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p1harmonyofficial · 3 years

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[📰] Get to Know the Members of K-Pop Group P1Harmony With These 10 Fun Facts! (Exclusive)

P1Harmony is a rising global K-Pop troupe, but we wanted Just Jared readers to get an exclusive chance to know them a little better!

The talented six-member boy group first arrived on the scene back in October of 2020, embarking on their international music career with the release of their first mini album DISHARMONY: STAND OUT and feature film, P1H: A New World Begins, which positioned the group as a force to be reckoned with in the music scene.

Amid the pandemic, the group continued to make new music for their fans with the release of their second mini album, DISHARMONY: BREAK OUT, including their slamming, hip-hop infused title track “Scared,”” along with an accompanying music video full of street-style dancing and intense visual effects.

Watch “Scared” and check out these 10 Fun Facts about P1Harmony inside!

INTAK

1. I have more eyelashes on my right eye than my left. Right after my debut, I didn’t really know how to remove eye makeup, so for a while, I used to just rub my eyes really hard with soap and now, I have more eyelashes on my right eye than my left. 2. I used to love oysters, but now I cannot eat it. I was an oyster fanatic, until very recently. I ordered raw oysters after watching a TV show at night with JONGSEOB, and after one bite, I couldn’t eat it anymore. The taste of the “sea” was so pungent. Now, I’m too traumatized! 3. I saved a man’s life. I went chestnut picking with my dad, and found a guy hanging on a cliff and struggling to get back up. We immediately helped him get up. He was really grateful and I remember feeling so proud to have saved someone’s life! 4. I have a small horizontal scar on the right side of my face, and I kind of like it. I got this scar when I was about four or five, and although it’s not that visible now, sometimes I like it because it makes me feel like a charismatic, bad guy! 5. I love dogs. I love dogs, so I have been watching a lot of dog-related videos but I’m terribly allergic. I can’t stop myself from petting them when I see them on the street, and always regret it afterwards because I turn all puffy and itchy! 6. I fantasize a lot about time travel. I even tried and feel like it can really happen one day! I lie down in my bed, put my blanket over my entire body and focus really hard on the idea, but this brings me nowhere but to the future. [Laughs] 7. I have a gold tooth. 8. I have a brown spot (mole) on my middle finger. 9. I love my Crayon Shin-chan character earphones. I get happy just looking at it. 10. I go to the convenient store so much that there isn’t anything I have not tried!

THEO

1. My right shoulder is more developed than my left. I used to play volleyball and would strike with my right arm, so my right shoulder is more developed than my left. 2. I have a red mole. I recently got a red mole on the side of my right neck, but I have no idea where it came from and why but it’s not going away! 3. I can’t burp, literally. I don’t know how to burp and have never burped in my life 4. I only drink carbonated drinks. I rarely drink anything that is NOT carbonated. 5. I don’t like lettuce and tomatoes in my burgers. 6. I had a burst appendix and didn’t know it for a while. I was hospitalized for two months, because they couldn’t find my appendix. Apparently, my organs are shaped and structured differently. 7. I love slippers. Unless I am going to an official engagement or doing promos, I am always in slippers, (even during winter)! 8. I have never cried in front of people until I turned 20. I was watching a very emotional episode of “Animal Farm,” and got caught crying in front of KEEHO, SOUL and JIUNG. Since then, I think I’ve gotten more emotional. I once cried watching JONGSEOB cry, too. 9. I can’t stay still when I’m on the phone. I have to walk around or do something when I’m on the phone. 10. I love singing songs to my friends over the phone.

JIUNG

1. I love Tonkatsu (pork cutlet). I have been addicted to tonkatsu these days and have been eating it almost every day for the last few months. 2. I have the same birthday as my younger brother. My younger brother and I share the same birthday, which is Oct. 7. We were also born around the same time. 3. My younger brother and I have a similar birth time as well. I think he was born like 8 minutes before me or after! 4. I love raw garlic and don’t like kimchi. 5. I only drink flat coca-cola. I purposely decarbonate my coke by shaking it and letting the air out multiple times until the bottle doesn’t expand anymore and the coke is completely flat. 6. I still fit into my hats from my adolescent years. My head is so small that I still fit into all my hats from elementary school. 7. I think too much. I make daily memos and write down almost everything to organize my thoughts. 8. I like to dance and sing when the streets are empty. When no one is around and I’m in a good mood. I love walking down the empty street thinking I’m shooting a music video. I sing, dance and act. Last time, I bumped into someone and I ran away in full embarrassment! [Laughs]. 9. I have a scar on my eye. 10. I may look picky, but I’m not a picky eater! I love trying a lot of different cuisines.

KEEHO

1. I love collecting sunglasses and glasses although my eyesight is near perfect. I love wearing glasses even though I don’t need them to see. I also have been collecting a lot of sunglasses lately. 2. I talk during my sleep, apparently! According to my members, I sleep-talk a lot (almost every night), but I don’t remember any of it and I never have dreams. 3. I have the same birthday as my dad! 4. I can eat salads all day. I love salads! I love eating vegetables, especially celery and carrots, and prefer dressings like ranch and oriental. 5. I am not good at smiling. I have a hard time smiling so I’m still in the process of learning how to smile naturally! I have to make sounds out loud to smile [during photo shoots]. 6. I used to hate wearing sweatpants. I don’t know why but I hated sweatpants and never wore them when I was younger― even if I had to wear something more uncomfortable like slacks or jeans.. Now, I wear them all the time! 7. I rarely cry alone or in front of people. The only person who has seen me cry is INTAK. I was going through something heavy and was alone at a park by myself when INTAK came to pick me up. He started crying as soon as he saw me, and that made me cry. 8. I used to pull all my loose baby teeth. I hated having something loose in my mouth, so instead of waiting to go to the dentist, I used to pull them out on my own. 9. I have a light (barely noticeable) mole on my big toe. 10. I have curly hair, so unless I blow dry it, it goes wild.

SOUL

1. I used to collect beetles. I think I had up to 30 beetles in one big box. 2. I only wear Air Jordans. I only wear Jordans and my favorite design is the Air Jordan 1s. 3. I love dolls! I love buying and collecting dolls. I like anything that is cute and fuzzy. 4. I don’t like taking pictures of humans except KEEHO. I only take pictures of nature, architecture or like a beautiful scenery. The only time I would take a picture of a human is of KEEHO. 5. Me and my younger sister found an important historical stone artifact. We were just digging stuff up and found a stone artifact. We later learned it was a historically valuable artifact, so we donated it to a museum. 6. I wear my pants backwards. 7. I don’t like electric fans. I don’t like when wind blows in my face 8. I once had the same dream three times in a row. I had the same dream three times in a row, but every ending changed depending on the choices I made [in my dream]. 9. A bird pooped on my head while I was on my way to school. Without having much reaction, I just walked to school and waited until I had to go to the bathroom to wash. 10. I don’t get scared or surprised easily. I used to get yelled at for bowing down and saying hi to all the actors playing zombies, monsters or ghosts at haunted houses in theme parks.

JONGSEOB

1. I like books that are thick and with small letters for no particular reason. I tend to buy books that are thick, whatever the genre is. I think it’s because I’m a fast reader. 2. I never had cavities! I love eating sweets like jellies and candies. I can go through a whole pack in one sitting, but I’ve never had cavities! 3. I have something called a “knee hyperextension and/or back knee. My knee bends backwards in a straightened position unlike many people. 4 I love the dark. I usually don’t turn on the lights unless I really have to. 5. I could sleep for long periods of time. I once slept up to 16 straight hours, and I barely have dreams. Maybe like five times a year?! 6. I don’t like/eat seaweed or seagrass. 7. I love walking into a room that is super cold. I turn on the A/C and close the door for about 30 minutes so it can be ice cold before I walk in. 8. I want to learn how to play bass guitar one day! I watch random videos of jam sessions, and one day would really like to play bass guitar. 9. My eyesight is different on both eyes. I am near-sighted on one, and far-sighted on the other. 10. I am pretty good at playing games on my phone.

#p1harmony #ot6 #t:news #era:disharmony : break out #210430

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keyofjetwolf · 4 years

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@silvermoon424 I’m certainly happy to try! I’m going to guess you won’t enjoy the answer too much, though. I don’t have any secret or trick, you know? I WISH I DID. All I really have to share is what you’ve probably already heard: eat better, move more.

But I can break down a few things I’ve figured out, going through this. Things that you can do without a tiny furious lesbian nipping at your heels, insisting you Not Die. THOUGH IF YOU HAVE ACCESS TO THAT I DO RECOMMEND TAKING ADVANTAGE**

1. I think the most important first step is really commit to it. It sucks a lot, and it's not always easy, but if you don't sincerely want the results, you won't be able to power through the spots where it's hard.

2. You have to hold yourself accountable. A huge part of that is making yourself take note of and record what you're eating. It's one thing to grab a chocolate bar and eat it and forget about it, but it's another when you have to pull out your notebook and find the calories and factor in the serving size and write it down where you have to see it there looking back at you. We already know we shouldn't be doing it. Making it real and tangible in a way where you can't just put it out of mind can really hold your feet to the fire.

3. Don't have it around! Seriously, this one has helped me so much. Just don't have it! You know your weak spots (and if you don't, you'll soon discover them), you know the things you just want to grab out of the fridge or the cupboard. You can't do it if it's not there, bottom line. We don't keep jars of peanut butter in the house anymore (or at least not where I see them.) Hubby and I both cut out chips entirely. That isn't to say you can't ever have those things again, you just have to plan for them, and ensure you only have what you plan for. For example, the other night we were all on our own for dinner. I was deeply craving this particular brand of pretzel stick they have up here. So I saved my calories for the day, went to the store, bought the small bag, measured out and weighed the appropriate amount (turns out it was the whole bag, which was a pleasant delight, but if it hadn't been, I would've immediately given Doc what was over), and had those with some turkey. There wasn't anything about that meal that was HEALTHY, really, but because it's not my every day, and I planned it out and didn't exceed what I was allowed, it was completely fine. So if you have just a bone-deep craving for a doughnut, budget it in your calorie allotment for that day, and go get JUST what you're allowed. If you can only buy it in a quantity over what you’re allowed, buy the smallest you can and throw out or give away the rest. IMMEDIATELY, not the "I'll do it later" thing where it hangs around the house and then oops, it’s somehow magically gone. Set yourself up for success, not failure. Don't keep around what you know is a temptation.

4. Resolve with yourself that you'll be eating some stuff you don't much like. It sucks, but then, so does diabetes. In that vein though, you may find that after you've had it a few times, and your expectations realign, you like it more than you thought. You might even come to enjoy it! You have to persevere with it, though. Still, you may never like it! OH WELL. Consider how much more you'll like multiple daily injections of very expensive insulin and an even more restrictive diet which I guarantee will be full of shit you don't like. Eat the broccoli or die, right? Suddenly, broccoli doesn't seem so bad. (I actually really like broccoli, sorry, to pick on you, broccoli.) Honestly, many vegetables are pretty great, just most people don't prepare them right. Seasoning and roasting them is the way to go, which Holligay has repeatedly proven.

5. Portion control is a big factor. WEIGH AND MEASURE EVERYTHING. Don’t eyeball that shit, your senses are weak and will lie to you. Also -- and this may seem weird, but go with me -- check the size of your plates and bowls and shit. Again, our eyes are liars. The same amount of food looks very different depending on what size plate it’s on. The bigger stuff completely skews our perception of what a serving should look like. Get smaller plates.

6. This one may be a real toughie depending on your personal habits, but eating in front of screens is a path to madness. There's study after study after study showing that eating while watching TV or being on your computer takes you out of being mindful of what and how much you're eating. Sit at a table and focus on your meal! You’ll eat more slowly, and so recognize when you’re full. And the food tastes better when it’s your main focus, so you’ll be more satisfied, too. I’M NOT MAKING IT UP TRY IT

What you may notice here is an absence on the WHAT of what you should eat. That’s important too, to be sure, but I think that’s the part that’s a bit easier to start working in. There are tons of healthy, tasty recipes out there, but it’s the behavioural stuff that is, I think, the key to change.

And you can start today! Right now! Clearing your home of your temptations is a great huge first step. And don't do the "this bag is nearly full, what a waste, I'll just finish this up" thing. The money's spent, there's no reason to continue to do damage. (Or hide a reluctance to make the change under a convenient excuse.) It's garbage calories, it's deep fried air, it's frozen sugar, it tastes good but is killing you. Get rid of it.

If you’re of the snacking/grazing bent (I’m generally not, but I get those that are), buy snap peas, baby carrots, cherry tomatoes. Get some soy sauce. Dip and eat away! I think you'll soon find that if you're not hungry enough to snack on those? You weren't really all that hungry.

And combine all this with moving, too! Get yourself a step tracker. An ACTUAL step tracker, not your smart watch, which counts every twitch of your wrist as a step you most assuredly did not take. I’m currently using and recommend the FitBit Inspire, clipped to my bra. At my worst/highest points, I sometimes wouldn’t take more than about a thousand steps a day. SERIOUSLY. Again, having something to put these abstract ideas into harsh numbers is a great motivator. And you don’t even have to go outside! ON A HOT DAY I HAVE WALKED MILES IN A CIRCLE IN MY LIVING ROOM. I don’t look cool, but I DO meet my step goal for the day.

You may notice a numbers theme here, but weigh yourself. Keep track! I use a Renpho scale, which connects to an app on my phone and automatically logs my weight, AND I can sync it with my FitBit, so all my precious precious data is in one place. Now maybe you’re not such a nerd for data as I am (YOU’D HAVE TO BE REALLY REALLY NERDY), but again, it takes something abstract and nebulous and gives it to you in a way that our monkey brains understand. Making all this real to you is a huge part of putting the consideration for it in your brain. It’s not gonna be fun. There’s a lot of numbers you’re REALLY not going to like to see. But you have to know where you’re at to know where to go. And when those numbers turn into trends, and those trends start to show you real, concrete progress? Feels good. Feels real good.

Yeah, so! It’s a lot of words, and there’s a huge chance none of them are what you were hoping for. I wish I had something more neat and easy, but it’s just this. Commitment. Accountability. DATA SUCH HATEFUL WONDERFUL DATA

Best of luck!

(**) All joking aside, I’m incredibly fortunate to have Doc. As I think I’ve said before, when she heard about the pre-diabetes, she said “Okay, we’re done with this” and THAT VERY DAY laid out changes. She’s always ready with a foot in my ass. Also, as our family chef, she’s consistently in charge of my meals, which means I’m lucky enough to not need to think about it. MUCH LIKE A PUPPY I JUST EAT WHAT GOES IN MY BOWL. So if you have help and support available to you, take it.

The most important part, though, is you. However much help I have, I have to keep up my end, too. About eighteen months ago, I was SO CLOSE to a major goal, but ignored my depression and stopped caring and everything backslid terribly. I’m still working to regain all that lost ground. My point being, the number one vital element in making real change in you is YOU. Once you’re set there, the rest is details.

#jet wolf replies #silvermoon424 #life with jet wolf #a novel by jet wolf #dear jet wolf

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thefairefolk-rp · 4 years

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Welcome to TFF, Bri! Your application for Orla Fang has been accepted!

OOC INFORMATION:

Name/Nickname:

Bri

Age:

Pronouns:

She/hers

Timezone:

EST

Activity and Availability (Please answer in words as well as rating your availability from 1-10):

I am a relatively slow writer and I work full-time, but I’ve been looking for a way to write in community. This will definitely be a priority for me! So I’d say my availability will be at least 6/10. I’m totally new to rps and tumblr, so it might take me a while to get up to speed on … literally everything. But I’ll get there!

IC INFORMATION:

Desired Character:

Orla Fang

Second Choice Character:

Ingrid Faolan

What made you choose this character?:

Orla caught my interest because of her many contradictions. I really love the idea of a character who is so set on a goal, but has increasing doubts about it. Who is she when the goal is done? If the goal is never accomplished? Right now, in the middle of striving for it? She allows herself so little, but that’s unsustainable (even if she’s been at it her whole life). That’s great ground for a growth arc.

She’s definitely going to be haunted by a lot of her father’s behavior, and have some unprocessed feelings about whether his torment was self-inflicted, or even merited. Due to her father’s disgrace, she has lived 600 years in a place she was taught not to call home, while her “real” home remains out of reach. Now, she’s in a Clan where family means very little, but it’s her driving value! I’m also excited to write all the little clashes and complements that come out of her taste for the fancy things of nobility and her more rugged, battle-ready life in the Wildlands.

Her goal might be to return to the Seelie court in favor, but her loyalty is not to the Seelie court — it’s to her family, and her late father. Add in the recent rocky reputation of good Queen Mab and the fact that the Wolf Clan allied with the Unseelie in the war, and Orla could really ally with anyone.

I also love the slight parallel between her and Luna Crow, made all the better for the blackmail dynamic between them. Both are pretending to be someone they’re not, and living in realities they only tentatively accept. I saw that Luna isn’t taken right now, but that’s still an exciting direction for the future!

Her aesthetic also really interested me. In keeping with some of the advice I read in a blitz of rp-101 articles, I’ve started a pinterest board and playlist for inspiration. Links here :)

Pinterest board: https://www.pinterest.com/brialikescheese/orla/

Playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5ralXJE5Uyo3D1YbfbxwgI?si=Z8btNQVVSDyIPIBFKIUXXw

Are there any changes you would like to make?:

Nope!

Questions/Comments:

Do you have any more resources available or examples of gif chatting?

What if I can’t find a lot of gifs/images of my face claim?

Do you recommend looking through other characters’ blogs to get a sense of how people start and continue plot threads? That seems really intimidating to me! Also, I don’t exactly know the ins and outs of reblogging and replying. But I’ll get there.

If I say something in my para that isn’t true (contradicted by earlier things) or not super convenient to future storytelling, will somebody tell me, and will I be able to edit it?

If my application is accepted, should I wait until the current event is over to kind of leap in? Starting cold intimidates me too. Are there any guidelines, recommendations, or examples for a starter?

Is it common practice for people in this rp to plot or worldbuild together? I guess I’m trying to gauge the degree to which people prefer to plan out a detail or respond to it directly in the text. I’m sure it depends on personal preference, timing, and the importance of the detail too.

Is it okay to create random NPC characters to facilitate scenes in (self)paras? I’ve seen people mention unnamed guards etc., but what about recurring minor named characters?

I’ve seen xkit around a lot. Do you recommend that?

Writing Sample (Must be 300 words or more, third person limited, in the character you’re auditioning for’s point of view):

Orla ran a hand over the braids coiled at her neck, fingers catching on jeweled pins. One came loose. She turned it over in her palm — a silver branch twined around sapphires and diamonds. In the dim light of the carriage, its glittering gems seemed to laugh at her misfortune. Once again, she’d left the Seelie court with little more than petty gossip to show for it. No matter. She would return.

The carriage pitched on the cobblestones, growing uneven as they left Wisteria behind. Orla watched the gold arches and shimmering lanterns give way to thorn thickets and thin creeks at the edge of the Wildlands. Soon, these too would vanish, replaced by mountains, rolling mist, and ever-taller pines.

Until then, Orla was left to dwell on the city she was promised.

Orla passed the silver pin wordlessly to Sionnach, who sprawled beside her in comfortable silence. Sionnach slipped the pin into a leather pouch. She would know its proper place in Orla’s room, and see that it returned there.

“I will be late to the fires tonight,” Orla said.

“Of course,” Sionnach replied, but raised a brow. “I hope not too late. Your sparring partners need to keep their skills sharp.”

“Not too late,” Orla agreed.

“Good. You promised me a spar, remember.” Sionnach grinned. “And it will get less and less friendly the more you keep me waiting.”

Orla pressed her lips to avoid smiling.

“I’ll be there when you’re warmed up. You’ll need it.”

In the Wildlands, Orla disembarked from the carriage. If she were a mortal, or simply less attuned to the subtle cues exchanged between a warrior’s body and environment, the slim points of her shoes might have sunk into the earth, unbalancing her. Instead, she allowed a moment to savor the way the ground met her weight — with just enough give to ensure it could push back.

Sionnach followed. She tossed a handful of honey-braised carrots to the harnessed elk at the carriage head. She laughed as they nosed the matted grass and pine needles, and patted their necks. In Wisteria, Orla had pretended not to notice Sionnach pocketing food from the feast table while the nobles tittered and scoffed away. Gossip and carrots. Those were her spoils.

Within the round walls of her tent, Orla exchanged her court garb for sparring leathers and sat at her desk. Her eyes fell on the stack of books in its center. The spines were mismatched: one of green leather and another of brushed grey suede; still others wrapped in birchbark, woven reeds, and the stretched, pebbled skin of an unknown reptile. The casual looker would never guess they were all penned by the same author, which suited their purpose. Their one unifying mark had long since faded, but if Orla touched the spines, her fingers could still find the depressions of the name. In the right light — one candle, lit across the room, or the moon as it set — tiny flecks told of a time when the name was written in full gold leaf.

Azriel Black.

A name she hadn’t spoken aloud in quite some time.

That wouldn’t change today. She pulled out the journal bound in grey suede and thumbed the pages, skimming for the names of the nobles she had seen at court. Though the script itself was neat, reading it was no small act. Text filled a page and even turned the corner to fill it crosswise. Arrows arched between names and fell on diagrams and symbols. It got worse as the text went on. Some of the last journals, Orla could barely stand to touch. She hated the ache in her chest they produced.

There. The names she was looking for. In the margins Orla wrote down all the details she remembered, even the most frustrating and inane. Lord so-and-so wore a waistcoat with abalone buttons, possibly sourced from that contentious new colony. Lady such-and-such laughed at a tasteless joke and stood guard by the pomegranate puff pastries all night.

She wrote until she ran out of white space. Just as well. Orla closed the book, and then her eyes. These fae were welcomed to city life, taking the parties and pastries as facts of life — things that were owed to them, by name, birth, and the guilelessness that kept them from ever hearing whispers of treason, let alone mustering the will to whisper it themselves.

She slipped the book between its neighbors and went in search of a weapon to suit her mood. Something heavy, tonight. Blunt. Court had soured her appetite for delicacy and grace.

One day, these journals and parties would amount to something. Everything would change.

Until then, the fires were lit, and Sionnach was waiting.

#accepted #lsrpg #literate rp #lsrp

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quercussp · 5 years

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The Fantastic Mr. Whiskers

Rating: T

Word count: 3.1k

Summary:

Mr. Whiskers does not approve of guests. But this human? This human was ok. This human could stay.

Authors note:

Happy holidays @babethepig! I hope you like this fic, even though I interpreted the prompt a bit loosely.

Written for the prompt: Phil can talk to animals but he keeps his power hidden. Dan and Phil start dating. Dan has a cat (because in this universe Dan has the right opinion and Phil is not allergic) the cat is really grumpy and usually hates everyone but it loves Phil. Dan is confused especially after he keeps catching Phil and the cat in -what looks like- deep conversations. The cat doesn't like certain things and Phil seems to know just why it is grumpy all the time, Dan gets suspicious and Phil ends up telling him about his power.

A huge thank you to my betas @alittledizzy and @templeofshame and the WWC crew for the support and encouragement. I couldn't have done this without you <3

Warnings: very minor homophobia (blink and you will miss it)

[read on ao3]

Mr. Whiskers was fond of his human. Most of the time. Ok, about half of the time. He assumed that the human meant well, but why did he keep buying this disgusting fish flavored dry food when Mr. Whiskers obviously hated fish? How many times did he have to turn over the bowl or sulk in the corner under the table for his human to figure that out? Weren’t humans supposed to be the most intelligent animals in the world? (Mr. Whiskers internally snorted at that. Yeah right, they think that, but then they also shout at pictures moving in the big box in the living room. Even the most stupid alley cat knew that they can’t hear you if they’re inside the box.)

His human also insisted on inviting the most horrible people into his flat. One of them was apparently his brother, and they always cooked some kind of ridiculous meal with no meat whatsoever, only carrots and stupid broccoli. Not even a little dash of milk! Absolutely no edible scraps Mr. Whiskers could steal from the table and enjoy in peace. The other person who came over to their home was a woman with a loud voice and different colored hair, and the tendency to constantly want to squish Mr. Whiskers with no consideration of his dignity or desire to be squished. He wasn’t some kind of lap dog to be “cuddled” and cooed at! Didn’t that woman have a mother who would teach her to KEEP HER STUPID FURLESS HANDS TO HERSELF? Honestly, some humans needed a little scratch once in a while to know their place, and he didn’t care that his human would yell “Mr. Whiskers, behave yourself!” every time he did it. He’ll behave himself when the guests behave themselves.

And the third semi regular visitor his human had was his mother, who called his human “Daniel” and would sit on the sofa drinking tea in silence. Sometimes she would ask a question like “So, have you decided about going back to university?” or “Are you still working at that convenience store? I think you should be looking for something more serious,” or “Have you been seeing anyone? My friend’s daughter is about your age, I think you should give her a call.” And even though she never did anything annoying to Mr. Whiskers and even sometimes brought him a nice treat, he absolutely hated having her over, because his human would get sad and quiet afterwards, and sometimes lie in bed for an entire day. And no amount of rubbing against his hands or purring on his chest would make him smile.

But most of the time, it was just the two of them. His human would usually have to be woken up by Mr. Whiskers’ insistent meowing. Honestly, if it weren’t for him, the human would probably never get to work on time. And Mr. Whiskers would never get fed. After giving Mr. Whiskers some food (ok, why the constant fish? Urgh, it’s disgusting), the human would pour some milk over his dry food (without fish, one would note. Why does the human get fish-free dry food while Mr. Whiskers has to suffer?) and sit at the table slowly chewing on it. If the human would get too slow or close his eyes for too long, Mr. Whiskers would make sure to drop something off of the counter to wake him up. Then, the human would go into the bathroom and shower (yet further proof that humans are not that intelligent. Why would anyone voluntarily pour water over themselves? Idiotic.) and get dressed. There would then be the regular argument where Dan would shout “Why did you have to sleep on my work pants again? You got fur all over them! Just use the fucking bed I bought you!” and Mr. Whiskers would hiss and jump straight into the pile of clothing on the floor of the bedroom and start kneading at them. Show his human who’s boss. Then the human would leave and Mr. Whiskers could get some good sleep in the human’s comfortable bed. (Dan wonders why Mr. Whiskers doesn’t sleep in the bed he bought him? Well, why did he buy him a bed that’s like 20 times smaller than his own? Does this human seriously thinks that he needs more space than Mr. Whiskers? Ridiculous.)

The evenings were mostly spent with the human sitting in front of the big box with some kind of toy and screaming loudly at the moving objects while Mr. Whiskers lay curled up on the couch and eyed his human with pity. They are never going to hear you, you fool. Just give up already. And after dinner (fish dry food, again; someone needs to smack some sense into this human) they would go to bed, Dan under the covers and Mr. Whiskers usually on the large chair where the human put his black work pants that night. (What? The chair is comfortable!)

So when one evening, someone Mr. Whiskers never seen before walked in with his human, Mr. Whiskers was immediately suspicious. The new guest was as tall as Dan, but had black hair and bright blue eyes. He was smiling and out of breath, and was looking around the apartment in wonder.

“So, this is my place,” Dan said, his voice sounding uncharacteristically shaky. “And this is Mr. Whiskers. Don’t mind him, he’s very grumpy, so don’t be offended if he hates you.”

Mr. Whiskers hissed in indignation. He wasn’t grumpy! He was an absolute delight if you knew how to behave yourself. He even let his human pet him a couple times the day before, and only hissed at him twice this morning! And Dan dares to call him grumpy?

“Hello Mr. Whiskers!” replied the stranger. “I’m Phil! It’s very nice to meet you.”

There was something really weird about this new human’s voice. Mr. Whiskers couldn’t exactly place what it was, but something was very different.

“Phil, you’re so funny! You honestly think he understands you?” Dan laughed and Mr. Whiskers meowed, offended. Did his human think he’s stupid?

“Of course he does, Dan, and I don’t think he likes you saying that.”

Ok, Phil seemed to be acceptable so far. He seemed respectful. Mr. Whiskers could give him a chance. For now.

“Oh Phil, you’re so precious!” Dan replied, and looked at the new guy with a smile on his face that made Mr. Whiskers want to roll his eyes. He looked at him like a little kitten looks at his first bouncy ball, or like his mother used to look at him when she would lick his face. Disgusting.

They ended up sitting on the couch and shouting at the lit up box together, and Mr. Whiskers felt his good opinion of the new ‘Phil’ human decline a bit. He might be smart enough to know that Mr. Whiskers understands them, but still obviously not the brightest kitten in the litter. He was also a little odd in other ways, biting Dan on the shoulder sometimes and giggling all the time. Perhaps he was hungry? Mr. Whiskers would also sometimes bite his human for food, but Dan seemed to react very differently to Phil biting him. When Mr. Whiskers would bite, his human would screech and call him a “dirty animal.” When Phil bit him, however, Dan would flush red and giggle. He looked like a tomato, it was frankly ridiculous.

It was long dark outside by the time Phil stood up from the couch and headed out. He hugged Dan and whispered something in his ear, and then looked Mr. Whiskers directly in the eyes and said “Goodbye Mr. Whiskers! See you soon!”

Something was definitely off about this person.

***

After that night, Phil became a constant presence in the flat. He would come over almost every night and stay later and later. Occasionally, he would stay overnight in the human’s bed and eat breakfast with them. He also seemed to progress from biting Dan to doing all sorts of other stupid things, like licking and sucking on his mouth, laying on his shoulder or on his chest and nuzzling into his neck. And his human seemed to not only allow it, but do the same to Phil. At one point, his human actually pushed Mr. Whiskers out of the bedroom and closed the door. And didn’t let him in the entire night, which was so unthinkably rude that Mr. Whiskers had no choice but to pee in Dan’s palm tree. The next morning they both emerged looking like they didn’t sleep at all, which of course they didn’t. Who would be able to sleep without Mr. Whiskers watching over them? And why did Phil have dark spots all over his neck?

However, even with all of this, having Phil around all the time definitely had some benefits. First of all, Phil apparently loved pizza, which meant that if Mr. Whiskers whined hard enough, he would always get a little pepperoni or sausage out of their plates. Additionally, Phil’s presence drove away Dan’s need to invite other people and Phil himself was always very respectful of the “don’t touch the cat if he doesn’t want it” rule. And of course, Mr. Whiskers was somewhat satisfied to see his human so happy. Some might even say that Mr. Whiskers was happy for him, but those people would be wrong, of course; Mr. Whiskers was far too important of a creature to really care about the wellbeing of his human (even though he did know that if Phil dared to hurt Dan, he would scratch his eyes out and not even think about it).

But the most significant changes came from the fact that Phil seemed to somehow just know things. Or, at least, guess some of the things Mr. Whiskers wanted. For example, one time when they were having breakfast and Dan was pouring the horrid fish dry food into Mr. Whisker’s bowl, Mr. Whiskers let out a frustrated meow. While Dan refused to get the hint for several years, Phil immediately seemed to understand Mr. Whisker’s frustration and told Dan that “I don’t think your cat really likes this type of food, maybe we should get him something different?” And indeed, a couple days later Phil brought over several different bags of cat food and had Dan perform a complicated taste test to determine which one was Mr. Whisker’s favorite. And somehow, Phil was able to exactly tell Dan which one Mr. Whisker’s liked most (the duck flavored one, of course, although the beef and rabbit one were also not bad).

Phil also would always say a proper hello and goodbye to Mr. Whiskers and always asked him if he could pet him. But the weirdest thing was that when Mr. Whiskers wasn’t in the mood for sentimental cuddles, Phil would just chuckle and say, “Ok, ok, maybe next time.” And whenever Mr. Whiskers allowed Phil to pet him, the human managed to scratch the perfectly right spot. Mr. Whiskers has never met a human who understood him as well as Phil.

***

One morning, Mr. Whiskers could tell something was wrong as soon as he woke up. The day before was one of the rare nights Phil wasn’t here, and Dan had spent the previous evening outside the house, only to come home at two am, pale, shivering and with puffed red eyes. He immediately went to bed without even saying hi to Mr. Whiskers or giving him the normal scratch behind the ears. The next morning, no matter how much Mr. Whiskers meowed or scratched at him, no matter how many cups he threw off of the counter, his human refused to get out of bed. He was lying under his blankets, covering his entire head, and Mr. Whiskers could hear a quiet sobbing from under it.

That morning Dan never got up for work. He just lay in bed, standing up only once to go to the bathroom and carelessly throwing some food in the general direction of Mr. Whisker’s bowl. The sun set and his human never stood up to turn on any lights. He just lay in bed motionless, sometimes letting out a quiet sob.

It was fully dark when Mr. Whisker’s heard the door open.

“Dan? Baby? Are you home?” Phil’s voice rang out in the darkness. Mr. Whiskers immediately raced to the door and started meowing at Phil. If anyone could cheer his human up, it would be Phil. Something was definitely wrong.

Phil entered the living room and turned on the light. Then he looked Mr. Whiskers right in the eyes and said, “You’re saying he didn’t get out of bed at all?”

Mr. Whiskers stared in shock at Phil.

“Listen, Mr. Whiskers, I can speak to animals, it’s no big deal. I just didn’t want Dan to know in case he thought I was weird or something. But we can discuss this in detail later; can you please tell me what happened to Dan?”

If Mr. Whiskers were a less dignified cat, he probably would have freaked out. But Mr. Whiskers doesn’t freak out. He’s always collected and poised, and honestly it’s not like he was that surprised, truly. (He definitely was.)

Quickly collecting himself from not being shocked at all, Mr. Whiskers proceeded to tell Phil exactly what was going on. Phil just looked intently at him and nodded along.

“Did he have anything to eat? He was crying yesterday? He was supposed to stay at his parents, but you’re saying he came back in the middle of the night? Ok, ok. Wait, slow down. Oh, he sometimes cries when his mom visits? Ok, I’ll see what I can do. Thank you, thank you!”

With that, Phil poured some water into a glass and quietly opened the door into the bedroom.

“Let me see how Dan is doing and I’ll feed you, Mr. Whiskers,” Phil whispered. Ok, that was fair. As long as it didn’t take forever, because dinner was supposed to be served at least two hours ago.

After a couple minutes of waiting, Mr. Whiskers slid into the dark bedroom and saw that Phil was lying in bed next to Dan, combing his fingers through his curly hair and murmuring into his ear.

“I’m so sorry, love. It’s his loss, you’re perfect. I’m so so sorry.”

“I wanted them to get to know you…” Dan sobbed. “I thought they would be happy for me.”

“They’ll come around, Danny, and if not, it’s their loss. It’s going to be ok, I’m here.”

Mr. Whiskers wanted to remind Phil of his promise to feed him dinner, but decided that he might not actually be that hungry. Instead, Mr. Whiskers climbed onto the bed and firmly planted himself between the two humans, kneading at the softness of Dan’s stomach and purring loudly. Dinner could wait until his human was a little happier. Maybe Mr. Whiskers would even curl up in Dan’s lap later, and let him pet him for an hour or two. Mr. Whisker’s was generous like that.

***

The next morning Phil woke up earlier than Dan and slipped out of bed into the kitchen.

“Let him sleep” he whispered to Mr. Whiskers who was about to start the normal process of waking Dan up. “I told our manager he won’t come into work today; he had a rough night.”

Mr. Whiskers followed Phil out into the kitchen and jumped up on the breakfast bar.

“So…” Phil said.

Mr. Whiskers stared at him.

“You hungry?”

Of course he was.

“Why is all of this crap on the floor? You tried to wake him up that way? Honestly, Mr. Whiskers, are you expecting me to clean this up? Of course you are.”

Phil quickly swept up the broken china and put the rest of the junk off the floor back onto the counter.

“Here, let me get you some food. Do you want the duck or the rabbit? Duck? Ok!”

He poured some food into the bowl and put it on the table.

“Come have breakfast with me, Mr. Whiskers. I think Dan might be sleeping in for a bit.”

Phil made himself a cup of coffee and got a biscuit from the cupboard. They sat at the table in silence, both munching on their food for a bit.

“So… Alligators are pretty cool, aren’t they?”

Mr. Whiskers just stared at him.

“What? They are! I went to the zoo with my family once and the alligator told me that my thighs are my best feature! Although I don’t know if he was saying that from an aesthetic or food related point of view. Either way, that was really nice of him.”

Mr. Whiskers glanced down at Phil’s thighs.

“Well, the alligator liked them, so you can keep your snarky comments to yourself,” Phil laughed. “Dan appears to like them, so shush.”

Mr. Whiskers laid down on the table and flicked his tail.

“Hey, don’t insult my boyfriends taste. He chose you as a pet, didn’t he?” Phil smirked. “Well of course he didn’t choose you, it was the other way around, what am I even saying. And you did a good job, you have a nice human there, don’t you.”

Just as Phil was saying that, the door to the bedroom creaked open and a sleepy-looking Dan emerged.

“Who are you talking to, Phil?” he asked, rubbing his eyes.

Mr. Whiskers and Phil shared a glance and the cat jumped off the table and walked towards Dan. He rubbed his side on Dan’s legs and purred.

“Why are you suddenly so nice? What’s going on?”

“Nothing, babe, we were just having breakfast. Do you want something?” Phil replied in an exaggeratedly innocent voice.

Honestly, Phil was the worst liar Mr. Whiskers has ever seen. Dan looked at Phil with even more suspicion.

To break the tension, Mr. Whiskers had to plunge his claws into Dan’s naked shin.

“Owww, you animal, what the fuck!?” Dan shouted, and Mr. Whiskers proudly walked away, successfully defusing the situation. Watch and learn, Phil. Watch and learn.

“Will you still move in with me if this monster of a cat lives here?” Dan asked Phil, rubbing his scratched up ankle. He plopped himself into a chair at the table and took a sip of Phil’s coffee.

“Do you seriously think I would dare move in without getting Mr. Whiskers’ approval?” Phil replied. “It’s not like it’s up to you or me if I get to live here.”

Mr. Whiskers jumped into Dan’s lap and curled up into a ball. Dan automatically started combing his hands through his soft fur.

“Do you approve, Mr. Whiskers?” Dan asked him. “I think he approves,” he smiled widely at Phil.

“Oh, he does, as long as we keep buying him the duck-flavored cat food,” Phil replied.

Mr. Whiskers started purring loudly in Dan’s lap. Phil was ok. Phil could stay, he decided.

#phanfiction #my fic #phan #phandom fic fests holiday exchange

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ghostofbambifanfiction · 5 years

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Fic Sneak Peak

I’ve been casually working on a oneshot as a gift for @thenwewilldance and since I’m super behind on my editing for Santamental updates this month, thought I’d post a little sneak peak of the first two scenes for her, and for the rest of you!

The Viscount’s Daughter

"I have news," said James urgently.

The queen continued the conversation she was having, ignoring her son completely.

"I said I had news," James repeated, tugging on her sleeve. The banquet was in full swing, and the sound of voices, clattering forks and clinking goblets rumbled like distant thunder all around them. "Mother?"

She brushed his hand away as if it were a fly. "Once the new lawns are finished, the league can reconvene—"

"Mother?"

"—without much delay, I hope. I wouldn't like to start after September and cut down the number of matches, though dear old Perkins is quite particular about the lawns—"

"As he should be, Your Majesty."

"Mother?"

"Our Quidditch pitches, on the other hand, are quite ready for the season—"

"MOTHER!"

"I believe the prince requires your attention, Your Majesty," said Lord de Mimsy-Porpington, who was the marquis of some place or other that James didn't care to remember. What did Lord de Mimsy-Porpington matter? He was as dreary and dull as a funeral, whereas James had very important news. World-altering news, in fact; news that would change the very fabric of their existence forever, yet here was his mother, more concerned with croquet lawns and Quidditch pitches than the tidings borne by her first and only child.

James had interrupted a banquet to bring her this news. A banquet. In the middle of dessert, too. There was a treacle tart sitting untouched on his plate that Peter or some other greedy swine could easily snatch up and eat. Then they'd have to be put in the stockade for stealing and James hated seeing people in the stockade, except for the time he'd trapped Sirius in it. That had been hilarious.

Euphemia looked at James, candlelight reflected in her dark eyes. Her expression was impassive.

"You have news for me, I believe?" she enquired.

James stood up straight to deliver his shocking report. McGonagall always said that a prince who slouched was a prince not worth respecting. "I do."

"Important news?"

"Very important."

"So very important that you felt it incumbent upon you to push out your chair with an unholy screech, race up here like an unfettered horse and interrupt your mother?"

Lord de Mimsy-Porpington hastily disguised his laugh with a cough and James's face burned with embarrassment, but he didn't dare blink. The queen was a stalk-and-ambush predator of the most sophisticated kind, attacking when her prey was weak and unsuspecting. It was no surprise that her Animagus form was that of a sleek panther. James had to appear strong in the face of adversity.

"Yes," he said firmly. "That important."

"Once of our guests has died, then?"

"No."

"Been taken ill?"

"No, but—"

"Then it can't be so important that my son would act in a most un-princely manner," Mother concluded. "Do you not agree, Porpington?"

Lord de Mimsy-Porpington blinked rapidly. Perhaps he was startled to have been called upon for an opinion, when it was common knowledge that he'd never said a single interesting thing in his life. "Well, Your Majesty—"

"I have fallen in love," James loudly announced. "So there."

The queen's sharp black eyebrows shot right up to her hairline.

Victory, James thought.

He had known that this was bound to get his mother's attention. She was always waffling on about how finding a suitable bride was a responsibility of utmost importance for any young prince, and how James needed a good wife to make him behave, for god forbid her clever and talented and ludicrous son (all words McGonagall had used—he didn't know what the last one meant but he'd been meaning to look it up soon) be left to rule unchecked once she and his father were cold in their graves. The way his mother talked, he'd sink the realm's money into Quidditch tournaments, cat sanctuaries and not much else.

It was deeply unfair.

Mostly that he couldn't turn the castle into a cat sanctuary, but also the marriage thing. James had scores of good ideas for the future of the kingdoms, like pig farming, for example. Pigs produced the tastiest meat of all the animals. So versatile. So delicious. But his mother simply didn't care for his thoughts.

Though James had found the woman of his dreams now, so he supposed he could cheerfully bear having a wife.

"When did this happen?" Mother asked him.

"Just now, when I saw her."

"Is that so?"

"Very so."

"And where, pray tell, may I find the object of my sweet son's affections?"

James turned around and pointed further down the table, where a beautiful girl in a pale blue dress was contemplating her dinner, wedged uncomfortably between lords Wolpert and Wood.

As James watched, she speared a carrot on the end of her knife and examined it rather glumly.

"There," he sighed, making sure to sound dreamy and smitten, like the characters in the romance novels his mother kept stashed around the castle. "The girl with the red hair."

Of course, James's beloved was far prettier than any of the ladies in his mother's books. Her skin was as pale and luminescent as a new moon, and her long hair fell in elegant curls about her face. He had known that he was in love from the moment he'd first seen her.

"I see," said Euphemia.

"Decidedly red," muttered Lord de Mimsy-Porpington—who had brought all four of his unmarried daughters to court—his lips pursed in distaste.

"Quite a rare colour in this part of the world," the queen mused, "though quite beautiful, it must be said. Don't you agree, Porpington?"

Lord de Mimsy-Porpington opened and closed his mouth like a fish. "Well, now—"

"I love her," said James.

"B—but the complexion, Your Majesty," said Lord de Mimsy-Porpington, trying again. The queen's sly rebuke had set his cheeks aflame. "A sickly pallor, to be sure—"

"Nonsense," the queen cut over him. "Hair notwithstanding, the girl is bound to be pale, living in that jagged wasteland with all of that ghastly snow. She must see the sun but rarely."

"She's a Ravenclaw?" James questioned, watching in awe as she took a bite from her carrot. The kingdom of Ravenclaw spanned the north of the country and boasted several mountain ranges.

"On her father's side only," Lord de Mimsy-Porpington piped up. His face was still puce. "Her mother was a woman of very little consequence, Your Majesty. A Hufflepuff, if you can imagine, with no real connections to—"

"Her late mother was a lady by birth, and she is the youngest daughter of the 16th Viscount of Rowena," said Euphemia coldly, which caught James's eye at once. She smiled at him—one of the sly, secretive smiles she liked to share with James whenever she saw through a simpering sycophant's ill-advised scheme. The queen was the cleverest woman alive besides McGonagall. There was nothing any lord could tell her about one of her guests that she didn't know already. "And you, darling son, have chosen to fall in love with her?"

James nodded.

"How convenient."

That was music to his ears. "Can I marry her, then?"

"She is quite close to you in age, I suppose," his mother mused. She raised her goblet and studied the girl with narrowed eyes as it was refilled by a footman, her brow furrowed in thought. "She'll have a substantial dowry, of course, I cannot find fault with her lineage, and she hasn't been entered into any other engagement, as far as I can be certain…"

James bobbed up and down on the spot, bubbling with excitement.

"I suppose I don't see why not," the queen concluded. "Her father would certainly be amenable to the match, so I'm sure we could pull it off—"

James punched the air with gusto and let out a whoop of delight, startling many.

"—just as soon as you turn twenty-one."

His fist dropped to his side at once.

He gaped at his mother, but she only smiled back and took a sip of her wine.

Why, but his dreams were ruined!

Ruined! Obliterated! Smashed to bloody smithereens, like the time he and Sirius had stolen into the Potions chamber and burst that sow's bladder.

"What?!" he cried out.

"You know that I dislike repeating myself, James."

"But why?"

"My darling, you're far too young to get married right away—"

"But that's not fair!"

"As is tradition—"

"That's torture!"

"Twenty-one is the age at which a prince of Gryffindor should marry, per tradition, as well you know." The queen set her goblet next to her plate. Her voice was firm. "Or should I ask our esteemed professor to teach you our kingdom's history once more?"

"No!" James yelped, balking at the idea of it. McGonagall was frightening when one of her lessons did not, as she liked to put it, permeate his thick skull the first time around. The way his teacher spoke to him was really quite disgraceful at times. "I know the traditions!"

"Then why are you so incensed, child?"

"Because that's—that's eight years away!" James cried out, the injustice of it all rattling his bones raw. He was not some common lord of somewhere or other, he was a prince—the crown prince, destined to be king one day—yet he could not have whatever he wanted, when he wanted. He was in love, damn it, and when people fell in love they got married. That was the rule. "It's too long to wait!"

"You shall just have to learn to bear it, I'm afraid."

"But what if I die of a broken heart before then?"

"Then you will be dead, so it won't be likely to trouble you."

"But what'll you do for an heir if that happens?"

"Name my ward to the throne, I suppose," said his mother. She brushed James's cheek with her thumb and smiled indulgently, ignoring Lord de Mimsy-Porpington's unconvincing laugh. "Cheer up, sweet one. It won't serve you well to wish your childhood away."

"Why not, when you're the one wishing my happiness away?" James sulkily retorted.

His mother laughed through her nose and patted his face. "Is my son not adorable, Porpington?"

"Indeed," said Lord de Mimsy-Porpington tightly.

"Such a handsome boy," she cooed, then dropped her jewel-encrusted hand into her lap. "Now, off you go. Back to your seat, and we'll talk about it later."

"How much later?"

"Your seat, James."

"But I don't want—"

"There's plenty of time to be wed when you grow up."

"But I am grown up!" James protested. Which he was. His voice had already started to break. "Why can't you—"

"Return to your seat," his mother warned, with a look that said don't you dare test me, "or I shall have McGonagall sent for."

If his mother was willing to threaten him with McGonagall to make him behave, James didn't need to be told twice. He fled, retreating to his empty chair a little further down the table and throwing himself into it with gusto and rage. The honourable Professor Pomona Sprout of the Hufflepuff marshes threw him an odd look when he sat down, so he stuck his tongue out at her and hoped his mother didn't see it.

The redheaded girl did see, however, and threw her eyes down to her plate, suppressing a smile.

Quite at once, James's dearly departed hopes sprung blithely back to life.

A smile!

A smile from his glorious future bride, no less!

Well…only if James could find the patience to wait for another eight years.

Blast his mother, and Lord de Mimsy-Porpington, and the stupid Gryffindor traditions.

He had to take matters into his own hands.

When the banquet ended, the royal family and their guests moved to the ballroom for dancing and drinks, both of which James was deemed too young to partake in.

Not that he wanted to partake in all of that bowing and waltzing and kissing of hands.

Usually.

His formal dance lessons were due to begin on his fourteenth birthday and James had been concocting schemes to prolong the inevitable—whilst laughing at Sirius, who was due to start in November—but he was a changed man now. He knew what love was. He had beheld the daughter of the 16th Viscount of Rowena, and the art of masterful dancing now seemed like a vital skill which had been callously denied to him.

"Isn't she pretty?" he asked Sirius, watching her talk to her father on the other side of the ballroom.

Sirius shrugged. He'd snuck his wand into the feast and was trying to level a hex at Professor Slughorn—who had labelled his latest efforts at a Shrinking Solution merely "passable"—without being noticed. Sirius was the royal family's ward and a cousin of some distance—third, perhaps, and something removed—but James's best friend, most importantly, and had a talent for mischief that couldn't be equalled. "I don't know."

"You must know, she's right over there."

"I've got better things to do than stare at some girl."

"You think staring at old Sluggy instead is better?"

"Who said I was staring? Watch this," said Sirius, and turned his back to Slughorn, positioning himself so that the tip of the wand he'd stuck beneath his armpit was pointing directly at their Potions master. The grip end was sticking out the other side, rather like the toy swords they'd used to "stab" one another with as children. "Tell me if anybody gets in the way."

James double-checked the path between them and Slughorn. "You're in the clear."

"Your parents aren't watching?"

"Don't worry about my parents." The ballroom floor was longer than its ceiling was high, and the windows alone were four times the height of James's father. "They're at the other end of the room."

Sirius grinned, and gripped his wand tightly.

"Igniloquitir!" he whispered.

A narrow beam of light shot across the ballroom, casting the marble floor in a pale white glow, and hit Slughorn squarely in the back. He immediately belched out a jet of bright red fire which caught hold of one of the curtains and set the entire thing aflame.

As the orchestra came to a screeching halt, terrified screams began to erupt around him and noblemen scattered in all directions, a horrified Slughorn clapped his hands to his mouth and dropped to his knees.

"You set the drapes on fire," James pointed out, watching the flames savage their way through the fashionable gold brocade with interest.

Sirius glanced over his shoulder. His wand was already tucked into his sleeve. "Whoops."

"Mother loves those curtains. She'll kill you."

"She won't if I tell her you did it."

James glared at Sirius. Behind him, Slughorn had let out another flaming belch and set his trousers on fire. He was rolling around on the floor while Countess Vector of Eaglefield sprayed him with water from her wand. Yet more people were working on the curtains. "You wouldn't dare."

"I would, and she'd believe me."

"No she wouldn't."

"I'm not the one who pitched a fit because she won't let me marry some girl."

"Some girl..." James whirled around and found her in the crowd almost at once. She was standing alone—her father had rushed to assist with the drapes—and trying to suppress a laugh as she watched Slughorn thrash about.

"Attention!" cried the queen, who had appeared before the now-smoking curtains, hands lifted into the air to signal to the crowd. The cuffs of her gown sleeves were so wide that the purple velvet trailed below her waist. "Attention, everyone!"

Now was his chance. His moment. His one window of opportunity.

"See you," he muttered to Sirius.

As his mother began to assure her guests that everything was under control, James darted across the room, weaving between stationary pairs of dancers, and found himself standing directly before the girl of his dreams.

She blinked at him in surprise, but said nothing. Perhaps his sudden appearance had alarmed her, or perhaps James was so handsome that she was overwhelmed by love. That was the more likely scenario.

"Hello," he said, drawing himself up to his fullest height.

"Hello," she replied, and immediately coloured, her cheeks glowing almost as red as her hair. "I mean, good evening"—she sank into a neat curtsy—"Your Royal Highness."

"Oh, you shan't have to curtsy to me," he told her grandly.

"I shan't?"

"Not ever."

A little crease wrinkled in her forehead. "Why not?"

"Because," he said, and put on his most charming smile, "you're going to be my wife."

She immediately burst into tears.

#fic #sneak peak #oneshot #Jily #AU #magic #Royalty AU #snippet

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modreduscycle · 5 years

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Green Knight Pt. 2

Gawain stared out at the snow blowing outside. For some reason, the thought of going out in it didn’t bother him. It was probably the last snowfall he’d get to see.

It had been a good year, tournaments, quests, hunting, and just the general mayhem of the round table had kept him occupied. He wondered if heaven would have any of those things.

Gareth helped adjust his fur cloak, sniffling. “Don’t go, please don’t go,” he begged.

Gawain smiled sadly and ruffled his hair. “You know I have to. Hey, look at me.” He lifted Gareth’s chin up. “Be good, okay? Or I’ll come back to life just to kick your ass. That goes for all of you.”

Mordred rolled his eyes. “If you are still alive after all this, come back immediately. Don’t let us worry for longer than we need to.”

Agravaine glared bloody murder at his little brother. “If he survives getting his head chopped off?” he demanded incredulously.

“Did Aunt Morgana ever figure out something?” Gawain asked. Mordred had written to her earlier in the year, asking for help. He’d put it off until the last week of summer due to his usual reluctance of involving Morgana’s “assistance” with their problems, considering how overboard her solutions tended to be. Mordred hadn’t said anything about her response earlier, which didn’t bode well, but he could still hope.

Mordred let out a heavy sigh. “Yes and no. It’s… Goddamn it, it’s so stupid.” He rubbed his temples and sighed again. “Look, I told her I wouldn’t tell you what she’s doing so just… just act like you usually do.”

“When were you going to bring this up?” Gaheris demanded.

“I’ll tell the three of you everything two seconds after he leaves. I just can’t tell him,” Mordred explained, not answering his brother’s question.

“So… then Agravaine and Laurel don’t have to start trying to make an heir?” Gareth asked. Agravaine smacked him over the head with a closed fist. “OW! What? If Gawain dies, you’re next in line!”

“Laurel and I are not having sex, period,” Agravaine snapped. The other four fell silent and stared at him for a full minute. “What?”

“What about on your wedding night?” Gawain asked.

“You do remember our marriage was purely for convenience, right?” Agravaine asked.

“So you have never consummated your marriage?” Gaheris demanded.

“My wife likes men in exactly the same way Aunt Morgana does. Trust me, it would not be fun for either of us,” Agravaine deadpanned. He shrugged. “Besides, it’s not like anyone can prove we didn’t.”

“Then you’re a virgin?” Gareth piped up.

Agravaine’s face turned red. “Why are we talking about this? Gawain’s about to die!”

“But Mordred implied he might not,” Gareth piped up, grinning. “So let’s talk more about your love life.”

“Shut up, you brat! How many girls were you getting serving in the kitchens?” Agravaine snapped.

“Try saying that to Uncle Kay’s face, see how that goes,” Gareth retorted.

“Uncle Kay doesn’t care, he’s less into romance than freaking Dinadan, and that’s saying something.”

Mordred shook his head and pulled Gawain into a hug. “I am so sorry for not telling you what’s about to happen. And I am so, so sorry our entire family is so goddamned stupid.”

Gawain snorted and pulled the rest of his siblings into the hug as well. “Be good you four and if I don’t come back… well, you can tell me about everything you get up to when we meet in heaven. A long, long, long time in the future.”

“Considering our family history of violent death, that’s not likely,” Gaheris pointed out dryly.

“If I die and I see you again within ten years, start running,” Gawain warned. He shook his head. “This was supposed to be touching, goddamn it. You’ve all ruined it.”

“Well, let’s fix that.” Gaheris hugged his brother one more time before stepping away like the others. “You are the best older brother I’ve ever had, and I will never forget you.”

“Hey!”

“I meant what I said, Agravaine.”

Gareth rubbed the back of his neck, looking away as he tried to keep from crying. “I wish we could’ve been knights together for longer. I’ll make you proud, Gawain, I swear it.”

Gawain barely held back a sob as he pulled Gareth in for another hug. “You already have.”

Agravaine looked at the ground. “I…” He clenched his fists. “You’re the best big brother any of us could ever have and I hate that you’re throwing your life away on some stupid game but you’re my older brother and you’ve always looked out for me and I love you.”

They all stared at him. “Holy shit,” Gareth muttered.

“No one say a damn word about this,” Agravaine warned. “Mordred, say your goodbyes, then get the hell out of here, Gawain.”

“Yeah, I’m good. You have fun, try not to freeze to death on the way. I’m going to help Merlin with his research,” Mordred said, jerking his thumb over his shoulder and backing away.

“I… alright,” Gawain replied lamely. He assumed Mordred’s reaction was because of whatever Aunt Morgana told him, but he could not think of anything that she could say that would make Mordred this lax about it. “Well, bye.” With that, he stepped out into the snow and mounted the waiting Gringolet. He’d have to ask the Green Knight to take care of him after he was dead. He was such a sweet horse, regardless of what Agravaine, Gaheris, Gareth, Mordred, Arthur, Kay, Lancelot, Bedivere, Percival, Tristram, Galehaut, Dinadan, Bors, Lamorak, and Palamedes said. Even with how capable Gringolet was, Gawain wasn’t sure if he’d make it in the wild. With a heavy heart, he set out.

….

Mordred had a point about him being stupidly lovestruck, Gawain had to admit. Maybe if he hadn’t been so smitten, he would’ve remembered to ask for bloody directions! He had learned from locals on his way the general direction, thank God, but that didn’t help now when he was lost in the middle of the woods, snow was flying around him, his hands were freezing even in his fur gloves, and Gringolet was tired and shivering. At this rate, he’d end up missing the Christmas deadline not through his own fault, but because of his shit sense of direction.

He winced as a gust of wind blew flakes into his face, showering his hair and freezing his face. Snow blew around him, the wind lifting up the drifts on the ground to mingle with the snowflakes in the air. His breath came out in visible puffs and it hurt when he inhaled. He was going to die of hypothermia before he’d ever reach the Green Chapel at this rate.

Gringolet lifted his head and snorted, then broke into a canter. “Whoa, hey!” Gringolet refused to listen to him for a good minute before Gawain finally got him under control. “What is up with… you…” A flicker of light in the distance caught his eye through the blackness of the night. “You genius horse, I will give you all the carrots in the world once we’re—” Gawain stopped. He almost said, “Once we’re back in Camelot.” He swallowed heavily, then started Gringolet in the same direction, toward the light.

It took them nearly half an hour to get there and it was with a frozen fist that Gawain banged on the front door of the castle. A servant opened it and Gawain nearly got down on his knees begging him to ask his lord or lady. The servant looked surprised and immediately dragged him inside, ordering another servant to go attend to his horse and gear. He was stripped of his armor, bundled into furs, and shoved in a comfy chair before the fire. He really, really hoped the lord or lady of the castle was okay with him staying there because otherwise he’d be having a very awkward conversation.

The servants were behaving oddly as well, rushing to attend to his needs. He noticed one had been frantically sent off earlier to get their master and it almost seemed like they had been expecting him but he had come too early. The logical part of his brain told him that was ridiculous, but the thought was still there.

The fire crackled before him, warming him up slowly. He could start to feel his fingers and toes again. The tenseness left his shoulders as he sank into the chair, the soft comfort of the furs and the warmth of the flames lulling him into a torpor. He just wanted to go to sleep right here. Or have the Green Knight chop his head off right here, at this point he didn’t care which.

“Wouldn’t you rather rest in a bed after you’ve had something to eat?” a voice whispered just behind him. Gawain nodded sleepily before he realized he was talking to someone. He sat up and looked behind him, and felt his heart skip a beat. Two people stood behind him. One was a lovely young woman, with vibrant red hair that had small flowers littered throughout her wavy, curly locks. The second was a giant man, easily as large as the Green Knight, with darker red hair and a beard. The woman, who had spoken, offered him her hand. “Come on, how about we sit down and have a meal together?”

#so yeah Mordred knows the whole situation and what's going on #Morgana just made him promise not to tell #also Agravaine's way more upset than he's letting on he's just not great at showing it #arthuriana #king arthur #Arthurian #Arthurian legend #gawain #gawain and the green knight #green knight

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okimargarvez · 5 years

Text

PENDING ISSUES

Original title: Questioni in sospeso.

Prompt: Penelope is forced to change team.

Warning: none.

Genre: drama, family, romantic.

Characters: Penelope Garcia, Luke Alvez, BAU team, O.C.

Pairing: Garvez.

Note: oneshot 53 in Garvez collection.

Legend: 💏😘🔦🎈.

Song mentioned: Quando ritornerai, Tiziano Ferro.

GARVEZ STORIES

PENDING ISSUESS

She can't believe it, but there is no room for any uncertainty, no doubt. The e-mail, with a lot of official virtual "stamps", seems to make fun of her with all those high-sounding and cold words. But... but it could be a joke of some technician colleague.

The blonde woman moves away from the screen, as if it possessed an evil spirit, had a life of its own. Almost. She starts browsing her phone contacts, discarding them one by one. In the end, she decides to open the door and head towards Prentiss's office. She doesn’t have time to knock that her friend, as well as chief of the unit, is already there, standing with a pained look. Penelope then understands how sadly real it all is.

-Garcia...- says the brunette, inviting her to come in with a wave of her hand. The blonde drops into the chair on the other side of the desk.

-So that's true. They are really doing it, as with JJ eight years ago.- she only says, with a resigned and not too depressed tone, not how much anyone would have expected from one who hates (hate to say the least) changes.

Emily takes a moment before nodding, only in the eyes can one sense the anger at the helplessness she is forced to bear despite her high position, which she also detested so many times, precisely because of the decisions she was forced to make... and now she can't even use it to prevent the team from losing an important piece of their chessboard, so that the family doesn't loses the glue that holds them together. -Penelope, I'm sorry, I tried to do everything, but...- the friend shows her that there is no need to justify herself, she already knows.

-How long have you known?- she asks her rather, sensing, despite her naivety that it is part of her charm, far more than Prentiss would like.

-A week.- she admits, in a guilty tone, lowering her eyes for a moment to a stack of papers on her desk. The most prominent cases. Cases that she won't be able to solve, Penelope thinks, sighing.

An awkward silence follows, something that between the two women hadn’t happened since the time of the attempted murder of the brunette.

-We have to tell others.- it is the latter who breaks it. For the first time, the informatic technician seems really shaken by the news. She shakes her head, vehemently denying, silently protesting with those dark yet strangely unclear eyes. -I know, I understand what you're thinking. But they have the right to know, don't you think?- turned this way, the question is different; the friend can only agree. They stand up almost in sync, Garcia waits for the one with the highest position to come out first. Prentiss overlooks the balcony and immediately meets Rossi's eyes. -Guys, we need to talk.- she announces gravely. JJ can't help staring at her two best friends, passing from one to the other all the time. It is clear to everyone that their IT has something to do with it, but how specifically, how much does it involve them personally, this cannot yet be said. -Meeting room in five minutes.- the woman turns, placing a hand on Penelope's shoulder and the two start to walk, turning their backs to the others. They don’t therefore notice how each one quickly abandons their activity, saving documents, putting the cap on the pen and hurrying to reach them. The last to enter the round room is Matt, less than a minute later.

-We are all here.- says Rossi with a warm and calm voice. -Talk.- he takes matters into his own hands, because he understands that Emily is in trouble. She has the same look as when they unjustly arrested Reid.

-There is no painless way to say it.- she begins, making them fear the worst. -Garcia, Penelope- she corrects herself -will be transferred to another unit next week.- six mouths open up almost simultaneously. Then, six pairs of eyes rest on the shapely blonde, who can't stand all those looks and feels faint. She tightens her wrist, planting her nails in the flesh, without the others being able to notice it. It was a method she had discovered to manage anxiety when panic seized her after Battle had shot her. She hadn't used it for a while, since the last anniversary.

A few seconds of silence, full of disbelief. Then a storm of questions is unleashes, more or less all together; overlapping words, different voices all united by the same pained tone.

-How?- JJ. She already has tears that press at the corners of the eyes to get out. Penelope sees her again, in a kind of deformed flashback, while she tells her for the first time that she considers her as part of her family, shortly after having shot the killer policeman; while they are accessing the CIA's encrypted files and fails to take possession of Prince William's phone number; as she walks, beautiful in her mother's white dress, heading for Will, on the lawn of Rossi's house.

-Why?- Spencer. The youngest of the team, immediately looking for a reason, a motivation, which however was not there. Or rather, it was there, but it was certainly not the one he wanted to hear. Penelope remembers perfectly the day he entered her office, bringing her a brioche as a gift and she declared her eternal platonic love; or that time he made a dollar appear from behind her ear, astonishing her almost more than Henry and Jack; and again his look of gratitude when she had shot a false nurse, Baylor, and when he had got out of the elevator, after he had risked becoming the three hundredth and last victim of the Believers, despite the past years.

-When?- Tara. The psychologist and university professor with whom she had been in love at first sight (as with Kate). How forgetting the enthusiasm with which she had received her arrival and the joy she had felt when Hotch had confirmed that the research was completed, there was no need to conduct other interviews; or when she had given her that carrot, which she had decided to keep and not to eat.

-Where?- Matt. That man as intelligent as he is charming and likeable. Penelope revisits various moments in a disorderly way: the phone call in a panic when the team had not responded to her numerous calls and the car ride to the accident; the friendly malice when he asked her if she had a tattoo and where; finally the sweet sensation of tranquility when they danced together at the wedding of Krystall and the older agent.

-Who?- Rossi. He himself, who has always detested the bureaucracy, wonders who the culprit is, who is behind what he perceives as a real crime against the whole unit. Losing Garcia would be as if the team's heart were rudely torn off. The young blonde remembers perfectly how the Italian-American treated her in the beginning, and feels something stirring at the thought of how he is now a real father to her, and he even told this to her.

Only one remains silent, quiet, doesn’t open his mouth. But his eyes are screaming, his eyes are the only one that really pierces her. Luke. Oh, Luke. Thinking of him as agent Alvez would be much more convenient, because when he becomes Luke, he makes her think of Roxy, the kitten-shaped anti-stress that he gave her, his jokes and provocations, the way he had kissed her on the cheek before hugging her, or he had taken her hand in Bradenton, or he had stolen her remote-control, he had consoled her in court, in front of the SUV with the body of Walker, he had involved her in the gift for Phil. Phil... No, better think of him as Alvez.

Emily leaves them a few seconds to recover, so she begins to answer their questions as much as possible. -It's a direct order from the Director.- she explains. -It hasn’t yet been specified the destination, in fact, in all likelihood they will come to take her directly from here and we will never know.- even worse than what had happened with JJ. Who was there at the time, catches the connection and winces. -There is not a how, nor a why. Or, like the rest, we cannot know it.- the brunette crosses her arms, considering the matter closed. There is really nothing else to add.

Everyone seems to understand it, yet, they each struggle to control themselves. A familiar sound awakens them from the trance they had fell into. Garcia grabs the phone and reads the message. -There is a case.- she says, trying to sound normal, but she just can't.

Everyone thinks the same thing. Their last case with her.

* When, will you come back? Tell me when, will I can see you...

It is a case that doesn’t require the use of the jet, fortunately. So, they can take care of it by staying close to the base. They work sitting around the round table, like the time they were been awake all night to find a proof that had exonerated Spencer and allowed them to simultaneously save Diana.

The atmosphere is tense, Penelope feels eyes on her about every ten minutes, but ignores everything to concentrate on her work. She rejects the thought that this time it's really over, that it won't be just for two weeks, like with that witch (Barnes). Her fingers beating on the keyboard mark the thoughts of many of her colleagues. They all speak less than usual; they only open their mouths when they have something concrete to say.

On the second day Prentiss is forced to separate from them for other "pending issues", so she defines them. Bureaucracy, surely. She locks herself in her office. Rossi and Dr. Lewis have already drawn the right conclusions; perhaps the others too, but one just can't get it. That's why, when he leaves the room after hours to go to the toilet, Agent Alvez is stunned to stare at a line of people, mostly women, mostly blondes, queuing outside the office of the chief of the BAU. When another woman, who looks like a clone of the others, comes out, without knowing how, he manages to precede the next one and slip inside.

-Luke!- Emily exclaims, in truth not too surprised. She doesn't even ask him what he does there. She waits patiently for the outburst.

-Who are all these girls?- he begins to ask, but inside he already has the answer, he just needs to have the courage to take it out. -Are you replacing Garcia while she's still here with us?- here it is, as she imagined. Indignation, anger, disbelief and disappointment.

Prentiss gives him a particularly maternal and understanding look. -There is no replacement worthy of Garcia, Luke.- he nods, immediately agreed. -But life goes on unfortunately. It doesn't matter who dies, or who goes away. How important it is.- the woman just shudders. -The leaders want a name by Friday. Someone else will have to find the addresses of the unknown subjects.- she tries a joke, but with little conviction.

The man remains silent. He's trying to get over it. But he can't do it.

-Alvez, listen to me well, because I will say it only once: don’t behave with the person who will take the place of Penelope...- seeing his shocked gaze, she hastens to add: -…yes, it is so, however bad it sounds. I've replaced Hotch, you've replaced Morgan, and someone will replace Garcia. Not in our hearts, it is obvious.- another nod of assent. -But professionally, it's so. So, I repeat, don’t do to this person, who has no fault, what Garcia did to you. Don't make her feel in the wrong place. Penelope did it as self-defense, to protect herself, and she didn't last long.- a slight smile grazes the lips of the Latin. -I have my doubts about how it would work with you.-

** When, will you be with me? Tell me when, tell me if... inside you, I also live a little, or not...

They solved the case, but the week is not over. Theoretically, there are still two days. Garcia made the decision, perhaps a bit selfish, but justified, to shut herself up in her bunker, to breathe a little. She knows that the attentions of her colleagues are irrefutable proof of their affection, but... but they are suffocating her. They make it all that much more difficult.

The worst thing is not go away. But staying and seeing the others disappear, she thinks, shaking her head, struggling with herself.

She jolts when she hears a knock on the door, the outer one, but she recovers quickly. -Forward, human.- she says aloud, while the first of the two armored doors closes behind her. -Speak and reveal your identity.- she stills to type words and codes and doesn’t divert attention from the main screen. But from the sound of footsteps she understands that it is a man. Ankle boots. She restricts the search to two subjects. Simmons or Alvez.

A large hand rests on her backrest. Then a voice, strangely weak. -Garcia...- she so surprised that she stops for a moment, but doesn’t turn to look at him. An awkward silence follows, which forces her to say something, any bullshit is better than that deafening nothingness.

-Luke? If you need some information I warn you that I am already off duty...- it sounds like one of her usual jokes, but lacks intensity. -Although I could make an exception, if it's just a small thing...- she can see him evaluate her words and move to the left, leaning on her desk, like Derek did.

The man takes a breath, clears his throat, procrastinates in every possible way. -Yes, well, I wanted to talk to you about... your transfer.- this time Penelope takes her hands away from the keyboard and can't avoid showing a hint of fear. Of all the subjects she could face and seem calm, indifferent, he went right to hit that. The woman holds her breath until her head begins to turn.

-Huh.- she strives to avoid at least looking into his eyes, convinced that he would be able to read them inside everything. Indeed, she is sure of this. Practically from the beginning, since they met and did this not push her to curl up like a hedgehog more?

He opens his mouth without saying anything, spreads his arms. -Is there anything you can do to avoid it?- he asks, finally. It could have been much worse. She sighs with relief, a little too noticeable. Luke watches her for a moment, finally deciding not to venture too much.

-Of course, I could hack the system and create a thousand slowdowns...- she replies, immediately lighting a smile on his lips. -I could go on like this for months, but they'd find out right away, who's behind it, I mean- once again she escapes his gaze -and in the end, I'd still have to go away.- her tone is a little too tough, but it is the only way left to save herself. -So I don't think it's worth it.- she folds her arms, waiting for his reply.

-But it's not fair.- it's the big phrase that comes out of him. The man feels stupid, but it is certainly not the first time that this happens when he is with her. -They can't treat us this way.- she merely stares at him, doesn't go to him in any way, doesn't make it easier for him. -Do they know that we are not just a group of people working together? We are a family and...- he hesitates for a moment, perhaps realizing that it is the first time he has said it aloud, even if he thought of it often and especially when Barnes tried to make him say something to discredit his colleagues and he realized how much he was willing to fight for the team -and we need each other-- he spits it out in the end, surprising her positively. Even if she would have preferred the opposite.

-Alvez, really, I appreciate your interest, but... it has already been decided.- she feels the need to release his anxiety in some way. -Nothing can be done to change things.- if he doesn’t leave by himself in a hurry, she will be forced to throw him out with badly manners. She knows perfectly the movement that runs through her belly, she knows what the consequences will be.

-It's not possible, I refuse to accept it.- but Luke behaves incredibly stubbornly. -How can they not realize that without you the percentage of cases solved will be reduced?- this time she doesn’t resist, she bursts into laughter with some bitter nuance, given by the inability to believe in the veracity of his words, which for a while she eliminates the risk of collapsing in front of him and ruining everything.

-Don't you think you're exaggerating now?- she realizes that her lips have folded into a grimace similar to the one he made when she called him "Newbie" or treated him "badly”. -Of course, I'm good, but...- he interrupts her. For him it is not conceivable that there is a but after such a statement.

-You are more than good, you said it yourself, no?- he blushes slightly, remembering that day, not long ago, in fact, that he had expressed his appreciation for her abilities, without hiding behind a joke , this time; and the way she had answered. Dios, it shouldn't be legal to flirt so subtly. -You're great.- Penelope is silent, barely closing her mouth, always red, always inviting. -And in any case, we have seen in those two weeks in which it seemed that the BAU was destined to disappear and also in those days when you were in San Francisco...- he begins to argue, as a perfect lawyer. His father would be proud of him.

-I'm sure anyone who chooses Prentiss will be worthy of occupying my place.- the woman replies, taunting herself. -And that you all will make it through this.- he nods, but gets a little closer to her chair, perhaps not quite consciously.

-But managing it and running like a train, they are two different things.- the man is not intentioned to give up. It tilts slightly downwards, always unaware, under the terrified look of her.

-What is it, Luke, why do you care so much?- she decides to go straight to the point. She will not be able to get rid of him with the good ways, now it is clear. -Did something happen?- she hopes to turn the matter around him, his problems, anything to keep him away from her.

Luke opens his mouth, considering whether to say directly the first thing that went through his head. -You ask me why I care?- it sounds like a question, but it really isn't. His tongue passes over the teeth. -I told you, we are a family and... no one will ever be at your level.- it's not all what he wanted to tell her, but one step at a time, something is better than nothing.

At least he gets a smile not too much felt, certainly not comparable to her true smiles full of joy, like the one when she had seen Roxy for the first time, when he had shown her his gift... -Thank you, I'm flattered.- it sounds so... fake. -But now, if you allow me, I need to finish this job.- actually they are just paperwork that she could complete even from her house, because they will take away her access tomorrow. -I don't want to leave anything... unfinished.- he further reduces the distances and stares her with such intensity as to paralyze her. Leaving it, you will still leave something unfinished. You will leave this story in abeyance, what is between us, it will remain forever undefined, we will never know how it could have gone. You're not just abandoning the unit, you're letting go of your family, the people who love you... me.

But, of course, he doesn't say anything of what's on his mind. -Ok.- almost neutral tone. -Even if I can't understand how you can have took it so well...- he chooses to be magnanimous. It's late, Roxy is waiting for him, maybe a midnight walk will help him clear his head. -... good night.- he whispers in a slightly sweeter tone, wishing to place a kiss on her hair, or even on her cheek, he could be satisfied with it.

-Night.- she echoes him, and as soon as he is out, she bursts into tears, overwhelmed by the wave of pain that has done nothing but go up and down her body since she received that damn e-mail.

*** Tell me about you, when you are alone at night and you never sleep...

She didn't even try to sleep. She knew it would be completely useless, she would "wake up" the next morning (or a few hours later, because when she went under the covers the first lights were already visible) with a terrible headache, more tired than she had just stayed up late, as she had actually done.

She preferred to try to take her mind off, reading a book, one of those that usually obliged her to finish it, no matter that she had other commitments, that she should go to work or eat. It worked, but only briefly.

Here, she is parking her Esther for the last time, pressing the elevator button and go down to the fourth floor. She caresses every detail with her eyes, every fragment that manages to capture about those places where she experienced so many different emotions...

She came very early, to avoid meeting the others. She knows it is a cowardly, unjust thing, but she just can't make it to greet them, to live a moment like that. No, she would burst into tears, flood the bullpen. Better to avoid. Better this way. They will forgive her, perhaps, a day not very close.

She crosses the desks area, deserted; she observes them one by one, recognizing the owner of each with affection. She tries hard not to dwell too much on the one with dog statuettes, her gifts, of course. She sighs and continues down the stairs to Prentiss' office. She is the only one already present. She opens the door without knocking.

-Are you already here?- asks the other woman, but she has already understood everything. Damn profilers. Why is it so easy to love them and fall in love with them?

-Yes, I... I'm sorry, Em', I can't do it.- she shrugs. -You know I hate goodbyes. Will you explain it to the others?- the brunette just nods, not particularly convinced. When Penelope comes out, she understands the reason.

They are all there, standing, waiting for her. She feels a hand caress her shoulder. She turns to Emily, who smiles slightly. Together they go down and join the rest of the team. No one talks for a few minutes, then the hugs begin. JJ, sobbing, hugs her tightly, whispering -How could you think of leaving without saying goodbye?- but not demanding an answer. Tara waits for her turn, but is dragged into a female hug. Men observe in the background. The BAU women promise to remain friends and sisters, no matter what happens. And they know that they really mean it.

So, after at least fifteen minutes of giggles, interspersed with tears and anecdotes, they leave her free. And the first one she meets is Spencer, the man who didn't love hugs. He has changed his mind, deeply. They don't exchange a single word, because they don't need it. They have always been kindred souls. They remain hugged for a long time, it seems that there are no other people besides them. To the point that someone starts to feel far more than a pinch of jealousy, and doubts and uncertainties resurface.

When, finally, with the enormous joy of that someone, they separate, it is the latecomer that welcomes her in his arms. Theirs is a patently friendly and fraternal gesture, there is no room for ambiguity, not even trying to strive. Matt strokes her hair and feels her trembling. For this reason, he holds her a little longer.

Then it's Rossi's turn. Not even when Morgan left, he felt all this pain. Because he knew it was the best choice, he didn't want Hank to grow up as Joy, without a father, and as bad as it was, it was pretty easy to accept. But not this time. No, it was all so wrong. -Kitten, oh, kitten...- he sighs, almost in a rattle that suddenly reveals his age.

Only one remains. Why does she always end up putting him last? It is so obvious that he feels as the fifth wheel on the wagon. Fortunately, he doesn’t know that she is used to keeping the best, especially when it comes to food, but also to reading, lastly, to be able to do it... to enjoy it better. In fact, she tries to avoid everything, knowing that she is just fooled herself. Luke drags her in a hug that can be defined with a single adjective: tragic. After a second of stiffness, Penelope abandons herself to his grip and deflates like a balloon, pouring all the tears on him, that she was able to hold back up to that point. It was his fault. His hand that caresses her back so delicately, like her mother did when she was little. And the heat emanating from his body. Its natural scent, which also reminds her of Roxy. And then simply because it's Luke. Luke, and not Alvez. For his part, the man rocks her as if she were a child, making her sway more or less like when they danced slow at Rossi's wedding. In his head he confesses everything. In his head he pleads with her, on his knees, tearing his hair as in Greek tragedies, to not go, because he can't live without her. He wouldn’t even have joined the BAU if he hadn't known a colorfully dressed computer technician, terribly sexy in body and spirit.

It is the sound of a cell phone to revive them. The others would never have had the courage to separate them. What was between them, of whatever specific form it was, was so obvious. Emily pulls out her cell phone and sighs. Everyone knows what it means.

There is a case.

This time they won't have Garcia's abilities at their service.

The woman breaks away from him (and it hurts, without the almost, it hurts her body) and looks at her family one last time. She starts to walk towards the elevator, but they follow her and stay there, staring at her, until the doors close and lead her away, away from her family.

**** When will you return, when? Or will you always be away?

The months pass, so fast and anonymous that, if he stops to think about it, it's almost scary. Garcia is regularly in touch with them, at least once a week, especially through the chat she herself created on WhatsApp. Of course, it is not the same thing, but again, it is better than nothing.

This is what Luke repeats every morning to force himself to get out of bed, he, who had always been an early riser, super active even at dawn. Roxy tries to console him, but this time not even her can help him.

He finds himself more and more frequently re-reading her messages. He caresses the words with his fingertips, smiling with melancholy sweetness. He doesn’t allow himself to think of a single thing: that he misses her (here, he has just done it). He tries to settle for something, but it's hard.

Everything loses its importance when he sees her (it is she, she has no doubts, his heart has recognized her first than his eyes) walking in the park, in flesh and bone, not a fucking message, even a vowel or a short call. He heads towards her feeling like being reborn. It's Sunday, there are no cases to solve. He smiles, just before she notices his presence.

-Hello.- he says, containing himself slightly. She looks at him strangely.

-Hello.- she repeats. The man notices with pleasure that she is wearing one of her floral-themed clothes. He feared that in the new place (whatever it was, since she could not say anything, extra top secret mission) they had forced her to completely change appearance, to homologate her to the mass. Not that he wouldn't find her beautiful, this never.

-How are you?- he asks her. The woman understands that he is really interested in her answer.

-Pretty good.- she seems sincere, the man thinks. -And you?- she doesn’t give him time to reply. -Few days ago I met Lisa and... she told me that you two are no longer together.- silence. -Since six months.- she doesn’t mask in any way the accusatory and disappointed tone. Does she believe that others know it?

-Yes.- he shrugs. -It’s happened.- Penelope opens her beautiful brown eyes and glares at him. -I'm fine, really. Did she tell you it was a common decision?- they start walking again, a little too far for Luke's taste.

-Something like that.- she grants to him.

-Do you want to take a cup of tea with me?- he asks her, even to force her to stop mulling over his relationship with Lisa. She nods. In truth, she accepts only for get real information about the girl who replaced her. The man keeps the door open, making her passing first and enjoying a certain view accordingly. He is able just to avoid helping her sit down. If they had been in a restaurant though, he would surely have done it. They order and he doesn't notice at all the attempts of approach of the waitress, a beautiful curly woman. His former colleague is convinced that it is because he is still in love with Lisa.

As soon as they are alone, she throws herself away. -Then, let's not talk around it. How is she?- but he plays the role of the naive, a part that he does very well.

-How is who?- he asks, frowning.

Penelope shakes her head and sighs, annoyed. -How is the new girl.- she precises.

-Oh.- a shadow passes into his eyes. -You mean Sophie.- Sophie, repeats the woman in her head. Even the name sounds sweet and nice. Luke understands that he won't get away easily. He should say everything. -Well, she is very young, I think she is about the age of Spencer.- he starts to explain. -She graduated in computer science at MIT.- that is, like her, if she hadn't given up everything after her parents died. -It is very organized, precise... nice.- still not enough. She wants more. -Smart.- he adds then. Of course, Emily wouldn't have chosen any unprepared.

-Well.- she sounds like a demanding professor who expects more details to give 30/30 and laudation. -I'm happy for you.- the curly maid comes back, who serves them, almost pouring the contents of Penelope's cup on the table, as too intent on staring her partner. But it is only a dilation, a temporary suspension. -And then?- she asks him, in fact, almost malignant and pleased to put him in difficulty.

-Then what?- she doesn’t understand if he is really so stupid.

-How she is... aesthetically, I mean.- she gestures, pointing herself. It is destined to end badly, there is nothing to do. Needless to oppose fate. -Physically.- she adds.

-Oh.- another embarrassed pause. -She is blonde.- to this adjective, he suddenly starts to giggle, without a sensible reason. Penelope doesn’t catch the fun side. -High. Thin.- ok, this is too much. True, she asked it, but...

-Fantastic.- she comments. She stands up and risks to overturn the entire table. -Now... I have to go.- he grabs her quick hand like an iguana's tongue when sees a prey to catch. What a beautiful image that came to his mind.

-But we haven’t yet drunk our tea.- he says, quietly, rationally. Perhaps he thinks that this is enough to keep her here, to make her hear the praise of Sophie, blonde, thin, tall, smart... She is behaving like an idiot, even if only in her head.

-It doesn't matter, some other time then.- she instead replies, with a sad and resentful tone.

But he doesn't let her go. -Penelope.- he never calls her by name. He manages to capture her attention.

-What?- she snorts, falling back into her chair. The patrons who followed the entire scene as if they were shooting a famous Argentine soap opera, immediately stop, pretending to be very busy.

Luke is still holding her hand, but he has moved to cover her fingers. -Sophie is smart, nice, pretty, but it's nothing comparable to you.- he declares with tone and above all an intense look. That look. She slips her hand from his.

She stares at the amber liquid in front of her, almost hoping to see the answer to her problems inside. -Uh, I appreciate the attempt, but you've always been a bad liar.- the man bangs his fist on the table. Give to this cup of tea a medal, it has survived more attempts than those to assassinate the president of the United States in any VHS action movie.

-It's not a lie, I'm serious.- the man insists, trying to catch her eyes; but she doesn’t grant him. She is not so stupid as not to know how it would end. -She can’t fill the void you left.- he continues undaunted. -She will never replace you.- does he not understand that every sentence of it is like a stabbed in her stomach? Why is he not silent? -It’s clear?- he asks her instead, suddenly being hard.

-Yes, clear.- she teases him and it's a good feeling. He was no longer used to it. -But now I really have to go...- she stands up and leaves him alone, shaking his head; actually in the company of Abraham Lincoln.

***** When will you return? Just tell me if, only if, if you're still just here...

It's ironic. It has been another three months since he last met her, that she only let him in that bar, and he had a thousand reasons to do what he is only now finally accomplishing. And yet, it was enough to talk about the thing with someone totally foreign to the story. Sophie, dear Sophie. Prentiss was naturally right. It wouldn't have been right to blame her. No, not really. Also, because she helped him. Without her, not as good as Garcia, but... in short, without her he wouldn't be here.

He wouldn’t be able to spy on the woman he is in love with while she is working, she exchanges a few words with her colleagues, she looks for a second her phone and smiles. Perhaps another wouldn’t have been able to observe her so comfortably, but he was a former hunter of men. This was his bread and butter. He missed that thrill.

So different with those normal clothes, from mere mortals, exactly as she had imagined, but always she, always sexy. Sometimes the content of a book is so strong that it doesn't matter which cover it represents. She looks like a manager, her hair straight and without frills, her wardrobe completely gray. Better than beige, he thinks, smiling. Even the glasses are dark, black, though. Above all he observes the way she interacts with colleagues, how her smiles are forced and fake. She seems so fragile and lost, like a fish out of water. He stays in his post so long as his back is in pain.

But it's worth it and every pain vanishes when he finally sees her come out of that door, immersed in a multitude of anonymous people. Even in this costume she stands out like a butterfly in the midst of moths. He leaves his hiding place and walks to meet her. -Garcia.- hearing her name, she jolts, bringing a hand to her chest.

But she has recognized the voice. -Alvez, you made me take an heart attack.- she reproaches him with familiarity, immediately putting him at ease. -What are you doing here?- what she doesn't ask instead is how the hell did he get here since her work place is a secret assignment.

But Luke looks different from last time. Stronger and more aware. Yes, really aware. She begins to tremble, and not just from the cold. -I came to surprise you.- he smiles, but it's not one of his good, sweet, tender smiles. -See, it's a bit 'that I don’t hear from you...- there is malice in his voice, malice of those who want something more than just having fun flirting.

But she tries to ignore it. -I have been very busy.- any sentence, the first one that came to her mind. It looks like it's out of a bad movie. -I'm not yet used to the rhythms of the office...- but she doesn't last long. At the end, she falls into those eyes. -Why do you look at me like that?- the man tries to contain himself, but it's too hard, a losing game.

-Nothing, just... you're so different that I almost don't recognize you.- so spontaneous, so devoid of filters. So damn Luke. Shit. Shit. Shit.

She's clever enough to hide the battle that's happening inside her. -Even!- she exclaims in a somewhat exaggerated and shrill tone. -I only wear ordinary mortal clothes.- just the same words he had used in his head. -So... how are you?- she only asks him to change the subject, and he understands it.

-Do you mean me or the team?- this time he's too smart, the right opposite of naive. She shrugs her shoulders. -Both are pretty good, Sophie is integrating, but, you know...- he had to name her, yes, he just couldn't help it. Blonde, smart, skinny, MIT graduate...

She speaks to block the destructive flow of one's thoughts. -Yes, "she can’t replace me" and bla bla.- she sighs. She's tired, she hates this job, she really hates it, it's worse than the other to the cybercrime unit. Much worse. -Listen to me, Luke. I know she won't replace me, there's no need for you to insist.- a yawn escapes and she doesn't try to hold it. -As Rossi said once, there are many agents who have entered and left the team, and everyone has had their own identity, a role of their own.- this time it is she who looks him in the eye. -An own path.- and she manages to put him in difficulty.

-Yes, but...- she shakes her head.

-I'm tired.- she says then, since he really doesn't want to get there. -Tomorrow it will be another very heavy day.- silence. -If you came here for another reason, then, talk. Otherwise...- it sounds like the last warning before declaring two people husband and wife. But what damned thought is this? Luke inadvertently shakes his head to chase it away. If he begins to imagine Penelope in white dress, is over. -...I would like you to let me go home.- she concludes.

Luke understands that he must jump in, now or never. -Penelope, you don't understand. I'm not here on behalf of the team, I'm not here because the pace of case resolution is slowed down, despite all of Sophie's efforts.- a selfish thrill of pleasure in hearing him say it. What kind of person has she become? She wasn't like that before. -I didn’t come here as a former colleague.- she focuses on his words, to forget what she feels.

-No?- she looks around. It is getting dark. The night falls quickly in this part of the city. Quick as a killer on his victim. -Then, I just don't get there.- the man nods, confusing her if possible more.

-I don't miss you just as a colleague.- he starts to talk freely. -I miss you as a person. I miss hearing your voice, your jokes, seeing your smile, meeting your eyes... I miss your presence at O'Keefe and... I miss you so much.- Penelope opens her eyes, mentally listens again to what he has said, convincing herself that she has misinterpreted, then accepts it, but with some premises.

She approaches his face, but only to smell his breath. -Luke, did you drink before you got here?- she asks. -Are you sure you feel good?- she places a hand on his forehead, which is not warm. She's not teasing him, maybe; she really believes it.

-Yes, fuck, I'm fine, and no, I'm sober.- he bends over her, but with other intentions. - Do you need further proof to believe it?- her expression is like a yes. He doesn’t let her respond and gives her a short kiss. She doesn’t even have time to realize that it has happened, that it is already over.

But nothing, her fears are much stronger than he could imagine. -I think I understand what's going on, you're a little dazed because you haven't accepted the situation yet.- she explains in a perfectly reasonable tone, unable to eliminate the sensation of the man's lips on her body. She will never forget it. Oh, Luke, why did you do it? -It happened to me too with Derek.- he looks at her as if she had three heads, so he slaps his forehead, having to vent his frustration.

-According to you I would have kissed you just because I'm in the denial phase?- he tests her and she nods.

-Yup. I probably would have done it too, except that Morgan was married and that was the reason he had to leave...- he is almost tempted to silence her with another kiss, a little longer, a little longer and explicit. But he wants her to kiss him back the next time. He wants to feel her completely immersed in their gesture.

-Enough.- he exclaims with an authoritative tone, what he had when he was head of a team of recruits in the rangers. -Don't say another word. Did you come here by car?- he grabs her by the arm, not very gently.

-Yes, because...- without needing to say anything she understands and leads him to the car. Not even a second to take a breath, he pushes her in, but instead of the passenger. He sits behind the steering wheel and closes the doors. The car is not Esther, so she can't run away. It is one of those minivans that companies lately love to give to their employees.

He turns to her. -Penelope, I didn't kiss you because I'm confounded, crazy or unable to accept reality.- he allows her a moment to metabolize. -But simply because I'm in love with you, and if I can't have you in my workplace... I want at least have you in my life.- he has said, he has really said it. He is not so stupid as to believe he can find a way to bring her back to the BAU. But there is not only that way to see each other.

He sees from the way she looks at him that she is beginning to believe him. -Luke, you're not serious...- she's challenging him to deny. And he is in.

-You really need another demonstration...- he leans forward to grab her chin between two fingers and kisses her again, longer, then taking her hands to rest them on his chest, so she can feel the beat of his heart, while his hands hold her face. This time Penelope kisses him back, passing a new level, passing the baton to their tongues, until both of them are in oxygen debt.

-Did you come on foot?- she asks, and her whole attitude has changed. Luke nods. -Then I'll give you a ride to your house.- but she's sitting on the wrong side. He grabs her hand and places a kiss on the back of it. An ancient gesture that suits on him terribly.

He turns on the engine, but after a few miles he breaks the silence, which in this case is not due to embarrassment, as in the previous ones. -What are you thinking, honey?- a nickname is enough to make her vibrate like a jackhammer. She can now stop denying having wanted to hear it from the first time he called her chica.

She tells him the truth, instead of censoring herself like she would have done less than five minutes ago. -I still can't believe that you... It seems absurd to me.- she is not talking at all about only the physical aspect, and the man understands it perfectly. It is as if, after kissing her, her mind was cleared. Now he sees everything with such lucidity.

-There is nothing absurd.- he places his hand on the gearbox to down shift from third gear to the second and after a few moments feels a sweet weight. -You are a wonderful person and I am sure that your new colleagues have already noticed.- she accepts the compliment, but doesn’t want to talk about work.

-I don’t know. It is very different from the BAU...- how could it not be? She feels stupid for having expressed such a foolish thought. But the way he looks at her, as soon as they find themselves at a busy intersection, it reassures her that he doesn't think it at all.

-I know, baby- a new nickname, it sounds so different from those coming out of Derek's mouth -but you don't have to feel alone. You will always be part of the team and you can come to the evenings at O'Keefe... as my girlfriend.- he blushes to the tips of his ears, but he is satisfied with himself as never before.

-Luke Alvez, are you really asking me that?- it is at this point that the man understands how it is necessary to go to phase two (or three). He puts the arrow and approaches a clearing lit by a single lamppost. She watches him, his every move, trying to figure out what he wants to do. He gets out, slams the driver door, goes around, opens the passenger door and gets her down too. Then he sits down, taking her in his arms, intertwining their legs and starting to kiss her again from the point where they were interrupted. At one point, Penelope opens her eyes and leaves his mouth. A loud pop is heard. -Oh, Luke, I feel something solid, and I don't think it's the gearbox.- yes, from her position it would be a little impossible.

He nods, staring at her intensely. She lets herself melt, she doesn’t oppose. -Yes. Now do you believe it?- because there is something presses against her thigh, it's a bit hard to ignore it or consider it as her hallucination.

-I think I do.- she throws all the air out and a little cloud forms between their faces. -It's a good thing that this is a company machine, otherwise you would have already laid me on the back seats, right?- it's a joke, but she is also profoundly serious. The mix between candor and malice is decidedly explosive and it is only thanks to twelve years of Catholic school if Luke doesn’t concretize the words of his girlfriend.

-Touché.- he says, moving back to his seat. The rest of the journey continues in silence. When they see the apartment building where his apartment is located, they both feel their heart skip a beat. He parks, she goes down, but not to take his place. He grabs the keys and sets the alarm on, blocking all the doors, including the trunk. She accompanies him to the door. This gesture, which usually belongs to males, excites him even more. He smears her against the jamb, but the handle planted in her back prevents her from letting go completely. -Are you sure you don't want to stay?- he asks her between kisses. Penelope is really tempted. A little more pressure in the right places...

-Mmm, no, I really can't, there's Sergio alone and then...- a spark in her eyes -on the first date you shouldn't even kiss your pretender, you don't know?- he catches all the hints and bends the face in a pout childish.

-Then, I have to give you the good night.- he sighs, but instead of bending down to catch her lips, he opens the door. -Listen, Roxy, how disappointed she is...- the dog is actually staring at her as if asking her what she is doing there, outside, in the doorway.

-You are a bastard, Alvez.- and so they enter the house. Roxy searches her, as if she hasn't seen her for a year (well, almost). And when the dog finishes, the owner starts again, precisely from his gray blouse.

-I always wanted you to wear one to remove it...- he whispers in her ear. Here, everything has its positive sides, she is able to think. -If you want me to stop, as hard as it is, literally hard, if you understand what I mean... I'll do it.- ruined, with these last words Penelope is ruined. -If you don't feel ready...- she grabs him by the neck and overturn the situation.

-What the hell.- now he too is bare-chested. -But remind you that tomorrow I have to get up early.- the echo of Luke's laughter accompanies her up to the moment before sleep catches her. How peacefully you can rest, when nothing is pending.

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

TAGS: @arses21434 @martinab26 @reidskitty13 @thinitta @garvezz @mercedes-maldonado @shyladystudentfan @criminalminds14 @pegasus-scifichick @paperwalk @inlovewithgarvaz @the-ellen-stuff @astressedwriter @kdramanmore @kamieshep @sk1l4targ @badrwadan majo0803 @ilovecatswwehp @isaurebnnd @symphonyashley @jess-the-introvert

#garvez #criminal minds #cm #penelope garcia #luke alvez #BAU team #penelope x luke #luke x penelope #garcia x alvez #alvez x garcia #tiziano ferro #quando ritornerai

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pinkstarbeam · 6 years

Text

Plance Transfer student AU

The Holt’s had hosted a transfer student before back during Matt’s senior year, that’s how the family came to know Takashi Shirogane, or Shiro as he liked to be called

Come Pidge’s junior year her parents told her the news that or his senior school year they would be housing a Cuban transfer student named Lance

Pidge didn’t really think anything of this, as long as he didn’t touch her stuff they would probably get along just fine

Come pick up day Pidge stood next to her best friend Hunk who had asked to tag along since Lance would be in his class

“What do you think he’s like? Do you think he is fluent in english? What if he’s rude!? What if-”

“Hunk relax, i’m sure he’s just as nervous as you are.”

“You’re not nervous?”

“Kinda? it’ll just be nice to have someone my age in the house again since Matt left for college.”

As they continued to talk Pidge heard her Dad call out the transfer students name and watched as a admittedly beautiful guy hurried over to them

How were his teeth so white and straight? What was he a colgate model? and he had to be wearing contacts nobody’s were that blue!

“Pidge!” Hunk elbowed her

Pidge came back to earth blinking as she quickly realized she had been staring

Didn’t help Lance or whatever his name was had a sly smirk on his face

“Lance this is my daughter Katie and her friend Hunk.” Her dad introduced them “Katie likes to go by Pidge though.”

Lance extended his hand to Pidge “It’s nice to meet you, I look forward to the school year.” he spoke clear english, but had a clear accent

Pidge shook it and Hunk did afterwards

Soon the Holt’s and Lance arrived at their house and while her parents showed Lance the guest room Pidge went to her room and flopped on her bed next to bae bae

“This is gonna be a long school year,”

The next day was the first day of school and since Pidge was in charge of showing him around and helping him out at school she had to endure all the stares and flirting

If Lance told one more girl her eyes were his favorite color she was gonna puke

They finally arrived back at the start

“Okay, now you have my number so if you can’t fine someone to help you just text me.”

“Pidge come on, i’m nearly 18, I got this.”

He didn’t, He texted Pidge five minute after they separated because he couldn’t find his homeroom

Come lunch Pidge softly smushed her face into Keith’s shoulder, her other best friend

“Long day Holt?”

“You don’t know that half of it Kogane.”

“So I take it the new kid is who is living under your roof this year?”

Pidge nodded as she moved back so she could steal a carrot off his tray

“He’s...Something.”

“You can say that again.”

Next thing the two knew Hunk appeared with Lance beside him, Lance looking rather displeased at Keith’s existence

“Mind if we sit?” Hunk asked

Both nodded and the other two joined them though Lance wouldn’t even spare Keith a glance

“What is this?” Lance as looking down at his plastic wrapped sub

“Oof you grabbed the tuna salad...” Hunk said and both Keith and Pidge mentally pressed F to pay respect

“Is it bad?” he asked

“Let’s just say the last kid that ate it was out sick for a week.”

Yeah Pidge had never seen a kid throw food away in his life

“Here.” she handed him her bag of chips which he gladly took

Over the next few week Pidge and Lance began to actually get along and even hung our regularly with Hunk and Keith

The evening of Halloween Lance even dressed up as Frankenstein’s monster so he and pidge matched

Come Christmas Lance (with her mother’s help) made a traditional Cuban Christmas dinner

Matt and Lance were like a horrible meme nightmare together and Pidge was thankful his girlfriend was cool to hang out with

Present wise Pidge got Lance a figher pilot jacket which quickly came apart of his everyday look and Lance got Pidge a video game they coudl play together since they had bonded over them the most

On new years eve Pidge stood outside watching fireworks explode whilst a slightly tipsy Lance leaned against her

“Lance get off, if you’re tired go lay on Keith’s couch.”

“Quiero estar contigo..”

“Lance we both know I don’t know Spanish.”

He just grumbled and moved so he was hugged her from behind and rested his chin on her head

sighing pidge let him stay there as they counted down the minute to new years when something unexpected happened

as pidge yelled 0 to herself she suddenly felt lips connect with her own

She wanted to chew Lance out but he has passes out after the kiss, how convenient for him

Pidge didn’t tell Lance or anyone for that matter what happened that night, not like it would matter, Lance had a crush on Allura, a girl in his grade who honestly was a walking goddess

As time went on Lance noticed Pidge was distancing herself, however here recently he had got on Allura’s good side was hanging out with her

“Is Pidge mad at me?” Lance asked Hunk

“She hasn’t mentioned anything? Why?”

“She barely talks to be anymore and at home she hides in her room.”

“Well spring break is coming up so maybe try to ask her to hang out then?”

And so he did

But Pidge seemed one step ahead with an excuse

However his chance came the last day of break because it was also Pidge’s 17 birthday meaning she couldn’t hide

The morning came early as Pidge’s parents followed by Lance came in carrying a plate of peanut butter pancakes and singing happy birthday

Pidge, though half asleep, took the breakfast thanking them

“After you eat get dressed and we’ll head into town okay?”

she just nodded too tired to argue as she rubbed her eyes

Lance stayed in the room after her parents left “Any idea what you want to do today?”

“Why do you care?” Pidge asked as she ate her pancakes

Lance felt his irritation from the last few weeks rising “Because i’m your friend or I thought I was.”

Pidge just rolled her eyes “Oh please. the minute Allura texts you i’ll be invisible to you again, now please go away so I can eat in peace.”

grumbling Lance left the room, but he sat and thought about what she said

Was Pidge...Jealous of Allura? But, why? She didn’t like him that way...right?

The ride into town was awkward as Lance fought every urge to even just look at Pidge

arriving at the mall Pidge’s parents gave her $100 to spend on what she wanted and told the two o them to meet them back the front by noon

After they separated Lance pulled Pidge to the side “Are you jealous of Allura?”

“Excuse me?”

“Earlier you mentioned Allura, why?”

“Am I not allowed to talk about your crush?”

Lance’s cheeks burned as he looked away “Just answer my question.”

“No i’m not jealous of Allura.” she lied

“Then why bring her up?”

“i’m leaving.” Pidge walked off “Don’t follow me.”

Lance sighed as he slumped against the wall

A familiar voice caught his ear

Allura had just walked in the mall and Lance immediately realized what Pidge meant by invisible to him because when Allura asked why e was there it took him a minute to remember he was there for Pidge

He was the worst friend ever

“Lance it’s okay, i’ll help you find her okay?” Allura offered

Lance nodded still feeling guilty

As they walked Lance noticed Pidge’s backpack at a table in the arcade and quickly hurried in calling for her

He seen a crowd of people and headed over to see they were around a DDR machine where low and behold Pidge was dancing along die Keith of all people

except something hit him hard

Pidge was laughing as she hung out with Keith

And that

that made him jealous

he was the jealous one it seemed

When the dance ended Keith was the clear winner as Pidge laughed slumping against the bar

“That’s the last time you pick the song Kogane.”

“Gotta have you exercise somehow.”

“Hey I exercise!”

“Your fingers on your keyboard as you code don’t count Katie.”

Katie...He called her by her real name

Lance cleared his throat and Pidge looked over groaning before spotting Allura and her eyes darkening a bit

“Want a turn?” Keith asked

“Actually I was looking for Pidge, come on Pidge.”

“You’re not my babysitter Lance..”

Allura stepped forward “If I may..Pidge Lance has been looking for you for the last ten minutes.”

“And I told him not to.”

Keith sighed feeling annoyed and took Pidge’s hand pulling her along “Let’s talk about this without so many eyes and ears, you guys are making a scene.”

Soon they were in the arcade’s backroom seeing as Keith worked there

“Now what’s going on?” Keith asked

“Lance thinks i’m jealous of Allura.”

Allura looked confused “of me? Why?”

Lance explained the mention of her earlier this morning

“Pidge do you think Lance favors me over you?”

“I mean he does have a crush on you.”

Lance’s face paled as Pidge realized she had outted him

“Oh..So you have a crush on him?”

Pidge’s face went bright red “I didn’t say that!”

“But if he likes me and you’re upset he puts me over you then-”

“I’m leaving!” Pidge quickly tried to leave but Keith blocked her way

“Pidge just answer the question. Do you like Lance?”

Pidge looked to Lance and then to Allura before looking to the ground and sighing “Even if I do it doesn’t matter, like I said he likes Allura. Now can I go now, this is turning into the worst birthday ever.”

“You like me?” Lance asked

“I..” she sighed “You were tipsy and kissed me on new years eve.” she instinctively held keith back “when you didn’t remember I knew it was an accident, but after that I started to feel weird, especially when you brought up Allura or other girls..”

“Oh God..Pidge i’m-”

“Save it...Keith.”

Keith moved and let Pidge out but blocked Lance from chasing her

“Keith move!” Lance growled

“She needs space right now Lance, if you keep pushing her like this she is gonna hate you.”

And so come noon Pidge sat at the front with some stuff she bought as she waited on everyone

she kept telling herself she had a little over a month left and Lance would leave and she could sever ties even though it hurt to think about not talking to him ever again

“Hey.” Lance walked up

she didn’t reply as she sipped her coffee

“So..Allura doesn’t like me that way.”

no response still

“But I think I have a new crush..”

“Don’t pity me McClain..”

“Pidge i’m not pitying you..give me a week to prove to you that i’m serious..”

she sighed “Only because if I don’t agree you’ll drag Hunk into this.”

After dinner that night Pidge and Lance went on a walk, Lance giving Pidge his jacket when she shivered

“You do realize you’re going back to Cuba next month right..’?”

“I do, I just..I like being with you..being near you.”

“..You told me the same thing on new years eve in Spanish, at least I think, I googled what I thought you said.”

“Well drunk Lance had that part right, though I shouldn’t have forced a kiss on you, that was wrong.”

she nodded as she pulled the jacket closer to her “...I didn’t hate it..”

“What?”

“The kiss, I didn’t hate it..”

“..Could I kiss you for real?”

She gave a small nod and the two shared their first kiss under a streetlamp that was turning on above them

The next month was full of cute sappy date things that they squeezed in between studying or final and Lance sending in college applications

However come summer it was time for Lance to return home to Cuba where his family was eagerly awaiting his return

Pidge stood quietly aside Matt and her Mom as she watched her Dad help Lance load his luggage into the family car

Lance looked to Pidge and immediately noticed she was ready to cry the moment nobody was watching

He walked over and pulled her into a tight hug “This isn’t goodbye Katie, I promise.”

tears ran down her face as she hugged him tightly “You better come back you jerk..”

he wiped her eyes before kissing her head “Of course, can’t let Keith beat my DDR score.”

She glared about to say something when Lance knelt and whispered in her ear

“Te amo.”

#plance #pidgance #possiblypidge au's

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alarriefantasy · 6 years

Photo

Enemies to Lovers (Part 2)

Won't Let Go of You for Nothing by AFangirlFantasy

Words: 3k

Louis’ new neighbor is playing their music offensively loud, and he’s fucking pissed. Every night this week he hasn’t been able to fall asleep because of it, but tonight, Louis refuses to suffer again. Taking matters into his own hands, Louis goes over to knock some much needed sense into their brain.

Things may or may not go the way he plans.

Or a Love/Hate neighbors AU

Like You Hate Me by KrisStylinson

Words: 6k

“You have poor taste for someone with the last name Styles,” he says, turning to show the back of his pants to Harry—the pants Harry had just stitched his name across last night to keep this type of thing from happening again.

Of course, he’s accomplished nothing but indirectly making himself pop a stiffy over Louis fucking Tomlinson.

say i hate you but i always stay by clicheanna

Words: 8k

Or the one where Harry hates Louis, he's almost sure Louis hates him, and they live together. Driving him to football practice everyday is not apart of Harry's plans, but Louis is pretty adamant if it means annoying Harry.

A Stór Mo Chroí by kiwikero

Words: 9k

Louis is a young laird from Clan Sutherland and Harry the chieftain of Clan Gunn, and an alliance between their clans isn't enough to convince the two of them to get along.

Shut Up and Wink at Me by kikikryslee

Words: 14k

Or, the one where Louis wants to go away to college to get away from everything having to do with his hometown. So when he finds out his roommate will be Harry Styles, perfect school athlete and the exact opposite of what Louis wants in a roommate, he's not happy about it.

kiss me on the mouth and set me free by suspendrs

Words: 17k

Or, Louis is a gamer and Harry is a beauty guru, and VidCon is a good place to fall in love.

you flower, you feast by stylinsoncity

Words: 18k

He's King of the Underworld, but don't assume Louis has it all. He could stand for some excitement in his monotonous, eternal life and maybe, even.....a soulmate.

(Despite not having a soul.)

And along came "Harry".

the boys of fall by godgavemelou

Words: 21k

OR an american football au where the boys play for the university of tennessee, and harry and louis quite hate each other.

written in the stars (that's you and me) by fackinglouis

Words: 22k

Written for the prompt: Louis is a funny and bratty psychic and Harry is set on proving he's a scam.

Staring Across the Room by allwaswell16

Words: 26k

Harry Styles has a great life. He’s a children’s librarian at the New York Public Library, he’s got wonderful friends, and he loves cooking, green tea, yoga, and his collection of bow ties. He doesn’t mind that his life seems a little structured, maybe even a little boring. But when Louis Tomlinson joins the library staff as the new Installation Coordinator, things become a lot less predictable. Louis gets under his skin right from the start, bossing Harry around, making noise during story time, and eating the last cupcake in the staff lounge. Louis may be almost offensively attractive, but Harry will not be succumbing to Louis Tomlinson’s charms, even if the rest of the library staff have.

Mine Now by aclosetlarryshipper

Words: 32k

This is the story of how Harry finds himself pouting in Louis’ passenger seat with a raging boner on the way to seduce his ex boyfriend.

like it's a game by soldouthaz

Words: 32k

there is little harry hates more than truth or dare.

and louis.

(we will be) as if chosen by alivingfire

Words: 35k

Or: the course of true love never did run smooth, because sometimes people are stubborn and sometimes people are scared and sometimes, just sometimes, love can cause just as many problems as it solves.

I Hate You by mediwitch3

Words: 35k

Harry and Louis hate each other, a lot, but they pretend to be friends for the sake of their careers. One night, during an argument, they bang. They can’t keep their hands off each other after that.

Be with me so happily by BriaMaria

Words: 42k

aka Louis is the director of the Styles Elephant Sanctuary and really doesn't want to babysit his funder's spoiled lay-about son for two months

no pressure, no diamonds by karamelised

Words: 42k

Louis is a thief, Harry a grifter. They are thrown together for a huge diamond heist in Paris, where their past soon catches up to them.

Wonderwall by AFangirlFantasy

Words: 43k

Or a Love/Hate College AU where Louis Tomlinson is the lead singer of The Rogue - the most popular band on campus - and Harry Styles is the talented Freshman unknowingly challenging all that.

bruise you like a peach by falsegoodnight

Words: 46k

There’s two reasons Harry despises Econ.

The first is that it’s boring as fuck. The second reason is a bit more personal, a bit more focused in a way. As in it’s focused on one specific thing, or in his case, person.

His name is Louis Tomlinson.

Beauty Behind The Madness. by ZiamsLarry

Words: 59k

Harry doesn't meet the worlds perspective of looks, causing him to be judged every time he leaves his house. He never lets it get to him, because he knows that when he gets home at the end of the day he has the most beautiful little girl waiting for him.

So with just her and the lovely old lady down the hall who babysits her, Harry thinks his life is good enough for him.

Of course it all changes when the appartment across from him gets new attendants.

Why Can't It Be Like That by taggiecb

Words: 63k

A fashion AU with a royal twist, where Louis doesn't need a stylist, Harry's thrilled to have a real life Barbie doll, and they're both very wrong about each other.

The Art of Being a Gentleman by frosteddream

Words: 64k

Out of all four of the Styles children, Harry has always been the most adored. He is the handsome, intelligent, and oh so charming golden child of the family, the perfect son who will soon be married to the perfect woman, a beauty queen named Victoria Astaire. Despite how loved he is among all who reside in the affluent town of Alton, his siblings absolutely despise him. In order to stain his squeaky-clean reputation and get their traditional, old fashioned parents to despise him as much as they do, they devise a plan that involves Harry’s giving nature, the desperation of a mother and father, and a mischievous boy who doesn’t give a damn about what’s proper.

to lure a hummingbird (you had me moonstruck) by brokenbeaks

Words: 81k

Or: An enemies-to-lovers fic where Harry and Louis are neighbours who are forced to get along due to the inconvenience (or convenience) of a broken lift.

Nothing But You On My Mind by nonsensedarling

Words: 83k

Louis Tomlinson is a PR manager hired to improve the image of royal bad-boy Prince Harry Styles. Unfortunately for him, that means being faced with the Prince's constant innuendos, incessant dirty jokes, and relentless flirting. Louis just wants to make it to Princess Gemma's coronation; once she's crowned Queen, his contract is up and he never has to see the Prince again.

Runaway Land by daggerinrose

Words: 103k

Louis is sure he’s stumbled upon a secret, underground nightclub, though that is far from the truth. He’s also pretty sure he’s stumbled upon Apollo, which… isn’t very far from the truth, actually.

Modern Greek mythology AU.

Learning to Breathe by youcomecrash

Words: 110k

He’s playing football at one of the top universities in England and he should love everything about his life right now, but instead he’s moving backwards. How does your past fit into your present? Louis is still figuring it out.

Our Lives, Non-Fiction by indiaalphawhiskey

Words: 113k

Heralded as the next Neil Gaiman, Louis Tomlinson does not appreciate being told that his very serious novel is in dire need of a PR boost. Even worse, that it comes in the form of a joint book tour with the UK’s #1 online romance-writing sensation Marcel Styles. Already turbulent at best, their partnership takes a drastic turn when, overly stressed about his looming deadline, Marcel accidentally blurts out a secret: though he’s famed for his scorching hot literary love scenes, he is, actually, a virgin.

Convinced that the only way to rid himself of writer’s block is to gain some experience, Marcel asks Louis, author-to-author, to sleep with him – for Science. And of course Louis agrees because, well, what on Earth could possibly go wrong?

Empty Gold by rainbow_kings

Words: 148k

In the final year, when Guildhall produces and performs an original play, Louis is heartbroken to learn the lead role has been been received to Harry and he's the second role. He's mostly terrified, however, when he realises he has to date Harry in the play as their characters. They come together through awkward stage kisses that transforms to hate sex, heated arguments, rehearsal times after lectures and baking carrot cake together.

Collision by itjustkindahappened

Words: 206k

Mythology/Fairytale!AU in which Louis is a dainty fairy with a temper who wants to be intimidating and Harry hurts people. Naturally, they hate each other.

♡ credit to the owner of the manip

♡ past themed recs here

♡ updated: 3.21.2021

#I DID A PART TWO #wow so many more #enemies to lovers #hate to love #larry stylinson #larry

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salimahbicharara-comun · 7 years

Text

Glitter & Gold | Two

Bucky Barnes x Reader

Summary: Ancient Mythology AU. There is a limited number of encounters between gods and mortals.

Word Account: 7.030 (it’s a monster)

Warnings: brief mentions of noncon, some stalking, I guess? Nothing too serious.

A/N: Here it is! Part two! I’m excited, aren’t you excited? ‘Cause I am.

As always, my eternal thanks to @brightlycoloredteacups who was my beta with this fic. I love her and she deserves all the happiness in the world, so if you can go and leave a nice menssage in her ask box because she deserves it, okay?

Ao3 link here, and spanish version here.

I think is painfully obvious that english isn’t my first language, so if you see any mistakes in the narration is because of that. Please let me know what do you think! The credit of the gif goes for it’s respective owner.

Part One here

The market was crowded today; every corner and every food stall covered by the bodies of the hurried people of the village, running from one side to another with their hands full of groceries. The dust of the ground rose with each step they took and the air smelled like a combination of scents; not completely disgusting, but not pleasant either.

You sighed with annoyance when another person hit your shoulder as they passed, almost causing you to drop your own basket of groceries. The idea of filling your home with food for weeks excited you, the small personal victory of having so many silver coins to buy a little more than usual settling with force in your chest. The emotion had made you forget how much you hate going to the market.

You had considered sending Clint, but he had an accident in the woods the night before, and now he is using the small bruise on his knee as an excuse to avoid any possible physical activity. You knew that the wound was not even close to being as serious as he made it look, but the look that he gave you from his bed, surrounded by blankets and pillows, always has been your weak point.

You did your best not to trip over anything –or anyone– on your way to the spice stall. The people of the town have always been scandalous, a little fussy and a bit gossipy as well. Your mother had some altercations with several of Ballynoe's inhabitants, almost always involving your father. Maybe it was those meetings that influenced her moving to the outskirts of town.

The old man behind the table that exhibited the spices sent you a bored look when you were in front of him, chewing a piece of old bread with his mouth open. You ignored the sound and gave him your order, fiddling with the small leather bag on the top of your basket full of groceries.

The old man looked at you for a few more seconds before moving slowly to look for your order. You stood there, waiting for the man to find the rosemary you wanted. You had already seen it on the table, but it would be discourteous to grab it by yourself.

You looked around to entertain yourself, holding more strongly your basket and the bag of coins. Maybe the market was not one of your favorite places in Ballynoe, but sometimes interesting things happened in it. With so many people running around, busy with their own affairs, accidents tend to happen.

And on occasions like this, when you have nothing else to do besides wait, you take advantage of those little misfortunes to entertain you. Clint loves to do this with you; too bad that he likes more to stay at home and do nothing.

Unfortunately, people seemed a little more cautious today. There was nothing that seemed about to collapse or fall. Everything is in perfect order. Noisy and annoying, yes, but there was no risk in sight. Part of you was glad that nothing happened; less fuss from which to escape. But the part of you who was bored was pouting with annoyance.

You sighed deeply and returned your gaze to the spice stall. All things were still in place: each bag of powder, branches tied together and vases filled with liquids were still perfectly organized in front of you. Everything was where it should be. Everything except the carrot that rested on the edge of the wooden table.

You tried to hide your smile while you stretched to take the carrot in your hands. It was a bright orange, almost sickly, but you knew that it’s taste didn’t compare to any other. Carrots were not something you ate very often just for the pleasure of it, but you had been eating a lot more the past few weeks. You could not help it; What else were you going to do with all these carrots suddenly appearing in unexpected places?

The old man in front of you cleared his throat, drawing your attention back to him. He was holding the rosemary you had asked for, "Two silver coins." The man took a bite of his piece of old bread. You paid for it and you wrapped the rosemary to keep it together with the other provisions, and keeping the carrot with everything else.

You almost had everything you had come for, and there were still plenty of silver coins. Not many to afford something very expensive, but enough to buy something at the bakery. The smell of freshly baked bread has been calling you since you set foot in the market, tempting you like nothing else could.

Just as you took a step in the direction of the bakery, a shiver went up your spine and ruffled the hairs on your neck. You stopped on your steps, looking around with curiosity. There was nothing out of the ordinary. Children running from their mothers, women filling their baskets with as much food as they could and men betting the only silver coins they had left for a sip of mead.

Nobody was watching you or paying attention to you, but the sensation of a gaze persisted in the back of your neck, an insistent heat that spread slowly throughout your body, making you feel more and more nervous.

You tried to ignore the feeling and went your way. You still had to buy some fruits before returning home, and hopefully you would take a piece of freshly baked bread as well. But the feeling of being observed didn’t fade. With each step you took, the feeling became stronger, as if whoever was watching you was coming closer and closer to you.

You looked around, looking once more to whoever that look belonged, but again you didn’t see anyone standing out. You tried to calm yourself, saying that there was nothing to fear. There were dozens of people in the market with you, and you didn’t have so many silver coins for a bandit to set his eyes on you. Maybe it was just your imagination playing with your mind. Clint constantly says how paranoid you can be, but you know he just exaggerates.

You moved among the sea of people for a few more minutes, pressing the basket hard against your chest. You wanted to finish your purchases as quickly as possible and return home to Clint. Surely there you would feel silly of this moment, frightened by a simple sensation of being observed that was very likely imaginary.

You bought the fruits and paid as quickly as possible to the young woman who sold them, barely stopping to give her a grateful smile before continuing walking. A knot had tightened in your stomach, the beating of your heart accelerating. It was silly, but that feeling of being watched really was getting on your nerves, and now was the only thing you could think of.

You rushed to the market, taking care to drop nothing from your basket of food or trip over anyone. It was strange; Now it was you who was about to make a fuss if you kept moving so fast in such a vast sea of people. People gathered around you, dealing with their own affairs and conveniently ignoring you.

You hoped that so many people keeping you company would dissipate the feeling of insecurity in your chest, that perhaps with so many people mixing in the crowd your observer would lose sight of you and become bored.

A chill went up your back and the air around you became cold. You almost stopped but the fear made you keep walking. You didn’t get very far. Someone put their hand on your shoulder, a soft but firm touch, the grip of someone who didn’t want to hurt you but who could certainly do it easily if they wanted to. Your breath got stuck in your throat and you almost dropped your basket of groceries.

You looked over your shoulder just as another villager crossed your path. You saw a flash of pale skin and green eyes like emeralds before the man in front of you began to roar in your ear.

You accidentally collided with him and caused him to take a few steps back. Like that was the worst offense you could have committed. You started to apologize, but the man would not let you talk, too submerged in his anger. You didn‘t have time for this. Someone had been about to touch you, someone you could still feel with you, behind you. But when you looked over your shoulder there was no trace of the person you saw.

The man in front of you is screaming in your face. His stinking breath made you want to puke, but every time you tried to pass him he got in your way. You were starting to get impatient too, but the man didn't seem to show any sign that he would calm down soon. You just want to get home and pretend that none of this had happened.

"I have to go..." You tried to pass him again, but the man grabbed your arm and pushed you back in your place. The force of the push send you back, your feet stumbling over themselves. The man is raising a hand in your direction furiously, and you put yourself on guard, ready to defend yourself at any moment.

"I still have not finished with you, little girl-"

"Yes, you did."

A female voice interrupted the man, saving you from a hit. You took advantage of the distraction and walked away from the man as fast as you could, walking backwards and pressing your basket against your chest as a defense.

You hit a person for the second time that day, but this time that someone didn’t get mad at you. Soft, pale hands rested on your shoulders, stabilizing you and keeping you on your feet. They were the same hands that had touched you a few minutes ago.

The grip on your shoulders wasn’t strong, but it was firm, as a gesture to support you and at the same time to hold you back. You had the feeling that this woman had a bone to pick with you.

The big man in front of you leaned back, clearly intimidated by this woman's presence, though you did not understand how. "It was not my intention–"

"I know it wasn’t," the woman interrupted him. Her voice was as imposing as that of a powerful person; the confident, casual manner in which she spoke showed how comfortable she felt in her own skin. You don’t know anyone who speaks that way. Nobody except one person, "but I suggest you forget what happened and continue your purchases. There is nothing to worry about now."

The woman spoke so convincingly that even you wanted to just shrug and go your way home, but you knew that wasn’t possible right now. The man, however, had nothing to stop him, so he just nodded frantically and walked away at a brisk pace.

You watched as his broad shoulders and bald head disappeared into the crowd, feeling the woman's hands slide delicately from your shoulders. You were afraid to turn around and look at her, a feeling you had experienced before.

You turned around doubtfully, assessing your surroundings carefully; no one paid attention to your altercation with the man, everyone indifferent to the dispute between two people who collided in the market.

The woman in front of you wasn’t a simple woman, you noticed almost immediately. Maybe it was because you already had encounters with something out of the ordinary before, but you could recognize it faster than the last time. She wasn’t exactly tall, but her figure intimidated you as if she was, making you feel like you were smaller than you actually are.

You hadn’t been wrong when you saw her before; she had red hair like burning flames that hung to her shoulders, framing her face perfectly.

Her green eyes examined you carefully in the same way you did with her. She was dressed in a simple white dress secured to her waist with a golden cloth ribbon. Her bare arms showed old scars, all the wounds healed. Her eyes were marked with a radiance that you had not seen in anyone in your life; they shone like precious gems in the sun.

At first glance, there was nothing extraordinary about her, but you know that is not true. You have met eyes like that before, and that look is not of a mortal.

The woman fixed her gaze on yours and her apple-red lips curled into a smile, "You are more stunning to what they told me."

You frowned and looked at her strangely. You forced your mouth to move and talk to her, no matter how much your voice trembles when doing it, "What 'they'?"

The woman smiled more broadly and bit her lip with amusement, but didn’t answer your question. Instead, she turned around and started walking, gesturing for you to follow her. You looked around for a few seconds before running after her.

You weren’t sure if it was the wisest decision, but the most curious part of you wanted to know what this woman wanted with you. Now that she had her back to you, you could see that her dress didn’t cover all of her back. She also had scars on her neck and between her shoulder blades.

You walked by her side for a few minutes, avoiding looking directly at her and instead greeting people you knew. Nobody seemed to notice the presence of your companion, which alarmed you a little, considering the aura of power that surrounded her. You didn’t understand how everyone moved out of her way so naturally if they couldn’t even see her.

She didn’t try to make conversation with you during the trip out of town, and you were grateful for that. You didn’t know what to say or wanted to say something. The woman made you nervous in a rather exciting way. She didn’t make you feel insecure or scared like it had in the market when she was watching you. Now, on the other hand, it made your hair stand on end, yes, but you didn’t feel the urge to run away from her as you had before. You wondered what had changed since then.

It was not until you left the market that you dared to speak again, fiddling with your basket of groceries, "Thanks for helping me in the market. I don’t want to think about what would have happened if you hadn’t been there."

The woman smiled in your direction and shrugged, "It's always a pleasure to see a man run away from me like an insect," she said playfully. No man had fled from you before, but you supposed that the feeling should be pleasant. If you could only intimidate a man as easily as she did. "I'm sure you can defend yourself, but try not to get in trouble while I'm not here."

You analyzed her words for a few minutes before answering, "I do not get into trouble often. I usually don’t come to the village to avoid getting into this kind of situation. "

"Oh?" The woman raised an eyebrow in your direction, "I thought you had friends here, for all the people you greeted."

"They are only people I know from childhood or old friends of mom. Nobody close." You shrugged nonchalantly. You didn’t know why you were telling this to a woman you didn’t know at all, but you were doing it. You had the strange feeling that she wasn’t going to use that information against you, and you didn’t know how to react to that.

The woman nodded in your direction by way of understanding and kept walking, looking at the houses on the outskirts of the market. It was still a good half hour before you arrived at your cabin, and you were not sure if she would want to accompany you. You still don’t know why this strange woman is accompanying you for so long, but the idea of asking her what she wants with you makes your stomach turn into a mess of nerves.

You officially left the village and entered the green forest with the woman next to you. The branches of the trees waved in a dance guided by the wild wind, green and yellow leaves falling slowly to the ground. Autumn was approaching, and the Festival of the Summer End was just around the corner. You couldn’t be more excited about it.

You kept walking beside the woman in silence for several minutes before she spoke again.

"I do not understand what the big fuss is," she said firmly. You stopped over your steps to look at her, but when you turned to her, she wasn’t looking at you in the eyes; she looked at your face and body, analyzing you. "You are like any other mortal."

Your stomach tightened at the comment. The woman leaned closer to you, now holding your gaze but not actually seeing you. She was looking at your eyes, looking for something in them. Like the answer to her questions were inside there.

She blinked and frowned, straightening and dropping her head to the side in a gesture of curiosity. Her stance intimidated you, so firm and gentle at the same time, the personification of beauty in a storm.

"I've never understood the impulses of my brothers," she mumbled absently, biting her lip and shaking her head slightly, the movement making her red hair like a ripe apple shake with it. "But I will not let their whims hurt someone else."

You had no idea what she was talking about, but you tried to talk to her anyway, "You're not a mortal, I know that." You told her, trying to straighten up and talk confidently, but you doubted your attempts would work. "But you know I can’t trust you so easily."

The woman smiled cynically, shaking her head and snorting, "Haven’t you already had an encounter with a divinity that didn’t want to hurt you? I wouldn’t put my trust in him, but I do not think James has scared you so much to distrust of me as well."

Her words confused you and alarmed you at the same time. You didn’t understand what she was talking about. It was clear that she knew about the incident in the stream a few weeks ago, but you didn’t know any James who would have 'scared' you. You shook your head and frowned, "What happened that time was–"

"Do not try to deny what happened in reality. I know everything." The woman stopped looking at you and kept walking, you following her right behind. Her words formed a knot in your stomach. She seemed to feel your restlessness, because she hurried to clear up your doubts, "I was not there, if that's what you're asking."

"How do you know what happened, then?"

The woman smiled, the glow behind her eyes mingling with different emotions; affection, annoyance and the slightest trace of worry. "You're all he talks about."

You tried to make sure your surprise and confusion didn’t showed up so openly in your expression, but you were sure you were failing. You couldn’t take your curiosity anymore.

"I only know one divinity, and his name is not James."

The woman looked at you for a few seconds before returning her gaze to the dirt road in front of her; if you didn’t pay attention it would be very easy to trip over a root or a rock and fall flat against the ground.

"I always forget that you mortals don’t know the whole story." She let out a chuckle, like all this conversation amused her. You didn’t know how to feel about that.

Her words caused different feelings in you. You know that not all the myths and stories about the gods and divinities were completely correct. It wouldn’t surprise you if there were things that mortals like you don’t know about, things forgotten or ignored as history is told again and again for decades.

"Tell me, then." You challenged her. The way she said 'You mortals' confirmed what you already believed; this woman is a goddess, although you're still not sure of who. And just like that day in the stream, you don’t know if she is a good or an evil deity, and you can’t know unless you stay with her a little longer, risking the danger of a goddess with bad intentions.

The woman's step barely hesitated before casting a glance over her shoulder, even though you were walking beside her. That single glance reminded you how simple and mortal you are, but you didn’t feel threatened in anyway. It was like the woman wanted to make it clear who was in charge of the situation, and while you hated to give up control so easily, you knew that you weren’t even the most powerful person between the two of you. Not mentally, much less physically.

The woman thought for a few minutes before turning to you again, walking carelessly on the dirt road that led you home.

"Mortals don’t care who we were before we became divine, unless it is directly linked to how we cease to being humans in the first place."

The statement took you by surprise. That wasn’t what you expected, but you knew you shouldn’t interrupt her until she was over.

"We had friends, jobs, families. We had names and pleasures and thoughts. We still do, but that is often omitted in our stories. Nobody of your people knows how I got this scar on my elbow, and nobody wants to know."

"I do."

The woman smiled softly, not caring that you had interrupted her. You had the feeling this was the only time she would let it go. "I'll tell you one day, but I want you to understand something first." You nodded and closed your mouth again, concentrating on her words and following your path.

The woman continued like you haven’t interrupted her, "You met Winter, God of Memories and Will, am I wrong?" You squeezed your basket, but nodded anyway. "I guess he told you to call him Bucky, like he does with us."

You tried to avoid feeling the way you did when he said his name. You had not seen Bucky since that time in the stream a few weeks before, but you knew he had been watching you.

And here was this woman, this goddess, who is talking to you and treating you with something similar to kindness, although not completely docile. She is close to Bucky, someone who speaks with him commonly. The thought of being so close to him and at the same time so far gives you chills.

It's strange, if you think about it. You know Bucky has been watching you, even though you have not seen him in weeks. But you have felt him; a presence behind you or by your side when you go out for a walk, or every time you kneel in the cool earth of the field to plant or grow food that will soon bloom. There are times you can almost feel his breath in your neck, or a soft touch of his hand in yours.

And not to mention the carrots that he leaves around every time you're around.

"How else should I call him, then?" You kept walking normally. The woman shrugged and jumped on a tree root that protruded from the ground. "There is no way in this world that I’m going to call him 'My Lord'. That's not for me."

The woman let out a deep laugh. The sound made you smile as you had not done all day. "Please don’t. You will only feed his ego. I've been trying to get him off his pedestal for centuries."

You smiled at the thought. The tension in the environment had vanished, although you still felt cautious about your companion. She may be Bucky's friend, but she also may be lying. It would not be the first time that a deity deceived a mortal with games and lies. You didn’t wanted to be another victim.

You couldn’t help but relax around her, though. There was something about her that made you feel safe. Just like in the market, her presence alone calmed you in a way that nobody did. Maybe it was that aura of power that you knew could beat any opponent that faced her, or the way she claimed she would protect you from her 'brothers'.

Maybe it was only her pale skin full of old scars that betrayed a life of suffering and survival, but this goddess gave off a power that no one could ignore.

The woman shook her head, still smiling, like she was remembering something that made her happy. "His mortal name was James. I knew him by that name. Bucky is just a nickname for his closest."

You processed what she told you slowly. James, that was his real name. Not Bucky, not Winter. James.

You walked in silence for a few more minutes, observing your surroundings. It didn’t take long to get to your cabin, and you still didn’t know what this woman wanted with you. You are on the verge of asking her, but you don’t know how to approach the subject. You tried another question that had been bothering you.

"What did you mean by not letting your brothers hurt me?" You asked doubtfully. You didn’t want to overstep your limits, and that horrible sense of insecurity was eating you alive. You hated feeling vulnerable, but there was no way to avoid that feeling by being with someone so obviously more powerful than you.

The woman almost stopped in her footsteps, but it was a pause so light that it might not have happened. She looked at you with green eyes like the leaves that fell around her and let you see her emotions, just as Bucky had done in your first and only encounter.

The woman smiled bitterly. "I have seen how the gods fall in love with innocent mortals and seduce them in their search for happiness. For centuries I have seen people like you go and fall in love just for the sake of doing it, dragging themselves into the world of deities. That almost never ends well, and I think you know it."

You knew, in fact. There is history after history of mortals and gods that fall madly in love, only for the god to get bored with his lover's time and leave them to return to their immortal life. In some stories, the mortal didn’t end with life.

The mortals aren’t made to be around gods, they have told you. You know it. And you know that even if Bucky doesn’t want to hurt you, maybe he can’t avoid doing it at the end of all.

"I'm tired of seeing people suffer. I myself have suffered enough for all of your people, and I don’t want my people to bring more pain to mortals than they have already done." All trace of kindness left her voice. The sudden aggressiveness made you nervous, but you refused to back away; You know that her fury is not directed at you.

You held her gaze and kept walking beside her, ignoring the electricity in the air. There were a few minutes of walking to reach your cabin.

"You're Widow, aren’t you? That's why you want to protect me. To all of us." A glow of recognition appeared in the woman's green eyes, and you knew that you were right. "You are the Goddess of Protection and Defense. You don’t hurt mortals or innocents. "

The woman seemed pleased with your response, but the ferocity of her gaze had not disappeared. "I don’t hurt anyone unless they deserve it. And James has a special interest in you, Y/N. He has never acted like that with anyone, and I'm scared of what he might do."

You didn’t want to think much about the meaning of those words, but you had no choice. Widow was right; getting involved with a god could have tragic consequences for you, no matter how good or benevolent that god is.

The trees opened around you, uncovering the clearing in which your cabin was. The familiar dirt road to the entrance to your house looked strangely far away now that you had it in front of you. Maybe it was the presence of Widow that prevented you from taking a step inside your property, holding you with her until the conversation ended. Or maybe it was the figure of a man hovering in the clearing just a few feet away from you, halfway to your cabin.

Bucky was crouched in the middle of your front yard, carefully touching the blackberry bush that you and your mother had planted years ago. He didn’t look at you, but you knew that he already had seen you. You could see the brightness of his blue eyes from where you were, and the way they hardened when he laid his eyes on Widow. He didn’t look surprised to see her with you, but he did looked annoyed.

You froze and tried to catch your breath. Widow looked back at Bucky, no single emotion in her face. She didn’t seem to show any reaction to his presence either. You weren’t completely sure what was happening, but you didn’t want to stand between them in the middle of what seemed like a conversation without words.

Widow looked away suddenly, turning to you again. Her face was still expressionless, more reserved of her thoughts and emotions than Bucky had been in the stream. She looked at you with those green eyes, and you could feel a sense of warmth spread over you. Widow took your hand in hers and squeezed it tightly, a reassuring and at the same time intimidating touch.

She leaned closer to you, her breathing clashing with yours. She was so close to you that you could see her eyelashes, and you couldn’t find the strength to separate yourself from her. You didn’t want to do it. She was doing something with you, and you didn’t want to fight it.

The feeling of warmth spread through your body like burning fire, coiling in your arms and legs like vines of grapes in the trees. You felt suddenly calm, like all your worries had vanished with the simple touch of her hand in yours.

As quickly as it came, the feeling of warmth faded. You felt normal again, but different at the same time. Widow separated from you slowly, her eyes shining with relief. You stepped back, stumbling on your own feet.

Widow gave you her blessing, you suddenly understood. You had heard about people with the blessing of Widow; in moments of danger or threat, the blessed person managed to escape unscathed from the situation, or fight like mad person. From now on, no one could hurt you without receiving any harm in return.

You had no idea how to fight or defend yourself, nothing other than the few punches that Clint had taught you when you were younger. However, you felt like a feeling of power was now in you. You didn’t feel as helpless as you had before.

You had the feeling that if someone came and tried to attack you, you wouldn’t only respond with a few dodge tactics and uncoordinated hits, you would give a real fight. You don’t know where the sudden feeling of defense came from, but you know that from now on you will not be as easy to break down as before.

The realization must have shown in your expression, because Widow smiled with that half smile, slightly mocking, but not malicious. Her smile faded when she looked at Bucky again. She approached you again, but she didn’t try to touch you as before.

"Promise me you'll be careful." The intensity in her gaze let you know how serious her words were. She really cared for you, and you couldn’t help feeling that it was your duty to erase that frown from her face.

"I will, I promise."

Widow looked at you for a few agonizing seconds before her lips broke into another smile. "Natasha. That is my name as a mortal. Call me like that when we meet."

When. Not if. The promise of an upcoming meeting made your heart jump in ways you could not explain. You smiled back as best you could. "Okay, Natasha."

Natasha smiled at you for a few more seconds before turning her gaze to Bucky, who was still kneeling in front of your house. You hoped Clint wouldn’t have noticed your delay, or the people in the front yard of his house.

Bucky stood up and walked up to you, but he didn’t look angry or annoyed. More like worried. You didn’t understand how he left his emotions exposed so openly while he was in front of you, but Natasha didn’t. You turned to Natasha just before Bucky stopped in front of you, but you found yourself with a tall, old tree instead of your new friend. She was gone, just as Bucky had done a few weeks ago.

Bucky straightened up and looked at you expectantly. The realization that he was right there in front of you for the first time in weeks hit you. You hadn’t seen him in so long, but his aura of power still could make you tremble. You didn’t let that intimidate you and you refused to look away.

When he realized that you wouldn’t speak first, Bucky approached you more than he already was and put his hand in your food basket. He ignored your look of disbelief as he rummaged through the food you brought. You reacted when his hand emerged with the carrot he left an hour earlier in the market, bringing it to his lips and giving it a bite.

"What's your problem with taking my carrots off whenever we see each other?" You tried to retrieve that food, but Bucky leaned back, out of reach. His lips curled into a mocking smile.

"What's your problem with letting me take them so easily?"

You tried to reach for the carrot again, but Bucky moved away from you again. You ran after him, but he kept moving back and eating the carrot, making fun of you with his eyes and his smile.

You did a couple of laps around the clearing like that; You chasing him and he running away. You were about to give up and just throw a rock at him when you realized that Bucky was heading straight to the old trunk that you and Clint used as a seat in the afternoons that you took care of your mother's plants together. You opened your mouth to warn him, but it was too late.

Bucky's eyes widened with surprise as his calves collided with the large trunk on the ground and fell backward. You couldn’t avoid outburst in laughter. You approached him doubtfully, laughing and taking care that your food didn’t fall from your basket.

Bucky was on his back on the dirt ground, looking blankly at the sky and chewing on your carrot. His eyes strayed from the blue sky to look at you instead. "This wasn’t in my plans."

You laughed harder than before and sat next to him, putting your food aside, away from the danger of falling. You laughed at him a little more when you brushed the disheveled hair off his forehead. His blue eyes like a storm watches you closely.

You only looked at each other for several minutes of silence without either of you daring to look away. You thought about what Natasha had told you, and you couldn’t help but be curious to what Bucky would say if he knew about that conversation.

He seemed to read your thoughts, because the smile on his face became softer, smaller. "Natasha already warned you about me." It was a statement, not a question. You sighed loudly and closed your eyes, letting the evening breeze brush your face.

You could hear the sounds of the forest surrounding you; the branches of the trees moving, the squirrels jumping from one side to the other, the birds singing soothing melodies. It was strange to think about how nature followed its course so normally when you had a more powerful being than everything around you right in front of you.

You felt his hand caress your face gently, the tips of his fingers brushing your chin and cheeks. You sighed again, this time for different reasons. You didn’t want to open your eyes and break the spell, but his voice did it anyway.

"You have to know that everything she said could become true." You could hear the doubt in his voice, the hope. He doesn’t want to tell you this, you noticed, but he was telling you anyway. "You deserve to know what you're getting into."

You opened your eyes and looked at him, still lying on his back on the ground, but observing you as intensely as the time in the stream. You don’t know if you would ever get used to a look like that.

You took his hand in yours and squeezed it gently, "I'm not sure if I want to get involved in this, if I'm honest." You confessed. You saw how his expression fell, and you couldn’t avoid yours from doing it too. You hurried to add, "But I'm willing to try, if you are too."

Before Bucky could answer, a sound inside the cabin made you separate your eyes from his. Clint was inside the house, you remembered. You sat up straight when you heard him curse, followed by the sound of something heavy hitting the ground. Surely he had dropped something while looking for something to eat.

You looked back at Bucky, half expecting him to be gone, but he was still there when you turned to him. He sat up too, and he was also looking at the cabin with curiosity. "Is that your brother, Clint?" You nodded. Bucky raised an eyebrow in your direction, "Sam has seen him hunting a few times. I never knew he was your brother. You don’t look anything alike."

You laughed and shook your head, remembering when you were younger and your brother messed with you. "I know. He used to tell me that my mother found me in a nest of snakes and she had taken pity on me, and that's why we lived together. We weren’t more than ten at that time."

Bucky smiled and stood up, helping you to get up. You took your groceries again and checked them to see that everything was still there. The only thing missing was the carrot Bucky had taken from you, but you knew it was a lost cause.

Bucky took a bite of that carrot, the tension of your conversation gone. Or that's what he looked like. "I'd better go now," he said, looking everywhere but you. You tried to keep your disappointment hidden. He didn’t respond to your proposal.

You smiled instead, giving him your best look of mockery, "What? There isn’t a kiss this time?" You joked. Bucky just rolled his eyes, but returned the smile.

You were about to turn around and enter the cabin when you heard him talking again, "I'm going to try."

You stopped all your movements, waiting for him to speak again. Bucky dropped the carrot and took a few steps away from you, like he was preparing to run away. "I will try to not hurt you, if you don’t hurt me first."

"How could I hurt you?" You questioned him. The idea sounded ridiculous in your head.

Bucky let out a chuckle, his composure relaxing like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders, but his eyes were sad when they looked at you, "You'd be surprised how easy it is to make me suffer."

Clint made more noise inside the house, attracting your gaze to the cabin again. When you turned to Bucky, he was walking away through the trees, following the path to town, even though you were sure that wasn’t where he was going.

"Don’t wait two weeks to visit me again!" You called to him. For a moment you thought maybe he didn’t hear you, that he was too far away from you, but then he looked over his shoulder, still walking, and even in spite of the distance you still could see the brightness of his blue eyes watching you intently. You almost felt his response against your lips.

"I promise."

You stared into space for several more minutes before hearing Clint's voice from the door behind you.

You backed up to the entrance of your home, feeling the hairs on your neck rise. The feeling of being observed returned, just like in the market. Despite knowing that Natasha wasn’t going to hurt you, the knot in the pit of your stomach didn’t loosen. There was no reason for Natasha to watch you from a distance, observing you. So why you can’t shake the feeling of being in danger?

You went into the house and kept all your purchases in their respective places, with Clint moaning behind your back about how boring ‘I had been without you and how much I missed your food’.

That night, when everything was ordered and clean, and the fire in the fireplace was dying and the moon was shining in the highest of the sky, you lay down in your bed and thought about what Natasha told you, and about the promise that Bucky had made you.

Somehow, you couldn’t help but feel that you entered into the wolf's mouth.

A/N: *evil laugh* Something is about to happen, my loves. And I gonna love every second of it.

Tags: @fandoms-who @radi0active-thoughts @scarletthornrose (I can’t tag you, sorry)

#bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky barnes au #mcu fanfiction #salimah writes #Glitter & Gold series #is a series now?#okay then

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impurelight · 6 years

Text

Cars 2 Is The Best Cars Movie

On an episode of Cortex they talked about how Cars 2 was a terrible movie. The first time I listened to that episode I hadn't yet seen Cars 2. But now that I have seen it I don't agree with this sentiment.

So I googled around and apparently this is a thing. People really hate Cars 2. Why? No clue. Well, I have tried to understand and there are two reasons why people seem to think it's a bad movie.

First the movie is dumb. Mater is dumb. And the movie just tries to be a spy thriller. And second it's not really a Pixar movie. It doesn't follow any of the normal beats and doesn't advance the backstory of the characters in any meaningful way.

OK, the first point. Yeah, I have to admit the movie is pretty dumb. And Mater isn't exactly believable. And yes his character sort of feels like a cartoon. But if you think about it every movie is pretty dumb. Every movie has plot holes and there are stereotypical stupid characters in most movies.

In fact I thought about it some more and doesn't Car 3 have a character just like this? Yeah, Cruz. She is a dumb character that exists solely to hold back the story. The stereotypical out-of-touch female character who serves as the antagonist while 'helping'. I hated her. "Just get rid of her and let me see McQueen race!" I thought. And she's even worse than Mater because you swap out Mater you still have a story. A slightly less interesting one at that, but still a story. You swap out Cruz and you get nothing.

Mater only helps the story along by giving you something to laugh at. Why people hate him is beyond me. And for the story bit I don't know what to say. The other two Cars movies stuck rigidly to the formula and I hated them for that.

This is the Pixar formula in point 2. I hate this formula. It is just so predictable. Hero starts as the king of the world. Then falls, learns the value of hard work, and at the very end becomes the king again. I just hate this plot arc because it's so predictable. It's just so slow and so boring.

Why do you have to show me McQueen pulling a tractor across the village? It's boring. But there's that carrot always dangling in front of me: "Don't you want to see what happens afterwards?" Ack, it's disgusting to even think about and just so formulaic.

Cars 2 does away with this story structure. And I'm so glad it did. It is actually entertaining. You're on the edge of your seat wanting to know what happens next. Unlike the other two movies which are like watching paint dry... or asphault dry... or harden... or whatever.

And for the people that say it doesn't advance the story? Oh, what? You mean this backstory that you made up as you went along. Cars 3 and most movie sequels rarely if ever reference what happened in the previous movies. It drives me crazy. In a TV show you often get a feeling of, "Oh, the writers knew they'd do this in season 2 so they set up all these things." I think most TV shows know what they'll be doing in season 2 pretty early. In video games it's less obvious but they at least bring up past events.

In movies? Well there are still movies that do that. Like the MCU, probably why it's so popular despite the movies getting worse and worse every year. But the majority of movies barely do. Sure, the characters transfer over but with the exception of some forced tie ins nothing else does. It might as well be an entirely different franchise.

Movies do add to the story but there is no cohesion between movies. Every time I hear back story, especially if it's some dumb sob story trying to humanize the character like in Cars 3, I just think, "Oh, you're just making this up as you go along. And you're not even trying to make it believable. But nice try shoehorning in some dumb tie-in to the first movie or callback to the start of the movie. I totally believed that and it didn't seem forced at all."

In fact, a bit of a side tangent not really related to Cars 2, I hate these callbacks. Like there's a tiny line about a nuclear reactor and conveniently that same nuclear reactor plays a big role an hour later? Star Trek Into Darkness just did this over and over again. Ruined the movie for me. Because I'm no longer watching this story organically unfold. Now I'm watching some mechanical thing built with the barest of tolerances to make the story make sense. Just get rid of the first part. I'd much rather go, "How'd he know to do this" or "Why does he have this" instead of, "Oh, that's why they did that. Groan."

Oh, one more thing. People seem to think Cars 2 is a 'dumb' movie. That it's designed for children. And I say, "So what?" Why do I care if a movie was designed for children? Does that make it any less of a movie? Seems like a derogatory label for a movie.

It seems to me people have this idea that movies are supposed to 'teach you a lesson' or something. If you believe that then I don't know what to say. You're doing it wrong. A movie is supposed to entertain first and foremost. And Cars 2 definitely entertained me.

Now, sure, if a movie has a simplistic plot it won't get as many points as a movie with a complex plot but that doesn't guarantee it's a good movie. A simple entertaining movie can be better than a complicated boring movie. And Cars 2's plot wasn't bad. It was better than Cars 1 and 3's super simplistic, boring, forced, cookie-cutter plots.

Cars 2 is the best Cars movie. It is fun, it is enjoyable, it is interesting. It entertained me. I thought there would be some reason why it was bad but all I heard was the Stack Overflow style of explaining an idea just by repeating what others have said without thinking at all about what you're arguing with.

I kept on looking through posts on why people thought Cars 2 is a bad movie and it just made me even angrier. Because so many 'better' movies have the same faults as Cars 2. Like the train-wreck that is Cars 3. They couldn't even end it properly. Even Wold War Z had a good ending. And on top of having all the 'faults' from Cars 2 just 10x worse.

So no. I don't understand why people hate Cars 2. And I never will. In fact this has made me think the exact opposite. I now think Cars 2 is the best Cars movie.

#rant #cars2

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next-lvl · 7 years

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Majority of my followers know what Wakfu is, but not all know about the game: how many wounds it left in my heart, and everyone else’s. This post isn’t gonna be precisely explaining the wrongs that Wakfu did, I just wanted to mention that, in aftermath, it was a disaster of a game that left its most loyal players hurt, disappointed and immensely sad. I still keep meeting people who love this franchise, but can’t stand the game anymore since it’s.. Changed too much and didn’t stay enjoyable, to say mildly. I’m surrounded by, literally, traumatized veterans who look back at the good old days and shed tears. And I’ve been talking a lot about GW2 recently, not for no reason.

I want you to heal, just like I did. I mean.. I’m still hurt over Wakfu and I’ll stay this way forever, but I found a game where you can feel safe, loved, cared about. Devs in GW2 are humans who talk to us, who put smileys and memes in their posts, who hang out on reddit and ingame. This’s one of the major and striking differences between Wakfu and GW2. I’m still genuinely stunned by my own experience with customer support, I had a few troubles during my 1.5 years in GW2 and the response was not only fast and effective, it was HUMAN AND CUTE. I’m still not over it. Now that I’ve been invited to be a creative partner.. I’m still not over it too. They shower their regular players and content creators in gentle attention and kindness. I cry. During the 5+ years of being the most active and visible artist in Wakfu fandom, literally promoting it with thousands of drawings, I’ve never got a tiniest bit of official recognition. Not even a single placement on official media. When I took part in contests, I never won. Overall it’s been a one-way street. During my first 1.5 years in GW2, I’ve been noticed, picked up by the team, pampered and spoiled to the point of barely believing it’s true. That’s my personal experience, but it should indicate Anet’s general attitude towards the players. They. Do. Care.

I just wanna try and convince more ex-Wakfu players to give GW2 a shot. The two games are different in the visual and core gameplay aspects, yes, transitioning from an isometric 2D turn-based to a 3D, real-time game was somewhat harsh, but boy, how glad I am that I did it.

There’s EVEN MORE TEXT, brace yourselves. :D In GW2, I found everything that I wish was in Wakfu.

GW2 is a true sandbox. You log in, you do whatever the fuck you want. Level your first (second, 12th, 33rd, 68th) char? Grind mobs and dungeons? NO. Run around, look for events, explore, literally everything you do and everywhere you go, gives xp. You can level via crafting! Which, btw, is relevant throughout the entire game, unlike in Wakfu.

You do have dungeons of two kinds, and you CAN farm them if you want, but it’s your deliberate decision. There ARE farms in GW2, but they’re fun, if you’re not trying to get a legendary weapon in a month. I personally like running around with a bunch of random people who are there to FARM events in a specific map, but that happens once every two months.

Said legendary weapons ARE hard to get and yes, they can get you burnt out in no time if you don’t have a concept of a “long term goal”. Leggies are a prestige item, and, just like other prestige items (auras, specific minis, skins, etc), they’re meant to be your ultimate show-off item. People see you and know that you’ve been through.. A lot. BUT. Your hard-earned prestige item is to stay prestige. I assume you know relics in Wakfu? Then you must know what happened to them after a few years.

There’s no devaluing in GW2. Your trophies stay relevant and rare. Your prizes, your exclusive titles, skins, etc stay exclusive. You aren’t losing half of your wealth just because the devs decided to revamp ALL GEAR FOR THE THIRD TIME.

Speaking of the gear, the orange set you get at 80, is endgame gear. GW2 is 5 years old, so that orange gear is. People crafted it on the release and.. It stayed endgame. Yes, there’s also pink gear, which ~5% better than orange and is only needed if you do high lvl fractals or are min-maxing in raids. If you’re casual or just starting, you don’t even have to think about it. But once you craft your set, it stays relevant forever. People’s effort is never shoved up their asses.

There’s no constant carrot-on-a-stick gear upgrades. Level cap is 80 since release and will stay so. The game promotes safety and stability, that’s what attracted me. You take a 2 years break? No problem, you log in and go play. Nothing has lost its value, you don’t feel inferior, you don’t need to catch up to play with your friends.

Which reminded me: there’s a wonderfully done level downscale system. You’re a lvl 80 in a lvl 16 zone? Your stats are auto-adapted so the enemies you fought as a noob are still dangerous, and your reward (xp/gold/materials) is adapted to your true lvl. You go and play anywhere you want, and get fair rewards.

Crafting materials of all levels are also demanded and relevant. Oh yeah, you can run around for hours just gathering wood/ore, familiar to Wakfu players? It’s nice and relaxing until you meet another player. Well, in GW2 all gathering nodes are NOT shared. You see a tree? It’s your tree. That dude who runs up to it won’t steal it from you.

Oh also there’s no kill steal! Which is big, imo. You’re encouraged to play together, to help people kill stuff, to contribute to any event you see around, since everyone gets rewarded equally.

Legendary stability of GW2 servers. Lemme just say: there’s no weekly maintenance. There is. No. Downtime. Even on the big update days, you can download and play pretty safely. If there’s a hotfix, the game KINDLY WARNS YOU that you need to update and you have TWO FLIPPING HOURS to do so. Before you did that, you still can play, finish whatever you were up to.

Everything revolves around player’s happiness and convenience. There are constant quality-of-life updates. Your bags are full of crap? Here, salvage it into materials with two clicks, then deposit into your bank with two clicks (from anywhere in the world), then compact the rest of your shit. Yeah, with two clicks. x’D

There’s wonderful Fashion Wars. The game offers so much customization, and it’s taken so seriously, that it’s one of the endgame aspects. There’s 30000+ achievement points to earn, which are mostly fun and make you go out of your usual way. Dailies? You get 10 points and 2 gold for doing 3 easy tasks that take ~15 minutes.

There’s LORE. There’s fun little interactions all over the world. You just did an event? Stay here and listen, probably npcs will say/do something and start another event, logically following the previous one. The world lives and breathes. You can just walk around and observe. You’ll learn so much. And of course, there’s always a good cause to laugh. Dialogues/reactions are just hilarious sometimes.

Regarding the lore: there’s a so-called personal story which accompanies you up to lvl 80, then there’s “living world”, smaller events and single maps being rolled out every once in a while - so far there’s 2 seasons available, and 1 being “historical”, not playable anymore. In that season, they fucking crushed the main capital city. It changed forever. It was an epic event, which I missed, but watched people’s videos later. Then season 2, then HoT, then season 3, and now we’re waiting for PoF, second expansion. The updates have picked a nice pace and are frequent now.

There’s just so much to do. Just go, dive into the world and drown forever. :3c And meet me on the bottom. x’DD

GW2 feels different from Wakfu, but I found similarities for myself. It’s a sandbox after all, and later endgame has a lot of strategy. GW2 is never tank-and-spank. You just, literally, can’t facetank shit here. You gotta use your skills wisely, time your dodges, play with traits/passives until it all flows together. You’ve got a HUGE BUILD FREEDOM. There’s 9 classes, each having at least 3 defined roles, with more variations. You don’t just go ranger (oh archer it’s like a cra rite??) and do pew pew from max distance. Well, yes, you have a bow and can pew pew.. Or you can be a melee fighter, you can be a full blown healer/support.. As a ranger, yes.

I’ll be wrapping up now, I swear. GW2 is true f2p. Which of course does have a few restrictions (can’t trade or use map-chat), but you can get to 80, gear up and explore to your heart’s content before you decide to pay. I personally played for 5 months, every day, before I bought HoT.

Why’d you buy an expansion? More story, more maps, new class traits, gliding in HoT and mounts in PoF. The expansion and living world content has been constantly improving, visually, mechanically and lore/writing-wise.

Other than that, there’s a gemstore offering cosmetic and convenience items (gems can be bought for cash OR ingame gold). There are infamous rng boxes, but none of those are p2w. GW2 is oriented at the western consumer, which means, yeah, they know that we hate p2w and they’ll never do that to us.

*breathes out* I had to get that off my chest. I wanna talk about GW2 forever, but it’s exhausting to do one-on-one. :P Hopefully someone’s still reading this!

Now lemme remind you that now I have those partner links, if you use this to create a new account and play for free (for an hour or two months? w/e), or this to buy an expansion, I’ll get paid a bit. Not much, but it definitely helps!

And I was gonna write this wall of text regardlessly of the partnership one day, now I just have more incentive. x’DD Plus, we’re gonna have a beta weekend on 11-13 august, where you can preview the second expansion for free! It’s a perfect timing to write this post and try convincing you. You’ll just need a f2p account, and you’ll be given a lvl 80 boost and whatnot for that beta weekend. I’m not sure yet, but I assume you WILL. Just please register using my link above, so that I get paid for the two hours I spent on this post. :D

#wakfu #gw2 #guild wars 2 #please read it's like a matter of life and death to me #gw2 is everything for me right now #and i want YOU to play a game which would love you back

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asraobscura-blog · 7 years

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puritanical pleasures and body-shaming: the problem with clean eating

I’ve mentioned in my first post on this blog that there is to anorexia a distinct sense of puritanism. Pleasure – especially pleasure that’s related to food – becomes inherently suspect within the confines of the illness. This is, of course, where and when all the weight of society’s narrow-mindedness comes down hard upon those of us who experience body dysmorphia or appearance-related anxiety.

In my case, having been overweight in the past, and having felt deep distress about it, that anxiety draws its source from that old pain: I don’t remember a time when I didn’t hate my body in some measure or other.

Nor can I remember a time, from adolescence onwards, when my appearance wasn’t judged, by myself or other, with respect to how fat or how thin I was. Society values thinness with such fervor that it projects unto twelve-year-olds unreasonable expectations of what they ought to look like, and then shames them when they inevitably fail to meet these standards – as nobody can meet them one hundred percent, least of all kids whose bodies are changing every day.

Teenagers! It makes me furious. We should be protecting them. We should be teaching them to love their bodies, to value themselves, to treat others with respect, and to never, ever grow to hate any part of themselves.

Instead we shame them – we shame bodies routinely, and they pick up on our cues, they model our seemingly innocent remarks, they study the magazines touting beach-ready bodies and new year resolutions, full of endlessly reworked ads; they absorb the beauty standards that demean those body shapes that don’t happen to be young, or slim, or white, or stacked, or photoshopped beyond recognition and humanity. Children and teenagers will absorb everything. I remember being fifteen and complaining about being fat. I was fifteen. I had better shit to worry about.

We shame bodies, and we shame food. Not satisfied with just enforcing unrealistic body/beauty standards, and dictating every aspect of our bodies from our eyebrows to our butts, society cheerfully enforces nutrition standards by introducing guilt into the bargain. You won’t see a five-year-old feel instinctively guilty for eating a cookie, any more than they will feel virtuous for eating lettuce. All the eight-year-old cares about is a) whether it tastes good, and b) whether they’re hungry. There are no moral judgements in their approach to food. Those are imposed from the outside in, not the other way around.

Despite such vague, often-repeated dictums as eat a balanced diet featuring all food groups or eat everything in moderation, society cheerfully decrees what we may or may not feel good about eating. I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard statements like ‘I know I shouldn’t’ … ‘I know it’s bad for me’ … ‘I know it’s naughty’ … inevitably followed by ‘but I just can’t help wanting to eat [insert food here]’. Naughty! As though we were misbehaving schoolchildren! Those comments are infantilizing, condescending, and – worst of all – they create a relationship to food that’s steeped in guilt, shame, and fear. As though the atoms contained within the flour, sugar, and butter of a slice of cake were magically, inherently more unhealthy than those in an apple …

We learn so very early to hate ourselves. And, thanks to uncontested statements like calorie in, calorie out or you are what you eat, we also learn that we are synonymous with our food. As though our bodies and our brains, and what happens to both when we ingest food, were not infinitely more complex than those paltry platitudes and empty truths can suggest!

Instead of truly interesting ourselves in how food functions once it’s inside us – from our tastebuds to our stomachs – we use words like ‘glutton’ and ‘gorge’, like ‘stuffing ourselves’ or ‘slipping up’; we call ourselves ‘sinful’ or ‘wicked’ when we eat something ‘wrong’. We insist upon ‘willpower’ and ‘self-discipline’. We make our food choices into a stage for moral standoffs and power differences. We praise starving girls with sainthoods.

How dare we have bodies that require nourishment? How dare we have needs and desires? How dare we enjoy ourselves? How dare we eat anything at all?

No wonder, then, that so many of us turn in desperation to those special diets, those miraculous lifestyles, that so eloquently claim to solve all of our troubles. See paleo, see the Mediterranean diet, see the keto diet, see the Atkins diet, see low-carb or low-fat options, see Hygge and Lagom, see the demonization of gluten and dairy, see veganism as moral judgment. See ‘clean eating’, which neatly encapsulates the problem in one simple phrase: if you are eating clean – a term synonymous with a vague, undefined sense of purity, of shining, natural; raw, organic realness – you cannot feel guilty; you escape, just for a moment, the weight of shame associated with food. It becomes lesser, lighter. You are enlightened; you have inside knowledge; you are one of the good ones. You can breathe.

Except, of course, the guilt soon returns, but more insidiously. It functions with opposites: eat anything outside of the proscribed regimen, and suddenly you are unclean – dirty, contaminated, unnatural.

Take a look at the nutrition philosophies of people like Deliciously Ella, Tess Ward, or the Hemsley Sisters. You will see that, after they cheerfully reassure you that yes, you will still be able to eat all the things you feel so guilty about eating (cake. ice cream. pasta.), they then proceed just as cheerfully to dictate principles and commandments that eliminate entire swathes of food from what they generously allow you.

Eating only ‘raw, real, natural’ food conveniently means avoiding sugar at all costs, even though regular ol’ white sugar comes from beets, and spokespeople of clean eating sure love putting beets in their smoothies. (Deliciously Ella calls it the dreaded ‘sugar monster’ – and isn’t that an infantilizing phrase.) Likewise, avoid all fats, except a small proportion of them, such as, for some reason, coconut oil. Avoid dairy: some people are lactose-intolerant, which means there must be something secretly wrong with it. Avoid gluten: some people have celiac disease, so there must be something wrong with that, too. Soon, they promise, you won’t even want those naughty foods anymore; you will be perfectly satisfied with a bunch of crudités. You won’t feel restriction as restriction. You will be free – free from all that food that you secretly crave, but that, in a vague uncertain way, is bad.

Well you should be. Otherwise, after all, you might risk becoming (whisper, whisper) fat.

Despite their claims that they are not truly diets (because dieting itself is, in an exquisitely sadistic paradox, something shameful – it means you were not born perfect, sprung fully-formed and sublime from the foam, without flaws, or any of those nasty side effects of growing up), that is what hides beneath the clean eating philosophies. Sure, they pretend to be different – unlike the straightforward, calorie-counting, Weight Watchers-style diets, which at least don’t allege themselves to be anything else – and to prioritize health and fitness, a better, truer life, an improved approach to food; but underneath lurk claims as blunt as ‘lose a stone by following these ten simple rules’. Clean eating means you can avoid the deep-seated guilt of wanting to be other, fitter, slimmer. You are no longer ashamed: after all, you are not trying to lose weight. Rather, you are looking to enhance your well-being.

Moreover, you can occupy the privileged position of being in the know, and coincidentally of looking down upon those who have not followed in your enlightened footsteps. They are unclean, dirty, morally reprehensible: watch them consume with every apparent sign of enjoyment food that everyone knows is bad for you! Watch them give in to their baser desires! You are better than this: you exercise willpower; you are strong, powerful, healthy. You occupy a space of mental sainthood.

You’re in a cult. Call your dad.

The clean eating lifestyle gives you permission in the same breath that it takes it back. You will be able to eat as much as you like! But only these foods, and only within these specific parameters. You will learn to enjoy veggies! And little else, so you won’t have much of a choice. Don’t feel guilty if you eat out, or with friends, or if you, erm, slip up once or twice! You can always make it up later by eating nothing but stewed carrots or roasted pumpkin for a week.

Enjoy life, but watch yourself. Don’t deprive yourself, but don’t indulge. Don’t just exist – glow. Be nourished – but god forbid you eat.

And this is all before you even factor in eating disorders. To the non-disordered mind, this all sounds very attractive; to the disordered brain, it’s a hell of a drug. Of course, clean eating lifestyles and their ilk nurse an eating disorder of their very own: orthorexia, which promotes eating nothing but foods deemed healthy, organic, pure, raw, green. But to anyone suffering from anorexia or bulimia, such food philosophies can only reinforce the awful dichotomy of self-hatred and shame, the dislocated relationship we entertain with eating and not-eating.

No wonder that we find it so very difficult to get out of the hole created by malnutrition. No wonder the disorder becomes so easily leaden with puritanical judgments, armed with a vocabulary of guilt, shame, or sin – and conversely of strength, lightness, and purity. No wonder that we find it so difficult to gain weight, and struggle with dysmorphia and self-hatred, when the prevailing social narrative puts such an onus on fatness (or, indeed, anything bigger than very skinny indeed) as shameful, unhealthy, unclean, and morally wrong.

(You won’t often, if ever, see proponents of clean eating promote health at every size, or champion beauty in body shapes of all kinds. Lifestyle gurus are always slim women and athletic-looking men. Funny how that works.)

Clean eating diets are proselytizing, plain and simple – with an inflexibility and an intolerance that are disturbingly puritanical. There’s only right or wrong: virtuous or naughty, clean or unclean, inherently good for you or intrinsically unhealthy, natural or heavily processed, skinny or fat. There is no room in that system for any vision of food that truly embraces it in all its wondrous diversity, nor for the nuance and the complexity of the many ways our bodies work .

Here’s a thought: instead of limiting ourselves to eating variations on coconut protein bars and avocado pesto (a necessary note: I am not knocking coconut or avocado. They are delicious. I just wouldn’t eat nothing but them for the rest of my life), what about trying eat everything in moderation truly out for size? Let’s challenge ourselves. Let’s eat out of our comfort zones. Let’s embrace how wonderful and pleasurable food can be – without looking for truth, or wellness, or a dubious, problematic purity.

And let’s embrace our bodies, too -- our flawed, strange, perplexing, byzantine bodies.

#anorexia recovery #clean eating #body positivity

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cessanderson · 5 years

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Home Chef Review: Home Cooking Made Simple (No, Really) https://ift.tt/2Vcutfu

Does Home Chef make it easier to get dinner on the table? Let’s find out. Image courtesy of Home Chef.

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Ah, the joy of cooking. If Julia Child taught us anything, it’s that there is pleasure in putting together a well-crafted, delectable meal. At least, in theory. But anyone who’s ever run out of an ingredient, nicked a finger while dicing or overcooked the shrimp knows that not every meal preparation experience is a delightful one. And with the busyness of daily life, grocery shopping for the necessary ingredients and getting dinner on the table can feel overwhelming. That’s where Home Chef comes in.

Home Chef, like many of the other meal subscription services cropping up today, purports to deliver “home cooking made simple.” Does it? I got a week of meals delivered to my door to put it to the test.

The ingredients for each Home Chef meal come conveniently packed in their own bag. Image provided by Kacie Goff.

The Home Chef delivery: neatly packaged, nicely done

Remember what we were saying about how life gets busy? That was underscored for me as I boarded a plane to Colorado the day I had scheduled my Home Chef delivery. Not ideal. I was only going to be gone for a few days, but that meant it fell to my husband to make sure everything was put away so that it would keep. And I had to wonder, after already being exposed to who-knows-what during the shipping process, would the produce still be fresh upon my return? What about the shrimp-based meal I so boldly ordered?

I’m happy to report that Home Chef makes every step of the process, including storing food until you’re ready to prepare it, a no-brainer. One of my least favorite things in the world is putting away groceries. Home Chef takes the legwork out of it for you. Each meal comes packed in a convenient zip-top bag. All my trusty partner had to do was load our three bags into the fridge and �� bam! — he was done.

And the simplicity of the system is brilliant on both ends. It means it takes seconds to put your Home Chef meals away, and it also means that when you’re ready to cook, you literally just need to grab a bag and go. That is, in my opinion, genius.

Home Chef Pricing

Unlike other meal delivery services (e.g. HelloFresh, Blue Apron), Home Chef doesn’t have set meal plan pricing. Instead, you pay per meal based on the recipe you choose. Their standard meals are priced at $20 for two servings or $40 for four. For premium meals, you’ll pay market price.

Here’s a look at all the ingredients one of my meal bags contained. Image provided by Kacie Goff.

The Home Chef meals: delicious and delightfully simple to prepare

Okay, moment of honesty here: I don’t love cooking. I don’t hate it, necessarily, but after a full day of work, I’d rather be in the bath with a big glass of wine than standing over the stove. Some people truly find joy in preparing a meal, but I’m not one of those people. I cook out of necessity. And, occasionally, I like the end result enough that I retroactively decide I had a nice time preparing a specific meal.

We received three meals in our Home Chef shipment and I went three for three on actually enjoying the creation of them. Not bad!

It’s also worth noting that I’m a pescatarian so all of my meals will be mostly plant and fish-based. Now, let’s talk details.

From bag to table in under 30 minutes! Image provided by Kacie Goff.

Meal #1: Avocado & Beet Poke Bowl

First up, I made the Avocado & Beet Poke Bowl. I figured that after a few days of sitting around in my fridge, this mostly produce-based meal might leave a little something to desire. But everything was so cleverly packaged that the whole meal shone. The carrots were crisp, the avocado was perfectly ripe and the edamame and beets were delicious. Home Chef nailed it with the sauce, which was easy to customize for my picky husband. After a stint of quick-but-exhausting travel, this meal felt as nourishing as it was flavorful.

The recipes are easy to follow and have pictures to guide you. Image courtesy of Kacie Goff.

Meal #2: Baja Shrimp Bowl

I love eating shrimp, but I hate cooking them. The cook time is just so short that I feel like I’m always tiptoeing the line between raw and overdone. But, with the help of my Home Chef recipe, I nailed it in their Baja Shrimp Bowl.

This is a perfect time to talk about these recipes because, while I prepared the shrimp, my husband did the rest of the meal. And he really hates to cook, so I tip my cap to both him and Home Chef. Their recipes have pictures to guide you at every turn (very helpful for amateur cooks) and the steps are broken down so you never feel rushed. Plus, Home Chef makes it super easy by doing a lot of the legwork — like tailing the shrimp or making the sauce — for you.

Oh, and as for the meal itself? It was so good we forgot to take a picture. Oops!

Meal #3: Umami Miso-Mushroom-Cream Gemelli Pasta

Ever since we gave up meat, mushrooms have become a staple in our house. Their earthy, meaty texture can really take a meal to the next level — when they’re used properly. Or they can just be weird brown-grey masses in your dish. I’m very happy to report that the Umami Miso-Mushroom-Cream Gemelli Pasta definitely landed in the realm of the former. This meal felt decadent without leaving us weighed down. And as a lover of umami, earthy flavors, this one definitely hit home with me. Plus, how cute is that little round pat of butter?

Here’s what you should know about Home Chef before you order your first box. Image courtesy of Home Chef.

Home Chef pros and cons

All in all, I was really thrilled with every meal I got from Home Chef. Here are my key takeaways.

Home Chef pros:

Easy and quick to prepare (everything took us 30 minutes or fewer)

Good portion size

Convenient packaging

Creative meals

Free shipping on orders over $45

Competitively priced (everything I tried was about $10 per serving)

Home Chef cons:

Lots of plastic packaging (some is recyclable)

Pre-made items (e.g. sauces) could feel limiting to someone who wants to learn to cook from scratch

Would I order another week of Home Chef meals? Absolutely. While $10 a serving might feel comparable to delivery, you’re getting a fresh, flavorful meal and you control the ingredients. Plus, the time it saves in menu planning and grocery shopping offsets some of the cost in my mind because I dislike both of those activities.

Want to try Home Chef for yourself?

If you’re interested in checking out Home Chef, we’ve got you covered. Get 3 plates for free with our code “3platesoff” — just head here and get started.

You don’t have to be a gourmet chef to live a gourmand life. I’d definitely recommend taking Home Chef for a spin.

The post Home Chef Review: Home Cooking Made Simple (No, Really) appeared first on Freshome.com.

Kacie Goff

#Freshome.com - Interior Design & Architecture Magazine

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itsthefishdoctor-blog · 8 years

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The United States of Delusion

I don’t even know what to say today y'all.

There has been just a massive amount of mind-boggling nonsense inundating us for the past week that I can’t feel anything other than overwhelmed. I’m overwhelmed by the outrageous comments the president has made. I’m overwhelmed by the bold-faced LIES that he has spewed; overwhelmed by the hypocrisy of every single thing he has done and said.

I knew this was coming. I knew it when I cast my ballot for a woman I didn’t think was the best choice but wasn’t an absolute psychopath. I knew it when y'all told us to give him a chance because even though he hadn’t taken office, his hateful rhetoric had already changed the tone of our nation. To be honest, I’ve know it every single time the carrot has opened his mouth. I knew this was coming and I am STILL blown away.

And of course, I’m blown away by this clown. His presidency literally exceeds my comprehension. But what blows me away even more than his bullshit, is the lack of outrage from those of you who voted for him.

Y'all. This. Dude. Lied. To. You.

Not that this a new thing for him. He lied multiple times on the campaign trail (“lock her up” is still ringing particularly loud) and has continued to lie since he was elected. It literally is the most unreal sort of lying I’ve ever seen. It’s bold-faced and its over INSANE things. Like, who actually lies about doing/saying something they are well documented to have done/said? Seriously? WHO DOES THAT?

We’ve had politicians who lie before. That is not at all new, in fact its basically a requirement. But every single time we’ve caught them in a lie, they have to make a big public apology (which you wont accept) and then we hold it against them and call them a liar for the rest of their career. Example: Bill Clinton was not impeached because he had an affair. Bill Clinton was impeached because he LIED about having the affair. Which in comparison to the lies our new fearless leader is spewing, seem like child’s play. I won’t even begin to discuss the ridiculousness of that entire process (especially Trump’s use of it to undermine Bill’s wife and her run for president) but the hypocrisy is, once-again, mind blowing.

SO ANYWAYS.

I’ve posted a nice article on my facebook page choked full of the lies Donald Trump has spewed in the past week vs. the facts that actually happened here in the real world. Seriously, this blows my mind that these are things being debated. Read it or don’t, but I promise there is actual evidence that contradicts the crap the president has tried to make into facts. But that, again isn’t really the point of all this.

What we need to talk about right now, is the state of my country.

Because I am not entirely sure what is happening or who’s country this is anymore. If I’ve seen anything in the past week, it’s that Donald Trump is very well set on making this HIS country and he doesn’t give a flying fuck what he has to do or who he has to throw under the bus to get there.

And I don’t know why there are so many of my fellow citizens who voted for him who are not scared or downright pissed about this. Because y'all are the ones who trusted him. You chose to put your faith in a man and in the span of a week he has completely overhauled your country. I don’t know if you just don’t understand what all these executive orders mean (to be fair, there have been an exorbitant amount) or just don’t care because somehow they don’t apply to you. Because I’ve defended y'all. I have allowed you to justify your vote for other things but I’m done now. Because I’m not entirely sure there’s anything that man can say or do to make some of you even question him, let alone denounce his actions.

When you have a man in charge of the greatest free nation in the world telling the press what they can and cannot report, you are no longer a part of a free nation. When you have a president silencing SCIENTISTS and evidence-based facts, you no longer live in a safe nation. When you have a president using religion to decide who can and cannot enter our country, you no longer live in America (a nation literally founded by men running away from the nationalized Church of England).

The point is we have entered some sort of insane alternate universe where we call lies alternate facts. A world where we ignore hypocrisy unless its directed against our opponent. A place where we look the other way when something unjust happens that doesn’t apply to us. A nation that doesn’t make any damn sense and pretty much defies every single principle it was founded on.

So I’m gonna talk about hypocrisy for a second because its about damn time we start holding each other accountable.

You DO NOT get to criticize pro-life women at your women’s march. You DO NOT get to yell at people afraid to let in refugees when it took you five years to pay attention to the crisis in Syria. You DO NOT get to remain silent when a SNL writer says horrible things about Baron Trump because of who his father is. You DO NOT get to say Trump is not a “legitimate president”. You DO NOT get to remain silent when protesters destroy property or attack police. You DO NOT get to support the women’s march but stay silent to the Black Lives Matter movement. You DO NOT get to freak out about Republicans racism and make fun of Melania’s broken English. You DO NOT get to criticize the people who felt like they had no choice to vote for Trump when your party nominated a lackluster candidate through some pretty sketchy tactics. You DO NOT get to act like the ACA is affordable for most people or the best option for healthcare for our nation. You DO NOT get to remain silent when Madonna threatens to blow up the white house. You DO NOT get to act like illegal immigrants didn’t break the law.

You DO NOT get to preach to me about how you voted for Trump because he was financially conservative and then not lose your damn mind when he essentially forces you to pay for an utterly useless wall. You DO NOT get to tell me healthcare is too expensive to be a universal right but a billion dollar wall isn’t. You DO NOT get to talk to me about the Democrats ridiculous spending when the GOP wasted $7 million to investigate Hilary in Benghazi TWICE and who knows how much investigating Trump’s newest bullshit voter fraud claim. You DO NOT get to tell me you are pro-life and refuse to allow Syrian refugees into our country. You DO NOT get to say “what would Jesus do” to defend fetuses but not actual, fully formed humans. You DO NOT get to tell me radical Muslims pose more of a threat domestically than mentally ill white guys like Dylan Roof or Adam Lanza. You DO NOT get to get your panties in a wad about how we’ve become a “politically correct” country where you can’t say what you want and not BE UTTERLY TERRIFIED that the president has essentially put a gag order on the EPA, NASA, the National Park Service, etc. You DO NOT get to chant “drain the swamp” at your terrifying rallies and then remain silent when Trump builds a cabinet overflowing with the most under-qualified and swampiest, swamp monsters. You DO NOT get to demand to see President Obama’s birth certificate but not Trump’s tax returns. You DO NOT get to criticize peaceful protests against Trump’s low-class behavior when y'all protested Obama’s election because of his skin color. And you DEFINITELY DO NOT get to say celebrities need to stay out of politics when you fools elected one.

Y'all are afraid of ISIS and don’t understand how banning immigrants from ISIS’ stomping grounds feeds directly into their recruiters hands. How banning people from Muslim predominate countries (but not the most Muslim predominate countries and not the countries who have a history of attacking us) shows all the people who ISIS recruit just how horrible the Americans are. Y'all THREW THE BIGGEST FREAKING FIT EVER about Hilary’s freaking email server (even though most of us don’t even know what the heck a private email server is) and then are silent when Donald Trump’s administration has done the EXACT SAME THING. Y'all were up in arms about the Clinton Foundations international connections but look the other way when your president makes a bullshit executive order to ban Muslims only from countries he is convenient enough not to have financial ties to (and then believe the nonsense that Obama did the same thing in 2011: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/01/29/trumps-facile-claim-that-his-refugee-policy-is-similar-to-obama-in-2011/?utm_term=.328b3f2a974d). You DO NOT get to highlight a portion of that executive order and claim our president refuses to support countries that oppress the LGBTQ community when he openly supports Putin.

Here’s the thing y'all. We need to figure out just what it is we stand for. Because I really don’t think anyone has any clue anymore. We’ve warped our views and beliefs to fit into certain political parties who have their own conflicting views. Republicans are conservative unless its something they want (like a wall). They want the government to stay out of their wallets but are okay with it in women’s reproductive organs. Democrats want everyone to be respected and then call every single Trump supporter a bigot/racist/oppressor. They want the government to stay out of their reproductive organs but provide them free birth control. These labels are only further examples of the division that has broken our country. We are so divided over words that don’t even represent well-organized ideas.

We’ve got to stop y'all. We have to come back to the ideas we were founded on. We weren’t meant to have a national religion. We weren’t meant to have just two political parties; as if that could possibly represent every single American adequately. We weren’t meant to deny immigrants when the founders themselves were immigrants.

But more than that, we need to be good humans. We need to help those who’s homelands have been destroyed because we refused to get involved until it was too late. We need to speak up about injustice in the world and demand action. We need to be kind and fair and generous and compassionate. We need to acknowledge when those we disagree with do the right thing. We need to call out the people we support when they do the wrong thing. We need to respect our fellow humans no matter who they are because, duh. Seriously, duh.

I say all of that knowing full well that even if all of that happens, we may not be any better off. I know that change is a hard thing for people to do and that a few people have a very difficult time changing the world. I know that President Trump will continue to do whatever he wants to do regardless of who it upsets. I know that most of us are too proud to admit, our “opponent” has some valid points.

But I have to say something and I have to try something. Because I feel SO FREAKING HOPELESS. Even though I have watched amazing things unfold in the past week to counter this monster of a president, I feel defeated.

I don’t know what is going to happen next and I’m truly terrified to find out. I can’t even begin to imagine how those of you are who aren’t a privileged white woman are feeling. I’m sorry for you. I really, really am. I want you to know that I’ve got your back and I will fight for you with every fiber of my being because I am grateful for your existence. And you matter. We, the people are the best part of this country and we are what makes America great. I will defend your right to be treated with respect and dignity no matter what. And I can only hope that enough people will do the same. I hope enough people can be as bold as Judge Ann Donnelly or the 3 million women who marched or John McCain who opposed Trump’s latest executive order.

I guess really all I can do right now is continue to hope. I hope we continue to stand up for each other even if its for people who are totally different than us or people we will never meet. I hope that we can all figure out what really matters is the type of people we are and the values we hold and act on. I hope we can be the type of people who inspire others to overcome hate and can bring the generation behind us into a better, more respectful world.

I know this is all very Mean Girls-esque but I sincerely wish I had a big ass plastic crown to break apart and throw at everyone. Because really, y'all are beautiful and if Cady Heron can figure out how to apologize for being a bitch and try to make amends for it in a two hour film, I think our country can probably get through the next four years without pushing anyone in front of a bus.

(That’s a crappy Mean Girls reference; please don’t push people in front of busses)

-Be kind to one another-

also a friendly reminder this blog is for me and possible future nuggets who I want to remember that their mom was definitely not cool with all this bullshit they’ll have to learn in history class. And also for anyone who feels as shitty as I do and needs some love ✌️️

#isthisreallife #unitedstatesoffelusion #whatishappening #donaldtrump #strongertogether #bekindtooneanother

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