y/n. It looks even better than I could have imagined,” he complimented. You blushed and slid out of the dress, not wanting to get it ruined, and ran into Yoongi, arms wide. 

Chuckling, he held your half-naked body close. “I love you,” was all he said, kissing the top of your head. “I love you, too.”

Several days later you were in tears once again when you realized that he had purchased all of the clothes in your various wishlists. And he made you put on a little fashion show for him as you were extremely happy to have new and cute clothes to wear now. And as you showcased each outfit, Yoongi thought, “Damn. I’m spending the rest of my life with them.”

Jung Hoseok

Hoseok admired how much of a hard worker you were. He admired how many hours you put into a job that you hated just so that you could flower him in gifts. Hoseok never took the gifts, though, because he knew that while you were trying to repay him for all of the little expensive gifts he had given you, the money you used to buy those things needed to be used for bills. 

He never let you handle the bill. He never let you pay for even something as simple as an ice cream cone. He would often bring you to hair salons and nail salons so that you could get in some self care because he knew that while he was on tour, you were just working yourself for hours upon hours without a break.

You had only really talked about your issues with money once to Hoseok, and though that was months ago, the conversation was fresh in his mind and he always observed you with wide eyes. 

Through an issue with your landlord, you realized that you had to move. But, the issue was that you didn’t have all that much money. So, for about a month, you went off the grid, just barely talking to Hoseok as you worked your ass off to make just enough to buy another apartment. 

And when you did, Hoseok took you out to celebrate, extremely proud of your hard work. 

But when you had purchased the apartment, similar in size to your previous one, you realized that you didn’t have enough money to buy more than a cheap bed and a couch. Your other apartment included furniture, so you lucked out, but now, you were eating dinner without a table, cross-legged on your extremely uncomfortable bed. 

Hoseok would ask where all the furniture was and you would lie and tell him that it was coming in a few weeks, but Hoseok could see the sadness behind your happy expression. He knew there was no furniture coming. 

I was after he had heard you crying in the bathroom on the phone with your sister that he realized how unhappy you were. Yes, you worked hard, but whenever you were around Hoseok, you always had a strong front up because you didn’t want him to worry. But he was. He always worried about you.

On a day off your boss practically forced you to have, Hoseok had an eventful day planned. After discussing with the boys, he planned for a “day out” far in into the country, at least a four hour drive. You had agreed to go and so did all of the boys, but last minute, Hoseok said that he had some stuff to deal with, but he encouraged you to go. 

And while you would miss him a lot, you were also friends with the boys, so you knew the day would still be fun. 

You and the boys left at the crack of dawn because of the long drive, and it was then that Hoseok put his plan in place. 

He knew you like the back of his hand. It was as if you and Hoseok were twins. You had the same music taste, clothing style, and design style. So, Hoseok figured that he would hire some designers to help spruce up your apartment. 

The designers and painters came in sharply at 6am, ready to decorate the shit out of your apartment. You always had a soft spot for interior design, so whenever you got the chance, you would show Hoseok all these pictures and gawk over them for half an hour. 

Hoseok gathered all the things he knew you liked and spit it out all over your small yet cozy apartment. He even helped a little, painting the walls of your bedroom a light grey. 

It took nearly all day for all the new furniture to be moved in, and once they were done, Hoseok thanked them and looked around, doing a last minute inspection before you came home. It was probably around 9pm when you entered the apartment, exhausted. The boys decided to go home, but they dropped you off at your apartment building first. 

You pushed open the heavy door to your apartment and honestly thought that you had walked into the wrong apartment. But nope. Hoseok was standing in the living room, a bright smile on his face with his arms outstretched. 

“Welcome home!”

“Hoseok, what is this?” you asked, at a loss for words. “Do you like it?” he asked in a hopeful voice, eyes sparkling. “Of course I do,” you mumbled shortly, looking down at your feet as you tried to calm your oncoming tears. You hated crying in front of people. 

“No, no. Please don’t cry.” Moving quickly towards you, Hoseok wrapped his arms around your body, holding you close. “This is supposed to be happy,” he added in his always-cheery voice. You nodded, sniffling as you wiped a few stray tears away. 

“I am happy, Hobi. You didn’t have to do this,” you said, looking up at him with watery eyes. Showing that bright smile of his, he kissed your forehead. “I love you and I want you to have a nice home to come back to after you work so hard,” he whispered, quickly wiping tears away before they got past your defined cheekbones. 

“I love you, too,” you said with a smile large enough to brighten millions of lives. 

Park Jimin

Jimin didn’t know you were struggling with money. It was either you were really good at hiding it or he just figured the opposite. You came from a severely wealthy family would could send the next six generations to college with their seemingly abundant funds with ease. But, since you were the oldest of your siblings, you got cut off as soon as you turned 18. 

Though you grew up around maids and cooks, you were the least spoiled and self centered like the rest of your siblings. You made the right friends who introduced you to the world, so as you went off to college and stuff, you didn’t sound like the stuck up rich girl your parents had raised. 

If anything, you were glad that your parents cut you off because you wanted to make a name for yourself and work hard for your money, rather than get it handed to you. 

You knew that it would be hard since you had to pay your way through college and somehow pay back your student loans, but when your bills were stacked high and your bank account was empty, you at least thought that your parents would extend an olive branch and help their only daughter out. 

But nope. 

“Mom,” you began, sitting down at your kitchen table, your head resting lazily on your cheek. But as you heard her tone escalate, given the fact that your mother was very short tempered, you put the phone on speaker and placed it on the table. 

“No, y/n. Do you know what the meaning of “work for your money” means? When we had this discussion all those years ago, you seemed so happy to make your own money. And it seems that you’re doing pretty good since then,” your mother irritatedly said, no doubt rubbing her temples like she always did when she was stressed. 

“Well, clearly I’m not doing too well if I mustered up the courage to call you,” you snakily said, dumbfounded by how this conversation was going. “Y/n, we’re not giving you any money. This is adulthood. It gets hard but it gets better,” she said with a heavy sigh. 

Tears prickled your eyes, so you took in a deep breath, trying your best to regulate your mood and not get too upset. “Mom. I’m getting very close to losing this place. You really aren’t going to care when I’m on the streets?” you asked in a low voice, afraid of the answer you were expecting. “Of course I’ll care!” she exclaimed, upset that you even asked that. 

“Just go live with that boyfriend of yours,” she added, causing you to scoff, anger replacing the sadness that once tried to plague your body. “I’m not like you mom. Living with my rich partner just to live off of their hard earned money and sit on my ass all day!” you shouted into the phone. Your mom hung up and you put your head in your hands. “Fuck,” you breathed out, brushing the hair out of your face. 

Jimin stood in the slightly ajar doorway, listening with wide, tear-filled eyes. He didn’t know. He had no idea. And from the sounds of it, he wasn’t supposed to know. He wasn’t supposed to hear this. So, he asked himself, do I say something?

As he thought about the answer to that daring question, he entered the apartment as if he had just arrived, plastering a fake smile on his face. “Merry Christmas, baby!” he shouted, causing you to quickly look up from your hands. “Merry Christmas,” you calmly said, walking over to him as you let him embrace you, placing a kiss on your cheek. 

Well, technically, it wasn’t Christmas. It was Christmas Eve. But Christmas was your favorite holiday, so in your house, it lasted all week up to Christmas. 

“I have the Grinch ready for us to watch,” you said with a sweet smile, holding his small hand in yours and dragging him over to the living room. He opened his mouth to say something, but when he saw how happy you were at the sight of him, he knew that he didn’t want to bring up all those upsetting emotions again.

Guess that was his mistake.

Pulling him down on the couch, you snuggled into his side as you began the movie. Wrapping his arms around you, he looked around your apartment and noticed that his own Christmas spirit was rising at the sight of the bright and festive decorations you decided to decorate with. 

Rubbing your back, he placed a simple yet sweet kiss to your head, battling with his own thoughts on how to approach this situation. 

Or even if he should. 

It was maybe halfway through the movie when the lights went out, including the tv. You let out a little squeal, caught by surprise, but Jimin’s arms tightened around you as his eyebrows furrowed in confusion. You were confused momentarily, too. But then you remembered. 

“Here, give me a second. I’ll call the landlord and see what’s going on,” you said, aiming to kiss Jimin’s cheek but instead cutely kissing his nose. With your arms out in front of you, you made your way to the bedroom, calling your landlord. 

Jimin, beyond curious at this point and confused decided to follow you and linger outside the door of your bedroom. 

“You can’t give me a few more days? I’m sure I can gather the money by then,” you spoke in a low voice, Jimin’s heart shattering. “Fuck,” you muttered, nibbling hard on your bottom lip. But Jimin had heard enough. He knew what was going on and while it hurt him to the core, he knew that you would probably need comfort. 

So, using the flashlight on his phone, he went to your candle cabinet in your kitchen and lit all of them with matches, littering them around the living room while you sat on the floor in your bedroom, trying to think up a lie to tell Jimin. 

He spread out multiple blankets on the floor in the living room and mentally praised himself for a job well done. 

Just as he sat down, you emerged from your bedroom, eyes wide. “What’s this?” you asked slowly. “The lights are probably out in the whole building, so I figured we could make it cozy,” Jimin lied as he shrugged, a sweet, innocent smile on his lips. 

Slowly, you made your way over and Jimin pulled you down onto his lap, wrapping the both of you in a thick blanket. No power meant no heating, so indefinitely, the cold air of Seoul would seep into the apartment. 

He thought you looked beautiful with a combination of moonlight from the window and candle light brightening up your face, casting shadows in all the right places. 

Slowly, his hand rubbed your back. 

“Y/n,” he said in a low, gentle voice. He knew. He knew. And that was enough to have you in a mess of tears, too embarrassed to say anything. Jimin’s eyes teared up immediately. “No, no. Shhh. I’m here,” he whispered, holding you close with no intention of ever letting go.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked, trying to gather more information. You shook your head, shoving the palms of your hands into your eyes. He placed three sweet kisses to the crown of your head. “Y/n. Let me help you. I know you hate asking for help, but please. Let me help you,” he muttered. You hesitated, but nodded slowly. 

He had a strong feeling that this had happened before. And that’s what hurt him the most. He knew that while he was abroad doing what he loved, you were sitting in the dark at home alone, too proud to ask for help. 

You had calmed down at this point, but there were still a few sniffles here and there. 

“Here, we can finish watching the Grinch,” Jimin said as he took out his phone, going onto Netflix to resume where you were. And he held his hand out in front of your face as you watched, trying to allow your favorite childhood movie to calm your nerves. But when he heard your soft little snores, he turned off his phone, preserving the battery and he looked down at you. 

“I’ll help you from now on. Always,” he whispered before falling asleep right on top of you. 

Kim Taehyung 

You were sick. Really, it started out as a simple cold you got from standing out in the rain like an idiot. But you were Taehyung’s idiot, so of course he took care of you. He loved being able to have an excuse to constantly hold and baby you. And you loved it, too. He stayed at your apartment with you and cared for you like you were a helpless child. 

He made you soup, cuddled and kissed you, watched movies with you, and gave you baths. But it seemed that the cold was turning into something much worse. Taehyung urged you to go to the doctor, but you insisted that it was just a cold and that you were going to be fine. You just continued to take the same medications. Well, that was until you ran out. 

Taehyung lovingly kissed you on the forehead before he left to go to buy you some more medicine. 

And that’s when things took a turn for the worst. 

Taehyung came home to you sweating like crazy as your body shook slightly. Taking your temperature with furrowed brows, he saw that you were running a dangerously high ever. Higher than he’s ever seen. “I’m taking you to the hospital,” Taehyung murmured as he picked up your shuddering body, holding you close as he slid his feet into shoes.

“Wait,” you said in the weakest voice he had ever heard escape your lips. “What, baby?” he asked, looking down at you with the sweetest yet concerned expression. “I don’t have health insurance,” you groggily said, eyes drooping closed. His eyes widened. Maybe it was just you being a little too sick. Maybe you just didn’t know what you were saying. 

Nonetheless, he frantically took you to the hospital, beyond scared for your wellbeing. 

With a start, you sat up in bed, gasping for air as you looked around your surroundings. “Woah, woah. Take it easy,” Taehyung said beside you in his chair, sitting up and grabbing your hands. “Why are we here?” you asked in a hoarse voice. Handing you a cup of water, Taehyung said, “You have a bad case of the flu.”

Eyes wide, you tried to take the IV out of your arm, but in an instant, Taehyung was firmly holding your hands. “What are you doing? It’s helping you,” he said, confused as to why you were acting like that. Sniffling, you fell back into the hospital bed, a hand coming up over your mouth to muffle your sobs. “What’s wrong, baby?” Taehyung asked as he stood up and hovered over you, stroking your hair with one hand. “I don’t know..how I’m going to pay these hospital bills,” you managed to get out before breaking into much louder sobs. 

So you did mean it. You weren’t just sick and delirious. You really didn’t have health insurance. “Hey, shh,” Taehyung murmured as he placed his body over yours, his head resting next to yours as he rubbed your arms, simultaneously kissing your neck. “Let me pay the hospital bills. You don’t have to worry about that. Please, don’t worry about that. You just need to focus on getting better.” 

Suddenly, your hand flew to his arm and tightened its grip, causing Taehyung to move his head back and look at you Your eyes were wide with what Taehyung could only guess was fear. “I’ve got it, y/n. Don’t worry about it. You’ll be taken care of,” Taehyung promised, stroking your insanely warm cheek. Your fever still hadn’t gone down by much. 

Feeling the effects of the pain medicine pumping through your veins, your eyes began to droop once again and you fell back asleep, leaving a concerned Taehyung. He didn’t know that you didn’t have health insurance. Were times that hard for you? Were your finances really that low?

Regardless of that, he focused on your recovery, and when the bills came in the mail, he grabbed them before you could see and paid them. He couldn’t add you to his health insurance since you weren’t married yet, but he always paid your medical bills whenever the issue arose. He paid a lot more attention to the financial issues you were having. He wanted to care for you in more ways rather than emotionally. 

Jeon Jungkook

It was your birthday. And while it was another birthday of many, it was your first birthday with Jungkook. And honestly, Jungkook had been awaiting this day more than you have. He had arranged to have the day off just so that he could spend every hour he could with you on your special day. 

You never really made a big deal of your birthday because it just felt like every other day of the year. You never got gifts, you didn’t go on elaborate vacations, and you never had a party. So really, all you did in preparation for this “big” day was buy yourself a nice tub of ice cream to share with Jungkook. 

But nope. 

Jungkook had better plans in mind. He wanted to spoil the shit out of you. It wasn’t like Jungkook didn’t buy gifts for you because he did, but he always noticed how you were hesitant to buy yourself something nice and treat yourself. He knew you weren’t a minimalist, so when he saw that you cycled through the same five shirts and three pants and wore the same pair of sneakers, even if they were tattered and dirty, he grew confused 

So he talked to Namjoon about it and Namjoon asked if you worked a low paying job. Jungkook said yes. Namjoon explained that you were probably struggling with money. 

This was new to Jungkook because he never suspected that of you. You always wore the small amount of clothes you had with a smile and never once complained. Sometimes, though, you would opt out from buying something if the two of you went out to eat or you would always get super anxious when Jungkook offered to pay. 

You were shorter than Jungkook, but your ego was taller than you and Jungkook combined. So, there was no way, no matter how bad things got financially, that you would ask Jungkook for help. You liked to solve things on your own. 

Jungkook had been thinking about taking you on an impromptu shopping spree for a while now, but since it was your birthday, there would be no better time for him to drown his baby in designer outfits you would never buy for yourself. 

Jungkook had to literally drag you into the mall. 

“Jungkook, what are we doing here?” you whined as he kept his grasp on your hand firm but gentle. “Give me a second,” he said, turning back to flash a smile at you before turning back around and navigating his way through the large bustling building. 

He took you to a store that he thought suited your style perfectly, and as you stood in the entrance beside him, looking wide eyed at all the clothes, he gave a gentle shove, pushing you a few feet into the store before you stopped yourself. 

“What are you doing? Aren’t you here to buy something?” you asked. “No,” he said with a boyish chuckle, shaking his head at your adorable oblivion. 

“Pick out whatever you want. Part of your birthday present is a shopping spree. So, go crazy!” he exclaimed, expecting you to smile and go look at the clothes, but he didn’t expect for your face to be so red. That really only happened when you were anxious and embarrassed. To your dismay, you were feeling both at extremely elevated levels. 

Throwing away his joking front, his face became serious as he reached over and grabbed your hand, pulling you out of the store and gently pushing you against the wall a few feet away from the entrance. 

Bending his knees so that he was level with you, he frowned. 

“What’s wrong?” he asked. You looked down at your dirty shoes, feeling small under the gaze of your millionaire boyfriend wearing spotless and practically new sneakers. Instead of answering, you nibbled harshly on your bottom lip. 

“Hey,” he said softly, lifting your chin so you would look at him. 

“You work hard, y/n. So hard and I’m so proud of you. Let me treat you,” he gently spoke, staring into your eyes. “But I don’t want you to waste your money on me,” you murmured. Jungkook scoffed. 

“If it was being spent on you, it would never be wasted,” he replied, but all you did was shake your head and look back down. 

“Y/n,” Jungkook called. 

“This is me taking care of you,” he began, his heart beating loudly in his chest. “Please, let me take care of you.” 

Sighing softly, you nodded with unease, still not 100% okay with the idea. With a sweet and long kiss to your forehead, he intertwined his fingers with yours, this time, entering the store with you since he knew you would need some encouragement. “Pick something,” he encouraged with a smile. You, with a shaky hand, reached for the cheapest t-shirt. Jungkook frowned. He knew you didn’t even like it. And as you looked around the room, he could see when you saw something you liked. 

And yes, the prices were high, but what was the point of making all that money if he couldn't share it with anyone?

So, Jungkook got clever. 

“Here, why don’t you get this?” he suggested as he lifted these ugly brown jeans off of the rack. He could see your nose shrivel up. “These are cuter, though,” you said with a smile as you lifted a pair of jet black skinny jeans next to them. “Okay, then get those,” Jungkook said, and you happily draped it over your arm. 

Jungkook had to do that every time for you to buy something, but once you caught on to what he was doing, he settled with picking stuff out that he could see that you liked or stuff that he thought would look good on you. 

After about maybe one hour of Jungkook using his hidden fashion skills to create outfits for you, he brought he clothing items to the register and waited patiently as it all got rung up. But, through the corner of his eye, he saw you staring intently at the overall price rising significantly with each beep of the machine. 

Shaking his head with a cute smile, he, without warning, picked up your body and slung it over his shoulder, playfully slapping your ass. 

“Jungkook, put me down!” you exclaimed, punching his ass with your hands, but instead of doing what you asked, he reached into his pocket for his wallet. “Jungkook, don’t pay for that!”

“Oops. I already did,” Jungkook said, finally putting you down once the prices were off of the screen. Pouting, you didn’t help carry any of the bags, so Jungkook did and walked out of the store with you. 

“I can’t wear any of these,” you complained. He chucked cutely. “I’ll just give it to Jimin. You and him have similar styles,” Jungkook said with a simple shrug of his shoulders. You gasped. “Nope. Nope. I’m good. I’ll keep it,” you quickly said, causing Jungkook to let out a full body laugh. 

“Happy birthday, darling,” he mumbled, placing some of the bags in your hand. All you could do was smile. 

[ks-caster]

The Future is Infinite (Chapter 6)

Chapter-Specific Warnings: moderately graphic gore, non-graphic magical torture

Start || Previous

Navigating around rivulets of lava probably should have been a little more thrilling than it was. Wong had dropped them off on a hillside, a 5-minute walk from where Nebula’s sensors showed the fleet was parked. 

“Why can’t we just magic portal our way inside?” Peter asked when Nebula showed a map of the terrain they’d need to cross.

“The ships’ defenses are designed with portals in mind,” Nebula explained curtly. “Nothing short of the Bifrost or the Space Stone itself could penetrate.”

Nebula led them towards the huge ship, and the fleet of smaller vessels being released from it to open their fueling vents - each taking a turn docking at a more permanent-looking structure built into the side of a gently spewing volcano. Octavia felt half-naked, running around an alien planet in casual clothes and ballet flats, nothing but a barely-visible forcefield between her and enough heat to melt lead on contact. She knew that her armor wouldn’t really protect her in this scenario, but she would have felt better, having it on. The comforting weight of her sword at her back was small consolation. 

The four of them crouched behind a rocky outcropping, discussing how best to get to the detention area of the ship without being detected. Octavia kept watch, listening while her eyes tracked everything that moved around them. Some of the smaller ships were triangular, and others were massive loops. 

“Just make sure you stay out of grabbing range,” Nebula reminded Peter. “If they rip the field pod off your back, you’ll cook in your suit in minutes.”

“West side of the fleet, start causing a distraction in 5 minutes, meet back here, don’t get cooked. Got it,” Peter listed before slipping around the rocks and running, low and fast, to get to the designated distraction point. Wong wrapped a web of golden light around himself, and when the light dimmed, he was barely visible. Octavia scuffed out the map Nebula had drawn in the dirt, and all three of them ran quietly towards the Sanctuary II.

-0-

It didn’t take long at all to slip onto the massive ship; Nebula lead them unerringly to a supply room where they slipped into whatever armor they could find to camouflage themselves. Like the kings of old, she’d described while drawing the map, Thanos had designed his ship with servant passageways, so that the people bringing his breakfast and mopping up the training rooms wouldn’t need to be visible among the warriors and allies who he believed deserved to be there.

“What a prick,” Peter had muttered, sounding very, very young even through his suit. As Octavia followed the blue woman through the detention level of the ship, she finally understood why Nebula had insisted that Peter be the distraction, rather than using his stealth skills with the team and letting Octavia run around and kill people outside.

No child, no matter how powerful, belonged anywhere near here.

They took care to keep their steps measured and even, soldiers marching in a familiar direction, following familiar orders. It was difficult not to look between the bars; to glimpse the faces of the poor souls trapped here. Maybe they should have brought the whole team, Octavia thought, her heart twisting. But, she reminded herself, there wouldn’t have been near enough space suits to rescue this many people. 

When they defeated Thanos, that would have to be rescue enough.

The codes were changed out regularly, according to Nebula’s briefing, but they followed a predictable pattern. They had to, when one had so many dumb lackeys wandering around the ship, she’d added, lip curling in disgust. Her deft metal fingers typed a code in on a pad, and the door to what she’d described as the high-profile section whirred open. The three of them marched in, and Octavia had to work to control her breathing when the door clanged shut behind them. She wasn’t trapped, she reminded herself sternly - Nebula had given her the code to get out, and if that didn’t work, she could always just kill people until someone opened the door to escape. She swallowed, squared her shoulders, and followed Nebula to the little electrical room directly next to the main interrogation cell.

Octavia and Wong were silent as Nebula carefully untangled wires, plugging one and then another into ports in her forearm. The woman’s eyes were unfocused, her shoulders and jaw just a bit too set, and her breathing far too shallow for Octavia to believe she was okay. Maybe Strange had assumed she had PTSD because so many other people around him clearly did, she thought, remembering Stark barely staving off a breakdown. Wong reached up a hand and gently clasped Nebula’s shoulder, his thumb rubbing soothing circles into her skin.

Octavia leaned against the wall, where she could just peer out the door and into the cell. She saw Strange, clearly unconscious, on the way in, but they’d ducked away before being spotted by the two beings in the cell with him. From her vantage point, what she could see was a smaller cage, containing what she thought was the Doctor’s red cloak. It was moving, apparently on its own, trying to either break the door open or find a gap in the chain link sides large enough to squeeze through. So far, it was unsuccessful.

“Let me try,” a voice demanded, and a third person entered the cell, the door closing behind him. Out of the corner of Octavia’s eye she saw Wong stiffen, his eyes going wide. She turned to glance at him, frowning.

“Mordo,” he breathed. “Old friend…” he didn’t sound at all sure of the ‘friend’ part.

“Wizard?” Nebula whispered, as a few sharp slaps and a gasp heralded Strange being revived. Wong nodded.

“Quite a spell,” Mordo complimented, and Octavia could see the flying orange sparks and warm glow in the air that accompanied magic. The cloak’s agitation grew; it nearly knocked its cage off the table, and one of the original interrogators walked over and punched it back into place. “The trouble with a spell like this is, it’s all or nothing. Your very essence is feeding into it.”

“That was the idea,” Strange grit out. “Even if I die, removing the last vestiges of it from my corpse will take years.”

“Of course, of course,” Mordo crooned, and then Strange let out a choked cry. “But why would I break the spell when I can do this instead? The bill comes due, Strange…”

“Fire suppression system activating in 5, 4, 3,” Nebula counted quietly, and Wong waved his hands, summoning a long rod of golden light.

The buzzing screech of the alarm would have knocked Octavia off her feet if she hadn’t been braced for it. Sprinklers deployed, and Octavia surged out from the hiding place, fingers moving quickly to type in the code before anyone realized something was amiss. The two beings who had been in the cell originally ran out the door right past her, not looking past her stolen armor; they paused a moment once they’d run out a few paces, but before they had the chance to return and demand an explanation, one had met Wong’s magic rod, and Nebula had stabbed the other in the throat. 

Mordo had his hand resting near Strange’s lower belly, fingers curled inward, palm up, with some kind of swirling light resting on his skin, and Strange was mid-scream of protest when Octavia’s first strike forced Mordo to dodge, releasing whatever he’d been doing. Nebula flipped a lever and Strange dropped, boneless, from whatever force had suspended him. Octavia caught him as he fell, but Mordo was on them again with a cry of rage.

“Master Mordo,” Wong roared, intercepting him. “You have betrayed the brotherhood of the mystic arts, and your planet of origin.”

“That’s not how I see it,” the other wizard growled, and Octavia’s eyes widened. The gold necklace where Strange kept the time stone was dangling from the man’s fingers. Wong spotted it at the same time she did, and he slashed downward at that arm, but Mordo vaulted backwards, turning to run down the hallway. By now, other guards had realized the source of the disturbance and began to congregate. They opened their ranks to let Mordo through, but then closed again, baring teeth and pulling out weapons.

“Here,” Octavia said, handing over Strange’s dead weight to Nebula. “Get him out. I’ll meet you at the rendezvous point in 20 minutes.”

“Octavia,” Wong started from where he was hurriedly releasing the sentient cloak from its cage, but she cut him off.

“I need you to do what you do best,” she said quietly, pulling out her sword and whirling it in an arc of sharp steel. “And let me do what I do best.”

Killing had always come more easily to her than rescue, hadn’t it?

-0-

The alien soldiers were weak. But god, there was no end to them. Nebula and Wong had gotten Strange safely back into the servants’ passages, and Octavia had defended the entrance until too many bodies had piled up around her for either her or the attackers to get much fighting done. After that, she turned and ran, the rabid horde chasing after her as she threaded her way through the maze that was the detention level. 

Nebula had suggested a couple of exit points, in case everything went to hell; one of them was a small intake hangar where captured shuttles were impounded while their crews were killed or imprisoned. She made for it, but the creatures headed her off, surrounding her and forcing her to stop and defend herself. Time was ticking by, and she knew they couldn’t wait for her forever; she wasn’t foolish enough to believe that she’d distracted 100% of the army all by herself.

Shuri’s force field seemed to be effective at blocking whatever they were blasting her with out of their guns, but the physical ends of bayonets claws were able to penetrate. However, while she would bleed for a moment when cut, the wounds closed themselves with a dark red glow. 

‘How was I making holes in the floor back in the medical center?’ she wondered, and then she was falling - only one story this time, and she landed on her feet.

“Yes!” She hissed, turning to run in the direction she judged the impound to be. The creatures followed her, snapping and roaring and clawing their way along the walls when there was no more room for them to run side by side. She slowed to turn a corner, and with an ominous whistle, a thrown dagger sliced through the air - and impaled the pod stuck to her back.

The pain of the blow and the jarring feel and smell of the ship without the forcefield around her slowed her down for a moment - long enough for a blast of blue light to hit the back of her calf, the pain searing up her leg and causing her to trip.

But instead of hitting the cold metal floor, she fell into the arms of a woman clad in bloodstained white armor.

-0-

“Is he okay? Why isn’t he waking up?” Peter was demanding, the eyes of his suit tiny red points as the Instant Kill function kept off their pursuers.

“Whatever spell Mordo hit him with, it did a number on his magic,” Wong responded, angling the round shield he’d conjured and spinning it to slice two of the attackers in half. “I’m going to take us the roundabout way to the meeting place,” he announced, opening the first of a series of portals placed strategically to split the horde up chasing them.

“What about Octavia?” Peter exclaimed, jumping through the first only to swing out and bash an alien soldier right in the chest, landing him on top of two of his comrades.

-0-

“I can run on my own,” Octavia gasped after the woman had helped her limp a few steps. She’d been holding a large gun, and laid down enough cover fire that they had a few seconds to breathe - and gave the Reality Stone enough time to put Octavia’s leg back together. “I heal quick,” she explained as she took her own weight back and they ran side by side towards the hanger. She vaguely recognized the woman - she’d been in one of the cells when they’d first entered. She must’ve used all the chaos of the breakout to escape herself.

“Do you have transport off-planet?” the woman asked, pausing a moment to shoot behind them.

“A wizard is making a portal in about ten minutes,” Octavia responded, pulling the small handheld alien gun out of the holster in her stolen armor and trying to fire back. It clicked uselessly.

“Safety, on the back,” the woman instructed. “Press twice, wait for the light to go on.”

This time the weapon sent out a jet of blue light and a creature fell to its death. 

“All of the captured ships have homing technology installed in them,” she continued as they arrived at the hanger and Octavia disabled the guard with a powerful roundhouse kick. “So I hope your wizard can do his bit.” She pressed a few buttons and the outer door opened - bringing with it a wave of heat that had Octavia falling to her knees with a cry.

Right. No force field.

She hyperventilated, inflating her lungs and hoping that whatever this woman was, she could survive the climate long enough to catch up with Wong and the others. Apparently it was time to test the“functional immortality” bit of sharing her body with an infinity stone.

-0-

“She should be back by now,” Nebula growled, pacing back and forth behind the rocky outcropping where they’d met to discuss their initial plan. According to her internal chronometer, it had been 23 minutes since Octavia had said 20, and while she understood that people without a computer for a brain rarely meant time as specifically as she did, that made it hard to judge how long to wait for her.

“We can wait a few more minutes,” Wong said in a deliberately calm tone. He’d led their pursuers on a wild, backtracking chase before hiding them away behind the rocks, using his magic to make them unnoticeable. “Until they find us, we’re safe here.”

“Where’s the sticky boy?” Nebula asked suddenly, frowning at their surroundings.

-0-

If this was what Primefiya had felt like, Octavia resolved to treat Clarke with a little more respect from now on. Her skin was burning off and healing simultaneously, and she could tell that whatever the other woman was, she wasn’t having such a good time of it either. Barely able to see straight, Octavia stumbled forward, trying to keep the part of the ship they’d originally approached behind her and hoping that the pursuing soldiers had assumed they’d stayed onboard. She didn’t know how long she could fight in this state if she had to.

She caught sight of the specific group of rocks they were aiming for just as she heard the screech of one of the creatures. Two small groups of them approaching from different directions. How had they even gotten out here so fast?

The woman shot down one group, but then the gun sputtered and died, out of power. Octavia pulled out her own gun, but she could barely aim it. She couldn’t breathe, could barely stand to keep her eyes open… 

“Hey ass-holes!” a familiar voice shouted, and the creatures turned just in time to see Peter swinging from one of his webs which he’d attached to the outer wing of the ship. They didn’t even have time to dodge the spider-leg-like extensions from his suit.

“Nice job, kid,” she rasped before collapsing. The woman in white caught her, and between her and Peter, they supported her back to the portal.

To Be Continued...

[scorrigan]

ZR VIP

Second Post! Ok, so this one explores the fandom and the ideas StS has for their customer base.  To state it upfront, I love Zombies Run, at some points it has been my fav media! First post about the nuts and bolts of the pricing change are here.  When the VIP price was announced, long time fans on the private race forum went kinda apeshit.  This a pretty major price increase for the races (If a runner has been playing since 2015, its now $90 up front and $32-$48 over a year vs $8 upfront and $35 twice over a year.  What Six to Start expects:  We’re increasing the price slightly for a third race, but you get more content! And more choice about physical merch! All story extras we used to ship to you are also included on the app!  What the fans saw: $100 lump sum in literally the most uncertain time in Americans’ lives, hassle of having to order the race packs separately, cancellation of the legacy access cost in exchange for access to new races, putting Jack and Eugene behind a paywall.   So lets explore why the fans are unhappy with that model.   To answer that I want to think about 5 different fans under the old pricing: Fan Jody: at $35 each race is not a huge commitment; she runs them to have fun.   Fan Sam is a story completionist; he loves ZR and each new purchase makes him excited just to get something new.   Fan Sara is a moderate to serious competitive racer.  She has set new PRs with ZR and also started entering a few local races.   Fan Kefi is a serious competitive racer.  The VRs are fun and affordable, and a they’re a fun way to train or to accompany a real world race;  She loves collecting medals! SHe likes the story part of Zr but gets flustered that the ZR times never quite match to her watch based running app. Fan Maxine isnt a runner but loves the story; she lowers the music interval to its lowest setting goes on walks to ZR. She has listened to the first 4 seasons in 2 months! Sam and Sara will likely buy a yearly membership.  Kefi might, if she can afford it after the cost of her real life races.  Maxine probably would buy one yearly membership and then never again.  So Jody is the real question here, the fan who buys the races at $35, but isn’t interested in competition and might balk at the higher sticker count.  Jody might also not want to run three or four races a year. How many of us are Sam, and how many of us are Jody? How many of us are Kefi, and prioritize racing as a serious hobby vs Sara, a consistent but more low key hobbyist?  All of the above have bought one or two races in the past, but being forced to buy three races at once might be a bit too much risk or cost.   ... Six to Start has slowly morphed Zombies Run, from an app that gamifies running into one that gamifies racing. In 2017, after 2 years of Zombies Run virtual races, they expanded to a second non-zombie themed race app, Racelink.  Racelink shut down in 2019 and StS slowly folded most of those races along with new content into the ‘New Adventures’ anthology in Zombies Run.  Although they are committed to telling stories in the Zombies Run universe, functionally, they see more value in focusing on selling races.  Now, they have put all the new races under a lump sum. Other than guarantee money up front, what does this do?  My theories are:

It diverts the bulk of StS’s income race income to apple/google, and less from a credit card processor.  I’m trying to figure out why this is an advantage.

It might truncate the shipping period and make the delivery timing of the race pack much less important to the customer’s enjoyment. 

It allows the customer some choice as to which race packs they want.  

It also removes the choice to buy only one race per year.  Its all or nothing.

It also puts the race runners on recurrent billing.    

On the technology side, maybe it pays for some of the server request bumps of new groups downloading free to play missions (when ZR trends on soc med. Each mission is about the same size as 4-5 songs from itunes).

Pays for staff or talent to have increased pay rates, or to increase the pool of talent with more writers/cast. (Anyone who has been working on one project for 10 years deserves increases in pay, man)

Its pretty clear that StS views the main body of the Zombies Run (350+ missions) is the built in ‘loss leader’ that gets you to subscribe to the ARC, and if you like that enough, to the VIP.  And like any business, theyre looking to grow to people who haven’t been paying for the last 5 years of races.  It just seems to leave the most loyal customers holding the bag.