#i actually still have a few years left of undergrad but it never hurts to look up admission requirements early right? 😅

[studentbyday]

y'know how they say an academic writing sample can be something like an undergrad thesis or journal article? but if a journal article has many authors, how do they know which part you contributed to? or do they just want the part of the article you wrote for the sample? sadly i don't have the option to do an undergrad thesis, so i won't have something that was purely/mostly my own to give...

#i'm not applying yet... #i actually still have a few years left of undergrad but it never hurts to look up admission requirements early right? 😅 #gradblr #grad student #phdblr #studyblr #study tips #study advice #grad school apps #student life #academic writing #academic research #academic advice #graduate student #graduate school

[vote-loki]

Not to like “oh woe is me” post but I feel like I can vent on tumblr since it’s idk tumblr. But I was SO excited for my final semester of undergrad this summer and then almost immediately after I got here in August I began struggling very deeply in ways I have never struggled before. Like confused 24/7, missing assignments because I was too tired to even get out my phone let alone my laptop, forgetting everything including what I’m doing or where I’m supposed to be and even classroom locations on a campus I’ve been at for 4 and 1/2 years. Losing things constantly, randomly loosing grip strength and dropping things, horrible brain fog, waking up feeling like I’m shaking 24/7 but everyone telling me I’m not shaking anywhere when I ask, issues walking, dizziness, vertigo. I’ve been having such extreme fatigue I can’t even get out of bed to pee until it hurts because I’m just too tired. This has been happening since August. Which I assumed this was bad depressive episode so I had them double my antidepressants, and then nothing got better.

But then like two months ago I woke up with this pain in the left upper corner of my right eye. Just a spot the size of my fingertip. And it had me in so much pain I was throwing up. So I thought “I’m a big kid, I have migraines like this all the time.” and I took some of my medicine for that. But it didn’t go away. It lasted for a whole day. When it came back a few days later I decided maybe it was sinus pressure, so I took some allergy meds and some cold meds for a week while it was hurting off and on. But that didn’t work. And then it came back and I got a migraine over top of it. So it wasn’t that. And FINALLY last week it got so bad I couldn’t see out of my eye, the pain had been constant for about four days, and I was so dizzy I could barely walk. So my mom drove an hour out of state to pick me up and an hour back down to take me to the er, who promptly sent me to their on call opthamolagist who, after a serious of very very bright lights directly to my hella dilated pupils, told me my optical nerve is swollen and I need and mri.

Which is FUCKING STUPID that my optical nerve is causing me this much pain. But whatever.

Anyway the day after I went to the er and saw the eye doctor I had a follow-up with my primary care physician, and he said “oh yeah, they’re gonna want that mri urgently. We want to make sure you don’t have ms. Your symptoms are consistent and optical neuritis is often one of the first things ms patients experience before diagnosis.” like girl? If I have ms that chose to present itself by incapacitating me to the point I am failing my final semester of undergrad, and may not be able to fix it, I am going to lose my mind. It couldn’t have presented itself six months from now?????? There’s no confirmation it’s me yet until after my mri, but still. Whatever this is has me pissed tf off. Show up at a different time.

All that being said. Here’s a meme I made about it using a screenshot from one of my fave vines because I’m actually coping and not at all having a sort of hypochondria spiral and doing as much research on it as possible. That would be weird.

#no but actually when googling symptoms I have like 90% of the ‘common early symptoms’ of ms. #anyway like. whatever witch cursed me???? I’d like to be uncursed now. #I also have been having these like random spasms where I throw my arm?? #the best way I know how to describe it is it’s LIKE a tic except it doesn’t repeat so I know it isn’t a tic #it’s more of a violent twitch. AND my right eyelid has been bugging out and twitching like crazy. #there are other symptoms but I really just wanted to vent #actually no the numbness in my hands and feet sucks donkey dick #there isn’t anything wrong with having ms like in a real way. it’s just when it chose to present itself is so upsetting to me #I really wish it could’ve happened after I finished my semester #this is so unfair that my future might be jeopardized just because my doctors weren’t listening to me in august #I’ve been saying this is happening and it’s LIKE my depressive episodes and LIKE my migraines and LIKE when you get really bad sinus #pressure but I’ve also been being abundantly clear that these aren’t normal symptoms for me when any of those things #I’m TOO tired for it to bed my depression. especially with everything else. #it’s not sinuses and I have had migraines ontop of it and that pain stayed constant. #and if I didn’t listen to my doctor when he was it was nothing maybe I’d be being treated already. maybe it wouldn’t have destroyed my fina #semester of undergrad. dawg I just wanted to graduate college. #long post #vent #personal #adding generic tags so people who filter long post or vent in the tags don’t have to see

[rage-on-a-page]

WP: Your roommate is the serial killer on the news. One day they say "I'm bored, got anyone in mind for me to... y'know?"

“I’m bored, got anyone in mind for me to… y’know?

It was a loaded question. There were, of course, some people I would like to see murdered. Every day you read about corrupt politicians making disgusting decisions against humanity. Beyond that there were a few criminals I could think of that were deserving of some karmic justice. But when Aida asked me this question, there was only one person I could think of, one person who needed to hurt the way I do.

It was another hustling day under the scorching California sun when I found out my roommate was a serial killer. No like, I actually found out Aida was a serial killer. I read plenty of reports online: “The Marigold Murderer Strikes again!” The M.O. was quite simple: a body would be found, usually within 3-5 hours of the death. The victim laid in pristine condition- always made to look like they were asleep. And while the scene would always be cleared of any sort of evidence that could identify such a murderer, there would always be a perfectly laid marigold, right on the heart of the victim. 

“I wonder why they used a Marigold… doesn’t seem very intimidating to me” I once posed to Aida.

“Well I heard Marigolds are used to honor the dead. Maybe it’s some weird way of saying sorry?”

At first I had no reason to suspect Aida of such crimes. After all, we’ve lived together for about a year. I had seen her at her best- cleaning the apartment while blasting 90’s power ballads. And I had also seen her at what I assumed to be her worst- puking in my toilet after margarita night went beyond saving. I had grown to respect Aida and learn how to live with her. I never imagined she would be capable of doing anything as insane as committing a string of murders.

So imagine my surprise when I walked in her room last week, and found a cache of marigold petals, reposed in her closet. An odd sight to be sure, but that alone was not enough. I decided to check what the police had published on the Marigold Murderer. Virtually no identifying information, and the list of victims had almost nothing in common. A churchgoing mom who was adequately respected, a single business man who lived more to be an influence than for himself, a graduate student with a habit of getting wasted at college bars and harassing undergrads. Nothing linked these people with one another, nothing but Aida.

At least that’s what Aida told me when I confronted her. To my surprise, she didn’t deny it. She didn’t try to excuse it or make it sound like it was any better than it was. Aida owned up to every bit of it and told me if I wanted to report her, that it was my choice. She said it started as an accident, but when she never got caught, it became a habit. But she didn’t just choose anyone. She chose only those people she had interacted with and determined that those in their lives would be better off without them there. 

“The Marigold is the flower of the sun” she said… “It also represents good fortune and optimism. I’m optimistic that those left in the wake of my crimes will have their chance to grow”.

So maybe it was that thought that led Aida to ask me the golden question: “got anyone in mind for me to, y’know?”

I’m not entirely sure why I never turned her in. Maybe a part of me still refuses to believe it. Maybe the friendship I had developed with Aida made me overlook it. Or maybe… dare I say… I did have someone in mind I needed Aida to help me with. Someone who deserved to hurt the way I do.

“Aida… you know there’s only one person I wish would drop dead. Miguel… after all this time together, he has the audacity to go out and pose with every cheap floozy that lives in Orange county. It’s like I meant nothing to him. Every now and again he’ll like one of my posts… maybe leave an emoji as a comment… but I’m sick of it. I am sick of being reminded by how perfect he exists and how he doesn’t want me anymore. How can someone change their mind like that? It’s only been a month since we broke things off… but every day I carry the pain of what we were and every day I see him weightless. I wish I could be like that.”

“...Do you think killing him could be the answer?”

“Aida-”

“I don’t mean to judge. I’ve done it for less than that. I just want to be sure it’s what you want.”

“What I want is for Miguel to love me again. What I want is to bring our love back from the dead. Do you think you could do that?”

Aida sighs and responds, “Now you know just as well as I do… he needs to be alive for that to happen.”

The silence grows between us. Of course it’s true. I want Miguel dead, not because he hurt me, but because seeing him alive knowing I’m not with him is the cruelest kind of hell. Maybe without Miguel… maybe then I could grow. Or maybe I would spend every day of my life thinking of him in a completely different way. They say time heals, but I can’t help but wonder how long it will take.

The silence continues, but as though she read my mind, Aida hands me her wine. I take a solemn sip and lay my head on her shoulder. It’s crazy to think I could trust a serial killer, but right now, there’s nothing she can do that would hurt more than the pain I’m already feeling.

#short story #writing #writing prompt #novice #hispanics #latinx #latino #heartbreak #crime

[the-modernmary]

you’ll always know me || aaron hotchner x reader

Summary: "I would have stayed... If you asked me to.

After your high school graduation, you left without saying goodbye to Aaron Hotchner, your best friend, and nobody had heard from you since. Years later, you're back in DC, and catching up with Aaron brings more than you could have possibly hoped for.

Warnings: mentions of weed

A/N: I really wanted some soft Hotch content in my life after all the angst in my best habit, and this is about as soft as I can get. Inspired by Taylor Swift's "dorothea". Honestly, I was listening to evermore, blacked out for about three hours, and this is what came from that. There is no other explanation for this. It's written differently than my usual style, but I hope y'all like it still!

read on ao3 || masterlist

~~~~~~~

“What’s got you in such a rush?”

  Rossi eyes Aaron carefully as the latter circles around his office, double and triple-checking that he didn’t forget anything. The last thing he wants is to have to come back to the office and cut his day short.

  Aaron shoves a few case files in his briefcase. “An old friend from high school is in town and I’m meeting up with her.”

  Rossi perks up at the word ‘her’ and he leans against the door frame. Aaron notices this, too, because he shakes his head quickly. “It’s not like that. We both got sent to boarding school for being problem children and we became quick friends. I haven’t talked to her since graduation. She just packed up her stuff and left the very next day.”

“You sound bitter,” Rossi points out.

  “Not at all,” he lies, trying to forget the hurt of running to your dorm for your weekly breakfast together, only to be met with an empty room and a singular polaroid. “I knew she hated it there and her goal was to travel and see as many places as she could. Honestly, I’m surprised she’s back stateside at all. Last I heard, she was doing some art apprenticeship in Italy, but that was years ago.”

  “You sound like you have a long evening ahead of you, so I’ll get out of your hair. And have some fun tonight, Aaron. You deserve it,” Rossi adds on as an afterthought. 

  The corners of Aaron's mouth lift slightly. “I will. Try not to let the building burn down while I’m gone. Reid is back on his physics magic kick, and I think I heard something about a lighter.”

  Rossi gives Aaron a two-finger, half-hearted salute in acknowledgment, which is all it takes for Aaron to shut his office door and head towards the elevator. Knowing that you’re just outside, he has to make a conscious effort to slow his pace from an excited jog to just an anxious speed walk. The elevator ride is slow, seemingly stopping at every single floor on the way down, which gives his mind ample time to wander and think back to graduation day.

  “There you are!” Aaron shouts from across the football field as he runs up to you, shoving through bustling groups of families trying to take pictures. He has so many stoles and cords and leis around his neck that you can barely see the suit he’s wearing underneath his gown. It’s a stark contrast to you, with only a singular chord for academic achievement, although a 3.2 wasn’t much of an achievement in the eyes of most people at boarding school.

  “Here I am!” you laugh, throwing your arms around him in a hug and breathing in the smell of his cologne.

  “Where’re your parents? Didn’t they come?”

  “Of course they didn’t. They’re not ones for celebrating something as trivial as high school graduation, not when it’s just expected of me.” You roll your eyes. “What about you? I thought you and Haley were going to do the whole ‘meet the family’ thing today?”

  Aaron is oblivious to the bitterness in your voice, although that’s nothing new. “We are, but I just wanted to give these to you.” It’s then that you notice the bouquet of flowers in his hand, although it’s now being pressed into your arms. “As a congrats. And a thank you for being there for me this whole time. You’re my best friend.”

  You try to ignore the ache in your chest at his words. “Thank you, Aaron. I… I didn’t get you anything, I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be,” he waves it off. “If you want to get me something, breakfast is your treat tomorrow.”

  “Okay, deal,” you agree, the smile coming back to your face. Selfishly, you don’t want him to go back to Haley or his family just yet. You want him to stay there with you so you don’t feel so lonely in the crowd of happy graduates. “God, I can’t believe you’re staying in D.C. for college. We always talked about getting out, seeing the world and never coming back.”

  Aaron shrugs, and you watch as he brushes away a piece of his hair that falls into his face. “I’m hoping that going to GW for undergrad will make it easier to get into law school there.”

  “And Haley Brooks is still here for another year,” you point out, half accusatory.

  “Yeah, that, too.” Aaron chuckles uncomfortably before quickly switching the conversation. “What about you? Have you decided what you’re going to do?”

  “There’s an art school in Glasgow I’m thinking of going to. But, you know… George Washington also has an art program. It’s pretty nice, too. I’m still deciding.” You trail off, looking straight into Aaron’s eyes, giving him every chance in the world to make the decision for you.

  Aaron hesitates, fighting an internal battle. “Go to Glasgow!” he says, fake enthusiasm in his voice, but your disappointment blocks out anything but his actual words. “Then I’ll have an excuse to visit Scotland.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I was leaning towards, too,” you lie. “Aaron, I—”

  You’re cut off by a voice calling his name. You both turn around to see Haley Brooks waving him over, her other hand holding 7-year-old Sean’s hand. She looks like spring personified, her blonde hair in bouncy curls and her pink sundress swishing around her long, slender legs. Her smile is so big that it could have parted storm clouds, and you want nothing more than to hate her with every single fiber of your being.

  But then you see Aaron, returning her megawatt smile with his own, one you rarely ever saw, and how can you hate somebody who makes him so happy?

  “I have to go, I’m sorry,” he says, although there’s not even a hint of regret in his voice. “But I’ll see you for one last Sunday breakfast tomorrow?”

  “I’ll see you then,” you lied.

  How Aaron could have missed the signs of your unhappiness, he’ll never know. At that time, all he knew was that you left without ever saying goodbye, leaving behind only a polaroid of the two of you from your weekend trip to Virginia Beach, both of you drunk and laughing with your arms wrapped around each other. He still has it, buried in his nightstand somewhere, but he hasn’t had the courage to look at it for a few years now.

  As Aaron steps out of the FBI building, he recognizes you instantly, even though it’s only the back of your head, and it causes his breath to catch in his throat. He calls your name and watches as you turn around, your hair whipping around you, and the fact that you still have that same mischievous glint in your eyes is enough to make him feel like he’s sixteen again and nervously skipping class with you holding his hand and pulling him towards the school gates.

  “Aaron!” You jog up to him and throw your arms around him in a hug, which he happily reciprocates. You press a quick kiss to his cheek before pulling away, and Aaron’s entire face burns.

  You keep your hands on his biceps, holding him at arm’s length, as you study him. He looks almost exactly the same as he did all those years ago, with soft hair and the slightest bit of stubble, but he looks less carefree. He seems more mature, like life had aged him 100 years. Still, as cute as high school Aaron was, it had nothing on how good he looks now. “Look at you, Mr. FBI, all suit and corporate-looking! I never thought I’d see the day.”

  “Yeah, I guess I’ve changed quite a bit,” he admits, and the sight of his dimples makes you want to melt right there into the sidewalk. “It’s really good to see you again. I’ve missed you.”

  “Oh, I’m sure you barely thought about me,” you joke, but hurt flashes through your eyes.

  Aaron wants to argue, to tell you that he thinks about you all the time, but decides against it. He doesn’t want to spend the precious few hours he has with you bringing up old issues. “Are you hungry? Because there’s this diner a few blocks down with giant milkshakes.”

  “Why are we still standing here, then? All you had to say was milkshakes, they’re my favorite.”

  “I know. I remember,” he says, and that all-too-familiar pang in your heart comes back like it had never left. “Come on, we can walk and cut through a park.”

  The two of you start your walk in comfortable silence, listening to the bustling city around you. Every once in a while, your hands would bump into his, and you were doing everything you could to ignore it.

  “So did you ever go to that art school?” he asks suddenly, looking over at you.

  You nod, a soft smile forming on your face. “I did. You were right, I loved Scotland.”

  “Where did you go after that? Nobody heard from you.”

  Your eyes sparkle as memories of your life the past few years flash through your mind. “Everywhere. Literally. I took a bunch of odd jobs and spent my time traveling,” you admitted. “I taught English in Vietnam for a year, worked on a cruise ship that went around South America, was an au pair for a French ambassador, went on research expeditions… Even dated a pilot for all of six months. Anything I could do that would let me see the world.” You laugh to yourself, shaking your head fondly. “I really put that private boarding school tuition to good use, huh? My parents were pissed.”

  “It sounds like you were living the life you dreamed of,” Aaron says softly, looking down at you.

  “It was,” you agree, your voice a little sad.

  “So then why are you back here in DC?”

  You shrug, your hands clasped behind your back, and you step down on a particularly crunchy leaf. “I’m just passing through. I’ve been going around the US and looking for a place to settle down. Finally. Figured I might as well put that art degree to good use. Maybe I’ll open a gallery or something.”

  Aaron nods slowly as the chill of autumn runs through his bones. It’s nice, though, in a weird way. He’s always preferred the fall over spring. “Where have you looked so far?”

  “Lots of places. San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, Atlanta, San Antonio, Miami… I’m heading up to New York next. Nothing’s felt right so far. But enough about me, how are you? I heard you married Haley Brooks.”

  That same bitterness you felt in high school when you talked about Haley comes back with a vengeance. It’s unfair, and you know that. How was Aaron supposed to know that you were practically in love with him in high school if you never told him? Even now, you’re sure that he hasn’t put together the pieces.

  You watch as his gaze falls slightly. “I did. She died a few years ago.”

  “I’m sorry,” you whisper, and you reach out to give his hand a small squeeze.

  “We got divorced a little while before it happened,” he explains, unsure why it’s so important to him that you know that. “I blamed myself for it for a long time. But I’ve, uh… I’ve made peace with it now.”

  You give him a comforting smile, fully aware of the fact that you’re still holding his hand. “Aaron Hotchner, making peace with something in his life? I never thought I’d see the day.”

  Aaron chuckles and bumps his shoulder to yours. “I’ve been known to do it a few times. But only a few. Haley and I have a son, though. His name is Jack. He’s 8 now.”

  You shake your head in disbelief, and your cheeks hurt from smiling so much. “And you’re a father? Wow, you really have changed.”

  “Is that a bad thing?” he asks, and you shake your head wordlessly.

  “I like every version of Aaron Hotchner,” you promise. “Besides, change is a good thing. Especially since this city hasn’t changed a bit.”

  Aaron looks around, eyebrows furrowed, like he’s seeing DC for the very first time. “It’s actually changed quite a bit. But it’s subtle. Only people who have been here as long as I have would even notice it, probably.”

  The words cut through you both as a painful reminder of your abrupt departure from DC, and the silence settles over the two of you like a thick fog. This conversation was going to have to happen no matter what, you knew that going into this meeting with Aaron, but you didn’t expect it to happen so soon.

  “I would have stayed,” you whisper, your voice barely audible. “If you asked me to.”

  Aaron shakes his head as his Adam’s apple bobs. “I thought about it. But I couldn’t do that to you. I knew you wanted to see the world, and you said it yourself. This city had nothing left to offer you.”

  You pause, rubbing your thumb over your fingertips with your freehand. “It had you,” you reply, and Aaron feels like he was just stabbed in the heart. “That would have been enough.” Seeing Aaron’s dejected face, you quickly keep talking. “But I get it, don’t worry. You were head over heels for Haley Brooks. Everybody knew you two were meant to be together.””

  “What does that have to do with you leaving?” he asks, more accusatory than he intended.

  “Everything.”

  Aaron breathes out your name, unsure of what to say until he settles on: “I’m sorry.”

  You wave him off, forcing a laugh. “Don’t be. I was 17 years old with a crush. We do stupid things, like want to stay at home for a boy. I’m glad I left. Besides, Haley Brooks was clearly the love of your life, and far be it from me to try and break up the golden couple.”

  The two of you stop in front of the diner and you drop Aaron’s hand, much to his disappointment, although you’re still close enough to him to see your reflection in his brown eyes. “I didn’t know you felt like that about me,” he says.

  “Which is surprising, because everybody else definitely knew. But you’ve always been a little clueless when it comes to stuff like that,” you tease, flashing him a toothy smile. “But it’s in the past. So come on, I want to hear about this FBI stuff and drink a milkshake so big it makes my stomach hurt.”

  Twenty minutes later, you and Aaron find yourselves smushed together in a corner booth covered in cheap vinyl, splitting a chocolate milkshake and laughing as you stroll down memory lane. 

  “You know, I ran into Stephen yesterday! A little coffee shop not too far from here,” you tell Aaron.

  Aaron almost drops the fry he was about to eat. “Do you mean Stoner Stephen? What is he doing back here?”

  You take a sip of the milkshake, and Aaron’s gaze is intense as you wrap your lips around the straw. When you pull back, he’s still staring at the soft pink your lipstick leaves behind. “Apparently, he’s lived here for years. Also, did you know he’s crazy smart? Like… graduated 4th in our class, went to Brown undergrad and Columbia graduate, smart.”

  Aaron’s eyes go wide in disbelief. “And this is the same guy who, completely sober, tried putting his mattress in the pool so that he didn’t have to sleep in his own dorm?”

  “The very same one. He’s like a lobbyist now or something for some activist group.”

  “Wow, I did not expect that. Do you remember when he got so high that he thought his joint was going to catch the dorms on fire?” Aaron asks, the words barely discernible through his laughter. “So he warned campus police that the whole school was going to burn down.”

  “Yes!” you giggle, your head thrown back in laughter. “They thought it was an arson threat and they had to evacuate the whole school. I was taking an English final during that.”

  Aaron’s shoulder pressing against yours makes a shiver run down your spine. You idly wonder how much closer he can get to you if he really tried.

  As if reading your mind, Aaron turns towards you a little more so that your knees are touching and you can feel his breath on the side of your neck. “We went to the beach that weekend,” he says quietly, unwilling to break eye contact with you. “Drank cheap beer. You got stung by a jellyfish. I had to carry you back to the car.”

  No, no. You were not about to fall for Aaron Hotchner’s charm again that easily. Not again. It took you too long to get over him the first time. Still, you were leaning closer to Aaron, and Aaron was leaning in towards you, and your noses brushed as you tilt your head to the side ever so slightly and—

  And his phone rings. Aaron’s eyes flickered to your lips one last time before pulling away, giving you an apologetic look.

  “Hotchner,” he answers, and you pull your coat tighter around yourself as realization sinks into you. You feel like you’re 17 again, desperately waiting for Aaron to ask you to prom, only to hide in your dorm for days on end when he asked Haley Brooks.

  When Aaron hangs up, he immediately reaches into his pocket to pull out his wallet, setting enough cash on the table to cover the tab and tip. “That was work. We have to fly out to Arizona. I’m sorry.”

  You nod understandingly. “Gotta catch the bad guys. When do you leave?”

  It’s silent for a few torturous moments before he finally answers. “An hour, at most. We brief at the office and then get on the plane.”

  “Wow,” you breathe. “You weren’t kidding when you said that you live out of your suitcase. Can I walk back with you, at least?”

  Aaron smiles, a small smile that makes you wonder how often he actually smiles now. It used to be a lot, but from what he’s told you, it seems like he’s had a rough go of it the last couple of years, and has a lot less to smile about. It makes you sad because when you were traveling the world, his smile was the one thing you missed the most.

  “I’d really like that.”

  The two of you make small talk on the way back, swapping stories about Jack and your various adventures around the globe. The autumn air is crisp with leaves falling all around you. At one point, there was a big gust of wind, and leaves and pine needles got blown onto the two of you, and you took your sweet time running your fingers through his hair, bushing it all off him. 

  When you get to the entrance of the FBI building, neither one of you says anything. You just stand there, both unwilling to say goodbye. You turn to face each other, just as close as you were in the diner booth.

  “Oh, you have a…” Aaron delicately reaches his hand to your hair. His fingers in your hair make your stomach do flips, and you’re almost positive he can hear your racing heartbeat. His eyes stay trained on yours the entire time, never blinking. “Pine needle,” he whispers, holding the offending object between his fingers.

  “Thanks,” you breathe, and you’re not sure if it’s the autumn chill or his hand reaching to cup your cheek that sends goosebumps throughout your body.

  As if he were magnetic, you rise onto your toes, bringing yourself closer to him, and you press your lips against his. Aaron deepens the kiss and runs his thumb across your cheekbone. His other hand wraps itself around your waist. The kiss is slow and sensual and better than anything you could have dreamed of — and you dream of Aaron kissing you more often than you’d like to admit.

  All too soon, the two of you pull away from each other, both wearing matching smiles.

  “I should probably… get in there… before my team sends out a search party,” Aaron says reluctantly, pointing towards the entrance. 

  You give his hand a soft squeeze. “Go save lives. I’ll probably be around for a few more days before heading up to New York. If you’re back by then.”

  Aaron purses his lips, deep in thought. “You’re definitely settling down somewhere? Done with seeing the world?”

  “That’s the plan.”

  “Have you… Do you think…” Aaron takes a grounding breath, trying to gather the words he was too afraid to ask back at graduation. “Have you ever considered settling down here? There’s a pretty big art community here.”

  You shrug, ignoring excitement building in your chest. “I think my work is a little too experimental for the people of the capitol.”

  “You’d be surprised,” he chuckles.

  You bring your lower lip between your teeth, chewing nervously at it. “I don’t know… I left for a reason. I just don’t know what DC has to offer me anymore.”

  Aaron spreads his arms out at his side, palms facing you in an uncharacteristic display of vulnerability. “There’s me,” he offers, and, when your eyes go wide, he adds, “And Stoner Stephen, if I’m not enough.”

  A laugh bursts out of you uncontrollably, which seems to put both you and Aaron at ease. “That makes it a very tempting offer,” you tease.

  “And I have a coworker who flips houses. He’ll be able to tell you where to get the best deal on an apartment,” Aaron presses as if you need any more convincing. As if your mind isn’t already made up.

  “First, I need to know that there’s more than one good place to get milkshakes,” you point out, shoving your hands in your coat pockets. “You’ll have to show me around when you get back.”

  Aaron’s lips quirk up in a hopeful smile. “It’s a date.”

  He makes his way towards the entrance of the Hoover Building, but you call out his name, stopping him once more. “We’ll also need a new Sunday breakfast place. Since our old one is closed down.”

  Now, his smile is one of pure joy, and his eyes are sparkling in a way you haven’t seen in years. “I know just the place. As long as you don’t up and leave without telling me again.”

  “Never again,” you promise, and for once, the idea of staying doesn’t terrify you.

  “Then we’ll get breakfast together as soon as I get back.”

  You smile at him, already missing the feeling of his lips on yours. “I’ll see you then.”

#criminal minds #aaron hotchner #aaron hotchner fanfiction #aaron hotchner x reader #aaron hotchner x y/n #criminal minds fanfiction #my writing

[give-seconds]

Sweet Lies

Summary: Sungchan wants to tell you something but is scared to do it face to face. So, he decides to write you letters telling you everything he wants to say.

Paring: Sungchan x female reader

Genre: Angst 

Warnings: cheating

Word count: 2.3K

---

Hi y/n,

I don’t know if you’re ever going to get these. I mean, as of right now, my intention isn’t to give you them. I guess these letters, like the reason they even exist, are for me. Through these letters, I hope to tell you everything I wish I had the guts to say to your face. I wish I could say this was all a mistake and that I could man up and beg for your forgiveness. But it isn’t a mistake. This is a conscious decision I made once and am continuing to make again.

Maybe you’ll even forgive me.

Love,

Sungchan

----

Good morning y/n,

You were gone when I woke up this morning. You wrote me this cute little note about how you had some special surprise planned for me today. I’m sorry, I’ll have to cancel. I already have plans today. I already know what I’ll say to you. I’ll say something about how my work assigned me to a special project and that I have to work late to help design the framework or something like that. Really though, it’s her birthday today, and I promised I’d spend it with her.

I wish I hated myself enough to stop.

Love,

Sungchan.

---

Hi y/n,

It’s kind of funny, actually. Today, you were telling me about a song you found that “is making its way” to becoming your favorite song. It’s a song from the cheater’s point of view. After you played it for me, you said you didn’t know if you could ever forgive someone who cheated on you. That you should be enough for someone, and if the person you’re dating doesn’t realize that, then they’re not someone you would miss.

After that, I was so stressed, I called her as soon as I got home. Her voice is the only thing that can calm me down when things like this happen between me and you.

I’m sorry,

Sungchan

—

Hi y/n,

Today the guilt I felt was too heavy. I called into work sick and spent the day stuffing everything you’ve ever given me into a box. It was too loud. One of the last things I put into the box was our undergrad graduation photo. It’s only been two years since then, but we look so young. Maybe it’s because I look at that photo and think how soon after that, we started our relationship. Back then, you were the only person I could see myself with.

Five months ago, I met someone who made me feel like that again. Those feelings are still there for you—I hope you never think I lost them. I just found someone who holds an equal part in my heart as you do.

Know I love you,

Sungchan

—-

My Dearest,

You showed up at our front door crying. Judging from the frantic knocks on my door from Jungwoo, you scared him pretty bad. Not many can scare Jungwoo like that; he must really like you.

Anyways, after a cup of hot chocolate, you told me what was wrong. You said your dad had another kid with another woman and that he’d never told you about it. That when you were young, he used to have “conference meetings” with the other higher-ups that lasted a few days.

He was really visiting his other family. Your mom even knew about it; you were the only one who didn’t know. You said that you’ve never been hurt by a lie before. While drying your eyes, you decided lies were the worst thing. That from here on out, you are going to live as honestly as you could. You then asked me if I was hiding anything from you and begged me to tell you if I was. “I can’t handle any more secrets, Sungchan. So if you have anything you’re hiding from me, please, please just tell me. I need to get it all over with now.”

I almost cried when you said that, and I’m thankful you couldn’t hear the lie in my voice when I said I wasn’t keeping anything from you. There have only been a few times the bracelet she’s given me felt like it was burning my skin. At that moment, when you begged me to tell you anything I was hiding, it felt like my wrist was on fire. As soon as you left, I practically ripped it off.

I love you, and I’m so sorry,

Sungchan

---

Hey love,

I was looking through these letters today before I went to bed (I’m writing this one as a spur-of-the-moment thing before I go to sleep), and I realized I’ve only been writing about how I hate what I’m doing. And while that is true, I don’t want you thinking that’s the only emotion I feel. I know what I’m doing is wrong, and I don’t deserve to be anything close to the good guy. With that being said, I owe you the truth. But if hearing me talk about my relationship with her is too painful, I suggest skipping this letter.

I met her about six months ago at a flower shop. It’s the shop I bought the flowers I got you for your birthday. She helped me pick them out. Now I don’t know what came over me, but when she asked me who I was getting flowers for, I told her they were for my mom. Before I left, she gave me her number. I almost threw it away, but right before I let go, something stopped me.

I felt something for her, and I still do. It felt like what I felt for you when I first started realizing I liked you. The immediate feeling of comfort that comes when I hear her voice, the blinding smile, the beautiful personality. It was all the same as when I met you.

I’m not trying to say she’s you; she’s more emotional when it comes to watching movies (I still want to find one that’ll make you cry, I know there’s one out there), and she’s a bit more hyper than you are. But the point I want to make is, the things I feel for you, I feel for her. I don’t know how much that’ll mean to you when (if) you read these, but know I feel so much for you. You were the light of my college years, and you continue to brighten my day.

But so does she. She knows things I don’t and can open my mind to a whole new world. She’s unlike anyone I’ve ever met, and it’s frankly amazing.

I’m trying hard not to talk too much about her in this—I don’t want you to think she’s better than you. I just want you to understand that no matter how many times I talk about how much I hate myself or the guilt I feel, I continue to tell you and her lies. As long as I have you two by my side, I’ll continue telling lies.

You both mean so much to me,

Sungchan.

---

Hey y/n,

This letter will be pretty short; I just wanted to tell you what a good day it was today. We spent the whole day together, which always feels therapeutic. I bought us lunch, we went go-carting (I beat you because you were too scared to go fast, it was great), and we looked around at different shops before we went back to my apartment to have dinner with Jungwoo.

It just feels right being with you, and I can’t thank you enough for being in my life. I think we’re a good fit, and so do you. It’s nice to be with someone who thinks so similarly to me, and I can’t get over how well we fit together. I mean, when you left, Jungwoo couldn’t stop talking about how lucky I am to have found someone who fits me so well.

I’m kind of rambling at this point, but I feel so much love for you right now that I wanted to put it down somewhere.

Thank you for being the person you are and loving me like I love you,

Sungchan

---

I’m so sorry,

I thought it was important I let you know right off the bat that I am sorry. Yesterday, I forgot about a date we arranged. We were out looking for a birthday present for her younger brother and got distracted looking at all the different shops. I never even heard the phone ring when you called. You called me five times before you texted and told me you were leaving. You had even tried to make a joke sending me a text that said: “at least we didn’t make reservations.”

Then today, I bought you flowers and told you that I was busy showing the intern around. That I had to do it on a Saturday because he’s from our office in Japan and takes Korean lessons on the weekdays. We do have an intern from our office in Japan here, but I’m not the one showing him around. You told me it was okay and that you understood, but I could tell you were still really hurt.

I feel like an idiot. I know cheating is bad, but I told myself that when I got into another relationship, I would never forget a date with either of you. That was the only standard I was trying to hold myself to, and I failed.

I’ll try harder to never forget a date again,

Sungchan

---

Hey y/n,

I think this is the last letter I’ll get to write to you. Well, I don’t think, I know.

You came to me today, asking what I was doing last night. I lied and told you I was at home watching TV. If there’s anything I will never forget about that conversation, it’s how you looked at me. You had smiled, nodding your head as you looked at me with teary eyes. You looked heartbroken.

When I tried to hug you and ask what was wrong, you shook your head no and backed away from me. Now that truly broke me. So I asked you what happened and you told me about how someone you knew saw me at the movie theater with a girl. You asked me to tell you who the girl was, and I begged you not to do this. I said that if you did this, it wouldn’t end well. That all the memories we had made together would be tainted.

You laughed and told me it wasn’t your fault the memories would be tainted; it was mine. You then asked me again to tell you who the girl was, and I told you what I had done.

I’m not sure when I started crying, and I’m still crying as I write you this letter. You were crying too as you told me we were over. I asked you to listen to me, and you just shook your head. As you walked to the door, you told me you would come by tomorrow to give me the stuff I keep at your house that I should pack up everything of yours. That’s how I’m going to give you these letters.

You also told me that if I’m still a decent person, I would tell the other girl about you. Believe me, after seeing your reaction I want to. But I can’t lose you both. Maybe soon, the guilt I feel when I look at her will make me strong enough to tell her.

Believe me, I know how selfish that is. I just can’t bring myself to do it.

I’m so sorry, and I love you,

Sungchan

---

Sungchan,

I couldn’t even bring myself to say something like “hi” or “dear,” you’re not dear to me anymore. That’s not to say this doesn’t hurt; I still can’t believe you did this to me. I mean, I thought I knew who you were.

I’m not writing this to tell you it’s okay or that I understand you through these letters. I’m mostly writing this because I don’t think I can face you right now. Again, I will never understand how you could do this. I thought I knew you. We’ve known each other for four years, two of which we were dating, and I still can’t believe I don’t know who you are. So while I don’t blame myself for this, I can’t help but wonder. If I knew you better, would you have been able to lie to me for so long?

I hope you know you’re not the hero here. You wrote that one letter about how you didn’t think you deserved to be the good guy, but you wouldn’t be writing these letters if you didn’t think you were justified in some way. You were in no way a decent person, and I hope you remember that.

You also tried to say you loved me throughout your affair. If you loved me, we wouldn’t even be having whatever this is right now. If you loved me, you would have told me about her when I asked you to tell me if you were hiding anything. If you loved me, it would have been you who told me about your cheating and not a coworker. Do you have any idea how embarrassing that was for me? This lady who I only talk to on occasion now knows my boyfriend didn’t value me enough to be committed to our relationship. She only knew what you looked like because she happens to follow me on Instagram and saw all the photos of us I had posted. You don’t love me, and I hope you can stop lying to yourself.

And you’re right—you are being completely selfish by not telling her. So I decided I had to be the bigger person, once again, and tell her myself. I swallowed my pride and asked my coworker to look through your followers with me until she found the girl she saw you out with. I sent a message to her explaining the situation, and guess what? She believed me. You should be hearing from her soon—that is if you haven’t already.

Goodbye cheater,

Y/n

---

Thank you all for reading! I’ve been listening to Sweet Lies by EXO a lot lately, so I decided to write this. Thank you to @jiwvnie and @pastelsicheng for proofreading this for me! 

I would love to know what you thought about this, and I hope you all have a great day/night!

Masterlist

#nct-writers #nct sungchan #sungchan x reader #jung sungchan #nct scenarios #nct imagines #kpop #kpop scenarios #kpop imagines #NCT

[masonscig]

kiss it better

pairing | mason x sofía

word count | 3.6k

warnings | mentions of broken bones and blood. nose setting scene but not in gory detail. smut. minors dni

author’s note | i literally could not shut up with this one smh. anyways this is for day 6 of hot in wayhaven – worship. 

•─────────────────•

“Have you broken your nose before?”

She asks out of the blue, running a gentle stripe down the bridge of his nose with the pad of her finger.

He scoffs. “The better question is, how many times?”

She blinks, shaking her bangs out of her face. “I guess I hadn’t considered that.”

“Yeah it’s somethin’ you get used to after a while.”

“It can’t get easier, though,” she murmurs, reaching up to pull a strand out of his eyes. She holds her hand there, fingertips grazing the hair above his ear.

“What?”

“Breaking bones, I mean. It’s still painful, right? Even if it’s a little sting?”

“Yeah, the nose is nothin’. Just a pinch and it goes away as soon as it sets. Ribs on the other hand…” he trails off, grimacing. “Not fun.”

“You’re pretty brave to be running headfirst into missions knowing you’ll probably hurt yourself every time,” she smiles, tucking the same piece of hair behind his ear.

He rolls his eyes, unable to hold back a smile of his own. “Why’re you trying to flatter me all of the sudden?”

She laughs, crossing her hands over his bare chest, balancing her chin on her knuckles, her hazel-eyed gaze mischievous and warm.

“I thought maybe you’d let me practice resetting your nose.”

He cocks a brow at her. “You thought wrong.”

She leans forward over her hands, just enough that she has room to press a kiss on his bare chest.

“I could go another round, you know…” she trails off, easing her thigh between his legs, rubbing just enough that he groans and tightens his arms around her.

“You’d wanna fuck me anyways,” he teases, sliding her back up till they’re nose to nose.

She peppers a few kisses down the bridge of his nose, hovering when she reaches his lips.

“I think you’re underestimating my self control,” she whispers, grazing his lips with her own. 

He runs his palms down the swell of her ass to the top of her thighs, gripping the skin there. She sighs, but clamps her mouth shut. She pulls back, a soft giggle already bubbling off her tongue. “Nope.” 

“Do you hate my nose that much, sweetheart?” He chuckles.

“Oh, no, I love your nose,” she says, kissing it again. “I was just thinking that I learned how to reset a nose back in undergrad and I wanted to try it out again.”

“You know how to do that?”

“I think so,” she muses, shaking her bangs out of her face again. “A kid in my bio class sophomore year learned how to reset his own nose because he’d broken it a couple of times playing soccer. He showed us how on a CPR dummy once during class and I practiced a couple of times.”

“So you want me to be your dummy?”

“You’re already my dummy,” she flashes a smile, laughing when he grunts in faux annoyance at her. “If you don’t want me to, that’s okay. I like your crooked nose.”

She nuzzles his jaw with her nose, resting her head in the crook of his neck.

“Ugh,” he grunts once, and taps her ass. “Okay, get on with it. I don’t have all fucking night. I’ve got things to do.”

Sofía’s head pops back up, her messy bun springing with the sudden movement. “Wait, really?”

He shrugs. “I trust you.”

Grinning, she kisses him deeply, just as sweet as the first time she kissed him like this. He doesn’t normally think about past missions that much, but now he has reason to.

Yeah, he was in the hospital bed after fighting off Trappers, but he’d gotten a kiss that’d stuck with him more than any of his wildest sexcapades.

“Sit up, please,” she says, always polite, despite the fact that she knows he likes it when she’s rude.

He hasn’t had her fiery side aimed at him in a long time, and he’s not sure if he misses it (or if this version of her is his favorite).

Scooting so his back is against the armrest of the couch, he keeps his grip tight around her waist. She shifts, straddling him, her eyes fluttering at the brush of his cock against her.

“If you distract me, I’ll do it wrong,” she breathes, squeezing her thick thighs around him.

“Practice makes perfect,” he says, curling his hips ever so slowly, feeling himself slot between her –

“No. I wanna do this right,” she says, her brows furrowed in determination. “I’ll be right back.”

She hops off of him, stark naked, and tiptoes across the cabin to the kitchen. He’d never get sick of the sight of her.

He watches as she grabs an old rag from the drawer, a box of tissues, and a plastic bag, filling it with ice.

She bounds back towards the couch, her face bright.

“Sit with your back against the cushions, please,” she says, before tugging the blanket over his bare lap, straddling him again.

“Oh, so I don’t get the privilege of skin to skin contact? ‘S’kinda cruel of you,” he smirks.

“Ah, stop it. You get enough skin to skin contact with me,” she laughs, before combing her hands through his hair, gathering the top layer into one hand.

Yanking the hair tie out of her bun, she shakes it out, pausing to resituate her hair for a second before she’s onto the next thing.

She gently twists the elastic around his hair. “Is this alright?”

He’s watching her face, which is screwed up in determination to get it right the first try. “Mhmm.”

No one’s ever taken care of him the way she does. He’s always been averse to the idea of being babied (both in and out of bed), but maybe it’s because he hadn’t met a person who balanced the task of challenging him and caring for him the way Sofía did.

And now that he has that balance, he couldn’t really imagine his existence without it.

Deep down, he’s always craved this, he thinks, but figured that he was itching that scratch with physical gratification. No one told him how good sex is when the other person actually cares about you. Nate probably tried, but he wasn’t listening.

She brushes his hair off of his shoulders, runs her palms down his shoulders and chest. “You always look so handsome with your hair back.”

Compliments without ulterior motives didn’t come easy to him. For the longest time, when a person complimented him on his looks, he’d assume that was the ice breaker before tumbling into bed with them.

He’s gotten used to Sofía’s mindless affirmations, and he kind of… liked them.

It wasn’t hard for him to fall into the pattern of telling her what he liked about her. It was truly so damn easy to praise her.

While he muses, she tucks the old rag underneath his chin, splaying it out across his chest as far as it’ll go.

“What’s this for?”

She shrugs. “I don’t know if you’ll bleed or not.”

He chuckles. “Can’t remember the last time I had a nosebleed.”

“I still wanna keep you clean, dummy,” she says, rolling her eyes. “Hold out your hand, please.”

“Yes ma’am.”

She plops the box of tissues in his hand, then the bag of ice on top of that.

“Okay, I’m not so sure if I’m strong enough to re-break your nose, Mason.”

Her hands are forming a triangle, her thumbs pressed together. She places her nearly cupped hands around his nose, massaging the bridge of it with a gentle touch.

“I think this might be for freshly broken noses –”

He cups his hand around hers and snaps his nose, just enough that it curves to the left.

“– Mason!” She jolts in surprise, and he raises a brow at her.

“You’ve got about ten seconds before it resets, sweetheart. Hop to it.”

He thinks she’s gonna bicker with him, but instead she springs into action, tightening her fingers around the bridge of his nose, squeezing lightly and pulling downwards towards the tip of his nose.

When he winces, she mouths a quick “sorry” and resets her hands, tugging down over and over, the sting nearly gone by the third round.

“It’s healed.”

She drags her hands till she’s cupping his jaw with both palms, inspecting his nose thoroughly.

“Oh shit, it’s actually straightened out,” she murmurs, her pretty, pretty face an inch away from his own. “Not bad for a rusty bio student, huh?”

“You did a great job, Sofía.”

At the mention of her name, she meets his eye.

He doesn’t use her name that often. When he does, it’s a reward for the both of them – she notices, and he gets to savor the taste of her gorgeous name on his lips.

“You haven’t even seen it yet,” she smiles, kissing the tip of his nose.

“Don’t need to,” he shrugs.

She snatches a tissue and delicately dabs away at his cupid’s bow. “Just a little bit of blood,” she murmurs. “You’re okay.”

When she says it, he actually believes her.

“Keep that away from me,” he gestures to the bag of ice balanced on top of the box of tissues.

“Fine,” she agrees, snatching the bag from his hand, before tearing it open and tossing a small ice cube in her mouth, crunching away.

“It’s just frozen water. I don’t get it.”

“It’s water that you can eat. What is there to get?” She laughs between chews, attempting to stand up.

He tosses the tissue box to the ground and flings the rag across the room with lightning speed, snaking his arms around her waist before she can react.

The bag of ice topples out of her hand and onto the wood floor, cubes littering the ground around them.

“Agh, really? You know I’m gonna have to clean that up, right?”

“Don’t care. I told you I’ve got things to do,” he smirks, turning up the charm as high as he can. She’s nearly immune to it at this point, but not completely.

“Okay, okay,” she laughs as he trails kisses up her collarbone and nips at her neck.

He stands with her still wrapped in his arms and flips them around. She’s sitting on the armrest of the couch and he’s on his knees in front of her, the thin blanket they’d been using abandoned on the floor with the ice.

“What… Mason…” she’s panting his name and he hasn’t even touched her yet.

“I wanna take care of you, now,” he mumbles against the skin of her inner thigh.

She hums as he kisses higher, each press of his lips to her skin eliciting a crescendo of soft whines.

When he makes it to the crease of her hip, she’s trembling in anticipation already. He wasn’t a fan of denial until her.

“Fuckin’ gorgeous,” he’s whispering, more to himself than anyone else.

“Thank you,” she responds, peering down on him with gratitude before his tongue even touches her.

“You don’t have to thank me every time I compliment you. Stop being so damn polite all the time,” he says, running his palms up and down her thighs.

When he made it back to her knees, he pushed them open wider, wider, till she was spread for him, wanting and waiting.

“It’s a reflex, I think,” she huffs, her stomach stuttering as he suckles against the skin of her inner thigh, face close enough to devour her.

“There’s no one to impress here, sweetheart,” he smirks, kissing and nipping at her flesh again. “I’m the last person you have to be nice to.”

He’s so focused on lavishing every inch of her inner thighs with attention that he doesn’t realize she’s staring at him, only catching on once she reaches down to brush a stray hair away from his face.

“Well, you’ve earned it,” she says, no hint of humor in her tone, just raw sincerity. “I’m nice because you mean a lot to me.”

He’s not used to this level of candor in any relationship he’s ever had. It’s not that he hates it or anything he’s just… not sure how to respond. He’s still learning.

“I dunno, I kind of miss when you’d argue with me. It was kinda hot,” he laughs breathily. Just as she’s about to give a bratty retort, he drags the rough pad of his thumb as slowly as he can from bottom to top.

She sucks the words back in and exhales a soft whine instead, her head lolling to the side when he circles his thumb on her clit.

“You… liked it when I stood up for myself?” She snorts, her laugh devolving into another moan. “I thought it was pretty unbecoming.”

“You know I don’t give a shit about what’s appropriate. All that matters is if we’ll ‘be coming’ or not,” he chuckles to himself at his joke, and she’s even giggling.

“Oh my god, you’re so corny,” she sighs, trying to concentrate on the conversation while he’s graduating to a finger (knuckle deep) inside of her. “Maybe I miss yelling at you just a little bit.”

“I wouldn’t mind if you bossed me around a little bit,” he smiles against her skin, pumping his finger slowly, curling it the deeper he gets.

“Like what?” She pants, grabbing onto the back of the couch for support.

“Tell me what you want me to do to you and don’t be nice about it.”

He’s watching her face, waiting for her reaction, and he’s excited. She’s always known what she’s wanted, but she’s too considerate.

He’d already made up his mind that tonight’s about her and her only. He’d gotten his fill earlier, and he could care less if he did again.

Mason wants nothing more than to make her come until she’s putty in his hands.

He knows he’s not good with words, so this is the way he’ll show her just how much he cares.

She’s screwed her eyes shut, focusing on the movement of his finger, so he encourages her again.

“What do you want, baby?”

She sucks her bottom lip between her teeth before releasing it. “Eat my pussy like you mean it.”

He grins, her no bullshit tone sending shockwaves down his spine straight to his cock. “Don’t have to ask me twice.”

His lips are around her clit as soon as the words are out of her mouth. He licks slow, soft stripes until her hips are grinding faster than his tongue.

He’s testing her – teasing her.

“I said like you mean it,” she pants, and he feels her palm pressing against the back of his head, his mouth and nose nearly submerged.

His tongue’s moving faster now, focusing every flick against her clit. She’s huffing a few soft “don’t stop”s and “right there”s so he knows he’s doing it just like she likes.

Her thighs clench around his face when she finally comes, and she digs her fingers into the back of his head. It stings, but it eggs him on.

“Oh my god – Mason – I’m –” She’s sensitive and barely able to get a grip on the English language, so he takes advantage of that.

He hooks his arms around her thighs and rises – she falls back onto the couch and he’s dragging her hips back until her pussy’s in the air, her lower back balanced against the arm of the couch.

She’s fully at his mercy in this position, and they both know it.

She’s flushed and her chest is heaving, her half lidded gaze watching as he bends down and hooks her legs over his shoulders, delving back into eating her once again.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” her voice raises an octave and she’s already tightening her legs around him.

They both know there’s another orgasm on the horizon and she’s barreling towards it, and he’s guiding there albeit roughly (just like she likes it).

He’s added two fingers this time, pumping in and out while he’s alternating soft and rough flicks of his tongue.

“Don’t you – dare fucking stop –” she demands between pants, grinding her hips against his face and mouth.

She shakes this time, just a soft tremble of her thighs, but he notices the soft tremors, already grinning to himself. He loves how much practice he gets in perfecting his formula – he’d gotten real good at making her come over the years and he was damn proud of himself for it.

She was the prettiest woman on the planet when she came, and he’d do anything to witness it over and over and over.

“Goddamn,” she groans, throwing an arm over her eyes.

“What, you don’t want another round?” He asks, still bent between her thighs.

“I don’t know if I can handle it,” she says through a breathy laugh.

“You can make it to three,” he murmurs, kissing her tender clit again, revelling in the way her hips bucked when he did so.

In a flash, he’s laid on the couch and she’s on her knees above his face, bracing her palms on the arm of the couch.

“Shit, Mason, why’d you move that fast –”

“Doesn’t matter, sweetheart. You up for another one?”

She sits back, ass on his chest, looking down at him. He can’t resist leaning up to grab the swell of her ass.

He thinks she’s going to say some sweet anecdote about the first time they fucked or something very Sofía, but instead, she’s not breaking character.

“I’m gonna ride your face till I’m spent,” she says, peering down at him, cheeks pink, bangs clinging to her forehead.

“Yes, ma’am,” he winks, before giving her cheek a soft push upright, and then he’s nothing but a means to get off, and he’s savoring every second of it.

She’s grinding against his open mouth, her chest heaving, her expression slack jawed.

The mix of groans and heavy breathing are echoing off of the walls. They’re both slick with sweat, their skin sticking and sliding against each others’ with each buck of her hips.

When her movements get erratic, he hooks his arms around her thighs and takes lead.

With each firm stripe of his tongue, she’s struggling to stay upright. She doesn’t manage to stay up, instead falling forward, bracing her forearms against the soft leather couch.

“Shit, keep going – just like that –” her words are unintelligible at this point, just a chorus of whines.

Her hips arch and stutter against his mouth and she goes limp, lungs heaving with effort.

He slides out from underneath her, gathering her in his arms while she catches her breath.

“What’re you doing?” she asks, voice hoarse, curling into his chest.

“Taking you to bed, whaddaya think?”

Her half lidded eyes widen and she shakes her head. “I can’t handle another one right now – let me rest up first, please –”

“– I mean to sleep,” he chuckles, kicking her door in, shuffling in sideways. “You’ve got tomorrow off so we’ve got plenty of time.”

“Oh, thank god.”

He slides her onto the bed and she lays back, making no move to get under the covers. The apartment’s in a perfect spot – the moonlight always manages to sneak into her room and dimly light it.

It’s streaking through the window, across the bed, her torso, her cheek, hitting the sliver of gray hair in her bangs. She looks ethereal, practically glowing on top of her dark comforter.

He knows he’s staring, and she’ll catch on soon, so he cracks a joke to play it off.

“So much for the self control you speak of.”

“Hey!” She laughs, chunking a pillow at him.

He catches it with ease, tossing it right back, it smacking her on the leg. “What? I’m right, aren’t I?”

“Yeah, but you don’t have to say it.”

“You just hate when I’m right.”

“No, I just hate when I can’t resist you,” she rolls her eyes, patting the bed next to her.

He hops onto the bed, jiggling the both of them. “Sounds like a you problem.”

“Shut up,” she laughs, smacking his chest with her palm, cuddling up to his side.

Before he can tilt her chin up to kiss her, she’s already pressing her lips to his, the taste of her lingering on his mouth.

“Thank you,” she whispers when he pulls away.

“What’d I say about being polite?” He says, voice low, holding himself back from leaning in to kiss her again.

“Old habits die hard, I guess,” she smiles against his mouth. “You would know.”

His eyes flicker up to the crumpled pack of cigarettes on her nightstand (the ones that hadn’t moved from that very spot for months).

Needs turned into wants and wants turned into waning cravings which turned into the most futile efforts to match whatever the fuck Sofía does for him.

He’s still figuring out how to navigate this existence of his with her in it, but he knows he wants it to be like this for as long as she’ll let him stay.

And yeah, Mason’s awful with words, but as long as he can show her, he knows it’ll be alright.

#the wayhaven chronicles #twc #twc mason #n*fw #hotwayhavensummer #mason x sofía #detective sofía olmos #my fic

[marauder-level-chaos]

Don’t Make Me Play Pretend. Chapter 1

Fake dating/college AU. Magnus is a grad student while Alec is still completing his undergrad. Magnus' high school is doing a week-long reunion and his best friend, Catarina, insists that he goes. Magnus doesn’t wanna go alone because he knows his ex-girlfriend, Camille, would be there and he doesn’t want to give her the opportunity to gloat. Magnus has had a crush on the boy next door for a long time. Maybe this is a chance to officially ask him out?

Masterlist

Warning: swearing, fluff, fake dating, my shitty humor

A/N: I went through like six (hundred) different ideas to write before I decided on this one, but I’m a massive sucker for fake dating AUs so this is gonna be a multipart thing. My tag list is open so let me know if you want to be included in the next part. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this.

Feedback and reblogs are very much appreciated.

***

Time really does fly when you’re not surrounded by toxic people. It had been five years since Magnus had graduated high school. It certainly hadn’t felt like it. He had lost contact with most people from his high school, except Catarina Loss, Magnus’ best friend of almost ten years. Magnus sighed as he picked up the card inviting him to his high school reunion and tossed it on his dresser. Before his thoughts could drift back to what his life had been like five years ago, Magnus distracted himself with a shower. Just as he had gotten out of the bathroom, he heard the front bell go off.

“I brought us lunch.” Catarina said, as Magnus opened the door to his friend. She walked over to the dining table and set the cardboard boxes down. “Did you get the invitation?”

Magnus nodded. “Yes, I did.”

“Are you going?”

“I have to, don’t I? If I don’t go, she wins.” She was Camille Belcourt, Magnus’ ex-girlfriend. Cat smiled at her friend and Magnus could tell she was proud of him. “I’m gonna need your help though.”

“What do you need? You know I’m always here to help you.”

“I need to show her what she gave up. I can’t sit back and watch her gloat.” Magnus paused as he slowly got down on one knee. “Will you please do me the great honor of becoming my fake girlfriend?”

Catarina laughed as she placed her hand in Magnus’ and pulled him back up. “You know I would if I wasn’t so hopelessly in love with my girlfriend. Besides, I promised Dot I would take her as my date.”

Magnus’ face fell a little. At the same time, however, he was really happy for Dot and Catarina. They had been together for a few years now and were easily the best people in Magnus’ life. Before he could say anything though, Cat continued with a smirk on her face and a twinkle in her eye, “There is somebody else you could ask, Magnus. I’m sure he won’t mind.”

The thought of asking out Alexander Lightwood, Magnus’ next door neighbor, was terrifying. Simply put, Magnus had developed a little bit of a crush on the dark haired boy. However, Magnus didn’t outright reject Cat’s idea. After Catarina explained in grave detail what the benefits of including Alexander in this little scheme would be, Magnus considered this as an opportunity to face his fears. Besides, it wasn’t like Alec would actually be his boyfriend. A little game of charades never hurt anyone.

Once his friend left Magnus alone with his thoughts, he decided to enjoy a cup of Irish coffee on his balcony, soft music playing from his phone. The lights flickered on in the apartment next door. Magnus smiled to himself as a wave of courage washed over him. He set his coffee down and ran a hand through his hair. It’s now or never, Magnus.

***

It had been a long day for Alexander. Between his classes and the job he had taken up at the campus cafeteria he had barely had time to eat anything. As he entered his apartment, he switched on the lights and brewed a cup of coffee for himself. He smiled as soft music filtered into his apartment. It was moments like these where he was thankful for the thin walls. In the two years that Alec had been living in this apartment, he had learnt to enjoy his neighbour - Magnus’ - music. It always seemed to brighten Alec’s day. Alec frowned as the music stopped abruptly. The knock on his front door pulled him out of his thoughts.

When Alec opened the door, he was shocked to see Magnus standing there. Magnus was about 4 inches shorter than Alec and had the brightest eyes Alec had ever seen. They were almost golden. Magnus’ beautiful dark hair was styled impeccably, as it usually was. To say that Alec’s feelings for Magnus were purely neighborly would be a blatant lie. The taller boy simply stood there, unsure of what to say to the man in front of him. Just say something.

However, before Alec could even open his mouth, Magnus said, “I need you to be my boyfriend, Alexander.”

***

Magnus stood in front of the wooden brown door that had the number 112. Despite his best efforts to keep his composure, Magnus could feel his palms get sweaty. Before the nervousness could get the better of him, Magnus knocked on the door. As he stood there awaiting a response, he could feel his heart banging against his chest. After what felt like a lifetime, the door opened to reveal the tall, dark haired neighbor Magnus had a crush on. In that moment, as Alec’s baby blue eyes met Magnus’ gold ones, all of Magnus' confidence went out the window. He just stood there, gawking at Alexander and the way he was absentmindedly running his hand through his hair. Using every bit of his self control, Magnus pulled himself back to reality.

Before Magnus could stop himself, the words “I need you to be my boyfriend, Alexander.” escaped his mouth. Ah, fuck.

Taglist: @quickbright @addisonsintern @dreamerthinker @just--another--bean @tolkienlockian

#malec #Magnus Bane #Alec Lightwood #Magnus x Alec #alec x magnus #shadowhunters #Mortal Instruments #fake dating

[whumpinggrounds]

Don’t Like Her

aren’t isabella and miss mara charmingly domestic :) things are fine :) definitely no problems here and especially no jealousy :)

tagging @shapeshiftersandfire​ and @killtheprotagonist - lmk if you want to be added/removed!!!

CW: lady whump, pet whump, aftermath of conditioning, fucked up power dynamics, intimate whumper

Miss Mara’s in a good mood, Miss Mara’s in a good mood, and that makes Isabella smile. Miss Mara’s laughing, and opening a bottle of wine, and making a mischievous face at Isabella as she pries out the cork. “It doesn’t count as drinking alone if you’re here, right?” she asks, and Isabella can recognize a rhetorical question now, so she just laughs. More good news at work, she surmises, from the phone call that Miss Mara immediately makes to her maybe-girlfriend Violet, wherein her owner pretends to be far more disinterested than she actually is, and says things like yeah, well, it still sucks, and, I guess, it just hardly feels like something to be proud of.

Miss Mara is proud. Isabella can see that. And Violet tells her she should be, on the phone, and Miss Mara drinks the wine straight from the bottle and giggles as she listens. Whatever conversation they’re having devolves and devolves, as Miss Mara slips more into teasing, more into murmuring sweet words down the telephone line. Isabella busies herself with dinner. Miss Mara shouldn’t be drinking on an empty stomach. She’ll make breakfast for dinner, Isabella decides, scanning through the scant supplies left in their fridge. It’s Miss Mara’s favorite.

By the time the food is ready, Miss Mara has hung up the phone, and now all her praise is directed to Isabella, who blushes until the tips of her ears are pink at the words her owner points her way. You’re so good this is so good you’re so smart thank you so much – it all blends together until Isabella isn’t sure when to thank her master, when to blush prettily, when to turn the sweet words aside. A pet can get stuck in a trap like that –

But Miss Mara isn’t in a trapping mood. “You know, wine and pancakes taste kind of okay together,” she giggles, the wine in one hand, her fork in the other. She’s finally acquiesced to using a glass, and she smirks at Isabella over the rim. “Who would’ve thought?”

“I’m glad you like it.”

“I’m glad you made it,” Miss Mara quips back, and Isabella grins again into her pancakes.

“I know you like them,” she tells her owner shyly, and Miss Mara ruffles her hair.

“You’re a good girl, Isabella.” Pleased with the praise, with all the compliments she’s getting, Isabella gazes at her owner almost rapturously, and Miss Mara looks just as happy. “It’s just so much money,” she marvels, stabbing another strawberry and swirling it through syrup. “It’s more money than I’ve…I mean, than I’ve ever had at once…”

“That’s good,” Isabella nods, sticking to small, careful bites. The syrup is sweet, definitely sugary, and Mara likes her on the smaller side. Her owner has never said it, but she has a look she gets when she sees Isabella taking bigger portions. It’s not a happy look. “That’s really good.” She aims a smile at her owner, but Miss Mara isn’t looking at her.

“It is good. It is.” Miss Mara shakes her head, shuts her eyes as if she’s picturing it. “And this is just the beginning. They want me at another meeting, can you believe that? Another meeting at headquarters, with all the, all the people in charge…”

Isabella nods along, pretending a normal amount of interest, but her heartrate has suddenly changed in her chest. “Does that mean I’ll stay here?”

“Yeah, yeah, um, you’re going to have to stay while I’m gone…”

“So, will…will Jamie come stay?”

Immediately, Isabella knows she’s done something wrong. The joy on Miss Mara’s face starts to sour, the sweetness shifts into something rotten. Isabella darts a glance at the wine bottle on the table and sees, with a sinking feeling, how much her owner has had to drink.

Not that it’s Miss Mara’s fault. It’s Isabella’s fault, all Isabella’s fault. Her voice sounded too eager, too excited, too something. Whatever it is, Miss Mara makes a discontented little sound in the back of her throat and scans her pet with a gaze full of something like suspicion. “What are you so obsessed with Jamie for?”

Miss Mara spits the name, and Isabella swallows, backpedals, tries to save herself. “I was just…just curious who would stay with me.”

“What, do you like her?”

“I like her f-fine,” Isabella tries, and hates the awkward way the words fit together, how she’s certain she’s said something wrong. “She’s fine.”

“Well, I hate her.” There’s a certain amount of relish in Miss Mara’s voice as she says it, and a certain amount of expectation. Isabella knows she should hold the same opinions as her owner, so she nods slowly, but that doesn’t satisfy Miss Mara. “She hurt me you know. She broke my heart.”

“Jamie did?” Isabella can’t hide the confusion in her voice, the question that borders on disbelief. Luckily, Miss Mara doesn’t seem to pick up on it.

“Yeah, she did. She lied to me. A lot. We dated for…for a little over three years. And she lied, and she hurt me.”

Isabella nods, fixing her face into something like sadness. On the inside, she feels fine, impervious, and she knows she’s being bad, bad, bad, but can’t bring herself to care. The only thing she feels is relief, for the way she’s deceiving her owner, because she can’t pretend she hates Jamie when she…she doesn’t. Isabella doesn’t know why she likes Jamie, just that her heart jumps when Miss Mara talks about her and sinks when Miss Mara says something mean or angry. The idea of Jamie hurting someone, the idea of Jamie being cruel…it’s so confusing as to be almost funny. Jamie, awkward nervous tentative sweet Jamie, hurting cool and confident Miss Mara? It doesn’t seem possible, doesn’t seem real. The realest thing about the story is Miss Mara’s anger, which she’s more than happy to indulge.

“She’s not, like, very smart, either.” Isabella’s owner says it with satisfaction, dropping her tone in the way people do when they’re revealing a secret. “I mean, she flunked out of undergrad when we went to school together. She’s been working the same minimum wage job for what, four years? Five? So, I mean. It’s not like she has any ambition, either.”

“I didn’t know that.” Miss Mara seems to be expected to say something, so Isabella puts in the blandest thing she can, focusing her gaze downward, on the pancakes she’s now hardly picking at, despite her constant growling hunger.

“Yeah, well. She watches you for free, and that’s nice, but I don’t know, Isabella.” Miss Mara frowns at her pet, eyes assessing. “I don’t trust her. You don’t think you could be on your own for a few days? There’s food in the fridge, and you know how everything in the apartment works…”

Heart racing, Isabella keeps her eyes fixed on her plate, so Miss Mara won’t see how frantic those words make her. “I don’t believe it’s a good idea to leave me alone for several days,” she informs her owner with unnecessary politeness. It’s her fallback, when she starts to panic, and though it turns the corners of Miss Mara’s mouth down, it doesn’t fail her now.

“Probably not,” her owner sighs. “So Jamie it is, then.” Isabella’s heart brightens treacherously. “But I still don’t like her, and I don’t trust her. Especially around you.”

That’s okay, because maybe Miss Mara’s right not to trust Jamie around Isabella. Maybe Miss Mara shouldn’t trust Isabella around Jamie, either. Isabella’s having all these disloyal thoughts, after all. Isabella isn’t hating Jamie when Miss Mara so clearly wants her to hate Jamie.

Trying to atone, Isabella is extra good that night. She does the dishes quickly and then she kneels by Miss Mara’s feet as her owner does her work. Later in the night, as Miss Mara watches TV on her laptop, she puts the computer on the coffee table and pulls Isabella into her lap. She runs her hands down Isabella’s sides, twirls a lock of hair around her finger. Isabella leans into the touch, relaxes into the touch, but it doesn’t feel the way it normally does. It doesn’t feel like she’s doing it because she loves it. Suddenly, for some reason, it feels the way it did in the Facility – like Isabella is doing this not because she wants to, but because there are stakes and strings attached. Miss Mara doesn’t notice, just keeps petting her, stroking her, pulling her back closer and closer, possessively. Isabella tries to focus on the movie. She tries to turn her brain off, tries hard not to think. This is good. This is a reward. She should be thinking about how happy she is, how lucky, how much she loves her owner.

She should not be thinking about Jamie.

#whump #whump writing #pet whump #lady whump #aftermath of conditioning #intimate whumper #noncon touching #lost cause jude #bbu #box babe

[duskaris]

Day 4: Medicine

I kinda struggled on what to do for this one, until I remembered that I have a character who is literally a doctor. Now that I think of this, I could have done this about Emelia as well, as she is on the patient side of things. Basically, I forgot I have characters who aren’t from Aeryn’s world. This ended up being a bit of self reflection about Elizabeth’s time in med school and how she got to be where she is. Thanks to @oc-growth-and-development for the prompt list!

Medical school had always been an obvious choice for Elizabeth. Right from the first time someone had posed the question “What do you want to be when you grow up?” her answer had always remained constant, only changing marginally from ‘doctor’ to ‘surgeon’ sometime in the 7th grade.

The first barrier was money. This shouldn’t have been a problem for Elizabeth, after all, her parents were both rich and had offered to fund her studies. Additionally, her tuition was mostly covered by scholarships so the only money she needed would be her textbooks and living expenses. It seemed like an obvious answer, but every time she thought about taking it her stomach ached with guilt. She had always promised Eva that as soon as she moved out she would cut her parents off, financially and emotionally, much like her brother had already done. Eva always said she didn’t care that much, but Elizabeth saw firsthand the way she had suffered over the years. She didn’t want to owe them any more than necessary. Elizabeth finally decided to accept the money, at least for her undergrad, ironically for Eva’s sake. Eva was a minor, stuck with her adopted parents, and if both she and Connor cut them off there would be no more cushion left between them. By staying in contact with them, even while at university in another state, she could supervise over video calls, making sure that nothing more than usual happened. As much as she despised them, every minute she spent with them was one less they could use to hurt her little sister. Still, the feeling that she was using dirty money never fully went away.

The second barrier was the workload. She had always known it would be a challenge, but even through her undergrad she maintained a healthy balance of study, socialization, and sleep. Medical school was ten times worse. Studying took almost all of her waking hours, memorizing and learning what seemed to be every little quirk about the human body but was actually just scratching the surface. She felt out of touch with her non-med school friends, many of whom were finished with their education now and diving into careers instead. She made new friends instead, people in her study group who shared classes and free time with her. Her hard work and steady hand in the lab propelled her to the top of her class. Her grades and easygoing personality made finding a residency program a breeze. 

In a way, beginning her residency was a breath of fresh air. No more classroom, instead putting her hard-earned knowledge to the test. It was stressful at times, her inexperience causing others to question her, and her to question herself, but it finally felt real. She had achieved her life goal. The first time she saved a patient was easy, emotionally at least. The first time she lost a patient was hard. There was no fault on her end, there was just nothing they could’ve done. She cried that night, feeling helpless. Telling a family that they lost a loved one quickly became the hardest part of her job, but she learned quickly to control her emotion in public and express it privately. She forced herself to keep looking at the bright side, lest she drown in the negativity. Those who could be saved were and the ones she lost were not the fault of her own hand. That isn’t to say she was immediately perfect and never made mistakes, but she kept them to a minimum, unafraid to ask for a second opinion when her experience lacked. Overall, she has no regrets about her path, helping people this way was her destiny. 

When she was 27, she sought to fix her parent’s mistake. The adoption process was difficult for a single woman, still in her residency with no stable career yet, even despite acing the personality and background checks. Finally a 12 year old girl who had lost her family in a tragic accident was placed with her for a trial period after she had to be removed from several group homes for behavioral issues. The first few weeks were the hardest, neither of them sure about the permanency of the placement and Violet lashing out. Even the easygoing Elizabeth got frustrated but she never punished Violet, instead taking her to family and individual therapy to work through the issues rather than repress them. The young girl soon began improving, although she never fully lost her abrasiveness. Soon they fell into a routine balancing school and Elizabeth’s work schedule. When the re-examination came, officials noted the positive behavior changes and allowed Violet to be officially adopted, though the girl had decided to keep her birth last name. 

Elizabeth smiled brightly as walked through the hospital doors after dropping her daughter off at her new school, ready for her first day as a cardiothoracic surgeon in St Allen’s Children’s Hospital.

#oc-tober #OC #oc prompt #For those who don’t know Elizabeth and Connor are their parent’s biological kids #Eva is their adopted younger sister #Their parent's abused Eva #but they never faced any consequences #due to the fact that the abuse was never physical #and their obscene amount of money #Luckily their children were nothing like them

[dian-morey]

The End (What Happens in a Dying Brain)

tw: death, dying, medical (brain mentions, mainly in second paragraph)

Synopsis: After Dian’s fall, what are his last thoughts of?

What happens in a dying brain, exactly? From a scientific standpoint, we know exactly what happens.

The neurons firing, zapping back and forth, slow. But that takes time. They actually did a study on rats, go figure. And they found that after about a minute all the electrical activity surges one last time. After it’s all dwindled and their EEG shows no activity. One last triumph of nature and then the neurons stop. They just stop. It’s called ‘the Wave of Death.’ 

When brain function ceases, your brain, that magnificent thing… it just turns to goo. It’s not a muscle, see, it’s just the softest of tissue held together by electricity coursing through it. It’s held together by you coursing through it. It is you. Everything that makes you who you are rests there. It’s kinda magical in its own way. Yeah, yeah, I’m a nerd. 

I’m somewhere in between those two stages right now. After death, pre… whatever happens next. It’s been less than a minute. I know this to be true, and yet, it feels like I’ve been stuck here for an eternity. 

Drifting.

So we know what happens in a dying brain on a physical level, but what about psychological? I’m living proof, well, not really… but proof that we remain conscious. At least as long as those neurons are still firing, however slow they may be. I can see them. Lighting up the darkness with a myriad of colors I never knew existed. And even though it is breathtaking… I have no breath left. 

This light show is a once in a lifetime experience. I should be grateful. But I don’t want to see the last sparks of me streaking across the blackness behind my eyes. I want to see my mother, my father, my brothers, that girl from undergrad and her smile. It always made my heart flutter, even now I feel as if it could jump start the muscle as it stands still in my chest. Hope she’s doing well. As I think of each of the people who touched my life, memories of them fill the darkness. 

The girl from undergrad, Katherine. She was leaning in for the last kiss we’d share. Just before this she told me she accepted an offer to go to a school in Boston. As much as it hurt to be happy for her, I was. I haven’t thought much about her since she and I lost contact, but I think she was the first woman I ever loved. Is that why I am thinking of her in my dying moments?

Devyn, hesitantly moving his hands; he’s testing out his first sign and then it clicks. I’ll always remember the look on his face. He can communicate effectively now. I was honored to be a part of his journey. 

Elliot, sleeping on my couch after a long night. I remember watching the sun come up after staying up the whole night with him. I would have given up years of sleep to spend nights like those with him again.

Sebastian, nonchalantly mentioning that he feels safe around me. At the time it left a sour taste in my mouth. I wasn’t anything special he could catch. Now all I feel is an ache, wishing I could have just been happy he felt he could open up to me.

Isaac, bent over with laughter as he had just accidentally turned my hair bright green. I was almost sick, begging him to turn it back. It all worked out in the end, but looking back I can laugh at it too.

Mazhar, bushy tailed and bright eyed as he opened his acceptance letter. He got his dream job and I really was green. He left a few weeks later. I tried to save face, but he had to have known I was bitter. I’m sorry, Mads… I really am proud of you.

Gem, so young and pent up as he stepped out of the police car. I could tell he was scared. I was too. Mama and Papa were getting older, I was worried they wouldn’t be able to handle a kid so… volatile. I was so wrong. Gem, you aren’t volatile. You’re misunderstood. I just wish I had more time to get to know you the way you’re so afraid to let us.

Mama and Papa, sitting at the dining table so late at night. I shouldn’t have been awake, but I snuck down the stairs to hear what they were whispering about. They were talking about me. About how they didn’t want me to feel as if they loved me less if they adopted this boy. They might not have known then, but they gave me the best gift they could have. A large and loving family. I never thought you loved me less. And I never should have thought less of myself for being surrounded by amazing individuals. I could have been a better son. I’m sorry.

More images flew past my vision, or whatever oblivion this was, all of friends and other memories that shaped me. Some too personal to share, sorry, even in dying moments I have some sense of privacy. I think this should count towards respect for the dead, letting me have my moment and all. 

The end of the film reel playing back came shuddering by, leaving me alone in the darkness yet again. But it wasn’t filled with the flashes of my neurons any longer. Just a singular soft white light that seemed so far, but isn’t this supposed to be all in my brain? How long has it been? Is this it? That’s the infamous white light that leads into the great beyond? I’m scared, oh I am terrified. And then all of a sudden I’m not. Not when the warmth of the light encroaches and washes over me. 

This is the end and it’s nothing to be afraid of.

#I AM EMO #The End (What Happens in a Dying Brain) #self para #my boy :((

[beyondconfessor]

Principle Decisions [1/24]

Rating: Explicit

Pairing: Lilith/Zelda Spellman

Summary: Zelda couldn’t look away from the words as she touched over the embossed typography.

Lilith

Dominatrix

N.B.: Also posted on AO3. This is pure fantasy, please suspend your disbelief. 

She fingered the card, drawing her nail over its edges. It had an entirely over the top design, with a bright red background and black lettering. Despite how over-the-top she felt the graphic design was, Zelda couldn’t look away from the words as she touched over the embossed typography.

Lilith

Dominatrix

As if it had burned her, she dropped the card on her desk. On its back, the card presented the phone number and email address of the woman. Terribly gauche: [email protected].

The business card––if you could even call it that––had been slipped out of the jacket of a new book she’d purchased, and since her discovery of it, Zelda’s eyes had been drawn to it, a strange temptation pulling at her.

She’d only bought the book as a way to offer an olive branch to Hilda. If her sister weren’t so terribly awkward around any mention of sex, she would have wondered if she had been the one to slip the card into the book. No, likely the so-called dominatrix had wandered through the shop and decided that the newest bestseller would be an excellent place to advertise her business.

The sheer gall of the woman.

It had been some time since she’d engaged in any sexual relationship. Since Edward’s passing, Zelda’s world had been entirely taken up with raising Sabrina. Hilda had helped, of course, given that she was the original caretaker of Ambrose––but the bulk of Sabrina’s raising rested on her shoulders. Between that and balancing her work at the Academy, Zelda had little time to date.

And in the few times, she did date she would inevitably end up exhausted by the need to care for someone’s emotional needs on top of her family and usually wound up requesting that they never see each other again.

At least if she engaged with a sex worker, she wouldn’t have that issue.

A knock came at the door of her office, pulling her from her thoughts.

“One moment,” Zelda said, before taking the card and hastily set in the drawer of her desk. She should throw it away into the wastepaper bin, tear it up into pieces, and yet she found herself pushing the drawer shut, feeling a strange temptation dim but not entirely die away. “Come in,” she called.

The door pushed open, and her niece stood in the doorframe, bag slung over her shoulder as she stepped into the room. “How was work?”

“Busy,” Zelda sighed, rising from her chair. “How was school?”

“Fine.”

“Nothing happened, today?” Zelda inquired.

“Well,” Sabrina began, bouncing on the heels of her shoes. “Principle Wardwell did go on a warpath against Coach Craven. That was pretty cool.”

“Wardwell? Isn’t Hawthorne the principle there?”

“No, he left over Summer. It was in the news bulletin.”

Zelda rolled her eyes as if she cared to read that. The PTA and Parent-Teacher nights had always been Hilda’s realm of experience. There were limited choices of schooling in the area, and Baxter High had more students going off college than Riverdale. And like hell, she was sending Sabrina off to some boarding school as her parents had done with her, Edward and Hilda.

Collecting her day planner and unmarked essays, she began sliding them into her bag as she asked, “so why did your new Principle go on an alleged war party?”

“Craven said that Theo couldn’t join the men’s football team. So Roz and I complained to Wardwell, and she stormed off and immediately told him off in the middle of try-outs. It was…pretty awesome actually.”

“It’s definitely a way to make enemies,” Zelda said. “Take it from me, Sabrina. Public humiliation may force someone to obey for the moment, but they’ll look for any opportunity to enact their revenge.”

Sabrina’s lips pressed shut, her excitement dying. “I thought it was pretty great, actually. He should be called out for his actions.”

“And the best place to do that is in a formal setting,” Zelda said as she switched off the office light. Stepping into the hall, she drew the door shut and locked the door. “In a position of leadership, especially one so newly forged, it’s better to think about the long term effects of a stable work environment. Sowing discord will only turn the other teachers against her.”

“Well, the students love her,” Sabrina pointed out defiantly, missing the point.

With a sigh, Zelda drew up and rolled her shoulders. Her niece was sixteen, thinking the whole world revolved around her. Students came and went, but the teachers would remain, and if Principle Wardwell wanted to keep her job, it would be in her interest to make friends with the staff.

“How did your classes go?” she asked, deferring to a safe topic as they walked out of the university’s grounds to the parking lot. Sabrina began babbling beside her, discussing her recent marks in English and History, the study group she’d formed and then quietly toeing away from discussion of one particular class.

“Didn’t you have an exam for French today?”

Sabrina flushed, fiddling with her bag. “I…passed.”

Zelda paused, turning to look at her niece directly. “Define a pass.”

“C plus?”

Zelda bit back the flared anger as she pressed her lips together, watching as Sabrina squirmed under her scrutiny. “Perhaps I should switch to speaking French at home, then?”

“No, I hate it when you do that. Look, it barely makes up my grade, I’ll fix it up with the essay at the end of the month, and then I’ll be back to being an A-minus student.”

“Yes, well, unless you want your allowance to drop—“

“Come on! That’s hardly fair. It’s not like we live in France. I don’t even see the point in why I have to take this stupid class. ”

“Language is important, Sabrina. When you travel, you can’t just go around assuming everyone speaks English. By your age, I already spoke Italian and French fluently. By my twenties, I’d learnt Mandarin, German and Latin. Now, there are few languages that I don’t speak in one dialect or another.”

“I know, but…I don’t even know if I want to travel.”

“Of course you do,” Zelda said. “Everyone travels, or you’ll end up like your Aunt Hilda, working in a bookshop with no idea of how the world works.”

Sabrina went quiet as they arrived at the car. She climbed into the passenger seat, drawing her bag into her lap and buckled her seatbelt with a stony face.

Zelda drew in a breath, setting her own bag on the backseat before sitting down into the driver’s seat. Sabrina had always been soft for Hilda, defending her against Zelda any time she made a sniping comment towards her.

Perhaps the comment had been a little harsh. Only last night had the three of them broke out in an argument after Hilda advised that she would be permanently working at Cerberus Books and not just ‘helping out’ as she initially advised. Honestly, a retail assistant? Hilda had as fine an education as she had, and now Zelda was an academic, teaching at Greendale University, and Hilda…worked in a bookshop.

Not to mention the sudden talks of her moving out. Ambrose was still at university, in his final year of his masters, and Sabrina still had another year and a half before she was off, flying around the world before she settled on a college.

Leave? Unlikely. It was an empty threat Hilda proposed to hurt her.

They drove home in silence, with Sabrina’s growing bad mood taking up the space of the car. By the time that they arrived home. Sabrina didn’t even wait for the engine to switch off before she was unbuckling her seatbelt and running up the steps of the house.

Zelda paused, watching her niece push open the front door, likely to remain hidden in her room until summoned for dinner. She considered following up the stairs to Sabrina’s room and advising of how unacceptable her actions were, and yet the day felt heavy on her shoulders. She didn’t want another argument with Sabrina.

She didn’t want another argument. If Hilda would stop being so selfish, they could actually take the time to raise the children.

Stepping out of the car, she pulled out her bag from the backseat and then locked the doors behind her––not that it really mattered, they were so far out from any neighbours that there was a more pressing concern for a bear to get into the car, rather than a burglar.

She passed Ambrose sitting on the veranda, a book of poetry in grip and a glass of wine sitting next to him (in a tumbler, which she did take offence to, they owned perfectly suitable wine glasses).

“Auntie,” he greeted, looking up from the book. “How fairs the undergrads?”

“Fine,” she remarked. “I had the pleasure of seeing Prudence today.”

“Oh?” he remarked casually. “I had thought she’d have dropped out by now.”

“She asked about you.”

Ambrose seemed to pause, biting on the inside of his cheek before he gave a strained smile. “And should I go running into her arms again because she inquired as to how I was going?”

Zelda stared at him and watched as his face flushed with embarrassment.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean for it to come out like that.”

“Don’t apologise when you don’t mean it, or learn to lie better.” She paused, watching guilt wash over his face. “You should speak to her. At the very least it might bring you the much-needed closure you require to move on.” Before he could say anything further, she brushed past him, entering into the foyer of the home.

A door slammed upstairs, signalling her niece’s growing foul mood. But unlike Ambrose, who often drowned the house with music to signal his moods, a stillness followed the slammed door.

Her eyes drew up to the stairs, a part of her wanted to seek out Sabrina and apologise before she snuffed out the very desire to do so. Instead, she drew to her home office and set her bag down, drawing out her computer and essays, preparing herself for evening work to be completed after dinner.

Drawing into the kitchen, she noticed that Hilda was already at the stove, stirring around what looked to be onion and mince. At the same time, she had an assortment of diced vegetables running on another element beside it.

“Evening, sister.”

“Oh! Zelds. I thought it was you.”

“Who else would it be?” she asked, going to the cupboards to pull out the dishes. Usually, it was Sabrina’s job to set the table for dinner, but she could wash up and dry the dishes after dinner, given her impetuous mood.

“Oh, well…” Hilda spluttered, before turning to look over her shoulder. “So, what did you think of Doctor Cee’s little shop? Quite the business, hm? And the café has been busy of late!”

Zelda bit her tongue to stop the first thoughts she had from coming out. She set down the plates before looking at her sister and catching the hesitation.

“It’s…good that you’re happy,” she said, feeling other words rise in the back of her throat. She swallowed them back and smiled at her sister, hoping it came across genuine enough.

Hilda returned the smile, and it was enough to unknot the growing anxiety in her chest. Perhaps they could make it through dinner without another argument.  “And have you given the book a look, yet? It’s flying out of the store lately. A real page-turner.”

Zelda gave a small nod. She’d got as far as the first page before the card had slid out onto her desk.

Swallowing, she tucked a wayward curl behind her ear, trying to not think of the words.

Dominatrix. She shivered, remembering what it was like to feel rope twist around her hands.

In her early twenties, she’d engaged in an assortment of different forms of BDSM with different partners, both on the receiving and giving end. And yet something about that embossed lettering brought a flicker to a long lost flame inside of her.

It had been…a long time—at least two years since she’d engaged in anything other than masturbation. The dating pool in Greendale and Riverdale was small enough that, inevitably, everyone knew everyone––and given her position, casual sex would only lead to complications. The last thing she needed was another man at her office, begging for a date.

Or a woman leading insistent voicemails on the landline.

But a dominatrix would be discreet. And it would just be an itch, after all.

A part of her worried. It could be a student she’d taught, trying to make extra money to pay for their education. Or it could be a number of acquaintances––someone from the board?

It could be Shirley. That thought sent a cold feeling down her spine.

“Zelds?”

She looked up, realising her sister had asked her a question. “Pardon?”

“I was just asking if you started the book.”

“Oh, just the first few pages. I’ll get to it on the weekend.”

Hilda squinted at her before stepping forward. “You’re looking a little flushed. You’re not coming down with the flu, are you? You’re always working yourself sick.”

“I’m fine,” she said, stepping away from her sister. “I’ll go tell Ambrose and Sabrina to wash-up, shall I?”

“Oh, yes, I suppose dinner will be made in a moment.”

____________

#zelda spellman #lilith #zelith #madam spellman #caos fanfic #morgan writes #morgans fics

[stardustkenobi]

Only Lookin’ At You

Poe Dameron x Reader

Request: “HEY BITCH I N E E D 90 FROM THE PROMPT LIST WITH MY HUSBAND THANKS IN ADVANCE” @niffleurs​ she’s here

Warnings: fluffity fluff fluff

“To the women who will always be bridesmaids” Sophia said, her alcohol induced vibrato and grandeur hiding the fact that yes, she was very bitter that her boyfriend of ten years still had not popped the question.

Along with the other six bridesmaids, you rose your glass of champagne and clinked it with each one. Hannah, your best friend in the whole entire universe, was finally getting married — the third of your friends to get married in the past couple of years.

Undergrad was a long ways away as you took a hefty sip of your drink, eying the rest of the women that shared the same silk colored robes as you in the back room that you had been shooed off to to prepare to walk down the aisle. You picked at the monogram on the left side of your chest, letting out a subtle sigh. It was definitely difficult to understand Sophia’s frustration, considering the fact that your twenties had been plagued with bad hookups, one nasty relationship that was on again, off again for the better part of three years that ended in a crescendo of yelling, thrown insults, and tears of relief when you finally left the apartment, and disappointment.

Most of the movies and love songs and books that carried you to the oh so disappointing age of 32 had convinced you that you would find that one special person by now and you weren’t necessarily worried about it, but days like today punctuated the fact that it just hadn’t happened yet.

Shrugging your shoulders, you joined your friends as they began the mindless process of getting ready for wedding party pictures and the eventual arrival of the bride to be. Your hair was braided and twisted into the style that Hannah had meticulously picked out for you. Your lashes were plucked and your face was painted before Sophia was pulling you to the mirror. Between her and Hannah’s twin sister, you were finally placed into the gown that effectively made you a member of your sorry group of seven always a bridesmaids.

“You look amazing.” Sophia beamed as she flattened out the waistline of the gown.

Giving her a grimace in the mirror, you picked out little parts of the get up that irritated you. Were you complaining about your inclusion in the wedding party? Absolutely not — Hannah was practically a sister to you and her fiancé was one of the kindest souls that you had ever met. It wasn’t their fault that you had hoped you would have been the next of your girlfriends to be decked out in white and kissings the love of your life in front of what seemed to be the entire world to show that he was yours and you were his.

“Time for pictures!” A voice dragged you from your dreamlike trance in front of the mirror and with a push from Sophia and a bouquet slapped into your hands, you were off to the front lawn of the wedding venue to take pictures with the groomsmen.

The seven groomsmen were a mix of people you knew at varying degrees. Some were friends of the groom that you knew from college, others were childhood friends, a few were coworkers.

The groomsman that you were introduced to at the rehearsal as the man who would walk you to the altar less than twenty four hours ago was a man named Poe. He worked with Hannah’s fiancé — the two had climbed the corporate ladder of the marketing agency they had started out in fresh from senior year of college and, almost ten years later, they were practically running the place.

Poe had been mentioned time and time again by Hannah, who absolutely loved to play match maker. She was convinced that you would fall in love with him and be it your stubborn nature or the fact that you were becoming absolutely obsessed with the fact that you hadn’t found the one yet, you froze up the minute he introduced himself to you as you hung around the edges of the altar waiting for instructions.

He was indescribably handsome and from what you knew he was smart. However, the cynic in you questioned whether he would even be interested. Sure, he was single and just about your age, but for one thing, you certainly hadn’t had the best track record with relationships over the past fifteen years. What would make trying with him any different? And why would he even glance your way unless Hannah had put ideas in his head already?

You were unsure of what you wanted, both in life and in a partner and as much as you wanted to explore that, you were afraid to get hurt again.

So there you stood, chatting half heartedly with your girlfriends as thoughts of perpetual loneliness swirled around your brain. They most definitely were not welcomed thoughts, but you were having a significantly hard time quelling them, particularly as you glanced over at Poe who was somehow even more handsome in the standard tux all of the groomsmen wore. Your chest squeezed as you watched him goof around with his friends in front of the camera, becoming more and more attractive by the second.

“You think he’s cute, don’t you?” Hannah’s twin teased by your ear after the photographer had finished up with the guys. Of course Hannah had said something to her – this was Hannah for God’s sake.

“Shut up, Margo.” You hissed as the photographer approached your group to take pictures. “I don’t even know him.”

Marge smirked as the seven of you squeezed together, smushed up for a series of photos that ranged from serious to goofy. “He’s been watching you since you walked into rehearsal last night with every opportunity he has to.” She said plainly, turning to stand back to back with you as Sophia suggested some ridiculous pose that made some of the other girls laugh.

“Don’t put ideas in my head.” You said through a forced smile, voice an octave higher than normal.

She snorted, elbowing you teasingly. “Take a look yourself when you get a chance, why don’t you?” She said in a sing songy voice, then left to stand somewhere else at the direction of the photographer.

Your eyebrows furrowed together as the camera continued to snap away. Letting your eyes trail over to the group of guys standing a little ways off, sure enough, you met a pair of soft, brown irises that flickered away almost as quickly as you had made eye contact.

“Maid of honor and best man? Can I have you both over here for some photos, please?” The photographer said quickly, trying to adhere to the strict schedule of the day.

Margo shoved you forward to meet Poe — of course he was the best man because this was all a stupid, cliché little joke that fate was playing on you. Of course you’d have to be on his arm for the next two hours until you could finally break free at the reception, which would give you just enough time to formulate some dumb fantasy about how you’d catch Hannah’s bouquet and he’d catch her garter and your eyes would meet from across the room knowingly and he’d slip you his number on the back of his place card and it would all be just like the YA novels you used to read under your covers well past your bed time in high school and he’d —

“You good, Y/N?” Poe asked softly, hands in his pockets as he walked up to you and effectively pulled you out of your stream of consciousness.

Your knees were weak as you glanced up at him, nodding shyly. “I’m good.” You promised. “Just nerves, I think.”

He smiled, holding his arm out as the photographer directed. “You seemed a little nervous last night, too.” He said as he smiled, posing with you as the photographer began to take your pictures. Glancing down, he pushed a curl out of your eyes. “Hope it’s nothing I did.”

Your smile was soft as you chanced a quick little peek up at him. Yep, still gorgeous. “It’s not you at all.” You giggled as the flash and click of the camera caught the less than staged moment. “I think it’s just the heels, if I’m being honest. Hannah went with ones that are just way too high and I might face plant at some point if I’m not careful.”

He laughed softly, shaking his head as his eyes squeezed shut. Another snap of the camera. “She and Jack always said that you were funny, I’ll never get why they didn’t introduce us sooner.”

Your eyes rolled as you snorted, letting your bouquet hang at your side. “Of course she’s talked about me.” You said as you turned to the side a bit at the photographer’s request. “I’m sorry if she’s made you listen to stories about me at nauseum, she’s hell bent on setting all of her friends up and I totally get it if you’re, like, weirded out by being stuck with me today.”

Poe’s head tilted to the side as he studied you, taking your free hand at the photographer’s insistence. Snap — another sincere moment caught on camera, another piece of evidence for you to ruminate over when the photos finally came into your inbox months down the line when the fire in your belly had been doused and forgotten. Another photo to ignite that flame again and make you wonder if it ever could have worked. So many should’ve, could’ve, would’ves would more likely than not be plaguing your subconsciousness. “I actually asked about you when I saw that post of you and Hannah, Jack, and Margo at Governor’s Ball two summers ago. She never brought you up beforehand.”

Your mouth opened and closed as you searched for the words to respond, more likely than not looking like a fish. You willed your mind to say something, anything to counter this information as Margo yelled to you and your counterpart that it was time to get ready to process into the small chapel on the property the wedding was being held at.

“Guess that’s us.” Poe said with an almost shit eating grin, holding his arm out for you. “We can talk more about things later, if you’d like.”

You took his arm after a moment, not necessarily hesitating because you were afraid to touch him, but more so because you were afraid to mess up this delicate situation that mirrored so many action movies where the main protagonist debated whether or not to cut the red or blue wire to diffuse some sort of detonator. “I’d like that.” You finally said, choosing the lamest and subsequently safest response that you could muster.

The wedding went off without a hitch. Hannah and Jack were undeniably the cutest couple you had ever seen as they shakily exchanged vows they had written for each other in the dead of the over the past year, edits meticulously made and different word choices tested. Their kiss brought you to tears and the whole ceremony pulled you out of your own selfish thoughts for a little bit in the most relieving way possible.

You were sat on Hannah’s left, Poe was on Jack’s left, at the long table at the front of the ballroom the reception was being held in. Poe had finished his speech right after yours, receiving as many laughs as you had. When the bride and groom finally moved to the dance floor, Poe was immediately at your side, chatting your ear off eagerly as the two of you watched people spin around the dance floor for the better part of an hour.

“So,” Poe said after your fit of giggles from a joke he had cracked had died down. A slow song was just starting to play over the speakers. “You don’t have a date, I don’t have a date. They’re playing that cheesy ass Taylor Swift song that everyone’s been having their first dance to at their weddings and neither of us have had any excuse to get up and dance tonight…”

Your cheeks flushed and you hoped it would come across as being a result from the flute of champagne you had downed. “Are you asking me to dance?” “I’m not saying that we should go dance.”

“I think you’re asking me to dance.” You whispered teasingly, leaning forward with a knowing smile. “Lucky for you, if you weren’t asking me to dance, I’m going to have to pass. I don’t dance.”

He quirked an eyebrow, tilting his head. “You don’t like to dance?”

“No.” You backtracked. “I love dancing, just…Not in front of a ton of people.” Your grin was sheepish as you shrugged, picking at a piece of link on the skirt of your gown. “Too many opportunities to slip up and look — what are you doing?”

Poe’s hand was gripping yours and, as much as your mind screamed at you to not follow him out to what could be a potentially embarrassing situation caught on camera for generations of Hannah and Jack’s family to see, you allowed yourself to be pulled out to a quieter corner of the wooden dance floor and pulled to the chest of a man that, despite knowing him for just a day and really only talking to him for an hour, felt more familiar to you than any other man you had met before.

“Pretend that there is no one else here but us” He said softly, his hands finding your waist as Taylor crooned about a love that was three summers strong. “I won’t let you fall, promise. Eyes on me, okay?”

You nodded, totally dumbfounded as you started to sway with Poe and swallowed the lump threatening to rise in your throat. Your shaky hands rose to wrap around the back of his neck, subconsciously playing with the ends of his hair.

The conversation continued to flow quietly as the song reached the second chorus and by the bridge, his forehead was pressed to yours in the most tender of ways that erased any doubt in your mind that he had spent the first part of his night with you simply out of obligation to his friends.

You didn’t catch the glances shared between Margo, Hannah, and Jack a little ways off. You didn’t see how the whispered excitedly about how their plans were finally coming to fruition and how their stubborn friend was finally letting her guard down again for someone who wouldn’t take advantage of the vulnerability. Shit, you wouldn’t have cared if you saw or heard because of the way Poe was currently looking at you.

His words were filled with hope for the future and at the end of the night as you all trudged off to go your separate ways to get back to the hotel you all were staying at, the jacket of his tux was draped around your shoulders and your phone buzzed with text after text from him as you climbed into the car with Margo and Sophia.

You hadn’t caught Hannah’s bouquet or garter, Margo and Sophia both chided from the front of the car.

You smiled to yourself as your head hit the headrest on your seat. No you hadn’t — you had been too busy dancing with Poe in the gardens just outside the all glass doors to even notice it happening.

#Poe Dameron #Poe Dameron x reader #Poe x reader #star wars #Poe Dameron imagine #reader insert

[stxphxn-strange]

i want to start posting from my ironstrange college au (remember the makeup fic i posted in like november? i’ll link it below but it’s from that verse) so! let me explain it:

reminder that this is an au and it’s my au, so i decide how this all goes!

Ships:

IronStrange (duh)

ThorBruce

Valcarol

Sambucky

Christine x Hope Van Dyne* (this gets complicated)

Eventual Pristine

Past Stony, Past Stucky

(Lowkey I’m also figuring out if Rhodey x T’challa could be a ship? they both seem too independent but i also might add it in)

Character Notes:

Tony deliberately never specifies if he prefers to go by Anthony or Tony. People call him both, or also his friends call him Ant. Stephen does not/has never called him Tony, he’s always known him as Anthony.

Happy just tends to go by H or Harry (anyone who calls him Harold receives a death glare, but as a joke Rhodey got him a T-shirt and the pattern is just name tags that say “hello my name is Harold.”)

Rhodey just goes by Rhodey bc Tony *insisted* that all their friends call him that and plus he doesn’t hate the nickname.

Natasha is part of this but she doesn’t go to school with the rest of the group. She’s Tony’s half sister and is the biological daughter of Maria Stark and her best friend. She lives in Italy with some of Tony’s extended family and her bio dad. Few people know of her existence, or they know her as Maria’s niece (for her own protection). It doesn’t rly matter that Howard has no idea who she rly is, he wasn’t with her the entire time Maria was pregnant w Natasha bc she was in Italy (and brought Tony with her)

Roommates:

- Tony and Rhodey are roommates, and they live two floors above the four suitemates. The four suitemates are: Christine and Pepper (who share a room) and Stephen and Wong (who share the other room) despite that, the six of them tend to move fluidly in between both spaces.

- Hela and Carol

- Val and Hope

- Thor and T’challa (Bruce spends a lot of time w them)

- Bruce, Sam, and Loki (as chaotic as it sounds btw)

- Bucky and Happy, who I’ve decided are very close. (btw nobody particularly enjoys the fact that Sam and Bucky live next door to each other, when they’re Busy their roommates can be found w Stephen and Co. or one of the other Odinson siblings).

Friend Groups (note: people overlap/belong to multiple groups, this is also not the full list bc that could go on for a long time):

- The Main Six: Tony, Rhodey, Stephen, Wong, Christine, and Pepper.

- Team Big Brain: Tony, Bruce, Stephen, Hope, Carol, Christine, and Bucky.

- Doctors: Stephen, Tony, Christine, and Bruce.

- Dumbass Protection Squad: Hela, T’Challa, Carol, Happy, Rhodey, and Pepper (usually).

- Psych Majors: Pepper, Wong, T’Challa and Loki.

- Stark Industries: Tony, Pepper, Rhodey, and Happy.

- People who Like Astrology: Loki, Bucky, Val, sometimes Christine.

Storylines (There’s no established time frame for this really, but it doesn’t follow mcu canon or any canon):

- Stephen and Tony are lifelong friends. They met on the first day of kindergarten and went to school together in NY (where both their families lived at the time) until middle school. For unspecified reasons, Stephen’s parents opted to move the Strange family to Nebraska before the start of 6th grade. Stephen and Tony were Devastated but were already inseparable at that point and stayed in touch. A business opportunity moved the Starks from NY to California. Stephen stayed in Nebraska for high school but Tony’s parents sent him to boarding school (read: Howard sent him away to avoid having to actually parent, and he thought he was lifting a burden from Maria. This was Not The Case, as she loved her son dearly and would call him everyday. Tony appreciated this more than he ever thought possible.)

- Howard and Stane viewed boarding school as a chance to groom Tony into something malleable and submissive enough to take orders from anyone. His obvious feelings for Stephen (with whom he was still incredibly close) were a Great Concern, so the executive decision was made to set Tony up with Steve Rogers, a blond athlete from his school. It was a way to keep Tony’s sexuality controlled, and Howard didn’t think Stephen was anywhere close to the level he wanted Tony to be (of course, Howard didn’t think his son lived up to his expectations anyway. It was more about control). On the surface, Steve was sweet and everything you could want in a partner, and he even charmed Maria into liking him. She genuinely believed he’d be a good match for her son, so it hurt when she found out what he was really like. Rhodey was Tony’s boarding school roommate for all four (4) years. They met and hit it off overnight, Rhodey instantly feeling brotherly love and the need to protect Tony (or “Tones” as he called him. Rhodey is usually the only one to call him that). Rhodey and Steve did Not see eye to eye on anything, least of all how Tony should be treated. Steve was terrible to him, and Rhodey’s heart broke when Tony admitted he was too scared to break up with him.

- Reenter Stephen. After a particularly bad day, Tony called Maria and Stephen sobbing, missing the two (2) people he talked to more than anyone except maybe Rhodey. It was then he confessed what kind of boyfriend Steve was, and Maria gasped before saying, “Dump him. Let me handle the rest.” That very day, Stephen left school early and traveled to see Tony. It was 2am when he finally arrived, throwing rocks at the window and then scaling the side of the building once he had Tony’s attention. Stephen and Rhodey met the next morning, when Rhodey came back from classes and found his roommate asleep him.

- “So you’re the one who climbed in through my window,” Rhodey said. “For a good reason, I assume.” Stephen confessed it was because he loved Tony and wanted to be there for him, didn’t want him to hurt. (It’s fair to say, though, that Stephen visited before/Tony went to visit him, and they’d spent secret time together over the summers). Tony, believing himself incapable of love, didn’t reject Stephen’s confession but assumed it was only love between friends. The summer before they all left for college (Rhodey, originally from Texas, was also going to school in NY with Tony and Stephen. NY was a big part of who they both were, and they both dreamed of studying there together), they finally started dating at Maria Stark’s motherly demand.

- This demand came a short time before Howard and Maria died, and it also came with admissions of guilt and lots of tears. “I was wrong about Rogers,” she said. “You don’t have to accept what I say or forgive me, but I know Stephen is the right one for you. I think I’ve always known.” (No shit, everyone knew) Knowong she was genuinely sorry, Tony forgave her not knowing that she would die a few months later.

- Most of this canon I’ve created takes place starting in their junior year of college, so everyone has gotten to know each other quite well. I’m sure the more I write from this the more I’ll flesh out relationships between certain characters, but one I want to mention is that Tony and Bucky are very close and co-presidents of the “I Dumped Steve Rogers for Peace of Mind” club. Steve goes to college in the next state/a little further north (that’s as specific as it’ll get for now) and dated Bucky the group’s freshman year. Tony didn’t know any of this until Bucky brought him over one day, and after they (Tony and Bucky) had a talk about the way Steve is as a partner, Bucky realized some things and dumped Steve. He remains angry at them both, especially Tony, from a short distance away which terrifies Tony.

- Sam and Bucky kissed for the first time at a truth or dare night Thor and T’Challa hosted in the group’s sophomore year. After they kissed (Sam initiated) they both shyly admitted feelings for each other.

*Now here’s where things get a little dicey. I started this au with Christine and Hope together for no particular reason, maybe they were on a club sports team together and started dating from there? But Pepper fell in love w Christine at first sight, and it got worse and worse the more they got to know each other. Much like Stephen and Tony, they’re the kind of people who meet each other and just click, even if the eventual path to Pristine involves lots of tears and jealousy for Pepper that Stephen never really experienced. He didn’t feel jealous of Tony and Steve’s relationship, because he wasn’t at boarding school with Tony and there wasn’t much he could do. But as a supportive and concerned (and honest but kind) friend, he was always encouraging and there to listen to Tony. Is Pepper going to be as good of a friend to Christine as Stephen was to Tony while Christine gets ready to marry Hope after undergrad??? that’s the question my forthcoming college au fic will answer.

Also mentioned in my forthcoming fic (which I’m still writing rn)

- post undergrad Wong works as a museum director/curator (havent decided yet, maybe he works his way up the ranks) and double majored in psych and history.

- Stephen, Tony, Happy, Rhodey, and Wong all live together and the rest of the group lives around NYC.

- Stephen, Christine, and Bruce (The Doctor friend group) are all pursuing medical degrees while the SI friend group is transforming the company completely.

++++

Thank you for coming to my TEDTalk! Congrats on reading all the way to the end lmao. I second guessed posting this a lot but then i remembered that it’s mine and I’m just sharing pre-fic thoughts lol. Thanks for reading/for your support of my work y’all!

Read the makeup fic (it doesn’t have a title) here.

💜💜💜💜

#ironstrange #sambucky #thorbruce #pristine #valcarol #rhodey x t’challa #christine x hope van dyne #tony stark #stephen strange #sam wilson #james bucky barnes #thor #bruce banner #pepper potts #christine palmer #valkyrie #carol danvers #james rhodey rhodes #t’challa udaku #maria stark #anti howard stark #anti obadiah stane #natasha romanoff #ironstrange college au #mcu college au #anti stony #anti steve rogers #anti stucky #hope van dyne #my ironstrange college au

[housebutchvee]

She-Ra HvZ AU

So, years back, in college, I used to play Humans vs Zombies (think tag with nerf guns and incredibly problematic for other reasons). Twice a year, we’d get a few hundred people together on campus to play this week long game. It would start with one zombie, and that would escalate quickly to dozens as the hunting began. Humans can ‘stun’ a zombie for five minutes by hitting them with a nerf dart or a balled up CLEAN sock. Zombies infect humans by tagging them. We played in between classes, all over campus, but indoors was safe as well as *most* dorms.

So here we go:

Adora - that one human who gets *way* too into the game - she has holsters for all her blasters, extra darts for any human who asks, and she’s the one all the freshman call when they’re stuck in a building surrounded by a group of zombies. She doesn’t get turned until extraction (the last day of the game) when she sacrifices herself to get others to the safe zone. She dies by Catra.

Catra - Lead Zombie, patient zero, she initially joined to fuck with Adora, but enjoys leading hordes of zombies way too much, she even gets Scorpia to do zombie make-up on her face. She maintains the consistent record of highest kill count by a *wide* margin.

Glimmer - that one human who doesn’t use any nerf blasters - just balled up socks. She is considered a ninja by all the zombies - no one knows how she gets from building to building on campus when every door is guarded by the horde and the buildings have no indoor connections. She only gets turned bc Bow does and she gets fed up having to spend all her time with him indoors and wants to actually hang out for real.

Bow - Only uses the nerf bow & arrows - even though they are shit, but he is inexplicably good with them - like way faster at reloading than even most automatic nerf guns. Despite it being moderately illegal according to the games rules, he builds his own nerf arrows that are varyingly effective. He gets turned when one of them doesn’t quite work out and everyone isn’t quite sure if the shower of nerf darts actually hits the zombie. He agrees to be turned because he doesn’t want to argue/ruin the zombie’s day.

Perfuma - Med Zombie, she gets turned on the first night so that she can bring her first aid kit to anyone playing who gets hurt. “You can stun me but let me see that injury.” Will mom you. She also has a stock of water and vegan food bars. During missions, she is an absolute terror who will hunt down every human she can. Has the second highest kill count, besides Catra, despite not hunting any other time.

Sea Hawk - banned from playing after the one time he broke a window and nearly set a dorm on fire (based on a true story, we had to pay for the damages).

Mermista - “what’s the point in playing if you aren’t going to brazenly walk across campus” is her moto. She has not been turned once while doing so, even during the middle of the day which is peak hunting hours. 

Frosta - no chill, she runs straight at any zombie she sees and - since most zombies are expecting to do the hunting and not be hunted - she terrifies the entire horde. Has started challenging individual zombies to “thunderdome” (she gets one dart in her blaster vs one zombie). She wins several of these matches, and only gets taken down when Catra agrees to duel her.

Entrapta - spends most of the game building ridiculously modded nerf guns - half of them are high powered automatic blasters and the others are ridiculously small blasters that can fit in a pocket. She almost never gets turned because she hyperfocuses on building cool guns for the entire game and only shows up for extraction on the final day. All the zombies fear her inventions and are forced to let her into extraction without a fight lest they *all* be stunned and can’t hunt any other humans while they wait to respawn.

Scorpia - is terrible with nerf guns (even when Entrapta gives her one of the ‘mega’ guns that are bigger and easier to handle) but loves playing as a zombie - she gives hugs to anyone who is turned and immediately welcomes them into the horde (especially new players who are often upset that they get turned so early). Low kill count for zombies, but she doesn’t care.

Huntara - Sports jock who’s part of a frat and gets ‘hazed’ into joining the game as a freshmen. Years later, she’s still playing because she gets super into playing as a zombie and because she can outrun almost any human she finds. She generally maintains the third highest kill count but she can’t play in every game because her sports schedule is too demanding.

Micah - Resident Advisor & professor but gets super into the game and being all ‘tactical’ with nerf guns. Usually gets turned pretty quickly (See below) but also enjoys hanging out with all of his students as a zombie too. He progressively shows up later to his own classes that he teaches and spends the first ten minutes trying to convince his students to play the game. Everyone loves him and he’s also the faculty sponsor for the club. Regularly brings pizza and other foods to the missions so all the students can eat something.

Angella - Also a Resident Advisor who routinely puts a hit out on Micah so he’ll stop playing the game and come help her with groceries and the other chores he hasn’t done because he’s been too focused on the game (Also based on a true story).

Double Trouble - Mod who’s tasked with ‘keeping the balance’ (i.e. making sure there’s enough humans to make the missions and game fun, but not too few zombies that they feel left out and can’t tag anyone). When the balance is off, they orchestrate elaborate plans to make sure there’s an additional confrontation or two between humans and zombies so that everyone ends up having fun and the zombie numbers get to grow a little. They love their job, but almost no one knows that they are a mod bc they hardly play in person.

Lonnie, Rogellio, and Kyle - The Mod team. They’re almost never seen playing (similar to DT) because they’re locked in a library cubicle answering emails all day about “where do I go to sign up?” and “Can I still play if I sign up late?” When not answering emails, players often hang out nearby just to chill with them. (Also true, I did this for two years and never left the cubicle except to go to classes).

Netossa and Spineralla - the grad students who still play. They’re the pair who you call when you need help getting anywhere (especially off campus and especially late at night). Not the best at surviving, but everyone knows and looks up to them because they’ve been playing for years. They also have a car and regularly use it to drive supplies to and from missions to help out the mod team.

Hordak - disgruntled grad student who posts online about how terrible the game is and how the players are so loud and obnoxious but he’s secretly mad that no one in his program will play the game with him. Except…

Wrong Hordak - younger sibling to Hordak who’s still in undergrad and just wants to hang out with their older brother. “Hello Zombies, let us bask in the glory of Zombie Prime”. The horde doesn’t need a mega phone because they have WH.

Shadow Weaver - Buzzkill Admin. Hates the game and is always trying to find ways to shut it down for minor infractions The Mod Team technically reports to her but they all ignore her emails and just send them to Angella and Micah instead.

Additional note: Bow, Frosta, and Mermista have each camped out in a campus building overnight (dodging security) in order to avoid having to fight the zombies to get out. Frosta and Mermista, because they have no chill (and Mermista cares about not being turned *way* too much). And Bow because Glimmer was trying to sick the horde on him one time despite not being a zombie herself.

@ohgodthepink​ thank you for coming down this rabbit hole with me

#spop #she-ra #she-ra HvZ

[rendezvous-ramblings]

I graduated college (undergrad) last spring and started working at a job in an industry I hate. I want to leave because the work environment is stressing me out so much that I broke out into hives (which has never happened before) and I have mini panic attacks every weekend before the work week. I also have chest pain due to stress and I’m only 22!! I really want to leave but my parents are encouraging me to stay or find a similar job because of how well it pays. Because of the pandemic, there aren’t a lot of options right now. I’m honestly okay working at a Barnes and Nobles part time in order to get a bit of money while I figure things out but also, I want to purse my own business and I would have time to do so with a less stressful part time job like that. My parents want me to work in an office though because they think I shouldn’t work in stores since I have a degree. And then I think maybe I should stay only because I’m scared of making the wrong decision and regretting it even though I’m pretty sure this job is slowly killing me. Any words of advice? I know we’re pretty much the same age but I would love to hear your thoughts.

Hi, 

First of all congrats on graduating because that’s an achievement you should be very proud of given how chaotic the last few weeks of our senior year of undergrad went! I’m sorry you’re experiencing these negative health symptoms from your work environment. When I was in the PhD program I didn’t have any extreme external symptoms that you have, but I was very self-aware that I was experiencing a mental low that I’ve never dealt with before. I knew in the long run I would end up burning myself out and it would be detrimental towards my mental health. I also realized from the few months that I was in the program that despite getting good grades and feedback in the A range that 1. I was not as passionately invested in a research idea as my peers were 2. I felt I was not getting the proper amount of guidance being the youngest student with only a BA degree even though I was actively reaching out to professors 3. I just realized that my actual career goals and what I wanted were no longer aligned with academia after experiencing it. It wasn’t worthwhile for me to invest 5+ years of my life to enter an oversaturated job market with the perspective financial instability as an adjunct lecturer. One of my recommenders/former professors actually told me I was brave to realize that this path just wasn’t for me so early on, accepted it, and moved on with another plan in motion. I once met someone who was stuck in a PhD program and ended up dropping out when she only needed to complete her dissertation/final year! Sometimes it is much harder to walk away from an opportunity that is hurting you more. There’s so many people who end up staying and ignore their own wellbeing. 

Thankfully, my parents did support my decision because they saw how I was emotionally and mentally drained/not myself. At first I was unsure if I should get a job as a substitute teacher for a year before reapplying in Fall of 2021 to a teaching program that I rejected in the Spring of 2020. I was actually in the process of doing so until I reached out to another high school teacher of mine. She gave me advice and talked me through all my options and in the end I decided to reapply for Spring of 2021. I left the PhD program as soon as I was able to without any financial penalties because I had to stay for at least 3/4s of the semester. I found a retail job during the hiatus period after leaving the program. It’s not the most glamorous job but it’s in my neighborhood and I don’t have to commute/be exposed to people outside of my area. I’m using that to fund my degree and pay my own personal bills for the time being. I’ll consider an internship or higher paying position once things become more settled after the vaccine rollout.

My advice would be to try to reason with your parents and explain to them the adverse health symptoms you’re having (if you haven’t already). If you’re dependent on them (to whatever extent) discuss your plan and options moving forward. You could try applying to some of the retail jobs that you want and other corporate jobs that might be a better fit for your personality/interests. I am sure there’s different team dynamics and work cultures out there. It sounds like you might just be stuck in an environment that is toxic or incompatible with you. My best friend’s sister recently got out of a toxic work environment and she was unsure if she wanted to continue in that industry. However, she applied somewhere else in the same industry and it was a much better fit for her mental health/team wise! You might want to consider talking to a mentor, professor, or close friend that is unbias and has your best interests at heart. That way you can get a professional opinion in your field + a personal one. 

If you cannot leave your current position right away then I would suggest seeking therapy if that is an option for you. The best scenario is to have your exit plan aligned by the time you leave the door, but I understand how that’s not always an option for every circumstance. If you must leave before you have your next plan in place then just give yourself the time and proper environment to recover before making your next moves. Don’t see this as a failure but just a minor setback. There’s people who invest YEARS of their life in an occupation, relationship, etc. that does not serve them well. So at least you discovered this early and you can now readjust your life goals and plans. I’m slowly learning too that there’s no set “timeline” for our lives. You might have a plan but sometimes your plan doesn’t always play out exactly the way you imagined it. There might be uncontrollable circumstances that make things harder or enjoyable pitstops (you didn’t schedule) where you’re still moving closer to your goals only at a slower pace than you imagined. 

Make sure you list out the pros and cons for each of your options and discuss it with people who are supportive of you. If you want to maintain a good relationship with your parents and appease them in a way where it’s still a healthy relationship, you can just tell them that this is only temporary until you gather yourself together. We’re still dealing with the instability of the pandemic and taking a slower paced job could help you take a break from the corporate stress you experienced. You will just have to keep emphasizing that you’re still actively working and planning towards something. It’s not as if you’re just sitting around at home and stuck in limbo. As long as you have your set personal goals in mind I’m sure you won’t be stuck in the wormhole of a minimum wage job. I can see how maybe your parents are worried that you might get caught up in the routine or become too comfortable with it.  Regardless, you know yourself better and what you need for your mental health and physical well being. Just make sure you’re reaching out for help (this is coming from someone who bottles up all her emotions and never wants to ask for help!). I talked to my old professor, my high school teacher, friends, family, and everyone I could get my hands on when I was struggling. From talking to people you realize you’re not alone in this uncertainty and realization that you’re in a situation that you don’t want to be in.

Good luck! I hope this all helped! Feel free to dm me if you feel like I missed something or you just want to vent. 💛