#then id still support them and my likes would be clearer

[charliechaotic]

hii this is smth for me but i hope anyone would like- I have zero clue how to write batfam or gotham stuff, so please dear gods give me advice if possible <3 (my only reference is tumblr writing prompts, reaction videos, and the Dark Matter fic lmao- this is uh. basically the concept is my oc ending up in Gotham- So far thats all this is gonna be, but I hope you enjoy <:):

When Wren awakes, it is in pain. Agony agony agony agoNY AGONY AGONY-

It feels like he's drowning. Burning? Both? His memory feels so fuzzy. Where is he? ..What happened?

Everything goes dark again.

When Wren awakes again, he finds himself laying on a rooftop, staring up at the night sky- cast over with a deep pollution unfamiliar to him. It was a rare night in Relsia to not be able to see the stars.

He is quick to sit up, coughing up nothing but his own breath, tears welling in his eyes as he takes back in the memory of the feeling.

That color. So vivid in his mind, surrounding him- it matched that of his eyes, should he not have had the flakes of gold in them. It unsettles him to think about.

His body aches as he pushes himself up, hugging his well worn hoodie close- when had it gotten so torn up? It looked like he'd been in some big fight while wearing it, but he cant quite pull the memory up. He tries to keep himself steady, shortening his staff to use as a support. He has to work out where he is, despite the pain gnawing at him. Had he used his power too much? It felt like he'd been torn apart and pit together a million times.

He brushes his hair back with his hands, fixing his glasses on his face. "Id almost kill to see Merc right now."

He finds himself speaking aloud, discomforted by the silence around him. Maybe he could get himself to the Northeast end of the city and stop by. He had promised to stop by sometime soon. He made no promises he wouldn't be in incredible pain. If he could make it that far across the city, anyway. He manages to get himself to about two rooftops away from his starting point before the aching starts to bring him down. He needs to rest, unfortunately. Maybe he can find somewhere alright in the streets below- he can't seem to recognize the area. It looks worse than the worst part of Relsia he's seen in his life. He studies the streets below, trying to work out a normal way to climb down and get a look around- maybe he could sneak a ride on a bus or something. He's willing to risk getting attacked on one today. He sways ever slightly as he thinks, before a voice startles him out of it.

"Hey, buddy. Could you step away from the edge for me?"

He flinches at the sound, immediately turning his gaze to the voice, glaring with distrust at the source- making eye contact with a man around his height, but with a lot more muscle. He appears to be wearing a costume- some kind of 'super suit' probably. His outfit is mostly black, he exception being the streaks of blue- one being centered on his chest. If he were able to think any clearer, he'd say it looked like the way you add birds in the background of paintings in fourth grade. He'd find it a little amusing if he couldn't hear his heart pounding in his chest, still glaring.

The man raises his arms a bit, giving a reassuring smile.

"Hey, its okay. My name is Nightwing. Are you alright?"

Wren feels the mans gaze flick between his hair and eyes, taking a slight step back- further towards the ledge.

"Your name means nothing. I dont know who you are."

His voice comes out in a sharper tone than he intends, his words distorted in a way that almost sounds like a glitchy phone call, on top of the buzz of a voice modulator. He seems a bit surprised by his own voice, a hand reaching up to his throat out of confusion.

uhhhh thats the end lmao- i genuinely Just wrote this so uhm. hope someone sees it? and enjoys? <:) you can probably see some obvious inspiration from Dark Matter, which I completely accept drbrh- I really liked the concept! though how Wren got in the pit water is VERY different heheh

#wren sonnet #dcu #batfam #nightwing #dick grayson #oc in dc #relsia to gotham au #maybe ill call it: #fallen stars and rising dust #oc writing #dc writing #dark matter au #dark matter inspired #asking for advice #please gods help me this sounds really fun but I have no clue what im doing

[princess-of-purple-prose]

Hi there! Please take a look at accessiblepublishing dot ca's guide to image description. There's a few mistakes in your transcribing and since you're sharing templates for other people to copy and paste, these mistakes are just going to multiply. A couple in particular I've noticed are: overly lengthy/confusing descriptors, paragraph breaks, restating plain text (screen readers already read plain text), restating audio, using styles in post, and using personal opinion in descriptors. It's great that you want to help make things more accessible, but please work to standardize your descriptors if you're going to be instructing others.

Hi, anon!! I really appreciate the feedback!! First, I actually have been dragging my feet for ages on fixing our earliest descriptions on the meme templates doc, so I will take this as my push to pare some of them down and make them clearer! I'll do my best to respond to everything here, going under the assumption that you mostly mean the descriptions I post on Tumblr rather than the ones on the doc:

Overly lengthy descriptors: I'm always working on this! I imagine my biggest offense on this is for comic IDs, but I generally intend for those to convey some manner of the style and flow of the art. I would actually appreciate being sent feedback on specific offenders if you want to show me where I've gone wrong!

Paragraph breaks: I write IDs as intended for plain text rather than alt, generally, but alt on Tumblr supports line breaks anyway. (The meme doc was also aimed for plain text, given the "ID: / End ID" formatting.) As I have seen a few sources saying paragraph breaks aid readability and I (a sighted person) definitely can't read long blocks of text, and I don't think I'm going to stop using paragraph breaks. I'm genuinely sorry if this is an inconvenience, but it is always okay to take my IDs and edit them as necessary if they don't measure up! (Also, I swear to god I don't say this to be petty, I'm trying to cover my bases because I haven't seen paragraph breaks being advised against in descriptions before: the accessiblepublishing guide also uses paragraph breaks in its examples for alt text? Do you have reasoning or other sources to explain why paragraph breaks are bad?)

Plain text: I take cues from posts like this one on plain text! Tl;dr, plain text is still important for low vision users who may not use screenreaders, and screenreaders also can struggle with special fonts or gradient text, so it's worth adding transcripts

Restating audio: I'm... not sure what this means? Are you talking about audio transcriptions? I will take advice on those if given, sorry I didn't catch your meaning!

Styles: I try very hard to use fully plain text except bold fonts for IDs, with the very occasional phrase in caps lock or italics, and wasn't aware I was overusing formatting otherwise? The people's accessibility server once advised my friend and me on doing a series of long comic descriptions and generally stated that bold was the most readable kind of special formatting, so that's what I go for. I'll keep an eye on it!

Personal opinions: I'll keep an eye on this as well, thanks for letting me know! (I'd thought I was doing a good job, do you have examples for me to look over?)

Sorry this was so long, I wanted to be thorough! Thanks again anon, I am always open to feedback on my descriptions!! Have a great day!!!

#HI SORRY AGAIN THIS IS LONG I HAVE DOESN'T-KNOW-HOW-TO-SHUT-UP DISEASE #i hope this covers it!!! i really don't want to do poorly with my ids and i will def take your advice into consideration!!!! #asks #anonymous

[clutterclownstories]

eddie munson x ftm reader BUT it’s a coming out love story eddie doesn’t know his bf is ftm

- 🕸

-A forest bird never wants a cage-

Word count: 0.6k

Edited?: Nope! I wanted to get this one out fast.

Genre: Mainly fluff

Pairing: Eddie X ftm reader

Prompt: Eddie and M/n are going on a walk to a pond to hangout, and M/n decided that he wanted to come out to his boyfriend.

Notes: This was poorly made, but I was about to go on vacation and wanted to get this out ASAP so it wouldn’t just sit there.

Eddie laughed, bringing his hand up to ruffle M/n’s hair, “dude, there's nothing to worry about; if anyone sees us, we’ll just hightail it out of here.” They were walking through some private property; it was supposed to have a pond, well, according to some random kids at school. “What if they call the cops?” M/n retorted, thinking of everything that could go wrong. His pace started to slow till he came to a stop. “I don’t believe this is a good id-“ “Listen, M/n, if I feel like anythin is going to happen, we’ll leave. Honestly, this whole place looks abandoned, so I think we’re in the clear”, Eddie had turned around to face M/n at that point. He had a slight smirk plastered on his face. “Plus, it’s not hard to give you a scare. You’re a chicken, ya’ know?” “I am not!” M/n was quick to respond, but Eddie had already started to chuckle and move up closer to M/n. “You and me both know you’re afraid of literally anything. It’s almost like I gotta hold your hand whenever we go anywhere like this.” He turned around and motioned for M/n to come closer to him so they could keep walking.

The rest of the walk was mostly a comfortable silence. The crunching of leaves under their shoes, the wind blowing through the towering trees that were starting to go bare even though it was still a comfortable warmth, and the twinkling stars above that gave enough light to make sure they wouldn’t run into anything. The area around them smelt of pine and open fresh air, which would soon be replaced with a smell some would describe as a skunk. After a few more minutes of walking, they could both see a clearing that seemed to open up to a small pond. The moon and stars reflected off it from this angle, almost making it look like a mirror. “Well, it seems like they weren’t lying about a pond being here.” M/n offered a simple yeah in response as he started to walk ahead of Eddie towards the pond.

“This thing is clearer than I thought it’d be; it looks like we could swim if we wanted to.” M/n gave a slight shrug, watching Eddie get closer and closer to where he was. “We didn’t bring anything to really go swimming in, but maybe another time,” Eddie responded, setting down his bag and then setting himself down beside his bag. M/n came back towards him and sat down beside Eddie. Anxiety was building in M/n like a volcano threatening to burst. He hadn’t told Eddie that he was FtM, but if he wanted to continue this relationship, he felt like he needed to tell him (don’t follow this advice, kids!) “Listen… Eds,” M/n started, looking away with a shudder, “I really hope this doesn’t affect our relationship; I really really like you, okay? But uhm, well, I’m uh, I was kind of like… born a girl? I mean, I’m not a girl now; I just… uhm.. have a different body from someone born a guy..?” It was quiet for what felt like an eternity. M/n turned to look at Eddie to see his reaction, but before he could, Eddie wrapped his arms around his boyfriend. “Something like that would never ruin our relationship, okay? Thank you for telling me M/n; I’ll always support and love you, ya’ know?” M/n released a breath he hadn’t known he was holding. “I love you, Eddie.” It came as a near whisper, but it was enough. “I love you too, M/n.”

I’m definitely not proud of this one, but YIIIIPPPPE a new Eddie story on my new Fic Blog!

Anywho! Requests are still open!

BYEE BYE!

#eddie munson #eddie my beloved #eddie x male reader #x male reader #gay #gay pride #ftm pride #trans pride #FtM #reqs open

[hm-chan]

Week 8 reflection

What?

This week is also a prototyping week for me to work on. Since I finished my coaster paper prototype, I started work on the interactive website using Figma. I listed what function pages have to include.

Sign-in page

Home page

Forum page

User page

Q&A page

Background page

Interactive section

About me page

Reading/video page

The interactive section is the most challenging part to build up because I have to draw many graphics and let users experience and interact with the website. My mood board inspires the website style, a simple pattern with a shape of solid colour. Although this is what style I have thought for the coaster rather than the website after the conversation with the technical support in the fab lab. If I want to add colour to the coaster, I must draw the colour by myself, and I don’t feel confident enough to do such stuff. Also, the material I chose for the coasters looks better with no colour added so I will pick another design. 

I’m using the Kiwi bird design, like the coaster design for the website icon. The icon colour is now black, but I’m still trying other colours for the best-looking options. The black colour hasn't active my desired results. I have done the first design for the Sign-in page, Forum page, Q&A page, background page, reading/video page and kind of about me page. I’m rejoicing that I have made some progress this week, and I hope to finish the first design of the user page and the interactive selection by next week. I designed to combine the video and reading on one page, but during the making process, I realised this decision would make too much content on one page, so I needed extra time to solve this issue. The new design is both of them have their page. 

I named the website KiwiNibble. This name combines the idea of eating habits with the Kiwi bird's association, suggesting a cute and playful connection to both food and the bird. Should I make another logo of the KiwiNibble or only use the Kiwi bird design? I will see if I have extra time to work on it first. Finishing the website first is what I’m going to focus on next week. I still have to change the text style or the colour in the future because they still can look better.

So what?

This week's work made me realise I hadn’t thoroughly thought through my project and had enough time to learn the whole idea. I didn't know enough about all the design details in the Inspiration and Ideation phases, so the prototyping time was slower than expected. If I had a clearer idea of what I wanted to achieve a few weeks before, I could have saved time and used it to design another logo instead of agonising over what to do or not to do.

In addition, various obstacles keep appearing in the process: too much content is concentrated on one page, the lack of technology makes it impossible to achieve the initial required effect, and the original design does not give good results. It makes me less passionate and more agitated. I repeatedly asked myself if this was really what I wanted to achieve.

Overall, my lack of consideration seriously affected my planning and implementation. 

Now what?

I need to make a list of things I need to think about for the whole project so that I don't have to spend extra time thinking about it again because something is missing or I haven’t thought about it. In addition, I will list the problems I am likely to encounter and consider ways to deal with them in advance. Early risk assessment allows me to be better prepared for possible problems and avoid being too anxious.

Reference:

Gloria.Chan. (2023). DES 301. https://www.figma.com/file/8rZQILNUwspy1Nts5nNaYF/DES-301?type=design&node-id=0%3A1&mode=design&t=98rn8AGvNHFV7dx0-1

#design302(uoa) #23/09/2023

[thoughts-on-bangtan]

BTS at the SDG UN General Assembly (210920)

by Admin 1

Six days, as well as one flight from Seoul to New York City, after receiving their diplomatic passports, the day of BTS’ third UN appearance finally came. The SDG UN General Assembly AM session began with several speakers, one of them South Korea’s President Moon who first gave his own speech before introducing BTS by saying: “joining us today are an exceptionally outstanding group of young men who are connecting with youth across the world (...). BTS the first ever Special Envoy from the private sector (...) probably the artist that is most loved by people around the world.”

Like I said in my post about their visit to the Blue House, I was impossibly proud watching them walk onto that stage at the UN HQ bringing along two posters, one of which had pictures sent in by ARMY, and give their speech in Korean instead of English. Unlike the first time back in 2018 when only Namjoon had spoken, this time all the members took turns to lay out a meaningful speech which you can either watch in the video below (English subs, as well as in many other languages, are provided) or read it a little further below.

In the videos of the members sitting on the side waiting for their turn you could see each of them taking deep breaths and practicing their part of the speech a few more times wanting make sure they could deliver it to the best of their abilities on a stage as unique as this one. Their nervousness was clearly visible at various degrees underlining only so much more how historic this moment really was, for them, for the current and future generations, but also for their country.

Over the years, and especially since Namjoon’s first UN speech, ARMY made a million edits about President Kim Namjoon and today we saw a visual that turned edits into real life, even if “only” as UN speaker instead of president. If you ask me, he’ll always be my president. I’m sure JK would agree with me.

Speaking of which, it’s a beautiful coincidence that during his first speech at the UN (aside from the online version last year) JK is the same age as Namjoon was in 2018 during his first UN speech.

Before they began, it was so interesting to see Namjoon take a moment to look at his members, see if everyone is ready, and only once he was sure that they were, he began. Very leader like of him.

Though I don’t have a picture/gif of it, something that I thought was very meaningful and therefore important to mention was a moment during one of Jimin’s parts where his nervousness got to him. Instead of panicking, he simply took a moment, lowered his microphone, took a deep breath, collected himself, and then continued on with what he was supposed to say. It was a very human moment, one that showcases that it is okay to be overwhelmed, to take a small break, just a few seconds, before continuing, that it’s not embarrassing or a sign of weakness, but rather a sign of strength to calmly overcome the moment and continue on, brave and confident.

Another thing worth mentioning was how during their speech the different world leaders sitting in the audience, including President Moon, took out their phones to take pictures or videos of the members, how after they were done and left the stage and made their way out of the Hall, many of them gave them thumbs up as they passed, some even greeting them with a safe elbow bump, a show of respect and admiration. After all it takes tremendous courage to deliver a speech like this in a place such as this one.

The grand finale of their appearance, of course, was the pre-recorded performance of Permission to Dance filmed inside the Hall, the entrance area of the HQ, as well as the space in front of the building and a park next to it. It was shown on the two monitors inside the Hall as well for the attending world leaders to see as well.

We’ve seen so many iconic stages, especially since Dynamite Era last year, but I never thought we’d get to see them perform at the UN HQ, literally. In my early ARMY days, I never expected that our journey would take us here, and yet, as I think about it now, it completely makes sense that it did. Bangtan were always destined for greatness. It’s now clearer than ever before.

I do love how even at a performance as meaningful as this one, Jimin and Tae still found a way to have two tiny moments, the one in the gif below but also one that came just before it (though I couldn’t find or make a gif of it myself, sorry) where they seemed to giggle/smile at each other while Tae showed Jimin a jump he wanted, and also ended up doing afterward, for the camera. 

Though they didn’t interact in the Permission to Dance performance, my little Namjin heart was so happy to see Namjoon and Seokjin side by side throughout the appearance, which I’m aware was in large dictated by their usual lineup (though it was adjusted so Namjoon was in the center with three members to either side from him) but it still reminded me of Namjoon’s request to Seokjin four years ago, as in that he please be by his side at events like this because it makes him calmer.

Much the way it was back in 2018, this time we also got some selcas from Seokjin, Yoongi and Hobi showing off their UN IDs as well as their UN x SK masks which were also worn by the President and First Lady (and likely also their staff). One thing that caught my eye though were their pins which, upon first glance, seemed like the same ones everyone else had, but when you looked closer it turns out that our boys had to be a bit extra. Out with the plain ones, in with the bedazzled versions that, because of the gems, remind me of their mics as well.

Koreas pride with pins that sparkle just as beautifully as they do.

All in all this was a historical moment, something I’m impossibly grateful I got to witness live. My ARMY pride and ego is through the roof today and will remain as such for a long time going forward. The members have come a long way and have grown and matured into stunning young men with bright minds and intelligent words. As much as it was an honor for them to be there, it is an honor for us to be their fans, to support them, and I cannot wait to see where we’ll go from here but one thing is for sure, Hobi certainly was right, liking BTS certainly was the best decision ever.

#BTS #BTS UNGA #Namjoon #Seokjin #Yoongi #Hoseok #Jimin #Taehyung #Jungkook #bts united nations #Vmin #namjin

[wizkiddx]

worst case scenario part 3

umm so, never ever intended it to be this long but here we are. again this is v dark so please please read the warning!! also [and obvs] this is very medically inaccurate and just a work of my head aha

[part 1] [part 2]

warning: mentions of death / hospital / mentions of childhood abandonment too- please don't read if this could affect you <3

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His heart was thundering in his chest, so much so it drowned out all other sounds making all the doctors words fade into the background. Conciously, he really was trying to listen to what the doctor was saying; consciously he knew she was trying to prepare him to see Y/n; consciously he knew she knew he wasn’t okay. But really? It didn’t matter, and as they drew closer to his fiancé Tom felt an urgent sense of relief purely know she was there. She was there and she wasn’t dead…yet. 

Only two people were allowed to go up, just because the nature of the ward - everything was meticulously controlled, including the comings and goings of visitors. If you’ve never been in an ICU it’s a pretty hard environment to describe. Really, it’s just another hospital ward, with capacity of about 20 beds. Each bed has much more equipment surrounding that the average and a nurse is stationed per patient, monitoring every possible variable that the machienes are measuring, so any trend (either positive or negative) can be identified at the earliest point. Though in everyones head, it seems as though ICU is a common place ending up for some unfortunate sod when something bad happens, it’s actually really rare for someone to be so ill and dependant on medicine to maintain normal body functioning. Only the most severe trauma, infection of the most dangerous microorganism, surgery of such high stakes normally make an appearance on the ward. And ,on average, between 8-20% patients that are admitted to an ICU never make it out. 

And those grim figures were unignorable to anyone. As soon as you walk through the doors, the atmosphere is intense and ineffable. It’s not spoken, but is so incredibly morbid it makes anyone shiver. 

Dom felt this, squeezing his sons shoulder as he followed Tom and the doctor, just a pace or so behind them. Having offered to go with Tom, whilst Harrison took Nikki to see the baby, Dom was now feeling just as clueless as his son did. Except he was actually listening to what the doctor was trying to warn them about and it scared him. The three, made it to the door and with a swipe of her ID card the doctor admitted the Holland men in. Gratefully, none of the staff took any notice of who was walking in, they were much too busy for that - Dom was incredibly relieved, had someone recognised Tom when he was in this state, god knows what would’ve happened.

The doctors pace was with purpose, perhaps so that the two couldn’t spend too long ogling the other patients in the beds - who all looked almost unhuman with the amount of tubes and wires coming out and into them. But then, she slowed up, halting infront of a bay about 5 or 6 down the ward. Spinning on her heel and with a subtle nod to momentarily release the nurse from her post at Y/n’s bedside, to give them a bit of privacy, she looked at the two men. 

“You can touch her, just be gentle with the wires.”

Shellshocked and terrified, Tom was frozen those 2 metres away from the bed barely able to see her face over all the equipment. Yet undoubtedly, it was his finance’s delicate visage lying on the white pillow, with a thick white mouthpiece and tube covering her mouth and stuffed into her nose. Not able to move, both Dom and Dr Goodwell sensitively waited - it was an adjustment to say the least, seeing someone you knew so well look so different. With quiet tears starting to roll down his eyes, Tom eventually started to inch toward the bedside, taking his time to try and absorb everything of this frankly ridiculous situation. He couldn’t get over how, even considering it all, above her nose it just looked like Y/n. Like she was asleep in their bed, eyes closed as if she had once again  fallen asleep infront of a random Netflix movie Tom had bugged her enough to watch in bed. And it was, ever so slightly comforting. That was still her, that was still the love of his life lying there. And she was still alive - which given the last few hours, was enough. 

Reaching the bedside, Tom naturally reached out and stroked the top of her head delicately, pulling into place a few rogue strands that seemed to have a mind of their own - she had always hated when her hair got frizzy. The picture had Tom’s mind casting back to their first holiday, a serene if quick few days in Fiji-  though Y/n didnt know this , that holiday had been one of the most important times in their relationship for Tom. Until then, given the nature of his job, the couple had only ever managed brief periods together. They spent time together as and when they could in between Tom’s busy schedule but it was never as long as they’d like. Somehow though, he’d managed to squeeze a few days away to surprise Y/n with the trip. 

It was everything he’d ever hoped it would be and more. In fact it was then Tom was oh so sure he would be spending the rest of his life with her. This thought crossed his mind on the last morning, when he had for once woken up before Y/n - her head mere cms away from his on the pillow. Just like now, her hair had been all over the place and her sparkling green eyes locked shut. Contrastingly though, in Fiji the sight had made him smile softly; now it just made him cry again. 

“Would you like a minute alone Mr Holland? We will just wait outside?” Not even turning round to properly respond to the doctor, Tom just nodded violently, not taking his eyes off his fiancé - waiting till he heard his Dad and the doctor leave the bay; then the curtains be completely drawn to a close, before he shakily cleared his throat to whisper.

“Hey darling… you um-you’ve scared me shitless today… and… and I’m supposed to be the dramatic one in the relationship.” Chuckling wetly, Tom clasped his other hand in Y/n’s - still mindful of the IV port coming out of the top of her wrist. Not that he was expecting any sort of response, yet the lack of her squeezing his hand back still had his heart sink. “Look I…I love you so bloody much and I really need you to get better okay? You’ve never listened to me before but I really am begging you to now, I just.” Swallowing thickly, he shut his eyes momentarily and delicately rested his forehead on hers - his touch feather light. Just needing to feel her. “I just really need you and I really love you., okay?” 

Unsurprisingly he didn’t get a response. The rhetorical question hung in the air alone, safe the mechanical whir of the ventilator and various chimes of the machines and monitor, till his Dad came in. Grasping and squeezing his shoulder lightly, Dom provided the stimulus for his son to unfold from over the bed, standing upright, as both men just took in the sight of Y/n lying there for a minute or two. 

“I need her Dad. I-I-“

“I know Tom.” Speaking so quietly it was barely audible, Dom’s eventual agreement at what Tom was saying was in a way a relief. Haz and his mum had both either been saying or implying that they would be okay no matter what - which came from a good place but was so infuriating. Because god forbid, if this situation got worse Tom knew it wouldn’t be okay. Nothing would ever be okay again. So his Dad’s simple acknowledgment meant a lot, causing Tom to turn round and embrace his slightly shorter father. 

Dr Goodwell silently watched the exchange for a short while and once the men eventually pulled away she stepped forward to give some more information. She went through what all the biggest and scary looking tubes and wires were doing for Y/n, before explaining the next steps. 

“Now as I said before we are sedating her at the moment, while we wait and see if she gets any complications from the surgery that are better treated while she is asleep. By this afternoon we will have a clearer idea and by that point we may choose to withdraw that sedation. It’s important that you are aware though that she might not wakeup immediately. Sometimes some people that have suffered similarly to your fiancé will be unconscious for a while in what I’d presume you’ve heard of as a ‘coma’. Now it’s not as dramatic as you see on TV shows, it’s just Ms Y/l/n’s brain giving her body a chance to recover. It’s often a longer process, which I know is something you don’t want to hear, but I have to be honest.” The doctor was stern but in a softer and from-a-caring-place. “These patients are suggested to possibly recover quicker if they have a steady support network behind them, which it seems like she does. That means that you need to look after yourself so you can help her sir, especially in what could be a long process. It’s not going to be helpful for Yn if you’re killing yourself trying to be here all the time… It seems like Y/n already has quite a big group of you here for her, so please remember you’ve got all of her care team here and everyone else to help you too….Does that make sense sir?”

“Tom” His Dad, in a gentle but firm warning tone, urged Tom to speak and to listen. Properly listen. 

“Yeh… I-yeh It’s just all a lot right now.”

“Of course… and we promise that if anything changes with her condition, you will be phoned straight away. You are welcome to stay as long as you want - the only rules are two at a time, no flowers, sign in and out and then sanitise your hands pretty excessively. If you need anything, Ms Y/l/n’s nurse will be your first port of call.”

“Thanks for everything” Dom nodded in a gracious manner, which the doctor seemed to massively appreciate - apparently, for the job they do not receiving a hell of a lot of thanks. 

“I’ll pop back in a little bit.”

And for a couple of hours everything everything felt like a bit of an anticlimax, nothing happened, not a lot changed. Just Tom and Dom sat next to Y/n’s bed in silence; Harrison and Nikki downstairs with the baby, till Dom got a phone call from Nikki asking them to meet at the neonatal unit  - which was limited by visitor numbers unlike the ICU. Thinking it’d be simple, the elder man gained Tom’s attention with a call of his name, explaining they should go down to meet up. 

“I’m not going down there.”

“Son, I know you’re worried by Y/n isnt going anywhere right now. The doctors said they’d call you if anything happens.”

“It’s not-“ Tom stopped himself, biting his tongue and looking away from his Dad. “I just don’t want to go down there.” Slowly, Dom was more and more realising Tom’s thought process and honestly… it scared him. In the hopes this was just a big misunderstanding he offered a different option - hoping Tom would equally refuse that. Dom suggested going down to the cafe instead, which most unfortunately Tom agreed to. It wasn’t leaving Y/n that was the issue, it was being near the baby. 

Tom’s daughter. Unnamed and apparently abondoned by both parents. 

Anyhow, Dom resigned to playing into Tom’s choice, perhaps Nikki and Harrison would be able to swing him round, to see sense. It still took Tom getting the nurse to triple check they had his correct number on record , just in case, before Dom could tear him away from the bed. Fortunately the pair found a quiet and secluded corner table, where Tom was still yet to be recognised, while Nikki and Haz found them too. 

What followed was Tom answering all his mum and Harrison’s questions about Y/n’s condition, in a blunt and emotionless manner - without Tom returning fire by asking any questions at all about his beautiful little baby girl. Eventually Nikki braved it, someone had to bring it up. 

“Well it sounds like littles going to change for a while… maybe you should head home for a bit? You’ve been up half the night and you look shattered love. You don’t have to go back to yours… you could stay in your old room for a bit?” Tom being by himself at the moment sounded like the most incredibly stupid idea ever, Nikki was offering it as a choice - when in reality there was only one option.

“Maybe later this evening I will? Just don’t want to leave her alone yet.”

“It’s already 7 love, you’ve not eaten all day, you got to look after yourself too.” Harrison and Dom sat awkwardly while Nikki tried to delicately encourage Tom into what was the only sensible plan, watching him nurse the small hot choclate in both his palms. Time really had lost all meaning at this point, for him it felt both years since he’d first arrived with Y/n and at the same time barely 10 minutes ago. It felt weird. 

“We can take shifts? If-if you want someone with her I mean… I don’t mind staying for a bit longer if it means you head back to your parents.” Harrison really truly didnt mind, in fact he sort of wanted to. He wanted to see Y/n’s face definitely alive, wanted to feel reassured by the monitors. Shockingly, Tom slowly nodded his head, surprising everyone with his lack of argument. None of them could work out whether it was a good thing him not putting up much arguement ; either he was heeding everyones advice of taking care of himself - or he had just given up. Harrison, as much as he didn’t want to, was favouring the latter. 

“Okay” Nikki declared optimistically “So maybe you and Harrison go up so you can say good night to Y/n, then we can all go and pick up the baby?” She opened the plan to the floor, allowing for input but got nothing - except maybe Tom’s jaw unconsciously tensing uncomfortable at the latter part of her statement. Dom noticed. 

Not one noticed but knew what it meant. His son blamed his granddaughter. His son, right now in that moment, hated the unnamed and totally helpless baby girl. 

part 4?

#tom holland #tom holland x reader #dad!tom #tomholland #tom holland angst

[comphersjost]

All for You | 4 ➸  Brady Tkachuk and Matthew Tkachuk

thank you all so fucking much for all of your kind words and support and love. i though about making an epilogue type of part to tie up loose ends, if that’s what you guys want. let me know?

A week after Matthew walked out on you at the arena, his teammates show up at your door, dragging their wreck of a teammate to the only one he wants - but refuses - to see: you. 

word count: 3.5k+

warnings: alcohol, using alcohol to cope, mentions of sex, quite a bit of angst

part one

part two

part three

part four

part five

masterlist

The moment the vibrating starts on your bedside table you know that something’s wrong. The Caller ID reads Noah Hanifin. You should have deleted his number really. Especially after the trainwreck of a game last week. But you couldn't bring yourself to do it, needing some sort of lifeline to Matt. 

You watch as your phone stops ringing, revealing the notification for 4 missed calls from Noah and the time: 2:04 am. The screen lights up with a photo of him again, and this time you pick up. 

“Hello?” you answer groggily, sitting up to turn on the lamp as you rub the sleep out of your eyes. 

“Open the door.”

“What?” Your head feels heavy from being woken up in the dead of night. “Noah what are you-” 

“Is that Y/N?” you hear through the chaos in the background, and your sleep addled brain faintly registering that the words came from Elias. 

“Y/N!” you hear another voice exclaim, and suddenly you're wide awake. “Hi, Y/N, Hanny, dude, tell her she's the most beautiful girl in the world - Hanny listen to me - and her Instagram post was so cute - hey, Hanny!” 

You hear more shuffling over the line, and a sharp “Shut up Chucky!” from Noah. Suddenly there’s silence, and Noah’s voice comes out clearer than before. 

“Hey,” he says, “We’re bringing Matty up in the elevator, please open the door.” 

“Why?” you ask, “He made himself pretty damn clear at the game that he didn't want to see me so -” 

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Noah interrupts, voice seeping with frustration. “He won't let us take him anywhere but here, okay? He saw you post that photo today and got all sad and mopey when he left practice and then Lindy and I found him like this. He’s been drinking since like 6 o’clock and we barely managed to cut him off like an hour ago and he's a fucking wreck so, please, Y/N, just open the door.” 

Maybe that lifeline was a good idea after all.

Cursing under your breath, you reluctantly get out of bed, turning on the lights as you make your way through your apartment. Just as you're swinging the door open, Matt is stumbling out of the elevator, each of his arms thrown around Noah and Elias. 

Matt’s eyes light up when he sees you, attempting to escape the grasp of his teammates to rush towards you. “Woah!” Noah says, grasping Matthew’s arm so he doesn't go anywhere. “Dude, relax, you can barely walk.” 

You see Matt pout as they get closer, and for some reason the sight makes you tear up. There's something about the way he looks right now, helpless and wide-eyed, being carried by his teammates like a child, that makes your heart ache. When they finally reach your door you try to hide your grimace at the smell of liquor on his breath. 

“Hi pretty girl,” Matt slurs with a grin, his head lolling to the side. “Did we wake you up?” 

“Yeah,” you say softly, stepping aside to let Noah and Elias practically drag him inside. “That's okay though.” 

Matt mumbles something unintelligible as his teammates deposit him on the couch. Noah turns to you when he’s sure Matt won't fall over. 

“I'm sorry-” he starts but you put your hand up to stop him. 

“It’s okay, Noah,” you reassure him, eyes flickering to the curly-haired boy on your couch. “Is he…?” 

“No,” Elias pipes up from beside Matt. “He's the furthest thing from okay, Y/N.” You flinch at his harsh tone, even though you knew he was right. This was your fault. Elias’s expression softens when Noah shoots him a reprimanding glare. “I'm sorry,” he steps towards you, “I didn't mean to-” 

“You're right,” you say abruptly, gaze focusing on Matt’s face. His eyes are closed but he's not sleeping, that lopsided grin still on his face. “You're right, Elias. Thank you for bringing him here.” 

Noah opens his mouth to say something but is interrupted by a complaint from the couch. 

“Why are you guys still here?” Matt whines, “I wanna hang out with my girl.” Noah and Elias both glance at you sideways at the last words, but you just sigh. 

“You guys can go,” you say softly, “I can take care of him, I got this.” 

The two men hesitate for a moment, glancing at each other and seemingly having a silent conversation. They seem to come to an agreement as Elias claps Matty on the back and stands from the couch. You follow the two of them to the door, leaning on it as the two turn to you. 

“Guys,” you say, stopping them as they turned to leave. You pause, unsure if you should even ask but- “What did Brady say on the ice?” 

Elias inhales sharply, looking at Noah as he attempts to mask the reluctance in his eyes. 

“Please,” you whisper. 

Noah looks at Elias for a split second before he sighs and his shoulders slump. “He said-” Elias cuts him off before he can finish. 

“He said that if Chucky wasn't such a wimp that was afraid of his feelings he could’ve been the one to get the girl.” 

You stop breathing. 

“That little shit,” you seethe, curling and uncurling your hands before you punch something. “He's such a fucking instigator I'm going to kill him.” 

“Why?” Noah asks, tilting his head in confusion. “I mean, Matty came at him for it but, he’s right isn't he?” 

“What?” your head snaps towards Noah, eyes wide in shock. “What are you talking about? Brady and I tested the waters and figured we’d be better as friends. He started a fight because he could.” 

“No way,” Elias says, “Chucky said-” 

“He would have known if he just listened to me!” Noah steps back at your exclamation, glancing to each side down the empty hallway. Your voice drops to a hoarse whisper, “He would have known if he stayed in the fucking trainer’s room and let me explain!” 

“You fucked his brother,” Noah reminds you. 

“I was in love with Brady, Noah!” you snapped, “That was the point of this whole thing - of everything! And then he told me he loved me out of nowhere!” 

Noah scoffs, though he doesn't miss your use of past tense. “It wasn't out of nowhere, Y/N, and you know it. He brought you to games. He brought you to team events. He bailed on us at least once or twice a week to hang out with you. Have you ever even seen him flirt with a girl since you've moved to Calgary?” 

“I didn't know what to do! I’m sorry!” 

“You don't have to apologize to us,” Elias reminds you, motioning behind you. “He needs you, he's been needing you and I don't - he can't keep doing this to himself. If he's not at practice or a game he's drunk off his ass and even then he can't stop fucking talking about you. God, Y/N, do something and fix this.” 

You nod, wrapping your arms around yourself. “I'll try,” you whisper. “Thank you for bringing him here.” 

The two bid you goodbye, leaving you alone with Matthew for the first time in months. 

“Hi Matty,” you say gently as you find your back to the living room. You brush your fingertips against his forehead, pushing his hair back. His eyes flutter open, adoration and sadness practically shining through his gaze. 

He reaches for you, making grabby hands until you sit beside him, maneuvering the two of you so that his head was in your lap. He hums contentedly as you run your fingers through his hair, scratching at his scalp lightly. 

“I saw your Instagram post,” he says quietly. “With you and the ice cream? I love that place, it reminded me of when I took you when you first moved to Calgary.” You can't help the smile that tugs at your lips as he rambles. “I cried when I saw it. I cry a lot lately.” Your chest aches. “I thought it would be easier by now. I thought it wouldn't hurt as much but -” he cuts himself off. Neither of you speak for a few minutes, sitting in silence as the thoughts whirl around your head. 

“Y/N/N?” The use of your nickname has you humming questioningly. He hadn't called you that in nearly a year. Whatever it is you thought he might say, nothing could have prepared you for the next words out of his mouth. 

“Why don't you love me?” He doesn't sound sad, but his tone tells you he's given up, and you can feel your heart shatter. You stay silent, unsure of whether or not he even wants you to answer. You know it was the right decision when he keeps talking. “Like, why him? Why not me? I love you, did you know that? You know that. I told you, right? You're so pretty Y/N/N, did you know? And you're funny. So funny. And my friends like you, my friends never liked girls I brought around before you moved to Calgary. I didn't like them either - isn't that weird? I don't know why I even bothered. It was always you. Even when we were kids.” 

You freeze your movements at that, holding your breath and waiting to see what he says next. 

“I mean, I didn't like, know that, yet,” he continues, words slurring slightly. “I always just thought that like, if you asked, I guess, I don't know. But it's always been you. But you kept picking him and I just wanna know why I wasn't enough for you, you know? Elias keeps telling me I’m being dumb and shouldn't be mean to myself or whatever but like, you're it for me, and I just want you to love me like you love him.”

“Matty…” you start, but you're interrupted by a squeaky hic from Matt. You stare at each other for a moment, before the two of you burst into giggles. 

“I have the hiccups,” Matty snickers, one hand coming up to grab yours. He intertwines your fingers together, squeezing as your laughter dies down. “God, I love you. You probably don't wanna hear that huh? Well, I missed you. So much.” 

“I missed you too Matty,” you lean down to whisper the words against his forehead, kissing the spot gently. “I wish you would've let me explain.” 

“Why?” He asks, scrunching his nose. “You love him don't you? I promised to help you and I-” his tone falters for the first time since he got to your place, and he pulls his hand away from yours. “I did what I promised and I thought - I thought maybe when you saw that I loved you like you wanted him to that maybe you'd realize. I thought maybe if I didn't tell you about Autumn you'd finally see that it was me that loved you this whole time. But then you just, you left when you found out and I - I’m sorry, Y/N. I should have never kept it from you. But it's always been him for you right?” 

“Not always,” you say quietly. “Not since last year.” 

Matt pulls away from you, staggering for a moment from dizziness as he stands up too quickly. 

“You can't say that!” he cries desperately, tugging at his hair. “You can't say that to me when you're - when Brady - you and him -” 

“Me and him, what, Matty?” you stand up as you ask, taking a step towards him and grabbing his collar to make him look at you. “Me and Brady, Matt, we’re not - I didn't mean for this to happen.”

“I know,” Matt murmurs, eyes flashing to your lips before he squeezes them shut. “I didn't mean for it to happen either.” 

“He's still my best friend.” Matthew’s eyes fly open at the statement. 

“Wha-what do you mean?” His voice is shaky and uncertain, but there's an unmistakable hint of hope. “Last week - at - at the game?” 

You open your mouth to reply, finally say what you've been meaning to for so long and - Matt sways where he stands, his hand flying to cover his mouth as he turns on his heel and runs. You follow him quickly into the bathroom as he falls to his knees in front of the toilet just in time to retch out the contents of his stomach. 

You rub his back gently, murmuring sweet things in his ear when his stomach has finally stopped heaving. He coughs a few times before slumping over to the side, head lolling back weakly. You clean him up as much as you can and flush, attempting to help him up. You struggle slightly as his 6’2 frame slumps against you. 

“Matty, you gotta help me out here,” you nudge him gently, “I can't carry you, bubs, c’mon, stand up okay?” 

He mumbles something about how tired he is, but still stands up as straight as he can. With Matt’s arm around your shoulders, you manage to get him to your bed, letting him slip out of your grasp as he collapses on your bed. You turn to leave the room but a soft groan from your bed stops you. 

“Please don't go,” Matt whines softly, grabbing your hand, eyes shut as he lies still over the sheets. “Please.” 

“I won't,” you brush his hair away from his forehead affectionately. “I just have to go turn off the lights and get you some water okay?” He hums in acknowledgement and reluctantly drops your hand. You turn off all the lights in your apartment as quickly as you can, grabbing a water bottle from the kitchen and a bottle of ibuprofen before going back to your room. 

“See?” you said as you placed the water and pills down on the bedside table. “Not even two minutes.” Matty grumbles “Still too long” under his breath and you snort in amusement. You pull his arm so that he's sitting up on the bed, kneeling in front of him. His eyes flutter open, blurry for a moment before focusing on you. A dopey smile spreads on his face as he watches you take off his shoes and socks. 

“C’mon, arms up,” you instruct, rolling your eyes when he wiggles his eyebrows suggestively at you. “Matt, you have to go to bed, arms up.” He sighs and relents, letting you change him out of his clothes without any more suggestive looks. You manage to get him into a pair of sweats and t-shirt he’d left months ago. 

“Is this mine?” he asks tiredly, smiling softly when you nod. “Thanks for keeping it.” 

“I don't steal your clothes just for the fun of it you know, I actually wear them?” you tease, pushing his shoulder lightly. He lets himself fall backwards when you do that, sighing as he pulls the sheets over him. 

“You'll stay, right?” he whispers into the dark room after a moment. “Even if you kick me out in the morning, and Brady beats me up again, right now just, please don't leave me again.” 

“I’m right here, Matty,” you reassure him, scratching lightly at his scalp. “I promise I'm not going anywhere.” 

“Y/N/N?” 

“Matt, what part of you need to go to sleep don't you understand?” 

“I know lemme just -” he rolls over to his side to face you, resting his cheek against the palm of his hand. He stares at you for a few moments, blinking slowly to try and fight the exhaustion. “I'm sorry for fucking everything up.” Before you get a chance to respond, Matt is out cold. 

-

When your eyes flutter open a few hours later, Matt is still dead asleep. It's times like these you're thankful for your body being used to waking up semi-early. You figured while Matt sleeps his hangover away you could make him breakfast, and maybe actually have a long overdue talk. 

You're flipping the last piece of french toast when you feel eyes on you. You turn to see Matt standing awkwardly in the entrance to the kitchen. He seems hesitant, closed off, and you notice he’s wearing his clothes from the night before. 

“Hey, good morning,” you smile gently at him, “I was just making some -” 

“I should go.” The words are abrupt, and they feel more like a knife to the gut than a slap to the face. “I'm sorry about last night, it won't happen again.” 

With that he's turning towards the door but really - you've had enough. 

“Sit. The fuck. Down.” 

He spins around quickly, eyebrows furrowed into a deep frown. “I really shouldn't be he-” 

“No!” you shout angrily, ignoring Matt’s taken-aback expression. You transfer the last piece of french toast to the place and turn off the stove, taking a deep breath. “Do you remember anything about last night?” you ask quietly. 

“Not much, bits and pieces.” 

“Well you're not walking away from me again,” you hiss, pointing at the dining room table. It’s already set, the only thing missing being the plates of french toast and eggs in your hands. “Sit.” 

Surprisingly, Matt does, watching you carefully as you set the plates down and sit. 

“Why didn't you tell me about Autumn?” you ask slowly, watching as he tenses, sitting up straight. “Tell me the truth.” 

He's silent for a moment, opening and closing his mouth as he tries to get the words out. “I was sick of seeing him hurt you,” he finally admits. “I watched him hurt you for so long, Y/N, I held you while you cried and I - I never want to be the one to make you feel like that.” 

“It hurt more when Brady said you knew.” Matt grips the edge of the table so hard his knuckles turn white. “And then you said that you loved me and - we’d spent so long trying to get me to tell Brady how I felt that I didn't know what to do. I didn't know what else to do except walk away.” 

“I know,” he says quietly. “I'm sorry.” 

“I know,” you repeat. 

Matthew clears his throat, eyes focusing in his lap as he says his next words. “Living without you is the worst thing I’ve ever had to do in my entire life. And I know it’s my fault. It’s all my fault. And I’m sorry.” A tear slips down his cheek and you hesitate for a moment, before reaching out and brushing it away with your thumb. You tilt his head towards you, taking in the defeated expression on his face. He keeps talking. “I should have - I shouldn't have told him for you, I shouldn't have told you that I loved you and I - god, Y/N, I’m so fucking sorry for everything.” 

“You didn't let me explain last week either,” you remind him.

“I know,” he says, “He just - he said -”

“I know what he said,” you cut him off, “Matt, when you saw me and Brady in December-” 

“I really don't wanna hear about you and Brady’s-” 

“Shut up, Matt!” You know you're probably being too harsh on him, but you're so incredibly tired of feeling like there's something - someone - missing, and you need his stubborn ass to just listen to you. “Brady and I are not together.” Matt’s mouth drops open, before he frowns. You know what he's going to say and you speak before he can. 

“I didn't just fuck him just because Matt, we were - we were testing the waters, okay?” You pause for a moment to try and discern his reaction. When he says nothing, you take a deep breath and say what you've been meaning to for too long. “It didn't work, Matt. Brady is my best friend but, he's not it for me.” 

Matt’s eyes are wide, cheeks reddening with every passing second. He grabs a piece of toast and shoves half the thing in his mouth. He chews for a moment, swallows, and then clears his throat. 

“He's...not it for you?” You shake your head. 

“And…?” 

You laugh, reaching for his hand. “And you are, Matty. It just, it took me a little longer than it should have to figure it out.” 

Matt seems frozen in place, unsure of what his next move should be. Instead of speaking he wolfs down the rest of the toast. 

“So you mean to tell me,” he stands, pacing in front of you, “that Brady was fucking with me?” 

“Of course he was fucking with you,” you said exasperatedly. “It’s Brady. He's a dumbass though so he fucked with you over something that was causing you real pain. I - I was causing you real pain. And myself. And I’m sorry.” 

Matt freezes, turning on his heel to face you. 

“Say it,” he says, reaching a hand out to you.

A grin spreads across your face as you take it, letting him pull you up until you were standing chest to chest with him. He looks down at you with bright, hopefully blue eyes. He's already leaning down to meet your mouth with his when you say it. 

“I love you too, Matty.”

fin (sort of)

#thank you guys so fucking much #matthew tkachuk imagine #brady tkachuk imagine #all for you series #calgary flames #ottawa senators #nhl imagine #hockey imagine #smut #angst

[desiblr-dad]

Thank you for your advice dad! Unfortunately my mom really doesn't get it (fatphobia😒). I hope everything is alright since you had been inactive for a while. I needed a bit of advice. I got 28.5/40 in science and I just feel bad and I identify as genderfluid (might be transmasc tho) and I am going thru a really rough time. I worked really hard for the exam. The teachers didn't even send us the answer sheets so we could see what was wrong! The gender dysphoria is worse (rakhi id coming). Help!😭

Beta ji, life must feel so messed up right now, yeah? But remember all this mess is temporary. I don't mean life would be perfect in a few years, it would still be messy but I hope you would be in a clearer headspace by then. For now, you have all my support beta and you can always ask for advice.

First of all, a lot of parents, and people in general, are fatphobic. But this doesn't mean there's anything wrong with you, okay. I'm glad that you at least confronted your mother and told her about how her remarks were hurting you. If she doesn't understand, that's very unfortunate and I wish she starts to understand slowly. Just try to ignore the comments. Also, this might not help much, but movies like dum laga ke haisha, or shaandar and I'm sure many others that are better than these portray fatphobia and promote body positivity so maybe you could watch them with your mother?

Secondly beta, I'm sure every student has gone through the experience of studying hard and not scoring enough at least once. So, we all understand how you feel. My advice is to not dwell on the low grades for long and focus more on finding out which areas or concepts need polishing and practice them. You can also focus yourself on studying and working hard for better grades to distract yourself from other issues in your life that you do not need to worry about. Or at least the ones that won't sort themselves out simply by worrying and feeling sad about. Channel your emotions towards working hard. Kill two birds with one stone!

Thirdly, you can explore and discover your sexuality and gender identity and don't worry you'll find it out.

I support you through this tough time, beta. And I wish for it to get better for you. Until then, just try to be strong and you'll get through it. More power to you!

#desiblr dad #desiblr dad answers #desiblr dad wisdom #tough times #support #desiblr community #desiblr

[choicest]

The Breather

Author's Note: This is the continuation of my fic The Hollow Side of the World inspired by Pixelberry's The Freshman Series. This contains both MC's and Chris’ point of view after the break-up. This also will be second to the last part of this fic. I’m sorry also for a very late update on this fic. I’ve been busy with school. Thank you for always being here!

@whendolphinscry @malvolari-take-my-soul @the-soot-sprite @carinacassiopeiae

Pairing: Chris x MC

Chris

Chris leans into the wall near their room. If she's about to get something important there, then she will have to face him first. "Come on, Chris. It’s not like she's a villain or something." The truth is, he's just making up an excuse to have to talk to her. As much as he wanted to use his words, he’s afraid it won’t make any difference now. Not after what he said to her before they part ways.

Chris suddenly snapped out of his trance when he feels a small tap on his side. "Hey." she said softly. "I said excuse me. I need to get my IDs."

"Oh, yeah. Of course. I'm sorry." Chris gets out of the way and quickly scolds himself. "Nice work, Powell."

He followed her into the room, observing her as she goes through their drawers. Something has changed with her. Her demeanor, the way she talks to him. Everything about her is guarded. Hurt.

"There you go." MC triumphantly whispers after she found her passport. She knows he's watching her she didn’t miss the sound he makes as he took a deep breath.

MC

“When are you leaving?” MC pause, not sure if she’s ready to look at him, she didn’t face him and remain on her place standing.

Chris

“Come on, baby, look at me.” Chris silently prays. He knows that he can’t do anything. He knows he screwed up and all he wants to do right now is support her and he still can’t. He wants her to look at him. He wants to see her face. Is it also hard for her? Does the idea of being away from him pains her as much as it pains him? He wants to know. “Just one look, baby.”

MC

She can hear the pain in his voice and right at that moment, all she wants to do is to drop everything, hug him tightly and say to him how much she loves him but she can’t bring herself to do it. MC knows herself. If she looks at him, she wouldn’t be able to leave and she can’t not leave. She needs to do this for herself.

Chris

“I’m leaving next week”. As soon as the words fell out of her mouth, Chris strides the room and hug her tightly as if his life depended on it. All his fears melting down as he finally got the chance to hold her again. He made a mistake, yes, but she’s here now and he has a chance to right it. He’s not going to let her leave without telling her his feelings.

MC stifles at first, shock at his bold move but he feels her lean into his chest and he take it as a good sign. “She loves me. I can feel it. I know it.” he thinks to himself almost crying from the thought.

Chris turns her to face him. He holds her face between his hands so that he could look directly into her eyes but she kept looking on the ground. “MC, look at me. Please, baby.” A tear fell as she looks up and he feels more guilty. He wipes it away with his fingers caressing her face, trying his best to calm her.

“I won’t stop you from leaving. I know it’s your dream and I want you to reach your dreams. I believe in you, MC. Sometimes even more than I believe in myself. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, baby. I was selfish. I didn’t consider your feelings.” Tears are now free falling. It’s his future that are on line right now. He doesn’t want to lose her. “I know I can’t take back what I said but give me another chance, baby.”

MC

She holds Chris arms as he caresses her face. “C-Chris… I wanted you to say that before I left.” MC looks into his face, memorizing every detail. “I love you, Chris but I need to feel something else first.”

Chris

“I love you, Chris…” there’s a look of shock at his face. He knows she does but hearing it out loud again is something else. “MC, I-I…” he wasn’t able to finish his sentence as MC interjects.

“Chris, I was so hurt. And I still am. I never thought you would ever be capable of saying those things. I love you, that’s why it hurts so much. I’m sorry if you felt like I was being insincere for going through that dumb list but I need you to understand that I needed you. I needed you to support me and you didn’t. I love you, Chris but…”

He feels a pang in his chest. MC’s feeling is becoming clearer by seconds and the pain their break-up brought to him suddenly flies away. His chest is now tight with how much pain he caused her. He’s damage that they are no longer together but hearing how his actions affected her pains him more than anything.

“I love you, Chris but I can’t, not yet. I need to heal from the pain you caused me first because if I won’t, I’ll end up hurting you.” MC shakes her head continuing “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“I know, baby. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry for hurting you. I’m sorry.” Chris whispers the words, hugging her again. He wishes that he could take all the pain from her. He has hurt the person he loves the most, one thing he promised them both he’d never do again.

“I love you so much, MC.” Chris says as he kisses her crown.

“Chris, I-I…”

“I know.” Chris cuts her off. Being away from her is torture but he now understands that they really need the space if they want to keep each other longer.

Once again, Chris take her face and looks deeply into her eyes. “MC, I promise I will be better. For you, for me, for us. I know I hurt you and I will let you go for now because I don’t want to lose you forever. I promise I’ll be worthy of your love. I just hope that when you’re ready, it’s still me you’re going to look for.

MC give him one last look before she leave.

~

MC

MC just back from the Quills. Still cannot believe how good their offer is, she walks toward the small kitchen to fix herself her third cup of coffee. As she sips her coffee, her eyes catch the messy table in the living room. In it are the remnants of her efforts to impress the company. She smiles at herself. If she wants to take this new path or not, she’s still unsure but finally doing something, a single step no matter how small it seems for the others to reach her goal is something she’s really proud of.

The doorbell ring and she excitedly go to open it, already tasting the flavorful pizza she ordered to celebrate her little victory.

A waiting victory greets her as she opens the door. It is Chris, balancing a box on his right hand.

“MC.”

“C-Chris?” MC says still can’t believe that he’s here. “What are you doing here?”

“I had to see you.”

#chris powell #christopher powell #chris x mc #chris powell fanfic #the freshmen series #the freshman #the senior #choices #play choices #pixelberry

[blinder-secrets]

mj first of all THANK U for your new fic good lord what a TREAT but before I read may I have some advice 🥺 if u have the emotional bandwidth! This comes w NO reply pressure there’s no time limit + u don’t have to answer!!

I have *feels* for a boy I’ve been seeing unofficially for a VERY long time. we have a history but have never been official . nowadays we still hang out and go on dates and also sleep together. he just put on his story something about being catfished by a tiktok star who has been leading him on for motnhs on a fake account (embarrassing to share shit like that on a story but he was year 7 energy so unsurprising. I also just fancy the pants off him unfortunately too). I am v upset obviously because it becomes clearer every day I like and value him far more than he ever does/has me and yet we’re so far down the line I don’t know how to express this to him!!! I’m also terrified of losing him forever. BLEH sorry that’s so much. when I say you aren’t obliged to answer this you *aren’t*. Don’t feel mean!! I have friends and a support network!! I was just wondering your objective take. love u xxxxx

i saw this last night and told myself to answer it in the morning but i forgot hehhe here i am! xx

honestly my gut instinct is to say its time to wrappppp it up. tell him how you feel, as honestly as you can, because if you don’t you’ll never know for sure and you’ll never get the closure you need. ive been in a similar situation before, there was a guy i absolutely adored & i was fully in love with him and he would go back and forth between me and his gf (yikes), like everytime they broke up he’d come back to me and id be like ❤️ Here We Are In Love ❤️ and then he’d get back with her and id be left on my todd again . It doesn’t work, it isnt nice and it’s a waste of your time to cling onto someone who doesn’t appreciate you as much as you appreciate them. it’s obviously going to be hard and upsetting if it ends up in you needing to separate yourself from him, but it’s gonna be the best thing for you in the long run

i literally cried and cried when that guy got engaged and i realised it was done for good but now here we are 5 years later and im very sexy and he’s boring. so . Tell him how it is and if he doesn’t commit in the way u deserve, its time to be free and find yourself a man who dotes on you

#we are not settling!!!!!!!!! #he either treats you like youre royalty or he getssss LOST #god men are useless #can you believe that guy rang me once at 4am to tell me he ‘cant stop loving’ me but his gf ‘is the type of girl you marry’ #like okay? why are you ringing me to tell me that you horrible freak #he did marry her but like LOL what am i then? the dogs dinner? bore off

[someone-always-cares]

chapter 4, page 22

first - previous - next

[image description: an sac webcomic page. rami stares back in a confused ‘what the fuck’ sense. “i know parkour” lewis says nervously, shrugging.

“...but. why?” asks rami. the scene changes abruptly, showing a kid running into an alleyway. they have long blonde hair and wearing a generic girls school unifrom with a purple sleeveless sweater.

“there she is!” someone behind the kid yells, two shadows reaching accross the ground. the kid looks behind frantically, trapped, the alleyway ending in a wall, one thats short but still too tall for him. he tries to reach up to the top of the wall, streching up on his toes up to the possible safety of a parking garage. its just out of reach. the shadows reach up and over him, as he turns around, shaking. the kid is a younger lewis, perhaps by a few years at most. he’s terrified, trembling and tearing up, internally repeating the word no over and over. “you really think running would work,  H-” the end is cut off by rami saying lewis’s name. his words are clearer than the blurry words of the memory.

“huh?” lewis jolts back to reality, seemingly neutral but his pupils are shrunk with fear. “oh. i... thought it would be a useful thing to learn?” he fumbles.

“i meant why did you climb the building instead of, y’know, stairs?” ramis asks offscreen. lewis stares back blankly, picturing a bright blue neon sign lighting up with the word “MORON” in all caps. “ah” he says. end id]

parkour is good for running away from your problems

ive been to a fair few schools in my time and theyve all had school uniforms and i hate them. one in particular had this ugly long skirt that was a Bad Texture and i did not like it At All. anyway im my last school they changed the uniform so girls couldnt wear trousers and my closested ass just flat out to wear the skirt. straight up said hey actually fuck that im wearing trousers and you cant make me not. and they couldnt. i wore the boys trousers until i didnt have to wear a uniform

also may not update next tues but will put something up for pride

anyway: these organizations and charities could still really use your money right now

cash bail funds (us and toronto)

MN organizations

a masterpost of BLM links

various black lgbt+ funds

donation and petitions

BLM UK

runnymede

stop hate uk

racial justice network

BLM carrd

black lives matter doc

long list of black trans groups

several of these also include useful resources eg petitions, information about protests, educating yourself and others, ect, so worth a look even if you cant donate

or if you cant spare money:

passively donate money via youtube ad revanue | tab for a cause | cartoonists database

mental health resources

7 Virtual Mental Health Resources Supporting Black People Right Now

Therapy Resources for People of Color

black mental health matters carrd

various helplines (mostly US and UK based)

mental health at work resources

supporting someone during covid 19

A-Z mental health

need urgent help?

Coronavirus and your mental health

(for anyone reading comic backlogues, at the time of writing it is june 19th, 2020, this could mean some of the links may not work in the future. however many are updated regularly and may still need your help. if youre reading this in the future, look into what you can do to help in your present)

#sac #someone always cares #webcomics #webcomic #to clarify lewis is not at all a moron he just thinks he is bc self esteem is hard #but self depricating jokes are easy! #i still struggle with them esp since i have so much material to work with! *ba dum tis* #no seriously dont ever get in the habit of self depricating jokes kids it is so hard to stop #misgendering tw #unsure if its intentional or not since idk if the flashback is at the point in the timeline that lewis would be in the closet as trans or no #adding the tag anyway just in case #lewis is 17 but i think a couple in universe weeks away from 18 #so i'd pin that flashback as 16? maybe early 17? dont take that as 100% canon tho timelines are wobbly until mentioned in comic

[wizardessheart-sideb]

[Image ID: Chibi Lars in front of a blue background. A thin gold frame with golden vines surrounds the image. His name is written in white and teal cursive font in the bottom left corner. There’s a watermark over part of Lars’ head with the text “Tumblr @ wizardessheart-sideb” on it. It’s in the style of the event “Sweet Providence I.” /End ID]

As soon as I fell into the sofa in the prefect’s office, I knew I was done for the next couple of minutes. Who knew teaching the Unus students about tarot would be so hard? I was the only one in the office and it was the perfect time to unpack my stuff and take up space before the others got here and her barely had room to breathe. They really should give us a bigger office since there’s so many of us, I  thought as I started pulling things out of my perams and placing them onto mine and Yukiya’s desk.

The door opened and my stomach dropped a little. I was really hoping for some extra time. I didn’t want to have to shove everything to my side of the desk. But it wasn’t Yukiya that came in. Lars bounded into the room, looking as cheerful as every. A smile found its way to my face.

“Hey, Lars!” I reached out for him and he took my hand before sitting in Yukiya’s chair next to me. “How did classes go?”

“They were fine. Almost set something on fire, but I didn’t,” he replied.

“You… you set something on fire?!”

“I almost set something on fire.” Lars sighed, leaning back in his chair. “I kept running into setbacks with a magic tool and wasted too much time, so I didn’t measure something right because I was rushing and it almost caught fire.”

“Lars…” As much as I was worried, I guess at least he was okay? “Were you okay?”

“Oh, I was fine. I managed to finish the assignment by the skin of my teeth, but it was fine.” Okay, not exactly what I meant, but he seemed fine, so I dropped it. “How were your classes?”

“They happened,” I responded. Lars made a sympathetic noise and let go of my hand. His hand gently rubbed my shoulder. “Thanks. It was just tiring. I had to teach them tarot card safety and basics and for some reason, the safety aspects just weren’t sticking with them.”

“That’s a bummer.” Lars leaned in for a quick side hug. At least at the end of the day, I could depend on Lars for emotional support. “If you need help with the next class, I can help you out! You don’t need magic to read tarot cards!”

“Are you sure? I don’t want you to miss a class because of me…”

“No, it’s totally fine!” He was basically bouncing in the chair.

“What’s fine?” We looked towards the door and saw Elias come in.

“I’m going to help my amazing partner with their tarot card class!” Lars said happily.

“Lars was offering to help me out. I don’t know why but the class just wasn’t grasping the basics,” I told him. Elias nodded at sat at the desk he normally shared with Alfonse.

“The Unus students this year are having trouble with safety basics. Yukiya and I have been running into that issue too,” he said. “They don’t seem to understand that you need to properly finish Ouija board sessions.”

“Oh, yikes,” I shuddered.

“I don’t know a lot about ghosts, but I can help with tarot cards! Let me show you that I got this!” Lars was bouncing again, eyes shining bright. He honestly looked more like a puppy than a boyfriend. And although his enthusiasm was great, I just didn’t know if that would translate well into teaching about tarot.

“Well, okay,” I said slowly, pulling my tarot cards out of my peram. It… It wouldn’t hurt to let him try, right? He eagerly snatched up the cards and started shuffling them. At least he was better at shuffling than I was. He spread the cards out a bit sloppily, though. And I guess I couldn’t fault him for that, but still, was it really a good idea to pull him out of class to help me? I picked a card and Lars flipped it over.

“The upside-down Empress!” he called out.

“It’s called ‘reversed,’” Elias corrected him from his desk.

“Haha, oh yeah. Reversed.” Lars laughed a bit sheepishly. “Uh, okay, so it means celebrations, light…. Uh, everything becoming clearer. Does that apply to anything in your life?” I guess that last one sort of did. It was clear Lars could at least do this. But still, I wasn’t confident in having him help.

“… Yeah…”

“Awesome! Then I can totally help next Friday!” he exclaimed.

“Wait, next Friday?” Elias perked up.

“Yeah, that’s the next tarot class I have,” I told him. Elias frowned.

“Lars, you can’t go help with a class. We’re going to be gone all day at that press event for that tool you worked on with Father,” Elias reminded him.

“Oh, shoot! I completely forgot!” Lars’ grin quickly disappeared. He turned to me. “I’m sorry, I guess I can’t help after all.”

“That’s okay. The thought alone counts.” I gave him a small smile. Thank you for the out, Elias and tarot cards.

#long post #sp #lars lagrene #wh #wizardess heart

[fallenfurther]

Conflict

Here a Post Episode fic for Episode 3: Space Race (I know I’m pushing into the wrong week but I only got this finished today. Also it was written on a night shift/post night shift so I have no idea how it compares to my normal writing.) 

This also contains my interpretation of the cause of the Global Conflict. This is purely from my head, because they never say anything about it. 

*****

The war had started fast, and the brutality went beyond anything anyone could have imagined. There were multiple fractions, multiple countries clubbing together to fight for their best interests. Those in charge never thought the people though, never spared a thought for the most vulnerable. Her husband and brother had matched for them, had taken up the call to arms, not for president or country, not because they believed in the cause. No, they enlisted for the money, for the guarantee of a meal. They had been promised good pay, pay that would keep their family going in these uncertain times. The families would have been able to stay in their homes. Except her husband and brother had been killed within a week. The transport they were on had been shot down. Sasha had also lost her job when a bomb blew up the offices she worked in, not that it could have supported the family, now made up of her two daughters and now her parents. The rent on her small two bed apartment had been the cheapest so her parents moved in. It had been cramped, and the fear of more bombs kept everyone on edge.

Maybe that was why they had approached her, because they knew she would jump at the money. It matched the wages her husband would have made and more, it also came with a completion bonus, a massive completion bonus. Or maybe it was the shielding project she had been working on for the government. Or maybe it was just a bit of both. Not that it mattered why they chose her, what mattered was that they had, and she had accepted at the opportunity. She packed a suitcase, said goodbye to her family and moved to the warehouse. That's where she met Abdul, the designer of the mines. The mines she was to hide. He had shown her the plans, given her a tour of the production line, and then settled her in a small office. It took a while to get used to using a real pen and pencil, all the plans and documents being on paper. Better for security, was their response.  It made everything that much more challenging, but she needed to rise to it. Her family was depending on her. She couldn't let her children starve. Sasha had met the deadline, twisting her design to fit their needs. She impressed herself at how she managed to meet it, staying up late each night. Sasha hated the pleasure she got when it was approved, and the thrill of watching the first circuit boards being prepared and emitters being put together. Her work wasn't completed. She now had to focus on getting the control network coded and running in time for launch.

*****

The mine was both basic and complicated at the same time. Brains had managed to remove the explosives, which were now being stored safely and were ready to be handed over to the GDF. The rest of the mine was simple apart from the small box that housed the shielding. This box was what he scanned and dismantled. It was incredible in its intricacy and once he understood how it work, was amazed by the simplicity within its design. The mechanism was complicated, but that did not faze him, Brains enjoyed getting his mind stuck into a good puzzle. He scanned and inspected the components, MAX passing him tools as he went, even getting him a glass of water when Brains hadn’t realized he was even thirsty. He was so lost in thought over the problem. He tweaked his scanner again, trying to find any detectable frequency coming off the device. There had to be at least something! There was small blip in the readings and excitedly he fiddled with the settings, making the blip clearer. Even with the shielding activated, he could still detect the small frequency coming off the device. Brains smiled, setting to work on a scanner that he could install into Thunderbird Three, and could be used to locate any more of these mines that might still be hiding out there. It was their duty now, to make Earth’s orbit safe, as they would never know when another mine might be triggered. They couldn’t take the risk, especially with their own ship frequenting the area. It pained Brains to think such a fantastic piece of technology had been used in such a horrible way, but now he had the design, he could improve it and maybe put it to better use. He was going to compared it to Thunderbird Shadow’s stealth systems and maybe see of there was some crossover and improvements that could be made. He might even be able to give FAB1 an upgrade. With new possibilities and ideas forming, Brain’s set to work.

*****

Sasha worked flat out getting the first batch of fifty units out. She called them units, not wanting to admit to herself what she was really doing. At least these units won't be hurting her children. They were safe, or at least as safe as they could be. Not that she'd had any contact with them. Contact was prohibited. It was to keep what they were doing from the enemy, to stop them from finding out. This unnerved Sasha, but it was too late now. No going back. The control network was coming along well, and in a few days, it would be ready for action. There would be no trial, it would go straight to live. Desperate times call for desperate measures. They had to protect the supply line, it was what was best for the people, the government had said. She was doing this for the Motherland, Sasha tried to convince herself.

Between control network, she sorted out the program for the mines. They had tested the shield so at least that worked. The boxes that designated which ships were not targets were being produced elsewhere, to her design. The first fifty units were given the ID XQ, which she hated, so in the programming when she had to put in the ID at the start, she coded the name of her brother, Markoff. They may have taken her brother away from her, but at least, in this small way, he could take a few more of them back. The dead would fight again. Sasha took what little comfort she could from it. The Motherland had started the war, not wanting to give up their mining monopoly of the nearest asteroids. Some countries had been happy to negotiate, and trade agreements were made, others weren't so pleased with the deal and when negotiations failed, and words got heated, those words quickly became actions. Sanctions quickly came into place and tensions rose. Her community suffered. Her community had started to starve. So, the Motherland said they had to fight. This was how she was fighting. Thorough these mines she would protect her 'brothers and sisters'. These mines would make the enemy think twice.

Sasha lived in the dormitory with the other workers. Including her and Abdul, there were twenty-six of them in total. The machines ran at all hours and the others took shifts. Twelve on, twelve off. She got to know the day shift well, heard their stories, which were a mirror of hers. She remembered the names of those they had lost and wrote them down in her office. Each batch would have a different relative fighting back. Every mine containing the name of someone the war had taken. Someone who never wanted to fight. At the end of the week they were given a piece of paper and a pen, and they were allowed to write a letter home. Sasha jumped on the idea and told her girls how much she missed them and that she'd see them as soon as her job was complete. She had no idea if the letters made it home, but it was the only hope she had.

A week later she was informed of the success of the mines. Multiple enemy ships had been taken out and they had no idea where the mines came from; they hadn't seen it coming. They promised her a bonus. She would never know if she got it as her wages went straight into her father's account. She received data from the network and used it to update the software. The hardware was left to her colleagues as the next batch, this time it would be known as XS, and there would be a hundred made. The Motherland was taking space seriously. Sasha named it Mika after her colleague’s brothers who died in the first air raid on his town.

*****

Thunderbird Three responded like a dream, as always. Alan loved piloting her and was glad to be back in space again. A few twists and turns as he passed through yet another cloud of space debris, scanner on, searching for more bombs. Brain’s had worked out a way to not only scan them, but to mimic the original control network, so they didn’t activate. John suddenly floated beside him.

“You know you could pick up some of the other debris as you pass."

"John, I'm on a deadly mine hunt. I don’t have time for collecting trash."

John rolled his eyes. "Just be careful."

"I am careful!" Alan complained, as he twisted out the way of some more debris. The mine that had just been detected was now in full view. John disappeared and Alan targeted the old technology. He got it first time, and it joined the eight others he was dragging along. Alan continued to methodically fly the grid John had given him of the areas he needed to scout. This was going to take a few days to clear, but at least this beat doing schoolwork. Another mine located, Alan captured it and headed to the island with another ten mines for Brains to make safe.

Over the next three days Alan clear Earth’s orbit of mines, before finally setting his eye on the junk pile that the GDF monitored and maintained with a space laser. The GDF knew of their plan, and happily agreed to turn off the laser to help them complete it. They didn’t want any unknown mines in there that could activate and blow up at any time. Alan scanned the whole area before starting to pull a few mines out that had become buried in the heap. Some had taken a little more effort than others to get out, but he felt a great sense of achievement when he got the last one free. With six mines trailing him, he moved away from the area and called John.

“Mission complete, John. All bombs removed from orbit.” Alan finished the sentence with a yawn.”

“FAB Alan.” John chuckled slightly. “I’ll inform the GDF they can reactivate the laser.”

*****

She had been here for almost five months now, completely cut off from the outside world. The war was close to entering its seventh month and she had no idea how it was going. Her family didn’t know where she was, only that she was alive and safe, if her letters were getting through. She missed them terribly. Sasha’s arms ached for her girls. The desire to hold them close and hear their innocent chatter was strong. She just had to keep going. She’d see them when the work was complete.

The current batch was almost finished and was just waiting for her to upload the program to their drives and network. This was the largest volume yet; two hundred units. Two hundred units to be scattered around the Earth, on top of the hundreds already orbiting the planet. A shield for their ships. Protection of the deadliest kind. These were the XZ batch. All Sasha had to do was give them the name, pick a relative or friend to replace the unit ID. She had a list to choose from but none of them jumped out. She needed to name the batch, and soon.

Sasha was brought from her thoughts by an odd noise from the factory. She stood from her seat and headed out to see what was happening. There was another sound, coming from the other side of the factory. She passed between the machines that currently stood still. They had yet to be asked to make another batch. There had been talk amongst them of heading home. The sound came again. She continued, heading past the assembly area where the last of the units had been readied for transport. The sound came again, louder now and unnerving. Sasha paused. She stood beside the crate. There was no indication of what was in it except for the unit ID that was printed on the side ‘XZ-198’. A door, a short way away, opened and Sasha watched, holding her breath. Two Chinese soldiers stepped out: their guns ready. An older, obviously more senior, officer exited after them. The noises started to make sense and fear filled her heart.

“The last one is the other designer. She’ll be in her office” The senior one spoke with authority, “I will then grab the papers I require from. After that we load the last three crates and burn this place to the ground.”

There was no response from the other two, and Sasha didn’t wait around. As quickly and quietly as she could, she ran back towards the office and sped to the fire exit not far from it. She pushed the bar. The door didn’t open. Panic filled her as it dawned on her that they had locked her in. There was no escape. Her heart fell as she though of the promised bonus. It was never something she was ever going to see. It was compensation, for her family, so they could go on without her. She was never going to see her children again. A tear escaped her eye. She had orphaned her daughters. Sasha knew they would be raised well by her parents, but that would never heal the pain they were going to endure. Their last goodbye had been months ago, she hadn’t seen them since. It hadn’t been a proper goodbye. Another tear fell. Without another thought, she ran back to her desk and took her seat. She typed in the name she wanted to give this batch and hit upload. She watched as it connected to the network, becoming part of it before being downloaded to each and every mine. The bar slowly moved along. She turned at the sound of the door, her body shaking. The men walked in. The guns were pointed at the ground. The gunmen flanked the senior officer, who stared directly at her. A chill ran down her back.

“Has the program been upload into the mines successful?” The man demanded.

Sasha glanced at her screen. The bar was full and the word ‘complete was beside it.

“Yes.”

The man nodded. The guns were raised and pointed at her chest. Sasha took a trembling breath as the shots echoed around the room.

*****

Alan had to wait for Brains to inspect the mines and make then safe before a full debrief could be performed. This took a little over a week, as they had to do multiple runs to the local GDF base with the various components. The explosives in particular were hazardous as they were so old, but there had been no mishaps, and all had gone smoothly. Brains now stood before him in the lounge. Alan was sitting on the sofa with Scott and John hovered beside the images Brains was taking about.

“Alan, you recovered eighty-three s-stealth mines in t-total. All from various batches. The GDF was k-kind enough to give us all the detail they had on these, which helped with the search. It turns out that many had been detonated during the conflict, or j-just after when the newly formed GDF had to try clear them to make space travel s-safe again. These mines have taken thousands of lives, and the GDF are t-thankful in our help ensuring there are no more out there. Where they were manufactured and by whom was never discovered.”

“These people make me sick.” Alan said, his words filled with disgust. “What kind of sick people make hidden bombs and scatter them through space? How could they live with the amount of people they killed?”

“The Global Conflict happened during a difficult time, both sides did awful things, Alan.” Scott butted in, fully aware that Brains had memories of the war. Scott had been too young to remember what happened, but it had been frightening times. “Just be glad the peace was achieved relatively quickly, and the World Council was created.”

Alan sighed and crossed his arms. “I still think they are sick people.”

Alan saw Scott share a glance with John and shake his head out the corner of his eye. Just because they were older. They weren’t always right!

“What d-does baffle me is the naming system they used.”

“What so special about the naming system?” Alan asked. XZ-157 wasn’t that interesting to him.

“In the c-coding of each mine, right at the start where you’d expect the ID to be is a name. It appears that each ID has a different name attached to it. For example, the XS ones had Mika and the XV ones had Sonia. They are all single first names apart from the XZ ones, like the first on you found.

“What make the XZ one so special?”

“That I c-cannot say. The XZ had a full name of a real person. Sasha Lidia Rudin.”

“Who was she?”

“Sasha Rudin was a Russian software engineer who went missing during the Global conflict. She is presumed dead.”

“So, no one important then.” Alan fidgeted, hoping the debrief was almost over so he could go play some Cavern Quest with his friends.

“Everyone is important, Alan.” Scott spoke sternly. Alan just crossed his arms and slumped down in the seat. Alan could almost hear Scott roll his eyes.  

#tagrewatch #thunderbirds are go #space race #alan tracy #mines #global conflict #Scott Tracy #John Tracy #Brains #minesweeping #making space safe again

[apocalypticwafflekitten]

I’m Coming Back For You - Pt. 6

Jerome Valeska x Winged!Reader 

A/N: HEY!!!!!! I”M BACK!!! I”M FINALLY WRITING AGAIN!!! 

I’m so sorry for the long wait! I have been super busy lately, and I haven’t had much time to write, but I’m back! Hopefully I will be able to write a bit more frequently, but no matter what, I will keep writing this story even if the updates are slow!!! 

But to make up for my absence: this chapter is quite a bit longer than usual. I hope y’all like it, and I would love any and all feedback you leave!

Summary Kinda Thingy/Original Imagine: I can’t say much here without spoilers. You may want tissues though. Just a suggestion. 

Warning: Major Character Death (I hate spoilers, but there’s no avoiding this one)

Word Count: Just the Story: 3021,  Total: 3185

(Yep, just a little longer than usual...)

Tonight was special. There was no denying that.  

It was the night of the Childrens’ Hospital Benefit. 

You were busy in your room, getting ready for the night. As you slipped into your gown, you looked down at your invitation, feeling a little bit of guilt nip at your conscience. 

You knew that Jerome, Tabitha, and Barbara were going. You knew that they were going to do something outrageous. You just didn’t know what. 

You were torn between saying something, and just letting the night unfold. 

But instead of thinking it over, you were brought from your thoughts by the curious, maybe even worried, voice of your favorite ginger. 

“What are the scars from?”

You realized that you had yet to zip up the back of your dress, and the scarring that marked the base of your crimson wings was plain to see. 

Suddenly you were shy. You almost visibly shrunk and words were hesitant to fall from your mouth.  

“It’s a long story Jerome. Sad too. I don’t think you’d like it.” You say somberly as memories played like an old film in your mind.  

“Tell me.” Jerome suggests. He wasn’t telling you to. You could tell by the sound of his voice. It was alright if you didn’t want to. He seemed genuinely concerned, and for that you were thankful. 

You figured you might as well tell him.  

“I was ten year old. Before that I used to be very open with my wings. I would let people pet them, and I’d give people rides on my back. It was wonderful. I can still remember what it felt like to have someone’s fingers carding through their feathers.” You gave a small smile at the memory of the feeling as it traveled to the tips of your wings. “But at ten years old everything changed. There was a fair in my home town, and I begged to go. My parents and I were walking among the crowd when we were separated. There were too many people, and my hand slipped from my father’s. I was lost in the crowd, so I started to run around in search of some place where I could find my parents...Then they got me. Out of nowhere. I don’t know how they found me, and I’m not sure how they even knew about me, but in one moment there was the fair, and the next: darkness.

When I woke up, I was in a dimly lit room and I was tied to a chair. Well, it was more of a stool so that the people could get at my wings. 

I don’t know how long I waited, but at one point two people came into the room with a tray of knives and the sort.  

And then there was pain. Searing, burning pain unlike anything I’ve ever known ripping through my back. All I could see was the darkness in the back of my eyelids and all I could hear were my own cries for help and mercy. 

Then, just like that, I woke up in a hospital bed unaware of what happened or how I got there.

My parents were right by my side, asleep, clutching my hand in theirs. When they woke up they explained everything to me. How I was found by a police search unit in an empty, abandoned warehouse on the edge of town, and how I was rushed to the hospital, barely making it there.

They showed me pictures of the injuries when I thought I could handle it. They were horrifying. One of my wings was partially torn from my body, and on the other, there were cuts straight to the bone. Mom and Dad explained to me that the people who had kidnapped me wanted to cut off my wings and either sell them, or experiment on them.

From that day on, I’ve haven’t let anyone except my parents touch my wings. Not even my closest friends.”

You finished your story and waited in silence for Jerome’s response.

“Oh (Y/N)...” Was his quiet response. Despite his outer appearance, Jerome was boiling with rage inside. He was furious that anyone would dare to hurt you. Especially when you were so young and innocent. 10 years old...

He gave you a hug from behind and placed a small kiss behind your ear, resting his head on your shoulder as you both stayed in silence.

Out of that silence came a small question a few minutes later.

“May I?” Jerome asked.

You thought that he was going to trace your scars, but when you gave a little nod of approval, he zipped up your dress for you.

“There isn’t much time. We should get going.” He whispered before leading you out of the room and to the taxi that would be taking you.

To you there was some significance in him zipping up your dress rather than tracing your scars. He understood that not all battle scars are shown proudly, and that you probably didn’t want him to touch them. Which, in fact, you didn’t. Not right now anyway.

“I’ll see you there doll.” Jerome smiled a soft smile as he helped you into the taxi.

You arrived fairly early just as the doors were opening. Finding your seat, you awaited the rest of the guests, and the rest of the night to unfold.

It was a beautiful evening. The other guests were generally very polite, the food was amazing, and you were happy to see a few of your colleagues from around town.

“Hello Miss. (Y/L/N).”

The voice behind you caught you off guard. You had been lost in the music that was being played by the string jazz band in the corner, and ever so secretly eyeing the piano right beside them.

“Oh. Hello Bruce.” You greeted the young billionaire.

You and Bruce had met shortly after you came to Gotham. You were visiting Harvey and Jim at the police station when.... (come back to fill this in web you’ve refreshed your mind on this subject)

“It’s good to see you. How has your job been?”

“It’s been good. How have things been with you?” You ask. 

Before Bruce can answer your question, you hear Lee Thompkin’s voice above all others. 

“Good Evening. I am Dr. Lee Thompkins. For the past five years I’ve had the honor of being a part of the Children’s Hospital. Thank You for your support, and thank you so much for coming out tonight. Over the years we’ve had magicians come and entertain our children. And so tonight, we have one of the magicians here four you. Without further ado, please allow me to present to you, the Great Rudolpho.” 

In that second, you mentally face palmed as you knew now what Jerome was up to and where he was. You didn’t need any sort of proof. “The Great Rudolpho” was a name only he would choose.   

You saw Barbara dressed in her assistant’s outfit, which you had to say looked quite dazzling on her. She was standing next to a large cupboard that, when she opened it, was empty. She feigned shock, closed the doors, waited there a second, and then re-opened the doors to reveal Jerome, or “The Great Rudolpho”. 

You had to admit that his disguise was a little hilarious. The fake beard and mustache made you giggle to yourself. 

As Jerome hopped up on stage, he pulled a red handkerchief from his jacket, and from it, he uncovered a rose. After the rose, he revealed a dove, and when he let the dove lose, it flew directly to you.

You smiled as the beautiful little dove landed on your gloved hand. You were a little surprised. Jerome knew what he was doing with magic. On second thought, maybe it shouldn’t have come as such a surprise to you that he knew some magic. He did grow up in a circus after all.

Jerome followed the dove with his eyes, and smiled at you when you looked up at him, dove in hand. You looked beautiful tonight in the warm glow of the light from the chandeliers.  

For his next act, Jerome called Bruce up to the stage. Now you began to worry. You knew that Jerome wasn’t really here for fun and games. He came here with a plan in mind, and that plan most likely involved killing something. 

The thought made your stomach turn a little. 

You watched as Barbara led Bruce up onto the stage, and into a small, wooden box. 

He laid down in the box, and the trick clicked in your mind. It was one of the old tricks where the Magician “sawed” the volunteer in half. You prayed with everything you had the Jerome wasn’t going to actually saw Bruce in half. Was it likely? Possibly. Would you put it above him? Definitely not. 

You were tense, biting a little on your lower lip as the trick was performed.  

When the two halves were pulled apart, you saw no trickle of blood, and heard no cries of pain. You let out a breath of relief and watched the rest of the trick with a bit clearer of a mind. 

“Some people say Bruce has a split personality.” Jerome joked, bringing a chuckle from you and the rest of the audience.

“For my next illusion,” Jerome announced in accented voice, “Id like to call to the stage esteemed Deputy Mayor Harrison Kane.” Jerome’s voice was a little ominous. 

While the rest of the audience applauded, your eyes grew wide with the idea that just popped into your head. And idea that was possibly a realization. 

You set the little dove on your shoulder, and restlessly shuffled your wings. You were worried about what was going to happen next. 

When Barbara pushed out a small table, and revealed the knives held there, your suspicions were confirmed. 

Jerome was going to kill the Deputy Mayor.  

“By the way, nobody here is getting out alive.” You panicked as the words dripped from Jerome’s mouth. 

The audience laughed, but you noticed a few worried glances here and there. 

And then, in the blink of an eye, there was a knife in the Deputy Mayor’s gut. he fell to the floor with a thud, and you could feel the wave of fear wash over everyone. There was a collective gasp, and all the while Jerome just smiled, and laughed.   

“TA-DA!!!” Jerome called as machine gun fire lit up the room. 

Panic ensued, and everyone tried to get out of the banquet hall, though none succeeded. 

The dove flew off in panic, and despite the bigger things going on right now, you hoped that the little bird made it out safe. 

You however found a door hidden in the wall that was most likely for staff entrance and exit. You looked to see where it led. All you saw was a corridor and a door at the end of it, but you hoped that it would lead somewhere. And so you  started ushering the people around you into the corridor so they could either hide, or find a way out.

 You didn’t know how to fight. Only the very little self-defense that Harvey and Jim had taught you. Nothing good enough to last against the men who were shooting up the building. You figured you might as well do what you could to help the innocent people here. 

Once there was a steady line of people going through the corridor, you looked back to the stage from your hidden spot. 

There Lee was strapped onto the red wheel on stage, and you feared the worst. 

Jerome had taken her phone and was dialing someone. You could take a guess at who it was. 

There was a small silence before Jerome burst out into speech. 

“Sorry, Jimbo, it’s just little old me... Are you outside?...You are aren’t you?” Jerome chuckled. “Oh goody.” 

You were appalled, but also fascinated. How you had come to be so close to this maniac was a question you couldn’t answer. Despite you morals and everything you’ve ever known telling you that what Jerome was doing was wrong, you couldn’t help smiling every time Jerome laughed, or feeling the smallest flutter of happiness when he smiled. It was completely immoral. Part of you knew. Part of you didn’t care. 

“Breathe James. I haven’t touched a hair on your girlfriend’s pretty head...See for yourself. This is live television after all.” More laughing ensued as Jerome mocked shooting Lee in the head in front of the News Camera. 

“True, but not the point.” Jerome answered something the Jim had said. 

“Hey, lets talk about what I want. Excuse me.” The crazy ginger said as he cleared his throat and stepped over the Former Deputy Mayor Harrison Kane’s body. “Forty-seven million dollars, a helicopter, obviously, the dry cleaning I left at Mr. Chang’s, be careful, the man is a crook, and, oooh, I don’t know, a pony!” Jerome chuckled to catch his breath before he continued. “Uh, you got ten minutes or I start killing people. Remember, this is being broadcast to every home in Gotham, so, you know, don’t let people die. Bye!” 

Jerome laughed violently into the phone before he hung up. 

“I think that went well.” 

He then turned around the room and started searching for something. 

He lit up when he found you, and singled you out in the crowd. 

“(Y/N)! Darling, how’s your night been?”  Everyone who was still being held hostage turned their eyes to you in shock. You looked down to your shoes, shy and quite afraid. Your wings instinctively closed in around your shoulders. The rest of the city didn’t need to know that you were dating Gotham’s most wanted.

“Well, it didn’t go quite as I expected.” You responded nervously, earning a chuckle from Jerome.  

“I don’t think it went quite like anyone was expecting. Well, anyone but me and Babs here.” Jerome gestured to Barbara who smiled and waved at you. 

You waved back politely. 

“Hey, (Y/N), what do you say you help to calm the nerves of these poor audience members?” Your psycho boyfriend suggested as he gestured to the piano. 

“I don’t know Jerome. I don’t have much that’s performance ready.” 

It wasn’t playing in front of the crowd that was the problem.You genuinely didn’t have anything you deemed to be performance ready.  

“Oh, I’m sure you’ve got something.” 

“Okay then. I’ll try. But if this goes down in flames, it’s you fault. 

Sitting down at the beautiful grand piano, you tucked your wings against your back, and started to familiarize yourself with the keys. 

After warming up, you began to play the Moonlight Sonata.  

“Listen, just beautiful.” Jerome commented, smiling widely, listening to your performance.  

You were silenced as you heard a voice among the crowd. 

“Enough.” Theo Galavan demanded. He stood from his seat, and started to move towards Jerome.  

“You need to pack up your pathetic little sideshow and leave.” 

Theo’s voice was stern and serious. There was no telling whether or not he was being serious, or just acting.

“Is that right?” Jerome retaliated.

“It may be presumptuous to speak for all the citizens of Gotham, but we are sick of you. You’re a small, vicious man with a pathetic need for attention.” 

Jerome gave a little bow at the recognition. 

“Enough, man. For God’s sakes, enough.” 

“I’m curious what your leverage is here Mr...” Jerome trailed off as if waiting for a name. 

The two looked straight into the camera. 

“Theo Galavan.’ 

“Well, Mr. Theo Galavan,” Jerome mocked Theo’s serious and deep tone, “If you don’t sit down, uh, I’m gonna shoot you. In the face!” 

Confusion had set in now, and you truly couldn’t tell whether or not the two were still acting. 

“I know there is some human decency left in you.” Theo tried for reason. 

Jerome gestured to himself with a questioning face. 

“If you need to take a hostage, take me. But let these people go home. To their families, to their children!” 

Suddenly, Barbara whacked Theo on the back of the head with a mallet. 

You knew now that this was no a part of the script. This was unplanned, and Jerome was taking over. 

Before long, and after a few of Jerome’s gimmicks, he called upon Bruce Wayne to be the night’s “First Official Victim.”  

When Bruce didn’t show, Jerome started to threaten Alfred’s life. 

When Jerome ordered a gun on Alfred’s head, Bruce finally showed himself, yelling a profound “Stop!” as he ran in. 

There was profound rustling and struggling over the silence as Jerome started to drag Bruce away from Alfred. As Jerome got Bruce up onto the stage, gunfire was heard behind you, and upon looking, you saw Jim running in to shoot down the guards.  

Everything happened so quickly, yet the moment I saw what happened, time couldn’t have moved slower. 

in a fraction of a second, and without second thought, Theo had shoved a knife into Jerome’s neck. 

You couldn’t even hear yourself scream out the most painful “NO!” you had ever screamed. You couldn’t hear anything. 

Your feet rushed you across the banquet hall, up onto the stage, and next to Jerome’s body. Your wings flared as Theo removed the knife and let the blood flood from the wound. You could hear the blood bubble in his mouth as he tried to speak.

 “You said... I was gonna be....”  “No darling, don’t speak.” You whispered as tears began to fall from your eyes. You didn’t care now whether all of Gotham knew that you loved this stupid idiot. You didn’t care about Jim and Harvey’s reactions. You just cared about Jerome. 

Jerome reached for your hand, and you took it. 

“(Y/N), I...” 

He never finished that sentence. Just like that the light faded from his eyes, and your vision was blurred with tears, and hatred. 

“THEO GALAVAN!” You screeched at the man. “YOU KILLED HIM!” 

You found yourself unable to attack him. Barbara had grabbed a hold of you, and started to drag you away from Theo, and towards her escape. 

“Let me go Barabara! Let me go!” You protested. Your anger fueling every angry bat of your wings. 

“We can get our revenge later. But for now we have to go.” She whispered back. 

“I”M COMING BACK FOR YOU THEO GALAVAN! YOU’RE GOING TO PAY FOR WHAT YOU DID!”

TAGS!!! 

Forever and Always:  @blackirisposts @savvythedork 

Just for this Story 

@crimsonredcoco @childishmonster05 @crazydcchick @subtlemalice @alisondepartedbear @rockyrocket15

#jerome valeska #jerome valeska imagine #jerome valeska x reader #jerome valeska fluff

[foreverevanescent]

Late MHA Rare-Pair Month Day 15: Tears (Katsuki Bakugo x Mei Hatsume)

Tears “This is amazing! I can’t believe how much everybody loves my babies!” Mei Hatsume practically squeaked to herself, as she saw person after person taking interest in her various inventions. But, despite the happiness she was receiving from all the attention, she wasn’t completely satisfied. There was one thing missing from this situation to make it perfect in Hatsume’s eyes; her grandmother. It’s not every day that her wheelchair-bound grandmother came to one of the support class’ invention shows. Hatsume had talked with her grandmother last week, and she told Hatsume that she would come to see her inventions. However, the show had been going on for almost two hours, and her grandmother wasn’t there. But, Hatsume wasn’t completely devoid of hope, expecting her to roll up any minute. Before Hatsume could get too involved with her thinking, her cell phone went off. While the phone kept ringing, she looked at the ID, and it turned out to be her Grandmother’s. She immediately answered. “Hello? Grandma? Where are you the show’s already started?” Hatsume asked before a male voice responded to her. “Um…I’m sorry. Is this Mei Hatsume?” the voice asked. “Yes, I am”. “Well, I’m an employee at the Mustafu Retirement Home, and I called to tell you some news about your Grandmother. She’s currently in the emergency room of the hospital, and…she’s not doing very well. I just wanted to let you know so you could see her…hello? Are you still there?” the employee asked after not hearing anything from the other side. “Yeah…yeah, I’m still here. I…heard…everything. Thank…you,” Hatsume choked out, with tears running down her face, and her hands shaking. Hatsume ended the call and started packing her stuff up. Once she had put everything away, Hatsume walked to Power Loader, who was talking with a couple of support company executives. “Mr…Mr…Mr. Power Loader…I…I…I need to le…ave,” Hatsume once again choked out.  Power Loader looked over at Hatsume and jumped a little when she saw the shaking girl with tears running down her face, rather than the boisterous girl with a big mouth. “Uh…why do you need to leave, Hatsume?” Power Loader asked, having a feeling that something bad had happened. “F…f…family emergency,” Hatsume muttered. Power Loader gave her a nod, and Hatsume ran out of the show and headed to the bus stop. 30 Minutes Later… When the bus stopped in front of the hospital, Hatsume ran off, with her face covered in dried tears. Her shaking had stopped, but her heart was beating 1000 beats per minute and she was praying that nothing bad had happened. When Hatsume went to the front desk, the nurse told her that her Grandmother was on the third floor. But before she left, Hatsume heard something that made her heart go from 1000 beats per minute to completely frozen. “I’m very sorry about your Grandmother,” the desk girl said with legitimate sincerity. The desk girl was talking about her own grandmother, but Hatsume wasn’t listening, thinking of her Grandmother possibly dying. Hatsume started trudging to the elevator, praying that the desk girl was wrong. By this point, her usually infectious positive energy was replaced with a dark cloud over her head. She went on the elevator and prayed once again that her Grandmother was OK. When the elevator arrived on the 3rd floor, she ran to the room where her Grandmother was being held at the end of the hall and looked to see her Grandmother laying down on a hospital bed with a doctor and a nurse looking over her. “GRANDMA!” Hatsume screamed out, running to the bed where her Grandmother was laying on before being stopped by the doctor. “You must be Mei Hatsume, correct?” the doctor asked, gently placing a hand on her shoulder. Mei sniffled before nodding her head, causing a few of her tears to hit the floor, making perfect circles of saltwater onto the ground. “Well, I’m afraid we have some bad news. Your Grandmother fell from a small flight of stairs, and she had some severe internal injuries,” the doctor explained, leaving Hatsume feeling like she was in the middle of Antarctica in nothing but her underwear. “How…bad are they?” Hatsume asked with her mind still in shambles after what she had just heard. “Unfortunately, they are very fatal, and we’re not sure how long she has to live, so we wanted to give you some time to say goodbye,” the nurse explained before she and the doctor left the room. Hatsume went to the side of the bed by the window, looking at her Grandmother, wrapped in bandages on her chest, stomach, arms, and her right leg. Hatsume’s eyes were covered in tears to the point where she had trouble seeing, but she felt a soft touch on her hand. “Mei?” a weak voice from the hospital bed whispered. Hatsume’s eyes bulged, as she quickly looked down on the hospital bed, looking down at her Grandmother, with her eyes barely open, her arms shaking, and her voice never rising above a whisper. “Grandma! I’m here!” Hatsume called, giving her grandmother a hug. “It’s so good to see you, I’m sorry I couldn’t come see your inventions,” her grandmother whispered, running her hand through Hatsume’s hair. “Don’t worry about that now Grandma, you just worry about getting yourself better,” Hatsume stated, tucking her grandmother deeper into her blanket, but was stopped when her Grandmother barely grabbed her hand. “Mei…sweetie…I don’t know how to tell you this…but...I believe that it may be my time,” her grandmother whispered with a hint of sorrow in her voice. Hatsume was staring at her Grandmother with a blank look on her face, before she started shaking and tearing up again, realizing what she meant. “That can’t be true Grandma! You can fight through this! I know you can!” Hatsume yelled, not wanting to believe the inevitable. “Mei…I’ve lived a full life. Raising you after what happened to your parents was the most fulfilling part of my life. And I know that you can go and live and do what you’ve always wanted to do. I love you Hatsume, and always will,” Hatsume’s grandmother muttered, before erupting into a bloody coughing fit. Hatsume looked down on the floor, not wanting to see the blood that had come out of her grandmother. “But…but…,” Hatsume sputtered out, unable to think straight with her mind in complete shambles. Before she could even straighten her thoughts, she heard the one noise that she had dreaded…a flat line beep. She looked over at her Grandmother who was laying in the bed, content with a small smile on her face. Hatsume, trying in vain to hold back her tears, pressed the button for the nurse to let them know what had happened. Three Days Later Back at the UA Dorms… Hatsume was cooped up in her room, with her blanket covered in gears covering her entire body. She had been speaking with out of town family about details regarding her Grandmother’s funeral, despite how hard she wanted to avoid the truth that her Grandmother was dead. She had been holed up in her room for the past few days, reminiscing in the days when it was just her and her Grandmother. Before she could delve too much into these thoughts again, she heard a knocking on the door. “Mei! Are you awake!” a voice called out from the other side of the door. It was her boyfriend of a few months, Katsuki Bakugo. She hadn’t seen him in days, only texting him a few times to let him know that she was alright. “Yeah Katsuki, I’m awake,” Hatsume called from her covers. “Well can I come in? I just want to talk,” Bakugo asked, sounding genuinely concerned for his girlfriend. Hatsume sighed before slowly getting up from her bed, with the blanket still covering her, and opened the door so that Bakugo could come in. Bakugo hugged Hatsume and gave her a soft kiss on her temple before leading her back to the bed. “So…how’s all the planning going?” Bakugo asked, petting Hatsume’s head as she looks up at Bakugo with her red and puffy eyes. “I’m going to the funeral on Saturday. A lot of my family will be there, and will all pay for it, but…I’m not sure if I can go without completely shattering,” Hatsume muttered, burying her face into her pillow. Bakugo continued to rub her head, as she tried to hold in more cries. “Do…you want me to come with you?” Bakugo asked, causing Hatsume to look back up at Bakugo. “Are…you sure? Don’t you have some big training…thing to do that Saturday?” Hatsume asked. Bakugo laid down next to her and hugged her from the behind. “Screw that. I can train any day, but you look like you could use someone at the funeral, and from what you told me, you’re not that close with the rest of your family. A day off from training isn’t going to hurt me in the slightest, and comforting you is much more important to me than any amount of training,” Bakugo explained, rubbing her back while kissing her neck. Hatsume looked up at Bakugo, and kissed him on the lips. “Thank you BakuBeast, it means a lot to me that you would do this for me,” Hatsume uttered, her face buried in Bakugo’s shirt, her eyes threatening to shed more tears. Bakugo continued to rub her back and hair. The two laid down on Hatsume’s bed, using the peace and quiet to relax and get Hatsume’s mind clearer.

#mha #bnha #mha hatsume #mha bakugou #katsuki bakugo #katsuki bakugou #katsuki #bakugo #mei hatsume #mei #hatsume #tears #death #character death #tragedy #sadness #sad #my hero academia #boku no hero academia #romance #love #drama #grandmother #my hero academia fanfiction #boku no hero academia fanfiction #my hero academia fanart #boku no hero academia fanart #bnha-rarepair-month

[theliberaltony]

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

Last week, we introduced a method for evaluating Democratic presidential contenders, which focused on their ability to build a coalition among key constituencies within the party. In particular, our method claims there are five essential groups of Democratic voters, which we describe as:

Party Loyalists, who are mostly older, lifelong Democrats who care about experience and electability.

The Left.

Millennials and Friends, who are young, cosmopolitan and social-media-savvy.

Black voters.

And Hispanic voters, who for some purposes can be grouped together with Asian voters.

The goal is for candidates to form a coalition consisting of at least three of the five groups.

I certainly wouldn’t claim that this is the only way to evaluate the field; rather, it’s part of what we hope will be a fairly broad toolkit of approaches that we’ll be applying as we cover the Democratic candidates at FiveThirtyEight over the course of the next 18(!!) months.1 Furthermore, in reality, the various ideological and demographic constituencies within the Democratic Party are more fluid than this analysis implies. Nonetheless, it has influenced my thinking — the coalition-building model has made me more skeptical about the chances for Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden and Amy Klobuchar, for instance, but more bullish about Kamala Harris, Beto O’Rourke and Cory Booker. In this article, I’ll go through a set of 10 leading contenders and map out their potential winning coalitions; we’ll tackle some of the long-shot candidates later on this week.

Let’s start with the man who has led most polls of the Democratic field so far, former Vice President Joe Biden. One lesson from the 2016 Republican primary might be to approach the polls with more humility. If a candidate is ahead in the polls for a sustained period of time — as Trump was for much of late 2015 and early 2016 — maybe we journalists ought to give a certain amount of credit to that, rather than just chalking it up to high name recognition or becoming overly wedded to some theory about how voters are “supposed” to behave.

With that said, there are some trouble signs for Biden. He performs worse among those voters who are paying the most attention to the primary, suggesting that his high name recognition compared to most other candidates is a significant factor in his lead.

And I’m not sure it’s going to be very easy for Biden to expand his coalition beyond the 25 percent or so that he’s getting in polls now. Presumably many of those voters are Party Loyalists, a group for whom he’s a good fit. Biden also has strong ratings among black voters, perhaps in part as a result of his being Barack Obama’s vice president — although his handling of the Anita Hill hearings and hawkish stance on criminal justice issues could give him problems among black voters if his record is subjected to greater scrutiny.

But where does Biden go after that? Could he gain support from The Left? Maybe a bit, but his dalliances with economic populism are more rhetorical than substantive; Biden’s voting record, and it’s a long one, is fairly centrist on economic policy. Could he win over Hispanic voters? Perhaps, as Hispanics sometimes back establishment-friendly nominees (like John Kerry in 2004), but Biden’s home state, Delaware, doesn’t have very many Hispanic voters (it has quite a few African-Americans, by contrast) and I’m less willing to give credit to a politician who hasn’t historically had to develop a relationship with a minority constituency. Still, a (Hillary) Clintonian constituency of Party Loyalists, black and Hispanic voters is probably Biden’s best bet.

When I originally conceived this article, I’d planned on splitting the Democratic electorate into three rather than five groups, which I’d roughly thought of as “white Hillary Democrats,” “white Bernie Democrats” and “nonwhite Democrats.” You can probably see why I abandoned that framework. One of the problems with it is that it groups blacks, Hispanics and other racial minorities together when (as in 2008) they sometimes gravitate toward different candidates.

But another problem is that what I had thought of as “white Bernie voters” is also really two different groups: Voters who belong to The Left and those who belong with the Millennials and Friends group. In 2016, Sanders got slightly more than 40 percent of the Democratic vote nationally, which corresponds to winning clear majorities of those two groups, plus making some inroads with younger black and Hispanic voters later on in the campaign. This year, he’s polling at a little less than 20 percent. The most obvious interpretation is that, while Sanders has held on to much of his support on The Left, millennials were mostly just looking for an alternative to Clinton, and they are now considering abandoning Sanders for younger, flashier alternatives such as Beto O’Rourke and Kamala Harris.

So how does Sanders form a winning coalition? He probably does need the millennials to return to his camp, which might happen if the field narrows and his major competition is, say, Joe Biden — but it would be trickier against a Beto or a Harris or a Cory Booker. (Hence the Beto-Bernie wars.) And finding a third coalition partner is even trickier. Party Loyalists are liable to be bitter over his treatment of Clinton in 2016 and over the fact that Sanders is not actually a Democrat. Even groups such as unions — important bridges between The Left and the establishment — have been hesitant to support Sanders’s candidacy.

As for black and Hispanic voters, maybe Sanders can hope that his weak performance among those groups in 2016 was more a matter of Clinton’s strengths than his own liabilities. Sanders’s favorability ratings are reasonably good among black and Hispanic voters, in fact. But a recent survey of influential women of color found very little support for Sanders — and in contrast to four years ago, he’s now running in a field that will likely contain a number of black and Hispanic candidates. Overall, Sanders looks like a candidate with a high floor but a low ceiling, and one who would probably benefit from the field remaining divided for as long as possible.

Warren has somewhat similar problems to Sanders, including having to build a relationship with black and Hispanic voters after being elected from an extremely white state — and having already made a misstep on issues of racial identity when she took a DNA test to “prove” she had Native American ancestry.

But she potentially has a higher ceiling because she’s more likely to win support from Party Loyalists, given that she’s a Democrat rather than an independent, and that she doesn’t have baggage from 2016. She’s also ever-so-slightly to Sanders’s right in a way that places her closer to the median Democratic voter.

The most likely winning coalition for Warren, in fact, probably involves the three predominately white groups: The Left, Party Loyalists and Millennials and Friends. (One of the things that helps her with millennials is that Warren has a bigger and better social media presence than you might assume.) Her path is tricky; she probably needs Sanders to founder. And that’s before getting into the gender dynamics surrounding her campaign and whether misogyny might hurt her chances. But she has a head start, having been the first of the big names to take official steps toward running and having hired key staffers in Iowa and elsewhere, which could give her more time to figure out a winning approach.

O’Rourke has one of the more obvious three-pronged coalitions: He’d hope to win on the basis of support from Millenials and Friends, Party Loyalists and Hispanics. The groups might support him for somewhat different reasons, and O’Rourke won’t win any of them without a fight, but he has a clearer path than the other Democrats we’ve mentioned so far.

O’Rourke really did help to motivate a surge in young voter turnout in his Texas Senate race last year; voters aged 18-29 were 16 percent of the electorate in 2018 as compared to 13 percent in the previous midterm in 2014. And overall turnout was up 80 percent as compared with 2014. O’Rourke won young voters overwhelmingly, whereas in 2014, Democratic nominee David Alameel had actually lost that group to Republican incumbent John Cornyn. O’Rourke also has one of the better social media presences among the Democratic contenders.

Meanwhile, the Democratic Party establishment has been encouraging O’Rourke to run, presumably because they see him as electable and potentially able to raise gargantuan sums of money for the party. Electability is a fuzzy concept, and one should be careful not to let “electable” become a synonym for “good-looking white guy” and vice versa. With that said, O’Rourke’s performance in Texas was quite strong relative to the partisanship of the state — even though he lost to Ted Cruz (by just under 3 percentage points), it was the best performance for a Democrat in a high-profile statewide Texas race in years. His policy views are a bit squishy, but that could also be an advantage of a sort — the same could be said of Obama in 2008 and Trump in 2016.

There’s liable to be a Big Discussion at some point about Beto’s authenticity among Hispanic voters. O’Rourke has a Hispanic nickname, Beto, but his given first name is Robert and he doesn’t actually have any Hispanic ancestry. With that said, he represented a district in El Paso that is almost 80 percent Hispanic, and he beat an incumbent Hispanic Democrat to first win the seat in 2012. He also won 64 percent of the Hispanic vote against Cruz (who is Cuban-American2), which is pretty good in a state where the Hispanic vote can be more conservative than in other parts of the country. (Alameel won just 47 percent of the Hispanic vote in 2014, by contrast.)

The candidate who looks best according to the coalition-building model is probably not O’Rourke, however. Instead, it’s California Sen. Kamala Harris, who potentially has strength with all five groups.

Harris, who is of mixed Jamaican (black) and Indian descent, was easily the top choice in the survey of influential women of color that I mentioned earlier. So while I don’t automatically want to assume that nonwhite candidates will necessarily win over voters who share their racial background — it took Obama some time to persuade African-Americans to vote for him in 2008 — Harris seems to be off to a pretty good head start. And her coalition not only includes black voters, but also potentially Asian and Hispanic voters. Harris did narrowly lose Hispanic voters to Sanchez, a Hispanic Democrat, in 2016 (while winning handily among Asian voters). But her approval ratings among Hispanic voters are high in California, a state where the group makes up around a third of the electorate.

If black voters and the Hispanic/Asian group constitute Harris’s first two building blocks, she’d then be able to decide which of the three remaining (predominately white) Democratic groups to target to complete her trifecta. And you could make the case for any of the three. Harris polls better among well-informed voters, which could suggest strength among Party Loyalists. She’s young-ish (54 years old) and has over 1 million Instagram followers, which implies potential strength among millennials. (And remember, Democratic millennials highly value racial diversity.) Harris’s worst group — despite a highly liberal, anti-Trump voting record — might actually be The Left, the whitest and most male group, from which she’s drawn occasional criticism for her decisions as a prosecutor and a district attorney.

Overall, however, this is a strong position for Harris. As Slate’s Jamelle Bouie points out, it may actually be a strategic advantage to be a black candidate in this Democratic primary in 2020.

If Harris rates strongly by this system, then it might follow that New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, who is also black, would look strong as well. Indeed, Booker may be somewhat overlooked by the pundit class. He’s been pretty explicit about the fact that he’s eventually going to run for the nomination. And he scored strong favorability ratings in a recent survey of Iowa voters, although he isn’t yet many voters’ first choice.

With that said, there are a couple of areas in which Booker could fall a bit short of Harris. New Jersey doesn’t have as many Hispanic or Asian voters as California does (and Booker isn’t part Asian, as Harris is). And if The Left has some problems with Harris, it’s liable to have a lot of problems with Booker, who many leftists see as being too close to Wall Street and to big business. Winning on the basis of a coalition of black voters, Party Loyalists and Millennials and Friends is certainly plausible for Booker, but he doesn’t have quite as many options as Harris does.

As I said earlier, I don’t think this five-corners metric is the only way to judge the candidates. And there are other heuristics by which Klobuchar, the Minnesota senator, might better positioned. For instance, if Democrats are looking for a candidate who forms the best contrast to Trump, she has a pretty good case, as a woman from the Midwest who comes across as temperamentally moderate and without a lot of Trumpian bombast.

But I’m not quite sure how she builds a winning coalition. Klobuchar is potentially a near-perfect choice for Party Loyalists, who are liable to see her Midwestern moderation as being highly electable, especially after she won her Senate race by 24 percentage points last year in a state where Trump nearly defeated Clinton. Beyond that, though? Minnesota is a pretty white state, so Klobuchar doesn’t have a lot of practice at appealing to black, Hispanic or Asian voters. Her voting record is fairly moderate — she’s voted with Trump about twice as often as Booker has, for example — so she’s not an obvious fit for The Left. Millennials, perhaps? Her social media metrics so far are paltry — she has just 140,000 Twitter followers, for example — although (not totally unlike Warren) she has a goofy relatability that could translate well to Instagram and so on.

Klobuchar’s chances probably depend more on “The Party Decides” view of the primary than the more voter-centric vision I’ve presented here. In that view, party elites and Party Loyalists are leading indicators for how the rest of the party will eventually vote. One can imagine Klobuchar gaining traction if she performs well in Iowa, for instance. That’s a lot of “ifs,” however, whereas other candidates would seem to have more straightforward paths.

Another Midwestern senator, Ohio’s Sherrod Brown, in some ways has a more obvious route toward building a coalition. Like Klobuchar, he can make some good arguments about electability, having been elected three times in an increasingly red state, potentially making him an appealing choice to Party Loyalists. But he’s also a tried-and-true economic populist, who would be able to build alliances with The Left, and he’s reportedly a top choice among labor unions.

Where Brown might pick up the third group for his coalition is harder to say. Ohio has a reasonably large black vote, so he may be able to appeal to African-American voters. His limited social media presence and rumpled demeanor wouldn’t seem to make him a natural fit for millenials, although rumpledness didn’t stop Sanders from gaining traction with millennials four years ago. Domestic violence allegations against Brown, stemming from his divorce in 1986, have historically not moved the needle against him in his Ohio campaigns but could be a concern to younger voters, especially younger women, if they’re litigated on the national stage.

Gillibrand, who looks increasingly likely to run, sometimes gives the impression of having conducted an analysis like the one you’re reading in this article and taking a color-by-number approach to the Democratic primary. But it can come out a bit awkwardly. On the one hand, Gillibrand has the lowest Trump Score of any senator, meaning that she has opposed Trump more often than any other Democrat in the upper chamber. On the other hand, she once took relatively conservative stances on gun control, immigration and other issues when serving in Congress as a representative from upstate New York. On the one hand, she uses leftist and feminist terms such as “intersectional” to describe how she sees the future. On the other hand, she has ties to Wall Street (as many New York Democrats do).

Gillibrand’s most natural path might be to start with Party Loyalists and build out a coalition from there. But her calls for Sen. Al Franken to resign — issued after several women accused him of groping them — reportedly triggered a backlash among some donor-class Democrats, who [warning, editorial comment ahead] apparently don’t care how stupid they look for blaming a woman for a man’s #MeToo problems.

With all that said, Gillibrand potentially has a reasonably high ceiling. In New York state, she has high favorability ratings among nonwhite voters and an especially large gender gap in how voters view her. So if she isn’t getting a lot of buzz among white male Democratic pundits, you should be a little bit wary about concluding that the lack of buzz is representative of the broader Democratic coalition.

We’re getting toward the end of what you might consider the top couple of tiers of Democratic candidates. And I’m not quite sure whether to consider Castro, the former mayor of San Antonio and former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, as one of the frontrunners or as more of a long-shot candidate. In the recent Selzer/Des Moines Register poll of Iowa, almost two-thirds of likely Democratic caucusgoers didn’t have an opinion about Castro either way. And neither his tenure as mayor nor his job as HUD Secretary necessarily required him to weigh in on the major issues of the day. So for better or worse, he’s starting out with a relatively blank slate and a malleable policy platform.

Castro does have the advantage of being potentially the only Hispanic candidate in the race. He’s a good speaker, having given the keynote address at the 2012 Democratic convention. And he’s been relatively explicit about his desire to run — he may even officially declare his intentions in the next few days. A coalition of Hispanics, Party Loyalists (if he can persuade party elites about the importance of the Hispanic vote) and Millenials and Friends might be Castro’s best option. As it happens, that’s also O’Rourke’s coalition, so the two Texans could represent a problem for one another.

There’s about an 80 percent chance that the Democratic nominee will be one of the 10 candidates I just mentioned, according to betting markets. Still, that does leave some room for a long shot, and there are literally dozens of other Democrats who are contemplating a presidential bid. There are also some candidates, such as Georgia’s Stacey Abrams, who don’t seem especially likely to run, but who could be formidable if they did. We’ll cover some of those other Democrats in “lightning round” fashion in a third and final installment of this series later this week.

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