#what was the fucking point of sending me a financial aid offer if you’re just gonna fucking reject me again bitch?!?!?!

[galariangengar]

💭

#wonderful… just fucking wonderful 🙃🙃🙃 #remember a few days ago when I said that one school sent a financial aid offer?… #well they fucking denied me…. AGAIN!!! #what was the fucking point of sending me a financial aid offer if you’re just gonna fucking reject me again bitch?!?!?! #sorry I don’t having like a fucking 5.0 gpa and like 100 different extracurricular activities & shit #but I know my shit when it comes to medical stuff and nursing shit and whatnot!!! it’s what I’ve been working on since high school!!!!! #I know my shit and I can/will work my fucking ass off and know how to deal with patients #there’s so many nurses and people out there that deadass don’t deserve to work in this field or in it for the wrong reasons #I’ll never forget seeing this one video of nurses in the labor/delivery unit talking about shit they hate with their patients #its fucking disgusting to see nurses like this publicly and almost proudly talk shit and even discuss private cases on like tiktok #HHHHHH ok I’ll shut up now cuz I’m trying not to cry and have another mental breakdown about this #idk how I’m gonna tell my dad ‘hey I got rejected AGAIN and I’m scared you’re gonna yell at me/be disappointed again 🙃’ #I know me and him already talked about this kinda stuff and have a plan and another school in mind I can apply to but… #just fucking once in my adult life CAN SOMETHING FUCKING GOOD HAPPEN TO ME????? #will be deleting this later like maybe sometime tonight or tomorrow #jazz uses curse! 💜

[sleekervae]

The Neighbour [0.3]

Something was irrevocably different with Remington; Emerson picked it off right away. On an early Tuesday afternoon, with the air thick and humid and the sun beating down like a plague (no pun intended), Remington was fussing over himself more than usual. He had changed out of four or five different outfits, playing with his hair, and was it appropriate for him to wear makeup? Eva hadn't seen him with it on, yet. No, it was probably best to keep it casual for now. Then again, he had a fantastic highlight that worked absolute magic under the sun...

It was around eleven thirty when Remington finally came down, dressed down but still presentable in a simple pair of ripped skinny jeans and a t-shirt. Emerson and Shy were sat on the couch as they watched Netflix, Pepper situated between them. Remington stopped short when he saw the pair cuddled up on the couch, he smiled deviously.

"Eugh! You guys are so flippin' cute it's gross!" he gushed, putting on his diva voice.

Shy chuckled softly, "Hi Rem,"

Emerson's attention diverted to his older brother, intrigued to see him all ready to go out somewhere.

"Where are you going?" he asked.

"Coffee with Eva," Remington replied simply.

"The neighbour with the cat?" Shy said.

"Yeah," Remington nodded, "Emerson tell you she gave us a loaf of bread last week?"

"He did," she smiled, "Poor thing, I felt for her. She looked so flustered at the pool,"

"Well, moving is a bitch already. Throw in Covid 19 and you got a real thorn in the ass," Emerson said, then turning back to his brother, "You gonna' be social distancing?"

"We're going to drink our coffee and walk around in the park," Remington replied, "She works from home anyway,"

"So, who asked who for the coffee?" Emerson asked.

Remington shrugged, stopping at the hallway mirror to fix his hair again, "She brought up how she hasn't had a chance to get around the neighbourhood, so I offered, she accepted. She has our vinyl too,"

"Which one?" Emerson asked.

"Boom Boom Room,"

"Side A or B?"

"A,"

"I'd approve either way,"

Shy couldn't help but subconsciouly squeeze Emerson's arm, a glimmer of excitement bursting behind her eyes, "So, she's a fan, too?"

"Took her a minute to figure it out. Didn't even bring up Em or Seb, so clearly she pays more attention to me," the blonde smirked.

Emerson glowered at his brother, "Yeah, yeah, go for your cup of fuck-off-ee," he grumbled.

Across the street, with her room strewn in discarded clothes that just didn't make the cut, Eva finally felt confident standing in her denim skirt and black tee. On any other day she'd have paired the ensemble with her pleather jacket, but it was too damn hot out. Even with the window letting in a cool breeze, the air was uncomfortably humid. What did she expect when moving from the Emerald City to Los Angeles?

Eva made sure to close and latch the window shut before she left, not eager for Pluto to go off on another reign of terror. Stopping to grab a fresh face mask, her phone suddenly began to vibrate in her purse. She figured it might have been Remington sending her a text, but the screen flashed to the Blocked Caller ID. Eva rolled her eyes and denied the call.

Stepping out into the humidity, Eva waved her hand over her face as she stepped out of the complex courtyard, just at the same time Remington was locking the door to his house. As soon as she caught his eye, he was all smiles.

She was glad to see him; a little relieved, even. He looked cool, cool enough to appear on some grungy magazine cover. All he needed to complete the look was a cigarette and maybe a skateboard, too. The messy blonde hair, the glimmer in his eyes brought back the warmth she associated with his presence and as she came to meet him at his car, his spicy cologne danced up her nose and imprinted itself in her olfactory memory.

Remington had never been more wary of how his hands shook, his left hand he stuffed into his jean pocket and the right he gripped his car keys with a vice-esque grip. He found himself mesmerized briefly by the fit of her skirt, her black t-shirt tucked in smoothly but not too tight to over expose her figure, but just enough to give Remington an idea. Her short brown hair fell delicately over her face, one side pushed back behind her ears and exposing her stormy blue eyes to the sunshine. She was the embodiment of innocence and grunge wrapped into a perfect five-foot-six package.

"Glad you didn't stand me up," he grinned.

"Well, I kind of happen to live right over there," she drawled, pointing to her balcony, "It'd be kind of awkward and hard to hide if I tried,"

"You look really nice," he nodded after a brief moment.

"So do you," she agreed with confidence, "Where we off to?"

There was a forested park not far from where they lived. Despite the pandemic, the fields were filled with older kids playing games of soccer and basketball, there were vendors out trying to sell their ice cream, a couple girls were scattered across the grass and sunbathing. It almost all seemed so normal, if not for the fact that the kid's jungle gym had been fenced off so no child could climb upon it.

The pair walked side-by-side, him with his iced black coffee and her with a green tea frapp -- no whipping cream. The gravel path they walked was shaded by a canopy of lush green trees, providing some relief from the hammering heat. Remington kept his gaze locked on her, worried to miss a moment where she'd crack a smile or briefly run her tongue over her lips. Her fingers appeared so dainty yet he could spot the small calluses at the middle joint of her thumb, and some paper cuts on her middle and index fingers.

"So, how does a ghostwriter get hired?" Remington asked, "Do you just openly advertise 'hey! If you're a lazy author, come hire me'?"

"No," Eva shook her head with a giggle, "I used to write articles for the newsletter at my college, and then a friend of mine forwarded me an email about a client who was looking for a ghostwriter. I didn't know much about it but the money was pretty good. It was a grant application for requesting financial aid for survivors of residential schools,"

"Sounds depressing," Remington said.

"It was pretty heavy shit," Eva admitted, "But, I did get fifteen-hundred for a six page application. Well worth it, I'd say,"

Remington blew an impressed whistle, "So you make pretty good money off of this?"

"Let's just say my student debt has decreased significantly since I took up the profession," and she took a brief sip of her drink.

"You ever publish anything under your own name?" he asked, "Eva Kuznetsov is a cute pen name. Evelina sounds more mature, though..."

Eva shrugged, "I think about it sometimes... but it's just easier to write under someone else's name and let them have all the glory. Say, if they happen to do something stupid to forever tarnish their career, that won't come back to bite me in the ass,"

Remington smirked, "Like a particular fantasy author who's made some pretty heavy comments concerning the trans community?"

"Let's not even talk about that, my heart still breaks when I think about it," Eva sighed, "To answer your question, however, if I got confident enough I may try to publish something in the future,"

"What else do you like to write?"

Eva opened her mouth but closed it quickly, pressing together her petunia pink lips as she visibly swallowed whatever words were about to pass through them. When she looked up at Remington again, his brown eyes dark like soaked coffee grinds that sent her into a caffeinated headrush. What would he think if she actually told him...

"I write poems, some short stories," she somewhat lied.

Remington's smile grew wider, mischief glimmering over his face like light beams reflecting over windchimes in a saturated dusk, "You hesitated just now," he spoke curiously, "What else do you write?"

Eva glanced down at the ground, a nervous giggle bubbling out and knocking the air out of her lungs, "Okay listen, don't judge me, it's just a hobby of mine,"

"Oh God!" Remington gasped, "Do you write porn?"

Eva laughed again, her pale cheeks flushing in red, "Well... I do happen write some naughty shit... in my fanfictions,"

Remington stopped dead in his tracks, taken aback by her answer. He totally thought she would say something along the lines of erotic fiction on a platform like Literotica. For understandable reasons, he had some mixed emotions about fanfictions.

"What kind of fanfiction?" he asked, somewhat bordering on the third degree.

"... Um..." she glanced at him again, the smirk on his lips compelling more giggles to burst from hers. She pressed her hands together over her nose and mouth, and Remington laughed as well.

"Okay listen, I promise," he put his right hand over his chest, "I promise I will not judge you for whatever smut you write for whoever," he assured her.

"It's not... yeah, I guess it kind of is," Eva chuckled nervously, "I usually write for stuff like Criminal Minds, but more lately I've gotten into writing for Euphoria..." she trailed off, timid as she waited for his response.

"Alright, that's actually not bad," he nodded, "I'll be honest, you didn't strike me as somebody who write fanfics,"

Eva glanced timidly at her scuffed sneakers, kicking up pebbles and dust, "Are fanfic writers supposed to look a certain way?"

"I don't know, actually," he simpered.

"I don't tell a lot of people that I do it, mainly because their first impression is either 'what the fuck' or 'OMG we should collaborate' and I'm just like," she hung her head back, "Nooo!"

"You're more of a soloist then a team player, then?" he teased.

"Let's just say I tend to work better alone," she replied, shrugging her shoulders as though the comment should mean nothing. But Remington found it odd that Eva was out here all on her own, never brought up her friends or family. He didn't see many personal effects in her apartment, neither.

"Is that why you're out here by yourself?" he asked.

"What do you mean?" she replied.

"Well... don't take this the wrong way, but I haven't really seen you with anybody. You don't talk about your friends or your family,"

Eva shrugged again, "They're all back in Seattle. Besides, opportunity was drying up over there and I just wanted a fresh start," she said, "Besides, Pluto's my friend,"

"Well, that's a given," he replied, "Are your parents up in Seattle?"

"My dad is," she nodded, "I don't know what my mom's doing," Remington's silent was her cue to go on, "I um... we haven't really spoken, her and I,"

"You have a falling out?" he asked suddenly.

Eva glared down at the gravel again, "You can call it that. She's a pilot and she's always flying, and so you know, I never really got to see much of her growing up. And then, she suddenly shows up for my college graduation and expects us to be one big happy family, like she has it in her head that she can make up for all the birthdays and shit she's missed. And I just didn't know what to say to her. I don't know who she is, but she's my mom," she glanced up at Remington again, "And I don't know why I'm telling you all of this,"

Remington wasn't bothered by her unloading, it seemed as though Eva needed to get things off her chest more than she realized. Her smile was sardonic and her voice petty like a comedian on stage, putting on the brave 'I don't give a fuck anymore' face.

"I find sometimes it's easier to unload to new people then it is to your friends," he said, "What does your dad do?"

"Chem professor. Which is ironic because I seriously sucked at chemistry," she replied.

"Show me a kid who didn't struggle in chem, honestly," he said, "But do you get along with your dad?"

"For the most part," she chuckled, "He's still confused as to why I choose to write anonymously, but that's his problem. What do your parents do?"

Remington chewed on the inside of his cheek, "My mom's kind of like our manager. Does a lot of production and behind the scenes stuff. And I haven't seen my dad for nearly twenty years,"

Eva was silent for a moment, studying him. He spoke with a firm grin, yet still trying to shadow that flicker of sadness within his face.

"So we both have parental issues... that's nice to know," she put on a teasing grin, "Maybe that's why we make such good friends?"

Remington swallowed thickly, "So, you are indeed confirming we are friends?"

"I am," she smiled, "It'd be nice to have whatever few I can scrape up,"

"That fact that you also live across the street means that you're now stuck with me," Remington grinned with pride.

"True," Eva hummed appreciatively, taking another sip of her drink, "Somehow, I don't think I'll mind, though,"

When Remington drove her home she gave him a sweet and polite goodbye, a hug which made his confident exterior falter for a second long enough for her to witness it through the flush in his cheeks and his lack of response. His words tripped over the length of his tongue when he tried to flush out a proper goodbye and he felt his hands began to quiver again.

And when he went to open his door, he took one last glance. The small brunette turned at the same time and met his gaze, but he was too far away to hear her sharp inhale. And when he finally went inside he fall back against the door, staring into space with the biggest grin he'd had on since... well, he couldn't remember when he last felt so excited.

#remington leith #Remington Leith imagine #palaye royale #Palaye Royale imagine #Palaye Royale fic #sebastian danzig #emerson barrett #boy bands #band imagines #band imagine blog #original story #original female character

[fandoms-are-my-lifestyle]

I got it all (but I don’t ever wanna grow up)

The Bright Sessions • Adam Hayes / Caleb Michaels, Mark Bryant / Oliver Ritz Rating: T • ~5.2k words • AO3 For @staystrange tw:  description of panic attacks

He fills Mark in on everything that happened. It seems like so long ago now, before everything with Sodalis Eximius and Adam and Oliver, and yet it’s still so fresh in his mind - the horror of influencing someone else’s emotions now amplified by the knowledge of what it looks like when someone does use that ability for evil. He will never be like Blackwell - Adam certainly spends enough time trying to remind him of that, and though he will never truly believe him, it helps - but the knowledge of what he could do still leaves him waking up in a cold sweat. His nightmares place him in Blackwell’s stead, the book a constant murmur of emotions telling him how to feel. It’s overwhelming and terrifying and -

“Caleb?” Mark says after a moment. “Have you considered taking off for a year?”

Or: Caleb struggles with his powers, his life decisions, and what he wants after the events of The College Tapes.

The day Adam gets into Yale's English graduate program begins one of the worst mental breakdowns of Caleb Michaels’s life. 

It's late Friday morning; they're lying on Adam's bed in his apartment, still under the covers. Adam's hair tickles Caleb's chin and they probably both have an awful case of morning breath, but Caleb wouldn't move for all the money in the world. He finally has this again, has Adam again, and even three months after everything he hasn't stopped marveling at his luck. 

Adam's blue mixes Caleb’s yellow satisfaction, they're green with contentment, and Caleb relishes in it, delighting in the quiet of -

BANG. 

"Adam?!" A voice shouts from outside. Caitlin. "Adam, did you check?! Did you-"

Adam goes from warm-comfort-blue to black-anxious-sludge in a manner of seconds, eyes and hands anxiously darting everywhere. 

"Phone... phone... Caleb, where's my-"

Caleb wordlessly hands him his phone, the screen already unlocked to show Adam’s home screen, but Adam barely spares him a glance. Caleb can hear Adam’s heart racing, and his own heartbeat picks up the pace to match it. There are four awful, agonizing beats of silence, before -

“I GOT IN!” 

The exhilaration hits Caleb in a rush of blue, flooding his core with exhilaration, and they’re screaming, jumping on Adam’s bed, and dancing around; Caitlin joins them, and the three dance around like fools until they all flop to the floor. 

“What do you say, Adam?” Caitlin says, the light in her eyes mirroring the happy bubbles in her lavender excitement. “Three more years at Yale?”

“As if you could drag me away,” Adam says, and god, he sounds so happy, so relieved, and Caleb wants to sink into that feeling and hold onto it forever. “You’re the deserter here, not me.” 

“Hey!” Caitlin shrieks, reaching over Caleb to shove at Adam. “Desert this, motherfuck-” 

“Okay, okay, okay, Caitlin,” Caleb chuckles, shoving her off his chest with a grunt. “Not our fault you chose Duke over Yale Law!”

“They offered me more financial aid,” Caitlin pouts for the thousandth time since she’d chosen where to commit. “It’s not my fault Yale doesn’t want to keep me!”

“We get it, Caitlin, don’t worry.” Adam chuckles, then turns to Caleb. “By the way, babe, did you ever look into the clinical psych program like you said you would? I know the application isn’t due for a bit, but it’s never too early to start researching, right?”

“Uhm…” Caleb says, and the happy blue glow is still there but now Caleb’s own sickly yellow dread is there, taking over everything, and he needs to get out of here before he ruins everything again. He breathes in deep, as Dr. Bright had taught him, and contains his dread within his own chest before it can come leaking out like water through a sieve. “Yeah, I, uh- I-”

“Caleb?” Adam asks, dark navy worry seeping into cyan happiness and making Caleb feel even worse. “Are you-”

“Ihavetogo!” Caleb jolts up. His heart is pounding in his ears and he can’t see can’t breathe he needs to leave he needs to go needs to - “Fuck, um, I’m gonna. Gonna go for a. Run, I’m gonna go run.” He grabs a pair of shorts from his drawer in Adam’s dresser, socks and shoes thrown on before Caitlin and Adam blink, and then he’s gone.

His feet hit the pavement hard, sending shockwaves through his body, and for a moment Caleb wishes Ben was beside him. They’re the perfect running partner, surprisingly good at knowing when Caleb needs to talk and when he needs to be silent, and right now Caleb wishes he could talk to Ben, or Sadie, or Frankie, but he also doesn’t want to worry them, and he knows that it’s stupid but -

His phone is in his hand.

You’ve reached Mark, for some reason. It’s 2017, last I checked - just text me. Or, you know, leave a message if you must. 

“Mark,” Caleb gasps out, and he’s breathless from running but also from panic. “Mark, I- I- fuck, this was stupid. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have called, it’s just, you said- I mean- fuck-” 

He breaks off and takes a breath, wishing for Dr. Bright (Call me Joan, Caleb, I think we’ve been through enough at this point) and her calm beige professionalism, or Frankie’s bubbly orange happiness, or Adam’s easy blue to fill his lungs and let him breathe again.  

“I just- You remember when I asked you, you know… if you knew… I mean. I guess you are grown up now, right? But. How did you- I mean- God this is stupid.”

He hangs up, hands shaking, and there’s no one around him but he’s still so filled with emotion he feels like he could burst. The run isn’t helping, and he kinda wants to scream, because the thought of graduating and having to choose what happens next is - 

His phone rings. 

“H-Hello?”

“Caleb? Oh god, Caleb.” Mark. He sounds… worried? Relieved? All of the above? “Caleb, are you okay? I just got your message - you’re so lucky I emptied my voicemail recently, by the way, I can’t believe - but that’s beside the point, Caleb, what happened?”

“Adam,” Caleb starts, and then gulps in a breath and starts again. “Adam got into Yale English, which, like, we fucking knew was gonna happen, because they would have had to be fucking stupid not to take him, but-”

“Okay, okay, Caleb, deep breath,” Mark instructs, and Caleb is so glad Mark’s the person he called. Mark is no Joan Bright, but some of his sister’s instincts have clearly leaked through. 

“Come on, breathe with me Caleb… In for four… One… Two…”

Caleb listens to the sound of Mark’s voice and breathes and breathes, trying to focus on the feeling of the grass under his hands and - when did he end up on the ground? But he’s breathing and the emotions have stopped leaking out of him like a cracked dam, panic-worry-anxiety giving way to calm. 

God, he’s lucky New Haven is pretty much dead right now - leaking emotions like this, his influence on other people could have gotten very bad very quickly. Just the thought makes his breathing pick up again, but he tries his best to focus on Mark’s voice instead. 

Mark has switched from counting to a steady monologue about his latest date with Oliver, during which Mark had taken Oliver to the MIT Museum of Science so that Oliver could show off how much smarter he is than the MIT scientists. Mark’s pretending to have been annoyed by it, using a nasal voice to imitate Oliver’s insults, but Caleb can feel the lightness behind Mark’s voice even over the phone. He focuses on that lightness, on the cool grass under his legs, and lets himself come down.

“Hey, Mark?” He says finally, cutting off Mark’s explanation of the diner they’d gone to after the museum. 

“Yeah, buddy?” 

“Thanks,” Caleb says, and he’s not sure what he’s even thanking Mark for - calling him back, calming him down, or just being there - but the words resonate with everything he doesn’t have the words to say. 

“Anytime,” Mark answers gently. “Are you ready to talk about it?”

“Yeah…” Caleb takes a deep breath. “I just… Fuck, Mark, I don’t know if I can do psych anymore.”

“What? Caleb, you… Why not? What happened?”

Caleb exhales and lets his head loll back, hitting the tree trunk he’s leaning against with a soft thump. “So… remember that internship I had last summer?”

He fills Mark in on everything that happened. It seems like so long ago now, before everything with Sodalis Eximius and Adam and Oliver, and yet it’s still so fresh in his mind - the horror of influencing someone else’s emotions now amplified by the knowledge of what it looks like when someone does use that ability for evil. He will never be like Blackwell -  Adam certainly spends enough time trying to remind him of that, and though he will never truly believe him, it helps - but the knowledge of what he could do still leaves him waking up in a cold sweat. His nightmares place him in Blackwell’s stead, the book a constant murmur of emotions telling him how to feel. It’s overwhelming and terrifying and -

“Caleb?” Mark says after a moment. “Have you considered taking off for a year?”

“Taking… off?”

“Well, I mean, don’t pull an Oliver and go gallivanting through Europe for a year without telling anyone, but… maybe a break from school would do you good? You could, I don’t know, get a job or something. You’re planning on moving in with Adam in New Haven after you graduate anyway, aren’t you?”

“Uh, yeah, I mean we were definitely thinking about it, but-”

“Caleb.” Mark’s voice is soft but firm, anchoring Caleb to the present. “What’s stopping you? Take a year, figure out what you want. Life doesn’t stop after college, remember?” 

“Yeah…” Caleb breathes, shaky but getting calmer. “Yeah, I…”

“You okay, buddy?” 

(Caleb loves it when Mark calls him buddy. He pretends to hate it, pretends to hate how childish it is as a nickname, but Mark is the older brother he never got to have and Caleb loves him.)

“Yeah, I think… I think I have to talk to Adam. And my parents.” 

“You do that, Caleb.” The amusement in Mark’s voice is undercut by the softness of it, and Caleb loves his brother so much. “And hey, Caleb?”

“Yeah?”

“I love you, little bro.”

Caleb laughs, low and breathy. “I love you too, Mark. Say hi to Oliver and Joan for me?”

“Of course. Everything's going to be okay, Caleb, I promise. Oh, also, Joanie said to call her when you get a sec. Something about what you talked about last time?”

“Yeah. I will. Thanks again, Mark. Bye.”

“Bye!”

Mark hangs up, and Caleb closes his eyes for a moment before heaving himself to his feet and pointing himself back the way he came.

Back home.

Back to Adam.

“I can’t believe you’re leaving me for this twig,” Sadie jokes over the last of his boxes. “Who’s going to hit the gym with you now, Michaels?”

“He doesn’t need you anymore, Sadie!” Adam sasses back, cerulean playfulness resting lightly in Caleb’s chest. Adam’s rifling through boxes, trying to find their bottle opener (“I know it’s in one of the kitchen boxes, Caleb, but which one?”) and Caleb is sitting on the floor because they still only have like two chairs, and one is being taken up by Caitlin and the other has been commandeered by Ben. Frankie’s flitting from one room to the next, keeping up a constant commentary of thoughts, and underlying it all is green contentment.

If Caleb could freeze any moment in time to live in forever, he thinks this would be it - surrounded by friends, in this tiny shoebox apartment he and Adam now live in. Together. 

It doesn’t get more official than that.

“Michaels!” Sadie yells, effectively snapping Caleb out of his reverie. “This one says he’s your new gym partner!”

“Wait wait wait, hold up, I never said anything of the sort,” Adam defends himself, gesturing wildly with the now-located bottle opener. “All I said was that now that you got this job at the gym, you didn’t need Sadie to be your partner anymore! You’re gonna be training other people or whatever one does in a gym, I don’t fucking know, but I never signed up for any gym-going of my own, thank you very much.” 

“Objection, your honor-” Sadie starts, giggling. “I-”

“Overruled!” Caitlin yells, pulling Frankie down on top of her. “On the grounds of my hunger! And we’re waiting for that bottle opener, Adam, so if you wouldn’t mind...” 

“You got it, Cait,” Caleb laughs. They’d ordered takeout from a place down the road and for a while there’s no sound other than chewing and the occasional “can someone pass me a napkin?” Someone eventually turns on Caleb’s laptop, and they dig out Adam’s clunky old projector to watch Mamma Mia! for the ten-thousandth time. 

“So Caleb,” Ben says somewhere in between “Lay All Your Love On Me” and “Super Trouper,” “What’s this new job you’ve got anyways?”

Caleb turns to look up at them from the floor. Ben, in true queer fashion, is lying with their feet propped on the top of the chair and their head hanging upside down off the seat, and Caleb feels his heart fill with love. Ben’s come so far in the past year, and Caleb… well, Ben will never not be his kid sibling, after all that. 

“It’s a Physical Trainer position at Yale New Haven Health’s gym,” he answers finally. “They offered to pay for my training and everything. I guess they really liked me or something.”

“Of course they did,” Adam mumbles. He’s resting somewhere between sleep and awake, head tucked into the crook of Caleb’s neck, which Caleb would absolutely be teasing Adam for if Caleb wasn’t so completely besotted by the sight. God, he loves this man. “They'd be stupid not to.”

Adam looks up at Caleb, eyes soft with sleep as “Super Trouper” plays from Caleb’s laptop, and Caleb can feel himself falling in love with Adam all over again. He thinks back to what Mark had said on the phone all those weeks ago - Life doesn’t stop after college, remember? - and knows in his gut that he’s made the right choice. He doesn’t need grad school to be happy; doesn’t need a fancy degree like a PsyD. 

All he needs is this family he’s made for himself, and Adam beside him for as long as Adam’s willing to stay. 

With these people around him, he knows he can do anything.

<<From the Voicemail Box of Dr. Joan Bright.>>

Please record your message after the tone. When you are finished recording, press 1 for more options

>> Hey, Dr. Brig- uh, I mean, Joan. Right. Sorry, I know you said I could call you Joan after graduation, since I'm, like, no longer your patient and like an adult now or whatever, but… fuck. That's weird. Um. It's Caleb.

>> Anyways, just calling to let you know that I met with that Atypical therapist you recommended to me today… uh, Alene Orwell? Yeah, her. She's pretty cool, and it's good to know I have someone I can talk to if I need here in New Haven, but… She's not you. Is it weird of me to say I miss you? Fuck. Probably. Sorry, I made it weird. 

>> So, um, yeah. I was just calling to keep you updated. Adam says hi, by the way. Oh, and Ben was wondering if you knew anyone who could help them talk to their parents about the Atypical thing in New York? I guess they finally decided to clue in their parents, but like. I don't really have any advice for them there, so I told them I'd ask. 

>> Yeah. That's all. Um, say hi to Mark and Sam and Jackson for me. I'll talk to you later. Bye!

End of Final Message. 

Working at YNHH’s gym fits Caleb better than he ever thought it would.

It’s not that he hasn’t been a gym rat since high school - the 2.7 pound jar of protein powder Adam teases him about schlepping up the three flights of stairs to their apartment at least once a month definitely defines him as a “meathead,” as Adam would say - it’s that the focused emotions of everyone around him sit warmly in his chest like a clean sweat after a good workout.  People come to the gym with one plan in mind - get in, work out, get out - and the focus behind their drive pushes Caleb to heights he never thought he’d reach.

He loves it. 

His coworkers are great too - Jen with her stick-straight black hair tied in a bun so tight it looks like it probably hurts; her girlfriend Amora, who can lift more than Caleb and will never let him forget it; Greg and Jake, frat bros turned personal trainers and roommates who are constantly bemoaning their singleness and don’t make it weird when Caleb brings up his boyfriend; Caleb’s manager, Tommy, who gives out warm cozy hugs like handshakes and lets the trainers pretty much do what they want as long as they’re not bothering patrons. There’s always a good rapport going between them.

Caleb teaches a weights class on Tuesdays and Thursdays and trains clients on other days. He’s got favorites already, people who come in with single handed focus to be better-faster-stronger, and the rush of adrenaline and joy that he feels whenever they succeed in something leaves him buoyant. Caleb is good at this; he’s a good trainer and a good coworker and he loves what he does. 

He loves it… but he’s not passionate about it. 

He remembers being passionate about psychology, before his ability went haywire and he stopped being able to control it. He still runs through all the parts of the brain and their uses when he gets anxious as a method of distraction, still finds himself reading psych research journals in his spare time and accidentally psychoanalyzing clients like they’re patients. 

He’s still not ready to go back, though. 

Dr. Alene Orwell - Dr. Bright’s recommendation for an Atypical therapist here in New Haven, a tall white woman with flyaway black curls and kind eyes - tells him it’s okay not to be ready. She reminds him that he’s still working on control, still working on trusting himself again, and that it’ll take time to get back to where he was before. She tells him to talk to Adam. 

It’s just - it’s hard, sometimes, to tell Adam about this part of him. Not because Adam wouldn’t understand - he would, he definitely would - but because Adam is so happy as a graduate student at Yale, writing his dissertation on Shakespeare and his influence on queer literature, and Caleb is so, so afraid that he’s going to ruin it. He’s terrified that showing Adam how much he wants to go back to psych - and how much he can’t trust himself to do so ethically - will scare him away from academia, from Caleb, forever.

Logically, he knows his fears are silly. Adam isn’t driven away by superpowers or time ghosts or the way Caleb’s sneakers smell after he gets home from a long day at the gym; he wouldn’t be scared off by Caleb’s stupid insecurities. 

Practically, though… 

Caleb couldn’t stand to feel Adam’s love for him turn to pity. He refuses. 

It’s not like it matters, anyway. He likes his job, likes where he’s at, and his family - both blood and found - is only a phone call or a roadtrip away. 

He just… wasn’t cut out for psych the way he’d thought he was. Maybe helping people work out would replace the way helping people in therapy had once made him feel. 

It would have to be enough.

“I have to commend you, Caleb,” Dr. Orwell says during their next session. “You’ve come a long way with controlling your ability and not having it affect other people. I’m impressed.”

Caleb blushes down at his hands, staring anywhere but at Dr. Orwell. He knows she’s right, knows he’s gotten better at learning when the tendrils of emotion are snaking out of him like pit vipers and that he’s finally gotten the hang of pulling them back. It’s an odd feeling, feeling tendrils of emotions leaking from his body like a sieve, but he’s gotten used to it. He can control it now. 

He’s not as afraid anymore. He’s gotten better at differentiating between his emotions and everyone else’s; he’s learned what it feels like when he forces someone to feel what he feels. 

(Adam had volunteered to be a test subject for that one; they’d gone into Dr. Orwell’s office together, hand in hand, and Caleb had made him happy, then sad, angry, then calm. Caleb had nearly run out of the room crying afterwards, had nearly vomited all over Dr. Orwell’s carpet, but she’d insisted that it was important for him to know what it felt like and, well, Adam had offered. That didn’t really make him feel better, but Adam’s willingness to kiss him and comfort him afterwards while Caleb cried did help.)

He leaves Dr. Orwell’s office feeling lighter than he has in years, since before his Pokémon evolution occurred, and actually finds himself whistling on his way to work. The tune is from some indie band Adam’s gotten him into recently - The Amazing something? Apparently the male singer was in a show that Adam watched on Netflix the other week, and he’s pretty decent. The songs are pretty catchy, that’s for sure. 

He’s still whistling as he clocks in and starts to prepare the weights room for his class, wiping down the surfaces and sweeping the floor clean, when he feels it.

PanicDreadShockFearOhShitICan’tBreathePanicDreadICan’t-

The panic comes on so fast it nearly drops Caleb to the floor. He’s hyperventilating, heart pounding in his ears and he can’t breathe but - 

It’s not his panic. 

The realization hits Caleb almost as fast as the panic had; it’s swift and makes his blood run cold, turning his veins to ice as he tries to isolate his feelings from this intrusion. He breathes in deep, the way Dr. Bright and Dr. Orwell always instructed him to do, and focuses on the churning panic that’s settled just to the right of his rib cage. 

It’s not his, he knows that for certain; it’s a particular shade of red he would never ascribe to himself, but it’s there, and it's definitely bad. 

Caleb doesn’t hesitate. He drops everything and runs towards the feeling. 

The panic grows stronger the closer he gets to it and Caleb kind of wants to give up, kind of wants to drop to the ground and hyperventilate, but he knows that whoever is feeling this way needs help. There’s barely anyone else around the gym right now. If anyone is going to help this person, it’s going to have to be him.

The source of the panic ends up being a young girl, probably only a little bit younger than Caleb himself - maybe twenty? She’s sitting on the floor of an abandoned workout room, and it only takes a second for Caleb to realize that everything not attached to the floor is levitating. 

Atypical. This woman is Atypical.

For a moment, Caleb is frozen. There’s iron in his veins and his feet are made of lead; this woman is panicking, is making things levitate, and Caleb isn’t doing anything to help her. He can’t do anything to help her.

Except… that’s not true, is it? 

He’s trained for this, he knows how to help people who are panicking. Knows how to help Atypicals who are panicking. He doesn’t even need his powers to do it. 

It’s that thought that spurs him on, forcing one foot in front of another until he’s in front of the woman. She’s breathing harshly, eyes unfocused, and doesn’t seem to notice him even when Caleb kneels down in front of her. 

“Hey,” he says softly, and her eyes snap to him. She tries to move away from him, burrowing farther into the corner she’s placed herself in, and Caleb frowns. He moves away from her slightly, doing his best to make himself seem less imposing if he can. It’s not exactly easy to make a jacked 6’2” former football player seem small, but Caleb tries his best. 

“Hey,” he says again calmly, as if he’s talking to a wounded animal. “My name is Caleb Michaels, I’m a personal trainer here at the gym. You’re at the YNHH gym, in an equipment room. It’s Thursday, about 1:30 pm…”

He keeps talking, reminding the woman where she is, and interspersing his own name and identity often so she doesn’t come to and immediately panic again. 

Slowly, slowly, he can feel the woman start to come back to herself. She’s still shaking, body trembling with every breath, but the various pieces of gym equipment have stopped floating around their heads and her emotions have stopped feeling like sludge in Caleb’s chest, which he definitely considers a win. “That’s it,” he says encouragingly. “Can you tell me your name?”

“... Emily,” She says finally. “Emily Harris.”

“Nice to meet you, Emily,” Caleb says. He’s keeping his voice soft, almost whispering, but inwardly he’s smiling like a fool. She’s going to be okay. “I’m Caleb. Can you tell me where you are?”

“At the… the gym. I was- I- I wanted to get in a, a workout before c-class… it’s…what time is it?”

“About 1:45,” Caleb tells her. Her face sags in relief. “Can you tell me what happened, Emily?” 

“I- um, I-” she starts, and suddenly her breathing catches. “Oh my god, you saw- I mean- you- I- ohmigod nononononono you-”

“Hey, hey, hey, it’s okay, Emily,” Caleb soothes. “Here, um, what are five things you can see right now? Just list them.”

“You, the mirror, the weights… my water bottle… the cabinets…”

“Good,” Caleb says encouragingly. He can almost feel Dr. Bright’s presence over his shoulder and tries his best to emulate her calm collectedness. “Now four things you can feel.”

He leads her through the exercise until her breathing starts to calm down again. She’s fisted a hand in her own hair, pulling like the pain will keep her centered in reality, and Caleb reaches toward it. When she doesn’t flinch, he gently untangles her fingers from her hair and they instantly grasp his own, as if letting go would mean becoming untethered from her own tentative calm. 

“You’re alright,” he tells her again, gently running his thumb over her knuckles. Obviously in training he was never to touch a patient, and Caleb knows better than to do so, but he figures he can chalk this one up to extenuating circumstances. “Are you ready to tell me what made you panic?”

“Why aren’t you freaking out right now?” she says finally, suspicious. “You just walked into a room where some freak girl was making everything levitate because of a panic-c attack. H-How are you so calm?”

Caleb smiles at her softly. “You’re Atypical, right?”

“You know what a-atypicals are?”

“Yeah,” he says, taking a deep breath. “I’m Atypical too. I’m an empath, it’s how I knew to come looking for you. I felt you panic.” 

“Sorry,” Emily says after a beat. “I- Just- Sorry.” 

“It’s okay,” Caleb says. “Are you ready to talk about it now?”

“It’s stupid.” Emily blushes, eyes fixed firmly on the floor in front of her. “I… um. I’m normally in control, I promise, you know, I did one of those programs that-”

“The AM?” 

“Yeah, and, you know, I normally am really good at controlling it, but, um, my partner, they, um. They were in a car accident? Yesterday? And, like, they’re fine, and I’m super relieved, but I got, I mean, they texted me they were coming to get me from- from here, actually, and then I didn’t hear from them for like, three hours, because they were dealing with it and then I guess I never stopped to process it but now I’m back and they’re fine, but I- I-”

She stops, shuddering out a breath, and starts to cry. “I was just so worried, and then I came back today, and it was like- like-”

“Like it suddenly hit you all over again?” Caleb says. “I know how that feels. Sometimes, especially when you’re focused on other people, you forget to process events for yourself, until it suddenly all comes back and hits you like a ton of bricks. Your body was so focused on your partner that it probably forgot to focus on you too, and once it remembers, it’s like you’re experiencing everything all over again. It’s like the fight or flight instinct, kind of.”

“H-How do you know… so much?” Emily laughs wetly. “You really sound like you know what you’re talking about.”

“I… studied psychology in school, actually,” Caleb admits. “I was going to be a therapist. For Atypicals, actually.”

“What happened?” Emily asks curiously. Her breathing has evened out and she’s stopped crying; the ball of panic in Caleb’s chest has started to give way to calm curiosity. “Why didn’t you? You… Seems like you’d be really good at it. And you… you said you were an e-empath, right?”

Caleb laughs darkly. “Yeah, um, let’s just say I got… scared. Of my ability. And my own abilities, I guess. I, uh, wasn’t sure psychology was the right path for me anymore, so I, um, took a year off.” 

It’s hard to talk about this, and Caleb isn’t quite sure why he’s telling Emily this, but after talking her down from a full-on Atypical panic attack, he figures they’re not really strangers anymore. 

“You loved it,” Emily says suddenly with conviction. “I don’t… I don’t need to be an empath to know that. You like helping people.”

“Yeah,” Caleb admits softly. Emily’s words ring in his ears. She’s right, he knows - he had loved psychology, loved therapy, loved working with people to make them feel better. He…

He missed it. 

Maybe he was finally ready to admit that it was time to go back. 

“Come on,” Caleb says after a beat. He stands and holds out his hand to Emily, who takes it. “I’ll cancel my class, Tommy will understand. I’ll buy you a coffee, you can tell me more about this partner of yours.”

Emily smiles gratefully, and they leave the gym together.

The day Caleb gets into the University of Hartford’s PsyD program brings about the best decision of Caleb’s life. 

He and Adam are sitting on their couch in their pajamas; it’s almost ten pm, and Adam’s just started the next episode of the sitcom he and Caleb have been making their way through when he gets the email. 

“Adam,” he says, and he thinks his heart stops beating. “Adam, I got in.” 

Adam’s eyes light up, tiny suns boring into Caleb’s heart, and when Adam kisses him Caleb almost cries. It’s all coming to fruition. It’s all going to be okay. 

Adam looks so soft, face alight with happiness, wearing Caleb's old football sweatshirt and ratty old pajama pants, and Caleb honestly can't help himself. It's all going to work out. He's gotten into the University of Hartford's Clinical Psychology program, Adam is working his way through Yale's English program to get a doctorate in Shakespeare study because he's cool like that, and they're together and in love and everything is finally going well for them. 

"Marry me," he breathes, and Adam's breath leaves his body. "God, fuck, this wasn't how I wanted to do this, fuck, I have a ring and everything upstairs, I was going to do this properly, but… fuck, Adam, I love you. I never want to spend another moment without you. I know we can't live in a world of our own, just the two of us, but I want to create one with you. I want you, all of you, and I- fuck."

He gets down on one knee, looking at Adam, and it's like he can't breathe. He feels like he might cry. 

"Adam Hayes, will you marry me?"

"Caleb…" Adam breathes, and there are tears in his eyes. "Yes, Caleb, yes!"

He pulls Caleb back to his feet, and when Adam kisses him, Caleb feels hope bloom in his chest. 

Right now, everything is perfect. 

#the bright sessions #adam hayes #caleb michaels #adam x caleb #the college tapes #mark bryant #oliver ritz #joan bright #caitlin park #frankie meeks #sadie greenwood #ben bernard #Leo writes

[hellomynameisbisexual]

I’d go so far as to say that the nomination probably saved the site, in fact. For those who need a little background: despite being a small voluntary project the site was nominated for the 2014 Publication of the Year award by Stonewall, the UK’s largest LGBT charity, just nine months after its inception. This was a landmark step in Stonewall’s positive new direction on bi issues. To the best of my knowledge, this was the first time Stonewall had specifically nominated a specifically bi publication or organisation for an award. At this point my co-founder, who was taking care of the business side of things, had recently jumped ship and I was seriously considering packing the whole thing in. I won’t lie, I was astonished to read the email.

I’d worked on a publication which won the award under my editorship a few years previously. Unlike Biscuit, however, g3 magazine – at the time one of the two leading print mags for lesbian and bi women in the UK – had an estimated readership of 140,000, had been going for eight years and boasted full-time paid office staff and regular paid freelancers. Biscuit, by contrast, was being dragged along by one weary unpaid editor and a bunch of unpaid writers who understandably, for the most part, couldn’t commit to regularly submitting work.

Little Biscuit’s enormous competition for the award consisted of Buzzfeed, Attitude.co.uk, iNewspaper and Property Week. We didn’t win – that accolade went to iNewspaper – but the nomination was nevertheless, as I say, a huge catalyst to continue with the site. I launched a crowdfunder, which finished way off target. I sold one ad space, for two months. Then nothing. I attempted in vain to recruit a sales manager but nobody wanted to work on commission. Some wonderful writers came and went. There were periods of tumbleweed when I frantically had to fill the site with my own writing, thereby completely defeating the object of providing a platform for a wide range of bi voices.

The Stonewall Award nomination persuaded me to keep going with the site

The departure of the webmaster was another blow. Thankfully by this point I had a co-editor on board – the amazing Libby – so I was persuaded to stick with it. And here we are now. I don’t actually know where the next article is coming from. That’s not a good feeling. But, apart from for Biscuit, I try not to write for free anymore myself, so I understand exactly why that is. As a freelance journo trying to make a living I’ve had to be strict with myself about that. I regularly post on the “Stop Working For Free” Facebook group and often feel a pang of misplaced guilt because I ask my writers to write for free, even though I’m working on the site for free myself, and losing valuable time I could be spending on looking for paid work.

Biscuit hasn’t exactly been a stranger to controversy, in addition to its financial and staffing issues. Its original tagline – “for girls who like girls and boys” – was considered cis-centric by some, leading to accusations that the site had some kind of trans/genderqueer*-phobic agenda. Which was amusing, as at the height of this a) we’d just had two articles about non-binary issues published and b) I was actually engaged to a genderqueer partner, a fact they were clearly unaware of. Now the site is under fire from various pansexual activists who object to the term “bisexual”. To clarify – “girl and boys” was supposed to imply a spectrum and, no, we don’t think “bi” applies only to an attraction to binary folk. The site aims the main part of its content at female-spectrum readers attracted to more than one gender because this group does have specific needs. But there is something here for EVERYONE bisexual. Anyway, it’s a shame all of this gossip was relayed secondhand, and the people in question didn’t think to confront me about it (which at least the pan activists have bothered to do). We damage our community immeasurably with these kinds of Chinese whispers.

Biscuit ed Libby, being amazing

Whilst trying to keep the site afloat, I’ve also been building on the work I started right back when I edited g3, and trying to improve bi visibility in other media outlets. I’ve recently had articles published by Cosmopolitan, SheWired, The F-Word, GayStar News and Women Make Waves and I’m constantly emailing other sites which I’ve not yet written for with bi pitches. Unfortunately, although I am over the moon to be writing for mainstream outlets such as Cosmo about bi issues, it’s been an uphill struggle trying to persuade some editors out there that they have more readers to whom bi-interest stories apply than they might think. It’s an incredibly exhausting and frustrating process.

Libby and I are doing our best with Biscuit. I can’t guarantee that I would be doing anything at all with it if Libby hadn’t arrived on the scene, so once again I would like to mention how fabulous she is. But we desperately need more writers. We need some help with site design and tech issues. We need a hand with the business and sales side of things. We can’t do it without you. And if you know any rich bisexual heiresses who read Biscuit, please do send them our way. 😉

Grant Denkinson’s story

denkinsonpanel

Grant speaks on a panel chaired by Biscuit’s Lottie at a Bi Visibility Day event

So first of all, explain a little about the activism you’re involved/have been involved in. 


“I’ve been involved with bisexual community organising for a bit over 20 years. Some has been within community: writing for and editing our national newsletter, organising events for bisexuals and helping others with their events by running workshop sessions or offering services such as 1st aid. I’ve spoken to the media about bisexuality and organised bi contingents at LGBT Pride events (sometimes just me in a bi T-shirt!). I’ve helped organise and participated in bi activist weekends and trainings. I’ve help train professionals about bisexuality. I’ve also piped up about bisexuality a lot when organising within wider LGBT and gender and sexuality and relationship diversity umbrellas. I’ve been a supportive bi person on-line and in person for other bi folks. I’ve been out and visibly bi for some time. I’ve helped fund bi activists to meet, publish and travel. I’ve funded advertising for bi events. I’ve set up companies and charities for or including bi people. I’ve personally supported other bi activists.”


What made you get involved?

“
In some ways I was looking for a way to be outside the norm and to make a difference and coming out as bi gave me something to push against. I’ve been less down on myself when feeling attacked. I’ve also found the bi community very welcoming and where I can be myself and so wanted to organise with friends and to give others a similar experience. There weren’t too many others already doing everything better than I could.”

How do you feel about the state of bi activism worldwide (esp UK and USA) at the moment?

“There have been great changes for same-sex attracted people legally and socially and these have happened quickly. Bi people have been involved with making that happen and benefit from it. We can also be hidden by gay advances or actively erased. We still have bi people not knowing many or any other local bi people, not seeing other bisexuals in the mainstream or LGT worlds and not knowing or being able to access community things with other bis. We are little represented in books or the media and people don’t know about the books and zines and magazines already available. The internet has made it easy to find like-minded people but also limited privacy and I think is really fragmented and siloed. It is hard to find bisexuals who aren’t women actors, harmful or fucked up men or women in pornography designed for straight men. We have persistent and high quality bi events but they are sparse and small.”

What’s causing you to feel disillusioned?

“I’m fed up of bi things just not happening if I don’t do them. Not everything should be in my style and voice and I shouldn’t be doing it all. I and other activists campaign for bi people to be more OK and don’t take care of ourselves enough while doing so. People are so convinced we don’t exist they don’t bother with a simple search that would find us. We have little resources while having some of the worst outcomes of any group. I don’t want to spend my entire life being the one person who reminds people about bisexuals, including our so-called allies. I’m not impressed with the problem resolution skills in our communities and while we talk about being welcoming I’m not sure we’re very effective at it. I’m fed up with mouthing the very basics and never getting into depth about bi lives and being one who supports but who is not supported. I’m all for lowering barriers but at a certain point if people don’t actively want to do bi community volunteering it won’t happen. Some people are great critics but build little.”

What do you want to say to other activists about this?

“Why are we doing this personally? I’m not sure we know. How long will we hope rather than do? Honestly, are there so few who care? Alternatively should we stop the trying to do bi stuff and either do some self-analysis, be happy to accept being what we are now as a community, chill out and just let stuff happen or give up and go and do something else instead.”

Patrick Richards-Fink’s story

085d4de So first of all, explain a little about the activism you’re involved/have been involved in.

“Mostly internet – I am a Label Warrior, a theorist and educator. Here’s how I described it on my blog: “One of the reasons that I am a bisexual activist rather than a more general queer activist is because I see every day people just like me being told they don’t belong. It doesn’t mean I don’t work on the basic issues that we all struggle against — homophobia, heterosexism, classism, out-of-control oligarchy, racism, misogyny, this list in in no particular order and is by no means comprehensive. But I have found that I can be most effective if I focus, work towards understanding the deep issues that drive the problems that affect people who identify the same way that I have ever since I started to understand who I am. I find that I’m not a community organizer type of activist or a storm the capitol with a petition in one hand and a bullhorn in the other activist — I’m much better at poring over studies and writing long wall-o’-text articles and occasionally presenting what I’ve gleaned to groups of students until my voice is so hoarse that I can barely do more than croak.” So internet, and when I was still in school, a lot of on-campus stuff. Now I’m moving into a new phase where my activism is more subtle – I’m working as a therapist, and so my social justice lens informs my treatment, especially of bi and trans people.”

What made you get involved?

“I can’t not be.”

How do you feel about the state of bi activism worldwide (esp UK and USA) at the moment?

“I feel like we made a couple strides, and every time that happens the attacks renewed. I hionestly think the constant attempts to divide the bisexual community into ‘good pansexuals’ and ‘bad bisexuals’ and ‘holy no-labels’ is the thing that’s most likely to screw us.”

What’s causing you to feel disillusioned?



“It is literally everywhere I turn – colleges redefining bisexuality on their LGBT Center pages, news articles quoting how ‘Bi=2 and pan=all therefore pan=better’, everybloodywhere I turn I see it every day. The word bi is being taken out of the names of organisations now, by the next group of up-and-comers who haven’t bothered to learn their history and understand that if you erase our past, you take away our present. Celebrities come out as No Label, wtf is that. Don’t they make kids read 1984 anymore? It’s gotten to the point now that even seeing the word pansexual in print triggers me. I’m reaching the point now that if someone really wants to be offended when all I am trying to do is welcome them on board, then I don’t have time for it.”

What do you want to say to other activists about this?

“Stay strong, and don’t give them a goddamned inch. I honestly think that the bi organizations – even, truth be told, the one I am with – are enabling this level of bullshit by attempting to be conciliatory, saying things that end up reinforcing the idea that bi and pan are separate communities. We try to be too careful not to offend anyone. Like the thing about Freddie Mercury. Gay people say ‘He was gay.’ Bi people say ‘Um, begging your pardon, good sirs and madams and gentlefolk of other genders, but Freddie was bi.’ And they respond ‘DON’T GIVE HIM A LABEL HE DIDN’T CLAIM WAAHHH WAAHHH!’ And yet… Freddie Mercury never used the label ‘gay’, but it’s OK when they do it. And he WAS bisexual by any measure you want to use. But we back down. And 2.5% of the bisexual population decides pansexual is a better word, and instead of educating them, we add ‘pan’ to our organisation names and descriptions. Now, this is clearly a dissenting view – I will always be part of a united front where my organization is concerned. But everyone knows how I feel, and I think it’s totally valid to be loyal and in dissent at the same time. Not exactly a typically American viewpoint, but everyone says I’d be a lot more at home in Britain than I am here anyway.”

#bisexual activism #bisexual activist #bi tumblr #bisexual tumblr #bisexuality #bi #support bisexuality #bisexuality is valid #bi pride #pride #lgbtq pride #lgbtq #lgbtq community #bisexual education #bisexual nation #bisexual rights #support bisexual #bisexual people #support bisexual people #respect bisexual people #bisexual injustice #bisexual justice #bisexual youth #bisexual women #bisexual men #bisexual representation #bisexual #bisexual community #bisexual facts #bisexual info

[leam1983]

It’s the end of the work week and, well...

I’m having thoughts on labor culture.

My father was born in 1958. He lived as the son of an absent father of five children who had no ability to truthfully express his love and care, and who instead chose to bury himself in work as a means to display his commitment. My paternal grandfather made and sold mattressees and died quite young of a cancer strain that today would’ve seemed benign. He was described as a hard worker, either up to his neck in his business or wanting just a scant few hours per day to himself. It made an aloof lover out of him and a distant father - who still loved his wife and children to bits but who felt emotionally castrated in a sense, as were men of the era.

The family consensus is that his work killed him.

My father is now 65 and survived a bout of Non-Hodgkinian Lymphoma. The oncologist and anyone with half a brain agreed that stress was the culprit. Early on, Dad had the family as an excuse for his tendency to overwork. He had to provide for us, after all, and garnish my mother’s meagre savings. All she has is her government-issued pension plan, while my father does have his own pension as a retiree of the City of Montreal’s Real-Estate Appraisal service. Considering, he felt obligated to pull a heavier load to bring in more, so they’d have better investment opportunities. Later on, he kept working out of a sense of fealty and attachment to his division, breaking out of retirement during the pandemic to join the work-from-home team. He wanted to help techs and city officials find ways to bring more of the traditionally snail-mail-based parts of the system online so the city’s Land Management service wouldn’t be paralyzed by COVID-19. What was supposed to be a single month turned into four, which turned into twelve.

By the end, they were begging him to stay on the team and to pull longer hours. We’re talking twenty hours per day, in some particularly grueling stretches. That means being logged in by breakfast and scarfing bagels down with Urban Design techs on Zoom instead of your own family, or having supper with your boss because she needs a play-by-play of the situation to stave off her executive anxiety.

Long story short, I didn’t see Dad much during the first wave. His reasoning was that he’d eventually stop, pool all this cash, and chuck it into his and Mom’s Registered Retirement Savings Account - with maybe an extra two thou or so in case the country reopened enough for their postponed trip to Cuba to take place.

Guess what? His zona flared up and he ended up with odd, shingly bumps along his scalp which to this day the local dermatologist grimaces at and tentatively has us dab with cortisone cream.

Mom, though? She’s a retired and registered nurse with a self-negating streak and a chronic propensity to undervalue her own physical ailments. Someone who quite literally understands the pain of busted hips on a clinical level because she was trained in Gerontology - and also someone who refuses to schedule an appointment with her GP and who inexplicably self-medicates with white wine.

As for me, I’m a 37 year-old man with a paycheck I consider massive with its meagre six bucks above the minimum-wage threshold - someone who chose to shack in with his folks until the current crisis ends and who therefore has a history of a single, willingly terminated apartment lease that originally began in the Planned Housing market. The apartment I want is basically a Barbie doll house for adults, a gleaming fantasy I’ll never have enough capital to touch unless I feel like trying my hand with criminal applications of my skills. The apartment I can get right now is a shithole, and I have the audacity to think I deserve a shithole that at least wasn’t someone’s former cockroach den.

Now here’s the kicker: I value my sanity and my health. I know my mental stamina levels and I know from experience that after working seven-point-five hours per day with the occasionally shorter Friday, I’ve found my limit. I could invest more if I worked more, yes, and I’m already in a better position than my parents, retirement-wise. I’ll never be rich, but I’m already set to be comfortable, provided I don’t spend my golden years trying to make it as an unsponsored TechTuber or anything else that’s equally ludicrous.

Where that’s a problem is in the toxicity this is generating. See, I have the gall to slide my daily schedule later so I can start at an hour that fits my biological clock and ends at an hour where I’m at my most creative. That means the folks saw me spending my pandemic mornings on Animal Crossing while Dad was trying to wrangle Excel spreadsheets for non-tech-savvy fellow Boomers while preventing the dog from eating his meeting notes. That means they guzzled vinho verde like it was Kool-Aid after seven while I made sure to find more concrete means to distance myself from work - ideally ones that didn’t involve functional alcoholism.

Naturally, what was bound to happen, happened: Dad soon spent his evenings calling me shiftless or “unwilling to commit”, while I was stuck watching him miss all the cues his stressed-out body were sending him. We already had Trump’s last desperate months and a global plague to handle, I really didn’t want my work to turn into more of a nuisance than it already is. I already love the people I work for and hate what I do (repeating the family cycle, it seems), but I’ve at least decided to give myself ample Me time every single day. 

I’ve paired that with smaller, if consistent portfolio investments, along with a few new habits I wanted to get into to stay saner. Dad pulls crosswords or plays competitive chess in the wee hours, while I usually lay down to meditate around midnight and fall asleep by 1 AM at the latest. I’m half-expecting my father to pull a Tyler Durden and to sneer at me, at some point. “Self-care is masturbation,” he’d probably say.

Looking at classifieds for rentals, it’s obvious that the entire system is predicated on abuse. Work yourself down to the therapist’s office, right down to the fucking bone, and you just might earn a half-decent retirement because nobody’s taught you to invest incrementally. Nope, Society seems to say, you’re supposed to buy, buy and buy some more, until you realize you have ten years left to start from scratch!

I remember Dad’s face on my eighteenth birthday. “Why would you want a Disability Care Savings Account, Brain? You just turned into a legal adult by Canadian standards - you’re in no rush, right?”

I told him the real gift I wanted for my birthday, that day, was a ride to the family’s Financial Investments counsel. I pulled up the PDFs I’d printed out and filled and brought them over. From then on, if I dropped a penny in my nest-egg, Ottawa would drop another one. If my share grew, so did the government’s. In the twenty-odd years since, it’s expanded exponentially.

Dad thought I’d done this to have a big cushion by the time I’d retire. Mom thought I’d done this in case my disability worsened and I started requiring equipment or physical assistance. Honestly, my dumb, if slightly prescient eighteen year-old self figured I’d rather spend my time reading or playing video games than working. I knew I’d need something to help cushion my admittedly low career-related ambitions. I might throw several thousands at a new computer every seven to eight years, but that’s because I’ve saved them up for just as long, little by little. I have no vices beyond what sillicon offers and what you’d find in the pages of a book and don’t exactly need a big ‘ol, stonkin’ humidor stuffed with conoisseur stogies.

I have a shoebox with a poked-out Ziploc bag and a sponge, with a handful of joints and a few Santa Anas I got off of a buyer’s pool from work. Five of us occasional chair-bar goons pooled cash together on Cigar Chief and cushioned prices with a single, shared and massive order. I’m nowhere near rich, but assuming the housing market can catch its breath eventually, I’ll be able to live modestly - with one or two markers of occasional luxury I’ll have chosen.

I have a shittier job than my father has had and I’ve chosen to be happier than him. It’s just sad that the usual response elevates overwork as the supposedly one, true way to leave a mark in society.

No, Dad. I don’t want to die while my own cells eat me alive, I want to die blazed out of my fucking mind, happy because I’ll have had time to enjoy my friends’ company and to finally make some sense out of Kerouac’s Subterraneans or to figure out what the fuck is going on in Joyce’s Illiad. I’ll die crusty as shit and fulfilled as a Pop Culture jockey, because I’ll have either finished Persona 5: Golden in my lifetime or I’ll have watched the entirety of the MCU’s output before Disney finally manages to kill their golden goose.

I want to die decades from now, feeling like I at least owned my choices and didn’t spend my time tethered to someone else’s professional expectations of me.

#personal life #thoughts #work culture #overwork #cancer #free time #mental health

[honeymoonjin]

enjoy your stay - chapter eleven

A/N - I don’t put links in anymore so that this comes up on search, but check the masterlist linked in my bio for links to every previous/future chapter.

Word count 3k (as usual). Tell me your thoughts! This was a very fun chapter to write. Honestly, probably my favorite chapter so far!

ENJOY YOUR STAY ↳Boss!Namjoon, Chef!Jin, Receptionist!Hoseok, Bellboy!Jimin, Bartender!Jungkook, Accountant!Yoongi, Photography student!Taehyung ↳Some inappropriate language and cursing. Later chapters have sexual content.

SUMMARY ↳Working the graveyard shift at a hotel isn’t the most exciting job in the world, but your coworkers are certainly happy to have you here.

CHAPTER ELEVEN ↳You grow closer to Yoongi when he helps you out with your terrible financial skills. Jungkook doesn’t like that one bit. When Namjoon sends you on an errand, you discover something unexpected.

“You can just sit anywhere, sorry, it’s a bit messy.” You bite your lip awkwardly as Min Yoongi steps into your cramped apartment and takes it in.

Before he had come over, you had spent the time since finishing your shift to clean up as much as you could, which mostly involved madly dashing around the house chucking everything on the floor into cupboards and closets. Strangely enough, Jungkook was an extremely clean kid, and all the unwashed clothing overflowing in the hamper was yours, and the dirty dishes in the sink from when you had cooked and never cleaned up.

Jungkook was out with a friend, a neighbor from back in his hometown that had stopped by while he was passing through, and you were glad he didn’t leave a mess for you to clean up. Man, that kid really loved doing laundry. It was a little concerning.

Yoongi had arrived exactly on time, though you confess you had spotted him in the carpark staring at his watch until two minutes til eight, which apparently gave him the exact amount of time he needed to take the elevator to your floor and knock right on the hour.

He perched gingerly on one of the chairs at your kitchen table, dumping his car keys on the tabletop and you join him nervously. He was dressed in a teal suit with an embossed pattern and unbelievably glossy shoes. You wished you had gotten out of your sweatpants and baggy sweatshirt while you had the chance.

“So,” he said with a sigh, “let’s rip the Band-Aid off. How poor are you?”

You blink dumbly. “That’s a little forward. Is that how you speak to all your clients?”

He quirks his eyebrows pettily. “It’s not how I talk to my paying clients, no.”

“Point taken. Although, to be fair, you’re well aware of the price I offered to pay.” You ignore his tired sigh and grab your laptop and pull up your bank account, wincing at the fact that the largest number had a minus in front of it. “It’s not looking so good, chief.”

He sighs, leans back to rock the chair on its back legs. “Y/n,” he begins patiently, “I’ve seen your weekly pay amount on the reports. Excuse my French, but how the fuck have you managed to spend this much money? Are you doing meth?”

Your face crumples. “No,” you mutter petulantly. “Besides, would I look this good if I was doing meth? I don’t think so.”

“Well, unfortunately for you, you don’t get a pretty person benefit,” he drawls sarcastically, but you count the fact that he doesn’t disagree a win.

“Well, I got stung with a particularly pricey car repair, and I’m buying groceries for two now, so…”

“You’re pregnant?”

You reel back in shock. “Wh- No, Jungkook lives here, now.” You furrow your eyebrows and pout at him. “You really think I’m a beautiful, pregnant meth addict? Words hurt, Min Yoongi.”

He pushes his tongue to one cheek and shakes his head good-naturedly, lips twitching a little. He clears his throat a little before speaking. “I only have thirty minutes, so let’s make this snappy.” He pulls your laptop towards him and you sit in a bewildered silence as he messes around with your bank account for a few minutes. “Alright,” he accounces, swiveling the laptop to show you, “I’ve set up an account for bills, an account for groceries, an account for savings, and a spending account. Then I’ve gone ahead and made some automatic payments into each account. All you have to do is change the amount that goes into each account according to your budget, then you’re sorted.” His eyes practically twinkle with self-satisfaction.

You twiddle your thumbs and nod, impressed. “Where do I find my budget?”

He tilts his head and freezes. After a minute of him searching your face only to find a blank stare, his mouth drops open. “You don’t have a budget?”

You think back, eyes darting up to the ceiling to concentrate. “I don’t know, I don’t think so. Nobody’s given me one. Where do I get one?”

You don’t think you’ve ever seen the light of triumph die so fast from someone’s eyes. “You don’t get one,” he sighs out, “you make one. You should have a budget at all times, it allows you to keep track of money and make sure you’re not spending more than you’re earning. Something you seem to desperately need.” He huffs out a laugh and shakes his head in despair. “You remind me so much of Hoseok. This whole time I thought I was attracted to men, turns out I was just attracted to idiots.”

You blush. “Oh, so you like m- Wait. That’s hurtful. Min Yoongi, more like Mean Yoongi.”

He flicks his tongue out, wetting his lips before he speaks in a teasing tone. “Mean Yoongi is stopping you from the serious threat of bankruptcy out of the kindness of his heart, so I’d be a little nicer to him.”

You glare and cross your arms. “Min Yoongi, more like Mean Yoongi, sir.”

He laughs. “You…” His mocking gaze softens, and you’re rewarded with his sweetest smile, the one with closed lips and his chin squishing up. “You really are something else, Y/n Y/l/n.”

Your blush comes back with a veangance and you can’t seem to stop from grinning like a maniac. You avoid his gaze, determined to win back the upper hand. “Anyway,” you deflect, speaking a little louder than needed, “I’ve said it before and I’ll most likely say it again, but I never expected you to do this for free.”

He gets the hint, leaning forward on the table, gazing at you curiously. “Why do you keep offering? I haven’t…been with a woman before, in fact I don’t even know if I’d like it, so it’s not like you’re going to enjoy it.”

You drop the playful act and return his stare. “You haven’t been with a woman before? Man, even I’ve had sex with women. Don’t you feel like…I don’t know, like you’re missing out?”

He breaks the prolonged eye-contact and focuses on a scratch in your table. “I didn’t.” Even though he’s looking down, you can see his eyes flicker back and forth before he comes to an apparent decision. “Okay,” he exclaims, looking back up at you with determined eyes, “here’s the deal: I save you from the verge of financial death, and in return, once you have a proper budget in place, you show me what I’ve apparently been missing out on.”

“Ha!” you exclaim, “I win! I knew I still had my womanly wiles. Wooing once-gay, now-bi-curious young men like it’s nothing.”

He puffs out a breath of air and pouts a little. “I really am attracted to morons, huh?” He glances at his watch, and stands up, adjusting his cufflinks. He rounds the corner of the table and places a hand on your shoulder awkwardly.

You look up at him in question. He takes a moment to collect himself, then bends down and places a single chaste kiss right on your lips. By the time your brain catches up with you, and your lips part in surprise, he’s already stood back up. “What was that?” you ask incredulously.

He raises his eyebrows at you like it’s obvious. “Foreplay.”

You jaw falls slack, and you’re struck silent. Finally, you let out a little hum of acceptance. “Huh. Min Yoongi plays the long game.”

He’s smiling at you, no, grinning, and your mind is still reeling with the feeling of his lips on yours, and then the door is opening, and Jeon Jungkook is coming in and freezing in the doorway.

You realize Yoongi’s hand hasn’t left your shoulder, and he’s standing directly in front of you. “Hi, Jungkook.”

Jungkook’s normally wide eyes are narrowed as they dart back and forth between the two of you. “What’s going on?” he questions suspiciously.

“I’ve been struggling a little bit with finances, so Yoongi kindly offered to help me out.”

“Well, it sure looks like he’s helping with something,” he replies, bitterness lacing his tone.

Yoongi removes his hand from you and steps back, but the tension in Jungkook’s jaw doesn’t ease. He steps away again, almost mockingly. “Listen, buddy, I was just on my way out, she’s all yours.”

Jungkook nods with a smug grin on his face. “That’s right, she is all mine, and next time you give her some private fucking counselling, you can keep your dirty paws off, got it?” He storms forward, shouldering past Yoongi roughly so that he stands between you two.

Yoongi ignores his antics and gives you a look. You curse internally. You’ve just spent the past half hour coming on to Yoongi and now Jungkook’s making it seem like you’re spoken for. Behind Jungkook’s back, you shake your head silently. Yoongi wets his lips, his gaze softening for a split second before he turns and narrows his eyes at the other boy. “I think you should calm down. Nobody likes a jealous ‘boyfriend’. I’ll see myself out.”

Jungkook doesn’t turn around to face you until the front door shuts again, leaving the apartment in tense silence. “I don’t want him coming around here anymore,” he states matter-of-factly.

You shake your head at him. “You don’t get to decide that.”

“Well, excuse me for being protective. You’ve been burned before, Y/n, I saw how upset you were after Jimin. I don’t want it to happen again with Yoongi, that’s all.”

You want to tell him nothing’s going to happen, but you bite your tongue. Lying never works out in the end, so you just stay silent.

He sighs patiently, then pulls up the chair Yoongi left, sitting away from the table across from you so your knees touch. “Baby,” he coos, “I just want you to be happy. I want us to be happy together.” He leans in and brings you in for a kiss, slow but domineering.

In the back of your mind you wonder if he could taste Yoongi on you, but that was absurd. Besides, he had already bypassed your lips to dip his tongue into your mouth, scooting his chair closer, pushing your legs open with his knees so that he could move his body as close as possible to yours. The same as every time this happens, his kiss makes your mind go blank and your instinct take over. You can’t think; the only neurons in your brain that are firing are the ones that say ‘more’.

His palms rest on either side of your face, and he tilts your head back to get a better angle. When you bite down on his lower lip and tug slightly, he growls in the back of his throat and the noise shoots straight down to your core.

His kisses get hotter and wetter and his touch grows feverish, hands moving down your side, over your breasts, and finally arriving at your hips, where he tucks his hands behind you and down over your ass to lift you off your seat and onto his lap.

The two of you let out a groan in unison when your crotch lands solidly on his. His hands lift again, but this time under your shirt instead of over it, and he begins pulling it over your head.

You raise your arms to aid him, but the clicking of the door opening causes the two of you to freeze. After you hear a familiar scoff, you hurriedly bat Jungkook’s hands away and pull down your shirt, peeking over to the open doorway.

Yoongi stands there, mouth set and jaw taut, and silently he stalks over to the table, where you realize that his keys still lie. He snatches them off the table and returns to the doorway. “My apologies for the intrusion,” he spits out, and slams the door behind him.

You’re left with an overwhelming sense of dread and shame, and you feel the fog of arousal lift.

Jungkook growls again. “I can’t believe that asshole, strutting into my apartment like he owns the place.”

You frown, pushing on his chest so you can get off his lap and stand up. “It’s not your apartment, Jungkook, it’s mine. I’m just letting you live here.”

He watches you step into the kitchen and start making yourself a cup of coffee. He follows you in. “It’s our place, noona. We’re in this together. It’s you and me against the rest of the world.”

He wraps his arms around your waist as you stand at the counter and rests his chin on your shoulder. You slam the spoon down irritably. “It’s not, Jungkook. What we did was fun, and I hope you had fun, but let’s not make this into some grand notion when it’s just not.”

His voice resonates in your right ear when he speaks. “Don’t be like that. You know I love you, noona. I want to make this work. Let’s be together. Don’t you want me?”

You push his face away, and he relents, letting go of you to lean back against the benchtop beside you instead. You don’t meet his imploring gaze. “I like you Jungkook, of course I do.”

His voice goes cold. “You fucked Yoongi, didn’t you?”

“What?” you exclaim incredulously. “No, Jungkook, I didn’t.”

He crosses his arms. “I was gone for the whole morning. I bet he had a shower after and got dressed just so I wouldn’t get suspicious.”

“Oh my god, Jungkook! Nothing happened. You need to calm down.”

“Don’t tell me to calm down,” he whines angrily.

“Well, you can’t accuse me of cheating every time you leave me alone! It’s not healthy, Jungkook.”

He scoffs and kicks the cabinets with his heel petulantly. “Stop treating me like a child,” he demands, voice rising into a shout, “you’re not my mother!”

“I’m fucking glad I’m not,” you shout back, “somebody should give her a goddamn medal for dealing with your needy ass for eighteen years!” You forget the coffee, leaving the spoon and mug on the countertop and leaving the kitchen, needing to get some distance.

When you reach your room, you shut your door and slide down against it, collapsing into a miserable heap on the floor. You shed some hot, angry tears, but it’s no match for the heartbroken wailing coming from the kitchen.

You don’t get any sleep that day.

When you left your room late that night to go to work, the apartment was empty, and your car was still in the carpark, which meant Jungkook had left early to take the bus.

You didn’t go anywhere near the bar throughout the whole shift, and although your other coworkers probably noticed the bags under your eyes and your melancholic disposition, they didn’t bother mentioning it.

The shift drags on, and although it feels like it should almost be over, you note that it’s only just gone midnight when you check the clock on Namjoon’s desk. As you glance at his desk, you see an interesting flyer for an art showing. You point it out, and Namjoon’s face lights up.

“Taehyung’s got his work up in a gallery,” he boasts with a proud smile on his face. “Well, it’s the university gallery, and it’s for his finals project, but I saw the photos when he was setting them out at home, and that kid’s got talent.”

“Is it paid admission?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t know,” he admits, “I haven’t got the time to actually go myself.” He pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose in deep thought. “You know what, you should go.”

“Sorry?”

“It closes at 2 this morning, and I’m sure he’d love to see a familiar face. The hotel will survive you being gone an hour or so. Don’t worry, I’ll still pay you for your time.”

You give him a confused smile. “You’re going to pay me to look at your younger brother’s photos?”

He laughs good-naturedly. “Well, when you put it like that… I just don’t want him to think that nobody cares about his project, you know? He put so much time into it, and it’s really great. I’m still convincing him to let me buy them and display them around the hotel. Maybe you could sweet-talk him into it.”

“I’ll go,” you respond. You have no good excuse, well, no excuse you could tell him for why you didn’t really want to come face-to-face with his brother again, and besides, you were a little curious to see how his photos of the hotel turned out.

The university is only a short drive away, and the while the gallery looked pretty bleak and small from the outside, inside it was all hardwood flooring and sleek lighting. The exhibition wasn’t just photography, but sculptures, paints, and graphic prints too.

When you first saw Tae at the end of the wing, holding a flute of champagne and wearing pink-lensed glasses, a silk scarf and embroidered blouse, you couldn’t help but grin. He seriously was the complete stereotype of an artist. He was speaking with an overweight and underdressed man who looked completely entranced in Tae’s enthusiastic re-enactments of the process of taking each shot.

The photos themselves were the second thing you noticed. Like the ones you had come across in his hotel room, they used focus and lighting to give a strange sense of nostalgia. Maybe it was the fact that you had worked there for months now, but there was a haunting familiarity to each one that really took your breath away.

The moonlight reflecting off the pool as it was overtaken by leaves and budding flowers; the gleam of freshly shined shoes against lush patterned carpet; a white-gloved hand reaching up to grab a room key; an eye glancing to the side with a neon vacancy sign in its rounded reflection.

You pause in the middle of the gallery, ignoring the people milling around you. There was a little mole on the inner curve of the nose. A mole you saw every day in the mirror.

Why did Taehyung have a photo of you in his exhibition?

TAGLIST (send me an ask or message to be added, and you’ll get notified each time I update EYS).

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#bts fic #bts imagine #bts au #bts scenarios #bts x reader #enjoy your stay #jin x reader #yoongi x reader #hoseok x reader #namjoon x reader #jimin x reader #taehyung x reader #jeongguk x reader #jungkook x reader #bts smut

[plotholetsi]

Some DA4 Ideas

Me and @thealmightym got off on a HUUUUGE tangent this morning, upon the suggestion that the Inquisitor + love interest might show up in DA4 based on how the romance loads into game (assuming the Dragon Age Keep continues to function as well as it has so far:

Lavellan/Solas romance:

I can totally imagine a storyline where, if you import Solas-romance inquisitor, as the new DA4 hero, you have inquisitor tag along on occasion. If you fuck up at the missions with them, inquisitor joins Solas in trying to wreck the world. If you complete all the missions with them, they take your side in the end fight with solas.

Inquisitor+Cullen:

You can join them on their farm for a side mission or two. One of the side-plots is Inquisitor helping hide Cullen's younger sibling from the newly formed circle/templar/whatever as young sib is starting to have little magic bursts. It's equally fretful and adorable.

Inquisitor + Iron Bull

Inky and Bull have formed a new Bull's Chargers. If Inky wa Qunari, there's some of his/her old Tal Vashoth band joined up now as well. They show up as a random helpful encounter aiding you in world events. If you run into them enough times, they come to you asking for help on a diplomatic mission, Halamshiral style side event. It ends in the whole crew being chased out of the party for wrecking EVERYTHING and if you play your cards with, a menage’a’tois with your old Inquisitor+bull plus new MC.

Inquisitor + Sera

This one’s easy. Inquisitor and Sera are married GAY AF ladies who show up as random encounter in urban settings. Only instead of helping YOU, they drop you arrows with notes on them of missions that need your specific flavor of diplomatic aid. Missions like: having you seduce a noble lady/gent while they steal said noble’s unearned goods. Stabbing a few really shitty nobles in the junk in a painful but non-lethal way. Immediately lose missions if guards or innocents harmed in process. Poisoning the food at the banquet of a robber-baron so everyone in the party gets diarrea BAD. Oh, and their skin turns purple for a week. And bees follow them.

Inquisitor + Blackwall

You meet them at missions in Weisshapt if Blackwall was told to join. Inq has joined them there indefinitely, and the two of them are the only two allows to Orlais & Fereldan as diplomats after that whole Wardens-turning-kinda-evil SHITE. They send you on a variety of one-off 'kill this monster' type missions, culminating in another encounter with the Architect, who can either help you by giving you something to defeat Solas, or you can fight, or they paralyse you and walk away without giving you ANYTHING depending on your game choices.

If inquisitor pardoned Blackwall, you run across the two of them in a cabin in the woods somewhere, trying their best to keep under the radar as they raise a couple of boys as out-of-the-limelight as possible.

Inquisitor + Josephine

Her ending goes one of three separate ways. Either she's got the bandit fleet under her wing, or her family has kinda lost status by the end. Or she's kinda bloodthirsty and killed some peeps.

I'm seeing their ending influenced by Leliana. If Leliana NOT Divine: Leliana is stealthily traveling alongside Inky & Josie to continue acting as a spy/ pulling strings of various nobility. While the peasants don’t suspect anything, most of the nobles are bloody terrified anytime Inky+Josie (and the unseen Leliana) roll into town because it means a few shitty nobles are gonna just be snatched away without a word. Inky+Josie show up as a set of espionage missions on war-tabley thing, and you can also interact with the trio at parties/ open-world spots where nobles show up, etc. Inky will very dramatically foil an assassination attempt on MC in DA4, starting a mission that culminates in an odd scavenger-hunt/goose chase of missions, culminating in Leliana identifying a spy within (DA4 organization here) who is trying to corrupt MC with magic. This traitor is not found in any other storyline, but is present in all other storylines (finger waggling here).

Josie+Inky IF Leliana IS Divine: series of wartable missions where Josie is convincing (DA4 group) to aid the Divine on various missions. Culminates in Inky foiling assassination attempt on YOU, and then enlisting your help to foil an assassination attempt on the Divine. Meanwhile, Josephine has been kidnapped, the Divine attack a diversion.

You go on a goose-chase of missions to figure out where they're keeping her, and when you finally get there, Josephine has things well in hand, and has a group of thugs tied up, and is regaling them with stories so entertaining that they're fallen over laughing despite being tied up. She looks over at Inky, who looks back at her lovingly, and says, "What took you both so long?"

NO ONE DAMSELS JOSIE

Inquisitor + Cassandra:

Inky + Cassandra have put away (most of) their adventuring, and have opened a bookshop.

Cassandra very convincingly makes a good bookshop owner. She recommends a different book each time you come in, based on what events you've finished/ things you've decided in game. "I see you came back from Hamalshiral. Can I recommend 'My Lady's Coattails'? It's a VERY saucy period piece with a side of court intrigue."

At a later date, you find her in the midst of dealing with several unconscious people in the shop, half her battle gear on. Turns out she's been doing some do-goodery on the side, and doesn't want Inky to know. She enlists you to help deal with a local thug who has been threatening the shop and people in town.

You go and deal with the thug, and turns out it's WAY more than a local thug. It's a REGIONAL thug, and it turns into a whole long mission, halfway through, you run into Inky who was sent along by someone else in (DA4 group) because people heard DA4-MC and Cass got in over their heard. There's a whole scene of Cass being mortified that Inky found out, Inky being like, "Don't be. I'm missing and ARM and you're a bad-ass, why would I keep my wife from helping people?" And they kiss and it's equal parts adorable and awkward in front of you. They cough and you proceed to PUMMEL the lead bandit-dude.

When you return to the shop, you still get nod-to-game book recs for the rest of the game.

If you die more than a certain number of times on any one mission, Cass will sarcastically recommend, "Gennevive's Sword Primer". Inky interupts to ask why the non-fiction book. Cass sneeringly jokes, "Because our MC needs to work on fundaments."

Inquisitor + Dorian

I feel like his is the hardest, because he has such a FIXED position in the DAI wrap-up. And given that everyone assumes the new game will center on Tevinter, he'll probably be a central or pivotal role the story nods to or revolves around.... Hell, maybe it's just this...

MC has several encounters with the Magisterium. Dorian is actually one of the most consistent council members. Despite his distaste for the High magisters of Tevinter, once he was shoved into the role of leadership, he used red tape like a weapon, pissing off a LOT of other politicians who were perfectly happy with things being as easy for them to rule as possible. If Dorian was romanced by DAI Inky, there are several events where you can see him being uncharacteristically called away from a meeting, and if you follow, can see an event where he meets with his foreign lover for a small chat and a furtive kiss.

At this point an event occurs where another council member offers to aid (DA4group) financially or politically if they can get dirt on Dorian. You're lead down a series of espionage missions where you copy the communication crystal, and can either aid Dorian by re-tuning it to crush the other council member, netting you a series of side-quests lead by DAI Inky to disrupt more blood mages outside Tevinter, or you can hand over the communication crystal to Dorian's rival, and have an instant massive boost in faction points towards Tevinter Imperium/ who-the-fuck ever, cause let's face it it's the edgelord choice you gotta put in the game for people who insist on wanting to play shitty-evil person, ‘because reasons’.

#dragonage4 #dragon age theories #dragon age companions #dragon age inquisition #dragon age 4 #bioware theories #fanficition #hypothetical

[gomustanggirl16]

Disappointments

So, I know I should spout something about how life is an adventure and everything will turn out, but I really, really don’t feel like it. Because I can’t guarantee that. No one can, and if you say “that’s not true.” than clearly you’ve never heard the stories I have or known some people. Trust me, there are some, who’s life adventures don’t turn out and they end up going completely insane. And for those who think “no, it’s good. It’s a bitch but it’s good.” than chances are you’re doing it wrong, because it cannot be both a bitch and good. You can have good things around you, light times sure, but if it’s not enough to overshadow the bitch of it all then it’s not good enough. I also know people who go through life thinking everything around them is a sign from God and have been bitch slapped more times than I can count, but use God as an excuse to make it better. I believe in him, I do, but I also know he gave us our own free will and to attempt to throw things at us would kind of ruin his whole purpose. At least to me. I also don’t blame Satan either, because he knows we have our own ways of messing everything up ourselves, because we are people. Eve didn’t have to do what Satan said, she didn’t have to do what God said either (would life have been better yeah probably), but we’d also be kind of brainwashed so...it’s a toss up.

I guess what I’m trying to get at, is that blaming something or trying to make it something it’s not is really fucking pointless. For those who don’t believe in God or religion, you probably already have a semi-idea of what I mean. Or maybe you don’t I don’t know. What I do know is this: disappointments are everywhere. They come with life, they are the only thing that are actually guaranteed. A lot of times they are also called consequences, but no matter what it’s all bad. People will always let you down, not everyone, but everyone has someone they let down at some point in there life and maybe it was only temporary, but for many it wasn’t. But you know, we hear a lot about people disappointing us, but lets face it, it’s really ourselves we disappoint the most. Hence why it’s a guarantee in life. I wish it were different but it’s not. We dream, we set goals, and we disappoint. 

All I wanted was to get my medical coding certification. I changed majors three times. Well two technically, but medical coding was the only constant throughout it all and halfway through last semester I said to myself “what the fuck are you doing? You hate people, so why are you going into a major that requires you to tolerate them?” Basically I put my head back on straight, but then the emails from my schools financial aid kept coming, asking for verification. My mother told me, that they have a right to randomly select people for this and I said okay because she told me she had it handled. That was back in August after they okay-ed my payment plan. Then they didn’t pay. Anything. None of it like they said they would because they needed verification, despite the fact we kept sending them the same documents over and over and over again. The semester ended and suddenly I had racked up $4000 US dollars in dues. 

They eventually asked for different documents and we had hoped it was moving forward and I went to register for the last two courses I needed to get my certification and they wouldn’t let me because of what I owe. My brother was having the same stupid problem, except his got it fixed with one verification email and boom he registered (I go to a community college, he goes to University that costs almost $43,000 a year so you think there process would be more difficult but different financial aid companies). Then Christmas and New Years passed and I got fed up about two weeks ago when I saw that one of the classes only had three seats left. One time slot too, while the other class had two time slots and twenty seats between the two left. But these two classes are only offered in the spring, if I missed them, I would have to wait a whole year. I’d have to buy new books again, and I spent almost $1300 on them last semester because for some reason they put up the books we’d need for the next three classes so I got them a semester early, I wasn’t pissed then because they were so damn hard to get I wouldn’t have to worry, well now...now I have books I don’t need because as of last night the last three seats went. I called the school Friday because earlier in the week I got an email asking for one more thing then one saying they didn’t need more and then Friday morning I woke up to a fucking email saying I was selected again for verification! Well the school office was closed but the actual financial aid company wasn’t and the lady informed me they got my papers and that she had no idea why the school sent me the email, but they didn’t need anything more and to just wait. Also no, they wouldn’t let me pay any of the money I owed myself, but granted I also wouldn’t be in this mess if I had four grand. 

So I waited, and then last night I got this nagging feeling to check the list and I did, and the seats were gone. Two classes. That’s all I needed and now...now I don’t know what to do. I know they won’t reimburse me for the books, I called my father to ask him to go yell at some people with me, because he’s fucking scary when he yells and I cry when I do. I have now wasted upwards of six thousand dollars on this and have nothing to show for it. I don’t have any money to transfer and classes have already begun in most other schools. I loved the teachers, it was a great environment but now I gotta call this sweet little old lady in my class and tell her goodbye because I won’t be seeing her ever again because she can get her certification at 85 fucking years old, but because I depend on people I can’t. It’s not like the school gave out the test anyways I’d have to go elsewhere for it, but still I needed those classes I can’t take the exam because I haven’t started the last two books. I already took a year off because of health and I thought this was my chance, I spent everything I saved up for a trip to Paris, on school and now all I can think is “you should have gone to Paris, it wouldn’t have put you through so much stress.” And now my passports about to expire to so, missed that chance. And yes, I’m aware you can renew it, but I don’t have a fucking job right now, or $150 to be spending on getting it renewed. As is I needed a new battery for my car Monday (God Monday fucking sucked!) and had to borrow $800 from my grandmother because they found a shit ton of broken things.

So...I can blame financial aid, I want to, but one of the non medical reasons I didn’t go back was because they were giving me an issue about some document they needed to renew it back then. I should have known better, I really should have. I could also blame my parents who got divorced in August and half the shit the financial aid people needed was to verify they were indeed living separate lives, and while the lady assured me it was a random process, lets face it, it wasn’t. But I’m not going to blame them either, because life with those two married was a shit fest I never want to go through again. I’m glad it ended, though now I gotta buy my mom a divorce cake because I fucking promised her a divorce cake and still haven’t gotten her one so now not only does she hold John Bon Jovi over my head she now also holds this to.

But really, I blame me. I went to college right out of high school because I wasn’t going to be that kid they warned us about. You know the bum who doesn’t go, and does drugs and gets pregnant without a husband. You know, a baptists worst nightmare. I thought I needed a major because certifications weren’t enough. I put myself through hell because I thought a stupid certification would look meaningless to an employer without a degree and you wanna know something? They’re both stupid pieces of paper we all end up shoving in a box unless we’re CEO’s or physicists who think they’re god. You don’t bring the damn thing to an interview they don’t ask to see it. They call the school and ask for someones word. Its the truth, is it not? 

Instead of listening to my heart, I listened to everyone else around me, and not the ones I should have. I also should have listened to my mother when she told me to go to the school she went to and god I really wish I had. So now, I can’t get my certification and I can’t go to Paris and I can’t get a real job because the assholes who look expect coding to be a degree and also that I have the certification. It’s one thing to say I’m working towards it’s another to say, “well I was and now I can’t until I fix some things.” So I’m stuck at the shit hole I work at now. 

And it’s all because I didn’t want to be a disappointment. 

You know, being a disappointment to others is one thing. People have different standards that just aren’t you, and then the people you wish death on because they abuse their kids. But there’s nothing worse than disappointing yourself. You are who you are, you know who you are, whether you know it yet or not, so you’d think we’d know to listen to the right people, listen to ourselves, but somehow we keep thinking others opinions matter more. It’s sad really, but it’s the truth. We run away and do what we can only to turn ourselves into the thing we fear most. 

So I ask you, are you really doing what you’re doing because it’s what you want, it’s what you know is best for you, it’s the right thing for your health, your mind, life? Or are you doing it because the fear of being a disappointment is controlling your life?

This was the only thing I wanted, but because I felt like I had something to prove I ended up loosing everything. Sure, it’s not gone forever, but it sure would have been nice to have a desk, and have my mini-Cap Pop key chain in my space, a steady flow of work and cash and health insurance not connected to my mother. And my book! My ICD-10-CM code book oh! It’s so pretty! I have it all tabbed accordingly and noted and if this takes me longer than six months to fix I’ll have to buy the updated version with having barely used the one I had and it’ll have all been a waste. On the upside according to one interviewer I have enough qualifications to answer phones and explain the billing process to patients. 

#mg rambles #learn from my mistakes please #I beg you listen to me

[sterekloving]

If you’re new to the fandom or just want something new to read or even reread an old classic, here’s the most popular and iconic fics in the fandom!

(Those with a * are my all time favourites - if you want me to do a personal fave ficrec, let me know!)

Alpha Spikes* -  thestarbeast - 70k+ - Explicit

AU. Alphas are like royalty and are offered their choice of any age eighteen-and-up virgin Omega for each heat season, as a 'thank-you' for all they've done throughout the year. Derek is an Alpha and...yeah, Stiles. Stiles is an Omega. And still a virgin. In every way. And he's just turned eighteen. This...is not his day.

Bones Straining Under the Weight* -  weathervaanes - 15k - Explicit

One of Stiles' favorite things about life is Derek Hale's food blog. He never expects to meet the man in person.

“Derek,” he says again, and the name feels very strange on his tongue.

“You don’t mean Derek Hale.”

His professor’s eyebrows reach up, eyes widening. “You read his blog?”

"Uh. Worship. Would be a better more descriptive word. That is Derek Hale?"

Jimmy chuckles. "Good-looking guy, huh?"

"You mean to tell me the Food Network hasn't snatched him up to dethrone everyone else from daytime TV."

Jimmy smiles a small private smile. "I don't think TV is his medium."

Stiles raises an eyebrow. "Shy?"

The man laughs heartily at that. "No, I wouldn't say that. He just has particular forms of expression, like eyebrows and chili powder."

By Any Other Name -  entanglednow - 33k - Explicit

He doesn't know his name, he doesn't know who he is, and neither does the werewolf he's on the run with. But he's pretty sure they hunt monsters, because they seem to be really good at it.

Can’t Be Hateful, Gotta Be Grateful -  HalfFizzbin - 6k - Teen

"Be cool, Dad, we've decided to con Grandma." (Or, the one where the Stilinski men drag Derek to Thanksgiving dinner at Grandma's and she gets the right wrong idea.)

Cornerstone* -  Vendelin - 83k - Explicit

Suffering from PTSD, ex-Marine Derek Hale moves back to Beacon Hills to open a bookshop and find a calmer life. That’s where he meets Stiles, completely by accident. Stiles is talkative, charming and curious. Somehow, despite the fact that he’s blind, he’s able to read Derek like no one else.

Cupboard Love -  mklutz - 30k+ - General

He’s carefully balancing the sandwiches and the two biggest tupperware containers he could find that both had functioning lids when the front door opens and he almost drops everything right there in front of the stupid fountain. If that’s Derek Hale, he’s definitely not a mountain man.

Dating Backwards* - RemainNameless - 85k - Explicit

Pornstars Derek and Stiles work for the same company. Derek only shoots with werewolves and Stiles only shoots with humans. That's not going to change after they meet. It's really not. (It might.)

DILF* -  twentysomething - 30k+ - Explicit

"Today is Scott's first day of kindergarten and Derek is terrified."

Divided We Stand* -  KouriArashi - 100k+ - Mature

Derek is being pressured by his family to pick a mate, and somehow stumbles into a choice that they didn't expect and aren't sure they approve of....

Don’t Savage The Messenger* -  exclamation - 172k - Explicit

There is an uneasy truce between the werewolves in the woods and the humans who live in Beacon Hills, protected by a magical boundary that gives warning any time a werewolf crosses it. Then the sheriff is taken by the werewolves and his son offers himself in exchange.

Stiles promises to serve the werewolf pack, not knowing what horrible use they might have for him. But it turns out his most useful skill is the ability to cross the boundary line between humans and werewolves. Life with the werewolves is nothing like he feared and the werewolves themselves are nothing like the hunters' stories would have him believe.

Don’t Worry Baby -  kalpurna - 20k - Explicit

"You know you're allowed to ask for vanilla sex, right?" he says, afterwards. "We can do whatever you want. That's kind of the point." Derek doesn't respond.

Dude, Werewolves -  mysecretashes - 29k - Explicit

Stiles gets partnered with Cora for a history project, and they become bros. Also, he kind of falls in love with her older brother, Derek.

Electricity In the Contact -  ladyblahblah - 27k - Explicit

In which Derek has been invited to the Greater Pacific Northwest Alpha Symposium (that's not what it's called, Stiles, stop saying that), and showing up unattached would mean an arranged marriage. When the rest of the pack objects, he agrees to let Stiles come along to pose as his mate. Derek is reasonably sure that he's not going to make it out of this weekend alive.

Enemy Lines* -  qhuinn - 149k - Explicit

This is the story of werewolf Derek Hale and human Stiles Stilinski: two people who grew up in the same town but completely different worlds, their realities split by the war between men and wolves.

Years later when Derek returns to Beacon Hills, he does it as Alpha of a military pack on a mission to capture those responsible for the region’s resistance. With his main objective, Sheriff Stilinski, out of sight, he settles for the next best thing: his son, Stiles.

Neither of them suspects they’ll need to trust each other if they want to make it out this alive.

Every Step You Take -  Nokomis - 49k - Mature

Stiles accidentally ends up magically bound to Derek. It’s super.

Fireman Derek’s Crazy Pie (Cheeseburger Baby) -  owlpostagain - 17k - Teen

“He can't blame me for the fact that I live in a building full of people united in the singular effort to ogle Hot Fireman as often as humanly possible." Laura laughs, loud and echoing in the empty restaurant.

"Hot firemen can make a girl do crazy things," she agrees, nodding towards her brother's name on the menu. "Derek won't let me date anyone from his company, but that doesn't mean I can't appreciate the eye candy."

"Send them my way," Stiles suggests, finally loading up a forkful of pie. "Apparently I'm incompetent enough that I need to be babysat at all times, because it would be cheaper than dispatching a truck every time I try to use a kitchen appliance."

Gravity’s Got Nothing on You* -  zosofi - 83k - Explicit

“Three weeks,” Derek says.

“Still don’t want to,” Stiles says.

“I’ll pay you,” Derek says, and that… that has Stiles interested. Alf’s Antique’s may be a great job, but it’s not a high-paying job, and half of Stiles’s tuition is coming from financial aid, so… “How much,” Stiles asks, “are we talking here? Because I know your family, dude. And it’ll be kind of awkward after.“

“My family thinks you’re some sort of fucking gift to the world,” Derek seethes, like he’s jealous, “they’ll probably be pissed at me when we break it off, so don’t worry about that. Five hundred bucks.”

“A thousand,” Stiles says, because screw ethics. Also, the Hale family is loaded. Derek can deal.

Hemingway Can Suck It -  KuriKuri - 10k - Teen

“For those of you who just transferred into this class or simply decided that day one wasn’t important enough to attend, I’m Professor Hale. Welcome to English 346, The American Novel.”

Stiles is pretty sure his mouth is hanging open right now and that his eyes are wide with shock, because holy fuck, he thinks he knows why his students transferred. Hell, if he was still an undergrad, he probably would have transferred, too.

(Or: In which Stiles is a Biology professor and Derek thinks he's a student.)

Integral to Survival -  asocialfauxpas - 8k - Mature

Derek is in the cell for about ten minutes before the lone door opens and a new body is tossed in. The person hits the floor with a grunt, rolls, and stands as the door is clanging shut. “That’s really not the way to treat a guest!”

Just Act Normal -  zosofi - 70k+ - Explicit

If someone had told Stiles back in high school that he would be an Oscar winning actor by the time he turned 25, he would’ve probably told Scott to punch them. The thing is, though…they would’ve been right. Which makes returning to Beacon Hills, center of all that is supernatural and better left avoided, all the more awkward.

Kaleidoscope* -  Vendelin - 50k+ - Explicit 

Stiles spends a year before college working at the all-night coffee shop in town. It's nice and quiet, until one dark and brooding Derek starts coming in every morning, ordering coffee so strong that it should not be fit for human consumption. Ever. Stiles tries not to be affected by the mystery guy, but it's not like anything else happens around here, so really, what did you expect? And when he's already in too deep, he realises he might even be in way over his head...

Little Wild Animal* - DiscontentedWinter - 61k - Explicit

Derek Hale finds a feral human on his pack's property. Humans are supposed to be extinct. But then, Stiles is full of surprises.

Lock All The Doors Behind You -  entanglednow - 25k+ - Mature

He has no idea what you're supposed to say when you find one of your...werewolf acquaintances, completely out of their mind, growling like they're about to see what your insides taste like. There's no handbook for this. Stiles is thinking that if he survives he might write one.

Losers -  stilinskisparkles - 30k+ - Explicit

Where Derek is new to college, eager to spend his time learning, and Stiles is everything he didn't want in a room mate. He's loud, he's into sports, and he keeps trying to make Derek do things. Or, the one where Derek falls for a jock, Erica will cut you if you disturb her studying, and Jackson is a closeted romantic who pretends to hate everything.

Move a Mountain* -  ZainClaw - 69k - Explicit

Stiles goes camping with his friends in New Mexico after graduation where they befriend a biker gang led by Derek: a guy whom Stiles can’t decide if he will be either relieved or devastated to never see again once their week is up.

No Homo* -  RemainNameless - 80k+ - Explicit

Stiles' sophomore year starts something like this: 3 FourLokos + 1 peer-pressuring cat - 1 best bro to end all best bros = 1 Craigslist ad headline that reads "str8 dude - m4m - strictly platonic". Derek is the fool who replies.

Our Lives Are Changing Lanes* -  grimm - 47k - Explicit

There's a lot of screaming going on inside the first house Stiles visits. He isn't really worried, because it sounds like kids, but then the door opens and hi, says his dick, because the dude in front of him is gorgeous, built like a god with a face like thunder. Stiles wants to lick that solid jaw line. Hold the fuck on, says his cop brain, because the dude's got kids hanging all over him; one's on his back, skinny legs looped around his waist, and another two hanging off one arm, toes barely brushing the ground. There's a tubby toddler clinging to his leg like a koala, and he's got a baby tucked into the crook of the one arm that doesn’t have kids hanging off it. Stiles' mouth drops open.

"How many of those kids did you kidnap?" he asks before he can wrangle his brain into submission.

The man gives him a look that says what the fuck is wrong with you and snaps, "You think I'd subject myself to this on purpose?"

"Oooh," says one of the kids hanging off his arm. "I'm telling Mom."

Permanent Fixture* -  linksofmemories - 80k+ = Explicit

Derek is Scott's older brother. Stiles is Scott's best friend. Derek is falling in love with Stiles. This is a bit of a problem.

Practice Makes Perfect -  blacktofade - 21k - Explicit

In his sophomore year, Stiles gets dragged to lacrosse tryouts by Scott and ends up practising alongside the senior captain, Derek Hale. Stiles just wants to live long enough to become a junior.

Prince Among Wolves* -  tylerfucklin - 100k - Explicit

Looking for full day/evening sitter. 2 twin boys age 4. Must have exp. w/werewolves. Must be human. No pedophiles. No teenage girls. Pay negotiable.

Salty Sweet - secondstar - 40k+ - Explicit

Derek works at a porn store. One day, Stiles comes in asking all sorts of TMI questions about different toys. That's where it all starts.

Sideways and Slantways and Longways and Backways -  hologramophone - 7k - Teen

“I called you a slave-driver!” Stiles cried hysterically. “I called you an ogre! I stole all the blue paperclips!” Derek raised an eyebrow at him. “That’s company property!” he shouted, waving his arms madly in distress. Derek ran a hand over his face. “It’s not theft if the vice president of the company gives you permission.” (Otherwise known as the Elevator AU)

The Company I Keep* -  secondstar - 67k - Explicit

Stiles has a favorite table at the library. Then some asshole comes along and steals it from him.

There is a Brotherhood* -  minusoneday - 21k - Explicit

So far, college has taught Stiles three things:

1) Eight am classes are cruel and unusual and should be avoided at all costs, even if it means having to enroll in something truly hideous instead, like Econ 101.

2) Dorm security is just as tight as Stiles’ orientation leader had promised it would be, and the dude guarding Scott’s dorm in particular does not respond well to bribes.

3) Mrs. McCall clearly had no clue what she was talking about when she’d insisted that Scott and Stiles needed to branch out and room with strangers, so it’s all her fault that Scott ended up with a total dick of a roommate and Stiles got stuck all the way across campus with some guy who has a girlfriend two towns over and is thus never around.

Or, the one where pledge brothers Stiles and Scott start a prank war with Derek Hale's fraternity.

There’s Monsters At Home -  calrissian18 - 80k+ - Explicit

“How did you get past the wards?” Derek had put them up, with Peter’s grudging assistance, after the Alpha pack had made themselves at home a few times too many. The guy pulled a face. “You mean the wards a five-year-old girl with the mental ability of a goldfish could deconstruct?” He blinked wide eyes at Derek. “Gee, I don’t know. It’s bound to go down as one of life’s great mysteries.” Derek despised him.

Tiny Houses* -  ohmyjetsabel - 77k - Explicit

"So this is what Stiles does. He lies in Scott’s bed and waits for Melissa to say she’s found someone to get it out of him, to cure him of the wrongness and the bad, and he dreams.

God, he dreams.

He dreams of fire and swollen bellies and that scene in Alien, of giving birth to jackals through his urethra, the whole horrific nine yards. His head is a terrible place to be, he can’t imagine his stomach is much better, why anyone would want to put a thing inside of it."

Versus* -  secondstar - 90k+ - Explicit

At age nineteen, Stiles Stilinski was the next big thing, according to The Guardian. It was surreal, not being able to turn on Sky Sports without hearing his name mentioned along with the names of players he grew up idolizing. Stiles couldn’t believe that this was his life.

Windows* -  dr_girlfriend - 83k - Explicit

Derek has a new neighbor who won't stop looking. 

Excerpt: “You’re blind,” Derek said flatly, the anger draining from him so suddenly he felt almost woozy. His vision cleared, his claws sliding back into blunt fingernails. 

“Thanks for the memo, genius,” the kid said acidly. “I can still fucking defend myself, so don’t take another damn step.” 

“Fuck, I...I’m sorry,” Derek stuttered. 

“What?!” The kid’s brow crinkled. “I mean — what?! You’re fucking sorry!?” His lips thinned into a harsh line. “What, is this some kinda Hallmark movie where you’re discovering the error of your ways because you don’t want to rob a blind person?! That’s fucking condescending, man. I’ll have you know that —” 

“Just, wait.” Derek interrupted what was apparently the start of a convincing argument as to why he should rob the kid after all, feeling his head start to spin. “This is — it’s a misunderstanding. I’m — I’m not robbing you. You’re — you’re safe, okay? I’m taking three steps back. Just — just let me explain.” 

“Explain why you came busting into my apartment? Yeah, go right ahead, man, I can’t wait to hear this epic tale.”

What I Did On My Summer Vacation -  grimm - 118k - Explicit

There's something weird about Beacon Hills that Stiles can't quite put his finger on. The way everyone in town knows his name the day he arrives. The way they insist the melancholic howling that echoes through the forest every night is just a dog. The way his dad denies getting a dog, even though Stiles comes home to find one sprawled across his bed, some big black thing whose eyes gleam red in the right light. The way that massive oak tree out in the woods vibrates under his touch, pulsing with sickly life. There's something weird going on in this town, and Stiles is determined to get to the bottom of it.

#sterek #starter fics #teen wolf #eternalsterek #fic recs

[blackbrian6-blog]

The Financial Confessions: “A Scary Roommate Situation Left Me Nearly Homeless”

This post is brought to you by Wealthsimple.

Screwing up your finances is one of the most horrifying things that can happen during your adult life. Although nobody is perfect, the reality is that one misguided decision can have a tremendous effect on a person’s future. And when the negative outcomes of those decisions spiral out of control, it can lead to some dangerous situations. For instance, I’ve made many, many money mistakes in my life — several of which I’ve written about on this site. But none of those mistakes haunt me as much as one decision from several years ago that placed my financial stability and safety at risk.

The story begins back when I was a college student on the hunt for housing. I desperately wanted to live with my good friend, Kylee*. Initially, Kylee suggested we share an apartment together for $2,200, but I couldn’t afford to spend $1,100 on rent. I felt discouraged by our apartment hunt and considered applying for student housing instead. In retrospect, this would have been a smarter long-term financial decision. But, of course, my 20-year-old self was far more concerned with satisfying my social needs than my practical ones.

One day, Kylee came to me with an idea: Instead of going with an overpriced apartment, we would go bigger. The plan was to rent a house and fill it with more people to make living expenses cheaper. She pitched it to me like it was going to be one big, happy reality show. And while I’m pretty embarrassed to admit it, I was immediately sold on the idea. (To be fair, Jersey Shore was also really popular at the time.) We would do our homework while sipping wine outside in our beautiful backyard. There would be barbecues all summer that we’d talk about for years to come. Plus, we were going to save money! What could possibly go wrong?

After touring the location once and meeting only three of the seven potential housemates, we agreed to sign the lease. $7,200 per month. To be honest, I’m not sure how I deluded myself into believing that shelling out $850 to occupy half of a bedroom was “a steal.” However, in effort to pretend like I was a responsible adult, I used my lump sum financial aid check to pay ahead for three months of my rent. I continued this pattern for the rest of the school year. This meant I never really “felt” that money disappear. Plus, I remained optimistic by justifying all the perks that came with the house. I was now within walking distance of my campus. I had a view of the ocean. And best of all, we had our own washing machine.

But eventually, on any given day, the general vibe of the place was somewhere between an unkempt hostel and never-ending spring break party. In other words, it wasn’t a functional place to live — and it didn’t take long for things to take a turn for the worse. Around December, tensions were rising among all the housemates. Of course, that’s to be expected when cramming nine twenty-somethings under the same roof, but believe me when I say the situation started seriously getting out of hand. Some memorable issues included people having sex in the only downstairs bathroom during most hours of the day and night. There were other problems too, like people smoking cigarettes indoors, neglecting to clean up their messes and, the most criminal of all, stealing food. I wish I could say we all handled these disputes like rational adults. But after my car was mysteriously scratched days after sending a text asking about a missing container of hummus, I knew it wasn’t going to go down that way.

I was finding it increasingly difficult to justify staying there. I constantly joked about it with friends to convince myself it was fine. Yes, I had to remember to label my hummus immediately if I ever wanted to eat it, but hey, I was saving $300. (Technically, that money went directly toward my other bills, so I never actually saw that savings.) And it wasn’t like I was totally alone in the house with a bunch of strangers. I had Kylee, who had a patience level I could only hope to develop over a lifetime of serious meditation. All I had was a fear that I had paid close to $8,000 to hide for nine months spent in one small corner of an entire house.

There were just over two months left on the lease when everything came crashing down. One morning, two police officers greeted me at my doorstep as I was leaving for class. It turns out one of my housemates had been accused of a serious crime, and they needed to interview the rest of us as witnesses. (For the sake of privacy, I won’t go into details about the exact nature of the crime. However, I’ll say it was serious enough to make me realize there was absolutely no way I could stay living in that shitshow any longer.) That evening, I stuffed my suitcase with as much clothing as it could fit and headed for my friend Maya’s* place, six blocks away. I spent about a week sleeping on the floor of her bedroom before her housemates rightfully became annoyed with my presence and asked what my plan was. Of course, that was the problem: I didn’t have one.

Remember how I had paid my rent up front every three months? Well, I had no way of getting that already-paid money back. And my part-time jobs weren’t going to make me enough money in time to put a deposit on a new place to live.

I returned to my former home one day to chat with one of my housemates, Mason*. He was the guy responsible for collecting the rent money from everyone. I explained to him that I had been gone for the week because I didn’t feel safe anymore. I also mentioned that I wanted to find a subleaser to take over my spot for the final two months so I could make up my loss. He laughed. “I don’t really get why you’re worried since he (the roommate dealing with the police) hasn’t technically been convicted of anything yet,” he said. “There’s only two months left on the lease. If I were you, I’d just stick it out and avoid him.”

Avoid him. I was at a loss for words. Mason’s advice was to continue hiding in my own house. Nevermind that one of the women who lived with us had already placed a deposit on a new place because our problematic housemate made her uncomfortable. On top of that, Kylee had started sleeping over at boyfriend’s so often that I rarely saw her. She wasn’t even around when the chaos ensued. I didn’t have those options.

Despite what Mason said, I tried to find a subleaser anyway. I put an ad on Craigslist and hoped for the best. No bites. Not one. I was caught between two terrible choices: stay and potentially risk my safety, or walk away from $1,560 that I would never see again, with nowhere to go. My savings balance was barely above the threshold where the bank starts charging fees for having an account. For lack of a better word, I was fucked.

Eventually, one of my coworkers noticed I looked severely stressed and exhausted at work. After nearly breaking down when explaining my situation, she graciously offered to help. I slept on her couch for an entire month and a half before I had enough money to stand on my feet again. Between all the double shifts I picked up that month, I must have worked between 25 and 30 hours during the weekends alone. The only time I went back to the house was on move-out day to retrieve the personal belongings I left that I felt were worth keeping. And once I found a new roommate whose personality and livelihood was a better match for me, I paid my friend back for her kindness and never looked back.

I share this story because that year would have ended differently for me if I didn’t have a friend who was willing to save me in that moment of crisis. I know not everyone has the privilege of help, and every time I reflect on this experience, I realize how lucky I am that I didn’t end up living on the street. But more importantly, I know now this situation could have been avoided had I been more careful with my decisions — especially when they involved my finances.

The truth is I didn’t pay several months of rent ahead of time to prove to myself that I was responsible. I did it because I didn’t want to think about it. I lived like I was destined for this negative, self-fulfilling prophecy, wherein I would always struggle financially. If I ever came upon what I considered “extra” money, I spent it. To be honest, I didn’t even consider saving to be a real possibility for people who weren’t already wealthy. I thought I had to have all the resources in place first — the right career, a degree, a certain amount of disposable income — before I could even start feeling like I was allowed to form a long-term plan.

But in reality, there is no rulebook that says you have to be at a certain point in your life to start thinking strategically about your finances. I started getting serious about saving immediately after I left that scary situation, even though I hadn’t yet secured a new home. Years later, I make sure a portion of my income goes toward developing a fund that allows me to make those adult life decisions with confidence. If you’re interested in taking that step to better prepare for your own future, Wealthsimple makes the process super easy and stress free. It takes less than 15 minutes to start building a personalized investment portfolio on their platform that lets you connect with money experts who can help you reach your goals.

Remember, the scariest things that can happen to your finances might not be some expected. Whenever I look back on this horrific situation, I feel an immense gratitude for what I have today. It’s so easy to say paying for things we don’t want to pay for sucks, especially emergencies. But when you have specific funds set aside to comfortably care for yourself — whether it means buying a tire when yours pops on the freeway, or securing a deposit on an apartment — suddenly paying for those things isn’t so annoying. It’s as if the very act of paying for an emergency on your own becomes a constant reminder of how far you’ve come with your money, and to a greater extent, your mindset.

Learn how you can protect your tomorrow by investing today with Wealthsimple. *Names have been changed.

Savanna is a freelance writer in Northern California whose hobbies include all things theater and dog-related. She hopes for a world where avocados will be included in the price of her entrée and a 12-step program is widely available to people who obsessively collect air miles. Follow her on Twitter here.

Image via Unsplash

Source: https://thefinancialdiet.com/the-financial-confessions-a-scary-roommate-situation-left-me-nearly-homeless/

[gemstonestudies-blog]

appblr tip: real talk about selective schools

uchadoaboutnoting:

If you want to get into selective schools and you’re a run of the mill kid (by that i mean you go to a school that doesnt routinely send students to ivy leagues/other very selective schools, and you haven’t cured cancer), here’s the damn truth: your chances are slim.

I got a fucking 36 on my ACT. I was a National Merit commended student. I had an amazing gpa and took as many APs as I could (my school didn’t offer a lot, but I had A averages in all of them). I had work experience, volunteer experience, was the leader of two clubs, and had multiple awards for academic team. My teachers wrote stellar letters of recommendation. My Common App essay was fire. I was in the top 25% of every school I applied to, four of which were highly selective.

I got into only one of those four selective schools, which proceeded to give me a whopping $0.00 in scholarship money and financial aid.

A few other people in my class applied to Ivy Leagues and super selective schools, including the valedictorian of our class. they all got rejected (we’re all going to good schools though, don’t worry).

So if you go to like a normal high school that’s not a literal feeder to selective schools, you’re at a disadvantage. If you’re not a rich legacy, you’re at a disadvantage. If you don’t have a dramatic story or aren’t willing to spill your guts for no reason, you’re at a disadvantage.

Sorry for bragging about myself. I’m not trying to talk myself up or scare you, it’s just a real word of warning and an example.

If you’re still set on going to a selective school, here’s my advice:

when you’re researching schools, be ruthless in trimming your list down. you’re going to have to put in a lot more effort for a selective school application, and it’s a lot easier if you don’t have a billion apps to do.

i would recommend picking only a few selective schools to apply to. don’t apply unless you can see yourself going there, and enjoying yourself in late winter of your third year. move past freshman year in your imaginings, and in your research too.

the application fees are way more expensive at selective schools (except for a few that are free if you apply for financial aid, which is free to apply for, so do that). bear this in mind when deciding to apply. do you really want to give $70 to this school that may ultimately reject you?

visit, if you can. schedule a meeting with a professor in your field. if you can’t visit, reach out to a relevant professor or the admissions office anyway. ask questions even if you already know the answers. show you’re interested. the selective school i did this for was the one that ultimately accepted me.

have safety schools, ones that are reasonable at the sticker price. when selective schools say, “we charge $70,000/year, but that’s just the sticker price! we give out SO MUCH money!!!!!”, they’re lying, unless you’re really, really unable to pay anything. middle class? good fucking luck. and don’t count on scholarships, no matter what great things you did in high school, they’re not giving them.

research state schools too. everything i wanted at selective schools i have at the state school i’m going to (except division iii sports. oh well). selective schools and state schools have the same things, the selective schools are just more impressive because there’s fewer people, and they’re only appealing to top students anyway, while state schools have to appeal to everyone. don’t fall into this trap!!

ask yourself why you want to go to a selective school in the first place. think really hard about this one, and have an answer that you’re proud of. i didn’t think that hard about it, and my answer was somewhere in the realm of, “i’m tired of being treated like a freak for being smart, and i want to be somewhere with like-minded people so i can be ‘better’ than all the people who made me feel bad about myself.” i’m not proud of that. spite is not a good reason to dole out ridiculous amounts of money, and it wasn’t even worth the application process.

repeat this to yourself every single day: SELECTIVE SCHOOLS ARE NOT BETTER THAN STATE SCHOOLS/COMMUNITY COLLEGES/ANYWHERE ELSE. stop idolizing them. you are not superior if you go to one, you are not inferior if you don’t (or don’t get in. see next point). chances are, if you’re willing to put in all the hard work to prepare for a selective school, and the grueling application process, you’re an amazing student, and a hardworking, intelligent, good person. any place would be lucky to have you. and if they decide they’re not going to have you, their loss. not yours.

don’t get your hopes too high. it’s a fucking crapshoot. everyone applying has basically the same qualifications, they basically draw out of a hat, and the “hat” is a complicated system which gives a lot more people jobs than drawing out of a hat. although they have about the same effectiveness.

please, please, please, don’t base your concepts of self-worth on getting in somewhere selective. it’s so easy to do that, it’s such a simple dichotomy: if i get in, i’m good, if i don’t, i’m bad. No, no nononononononono. you are so much more than what some old dudes in an office decide to whittle you down to. please never hinge your happiness on other people’s decisions.

in about three weeks, i’m heading off to my last choice safety school, which slowly moved up the list as the application process wore on. i couldn’t be more excited. it took me a long time to unlearn the terrible things i’d told myself about where i “should” go to college. when i finally got around to thinking about my happiness and my reasoning, i realized i had made a lot of mistakes in my thinking, as meticulously outlined above. honestly, i was an idiot, but things still worked out in the end. you’re going to do great, you are great, i promise.

(i’m really sorry to all the people i inadvertently insulted through this post. i just think there’s a lot of misconceptions about selective schools among high-achieving high-schoolers that need to be rectified. also i’m still kind of bitter, because i obviously run on spite im sorry)

Good luck everyone!

[on-edi-r-e-ct-io-n]

I TOOK SOME TIME TO EDIT THIS THIS MORNING :’) I MADE IT A BIT LONGER AND MORE SAD AND SHIT :) SO YEAH I HOPE YOU ENJOY IT AND YOU CAN CATCH PART 2 HERE

How i Make Money with With my Blog You've never seen One Direction like this before! #7 will make you cringe. link

YO I’M BACK

“Are you nervous?” Harry asks, gripping onto Y/n’s hand as he starts his three-hour drive to his sister’s house.

In their now one year of dating, Y/n is finally meeting Harry’s sister. With their schedules being tied from Y/n’s university to Gemma’s new job and Harry’s recent solo work, there was barely any time for either of them to visit one another. But with Y/n convincing her bosses to get her off the schedule for a week, it’s finally time for Y/n to meet Gemma.

“I’m okay.” Y/n replies reluctantly. 

In all honesty, she’s scared shitless. Even though the rest of Harry’s family practically coos over Y/n, Y/n wasn’t raised in a high-income family. She shared a two bedroom apartment with her two parents and her two older brothers her entire life. Her only time out of the house was when she went off to school or work—never really having a social life because she neither had time nor money for it. 

Y/n being poor and moving in with Harry has been a focus for the media since they publically announced their relationship. They disclosed that Y/n is only paying off her debt and university tuition because of Harry’s wealth, and even talked about Y/n only moving in with Harry because she wouldn’t have to pay the rent that way.

And even though it is true that Harry pays rent and pays off her debt, it is nothing like it seems. There is an entirely different story underneath their publications that nobody understands besides Harry and Y/n—and that’s what scares her the most.

“Don’t worry, baby. She’ll love you. She can read whatever she wants, yeah? But all she needs to pay attention to is who you really are.”

Harry holds her hand tighter. He knows that Y/n is well aware that Gemma has tried to get Harry to break up with her for a while now. She thinks that Y/n is nothing but a gold digger—using the sympathy card to get every ounce of money out of him so that she can manage a living. Of course, that wasn’t the case, and Harry would be willing to spend the rest of his life disproving his sister. 

And he’s starting today.

“Who I am is not going to impress her, Harry. I have nothing set out for me. My future is a dead end. I’m useless.”

Harry’s eyes narrow in pain at her words, slowly letting his eyes leave the road so that he can look at her. He loves her so much more than he can explain, and knowing that the woman he loves so deeply feels so negatively about herself completely and utterly destroys him.

Y/n is so much more than she thinks. She has more determination and gratitude than anybody he’s ever met. She has so much strength and willpower to keep herself moving forward, and despite Harry seeming to have the most difficult job to others, he doesn’t have half of what she has to offer to this world.

“Hey, don’t say things like that. You know that’s not true.”

His eyes are glistening with tears and Y/n almost goes back on her word just for the sake of his own wellbeing. She knows how much putting herself down can affect him, but she truly believes in the words she spoke and won’t take back what she said because she knows it’s true.

“It’s the truth, Harry.”

He scrunches his face with squeezed-shut eyes, shaking his head wildly.

“That’s far from it. You’ve been busting your ass trying to finish school; I have never seen someone so determined to accomplish anything in my life. You inspire me every day—every single day. When I feel like giving up or thinking what I’m doing isn’t worth it, I think of your ability to overcome any of that. It doesn’t matter your money, Y/n, you’re the best person I’ve ever met. I’d do anything to be half the woman you are.”

And as much as Y/n appreciates his words—and no matter how much his words make her heart swell—she doesn’t want to carry on with this discussion. So she smirks, letting out a slight chuckle to lighten the mood. She leans over to press a gentle kiss on his cheek, rubbing her nose slightly against the skin.

“So you wanna be a woman, huh?”

Harry laughs, sneaking a look at her from the corner of his eye. She looks as beautiful as always, and no matter what ends up happening at Gemma’s house, he’ll be by her side no matter what it takes to get there.

His life would be meaningless without her with him. She’s defined all his greatest and most memorable moments, he’ll never let her go.

“Don’t worry, darling,” Harry sighs, “you’ll always have me.”

Pulling up into Gemma’s driveway gave Y/n enough fear to almost pass out on the walk to her front door. Everything she has felt about this day is building up so much inside of her that her body almost feels numb. 

Her heart is racing, her palms are sweating, and her breathing must have been harsh because Harry immediately notices how different her demeanor has become. 

He pulls her into him a bit more than before, pressing a chaste kiss to her temple and rubbing his hand along her waist.

“Stop stressing, darling” Harry whispers, “it’ll be fine.”

But she just knows it won’t be. This is a disaster waiting to happen and she feels the anxiety deep within her bones. If she didn’t love Harry so much, she wouldn’t hesitate to leave him on the door step, steal his car, and drive away from here. But it’s because she loves him so much that she’s willing to prove Gemma wrong.

She has to.

While taking the finals steps up to her door, Y/n has to grab onto Harry’s hand and arm with both of her hands in case she decides to run away. And just for the sake of her sanity, Harry gives her one last reassuring kiss before he opens the door to her home. 

“Gem! We’re here!”

Her house is everything Y/n expected it to be. Everything is open, everything all in one place—nothing to separate the rooms. The walls are bright and decorated with art work Y/n’s only ever seen on display at local museums. It all looks so expensive, there is nothing Y/n has ever seen like it. 

Gemma walks out from the kitchen, looking slightly uneasy, but smiling as she gives her brother a welcoming hug. Their greeting is short and Y/n admires how close they truly are. She never had siblings to grow any particular bond with, so watching Harry and Gemma soaking each other up and making up for lost time makes her heart jump.

But it’s not that long after where Gemma’s attention is on Y/n, a prominent scowl on her face and a glimmer of disrespect in her eyes.

“So, this is Y/N.”

Y/n feels Harry’s hold on her tighten.

She disregards the way she speaks, even if it sends a shiver down her spine. She’s going to do her best to get Gemma’s liking and approval, there is no way she can mess this up. This is her only shot.

“Hello, Gemma, it’s wonderful to meet you.” Y/n smiles, sticking her hand out to properly introduce herself. Gemma smiles slightly, looking down at Y/n’s hand.  

“Is there any reason my brother is paying your university tuition, Y/n?”

The way she says her name burns Y/n’s insides; like her name is toxic on the tongue. She slowly puts her hand down, tucking it underneath her other arm as her free hand moves to push twist her hair. 

Fuck, Gemma really jumped right to it and now Y/n is unsure of what to say. She didn’t expect those types of questions to come so soon, and no matter how many times Y/n had prepared for this moment, her tongue is tied and she’s never felt more intimidated in her life.

“O—Oh, well—”

“Gemma!” Harry seethes, his eyes glaring at his sister in almost a threatening manner, “What the hell?”

Y/n swallows thickly. 

“N—No, Harry,” Y/n interjects, shaking her head slightly, “it’s fine. It’s just that my family isn’t financially stable. They obviously wanted me to get into the best university I could, so when I got accepted, I began to take out student loans. I was on work study and we were provided a good amount of financial aid but it wasn’t enough for us. I ended up owing a lot of money to the bank and—“

“So you had my brother use all the money he saved up from his career just to waste it all to pay for you?”

Y/n stands wide-eyed, clearly not expecting that harsh of an accusation. She knew accusations were going to come, but not so goddamn soon and not so rude. 

And she really wants to crawl out of her own skin. She feels sick—she feels filthy and she wants nothing more than to leave the hatred glaring from Gemma’s eyes. 

She feels the tears she’s been holding in hit the surface, and her chest is heaving and her throat is chocked from the thickness in the air. She really can’t be here right now—she really can’t keep listening to anything else Gemma decides to throw at her.

She’s embarrassed and insecure, two things Y/n can’t handle on her own and now she’s forced to face the situation that’s feeding her both.

“What the fuck?!” Harry shouts, “You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about!”

It took Y/n months before agreeing to let Harry pay her tuition. He had offered since the day he met her. She stressed herself out in ways he’d never seen—pushing herself to the brink of exhaustion and never giving herself a chance to properly take a breath. 

In the moments leading up to their relationship, he felt his career wasn’t even half of what she put herself through at the time. He had all the money for everything she wanted—he was willing to give every penny he had to her, drop everything he’s worked for and give it all to her. He didn’t need it anymore. He had spent his entire life building his future and by the time it was over, he had so much money that he didn’t even know what to do with. 

He found his girl—he found the one he was going to marry. He had a house—a beautiful house—one he could still pay off because he’s still being paid for being in the media. He lived his dream, there was no reason to keep the money he made.

He had everything.

And after what felt like years of Harry begging Y/n—to the point where he even went on his knees—to help her get through her financial crisis, she couldn’t say no. Not to that amount of desperation, not when he was in tears watching her suffer so much.

“That’s bullshit!” Gemma spits.

She takes a threatening step towards Y/n, and in any other circumstance, Y/n would run away without hesitation. But she can’t move.

She lets out a sob when Gemma gets in her face, not daring to touch her but still close enough to make Y/n understand how much she’s made her angry—enough to let her know how serious this all is.

“What are the chances a girl like you gets it on with my brother?! Huh? What are the fucking chances of that?!“ 

“That is fucking enough!” Harry booms, pushing his hand out to push Gemma away from Y/n. 

He swears, he could fucking break her wrists in half. Gemma was the last person he expected to judge Y/n on her economic class. He actually thought they’d get on extremely well. He never expected to be holding Gemma back from punching a very fearful, shaken up Y/n.

And he wishes more than anything that he can be comforting her right now, but he’s not going to risk letting Gemma out of his grasp.

Y/n steps back, taking in a harsh breath as the wind is knocked right out of her. She genuinely feels like someone punched her in the throat, which probably would have happened if Harry wasn’t holding Gemma back as hard as he is. 

She feels the tears that were building up in her eyes slowly start to fall, her barrier completely breaking down. It wasn’t supposed to be this way, nothing was. She’s not supposed to make Harry’s family hate her. She wanted to become apart of it, grow old and pass down more generations of it. 

It wasn’t supposed to happen this way.

In the mix of her emotions, Y/n puts on the fakest fucking smile she’s ever put on. Of course,  it’s not on there for long. She looks down the second it disappears, falling just as quickly as it formed. If she continues to fight for herself, there would be no room for any hope she wishes to carry that Gemma will somehow see her differently. 

“You don’t have to worry about this anymore, Gemma.” She cries, little pathetic sobs finding their way from her throat, “Me and Harry are going to go now, and neither of you will ever have to see me again.”

When the words fall from Y/n’s mouth, Harry’s heart drops to the pit of his stomach. She can’t be serious—she can’t mean what she’s saying.

How could Harry live without seeing her? He’d never be able to forgive himself for letting it get far enough to where Y/n is going to leave him and never think of coming back. No, the thought of that just can’t be possible.

“No.” He whimpers, watching her as she turns away from them, “Baby, please don’t.” 

His hands loosen around Gemma’s wrists in defeat. His whole body is paled and his eyes are brimmed with tears and refusing to blink. 

He just lost everything.

“I never want her back in this goddamn house, Harry, I swear—”

“Do you realize what you just did to me?” He chokes out a sob, his hand reaching to the overwhelming pain in his chest. “You just ruined me, Gemma. I—I’m—She was everything to me, you don’t understand.”

And he really can’t find it within him to stay long enough to listen to what she has to say. She just ruined his life—his life is completely ruined and he’s never felt so utterly lost in his entire life.

He walks out of Gemma’s door without looking back, not daring to do anything but speed up his pace when he sees Y/n sobbing against the car door, her body shaking and eyes soaked with tears.

Nothing is making sense, everything he thought he knew is falling apart. The life he’s built himself is crumbling beneath him, and there’s absolutely nothing he can do about it.

When Y/n is only a few feet away from him, he grabs onto her wrists so tight and rams her into his chest. His movements are nothing short of desperate and he needs her to know how much he needs her, now more than ever.

He needs her to know that he physically can’t live without seeing her again. She means more to him than anything he’s ever had and he refuses to let her walk away from what they have. He won’t let it happen.

He won’t.

He grabs her face so that he can look at her, and the pain in her eyes makes him want to rip his heart out of his own chest. She can’t look at everything she’s ever loved and know she has to walk away from it. 

“You didn’t mean that, Y/n. You are not fucking leaving me, there is no way in hell I’m letting that happen.”

His hands are running feverishly down her hair, his eyes practically pleading for her to just come back to him. 

But he needs to understand.

“Harry—“

“Not over my fucking sister, Y/n. Please, you can’t do that to me. You can’t.”

She squeezes her eyes shut—the only way she can think rationally because she can’t think properly when she looks at him. It hurts too much.

 How in the world is she going to do this? It’s either she stays with Harry and he loses the person who means most to him, or she leaves Harry and lives the rest of her life alone because she can’t find love in anybody else.

She almost considers staying with him. Almost. But there is no way she can stay together with him and live her entire life being hated by somebody who means more to Harry than she does. She just can’t.

“She’s right, Harry. This whole thing—all of this is a mistake. We’re too different, this isn’t right.” She sobs.

She really doesn’t mean it, but she does believe that there is some truth behind her words. They should have known this was never going to work out, no matter how much they do love each other. 

Love can’t always win.

“No!” Harry barks, pressing his forehead so hard onto hers he wouldn’t be shocked if he broke his skull from it. “You don’t dare say that shit to me. You don’t say that to me.”

Y/n shakes her head, pushing him off of her as hard as she could. It breaks her heart to not feel him pressed up against her, but she needs to do this for both of their sake.

“That’s your sister, the way she spoke to me.”

“I don’t care. I’ll never let her in again, she won’t have any fucking sense in this, baby. Nothing will get in our way.”

But she just can’t.

“I’m so sorry, Harry.”

Harry swears he feels his heart ripping in half at her words. His body feels completely detached, like every bone is breaking and all he has left to do is fall in front of her. He holds onto her legs like it’s his last hope. His sobs draining out everything in his head and all he can fucking feel is the mix of his heart being taken right out of his chest and her hands running softly through his hair.

“Please, Y/n.” Is the only thing is brain can muster: Please, please, please. Any source of desperation to keep her with him, that’s the only thing his brain can register.

He grips onto her legs tighter, his forehead pressed against her knees. He feels her tug at his hair, hears her cry and curse under her breath. 

This wasn’t supposed to happen.

“Please.”

She sighs, one last cry ripping from her.

“I can’t.”

#Harry Imagine #1d news #swag #Wichita #Kansas