#this was not a good one for her between the catastrophic flirting failure at the beginning and… that… at the end | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

hlcreators · 4 years

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AUTHOR REC: haztobegood / @haztobegood

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to be so... (228)

Sex was the agreement; Harry’s heart was collateral.

The Problem (1.1k)

Harry's eyes fly open and he tosses the covers off, sitting up in bed. Looking at his crotch only confirms what he’d already known. His dick is missing!

Tumblr Drabbles and Ficlets (2.1k)

Love and Other Antidotes (16k)

Arrogant pop star Harry Styles is transformed into a cow by his bandmate Amy Z after a heated argument. Left in the back of a truck, Harry finds himself at a rural farm hours away from his band. Harry has three days to make it back to London and turn back into a human before his next show. His only chance to reclaim his glamorous life rests with a kind farmer named Louis. They must work together to find the antidote before Amy Z finishes him off and takes over the band.

Unplanned Circumstances (8.5k)

Zayn has worked his whole life to be one of the top spies in the Agency. When he returns from his latest mission, the unexpected reappearance of a one-night-stand could change everything.

Never Say Never (3.2k)

After a game of Never Have I Ever pulls back the curtain on Harry’s inexperience, the temptation to try something new is more than she can handle.

Nailed By Louis (6.3k)

It had started as a joke, just two months earlier. Louis had tried to make recipe from HarrySizzles Instagram account. It looked doable: no strange ingredients, no scary kitchen machinery. Just a simple layered lettuce salad. The result had been catastrophic. His friends had laughed so hard at the disgusting appearance of his salad, and after a few drinks, Louis had been convinced to start his own Instagram to track his food failures.

The Prince and The YouTuber (12k)

The Annual Rosendal Spring Gala hosted by the Royal Family is the most prestigious fundraiser in the country. When a problem with the honorary foundation arises, Crown Prince Louis Tomlinson must pick a new worthy foundation on short notice. He discovers the perfect replacement in an unlikely place, while watching his favorite YouTuber, Harrysparkles.

To Feel Your Desire (3.4k)

It had been far too long since Louis and Harry had time off together. Their busy schedules kept them apart for months, only having a day or two of rest before they jetted off to opposite ends of the world again. With all that time to himself, Harry had ample opportunities to dream up all the ways Louis could ravish him. One fantasy that stuck out the most was to dress up for Louis.

Ice Rink Chaos (500)

Louis has something big planned for her and Harry's date night at an ice rink.

To Wear Your Love (2.5k)

The years have gone by and the bandanas have worn thin. It was time for an upgrade and Louis had found the perfect replacement. The pearl necklace was bolder, so pretty, and undeniably feminine. Louis couldn’t wait to see the new day collar around Harry’s neck.

I Want To Be With You Everywhere (30k)

A Seed from the Cherished Tree A Cloud from the Mighty Summit A Flower from the Perpetual Volcano A Pearl from the Perceptive Lake A Love across the Faery Realms

Fae Proposals were a rare and ancient ritual. The presentation of the four Tokens to one’s mate would initiate a lifelong, inter-realm bond between their souls. But the Tokens could only be gathered if the lover could overcome the elements of all four Faery Realm Trials.

The Trials were dangerous, deadly even. But for Harry, Louis would risk it all.

Through The Static (666)

Louis pranked the crew before a concert after he found a two-way radio in his dressing room. But messing with the radio had an unintended consequence.

Take on Me (60k)

Actor Harry Styles is preparing for his next leading role as Antonius the Gladiator with the help of Louis Tomlinson, Hollywood’s top stunt coordinator. When the demands of Harry’s career get in the way of their training, the pair head to a secluded cabin to complete their training. Then, Louis begins to share senses with Harry. What is causing this mysterious connection and can Louis and Harry figure out how to stop it before they leave the cabin?

Backyard Outburst (500)

An argument while Harry and Louis are doing their fall yard work brings up an unexpected question.

Friday (2.9k)

Friday: Harry wraps up a stressful week.

Nothing less than mischief is to be expected when Niall, Liam, Zayn, Louis, and Harry spend forty hours a week in corporate hell. Welcome to One Direction Financial - The Right Direction for Your Money.

Thursday (1.5k)

Thursday: Louis can't find his stapler.

Wednesday (1.3k)

Wednesday: Liam gets caught texting at work.

Tuesday (1.2k)

Tuesday: Zayn has artist's block.

Monday (1.4k)

Monday: Niall is stuck in a meeting.

Market Blunder (500)

A walk through a farmers market leads to a new step in Louis and Harry's relationship.

Grey Matter (1.2k)

Louis tries something different to help him fall asleep.

To Assume (2.9k)

“You know, I don’t think spankings are going to cut it tonight. Not only did you disobey me, but I had to watch you all day, knowing what you were up to.” Harry’s jaw drops as he realizes that Louis had known all along. He’d walked himself right into the trap. He’d tripped the wire. He groans. This punishment was going to be so much more than he could anticipate.

Ex Cathedra (4.4k)

Harry nodded. “Yeah, but if the Church doesn’t accept me, how am I supposed to worship God?”

“Remember what Father Paul said?” Louis asked. “He said that while the church is a building where we gather to worship, your faith is your Church and no one can take that away from you. And besides, we do have a church.”

Written for Prompt #127: The misgiving that the Catholic Church might turn out to be right about everything after all.

Garden Carnage (500)

Clifford chases after a rabbit and Louis finally catches the attention the neighbor in the yellow house.

A Snapshot (1.1k)

That one time Harry’s photo was uploaded to Louis’ instagram.

Making Waves (30k)

After Louis Tomlinson, an arrogant millionaire, is thrown overboard and loses his memory, a mistreated employee convinces him that they are married. Thrust into an unfamiliar life he cannot remember, Louis must learn to live with his new husband and daughters and adjust to a less extravagant life.

Or, the one where Louis can’t remember, Harry needs money, and Niall has a plan. An Overboard AU.

The Undone and The Divine (4.2k)

Thirty seven love bites might be their new record, but then again, last night’s game had gone exceptionally well. Harry presses the pad of his thumb into one of the more prominent bruises along his collarbone, the pain grounding him as he recalls the events of the previous night.

Or the one where Harry flirts and Louis gets jealous, but it’s all part of their game.

Get Off and Vote (2.7k)

Niall lets out a loud laugh, “Hey, listen to this. You know how elections are Tuesday? It says the Babeland on the edge of campus is giving out free toys to the first 100 people that show their ‘I Voted’ sticker.”

“How patriotic.” Louis laughs. “Maybe I should go.”

Does it Look Devious or Something? (4.8k)

When someone complains about Louis’ new business, he must defend his sex toy shop to the city council.

Written for Prompt #231: The amazement at how much hot air people manage to produce.

Fixing to Thrill (4.5k)

“I’m never gonna finish fixing this car. It’s taking so long and I am so sick of it. Why can’t it just be fixed already?” Louis grumbles. Harry puts a comforting hand on Louis’ arm.

“Now that’s not true. Look how far you’ve come already. You’ll finish this car, even if it’s not as soon as you were hoping for.”

“But I’m not good enough at all this mechanical shit and every time I take two steps forward something throws me three steps back.” Louis drops his head into his crossed arms on the table, shrinking into the sudden surge of self doubt.

“I know it’s hard, but you’re smart. You’ll figure it out. You just need a good break from the car for a bit and then you’ll be back at it, alright?” Harry rubs his back soothingly.

Everything that can go wrong, will go wrong as Louis is fixing up his vintage Aston Martin V8 Vantage.

Written for Prompt #27. The thrill at the awesome sound of the eight-cylinder motor.

See it in Your Eyes (5.2k)

Niall drags Louis to a Tarot reading after a night out. Louis does not believe in fortune telling.

#writer appreciation week #1dsource #hljournal #fics #author rec

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horansqueen · 4 years

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Vote For My Next Story

I'll try to keep this short. YOU&ME has ended, and it was a big part of the last few years of my life (along with AM Conversations). It'll probably always be my favorite and best story but that doesnt mean i want to stop writing.

please, know that the oneshots ideas are independent from the story ideas, meaning that i can write a story AND oneshots at the same time so let me know if youre interested!

(click on the read more to read the 10 synopsis of the story ideas I’d like to write)

AM Conversations & YOU&ME ideas:

-oneshots ideas for what happened after the story, before the story, or even in-between chapters in the story. you can send me ANY idea that you would want to read between Liv and Niall or other characters.

-oneshots ideas for any "what if" you can think of (i.e. what if one of them didnt love the other, what if they hadnt seen each other at the bakery, what if Liv had dated Louis, etc)

NEW STORY IDEAS:

NOTES:

all the ideas are AU.

#2 #8 and #9 will include a few of the 1D boys.

despite the title, #4 is a Niall fic

titles may change

VOTE HERE!!!!

you can also vote by messaging me.

in the form, theres a place for comments but you dont have to leave any

you also dont have to leave your name or anything

thank you if you vote, it means a lot to me!

ill keep this open for a while, until i get enough votes :)

1- UNPREDICTABLE

They haven't seen each other since high school and they hadn't missed each other at all. In fact, they never really could stand each other. Her, a bit of a rebel, listening to punk music, searching for trouble whenever she could... and him, the good boy, popular and loved by everyone, who could rarely be seen without his guitar. It's been a few years already but not many things had changed and they still didn't have anything in common... except one thing. Both of them aspired to become famous with their music. With a twist of fate, they end up in each other's lives again and if they can put aside their resentment for one another, maybe they could bring something incredibly precious to each other. But nothing has ever been uncertain.

This is the story of two opposite persons who share a burning passion that may slowly bring them closer... or make the hatred they already feel for each other even more intense.

2- D.N.A. (daddies now available)

The test was positive. I was pregnant. The problem was, I didn’t know who the father was. It could be my ex boyfriend Liam, his best friend Niall or my best friend Louis. Or maybe it could be that boy I randomly had sex with, Harry... I had no idea and I was not going to find out soon.¸

All I knew was I had to tell four boys that there was a possibility for them to be a daddy in less than a year. Can you just imagine their reaction?

Contrary to all expectations, they accepted their fates.. somehow. And no matter who his daddy was, “little human” was going to get a lot of attention from a lot of men. Exactly like me.

This is my pregnancy story. And it was just the beginning of a long journey.

3- MEANT TO BE

When they first met, Louis was all *MAIN GIRL* ever wanted. However, a decade later the high school sweethearts had change and she felt like most of the sparkles she once had were now gone. Then she met Niall and it clicked instantly and intensely and since then, they’ve been seeing each other in secret, lying to their whole entourage about the nature of their relationship. Feelings started to grow, things started to change, and maybe, just maybe, it’s meant to be. Or maybe not.

A tale of broken hearts, unforgettable love and many… way too many lies.

4- LIVING WITH LOUIS TOMLINSON

Call me Queen Catastrophe. I lost my job, my boyfriend, my best girl friend and my apartment on the same day. Just a little friday afternoon like all the others, right?

Thank god, my best friend Louis was there to save the day. Nothing unusual. I was supposed to crash at his apartment for one night and then walk on my pride and go back to my parents to admit how much of a failure I really am.

However, Louis had other plans : he wanted me to move in with him. That’s when my story really starts. Mutual feelings, drunken sex, grocery shopping, fights that end up with porcelain thrown around the kitchen (I’m an intense person, I know) but most of all, his best guy friend stealing his (our, now) couch at least 5 nights a week.

I despise Niall Horan with all my heart. Him and his stupid charm, his flirty smile and his hands that always ended up in places they shouldn’t. He was threatening to come between Louis and I. He was slowly taking more space in our apartment… and in my heart.

Fuck, I hate Niall Horan with a passion.

5- FOR YOUR LOVE

After months of trying to get pregnant, Niall and his long-time girlfriend found out she was sterile. The news obviously shook their relationship and sparked a few arguments but after a long discussion, they found only one solution : hire a surrogate mother. As days go by, Niall's relationship gets harder and harder to save, and his connection with the surrogate mother of his child becomes tighter. Soon, he gets caught in feelings he can't explain and definitely can't understand. But life is not as easy as just following your feelings.

A story of unsettling feelings, confusing relationships, a deep and strong connection but mostly, decisions impossible to make. Can this really end well?

6- DATING FOR DUMMIES

*MAIN GIRL* has tried blind dates, dating apps, and speed dating to find her soulmate with no good result. Niall has tried pretty much the same without much more success. With all the bizarre, creepy and incompatible persons they meet, they're so close to give up on love until they meet each other through a friend. After a bottle of wine and a long discussion, they start thinking that maybe they were the problem, and that they're too dumb for dating. That's when they decide to make a list of what they individually want and need on a first date and finally decide to try it together. Unfortunately, things rarely go as planned and they will both realize that feelings can't be controlled.

When all else fails, the solution will always be to follow your heart.

7- THE BREAK-UP PLAN

*MAIN GIRL* and Niall's relationship had started when they had barely entered their teenager years. Now, over 10 years later, they feel like something is missing. They didn't know anything else besides each other and it had to change. They still planned on spending forever together but their lack of experiences and mistakes seemed to be an obstacle between them.

They agreed on break that was not really a break. for six whole months, they would be able to do whatever they wanted to do with whoever they wanted to. Going to parties, leaving for a whole weekend with friends without giving any news, dating and even screwing whoever they wanted, nothing was out of reach.

They only had one rule : honesty. Every friday night, they'd meet and spend the whole night together, talking, making out or just cuddling until they'd fall asleep, to make sure their love was preserved.

Unfortunately, things rarely go as planned and seeing the person you love the most in the world be happy without you is something almost impossible to accept.

A story about angry tears, painful jealousy, sweet sweet revenge and realizing who your real soulmate is. Watch out, it's gonna hurt.

8- HOT MESS

*MAIN GIRL* has always been a bit of a rebel who didn't really care about much. She just enjoyed life the way she wanted to and never really paid attention to anything else. If she wanted something, she did everything she could to get it, no matter who she'd hurt in the process. After a few years away from her hometown, family and friends, she finally comes back to realize that a lot of things have changed. Jumping in her twin brother Liam's life without being invited, she's about to make a mess of everything he had made so much effort to build by flirting with every single one of his friends without any shame. She's not looking for a relationship, she's just looking to have some fun and break a few hearts... but perhaps, she's about to make a mess of her own heart.

Sometimes, you play the game and some other very rare times, the game plays you.

9- 15 Complicated Rules

I have no idea how I got into this mess but somehow, I ended up with 4 different fuck buddies. I thought I was going crazy until I made a strict schedule of the days and time I would see them, and wrote down a few rules I had to respect myself. A useful guide to manege my 4 fuck friends. Monday for my ex boyfriend, tuesday for my co-worker, wednesday for my old best friend and thursday for a family friend. It could work, right?

I've never been much of an organised person but I honestly thought I could make this work. Everything went as planned for a few months until I broke one rule after the other. That's when I knew I was in deep shit. These are my 15 complicated rules to have fuck buddies. And this is the story of my downfall and the incredible mess I put myself into. After all, rule 15 was 'Never Fall In Love' and I guess that's something I couldn't control, even if I wanted to.

10- DISCONNECTED

When *MAIN GIRL* switches college to finally follow her dreams, she was ready to face anything and everything that would come her way. After all, she had been through so much already, right? The problem was, she didn't expect to be stuck in a room with someone who gets on her last nerves because of a paperwork mistake. Despite trying to find an other place to live or spend her time talking to the administration, she had to face the fact that this situation wouldn't change for a few months. Niall knew how to piss her off and he clearly abused that superpower, doing anything and everything he can to annoy the most pretentious and stuck-up person he had ever met. Perhaps fate is having a good laugh, because they seem to get stuck together way more often than not, but it's not until they let down their defense that they will see who the other really is... if that ever happens.

Apparently, some people are in your life to teach you something and make you grow. Perhaps, if you take the time to listen to them and open up to them, your karmic soulmate can turn into your twin flame... or not.

11- NEW ANGEL

When *MAIN GIRL 1* breaks up with Niall, he takes it harder than he thought he would, realizing in the process all the feelings he had for her. After a few weeks locked by himself in his room, his friends take him out on a crazy night and he decides he needs someone else, if only to get over the girl he loves. That’s when he meets *MAIN GIRL 2* and bring her back home. However, on the next morning, he realizes he doesn't want her to leave, and that despite the feelings he has for *main girl 1*, he could definitely develop something with *main girl 2*. Everything is going amazingly well for a few weeks until what Niall never thought would happen actually happens : *main girl 1* calls him to tell him she regrets leaving him. Now confused and stressed, Niall is going to have to make a choice between the girl he thought he'd spend his life with, and a girl he just met that makes his heart race. And he's going to get help on his journey from someone he would never have thought of.

A story about making choices, creating connections, messy hearts and confusing emotions.

(i have many ideas for this one but i dont want to give everything away!)

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takadasaiko · 4 years

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In Defense of Howard Stark

The Marvel Cinematic Universe doesn’t have a shortage of layered, fascinating characters. It’s always easy to hyper focused on the ones we love most, and that’s the excuse I roll with for why it’s taken me so long to find my fascination with Howard Stark. Up until the last few months I looked at him through the lense of who he was to other characters. He was Tony’s father, Steve’s friend, and co-founder of SHIELD with Peggy Carter. He filled roles, but I didn’t look closer for a long time. I didn’t have any reason to.

Then came the Great MCU Rewatch that happened post-Endgame. It wasn’t until I had Dominic Cooper’s Howard stacked back-to-back with John Slattery’s Howard that I started to dig into him. We meet a young man in Captain America: The First Avenger, the Peggy Carter short, and two seasons of the Agent Carter series on ABC. He’s brilliant and goofy, rarely serious unless he’s discussing his work. It’s a stark contrast with the older Howard we meet through John Slattery’s version. Either there was a catastrophic miscommunication between the writers, the directors, and the actors on who Howard Stark was supposed to be, or something caused that shift. The moment I settled on the latter, Howard went from a supporting character whose only use was to help round out others around him to a truly interesting, layered and even broken man. I became fascinated with piecing together that journey. I needed to know what took this man

to a man that his own son described as cold and distant.

I had been using Howard to help deepen my understanding of others, and in the same way, taking a look at those that he keeps close to him and how he treats them helps to shed light on who he is.

Who Howard Surrounds Himself With

Howard wasn’t raised with the same economic and social privilege that he was able to provide to his son in later years. In S1 of Agent Carter he tells Peggy that he was raised on the Lower East Side to a father that sold fruit and a mother that was a seamstress in a factory, going on to tell her how he’d learned to lie to break through the ceiling society had placed for someone like him.

Yet as of S2 of Agent Carter Howard was in high demand at a club that wouldn’t have let him within a hundred feet of if he hadn’t made the fortune that he did with Stark Industries. With that background matched with the contacts he would have made after Stark Industries took off, I think it’s safe to say that Howard knew people from every walk of life.

There were the less savory types:

Joe Manfredi and Howard grew up together and the mobster had no trouble reaching out to Howard years later for help when his kinda crazy girlfriend Whitney Frost went over the edge and into territory even he was uncomfortable with.

And while we may not know how he met Obadiah Stane, the other man wormed his way so deeply into Howard’s life and career that he was poised to manipulate his son after his death.

We don’t know a lot about those other than the fact that Howard wasn’t opposed to shady characters.

There’s something interesting in the more positive friendships that he keeps though.

Edwin Jarvis is a fascinating character. Howard’s butler is that and more. We see him stick with Howard through thick and thin. Through countless girlfriends that he was the bearer of bad news to

through disagreements, and he was with the Stark family long enough that Tony was influenced by him enough that he based his AI system off of him. Jarvis himself tells Peggy the story of how he met and came to work for Howard Stark in S1 of Agent Carter, shedding light on yet another layer of the complicated man:

Jarvis met his wife Ana during the war. She was Hungarian. Moreover, she was Hungarian-Jew in the middle of Europe overrun by nazis. Jarvis fell hard, but the general that he worked for wouldn’t help, even though he could have done so easily. So Jarvis forged his signature. He was found out and would have been tried for treason, but Howard - who had had business dealings with the general - stepped in and used his influence to save not only Edwin, but Ana as well.

There was no indication that Howard expected anything in return, but Jarvis remained loyal and steady.

And then there’s Peggy.

I could go on for days about Howard and Peggy’s friendship. I love it dearly, and feel that we need more friendships like it on television.

He flirts with her, he teases her, but in the end he respects no one quite like he does Margaret Carter.

Howard is a self-admitted liar. He felt that he had to become one in order to break free from the ceiling that society put over him in his youth. He doesn’t trust easily and, even when he does, he still hides behind a quirky, playboy mask meant to obscure anything of any real depth under frivolous layers. To get to the level of success he found himself in at such a young age he had to build up an imperviousness to others’ opinions of him. He flaunts in most cases, but, for better or worse, he does care about how Peggy views him.

She’s the one he turns to to clear his name at the beginning of the first season of Agent Carter and the only one that can talk him out of the mire of his own deepest regrets at the end of the same season.

The funny thing is that, for all his determination that he doesn’t really care how people see him, Howard seems to keep people closest to him that will keep him in check. Jarvis and Peggy, especially. They don’t pull punches and they call him on his shit.

If it’s a conscious choice or even a subconscious one, Howard surrounds himself with people that will hold him accountable. I’d put good money on the fact that Maria did too.

The Way He Treats Others

One of our earlier introductions to Howard is in Iron Man 2 where Tony tells Fury that his father had been cold and distant. He never told Tony that he liked him, much less that he loved him.

Fury indicated that he knew a very different man, and through Dominic’s Howard we (the audience) meet a very different man as well, which leads me to think that Howard struggles with expressing real, honest feelings rather than actually having them. It makes sense, given his explanation at two different points in the first season of Agent Carter that, to break through the barriers society had tried to force on him, he’d learned to hide behind lies and an indifference to what others thought about him. We see that that often leads him to come across as shallow and arrogant. He doesn’t, and seems not to even know how to express those truer feelings except in very rare circumstances, but we see glimpses in the way he treats people.

Edwin and Ana Jarvis are a fantastic example, as mentioned earlier. Here were people that he didn’t really know, people that he owed nothing to, yet he went out of his way to protect them. He used a favour that he could have hoarded away for more selfish purposes and gave it to them to save their lives. In return he was given loyalty, but there was no expectation on that.

Howard holds true to his playboy persona as well as, if not perhaps better than his son would in later years, but despite the flirtation (which he always manages to work into their conversations), Howard shows time and again the respect that he holds for Peggy Carter. While she’s fighting for her colleagues’ respect in the post-war SSR, she’s the one Howard reaches out to to clear his name. She’s the one that he trusts to protect him when his life is on the line. And when she needs help, it’s hers for the taking. A flight that the Army won’t take because it’s too dangerous? All Peggy had to do was ask. Twice when she needed a place to stay, he offered his own home(s) to her, and in S2 he dove straight in to help her on her case without any hesitation.

In S2 of the Agent Carter series we meet Jason Wilkes, a brilliant scientist who works for a company that becomes the center of the season’s investigation. The rarity of being a black man in his position is used against him when his company sets him up as a scapegoat. Not only is Howard eager to help him, work with him to clear his name, and reinstate his corporeal form (long story, but if you haven’t seen the Agent Carter series I highly recommend it!), but he sets him up in Stark Industries after all is said and done to help him run the Malibu labs on a new pet project.

For all of his faults and complications, Howard has a trend of helping to support and even protect those that the society of his time is set against. A Jewish woman and her fiancé facing the nazis, a brilliant female agent fighting enemies as well as men around her that have faith in her failure, and a talented black scientist whose company has used and thrown away when convenient. We see the kindness in his actions, in the respect that he gives others that society would prefer not to be bothered with.

So how did he miss the mark so badly with his own son? He gave him things, opened doors for Tony that he’d had to force open himself, but (at least according to Tony) he missed expressing any sort of affection for him. Personally, in light of the other relationships that we actually get to see as they’re taking place, I’m inclined to think that he didn’t know how to express his love in a way that an already struggling child could understand. He tinkered on cars with him and he built an organization that would keep the world (and his family) safe. Perhaps to Howard, more importantly, he kept his distance, thus allowing his son the chance to grow into his own man. Someone not quite like him.

The thing is, even if it went against everything he wanted, there was no getting around that. Just as I imagine that Howard inherited a few more traits from his own father than he would have ever admitted to, Tony inherited some from him. Both the good and the bad.

Howard’s Personality Traits

Marvel is a parallel haven. In many ways the universe that they’ve created feels like one long, fantastical TV show with 3+ hour episodes. One of the perks of that is the multiple nods they’ve made and parallels they’ve drawn. It’s through those parallels that I found between Howard and Tony that sunk me deeper and deeper into exploring Howard’s personality. Robert said it best:

(gif made by and borrowed from @erikisright)

Much in the same way that we meet Tony in Iron Man 1, the Howard of Captain America: The First Avenger and the Agent Carter short and series secures himself behind a mask of indifference to public opinion. He has a good time and doesn’t give a damn who knows it. When focused on work, he’s focused

but as soon as the war’s over he’s living the life of the playboy millionaire. He spends his time gallivanting around as much as inventing. He flaunts it. His money, his success. It’s the mask he hides behind to protect himself from the world, and the one that he feels like he has to hide behind. Afterall…

There’s no question that Howard has his fair share of less-than-desirable traits, but as we’ve discussed, he has some good ones as well. One that I found surprising, personally, is that he takes responsibility. Maybe not in his personal life (sorry, Jarvis, but it’s on you to handle Howard’s breakups apparently), but in his work. If he feels that he’s fallen short, he owns it, repeatedly to the point of putting his own life in danger.

In the first season finale for Agent Carter, after spending eight episodes on the run to clear his name, he waltzes himself into the SSR to give the full story and offer himself up as bait. It’s his fault, he tells them, despite not designing the invention stolen to cause harm, it’s still his, and he’ll own up to his responsibility there, both at the time and the damage it had caused during the war. In S2, after an invention fails, he offers himself up to go in and switch it on manually (putting himself at exceptional risk) because he ‘designed it poorly’. He doesn’t get the chance to do it, but he’s ready and willing to.

On the flip side (and also a trait that took me by surprise) he gives credit where it’s due.

Despite having to lie and possibly claw his way to the top, he’s consistently willing to both offer a hand to those that he can as well as make sure that he’s acknowledging their contribution, despite the fact that he believes that many successful scientists steal other people’s work for themselves.

Tony must have come by his tendencies to fixate by way of his father. Much like his son, Howard shows time and time again that he leans into his obsessive personality. It ranges from a hyper-focus on work to coffee to a good time by any means he can find it, and even to the guilt that we see him holding onto in those few private, honest moments we catch a glimpse of.

We see it in the way that he held onto the guilt over what happened to the Russian soldiers at Finow when his Midnight Oil was misused and ended up killing hundreds of Allied soldiers. He did everything he could to set the situation as right as it could be set - he faced down the general that had stolen the oil only to get his ass handed to him, forced the general to step down, ended a seven-figure contract with the Army, and created a vault to better protect designs and inventions that could hurt innocent people - yet we see how it still weighs on him years later.

I think it’s the guilt at never being able to find Steve that eventually shifts him from Dominic’s Howard to John’s. That lively, goofy man is broken year after year by the failure of not being able to find or save a man that he holds up on a pedestal. He fixates on it to the point that his own son feels that he cared more about Captain America than him. Really, there’s so much in this theory that I’ve had battering around my head for the last couple of months or so that it deserves its own post. I’ll put it on the writing docket.

All in all, Howard Stark is an easy character to overlook or to flatten out with partial information. The Agent Carter series does wonders to add depth to him by giving us time to get to know him. Time that we don’t get through newsreels and the off story that Tony tells.

Part of an interesting character is their layers, both the good and the bad. Much like Tony, I feel that the more I learn about Howard Stark, the more I come to realize that he was a man trying his best. Sure, maybe his best didn’t match up in a lot of ways, but I think there’s something to be said for each generation of Starks doing just a little bit better than the one that came before them in whatever way that they can.

#Howard Stark #MCU characters #character analysis #character breakdown #Tony Stark #Peggy Carter #Edwin Jarvis #Ana Jarvis #marvel's agent carter #captain America: the first avenger

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lord-covfefe · 6 years

Text

White Noise-Chapter 5

Read on Ao3 here

I awoke the next morning alone, rolling over to see some parchment laid on the pillow next to me. Rubbing my eyes, I opened it to see a note in Link’s scratchy but neat handwriting: Here’s to many more rainy nights.

I shifted around in my bed and smiled as the events of the prior night came streaming back into my consciousness. I noted with curiosity that I was slightly sore, my canal drawing a subtle reminder of its recent interactions. I relished in the sensation--though it wasn’t exactly comfortable, there was something secretly titillating about it.

My stomach rolled as I remembered the fullness and thickness of him. The soft, velvety skin of his penis contrasting with the rigidity of its form had never been so vivid as when it first entered me. I was glad that I had a sensation to remember it by in the morning--I wanted his imprint on as much of me as possible.

I laid in bed for quite some time thereafter, drinking in the musk that we had left behind on the sheets and reliving my own deflowering. Looking out the window, I frowned to see a bluebird sky. When can I know him again?

Contentedly, I started to manually explore my own anatomy to learn more about how it fared. Sliding a finger in, I smiled again at the memory of being filled by something much larger.

I then removed it to examine if the consistency of my viscous fluids were the same as they had been before this change. I was shocked to see that there was dried blood on my index!

Sweet Hylia. I suppose I had read something about slight female bleeding the first time…

I pulled back the blankets to see a small spot of blood on my sheets. How mortifying! Hopefully Link had not seen. And, thankfully, I could easily explain it to my chambermaids by saying that my moon’s blood had come in the night.

I was rehearsing that monologue when a knock came at the door. Glancing at the clock, I saw it was well before the usual time Link came to escort me.

“Your highness,” came a woman’s voice from behind the door. “Are you awake?”

Curses. I recognized the voice as belonging to Liesl, my least favorite handmaiden.

“Yes, thank you Liesl,” I answered. “I will be ready to dress in just a moment.”

“Your Father has summoned you, and requests your presence immediately. Today we shall dress you simply, as must needs haste.”

My stomach dropped. There was no way we could have been heard, or seen. Was there? I suppose we left the window open...suppose a guard had strayed close to the walkway outside my room…

I wanted nothing more than to crawl under my covers and never come out. I am quite accustomed to ignoring my own wants, however.

I got up, smoothed the bed as much as possible, and opened the door to let Liesl in.

I cannot know if it was my imagination, or if she peered at my terrific bedhead with suspicious eyes.

I tried to calm my voice and swallowed the lump in my throat. Feigning calm, I chirped, “Do you know what he has summoned me to discuss?”

“He did not say,” she replied, her voice flat and stony. “My orders are simply to bring you to him as quickly as possible.

I took pleasure, for a brief moment, in imagining the terse Liesl running from a flock of cuccos. An incensed flock of cuccos.

Alas, daydreams of loud squawking from both parties would do nothing to stop the wrath of my Father, if he was summoning me for the reason I feared.

Liesl was fastening one of my silk stockings when she stopped, staring at something.

“Your highness, what is this bruise? It looks rather fresh.”

I glanced down, seeing a purpleing mark on my thigh that I knew to be the work of hungry hands. Hands belonging to the wielder of the Master Sword.

I swallowed.

“We rode quite briskly to get inside before the storm yesterday evening. I must have exerted myself a little too hard.”

She took another look at the bruise and continued to fasten the stocking.

“Your highness should be more careful. Perhaps your travel britches allow for too lively a riding style.”

To stop myself from rolling my eyes, I blinked hard.

“I will be sure to be more delicate next time. I do think I can manage that in trousers.”

We remained in silence until at last I was fully dressed in a simple gown fit for every day court life. I practically ran out the door, terrified of the audience with my father but glad to get away from the cantankerous maid.

Walking down the hallway leading to the throne room, I attempted some of the breathing exercises Link had taught me and stared at the scenes on the tapestries to occupy my mind. Each time a menacing what if appeared in my mind I would fixate on some scene, instead mentally reciting the history I knew of each one.

The hero of twilight battling a dragon, high above the ground in a long-lost sky city. A tall sheikah woman atop a horse with the young princess Zelda. Banished...or worse…

I looked down at the crimson carpet below my feet and then back up at the tapestries.

A wild contraption that had been constructed along the ancient sealing grounds that sadly, we no longer know the name for. Another relic lost to obscurity in the harsh sands of time.

Finally, I arrived at the throne room. I did not dally by the door as to not give my worries any more attention than they had already enjoyed. The only way to find out was to find out.

The two guards at the door, seeing my approach, announced me as I walked into the sanctum. The sallow sunlight streaming in from high windows appeared as columns of light thanks to the motes of dust that freely drifted.

I entered quickly, attempting to jostle out my nerves with physical movement.

I saw that Link already stood before my Father and I swallowed, torn between the lurching of my heart at his golden hair and the lead in my stomach at the implications of him being here.

His face was completely blank, not even a drop of anxiety. He rather seemed more resolute than normal, completely prepared to face whatever was coming with honor. He looked at me and crinkled his eyes for just a brief moment, sending me a private message. Sweet Din. How could he be flirting at a time like this?

He was calm and collected, flirting even! Triforce of courage indeed. Meanwhile, I was a quavering bundle of nerves amassing in a being known as Zelda.

The hall finally settled and my Father cleared his throat. The silence fell deeper still.

“Zelda. Link. Young ones,” he boomed. His voice still grated on me with the memory of his dressing down the day before. “These are grave times. The stakes are high, and the price of failure is steep. Omens are everywhere. Just last night the moon seemed to turn a foul shade of crimson and seemed to be casting down an angry look from the sky. Grave times indeed,” he dithered on.

Half of my life had been spent listening to his half-baked proclamations of doom. He churned out several more minutes of self-indulgent catastrophizing when he finally arrived at the point. I tuned back in.

“And so, with all this in mind, I am bitterly disappointed to hear that this Calamity is not being treated with the gravitas that it so sorely requires.”

My stomach dropped even further. I wished that the floor of the sanctum would split and I could fall down into the ground.

I would take responsibility for it all. I would say that it was all my doing, Link could not refuse me, I was his sovereign, he had nothing to do with it. I opened my mouth to say so--

“I have received information that on your visit to Zora’s Domain, you spent much time tinkering away in Vah Ruta, alone. This is unacceptable. You are not to leave your knight protector’s side, under any circumstances. Your person is the most crucial element in Ganon’s defeat. Sir Link, this is the last time I will say this without consequence--the princess does not leave your sight, no matter how she protests. That is a direct order.”

Link bowed his head.

“Yes, your majesty.”

I felt dizzy and had an urgent need to sit. Thank you Hylia! At least for this!

“Good. It is settled. Now,” my Father continued. “The matter I called you here to discuss. We have received intelligence that several star fragments have fallen in the area surrounding the Spring of Power. I believe this is a divine sign, an indication of the goddess’ presence on those grounds. You two will depart today for the Spring, as soon as you are ready. I expect this task will be treated with respect,” he said, giving both of us the hairy eyeball.

Neither of us said anything, but both offered solemn nods. Well, at least Link was surely solemn. I was still agog and trembling like a deer at our brush with disaster.

We both turned on our heels and left, Link settling into his place three places behind me. I took ten deep breaths, attempting to reclaim some measure of calm.

#zelink #botw #breath of the wild #zelink fanficiton #botw fanfiction #fanfiction #zelink smut #loz fanfiction

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megaphonemonday · 6 years

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gotta do what you’ve gotta do

romanceisreal: My favorite team (the Cubs) sometimes dress up for road trips (they did a 70s day, biker gang etc.) to improve morale. I vote the Padres adopt this trend and Al lets Ginny pick the theme!

I hope no one is surprised that I took the opportunity to let Ginny troll the team.

read on ao3

“I feel like a kindergarten teacher,” Al grumbled, “assigning classroom chores.”

Any disgruntlement in the complaint was belied by the fact that the Skip’s hand was already swirling through the blizzard of paper in Sonny’s hat, which had been sacrificed to the cause because, as Dusty put it, “You’ve got a big ass head, dude.”

Nevertheless, even a big ass hat was put to the test by the magnitude of its current task, a few chits threatening to spill over its brim. Nearly every Padre had jumped—judging by the far more than 24 slips tumbling around Al’s hand, Mike suspected some had jumped more than once—at the chance to pick the first (of what he hoped to God would be the last) theme for costumed team road trips.

That’s right. Costumed. Team. Road trips.

The front office had decided that if it was good enough for the Nats and the Cubs, it was good enough for the Padres.

To be fair, the mere idea had already worked some wonders on team morale. Mike couldn’t remember the last time there were so many players left in the clubhouse so long after a game without the involvement of ski goggles, champagne, and bad behavior. But here they all were, eagerly waiting on their manager to pick one of their names out of a hat.

Maybe they really were all kindergartners, just aching to be made teacher’s pet.

Not that Al was doing anything to quell the hushed thrum of expectation coursing through the room. The opposite was true, actually. He was taking his own sweet time. All he needed was to pick a piece of paper and read the name on it, which did not require the whole production this little ceremony had turned into. It just went to show that for all his grumbling, there was no chance Al wasn’t enjoying the hell out of this.

Didn’t matter that he’d told Mike in private this whole ordeal was a disaster waiting to happen; he’d still gone along with Oscar and would milk the opportunity for all it was worth.

Mike sighed and slumped further in his chair, just barely reining in the impulse to cross his arms over his chest and huff impatiently. He didn’t want to look petulant. (Didn’t want to hear he’d looked petulant from a certain pitcher, more like.) At the same time, though, if they didn’t get this show on the road, and soon, his knees would be the size of grapefruits in the morning.

“Nothing in kindergarten’s that random anymore,” Salvi pronounced sagely from his spot sprawled on one of the couches. He would know. The past four years, he’d had at least one kid in kindergarten. None of 'em had been held back, either. The Salvamini brood was just that plentiful.

Al rolled his eyes and finally plucked a slip from the hat. Of course that wasn’t the end of it, though. He unfolded the bit of paper, hummed seriously as he considered the name it revealed, and otherwise left his team nearly falling off the edges of their seats in suspense.

Well, most of them.

Personally, Mike had only put off his post-game ice bath so he’d have an idea of what—and whose sick sense of humor—he was about to be subjected to. As captain, it was probably better if he kept his name out of the running for this “honor.”

Probably.

Well, whatever. He was deeply unwilling to deal with the inevitable bitching and moaning that would erupt if he got picked, so his name stayed out of Sonny’s hat.

Looking around the room, Mike started to regret that decision, if only because he wanted at least a shot, however slim, at preserving his dignity. The only way that would happen, he just knew, was if it was his name plucked from that hat.

Because judging by the wicked gleam in his teammates’ eyes—Blip—they had nothing good planned.

And why would they? This newest PR stunt provided the perfect opportunity to enact some petty vengeance—which was probably not reflected of the front office’s analytics. But that was just their failure to take into account the one truth of all sports, amateur and professional alike: in any clubhouse, for any team, there was always a need for petty vengeance.

Mike knew it, though. And so, he resigned himself to his likely fate.

If it made the guys feel better to make him wear something ridiculous just to get on a plane, and it smoothed over some of his fuck ups from last season, Mike would play along. If not cheerfully, then at least without too much complaint.

If Skip would stop drawing out this whole ordeal, he would, at least.

Finally, Al cleared his throat and looked around the room, pinning each of his players with a hard stare and otherwise reveling in their eager anticipation. After a long pause that went beyond flirting with the dramatic and instead had it already smoking a post-coital cigarette—no one could say Al Luongo didn’t harbor an appreciation for the theatric—he announced, “Baker. First choice is yours, kid.”

As one, every set of eyes in the clubhouse swiveled to the team’s fifth starter where she stood leaning against the wall, arms crossed over her chest. To her credit, she remained cool under the scrutiny, merely tilting her head to the side before nodding once, decisive.

“When do you want my pick?”

Al shrugged. Now that his moment was done, he was back to general disdain for the whole endeavor. “We leave for Colorado in a week. Give ‘em a day or two, but otherwise I don’t wanna hear about this again, understood?” That last was directed not just to Ginny, but the team as a whole.

There was a chorus of agreement and their manager hmphed, shaking his head and retreating to his office.

As soon as he was gone, though, attention—still hushed and more than a little tense—swung right back to Ginny, who at least had the grace and presence of mind not to look too smug about whatever she had planned.

Because judging by the look in her eyes, Mike could tell that she had something planned.

“So,” drawled Butch, breaking into the uncharacteristic quiet, “what’s the damage here, Baker? How bad are you gonna embarrass us?”

Mike wasn’t smart enough to look away when her eyes swept over the room and seemed to linger a beat longer on him. Instead, he stared back, gaze locked with Ginny’s, almost daring her to bring it on.

Something bright and dangerous burned in her gaze, kicking into high gear when she realized she had his attention. (As if she ever didn’t.)

A smirk fought with her placid expression, but innocence won out. Ginny blinked and opened her big, brown eyes wide and guileless. No one was fooled. Especially not when she answered, “I haven’t decided yet. But I’m sure you’ll all look great.”

If Ginny’s intention in the next five days was to whip her teammates into a frenzied froth of worry about the potential damage to their—largely inflated, in Mike’s opinion—street cred, she did an admirable job of it. More than admirable. Masterful.

Not once did she give a teammate a straight answer on any of her plans. She didn’t even give a slanted answer. Or any answer at all, really. It wasn’t for lack of effort on the team’s part.

Mostly, she’d reply with an enigmatic, if pitying, smile. Sometimes, though, Ginny showed off her truly troubling command of psychological warfare. She had an unnatural knack for drawing out some of their worst fears—like the way she got Hanan to admit to his recurring nightmare where she had them all wearing hyper-realistic masks of one another and he couldn’t figure out who was who—and then responding with a considering hum, like she was tucking away the idea to mull over.

Since, on more than one occasion, she left cryptic lists with such worryingly disparate items as “rainbow body glitter” and “viking helmets” and “Care Bears???” around the clubhouse—probably for the express purpose of being found—Mike was inclined to think she was just fucking with them and taking a lot of pleasure in the resulting meltdowns.

(Inclined because she hadn’t given him a straight answer, either. And he’d asked so nicely too.)

When she consistently denied any knowledge of these lists, smile wavering between bemused and benign, to whichever teammate brought the latest to her attention, he became sure.

Ginny wasn’t stupid. Far from it, actually, which was more than he could say for some of his teammates. She’d pick—had probably already picked—something that was fun and, yeah, likely embarrassing, but it wouldn’t be the catastrophe so many Padres feared. Ginny liked messing with them all, maybe a little too much even, but she wasn’t going to risk stirring up real shit so early in the season. She was still coming off her injury and it was clear the team trainers were prepared to pull her for the slightest whiff of a relapse. No way she’d put her spot in the rotation in jeopardy for a wholly separate issue.

Which wasn’t to say that Mike wasn’t a little worried about what was going to unfold—the field day the media’d have or how many pictures of him in something regrettable would circulate on Twitter by the end of the day, clogging his mentions—but none of it was because of Ginny.

Of all his teammates, Ginny was the least likely to pick something specifically to make him look bad.

Supplying booze and food every Thursday in Arizona had done a lot to rebuild the team’s goodwill, but Mike knew better than to think that last season’s near-trade fiasco was forgotten. He wouldn’t put it past one of them to take the opportunity to teach him yet another lesson about team loyalty.

What could he say? Petty vengeance.

But there was far more than a bungled trade attempt hanging between him and Ginny.

Not that they were talking about that. And not that not talking about it had gotten great results.

Don’t get him wrong; Ginny’d crushed it in Spring Training, but that was in spite of whatever the hell was bubbling up between them, not because of it. She was a gamer and Mike was willing to admit that he had nothing on her ability to focus on the game above and beyond anything else.

It didn’t matter how many dangerous looks and almost-moments had passed between them in Peoria. It didn’t matter that Mike still found himself staring at Ginny far longer than he should or itching to call her before he went to bed, let her voice lull him to sleep. It didn’t matter that every inning he played with her, every day that passed, he was more and more sure he didn’t want a life without Ginny Baker in it.

There were lines that he— she— they shouldn’t be crossing. Shouldn’t even consider crossing until he wasn’t her captain. No matter how much he, she, they—God, he hoped it wasn’t just him—might want to.

Which was why Mike was mostly going to stay out of this whole costumed road trip thing and just let it happen.

Unfortunately—or not if that meant he was the only one dealing with this quandary—no one else was taking his lead. Seven straight days Mike was forced to listen to his teammates try to alternately cajole and bully a real answer out of Baker. He couldn’t count the ways they’d tried to get her to spill, offering up food, faulty logic, even favors, paying far too much attention to the one woman in the world who didn’t need more of it.

Mike was at his wit’s end. And not just because Ginny suddenly had so much less time to tease him, specifically, when she was working on pulling one over on the entire team.

So it was no wonder that, on the day of her deadline, Mike’s teeth were already on edge even as he went through the motions of priming his body to play.

“Not even one hint?” Stubbs wheedled, aiming what he probably thought were puppy eyes at Ginny where she sprawled on one of the couches, trying to go over hitters for her next start.

“You’ll find out after the game,” she returned without even looking up. She didn’t even sound interested in playing with them all anymore, the tick in her jaw telegraphing her annoyance for anyone watching closely enough to see.

Which, apparently, was just Mike.

Salvi came and flopped down just next to her feet, squashing himself against the armrest. Rolling her eyes, she drew her legs back in, grudgingly ceding him the cushion. Just in time for him to ask, “You weren’t serious about that list, right? The one with the chaps and the sequined vests?”

“Uh, sure,” Ginny replied absently.

“Sure, you weren’t serious or sure, you were?”

“Yep.”

Salvi gave up, but someone else was willing to take on the fight.

“How about the Minions costumes? Those things’ve invaded my nightmares. My kids won’t stop watching those fucking movies.”

Rather than reassure Butch, though, Ginny remained silent. Apparently, only Mike could tell it was just because she was too caught up turning someone’s heat map over in her mind, trying to puzzle her way into an assured strikeout.

“Baker, you can’t do that to me. My girl’s never gonna let me live it down!”

“Yeah, you gotta give us a hint!”

“C’mon, Baker.”

“Ginny, please?”

That was more than enough of that. And not just because Robles was practically pouting, flashing hopeful looks her way.

“Jesus H. Christ, shut the hell up!” Mike exclaimed, exploding to his feet and throwing his water bottle into his locker. He didn’t wait for quiet to descend, just wheeled on the room and barreled on, shouting through the ache his jaw had earned grinding his teeth for the past week. “Would you listen to yourselves? All this fucking whining over a stupid costume!”

Shaking his head in disgust and electing to ignore the curious glint in a certain pitcher’s eye, Mike took a deep breath.

“You’re all acting like a bunch of goddamn babies,” he sneered, staring down a suddenly cowed group of grown ass ballplayers. Fucking good. They should be embarrassed. They were fucking embarrassing. “Quit riding Baker’s ass worrying about what she’s gonna make you wear and start worrying about the game we’re supposed to play today. Or did you all forget that’s why we’re here?”

There was a chorus of sheepish agreement, a few apologies tossed Ginny’s way, and ballplayers began dispersing to their lockers to finish getting ready or grab their gear and head for the field. For his part, Mike dropped back into his seat, moodily taping up his fingers and ignoring every Padre left in the clubhouse until he had a better handle on his irritation.

Even when one of them kicked his chair.

Ginny huffed, nudging Mike’s knee with hers when he didn’t react. Since it seemed unlikely that she’d go away until he at least acknowledged her presence, he lolled his head to the side, peering up at her.

“You doin’ okay there, cap?” she drawled, raising one sardonic eyebrow even as her lips curved in a faint frown. Clearly, she didn’t just mean his outburst; she actually looked worried about him.

“I’m fine,” he replied, gruff, though he did do his best to release some of the tension in his shoulders. Since her mouth straightened out at that, he figured he was at least halfway successful. “Be better when this is all behind us. You sure you’ve got something planned? Something good enough to make up for this circus?”

A wicked grin took root and blossomed on Ginny’s face, nearly knocking the breath straight from Mike’s wholly unprepared lungs. Backing away and still grinning, she assured, “Oh, I’ve got something planned, all right.”

“There’s no way you already had this planned,” Mike grouched as the woman responsible for his current predicament slid into her seat across the aisle from him. He looked forward to the day that she could just sit next to him the way they had almost all of last season. Though considering what she—and he, to be honest—was wearing, it was probably better to have a little distance.

Ginny grinned and Mike would’ve gotten lost in the brilliance of it if Salvi hadn’t sauntered by, pale, hairy legs interrupting his view. Jesus Christ, where were the man’s pants?

And why the hell had he wondered that more than once—and for more than one person—today?

Oh, right. Ginny’s chosen theme.

Why so many of them had gone so hard for Ginny’s choice, Mike would never understand. They’d been so concerned she would embarrass them and then they go and do it to themselves.

Well, it wasn’t as if a theme like “Pre-K Padres” didn’t give them plenty of opportunity to do so.

(”Listen,” she’d said as she announced her pick after the game, “and I’m not gonna say this often, so get your phones out to record this for posterity,” she paused there, milking the moment as masterfully as she’d played every last Padre over the past week, “but Lawson was right.” That earned a round of chuckles and prompted an exaggerated eye roll from Mike. He meant it a little, but given the way Ginny was grinning, dimples tucked deep into her cheeks, it was hard to be truly annoyed.)

She laughed and Mike was glad to have another reason to turn his attention away from Salvi’s diaper-clad ass and the water fight Stubbs and Butch were conducting with their oversized baby bottles. “No, but it would’ve been amazing if I had.”

“Amazing might be pushing it,” he grumbled, shifting in his seat. Not from any discomfort, though. Mike wasn’t ashamed that this thing he was wearing was more comfortable than he’d expected, but he also wouldn’t be admitting it to anyone. If he didn’t immediately donate it to Goodwill when this day was over, that was his business and his alone.

So what if the last time he’d worn footie pajamas, he’d been five and just starting kindergarten? A man didn’t outgrow comfort.

Adding to his comfort level was the fact that Ginny’d fallen into his—and the saner members of the Padres organization—camp when deciding on her costume.

It was bad enough that his dream of never seeing a single one of his teammates in an adult-sized diaper—even if they were the costume ones from Party City or something—had gone up in flames today. If she’d done it, too, he’d have to murder something.

Because prolonged exposure to Ginny Baker’s bare legs would leave him in serious need of a defibrillator by the end of the day. Much better that she went the footie pajama route. Well, mostly better. At least this way, Mike didn’t have miles and miles of smooth, brown skin to be distracted by.

He'd stick to the normal levels of distraction Ginny Baker inspired off the field, thanks.

She did, after all, look downright adorable in her Padres-branded onesie. Dressed as she was, it was all too easy to imagine her curling up in bed, ready to fall asleep. From there, it was just a hop, skip, and a jump for Mike’s overeager imagination to picture himself tucked around her, either drifting off, too, or more intent on keeping them both awake a little longer—

And that was why the aisle currently separating them was a good, a necessary, thing.

Mike shook himself and refocused his mind on the more academic question of where the hell Ginny’d even found a Padres onesie, let alone one in her size. The only one he’d managed to track down that even came close to fitting was plain red, more like long underwear than anything a little kid might wear. But it wasn’t as if he was fooling anyone anyway, not with a full beard and 210-odd pounds of muscle. The onesie did fit a bit snug around his thighs and across his chest, but it got the job done well enough to avoid any heckling from his teammates.

At least his didn’t have an ass flap. Unlike Dusty’s.

The fact that Ginny’s attention didn’t waver for a second, even in the face of Dusty’s bare ass going by, her eyes firmly on Mike and the slightly strained buttons marching down his chest didn’t mean anything. It definitely didn’t make him puff up and put those buttons under just a little more strain.

No, of course not.

Her eyes flickered back up to his, pupils blown out and cheeks a shade pinker than normal. Mike tried to tell himself it was just the fleece of her costume making her warm. He was only mildly successful.

Still, she rallied admirably. “What did I say, Lawson? You were totally right,” Ginny teased, tongue poking out from the corner of her mouth and making him even more aware of how much he wanted to taste it than he usually was. And he was usually very aware of that fact. “They’re a bunch of babies. Might as well dress them like it.”

“Remind me never to get on your bad side,” he laughed, locking away that desire for another time.

“You really need the reminder?” She laughed, too, but her brows drew down just enough for Mike to glimpse the undercurrent of worry.

He couldn’t have that. Ginny wasn’t close enough for him to reach out for her hand or shoulder, or anywhere safe enough for him to touch, but he could put all his assurance, his confidence, in his ready reply.

“No.”

“Good.”

It wasn’t talking about it, literally not even in the realm of talking about it, but that was just fine in Mike’s book. Not that he didn’t want to talk about it. He definitely did, and sooner rather than later if he was being honest, just—

What he didn’t want was for that conversation to take place while he was wearing footie pajamas.

Ginny could keep hers, though.

“Yeah, Baker,” he said anyway. “It’s definitely good.”

Her responding smile, just a quick quirk of her lips really, told him everything he needed to know. She was on the same page. At this point, he couldn't ask for much more.

Except then, without any prompting, Ginny squared her jaw, picked up her backpack, and slid across the aisle into the empty seat next to him. She didn't do anything so obvious as lean her head against his shoulder, but her knee did press against his and her fingers trailed across the back of his for a moment before elbowing him off the arm rest.

“Still good?”

Swallowing to keep the surging tide of emotion in check, he nodded and managed a hoarse, “Yeah,” in response.

It wasn't winding himself around her in bed, even just to sleep, but Mike had a hard time imagining that anything could really top this. And all because of a stupid PR campaign.

Well, Mike was a big enough man to admit when he was wrong, if only to himself. Maybe, he considered as Ginny's shoulder pressed into his bicep and a stray curl brushed against his neck, just maybe, the front office isn’t full of number crunchers with terrible ideas. If the next one got him a payoff half as good as this—Mike couldn’t fathom how this, Ginny as close to tucked against his side as they could come with an armrest trapped between them, on a bus surrounded by their teammates too, could ever be equalled short of a new MLB mandate encouraging intra-team relationships—he might even consider going along with their next bright idea.

For now, though, he’d be keeping that thought, as well as most of the other ones currently occupying his imagination, to himself for later mulling. He had other things to occupy his attention at the moment.

Well one thing. One woman.

One woman who was currently grinning up at him, offering a truly awful opinion about Star Wars and just begging to be schooled.

If that was what she wanted, well, Mike was more than happy to give it to her.

#Bawson #Bawson fic #pitch #pitch fic #i wrote something #If you think i don't wanna see #mike and/or ginny #wearing exactly that #and wrote a fic to reflect it #you'd be very very wrong #be the change #etc etc #here have this #before i get sucked into the last night of skating

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itsnotresilience · 3 years

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How to I Turned my Self Hate Inward and Outward AKA how to abuse everything you take for granted AKA how not to live while getting cancer treatment aka how to ruin your life

A reflection on 2009-2012

I want to be clear about a few things. I have no written record of this time period. This is all from my memory of this time frame which is frankly, not great. I was in the midst of cancer treatment and I would say in a psychosis level of depression and mania. I likely don’t remember events in the right year or right order so feel free to correct me.

My second husband had escaped to a life without me. He was going out with people I believed to be our friends with someone not new but not me. I had elected to stay because frankly I had nowhere else to go. I think that’s the lie i told myself then, that I had no other choices. There were other choices but I didn’t make them. My cycle was: treatment, sick, better so party, then fatigue and depression and repeat. Some stages of that cycle were longer term than others.

I started internet dating out of loneliness and rejection. What the fuck was I doing? I still don’t know. I think honestly I was erasing the rejection with these dates so I could feel wanted by someone. Most of them were nothing. The majority were nothing. A few I thought were something but they were jerks or saw my damage or were abusers. I did meet one good person and we’ll come back to him soon.

Anyway, I had also stopped eating for the most part, everything tasted like metal all the time. I would very stupidly drink which fueled days of very painful sickness. There were days I laid in my bedroom and listened to my husband romance someone else. It’s hard to acknowledge that I chose this road. There’s part of me that has blamed squarely my ex-husband but I could have made so many other and better choices.

Around this time my work was going through what I might say was the longest lasting reorg ever. It started in 2010? 2011? And finished in January of this year. I’m going to be careful here. Every however much time it was between, a group of folks would get laid off or redistributed. There were only two notaries at my work and I was one of them. All the impacted people had these documents that had to be notarized (FYI business owners with employees- this is unnecessarily humiliating) so they all came to my desk. Many of them were people I cared about. Watching them be treated this way added fuel to my fire.

I have to be really careful. I’m touching on things related to people I admire, love and care about. People I would walk through fire for. I still treated them badly because I treated everyone badly, including myself. I lied by hiding all my dirty laundry but I just wrote that and realize it’s a lie. People did know some of what was going on. Others were victims of my inability to get a grip on myself. There are parts of my heart and mind that are so sad about how I treated my friends. This is one of the hardest essays I’ve written because this all feels like it could have been yesterday.

I was traveling a lot for work, balancing my treatments and my lifestyle of secret internet men that I flirted with. Most weren’t anything but someone to make me feel less bad but there was always a time, everyday, that all the escape routes faded and I was left with me and what my life had become. I would get so panicked and upset it was like being swallowed by a fiery pit. All I could see was how terrible I was. I don’t remember most of my work trips but not because I was partying. Most of them I was not feeling well and was just trying to push through. This travel was an amazing opportunity career wise, to prove myself and what I could do. I can say now that I failed at proving anything other than I was a mess. Work was my one stability but even that couldn’t hold me together.

In 2010, I met a man who when I first met him struck me as someone also going through something. He had a great smile, a sparkle in his eye and was genuinely just a nice guy but I didn’t really want someone who was going to be nice to me because I didn’t deserve that and I was still married despite whatever was going on there. We went on two dates before I felt that I was too sick, mentally and physically, to pursue it. He felt too nice for someone like me. I moved on to other internet flings that were meaningless with most of them just adding more fuel to the self hate fire. In October, I got back in touch with nice guy. Inside I felt bad that we talked about each other’s dates and that I was lying to him about my marital status (but not the state of my marriage). I don’t know why I did that. Yes I do. That was a lie. I did that because I didn’t want to be rejected. I wanted to be able to move on like my ex-husband had. All that mattered to me was not feeling his rejection.

On that third date, I don’t know what was different. I can’t describe it. I looked up and fell for the guy. He seemed so normal. He seemed to have had some life experiences that created a normal set of ethical behavior. I was not that person but I valued that in him. We decided to see each other exclusively but I was still living with my ex who since 2009, while I was gone and sometimes when I was home, had his new friend in our home. I write this and think this is ridiculous. I don’t even understand what you’re doing Meghan!

In November 2010 a bunch of really bad crazy shit happened. I increasingly slept at my boyfriend’s, my other friends’ house who were stable, or my car. I once paid for a hotel room a few miles from my condo to not be in my house. I hosted some wine thing at work that I came home early from to find my ex and his friend having sex in our living room on our couch. I couldn’t do this whatever this charade was. I packed all my stuff or what I could and went to stay with my boyfriend. This was not my best decision of so many bad decisions. We weren’t ready for that. I wasn’t ready for any of that.

My family had planned a trip to Hawaii to celebrate my dads retirement. It was already a catastrophe. My sister wasn’t going. My brothers marriage was near failure. I was not feeling well and would have to do a treatment before going. I spent most of that trip with my mom or my dad. My ex was there because he had a ticket because we were hiding our entire garbage from my family. My boyfriend and I fought the entire time. He knew I was there with my ex and so thought a reconciliation was happening. That was not what was happening. I spent every night in bed, in a separate bed, from my ex. He partied with my brother who I felt super angry at, that he was betraying me, although now I’m not sure how much he knew but definitely more than my parents. I missed my sister. I was sad that she was going through her own pain and her and I weren’t connecting. The highlight of that trip was a luau that I sat next to my father and a sunrise bike ride down Haleakala. I was not looking forward to going wherever home was.

In December, my boyfriend and I just started fighting more. My boyfriend knew I was hiding things from him and I’m not sure why I didn’t just say I’m still married. Yes, I do. I think there was a part of me that felt if I kept myself hidden, he couldn’t reject me. I was still also texting my old internet dating people who had turned into friends. None of them were anything except someone who could make me feel good (give me a compliment, flirt with me) if someone else made me feel bad. It was wrong. God I was so so wrong. My boyfriend would get jealous and distrustful and lash out by being controlling and then I would react to the controlling behavior by being even more elusive. I just kept spinning in this web of lies, reacting to him and sinking further into a mess of constant drama I was creating because I just didn’t care. I did care, but not enough. I would care too much about the wrong things. The wrong things would spin out of control blowing up the good things and then it would just keep going. As I started to feel better and enter remission, things only got worse in my personal life. I finally went back and got my cat and the rest of my things from the condo. I had to leave my cat Etta behind, who I adored. I almost grabbed her when I picked up Coltrane. It was heart wrenching.

Most of 2011 was travel, fight, repeat. I was lying to everyone and not feeling like anyone was going to be there when shit fell apart. I wouldn’t let anyone see the full picture. I saw all my lies as necessary to protect me from rejection and abandonment. I was a walking chaos. I don’t remember much of 2011 except a constant state of anxiety and my inability to control the chaos.

In May 2012 (I’m going to be careful here), my boss, who I admired and adored was let go. That broke something in me. It was the lighter fluid I needed to create a bonfire of anger. It was watching someone I saw as a good man be treated poorly. I walked into the office of his boss and asked why? Why him? This made no sense! I wanted to talk to whoever made this decision! Set them straight! To his credit, this man knew me so well he advised very strongly that I think it out and maybe not confront the other big boss decision maker. This is hard because I’m trying not to name names but many of those reading know who these people are.

So all those people reading that worked with me know what happened next. I totally did not take that very sage advice. I asked to speak to the big boss decision maker and I cheekily asked him to explain his decision to me, to help me understand why this other person was better than my boss. I told him it seemed like a dumb idea. I’m not sure what else I said but I likely cemented my future that day. I’m surprised I didn’t get fired then. I was later told that big boss decision maker told others that he was sure I hated him ( I did, but only because he embodied every person who had been an asshole to me) and it wasn’t even me this was happening to. It felt empowering to advocate for someone else. To his eternal credit my boss and mentor advised me not to go to bat for him anymore before he left, not to ruin my reputation and career over this. I really wish I had listened. I had no interest in working for the man who replaced him. I don’t care about being careful here. He reminded me of a used car salesman who sold lemons everyday. The other option was my old boss who, let’s just say, was not someone I admired.

I had to go Orlando, I think this was June 2012. It would have been a good opportunity for me to showcase my role and knowledge. I obliterated the opportunity. Let’s see. I talked to the other new boss and asked his advice for the future and shared my disdain for the decisions made and the treatment of employees, you know, the decision of choosing the man I was talking to over my boss? Are you uncomfortable yet? Then I went to drink with friends while my boyfriend madly texted me accusing me of lying and cheating. The drama sent me to my room where I flirted and complained to old internet friends basically cementing that while I wasn’t cheating, I wasn’t fully committed to doing the necessary hard work with myself or my boyfriend because I wouldn’t allow for rejection from anyone ever again. Our argument fueled an ugly break up call in the morning and I showed up hung over, crying, to a very important meeting. I proceeded to be extremely difficult in that meeting. I made a lot of bad comments about the company and its decisions. I questioned the facilitators objectives. What the actual fuck Meghan? I didn’t belong there, or anywhere or with anyone. I belonged in a psychiatric hospital or at the very least intensive therapy and under medication.

Anyway, I came home to the home I didn’t have and had to move out to a new place. My friends brought me some things I didn’t have anymore (I just had to replace the iron!). One friend took special care to help me decorate my new place and make it a home (I still have the vase!). I was terrified of being alone. I was terrified of what had happened in 2003 when I lived alone. I began partying extremely hard.

I was binge drinking. My boyfriend and I, broken up, just kept hurting each other and everytime he hurt me, I hurt him and myself. I would binge drink, find a man on the internet, and either met up or just participate in flirtatious activities. Everytime after, I would sit, empty, hating myself more and contemplate killing myself. I wanted to die and if I couldn’t die I would destroy myself. This kept escalating until July 4th when I tried to push the reset button and see some old friends. I wanted some normalcy. My ex-boyfriend and I got into a screaming match over the phone at my friends home. My friend kicked me out, saying she’d grown up in an abusive home and had had enough of my behavior. I never saw that friend again. I spent the rest of that day reconciling with my boyfriend, trying to come to terms with what I had created and him trying to get me to fess up to who I really was. It was very emotionally taxing and painful. It was all so unnecessary, all this chaos I created out of my own selfishness and pain.

At work, I was acting increasingly erratic. Boyfriend and I had a screaming match while I was inside the office. Did I not realize there was an outside? Or my car? I was called into HR and asked about the Orlando trip and told I acted poorly. I was asked to provide a list of what I was doing and pretty much told how replaceable and useless I was. About a week after that (which I’m assuming they spent finding people to do my work) I had a meeting set the day after Labor Day with HR and dude I was working for. It was torture (hey don’t do that to people-that’s dumb!) waiting to know what was going to happen. The day finally came and I was told I was losing my job but out of the kindness of their non-existent hearts they’d extend my healthcare through the six weeks of pay I was getting. They made sure to tell me it was not their idea but boss guy in Orlando who wanted to make sure I was taken care of (or I didn’t sue them so you choose). My friend who I worked next two everyday for ( 2 years? 4 years?) helped me pack. We were both crying and sad. I sent some emails to some of the best people I’ve ever met and adore today to say goodbye. They had all been so good to me. So many of them supported my career and taught me so much. I now realize how much I took them for granted.

I went home and my boyfriend took me out for dinner and drinks and I sunk into a very deep depression that I lived in for the next 4 years. I kept thinking about my destroyed life, all of my destroyed lives, all of my destroyed opportunities. It didn’t take me long to find another job. It was totally different-a chance to move into another industry and line of work. I ended up hating it but more so because I was still so fucked up. It also took forever for my relationships to heal. I did this. This was me. I live with this all the time. It has taken me a decade to come back from this period of my life and I still feel it. People don’t understand how you get stuck. People don’t know how the tapes of bad choices can play over and over. People don’t know this wasn’t my first chaos or my first failure. All I can see some days is an endless trail of heartbreak, deceit, bad behavior, and failure. All I can see is some version of damaged Meghan being awful. I don’t feel I deserve my success. I feel I’ve just been lucky. I squandered a lot of things others deserve and would be happy to have. I manipulated others in order to save myself from pain. I need to stop. This essay has to stop for now. I can’t take it. I need a break. Give me a break, brain.

Nearly a week later, I pick this essay back up and wonder what I can say, what I learned from all this. People do shitty things. I watch true crime on ID all the time and I’m never shocked on the capacity of humans to do crazy things. But why? But why? I was drowning. I was drowning in all the Meghans of past and present. I was suffocating in all the failures of my life. In these moments, it all felt like a joke.

Why do we destroy ourselves? Why do we hurt those we love? I can only say that my actions moved chaos forward while inside I waited for the implosion that would end me. I was hoping I’d be destroyed but also burying my pain. Self destructive behavior is selfish but it’s also a manifestation of internal mental health issues. It’s like hoarding, a physical, visual manifestation of some internal pain that needs to be buried.

Maybe you’re someone who reads this and thinks I’m terrible, manipulative, a liar. Maybe I am all three things. I’m at least a liar. I’m a liar who lies to protect myself and a liar who craves acceptance and love. My sheer will and drive has kept me afloat. The love of those who should hate me has kept me afloat. My rage and need to prove myself has kept me afloat. And all this past seeks to make sink.

Here is a secret I’ve stopped keeping. I’m plagued by envy, all the time. I’m envious of people with children. I’m envious of people who have romantic love-laden relationships. I’m envious of careers that happen earlier in life while I now am past my prime. I’m envious of prettier and skinnier women. I’m envious of people in good health. All of this envy spins in my head as my punishment. My inability to cope effectively with my life, my illness, my rejection. No one gives you instructions.

No one gives you instructions but everyone is there with an opinion when you fail. I cannot sit with this part of my life. It’s unbearable to me. I thought my life would be different. I thought I was a good, decent person. Nearly all the things I thought myself incapable of I realize am perfectly able to do. There’s no way to live with that everyday, that gross failure of your own standards.

Maybe now, you read this and you still don’t understand. Maybe you think I got away with it. Maybe you say karma is a bitch and I deserve my punishment. How much punishment? What type of punishment, for how long? Who decides these things? I can say that living with this version of me is so uncomfortable that I had a plan, previously described to you, to end it all before I turned 40. I think about escaping my past daily. My tapes: undeserving, ugly, lying, angry, awful, hateful play over and over. Even writing this is suffocating.

Maybe you’ve done something awful. Something you regret. Or maybe you’ve been mad at someone like me, someone who made mistakes and hurt people. All you can do is what I do. I have to see there’s some good in me. I have to live in a way that makes me redeemable. I won’t beg for pity, understanding, acceptance or forgiveness. I can only say that there is more to me, that I’m writing this despite my deep shame. I’m writing this for me and you and anyone who’s lived a very imperfect life that may be out there, torturing themselves with their failures.

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riathedreamer · 7 years

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For Red Team’s “Platonic Appreciation”.

Old School Simmons wore braces back in high school.

Whenever Simmons spoke to his team the words seemed to stumble out of his mouth. Most of them only managed to create half-finished sentences that broke whenever his voice turned too high-pitched. Chorus reminded him of high school – horrible flashbacks of failed school presentations and awkward flirting.

But now, somehow, he had been introduced as one of “the popular kids” with a crowd of girls following him around.

Definitely a high school vibe.

And high school was not one of Simmons’ fondest memories.

“So, uh, we try to ambush them this time. From behind. Not like Donut’s behind – shit, no, not that, I did not say Donut’s behind, I meant…” He trailed off, eyes darting around madly behind his visor that he pretended was focused on the bunch of papers he was holding.

“We attack them from behind the base,” Jensen suggested carefully, her lisp very visible in the last word. “Isn’t that right, sir?”

“I, uh, yes. Thank you, Jensen,” he said, collecting himself and his papers. The training session went as most of their training sessions went – failure – but that could not all be blamed on Simmons’ horrible communication skills.

Simmons realized that “Thank you, Jensen” had become one of the only sentences he could say without a stutter.

Jensen might be less scary than his other girls, and she may have been chosen because she was the one girl Tucker would never be bow-chicka-bow-wow-ing about, but her admiration for her Captain was more terrifying than a hot, volleyball-playing Lieutenant could ever be.

Their common interests calmed Simmons.

The first and most obvious trait was their horrible communication skills – Simmons would stutter and his voice would break, Jensen would lisp and choke on her spit.

There were improvements, definitely, and Jensen seemed to get her salvia-problem under control.

And while Simmons had expected… Of course he would never be the guy to stereotype but Jensen did remind him of those female chess-players from his high school, the ones the other girls would mock and call ‘nerd’.

He was trying to revive one of the Feds’ old terminals when his Lieutenant walked up on him, looked over his shoulder, and asked him what he was doing.

“Oh.” Simmons let out a surprised sound and felt heat rush to his cheeks: it was not often that people would ask further into his interest. “I’m just trying to bring this thing back to life. Codes and such. You know… Nerdy things,” he said, trailing off so he could make it briefly because people always preferred the short version.

But Jensen leaned closer to the screen. “So you are recoding the system?” Her voice was curious but confirmed that she knew a bit about tech as well.

Simmons blinked while nodding. “And filling out some missing data.” When Jensen’s attention remained just as focused as before, he continued with a long explanation, arms creating gestures, and his voice grew and more confident with each word.

He did not even halt when Grif appeared from somewhere, screaming “Nerd!” because that was a just a part of their routine by now.

---

Simmons was glad to observe the growing friendship between the Lieutenants, glad to see that Jensen was making friend, and somewhat glad to see Palomo’s awkward flirting. The boy was a catastrophe but at least his praise would strengthen Jensen’s confidence.

The Captain had to cross his arms in pride and send Grif a smug look when they overheard a heated argument between the Lieutenants that ended with Jensen exclaiming: “And you know smoking isn’t good for you, Antoine!”

And Simmons saw Grif looking just as proud when Bitters proceeded to flip her off.

---

Then of course that were Jensen’s infamous driving skills.

Simmons had witnessed plenty of them and had heard of even more. While he tried his best to keep Jensen away from the steering wheel, it just seemed like there was magnetic attraction between the Lieutenant and car accidents.

The Captain stepped inside the motor pool to witness two privates hurrying out of there – one of them carrying the other who seemed to have injured his leg. Jensen was trying to follow them, trying to get close enough to help but was waved off every time. “I’m so sorry! I promise I’ll be more careful in the future and-“

“You shaid that lasht time,” one of the Privates spat, mimicking the lisp. “Doeshn’t sheem like your promish ish worth musch.”

Jensen halted, her outstretched arm falling limply to her side. She was still looking at the ground when Simmons placed herself next to her. He had been sure not to greet the Privates as they limped past him.

“I’m a horrible driver,” he admitted, causing her to look up.

“Really?” she sniffed, lifting her helmet slightly so she could reach in and wipe her eye.

“Yeah…” Simmons sighed. “That’s why Grif is always the driver. Not that he’s a good driver either – it’s a wonder he hasn’t gotten us killed yet. Bet he never even read the laws of traffic. But… He gets us where we need to be, and, well, he’s better than the rest us. Better than me. Definitely me. Don’t tell him that,” he added in the end.

Jensen giggled slightly. “I won’t, sir. But I think he might know that already.”

“Yep, I think that as well.” Simmons wrung his hands slightly, hesitating, but then admitted, “I had braces back in high school.”

The Lieutenant looked up at him, the wonder in her eyes visible through the visor. “I can’t imagine that, sir.”

“Well,” Simmons said, thinking back and letting out a small snort. “Let’s say you wear them much better than I did.”

---

The last time Simmons saw Jensen before the big battle, the Lieutenant was saluting him, announcing proudly that, “It’s been honor to serve you, Captain!”

Simmons barely had time to salute her back before Palomo showed up to grab her by the wrist, dragging her along to find the other Lieutenants.

When Simmons was sniffing loudly less than ten seconds later, he felt Grif’s heavy hand slam against his back in a somewhat comforting gesture. “Wimp.”

“Oh, shut up,” Simmons said, drying his eyes just in time to see Grif and Bitters send each other that weird Gold Team gesture that looked more like giving the finger than an actual salute.

#rvb bingo wars #simmons #jensen #friendship #my rvb stuff

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