#and I've managed an entire state park

[kirbybecomesastarwarrior]

Loser Baby~ (Marxolor)

When I first heard this I thought to myself... "this is their song."

In the KBASW AU, they're very similar in nature, and they're brought together through circumstances... both are losers. And that is what makes their relationship so beautiful ~

And yes I changed some of the lyrics to fit Marx better~

Keep reading for extra lore/ spoiler-ish content

I've decided to hit two birds with one stone...knock out a few questions I had...

Yeah, the Marxolor/Magolor asks have been stewing in there... Sorry for taking so long but I FINALLY learned how to draw Magolor.

He plays a big role in the story... he is pretty much very close to his game counterpart, but his reasons and motivations for the Master Crown are very different.

The Master Crown was created and owned by his great-grandmother... Minerva Mim also known as... MAD MADAM MIM. (And for those who aren't familiar with Disney's The Sword in the Stone.) Who was the ruler of Halcandra during her time...

Magolor's full name is Magolor Mim

But she's also a mix with Harry Potter's Minerva McGonagall.

(And yes) she's connected with Lady Celestine (who is this KBASW Merlin), and they were best friends. She's the reason why the Ancients & Halcandrans did business. Halcandran techolong & the Ancients magic. A deal Sir Icarus tried to secure but could not negotiate at all...

However, Celestine managed to get it with ease... (*cough* bribed her way*. ) Over time they did become genuine friends... I'll expand on her later... In short, she was basically the only one whom Celestine told of her alter-ego, Merlyn (Sir Arthur figured it out).

She was snarky, eccentric, and a bit vain at times, but at her core was a good person.

Celestine brought out the best in her and Minerva brought out the adventurous side of her and encouraged her to be bolder. (BTW she was the number one Celarthur shipper).

However, after Celestine's "execution" (secretly they crystalized her): Minvera refused to do business with the GSA & the Ancients due to her friend's unfair trial... despite the threats they made to remove her from power if she continued to remain loyal to Celestine... but no matter how much they threatened her she still couldn't do it...

As a result, the Ancients removed her from her seat as ruler... and the GSA tried to arrest her for siding with a "traitor." However, she didn't go down without fighting. "If I can not have my crown... NO ONE CAN!" Cursing the crown that there will be no more another ruler of Halcandra... and using it to erupt the volcano that resided on the planet... creating its now, current state... becoming MAD MADAM MIM. (But in truth, she was just grieving... loss of her best friend. )

After that, the Ancients ordered to get rid of any descendant of Madam Mim's lineage. And thus the GSA hunted down and exterminated every living relative of Mim's household. However one survived the carnage.

Magolor is the lone survivor of his entire family's... orphaned and on the street... struggling to survive. He did everything to keep himself afloat... even if he had to BEG, STEAL, OR BORROW. HE'D DO IT!(There are a few more things... Magolor had a connection to the Sqeak Squads and Daroach, but that's a story for another day.)

Eventually, he finds out about his heritage and the fact that his whole household was wiped out due to... HER LOYALTY TO ONE PERSON. BAH, DANG IT GRAN WHAT WERE YOU THINKING I COULDA BEEN A KING AND YOU THREW IT AWAY FOR FRIENDSHIP?! From that, you can probably see why Magolor isn't so keen on the value of it since the very thing pretty much wiped out his entire family... And thus began Magolor's search for the crown...

Magolor's betrayal, & redemption does happen like in the game:... does his little shop, makes his amusement park. However, he does a few extra things that connect to the Kirby anime... Magolor manages to revive Chill and rebuild Kirby's robot dog for him (episode 12). (After that, the gang was won over by Magolor...)

Kirby's robo-pet is actually a big thing in the KBASW, he's basically the equivalent of Kirby's iPad/computer.

With this Magolor is fully redeemed, but his arc's not quite done just yet... he still can't help but feel something is missing in his life. Yes, he's learned the value of friendship and junk... he has friends now but... How could he still feel alone when he was people around him.. a feel that he could only describe as underlining emptiness.

Enter Marx. And as I said in the Marx post... Marx saves Kirby ( I won't say from whom yet but) he gets injured the gang wants to help him but... He didn't want a pity party and tried to get away.

Marx: I DON'T NEED YOUR HEL-! *FACE PLANTS ow...

Everyone: You need our help~

Marx wasn't comfortable staying in Dreamland to recover (he knows people *cough* Bun wouldn't take too kindly of him returning), so to compromise, they cashed in a favor from Magolor... Resulting in Marx being delivered by the gang... via kitten in a basket.

Kirby: Hi Mags, this is Marx... Do you think you can watch him for a bit he's we just need you to watch him so he can recover.

Magolor: Okay, sure... but why is he in a basket?

Marx: HISS *shuts the cover*

Meta Knight: He wanted something with a lid on it.

Mags: Oh~kay *picks up basket* I guess you guys can pick him up when he gets better?

Magolor hoped whatever feral creature they had him watching wouldn't be that much trouble or, at the very least, not bite... but Magolor was pleasantly surprised that Marx seemed... to match him quite perfectly...

Shared his love of ancient relics & magic, sarcastic humor, and a wick wittiness similar to his own. And not just interest but personality-wise as well. Marx had an unapologetic straightforwardness that he appreciated, along with a few oddities that he found strangely endearing...This unexpected guest seemed to fit seamlessly into his life... it actually felt nice to have a companion like this.

Marx at first didn't know what to expect when he was dropped off at Halcandranss doorstep. He assumed that he was being sent to some sort of happy hospital facility, where they were gonna baby him and be monitored 24-7. NO FREEDOM AT ALL, HE'S JUST GONNA BE A CAGED ANIMAL!

But no Mags allowed him to do as he pleased... once he realized that he tried to pretty much annoy Magolor into kicking him out. Using his natural crass, sass, and of course, pranks to do it, however, Magolor didn't fall for any of them. Remaking at each of them describing them as "cute"...

Magolor: Nice try, but... You're not gonna to trick this trickster~

Marx: WHAT!?

Marx assumed Kirby that Magolor was another goody-two-shoes, but... did they bring him to some anti-prank master's house. He should've been angry, but he couldn't help but be impressed. It didn't take him long to stop his fruitless effort... there was nothing else to do but wait till he had a chance to escape.

Marx: "Nothing else, Just sitting and watching this guy... uh what is that you're working on... " leaving being instantly enamored and captivated with Magolor's work. Marx's interest and fascination with Ancient Technology is what drove him to use the Galactic Nova in the first place... which sparked Marx's interest and forgetting his original plans to escape.

Which led him to discover all the similarities they had... However, there was this secret unknown wall the other had up. Wanting to keep there both their "unsavory past beginnings with Kirby."

Magolor didn't want to scare Marx away especially when he was finally starting to get comfortable with him. And Marx not wanting to screw up another friendship he was starting to make, by revealing what he was. Both did not want to ruin the only good thing they had in a while.

When finally Marx recovered, Mags was just about to call Kirby and the gang, and immediately Marx pretended to still be sick. Visibly nervous when the check-in call comes in. This doesn't go unnoticed by Magolor,... so when it comes time to call up Kirby for the update, he buys him more time.

Magolor: I gotcha another week...

Marx: Wait, what...

Magolor: Listen I don't think I can get you another when the time comes so... so you think you can tell me what's going on... Kirby's a nice guy I'm sure he'll-

Marx: But I'm not-

This leads Marx to tell Mags everything about the whole "NOVA FIASCO," and Magolor is just speechless as he reveals each detail. Marx loner he spoke couldn't help but feel like he sunk in even deeper believing he blew it again...

Waiting with bated breath for Magolor to answer expecting him to respond in disgust... only with him to respond with. "Yo, same!"

Thus leading Magolor to reveal his past with the Kirby & the Master Crown, along with his road to redemption. This gives Marx a little hope, but not as much confidence that he could do what Magolor did... But Mags assures him that he's still a work in progress himself and that if he wants to be better he should give himself the chance to do better... after all the first step is always the hardest.

Needless to say, everything works out but even after the whole thing, Marx is still hanging out with Magolor... Hmmm... I wonder why! :3

Thanks again to everyone for sticking around and being patient with the asks... I know I'm taking a while to answer (and the things I promised to be done aren't... sorry, my work schedule is hectic.)

I've kinda hit a bit of a roadblock with the fanfic's art style and recently have been wanting to change it up... but anyhow I'm sure I'll figure it out eventually. (So for now I'm trying to knock out a few more asks).

Hope you enjoy the content and have a great day~

#kirby #kbasw #magolor #marx kirby #marxolor #kirby series #kirby anime #anon ask #hazbin hotel #kbasw answers #as you can see i take a long time #thank you for waiting

[elioslover]

Little Angel, Only Freak? - Grapejuice.

🎃 Halloween Flashbacks 🎃

This can be read as a stand-alone piece! 👻 I've really been wanting to include some flashback moments from Harry and Klutz's past, so I thought Halloween would be the perfect place to start!

Premise: Harry has been pining over Y/n - his best friends slightly older sister - for as long as he can remember.

GRAPEJUICE MASTERPOST / Other Writing

NB! Y/n's (Klutz) brother's name is Jack. In Grapejuice it's mentioned that Harry may have wrote some songs about Klutz. These events were inspired specifically by two of his masterpieces lmao, so lemme know if you notice any references hehe. - Em. xo

Warnings: Drinking/smoking (this oneshot contains quite a bit due to the fact that they are attending a lot of Halloween parties). Age-gap (2yrs). Self-insert she/her.

Word count: 5.4k

🍷 2011 🍷

Sitting with your legs criss-crossed, on the kitchen counter which is perhaps the highest off of the ground you are most comfortable with. Your firm belief in keeping your feet on the soil, neither under deep waters nor up in the air. 

That aside, you are eating a toastie, courtesy of your own cooking- rather surprised that not only did you manage to get ready on time, but actually finished with plenty to spare. 

Indulging in your meal, the sound of Travis Scott accompanying your chewing, Harry's sudden appearance in the kitchen is startling, but nothing out of the ordinary. Besides, there have been plenty of worse and compromising interactions in the past. 

“Aren’t you too old to be trick-or-treating?” You mumble through your food-filled mouth, eyeing him from top to bottom, shamefully admiring his choice of costume. Perhaps you were a sucker for a sexy pirate- though a large part of you believes the 'sexy' part was unintentional. 

Harry only smiles and meanders further into the kitchen, invading the fridge for god knows what before giving up, strolling over to you, invading your space in an instant and with audacity you have never witnessed prior, he snatches the half-devoured triangle of a toastie and takes a hearty bite before speaking through muffled chews, 

“Age is but a construct.”

“I guess I agree.” You shrug, thoughts travelling to the dangerously explicit fantasies you experienced at the mere existence of Tom Hard, your brain concocting a dreamland in which a 15-year age gap would be graciously welcomed. 

“I’ll keep that in mind.” Harry archives the moment. An entirely separate dreamland surrounds him and yourself. But, you still seem so far away, Harry is aching to extend the conversation, “Where are you off to, a Tarantino-themed party?”

“That my dear, is none of your business.”

“Well for what it’s worth,” he informs both sweetly and sultry, “you make a beautiful *Viper.”

“You’re not so bad yourself, Styles.” You open the gates and let your guard down, needing him to know you notice him- see him, and if vulnerability is the way to make that clear, god willing, something inside you wishes to share it. 

Harry is stunned- your words are one thing, your tone is another. He wants, no, he needs to hear your softness, again and again. Then there is an invasive double honk and it can only belong to the red Mazda parked in the driveway, stark headlights shining through the kitchen curtains. 

You hop off the counter without a care in the world, straighten out your costume, and check your makeup in the reflection of the microwave before strolling straight past Harry and into the entrance hall, grabbing your matching purse. You raise your voice to address both your brother and the sexy pouting pirate stunned to silence,

“That’s my ride." Certain they've both heard, you open the front door and as an afterthought, call over your shoulder, "Save me a Mars bar!”

👻

The boys are in line for the entrance to a club that Jack stated would be "popping", but there is a clear age limit and Harry's anxiety is already reaching its limit. He turns to Darth Vader- ignoring how ridiculous his friend is- and Harry cautiously ponders aloud, 

“Are you sure we’re even gonna get in?”

“Trust me.” Jack sternly enforces. 

“What is this hold you have over me?” Harry concedes. 

By what could either be deemed a miracle or exceptional finesse, it's not long before the boys have their left wrists stamped with a small ink jack-o-lantern, and are entering the club. 

“See! Am I ever wrong?” Jack projects against the booming bass, but Harry certainly hears him, more focused on the dissipating nerves being replaced with confidence. 

“Drinks!” Jack doesn't allow a retort, making his way to the bar with the assurance that Harry is following close behind. Harry was, and after a few other patrons are tended to, the boys order their choices and cheer a duet of tequilas in celebration of their success. 

The tequila is still travelling down Harry's throat when a voice, so sweet and so familiar, almost causes him to choke, his eyes opening, neck dropping to look at the person who had exclaimed "Oi!". Unsurprisingly, you are standing there, arms on your hips, a look of disappointment painted across your face,

“What the hell are you doing here?”

“To be fair, I didn’t expect you to be here either.” Jack shrugs.

“I thought you were trick-or-treating, Jack." You chide.

“Oh, please, we’re seventeen. You knew that was a cover.” His eye-rolls with a jovial smirk. 

“Still. I thought at least a house party.” 

“Which is exactly where you said you would be.”

“Shut up.” Your last line of defence. 

“C’mon, Y/n. Go have fun, it’ll be like we’re not even here.”

With a dissatisfied sigh, you grab your drink from the bar counter and gather within the group of girls all dressed with glamorous uniqueness, disappearing into the mass of dancers, praying that Jack’s statement would prove correct. 

But, as expected, this promise was broken within the first hour after the desperate need for a Marlboro was lulling in your lungs, and for some useless and godforsaken reason, smoking is banned from the bar and dancefloor- bar vaping- however, due to the lack of an outside area, the designated smoking zone was the hallway. 

After a trip to the bathroom- which had vanity counters, ladies waiting near the cashmere wash towels to unnecessarily aid in drying your hands; each bathroom is garnished with gold framing and every stall comes with a little glass table attached to the wall; perfect for cutting lines of coke- you decided it was time to settle down for a good smoke, spotting an empty, luxurious maroon and velvet two-seater sofa. 

Your focus is on the ridiculous custom silver bear lighter you bought second-hand, your head bowed, smoke balanced between your lips, so it comes as a great surprise when you glance up and Harry is standing before you. By the time your cigarette sets alight, he is settled next to you on the lounger, 

“Fancy seeing you here.” He teases lazily.

“You lost Jack?” You shift your body to better see him, simultaneously handing him your smoke. 

“Always do.” He softly chuckles, knuckles brushing your fingertips in exchange, and he takes a good drag, hoping it will miraculously cure the anxiety that seemed to return the moment he found himself alone. 

“That guy’s a menace.” 

"This is the strangest hallway I've ever seen." He comments, glancing around the room of scattered stoners and straight smokers. Then he remembers the house he visited less than three hours ago, "And that's saying something." 

"Our hallway is not that bad." You lamely defend- this conversation has been ongoing since youth. 

"Can't believe we're sitting on a chez lounge." Harry marvels, hand stroking at the smooth material. 

"This place truly is something." You agree, proceeding to ponder the answer to a premonition she needs confirmation for, “What are you doing over here?”

“Just needed a breather.” He admits. “You?”

“Guess I’m doing the same.” You consider. 

“What’s the matter, klutz?” He reads your mood like a medium- some sort of magician.

“Boys are shitty.” You allow him the tip of the ice burg- it has been bugging you, perhaps not as much as the other things bothering and plaguing you.

“We are.” He agrees lightly, knowing it would be detrimental to pry. 

“You aren’t. most of the time, anyway.” 

“I thought I was the most annoying person you know.”

“You are. Maybe ever.” You dramatise your distaste, “But you are by no means shitty.”

For a reason Harry had always known, yet never questioned, he found your presence as relaxing as falling asleep cradled by a fluffy cloud. He briefly wonders if you feel the same, but knows better than to embrace hope. Nevertheless, he says what he can guarantee will suit your interesting demeanour, 

“I’m sorry about… whatever you’re going through.” 

“Thanks, Harry.” You smile earnestly as the pair of you proceed to pass the cigarette back and forth, comfortable in the presence of taking a cool-down. 

But, with your vulnerability out in the open, it becomes mandatory to verify the reason he is currently sitting beside you, 

“Why aren’t you down there?”

Harry knew it was coming, thought about what to say, and came up with a few reasonable excuses but as soon as the question leaves your quirked and lush lips, the truth comes pouring out and he cannot do anything but witness his honesty,

“I feel out of my element.”

“That’s all in your head.” You try to reassure him, knowing it isn’t that simple, yet hoping he might allow you the chance to prove it, even for just a moment. 

“Oh, is that right?” He smirks. 

You are standing before he can blink twice, singing your cigarette in the ashtray and reaching your arm out for him to join you, 

“C’mon, I’ll show you.”

He doesn’t protest- he doesn’t even hesitate as he wraps his hand in your own, raising from the chair and allowing you to drag him wherever you please. 

This results in descending stairs, weaving through a crowd before finally reaching the destination; the bar. He shouldn’t be surprised, but the pleasure and subconscious pride he wore as you tugged him about, moving closer, sometimes a few steps apart, but never letting go of his hand- even if only one finger was hooked to his own.

The bartender arrives with such haste that Harry is almost certain it has something to do with your beauty- it does- but mere moments later he finds out that you are in fact a regular visitor- and a loved one, at that. 

Harry is so enamoured and floored with such an overload of new information about you that he hardly registers when you tilt over the counter and order four tequilas. 

And when the tequila arrives, there are five, offered as, ‘on the house’. Your reaction is mischievous and Harry feels exhilarated at the promise of your mission to make his night memorable.  

“Bottoms up.” You command, double-parking and encouraging Harry to wrap both of his shot glasses in each palm. He does as follows, giving you awkward cheers before copying your skill and tossing back the tequila one after the other. You then guide Harry to drop both glasses on the table and immediately grab the lonesome shot glass, still filled to the brim. 

You go in for half a sip, savouring the sharp spirits slipping down your throat but leaving half the glass full. Handing it over to Harry he finishes the drink and turns to you in anticipation for further instructions. Your shoulders can’t resist a consequential shudder, and then you clap your hands together and cheekily beam up at him,

“Now, we dance.”

“I can’t dance.” His pitch is one of panic and protest. 

“Neither can I.” You answer proudly, wrapping his hand in your own and leading him onto the dancefloor.

🍷 2016 🍷

Your boyfriend has caused yet another scene, taking it personally when some poor guy dressed as a zombie accidentally stepped on his foot.

Before he had the chance to toss more furniture, you plan an escape and make a beeline for the kitchen- somewhere likely to be devoid of party-goers. But when you round the corner, the sight of Harry, dressed in a white and red striped shirt, hair quaffed beneath a goofy matching beanie, and eyes framed by large, black round glasses. He's sitting on the counter, his light jean-clad legs dangling, shoes knocking against the bottom cabinets.

He seems too calm for such a festive evening, especially when he is as notorious as Jack when it comes to turning into a playful nuisance- affectionate, chatty, and likely to end up attempting to dance.

You walk straight over, only coming to a halt when your sternum presses into his knees, and beneath those gaudy glasses, you don't miss the way his deep green eyes swell and his lashes bash beautifully with bafflement.

"Ah, here's Waldo." You beam up at him.

"Y'got me." He lightly shrugged, a sneaky smile painting his cheeks.

"What do I win?"

Eyes widening with an accompanying Chesire cat smile, your tone tainted with taunting cheeriness. But, nonsensically you lean in closer, bare abdomen grazing his denim.

Whether intentional or not, Harry is set alight, his burning knees spreading along his stomach, trailing up his chest, simmering his heart and throat, coals burning at his cheeks and brain. He is so stoned on placebo, that his mouth is unable to project his profession,

"Anything you want."

You are experiencing first-degree burns, bathing yourself in diversion,

"Are these your real glasses?" You lean your face forward, lining up with his own, your hands gently clasping the black frames and examining the determined false lenses. "Guess not."

There are less than zero reasons for your bodies to remain so stuck, relaxed in the sanctuary of physical contact, but neither of you makes an attempt to move, unaddressed and absolutely mad. You deem it time to turn things around,

"Avoiding the party?"

"A little." He shrugs.

"Bad company?"

"The worst." He tilts his chin to the ceiling before returning his gaze to your own, "Though I can't imagine I'm much better."

"Anything is better than the mess going on outside." You meet his pondersome eyes with a competitive roll of your own.

Now Harry understands the crash he had heard through the kitchen window. Your expressions of annoyance and disappointment emit all of the information he needs to know,

"Dickie acting up again?"

"You know that's not his name."

"It should be."

Harry has never shied away from expressing his distaste for your boyfriend- simply because you were dating him. Harry was hardly around, and when he was, you were almost guaranteed to be absent due to plans with Ricky.

With a sudden bough of frustration, your hands press into Harry's upper thighs to properly balance yourself. he does everything- and more- to avoid physically reacting to your unusual closeness. You breathe out and it matches the mournful furrow of your brow,

"He's just... why does he have to be so aggressive?"

"Yeah, that table certainly didn't deserve that." Harry leans in, looking down at you with a worrisome but sensitive demeanour. And then he leaps and lightly wraps his hand around your hip.

His eyes are studying your soft face, his heart focused on your sweet features and the feeling of your skin separated by his clothes, but his head is still stuck on the confusion currently holding you captive. He can't help by prying,

"He's not... aggressive with you, right?"

"Not yet." The words trail off of your tongue. And then you toss everything aside, pressing your fingers into his thigh "I don't wanna talk about it right now."

Harry doesn't know how to react, sudden shocks of arousal emulating at the discomfort of your digging nails, the desperate desire to destroy the distance between your lips, loop his arm around your neck, softly cup your cheek and express how special you should be treated- with such certainty that you never forget,

"I like your costume. Might be your best so far."

It definitely is, you are rather impressed with how well your Other Mother costume turned out. Though, your already tragic bank account has taken a traumatic bashing,

"I spent way too much money on it."

"How much?" His grin is mischievous.

"Too much."

"Now I have to know." He pleads, but know you will never utter the shame you suffer. He won't let you off the hook so easy, though, "Just to rub it in, I'll have you know, I only spent three pounds."

You huff, leaning further into his touch, enjoying the feeling of his fingers on your flesh. He has to tilt to see you fully, and you aid him craning your neck to meet him in the middle, dismissing the deemed unnecessary distance,

"Well, you've done a terrible job at making it hard to find you."

"Maybe I wanted you to find me." He shrugs with suave.

"That was ambitious."

"It worked, yeah?" He is seeping with playful pride, though he cannot prevent his need to compliment you- perhaps the only way to get his attraction across was through words, true words at that, "You really do look beautiful."

"Not just sexy?"

"Sexy as fuck." He groans, fingers pressing into the plush fleshyness of your waist, "But not just sexy."

"Filthy." You scold seductively.

And then you seem to find yourself sinking further into his touch, trying with everything in you to get nearer- his neck so biteable, collarbone begging for loving bruises. Harry is on the same page, body pressing into your own, his palm trailing up and settling on your lower back.

You think he might kiss you. You think you are out of your mind... But, you think you're going to let him. The only thing to pause your seemingly-senseless thoughts is the defensive, stern, and frankly, threatening boom of your boyfriend,

"Hey, what the fuck are you doing with my girl?"

Like velcro being violently ripped apart, you have never moved with such haste in all of your current existence to date. Harry is now at least three feet away from you, and your boyfriend is berzerkly striding towards him. Harry calmly and rationally raises his palms in defence,

"Nothing, mate."

"Ricky-" You edge closer.

But, your boyfriend has already aimed his fist at Harry's face, and instead of reacting with returned aggression, he interjects,

"Mate, chill out." Harry reasons with a casual shrug, "She's like a sister to me."

An invasive feeling of disappointment pangs at your heart at the sound of sister, and to this day you will not analyse why. It was something you were guaranteed to repeat in the future.

"Am I supposed to believe that?" Ricky scoffs but his arm drops to his side nevertheless.

Harry hops off of the counter with ease, stepping past your boyfriend with effortless confidence. He glances over at you for a mere instance- not long enough for you to comprehend the event that just unfolded.

He reaches over to the nearest countertop and grabs his solo-cup and before turning his back completely, he addresses Ricky with finality,

"Believe what you want, Batman."

🍷 2018 🍷

Harry knocks for a third time before Jack finally answers the door- and when he does, dressed Pennywise- a red balloon tied to his wrist- Harry instantly regrets his entire life, attempting to prepare for a chaotic Halloween party. Whenever Jack finds himself in an extravagant, far-too-detailed costume, two things are certain; there will be a magically, monstrous punch bowl, and Jack will be dancing on any piece of furniture that catches his eye.

“So, this was your last-minute decision?” Harry works hard to keep the disturbed feelings from projecting across his features.

“It was this or Heisenburg, okay?” Jack sighs, audatiously comparing his- what can only be described as a slutty Pennywise to simply purchasing a hazmat.

“How much time did you spend on this?” Harry finds his amusement increasing.

“Too long.” Jack admits with distaste. But all in all, This is the best of his costumes to date, and Harry certainly agrees.

“I’m sure the ladies will love it.” He commends, and Jack nods avidly, his face mimicking that of confidence.

Harry ponders halfheartedly as they enter the home Harry knows so well- the home he spent at least a quarter of his 28 years. It's only as he reaches the living room, packed with both familiar and unfamiliar faces. Many of them seem older than he, and Harry can only assume these are friends of Jack’s college, and your work colleagues.

A pang of panic threatens to become a full-blown wave of disappointment and regret. Missing out on the life he could have had.

Before he can be swept away by his newfound unfamiliarity, Jack has led them to the makeshift bar- a dining table decorated with spooky decorations, all surrounding the notorious monster of the eve- the Halloween punch. Harry doesn’t protest- by this point he deems it necessary.

Lightly tapping their cups together in cheers. Jack takes a hearty sip before his brows suddenly raise in realization,

“Huh. That’s funny.” Jack finally takes a moment to acknowledge his best friend, emulating the Devil himself.

“Hm?” Harry asks halfheartedly, eyes scanning the room for something and he doesn’t even know what.

“I just noticed your costume.”

Harry’s gaze snaps back to Jack, giving him a puzzled look, masking a sudden bough of insecurity simmering beneath the surface,

“I look funny?”

“No, Y/n told me she was gonna be an Angel. Coincidence, huh?” Jack shrugs.

“Is she here?” Harry tries to hide the sudden panic.

“Not yet. You know she’s gonna lose her mind over it.” Jack grins, always bemused by the so-called banter between his sister and best friend. 

Harry’s panic is substituted by an odd sense of relief- he now knows what- or who- he had been searching for. With a bough of mischievous confidence, he mimics his best friend's grin and informs,

“Just what I wanted to hear.”

👻

Upon the news of his holy crush’s imminent arrival, Harry finishes his first punch cup and then heads towards the ‘bar’ to pour another.

Pleasantly, someone is already attending to the punch- an old teammate from his high school football team has the same intentions, finishing up on filling his cup before recognizing Harry and enthusiastically initiating a catch-up. One that proves helpful, replacing his thoughts of you with good conversation and in turn, allows him to react.

It’s unclear how long this chat persisted as the boys moved from the make-shift bar to a spot on the porch- already scattered with smokers and an extremely tense game of beer-pong.

Eventually, the punch has caught up with him and Harry has to excuse himself in favour of the bathroom. This should be an easy enough task, but this monstrous punch has proved poisonous as it lags his movements and encourages him to take a long, good look at himself in the cobweb-framed mirror.

Impressed with his costume, and impressed with how calm and cheery he felt. Things don’t seem so bad- the intrusive thoughts were offering silence for the sake of letting him have a good time.

His best friend’s home has always had the oddest of hallways. A complicated combination of narrow to wide, with unnecessary corners and nooks. These proved sacred during the times of childhood, the perfect place to out-smart the person trying to yell, ‘Tag, you’re it!’ Now, this hallway is treacherous and Harry longs to find himself back in the living room, especially with the amount of party-goers crowding the corridor.

Looking back, Harry wonders if he would have even seen you wedged between a pair of what seems to be Cersei and Jaime Lannister. It would be hard not to, with the way the shimmering satin dress and the sparkling halo create a ring of glory around you.

But you certainly see him, meandering down the hallway dressed in a costume to match your own. Your first feeling should be annoyance, but unfortunately, your thoughts are redirected to just how good he looks.

The duo you were humouring are a thing of the past as you mutter an “excuse me”- gaze and mind already set on intercepting Satan himself.

He’s leaning against the wall- being extra careful to not knock over any picture frames. His head is bowed, contemplating his next move and it suddenly and forcefully occurs to him that his original plan to find you was diverted by a pointless side-quest.

As if the thin veil of Halloween was thoughtful enough to grant him instant gratification, a set of white heels, laced to the upper calf is walking his way. He lets his eyes trail the length of soft thighs up to the seams of lacy trim, savouring each fleshy, smooth thigh before finally addressing the owner's face.

When his eyes are met with your own, glittering with each blink, Harry’s widen in surprise, jaw threatening to slack as you stop before him. Giving him a good glance before mimicking his stance and balancing yourself against the wall. 

“Well, well, well.” Your tone is both amused and annoyed.

A sudden rush of ease and euphoria washes over him at the coolness of your mood- though, that was subject to change rather quickly in the presence of Harry.

On a whim you attribute to both a poisonous punch and the devil standing before you, Harry is taken off guard by the sudden contact of your palm on his chest, even more, surprised as you push and guide him into the nearest alcove.

But that was as far as your thoughts had progressed, what was the plan now? This is a result of impulsivity, and when you concede and don’t go on to say anything further, Harry takes the opportunity to back you into the corner, arms balancing loosely on the wall near your face.

“Did it hurt when you fell from heaven?” His smile is cheesy.

“I’m sure you’re enjoying this.” Your eyes roll, arms crossing your chest in distaste.

Harry tilts down ever so slightly, aligning his lips with the shell of your ear,

“Loving it.”

“And I’m supposed to believe this is just a coincidence?”

“Believe what you want, Angel.”

He returns to his previous position, aching to get a better look at your face, hoping that the blush pink scattered across your cheeks is a product of not makeup, but himself. You cannot admit that it’s a combination of both- not even to yourself- instead opting for a classic eye-roll and continuing to do what you do best,

“I see you chose to go costume-less this year.”

“You’re hilarious.”

“You’re the Devil.” You try, “Truly.”

By now, your hands have dropped to your sides, securing distance but still unexplainably allowing Harry the chance to wander closer if he wishes. He does, but only enough for your chests to brush, his head bowed to gaze your way, one of his hands reaching out to fiddle with the accessory adorning your head,

“Why, because I make you want to ditch that pretty little halo?”

“You’re insane.” You chide, palm raising to his abdomen in protest.

“And you want me.” He articulates with certainty.

“Correction, you’re psychotic.”

But you like the feeling of his muscles tensing beneath your hold, the musky and fruity aroma invading your senses. The curve where his shoulder and neck meet is aligned with your chin, and for a split second, you ponder the impulse to get closer, latch your lips to his skin and sink your teeth in.

Harry likes having you so near, he can smell the Chanel and cocoa butter seeping from your skin, the crown of your head smells of something fruity and fresh. And when your hand absentmindedly trails further along his stomach, settling on his shoulder, Harry almost stops breathing when his impulses get the best of him, wrapping his free arm around your waist, and when you don’t protest and your free arm goes to rest along his shoulder, he thinks he might have a chance,

“Are you sure, pretty Angel? Your body seems to think otherwise.”

“Shut up, Harry.”

“You’re more than welcome.” he smirks, loving the way your eyes simmer with conflict, “…To shut me up, that is.”

You decide that fame has done a lot to him, not just the typical singing, stadiums and superstardom, so why the hell is he talking like a… man? Like he knows how to seduce a woman, and why the fuck does that make your stomach churn with curiosity.

But, you remind yourself that age equals experience and that makes you the superior. Besides, from the way he’s currently behaving, you have an inkling that his ego has likely inflated.

This could be fun. Two could play at this game, and no matter the amount of fraternizing Harry may have committed, you were competitively and egotistically prepared to knock him down a peg.

Raising to the tip of your toes, hand tightening on his shoulder, nails softly scratching at his back, your other hand reaching to wrap around his neck, your thumb stroking the crook of his chin. Batting your eyelashes with a lick of the lips, you ensure he hears each and every word,

“Is that what you want, sweet boy?” You coo, and Harry stiffens in an instant, blinking rapidly as you push on, “Want me to take care of you?”

“You can do whatever you want.” He blurts out before the ‘ou’, fist flexing against the wall, his body aching to be tangled up with your own.

It's cute, and unnecessarily arousing, and as much as you know you shouldn’t, there’s an ache in your chest that chants for you to crumb him along for just a little longer,

“Pity. After all, this is just a costume.”

“Prove it.”

His eyes are eager, nose bumping along your forehead, and your hand comes to its finale as it holds his cheek in place, gently pulling his face nearer to your own. You pout, but the sly smirk prints itself at the corners of your lips nevertheless,

“A Devil certainly isn't deserving.” 

“Prove it anyways.”

Harry thinks he’s about two sentences away from begging for something he didn’t know he needed so desperately. As much as it pains you to put a pin in this, the confusion of juxtaposition of attraction is threatening to make you light-headed.

“No.”

So, to Harry’s utter dismay, you release him from your hold and tactfully slip out between the space you once occupied. With one more sympathetic pat on his shoulder, you smile at him and make your way back down the hallway, feathered wings taunting him in your wake.

🍷 2019 🍷

Harry was lucky enough to have been in town for Halloween- he can't count how many holidays he missed over the last half-decade. He’s dressed as her favourite thing; a teddy bear- fuzzy ears and makeup to match. Your brother, Jack was hosting his famously chaotic annual Halloween celebration, and Harry was far too giddy at the guarantee of seeing you again. He can't count the missed holidays, but he can certainly count how many years it’s been since you last spoke- mar the quick birthday wishes, and periodic congratulations and praise.

But, after an hour or so, he is starting to doubt his certainty, gaze shamelessly studying the room, hoping he had merely missed your arrival. Two solo cups of warm beer later, Harry is itching to locate you- this is your tradition after all, and he was so sure that this time would end differently, that she would finally see him for the man he was becoming.

He definitely wouldn’t be asking Jack why you weren’t here- partially because he seems preoccupied with a makeshift gravity bong. Instead, Harry seeks out one of your oldest friends, Nova, who is dressed as a Harley Quinn, but before he can even reach the group in which she mingles, his boot trips on a rug and unable to help it, the contents of his cup comes spilling out, splashing and coating Nova’s front with the sticky substance. After apologising profusely- even if just to come off polite- Harry musters up the humility to ponder your lack of presence.

Disheartened and disappointed when she responds with, “She’s in Italy”, Harry is once again confused by Jack’s lack of mentioning the news. Though none of his business, the dichotomy of standing his ground and avoiding the question versus caving in and simply asking Jack has him in quite the frenzy.  

The rest of the evening is a bore- Harry switches to ginger ale, and though he attempts to mingle, maintaining interest proves to be impossible, and for the first time, Harry makes the decision to head home early.

But, now, with a make-up-free face and his favourite jammies, he is tucked beneath the fluffiest sheets and your mere existence is pulling the sheets tighter, trapping him in a series of thoughts of yours truly, thinking about you.

#harry styles x reader #harry styles fic #elioslover #harry styles one shot #harry styles x y/n #harry styles imagine #harry styles x you #harry x reader #harry styles blurb #harry styles #grapejuice #grape juice #grapejuicefic #harry styles smut #harry styles fanfic #harry fic #harry smut #harry styles concept #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles fic rec #harry styles imagines #harry styles masterlist #harry styles writing #itallry #italy!harry

[kittysarchive]

hi hi! i love your works!

can we get a baby daddy trope for txt too pls..?

ahhh okay :)

warnings- baby daddy trope, talk of abandonment, fake texts, lmk if i meed any

Yeonjun

Co worker

The job was hard and stressful. You were on night fill with Yeonjun...it was quiet at you were the only two who were staffed for the night. Discussing how busy the job normally was, led one thing to another. Few days later, you found out you were pregnant. The job barley giving you enough money to pay of the bills, you were sure Yeonjun didn't get paid much more. But working at a fast paced, busy and draining job there was no way to hide the pregnancy. Pulling Yeonjun to the staffroom, you told him the news.

"I'm a few days pregnant" You state, hands playing with your shirt. Yeonjun stares at you, he had no idea what to say.

"I got you..." Are the only words Yeonjun could get out. You nod your head, not forcing him to spit any more out. Staying silent, you both thought of how the future lay ahead for you.

Soobin

Professor

You admitted you needed help. You were 24 and still hadn't graduated. No more choice, you ran off to your professors office. After some begging...and flirting, you managed to get your grades up, enough to pass the class entirely. However, with poor planning and begging for higher grades, you soon became pregnant as you as to keep coming back to him...proving you were worth the higher grades. Seeing the multiple pregnancy tests become positive, you stayed back after class to tell him.

"P-Professor Soobin..." Your voice pipes up, filling the empty lecture room. His head looks up, hands continuing to pack his notes. Having his attention, you inform him.

"About the higher grades....I.....I-I'm pregnant" His hands stop piling the notes in his bag. His face turning dark, you feel so small compared to him.

"Don't kid with me" Soobin says firmly. Hands shaking, you grab out the tests, face heating up as you confessed.

"I have never been with a-anyone and y-you were my first t-time" Staring at the tests, how would he give you the funding when he had his own family to take care of?

Beomgyu

Drop out/ Bad boy

Beomgyu was his own thing. He dropped out of school months ago, no spending his day at skate parks and abandoned malls. He had all the free time and all the criminal history as well. Of course, you fell for him, begging for a chance...just a date. That date turned more as you fell pregnant. You swore he had protection.... He always shoplifted, did he never steal condoms or something? Waiting until dark, you stood at the skatepark, waiting for Beomgyu to show up. And he did, you tried to pull him off to the side however with his other troubled friends, he was too stubborn.

"B-Beomgyu we need to talk" You anxiously looked around, all eyes were on you. He only laughs, his friends jokingly pushed him forward.

"What kitten? Just say it here" He looks down at your smaller frame, smirking at how scared you were. Taking a breath you told him the news, in front of all his friends.

"I'm pregnant" His smiles fades as his friends laughter arises, they must know his reaction. No words coming out of his mouth, his friends laugh harder, showing him around at the...terrible news.

Taehyun

Tutor

He was cute, smart and had a way with the girls. You took the chance, just like every girl. But what you hadn't expected was to get impregnated by him. Staring at the tests, you couldn't stop the tears of regret. You were still in high school, in fact you had just started senior year. You didn't want to go to the formal with a baby bump! But you had no money for an abortion....you parents could kick you out, you would have to fend for yourself, you didn't even a resume yet! Finding his locker, nothing better then to tell him there.

"Taehyun!" You call out as he open his locker, he turns around and smiles...he remembered you. Coming close to him, you hushed his head closer.

"I've got some news..." His eyes frown, what could it be?

"What your pregnant?" Taehyun laughs, grabbing his books for his next class. Grimley, you nod your head.

"Yeah" Taehyun's eyes widen, he guessed right? Gulping, he didn't know how to handle the news....he got you pregnant.

Kai

Party Host

Alcohol everywhere, food everywhere, a large pool and a large house! Kau was the perfect host for a High school party! Not being the most popular with the girls, instead being used for his nice house and easy going parents, he didn't care, he was still in the spotlight. Drunk dazed and hormones controlling you, you followed up to his bedroom. Took your innocence away and made Kai more popular with the girls...and boys, becoming pregnant was humiliating. Finding his Instagram id, you had to tell him, because in fact, you never wanted to meet face to face again.

I've started using this, gonna join the trend😂

#txt scenarios #txt smut #txt hard thoughts #txt headcanons #txt imagines #baby daddy

[thatfreshi]

"Quit" (Uni AU P. 17)

GUYS IT'S BEEN SO LONG BUT FRESHIAU IS BACK! Sorry for the hell of a cliffhanger I gave you, whoopsies :)

tw - mentions of abuse, hospitalization

The next half-hour is a blur unlike any you've known before. You, Gale, and Karlach pile into the art student's shitty mini-van.

"I'm sure he's okay Tav."

Karlach tries to give you an assuring hand on the shoulder, but you think back to the phone call, the way the nurse wouldn't tell you anything, how you yelled in the middle of a damn cafe. It would be embarrassing if you didn't know the stakes that were in this trip to the hospital, that Astarion isn't the type for medical assistance unless it's absolutely necessary.

Other than Karlach's comment and the occasional flick of a blinker, the car is almost entirely silent. Gale drops you off at the front before leaving to park, and your tall friend stays by your side as you enter the sterile, sad building. When you get to the desk, she speaks on your behalf.

"We got a call that Astarion Ancunín was admitted here?"

"What's your relation to the patient?"

Karlach hesitates, before pushing you forward slightly.

"Well I'm just his friend, but my pal Tav here is his spouse!"

You give her a slightly concerned look, but soften when you know she just wants you to be able to see him.

"You can come back this way Tav."

It's all so quick and without feeling. Truthfully, you know medical professionals deal with this kind of thing on the daily, but the lack of concern for him makes you a little sick to your stomach. The words of your guide fall on deaf ears when you make it to his room, rushing in before she can even finish her sentence. She closes the door behind you as you're met with Astarion, your dear Aster, who looks far more beat down than usual.

"How in the hell did you manage to get back here?"

He asks with a slight smirk, the bags under his eyes far more noticeable than before. You can't help but smile at his charm, but replace it with a bitter expression soon after.

"That's not important right now. What happened?"

The urge to yell and scream is kept at a simmer, and instead your voice is kept soft, like plush moments of reading law papers, like falling asleep with your best friend, like cheap espresso and designer fabrics.

"Severe dehydration I suppose. I passed out, and Petras called an ambulance, which I'm sure got him beat to no end. Stupid decision if you ask me."

"Oh, so you quite literally pass out, and your first reaction is to think about Petras?"

He ponders your words for a moment as you finally sit at the edge of the bed.

"Trust me... I've already had plenty of time to think about just how bad this was. Thankfully when I lost consciousness I only bruised my poor arm, but the doctor said it could've been much worse. Heat stroke, seizures-"

"Okay, let's maybe not talk about all of that."

You start to cry, finally, after a panic-induced state of adrenaline begins to wear off. You get a notification from the group chat. Gale says Lae'zel, Shadowheart, and Wyll Ubered over. You show your phone to him.

"Look, everyone showed up."

You smile softly, feeling a trail of tears hit your lip. It tastes salty.

"Of course they did. You all are far too sappy."

"Oh shut it Aster. We were worried."

"Well it's fine now, right? The issue is resolved, so everyone can go home, including you Tav."

You scoff.

"Fat chance. Besides, Karlach kind of told the nurse that I'm your spouse, so it looks weird if I leave now."

"She did what?"

"Yeah, trust me, it was weird."

He gets a little nervous, showing his age for once, that deep down he's still a 20-something-year-old kid. It stays silent for a little bit, and you listen to the monitors in the room, the almost silent IV drip, the steps of people walking up and down the halls. Your listening is interrupted by a tapping on the bed, Astarion trying to get your attention.

"Yeah?"

"I know I struggle to say it sometimes, well, most times, but I do rather appreciate that you came... that all of you came, but you in particular."

You want to be able to appreciate his words, but the fear that lingers beneath doesn't let you rest.

"I don't want to do it again. I don't know if my heart can handle doing all of this again."

"What else would you have me do darling?"

You know what you want to say, and you know what his response will be, but the words leave your mouth anyways.

"Quit. I want you to quit."

He goes to interrupt you, but you put a finger up to shush him, and he obliges.

"I know it feels impossible. I know you've signed how many documents and that you need the money, but you six incredible friends now that can help you through this. Think about it: if you blackout all your socials, stop showing up, what can he really do about it? Cazador can't get on campus. You'd be safe there, and it will look so bad for his image if you suddenly disappear that he'll be scrambling for PR anyways! I think you can do this, that we can do this."

"And what about the money?"

"Student loans? And we can all pitch in when we have extra. And you could pick up a job on campus, maybe something in the law library?"

You're trying to be inspiring, but looking at him like this makes it hard.

"Why do you keep trying so much for me? Truly, you've wasted so much breath on me, even in this moment."

Somehow those sad questions still catch you off-guard. You put a hand on his.

"I don't think I can even word it right Aster. Even if I tried, I don't think the words would make sense, that any of it would make sense to either of us. Just accept that I'm here, trying for you, okay?"

"Okay... then I'll try too. I'll try your ridiculous plan Tav."

#astarion x tav #astarion x reader #angst #comfort #astarion #baldur's gate 3 #baldurs gate astarion #freshiau

[sanctus-ingenium]

Been binge reading TVM and I LOVE IT. Bowman was already my favorite character but this story has already skyrocketed for me just how much I adore him. Though Felix is a very close second just cause of how he is with Carmen. I’d also love to know more about the Rangers.

1. Did you draw from any particular real world inspiration for them?

2. What’s the backstory behind how the Rangers came to be? Any little stories of particularly notable members you’ve thought up?

Yay awesome.. it's definitely the bowman book so I'm glad the focus on him is working hehe

1. Yes! The rangers are almost entirely a play on the Fianna, a band of heroes and hunters from Irish mythology. I strongly recommend you check out their stories because they're some of the greatest stories you'll ever read - start with the salmon of knowledge and then try diarmaid and gráinne. Fun fact, in older drafts of my books I call the rangers The Fianna but I found it messy.

As for real world inspiration, there's actual irl rangers as well, stewards of national parks and rare habitats. The rangers in Inver do not fight faeries so much as they manage the Ruad and ensure it is safe, and in Pascal's time (the far off distant future of 2017) rangers have become more ecologists than anything else, as their deep knowledge of the region and huge archives of faery activity over the centuries lends itself wonderfully to monitoring habitat health. So many of the ecologists I know were also used as inspiration hehe

2. The rangers of the Ruad (not the Greys) were founded by Finbarr Ó Casaide as part of the war that founded the state of Inver. He and the first rangers built the main Spikes barracks because (if you check the habitat map you'll see) there's a broad stretch of ancient yew wood north of the Lough, ideal for making bow staves. So Finbarr was a Spikes ranger. He and the others engaged in guerilla warfare against the werewolves led by the first D'Ouilly traitor, in particular the Tanet sect.

This is a short book I do want to write (it's on the table!!) eventually but you can find out more about Finbarr and his mortal enemy Olivier by searching the names on my blog. I'm stuck on mobile for the time being but I did write a pretty long summary of the pair of them and their relationship dynamic a few months ago.

Notable rangers include Finbarr himself but also Bowman André, who was the ranger who drafted the treaty between ranger organisations and the new werewolf monarchy, enshrining the terms of their operations in the Ruad into law. Although Finbarr's side lost their war, André's negotiations led to the current state of the ranger barracks as both gender neutral and independent of royal law, self-governing and so on. These wins came from the fact that any time the monarchy tried to employ its own army into the Ruad to protect trade or fight faeries or whatever, the soldiers would inevitably desert, or start pissing and moaning about it and why can't we just get the rangers to do the work instead. The flip side ofc was that most rangers are convicts who joined or were pressed into the service, because so few people willingly join an organisation that forces you to spend months at a time in the most dangerous habitat known to man, with no-one but other rangers for company.

Another notable ranger is Sharps Captain Torben, he's extremely famous and well-liked in the Régian [victorian] era due to his notoriously kind and gentle touch, as well as his good decision making skills meaning that there were almost no civilian fatalities under his watch for years at a time.

Finally another famous ranger is Hooks Captain Celeste, in 1969 she anticipated the disaster that almost swept Cánamac town away and ordered an evacuation before the tidal wave struck the town. I've written about that disaster on my sideblog @ranticore ;)

#mvf #setting: inver #Spikes Captain Nico Fuentes is another famous ranger.. for all the wrong reasons [trying to romance pascal] #i hope ppl get the barracks naming scheme & what im doing with it lol. hooks spikes sharps and spurs.. all sharp things #alluded to in one of the original púca stories #as a means to defend against faeries

[phoenixyfriend]

Ko-fi prompt from Becky:

I actually would love to hear where ticket/concession/merch money for concerts go. If someone has already asked about that, can you do something similar for a sports game of your choice?

Already got a request for concerts, but I can do the sports game!

So, let's go with... baseball. I've been to professional baseball games ('twas the Ducks), even if it's been a Very Long Time, so that's the one I have some perspective on. Who is in control of the money any given game (as in, who owns the stadium and the home team) varies by place and sport, so let's use the Mets and Citi Field as our example when we need a specific.

Mostly, this is because I'm in New York and so it's down to either them or the Yankees, and between the two... the Mets, through a wholly owned subsidiary, Queens Ballpark Company, are the ones that actually own their ballpark, which makes a few things easier and includes a Fun Fact about the naming. It also means that I can treat the team and the stadium as one singular entity instead of waffling over who gets to be the Main Character of this simulation. It's not exactly uncommon for teams to own their own stadiums, but it's not most of them.

(The Mets, btw, are owned in large part by a hedge fund manager. Like, 95% of the team stock is owned by this one guy. Why can't more sports be like the Packers and just belong to the city.)

In this case, I will be referring to the Forbes article on Citi Field's revenue for 2022 as a guide or framework, as they have an actual image of the financial report; they don't do much explaining of the actual data, though, so my part will be explaining the less-obvious things and doing some maths. A few other articles will also be cited as they come in useful.

I'll also note that the Mets are a very expensive team operating at a loss, but they still work for our purposes.

MONEY COMING IN:

Tickets, most obviously

To quote the wiki article on Major League Baseball:

"MLB is the second-wealthiest professional sport league by revenue after the National Football League (NFL). [...] MLB has the highest total season attendance of any sports league in the world; in 2018, it drew more than 69.6 million spectators."

I didn't know that until I started researching for this post, but it makes sense. After all, baseball is "the American pastime." The Forbes article cites average attendance of 33,000 per home game. The stadium seat about 41,900, so we're looking at roughly 79% attendance. This is fine, because attendance is not the only stream of revenue.

Advertising

If you have seen a professional sports game in the past however many years, you have seen that, depending on the type of court, they are plastered in advertising. Let's take a look at Citi Field:

(Image Source: MLB website)

The Forbes article states that the stadium makes about $48.5 million per year from advertising. About $28.5 million of that comes from the various 'temporary' and long-term ads, the Nikon and Geico and Toyota and Coca Cola, etc.

$20 million of it comes from one company. I'm going to quote Wikipedia again:

The naming rights were purchased by Citigroup, a New York financial services company, for $20 million annually.

This is not uncommon! ESPN has an article about it, and some standout examples are Bank of America Stadium, Coors Field, Delta Center, FedEx Field and FedEx Forum, General Motors Place, Gillette Stadium, Heinz Field, and the list just goes on. I'm not even sure if the list is up to date, because I'm seeing even more articles elsewhere with higher figures.

Concessions

The financial report that Forbes cites has $22mill in concessions. This is not entirely surprising. Going by this page, we're looking at... 84 home games in that 2022 season. Let's assume that 33,000 average cited earlier. That's 2,772,000 attendees over the course of the season. So, what, a little under $10 per attendance tick? Entirely plausible. A hot dog plus a soda is $15, so... that tracks.

Parking

Apparently parking is, collectively, about $13mill annually. That's... genuinely a little concerning to me, for uh. Reasons. Also parking is $40.

(A lot of people go to games via train, if anyone's interested.)

Luxury Suite Premiums

I had to google this one, but uh. Turns out those fancy private box seats are even fancier and more private than I thought, bringing in over $10 mill a year.

Other Revenue - Stadium, undefined

"Other Revenue" and "post season revenue" are not given any further information, but they're about $16.5 mill so. They're definitely doing their part? Wish we had more information.

One guess is that there are events in the vein of the Citi Field Spring Carnival that contribute to the revenue through either fees to the stadium (if this is a carnival that rents the parking lot) or concessions and tickets (if the stadium rents a carnival).

Other Revenue - to the team that is not direct operating income of the stadium itself

Not counting the "other revenue" section of the financial statement, the Forbes article tells us that:

National broadcasting deals with Fox, ESPN and TBS that pay over $60 million a year to every MLB team, as well as the local cable fee the Mets get from SNY, which is over $80 million a year.

That's another $140mill in addition to the $244mill that the financial report cites.

Merchandise - not direct stadium revenue.

Get your Mets hats here! And your jerseys! And your logo bats! And your commemorative plushies! And--

MONEY GOING OUT

Operations

This one's easy: you have to pay wages to your employees, from the players themselves to the food sellers to janitorial to security to field maintenance, etc. Also, you have to pay for utilities (those billboards and floodlights aren't cheap), product to sell (frozen hot dogs), supplementary materials for products you sell (plastic cups, paper for the ticket machines, bags for garbage cans, and so on), and repairs/maintenance for the stands themselves (can't imagine they get through a season with all 41,900 seats intact).

Player salaries (and a few others, like the coach) aren't actually included in stadium revenue, but since the stadium is owned by the team, we're bundling them together for the sake of this case.

Payment in Lieu of Taxes

So this is an interesting one, and while the Forbes article does touch on it, there's a bit more detail to the story.

Citi Field was built in 2009, and the process cost $850 million. Of that, $615 was public subsidies. A lot of this was municipal bonds, which the Mets have to pay back with interest for the lifetime of the park; those municipal bond repayments are an offset, and in return for paying tens of millions in municipal bond repayments each year (the 2022 report shows about $43.5 mill), Citi Field does not have to pay property taxes.

Wikipedia only cites property taxes, but the financial report doesn't include any other taxes, so I'll assume the only other taxes they're on the hook for are sales and payroll, which aren't displayed in the financial report.

Parking

Right, so, parking as a bundle is about $7.5 mill in expenses, which means that parking alone has a marginal profit of about 42.3%, given the earlier figure of $13mill in parking revenue. I'm not finding any solid information on where that money goes, but it seems very like that New York City's taxes on land use for parking is not included in the property tax exemption we discussed above, and that most of the $7.5 mill is in that regard.

Post Season Expenses

I'll be honest, they don't define this $1.8 mill, but given what is and isn't included in the other sections, I'm going to hazard a guess that this may be about upgrades (more than maintenance) or replacement of physical billboards that are also not included as regular maintenance but require a lot of manpower to get up and set if complicated enough.

General and Administrative

This is the other possible allocation of the utilities and related payments. This is also where back of house activities like accountants, lawyer fees, payroll clerks, facilities managers, and so on are bundled in. It's about $5.5 mill.

Publicity and Promotions

This one's easy, it's just marketing that doesn't fall into General Mets Things and is rather for home games specifically.

Depreciation and Amortization

Bit trickier, but you know how a car loses value the second you drive it off the lot? That is depreciation. You paid $20,000 for a car, but two years later it's worth $16,000; on a financial report, you put that down as a $4,000 loss to depreciation. Amortization is similar, in that it lowers values of various assets in relation to time and relative value to what it was when new.

Interest Expenses

Expenses related directly to interest rates tend to get their own line separate from regular debt repayments. This isn't really relevant beyond 'loans are more expensive than when you first get them.'

Travel and League Expenses

Since this is a traveling team, being professionals, and a Major League Baseball Team in particular, money has to be spent on the plane rides, team bus, and of course, the league fees. I wanted to end that a bit more pithy, but it turns out it's not easy to find league fees for the MLB.

(A new team joining would have to pay about $2.2 billion, according to one article, while previous new additions were a couple hundred mill, so... 100 mill? Maybe?)

Hope that answers your question!

#economics #capitalism #phoenix talks #ko fi #ko fi prompts #research #baseball #the mets #citi field #sports #business #financial reports

[hierarchyproblem]

Big dumb album of the year post, here we fucking go:

Punk

A lot of the punk releases that crossed my radar this year were really hardcore-y hardcore or weak-ass "indie punk" shit, and that doesn't do a lot for me. And like, who cares if Rancid are still making music? Does Tim Armstrong even need any more money at this point?

This year I liked All Together Now from Cop/Out and All Riot from Angry Youth Elite. GEL's Only Constant sadly wasn't a patch on 2021's Violent Closure (though I did get to see them live and they put on a hell of a show), and I look forward to seeing Killing Daisies develop their sound following a pretty strong debut with Break the Silence. The HIRS Collective are at their best at their grindiest IMO, but I still liked lots of We're Still Here. Slutbomb's EP Commodified Identity is exactly what I want punk to sound like, but this year's winner is Dog Park Dissidents with their debut The Pink and Black Album.

I've talked before about my frustration with the state of queer punk at the minute, which largely seems to consist of didactic lyricism, indie-pop influences, and the basics of liberal feminism presented as radical politics. Not so with Dog Park Dissidents: their lyrics are frequently funny and occasionally surprisingly emotive, their political content is incisive, and while we're not talking face-melting blast-beats here, the songs are genuinely entertaining. Half of the songs on this album have more to say than the entire discographies of some punk bands, and are pretty catchy too.

Favourite tracks: Rainbow Drones, Host, Class Struggle

Grindcore

I haven't listened to much new grind this year; I don't know what releases have even happened. There must be some good stuff that passed me by - let me know what I missed!

The Full of Hell collaborations weren't really my thing, but Haggus' EP What's Your Excuse was great as ever. Sometimes trawling bandcamp you can strike gold such as Coming Apart from Tolerances Of The Human Face In Crash Impacts or Human Decay from Rancid Stench. There was only ever gonna be one winner this year, however, and it's Gridlink's Coronet Juniper.

What can I even say about this? Gridlink have done it again. Somehow, even after guitarist Takafumi Matsubara's stroke in 2014, they've managed another album that's almost as perfect as Longhena. Their "technical grindcore" sound is unique and electrifying; Gridlink are untouchable. Nobody sounds like them. I'm blown away.

Favourite tracks: Silk Ash Cascade, Anhalter Bahnhof, Octave Serpent

Black Metal

It's been a fucking good year for black metal.

Between Panopticon's The Rime of Memory, Underdark's Managed Decline, Blackbraid's Blackbraid II, and Trespasser's Αποκάλυψισ, there's been plenty of excellent releases to keep me busy (can you tell I got into this through RABM?). I thought the production felt a little thin on the final Dawn Ray'd album, To Know the Light - the lack of a bassist hurt here, more than on any prior release - but I had the good fortune to be at the album release show, and it was the best gig of my entire fucking life, so this album holds a special place for me. Sad to see these guys go.

Fadheit's EP Afterglow deserves a special shout-out for carrying the torch of Lifelover's brand of depressive black metal, a sound I'll never get enough of. Probably everyone's black metal album of the year is going to be Saturnian Bloodstorm by Lamp of Murmuur, and that's well-deserved. This is possibly the best Lamp release yet, and I'm very into the freezing Immortal-esque guitar tone on this one. I'll be going back to Saturnian Bloodstorm for a long time, but the album I've actually enjoyed the most this year is Immortal themselves, with War Against All.

It's a rare enough thing for a band to keep releasing quality music for thirty years - even Darkthrone have had their misses - but Immortal are still going strong. You could be forgiven for phoning it in at this point, but I don't get that impression: as much as black metal can be "fun," I feel like Demonaz is still having fun, and I had a lot of fun with this album too. If you like black metal, there's plenty to like here.

Favourite tracks: No Sun, Return to Cold, Wargod

Ska

Ska is going from strength to strength right now; the past few years have been some of the genre's best in a long long time. This year I was delighted to see Mustard Plug releasing music again with the excellent Where Did All My Friends Go? and I enjoyed a lot of Poindexter's upbeat ska-pop debut album Treats. I scratched my ska-punk itch with Public Serpent's caustic The Bully Puppet and HEY-SMITH's frantic Rest in Punk. Popes of Chillitown's latest Take a Picture has something for everyone, drawing from about a hundred genre influences.

Still, my favourite ska album of this year is Plastic Presidents' debut Good Times Can't Last.

Please, please, do yourself a favour and listen to that opening track. This is one hell of an attention-grabbing debut, without a single skip on the tracklist, covering dancey 2-tone-era ska-punk through to aggressive skacore. If this was the only album they ever released, they'd have earned a spot in my pantheon: I'll be following eagerly to see what they do next.

Favourite tracks: Chains, West Omaha is a Terrible Place and I'm Definitely Afraid to Die, Break Free

Other

This "category" is one hell of a grab bag, but I don't know where else to put Tomb Mold, one of the only death metal bands I unreservedly love. Their most recent release The Enduring Spirit is sure to end up on a lot of album of the year lists.

The Nearly Deads' We Are the Nearly Deads is pretty much what I want rock to be (that is, completely without trace of any fucking metalcore influences!). I have a soft spot for symphonic metal, and Chapter III - Downfall from Ad Infinitum hit that spot this year. Finally, while I preferred Brave Murder Day-era Katatonia, I still like the goth rock thing they've been doing basically ever since then, and Sky Void of Stars is one of their better albums in that vein.

My left-field pick for Album of the Year, however, is Shit Present's What Still Gets Me.

I usually can't stand the kind of thing that's just punk-adjacent enough for the algorithms to insist on trying to force it into my ears. I didn't expect to like this, either - but it's really, really good. Like, I should hate anything you can describe as "emo-pop," but I don't, here. I love it. The songs are so well-crafted, the vocals so perfectly-delivered; there's an energy and emotion to this album that's had me listening to it on repeat since May.

Check it out: it's the best album of 2023.

Favourite tracks: Voice in Your Head, More to Lose, Cram the Page

#aoty

[solarpunkani]

Hey do you happen to know of any resources for someone in Iowa looking to get into native plant gardening? Thanks in advance! (Love your blog btw)

*cracks knuckles* sorry for keeping you hanging since November 3rd, homie, but I'm back home and down to get started!

Before I do, a special reminder that I'm not based in Iowa! I don't think I've ever even set foot in Iowa. I'm a Florida girlie lol. However, I will do my best to give you my advice and find some resources for you!

In my experience, many native plants grow slowly from seed. This could be because I mostly prefer perennials (I am way too lazy to replace an annual every year), but they can take awhile to germinate and an even longer while to size up. I've gotten seeds that say to wait upwards of 3 weeks to see any germination, and that's often after waiting a month or more for proper cold stratification! All of this is just to say--you gotta have a bit of patience when it comes to all gardening, but especially with native plants!

If you can get your hands on some seeds now, they'll likely need cold stratification. Fortunately, cold stratification is happening right now--put the seeds where you want them to grow, and let chilly winters do the work for you! Needing cold stratification basically means the plant has evolved to know it needs to wait until after winter to start germinating, so as things warm back up in spring, your seeds'll start growing!

Once they start growing and get established, they'll really start going--if they're in their perfect conditions, they'll be more than ready to take over a bit and manage on their own! Keep an eye out for watering needs, but generally I find native plants don't need much when it comes to fertilizer and pesticides. If you don't want things to spread a lot, you can always choose to grow certain plants in pots instead--or if you're really determined to grow a plant your soil isn't quite right for, a pot does wonders. My soil isn't very moist, so I grow a good chunk of my swamp milkweeds in pots to keep a better eye on their care.

Iowa's got a handful of growing zones going on, so knowing what the zone for your region is will help you pick the best plants! You can also pick plants known to have grown historically well in your region--I've seen plant range maps break things down by counties for my state, which helps give a good idea of whether it's a good idea for me to grow something touted as a native to my state. It's entirely possible for something to be native to your state, but not your half of the state, for example!

Browsing through a couple of sites, I hope these'll be helpful to you!

This is a link to Iowa Native Plants, which has a nice primer on the importance of native gardening as well as a few guides to native plants in their Finder tab! They also seem to sell a hanfdul of books on native gardening that may be an interesting read for you!

My Home Park appears to have a lot of information on native plants, and sells native plants that can be shipped to your state! I can't say I've ever had a plant shipped to me before, let alone from them (they don't service my state) but it could be worth a shot! If anything else, could be a good source of information! They also have a blog, and a feature that lets you mock up a garden to see what it'd look like (I didn't try it though). They also seem to service North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Maine.

The Tallgrass Prairie Center links to a ton of resources on learning about native plants, planting them, landowner incentive programs, and organizations you can join that are full of others who are passionate about native plants! The Tallgrass Prairie Center itself aims to establish and protect native plants, restore ecosystems, and increase awareness and appreciation of the Tallgrass Prairie Ecosystem. I think their site's definitely worth a look-through, or you can use it as a bouncing off point to find other sites full of info!

The Iowa Native Plant Society is a nonprofit organization full of people who are enthusiastic about native plants! They host field trips, workshops, have a newsletter, and more! It could be a fun way to learn more about native ecosystems on their trips, and if they're anything like the native plant society for my state, the calendar on their site will probably start lighting up with different chapters' native plant sales as we get closer to spring, so keep an eye out! They've also got books and lots of resource links on their site!

Oftentimes when I look up information on how to grow a particular plant in my state, the university extensions office is one of the best resources. As such, I think the Iowa State University's Extension and Outreach website is likely to have some good info for you about gardening! I've also in the past emailed some staff from various offices questions about native gardening and gotten good answers, so they're definitely a resource to be utilized!

I almost forgot to link the Xerces Society! The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation has a primary focus of protecting insects in the US, but that often goes hand in hand with native plants, so they're a great resource for learning about plants and the insects that rely on them! Especially helpful is their Pollinator Conservation Resource Center, which has lists of plants and suppliers by region! You can also find just their plant lists here!

Speaking of plant lists, The National Wildlife Federation has a list of keystone plants by ecoregion! Keystone plants are highly important, as they're vital to the lifecycle of many species of insect, which then help feed birds and other creatures--you get the picture. I used the National Wildife Federation a good bit when I was writing my Biodiversity Saga on increasing biodiversity in your yard/on your balcony/in your area on a budget.

iNaturalist is a fantastic website for cataloguing the cool insects you find in your new native garden, as well as learning about the variety of plants, animals, insects, etc. that are in your area! Make an account and just vibe around!

Books can be a great resource! Unfortunately, my attention span is frequently lacking when it comes to books, and I definitely haven't read any that focus on Iowa's native flora. However! I've got a few general books that are nice reads, so you can definitely see if you can find these in a library or online (I'm including Thriftbooks links because fuck Amazon).

Hellstrip Gardening by Evelyn J. Hadden is a book I read last month that honestly inspired so many new projects out of me that next year is gonna be busy. Might as well get a healthy dose of inspiration now so you can do some planning and be roaring and ready to go come spring! I liveblogged it on my gardening blog, and shared some of my favorite notes as well!

Attracting Native Pollinators by the Xerces Society is a book that offers a generalized view on why its important, ways you can utilize native plants at any scale from swaths of farmland to a school garden or a small yard, and provides lists of plants that can be good for your region near the end! They also have Gardening for Butterflies, which I honestly haven't read yet, but I checked it out from the library so Mayhaps Soon. PS: you can buy Attracting Native Pollinators and Gardening for Butterflies from the Xerces site directly, and support their work! However. Hoo buddy, the pricing.

(Psst, here's the plant list from Attracting Native Pollinators, don't tell Xerces)

My final message to you, young padawan, is to grow milkweed. If there's a milkweed native to your state, grow it. If there's several native to your region, grow a ton of it. Milkweed is the host plant for Monarchs, but it's also such a high-value nectar source for so many other insects you've just gotta try and grow some in my book. Also a lot of the sites I saw for your state had pictures of blazing star and black eyed susans and let me tell you. Plant those. You'll have so many happy pollinators.

I can't think of anything else. If any Iowa gardeners wanna chime in with their favorite resources and such, feel free to!

#gardening #iowa #native plants #native gardening #outdoor gardening #resources #out of queue #ani rambles #answered asks #anonymous #ok time to eat something today peace out byeeeee

[birch-bark-scribbles]

Family Christmas survived. I'm finally home!

Beyond the family stresses this visit highlighted, I found myself very weighed on by the change of biome. This was my very first time visiting the Sonoran Desert (or any desert at all), after growing up on the US east coast. I can count on my hands the number of times I've traveled west of the Appalachians. I found the desert itself very beautiful and inspiring, but the city itself seems like an act of violence against that landscape, making itself an ugly and depressing place in the process. I found the trip to be, overall, very disquieting yet instructive.

As soon as I stepped out of the plane, I felt like my eyeballs were drying out. That was a bizarre and unsettling experience. My skin went straight to hell from the dry air; even though it actually rained twice while we were visiting! It wasn't enough to stop my arms from going straight to eczema hell, no matter how often I moisturized. On the most basic physical level, my body hated being there. I guess I've gotten spoiled on mountain well water, because even the water tasted horrible (to me). I felt like I was being slowly fried like a potato chip and I have never in my life been so grateful to return to the wet, the cold, and the green.

Kind of petty complaints, I know. I've grown up in forested biomes and known more or less nothing else, so of course I wouldn't appreciate it, but still. I got the feeling looking around at the city and from talking to my sister that no one else actually likes living in the desert cities, either. All of their architecture and infrastructure is built to survive the heat and pretend that they do not live in a desert. Other people are better qualified than me to talk about the horrifying water misuse that colonization has imposed in the American Southwest so I won't rant about it, but I will say that many of those problems are glaringly obvious even to a newcomer, and it deepened the ugliness of the place. The antipathy between city and the natural systems keeping it alive was visible in every ugly inch, lessened only in those places that embraced the desert for what it is.

I know it sounds as though I hated it, and to be honest, for the most part I did. Except! For the brief hike we took, out in the desert, under the unreadable gaze of these impossibly massive rocks. The saguaros were an intensely powerful presence in the land, to my limited sensibilities. Everything I learned about their life cycle and their place in the desert systems (especially their alliance with palo verde trees) left me speechless with awe. What a powerful and beautiful place that desert is, when it's not ripped up and covered in cement, or turf on life support. The minimally managed desert in the state park was sparsely vegetated, with muted colors. Everything there amplified the presence of the incredible, towering red rocks that dominated the landscape. It made me understand why people would live here and love the land. The mountains seemed to me equally awe-inspiring and unwelcoming. The entire place felt unfriendly to me, but to be frank, it had no reason to be otherwise. The antipathy was mutual; I could feel in my bones that I didn't belong there. I appreciated its austere beauty, I thanked it, and I left. I'm glad to have had the experience, but I do not intend to return.

#the family nonsense is being saved for my actual diary #I have a rock as a memento and if I ever get a sunroom I will keep an singular cactus to remind me of this place #but that is quite enough #my skin is slowly calming and my cat was overjoyed to see us. home <3333333333333 #journal 2023

[doodle-do-wop]

KOTLC AND PJO

@valentinerose529 passed on the brain rot so now I'm dragging y'all down with me

Please buckle up your non-existent seatbelts and keep all hands, wings, feet, tails, and horns inside the vehicle. This is gonna be a long post

So

As I've previously stated else where I firmly stick my foot in the hill that the Aphrodite Cabin (10) has so much more under the surface of pink and glitter (not that there's anything wrong with pink and glitter)

Aphrodite is quite literally the Goddess of Love if you're a PJO fan and don't know Greek mythology or you're a fan but completely forgot.

She has an ever changing form to each individual as well as an ever changing personality (in the PJO universe) due to beauty standards and the culture of the place she's in.

Love is complicated and messy, it's not the same for everyone or every situation.

Thus why I put Keefe in good old 10. What a better place for an empath than the Aphrodite Cabin?

Now moving onto the ever messy Vackers

I love Fitz and Biana. I do............but I got an entire skeleton of bones to pick with Alden Vacker and of he can meet me outside the Denny's parking lot please-

While not actually smart Alden did manage to become emissary in KOTLC and Athena seems to like mildly smart guys who end up being very mid dad's. Girls got a type and I can only say hopes and prayers she gets better.

Athena is a strategist and occasionally thinks only in the form of a game (I will be using chess). Athena knows when it's time to get sharp and wet the blade and move people to where they have to go. She may be immortal but time is still against her so chop chop guys, we've got a magical meguiffin to snatch and bring back.

Athena is the goddess of wisdom, war strategy, handicraft.

What better godly parent to leave an ever lasting shadow on the eldest son Alvar. And the bitterness that stems from being out shined by perfect child Fitz who developed a far more impressive power than his older brother.

"but Biana feels so Aphrodite coded!" You cry and I hear you but Biana is a fighter at heart. She likes winning Quest Hunt and tackling the shit out of people in Tackle Bramble (she would love rugby). She's competitive and clever though it's not clear where on earth that gene came from, clearly not Alden.

And let's not forget it was Biana's idea to turn shirt ruffles into weapon hiding spots. Girls got strategy and style. Athena would be proud.

(plus the absolute sandal that would be blowing up the Camp's gossip train of Biana potentially being Aphrodite's daughter dispite having two Athena brothers would be scalding hot)

Onto everyone's favorite technopath

"oh Hephaestus, we all know" well you're wrong bucko

Worm, germs, plotted plant I named Timmy. What has Dex Dizznee built so far? Bombs, multiple bracelets for punching, many devices used just to heck the government's most top secret files, a panic button/tracker, more devices that hack into the government's files, a circuit that shall not be discussed.

These are all pretty crazy cool shit and Hephaestus would be damn proud to have Dex as his son.

But Dex isn't his son.

Dex's dad is the father of thieves, travelers, and roads. Hermes

"WHAT?" Yeah I know I know. But think about it. Dex is smart, he's so damn smart but he's tricky too. He knows the chemicals needed to dye an imp pink with glittery nails to match, he can whip up a batch up balding blam to get revenge, he can also be easily lost in the background of things.

So what a major disappointment it must be, to be waiting any day now for the sign of the hammer in a blazing forge and get a stupid winged sandal instead.

The Song Twins

Tam and Linh really gave me a run for my money because they're twins but Linh is an obvious Poseidon kid while Tam isn't and however powerful and weird the gods may be, two gods can't have kids with the same woman at the same time. It just ain't possible.

Linh's water powers are important to her character but so are Tam's. But Tam can still have spooky powers just not in the same flavor. Linh is the pretty side of Poseidon's rule over the seas. The water that heals and the funny animal shapes she makes. But the deeper into the ocean you get the darker it becomes. Tam's powers are the less pleasant things in life.

Now for everyone's second favorite arsonist (not Sophie)

Marella Redek has Pyrokenisis and you're saying "oh this one's eazy, Leo, come pick up your sibling" but you're wrong yet again my friend.

While Marella would probably be super frustrated with getting the tinker cabin over something that could help her mom (y'all remember how helping her mom was her main motivation?) at least with the STEM geeks she could hammer out some kind of magic mood ring to help her mom or make a bracelet with charmed gemstones capable of alerting her mom or herself when danger is near or just something

But no

Instead Marella is stuck in the only cabin that couldn't have been a worst match up for her. Hecate. (I know I previously said Ares but I changed my mind)

Marella, instead of having a knack for magic like almost every other child of Hecate instead got the flaming torch part of the deal. Literally. Marella can also see strings of magic and she doesn't like it one bit.

And finally Sophie (because this is getting too long)

Sophie was a tricky one since she has all these powers and it was nearly impossible to put her in a cabin that really fit with her

What finally got me to decide was actually her teleporting powers and inflicting. They have a sort of lightning and thunder styled description so who better than lord thunderbutt himself, Zeus.

#kotlc #keeper of the lost cities #sophie foster #keefe sencen #tam song #linh song #marella redek #dex dizznee #fitz vacker #biana vacker #pjo and kotlc #pjo #tell me your thoughts

[ilyasorokinn]

fight, fight, fight , zack macewen

note, this was inspired after reading some post about how syd was nervous after watching marty fight chara. i get inspo from the weirdest things, but i had to look up who fought him in the past and i went with zack so yay! this is dedicated to @iwantahockeyhimbo cause we are both zack lovers. pair, zack macewen x reader summary, zack macewen, 6'3, gets into a fight with 6'9 giant, zdeno chara. warnings, fighting, word count, 744 words (something short and funny)

(gif not mine)

You were having quite a good time, but that all quickly came tumbling down after Zack went after Mayfield. Going after Mayfield wasn't the problem, but the aftermath of the hit was the problem.

To be fair, he didn't start the fight, Chara did, but that didn't ease anything, "Holy crap." You watched in horror as everyone around you rose to their feet and cheered.

Someone put a comforting hand on your back, but it did nothing to soothe the panic you were feeling, "You idiot." You muttered, getting a couple laughs from the girls.

They punched at each other, and Zack managed to get a few good hits in before his helmet was thrown off. A couple more punches were thrown by Chara and Zack was on his knees, jersey was on the verge of coming off, and that's when the refs stepped in.

You sat down in your chair, mouth hanging open in shock as he was pushed off to the penalty box, but not before Chara made sure he was okay.

"You okay?" One of the girls asked with a laugh.

"He's the biggest idiot I've ever met in my life." 11 minutes later after the period was over and you knew Zack was in the locker room, you grabbed your phone and immediately called Zack.

"Hello?"

"You're the biggest idiot in the entire world." He laughed, "I don't know why you're laughing."

"It's funny, come on. I'm fine, he's fine, Mayfield's fine, we're all good." He tried to reassure.

"I'm hanging up now 'cause I'm mad at you."

"Well, you are the one who called."

"I hate you." You stated, then hung up.

-

"So, Zack, what was the consensus on the fight?" One of the interviewers asked.

Zack laughed, "Well, after the game, my girlfriend called."

"Oh, yeah?"

"Yeah, she's here, so she saw everything in person, but she called me after the game and kinda chewed me out."

"I take it she's not keen on you fighting?"

"Oh, no, quite the opposite. She's the first person to cheer me on, but I think the part that really got her was the 6'9 part of it all." He joked, "I'll be in the doghouse for a bit, but it's all in good fun."

After media, he packed up all his stuff and got ready to head out. He saw you waiting by his car in the parking lot. You looked up at him from your phone and glared at him.

"Oh, come on." He laughed.

"Stop laughing. Nothing about this is funny." You punched his shoulder.

-

sydneyemartin: i think @/yourusername and i should start a club together. the "my significant other fought a 6'9 giant" club. you in, y/n?

12.3k likes 5.3k retweets

yourusername: oh, definetly.

hockeywags: the dynamic duo we didn't know we needed.

islesfan: y/n y/l/n and sydney martin taking the world by storm.

flyers6: these two are about to break the internet.

-

A few days later, you were on Gretchen Geraghty's, a YouTuber and one of the guys' girlfriend, podcast just to talk and have fun, "So, I've gotten some DM's after people found out you'd be on this week's episode..."

"Oh, boy..." You laughed.

"And I'm guessing my your reaction you know exactly where this is going?" She laughed.

"Is it about Zack?"

"It is about Zack?" She nodded, "For those who don't know o don't follow hockey, Zack plays hockey with Max for the Flyers, and a few days ago, Zack got into a fight with another player, and that player is like a giant."

"Oh, yeah. He's like almost 7 feet tall, and I'm not exaggerating."

"What was the consensus after the fight?"

"I got a lot of DMs from fans, and Zack got a lot from fans. Sydney Martin, Matt Martin's wife, another hockey player, tweeted about it. I woke up the next morning and was tagged in so many posts and my friends and family was just sending me memes. It was pretty great."

"I watched his post-game interview where he said you actually root for him when he fights."

"I usually do, because hockey is a sport where fighting is encouraged. And I'm obviously very nervous when he does fight, but I do root for him. This time was a little different because he was fighting a literal giant."

"Any injuries?"

"Got a bit of bruise forming." You laughed, "Nothing too serious. I made him see a doctor the day after."

-

my taglist: @tonyspep @mitch-slap @kolsmikaelson @ashleymarine @rosesvioletshardy @laurenairay @kidlnthedark @bowen-power @lam-ila @jostystyles @catahshart @puckinrightschicagoo @fiveminutesforfarabee @stars-canucks @drei-mrssvechii @iwantahockeyhimbo @2manytabsopen @calermakar08 @hamilton160 @pierrelucduboiis @thescooby-gang @sammysworldddd @corneliaskates @mista-svech @samanthasgone @hockeyboysarehot @nicoleloveshockey @thedukes-56-5 @kaydenissleepy @Yagetintoit @seventieswhore @MichelleKirby30 @jamieeboulos @Coffeeandteaandflowers @bibella8swan @cuttergauth @boqvistsbabe @sophia-bordeleau @luca-fantilli @madison-nhl

add yourself to my taglist!

#every gif i found of him was literally him fight LMAOO #zack macewen x reader #zack macewen imagine #zack macewen imagines #zack macewen fic #zack macewen #nhl imagine #nhl imagines #nhl fic #nhl blurbs #nhl #hockey imagine #hockey imagines #hockey fic #hockey blurbs #hockey #philadelphia flyers imagine #philadelphia flyers imagines #philadelphia flyers fic #philadelphia flyers #taylor writes #taylor writes: hockey

[seat-safety-switch]

In the last couple of weeks, something magical has happened to my neighbourhood. More and more people are driving scooters. Ranging from the usual Vespas and Yamaha Zumas to a really hogged-out Honda Spree, there is a cornucopia of motorized delight on offer. Lately, I can barely walk down the street without having to turn my head at the delightful sound of a small-displacement two-stroke engine approaching redline in order to bang on the door of a playground-zone speed limit.

In general, I'm a practical sort, and I get it. There are lots of socioeconomic that an individual may stop driving their expensive car in favour of a scooter. Saving on expensive gas, insurance, and registration is an obvious incentive, not to mention the absurd cost of parking. You can twelve o'clock it right into the elevator at work and leave it in the abandoned cubicle next to you, dripping oil from the clutch basket right into the high-wear carpet. If more layoffs happen despite the best promises of middle management, at least you can leave in style.

I'd be lying if I said I was entirely enthusiastic about this state of affairs. The increased demand for scoots has meant that I've had to adjust my complex deprecation spreadsheet. To keep things up to date, four interns from the local university were hired. Cheap shitboxes are too important to be left up to pure intuition, as I've explained previously at the TED talks.

Because those students are young, dumb, and full of vlookups, they've been working around the clock – with the help of white-labeled methamphetamine and my backstock of 2003-era Jolt Espresso. And, as you'd expect with any model worth its salt, some unusual discoveries have been made.

As demand shifted away from regular vehicles, towards ridiculous scooters and ultralight economy cars, it turns out that a gas-guzzling shitbox like a 1998 Suburban has actually become a pretty reasonable deal. You can practically show up with a fresh battery, a ten-pound bottle of nitrous oxide, and a contemptuous sneer and be driving home in something that once indebted a family of five to eternal servitude. My favourite part is how nicely the rich leather seats in the back hold onto a greasy Mopar Slant Six on the way home from the junkyard. And the seatbelts even still work!

[ashbrat488]

Foul Play - Prologue

JUNE 2019

Millicent's restless fidgeting in her seat mirrored the whirlwind of emotions surging through her. On the screen before her, she anxiously observed the small plane hovering over her destination. Just over two years ago, the concept of a father was entirely foreign to her, and now she found herself on a plane bound for a new country to live with him.

Shortly before her 16th birthday, she had taken the leap of faith to submit her DNA to an ancestry site, hoping to uncover her familial roots. To her astonishment, the results pointed to a potential paternal match. Millicent's mother, although less surprised, revealed that her father resided in Oxford, England, a stark contrast to her own life in the secluded corners of Iowa. It turned out her mother had embarked on a transformative semester in England during her final year of college and returned home with an unexpected surprise.

Now, here she sat, having met her father only once when he traveled to the United States after Millicent reached out to him. With her mother gone and her family reduced to a memory, she wiped away a stray tear and peered out the small round window to her right, where the first light of dawn began to break over the horizon. A few days before her graduation, her mother faced the complications of undergoing chemotherapy, and her world had been turned upside down.

As the plane started its descent, her nervousness intensified. After her mother's passing, she reached out to her father, who graciously offered her the opportunity to live with him. Although she was now 18 and had the freedom to make her own choices, she believed starting afresh in a new life would be the best path for her. Moreover, her father had even secured her admission to the college where he worked. Fitting her entire life's belongings into one large suitcase and a small carry-on, she embarked on this journey.

Once the plane finally came to a halt, Millicent rose from her seat and retrieved her carry-on from the overhead compartment. She appeared to be the only person on the plane who hadn't succumbed to sleep during the grueling 11-hour flight. Her anxiety wouldn't allow her to rest. Glancing at her phone as she pulled it from her pocket, she noted the early hour: just past 5 a.m. She sent a text to her father, notifying him of her arrival. The small thumbs-up response on her phone screen didn't quite ease her worries, but she joined the rest of the passengers in disembarking from the plane.

Navigating through the crowd, Millicent spotted her father, his distinguishing feature being his vibrant red hair—a trait she had inherited. Having grown up with her raven-haired, blue-eyed mother, she had always wondered about the origins of her red hair and amber-colored eyes. Seeing her own face mirrored in her father's provided a sense of belonging after a childhood filled with feelings of detachment.

As she approached him, he offered her a half-smile, pushing his glasses up his nose. "Millicent, how was your flight? Did you manage to get any sleep?"

"No, and please call me Milly," she replied softly, allowing him to embrace her awkwardly. Having questioned her decision a million times during the journey, she couldn't shake the feeling that uprooting her life to live with a man who was her biological father but still a stranger might be a mistake. "I couldn't sleep. It's probably better to try and stay awake now."

"Right-o," he mused, grabbing the handle of her large suitcase and taking her carry-on from her shoulder. "Follow me, then."

Milly nodded and followed him through the bustling crowd until they reached a parking garage. Opening the door on the wrong side of the car, a subtle reminder of the cultural differences she would need to adjust to, he gestured for her to get in. "Thanks for picking me up, D—, Darren." The term "dad" still felt strange on her lips, and he respected her hesitancy.

"I couldn't let you take a car all the way to Oxford. I've missed so much of your life. Driving you home is the least I can do."

Resting her head against the seat, Milly turned her gaze toward him. He had a soft-spoken demeanor, keeping his thoughts close to his chest. Even in their brief encounters, she had discerned this aspect of his personality. She knew she inherited that trait from him as well. Her mother had always been outgoing, the life of every gathering, while Millicent preferred the solitude of a cozy chair, a book, and a cup of tea. Smiling to herself, she watched as he pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, his fair complexion flushing a delicate shade of pink under her gaze. "Well, thank you for everything, really."

"I'm just grateful that you're giving me the chance to be a part of your life. It was too late to secure admissions at Oxford for the 2019-2020 school year, but I managed to get you enrolled in a foundation year. You'll still be able to gain valuable knowledge, which will enhance your prospects when you start next year. Your ACT and SAT scores are more than sufficient for admission into the Law program, as you desire."

"Thank you," Milly replied, overwhelmed with gratitude. Finding her father had been an incredible stroke of luck and discovering that he was also the Dean at Worcester Oxford felt like winning the lottery. She no longer had to worry about the financial burden of tuition, as he had arranged for her education to be completely covered. Furthermore, he had offered her a place to stay while she attended school. "Honestly, you've gone above and beyond for me."

"Well, you're my daughter. I only wish we had found each other sooner."

Milly understood that the situation was more challenging for him than for her. Somewhere out there, she knew she had a father, which provided a glimmer of hope that she could one day find him. However, her father had never been aware of her existence, so her appearance through the ancestry app had been nothing short of a shock.

And so began her new journey—a quest to acclimate herself to a new country, pursue her education, and discover her true identity and aspirations in this vast world.

Chapter 1

#henry cavill #henry cavill au #henry cavill fanfic #henry cavill fanfiction

[thatfilthyanimal]

did u go to dashcon? if so what was that like?

Oh lmao I guess you saw my twitter post about that? Well yeah! I did! In fact, a good chunk of Megamind fans went together as a fandom meet-up! In case you needed any proof:

(I don't remember the artist of the Megamind keychain, sorry. I bought it off etsy ages ago :D;;) But I also regret to inform everyone that I had a Nice Time at DashCon despite the shitshow I learned about it while there and after leaving it, but mostly because the fandom group I was with was, er... actually competent and good at planning in ways that don't fuck folks over? (minus ONE person but that's not my story to tell tbh) But it was a nice, chill small con with interesting panels and a pretty widely diverse group of nerds all there with their nerdy friends being nerds. Like literally I can't complain about it. One of the panels that was mocked on Tumblr by name alone was run by my friend Dani-Kin and was, actually, a GREAT panel, which was running over time because people didn't want to LEAVE it. I was also at an 18+ panel that security came into to pull someone (apparently underage?) out of, and Tumblr made a huge deal of that too as if the con was somehow just ~allowing~ that to happen. Basically it was a nice little con crowd-and-panel-wise and from just a casual visitor's perspective, I was fine. I've been to way worse panels at bigger cons, like Midwest FurFest, tbh. (I'm looking at you, panel about "asexuality" that was trying to reinforce the idea that asexuality is strictly sex-repulsion, which it is NOT, but I'm grumbling off-topic here.) The rest of it was a shitshow that I managed to mostly dodge by hanging with my friends, but something about last-second begging for money happening at the con and people just handing over their cash to help without any receipts or anything. There was also a HUGE group that I wanna say paid extra for a live episode or something of Welcome To Night Vale that got shafted because the con apparently didn't pay the WTNV guys to be there when they agreed to, so they bounced and fans waited in line for quite a while, waiting to see them. (I can't blame them for choosing to fuck off when they did, they didn't know if they'd ever get paid and that's pretty shit.) BUT the Megamind fandom group I was with was awesome, we rented out two of the large suite rooms near one-another and bounced between them to hang out and be loud and obnoxious together and meal-planned and stuff and it was all-around a good time, for me. It was also that con I discovered that I was in love with Vamp, who 8 years later is my fiancé and we live together! My partner (hi, poly) Dal also got engaged to his husband in Megamind cosplay there and like, it can't get much cuter than that. I sadly did not see the ball pit. However I did pick up my badge in the room the ball pit was IN, and it's a MASSIVE room, like impressively massive, like you probably could park airplanes in it, which makes the ball pit look even smaller than it was, apparently. Good times. (Oh and I also found a random new yellow DashCon staff shirt which I've squirreled away in a box somewhere cause I thought it was hilariously telling of the state the con ended up in. I assume the person who left it was fed up, as it was pretty far into the con's chaos when I found it.) Idk if this is the kind of answer you wanted, anon, but the TL;DR is I had a good time because my group was awesome, and while some stuff was exaggerated for cringe clout on The Tumbles or whatever there was a lot of terrible shit also which I entirely dodged due to fucking off with my group when it happened, like the scrambling for funds last-second and such. Maybe someone else from the DashCon Megamind group can weigh in on that stuff! Sometimes when we end up driving into Schaumburg I see the old con hotels and look at it fondly now, tbh. The hotels we stayed at are next to the closest Ikea to me, so we end up there now and then. :3

#Megamind #DashCon #is it cool yet to say I went to DashCon? #will it EVER be cool to say it? #no? #aight

[supernoondles]

2024

In my haste of class planning and making the most of my time in the bay, as I moved to LA for work in December of 2023, I completely forgot to write my year in review. So now I tell that it was a great year!

It was a year of milestones: I finally finished my PhD and graduated over the summer, spent the fall funemployed and traveling, and the last month moving and preparing for what, at least right now, seems to be my dream job. Yet when things are too good, I harbor a greater fear it could all come falling down.

I write this sitting on a plane from SFO to LAX (wretched airport) because 1) it was conveniently timed with my brother and his fiance (!)’s flight back to the Netherlands, and 2) I had airline credit from when I got COVID and could not make my friend’s wedding in Florida. In 2023 I got a PhD, my brother got a bachelor’s, and I got COVID from my mom when we went to Boston for said brother’s graduation. Last night (which isn't technically 2023, but 2024 starts, for me, when my health insurance card finally arrives in the mail and I get in a classroom with students) I hung out with my friends, who largely live in San Francisco, in the endless Asian strip malls of Union City. “When you get to the suburbs, SF and LA aren't so different,” said a friend. This has helped quell my anxiety about the move: that driving 30 minutes to neon plazas of Rowland Heights was semantically and experientially the same as the imitation mission plazas of the East/South Bay. (Since starting to read City of Quartz, again part of my migration south, I have thought: how funny that the lasting impact of the Spaniards, besides white supremacy, is their architecture. How funny it is that Asian immigrants now occupy these sites of worship.) This year, despite being filled with drama and (claimed) abandonment and reconciliation (or not despite, perhaps because of?) was the year of my mostly queer, entirely Asian diaspora friend group. In LA I believe I will have everything I need except for them (so although I'm scouting, I know what a rarity and a privilege I've had).

To put my move in perspective, I haven't changed geographic regions since I started college. Leaving high school was exciting (I couldn't wait) and for the last decade of my life I've had solid friends and community, as well as my family nearby. Sure, it's just the other major metropolitan area in the same state, but the distance is non trivial! For the first time in my adult life I don't have a reserve of people who are willing to hang out on a moment’s notice. For the first time in my adult life I am also living alone. I have loved the control (especially around having a clean house), but I get lonely very easily.

This year my Canadian partner left the PhD program and moved far away (back to Canada) to my immediate and eminent grief. I'm better now: daily calls help, as does begging for attention, as does turning an old friend into a lover. Japan was a sex vacation. Banff was a sex vacation. Oahu (where my lover’s aunt lives) was a sex vacation. 2023 was the year of having really good sex: public sex in a Petaluma park, sex in a ryokan with paper thin walls, hookups of varying but generally positive quality. As a consequence of my partner leaving, I finally became a real slut. It's been liberating, except for the fact that, even as of writing, I never heard back about my Medicare application so I was fucking uninsured. Out of the many indulgent days of unemployment vacation, two instances have stuck with me: hiking 12 miles while it was snowing in Banff to two teahouses nestled amongst glaciers, and landing at LAX after a sleepless flight from Japan, with a grueling 7 hour drive back to the bay ahead of us.

As I knew I would be leaving the bay area in 2022 (do you sign a year before you start in any industry besides than academia?), in 2023 I whittled away at my bay area bucket list. While I never managed to get up Sutro Tower, I did go to the Fallorons, which, despite my throwing up twice, was everything a birder could have wanted. (I took two boat rides this year, the other at Cape Cod when my brother begged for us to vacate his suffocating studio, and in that one I saw a great white shark attack. How lucky I am!) As usual, I went to many shows. New this year were shows my friends performed in! The past winter had the most rain I’d ever seen in the bay area, so I did a lot of hiking amongst the luscious green east bay hills, which stayed green until May. This made me also really happy, but I don't want my relationship to the bay area (like it is for so many people I know who have moved) to be one defined by lack.

One thing I will not miss, however, is West SF’s fog. This summer, as well as the ending of Daylight Savings time, particularly pushed me to my limits. As I get older my need for two daily hours of direct sunlight exposure grows more dire. The other lowlights of the year were having to replace my phone screen twice, and, after a decade in the bay, finally having my car broken into. I found it ironic that it was not because of petty theft (I also never leave anything in my car), but a TikTok trend encouraging teens to steal Kias and Hyundais. At least they failed with me!

In 2023 I organized a really big (600 people) party for a conference. I wrote a paper with my friends about power dynamics for the same conference (which usually only talks about “technical” things) which was also the last chapter in my thesis. Thanks, advisor, for believing in me. As the party was on Halloween, I hosted a costume contest. The winner for scariest costume was my labmate who put a photo of our advisor (my other one) on a programmable LED screen strapped to his chest.

In 2023 I also started getting paid an hourly wage that made me happy looking at the number doing contract work with an old undergraduate mentor. Beyond this, and the volunteer labor, and the paper/thesis writing, I did not do much of “working” this year: also part of the reason why this year has been awesome.

Thanks to an Asians with dyed hair and pronouns art accountability club, in 2023 I made more art than I had in past years. I did gouachetober and the occasional digital illustration. I did not, however, accomplish what I sought to do during my unemployment: dedicate myself to being a full time artist and making something great. (In retrospect, rest, recuperation, and being excited for my job instead of burnt out from my PhD was the more important goal, and I definitely achieved that!) I feel like one’s relationship to their creative practice is a lifelong evolution (mine certainly is), and at least I had time to slow down and think about how I want that to shape out (the answer which is, more than it has been.) I didn't sew much of significance (a robe with black cat fabric I bought in Japan, a very hungry caterpillar Halloween costume, a Pokémon fanny pack) this year. It was, however, a great year for video games: I really enjoyed Tears of the Kingdom (timed well with my COVID recovery), Super Mario Wonder, Pikmin 4, and I wouldn't say I “enjoyed” it, but I did play the Scarlet Violet DLC. My brother started playing Pikmin Bloom (so I have been playing it more) and I also “play” Pokemon Sleep every night. The best thing I watched was Beef. I listened to a lot of Caroline Polachek.

At a zine making workshop at Sour Cherry I got a 4x6 photo print of a cat that says, Wow! I'm looking forward to the future! That's the energy I'm approaching this new year with (I'm going to hang it in my office for my students). I am looking forward to adopting cats. My only resolution is to work less than 40 hours a week. Recapping how I did with last year's resolutions, I 1) did not really exercise more consistently, but I did run more consistently, and did a 5K with my dad on Thanksgiving! (Middle school me would never imagine.) 2) am unclear if I developed a more methodological way to conduct literature reviews, because my thesis related work was mainly copy/pasted from my old papers, and 3) did very much enjoy my last year in the bay. Here's hoping I can find community, nature, and food (rip China Lounge, I love you so much) as good in LA.

#noon's shitty end of the year summary posts

[valentiyne]

Midnight -Luke Hemmings part one

Full Book on Wattpad. - Prologue Here

Full Book on Quotev

4:34 pm - Anastasia Bynes

New York has a population of eight million people.

Eight million people packed into a small city that "never sleeps".

Eight million people and I have never felt more alone.

At the heart of a street which was seemingly overcrowded, there was a local library, a bodega, and a small dog park.

The apartment I was lucky enough to find was a small two-bedroom of a mere 900 square inches. It stood on the second floor right above the library, with steep stairs that made hauling heavy boxes up a nightmare. Nevertheless, my college roommate, Connie, her Calico cat Lilo, and I managed to stuff 22 years of stuff inside.

Another door across the way was taped off with "do not enter" signs and littered with dust. Miss Janice, the librarian, told me not to worry about. It was just an extra storage room for the "dangerous stuff".

Packing up my whole life and moving to a new state was a scary feeling, even scarier when it's an overpriced, overcrowded city. Regardless of my dreams for nursing school, New York was overhyped and expensive. I settled on going because Connie had always dreamed of living in the Big City and becoming a photographer, so sticking close to a friend after we both graduated college boosted my motivation to go out and get out of my comfort zone.

Perhaps it was stupid of me to chase after my friend in hopes of landing a career, but there wasn't much to do after we got our degrees. I have a dream to find, though I know it wasn't something I could find in Oregon. And hey, bigger is better, right? I've heard there's always opportunity in the Big Apple.

Besides, I was tired of living in the same small town of Dallas, Oregon my entire life, being so far away from grocery stores- let alone a damn gas station. I had always been drawn to the excitement and energy of a bustling metropolis like New York City. When I found out that I had been accepted to a hospital in the city for my nursing residency, I was thrilled.

But I was beyond terrified.

I could still see my mother's face when I told her that I was leaving.

"Anastasia Eve Bynes", she scolded with her hands placed on her hips, her eyes narrowed at my meek presence.

"Mom, I need to go out and do something with my life", I sighed loudly, rubbing my eyes with the back of my hands before I continued tossing my childhood into boxes.

"But why New York? There's nothing for you there." Her expression was almost envious. Her lips were parted slightly and if I looked close enough, I might catch a new wrinkle forming on her forehead.

My mother was a nurse at the hospital two hours into town, making a name for herself and building up her life as soon as she turned 22.

"Mom, There are jobs out there for-"

"Anastasia, I won't have this conversation with you again. You have an entry-level job under my name at Banner, why would you pass that up for a city filled with trash and streets overrun by evil."

"It's not overrun by anything, Mom. You're being dramatic."

"There are some evil people there, Ana, I hope you take that into consideration."

Ignoring the numerous empty boxes that I'd been pushing into the hallway, I made my way to the tiny hallway bathroom. There, I turned the sink on and splashed my face with the icy water, attempting to calm myself down.

As I pat my face dry with a towel, I examined myself in the mirror. Dark circles spun around my eyes and I felt exhausted every time I blinked. I placed my fingertips under my eyes and pressed down softly, hoping it was just old mascara.

Weird, this mascara feels like eye bags.

I could still hear my mother from three thousand miles away, telling me that I looked just as beautiful as always, but I knew she was only saying that to make me feel better. She was always the optimist in the family, while my father and I were more realistic. I closed my eyes and clenched my hands in a tight fist, trying to regulate my breathing. My knuckles turned a pale white tone and my jaw felt sore. As my head spun in a whirl, I slumped against the counter. Resting my head on my knees, I closed my eyes tightly and got trapped in my own head.

I heard Connie, after navigating the jungle of our hallway, knock on the door a few times with a hum, "Annie?"

I stood up quickly, attempting to collect myself before swinging the door open with a plastered smile. "Yeah? Whatsup?"

Connie quirks an eyebrow at me, scanning her eyes along my figure before crossing her arms.

"You look like shit; go get some air."

I opened my mouth to respond to the half-insult she just shot at me, but this time, I didn't know what to say. Usually, we'd banter back and forth for so long, but I found myself headed towards our front door and standing with my back to it, looking left and right down the hallway.

The valuables door was tempting, I had to admit, but the librarian was offering Connie and I a crazy generous offer by letting us stay here as cheap as we are. I could tell the valuables door did see some foot traffic with dirt and pebbles spilling from the door mat, but the window looking into the room was concealed by those crappy tan blinds the Miss Janice installed and there was no decor, no personality, no life visible from the outside. It took every ounce in me not to try for the handle.

What kind of valuables would a library keep on the floor no one ever comes?

I could go left down the hall to the exit stairs and explore the city a little, choosing to crowd myself on the narrow sidewalks. I could go right to the rooftop access and explore the view from this old building a little.

In Oregon, I used to love watching the stars out my window when I couldn't sleep. While I can't do that here, it would be nice if I could see something besides the skyscrapers that constantly loom over me as I walk around the city.

I wasn't quite sure if I was allowed up to the rooftop, but it didn't hurt to try. The stairwell was narrow and dark, but I managed to navigate the corridor and open the rooftop access. When I finally emerged into the city air, I felt a newfound surge of excitement. The city skyline stretched out before me, glittering far off into the sunset.

The sight made me feel both small and powerful at the same time.

However, it was getting dark out. Connie and I had spent all day moving in and unpacking. We still had plenty to unbox and move around, though we'll likely be doing that for a good week or two until we learn what works best for us. What works best for this roof, though? Some lights. The roof was tar and probably would get dangerous at night if not illuminated properly. A few small lights to line the short parapet wall so hopefully I wouldn't immediately fall victim to the sidewalk on a restless night.

I take in the image of it. Yeah, that'd work fine enough. They didn't have to be that bright either, something that wouldn't disturb the buildings across would be perfect--and who doesn't sell cheap lights nowadays?

Apparently, many general stores don't. Despite the bodega being filled with cheap products, they offered food, clothes, gifts and other tourist traps, and once I found a store that sold lights, my second problem was the length. I didn't take any measurements beforehand. I'd have my father eyeball it, but, he can't pull out his dad magic for me, not when I ran thousands of miles away.

So- I grabbed a few boxes and confirmed the store had a return policy, and toeing the rooftop access door shut behind me, I dropped the bag with a thud and patted my hands on my jeans.

Well, that wasn't a good idea. If I just broke something I'm going to go mad. You'd think after unpacking all day, the last thing I'd want to do is decorate something that wasn't even my own, but I took the lights out of the bag and began unravelling them.

Just as I was crouching down to plug the end of the light strips into the crusty outlet, I heard the sound of the access door opening, and for some odd reason- I froze, like I was caught doing something explicitly forbidden in my lease agreement. The voice behind me was loud enough to scare off any living thing within a ten-mile radius of us.

"What the fuck are you doing up here?"

#5 seconds of summer #5sos fanfic #luke hemmings #5sos #ashton 5sos #calum 5sos #calum hood #luke hemmings x reader #michael clifford #calum hood fanfic #luke hemmings x y/n #luke x reader #luke hemming imagines #luke 5sos #boxer!luke #boxer!5sos #ashton irwin x y/n #ashton irwin x reader #ashton 5 seconds of summer #ashton irwin fic #ashton irwin #calum hood x reader #calum 5 seconds of summer #calum hood smut #calum imagine #calum hood imagine #michael clifford imagine #calum hood 5sos #5sos fic #calum hood fluff