#and I CAUGHT COVID FROM SOMEONE IN SCHOOL

[ioniansunsets]

🌸🌸🌸🌸

#updates wahoo #yunocomments #finally had holidays #and I CAUGHT COVID FROM SOMEONE IN SCHOOL #omg im like just sO SICK RN #How to WRITE CONTENT IF SITTING AT MY LAPTOP HURTS #sob #and school is stsrting again #i spent my whole holiday coughing and wheezing

[jenroses]

Hey! Please feel free to ignore but you did say to ask you about masks :P the ones I've found that are multiple layers for max protection are really stiff, which squishes my face and leads to gaps. Do you have recommendations? Thanks!

I know that there's a lot of noise about elastomeric masks but for me they're a nonstarter because of the stiffness you talk about. I think it's important to understand that most of the 94-95 standard masks that actually meet that standard are going to be plenty good enough where most people are concerned. Is it possible to catch Covid with a mask on? Yes. I've done it.

Is it likely? No. I'm immune compromised. This isn't data, but our experience has been that a combination of masks, reasonable common sense and good filtration are enough that despite having a school-aged child, a husband who travels for conventions, and me, immune suppressed, with a college student living in our house, I have only had covid twice, the first time was an unfortunate collision of me going to a store at the wrong time where a clerk had both covid and the flu and gave them to me, and the other one involved a family member not using a mask at a public event while eating. Even then, when I caught covid and the flu at the same time and isolated immediately with filtration and everyone coming into my space being masked... not one other person in our house caught it, and when someone else caught it a year later, the only people who caught it were sharing sleeping spaces. Our roommates did not catch it, and everyone was masking from the moment of the first positive test. When my kid got half-assed about masking at school, he immediately got flu and strep at the same time. I pointed out that his lack of care about it could mean a lot of missed school for him and serious health impacts for both of us, and he started wearing a mask again, and did not get sick for the rest of the school year. He HATES the masks that go behind the head and wears Armbrust kn95 masks exclusively (dark blue, lol) And it's pretty clear that without the masks he was getting sick a lot and with he just...doesn't. He is wearing them all day except for lunch through full school days, so that says something. Armbrust will send little behind the head doohickies to keep them off the ears but he never uses them. At $2ish per mask they're not the cheapest but he uses one mask for multiple days so it's not too bad overall cost wise. They have kid sizing, but he's in the regular adult size now at 11. Now, I'll talk about Armbrust for a minute because I really like the company. On pretty much every mask they sell you'll see a video of one of their people reviewing the mask and going over testing data... but they ALSO have reviews of almost every other mask on the market, bad, good and in between, and if you find a mask on Amazon or something and want to know more about it, search the mask name and "armbrust" and the youtube video and product data page will pop up. I've found several special masks for very particular needs by looking through their database for combinations of breathability and shape that weren't even masks they sold. So if you are struggling, take a look at the database, eliminate "failed" masks, look for the ones that meet your needs and then watch the video to see what he says about them first. There are some VERY inexpensive masks out there that work very well, and some masks that are incredibly breathable or incredibly high filtration and a few unicorns that are both.

Now Hubby is okay with the same KN95 masks that our son likes but he exercises and his lungs get a little touchy sometimes so he needs maximum ease in breathing, so using that database I found Dr. Puri masks. Here's the Armbrust review. Here's the listing I found them on. Hubby LOVES them. He also prefers behind the ear. About $1.50 each.

I *hate* behind the ear with a hot hate, they bug me. But I can't just use one type of mask all the time because I have EDS and neck issues so pressure there can be awkward, plus I get short of breath sometimes anyway (history of pulmonary embolism that long predates covid) and I have sensory skin issues.

Bar none the most breathable mask I've ever tried, which also does not fog my glasses, is the Drager mask. These are soft, extraordinarily easy to breathe through, and have a unique strap that makes on/off very easy, and lets you pull the top strap and let it hang around your neck if needed. Unfortunately it has a VERY snug fit across the nose and leaves marks on my cheeks, or it would be perfect, but it's a good option, and possibly someone with a smaller face would have an easier time. These are possibly the best filtering and most breathable masks on the market, so for high risk situations this is the mask I would use. They filter 99.7% in testing. They're a little more expensive at about $1.25 per when I checked today. For a good intersection of fit and comfort, but a little less breathable, are the ACI N95 surgical respirator duckbills. These do not leave marks, don't fog much, good seal around the face, and the single most comfortable head strap I've ever seen. The fabric is very smooth, it is sensory good, but the breathability is not as high. It's not hard to breathe through, it's just not as easy as Drager or Dr. Puri. But... They could probably pass an N99 standard by Armbrust's testing, as they filter >99.4% of particulate, where the standard is 95%. These are also incredibly cheap. If you get their subscribe and save discount (you can do every 6 months) you can get 50 for $25, so 50 cents apiece.

All of these masks are pretty soft, easy to wear, and very good at what they do.

The TL:DR though.... The important thing is to find a mask that you will wear consistently and correctly every time you need it. A mask that hangs on your face and slips is not a good mask for you. A mask you hate so much you make excuses not to wear it is not a good mask for you. A mask that breaks easily or makes it hard to breathe so you end up taking it off is not a good mask. If what you have isn't working, there are LOTS of things that might.

Last Armbrust plug: THEY HAVE A SAMPLER PACK. You can buy a pack of a zillion different types and styles of mask and try a bunch! And order the one you like best! If you aren't sick, one sampler pack can be tried by the people in your household so everyone can figure out what works for them!

Also, I used to get sick very very often and now I just...don't. Not from contagious viruses, anyway. I don't understand why people are so cavalier about it. I've been sick less since 2020 than in any given six month period in my entire life. Despite being on immune suppressants.

#masks #face masks #n95 masks #covid isn't over

[rootbeerworshiper]

under the neon lights

chris sturniolo x fem!reader

based on these reqs: @inlovewithmattstur

warnings: angst with a very fluffy ending! and not proofread lolz

love, sienna <3

you’ve been best friends with Chris since freshmen year and the two of you are quite literally attached at the hip.

ongoing jokes about the two of you being a couple were all too common, and you can’t even be suprised at these remarks because in reality you and him were incredibly close.

normal friends don’t hold hands constantly and fall sleep cuddling, normal friends don’t catch each other staring and cause the other to become flustered, normal friends don’t spend every waking moment thinking about the other—but that was your dynamic with the boy, confusing, complicated, and anything but normal.

you often slept over at his house, Chris was never one to like sleeping alone, insisting he sleeps better with another body in the bed—and you didn’t mind.

the problem with this weird dynamic is how badly you wish things were different.

you wish your highschool experience involved going to prom with him, with a corsage laying on your wrist and a boy to kiss your hand as he greets you.

every night you imagine what it would feel like to be loved publicly, for someone to not shut up about how much they love you.

it’s impossible not to imagine cute dates and tiny acts of pda that actually mean the world.

you want romance—but instead your in love with your best friend.

on this particular night the two of you spent your time watching old videos from highschool—some more embarrassing than others.

“oh my god i cannot believe i wore that to school what was i doing?” your shocked expression causes him to laugh, his arm wrapped around your shoulder while your own arm wraps around his waist. “okay okay that’s enough of that let’s move on please” you practically cry out out of embarrassment, the boy just throwing his head back in a fit of laughter you can feel on your arm.

“i don’t think it was that bad” he says in between laughs. “to be fair i rotated the same five pairs of sweats every week so i can’t talk”

“our style just took a second to develop that’s for sure” you smile, squeezing Chris’ side slightly before relaxing into the touch once more.

the two of you continue scrolling through old snapchat memories and failed vlogs, laughing practically on repeat for an hour, the only thing lighting the room was the light illuminating from his phone.

“holy shit how is it two am already?” you sit up slightly, caught off guard by how fast time went by with your favourite person.

he smiles slightly, as if a lightbulb just entered his head. “wanna do something?” he asks, looking up at you with a look that can convince you to do anything, a look that consistently fills your stomach with butterflies that you consciously ignore.

“like what? last time i checked, neither of us have our license and Matt’s sleeping” you reply, unsure where he’s going with this. you toy with his fingers, tracing along the length of each once while he begins to speak.

“we could walk to the gas station that’s right over here, like we used to do during covid” he says, eyes focused on your hands as you continue playing with his fingers—what you don’t know is how incredibly much he cherishes your touch, like electricity is running through your connected fingers.

you smile at the memory of you and Chris back in Boston, sneaking out at three am to sit at the skatepark and eat the food purchased at the local gas station. “sure, i’ve missed that”

so the two you make your way out of bed, and you throw on one of Chris’ hoodies before joining him in quietly making your way out of the house—not wanting to wake up either of his brothers.

the walk is peaceful, streets illuminated by warm coloured street lamps and a bright moonlight that showcases the many stars littered across the black sky—for a moment it feels like your back in Boston.

Chris always insists on having background music, so your shared playlist played softly from the phone in his pocket as you walk along the sidewalks.

not a lot is said on the walk to the familiar gas station, and not a ton needed to be said, comfortable silence filling the space between two bodies as the neon lights from the convenience store light up your face a fluorescent white shade.

you enter the shop—Chris holding the door open for you and following shortly behind you as you head straight to the drink section.

the boy settles on a sweet tea and you yourself decide on a white monster. “do we want any snacks?” you ask, shutting the door to the commercial fridge.

“i could fuck up a nerds rope and some cool ranch doritos” he replies, causing you to smile because once again, it felt like old times, his snack decision hitting you with a wave of nostalgia.

and so you get just that, two of each snack that’s now stored in a small plastic bag that Chris holds as he once again opens the door for you to exit.

you ultimately decide to just sit outside the gas station, bright lights illuminating the tops of your heads as you sit down and begin to pull out the snacks—Chris’ music still playing quietly in the background.

“are you getting major deja vu or is that just me?” you ask, ripping open a bag of your favourite doritos as the boy takes a sip of his iced tea.

“one hundred percent but to be very fair we’ve done this exact thing like a hundred times” he laughs softly, a laugh that never fails to bring you serenity.

it’s silent again, the only noises to be heard are the rap songs playing from the iphone that lies on the cement and the crumbing of your dorito bags.

“i’m really happy we’re still friends, i don’t know who i’d be without you” Chris speaks up, gaze fixated on the gas pumps ahead of you.

you laugh at the sudden switch in tone, looking in his direction only to be met with his side profile, that alone causes the speed of your heartbeat to pickup. “way to get sappy all of a sudden”

“i just appreciate you that’s all” he looks to you now, meeting your gaze, making an eye contact with you that feels different than normal, maybe more intentional.

his gaze now switches from your eyes to a lower portion of your face, eyes making contact with your lips while your own eyes scan his face for any telling emotions.

“Chris stop looking at me like that” you try and joke, turning your gaze away to see his eyes still just as fixated on you as before.

“why? what if i just wanna admire my best friend?” he says softly, licking his lips and coating a thin layer of glistening saliva over them—but immediately his choice of words put you off.

this is a game you’ve played with him before. his overt friendliness that comes off as incredibly flirty and your hopeless romantic tendencies conflicting and instantly making things weird between the two of you.

“i’m not doing this with you i-“ you choose to stop speaking, already felling the pit in your stomach that is fighting back the urge to let out a sob.

normal friendships aren’t this hard.

his eyebrows immediately furrow, showing off his insane amount of cluelessness as you take a deep breath, allowing the dry, night dazed air to enter your lungs. “y/n i don’t understand what’s happening right now, are you okay?” he says, his voiced laced with a sense of concern.

“no i’m not okay!” you stand up, dusting your hands off on your sweats biting your lip to suppress any sadness dwelling. he stands up too, but still containing an innocence in his eyes that drives you insane.

“i can’t keep doing this!” you cry out. at this point you’ve given up on caring about weird looks from the cashier or other cars driving by, overtaken by pure anger that’s been smoking within you, ready to explode at any moment.

“doing what y/n? speak to me” he replies, concern overtaking his delicate face as he walks ever so slightly closer to you, subconsciously hoping to make you feel better.

but you pull away immediately, keeping a safe distance between you and the brunette. “whatever the fuck this is Chris” you motion between you and the boy with your hands. “you can’t keep looking at me and expect me not to feel something for you! it’s not fair that you say the most butterfly inducing shit and follow it up with ‘my best friend’. what am i supposed to do with that?”

every thought you’ve had about this friendship pours out of your mouth as tears well up in your eyes, threatening to pour out at any moment.

“i’m sorry i gave you the wrong impression i never meant to-“

“fuck off Chris. seriously fuck off. i don’t need to hear you reject me. i don’t want to have feelings for you. this would all be easier if i didn’t, i think we just need space” you begin to turn away from him, grabbing your things off the paved entrance.

you muster up the courage to say one last thing before walking away, a shakiness overtaking your bottom lip. “i shouldn’t have expected this to be any different. i should’ve known that this is just the way you are and i shouldn’t have been so stupid.”

a wet tear trails down your cheek, guiding alongside your nose as you speak. “was any of it ever real?”

it’s clear that by ‘any of it’ you’re referring to the romance you felt spark between the two of you, even he knows that—but he stays.

he stays exactly where he is and his mouth remains shut.

“i hope we can figure out our shit but right now i’m done. with you, with this. done.” with that you walk away, your back facing the boy as you increase the speed of your steps, eager to leave this shitty situation.

his heart drops at this. the last thing he wants is space. he adores you and he doesn’t want your friendship to be put on pause for any reason.

he wants to be able to tell you that he likes you in that way too. that every time silence fills the space between you he fights the urge to kiss you. and that he can’t help but think of you anytime someone asks if he’s single because for whatever reason when he’s with you he feels everything but alone.

he’d kill to grab your hand, to stop you from walking away and tell you how obsessed with you he is, but it’s not that simple—nothing about this relationship is.

deep down Chris knows exactly what you want.

you want a relationship. you want to go on dates and hold hands in public and put a label on how you feel for one another—that couldn’t be further from what he wants.

which is why he stands there—the neon lights reflecting in his teary eyes as your back faces him, as you leave him there all alone with his thoughts.

to him it all happened so fast, like a car spinning out of control, slipping on ice until it meets its untimely demise. this was all out of his control, and what was he supposed to do?

commitment is terrifying.

going on dates and posting each other on important anniversaries was his nightmare for so long, the idea of that being genuinely off putting.

but the idea of never having you in his life again?

the idea of not hearing you laugh at his stupid jokes, clutching your stomach with a huge grin on your face or listening to your calm, patterned breaths as he falls asleep next to you?

that was so much worse.

all of a sudden everything clicks.

he was in love with you.

he is in love with you.

all this time he knew you were different than other friends, but his feelings towards you weren’t something he was conscious of.

but it makes sense now, why he got all flustered whenever you teased him, why you had so much power over him in ways that were embarrassing.

the realization hits him like a brick, his feet planted onto the pavement below him, his mind unable to think about anything else but you.

but you’re gone. in the time that it took Chris to figure out his conflicting thoughts you had walked back to the house, fully prepared to sleep on the couch and gave Matt drive you home first thing in the morning.

it can’t be over like this, you can’t be over like this.

so he runs, like a fucking idiot he leaves behind his snacks placed against the conscience store wall and he runs.

you continue walking down the street, nothing but soft sobs escaping your shivering mouth as you think about every memory of Chris you cherished so close to your heart.

like when he wrote you letters telling you how happy he was that you were in his life, folded up and placed in an envelope. you were one of few people that were able to read his messy handwriting, but based on his proper punctuation and attention to writing his words more clearly, it was obvious he took his time. for you.

or that time when you went to the fair with him—the kid hates rides, hates them. but he also knows just how much you love them, so that night he swallowed his fear, holding your hand and going on every ride with you so that you wouldn’t be alone.

or the forehead kisses he would give you as you worked through a difficult assignment in school, his soft words of motivation that got you to graduation.

in what world is that casual?

you roll your eyes at his previous statement. he just gave you ‘the wrong impression’ as if what he did could have been interpreted in literally any other way.

you’re too caught up in your own thoughts, trying to find an answer to the never ending puzzle that is Chris Sturniolo to even notice the footsteps behind you, the pace slowing as they get closer to you.

until they stop. “y/n” Chris speaks, clearly out of breath.

before you even turn around you roll your eyes. “i just wanna sleep, can we talk about this another time please? i cant keep thinking about it”

the hand that’s softly placed on your shoulder tells you otherwise, so you turn around, now facing Chris who looks like he’s on the verge of tears.

once he catches his breath he looks at you with pleading eyes. “can i just speak?”

you nod, biting your lip to avoid any more snide comments, it’s clear he cares, that much you can give him.

he takes one more deep breath, as if he’s about to run a marathon with his voice. “i was confused. i was confused and i was so stupid and i don’t know what i was thinking”

you just stand there at look at him, wiping away your tears as he speaks. “it was all real, all of it. i just got so scared because it all felt too real. i just-“ his voice is shaky, and it’s evident that he’s holding back tears.

“you have always been more than a friend to me. this whole time i’ve been so completely obsessed with you and everything about you and i haven’t been able to think straight because every time i look at you i have to stop myself from kissing you” he runs his hand through his soft hair, struggling to look at you when he speaks.

he inhaled another breath, the air shakily filling his lungs. “but i never did, mostly because i didn’t think i was good enough for you. you deserve someone so amazing and caring and romantic and everyday i wondered if i’d ever get there. i wanted to get there so bad because i wanted you. i’m not a relationship kind of guy” he sniffles. “i mean i’ve barely even been on a real date and i’m twenty years old”

he shakes his head, trying his best to get his point across. “but none of that matters when i look at you because everytime i see you it all goes away. every fear of commitment and- and realness goes away.” tears creep out of his blue eyes, but he’s quick to wipe them away with his palms. “god y/n i’m so fucking in love with you that the thought of you walking away from me made my heart hurt”

you’ve never seen him this vulnerable before. sure, he was always honest with you, but right now he just looks so- hopeless.

he finishes speaking, shaking out his hands slightly as if to relieve tension that formed in his joints as he spoke.

you’re not entirely sure what to say, so you don’t speak, instead pulling the boy into a much needed hug, burying your face into his chest and wrapping your arms around his waist.

he doesn’t react at first, in shock initially at the sudden closeness, but it doesn’t take long for him to pull you in impossibly closer to him, one hand placed on your back and another on the back of your head.

he rests his face on the top of your head, practically burying his lips in your hair as his hand rubs your back.

you pull out slightly, keeping your arms on his side as you look at him, one last tear crawling down your cheek.

immediately his hands comes to your face, cupping your jawline while his thumb wipes away the tear drop. “why are you crying now?” he furrows his eyebrows, a slight playfulness to his tone.

you giggle, leaning into his touch. “i think these are happy tears now”

“well it’s a good thing you look beautiful even you cry” he smiles softly, holding eye contact with you as you look up at him.

“yeah why’s that?” you tease.

he leans in slightly closer, mumbling slightly as he speaks. “because i’d really like to kiss you now”

your heart flutters at this, and everything feels good again. you have Chris and that’s all you need. “what’s taking you so long?” you smile, the boy immediately leaning in fully and attaching his lips to yours carefully.

his hand still rests on your cheek, only deepening the kiss further before you start smiling, causing him to pull back as you widen your eyes.

“what was that for?” he laughs softly.

“i’m gonna sound like the corniest mother fucker if i say what i’m thinking so i’m just gonna kiss you again” you smile, leaving back in once more, if you weren’t already obsessed with him you definitely are now.

it’s a short lived kiss, the two of you are exhausted at this point, but it still means everything to you.

he wraps his arm around your shoulder now, pulling you into a side hug and kissing the top of your head. “i think after my whole ‘i’m in love with you’ monologue i take the prize for corniest fucker”

you laugh, beginning to walk down the poorly lit street. “never though i’d see the day, Christopher Owen Sturniolo is a cheese ball”

“okay that’s enough of that i’m going back to the gas station” he jokingly turns away before you pull him back to you again.

“i like it when your corny, it’s hot” you mumble, causing the boy to pause in his steps, his arm still around you.

“guess i’ll have to do it more often then yeah?” words that simple shouldn’t have the effect on you that they do, but you’re a smiling mess regardless.

“yeah”

a/n: had no idea how to end this LMAOO hopefully it fulfilled some of your needs for angst

i tried so hard to make chris accurate but i don’t know the man like that💔

taglist: @lolasnoww-blog @tastesousweet @ivypoison @disturbedwoodelf @sturnswift @junnniiieee07 @ellie-luvsfics @sturnified @s7urnfilms @madsdogst @justlivinglive @sluttycupsworld @flowerxbunnie @mbsbaby @sturniolossmut @lustfulslxt @69isabella69 @sturnioloslurps @dracoflaco @mattslatinagf @raekensluver @worldlxvlys

#sturniolo triplets #sturniolo #chris sturniolo #chris sturniolo oneshot #chris sturniolo fluff #chris sturniolo angst #christopher sturniolo #chris sturniolo x reader

[urdrowning]

Hi :)

If you are taking requests, could you please do a Leah oneshot?

Maybe one where reader is really famous (a singer/model/actress/or whatever) and her and Leah have been dating for a while in secret. And Leah’s teammates are suspicious of who’s she’s always spending time with or texting.

Also if you could, could you include Leah introducing reader to them?

Could be England or Arsenal teammates. Or both lol.

Thank you :))

AN - tysm for the request !! i kinda got lazy at the end cause i caught covid while writing LMAO. i don’t really like the ending. MAYBEEEE i have a part two in mind of a soft launch.. maybe i don’t..

superstar / l. williamson

celebrity relationships are always awkward. when you’re under constant spotlight, it can be hard to settle down. finding someone who actually loves you for yourself, and not for your status isn’t easy. so that’s why you truly believe yourself to be the luckiest of the bunch.

leah williamson, your diamond in the rough.

you met leah at the BRIT awards in 2022. the minute you made eye contact with her brilliant blue eyes, electricity coursed its way through the both of you. the two of you spent the entire night together, getting to know each other. sat on tables next to each other, conversing through the speeches and nominations.

“if you win this award, i’ll take you on a date.”

she smirks at you and you’re taken aback. you’ve been so caught up in her presence that you didn’t realise that your section was up. you and your band have been nominated for the best upcoming artist award (tbh idk if this is a thing. if it’s not, pretend it is) before you even know it, the announcer has taken the stage and begins to announce the winner.

“and the winner of the best upcoming artist award is..”

you can barely even comprehend what they are saying, you’re rather distracted by leah’s hand, as she moves it to discreetly hold yours under the table. you’re in a blur as the announcer continues and you don’t even hear who wins. but, judging by how your band mates have all stood-up and look like they’ve won the lottery, you’ve got a pretty decent bet. you get hoisted up by your band mates as you walk on stage for the group’s acceptance speech. you let your band mates do the talking, as you’re too dazed to even think. (this very much goes viral in with your fans. your ‘fish out of water look’ is now a fan favourite meme)

despite suffering from equally massive hangovers, she’s true to her word, leah took you out on a date the following night. even though it was a small date at the arcade, you would probably still consider it one of your most fondest memories. on your third date, you kissed her. then, on the following night, she showed up on your doorstep, flowers in hand, asking you to be her girlfriend.

your one year anniversary together is approaching and the two of you are still as inseparable as you were when you first met. despite not being together for long, the both of you are unable to picture a future without the other in it.

leah is a private person, as are you. you both agreed to keep your relationship quiet and between yourselves. but, with your relationship approaching it’s first milestone, the both of you are getting restless. neither your family nor your friends are aware of your relationship.

how you’ve managed to keep it a secret from your band mates is a mystery of scooby doo fame. especially since you literally share an apartment with one of them. you consider your band mates your own found family, your forever bestfriends. each of you have been best friends since secondary school, and clearly, have been inseparable since. ironically, you’re all major football enthusiasts as well. you and your band mates are die hard lioness fans, even attending the euro’s competition in support (again, it’s a mystery how they didn’t find out. leah wouldn’t stop smiling at you in the crowd) leah struggled as well, her teammates are getting suspicious. the way she hides her phone from them as she giggles at it when you text.

“you’re seeing someone, aren’t you.”

leah’s head shoots up from her phone at the voice, only to be met with a suspicious looking keira walsh. looking at her with an accusatory stare.

“w.. what are you talking about?”

leah stutters out in an attempts to deny it all, but keira can see right through her, and is determined to get the truth out.

“don’t pretend leah, i know somethings up.”

leah sighs and looks down, avoiding kiera’s glare. she shrugs her shoulders lightly and appears similar to a child who’s got caught breaking the rules. she then reluctantly and awkwardly mutters

“yeah, i guess i’ve being seeing someone..”

keira’s stern gaze breaks as she excitedly sits down next to her friend and grabs her arms, flinging her about as she rapidly fires questions at her.

“who is it? what are they like? how long have you guys been together? are you being safe?”

leah looks mortified. she’s getting overwhelmed with the amount of questions that are being fired at her.

“keira, for gods sake, slow down! we’ve been together for almost a year now, and she treats me well.”

keira pauses her movements, looking at leah with her mouth agape.

“.. a YEAR?? who is she?”

——

“i’m so sorry, babe. i didn’t mean for this.”

leah feels incredibly guilty. she stares at you through the phone screen after relaying the earlier events to you. you’ve been quiet since she started telling you, appearing to be lost in thought. after leah’s fifth apology, it seems you snap out of your trance and smile at her.

“leah, honey, breathe. it’s okay, i’m not mad. it’s about time we started telling people.”

you truly mean it, you honestly feel quite relieved that she made the first move in telling her teammates, as you’ve been fairly close to cracking the news to your band mates yourself.

the thought of telling your band mates makes you nervous, you don’t know why. there’s nothing bad about your relationship. it’s not like you’re dating someone 29 years younger than you (looking at you, leo dicaprio) besides, they are lioness fans themselves and would most likely be elated at the news of you dating their team captain.

“i know, but i should’ve talked with you before-hand.”

leah secretly is filled with relief as well, she no longer has to hide her love from her friends. but it doesn’t make her feel any better about how she told them.

“you’re talking to me about it now, i think that’s enough.”

she shakes her head lightly, fighting off a smile. you always manage to cheer her up, no matter what. it’s as if you have super powers.

“i would’ve told you sooner, but keira’s loudmouth blabbed it to the rest of the team. i’ve been questioned all night.”

the minute she had free time, she’d facetimed you straight away. after she found out who leah was dating, keira’s shocked exclamation of your name definitely didn’t go unheard. her england teammates had hounded her with question after question about you and your relationship together.

you’re about to reply to her before she lets out a yawn. you check the time and realise it’s late into the night.

“go rest, sleepy. i’ll talk to rory and get her to speak to my other band mates for me. i’ll speak to you in the morning, okay? love you.”

she smiles at you sleepily as she mumbles

“love you too, goodnight..”

you end the call and take a deep breathe as you prepare to face your bandmate/roommate, rory. you and her have been inseparable for years. you always planned on telling her first out of your friends and family, you have the utmost trust for her and you’re hoping she’ll be understanding and not upset at you for hiding your relationship from her. you exhale slowly as you get up from your bed and knock on her door.

——

leah 💗:

‘my teammates want to meet you x’

the text almost instantaneously shoots anxiety through your veins. despite being a big fan of them, meeting leah’s teammates is an incredibly daunting thing. they intimidate the hell out of you.

y/n 🤍:

leah 💗:

‘baby it’s okay. if you’re not comfortable with it i’ll tell them no x’

yn 🤍:

‘no no. ofc i want to meet them, they’re just intimidating is all’

leah 💗:

‘aw babe you’re cute 🥰 they’re harmless. and i’ll stop them if they make u uncomfortable. promise x’

you both texted for a little while longer while agreeing that leah would come pick you up and take you to meet her teammates.

you told your band mates last night and it went down well. they were slightly hurt that you kept it from them but were mostly just excited for you and in shock that you managed to pull leah williamson herself. your train of thought is interrupted from the vibration of your phone, lighting up with a text from leah to let you know she’s outside.

she grins at you as you get into the passenger side of her car, leaning over to kiss you cheek.

“are you sure about this?”

she mumbles against your cheek, you can sense her nerves. she’s not nervous because she’s ashamed of you. she’s nervous because she can’t guarantee that her teammates will behave around you.

“i’m sure. i want to do this, it’s important to me.”

she smiles slightly at you, your words holding a great value to her. she then gives you one last kiss on the cheek before she starts the car and drives.

——

“girls, this is y/n. i’m sure you already know her, but please, be nice. she’s really important to me.”

leah’s grip on your hand tightens towards the end of her sentence as her sincerity shines through. it’s true, she cares about you enough to go to the ends of the earth for you.

“hi, it’s really good to meet you all. i’m a big fan.”

the rest of the girls sit there, disbelieving.

“YOU’RE a fan of US”

you chuckle sheepishly, using your freehand to play with the hem of your shirt nervously, one glance at the lionesses faces and you know you’re in for a tornado’s worth of questions. with a deep inhale, you smile and look at them.

“ask away.”

——

after being bombarded with question after question, the awkward and intense atmosphere has long left the room and you’re sat comfortable between leah and georgia. leah’s arm is wrapped comfortably and protectively around your shoulders, one glance at her face and you can see that she’s on cloud nine. all her favourite people are seamlessly bonding and she couldn’t be happier about it.

“let’s play a game!”

the loud voice of ella toone shouts, followed by the loud agreements of the lionesses. ella then excitedly follows up with a shout of ‘duck, duck goose’ but nobody else wants to play that. (ella hmu i wanna play duck duck goose with you so bad)

“y/n! if i win, i get to choose your next album cover!”

mary shouts, you smile at her and agree, feeling confident.

(you lost, now you have to explain to your band mates that mary earp’s is in charge of your next album cover.)

#leah williamson #leah williamson x reader #leah williamson imagine #leah williamson fanfic #woso fanfic #woso community #woso x reader #woso imagine #engwnt x reader #engwnt

[thetriplets3]

hi lovely! i have a request!!! could you do one where matt and reader are secretly dating and they go out on a date and someone catches them? like fan and they post it or something?? thx girl love ur work!!!

❝𝐨𝐧𝐥𝐲 𝐰𝐞 𝐤𝐧𝐨𝐰❞

this is the jet lag and the covid brewing in my body that wrote this, not me. i have no idea if any of this is coherent or makes sense but i hope it’s okay

matt and i have been dating for nearly 2 years now having been friends since highschool. and we decided it was best for both of us to keep our relationship a secret public eye. his brothers, nate, and madi know but that’s it. just a few people we know would never say anything. their fans know of me and that i went to school with them so it’s no surprise to see me with them all but that’s the extent of it. matt posts a few soft launch photos of us but keeping me private. i don’t follow the boys from my main account so no fans have been able to dig through his followers to find who the mystery girl is.

matt and i rarely go out alone, always with his brothers or friends. there’s a small part of me that hurts that we decided to do this. not being able to spend time together in public without making things look very platonic, having to keep distance when we’re with friends who don’t know about us, or not being able to show my love openly for my boyfriend. i often turn down going to big events because i find them overwhelming, too loud, too many different things going on at once, it’s just too much for me especially when i can’t be with matt, my security blanket making me feel safe and comfortable.

it’s a blizzard outside, roads too icy for anyone to brace except those working. not to mention it’s the kind of cold that makes your nose hairs instantly feel frozen. using this weather to our advantage, matt and i carefully headed to our favorite little family run bakery down the road. one thing i hate is being cold. dressed in my comfiest thickest sweats, a fleece sweatshirt, a puffy jacket with a scarf just about covering my whole face you could hardly tell who i was, but i was warm and comfy.

we grab a table in the corner of the bakery decorated with warm christmas lights hung above the plush couch with a variety of plants aesthetically placed around the space. the atmosphere was beautiful, soft and gentle lighting, a fireplace adorned with christmas decorations and garland, instrumental music played quietly over the speakers, and to make it even better there wasn’t anyone in here other than the odd person that came in briefly here and there.

i leaned into matt’s side resting my head on his shoulder and his arm holding me closer to him. we sat there facing the large bay window soaking in the peace and beauty of the snow falling. we sat quietly in silence for a while before something out the window caught our eye. 2 teenage girls quickly putting their phones away once they saw us watching them, giggling as they ran away. 

“matt” my voice falters, worried about what might be posted.

“i know it’s okay try not to worry, im sure you can’t even tell it’s us through all that spray on snow on the window. plus you’re so bundled up you look like cousin itt. no one will recognize who you are and if they do, they do. it’s out of our control love,” he tries to reassure me. he pulls his phone out and take a photo of us. “see? we’re good don’t worry”.

“omg i do look like cousin itt” i giggled.

“whatever happens, happens okay? sure they’ll know we’re dating but that’s all they know. we can still keep our relationship private just like we are now nothing has to change. i mean is it so bad that they know? i can take you on proper dates without having to hide you. so what if people see us? they only see a sliver of our relationship, they’ll see us together but that’s all they know. they don’t know our favorite song, the moment i fell in love with you, how you fit right into our family, how much my parents love you, mom’s told me you’re like the daughter she’s always wanted, nick and chris love you, everyone does. so i don’t care if they see us together, they only see the outside of our relationship. i know without a doubt in my mind that i’m gonna marry you one day. what they know doesn’t affect our relationship. i love you pretty girl”.

“i didn’t know you had a thing for cousin itt” i giggled earning a nudge to my shoulder from matt at my lack of seriousness. “i’m kidding, you’re right they can see the outside of our relationship and make their own assumptions. all that matters is we know our relationship. i love you”.

squeezing me closer to his side he rests his head on mine planting kisses to my head. “who doesn’t have a thing for cousin itt?” he joked making me laugh.

“i can’t wait to marry that laugh”.

taglist:

@antisocialties @iluvmatt @dwntwn-strnlo @fake-coolbeans @opheliaofficial07 @angelcake-222 @oneirophobic @strniolo @ssturniolo @20nugs @abbie13sworld @strniolo @luvsturniolo

#matt sturniolo #matt sturniolo x reader #sturniolo triplets #readers pov #not edited #not sure what the whole cousin itt thing is about. again this isn’t me writing

[javierpena-inatacvest]

Soup for Breakfast

Summary: Javi comes home to find that you caught the flu from your class at school, and wants to help you feel better.

Word count: 1.7K

Warnings: FLUFF. This is literally just pure fluff, as Javier Peña lives in my mind rent free as the biggest softie alive. Mentions of food/eating, mentions of death (but in a really wholesome way), reader being sick

Paring: Javier Peña x f!reader (no use of Y/N, reader is an elementary school teacher)

This can be read as a stand alone, or as a part of the Never Too Late Series!

A/N: I wrote this when I had COVID because I am convinced that if you told Javi that you were sick, he would literally go to the ends of the earth to help you feel better.

“Hey hermosa, I’m home.” Javi set his keys down on the entryway table and shed his dark gray suit jacket, flopping it over the edge of the kitchen counter. 

Silence. 

“Hermosa?” He questioned again, concern beginning to creep in his voice. 

Since you had started the school year, Javi came home every day looking forward to the image of you sitting at the kitchen table, projects and papers from your 3rd grade class spread across the oak surface. You’d smile and give him a big kiss, ready to share whatever crazy antics your class was up to that day. But when he stepped through the doorway, he noticed the usual construction paper, notebooks and crayons, but the seat where you always were was empty. 

“Hey baby, it’s me!” He tried one more time, hoping that you were in a room further down the hall and hadn’t heard him. No response. The silence sent Javi into fight or flight, now picking up his speed as he looked into other rooms to find them all empty. He paced back to the living room, trying to keep his composure, his past experience with missing persons not boding well for his current state. Taking a few more deep breaths before doing anything irrational, Javi went to sit down on the couch, until he heard a small grunt underneath him. 

“Please don’t sit on me.” You grumbled, nestled under a large pile of blankets.

“Hermosa, Jesus Christ, you scared the shit out of me.” Javi shot up, breathing heavily, placing his hand on his chest. You rolled over, shifting around in your blanket heap, head peeking out to look at Javi. “Baby, are you okay? What’s wrong?” Panic still lingering in his words, now realizing you were laying in a near lifeless heap on the couch. 

“No, I feel great. Isn’t this what everyone does when they feel good? Roll themselves into a giant blanket pile?” Your remark oozing with sarcasm and a hoarseness in your voice. “The flu has been going around my classroom and I think I got it.” You groaned, your body aching as you shifted yourself further out of your fabric cocoon. “You’d think by this point I’d have the immune system of a steel truck, but these kids are just never ending germ factories.” 

Javi quietly chuckled to himself as he knelt next to you, sweeping your hair out of your face and kissing your forehead. As he got closer, he could feel the heat radiating off you, your breaths heavy and labored as you fought to keep your eyelids open. He grazed the back of his large hand against your hairline, his deep brown puppy dog eyes growing more and more concerned.

 “Cariño, you look awful.” 

“Way to make a girl feel good.” 

“No, baby, that’s not what I meant, I-” he tried to quickly rebuttal. 

“Javi, I’m just joking. I know I look like a Gremlin someone just pulled out of a garbage can.” You both quietly laughed before you let out a deep cough, only adding to the effect of your disheveled state. “I started feeling gross this afternoon while the kids were at Art and Gym, so I already made sub plans for the rest of the week, just in case.” 

Javi leaned back down to kiss your head once again, knowing you really must have felt awful if you were willing to admit the fact you couldn’t fight your way through your sickness so you didn’t need to find a substitute teacher for your class. “Okay, hermosa. I think that’s a good idea.” He sat up to peek his head over the couch, starting at your kitchen. “Give me one second, okay?” 

You nodded, already back to being half asleep. Javi began rummaging through the fridge and cabinets, looking for any food that you would 1- eat, and 2- help you feel better. Grimacing at the low stock of items, he began frantically scribbling down a grocery list full of supplies. 

“Hey baby?” Javi had made his way back to the couch, squatting down next to you as he handed you a glass of water. 

“Mhmmmmhh?” You moaned, outstretching an almost limp arm to take the glass, sitting up as you took a few sips. 

“I’m gonna go to the grocery store to get some things. I promise I’ll be right back. Are you gonna be okay while I’m gone?” 

“Well I wasn’t planning on going very far anytime soon, I think I’ll be alright.” You half smiled at him, handing him back the now empty glass. 

“Okay. I love you.” He kissed you on the top of your head, his nose nestled in your hair before he pulled away, frantically gathering his keys and shutting the door behind him. 

“Love you too.” You mumbled, half coherent as you burrowed back down into your blankets. 

When Javi got to the store, he was a man on a mission. You would have thought someone had told him Pablo Escobar was inside at the rate he was moving through the aisles. Completely disregarding the list he had thrown together at the house, Javi had a shopping cart of supplies full enough to tend to the entirety of your 3rd grade class. The thought of seeing you sick and in pain absolutely wrecked him, wanting to do anything he could to help you feel better. He was so desperate, in fact, at one point while in the pharmacy section, he had thrown in a box of bandaids, just in case. 

When he returned back to the house, he was relieved to find you at least sitting in a semi-upright position watching TV, laughing to yourself at the ridiculous amount of groceries he had just set down on the kitchen counter. 

“I didn’t know we were planning on running a hospital out of our home.” You giggled as Javi unbagged the items. 

“I just wanted to make sure you had whatever you needed. I may have gone a little overboard.” He replied sheepishly as he continued to unpack a bag full of snacks. 

“It’s okay, it’s sweet. Thanks Dr. Peña.” 

“Of course.” He finished putting everything in its place before coming back over to you. “Here, drink this.” He passed another cup over to you. 

“Wow, you even got me the red Gatorade? You hate the red kind! You really do love me.” A soft smile crept across your face as you took a small sip. 

“Well I’m not the one who looks like they’re on their deathbed, Hermosa.” It took every ounce of strength in you to give him a playful shove. “I’m gonna make you some soup, okay?” 

“You didn’t need to go all the way to the store for soup, we have soup here.” You rolled your eyes, knowing how much it physically pained Javi to watch you eat Campbell's canned soup after having a taste of one of his mom’s recipes not too long ago. 

“I can already hear mi mamá yelling at me from the grave if I let you eat that shit, especially when you’re sick. I’m making you Caldo de Pollo so she doesn’t come back to haunt me. Had it every time I was sick. Swear it makes you feel better.” Your  heart was warming at the idea of Javi making one of his late mother’s recipes, thankful that Javi’s dad had given you some of them from her cookbook. 

“Thank you, Javi. You’re the best. I’d kiss your sweet face but I’m guessing you don’t want my germs.” 

“A quick one won’t hurt anyone, doctor’s orders.” He winked before planting a soft peck on your lips. 

As he got up, he went over to your entertainment center under the TV, pulling out 2 different VHS tapes. “Which one?” 

“You can’t pit two Harrison Ford classics against each other! Hmmmm, I do love Indiana Jones, but I think Star Wars is gonna have to be the winner today. 

“I had a feeling.” He smiled as he popped in the tape, the theme music blasting as he got to work in the kitchen. 

Javi had to admit, he wasn’t a terrible chef. It wasn’t until he met you that he actually felt a need to cook. In Colombia, he was either eating out or stealing whatever leftovers Steve and Connie had, and once he came home, his dad cooked, insisting he wanted to keep his wife’s habit alive and well, even after she was gone. After Javi had chopped up all of the vegetables, he tossed them into the pot to let them simmer with the already bubbling chicken and rice. Once the soup was done, he filled a bowl practically to the brim, bringing it over to you, only to be greeted by the sweet sounds of your soft snores, muffled under the blanket draped across your face. He laughed quietly to himself before putting your soup on the end table of the couch and shuffling himself underneath your blanket mountain so your head rested against his thigh as a pillow. He stroked the ends of your hair between his fingers in one hand, the other, rubbing up and down your back in soft, gentle circles. 

He let the end credits of the movie roll before turning off the TV and carefully unwrapping you from your blankets, scooping you up to carry you back to bed. As he laid you down, gently tucking you in under the covers, he heard you mumble something. 

“What was that, Hermosa?” Javi’s voice just above a whisper.

“I never ate your soup.” You muttered, eyes still closed, words barely coherent. 

“It’s okay. Go back to sleep, baby. You need to rest.” He sat on the edge of your bed next to you, planting a soft kiss on the top of your head. 

“Can I have it for breakfast tomorrow?” You grumbled, as you turned over on your pillow. 

Javi laughed to himself. “Of course hermosa. Nos vamos por la mañana con tu sopa. Espero que te sientas mejor pronto. Te amo con todo mí corazon, Osita.” (I’ll see you in the morning with your soup. I hope you feel better soon. I love you with my whole heart, little bear.) 

If you would have asked Javier Peña all those years ago if he would have ever made someone soup for breakfast, he would have laughed in your face. But now? Now, he would make a million bowls of soup for breakfast, if it meant he got to spend it with you. 

#pedro pascal #pedro pascal character fanfic #pedro pascal fanfiction #javier pena fanfiction #javi pena #javi peña x reader #javier pena #javier pena fic #javier pena fluff #javier pena imagine #javier pena narcos #javier pena x f!reader #javier pena x female reader #javier pena x reader #javier pena x you #javier peña #javier peña fanfiction #javier peña x f!reader #javier peña x female reader #javier peña x reader #javier peña x you #narcos fanfiction #narcos fic #narcos #javier peña fluff #javier peña fic #pedro pascal characters #pedrohub #pedro pascal character

[serverusslaype]

Shameless, pt. 8

Severus Snape x professor!reader fic

Shameless Masterpost

omg hi guys.............

i'm so sorry for leaving it this long, i just literally could not write anything, my brain was absolutely fogged up - probably because i had covid unknowingly lmao. this is another long chapter so i hope this makes up for it! <3

thank you for reading and for all your kind messages and support, i appreciate you all so much. i know i say this constantly but i really mean it. stay safe and keep healthy, guys!! love you :')

let's get this train on the ROAD!!!

The summer of '93 was an interesting feat, to say the least. Sirius Black had escaped from Azkaban, and you'd found yourself dating someone you never thought you would.

You had not expected yourself to be caught up in a whirlwind type of romance, especially not by someone you'd despised back in school. Yet, here you were, arm in arm with none other than school menace, Benjamin Bluewater. The two of you were currently strolling through Hogsmeade, wide smiles spread across your rosy-cheeked, cold faces. The snow crunched beneath your feet as Ben wrapped an affectionate arm around your waist, pulling you close against him. You failed horribly at trying to hide the bashful smile that picked at the corners of your shivering lips.

"I'm gonna miss seeing you every other day." Ben said, giving you a squeeze.

"Yeah," you hummed happily, glancing up, "this summer has been very..." You trailed off, struggling to find the words. Ben glanced down at you, a lazy half-smile reaching his lips.

"Unexpected?" He chuckled, finishing your sentence for you.

A grin broke out on your face and Ben leant down to plant a soft kiss against your smiling mouth. "Definitely." You replied against his lips, nodding softly, letting your eyes fall back to the powdery-white trail in front of you as he pulled away. "You can visit me if it gets too hard." You teased, nudging him playfully with your elbow. It'd only been a month and a bit of seeing Ben, but he really had you hooked. Each time you saw him, the agonising thought of you and Snape melted away from your mind a little bit more. You felt like you'd finally got control - he was no longer dictating how you felt. However, you did feel a tad bit guilty. At times it felt like you were using Ben to get over the broody Potions Master. You didn't dare tell him about it either, you were pretty sure that he wouldn't take it well - in fact, you were certain he wouldn't. How would he believe that you'd fallen for the man that used to cause the pair of you grief in school? For starters, he used to be your teacher all those years ago, and secondly, in Ben's mind, he considered Snape an ugly old git.

"I think you'll be the first to crack, Y/N." Ben nudged you back, prompting a playful scoff to fall from your mouth. Ben's lips broke into a grin, pleased with your reaction.

"As if," You choked. "Wait, who was it again that turned up at my door the day after our first date? Oh yeah, you." You scrunched your nose up at him and poked out your tongue, though, your attention was soon hooked by the flash of what looked like a figure dressed in all-black. Your breath caught in your throat as your head snapped to the left, eyes flicking desperately between the forest of pine trees, searching  for what you thought you had seen. Ben picked up on your change in behaviour almost immediately.

It couldn't be, you thought, heart suddenly beginning to race.

"You okay?" His bushy brows furrowed at your unusual skittish demeanour, clearly worried about you. Ben's alarmed voice did not compute in your head. "Hey," His hand slipped from your arm and fell to your wrist, tugging it at it to pull you from your thoughts, inducing a soft gasp from you as you spun on your heel to face Ben. It looked as if you had just seen a ghost of some sort.

"What?" You questioned softly, blinking. Ben stared at you.

"You look like you've just seen a ghost, Y/N." He said, concerned. You swallowed and wet your lips, looking down at the ground as he brushed his thumb tenderly against your wrist.

"I'm alright." You looked back up at Ben, placing a forced smile upon your lips. He didn't seem convinced, though he didn't press you. He gave you the benefit of the doubt. "Just, err, just a little on edge, you know with, erm, the whole Sirius Black thing." You lied, a nervous chuckle leaving your throat.

"I don't think the mass murderer known as Sirius Black would bother himself with a place such as Hogsmeade, Y/N." Ben smiled, almost amusedly at you. You stayed silent, not sure what to say. Ben let his blue eyes to flick between yours, almost like he was attempting to read your mind. You broke the connection and glanced away, an uncomfortable feeling creeping up your spine. Ben sighed gently and looked ahead of the two of you. The town of Hogsmeade was settled in the distance, shrouded in a cloudy mist. An idea popped in his mind. "Would a tea or a hot beverage of some sort make you feel a little better?"

"Um, yes, I could go for a tea." You nodded lightly, looking back to Ben. A small smile graced his features as he let his warm hand slip into yours. The corners of your lips tugged upwards a little. Ben felt at ease once more as your pretty face was lit up with that bright smile of yours. He couldn't resist placing another sweet kiss upon your lips.

"Alright. Let's go, I know just the place."

You laid on your bed in your quarters at Hogwarts, the pale sunlight peeking through your curtains was slowly ceasing as the evening began to set in. Your mind was constantly reeling back to yesterday afternoon. You continuously replayed the memory of the flash of black in your mind, attempting to put a name to what it was. A sigh of frustration left your lips, leading into a groan. You refused to acknowledge who you thought it was. There was just no way.

All those feelings and thoughts that you'd buried and hidden away with the idea of Ben started to creep back out of it's cage and it frightened you. Perhaps it was foolish of you to think that you'd move on so quickly. A month and a bit was definitely not enough time to heal. Yes, you were unquestionably foolish to think that forty-three days was a satisfactory amount of time to rid yourself of the thought of someone you had been near almost every day for a year.

Whatever, you thought. It'll pass. It will... won't it?

Gods, now you were doubting yourself. You knew you still felt deeply for Snape, of course you did, you spent almost a whole year in his presence, but you thought dating someone else in the meantime would have solved some of that. Jesus, that's messed up. Were you just using Ben to get over Snape? This was so wrong on so many levels. You liked Ben, truly you did, but you always found yourself comparing him to Severus. The way he spoke, the way he moved... your mind was plagued with him, and you were an idiot to think that locking away the thought of Severus would do anything but help yourself. You did this to yourself, and now you deserved to deal with the consequences. You just had to act like your feelings for him didn't exist, maybe that would help. …Maybe it wouldn't, but that was the best idea you had right now.

You needed to clear your head, and badly. Your buzzing thoughts were starting to drown you. You quickly slipped out of your bed and headed out of your room, quietly shutting the door behind you. Just as you were about to turn around to walk down the hallway, a tall, shabby looking man stood in your way. He had light brown hair with flecks of grey in it, a fluffy moustache and a rather painful looking scar was scraped across the middle of his handsome face.

"Oh- hello," You said in surprise, confusion evident in your tone. The man smiled at you jovially, his eyes crinkling at the edges. He looked rather tired and pale. You tilted your head at him, furrowing your brows.

"I apologise for scaring you," The man pursed his lips as he attempted a light-hearted joke, shoving his hands into his pockets. "I'm Remus, err, Remus Lupin, the new Defence Against the Dark Arts professor." He added, his eyebrows raising a tad.

"Oh, yes, of course!" You instantly smiled, your cheeks turning a little red out of embarrassment. Lupin found it rather endearing. You scolded yourself for forgetting soemthing so important - Dumbledore had mentioned this the day before you left for Summer break. "I'm so sorry, it had totally slipped my mind. My name is Y/N L/N," Your smile widened as you held out a friendly hand for him to shake. "I'm the professor of Herbology here at Hogwarts."

"Ah," He nodded, returning your smile and shaking your hand. His grip was firm. "Lovely to meet you. I hope we get along well, Professor L/N." Remus said trustingly, his hands returning to his pockets. You clasped yours together, resting them against your hips out of habit.

"I'm sure we will, and please, call me Y/N." You grinned. Remus gave you a curt nod. "Is this your first day here?"

"Teaching yes, but in regards to having been here before? No." He replied.

"Oh?"

"I attended Hogwarts as a small boy, so it's a little nostalgic walking round the place again." Remus explained, earning a surprised look from you.

"It seems as though every single teacher here also used to be a student here." You laughed lightly, inducing an amused smile from the new professor.

"It seems that way, yes." Remus nodded.

"Well, I hope to see you around, Remus." You smiled politely at him, noticing the way he slumped slightly in posture, almost like he was trying to hide himself. Remus returned your smile and dismissed you with a nod, continuing past you with a slow gait. You let yourself think for a moment. Those scars looked pretty horrific, they looked rather... deep. A grimace twisted your facial features as your mind raced with quite gruesome and morbid theories on how Lupin had acquired those wounds. You shook your head rather vigorously as if to relieve your mind of the grisly images that were popping in and out of it.

The hallways and corridors of Hogwarts were peacefully empty once again. Students, old and new, were still back at home preparing for the next school year that began in just a couple days. Goosebumps erupted on your body out of anticipation as you thought about what the year could hold - though, you were mainly excited to get back to teaching your beloved subject. In fact, you'd missed it a lot over the summer. More than you expected to, despite the distraction called Ben.

A tiny smile flickered on your lips at the thought of him, your eyes glued to the floor in front of you as your feet carried you forwards, a cool chill wrapping itself around your bare shoulders. You were wearing a thick-ish, buttercup-yellow night dress; the sleeves reached your wrists, but it was a little baggy up top, causing the wide neckline to slip partially off your shoulder. The chill made you quickly pull it up with your fingers, enveloping yourself with your arms.

Bumping into Professor Lupin outside your room had caught you off-guard. The thought of grabbing a coat of some sort had slipped from your mind the second your curious and confused eyes fell onto him. You shivered slightly, cursing yourself for being so forgetful sometimes. It might have been late August, but Scotland's freezing climate left no survivors.

"Did you not think it unwise to go around strolling in such... poorly thought out attire, Professor L/N? It is almost as cold as the arctic." That deep voice that had caused you so much grief and heartache shot through your head like a stray bullet. You froze in your position, your breath hitching as you refused to turn around to acknowledge the man that spoke with such articulated words it seemed laughable. You felt like you couldn't move. Like you were in a glue trap, like a little mouse.

Eventually, you thawed. "I'm not cold." You replied shortly, reluctantly turning around to face Snape. Your heart instantly sped into a gallop as your eyes fell onto his tall, brooding figure. Then and there, thought of Ben entered your mind as you stared at the Potions Master, immediately comparing the two. You knew Ben didn't make your heart race like he did. Your shoulders suddenly slumped with guilt. You shouldn't be thinking any of this. Ben was good for you, he treated you with kindness and respect, and most of all, he actually liked you.

"Your trembling figure says otherwise." Snape tilted his head at you, scrutinising you. Right then you wanted to shrink down into nothingness. You couldn't bear to feel so vulnerable underneath his eyes. Somehow, Snape looked better than the last time you saw him. And you hated that. You were sure you looked utterly terrible right now.

"I'm fine." You said sternly, dragging out the syllables as you fought back the bitter glare that was itching to break out onto your face.

"Fine, hm..." Snape drawled, almost mocking and sarcastic, letting his dark eyes drop down your figure, studying your improper outfit. You hugged yourself tighter at the sight, cheeks suddenly burning as you felt rather self-conscious. His brows knitted together suddenly, like something had just clicked in his mind. "Why aren't you wearing a coat?"

You hesitated. "I forgot to grab one." Snape's brow arched at you disapprovingly. You fought the urge to groan at him. "I bumped into the new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, Remus Lupin, outside my door." You explained, tone flat. "It's not like you care whether I freeze to death or not anyway." You added, rather bitterly. Snape narrowed his eyes at you, glaring. He did care, but he would never show it. Not right now, at least.

"Lupin?" He repeated, ignoring your last comment as his jaw ticked out of irritation. You frowned at his odd reaction. "I suggest you stay away from him, Professor L/N. For your own..." Snape trailed off, pondering on his words as he let his eyes sweep over you in a patronising manner. "...good." He uttered, almost like a warning. You were completely and utterly confused. Why did Snape seem so unwelcoming towards Lupin, he'd just joined Hogwarts, unless there was... history between them? Was there?

"What's wrong with Remus?" You asked, eyes narrowing in curiosity and suspicion about his feelings regarding the new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher. Snape's jaw clenched at the sound of Lupin's first name, almost like he flinched. "He seemed perfectly kind and pleasant earlier."

Snape didn't reply. A harsh, exasperated sigh fell through your nose as you rolled your eyes at the enigmatic man before you, growing tired of his games. Why did he always act so cryptic? What was the problem with telling you the truth? Would it be so bad?

Before you could protest and poke at his mind, Snape began to stalk away from you, prompting a curt scoff to leave your lips. Your teeth were gritted out of frustration as you stared at the back of his head. Christ, he really hadn't changed - he was still pissing you off at an almighty rate. At this point, it was impressive.

"Hey!" You exclaimed, forcing Snape to halt in his tracks. He turned his head to the left, silently encouraging you to continue. "Would you just answer me?"

"I don't owe you anything." Snape said rather coldly. You clenched your jaw rather angrily at his rude reply. Jesus, will this guy ever just bite the bullet for once and give in?

"When you tell me to 'avoid' Professor Lupin, I think that demands an explanation as to why I should, Snape," You said, shaking your head at him like he was daft. "You must be delusional to think otherwise!" That must have struck a nerve within the Potions Master, as he swiftly spun around, his cloak turning with him dramatically like a bat, making you shrink in regret. He stormed over to you, footsteps heavy and determined. You backed yourself up, a little unnerved by his sudden and intense approach towards you. Snape got right up in your face and you could feel his hot breath dance across your skin, sending anxious goosebumps down your spine. It felt like your heart was about to fall out of your chest from the high gear it had suddenly kicked into. 

How could- no, why was your body still reacting so fiercely to Snape? Weren't you meant to be focusing on Ben?

"Lupin is not who you think he is, Y/N." Snape warned, snapping you out of your thoughts. It nearly sounded like there was a hint of concern in his voice, like he was worried about you. You had to laugh at that, as if Snape - the man who had pretended like you didn't exist for half a year - cared for you. He'd never stoop to such a pathetic ideal. You brushed the hurtful lie under a dusty rug in your mind, averting your attention back to the pair of deep, obsidian-coloured eyes that sat mere inches away from your own.

"And how do you know that?" You challenged, a hint of venom in your voice as you mocked his serious tone. Snape sneered at you, leaning back from your face, like he was disgusted.

"Your ignorance is blinding." He replied bitterly, still refusing to explain anything to you. At this point he seemed like a child to you. From his the way he glared at you, and reeled back from your agitated little form, Snape seemed to be disappointed in you. You didn't think he had a leg to stand on with that idea.

And so, that was your last straw, you couldn't hold in your frustration anymore; it felt like all the pressure that had been building up beneath your skin was coming to a rise and it had finally burst at the seams. "Jesus, Snape!" You cried out, infuriated, your hands flying up to pull helplessly at your hair. "Why is it so hard for you to answer me?! Are you so incapable of that?!"

Snape seemed a little taken aback by your outburst as the ill feeling of deja vu began to seep into his bones. This felt a little too familiar: it reminded him of that night he found you drunk. Yet, right now, you were stone-cold sober, and still shouting the same things at him. In regards to your outburst, he truly hadn't seen it coming, and yet, he was almost always aware of how you were feeling. He could read you so easily. To him, you were like a book he'd read almost a thousand times. He remained quiet again, unsure of how to reply to your instantaneous combustion; a briefly-lived feeling of worry that he'd add more fuel to the fire.

He couldn't reveal the reason to you. He'd given Dumbledore his word that he would not speak of Lupin's condition. In fact, Snape had doubted Dumbledore's usually-wise judgement when he mentioned that he'd hired Lupin. The Potions Master thought the Headmaster had gone mad for openly inviting a werewolf into Hogwarts, let alone allowing him to teach classes full of children. And then, he'd found himself roped into producing the Wolfsbane potion so Lupin could keep his wretched condition of Lycanthropy at bay. Snape still doubted the whole idea. He knew it was doomed from the very beginning. Balancing the safety of Hogwarts on the constant, perfect production of a potion and the hope that Lupin was competent enough to remember to take it each day of the preceding week of a full moon?

Doomed, Snape thought.

Despite your best efforts of attempting to force the answer out of Snape, he knew you'd figure it out sooner or later once you noticed which ingredients he'd be borrowing from you. He had faith that you were smart enough to work it out. So, he stood straighter in front of you, wordlessly giving you his answer as he turned around to walk away from you.

No.

"A warm, warm welcome back to you all!" Dumbledore's raspy voice boomed through the Great Hall, the applause from students and staff alike to quickly quietening down. You were seated comfortably between McGonagall and Hagrid, and it felt awfully similar to last year. Just a year ago, you had no idea what you were strapping yourself in for. "Before we indulge ourselves in this delectable feast, I'd like to welcome Professor RJ Lupin, who will be the new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher," Dumbledore said, turning around to gesture to Lupin with eccentric, wrinkly hands. The professor stood up goofily with anxiously-clasped hands, giving a grateful nod to the Hall as they applauded him. He caught your eye, and you sent him an encouraging smile, ignoring Snape's distasteful face beside Lupin.

"Good luck, professor! Now, our teacher for the Care of Magical Creatures for many years, has decided to retire in order to spend more time with his remaining limbs. Fortunately, I'm delighted to announce that his place will be taken than none other than our own, Rubeus Hagrid!" The Headmaster announced as he spun around to gesture to the half-man-half-giant sat happily beside you, a genial smile spreading across the Dumbledore's face. Applause and whoops erupted in the Hall once more as Hagrid gave a short nod and a cheerful smile to the hooting crowd. You rolled your eyes and elbowed him, prompting him to stand up, his large belly shoving the table forwards with a sharp screech; a handful of glass goblets falling over and smashing. McGonagall looked up at the newly-appointed professor rather disappointedly before eyes her goblet that now laid shattered before her.

"Finally, on a more describing note, at the request of the Ministry of Magic, Hogwarts will until further notice play host to the dementors of Azkaban, until such a time Sirius Black is captured." Dumbledore said, a stern and serious tone taking place of his usual reserved one. Gods, how could you have forgotten? Mass murderer Sirius Black was still on the loose. Apparently the thought of Snape was enough to distract you from a highly important news article. And now, one of the most feared creatures of the Wizarding World was going to be lingering around Hogwarts? This was not what you signed up for. Your teeth started to chew against the inside of your bottom lip anxiously.

"Will they be on the school grounds?" You whispered to Minerva beside you, failing miserably at trying to hide the shaky fear within your voice. She instantly looked at you, smiling softly. You'd always had a phobia of dementors, and now the fact that they were going to be lurking around the school had put you on edge. Merlin, can this year get any worse?

"I'm not sure, my dear." Minerva replied to you quietly, subtly noticing the fear swimming in your eyes. The older witch placed a hand upon yours in an attempt to soothe your anxiety. "There's nothing to worry about, I assure you." You merely nodded at her, unbelieving. Nothing to worry about, sure. It's not like some savage, minacious murderer is on the loose.

"The dementors willl be stationed at every entrance to the grounds." There goes your sanity. "Now, whilst I've been assured that their presence will not disrupt our day-to-day activities, a word of caution: dementors are vicious creatures. They will not distinguish between the one they hunt, and the one who gets in their way." You hated the way that Dumbledore spoke of the dementors, and it hardly settled your trembling and anxious mind. No, in fact, it bloody well worsened it. The old man was basically saying if you get in their way, it's a death sentence. They have no sense to decide whether you're a threat or not, or they just don't care.

Either way, you were screwed. You could not produce a Patronus charm, let alone a corporeal one, and it was something that played on your mind a lot. You could never find the right memory to do so. Every happy memory you flicked through in your mind, it just wasn't happy enough. So, if you came into contact with a dementor, you were, let's say, royally fucked. Was your life that sad?

"Therefore, I must warn each and every one of you, give them no reason to harm you. It is not in the nature of a dementor to be forgiving. But, you know, happiness can be found even in the darkest of times, when one only remembers to turn on the light." The Headmaster finished with a cryptic riddle, making you sigh a little heavier than expected, catching an intrigued look from Hagrid. Sorry, but what the fuck does that even mean, Dumbledore? You were well aware that Dumbledore was undoubtedly an ingenious and powerful wizard, but sometimes, the things that came out of his mouth just sounded like nonsense. Maybe he just said those random things to keep up his mysterious act.

As you looked up from the nervous, fidgeting fingers in your lap, your eyes locked with that same pair of black, emotionless ones that were staring so deeply into yours just last night. Immediately, you looked away, your cheeks flushing red out of embarrassment, and perhaps, suppressed affection. There was that weighty feeling of guilt again, finding your shoulders once more. Ben's smiling face materialised in your mind as you shut your eyes, attempting to rid yourself of the buzzing feeling that Snape had awakened within you. With just one look into his eyes, you were melting back into your old ways.

You heard the creaking of a chair shift beside you as a gentle mass poked your side. "A'right down there?" Hagrid questioned quietly, noticing your subtle change in demeanour. You were suddenly stiff in your seat.

"Yeah, yeah, fine thanks, Hagrid." You cleared your throat, avoiding those two addicting pools of inky-black.

"Hmm." Hagrid hummed beside you, obviously skeptical about your curt response. He let his eyes flick to where you were previously looking, his stomach sinking as he spotted the broody cause of your sudden mood change. Hagrid didn't bother pressing you for answers, he knew you had enough on your plate, and he would rather you come to him. The last time you spoke about your problems regarding Snape, you were in tears, or you would burst into tears, there wasn't really an inbetween.

Silently, you were thankful that the newly-appointed professor beside you chose to keep shtum.

As you glanced back to where Snape sat, he was completely avoiding your eyes too, however, as you continued looking over in his direction, the wave of a hand beside the Potions Master caught your eye. Flicking your gaze to the right, you noticed it was Lupin waving sheepishly at you, a kind smile tugging at his scarred lips. You returned his smile and waved back, turning to the professors beside you as he glanced away from you.

"Professor Lupin seems to be a kind soul." You commented outloud, a genial smile upon your lips. McGonagall glanced at you, eyeing your curiously.

"Yes," She agreed slowly, her eyes gently dissecting you. "Have you met before?"

"No, I just bumped into him a couple nights ago, by my door."

"Yer' door?" Hagrid repeated in an octave higher than usual, intrigued.

"He just happened to be there when I walked out." You frowned, wide eyes looking up at the gigantic man, trying to understand what he was insinuating.

"Right, right." Hagrid quickly said, almost awkwardly as his cheeks reddened a tad, averting his eyes from your suspicious ones. Minerva's lips quirked into a small, amused smirk as she glanced between you and Hagrid. "Well, this food looks delicious, ay?" He cleared his throat, raising his brows as he glanced down at your plates that were now burdened with a generous amount of steaming hot meat and vegetables. You couldn't help but laugh softly to yourself at Hagrid's awkwardness. It was sweet to you.

Before you let yourself indulge in the plate full of food in front of you, you dared to look in the direction of a certain gloomy individual. Snape had already begun to eat, which surprised you. He usually takes a few bites and retires to his office, but this time, he'd stayed. You frowned to yourself as you stared at him, observing the glum way he kept to himself, avoiding any kind of conversation. Once more, you found yourself yearning for him. And yet again, your heart and mind were telling you two different things.

"Isn't that a Mimbulus Mimbletonia plant, professor?" Came Neville Longbottom's curious voice, his inquisitive eyes dragging over the plant you held cautiously in your arms. A cheery smile graced your lips as you nodded at the boy.

"Yes, indeed it is, Mr Longbottom." You said proudly, inducing a thrilled smile from Neville. "Can anyone tell me what it's uses are?" You asked, glancing around your greenhouse at mostly confused faces. You had an inkling that none of them would know the answer, perhaps apart from Hermione or Neville, who you noticed seemed to excel in Herbology. Though, Hermione wasn't in your class this morning. So to you, it was all down to Neville.

"Stinksap, right?" Neville answered quickly, his bunny-like teeth sticking out from underneath his top lip as he stared at you, awaiting your reply.

"Correct, and what can we use stinksap for?" You questioned, your smile widening at Neville. A sense of accomplishment suddenly tickled your body - maybe your students were listening to you and learning. You were a little worried that you hadn't exactly made an impact on them. As you got lost in your fretting thoughts, a light voice you weren't familiar with caught your attention. You turned towards the dark-haired girl, her deep blue eyes lighting up with confidence as she retrieved you from the abyss that you unfortunately called your mind.

"Stinksap can be used in certain potions as it contains very good healing properties," Alisa Arumina spoke up, earning a tilt of your head. You nodded at her, encouraging the girl to continue. "However, you have to be extra cautious when handling such a plant as this one since it will squirt out rather rancid smelling sap. Hence the name, stinksap." She finished, a sheepish smile upon her lips. You grinned proudly at her.

"Yes, lovely! Ten points to Ravenclaw, Miss Arumina." You carefully placed the plant down upon the table you were all gathered around. Before you could continue on to explain how to care for it, a distraught sounding voice called from behind you, at the door to your greenhouse.

"Professor L/N," Madam Pomfrey called out, her voice shaky. Immediately, you spun around with a worried frown upon your face. She sighed. "There's been an accident, do you have any mature Mandrakes ready for use? A Wiggenweld potion is required at once." Madam Pomfrey's eyes looked afraid. This must be serious, what the hell happened? You thought as your heart began to anxiously pick up in pace.

"Err," You stumbled over your words, blinking quickly. "Yes, yes, of course. I'll have them delivered to you immediately." You nodded in a poor attempt to assure the terrified look upon Madam Pomfrey's face. It didn't work.

"I'm afraid Professor Snape has asked for you to go to him right away." She said regretfully. Of course he fucking did, you groaned inwardly. 

"Is it so hard for you to come and retrieve the Mandrakes yourself?" You demanded as you burst through Snape's classroom door, your irked eyes finding Snape's startled ones. Though, just as quickly as he had looked startled by your sudden entry to his room, he had returned back to his usual angry glare, shooting it directly at you.

"Is it so hard for you to knock before entering?" Snape grunted at you, rubbing his fingers in circles against his temples. He lifted a hand and patted the empty space on his desk beside him. "Place the mandrakes here." You scrunched up your nose at him in disgust,

"I'll put them there once you tell me what the hell is going on."

"Your dear friend, Professor Rubeus Hagrid, thought it wise to introduce the children to a hippogriff on their first lesson together." Snape sneered as he rose from his desk in a slow and intimidating manner, his hands splayed out across the deeply grooved, dark wood surface. "I knew he was an oaf, but I at least thought he had retained some form ofhuman intelligence. Perhaps even common sense!" He exclaimed, his brows glued together in fury. Your brows mirrored his own as he insulted your friend. "A student was injured, Professor L/N, a student of my house." Ah, so that's why he's so upset. "Draco Malfoy." Riiight, it's adding up now, you thought, your anger simmering down slightly at the utterance of a student being injured.

You knew Hagrid wasn't incompetent, he was smart enough to not put students in the way of danger, but maybe this was a very big mistake. Perhaps he was too... eager. A hippogriff is a highly dangerous animal, especially if the students are not taught how to approach one beforehand. A strained sigh left your nostrils as you clenched your jaw, averting your eyes from a fuming Snape.

"Is he alright?" You asked, hesitating. "Hopefully he didn't lose a limb..." You muttered whilst perching yourself down upon a stool to your right.

"By the grace of the gods, Malfoy's arm was merely scratched," Snape seethed, clearly still very angry. Maybe it'd be best if you just left now, you did leave your class unsupervised for this visit. The thought of being a hypocrite niggled at your mind as you thought back to the time you'd chastised Lockhart for doing the same thing. But, this wasn't the same thing right? This was urgent, his was... whatever, you're better than that babbling, bumbling baboon anyway.

"So, it wasn't even a big injury...?" You repeated, frowning. "A little... scratch and you're almost losing your hair over it?"

"I think you're missing the point, Professor L/N, as always," Snape scoffed at you, earning a resentful glare from your eyes. "Hagrid has proved himself to be incapable of handling a class safely. I mean, a student injured and sent to the hospital on the very first lesson? Seems like a bad omen, if I do say so myself."

"Oh, please, Snape," A frustrated, heavy sigh left your nostrils again as you glanced to the side. "It's his first day!" You laughed incredulously, defending your friend. Sure, Hagrid might have misjudged this lesson by a smidge, however, you knew he would never put students in harms way.

"His first day, and his incompetency has resulted in injury!" Snape replied bitterly. He clearly didn't like Hagrid, and it was very obvious. He only ever spoke bad about the man, and it angered you. Hagrid was more than just an... 'oaf'. "Those... beasts... should have never been allowed at Hogwarts, regardless." Snape's nose crinkled in disgust.

"Give him the benefit of the doubt!" You cried out at Snape hopelessly. "And Buckbeak is a perfectly good hippogriff, you have no idea what you're talking about."

"How would you know that?" Snape's lips curled up into a distasteful sneer once again. Your cheeks ran hot as rage boiled beneath them at his comment.

"Because I know Buckbeak, Snape," You seethed at him with your fists balled, "Buckbeak would never do such a thing unless he felt threatened or insulted!" A hand flew up to wipe at your face, your breathing becoming ragged and hopeless. As you glanced back at Snape, he paused for a moment, his lips curling into an amused, incredulous smirk at your words. He couldn't believe what had just fallen from your mouth. Did he hear you correctly? Were you truly so delusional?

"You 'know' Buckbeak? Don't be absurd, Y/N." Snape huffed at you, his eyes narrowing as the corners of his lips tugged downwards disdainfully. "Buckbeak is a wild creature, it is hopelessly foolish of you to believe you can understand, much less, tame one!" He said, strained, his knuckles turning white from the aggressive, vice-like grip he had on his desk.

"These creatures are deeper than you think, Snape," you frowned, eyes stormy and reckless, unknowingly searching for trouble. His long fingers flew up to massage the bridge of his nose, clearly growing more fed up by the second. "Perhaps you'd understand if you had a heart within that empty chest of yours." A curt, exasperated sigh tore from your nostrils. Though, before you could take back your words, a blanket of regret wrapped itself around your seething body, your once-stormy eyes widening a tad as the realisation of what you had just uttered began to seep in. The sudden silence in the room was unbearably thick.

Snape's eyebrow twitched as he raised his head. Slowly, he fixed you with a dark, scrutinising gaze, rendering you speechless. Your body froze. "Bold, today, are we?" Snape's deep, stinging voice cut through the quietness like razors, reaching your ears like a thousand sharp pins.

You didn't answer him, fearing you might provoke him further. You'd never seen him like this. Dark, unnerved, fervent. It was terrifying to you. Perhaps you did cross the line. Gods, what had you done? Couldn't you have just brought the Mandrakes and sodded off? Jesus.

Snape marched towards you without a word, his cloak billowing out behind him like a flag. You couldn't help but notice the fury emanating from every single inch of his body, prompting your cheeks to flare up in a wild, raging blush. You had no time to defend yourself from Snape's long, cold and slender fingers as they clutched your jaw in force, shooting a frightening yet delicious shiver down your spine. A soft surprised gasp escaped your throat as he pushed you off of the stool you were sat on, a loud bang breaking through the silence as it clattered to the floor. Your back was instantaneously pressed against the table behind you as Snape shoved your backwards from the hold of your jaw, your eyes pooling with sudden panic as his fingers tightened against your skin, bound to leave marks. Fearfully, the palms of your hands flew to steady yourself against the edge of the table he'd rammed you against; your back arched painfully as he leaned right into your face, a spine-chilling scowl adopting his features.

The two of you were mere inches away from each other. Snape bared his teeth at you in a sneer, almost like he was revolted by your presence. He let his thumb slip upwards from your chin to the skin just beneath your bottom lip, pressing it against your teeth. Your eyes were forced to stare into his, his ones cold and penetrating in a way that only Snape's could be. Your heart was pounding so loud in your ears that at this point that you were afraid you'd go deaf. 

Both of your chests heaved laboriously, leaning against one another, like you'd just sprinted for a mile without stopping for a break. As you stared into Snape's threatening eyes, you felt your body numb, his signature scent of sweet wine, books and smoke invading your nose like it was nothing. Against your will, your body welcomed it and you felt yourself relapsing from the addicting smell. With wild eyes locked together, you saw something else swimming in his wicked, black eyes. They almost looked pained, helpless, maybe even like they were... yearning? Your eyes flicked over his face gradually, slowly drinking him in. Whilst the two of you stared at each other, trapped between one another's body, a fluttering sensation slowly materialised in your gut, prompting your eyes to fall to Snape's angry, quivering lips. The undeniable urge to press your lips against his own was scratching at you like a desperate caged animal. You inhaled sharply and blinked, averting your hungry eyes back to his own, distracting yourself from such thoughts. Again, you found yourself lost in him.

Before you even had a chance to look deeper, Snape's bone-chilling voice tore you from your thoughts. You felt as if he'd noticed you spotting something deeper lingering within him.

"Get. Out." Snape spat, roughly releasing you from his grip, your hand flying up to soothe your aching jaw. You stood there, your arched back and splayed out hands against the edge of the wooden table, flabbergasted. Snape stalked back to his desk acting like the previous minute did not just happen. For once, you obliged and stood up straight, your feet immediately rushing forwards to carry yourself out of Snape's classroom in absolute silence, face blank with shock. As you shut the door behind you, you paused in your footsteps for a moment, eyes locked absentmindedly on the cobblestone ground in front of you.

What the fuck had just happened? Can the two of you no longer have normal interactions? You always have to be at each other's throats each time?

Your fingers lifted up to your face and traced where Snape's fingertips had been pressed into the skin on your jaw, a dull soreness emitting from the area as you touched it. That's definitely going to leave a mark.

Fuck.

You just hoped Ben didn't visit you for another week or so. There was absolutely no way you could explain this without it seeming super fucking suspicious. Oh jeez, Ben. How were you meant to face him when you'd just been on the verge of kissing Snape? It was just in the heat of the moment, obviously... Was it? Did he feel it too? No, of course he didn't, he looked like he wanted to kill you.

A frustrated groan bubbled in your throat as you stomped away from Snape's classroom door, heading back to your class.

Merlin, were you fucked.

Part 9!

hey guys.... i hope you enjoyed this part, i apologise again for how long it took me omfg. i'm ashamed. :( i just couldn't get the creative juices flowing, then i got covid (which im still battling). like bruh give me a BREAK PLEASE.

anyway, i already have part 9 planned out so i'm hoping it wont be as long to type up!! <3 love you guys.

please let me know what you thought!! also what are your patronuses if you have one?! mine is a snowy owl :)

taglist: (i hope i haven't missed anyone or added anyone by accidient!! if i have i'm sorry and please tell me!!)

@a-laufeyson

@emilynissangtr

@livillain00

@meowskii

@nooneeveryonenoone

@vesperbatty

@biggest-simp-eversposts

@881127fara

@freshmoneyalmondathlete

@sonoluvr22

@v3lv3tvampir3

@lashipperrubia

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@tellatubbies

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@sunshinemink

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@sayonara30

@novas-dreamworld

@ms-snape

@captainrogers-19

@allygranger

@nataliewalker93

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[wildpeachfarm]

See the thing is with streaming its going to die regardless, yes companies handing out less contracts is killing it further but its already dying at a fast rate? I'm not a stream hater either btw I really enjoy them but like. For example. 2020, 2021? When school was remote and I only ever worked mornings because of covid hours? I was clocked into that Philza 8hr stream DAILY. I was scheduling my classes around those streams so I could do homework while listening/watching. Went as far as to use my monthly speaking privilge to ask Phil what date British Daylight Savings began so I could keep my schedule clear. The second everything was no longer remote, and store hours went back to normal, I maybe caught 2, 3, maybe 4 streams in that year before I decided enough was enough about QSMP and I LOVE hardcore content.

From a company standpoint I can see why YT may not be interested in handing out streamer contracts anymore. Like Dreamie and a few others they're recognizing the Covid Number Boom is over- but unlike Dreamie, because theyre a corporation, they can't just "stick it out" and "recelebrate milestones". They have a "bottom line" to protect and they're not getting that same sweet sweet ad revenue from streams because of decreased viewer counts. Esp bc people don't just go back and watch vods unless there's a REAAAALLY good reason to. So no ad viewership there either. They're going to go back to relying on videos (and unfortunately probably shorts as well, I hate the tiktok-ification of every socmed site) to keep their ad revenue up, especially with the battle of ad blockers. I see more ad and monitization deals being handed out.

With streams (bc vod watching is lowkey practically nonexistant) not being in high demand bc of time constraints (happening while busy, timezones issues) the demands for videos will be higher as videos are ALWAYS readily available. Someone uploads at midnight your timezone? I mean it'll be there when you wake up, you won't have "missed" anything like you would have a livestream. Get a video schedule set out and you're GOLDEN- the first thing I do when I get home from work is check if a handful of youtubers have uploaded to put on to watch. If not, I rewatch some of my fav vids.

Also psychologically I actually think this is for the better of all CCs as a whole. Streaming, esp for some of the hourly requirements some of these ppl either HAVE to hit to get paid or WILLINGLY put themselves through (Tubbo) you have to wear your persona the ENTIRE time. You have to make sure you don't slip up that ENTIRE time. You have to be entertaining the ENTIRE time. You have to filter yourself because it's all live. To me this just sounds like what I do on a daily basis masking my audHD and that shit is so tiring and it's why I could NEVER be a streamer. If you're recording videos you can control what goes out. You don't have to wear whatever persona you decide to put on for 8hrs for a stream, you can record 3 hours of footage and then be done for the day, and that can either be one video or multiple depending on a lot of factors. Accidentally say your mom's name? Cut the clip. Bit isn't funny? Cut the clip. They will still have to actively filter themselves yes but for a much less amount of time. In the end CCs will have a lot more mind power that they're not using up to take care of themselves. I genuinely think it's psychologically better for them all.

It's unfortunate that the streaming industry is going to collapse this way. But also seeing how the communities heavily affected by streaming are more drama filled than communities w/o streaming, I'm lowkey hoping it's for the best. Pulling the plug like this imo is a mercy kill.

And now I'm gonna wash my mouth out for all that corporate speak I just used. Sorry for the manifesto. And if someone wants to put this manifesto on reddit idc just crop/block any usernames IG

I appreciate the essay-andy-ing these are interesting thoughts! I don't think the streaming scene will collapse entirely but I do think that it will become more advantageous to be a youtuber because people have found that to be the most consistent for many years as a CC rather than streams which require a lot of additional things (like you mentioned)

And I feel like we are seeing quite a few people say they're going to prioritize youtube more in the future which seems to be the beginning of that transition

I am curious if twitch will ever try to keep certain big-viewer streamers on the platform with 'kick-style' ($$$$) contracts.

#ask

[petermorwood]

I don’t usually post about politics, but the UK situation has degenerated into a sitcom that thinks it’s a docudrama. Or vice versa.

If “Blackadder”, “The New Statesman” and “Yes Prime Minister” had a bastard child, it would look like this.

@dduane​ reblogged someone’s “Explanation for Non-UK readers” HERE.

*****

There have been nearly (more than?) 60 resignations and 1 sacking - that one was for threatening to resign if Prime Minister Boris Johnson didn’t.

BJ mishandling Covid response to the tune of a mountain of corpses didn’t start this, BJ having parties while the rest of the country was in lockdown didn’t do it, BJ giving his minders the slip to chat with a KGB agent (they call themselves FSB nowadays haha but we know who they are, and what was that about anyway?) didn’t do it.

The list of things that didn’t do it is astonishing.

This memorable image of the Queen observing attendance numbers and distancing at her husband’s funeral...

...stands for all the other people who couldn’t attend funerals or even be with dying family members.

The night before that photo was taken, there were two (TWO) parties at 10 Downing Street...

But no resignations.

*****

The catalyst involved a known sex-pest called Chris Pincher - ”Pincher by name, pincher by nature” BJ is claimed to have said after the first male-groping incident and formal complaint. That was in November 2017.

18 months later Pincher was back in favour - BJ favourite catchphrases are “time to move on” and “put this thing behind us” (ooh-er, Missus!) - and held the post of Deputy Chief Whip (swish-smack! you could NOT make this stuff up...)

Then in June 2022 Mister Whippee groped other males at a party. They were Party Members as well as party attendees, and it seems Pincher pinched their members as well as their arses. Maybe he thought that made it okay. What British Tories regard as acceptable nowadays is a mystery.

There was another formal complaint about the incident.

After which...

The Prime Minister denied that he’d been told anything about it, then denied that he’d been told very much about it, then denied that he’d been told as much about it as the people who told him about it said they’d told him about it, then claimed that he’d forgotten what he’d been told about it, then was confronted in an open letter with proof showing that he’d not only been told about it, but exactly how much he’d been told about it.

And that’s when the resignations started.

*****

The number of letters with phrases like “...can no longer tolerate...” show that those whose names are on those letters were content to tolerate everything prior. They are no more admirable after the letters than they were before.

It seems - did it apply to the woman caught by an MP giving BJ a BJ in his office? (oh yes, that happened too) - that the Johnsonite gang would rather swallow than spit.

Maybe it’s something learned at Public School, or maybe the rug’s too soggy with sleaze to absorb any more.

It’s certainly lumpy enough from all the stuff swept under it.

*****

At time of posting,

Four Seasons Total Landscaping in Philadelphia offered to provide a venue for any press conference due to “having experience with this sort of thing”.

Somebody was sent to get the Mess Webley.

BJ is believed to have resigned as Leader of the Conservative Party (although his speech did not use the word “resign” anywhere) but plans to stay on until the October party conference as “Caretaker PM” - which conveniently allows use of Chequers, the PM’s country home, for his next wedding reception. At taxpayer expense. Apparently invitations have already gone out.

Nobody can find the Mess Webley.

Moves are already afoot to extract him from the No 10 janitor’s cupboard before he can fill the resignation posts with acquiescent lickspittles, as well as fears of what he might do or cover up in the interim out of carelessness, disinterest, personal interest or spite.

Nobody can find the ammunition for the Mess Webley.

Ex Tory PM John Major has publicly stated that for the good of the country (and other countries!) BJ should not be allowed to remain PM.

It’s as if somebody has deliberately hidden the Mess Webley.

And its ammunition.

ETA: after some “what’s a Mess Webley?” questions, it’s this.

Also, someone who enjoys irony posted this (Gordon Brown (Labour) was 4 PMs ago.)

*****

Currently the most respected, trusted and popular resident of 10 Downing Street continues to be Larry, Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office.

#british politics #boris johnson #downfall #sitcom #docudrama #gumby #my head hurts

[yumemiyas-wips]

All of you SHUT UP and read this.

FULL TRANSCRIPT OF POST BELOW.

Two “rival” Chinese lesbian fic writers submit anonymous posts about each other on Weibo (Chinese twitter).

**I AM NOT the OOPs.** Two authors in the same lesbian fic writing community anonymously submitted posts to a Venting for Writers account on Weibo (https://t.co/BBxcEnSiJ4) (Chinese twitter). Source of the screenshots (https://twitter.com/juexias/status/1615339261611610115) in Chinese from @juexias on Twitter.

Mood Spoilers: CUTE, SWEET, WHOLESOME

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

Submission by first author to the Venting for Writers account (https://twitter.com/silencedhawks/status/1615417962693033990?s=20) *Translations done by @silencedhawks on twitter.* — 27 December 2022

Both myself and another writer are quite famous within the same circle. We write and produce content at around the same speed. We don’t interact much between each other, but we have a bit of a little rivalry going on. For example, if she published a piece, tomorrow I have to publish one too. I can’t let her take up the trending spot on her own. We take up half of the trending spots without giving into each other, so we compete quite passionately against each other in secret.

But these two weeks I scrolled, and she didn’t appear, so I checked her profile and realized she was down with a very high fever and had been uncontactable. For a moment the Christmas gift fic I had became bland and tasteless.

When I finished reading, I was really scared. I immediately used my reader QQ account to ask her what happened and found out that she didn’t manage to snatch medicine in time and had been sick in bed for four days straight. After hearing that, I sent half a box of ibuprofen and fever reducers to her overnight. Now I just hope she’ll get better faster so I can properly and fairly beat her up. **The victory of being on top feels hollow when she isn’t here.**

And when she was lying in bed, I seriously thought it over. I concluded that her prose has too many irrelevant words and complicated sentences. What can be said in ten words she says in more than a hundred, apart from the complicatedness, it isn’t that good.

But compared to the others in the fandom, if I had to pick one, her writing is still more acceptable. Amen.

Response post (https://twitter.com/silencedhawks/status/1615423341594308608) by the second author (https://twitter.com/silencedhawks/status/1615423358556045312?s=20) (the one who got sick). *Translations done by @silencedhawks on twitter.* — 15 January 2023

Hello Bot, have some ibuprofen a reader sent me.

This is what happened: A week before Christmas, a lot of people from my school returned to their hometowns. On my way back, I caught COVID and fell sick, and ended up spending the entire Christmas in bed. I was really miserable during that time. I didn’t stock medicine. Even the fever meds I had were from begging my maternal grandma’s neighboring village. My family is a little special, I was brought up by my grandma. She’s getting on in years now and I absolutely don’t dare to let her take care of me.

With no one to take care of me and no medicine, the side effects of COVID left me bedridden and half-dead. Even after the fever went down on the third day, my head still felt like it was exploding with pain, like someone was prying it open from my temples all the way to my forehead.

After I felt a bit better, I decided to bury myself in blankets and check my phone to see how popular the fic I posted was, how many comments there were, in order to cheer myself up. I write in a small circle. Even though I’m not as popular as another writer who writes drabbles in the same circle, I have more comments and a very stable fanbase. Sometimes I manage to get on the rankings too.

There’s a reader who will always leave me meaningful comments on the content of each chapter and is very good at directly pinpointing what I wanted to convey. So I have a very distinct impression of her and later exchanged QQs with her. After exchanging QQs, I found out that she’s very lively and cute, like one of the cats I used to raise. Even through the screen, I can feel the lightness between her words. But she doesn’t use QQ often and is only online late at night.

Her command of language is very good. I asked her before if she would be open to collabing with me, but she said that she may not have the standards and time to churn out fic, and that the most she can do is some shallow writing. It was this reader that sent me medicine after hearing I got COVID. When she sent me the parcel number, it had only been half an hour since we talked.

The medicine had a paper note on it with nice handwriting. Below the note, four tablets of fever medicine had been used and there was still more than half the box of ibuprofen. After I received it, I asked how she would cope without it, and she told me two hours later that she still has medicine at her house. And she said that she was too busy these few days and forgot to say happy Christmas, so was a bit embarrassed. And she sent a very cute sticker, carefully asking me if she could make up for it with a belated Christmas wish. Actually, when I received the medicine, I was already half recovered. But I still deeply remember her Christmas greeting.

She said happy Christmas, and remembered that after she herself had gotten COVID her throat hurt, so she also gave me a box of lozenges and told me not to forget to eat them. **After all, you have to eat sweets during Christmas.**

In that moment I really couldn’t reply because I was crying. I was crying so hard that I scared my grandma. Even though I’ve explained many times, she still believes that the “friend” who sent me medicine is definitely a boyfriend that I haven’t told her about.

The story I want to tell ends here. When I was writing this, she was shopping for CNY (across province) goods with me. After her holidays started, she came online more often but still occasionally lost contact sometimes.

During those times I kept looking at my phone and thinking, **“If heaven exists, I hope we can meet each other in the future.” If it doesn’t, I’m willing to write for her forever.**

(Reddit OP here. These were anonymous submissions and we are unlikely to get any updates from here so I consider it concluded. Side note: The author who got sick has some insane charisma. Get it girl.)

#lesbian #writers #lgbtq #slow burn #f/f romance #enemies to friends to lovers #rivals to lovers #i can't believe that happened #squeeeeee #posts that have 10k to me

[prairiedust]

one thousand days of destiel, or cas: fuckerupper of endings

Idk why I’m crawling out from under my woodpile to write this, except that it occurred to me that in three years I’ve not rewatched a single episode of Supernatural and have at least two dozen tags yet blacklisted on tumblr, and that I am still not okay about this stupid show.

I never tried to tie up the folklore/author themes I’d been geeking out about through the last seasons, neither as the show was ending nor afterwards. I’ve been simmering now for over a thousand days. I could not even write a complete sentence about spn for all this time, and so I just left that pot on the back burner and did other things. Finished my Master’s degree. Started a new job. Saw my oldest child graduate from high school and move off to college, and helped my younger child move on to sixth grade. Watched some other shows, got a new blorbo, saw some movies, started painting again, picked up a couple of new hobbies as I am wont to do.  

Today is the 5th of November, 2023. (ETA i sat on this for a bit.)

November 5th, 2020, was exactly one thousand and ninety-five days ago.

I see gifs from the show from time to time and I think to myself, wow, that scene/episode/series is completely irrelevant to my life now. I am fine and normal about everything. But if it really was, if I really was, it would not hurt so much to see the gifs and the lyric posts and the amvs when they aren’t caught in my tag filters. So maybe it’s time to get some things out of my head and onto paper.

I genuinely, nearsightedly, naively thought that since Dabb et al had been the ones writing the whole folk v author themes, and thus posing as someone we could count as being on “our side,” the folk-side of the postmodern audience, they’d honor that conceit, even to the very last shot. 

They did not.

And yet… they absolutely did.

Which hurts and is fucked up, but also it’s fine. It’s fine.

In the end, the only “folk hero” (by which I mean the only force in the spn universe capable of warping the threads of the story with any permanence) was Castiel. When Castiel left the story (of his own volition, if you can find a comfortable layer of this meta pie for that concept to rest in,) the writers reverted to God Mode. Because Castiel had been their freedom, their mouthpiece, their avenue for improvisation, and so at the end of the series…

well, we got You changed me/I love you

   •

and then we got “Cas helped.”

So much has been written about that pivot point, but genuinely I don’t give a rat’s ass about rewrites, producers, the cutting room floor, or COVID. It exhausts me, and I’m not beholden to writing about spn for grades or notes or any kind of other bullshit that would oblige me to do research.

I feel like… we got what we got.

So let’s criticize some media.

The Paradox: 

Cas imploded— went from flexing the narrative from within to being narrated by a force from without. And I couldn’t bear to wrap my head around that for a long time. It seemed that this “twist” was beyond cruel. That’s what he got. Vanished and nerfed. For saying ily. That was what happened when he was finally in focus, fully revealed. He lost. He was relegated, along with Jack, to become heaven’s Two Men and a Truck.

It was a trick, the whole “Chuck is a writer” plotline. The Author regained control of the character that had previously been acting independently. Very Pirandellesque, very frustrating, ultimately even tragic.

So, yes, thematically and critically, having Castiel give up his Agency for Characterhood– giving up his ability to create plot for a role as a character in a plot— was ‘literary’ brilliance. It cemented his status as a grand fucker-upper of the show in a way that any show writer “authoring” a requited destiel ending would not and could not have done. Even Jack, I believe, had been “manipulated” into god-hood from within the narrative. Jack was Dabb’s grand metaphor, he was a product of Author. Castiel was… well, he was a chaos engine from the moment he walked through those barn doors. 

To seal the metaphor, the writers ended up living that truth.

I really don’t know if I’m being cogent about this. I’ve been struggling to turn this idea into words for, like, ONE THOUSAND DAYS.

The folk-vs-Author themes becoming A Thing in The Supernatural Show was like a chemical reaction: once the ions had bonded, the resultant compound could not be separated back into the different materials. What on that screen was Author, what was “author,” ie show writer, and what was text-experiencer-as-author? Where did the Sam-as-magician arc go, what were we supposed to do with the semi-metatextual moments that Mary had, having been brought back into the narrative by Amara, not Chuck? Everything got so out of control. Add in a smidgen of secret-sauce-TPTB possibly superseding the author/Author, and what you get is that ridiculous mess of a final two episodes.

It’s not about the rusty trombone or the butt hole pleasures. It’s about love. And kids.

Thank you, hon. It really is. (The above line was left in this doc by my spouse. It is a quote from The 40-Year-Old Virgin. I’ll allow it.)

Anyway. It was hard to see past the sound and the fury of it all. 

*****

I was feeling nostalgic several months ago and took a swim in my old meta tags; I found a gem from season…10? Idk and idc, but it was from “The Things We Left Behind.” 

I compared Claire to Sleeping Beauty (a tale that got a lot of use in later seasons) and wrote: “I tend to think that Castiel’s entire arc is about desperate and unintentionally misguided attempts to Change The Ending of whatever story he’s shown up in” and reading that again really kind of sucker-punched me.

‘We’re making it up as we go’ was the crux of Cas’ existence. Remember that half-related story in Baby wherein Cas got himself hitched to the Djinn queen? Remember when Jack died and the Empty came to claim him in Heaven and Cas made that terrible bargain? The last-minute attempt to gank Lucifer that actually got him killed and sent to The Empty?

Time and time again, Castiel’s go-to for “changing the narrative,” for advancing his plot, is self-sacrifice. In Chuck’s house against the archangel. The Leviathan disaster. Saying ‘yes’ to Lucifer. The Bargain for Jack in Heaven. And those times it worked out. Not without great pain for both the other characters and for the viewers, but he always came back. 

And with each return, his motivation became clearer. (Picture your favorite screencap of Dean here.)

Cas’ love grew, crystalized, and then disappeared, like frost on the windowpane of a house on fire.

If they had continued the CasDean storyline, it would have ultimately been The Author IRL writing/creating/manifesting/materializing ‘destiel.’ And so by putting a torch to all of that architecture, they essentially gave everything to us. Unspoilt. Fingerprints wiped. Serial numbers scratched away. Jailbroken. Whatever floats your boat. 

The confession was both affirmation and abnegation. Symbolically, The AuthorTM had washed his hands of it, but with destiel out of the picture, The Author also got his ending.

This is why “Cas helped” felt like a ‘fuck you.’ If Cas was out of the narrative, why did he come back as one of Heaven’s real estate developers? It did not fit. 

And yet. It did. Because Chuck won. Chuck, or everything that an Author represents in television land– TPTB, showrunner legacies, multiple producers, a chaotic and treacherous and politically messy writer’s room, multiple incompatible or unresolvable MOs and visions— all that ends up being packaged and presented as a single unerring vision.

So I have to admit, although I don’t have to do it with any ion of grace, that in the end it was pretty fucking smart.

Destiel is ours. Destiel is the folk ending. The Author never got to touch it, never so much as breathed on it, was so far divorced from the concept that the absence thereof going forward hit us like a truck full of bricks.

Yes, it hurts that Dean was just left on the floor until the credits rolled, that there were no final words, no ensuing acknowledgement. 

I’ll go so far outside the Text as to address the ‘Dean can’t reciprocate’ direction from one of the scripts:

If Dean had made a single move onscreen. Uttered a word. In Despair or either of the other two episodes.

Destiel would have been claimed by The Author. 

Anyway. I’ve been collecting posts now and again under the tag ‘the endless folklore of supernatural.’ For three years, the fandom has continued to loot, to ransack, to graffiti, to create and re-create, to burn, to mix, and to distill. 

There’s all kinds of things in that tag, it’s sort of a kitchen sink of everything that I thought was even tangentially relevant to folk-Destiel and the postmodern experience of creating text as a reader/viewer etc. 

We turned a literary story based on an urban folktale back into folklore. 

And so it goes.

I doubt I will do much more analysis of this show, even if it comes back, and I unfortunately can’t touch The Winchesters. But I can’t say I never will. I just thought three years, one thousand days, was a pretty good place to leave a marker on the trail.

—

Epilogue: About The Winchesters:

I did not finish watching The Winchesters because of something wildly, randomly, but highly personally triggering that was built into one of the episodes; however I am very sorry that it was canceled or possibly ironically lost to the WGA-SAGAFTRA strike of 2023.

“What is the maddest thing a man can do? Let himself die.” That’s the clue that leads Castiel to his hidden grace in a copy of The Man of LaMancha in 10.18 ‘The Book of the Damned,’ written by one Robbie Thompson.

I noticed from the get-go that Thompson gave Carlos the last name Cervantez. He was nodding to the self-immolation of the last cadre of writers of Supernatural and stating clearly that he was holding a pen, not a match.

Want some very fun and amusing and wildly pertinent facts about the Don Quixote books?

The narrative conceit of Don Quixote IN THE FIRST PLACE LOL is that Cervantes claims to have found a manuscript by a historian named Cide Hamete Benegeli and Cervantes thought the story was pretty neat, if a little rough; Cervantes retells the story for us from what he’d read by that author, distilling the “original” into the book we experience as Don Quixote the Man of La Mancha.

The final words of Cervantes’ Part One are “perhaps another will sing with a better pick.”

Later, someone publishing under the pseudonym Alonso Fernandez de Avellaneda wrote their own part two, feeling that the original author was taking too long to get their ass in gear (or judging by their own preface they felt that Cervantes had not even done the original story justice in the first place. Which is A Mood.)

So when someone actually did have the audacity to run off with his characters and commit word crimes with them, Cervantes absolutely obliterated the dude in his own Part Two. 

Thompson left Spn after season eleven. But, lest someone think this is a commentary about fan fic, he also wrote the episode Fan Fiction. So anyway all the Cervantez-Cervantes business was certainly something.

[capitalisticveins]

Sweetheart and Honey (separate) HCs

Sorry for the delay I caught a bad headache yesterday

- Honey was def either valedictorian or salutatorian of their grade in high school

- IF they were salutatorian, they're still pissy about "losing" to someone else

- Sweetheart was cocky in their early years of working for the department

- Similar to Damien trying to break the stereotype that "All fire elementals are hot-headed", Sweetheart is trying to break the stereotype that "All stealths are thieves"

- Honey walks fast and WILL step on the back of someone's shoes if they're walking too slow

- Sweetheart legally cannot own a gun

- They're not allowed near any either

- Honey's lips are damn near always pressed against each other, like they're constantly frowning

- Sweetheart only ever dressed as a ghost for Halloween as a kid, and they dressed as one again the same year they started dating Milo. Milo learned about their plan and decided to dress as one of the ghostbusters from the movie. 

- They did plan on scaring the shit out of him dressed as a ghost, but they saw him wearing his costume and couldn't help but cover their face fully before he caught them blushing (he caught it regardless)

- Honey only fell asleep in class or lectures during testing season since that was when they began studying hours into the night with little to no rest

- When they met Guy this came to a stop, he made sure they'd end their study sessions early and go to bed on time, even if he'd stay up all night playing video games and being hypocritical

- During the Sam and Quinn video, Sweetheart walked out of the room when Quinn was airing out all of Tank's past. They've heard much worse stuff, but knew the stuff Quinn was saying wasn't something anyone in the room should be hearing. That was Tank's personal past, nothing of their business.

- Honey doesn't exactly mean to be rude to people, they're just…very off-putting by accident.

- And then it makes them upset when people don't want to talk to them because of it, since they want to have people to talk to.

- This one is gonna be hard to explain wait

- When Sweetheart goes intangible, majority of the germs on their body fall off.

- Due to this, they rarely get sick, and only get sick if they don't go intangible at least once for an extended period of time.

- But when they get sick, they get sick.

- I'm talking snot flying, can barely move a muscle, mucus erupts from each cough, sick.

- Basically they have a shit immune system.

- Honey on the other hand? Can not STAND being sick. Heavy germaphobe I'm telling you.

- I spoke about this with a friend before and we agree, Honey used to absolutely refuse to leave a room if it meant getting someone else sick, or getting sick themselves.

- This fear was at an all time high back in high school, I'm talking hazmat suits, gloves, masks, that shit.

- And in their earlier years of college, when COVID hit (2019), this shit was reinforced so much.

- It's calmed down since they got with Guy, and they've begun to even take care of him when he gets sick. Of course they still find it disgusting but they hate seeing him all weak and exhausted.

- Sweetheart can float slightly.

- Honey hates sweet things, it makes their face scrunch up as if it's sour.

- Sweetheart is ADDICTED to caffeine. It makes them anxious and paranoid but they keep drinking it like it's a lifeline.

- Honey goes to the beach to tan. No matter what, they REFUSE to get in the water. Whether it's to protect their hair or a past incident, Guy doesn't know. And it sucks because Guy loves swimming at the beach. 

- Although if Honey did ever get in the water, he'd dunk them so many times and it'll lead to Honey either getting out of the water, or them trying to actually drown him.

- Sweetheart doesn't style or fix their hair. What they wake up with is what they spend the day in.

- Honey's smile is always uneven. Mainly because it's them trying to not smile but their body betrays them.

- Honey snorts and Guy finds it absolutely adorable.

- Shortly after Milo told Sweetheart that Aggro refuses to go on walks, they tried taking him on one to call Milo's bluff. It went terribly.

- Honey searched up "how to make friends" online once, and one of the tips said "maintain eye contact." This led to them glaring at people talking to them until said person backs away in fear. It always leaves Honey confused when it doesn't work.

-Sweetheart has horrible posture.

- Honey was a BEAST at volleyball back in high school and college. They don't play it as often, but they're still insanely good at it.

- Honey and Cutie have the same group of friends.(But Honey is fairly new to the group)

- Sweetheart bites their ice cream, much to Milo's dismay.

- Despite popular belief, Honey isn't a big fan of honey. It's too sweet for them, but they'll put it in food when necessary.

- Sweetheart and Milo are either barely different in height, or are the same height. Either way they still tease the fuck out of him because of his height.

- Honey has never lost a staring contest in their life.

Requested by: @draagonfruiit

#i read the request again and i realized #it said Sweetheart OR Honey HCs #...i did both #whoopsies #Redacted Audio #Redacted ASMR #Redacted Honey #Redacted Sweetheart #Redacted Milo #Redacted Guy

[never-wednesday]

Hey its a Lil late in the month but this disability pride month I wanna talk about long covid. I also have chronic pain and all sorts of worms in my brain but I've been dealing with that forever. So we're talking about the new stuff. Putting a readmore because I'm talking about what my experience being sick with covid was like and it's probably unpleasant to read.

It's December of 2022 and I work retail while I'm home from school for winter break. I mask up every time I leave the house, including for work. My parents don't. My father talks about covid not being a big deal. He caught it last year and it was a mild cold for him. He says "i ate lunch with someone who had covid last week and im fine!" My mother catches covid a week after that conversation. I test and am seemingly fine despite symptoms of a cold, and then three days later (one of those days was a full 8hr shift at work where I was worn ragged because it's almost christmas. I also got heat exhaustion because the AC was busted and I live in TX.) I feel the worst I have felt in ages. My mom insists that my dad takes me to get tested for the flu, and I schedule a covid test while I'm at it. My covid test comes back positive.

For the next week I am bedbound, only able to sit up enough to try to eat something and only able to stand up long enough to get myself to and from the bathroom. I sleep through the days when I can get the dayquil down, and cough through the nights when I can't get the nyquil down. I hallucinate when im tired. One of those nights I swear I talk to god. My brain is fogged and it hurts to breathe. I am worried I will need to be hospitalized because I can't seem to keep any water in my system. It's a miracle that I can write instructions for my father to cook ramen for me. I can only drink the broth. One morning I try to take dayquil to soothe my throat and I vomit. My stomach is empty and I stand over the sink wretching.

It feels like a miracle when I recover. Christmas day my symptoms mostly clear up and I'm able to sit up long enough to use my computer, something I was unable to do for the past week. I test negative, my second best Christmas present that year. The first is the Elden Ring soundtrack on vinyl. I am elated that I made it put the other end.

A week later my friend comes from a few cities away to visit for a few days. We go shopping one afternoon, spend a few hours standing around at the local game store looking at dice and miniature plastic dragons. We get home at 6pm. I collapse into bed and wake up 3 hours later. I talk to my doctor about it in January, she says it should go away over time. Six months maximum.

I spend my spring semester exhausted. I start using a cane to make sure I can walk across campus. I'm thankful that many of my friends are also disabled because they understand when I need to ask people to slow down, or bail because of my fatigue. Many of the abled people in my life do not understand. One day I go out to a museum, a thing I am excited to do. When I get home at 4pm I make myself popcorn, then collapse into bed. I can't walk to the sink without my cane, I can barely get out of bed. This is what I have to adjust to.

Six months pass. The fatigue is not gone. I am home for summer break, and I try talking to my parents about my fatigue. They don't understand. I talk to my doctor. She is convinced it's depression symptoms. My mental health is largely the best it's been in years- I've been in treatment for months now and it is helping.

It's been about seven months now. I am not receiving treatment, nor will my doctor acknowledge that I have long covid. She has relented into testing for physical things. I got a CT scan, and have a sleep study scheduled for when I get back from visiting family in August. Depending on what these turn up and how my doctor reacts I am preparing to find a new doctor. I am not excited about this, because I like my doctor. But if she refuses to acknowledge that what has happened to me is likely covid and therefore will not treat me I will find someone else.

I don't really have a moral here beyond please mask up, get vaccinated, etc. Even if covid doesn't fuck you up it might fuck up someone you pass it to. Or even worse, it can kill the immunocompromised people around you. Please have compassion for the people around you. My father, who is a loving and caring man, brought this illness home to me. It wasn't out of malice, but it still has affected my life for probably the rest of my life.

#disability pride month #disability #covid #covid isn't over #disabled #okay to rb #lyra.txt

[notyour-valentine]

Lockdown Masterpiece ~ Modern!Tommy Shelby (Fluff)

[Masterlist] [Taglist]

Summary: Tommy takes charge of homeschooling- it goes better than anyone could have ever imagined

Note: This was written for @cillmequick 's milestone celebration! Congratulations once again. I hope you have as much fun reading this as I had writing it!

I do not consent to my work being translated, copied or posted elsewhere on this platform or any other. This hasn't been beta'd so I apologise for typos or mistakes

Warning: Covid?

Wordcount: 1328 words

Sometimes, in the earliest hours of the morning, Tommy would confess that he felt like the whole world had banded against him, purposefully trying to throw every wrench possible in his works. 

The world, that had usually meant Arthur not doing what he asked him to, or Polly not approving one of his business ideas, or Finn running wild or Ada arguing about some policy or other.

Well, this time the world itself truly seemed to have conspired against her husband. 

He was someone who was constantly on the move, who was never content with doing nothing. Even his definition of rest included training horses or devouring books as if his reading capabilities had an expiration date.  

Impatience was another key attribute of his.

He had told - not asked - her the very first night they had met that he was going to marry her, had bought their house before even consulting her with the shrugged confession that if she hadn’t liked it, he’d just buy another (convincing her that he must’ve bought a few others in case), and produced a list of baby names the moment she had said she might be up for having children one day.  

Fast and forward, that was his motto in life and there truly was no stopping Tommy Shelby, until the world had stopped him. 

And for once, her husband had lacked foresight.

All the way until March, he had been convinced that all of this would just blow over, that there was no way they would truly shut down the country, let alone half the world for “ a silly cold”.

It had resulted in him having to pay a smuggler to get back into the country without quarantine because he had overstayed his trip overseas and suddenly got very nervous at the prospect of being stuck in a government issued hotel room for two weeks. 

They had isolated him - against his will and despite his arguing- in one of the rooms of Arrow House only to discover on day six that her husband had caught the virus. 

Men were never good patients and in this, like in so many other things, her husband had decided to go above and beyond. 

Luckily he had been alright in the end, with just a lingering issue with taste and smell (although that could be from the cigarettes) and a built up pile of impatience. 

Now her husband was running a global enterprise from their office, in addition to a new charitable scheme for families in need “because they fucked it up again, didn’t they?”

His increasing rage with the politicians, even prior to the pandemic, was starting to worry her, lest he get any more grand ideas. 

Sometimes he moved at such a speed it wouldn't really surprise her to wake up one morning to find out he had been made Prime Minister.

In the mean time it had been her taking care of the homeschooling of their three children. 

Eloise was eight and a half, Caroline was six and Raphael was three which meant, in theory, they were outnumbered by one as she had sent the staff home to be with their own families as soon as the pandemic truly hit. 

At least that was what she was usually doing. 

After last nights argument, however, she had the morning all to herself. 

Tommy hadn’t exactly approved her idea of schooling Caroline and Eloise in turn, an hour each before switching and had insisted it would be far more efficient to do it simultaneously. 

That was an offer too good to pass up and it also gave her a little time to get some housework done. 

After an hour she had decided that Tommy would have to give the house staff a raise (and a big one - seriously, how the hell did they do it?) and after another hour she had given up and decided they would just have to downsize and collect dust in all the rooms they really didn't need.

After three and a half hours, her curiosity got the better of her and she made her way to the dining room, which had become their make shift school room. 

She heard the giggling long before she had even opened the door. 

Her husband was right where he was supposed to be, sitting at the head of the table. 

Eloise and Caroline, however, were both kneeling on the table, sheets of papers and online excersises long forgotten. 

Raphael was the only one not sitting on large mahogany desk imported all the way Peru, instead sitting on the floor while working away eagerly on the century old parquet floor, making his mark. 

Tommy, who had discarded his suits for plain black t-shirts and jeans (as casual as he would go) after a month of lockdown, had his arms flat on the table and soon she realised why. 

At least when she saw what Raphael was clutching between his hands.

It was confirmed by the grey box that had been tipped over on the dining room table, perfectly labelled, if one had the patience to read. 

“Hello my loves!”, she greeted as she scooped her baby boy up in her arms, gently prying the dark green marker from his fingers. 

“Mummy!”, he greeted, wrapping his arms around her neck and giving her a kiss, just like he had seen his Dad do. 

“Hello Mummy!”, Caroline giggled, while Eloise at least had the decency to look caught. But not caught enough not to add the finishing touches to what she was working on.

“I see homeschooling is going well!”, she teased as she saw Tommy’s resignation.

“Don’t!”, he hissed, glancing down at his arms. 

They were pale, or rather they had once been pale apart from the darkness taken up by his countless tattoos that covered both his arms from the shoulders downward. 

Thankfully he had only ever chosen black ink, but now there was purple and green, orange and yellow, bright blue and pink, turquoise and brown all mixed together. 

“Daddy said I could use his arm for my letter practice!”, Caroline announced proudly, eagerly showing off where she had traced that part of his skin where he had immortalised all their names in order with every colour of the rainbow. 

“I see!”, she mused with the sincerity of an art critic.

“And what about you Eloise? Are you doing your maths on Daddy’s other arm?”

She shook her head, smirking.

“He said if I did it well I could colour his tattoos in.”

She must have done very well then because the other arm was just as bright as the one Caroline had traced far more than just their names. 

The horse on his shoulder was now a unicorn with a pink and purple mane, riding on a bright blue cloud. The horseshoe on his other had little yellow stars and the four leaf clover shone as green as a leprechaun. 

The gaps between the sunburst on his shoulders had been coloured in as well with stripes of blue and turquoise and the one that showed his regiment had never looked more dignified than it did now with bright pink dots on orange. 

The rose of course had received a special treatment too, while the inscription of 'family' had also been traced half a dozen times, with the added definition of "Mummy- Daddy - Ellie - Callie - Raphie" in Eloise's handwriting which was so like her father's.

“It worked as a reward.”, Tommy said in an effort to save his dignity. 

“Oh I’m sure it did!”, she said, unable to stop grinning. 

Sitting Raphael down on the table, she reached for the red marker and took the tip off with her teeth.

“Do you know what the best part is?”, she asked, after drawing a small red heart on his cheek.

He had tired to pull away at first, but soon gave up at the sight of his arms. Still he glared at her with the dark promise of revenge, which made her feel a little more tingly than it should have in the presence of her three children.

And he doesn't even know it yet!

“That you’ll take a picture to send to Ada?”, he grumbled, rolling his eyes in preparation.

“No, but that’s a good idea.”, she agreed.

“Thankfully I’ll have a lot of time to take that picture though.”

She laughing outright now, at the sight of one of the most powerful, most influential men in this country, who could inspire admiration the same way he could command terror, covered from shoulder to wrist in the brightest colours imaginable thanks to the handiwork of their little girls. 

“What?”, he asked impatiently. 

Biting her lip she leaned closer, pressing a kiss right below the heart she had drawn before leaning in to whisper the truth into his ear.

“Love, the ones in the grey box are the permanent markers.”

End.

Taglist

@lilyrachelcassidy @jyessaminereads @watercolorskyy

@books-livre @chlorrox @quarterpastmidnight @lilyevanswhore @polishcrazyone @zablife @just-a-harmless-patato

Tommy

@knowledgefulbutterfly @babayaga67 @signorellisantichrist @lespendy

#alex breaks 100 #valentineswritings #thomas shelby #peaky blinders #modern!tommy shelby #modern!tommy #modern!thomas shelby #tommy shelby #tommy shelby x reader #thomas shelby x reader #tommy shelby fanfic #tommy shelby fic #modern peaky blinders #peaky blinders modern au

[artzzyb00-27]

Spider-Man; Vol.1 Harry Grant

Harry, Denny, and Christopher as Spider-People. Harry's first. Don't worry no one(important) dies(yet). Also, I edited the poster of all three of them. Twas not fun. (No cat is coming with them to fight crime, I couldn't find a male Sun-Spider to represent Chris' crutches but just pretend that he's got male anatomy in the picture.)

He never wanted to get bit. It was by accident. And by accident, a spider that was in the house Jeffrey used for his little escapade had stowed away on Harry. Camouflaging itself in his hair. Getting bit when he was unconscious. After another incident at school, weird things started happening.

His hearing, smell, and sight were increased. He could feel things almost before they happened. Like something was telling him, 'Watch out!'. It's how he got away from someone else trying to kidnap him when he was out with friends at the mall. Sometimes things would stick to his fingers for extra time but he didn't think anything of it. Still trying to forget the incident. Until his wrist shot out a long white sticky string.

After that, he confided in May. He wanted at least someone in the family to know what was going on. Granted, she wasn't happy that he kept it a secret for three years. She understood in the end, that's what mattered.

She asked a friend who graduated already, who had a major in bioengineering, to help out with a slight issue with her brother. Agreeing to keep the secret, Peter explained to him how his powers resembled that of a spider.

"You did kill it right?" He had asked. Harry shrugged and May rolled her eyes at her little brother. In his defense, he liked bugs. What was he gonna do? All he did was grab it, stick it out the window and-

"Oh my god, I let it out my window." He said rubbing his hands against his eyes. When he felt, well 'sensed', that May was about to throw a pillow at him, he quickly stuck out his arm and caught it. Taking a break from becoming a lab rat, Harry had gone out to the convenience store to get snacks for the three of them. Then the cashier was held at gunpoint. Great.

Lifting his COVID mask, which he still wore if he felt like he was getting sick, he grabbed a ski mask from the back and put it on away from cameras. Probably stupid as someone must've already called the cops but he needed to do something. Jumping out from the aisle, Harry aimed his wrist and prayed he didn't look stupid. Luckily, he didn't. The webs, which Peter told him to call them instead of sticky white stuff, grabbed hold of the gun and was pulled back into Harry's hands. The robber and cashier looked at him in shock.

Panicking Harry shot out another web with his right, landing on the robber's face, and pulled on it. Making the guy land hard on the ground. Knocking out unconscious. Not knowing what to do next, Harry looked at the cashier and walked up to pay for the snacks.

"N-nah man! On the house!" Harry must've looked shocked so the cashier explained. Rob. "Not everyone can do that. And I'm not just saying that." Still confused Harry took that as a sign to leave the store. He forgot that he still had the mask on, so when he walked outside with a plastic bag and a ski mask on, the cops outside assumed he was the robber.

In their defense, he was dressed like one. The universe loved messing with him apparently, because the officer in front of him was his mother. With a gun pointed at him. That kinda stung, though he couldn't be too hurt. She had no idea who was under the mask. While debating in his head whether to remove the mask or not, his mom started speaking in her work voice.

"Put the bag down, and take that ridiculous mask off you!" Okay, so trying to calm her down would not go well. Luckily Harry was fast so he sprinted and jumped over a brick wall that led into an alley. He knew his mom would follow but that made it easier to get the attention off him.

When his Spidey-sense told him she was right behind, he instinctively threw his right wrist up to shoot out a web and launched himself. Into. The. Air. Landing on the building that was an office. Which definitely, didn't make people jump and scream at the small man who was sticking to the side of their building.

Snapping out of the trance, Harry realized he needed to think of something. No time for thinking about the massive fall below him. Not the time to try and tell the people inside to stop taking pictures of him. He needed to,... turn invisible? What!?

Taking the opportunity, he climbed down as fast as he could and ran back to May's place. Telling them what happened in extreme detail. Things were different now.

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

That was a week ago. Harry had gone around training his power. Whether at the private lab, Peter had, due to working at some fancy tech company, or just serving vigilante justice to randos causing trouble. I mean hey, it was giving his family fewer dumb calls to take. Plus it meant more time with his mom. Although he got annoyed Athena the majority of the time. Due to the 'Slippery Slick' people were calling him. Cameras on the sides of buildings had caught the whole thing.

At a family reunion, Harry overheard the adults talking about him. Well, not him him, but you get it.

"I don't know, does he even know what he's doing?" Michael asked no one in particular. Again, his parents didn't know, but damn it hurt.

"Hey, if I got powers-,"

"I'd tie you to a chair and make you pinky promise to not do anything." Eddie interrupted Buck's penny for thought. Makes sense that Buck would do the same thing Harry was doing. Made him feel more confident his older brother would support him.

"Kid could get hurt. There are rules for a reason. Cashier told me he's on our side, but,... Look bottom line, vigilantes are outlaws for a reason." Athena said ending the conversation there. She seemed more uncomfortable to answer honestly. Why, Harry didn't know. He didn't think he wanted to know.

Three days after that, Peter called Harry and asked to meet him at his apartment. He had to tell his mom and Bobby that Peter was tutoring him with homework because everyone else was too busy, and he understood it better from Pete. Which wasn't a total lie.

"So, I have a surprise for you. I know how hard you've been working. And how dangerous this side job of yours can be," Harry rolled his eyes playfully but kept his attention on Peter. Who had walked over to grab a box and walked back to Harry. "So I wanted to give you this. Well, I technically made it, but you get it."

Shaking his head, Harry opened the box and went slower. His very own suit. Running into the bathroom he went to try it on. From outside Peter told him to bring his civilian clothes with him. Looking in the mirror after putting on the mask, Harry took in a deep breath.

The suit was one-piece style but had a hood attached to it. Walking out of the bathroom, Harry looked up at Peter who was taking the sight in proudly.

"Hold out your left arm." As Harry did so, Peter stuck in a thin and small USB that made the inside of his mask light up. When Harry focused his attention back on Pete, he saw his face glowing. Literally. Harry went to look in the mirror that hung above the couch in the living room and gasped in awe. His eyes were glowing with a makeshift fog effect. "The schematics in your mask will help you access situations out on the field. And connect me to your mask if you need backup. Whether I'm at my desk or not. It also can call anyone on your phone's contact list."

"Awesome."

"Alright, let's test this bad boy out."

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

Athena had been patrolling the area when she saw a group huddling in front of the tallest building in the area. Parking the car and wailing her sirens a bit, she got out to see what everyone was looking at. Up, apparently. Lifting her eyesight, she gasped and wired her walkie.

"Available units near me, I've got a suicide about to happen at the Ten Thousand." Clicking off her walkie, she forced her way into the crowd and saw more officers coming in to de-escalate the situation. Then the 118 arrived, looking like they didn't know what to do. The kid was sticking to the side of the building.

Harry had never been so nervous before this moment. But he was so ready for it too. So, in a moment of faith, he jumped. Breaking the glass his fingers were sticking to and letting himself fall. People beneath were watching and the firefighters froze for a second. They weren't fast enough. Or were they?

Twisting in the air, Harry looked up and shot out webs to reach the top of the building. When they caught him, he ricocheted up and to the left. People on the ground were cheering as he swung away. Then Athena heard glass raining down and she told the people to leave.

"What just happened," Hen asked anyone who could answer.

"I think our friend just upgraded," Ravi answered smiling at the awesomeness in front of him.

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

And boy, did he upgrade. Harry had never felt so sure of himself in that moment. Swinging around the city and stopping occasionally to stop crime. At one of these, he saw a redhead getting assaulted. Or about to, he should say. Improving with each encounter. Outsmarting some and overpowering others.

Jumping in between her and the men, he jumped and put the guy in a headlock with his legs and twisted his body quickly. Slamming the man on the ground. To the second, he shot out webs and jumped up landing on top of a street light. Shooting out more of the desired type of string, Harry wrapped the guy up like how a spider would a fly.

Jumping down, he ignored the looks of amazement he was getting from the people around who witnessed the scene. Finally getting a better look, he realized it was a reporter who Taylor had worked with. Mariah, or something.

"Impressive. Though, you're a lot shorter than I thought you'd be." Harry laughed and shrugged it off.

"I get that a lot. Gives me the upper hand though. They underestimate me, and I knock down their egos." Smiling, the woman held her hand out. Grabbing hold of it and shaking it out of habit, cause his mom raised a gentleman, he began stepping back.

"Hey, wait!" He stopped and turned to the woman again. "What's your name?" Well, he acted like a spider and he got bit by one. Might as well use it.

"Spider-Man."

With that, Harry backflipped on the side of the building nearby and swung off for a final round of patrol before sneaking back home and hiding his things. The morning after, thank god it was the weekend, came in a report from the lady he saved. His mom was making breakfast and listening to the news. Looking up at the mention of the masked vigilante.

"Last night, I was down the streets of LA, unknowingly being followed by dangerous men. Spider-Man, which is what the swinging hero chooses to go by, stopped them and saved my life." The TV then shows video clips of the fight from last night and the aftermath of how the guys were. Harry had hoped that he didn't go too hard on the guys. He and Peter found out he could break solid rock if he wanted to.

"That's pretty cool. That there's someone else helping you guys." He said trying to subtly push his mom's opinions, of him ironically, out.

"I don't know if cool is the right word, sweetheart. Brave, yes. But cool. No." She turned off the TV and kept making food, changing the topic to school and friends. At least she wasn't overly anti-Spidey like his dad. That would hurt later.

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

Swinging through the city for the rest of the month was fun. Oddly therapeutic. Got his mind off teenage angst and emotions. Every day after finishing his homework, and eating dinner, he would sneak out and swing through the city and patrol around till about 2:30 and then go off to sleep if nothing held him up. His latest was 4:30. He needed some sleep for school.

And for his family to not get worried. May had also installed a tracker on him which told her exactly where he was. At all times. Fair.

One night, however, while sitting on top of a building's gargoyle statue, his mask sent a notification. Trouble near the 136 and he needed to get there quickly. Once there he saw the firefighters outside talking with the 118. Bobby speaking with Bosko.

Landing on top of one of the fire trucks parked outside, he drew people's nearby attention. Looking up Buck smiled in awe.

"Spider-Man!" Harry nodded up and turned his attention to Bobby and Bosko. Reminding himself to call him Captain and not what he usually does.

"Captain," He greeted gaining a nod of acknowledgment from the older man, "What's going on?"

"Something attacked our station. It's inside but one of our members is in there. It looked like a giant octopus. But he made a metal sound when walking. Power went out so we couldn't get a good look at him."

Suddenly long arms shot out from the station doors and grabbed hold of Bobby.

"Cap!" Buck screamed and ran forward in a failed attempt to save his father figure. The arms raised the man in the air and pulled him into the smoke coming out of the building.

"I've got it handled, you just take care of the injured firefighter! This doesn't seem like a normal thug!" Huffing out in amusement and shock, Lena nodded behind her, as if permitting him to enter. Good thing Peter installed that voice module thing in his mask. Didn't want people to recognize him at all. Especially because his voice broke halfway through speaking.

Shooting out webs at the frame of an open window near the top of the station, Harry hopped up slightly and whipped himself in. Landing on the roof looking at the station upside down. Very different from the 118. Using his mask, he scanned the building for body heat. Nothing. Heart beating fast, Harry prayed that Bobby was safe. Despite being pulled in by who knows what.

That's when his Spidey-Sense went off. Jumping down and front to land on the wall in front of him, he avoided mechanical arms that shot through the roof. The arms pulled out of the roof, and other arms grabbed onto the railing in front. Lifting a figure that looked human. Dammit Bobby, where are you?

"Hello, Spider-boy." The man in front of him asked.

"It's actually, Spider-Man. W-who are you, exactly? You're wearing a lab coat and have eight limbs. Are you like a Doctor Octopus? Doc Ock?"

"My name is Doctor Otto Octavius."

"Meh, I like mine better. Woah-!" Harry yelled as he jumped off the wall avoiding another attack from Doc Ock. "So, you wanna explain why you attacked the 136?! No offense," Harry bantered as he bobbed and weaved around the station with the man chasing him around effortlessly. Suddenly, Harry used the webs he shot out from both wrists, twisted his body, and launched himself back towards the other. Landing a swift kick to the face. "But I don't think you're the 'swinging' type! What do you think? Was that good?"

Growling in frustration, Otto commanded his tentacles to restrain Harry against the wall. He did, but just when he was about to get closer, an axe chopped his lower mechanical leg. Looking down he saw the 136 captain holding the axe and Bobby right next to him with parts of his shirt torn. Without thinking twice, Otto used one of the arms restraining Harry and launched the captains to the wall behind them.

"No!"

Harry yelled out, shooting out some webs from his free arm, and pulled Doc Ock closer. Kicking up his leg hard, hitting the man on the jaw, and threw him upwards through the ceiling outside. Landing on the elevated ground, Harry ran towards the captains who were knocked out and threw them over his shoulders.

"I gotcha you guys!" He said, while running back towards the window he came through while avoiding debris falling from the damaged roof.

Outside, the firefighters had tried to go in and search the building but during the chase, Doc Ock was careful to throw heavy objects to block the doorways. Trying to figure out ways to get inside and help the masked vigilante, Athena, and her partners showed up.

"What the hell is going on?" Just as Buck was about to answer, a loud crash was heard and caused the people around to turn their heads. All they saw was Doc Ock flying out and running away on all eights. A firefighter from the 136 was looking towards the window when Harry flew out carrying Bobby and the captain of the station. Just in time as well, the roof of the 136 had caved in. Athena threw her hand up to her mouth to cover her gasp.

When he landed he placed the 136's captain down on the rolly bed and then put Bobby down helping him gain his footing back. He'd woken up again when Harry was running out and leaped out of the building with a total of 320 lbs on him. Turning to the crew helping out their captain he spoke.

"Sorry 'bout the mess. Doc Ock sure left an impression."

"Doc Ock?" Chimney asked while checking  Bobby over. Hen went up to Harry to inspect the bleeding arm he had. Huh, the mechanical arm must've more than pinched him. Meh, it would heal.

"Better than Otto Octavius. And don't worry about it, it'll heal itself. Powers, remember?" Harry said mimicking his move when throwing webs out. Buck imitated it making Eddie chuckle and shoulder bump his fiancé.

"Well whoever he was, he's going to have an APB on him. I'm not technically allowed to let you go, but I'll let the chief and mayor know what you did. You saved my husband's life." Feeling pride swell in his chest, Harry nodded.

"Just trying to do the right thing. I don't think I could've handled losing someone tonight. Right now, I gotta get home before my mom beats my ass. I got school in the morning." Not a smart thing to say as everyone looked at him like he was insane.

"School? How old are you?" Getting more worried, Hen reexamined the arm, which was now fifty percent healed. Laughing nervously, Harry pulled away from the group who looked like they wanted to jump him. Too bad he jumped first and swung off.

"Might wanna keep an eye on that one Sergeant." Ravi. Ever so the quiet one, made the others jump but nod their heads in agreement. Softly, Athena sighed. Why did she feel like she'd met him before?

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

Telling May and Peter about what happened the next day was exhausting. They decided to dive into Doc Ock more, whoever he was.

"Let's see. It says here that Doctor Otto Octavius was the head scientist at Otto Industries. They specialized in prosthetics that were connected to the neural link of an amputee's brain. Making them slightly more efficient than other prosthetics." Humming, Harry looked over Peter's shoulder while May was in the kitchen making chocolate sandwiches.

"How'd he end up like this though? He seemed, agitated. Annoyed. Desperate. And why go after a firefighter captain?"

Typing more, Peter pulled up files and reports of a fire that happened three years ago. An experiment gone wrong showed up a lot. Scrolling through some of them, one document mentioned a young woman named Olivia Octavius.

"His daughter."

"She died in the fire."

"Look at the pictures, zoom in!" As Peter did so, they could see the station that was there at the fire. 136. "Doc Ock blames the firefighters for his daughter not making it out."

"That's why he went after the captain, but why grab Bobby? Attention?"

"No. He wanted the Fire department to feel the same hits he felt. Losing a firefighter captain can be overcome. But losing two in the same night? Things fall apart." Harry said, rubbing his eyes. He hadn't slept well. Bobby almost dying back at the station in front of him brought back memories of Jeffrey. This time Bobby was kidnapped. While Harry was forced to watch.

"Go in my room and get some sleep. Mom already knows you're here." May told her little brother who was eating the sandwich she made him.

"No way, I gotta find him by today. He'll take advantage of me not being out there."

"It's five o'clock. I'll wake you up at midnight. You need energy." Sighing, he walked into his sister's bedroom. She was right, if he wanted to confront Doc Ock and win, he needed to rest his body. And mind.

After a six-hour nap, Harry woke up to talking in the living room. May and Peter were in front of a corkboard with string connecting pictures. They looked like the office meme.

"What, in the Sherlock Holmes, did I miss?" Turning at his voice, May looked up at him in the suit and smiled.

"Nothing much just found some leads on where our octopi friend might be."

"Yup, and we've got one big hint. Oscorp center. Our biggest competitor when it comes to selling world-changing technology." Peter said. Damn, if he didn't work at Oscorp, where did he work at?

"Why Oscorp?" Harry asked while walking toward the board and looking at the highlighted and circled science center picture.

"Oscorp shut down Otto Industries after getting into a battle of who was making more money. Oscorp won, and took over all technology Otto was working on." Harry frowned.

"That doesn't seem fair."

"It wasn't, and now that Otto's after a firefighter captain who's currently at a hospital,..."

"It's more than likely he's going after anyone else who wronged him. Oscorp being our best guess." May concluded Peter's thought.

Harry hoped that was the case. He wanted tonight to go smoothly. He wanted peace and quiet.

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

Why does he do this to himself? Bobby's always saying how the Q-word is a jinx. Why didn't he listen!?

When he first arrived at Oscorp he snuck in past security flawlessly. Having a hands-up on the competition with invisibility powers. After reaching the lower levels of the building, he heard rumbling and load crashes. Screaming from the scientists and visitors. No time for invisibility.

Leaping down he started directing people.

"That way! Let's go, let's go!"

"Help!" Harry turned to see some debris that had fallen from the roof collapsed on a woman's leg. Shit. Running over, Harry lifted and tossed the giant piece of the building away. Shooting some webbing onto the victim's leg. Handing her over to a scientist and firefighter nearby. Guess they arrived quickly.

"Get her out of here! I have to deal with Doc Ock." Nodding the firefighter picked up the woman.

"Will do! Be careful kid!"

When he reached the testing area, Doc Ock was fighting some weird green-looking dude.

Just when Doc Ock pinned his opponent down, webs zipped in front and behind his head. Looking to his right, he got another kick to the face. Launching him to the wall. Shaking his head and dusting off debris on his coat he looked up more annoyed than before.

Harry narrowed his, which was expressed through his mask, but then he tucked and rolled after his Spidey-Sense warned him of behind. Spinning as he rolled, he faced the other person in the room.

"Hey there! My name's Spider-Man! How 'bout you?"

"Norman Osborn. A pleasure to meet you. I admire the kick you gave my friend. However, while cliche, he's mine." Just as he finished speaking, Norman controlled his hoverboard to speed at Harry while Doc Ock rammed towards Harry as well. Waiting for the last possible moment, Harry leaped up, making the two bad guys crash into each other. Shooting out webs, Harry pulled himself toward them and landed a punch on Otto and a famous face kick to Norman.

"I'm gonna call you Green Goblin. Suits your mask." Harry said as he dodged something G.G. threw at him. Beginning to walk forward, a small explosion pushed him forward faster. "Bombs! Are you insane!"

Laughing, G.G. ignored Harry and sped towards him with Doc Ock in tow. Somehow these two worked well as a team. Scarily enough, thank go they didn't fully get along. Awe, Harry brought them together- he's gonna hurl.

"Weren't you two trying to destroy each other a while ago!? What happened to that!?" Harry asked rhetorically while avoiding and throwing attacks. Hopefully, everyone above evacuated the building. Because by the way Green Goblin threw his bombs, not everyone was making it out.

The fight seemed to go on forever, that is til one of the bombs had hit a pillar that supported a huge portion of the floor above them. Green Goblin flew away and escaped through the opening, while Doc Ock was busy trying to murder Harry.

"This is your fault. If it weren't for you, I would've gotten my daughter back, my job!" What? Scanning the area, Harry's mask told him a lucid gas was in the air. It had properties that made people hallucinate, which explained why Doc Ock thought Harry was Green Goblin. While Harry was distracted, Otto took the opportunity to pin Harry against a wall with his arms. Cracking the wall behind him. "It's over Norman. You're going to feel the pain I had when you took away my life's work. It could've saved her. My Olivia."

Oh no.

"Goodbye." He said before rushing towards Harry. As if in slow motion, Harry kicked up at the last moment. Without holding back. Launching Otto into the concrete ceiling. A crack was heard, and Harry fell to the ground. Taking a breath, he realized the building was collapsing and burning. Scanning for life, he saw glimpses of Otto's. No.

"No!!" Swinging through the hole made by the man who attacked him, Harry landed near Otto. He was hefting loudly. Wheezing while trying to speak.

"Olivia,.."

 "No, no no no. Come on! We've gotta go!" Harry flipped him over and disconnected the tentacle on Otto's back. Making yell out in pain. "Come on!" Harry yelled out, picking the man up and swinging out of the building avoiding large debris.

Once out, Harry was able to see the damage. Oscorp was destroyed. Smoke coming from the center. Landing on a building nearby, Harry saw firefighters outside trying to put out the smoke. Landing he cried out.

"Help! He needs help!" Gaining the attention of Eddie and Buck, they ran towards him and took Otto. Harry tried to follow but he fell to the ground. Hen and Chimney rushed over to him, asking to remove the mask for breathing but Harry refused. His vision focused on the firefighters 20 feet in front of him.

He saw Buck shake his head.

He failed. His ears rang. He looked over to see a cop walking over with handcuffs and a gun in hand. He's failed. Athena steps in front of the cop. Muffled yelling. Their hands are off him. No one touches him. Bobby.

A hand was placed on his shoulder. Looking up through the lenses.

"Breath in." Fuck that.

Harry rammed into Bobby's chest and shut his eyes. The inside of his mask was wet from his tears. He failed.

"No, you didn't." Looking up, Bobby looked at his eyes despite not knowing who was underneath the mask. "You saved the most lives. That's what matters."

"I don't care what old laws are! The mayor was set to reveal Spider-Man as a trusted ally of the LAFD and LAPD. So back it up, before I take your badge and gun from you." Athena reprimanded the cop before turning back to the boy savior.

"Oh baby, come here." She said pulling him into a hug. Despite having to pretend she wasn't his mother, he couldn't help it. "You did what you could."

"We've got new trouble." He said when he let go of her. "Green Goblin. Norman Osborn. He's gone mad. I don't know how, but I'm going to find out. And I'm going to bring him to you." He said determined to come back with an alive enemy next time.

"I know you will. We'll be on the lookout as well. Go home, I know your family's worried." Yup. May crushed him into a hug and Peter cried out apologies for encouraging it in the first place. The next morning MJ reported on how Spider-Man saved her friend, Phin's life.

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

Playing video games was a great distraction. The family was over for a barbecue and Harry was talking to Denny while Chris went to the bathroom. He'd gotten better at doing things by himself.

Harry was just about to beat Denny when the game paused. Looking over at player two he saw Denny looking scared.

"You okay?"

"Y-yeah, just,.." He got up and closed the door. Locking it. Huh. "Some things have been happening. Like physical." Huh. Awkward puberty talk.

"Oh, well. I mean, yeah, you're a teenager now and things are going to start changing with your body and-"

"No. Not that." Harry quirked his eyebrow. Denny sighed and stimmed his hands. "It-,.. It's better if I show you." He said while bending his knees slightly. Harry closed his eyes.

"Denny no please-!" Thud. Huh. Braving, Harry opened his eyes. Denny was gone. Scratch that, he was on the roof. The. Roof! Denny was smiling while panicking.

"This is weird, right?" Smiling in return Harry leapt up while twisting mid-air. Landing in front of Denny whilst sticking to the roof like a pro.

"Not that weird." Denny looked in awe. Then relief. They're not alone.

To Be Continued in Volume 2.

#911 fandom #911 show #911 fanfic #911 fic #911 #911 abc #911 fox #buck x eddie #evan buckley x eddie diaz #eddie diaz #evan buckley #harry grant #bobby x athena #athena grant #bobby nash #chimney han #henrietta wilson #denny wilson #christopher diaz #spiderman au #spiderman #crossover #spidermanx911 #peter parker #mary jane watson #doc ock #green goblin #lena bosko #ravi panikkar #station 118

[miketownsends]

i found blaseball in season 3.

the very end of season 3, and i remember i only found it because one of the NITW creators tweeted something along the lines of “ok i’ll bite what’s blaseball” and i went “what IS blaseball?” and i Googled it and suddenly there i was

i picked the Garages because i always have been and always will be a Seattlite at heart - i remember briefly deliberating over the Tacos (who were just the LA Tacos at the time!) and a couple other teams, but the Seattle pull was too strong

i remember that i joined either very late on Saturday or very early on Sunday - it was post the s3 finals because i remember seeing the Tigers as the s3 champions, but it was pre-election because i remember casting my lone vote for Eat the Rich

but this was RIGHT before the first siesta, and i had no idea what the timeline of a season looked like, and i went “well i guess i’ll check back in later” and then basically completely forgot about it for the next couple weeks and might’ve forgotten forever if i hadn’t seen another tweet from someone when it came back.

i remember watching my very first game on the bus to work. i think i must’ve missed the first day of games, i think it must’ve been a Tuesday, because i caught the bus at like 7am and i remember seasons not starting until 8am on Mondays. i watched the Garages play the Crabs (Garages lost). i remember falling in love with Avila Guzman and Allison Abbott and Malik Destiny (pre-catboyification!) based on nothing but vibes because i didn’t know anything about blaseball lore, i didn’t even know blaseball HAD lore. i think i found the Discord later that day, and i remember the Avila-Farrell feedback happening right around the time i joined the Discord.

i got my best friend into it at the same time and it turned into a hyperfixation for both of us. i remember sitting in their living room watching the finals for s4 while our partners sat by slightly befuddled by this thing that had suddenly taken over our lives.

i moved a couple hours away for grad school at the beginning of Sept 2020 and it was possibly the most miserable time of my life. i was lucky enough to be with family at least, but i was away from my now-husband and because of COVID everything was online and i am NOT a person who does well with online courses - when i had applied in fall of 2019 i had obviously assumed everything would be in-person. i had multiple meltdowns the first few months and blaseball was often the only bright spot.

the Jaylen necromancy, oh man. i remember when i first started looking up our lore and went “i missed out on a player named Jaylen Hotdogfingers????” she loomed so large over the Garages those first few seasons. her death kind of set the tone for us, especially as we kept losing players - every team wanted to fight the gods, but it felt so viscerally PERSONAL. and then one day i opened the website and saw her on the idol board with the little flaming skull next to her name.

i cannot even begin to describe the chaos i walked into when i opened the Discord and went to the Garages channel. it was just something you had to be there for. i was IMMEDIATELY team necromancy, because what was blaseball all about if not slamming big red buttons? and i figured if we didn’t, someone else would, so it might as well be us. a lot of folks felt the same. some didn’t. my mom called me at one point and asked me why i was talking about necromancy on Twitter. the Garages, obviously, decided to go for it. we had to try.

and at the same time, the Garages, somehow, were finally becoming a decent team. we made the playoffs for the first time in season 6. Jaylen’s final words, as per lore, were “we’ve just gotta make it to the playoffs.” we swept the Pies and Tigers - both former 2 time champions - to get to the finals. Mike Townsend, he who lived always in Jaylen’s shadow, threw out the first pitch of the first game of the finals. the Crabs swept us but we didn’t care. we had made it to the playoffs. we could do ANYTHING. we could bring our star pitcher back. and we did.

god, i’m just telling stories now, but to be fair blaseball is nothing BUT stories. i remember i spent a lot of that weekend in bed sleeping and crying because i was so depressed, but i pulled myself out of it enough to watch the election results roll in. to see Jaylen come home. to see Mike truly relegated to Jaylen’s shadow.

on Ruby Tuesday i was busy trying to unpack my room with my mom’s help. i took a break to check in on blaseball. games weren’t running even though they should’ve been. i scrolled through the game feed until i hit the Tigers-Moist Talkers game and realized just what we’d done, what Jaylen’s debt truly meant.

i didn’t always remember to watch the playoffs if the Garages weren’t in them, but i was watching when the Shoe Thieves reverse-swept the Crabs and were launched into a boss battle. Jaylen pitching against the puppets of a God. (the results of the Snackrifice.)

i cried when Jaylen went back to the Hall, even though i was sure her story wasn’t done. (and it wasn’t.)

the s11 finals between the Beams and Garages was one of the most emotionally draining things i’ve ever been through. we KNEW the Beams had us beat but the Sun 2/Black Hole shenanigans kept us holding on. i cried when we finally lost. and then the Keepers opened up the eternal concert in the Discord, and for hours there were hundreds of us packed in there, listening to Garages songs that sounded like you were hearing them played at a dive bar down the street because the quality was so bad and “singing” along, and eventually Get Normal came up, and everyone had been waiting for it, and. i don’t know. god, i cried so much. something about that moment of connection. something about the closest to a concert i’d experienced in a year. something about knowing it was the literal end of an era.

i don’t even know where to start with expansion. yeah it was an exhausting mess. my hyperfixation fucking LOVED it. i may have to do an expansion era retrospective/ramble separately because this is already too damn long, and expansion was SO much. for now i’ll just say that i will carry the way the Garages handled the final season of expansion with me for the rest of my life. it was so… poignant. watching us cling to our philosophy of “the Garage is always open” even though we KNEW we were inviting our own potential destruction through the door. choosing containment because we refused to save ourselves at the expense of the league but we could at least make sure the damage started and ended with us. making a beeline for the Hall because at the end of it we just wanted to go see our friends one more time.

i’ve mentioned this before, but when we melted the Coin i was at a minor league baseball game. it was the first game i had been to in probably four or five years and it was the first time i can remember actively CARING about baseball as an adult. i work for that minor league team now and i absolutely would not be doing that if not for blaseball.

god. i’m so, so sad. i will miss blaseball for the rest of my life. what a weird little piece of the internet i was blessed to partake in.

#blaseball #this is so long i am so sorry #i am just so deeply sad #i'm still not even sure it's fully hit me #i don't know when it will