#NOLA Curbed

[madi2112]

Next step, go!

As I admitted last time,, I love to plan vacations.

Correction, I need to plan vacations.

The anticipation and research in preparation give me something to keep me focused when I'm in that downward spiral.

Plus the thought of having a reason to continue on curbs the more drastic feelings that spiraling often brings.

So where am i going?

I will reveal the destination shorty, but first a few more hints.

Last time I mentioned it was the opposite of where I was last.

Considering my last journey was to Shenandoah Nation Patk, then those that guessed a city were correct!

I also mentioned it was a days drive (or less) which means it's less then about 600 miles from Orlando.

Since that's probably not enough to go by here are my planned activities while in town.

A walking ghost and cemetery tour

A Sapphic speakeasy burlesque show

A tour of a mansion from the 1800's

A fancy dinner with shrimp and grits

Begeints!

If you guessed New Orleans, Louisiana you are correct!

NOLA, The Big Easy, The city of jazz and voodoo.

My hotel is across the street from the Louis Armstrong Memorial Park and about a 10 minute walk to the French Quarter.

I stopped in New Orleans almost 9 years ago on my cross country relocation trip for just a few hours to have a snack and gas up.

This time it's for 4 days.

With lots of things outside of my comfort zone.

A lot outside of it.

I, of course, will report all the details each day.

With pictures!

~Madison

[brattyandwhorrible]

sept 26, 22.. Monday ~ Documentation..

Got in trouble today..

Was a bad girl, and messy girl according to Bannah.

I've switched up my usual daily substances.. so im feeling hella weird too.. the kind of Lockjaw high, the one where you have social anxiety or whatever and just don't want to be around anyone else....

I'm procrastinating calling my grandmother..

Haven't talked to Tristan..

Didn't report last month..

Don't know my date to report to my parole officer for october neither.

I am losing all of my weight.

I have been drinking daily since i got out damn near on aug 29th.

Being in pcola in this environment reminds me of nola and it makes me want to get high on what i want to get high on. I keep trying everything to curb those cravings that I'm having for this specific kandi and chopsticks I'm talking about but nothing feels like it's enough.

Am i moving to pcola?

Sav is mad bc i was going to meet up with her " 'Ex??' Best Friend " tonight with Kayla and just have some girl time, that was IF my savvy went back to pcola.. only bc she'd be gone and i just thought id get out so i don't fall asleep. ~~~~ Plus, i thought you expected me to say something to her about this bc you didn't wanna freak out.

Thats one of the issues right now is that i dont know what your expectations are of me... or if you even have any at all..

I feel like we need to be boo'd up asap and pillow talk while we stay vibed tf out.. we need to get on the same level yeah.

I'm feeling a slight tension thats getting thicker in the air and it's got to be fixed!

I know I'm a POS and i rly can't get off my mind how bad i rly just want rest. 💀

Ok now i been high and stuck af in the room for a minute now. Like couldn't get up if i wanted to pretty much, i mean I'm like super litty rn.. and a lil paranoid too I'm not gonna lie. I keep thinking I'm hearing cops outside and blue flashing lights in the window..

I rly need to go collect my Savvy from the outer areas of my comfort zone.. ~~~ I'm just too mf tense, socially awkward, delusional, and delirious, plus my senses have been taken from me ever so slightly..

I'm pretty sure i seriously need my keppra and Effexor back ASAP

#mentally unstable #srybannah:(

[pestnode31]

How One Mardi Gras Parade Organizer Is Uniting An Entire Community

Feed The Front Line Nola They began hiring local musicians to run the deliveries, helping to keep them afloat after many had lost their gigs. Feed the Second Line, a sister effort, was announced on Friday , which would have been the second day of our city’s beloved Jazz and Heritage Festival. Feed the Second Line seeks to provide food-love and employment to our culture-bearers — musicians, Mardi Gras Indians, Social Aid and Pleasure Club members, artists and other cultural figures in the New Orleans community. The group provides temporary housing, food and other support to recent immigrants. Feed the Front Line NOLA was the first initiative created to continuously send "food love" to the front line hospital heroes of New Orleans as they battled COVID-19. The Krewe of Red Beans is a parade group created originally for Lundi Gras 2009. The idea was to take inspiration from different elements of New Orleans culture to celebrate the culinary tradition of Red Beans on Monday. For years, this group grew organically as a community organization. Lisa shares about her Trinidadian and Tobagonian heritage and Nathanial shares his experience surviving Hurricane Katrina and seeing the city come together during times of hardship. Market Umbrella provides fresh products directly from its regional vendors. The New Orleans Musicians’ Clinic & Foundation helps identify people in the music and cultural community to participate in the program. “Instead of this supernova of support at once, which is what we wanted for the restaurants, this can be like a steady weekly fireworks display to keep people going,” he said. Feed the Front Lines NOLA dropped off its last meals to some 2,300 heath care workers on Sunday, as the stream of small donations that fed its budget trailed off. With this initiative, they've raised a quarter of a million dollars to fund the decoration of 23 Mardi Gras house floats. This initiative created 48 jobs for Mardi Gras artists around the city and helped salvage the “COVID carnival”. Feed the Front Line NOLA project began on March 16th and raised $1.2 million in only 6 weeks. During these weeks, over 90,000 meals were distributed to New Orleans hospital workers, alongside 12,230 coffee and cookie orders. The krewe was inspired by a mixture of New Orleans traditional cultural practices - mainly the annual suit-making of Black Masking Indians and the parade style of second lines. In the summer, The Krewe of Red Beans had also created the Mask Up Raffle Drawing to help encourage mask-wearing in New Orleans to curb the spread of COVID-19. Hire a Mardi Gras Artist was formed to raise funds for laid-off carnival artists to give them work while bringing Mardi Gras magic to New Orleans neighborhoods. More people start fundraisers on GoFundMe than on any other platform. Food & Wine Magazine, De Wulf is fielding calls from people in other cities who want to replicate what Feed the Front Line NOLA has done. And the model is starting to pop up in other places across the country. He lived in New Orleans prior to Hurricane Katrina, and returned after the storm, when people came together to help each other through a disaster that crippled the city. Alexis Kyman, a member of Krewe of Red Beans and an attorney by trade, took over the organizational aspects of the operation, while continuing to work her full-time job from home. Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. The entire history of New Orleans as a city Is one rife with inequality – and one with a legacy of racism and struggle. Despite that, the people of our city created one of the world’s great cultures – jazz, MG Indians baby dolls, Second Lines, and so much more.... Rouses Markets sources a shopping list of grocery items, and household supplies and toiletries. Since its doors opened in 1893, Commander’s Palace has been New Orleanians’ go-to for celebratory brunches and festive dinners. The novel coronavirus has now forced the beloved gathering place to temporarily close its doors, but co-proprietor Ti Adelaide Martin and her team have found other ways to keep the restaurant’s hospitable spirit alive. It began as a weekly brainstorming call among law firm leaders about how to protect employees, stabilize firms and ensure that legal services would continue unhindered. But when New Orleans became a hotspot, the consensus quickly pivoted from protecting our own people to helping the community as a whole. People who contribute to the fund get physical Bean Coins or glass red beans which work as prepaid bar tabs redeemable at local businesses all over the city. For two weeks, volunteers went around different neighborhoods and surprised people that were wearing a protective mask with raffle tickets. Restaurant Support Effort Feed The Front Line Serves Last Meal, Shifts To second Line We're turning away from big-box stores and toward vintage items—first, out of necessity due to supply-chain issues, and now, for design reasons—to add charm and character to every room in the house, including the kitchen. Here, interior designers from around the South share their predictions for what's trending in kitchen design for 2022 and beyond. The trombone sounds in a lower register than a cornet, trumpet, or clarinet, providing a vocal balance to those higher voices. Often, its role was to provide a variation of the bass melody that fit into the spaces between the first two voices. In some cases, trombones did play the lead voice, as in the songs “Ory’s Creole Trombone” and “Muskrat Ramble,” composed by Kid Ory, who is considered the top trombonist of early jazz. Feed the Front Line NOLA has placed over the last several weeks as part of an effort to save local restaurants and give back to the health care workers who are dealing with the realities of a global pandemic. The idea came to De Wulf when his wife, an ER doctor, told him how much she appreciated it when people brought food to the hospital. To provide support for our creatives and culture bearers, we're pitching in to help the best way we know how — spreading the art. Where Y'Art has partnered with #FeedtheFrontLineNOLA to provide prints, based on original, commissioned works by several local artists of local healthcare heroes. A portion of the proceeds from the sale of the prints will provide much needed income for local artists and drive donations for #FeedtheFrontLineNOLA. The Second Line is a tradition in parades organized by Social Aid and Pleasure Clubs with brass band parades in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States. This initiative pairs older musicians and artists with their younger counterparts to help them get groceries and household supplies. The idea is to help older members of the community with minimal contact while younger members get employment in the absence of their regular gigs. Feed the Front Lines NOLA dropped off its last meals to some 2,300 heath care workers on Sunday, as the stream of small donations that fed its budget trailed off. Ready-to-eat meals from Boucherie are delivered to over-worked medical staff at Ochsner Health Center West Bank as a part of the Feed the Front Line campaign. When one of her managers discovered Devin De Wulf and the Krewe of Red Beans’ Feed the Front Line NOLA initiative, Martin immediately called De Wulf to offer support. He lived in New Orleans prior to Hurricane Katrina, and returned after the storm, when people came together to help each other through a disaster that crippled the city. Zimet had already closed the dining room of his sit-down restaurant, Boucherie, and moved operations next door to his counter service restaurant, Bourrée, but business was very slow. In many states, workerslose eligibility for unemployment benefitsif their employers reopen and ask them to come back. The United States makes up less than 5 percent of the world’s population. Yet we have 25 percent of the world’s coronavirus cases — and those cases are not distributed evenly among the population. It has beenwell documentedthat racial and ethnic minorities have sustained a disproportionate burden of illness and death when compared to white persons. Additionally, a successful candidate for IHSNO will show evidence of strong work ethic through commitment, punctuality, and an exceptional attendance record.

#Feed Nola

[okrafaucet03]

How To Send Free Food To Coronavirus Frontline Workers

Feed The Front Line Nola The krewe was inspired by a mixture of New Orleans traditional cultural practices - mainly the annual suit-making of Black Masking Indians and the parade style of second lines. In the summer, The Krewe of Red Beans had also created the Mask Up Raffle Drawing to help encourage mask-wearing in New Orleans to curb the spread of COVID-19. Hire a Mardi Gras Artist was formed to raise funds for laid-off carnival artists to give them work while bringing Mardi Gras magic to New Orleans neighborhoods. More people start fundraisers on GoFundMe than on any other platform. Market Umbrella provides fresh products directly from its regional vendors. The New Orleans Musicians’ Clinic & Foundation helps identify people in the music and cultural community to participate in the program. “Instead of this supernova of support at once, which is what we wanted for the restaurants, this can be like a steady weekly fireworks display to keep people going,” he said. Feed the Front Lines NOLA dropped off its last meals to some 2,300 heath care workers on Sunday, as the stream of small donations that fed its budget trailed off. Since its doors opened in 1893, Commander’s Palace has been New Orleanians’ go-to for celebratory brunches and festive dinners. The novel coronavirus has now forced the beloved gathering place to temporarily close its doors, but co-proprietor Ti Adelaide Martin and her team have found other ways to keep the restaurant’s hospitable spirit alive. It began as a weekly brainstorming call among law firm leaders about how to protect employees, stabilize firms and ensure that legal services would continue unhindered. But when New Orleans became a hotspot, the consensus quickly pivoted from protecting our own people to helping the community as a whole. People who contribute to the fund get physical Bean Coins or glass red beans which work as prepaid bar tabs redeemable at local businesses all over the city. For two weeks, volunteers went around different neighborhoods and surprised people that were wearing a protective mask with raffle tickets. The group provides temporary housing, food and other support to recent immigrants. Feed the Front Line NOLA was the first initiative created to continuously send "food love" to the front line hospital heroes of New Orleans as they battled COVID-19. The Krewe of Red Beans is a parade group created originally for Lundi Gras 2009. The idea was to take inspiration from different elements of New Orleans culture to celebrate the culinary tradition of Red Beans on Monday. For years, this group grew organically as a community organization. Lisa shares about her Trinidadian and Tobagonian heritage and Nathanial shares his experience surviving Hurricane Katrina and seeing the city come together during times of hardship. With this initiative, they've raised a quarter of a million dollars to fund the decoration of 23 Mardi Gras house floats. This initiative created 48 jobs for Mardi Gras artists around the city and helped salvage the “COVID carnival”. Feed the Front Line NOLA project began on March 16th and raised $1.2 million in only 6 weeks. During these weeks, over 90,000 meals were distributed to New Orleans hospital workers, alongside 12,230 coffee and cookie orders. Both Venmo and PayPal created another task for Devin — withdrawing money out of these platforms into his own bank account. For $10, supporters can buy a Bean Coin, the equivalent to a $10 bar tab at local joints. Customers can cash them in starting in 2021, presumably when the virus will be under control. Using their dedicated parade fan-base, the Krewe of Red Beans launched their first initiative with a $60 food order and an Instagram post. With the COVID-19 pandemic wreaking havoc on businesses across industries, forcing many out of business, Devin and the rest of the Krewe of Red Beans decided to step up and help. Zimet had already closed the dining room of his sit-down restaurant, Boucherie, and moved operations next door to his counter service restaurant, Bourrée, but business was very slow. The entire history of New Orleans as a city Is one rife with inequality – and one with a legacy of racism and struggle. Despite that, the people of our city created one of the world’s great cultures – jazz, MG Indians baby dolls, Second Lines, and so much more.... Rouses Markets sources a shopping list of grocery items, and household supplies and toiletries. Food & Wine Magazine, De Wulf is fielding calls from people in other cities who want to replicate what Feed the Front Line NOLA has done. And the model is starting to pop up in other places across the country. He lived in New Orleans prior to Hurricane Katrina, and returned after the storm, when people came together to help each other through a disaster that crippled the city. Alexis Kyman, a member of Krewe of Red Beans and an attorney by trade, took over the organizational aspects of the operation, while continuing to work her full-time job from home. Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. Feed The Front Line NOLA The Krewe of Red Beans began #feedthefrontlinenola to serve the hospital workers "food love" - and also to provide a "life-support system" for our locally-owned restaurants. Feedthefrontlinenola raises money to buy food from locally-owned restaurants and we have a safe-delivery system in place to bring the food to all hospital workers. Today, we are feeding 13 New Orleans area hospitals with around 10,000$ worth of meals. Our city's food-scene is a cultural treasure, but many of the best spots are smaller, mom-n-pop operations - without immediate help, they will close. De Wulf and his team’s weeks-old nonprofit has created a win-win-win for the city, feeding healthcare workers at all 15 local hospitals with food purchased from area restaurants and delivered by out-of-work artists and musicians. Feeding New Orleans’ frontline is an enormous undertaking—and one that costs about $20,000 each day. Sean has created works to reflect identity and history, while sparking ideas in the minds of viewers. Sean is the recipient of the 2021 Emerging Artist Residency at the Santa Fe Art Institute and the jury selected winner of the, And Now for Something New Vol. Buddy Bolden helped to define the cornet as the dominant melody or solo voice in early New Orleans jazz. We're turning away from big-box stores and toward vintage items—first, out of necessity due to supply-chain issues, and now, for design reasons—to add charm and character to every room in the house, including the kitchen. Here, interior designers from around the South share their predictions for what's trending in kitchen design for 2022 and beyond. The trombone sounds in a lower register than a cornet, trumpet, or clarinet, providing a vocal balance to those higher voices. Often, its role was to provide a variation of the bass melody that fit into the spaces between the first two voices. In some cases, trombones did play the lead voice, as in the songs “Ory’s Creole Trombone” and “Muskrat Ramble,” composed by Kid Ory, who is considered the top trombonist of early jazz. Feed the Front Line NOLA has placed over the last several weeks as part of an effort to save local restaurants and give back to the health care workers who are dealing with the realities of a global pandemic. The idea came to De Wulf when his wife, an ER doctor, told him how much she appreciated it when people brought food to the hospital. To provide support for our creatives and culture bearers, we're pitching in to help the best way we know how — spreading the art. Where Y'Art has partnered with #FeedtheFrontLineNOLA to provide prints, based on original, commissioned works by several local artists of local healthcare heroes. A portion of the proceeds from the sale of the prints will provide much needed income for local artists and drive donations for #FeedtheFrontLineNOLA. The Second Line is a tradition in parades organized by Social Aid and Pleasure Clubs with brass band parades in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States. Governments and businesses must act now to make every workplace as safe as possible from COVID-19. All of us must join together to demand that governments and businesses take steps to protect these workers. Across the country, states are rushing ahead with ending social distancing measures even as COVID-19 casescontinue to rise.

#Feed Nola

[penelopehui]

Want to be a morning person? These 6 expert tips may get you there

Do you consider the alarm clock your arch nemesis? You’re not alone.

Scores of people report having trouble waking up each morning — which could be due to a wide variety of factors, including medical conditions.

But if you’re feeling pressure to rise a bit earlier than your body is permitting you to do, there are a few tricks and brain trainings that could finally help you become the morning person you want to be.

In an interview with Fox News Digital, Dr. Wendy Troxel, RAND corporation senior behavioral scientist and sleepfoundation.org scientific adviser, shared insights on how to make waking up in the morning a more pleasant experience.

"Night people really don't hit their stride until the late evening hours," said Troxel, based in Park City, Utah.

"That's when they're often their most productive, their mood is better, their energy levels are higher — and they really struggle to wake up in the morning."

The problem, Troxel pointed out, is that society views morning productivity as a "virtue," which for night owls and teenagers can be "quite dreadful."

The clinical psychologist, also the author of the book "Sharing the Covers," explained that circadian rhythms are 50% genetically determined — so becoming an early riser isn’t just a "matter of willpower."

Meanwhile, Sleepless in NOLA sleep consultant and medical review expert at sleepfoundation.org Dr. Nilong Vyas, M.D., told Fox News Digital that people who stay up late simply haven't finished resting before the alarm goes off in the morning, which requires a healthy shift.

For everyone looking to give this a try, here are six tips Fox News Digital collected from Troxel and Vyas for creating an earlier wakeup routine — and making it stick.

Becoming an early riser is not going to happen overnight. People whose circadian rhythms are most functional at night tend to lack the sleep drive to get to bed early enough to get an adequate seven or eight hours of sleep.

Troxel recommended backing up your sleep schedule by 15 minutes every morning and every night. With this slow roll, the body can acclimate to a new internal clock, just as it readjusts to jet lag or daylight savings.

"Don't expect to — overnight — switch your schedule to go to bed at 10 p.m. and wake up at 6 a.m.," she said. "That's just too abrupt and large of a circadian shift for the body to be able to accommodate."

Night owls who force themselves to wake up early will deprive themselves of sleep most of the time.

People who are sleep-deprived, she said, "set that morning alarm and somehow force themselves out of bed. But they don't allow themselves the time to adjust to an adequate bedtime."

Troxel suggested planning ahead and walking back a sleep schedule little by little. She said vacation time might be a good opportunity to try this out.

New Orleans-based Vyas advised that creating the intention of waking up earlier is the first step, though the first few days will be difficult.

"Your brain doesn't like change," she said. "It will try to convince you with a multitude of reasons as to why you need to keep sleeping. However, once you do it for at least 3-5 days, it can start to become a habit."

"Light is one of the most powerful cues for setting our internal circadian rhythms," Troxel said. "So it's really important to get lots of light exposure in the morning hours when you're trying to adjust your clock to go early."

As soon as your alarm clock goes off, the specialist advised flooding your space with lights, including opening the shades, turning lamps and lights on or even using a light box.

By the same token, dimming and turning off the lights in the evening hours before bed will send a "powerful alerting signal" to the body to start to wind down.

Exposure to phone light can be just as crucial to curbing your sleep schedule.

In this digital age, people constantly expose themselves to screens. The blue light emitted from electronic devices is known to suppress the sleep hormone melatonin.

"Melatonin is known as the hormone of darkness," she said.

"So if you hold a phone close to your face in the hours and minutes right up until bedtime, you are actually sending a signal that could counteract the body's natural production and release of melatonin, which otherwise would start signaling it's time for sleep."

Suppressing melatonin and pushing bedtime back later makes it "more difficult" to fall asleep and "more challenging" to wake up.

Once you begin training your body to fall asleep and wake up at a certain time, it’s important not to switch up the schedule.

Yep! That means no sleeping in on the weekends.

Even though this may be "really challenging," Troxel said it’s critical.

"Our circadian rhythms respond best with predictability," she said. "But if you sleep in on the weekend, that's going to reverse any sort of gains that you've made in terms of walking back to your clock."

Consistency is also key when it comes to setting a workout and mealtime schedule, which can also help regulate circadian rhythms.

Waking up can feel miserable — but the trick is to just do it.

Troxel likened waking up to "ripping off a Band-Aid," explaining how wake-up time should be "rapid and really kind of abrupt."

"No benefit comes from prolonging the agony, because the sooner you get up and start your day, the sooner that feeling of sleep inertia will wane," she said.

Vyas recommended turning off the option to snooze your clock altogether — and shared the practice of counting down to five before getting up.

"As soon as the alarm goes off, start a countdown in your head for five seconds," she said. "As soon as you get to five, jump out of bed."

"Don't let the thoughts convince you otherwise once you have made up your mind."

Melatonin is a pretty misunderstood supplement when it comes to sleep.

The substance is a chronobiotic, so it’s a time shifter — not a sleep aid.

Instead of taking melatonin right before bedtime, try taking it several hours earlier to alert your body that nighttime is coming.

"Melatonin is actually most effective at advancing your clock or making it easier for you to fall asleep earlier," she said. "So, under the advisement of a medical provider, melatonin can be a helpful tool."

Troxel, who specializes in sleep medicine, emphasized that melatonin is not recommended as a sleep aid by experts. Yet it can be a great tool for shifting your internal clock, especially in instances such as jet lag.

A sleep technique developed by UC Berkley’s Dr. Allison Harvey, a colleague of Dr. Troxel, uses the acronym RISE to promote a better waking routine.

"R" stands for refraining from hitting the snooze button on the alarm clock.

"The snooze button is not your friend," Troxel said. "All it does is cause an extended period of sleep inertia where you just struggle to shake cobwebs off."

"When the alarm clock goes off, hit it and get out of bed immediately," she added.

Visit medicine box homepage for more details.

"I" stands for increasing physical activity, whether this is engaging in a morning workout or exercising during the day to expel energy and reduce stress.

"S" stands for splashing your face with cold water or taking a cold shower upon waking — something that Troxel said has "a lot" of scientific evidence behind it.

"Really difficult for most, but it's effective," she said. "There's nothing like getting into a cold shower to really boost your alertness."

"E" stands for exposure to sunlight, which is a major factor in getting up and staying up.

For anyone who attempts the RISE technique, Troxel recommended sticking to it for 30 days — for the best chance of creating a new habit.

[flashlighttostreetlight]

Cherry Espresso, Laurel Street Firehouse, New Orleans, LA. The former 1910 firehouse, which was a community center up until Hurricane Katrina, sold at a city surplus property auction for $280K. As long as the zoning lords okay everything, the coffee shop will take over the ground floor with two apartments above it. There will also be an efficiency apartment in the rear building, which was once stables. The new owners, John and Sylvi Beaumont, are no strangers to renovations. Their home was once the Tulane frat house of Delta Kappa Epsilon.  This former firehouse was designed by noted New Orleans architect E. A. Christie. He designed more than 50 public schools, as well as fire stations and other works in the city. He also designed numerous expansions of existing schools. Several of his works are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. [Nola Curbed & Wikipedia]

#NOLA Curbed #New Orleans #E A Christy #photographers on tumblr #fine art photography #street photography #night photo walk #photoofthenight #photooftheday #long exposure #landscape #Cityscape #nightscape #nikon #nikon photography #Nikon photo #nikon shot #nikon photo contest

[tinyhousecalling]

c.1921 749 Sq Ft Turn-Key Home 2 Miles From French Quarter in NOLA $169,000

c.1921 749 Sq Ft Turn-Key Home 2 Miles From French Quarter in NOLA $169,000

Walking distance to eateries and more. Under 3 miles to City Park.  1612 N Miro St, New Orleans, LA, 70119 $169,000 2 bed 1 bath 749 sq ft 1,131 sq ft lot Build date 1921 Google Map Property Listing Realtor: Kari Kramer Ayala Related: c.1920 530 Sq Ft Small Shotgun House in Heart of Marigny in New Orleans About This c.1921 749 Sq Ft Turn-Key Home 2 Miles From French Quarter in NOLA Wow! Chic…

View On WordPress

#circa 1921 #curb appeal #new orleans #New Orleans la #nola #old house #old small house #shotgun house #shotgun style house #small home #small homes #small house #small houses #small old house #tiny home #tiny homes #tiny house #tiny houses #Turn-key small

[sunmoonandeddie]

and he kissed me right here

pairing: modern!bucky barnes x reader

word count: 6,100

summary: I've always been sure that all I ever wanted was a glamorous life.

warnings: Cuss words, mentions of the Afghanistan war (Bucky is a veteran), angst, happy ending, cheesy romantic confessions, age gap

a/n:  This is based on the song 'Stars and the Moon' from Songs for a New World! It's the first one shot in my musical series! This is written in first perspective, but there is no physical description or use of a name in this!

Twenty-Two

I sighed as I tossed a few more dirty plates into the dish window, wiping my brow. After a shitty dinner rush and an even shittier rush around two in the morning consisting only of drunk ass college kids looking for some sort of carb to suck up all the alcohol in their systems, I was ready to go the fuck home.

“Sweetheart, you head on home now,” the head chef insisted as he watched my head nod slightly as I tried my best to fight off sleep. “Ain’t nobody comin’ in before Melissa gets here. No point in you staying on your feet any longer.”

Louis was a godsend. At sixty-seven years old, you’d think he would rather be anywhere but a diner at almost four in the morning.

“Nah,” he had said when I’d asked him a few months after I’d first started. “My Ginny died a few years back, and since she’s been gone, I don’t really have the stomach to sit around that house all alone.” He had laughed, but there’d been a deep sorrow that had come over his deep brown eyes. “Kids are worried, but… Sleeping the day away is better than laying up at night staring at her side of the bed…”

“You sure, Lou?” I asked even as I headed for the back room where all the employees clocked in and kept their possessions in their own little cubbies. I did my checkout in view of the security camera, just like always. I didn’t want anyone to be able to say I stole anything.

Everyone who knew me knew that I wouldn’t, but I’d worked at two many places where the girls tried backstabbing each other and sabotaging everyone else to get them fired.

Though people were a lot nicer in Louisiana than any of the other places I’d lived.

Louis chuckled as he set a to-go box in the window, nodding towards it. “Mmhm. Long as Buck is getting you home safe.”

I gave him a joking eye roll as I took the to-go box gratefully, grinning at my name written in all caps with green Sharpie on top. “You know you don’t have to make me dinner every night.”

“Yes, I do,” he said, shooting me a look. “How else do I know you’re getting enough food in you, huh?” He pointed his rag at me. “Now you go ask him to get you home. Tell him I said he can clock out, and that he’s supposed to text me when he sees you safe inside. You better not say you’re gonna ask him again just to walk yourself home.” The old man shook his head as I headed for the back door, muttering to himself, “Damn girl thinks I’m gonna believe she’s feeding herself good enough when she’s risking her damn ass walking home alone.”

Despite the fact that I’d put off asking for Bucky Barnes’s service, I really did appreciate how fiercely Louis cared about me.

It had been a real long time since anyone had cared so much.

I hesitated at the back door of the diner, my hand resting against the cool metal.

What if he said no?

Granted, he most likely wouldn’t. But what if he said yes, and he secretly thought me some dumb little girl that couldn’t take care of herself?

What did I care if he thought that?

“I don’t care what he thinks of me,” I huffed as I straightened my shoulders, holding my chin a little higher.

“Stop talking to yourself and get going!”

I jumped in surprise, before shooting a glare in the direction of the kitchen. “Stop listening in on my private conversations!” I demanded before storming outside with new found vigor.

Only to freeze when Bucky looked up from where he was sitting on the curb, smoking a cigarette.

God, he was handsome.

“You okay, doll face?” He asked, his New York accent a sharp contrast to the southern drawls you were used to.

“Um… Y-Yeah,” I said faintly, glancing back at the door that I’d come in from. “Um… L-Louis wants me to ask you… Can you walk me home? Or give me a ride? I don’t… I don’t know if you drive…”

“I do drive.”

“O-Oh. Okay. Great.”

“But I don’t have my car on me.”

I peered at him curiously. “Oh. Um… I can just walk by myself. I don’t wanna… I don’t wanna be a nuisance…”

He stood up, tossing his cigarette to the ground and stomping it out. “Don’t be ridiculous, darlin.’ Come on. I’ll walk you.” He shoved his hands in his pockets as he began to head for the street. “Besides… It’s a real nice night.”

“Oh…,” I said in surprise at how ready he was to be of service. “Okay. But only if you’re sure.”

A faint smile graced his lips as he glanced at the ground, letting out a faint chuckle that rumbled deep in his chest. “I’m sure, darlin.’ But you gotta lead the way.”

I was surprised by the rapid pitter patter of my heart beat as we walked side by side down the street, the chorus of ‘Yellow Brick Road’ getting stuck in my head on a loop.

Bucky was an enigma that I found myself wondering about more often than not, but I always ended up talking myself out of going there. After all, he was an older man. A much older man. At least fifteen years older than my own twenty-two years, or something along those lines, not that he looked it. The man looked like some kind of rugged Greek god. Like Hades if Hades was born in the eighties. His dog tags clinked together under his shirt as we walked, his metal prosthetic glinting in the moon.

“So how did you end up in NOLA?”

It took me a moment to even realize that he was talking to me, my heart skipping a beat and my face going hot in embarrassment. “I’m sorry, what did you say?” I asked.

His bright blue eyes flickered over to look me over. “How’d you end up in New Orleans?”

“I actually don’t know,” I snorted, avoiding his eyes as I kicked at a few broken up pieces of asphalt. “I just… Picked a bus ticket and ended up in one of the Carolinas. Then I picked another bus ticket and ended up in Minnesota. And then I picked another, and another, and another, and then I actually just… ended up here.” The months I’d spent alone on those Greyhounds felt both so long ago and also like it was just yesterday. “The diner was the first place someone recommended for food that’s good but cheap, and as I was eating my mountain of cheese fries, I saw the flyer that said they were hiring. So here I am now…”

“Huh,” he said, his brows furrowed. “I didn’t take you for the type of person to run off on your own… riding buses all over the country…”

Head tilting to the side, I gave him a long look. “You didn’t? What kind of type did you peg me for?”

Bucky gave me a long look, a single brow raised as though silently telling me that I jumped to conclusions. “Just that jumping from place to place can take a lot outta someone,” he said slowly, his voice low and soothing. “Hell, if you were my girl—” He broke off as his cheeks flushed a pretty shade of pink, his long hair falling in his face.

I swore my heart had stopped inside of my chest, and I swallowed thickly around the lump in my throat. “Oh?”

He rushed to try to correct his wording. “I-I just mean, a lady should be comfortable. And if I had a g-girl like you, well… You’d never want for anything,” he stammered, stumbling over his words like a flustered school boy. “Hell, I… I’d give you the stars and the moon…”

I was shocked into silence, staring up at him like he was the sun itself. “Bucky…”

“No, no, don’t say anything. I… I know that was a lot,” he insisted quietly, unable to meet your eyes as he stared up at the shitty apartment building you called home. “Hell, you probably don’t want a gross old man hitting on you.” His metal hand, glinting in the low light of the street lamp, reached up to brush against my cheek for just a moment before it quickly dropped. “Just let me walk you home each night so I can make sure you’re safe, yeah?”

“Yeah,” I breathed out, unable to take my eyes off of him as he took a few steps back.

There’s a somewhat playful smirk on his lips as he watched me stumble up the steps, continuously glancing back at him. “Goodnight, baby doll.”

“Goodnight,” I said, barely audible before I finally headed inside.

Bucky kept his word. He walked me home every night, and honestly, there wasn’t a moment that I wasn’t thinking about what he had said, about if I was his girl.

What if I was his girl?

But… with that meant I’d have to give up the life I’d dreamed for myself. I wanted luxury, to never worry about bills or where I was gonna get my next meal or if I could afford to buy the nice work shoes or if I could only get the cheap ones that would fall apart in three months and then I’d just be right back where I started.

I wanted the life that celebrities lived. Hell, I wanted to go to parties on the same yachts the Kardashian-Jenners did, even if I couldn’t fucking stand them.

And with Bucky… I wouldn’t have that.

“So why’d you go on the run anyway?” Bucky asked one night as we sat on the curb, eating ice cream in the Louisiana heat. “I know you told me how you got here, but you’ve never told me why.”

“You’ve never told me how you ended up here or why either,” I shot back, nudging his shoulder with my own.

Somehow the age difference seemed non-existent as we sat there. Honestly, I felt like we were just a bunch of dumb teenagers, shooting the shit and enjoying each other’s company.

Bucky took in a deep breath, his shoulders sinking in a way that made it look like he had all the weight of the world on his shoulders. “I was over in Afghanistan for a long time,” he admitted quietly. “When the war first started, I was 19. I had no idea where my life was going and I had no options except my dad’s mechanic shop. So I enlisted with my best friend, Steve. The one I told you about.”

It’s completely silent except for the sound of an occasional car horn off in the distance.

“Neither one of us knew what we were doing. We realized very quickly that we had no reason being over there, but… but there was nothing else,” he said, swallowing around the lump in his throat. The ice cream he was holding was melting in his trembling hands. “I didn’t know how to do anything else, so I stayed. Steve moved up in the ranks, but I stayed pretty low… I didn’t mind. Kinda liked being the older guy all those young kids could talk to, could rely on… Because they were just like me, getting into a fight that wasn’t theirs because they had nothing else.”

My heart was shattering inside my chest as I scooted a little closer, my knee knocking against his as I tried to give him some sort of silent comfort. He’d been through Hell and made it through.

Bucky let his head rest against mine, his eyes closing as he breathed in the scent of my perfume. “They eventually moved me to some kind of specialized team… Called us the Howling Commandos. I found out that Steve was heading it and he picked me to be part of it. That’s how I met Sam, because he was on some sort of similar team with the Air Force, except it was just him and his friend, Riley,” he continued, taking a bite of his chocolate fudge brownie ice cream. “I am proud to say that I didn’t kill a single person while I was over there. I just couldn’t. Hell, they’re people just like me, terrified and unsure of what’s going to happen.” His lips pressed against my forehead, letting it linger. “But then about five years ago, I was on a mission with the Commandos, Sam, and Riley, and… this bomb went off while we were playing a game of soccer. I wasn’t even in a fight. That thing took my arm and it took Riley.”

Tentatively, I let my fingers find his, holding his hand and squeezing reassuringly.

“Sam decided to come home with me.” There was a forlorn look in his eyes, as though he was right back at that game of pick-up soccer. “After losing Riley… he couldn’t find a reason to be over there. And then Steve decided to stay, and hell, he’s still over there, leading that fucking team…” Glassy baby blue eyes finally found mine, the both of us doing our best to not cry. “I couldn’t face my family for a long time, so Sam asked me to come stay in Louisiana with him and his family, and I haven’t left since.”

“Have you gone to see your family?” I asked slowly, almost like I was scared I’d frighten him if I spoke too loudly, like a wild animal. “Let them know where you are? That you’re safe?”

He turned to look at me, his baby blues shining. “You worried about me, baby doll?”

“I can’t help it,” I said honestly, unable to tear my eyes away. I hadn’t opened up to someone like that in so damn long. “I can’t help but worry about you.”

The way that I felt about Bucky absolutely terrified me, but there was nothing I could do to stop it. It snuck up on me, like a train coming around a bend.

I hated it.

“What do you want out of this life?” Bucky asked on one walk home, his arm linked in mine. He’d become so much more… tactile. If anyone took a moment to look at us, they’d think we were a couple on a romantic stroll.

Perhaps we were.

But I couldn’t help but grin as I looked up at the sky, taking in the warm air. “I wanna live like how the movie stars do… I want a big house on the beach and twenty cars and a yacht and… and…”

He looked at me long and hard. “And you never wanna have to worry about where your next meal is coming from, if you’re gonna have a place to sleep at night…”

For some reason, I’d felt a bolt of panic over whether or not he’d understand. Whether or not he’d think differently of me, but I should’ve known that he wouldn’t. Hell, he knew me better than anyone else.

“You understand,” I said quietly, my hand squeezing his bicep gratefully. “I want to live how the other half lives for once. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.”

A small smile graced his features as we shuffled along. “There isn’t. But… What about love?” He asked.

“Love?”

“Love.”

Love.

Could I even have love? Did I want it?

“I don’t know if there’s a lot of room for love in my plans,” I admitted after a long moment. “In my experience, love has always just been a lie. A word used to manipulate and eventually abuse.”

Letting out a snort, he let his fingers tickle down my tricep until his fingers intertwined with mine. “I’d show you it’s not… I’d show you what real love is,” he said. “I’d give you every part of me, give you all my strength to help you grow into who you wanna be, even if I don’t particularly care about being famous or rich…” He brought my hand to his lips, kissing my knuckles. “I’ll give you a love story, a life, that’s a million times better than any recycled Hollywood plot… I’ll give you the stars and the moon, if you would just let me.”

I hated the way that he made my heart beat faster, the way my breath hitched. “Jamie,” I breathed out quietly, the two of us having stopped in our tracks to just… take each other in. Live in each other’s presence for a moment. “I…”

“You want a big life… one a lot bigger than little old me,” he said simply, shrugging. His blue eyes were so honest, so loving. So warm. A warmth I hadn’t ever experienced before. “I know. But that doesn’t change that I’m in love with you. And if you ever change your mind…” Bucky reached into his pocket and pulled out a business card, pressing it into my free hand. “This is where you can find me. I figure it’s time for me to go home.”

We’d come to a stop in front of my building, and I was shocked at how tight my chest felt. My eyes watered as I stared at him long and hard. “Jamie, please… I⏤”

“Don’t say it. It’s okay,” he insisted as he cupped my cheek, letting his thumb run over my skin as though he was memorizing it. “I just want you to be happy, darling. You got that?” His lips pressed to my forehead, letting it linger. “Go get that life you’ve been dreaming of.”

Twenty-Three

I left New Orleans the next day, grabbing a bus ticket after throwing all of my belongings into my old duffel bag. It was time to move on.

But God, did it hurt.

I didn’t stop crying for weeks, fighting the urge to go right back to Louisiana and tell Bucky to take it back, to get him to beg me to stay with him.

But what kind of life would that leave me with? Working in the diner day after day? Never getting anywhere?

But you’d have James, a voice inside my head reminded me snarkily.

Then again, he most likely wasn’t even in New Orleans anymore, if what he said was true when he gave me the business card of his father’s mechanic shop. Was he really planning on going home to New York City?

A few months later, and I’d worked my way all through the southwest to Santa Fe, where I met Pietro.

My heart was pounding as I pressed in the familiar numbers, having memorized them from the business card now soft and faded from how often I held it in my hands like a lifeline. “Come on… Pick up… Pick up…”

“Barnes Tires and Motors, this is George,” a man said in a gruff voice when he finally picked up. “How can I help you?”

“H-Hi, is James there? James Barnes? Bucky?” I stammered out, hands trembling so bad that the old payphone was almost rattling.

There was a pause, and then muffled talking away from the phone.

And then I heard it being picked up. “This is Bucky,” he said.

It felt like the wind had been knocked right out of my lungs. How had I gone so long without hearing his voice?

Breathing in sharply, I tried to figure out the words to say. But my throat was dry and it was like I’d suddenly forgotten the entire English language.

That was all that it took for Bucky to realize it was me. “Baby doll? Baby doll, is that you?” He asked quietly. “I…” He took in a deep breath, trying to calm himself down. “You don’t gotta say a thing, sweetheart… But just know that if you’re in trouble or you need help or… or anything at all, you better call me…” His voice wavered, as though he was fighting tears just like I was. “God, I miss you so much, baby doll. I love you.”

I love you, too.

I hung up before I could actually say the words. “God, I’m so fucking stupid,” I whispered as I leaned back against the wall of the gas station I’d found myself at, rubbing the heels of my hands into my eyes.

My dumb ass had decided to wander from the bus station, and I’d walked over a mile away. Unless I was staying in Santa Fe for a bit, I’d need to start making my way back.

“You okay?”

In my distress, I hadn’t even heard the rumbling of the motorcycle or noticed the handsome man making his way to me. “Uh, yeah. Yeah, I’m fine,” I said even as I wiped my nose with a pathetic sniffle.

He eyed me for a long moment, his eyes roaming over my figure. “You hungry? I know a great little place nearby. My treat.”

And well, I was never one to turn down free food.

Even if that ‘little place’ ended up being a food truck.

“You know, when you said it was a little place, I didn’t picture it having wheels,” I said teasingly, licking salsa off of my lower lip. “Though, it is the best food I’ve ever gotten from a food truck before.”

“Oh, come on. This is the best food of all time!” He laughed, shaking his head.

“I don’t know if I’d go that far,” I snorted, finishing off my flautas.

Pietro looked at me long and hard. “So, are you gonna tell me what the hell was going on to have a pretty girl like you all teary eyed?” He asked, his head tilting to the side.

I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. “Was this your plan all along?” I asked. Wiping my hands off on a napkin, I did everything I could to avoid his eyes. “Get me all fed and then question me?” But at the same time, the thought of being able to finally talk to someone about it was so appealing… After a long moment of hesitation, I finally gave in. “I fell in love with a man, and he let me go because he knew that I want a life he can’t give me,” I said. “And I was a bitch who didn’t even tell him I love him back when he said it to me.”

Pietro took in a deep breath, slowly letting it out. “Damn. You really are a stone cold bitch, aren’t you?”

“Hey!” I indignantly threw a chunk of tomato at him, glaring. “I just opened up my heart, you dickwad.”

“Dickwad?!” He said, blinking at me in shock. “No one’s ever called me a dickwad before.”

I raised a single eyebrow at him. “Maybe not to your face, but they definitely have.” He gave off the vibe of a fuckboy, of a really, really bad fuckboy.

“Well, since you’re running away from your feelings, how about you spend a week or two with me on the road?” He asked with a grin.

I couldn’t help but blink at him in shock. “What?” I let out a laugh, pulling one of my legs up to my chest. “Do you throw that line out to every girl you meet? Or am I just special?”

Pietro threw a chip at me, and I barely managed to dodge it. “No, I don’t. But… You remind me of me. Needing adventure. A life bigger than four walls and a fence.”

Instinctively, I wanted to snap back that sometimes, four walls and a fence could be an adventure, could be the biggest life there was, as Bucky’s face flashed across my mind.

But I couldn’t do that. Not when I wasn’t ready to face the truth myself.

“Come on, sweet cheeks,” he teased as his foot hooked around mine. “Just think of it. The open highway, a rhythm beneath your feet… Nights full of passion and days of adventure…” Pietro’s voice was deep and husky, as though he was trying to lure me in. “No strings… just warm summer rain soaking us to the bone before we find some cheap motel to huddle down in…”

Plastering on a smile, I stood up and brushed myself on. “Thanks, but… I’d rather be drinking champagne, and the quicker I get to LA, the sooner I will be.”

He let me go with a kiss on the cheek and his cell number pressed into my hand, with a promise to come and pick me up the second I rang.

And despite how sweet he was, how wild and funny and charismatic, there was only one man I wanted to call.

Twenty-Four

I sipped at my martini as I sat at the rooftop bar, absentmindedly watching the television that was mounted on the wall as people droned around me. I’d been in Los Angeles for a year, and I’d spent my time finding the best places to find a husband who could give me the life I dreamed of.

As much as I didn’t want to admit it, it took connections to build a career, and the best way to get a foot in the door when nepotism was so rampant was by marrying someone in the industry.

My silk dress was the most expensive thing I owned, something I’d saved up for months for, had skipped meals for. And fuck, was it worth it. I could feel the stares, the lingering gazes on the little bit of thigh that was exposed by the slit in the dress.

I’d already turned away several men, able to tell just from their expensive watches and cheap suits and shoes.

It was amazing how all the up and coming finance bros thought they fit in with the truly big dogs.

“Well, hello, gorgeous.”

I turned to see who was speaking, my heart skipping a beat when I realized who I was speaking to.

The world famous (or infamous) director, Tony Stark.

“Hello, handsome,” I said smoothly, my lashes fluttering innocently as I took a sip of my horrible drink.

I fucking hated martinis. Always had.

But ordering a martini was more sophisticated than ordering a frozen strawberry margarita.

“Is this seat taken?” He asked as he motioned to the empty bar stool right next to me, even as he was already sitting down. “Let me buy your next round.”

“I can’t think of anything better,” I said, feeling as though my dream life was already in reach.

Twenty-Eight

“Tony, where are you taking me?” I laughed as I let my boyfriend lead me to the private dock at our Malibu mansion.

Well, his mansion. I just happened to also live there.

It had been a whirlwind of a year since I had met Tony, and he’d bought me that second round. He’d taken me all over the globe, anywhere my heart desired.

But I made sure to avoid New York City, though he never understood why. I would never tell him.

Not when I was so close to my dream. I could practically taste it.

“Come on, come on. I have a surprise for you,” he said, keeping his hands over my eyes. He was sure to keep me from tripping and busting my ass, thank god.

The ocean waves were so comforting as they hit the shore, a sound I’d gotten used to over the past year.

He finally brought me to a stop, quietly telling me to keep my eyes closed. “Okay,” he said finally. “Open them.”

My eyes slowly opened, adjusting to the bright light of the California sun. But I was more shocked by the sight of Tony on one knee in front of me, holding out a box with a sparkling diamond ring in it. “Tony?”

The ring was the size of a fucking meteor. It was easily the biggest ring I’d ever seen.

“You know, I never thought I’d meet someone like you,” he said quietly, his dark eyes shining. But his voice was steady. “Someone who understands me, who doesn’t expect me to change into someone I’m not. You accept me as I am, and that’s why I want to give you the world.” He couldn’t help but grin as he nodded to the right. “Starting with that yacht you’ve always dreamed of.”

I hadn’t even noticed that there were two yachts at his private docks instead of just the one. The new one had SS Princess emblazoned on the side, and I couldn’t help but laugh. “Oh… Tony…”

“So, what do you say?” He asked, bringing my attention back to him. “Will you be my wife?”

“Yes.”

Thirty-Two

Swallowing nervously, I looked down at the business card in my hand for the millionth time, the stock paper soft from how often I’d looked at it in the past ten years.

Hell, just how often I’d looked at it in the past six should’ve made it fall apart by now. Not that I didn’t have it memorized.

I’d finally ended my marriage after being miserable for so long. I’d gotten my yacht, my fancy houses, my career, all the jewelry that I could dream of, and none of it made me happy. Tony and I… never grew. And I never dreamed. Every day was the same, and every day was torture as I realized that I didn’t have the one thing that actually mattered.

The garage in front of me was busy, music blasting and the sound of men shouting to each other as they worked.

Suddenly I felt absolutely ridiculous wearing a Chanel dress and Gucci heels, an Hermés bag on my arm.

BARNES TIRES AND MOTORS was lit up along the top of the shop in bright red letters, though the lights in the ‘r’ of ‘motors’ were out.

I felt like a fool. I had wanted the life I had so desperately that I gave up everything for it. I got the movie star life, my name on billboards and my face on magazines.

But it wasn’t ever enough.

My heels clicked against the blacktop as I slowly made my way towards the front area of the shop, bells clinging above my head to let them know someone was there.

“Can I help you, ma’am?” A man asked as he came around the corner.

He looked so much like Bucky, it punched the air straight from my lungs.

“H-Hi. I’m looking for James Barnes. Is he here?” I asked after a long moment of hesitation. There was no way that the man was Bucky, but I didn’t doubt he was related.

The man raised his brows, wiping his hands on a rag. “My son’s in the shop. I’ll take you to him.” His full head of hair was white, his thick facial hair matching. Even with all the wrinkles on his face, he was a handsome man. Holding open the door for me, he led me into the loud shop, some eighties rock song blasting over the speakers.

I couldn’t help but smile as ‘Rock You Like a Hurricane’ by Scorpions came on. It was one of Bucky’s favorites back when we worked in the diner together.

“BUCK! YOU GOT A VISITOR!” The man shouted, causing several people to look our way.

My cheeks felt hot as I avoided their gaze, hoping they wouldn’t recognize me. I didn’t want to be a famous movie star anymore, a celebrity that had to beg for scraps of privacy.

My mind went numb, my heart stopping inside my chest as he stepped around a gray Ford Escape another man was working on.

He was even more handsome than he was the last time I saw him.

“Can I help y—” He broke off, his blue eyes going wide when he realized that it was me. “Hi.”

All of a sudden, everything I’d planned to say flew out of my head. All of the eloquent words I’d strung together were gone. And I just proceeded to word vomit.

“Did you know that, uh, when you marry someone you’re not in love with, you won’t… you won’t grow into it?” I asked, my voice shaking. “Um… I married a man who could give me a life I thought I always wanted, and he just… sucked.” Eyes stinging, I fought back against tears. “And I thought that all I ever wanted was the life I have now, was the life movie stars and the Kardashians lived. But… But I hate it. I hated every second I was away from you.” I let out a weak laugh, unable to stop the tears. “I wanted to turn around the second I got on the bus in New Orleans, but my stupid stubborn ass didn’t. I should have. I should’ve gotten off and just run right back to you because I… I love you, James. I always have.”

The garage had gone almost deadly quiet, and my heart sank when I realized Bucky looked almost frozen in shock.

“I know that I shouldn’t have showed up like this,” I scrambled to say. “But I… I’ve been trying to get my divorce finalized for two years and I finally did, and I kept telling myself that once it was done, I’d never hold myself back from what I really want ever again. From who I want. If… If you want me.” My face felt like it was on fire, my hands shaking. I shook my head as I took a step backwards. “What am I thinking? There’s no way you’re not married. I… I’m so so—”

Before I could finish the word ‘sorry,’ Bucky had closed the distance between us, his hands cradling my face so gently. He held me like I was made of fine crystal as he kissed me. He kissed me like his life depended on it, like I was the one source of oxygen.

And I kissed him back just as fiercely. “I love you. I love you so much,” I breathed out in between kisses, unwilling to let him go as my Hermés bag fell into the dust and oil on the concrete below.

Bucky smiled into the kiss, his arm wrapping around my waist to keep me pressed to his chest. “I love you so much, darlin.’ God, I’ve missed you…” His nose nudged against mine as we finally broke for air, both of us breathing heavily.

My knees felt like Jell-O as I held onto him. His grip was the only reason I hadn’t fallen to the ground already.

“I’m sorry I was a dumb twenty-two year old,” I said, snorting as he stole another kiss.

“No… Don’t be sorry,” he insisted, his fingers massaging my scalp as our foreheads pressed together. It was like he was scared to stop touching me, like I would disappear at any second. “You were young… You had to go out and make your own mistakes… I’ve just been waiting for the day you were ready.”

All the years apart melted away and all that remained was the two of us, two souls so intertwined that there was no way to truly separate us.

Our lips were half molded together as I said, “I’m never leaving you again. I promise I swear on everything…”

My heart almost stopped inside my chest as I heard someone clearing their throat, looking to see Bucky’s father staring at us with his arms crossed over his chest. “M-Mr. Barnes, sir…”

He gave a crooked smile that was so reminiscent of Bucky that I couldn’t help but grin back. “The Mrs. will wanna know if you’re staying for dinner.”

“Yeah,” I said as I looked up at Bucky, toying with a strand of his hair. “That sounds perfect.”

Later that night, Bucky and I laid in his bed, a mess of bare limbs as his fingers ran up and down my back soothingly. “What do you want from this life, baby girl?” He asked absentmindedly.

Humming, I traced shapes on his bare chest, sometimes pressing a kiss to where his prosthetic met his shoulder, on the tender scar tissue. “You.”

A grin tugged at the corner of his mouth, despite the already mischievous look on his face. “Really? Not even the stars and the moon?” He asked teasingly.

I knew he’d give it to me anyway, give me all that he could. But I was sure now that the only thing I wanted from this life was his love. “Not even the stars and the moon.”

#bucky barnes x reader #bucky x reader #bucky x y/n #bucky barnes x y/n #bucky barnes reader insert

[toomanyrobins2]

sweeter than honey pt. 6

Summary: Y/N “Honey” Cirillo has been many things in her short life: an unwanted child, a dancing prodigy, a teen mom, and now she’s a replacement bride. After her sister runs away, Y/N is forced to take her place and marry into the Barton family. The Three Families are already dealing with enough. With the murder of a high-ranking member and HYDRA continuing to make threats, they need this marriage to go ahead without a hitch. Can Clint and Y/n find happiness or is there too much against them?

Pairing: Clint Barton x Reader

Content warning: Arranged marriage, sex, violence, murder

Notes: It is honestly so hard to believe I’m already on book 3 of the Three Families Series! Thank you to everyone who’s interacted with these stories so far 💛

series masterlist // next part

TWO WEEKS LATER

Since their engagement party, Y/N was actively avoiding anything related to the Three Families. It bothered her that what she has seen bothered her. The end of the night left a bitter taste in her mouth and when she wasn’t working, she was practically barricaded in the apartment. 

Clint had texted her about setting up a moving date, but she had left the message on read. Finally, he broke and sat outside the hospital until she walked out at the end of her shift. He pulled up the curb and rolled down the window, “Hi, wifey. Get in.” Y/N just stared at him until he sighed, “Please.”

She reluctantly climbed in and kept as much distance between them as possible. As soon as she was seated, Clint locked all the doors in the car, trapping her in. They drove to her apartment in complete silence  but when she tried to get out, he kept the doors locked 

“You’ve been avoiding me and I don’t like it. I’m not letting you out until you talk to me.” Y/N worried at her bottom lip, but didn’t speak. She just stared forward and refused to look him in the eyes. Clint huffed, “Fine. I’m just going to ramble until you go crazy and talk. Where to begin…I saw a homeless guy on my run this morning — had a couple dollars —Gave it to him which was nice — but then I couldn’t get coffee — Thankfully, my friends were at my house and made me breakfast — They do that sometimes — Usually Bucky when he’s hiding from one of his lady friends — He has a lot of those — Anyway, back to coffee, I drink a lot of it — An unhealthy amount some might say — So whenever you go shopping it’s probably a good idea to pick some up — Also I’m running low on toilet paper — it’s important that you know I really don’t like Charmin — The bears really freak me out —It’s like if Winnie the Pooh was telling me to wipe my ass—“

“Oh! My! God!” Y/N leaned over the center console and put her hand over his mouth, “Stop speaking.”

He mumbled against her hand and she pulled it away. “Tell me what’s wrong. Or I’ll start talking again.”

“I’m mad at you for how reckless you were at the party. Anyone could have caught you and you’re lucky it was me! I’m angry that I’m even in this position. I’m nervous about moving in and how this is all going to go. And don’t even get me started on you and Nola.”

“I mean I know I’m an idiot, but I know how to keep a kid alive. Feed it, water it, and don’t let it play with fire. Ease to the pease.”

Y/N looked up to the sky, wondering how the universe saw fit to shackle her to this infuriating man. “First of all, she is not an it. Second of all, I don’t even know where to begin with your analysis of child care. Third, I’m not worried you’ll kill her…well I wasn’t until you just spoke.” Clint just grinned at her as she sighed, “You need to understand something if we are going to be married. I never had a good relationship with my parents. Every few years they decide to try and actually have a real marriage. After they had the twins, they’d done their part and had an heir and a spare. During one of their “reconciliations”, I was conceived. By the time my mom gave birth, it had all fallen apart again. My father and her have more affairs than I can count. I spent most of my life raised by nannies, watching from afar as the twins were doted on by my parents. As I got older I thought if I acted out enough they would see me. I partied, slept around and tried to get them to notice. When I was 16, I found out I was pregnant. Something in me just switched. Every priority I had changed to Eleanor. I hid my pregnancy as long as I could and by the time my family found out, it was too late. They tried to convince me to move away to have her and then give her up for adoption. I refused so they kicked me. My friends found me when I was in a really dark place and pulled me out. They gave us a home and a job. They’re the reason Nola and I are as lucky as we are and they are the most important people in my life. They’re the only family Nola has ever had. I have an amazing family that came together to help me and it’s made up of people who have no reason to support me as much as they did.” She took a deep breath, having said all of that in one long breath.

“What does this have to do with me?”

Y/N looked at him and Clint saw the fierceness in her eyes, “I couldn’t even comprehend how my mother was as cold and unloving as she was to me. When I held my baby for the first time, I knew that I would do anything to make sure that she was loved and that she never doubted it. I worry that you and the others won’t accept her the way she deserves. I never want her to doubt that she has people in her corner and with danger that I’ve been told is coming, I’m scared for her. I’m really scared. My kid comes first before anything else.”

For the first time, Clint had a serious face “It’s my turn to speak now. You’re right to be scared. HYDRA is a serious threat, but they’re not getting close to you and Nola. I will protect you and that’s a promise. She’s not the first kid to be brought into the Families who’s not genetically related and I hope she’s not the last. We have a habit of picking up strays and loving them fiercely. I’m already in her corner and yours and I don’t plan on leaving. Okay?” Y/N nodded but he wasn’t sure that she understood how serious he was. Still, he unlocked the door and she got out. 

Before she walked away, Clint called after her, “Oh, and Honey, start answering my texts. You’re gonna have to move in eventually.”

Eventually ended up being that weekend. Y/N had done what Clint had told her and answered his texts. He couldn’t help but laugh at how short she was in her texts, trying to give one-word answers as much as possible. He’d managed to convince her to let him come by the apartment, meet Nola, and together they sat down to plan their new home. For someone who had had no men in her life, Nola took to Clint like a fish to water. The two of them sat on the couch eating Oreos while she told him all about her dream bedroom. Y/N sat across from them watching as her daughter explained the Disney princess-outer space combo that she didn’t just want, she needed it. Y/N tried not to laugh at the growing panicked look on Clint’s face. Finally, she cut in, “Why don’t you go get the book you’re reading for me, babes.”

“Okay, mama,” the energetic five-year-old shot out of the room.

As soon as she disappeared, Clint turned to her, ““I don’t think I can be a good stepdad. I don’t know what girls like! What Disney princess is the best? Is pink really superior? She wants to be a doctor and an astronaut all while being a princess. How the hell do I make that happen?”

Y/N was trying not to laugh at the obvious panic, “The fact that you even care about this means that you will be fine. Nola had never had a father figure and has nothing to compare it to. Just love her and support her.”

“That’s it?”

“Well, it’s a little more complicated. I mean it is shaping a human being, but love and unconditional support go a long way.”

Clint’s brows furrowed but he looked determined, “I can do that.”

Y/N couldn’t stop the smile that grew as she saw how determined he was to be involved and do right by Nola. It was hard for her to figure out which version of him was real. Was he the man who shoved her into corners and fucked women at their engagement party or was he the man who split Oreos with Nola and was currently pulling up a list of all Disney princesses and who was considered best. 

#toomanyrobins #avengers imagine #avengers #avengers au #avengers x reader #mafia!au #mob!au #mafia au #mafia!avengers #mob au #mob!avengers #steve rogers imagine #steve rogers x reader #peter parker imagine #peter parker x reader #clint barton imagine #clint barton x reader #Clint barton #Hawkeye #hawkeye x reader #hawkeye imagine #mafia!clint #marvel #marvel au #marvel imagine #🍯

[angstymarshmallow]

a world away (cal lowell x mc)

[a little note: i wanted to write a little bit of Halloween fluff before the end of  night...i was close enough. This is supposed to take place within the same universe as The Wolf’s Heart AU.There isn’t really a plot here, just a small page in their lives.]

[word count: 2070]

-

“This costume looks so dumb.” Donny complained, glancing up at himself from the mirror down the hall for probably the fourteenth time in the last half an hour.

Not that Wren actually knew how long the kid was standing there. She had to put the finishing touches on her costume, but if she had to make an educated guess – she figured it was closing in on that half an hour mark. But she tried to push the irritation she felt aside. Just because they both had a date and she offered to drive him; didn’t mean he was going to open up to her.

He looked pretty panicked though and Wren was weighing the options of asking him outright, rather sweeping his obvious dismay under the rug.  

Cal wouldn’t wait at The Howlers forever. Plus, today was supposed to be date night and coincidentally it was also Halloween. She was to have left ages ago, but whatever mini-breakdown his brother was having wasn’t going anywhere unless they addressed it.

Wren had offered to drop Donny off at a Halloween party down the street from his school, but Donny hadn’t budged in the last half an hour and Wren was starting to lose her patience. While she didn’t have a lot of patience to begin with, the little she had had to be enough for some tough love if she was going to meet her mate tonight. Even her costume was starting to rub irritatingly onto her skin and she rubbed the dark leather absently before jerking her chin at him.

“Look kid,” she started, eyeing his Dean Winchester costume from head to toe. He had a pretty good set-up and had even styled his hair similar to Dean’s on the show. “You’d make a great hunter,” she gestured to the fake gun by his hip. “And this makes a pretty nice addition.”

“You’re supposed to say that.” Donny retorted, frowning. Still, he looked a little more like himself again as he patted down the sides of his jeans.

“I’m not supposed to say anything.” Wren drawled. “If you looked like a doofus, I would tell you.” She snorted. Leaning against the banister, she folded her arms. “You’re only nervous because you’ve finally had the courage to ask him out and you’re worried he won’t show up.”

He scoffed but Wren was pretty sure she could see the tips of his ears turning red. “No way, I don’t care if he doesn’t make it.”

“Uh-huh.” She rolled her eyes. “If that was the case, you wouldn’t have invited Theo.”

“Maybe it was a mistake.” Donny replied, shaking his head. “I mean he said yes, but maybe I’m looking for something that isn’t–”

“Cut the shit Donny.” She dropped her arms, jutted her chin out defiantly.

He avoided eye contact. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“The hell you don’t.” Noticing the flash of hurt in his eyes, she changed gears. “I see the way you two look at each other. I see how much he makes you smile. How much he makes you laugh. That stuff is genuine.” They had never talked about his crush on Theo before, and it had taken her some time to even realize it. But Wren didn’t want him to think his experience wasn’t at all valid. “You like him, and that’s perfectly okay.  It’s more than okay and don’t give anyone the time of day that makes you think experiences like this aren’t valid. You’re allowed to explore. You’re allowed to question and date anyone.” She said the words a-matter-of-factly, reaching out to hesitantly squeeze his arm.

Donny’s face twisted, but he made no move to protest. He didn’t pull away either.

It was as good as it was going to get. “And I get it okay. Why you’re nervous. Why you don’t think he’ll show up.” She took a breath, wracking her brains for the right words to formulate themselves. She was still getting used to being open, to having family. Because Donny and Cal were her only family.

“There were a couple times when I thought Cal wouldn’t. Show up, I mean. He wouldn’t be the first person to give up on me.” She shrugged as she said the words, being careful not to trip over them. They were coming straight from the heart.

“But every time I needed him, even when I…when I didn’t realize I needed him, he was still there. He was always there. He never ran at the first sign of trouble.” She broke her sentence to look away, fumbling to explain. “We’ve been through so much shit together and he’s been there.” She ran a finger through her hair. “We all have been though a lot together. You’ve been through stuff since then and you’ve still come out on the other side.” She continued seriously, glancing at him. “You’re a good kid and any guy would be lucky to have you.”

The reddish tinge to Donny’s ears traveled down the rest of his face. He looked away just barely with enough time for Wren to miss his smile. “Thanks.” He said the word slowly, “I think….” He released a breath. “I think I needed to hear that.”

Throat suddenly aching, it took all of Wren’s willpower not to crush the kid to her chest. He could be adorable when he wanted to be. Instead, she settled for punching affectionately on the arm. “That’s what I’m here for.”

He winced and rubbed his shoulder. “Okay, your werewolf strength is starting to scare me.”

She laughed.

“Seriously, when did you get so strong?” He complained, blinking at her in disbelief.

“Probably the same time you grew up enough to finally develop some real taste.” She gestured to his costume. “Supernatural is a great show. Good for Halloween too.”

“Says the person dressed as Black Canary.” Donny retorted.

“Hey!!” She playfully bumped his shoulder before he tugged the front door open. “Canary is a total badass!” As far as Wren was concerned, she could kick anyone’s ass and then some.

“Sure, whatever.” He rolled his eyes and made a face at her back when she turned to lock the front door. “I can’t believe you even got Cal to dress up this year.”

“Green Canary is an iconic duo okay?”

“So you keep saying, but I’ve yet to see it in person.”

“Alright smart ass,” Giving him a smile, Wren opened her side of the door. “We’re marathoning through the Justice League this weekend.”

-

By the time Wren found a space to park, The Howlers was in full swing. She couldn’t remember a time when she had ever seen this many people from NOLA in one place – dressed as they were underneath the guise of a full moon, together. The place was overcrowded and her body had reacted almost on instinct to the change in temperature. She was still getting used to her new skin, and the wolf inside her was suddenly anxious to find her mate.

Still, Wren managed to curb the sudden feeling as she sniffed the air for his scent. The smell of sweat and whiskey was practically everywhere, and it was almost intoxicating being in the thick of it. She had to find a more open space area after ordering a drink from the bar.

Unsurprisingly, not every patron in the bar had been fashioning a costume. It seemed a lot of people preferred being in their own skin and tossed aside their glamours for the night rather than dressing up for a very human tradition.

Still, Wren was able to spot a few familiar faces and passed them with curt nods before she found who she was looking for.

He was wearing the mask, much to her sudden giddy excitement. Decked in full green and a fake bunch of arrows into his quiver, Cal Lowell managed to even make spandex look incredible. His well-defined muscles bunched together as he took a long swing of his drink. She bit her lower lip as she drifted her gaze down his firm ass and then up again.

When he turned around to greet her smile, he had a wolfish grin return. “There you are.”

She was nearly at his side in an instant and he placed a possessive arm across her waist. “Here I am,” she said breezily. She took a moment to inhale his familiar scent, musky and pine-coney smell that always managed to make her feel at ease. At home. No matter their circumstances. “Sorry, I just dropped Donny off.”

“Is he okay?” His brow creased. 

The concern he always had his brother was always adorable. It was one of the many things she loved about him. “Yeah, yeah. He’s fine. We uh,” she shifted her weight onto her other foot. “We had a little talk about the house party he’s at tonight. Did you know he asked Theo to come with him?”

“Yes, of course I did.” Cal chuckled at the flicker of surprise inside her eyes. “There’s nothing that kid can hide from me that I won’t see that from a mile away. Plus it’s easy when they make it so obvious.”

“You’re right, subtle isn’t something you Lowell brothers are known for.” Wren replies with a smirk.

“Ha, funny.” Cal’s mouth twitched to smile. “But seriously, I’m glad he did it. It was about time he did something for himself again.”

“Me too.” Wren agreed. “After everything he’s been through…the kid deserves a little break.” 

“He’s not the only one.” Cal sighs. “With how many hours I’ve putting into work, I need a vacation.”

Pressing into him, Wren drapes her tawny arms around his neck. “We need a vacation.” When was the last time they did something fun for the hell of it? Or didn’t have some kind of fire to put out?

“Point taken.” He bumped her nose affectionately with his. “We both need to get away for a little while.”

“And soon. Before something else breaks and we have to fix it.” Switching gears, Wren tangles her fingers through his hair. “I didn’t get to properly tell you how sexy you look in this.” She dropped her voice low. It was a husky octave that had Cal’s ears perking as she spoke.

“Funny, if I wasn’t the alpha I’m pretty sure spandex would warrant some kind of response.” Cal’s eyes were lit with amusement as he spoke. “Maybe even a bit of hazing.”

“No way, green a fuckin’ sexy colour on you.”

“You’re the one to talk, pretty bird.” He teased. Leaning forward, he caught her lower lip and sunk his teeth lightly into it.

She barely stifled a moan. “You have been watching Justice League without me!” Her voice wasn’t accusatory as much as it was in awe.

“Yup,” he raked her with a scorching stare that made a need for him swell inside her chest. “But she doesn’t look half as good as you do. Mostly because I don’t black leather has ever looked sexier.”

Grinning, Wren tossed her hair over her shoulder. “Oh, this old thing?” She made sure to lick her lips and give him a heated stare of her own. It must have worked because suddenly there was a hardness that was pressing intimately into her thigh that hadn’t been there before.

Wren slid a hand down the expansive width of his chest. “But I bet you say that to all the girls.”

“No.” With exaggerated slowness, he captured her hand and brought the skin to his lips. “Only my mate.” He murmured softly, before pressing a soft kiss there.

Her pulse fluttered at the contact. “No fair.” She said the words hoarsely.

“What’s not fair?” He replied, eyeing her innocently.

“That’s all it takes.” She shook her head.

All it had ever taken was one gesture for her to feel putty in his hands. One touch for her to feel like the rest of the world could disappear and Wren wouldn’t care so long as she still had Cal staring at her the way he was right now; with his eyes half a golden-daze and his smile still that vibrant colour she loved so much.

Their bond seemed to echo the thoughts that Wren couldn’t put into words quite yet, as Cal hid a smile and lowered his face towards her neck. He breathed deeply, letting out a soft sigh as he spoke quietly. “I know.”

The sincerity behind his eyes was almost too much, like they were reaching down to her soul.

“That’s all it takes for me too.”

And the effect is nearly instant. Her body shudders when she feels his lips cooling the most sensitive of spots across her body. Goosebumps quickly form as another kiss followed by another sent another round of shudders down her spine.  Listening to the sound of his breathing, as clearly as if it had been her own despite the loud remixed tunes playing inside the bar, Wren uttered the words low enough for Cal’s ears only. “Happy Halloween, I love you.”

When Cal straightened himself upright again, it was to leave just enough space  to capture her lips with a searing kiss, veiled by an unspoken promise for what was yet to come. For later, when they no longer had a world of people between them. “Happy Halloween, I love you too.”

But for now this was enough. This had to be enough. There was still the rest of the party waiting for them, still the pack to make her rounds to and still a bunch of drinks with her name written on them. But as Wren kissed him back and poured as much love as she could into every touch, every kiss; she allowed herself to forget about the rest of the world a little while longer.

-

#cal x mc #nightbound #cal lowell fanfiction #cal x mc fanfic #cal lowell #nightbound fanfiction #cal x wren #this isn't really halloweeny in the truest sense #but here's some light fluff #in the middle of writing other things #happy halloween folks #choices stories you play #donny lowell #choices #playchoices #playchoices fanfiction #choices fanfiction #an angstymarshmallow writes

[miss-m-calling]

Rare Pairs 2020 letter

Canons requested: American Gods (TV), The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Starred Up, Witchblade (TV),  킹덤 Kingdom (Netflix)

Dear writer,

Hello and thank you for writing for me. I’m very excited to read whatever you come up with.

Without further ado…

Requests:

American Gods (TV)

Laura Moon/Mad Sweeney

I ship it. Yes I do. They had me at “gimme-my-coin-dead-wife”-flicks-him-into-wall. The snarky road trip was the best thing I never knew I wanted until it happened, and I adored every second of it, not to mention the upped shippiness in S2. They’re both such assholes and so fascinating, even if they start to mellow toward each other a bit, and all the gods/magic/resurrection stuff swirling around them begs to be explored further. Also I love love love how their dynamic is about equal parts spikiness, pathos, and humor (they’re funny! and the canon doesn’t shy away from putting them in ludicrous situations), and it weaves seamlessly between those three. Plus she’s half his size yet can and does beat him up with literally one finger, and then there’s the angst of he having killed her, feeling really guilty about it, and then bringing her back. And the way that their New Orleans adventure makes clear they have feelings for each other (S1 was more one-sided Sweeney -> Laura) but neither wants to admit it. And and and… yeah, I just love them. Canon-specific DNWs: Sweeney dying/staying dead (at least permanently), Laura as Essie’s reincarnation/descendant or a reincarnation/whatever of Sweeney’s wife from back when he was a king in old Ireland (or a lot of focus on those relationships), either Laura or Sweeney as an inanimate corpse in a smut scenario

My prompts are a combo of prompts I had after I binged S1 and others I added throughout S2. Even if some of this is addressed or hinted at in canon, feel free to diverge – canon divergences and canon-adjacent stories are my jam!

-Please give me either missing scenes from the road trip (if you can work in a divergence, that’s great - for example, I like Salim, but if you want to have him boot Sweeney and Laura to the curb and go off on his own, or Sweeney to boost his taxi before Salim catches them, or whatever else to have those two alone, go for it!), or a divergence from either season (instead of going to Ostara, they go where? to see whom? about getting Laura resurrected. Or things go down differently in New Orleans, or Cairo, or anywhere else) or something about these two post-canon.

-Laura discovers (how? you decide!) that Sweeney gave her back the coin after their accident – whatever happens next, some punching may be involved. (If nothing else, Mama-Ji mentions that the coin is now in Laura’s heart, and we saw Sweeney place it on her ribcage after the accident, whereas it was originally in her gut like she’d swallowed it. Laura might ask herself how the hell it moved.)

-Wednesday’s big war finally comes, and “don’t you dare die on me [again], you asshole” is a line either Sweeney or Laura (or both) might say to each other.

-Laura asked “What does Wednesday have to lose?” and the answer is…? (Yes, give me that sweet poetic justice. One possibility, though not remotely the only one, but as of S2E3 Laura is technically a god-killer...) Or later when she straight-up says she’s going to kill Wednesday, but is warned to bring power with her when she does, how does that work? How else might she damage Wednesday or ruin his plans, just in case she can’t actually kill him?

-At the end of S2, Laura hoists Sweeney’s dead body over her shoulders and strides off, seemingly leaving Cairo, Shadow, and all of it behind. Tell me what happens then – does she use Baron Samedi’s potion to bring him back, and whose is the blood filled with love she uses (does she still bleed? You could get creative here, worldbuilding is also my jam)? Does her/his coin play a part – and how come the coin still “powers” Laura despite Sweeney’s death? Does she bring him back another way, maybe figuring out how to keep herself around and be able to give Sweeney back his coin? Does he come back like she did, more undead than alive, or does his godhead, however depleted, help with that? That still leaves Laura to be fully resurrected too… Or does something completely out of left field happen – surprise me!

-Possible divergences from “Treasure of the Sun”: Sweeney manages to kill Wednesday, and then Laura rolls up, and then…? Or Laura rolls up and makes like Mama-Ji told her – destroys some motherfuckers? Or Sweeney gets killed temporarily but Laura brings him back, or brings herself back, or does something else with the Baron’s potion, and is Sweeney’s blood the one filled with love, or can we interpret voodoo spells in a non-literal way? Or what happens with Gungnir hidden in Sweeney’s hoard? And definitely how do they deal with each other once they meet up in Cairo, given how they parted in New Orleans (I don’t know what hurt more to watch: Laura deflecting at the diner, or Sweeney rambling drunkenly about her when Shadow finds him, or later on telling Shadow with such desperate sincerity to keep her away from Wednesday)?

-Or how about a wild divergence from the last several episodes? Sweeney and Laura manage to settle their differences (ahem, more fucking, on this plane of reality, might help) and don’t part ways before leaving NOLA. Or they roll up in Cairo separately but at the same time, and confront Wednesday together, and neither of them die (or die more, in her case). Or they’re there together when the police nearly raid the house. Or they have Wednesday (the ultimate cause of Laura’s death) and Ibis (a death deity) and Bilquis (a love/death/life deity) on hand, surely they can concoct some kind of resurrection thingamajig for Laura, and if they have to twist some divine arms then so be it. Or or or…?

-Wednesday told that luckless cop that Sweeney had been against the big gods’ war from the start, and while Wednesday lies, what if Sweeney decided much sooner to say to hell with Grimnir and his war and his having Sweeney kill random people? I’m guessing Sweeney too drank three glasses of mead so he can’t back out without dire consequence – but he does have a fierce, dead woman in his corner.

-They go to some as-yet-unnamed old god (feel free to bring in whatever mythology you want) in order to bring Laura back to life. Between Sweeney’s mouth and temper, and Laura’s mouth and temper, it doesn’t go well. Now one or both of them are in big magical trouble with a pissed-off deity and have to get themselves/each other out of it. Speaking of other deities, I really enjoyed their brief canon interactions with Ostara, Anansi, and Mama-Ji, and I’d like to see more of that, especially Ostara’s polite yet over-it attitude, Anansi very obvious over-it attitude and his dramatic flair, or Mama-Ji being one of the few capable of giving Laura pause.

-All the petty, ridiculous ways in which Sweeney’s bad luck manifests itself make me laugh (can’t help it, won’t even try), and I’m down for more variations on that theme.

-Sweeney and Laura fighting together, like they did on Mr. Town’s train of torture. Whether it’s a bar fight of their own making, or the big gods’ war they find themselves embroiled in, or something else entirely.

-Things happen and Laura finds herself in the position to throw Sweeney under the bus but also help/save him, and while he knows it’s only karma (he did kill her way back when), he can still be pissed off about it – how do they navigate this?

-Related to that, the Baron said: “In death is her true love, but she betrays him also.” If that meant Sweeney, or can mean Sweeney in the future (I don’t like destiny-wills-it stories, and they’re definitely not there yet, but they could maybe get there at some future point, and even then It Would Be Complicated), was the betrayal Laura rejecting him after the loa ‘fuck them,’ or is it something that hasn’t happened yet, and if so, what?

-Laura gets fully alive again, but traces of her (un)dead state remain – what are they, how does she cope, what price did she/he/they have to pay for her resurrection, and how does their relationship change? I’d especially be curious how it would work if they’re already a sorta-maybe-item and then she’s alive again and it’s weird in a new way.

-For reasons I’ll leave up to you, Sweeney and Laura have to stay put in a single place for a while and end up essentially cohabiting, regardless of what their relationship is at that point. Take “cohabiting” as literally or as creatively as you want – in any case, I’m sure it will be marvelously disastrous and amazing. If the place they have to stay happens to be NOLA, all the better, I find everything about that city fascinating. Or, if you wanted to use book canon, Laura and Sweeney (rather than Shadow) are the ones who have to spend time living in Lakeside and deal with its creepy Norman Rockwell-ness and with Hinzelmann.

-Slight or major AU from the opening of “The Ways of the Dead”: Laura has hitchhiked with Sweeney instead of going off in a huff with Wednesday, or she otherwise gets to New Orleans sooner, and she and Sweeney tear up the town together. Gimme bar fights, carnival shenanigans, all the food and drink porn, backstage craziness with the Christian rock band (Sweeney seems to have a backstage pass on a lanyard around his neck when Laura finds him)… Maybe they even cross the paths of some loa and it doesn’t get all angsty (for what it’s worth, I think the reason the sex magic didn’t bring Laura back to life was because she couldn’t accept the truth(s) revealed during the astral-plane sex and just ask Sweeney to prick his finger for the potion – instead she defaults straight to “this is all Wednesday’s evil plan” the morning after – not because the loa fucked them over). They were actually getting along nicely in those first couple of scenes in NOLA, only ribbing each other a little while still being their grouchy selves, before they got to Le Coq Noir. I wouldn’t have minded seeing some more of that.

-AU from the end of “The Ways of the Dead”: they still have their big fight (which was amazing as well as painful) or some variation thereof, but they don’t split up. (Maybe the reason is as mundane as Sweeney refusing to get left behind or they have a shared ride out of town, or maybe the more time passes the less Sweeney can afford to be far from his coin – or maybe the coin needs him close by to work at full capacity.) And then what?

-All the old gods hide their true appearance to an extent. A situation arises in which Laura sees Sweeney’s true, or at least old, self (I’m thinking of his surprise!poignant monologue about when he used to be a king, and him in full Celtic warrior mode in the S2 flashbacks). Or Wednesday’s war ends in victory, meaning the old gods again get belief, worship, and sacrifices. How does Laura, the ultimate skeptic even when she’s on the other side of the mirror, react? How does this new knowledge and new reality change her opinion of/attitude to Sweeney? Or to flip that around, if Sweeney were again relevant and believed-in, would that actually change his bad attitude and fix his issues (my guess is it would be complicated)? On that note, Sweeney’s decline from Lugh to king to leprechaun was more sketched in than really explored in canon, ditto I didn’t really get why he couldn’t seem to remember his own history except in snatches (the curse that made him a bird/madman of the woods?) – I’d love to see more about it and his (not) dealing with it, or with a reversal of that decline. Eorann told him long ago to adapt and change with the times – but what does that mean after humpteen centuries in a rut and becoming used to always feeling angry and unappreciated?

-The power of names, since they never use each other’s in canon: for all his “dead wifeing,” there comes a time when Sweeney (has to) call her by her actual name, and that’s a tricky moment for them to navigate. Or, Mad Sweeney is not his actual name, and true names have great magical power and so must be kept secret; Laura discovers or learns his name, from someone else or from himself; what does she do with that knowledge? Or, Sweeney gets to say “cunt” in a situation (sexual or otherwise) where, not only does Laura not peel his lips from his gums, but she finds that she can’t object, even though she knows that he knows that he’s getting away with it.

-So far in canon, it’s pretty clear that Sweeney has a lot of complicated but sincere feelings for Laura. Laura is still pretty focused on Shadow (or rather her idealized vision of Shadow and what their relationship might yet be), whom she seems to equate with her own lost-maybe-to-be-regained life, although that’s starting to change at the end of S2. For one thing, she’s starting to soften toward Sweeney as she realizes he’s doing things for her that are not all about getting his coin back (and her sparring match with Wednesday in “Muninn” as well as Shadow refusing to be called puppy anymore in “Moon Shadow” may finally force her to accept that her relationship with Shadow died alongside her and Robbie on that road in Indiana). Not to mention the shared truth revealed in “The Ways of the Dead” (bullshit was that just Laura’s truth!) and how Laura flips out rather than deal with it and Sweeney can’t spit out that it mattered to him either, or how obviously cut up she is about Sweeney’s death despite refusing to admit it. Tell me the story of how Laura stumbles her way to feeling – and acknowledging that she feels – more complex, maybe kinder or softer, really annoying for her blunt-force-trauma-personality things about Sweeney and about the notion that her dynamic with him is different from the way she tended to use men for her convenience without really letting them in in the past. Also I’m pretty sure that even if they can admit they feel the same – or sorta in the same ballpark – about each other, their relationship would still run on a lot of conflict, and I would so be here for it.

-On that note: in “Munnin” it also becomes clear that Laura has, without realizing it herself, started to rely on Sweeney. The “I trusted you” line made me think, whoa she’s too furious to catch herself doing it but this is huge for Laura, and the fact that she goes off with Wednesday (!) basically because she’s mad at Sweeney because she thinks he’s prioritizing his debt to Wednesday over her… Yeah, I would like to see that explored some more and/or to see Laura and Sweeney get to a point where they trust each other and rely on each other, and know it and accept it, however difficult the getting there and being there may be for them.

-Sweeney has this intense need to see himself as a brave person and someone worthy of the world’s respect – but his past and his long experience as just a leprechaun have chipped away at that. Add the guilt of having been the instrument of Laura’s death and then all the pesky feelings he develops for her, and it’s a lot. Obviously his final actions in S2 are his trying to reclaim that courage and nobility of old (also to spite Wednesday, who’s messed both him and Laura up), but I would love to read about his character development under different circumstances, where Laura is there all the way, as opposed to them parting ways and meeting up again multiple times like in canon.

-And since I’m on the subject of Laura, you know how she’s not actually an abrasive bitch all the time to everyone? And when she is, the people on the receiving end of it sometimes richly deserve it, or very occasionally they push back (ILU, Mama-Ji!), and anyway it’s refreshing to see a female character who defaults to confrontational and doesn’t bother flirting and accommodating others for the sake of social harmony? As much as I enjoy watching her rip into people (ahem, Sweeney), I also love it when she acts differently, like her genuine interest in getting to know Salim and her joy in seeing him again in S2, or her running passive-aggressive battle of wills with Wednesday. Her beginning to feel sympathy for Sweeney and her anger and disappointment when she feels let down by him are a part of that, and I’d love to see all that explored more. Nuance! Give me all the nuance and seeming contradictions in both Laura and Sweeney’s characters!

-Sweeney and Laura get drunk and wake up married. Or some sex and/or blood resurrection spell results in basically an unbreakable marriage bond, whether it also secures resurrection or not. Or marrying the dead keeps them (sorta) alive. Or being married makes it possible for them to share magical/supernatural abilities. They’re both pissed about it, but secretly having to make it work may not be the worst thing that’s ever happened...

-My perfect AG spinoff would basically be Sweeney and Laura tooling around America, looking to get her resurrected (whether they succeed or not is up to you), stealing ever more ridiculous vehicles, arguing/fighting and having those pesky moments where vulnerability and genuineness creep in – and fucking. So yessiree I’d be down for porn, including “it’s technically necrophilia/zombiesex” porn, including a canon-divergent first time, or their second time, or all the later times after they had their first time in NOLA in canon.

-If you wanted to throw in some worldbuilding, maybe something exploring living death. Magical bargains. What kind of favor did Sweeney do for Ostara that would be worth her bringing someone back to life as repayment? What other powers might Sweeney have – or have left from when he was Lugh? How long can a dead wife keep going before she’s “soup”? What other superhuman abilities might dead!Laura have? Can the dead do magic? What even are the rules governing and the limits of different beings’ magical abilities? For example, why can’t Sweeney just take his coin back, or why does Laura gain super-strength as part of her undead package deal? Is the hoard in the same space as the behind-the-scenes accessed through the merry-go-round, or it’s a different place? Why does the coin seem to start to “run down” the longer Laura has it? Why did Wednesday need Laura to kill Argus when he killed Vulcan himself just fine? What happens with Gungnir now it’s in the hoard – can only Sweeney get to it, has it been transformed somehow (it’s now the treasure of the sun), etc.?

If it helps your inspiration, you can find some of my meta and lots of tag-burbling about these two here. I have read the book though I remember it only in bits and pieces, and while I prefer the show characters and the fact that they get thrown together, you can use or riff on book material if you want, though I’d prefer a story that isn’t just a retread of the book. With reference to one of my DNWs, for this canon, describing Laura’s physical decay is totally fine. Also, Shadow/Laura don’t interest me except as a part of Laura’s backstory (so if your story wants to include Laura figuring out or having already figured out that pinning all her hopes on Shadow to make everything right is unrealistic, unfair, and not how it works – by all means, go for it!), and Shadow/Sweeney interest me not at all.

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (TV)

Lenny Bruce/Miriam “Midge” Maisel/Susie Myerson

Lenny Bruce/Miriam “Midge” Maisel & Miriam “Midge” Maisel/Susie Myerson

I’m here for Midge’s adventures in the intoxicating, foul-mouthed, and often-frustrating world of comedy, so her dynamic with Susie and Lenny is where it’s at. I just love the interactions between these three, and between every pair combination among them: Midge and Susie bantering and swearing and tits-upping even when they irritate each other, Midge and Lenny bringing the pathos as well as the humor, and Lenny and Susie both being hardened old pros with still a little glimmer of starry eyes. I am good with either V-shaped triad/poly or hey, Susie (whom I absolutely read as gay) might find a way to be good with a full-on triangle… And as much as I like the comedy inherent in the characters, I also love that they’re all three, each in their own way, messed up people and dysfunctional to various degrees. So yeah, I just want Midge to hand the kids over to her parents, ditch Joel once and for all, marry (interpret that as literally or as loosely as you want) both Susie and Lenny, and for the three of them to ride off into the sunset to make comedy history. Canon-specific DNWs: anything above M rating, pairing any two as a / couple with the third as a & hanger-on, and while Lenny can still be his RL messed-up, drugged-up self – albeit the gentler version the show gives us – it would be good if he didn’t kick the bucket a handful of years down the line.

Most of these prompts are from before S3 dropped – feel free to work with canon or diverge however you see fit, I am all caught up now:

-Does Susie manage them both? Does Midge open for Lenny on tour? Does he open for her??? Or they become equal stars on the comedy circuit?

-Maybe Lenny joins Shy Baldwin’s tour, or they run into him while touring Europe or the US, or after Shy fires Midge, Midge and Susie cobble together a Midge-only tour of America and keep crossing Lenny’s own touring path, and they all tool around, and yes I would love as much period detail and geography porn as you can throw at me. And while Lenny and Midge have seen the world, Susie hasn’t – her reaction to different foods, languages, customs, landscapes would be spectacular to witness. Especially if “different” is someplace as close to New York as Jersey or Connecticut, or someplace as far away and different as, say, Japan.

-If they do go to Europe, somehow or other they also tour the Soviet Bloc. Cue culture clashes, getting followed (or thinking they’re being followed) by the secret police, getting hammered on vodka and herring and pickles, and then when they get back to the States, the Feds grill them. It’s all dead serious, and Midge and Lenny refuse to take it as seriously as they should, while Susie is trying but the whole thing is really pissing her off…

-Lenny’s burned out, and Midge is just getting started. This dissonance may or may not find some sort of resolution. One thing’s for sure: Susie has limited patience for both Lenny’s depression and Midge’s need to make everything pretty.

-Instead of going to Joel for a no-way-is-that-closure fling after the Steve Allen Show taping, Midge goes to have a drink or seven with the two people who have, in their own ways, always been there for her and never let her down.

-Midge goes on TV again, this time as the star: longer set, prime time slot, dressing room, the works. She’s dying of nerves. Lenny and Susie coach her through it.

-More radio work to make ends meet in between gigs: hilaribad period ads, hilaribad radio drama, running all over town to be on time, getting paid in all kinds of dubious merch…

-Midge and Susie head out west to make it big and stay with Lenny once they’re in Los Angeles, and it’s marvelous (ha ha) and disastrous in equal measure.

-More of Susie being the hypercompetent manager we saw especially in S3! (And please don’t dwell on her gambling problem, I was not a fan.)

-They all three get drunk, maybe with a hint of sadness if it’s the holidays (you can ignore my DNW about holidays, but please let that be just the background, not the lynchpin of the story) or someone’s birthday, and there’s a bar fight, running from the cops, eating greasy food at ass o’clock, and possibly kissing, not necessarily in that order.

-One or two or all three of them get arrested/have court appearances all over America and have to bail each other out, or find someone to bail them all out, or secure legal counsel – you get the drift. Or all three of them are trying to explain to a single lawyer what happened, talking over each other, the two pros not being able to resist landing zingers and Susie not being far behind, and the lawyer just getting more and more confused.

-They get in trouble some other way – offended patrons, surly management, shitty hotels, tour bus breaks down in the middle of Wyoming – and have to have each other’s backs because no one else will.

-Three-person road trip or tour, and only Susie knows how to drive. So Midge decides to learn, right then and there. And Lenny… Lenny may or may not be too lazy/hungover/lying about not knowing how. There’s supposed to be a rotation so everyone gets to stretch out on the back seat for equal lengths of time, but you know the system doesn’t work too well in practice. Also, they play games in the car to while away the time, and they do it their own way of course: I spy, cows on my side, yellow car, never have I ever, 20 questions, or riffing on whatever’s playing on the radio…

-They sit down to watch the moon landing (you can move it up a bit so it’s not happening a whole decade after S2) – by which I mean, Midge is all gung-ho about the moon landing, and Lenny and Susie are like whatever – and things don’t quite go to plan, but a good time is eventually had by all.

-It’s Yom Kippur again, and Midge wants to do the whole production: synagogue, breaking fast, the lot. Lenny and Susie would rather eat glass. Midge gets her way, of course. Does she decide to bring Susie and Lenny home to meet – or meet properly – her parents??? I bet Abe and Rose’s reactions would be something to see. (This too is an exception to my DNW about holiday settings – I just want stuff to get as crazy as it did the two times we saw Yom Kippur celebrated on the show, and for everything to still somehow turn out relatively OK.)

-Midge and Lenny have cheered each other up when the going got extra rough. I want for Susie to be especially down in the dumps – maybe her boozehound of a mother died and Susie took it worse than she does in canon, maybe some asshole told her she’s a shit manager and got her right in her insecurities – and Midge to rope Lenny into trying to cheer her up. And for Susie to fight them every step of the way but still be glad they care enough to try.

-Inspired by Susie’s brother looking just like her, by which I mean she and he and their sister look nothing alike, and by Lenny’s “she’s my mother” quip about Midge at the TV studio and then his “let me introduce my wife or maybe my sister” in Miami – Midge, Susie, and Lenny pretend to all be blood relatives, or mafiosi, or spies, or something else they’re not, while out in public, say in a restaurant. Just to be assholes and see how long they can keep it going before they break character or people figure them out, or call the cops, or something. There’s totally a bet on who corpses and breaks character first. Or, nice hotels ca. 1960 weren’t very big on letting unmarried couples, let alone threesomes stay in rooms together – pretending to be family might make that easier; forgetting what they’re meant to be to each other, or mixing up their backstories might make it harder. Or they’re just trying to save money by only getting one room, there’s only one free room in the hotel, or any other screwball reason you can invent.

-Lenny and Midge do a (comeback) tour of the Borscht Belt, and all the Steiner Mountain Resort guests (especially the gossipy old hens from the beauty salon) and staff go to see them – and heckle.

-Stuff happens and they end up performing at some hole in the wall place where no one knows who they are (or no one believes it’s really those people they’ve seen on TV) – tough crowd, but a good workout for the two comics, and if Susie gets to threaten to rip off someone’s head, all the better.

-Lenny and Midge honing their routines – and maybe developing a double act – and Susie being all “oh my fucking god, what the fuck!!! … They’re actually good. I’m so proud.”

-Sharing a bed with two other people is an ongoing project: who sleeps (or refuses to sleep) in the middle? Who gets up during the night and why? Who starfishes across most of the bed? Who snores, and how does this get handled? If alcohol or pot have happened, how does that affect the sleeping arrangements? Also, Susie and Lenny witness and react to Midge’s beauty routine, ‘nuff said. Or, for various reasons one person after another ends up decamping to another room/bed/couch, but it doesn’t help them get much sleep or even stay there very long (this is inspired by my love of Shirley Jackson and her short story/humorous essay “The Night We All Had Grippe”).

Starred Up (2013 movie)

Oliver Baumer/Eric Love

Yes I do ship it, I do, I do!

Ahem. Don’t get me wrong, I liked what the movie did with the father-son relationship and its influence on both men’s character development – but I really wish they hadn’t got Oliver out of the action before the story’s climax (not like that!). The final denouement with Love father and Love son was great, as was the hint at the end that Eric learned something in anger-management group and has a support network that will help him a lot. But. I would have wanted to see more of the intriguing dynamic between Eric the intelligent, semi-feral, yet not-incorrigible, young thug and Oliver the educated, dedicated, kind yet aware of his own potential for violence (what was he on about with “I need to be here”?), slightly older counselor. They had me at Oliver’s “I want him” and Eric later telling his father that Oliver’s a better man than Love Sr. Also the not-flirting and the push-pull in the scene when Oliver picks up Eric from his cell - yowza!

For this canon, my dubcon DNW does not apply.

Prompts:

-I would love to see Oliver return to holding his group in prison, so the two of them can interact more, either in the movie’s immediate aftermath or years down the line, as it’s implied that Eric will be serving a long sentence. Give me more scenes from anger management or the ribald, honest, free-flowing conversations in group, either with the other men present (I liked Hassan and Tyrone especially, among the group members) or a one-on-one session.

-An oblique or open-but-undramatic admission/declaration that they both know there’s something there, even if they don’t know what to do with it. Or, one or both of them knows exactly what to do with it, and the push-pull that would result from that.

-Dirty talk: used for arousal, as a defense mechanism, as a form of flirtation. Eric using slurs to assert dominance, and Oliver not letting him hide behind profanity, when he can use colorful language to express emotion and/or sexual interest. There could definitely be some verbal taunting/flirting about who wants/is eager to do what or is good at doing something. There may be some sniping comments about logistics and (lack of) condoms and barebacking and what men get up to in prison. There probably wouldn’t be deep discussions about sexual identity.

-An emergency in the prison requires a lock-down, so Oliver gets temporarily stuck in Eric’s cell or another room with only Eric for company. Things get porny and/or emotional.

-Eric is eventually released (you can handwave this so it happens soon after the movie or have it happen years later) and crashes with Oliver while he adjusts to the outside world. You guessed it: things get porny and/or emotional.

-How do they get to the point where both can cross that line from friends/whatever the hell they are and become, to lovers? (There’s Eric’s personal history and general discomfort with vulnerability, plus all the ways prison sex can be or make things complicated, and if it helps, I headcanon Oliver as either gay or bi and at least somewhat closeted, at work especially.) Who initiates and “directs traffic”? How does their always-contentious dynamic shift during and after sex? Is the sex an isolated (series of) occasion(s), or a progression/escalation over multiple encounters (how would I love especially an escalating series of encounters, let me count the ways)? Eric might seem like the logical initiator and/or dominant partner as well as using the possibility of sex to manipulate and exert control, but then Oliver might (or might not!) surprise him and is definitely the one more in touch with himself as well as aware of his custodial duty toward the men in the group.

-At some point in their intimate relationship (probably not right at the start, and probably not in prison, though if you can make it happen in prison, more power to you!), Oliver decides he’s going to take his sweet time and make Eric fall absolutely apart with pleasure, while using dirty talk to both arouse and empower Eric to own his desires – by that point, Eric is in a place where he can let that happen and enjoy it, even if he still talks tough.

-Role reversal: Oliver as the con (jittery, shut off, sticking out like a sore thumb in prison with all his fancy learning, yet no pushover) and Eric as the newbie counselor (kid from the wrong side of the tracks made good? Youthful hoodlum turned around his life, now trying to help others via tough love and lots of swearing and maybe a bit of manipulation when called for?)

Witchblade (TV) Sara Pezzini/Danny Woo

I used to love this show back in the day, and loved it again in all its hokey gloriousness when I rewatched it recently. Sara figuring things out and being a principled badass, but maybe out of her depth with the Witchblade, and her dynamic with Danny, whether he's a ghost or alive, it’s all catnip to me. Sara is not extremely quippy, she has a job to do dammit! and don’t look at her vulnerable side, just don’t look at it!, and I love that about her (she’s much harsher in S1, after Danny’s death, than in S2); ditto that Danny is somewhat softer than she is, but still can hold his own thanksverymuch (well, when the plot doesn’t require him to get nabbed by bad guys) and has a bit of a deadpan snarker side too. I’d love something that plays around with their canon dynamic from either season, or uses canon as just a starting point. Some of my prompts lean dark or horror-y, so don’t be shy about going there; I’d also enjoy a story in which the Witchblade itself ends up not being very significant (say, they start to investigate a possibly mystical case and then nope, plain murder). Canon-specific DNW: Irons and any version of Nottingham appearing (you can mention them if you need to).

Prompts:

-The Witchblade is more parasitic than symbiotic, and instead of Sara learning to control it, its feeding on Sara affects her more and more over time. Or, the visions and dreams ramp up into full-blown paranoia and/or disassociation. The Witchblade's POV, maybe (it is sentient)? Asking for help is the hardest thing for someone like Sara, but what are (more than) friends for? I’d also enjoy a dubcon scenario (exception to blanket DNW) where Sara really shouldn’t be having sex when her head is all messed up by the Witchblade’s influence, but... well... they do. The Witchblade canonically enjoys violence and bloodshed perpetrated by its wearers, so it stands to reason that it might lower other inhibitions too.

-Witchblade v. mythological monsters. In S1, even with everything else that's going on, Sara absolutely scoffs at the possibility of vampires. So of course I want: Witchblade v. vampires! The scarier and more feral, the better. Or, it's implied that the Witchblade was forged from a meteorite, so it's basically an eldritch artefact from outer space. Yes, please lean all the way into the Lovecraftian tropes! (The moon is turning red, the Old Ones are back, it’s the end of the world as we know it, but Sara’s got her partner by her side.) Or something from Chinese mythology, so Danny can kick extra ass. Or, for a silly take on Chinese culture: Sara and Danny in the world of Big Trouble in Little China, another old fave of mine, the entire plot of which revolves around… a woman with green eyes and an unwanted connection to the supernatural.

-The Witchblade has a reputation for abandoning its wearers just when they need it the most. True to form, it slips off of Sara’s fist, leaving her and Danny to save themselves with good old-fashioned guns, fisticuffs, martial arts, and of course having each other’s back.

-More of the psychedelic-ness in many of Sara’s fight scenes, where now she’s a woman in a leather jacket with a gauntlet on her arm, now she’s a knight in armor! Now her opponent is human, now he’s a wolf-shaped spirit of evil and hatred! Playing around with the characters’ senses and perceptions – yes!

-Instead of seeing only Danny and needing him to play intermediary for Sara to talk to other ghosts, the Witchblade makes Sara see ghosts all over the place, and it's getting to her. Ghost!Danny may or may not help with that. Or, ghost!Danny is basically always around, whether Sara can see him or not. He manifests when Sara is masturbating, and you can't really feel guilty if the ghost of your dead partner whom you’ve always had a thing for helps you out, and anyway you’re probably going crazy and none of this is real, so it doesn’t count anyway... right?

-Case fic/stakeouts and banter. Flirting to pass the long and stressful days at work. Quick and guilty sex because Danny's married. Slow and intense sex if handwave he's not married but “oh noes we’re partners, we shouldn’t be doing this, but somehow we keep doing it anyway.” Hooking up in the car. I've always headcanoned that they had a thing pre-canon which ended for Reasons, but they both kinda wish it hadn't, hence the hand kissing, and the “I can’t even touch you,” and the coffee bringing/stealing, etc. So feel free to play around with that.

-Undercover as married, undercover as a gangster and his moll (LOL at Sara as a moll, or have Sara as the gangster and Danny as her lieutenant/enforcer/arm candy), undercover as “they think we’re fucking, better fake it real good for the people listening in, oops shit got real fast, careful don’t say each other’s real name or you’ll blow your cover.”

-More timey-wimey shenanigans with the Witchblade. Maybe it allows Sara to manipulate time more than once. Maybe she starts doing it way too often, throwing the continuum out of whack (something non-linear would be very interesting). Maybe she and/or Danny remember some or all of what happened in S1. Something about all the multiverse versions of them, possibly splitting off from a dramatic moment. Time loops and feelings are a combustible mix.

-Apart from the super obvious shippiness, what I like about S1 especially is how Sara rolls with the weirdness the Witchblade has brought into her life, instead of reaching for rational explanations. More of that (I can't think of a better way to put it), and double extra brownie points if alive!Danny figures out at least some of what's going on with Sara's bracelet and somehow gets in on the action. Maybe a Danny saves the day divergence? Or how about a loophole that allows a man close to the Witchblade's wearer to wield it temporarily, but There Is a Price to Pay.

킹덤 Kingdom (Netflix)

Prince Lee Chang/Seo-bi

I fell so hard for this show. So hard! The beautiful production values, the wonderful cast, how the characters develop, how the show slowly but surely unfolds one reveal after another and packs so much into two short seasons, all the period detail, the genuinely tense action scenes, the moments of humor and intense emotion, the intertwining of political intrigue and zomg! really scary zombies, how the zombie outbreak works on multiple levels both literal and metaphorical…

I love the brave, kind-hearted, but sheltered prince, whose whole life has been so privileged yet shadowed by the possibility of death if he loses his position as heir, learning what it means to actually rule and lead people, to protect them and be protected by them in turn. And I love Seo-bi the fearless, dedicated, selfless physician, who notices things and figures things out regardless of whether this annoys the people in power. I love how instantly and fiercely loyal she is to him (not just because he’s the crown prince, but because she’s seen how brave and altruistic he can be) and how he immediately takes her advice and experience seriously despite her being a woman and a commoner in this super-hierarchical setting. Also, I love most of the cast (not a huge fan of Chancellor Cho, but he is an effective antagonist), and would be delighted to see any of them in fic too. Especially the loyal and funny and badass Mu-yeong (he was loyal, despite the Haewon Cho clan’s blackmail, and if you want to diverge from canon so he lives, I would not mind that at all), the even more badass and wounded and snarky Yeong-sin (or is that “Yeong-sin”???), Chang’s sparky, exiled uncle several times removed, and the terrifying and frankly unhinged young queen are my favorites. I even have a soft spot for that mostly-useless coward Cho Beom-pal, but really, they’re all great and I would love reading about them too, or just about the prince and the lady physician – whatever works!

Finally, before I get to prompts, I know a bit about the Joseon period, but we’re talking the bits and pieces I remember from a college class, and what I’ve read on Wikipedia and picked up from this and other Korean movies and shows. I know a bit more about some of the cultural background, like the Confucian values, the social stratification and feudal system, the gender segregation among the aristocracy, the wars with Japan, but again – my knowledge is limited. So if you want to teach me stuff about Joseon, go for it! If you want to invent or handwave stuff, as long as it fits the canon’s mood and broad cultural parameters, go for it! And if you want to treat me to some worldbuilding, period detail of any kind, and/or costume porn, definitely go for it. Canon-specific DNW: anything above M rating for sex (violence is fine).

Prompts:

Zombie fighting anything! Learning to survive in a society that’s rapidly breaking down, having to transcend their habitual social roles and challenging each other, anything! Maybe one of them teaches the other to hunt, or to make herbal medicines, or to fight with a sword, or heck, to cook or clean dirty clothes. (FYI I wrote most of these prompts before I was quite done with S2, and the time-skip took me totally by surprise. So while my prompts ignore Chang renouncing the throne, I’d also be down for the untold adventures of the former prince and his traveling companions, as Chang learns how to be just regular folks and they pursue clues about the resurrection flower, or for your take on what happens in S3. Use whatever works for you in my prompts in any way you want!)

Figuring out how the zombie infection continues to evolve and/or working together to find a cure beyond dunking the infected in water – whether that means to destroy large numbers of the undead, or to develop an antidote, or to cure and bring back those afflicted. One plot detail that really struck me: more experimenting with zombies, like Chancellor Cho started to do, might also hold the key to a cure?

Political intrigue anything! Having to fight zombies and/or factions at court with both friends and unexpected allies (not gonna lie, I would have loved to have seen the young queen unleashed on some zombies, even if that did not make her the prince and Seo-bi’s ally).

More road trip/survival/battle goodness – maybe Seo-bi offers Lee Chang some advice while they’re navigating their new situation, or she witnesses him developing his leadership muscles, and it brings them closer together than before. Or maybe a moment of humor, relaxation, or quiet affection on the road or in between zombie-slaying, especially if it catches them both a bit by surprise. Or one of them gets a non-zombifying injury (nothing too gruesome or life-threatening, please!) and the other one has to care for them – extra points if Seo-bi is injured and the prince kind of bumbles through the most basic things so she has to talk him through her own treatment. Or nightmares/being triggered by something, like we saw both Chang and Seo-bi react at the sounds of zombies growling and people screaming in S2E5.

We have seen Seo-bi insist on staying loyal to the prince, and Lee Chang rely on her repeatedly to the exclusion of all his other people – give me a situation in which he has to make clear his own loyalty to her, as a part of both his becoming a better leader and as a step in advancing their relationship. Or, there comes a time when Seo-bi really pushes against the rules of what someone like she can and cannot say or do to/around a crown prince – we’ve seen Lee Chang refuse to stand on his dignity to the point where so many of his interactions with commoners would end in the commoners’ death, but I imagine even he has his limits, and that kind of clash can only drive this dynamic forward!

Canon divergence in which Seo-bi gets sent to the capital and assigned to be the personal physician to the petulant, frustrated prince we meet at the start of the show (handwave the gender segregation and impropriety). She knows her place, but she also does not suffer fools or male nonsense. Sparks fly, social conventions get tested, zombies may or may not happen, and a new mutual understanding is born.

Canon divergence from the scene in S2E2 when Seo-bi finagles her way to being allowed to see the prince and he instructs her to resurrect Ahn Hyeon – what if instead of that, they came up with another plan of escape? Or maybe Lee Chang sending Seo-bi to spy on the queen goes a different way than in canon? And really, anything that requires those two to pass secret messages while grabbing each other’s hands and staring intently into each other’s eyes is A++ with me!

One theme which emerges gradually, and I really loved, is people having to compromise their principles to survive and ensure the safety of those they feel loyal and/or obliged to: Ahn Hyeon agreeing to turn the sick villagers into zombies, dear Mu-yeong having been a spy but also protecting the prince all along, Seo-bi resurrecting Ahn Hyeon, Lee Chang instructing her to do it as well as his thousand-yard-stare after having to finish off what’s left of his father… I’d love to see more such compromises, how their consequences ripple out, and the emotional fallout.

In addition to zombies, other magical and/or supernatural events and creatures start to appear in Joseon. If you want to bring in something from Buddhist mythology or Korean folklore, please do, and any and all worldbuilding would be awesome.

Post-canon something in which Lee Chang is king, possibly of only a part of the country (maybe a zombie-free enclave, or a part he won in a civil war against the Cho clan or a cadet branch of his family), and Seo-bi is there as his advisor, physician, and unofficial chancellor. Gimme policymaking to deal with the lingering zombie issue, and assassination plots, and servants/guards/ladies in waiting gossiping like it’s their real job, and all the palace intrigue!

Kind of related to the previous: even as a “spare” prince, Lee Chang can’t marry a commoner. Would he ever think to offer Seo-bi to become his concubine? I don’t think she’d go for it, and he might realize it, but maybe I’m wrong! Or maybe being intensely platonic/sublimating at each other is as good as it gets for them, and they’re kind of okay with that. Or they get married in secret and have to be very careful not to let slip anything by word on gesture in public, or not to let Seo-bi get pregnant. Or, y’know, one day or night on the road or in a fortified town, in between scavenging for supplies and fighting zombies, they decide to bone just because their lives are weird enough now to forget about propriety and all that jazz for an hour.

Role reversal: Seo-bi is the sheltered, willful princess fearful for her position (especially since she’s a woman as well as the daughter of a concubine only) and Lee Chang is the proper yet willful provincial physician. Do they meet as in canon, or under different circumstances (maybe she must flee the court to escape assassins, accusations of treason, or an arranged marriage, with or without bonus zombies)? How would their dynamic be complicated (and made awesome of course!) by the gender reversal? Also, burning question: does Princess Seo-bi already know how to fight (because she forced Mu-yeong to teach her back at court, of course), or does she have to learn once zombies/brigands/insurrection/whatever happen? And does Physician Lee Chang know one end of a musket or sword from another, or does he need rescuing at some point?

I realize that some of these prompts could work as well (better?) as a no-zombies AU, and that’s fine if you want to take it in that direction. Just so we’re clear. :-)

Likes:

I love pre-canon, canon, post-canon, canon-divergent, and missing-scene stories. I love character-driven and plot-driven stories equally, and I love fics which mix humor and angst/serious business when appropriate for the canon.

I love stories about characters at work and play, group dynamics, family dynamics (including constructed families), professional partnerships, friendships, alliances, rivalries, intimate couples (new lovers/first times as well as long-term/established couples), UST-ridden couples who are not just UST-ridden but connected in other ways too, etc.

I love irony, snark, humor as well as angst arising from the characters rather than the plot crowbaring it in, linear, non-linear, and 5+1 stories, hopeful endings, happy endings, bittersweet endings, worldbuilding, competence, spiky characters who keep their jagged edges and spikiness in adversity as well as when their lives are going well, square-peg-in-round-hole characters, characters who are their own worst enemies as well as those who can get over themselves when the occasion calls for it, characters with conflicting values which may or may not be reconciled/resolved, characters who treat each other with respect and as equals even if they hate/annoy/can’t stand/love to dislike each other.

I especially love workplace stories (this can mean anything from an actual workplace/casefic/procedural setting to anything that revolves around the canon world in which the characters live) in which the characters are competent and dedicated to the job, and while they may not be exactly friends and they may well irritate one another, they still manage to rub along to get the job done and maybe even grow to care about one another (much to their surprise and sometimes reluctance/discomfort). Or, if they can’t get along, show me why not and what’s preventing them from finding common ground.

In terms of ship dynamics, I love (where it fits the characters) banter, competitiveness or antagonism shading into attraction (this tension need not be resolved), oh-god-why-did-it-have-to-be-you-what-did-I-do-to-deserve-this, bickering yet loving couples, characters who are serious about their romantic interests, characters who think they are much better at flirtation than they actually are, characters forced to work together only to prove much more compatible than they initially assumed, fics which mix an exploration of characters’ professional and everyday lives with shipping. A dynamic I cannot resist is shipping a couple who are incompatible in some important way (they are ideological enemies, cop and criminal, spies from opposite sides, one betrayed the other or they betrayed each other), and while they love and want each other they’re also not willing to change sides or surrender/compromise their identity for the other’s benefit, and how they might (or not) make their relationship work anyway.

I don’t have any very specific likes for smut, other than smut fitting the characters – show me how their canon dynamics spill over into the bedroom (or other place of congress). I also like sexual scenarios that subvert expectations a little and surprise the characters themselves (e.g., the person who’s usually quiet or more passive taking charge, the more aggressive person goes with it possibly snarking or commenting on it as long as they can). And I like sexual scenarios that contain an element of competition, antagonism, oh-god-this-is-a-bad-idea-but-we’re-going-for-it-hammer-and-tongs, not wanting to admit feelings or show vulnerability except oops it happens anyway, whether the characters acknowledge it or not, or just people getting way more into it or being more affected by it than they thought they would. When it fits the characters and their canon dynamic, you also can’t go wrong with we-both-wanted-this-for-forever-and-now-we-both-know-it-so-here-we-go-diving-in-headfirst. For het and/or slash, oral, vaginal, anal incl. pegging, manual (ifyouknowwhatImean) – it’s all good. You can go as veiled or as explicit as you like, but please avoid excessive medical jargon – I don’t find a lot of mention of “penis” or “clit” sexy.

 DNWs:

MPREG, A/B/O, knotting, D/s, kinks, incest, underage, genderswap/genderbent characters, xeno, non-/dub-con, torture and abuse (this and non-/dub-con can be mentioned if the story needs it, but please don’t dwell on it in loving detail or subject any of my requested characters to it), dwelling on bodily fluids (mentions of gore/blood and come are fine), toilet humor, character bashing, issuefic, gender/sexuality/race/ethnicity/religion/ability/identity headcanons, unrequested ships, soulmates and soul marks, major character death (meaning my requested characters being or staying dead by story’s end - Laura Moon can remain undead), serious illness or injury, pregnancy and children, holiday or wedding setting/theme, secondary characters shipping the main pair like it’s their job, reference to RL current events, 1st/2nd person POV, unrequested crossovers or fusions, AUs which have nothing to do with canon

#dear author letter #rare pairs 2020

[hendrixeros]

@isobcllarojas

“You know,” Adrian said, flopping down on the king sized bed that dominated the suit, “we could tack an extra day onto this trip and spend the last night in one of those haunted motels. I love the spooky tourist bullshit.”

They had been in New Orleans all of thirty minutes and Adrian had already stripped down, wrapped himself in a lush hotel bathrobe, and tugged the room service menu out of the drawer. He couldn’t remember whose idea it had been. The night before had been a haze of drugs and alcohol and we should totally go there in the morning, we totally should. And when morning came, Adrian and Izzy didn’t change their minds. Even though the hangover made it hard to drive. But with the club members they both clung to like life-rafts in the cold, cold ocean gone away on “business,” it wasn’t like there had been anyone to curb their impulses.

When the boys are away... something something something, Izzy and Adrian book a French Quarter hotel suit on Kane’s credit card and fuck shit up in NOLA.

Adrian rolled over on his stomach, blindly fishing in his backpack for something he’d snagged on their way out of Olympus. A quick pit stop for fuel, a quick text message, a quick delivery. He tossed a little plastic bag on the table by the bed, grinning boldly at Izzy. “Good shit. Now or after we hit Bourbon?”

Never had two people in the world lived for the chance to indulge in the absolute worst parts of each other. And Adrian adored Izzy for that.

#interact : thread #thread : izzy #.016 #//tw drugs

[vagabondloser]

A lot of things go overlooked on Bourbon.  A guy slid three NOLA magnets into his pocket while he was talking to someone. One lady is drunk on the curb being stepped around, forgotten. There’s ladies handing out test tubes filled with fireball while some frat looking guy takes pictures of her ass.

It’s so early too. 

[apple-flesh]

Facts About High Performance All Season Tires

All season Tires

If you are intending to spend in high performance all period tires then there are some things that you ought to understand before the acquisition. High performance period tires are a prized ownership for lots of as they articulate as happy proprietors. These primarily provide you flexibility to undertake different surfaces in various seasons. If you live in a location the experiences frequent season adjustments then having a regular taking a trip tire would not suffice. As these tires wear easily and also do not offer the required tread in various weather conditions. But the all season ones do not just supply terrific control and also support in season, being high efficiency they provide a great increase of adrenaline. These are called high efficiency primarily as a result of their capability to undertake hard terrains, ability to attain control in advanced rates as well as compatibility for SUV or various other sporting activity lorries.

The Upkeep

The very first point you require to understand about performance all period tires is the demand of routine upkeep from the side of the driver. Being high performance tires these wear out quicker than others as well as their treads obtain blunt after recurring use. If you intend to stop regular replacement of these tires you actually need to deal with their fixings and also maintenance. These must be bought only if you require greater efficiency from your lorry. If you possess an SUV and also want to embark on different surfaces and speed then these tires are very suitable. In the upkeep you require to maintain the step layout devoid of any kind of obstruction or various other products. If you use them in snow it is seen that the snow might enter the walk design triggering issues for the riding. Washing, cleaning and regular repairing is a should for the tires.

How To conserve your tires life span

our life is dependant on your automobile and also the among lorries - on the tires. Without conserving a couple of dollars rotate as well as replace the tires when required. The high performance all season tires would certainly require frequent turning to ensure that the wear and also amount of friction need to be equivalent on all the 4 tires. This particularly influences the steering control as well as is therefore a must. When you see the treads are worn out as well as have ended up being blunt merely replace the tire with a brand-new one. If this is happening to back tires include the front tires to the back and also take brand-new tires for the front. The rule of thumb is that the front tires must be in much better problem than the back ones. There are a couple of points that you require to avoid making with the performance all period tires. The initial is deviating in high speed; this specifically damages the tire in regards to its step. Next is striking the curbings by going out of control as well as others.

Overall these tires offer excellent assistance in every season and climate and likewise permit the proprietor to experience an excitement while continuing to be had. If you commit to taking great care of them the tires would reciprocate by giving full support and also complete satisfaction of driving at all times.

NOLA Automotive Repairs

https://www.nolaautomotiverepairs.com/

2100 Earhart Blvd

New Orleans, LA 70113

Same Day Service504-229-3049

Monday to Friday:8am – 5pm

https://goo.gl/maps/EmxiprgFeGVKzgE28

#tiredeals

[cheeseburgers4leiajaneway]

The Advantages Of Fleet Management Systems

Many organisations in the modern-day world depend on transportation to perform their operations successfully. These business require their transportation systems to be totally useful whenever they are needed. This is where fleet administration enters into play. It describes the surveillance of facets of every vehicle that is made use of by a company.

GPS System

Car diagnostic creates the fundamental component of fleet monitoring. Modern techniques employ the use of GPS systems to monitor individual automobiles. This is by far one of the most reliable administration system. Trackers grown on these lorries enable managers to find them from another location. They can also map out the most reliable course for the lorry to reach its location. There are additionally unique alarms indicated to curb theft or go off in the event of a mishap. In new Orleans

Tracking devices

Transport managers have the ability to access automotive mechanical information using fleet tracking system . This enables them to profile the behavior of their motorists and carry out required steps if certain vehicle drivers constantly oppose their code of conduct. If a chauffeur is regularly speeding, they can invoke disciplinary actions versus him/her. Speeding increase fuel usage and a company can make substantial savings by keeping track of such actions.

using Mobile and Computers

Services that apply these systems in their operations are able to balance their tons successfully. This in turn assists them offer more consumers and decreases the number of cars required for everyday operations, therefore enhancing application of capital. They also boost staff liability and also less management initiative is entailed in taking care of the fleet. Firms have the ability to track their automobiles utilizing sms message or an easy COMPUTER.

Efficiency and Cost saving fleet transportation

From the point of view of the chauffeur, these systems are likewise of tremendous advantage. If one ends up being stranded in remote areas as a result of mechanical difficulty or unexpected issues, they are able to obtain help in time. It provides assurance to recognize that in instance of anything, they can be situated without delay. Also, their supervisors have the ability to examine their performance by using these systems.

Organizations are also able to lessen the danger in car financial investment by utilizing these systems. In some nations, there are laws implemented to make sure that companies have efficient mechanisms to manage their fleets. These are imposed to decrease vehicle driver misbehavior. The recent spike in gas prices additionally makes it required for organizations to have these systems in place.A company can contract out these services from 3rd event business if it chooses such setups.

Services such as taxi as well as limousine firms, public transport systems and also carrier solutions are one of the most usual customers of such systems. It helps them to monitor their schedules and preserve their procedures within their budget plans. The option of the management mode mostly relies on the particular requirements of the firm.

These systems absolutely enhance productivity in any kind of company. They are vital in mapping out routes that minimize the waiting time for the consumer. It additionally makes it possible for businesses to know when it would be needed to get rid of old automobiles and also buy brand-new ones. They are required to make certain smooth company running in this era where performance defines the success of a company.

For further knowledge, fleet service and other car concern you may call:

NOLA Automotive Repairs https://www.nolaautomotiverepairs.com/ 2100 Earhart Blvd New Orleans, LA 70113 Same Day Service 504-608-3759

https://goo.gl/maps/VMwKr21yAVncwds39

#carmaintenance

[flashlighttostreetlight]

Abandoned House, New Orleans, La. The FEMA markings form an X shape, with four blocks to be written in. The top block shows the date that the house was checked. The left block is signed by the task force that inspected the house. In the right quadrant are special instructions, anything from "Gas Off" to "F/W" (food and water left) to any pets or other issues the houses might have had. The bottom block records how many people were found in the house. Often, the solitary number counts those who have died. But sometimes, the block contains two numbers, one with an A ("alive"), another with a D ("dead").The markings were drawn by task forces deployed to New Orleans in the aftermath of the levee breach. Despite being spray-painted on the exteriors of houses, and despite the resurgence parts of New Orleans have seen since, the Xs are still visible around town.  [NOLA Curbed]

#New Orleans #photographers on tumblr #fine art photography #street photography #night photo walk #photoofthenight #photooftheday #long exposure #landscape #Cityscape #nightscape #night #nightlife #late night #Night Sky #Hurricane Katrina Aftermath #nikon #nikon photography #Nikon photo #nikon shot #nikon photo contest #post katrina