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nevertheless-moving · 3 years

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Unnamed Extremely Bad Plan to Defeat Darth Sideous AU - SW AU NO 9

Hopefully writing down this star wars au will help me exorcise the cringe demon that helped midwife it. Time travel au where obi-wan and Anakin come up with an extremely SPECIFIC and UNCOMFORTABLE plan to defeat Palpatine because it unfortunately, would actually work, as it capitalizes on one of Palpatine’s easiest to reach political vulnerabilities. This is not a unique plan- there are other au’s like this, but this one is mine. When searching for ways to explain exactly why this anti-sith strategy inspires such cringe and delight in myself I realized, with sinking dread, I have seen this in an Always Sunny episode...which yeah. I might be over reacting but hey, cringe is a personal phenomenon, everyone’s different.

Anyway! Uh here’s a bunch of plot that will eventually culminate in the plan.

*Too much plot, aaaah*. **All plot actually.** ***Its 1 am and this is still a draft*** ****It’s 2am**** *****This post will be just be background I guess.*****

*******STAR WARS AU NO 9 LAZILY OUTLINED CHAPTER ONE*********

Force ghosts Darth Vader and Ben Kenobi have had time to yell at one another without need for breath, and have more-or-less come to terms with the trainwreck that was their shared life. I wouldn’t call them well adjusted, but they’re more stable then they were the last decade or so of their living existence.

In haunting Luke, they end up encountering an artifact in an ancient Willis temple that offers spirits the chance to fix the mistakes they made in life. It doesn’t truly unwrite what’s been done, but it lets you create an alternate timeline. So this galaxy will still be what it is, but some alternate galaxy somewhere could at least have it better. Its almost never been used, because becoming one with the force usually lets you accept the past, but viewed objectively, Vader and Ben’s lives involved an extreme amount of yikes. They say goodbye to Luke and are flung backwards and sideways.

Anakin is holding his mother as she dies. Obi-Wan is landing on Genosis.

Vader just barely manages to avoid slaughtering the tuskens. To be honest, he doesn’t really get why he shouldn’t- his moral compass is still pretty f-ed up. He’s fairly certain the force is just torturing him, but still he controls himself (for Padme for Luke for Leia).

I’m gonna say well-adjusted!Vader sees murder in general as more of a vice than a sin- on par with having a beer. And really well adjusted Vader is willing to admit to himself that he’s an alcoholic, he seriously cannot regulate, its a problem. He really can’t let himself go, because he’ll just end up spiraling. And so he restrains himself and only seriously maims a few of the adult raiders.

Vader figures he can always come back later and slowly torture them to death if this whole ‘save the future’ thing doesn’t pan out.

Obi-wan leaves his shuttle and hides under a rock for 30 minutes. He calculates thats just enough time for him to pretend he went on an extremely effective and sneaky fact finding mission- just in case anyone checks R4′s records. Gets back in shuttle and gets the fuck out of there, much to Dooku’s chagrin, who lost sight of him after the shuttle landed and is now going to have to switch to one of his alternate start-the-war plans.

On the flight back he reports everything to the council- fallen Dooku and the separatist leaders, the trade federation and the massive droid army, Jango Fett the clone template of the republic army (?) working for the separatists. He briefly comms Anakin, but anyone hacking into their conversations would hear only a nonsensical, rambling conversation. Later, a hacker might turn over the idea that they were speaking in elaborate code, but why would Jedi invent such a thing during peacetime?

The war still starts; at this point in the timeline it was inevitable; the artifact was only designed to give them the chance to correct their own failings, not the galaxy’s. Palpatine still gets his emergency powers.

The same day the armies are discovered, separatist war ships take off to engulf Ryloth. The Jedi are instructed by the senate to lead the clone army and provide immediate relief-this will not be a repeat of the republic’s inaction on Naboo. It’s both better and worse than the first Battle of Genosis. So many more civilians are caught in the crossfire. The first titanic battle is not contained to evacuated droid factories, but rages across an entire populated world. The battle lasts for weeks.

The main reason this fight is less deadly is solely due to the fact that General Kenobi manages to maneuver his way into high command of the entire army.

“I believe assumptions were made since I was the first point of contact with Kamino, Masters,” the Knight explained apologetically to the arriving high council members. “I realize its not quite appropriate, but for right now I am the Jedi most familiar with our forces and the enemies. I would, of course, prefer to cede the role to someone else.”

The assembled Jedi can feel the truth in that statement.

“For better or for worse, advance troops were directed by the senate to land planetside and have met heavy resistance. I managed to redirect them to a more defensible position, where they can provide surface based cover fire for incoming reinforcements. The battle has already begun.” He received a grim nod of approval from Master Windu.

“I feel the need to say now, that if there’s one thing I learned from my time as a general on Melida/Dann, or in working against Death Watch on Mandalore, its that having a clear chain of command is vital for a military to succeed. I don’t need to remind some of you that leadership breakdowns were what ultimately ended both the Stark Hyperspace War and the Yinchorri Crisis,” Masters Koon and Tiin exchanged looks before deliberately sending forth a small force wave of approval, understanding where this briefing was leading.

“I believe that unnecessarily restructuring command before the battle is won here could do far more harm than good.” The reminder of Obi-wan’s unusually militaristic apprenticeship put some of the assembled knights at ease even as it inspired a twinge of guilt in the older masters.

“In command you are, General Kenobi,” Master Yoda finally acknowledged. “A Jedi Master you will be, once done this battle is. Have us do, what would you?”

The battle lasts for weeks, and when its over, the commanding Jedi and Troopers involved will openly acknowledge that had anyone else been in command, it would’ve lasted months, if not years. Facing down logistical, strategic, and tactical problems on a scale unheard of for a thousand years, High General Kenobi does not falter.

Enemy reinforcements seem unending. For all their preparation, every single trooper is new to war, and secretly concerned that should they fall, they will be replaced with cadets who hadn’t even finished their training.

Obi-Wan is putting out fires before they can start. Much to their shock, clone commanders are informed that they will, for the time being, remain in charge of their troops. With a handful of exceptions, Jedi ‘Generals’ were in fact, to be treated as a cross between highly skilled commandoes and advisors with abnormally sourced field intelligence.

“All of you have spent your lives training to lead your brothers into combat. The Jedi Masters and knights who are being assigned to your divisions have not received such training.”

General Kenobi addressed the division commanders, some in person, some over holocomm. All focused in rapt attention as their General reordered the shape of their lives using language they could understand.

“The command structure I am issuing is designed to maximize our ability to utilize our respective strategic capabilities, while minimizing potential loss of your life. It will be our great privilege to serve alongside such an army, and while I fully expect a complementary exchange of knowledge in time, for now, focus on survival.”

The Jedi received similar briefings, tailored for their broader array of combat and military experience. Some, including Jedi Master Pong Krell and Grandmaster Yoda, were pulled aside and tasked with the essential mission of infiltrating and destroying the Droid factories on Genosis. If they were to have a chance of winning this war, they they would need to cut off the seemingly unceasing flow of droid reinforcements.

An elite squadron of Arctroopers and Jedi field operatives were covertly dispatched, Grandmaster Yoda himself in command. Considering Count Dooku had yet to appear anywhere near Ryloth...the grandmaster had the best chance of bringing in the fallen separatist leader alive for questioning.

Shortly after they left, Anakin arrived, having finally turned over Padme’s protection to her regular guard. With the military creation vote past, the assassination risk was considered minimal. The real delay in his arrival came from her repeated attempts to join the Grand Army of the Republic on Ryloth with the intent of coordinating humanitarian assistance. Eventually he managed to convince her that she could do more good in the senate.

After all, he pointed out, someone would need to followup the military creation act with a bill to grant clones equal citizen rights. Otherwise, the legal grey area that cloning fell under and their non-republic origin would inadvertently make the clones slaves.

His borrowed Nabooan cruiser entered the warzone with the grace and efficiency as a small neutron bomb.

Those close enough to see its flaming descent watched in horror, realizing that the high generals own padawan would likely be a war casualty before he ever engaged in combat.

The legion nearest to soon-to-be-ground-zero, under the command of Captain Rex of the 501st, were distracted by heated combat, as the temporary barricade they had put up to defend the civilian population gave way to droidika artillery.

While reloading, several dozen troopers happened to look up to see a speck detach itself from the hull as at spiraled in the lower atmosphere. Hope spread that the Jedi had managed to activate some sort of eject hatch. A skilled shocktrooper could probably control and and survive such a fall with luck, which mean a Jedi almost certainly could.

A few tactical scouts charged with watching the skies confirmed that the speck was indeed a humanoid. No chute was visible, but even 8 days into the war, rumors had already spread about how Master Windu had passed off his chute mid-air to a troopers who had been damaged by suppressing fire, cushioning his free fall solely with the tank he crushed upon landing.

Only one trooper, stationed in the town clock tower specifically to track the Padawan’s arrival and issued with a high-resolution farscope, saw the whole thing. Fortunately for his credibility later, in its current setting, the scope automatically logged photos every 5 seconds, ensuring that for years to come Obi-Wan would have a flipbook as evidence that he was not the crazy one.

CT-3609 or Blink (as he was named after winning the division wide staring contest on Kamino two year prior) forwarded the trajectory of the vehicle to command, who confirmed his analysis that it would impact two clicks out from their makeshift fort and not present a risk to civilian or trooper lives.

As it traversed the stratosphere a figure (desperate repair droid, Blink assumed) emerged from the cockpit to perch on the nose of the ship. As it entered the troposphere, it became painfully obvious that the figure jutting out from the hull of the ship was in fact not a humanoid droid, but an unarmored human. The Jedi stood on the prow of the ship, seemingly impervious to and oblivious of:

air resistance

centrifugal force

normal space gravity

Blink’s slack-jawed bewilderment

the flames engulfing the ship below him

At this range, the smirk on the man’s face was visible (man? boy? kriff is he even through puberty?). Several miles above the surface he leaped, diving towards the ground like a bird of prey.

To the west, the ship made impact with the ground, sending a shockwave that shook the tower just enough for Blink to lose visual in the final moments of descent. Cursing, as while he was confident the Jedi would inexplicably survive, he really wanted to see how. The trooper scanned the droid-engulfed farmland to the north for a crash site, to no avail. Lingering smoke from the burnt countryside negatively impacted visibility low to the ground.

Rather than trying to articulate his report into words, he sent the 50-odd frames the farscope had saved, as well as the coordinates for the jedi’s projected radius of touchdown. A quick radio over to long range electro-ballistics ensured that his landing wouldn’t be marred by friendly fire.

He awaited follow-up questions on the absurd entry method, which, when they came, mostly consisted of variations on “...Is this for real?” and eventually “Can you set the scope to video for a little while?” and finally “Do you think that’s how he got the name Skywalker?”

There was a temporarily lull in fire from the west, likely a ripple effect from the ship’s explosion. From his vantage point Blink could see his batchmates using the opportunity to try and plug the holes in their barricade with broken droid pieces. Regardless of the itch to join them, he knew he couldn’t leave his post until the Jedi actually arrived in camp. Finally, a distant explosion and thick pillar of smoke gave the Jedi’s position away.

He tried to make out details, but the scope had a difficult time focusing through the haze. Manually trying to fine tune the scope’s settings, Blink caught a glimpse of what looked like half a hover tank sailing through the air to impact with a trade federation troop carrier in a fiery explosion. Several more explosions, flying droid artillery, and plumes of smoke were caught on record before visual contact with the source was established. He was mostly visible as a blue blur, lightsaber mowing a meandering path towards their location.

It wasn’t until Skywalker braced himself in place to punch a droidaka into pieces that Blink caught actual sight of the man. Only his eyes were visible, nose and mouth covered by layers of cloth. He blurred, then reappeared on top a massive missile launcher attached to an absurdly heavily armored vehicle. A minute or so of rapid blue flashes passed, the longest he had seen concentrated in one area. Then Skywalker was gone, movement clearly visible as he for once he moved in a straight line, plowing a rapid path away from the launcher.

Less than 30 seconds later, Blink had to wince away from the scope, as a burning white explosion temporarily overwhelmed the direct light filter. The trooper panicked for a moment, thinking he had gone both deaf and blind, but the abrupt, sucking silence ended after a moment with a deafening sonic boom. The shockwave rattled the farscope, nearly knocking it over, but Blink managed to steady it and himself in time.

A cheer emerged from pleasantly surprised vod below. The entire droid legion that had been guarding the missile launcher and apparent ordinance bay was flattened.

It took a moment for the realization to set in that the background noise of missile and and anti-missile collisions directly overhead had slowed pace. With the northern flank gone, artillery were able to redouble efforts to the east, and a second white hot shockwave ensued, signaling that the tide of battle had shifted. It was almost too easy for the republics electro-ballistics to tactically devastate the surrounding forces.

Eventually some sort of win/loss programming must have set in and all forces outside of a certain radius began retreating southward, conceding the scorched land to the republic army. It was cadets work to clean up the final suicidal droid charge.

A commotion ensued as Skywalker leapt the barricade with a mid-air flip. The vod greeted him with cheers, as they correctly assumed his appearance had something to do with the skirmish’s decisive victory.

Blink sent the video of the battle to command and quickly packed up his scope and assorted equipment. Hurrying down the battered tower, Blink thought to himself that this Anakin Skywalker was the best sort of Jedi a trooper could ask for.

uh sorry i got really sidetracked there moving on

Kenobi and Skywalker quickly become the face of the war once again

they grit their teeth a bit, but when they finally have a moment to really plan they eventually agree that to take down Sideous they have to cut off his political power in addition to everything else, and taking advantage of their public personas was the most accessible way to do so (*evil laughter*)

While Dooku wasn’t captured, Yoda heard the truth in his old student’s cryptic warnings about a Sith in the Senate, and the council begins carefully editing their release of tactical plans to the Chancellor’s office in the hopes of ferreting out the spy in their midst.

Pong Krell looses two arms in his duel with Dooku. Obi-Wan successfully hides his smug pleasure at the news. Anakin enjoys makeing comparisons between him and Grievous.

Kenobi doesn’t allow the origin of the clones to go unexamined, although he agrees that if the public were informed that they don’t actually know who ordered them it would probably cause panic.

The ‘inhibitor chips’ are ‘discovered’ early on and Anakin leads the effort to ensure that they are phased out and removed immediately. This consists of reminding every Jedi who even hesitates about how how he as a child slave had some experience with control chips and unless you want to take a leaf out of the hutts books lets start doing brain surgery chop chop mmmkay?

(This isn’t to say that Vader doesn’t still a twinge of shame at acknowledging his slave roots. But it is eclipsed by the burning guilt that he knowingly acted as slave master to his troops for decades after Sideous wiped their minds. He tried to rationalize it to himself, after all he didn’t immediately understand what Order 66 had done to the troopers. But while the morality of murder was more of an intellectual concern than a personal one, treating people as things...)

The Kamonions are a little harder to budge, referencing contracts that they refuse to allow the Jedi to see

Finally Vader snuck into the Chief Medical Scientist’s home while she was sleeping and straight-up threatened to murder her and burn down her lab. At the risk of losing her life’s work, Nala Se complied.

Vader left with the final threat that in the event that Darth Tyranus caught wind and activated Order 66 prematurely, he would kill 100 Kamonians for every Jedi felled by troopers. Shaak Ti was pleased by the cloners sudden change of heart. Tyrannus, and by extension, Sideous, are in the dark.

Obi-Wan frequently publicly confronts Palpatine about the troops citizen status, urging him make use of his emergency powers to grant them citizenship and full pay, with the option to leave the army should they so wish.

Anakin manages to play off his avoidance of the Chancellor as disappointment in his perceived lack of dedication to anti-slavery efforts

Finally Palpatine gives in- regardless of what happens next, the troops will be looked after.

With 2/3rds of the troopers dechipped, Vaderkin is eager to kill Sideous again, but after several intense screaming matches and sparring sessions, the time travelers come to the agreement that even if they succeed in their duel, with things as they were, the perception of the Jedi military coop would cause mass civil unrest. The scattered sith apprentices, while individually weak, were more than capable of magnifying that fear and anger until the galaxy breaks. Darth Sideous wanted to ensure that if he couldn’t have the galaxy, no one would.

(Vader knows this. Sideous enjoyed monologuing, and much of his plotting couldn’t be safely bragged about until after he had decisively won, leaving Vader as the unwilling receptacle for years of pent-up rants and self-satisfied gloats about the inevitability of his victory)

Continued Here

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calpalirwin · 3 years

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Nights in the OR

A/N: This is called “I watch too much Grey’s Anatomy” so if you’re a fellow Grey’s fan in addition to a fellow Ashton ho, hi!

Word Count: 1.9k

And away, and away we go!

Nights on the peds floor we’re, in a word, uneventful. Low hums and beeps from machines doing their jobs while kids and parents alike snoozed between nurses prodding them awake to do their routine checks. You went through the charts of your patients, delegating a duo of an intern and older resident to each case with strict orders to page you only if something was seriously wrong, and a bright “Keep the tiny humans alive,” before making your way to the emergency room.

The trauma team usually ran the emergency room, a sea of green scrubs moving effectively and efficiently, assessing situations before paging the right departments, or diving headfirst into the work themselves. You caught sight of one of the doctors, a tall man in a shade of green scrubs darker than the rest in the room, and rolled your eyes. Attending trauma surgeon Ashton Irwin was about as arrogant as he was skilled, with an annoying habit of assessing quickly, albeit correctly, and working even faster on patients before shipping them off to the correct departments to deal with the fallout. You weren’t sure if that man had ever spent more than an hour, two tops, with a patient from start to finish. True to his arrogance and almost zero tolerance for sloppy mistakes, he was talking in hushed tones to a second year, his arms crossed tightly over his chest, jaw set, as the resident nodded frantically before running off.

Dr. Irwin took a moment to compose himself, giving the slightest shake of his head and relaxing his jaw, before turning to wherever he was needed next. His hazel eyes scanned the room, and even from where you were you could tell that they were more on the green side tonight as they met yours. He offered forth the smallest of nods and smiles in your direction, dimples indenting both sides of the smile.

You returned the gesture, before twirling your index finger about the room. Extra attending on hand.

He waved his hand. No need. Got it covered, thanks.

You smiled your best, I don’t give a damn smile, striding across the room to take a seat behind a computer, crossing your hands behind your head. And with little else to do on your part, you settled in for a long night of researching the pros and cons of artificial bones versus prosthetics in cases for patients with osteosarcoma, a joint effort you were working on with the orthopedic surgeon.

Around 2 in the morning, you took a break from your research to grab a cup of coffee and a small bite to eat. On your way back, you spotted the orthopedic surgeon with a patient. “Oh! Dr. Hood,” you said as you approached. “Come find me when you’re done. I have some ideas.”

The man swiveled on his chair to glance up at you, eyebrows pulled together in confusion. “You’re not in OR 2 with Ash?”

“Nnnnoooo…” you said slowly, taking a sip from your coffee. “Why?” you followed up in a clipped tone. What had Dr. Arrogant done now?

Dr. Hood smiled politely at his patient, and got the attention of his resident. “Ma’am, we’re going to take you up for X-rays now, and then we’ll see about setting your arm for you, okay?”

The woman nodded, clearly shaken up. Then, “What about my husband and son?”

“I’ll get word, and update you as soon as I can,” he promised, before the resident escorted the patient up to X-rays. Finally he turned his attention to you. “Car accident just came in. Parents are a little banged up. Mike and Luke are working up the dad. You know how Luke gets about stitches.”

The both of you shared a chuckle. Luke Hemmings, the plastic surgeon, had very high standards for even the most basic of stitches, and if he was on hand and free, it was an easy bet he’d do the work himself. “So, what’s Mike doing with him then, if it’s just stitches?” you asked, referring to the general surgeon.

He shrugged. “General work up and clearance, I suppose. But the mom and the son’s side took the impact the hardest. Specifically the son. Ash didn’t page you?”

You scoffed. “Why on Earth would Ash page me, Cal? It’s trauma,” you raised your hands and voice in a mocking manner.

“Uh, probably cuz the kid is like seven.”

You growled low in your throat, hands going to tie up your hair. “OR 2, you said? How long ago?”

“Not too long. They gotta still be prepping. So if you hurry…”

“Thanks, Cal,” you patted the man on the shoulder before taking off at a run towards the OR rooms, briefly mourning your discarded coffee and potato chips in the process.

When you shouldered your way into the room, Ashton was in the process of scrubbing in, while nurses finished prep. “What the hell are you doing?” you demanded, arms crossing instinctively over your chest as you made your presence known.

Ashton shut off the water with his elbow, turning slightly to face you. “My job,” was the reply in a tone that questioned your intelligence.

“Bullshit,” you spat. “That,” you pointed out the window towards the child on the table, “is a peds case, and you know it.”

“It will be once it stops being a trauma case, yes.”

“Why didn’t you page me?”

“Because I don’t need you. It’s a trauma case. I’m a trauma surgeon. Now, you want to stop asking inane questions, and let me do my job, or you wanna stand here and fight with me all night?”

“It’s a peds trauma case, and in case you forgot, I’m the peds attending who happens to be trauma certified. And I’ll be damned if you do some hacksaw job on my patient that I have to fix later when I can scrub in and do the correct job now. So, are you going to ask me to scrub in, or do you wanna stand here questioning my credentials all night when you know I’m right? Do not make me go above your head to the Chief, Ash, because you know I will.”

His jaw ticked underneath his mask, his eyes hard as he thought over your threat. “Well?” he snapped after a beat of silence. “Are you just going to stand there, or are you going to scrub in?”

~~~

It was a grueling surgery, working in tandem with Ashton. For all the shit the two of you gave each other outside of the OR, inside you were one of the best teams, each of you knowing each other’s moves before you made them, and knowing what the other was thinking in the subtlest of changes. Even with both of your focuses solely on the patient in front of you, you were both vigilant in sending Ashton’s intern out every hour on the hour with updates, in which you two were also informed of the parents’ recovery.

Just before the four hour mark, Ashton let out a small hum of approval and you nodded. “Close and get him a room on the peds floor,” you told the intern.

“You don’t want me to update the family?”

“No,” Ashton cut in, already discarding his gloves, mask, and removing his scrub cap, shocks of curly brown hair falling forward and plastering to his sweaty forehead. “I will. Give Dr. Y/L/N any trouble and you won’t see the inside of an OR for a month.”

The intern gulped, knowing their boss meant what he said and nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“Good. Y/N, I’ll meet you after I update the family to make sure we’re on the same page for how to proceed from here?”

“If you can remember how to page me, that is,” you smiled sweetly.

Ashton chuckled as he left the OR, while you stayed to oversee the intern closing, providing probably much gentler instruction than they were used to.

~~~

You rubbed at your eyes and stifled a yawn as you made your way to the cafeteria, still waiting for Ashton to page you. As you walked in, you realized why Ashton still hadn’t paged, spotting the man chatting with a few other attendings.

“Heard Y/N chewed your ear off,” Michael snickered.

“Yeah, she was pissed. Thanks for that, Cal,” Ashton said with a small giggle before changing his voice to do his best impersonation of you, “ ‘It’s a peds trauma case, and in case you forgot, I’m the peds attending who also happens to be trauma certified. Do not make me go over your head.’ Like yes, darling, I know. I’m the one who gave you your trauma certification.”

As the men started to laugh, you set your tray down in an empty seat at their table. “Morning, gentlemen!”

There was a cough as they tried to stifle their laughter, each of them getting out a choked, “Morning.”

“What were we talking about?” you asked innocently.

“Uh… just how Luke needs to learn to loosen up on the stitches,” Michael thought quickly. “Turns a five minute procedure into a half hour ordeal, it’s insane.”

“Sorry that I care how my patients look after a trauma,” Luke said with an eye roll.

“I’m sure, psych would call that mentality projection,” Calum teased.

“Paging Dr. Pretty Boy!” Ashton cackled.

“Hey! Rather be Dr. Pretty Boy than Dr. Arrogant,” Luke rounded on Ashton playfully.

“Who calls me that?”

“Uh… everybody. Y/N’s pretty accurate with her nicknaming,” Calum grinned.

Ashton let out a breath of disbelief as you smiled sheepishly at him, shrugging your shoulders. “Have you considered being less arrogant?”

“I am not arrogant!”

“Yeah, you are,” you all chorused, while Ashton crossed his arms and pouted. “Oh, whatever, the best surgeons usually are” you continued, turning your attention to Calum. “Before I got stuck in surgery, I meant to talk to you about artificial bones. Found some promising stuff.”

Calum paused in his sip of coffee. “Mmm, shit, awesome. Uh…” he checked his watch, “I got a half hour before rounds. You got time now?”

You checked your own watch. “Yeah, I got t-”

“Actually,” Ashton interrupted. “Y/N, I was wondering if we could talk real quick first. About the kid.”

“Oh! Yeah. We should probably do that. Cal, I’m off after rounds, if you’re free then.”

“Sounds good,” he nodded as he went back to his coffee while you and Ashton rose from the table, bidding the other three goodbye.

“So, his chart’s all up to date. I have one of my fourth years monitoring the situation, but I’m not expecting any complications to arise. Should be good to discharge probably later today or early tomorrow at the latest,” you brought him up to speed as you walked.

“Yeah, that’s great,” Ashton rushed, eyes darting around as he pushed open an on-call room and locked the door behind the two of you. “How long we got til rounds?”

“A little under a half hour, why?”

Ashton smirked as his hands landed hot on your waist, his lips finding yours. “Wanna boss me around some more?” he murmured against your lips, before he was trailing kisses down the column of your neck, before sucking into the sweet spot just before your collarbone, his hands jerking you to be flush against him. “Or, do you want my sincerest apology for being Dr. Arrogant, and forgetting to page you earlier?”

“Mmmm,” you moaned softly, tilting your head back, eyes shutting. “Little bit of both?”

“Yes ma’am,” he winked before scrubs went flying and your back hit the mattress.

Tag List

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#nights in the or #ashton irwin #ashton irwin fic #ashton irwin x reader #ashton irwin au #5sos #calpal irwin

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ilovefandoms102 · 4 years

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Part 11- Shape of My Heart

Pairing: Rudy Pankow x Plus Size Reader

Summary: Falling in love with someone you can never have is the worst feeling in the world...

Taglist:

@jeyramarie @drewswannabegirl @sexualparkour @teamnick @jiaraendgame @agirlwholovescoffee @outerbongs @jaxxandcomet @velyssaraptor @baby-pogue @they-write-once-in-a-blue-moon @must-be-a-weasley-92 @kaitieskidmore1 @ma10427 @ifilwtmfc @lasnaro @justcallmesams @judayyyw @lonely-kermit @gviosca @iamaunicorn4704 @jellyfishbeansontoast @fernweh-fangirl @runway-to-my-aid @eb15 @hurricane-abigail @tangledinsparkles @fandom-phaser @sunwardsss @http-cherries @bibliophilewednesday @evaporatedrosepetals @thetomatosaucee @tomatosauceagent @redosmo @ilikealotofpeople-younotsomuch @obx-direction-sos @mxltifandoms06 @kindahavefeelingskindaheartless

Part 10 Part 12

Note: After crying over the last chapter, I was finally able to muster up this one. Also just in case anyone was wondering, we’re pretending COVID19 is nonexistent in this story because it would just ruin everything and I’m not about it!

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It’s been a month and a half since Rudy told me about his short film, our conversations became less frequent which worried me deeply...

I didn’t want to drift apart from him, and that’s exactly what I feared was happening now. I tried to indulge into my school work, but it became harder to focus when I kept checking to see if I had a text or at least a SnapChat from him. I didn’t want to bother him by blowing up his phone either, becoming an annoyance he’d soon grow tired of. I expressed my concerns to both Maddie’s on our daily FaceTime call, hoping to get some reassurance for my MIA boyfriend.

“We’ve been in a lot of meetings with Jonas and Netflix to try and get season 2 of OBX approved, I don’t even know why we have to be there because they don’t really talk to us.” Maddi B commented.

“Plus Rudy has that short film on top of everything, so I imagine all of this is taking up his time. Don’t fret though, he said in our last meeting how horrible he felt that you all couldn’t talk as much with the both of you being so busy. He talks about you to everyone and how much he misses you.” Maddie C inputed.

“Awww, he’s so sweet. Maybe I am overthinking things, when I go to work tomorrow I’m demanding a week paid vacation because I need a break. Midterms are coming up and I’ve barely had any time to study.” I sighed.

“You need to focus on school, that’s the most important thing right now. You know Rudy would say the same, you need to take that week to relax and get everything in order.” Maddie B pointed out.

“Yeah you’re right, jesus I forgot I have to fucking close at work tonight. I’m going to start applying to different places that actually care about their employees, and will work with school schedules.” I huffed, swinging my legs off of my bed.

“We’ll let you go then babe, love you!” Maddie B called, waving in the camera.

“Love you y/n!” Maddie C said, blowing a kiss in the camera.

“I love and miss you guys, I’ll see you later.” I smiled, hanging up.

=================================

Work was awful, being a shift manager was not all it was out to be. I hated dealing with difficult people and sometimes the other employees. I had just finished have a shouting match with this lady who was down right insulting both me and the other cashier working. I was so glad to be locking up once we closed, practically sprinting to my car, I was stopped by the cashier I had worked with tonight.

“Hey y/n, I-I was wondering you know if um..” he said.

Shit, I knew where this was going...

“Maybe we could hang out some time, I think you’re really pretty and uh...yeah I think we should get together more.” he spoke.

“That’s nice and all pal, but she has a boyfriend.” was heard from behind us.

I froze in my spot, tears coming to my eyes. I whipped around to see Rudy leaning against my car, his blue eyes zeroing in on the guy. He scurried off, leaving just Rudy and I.

“Hi baby,” Rudy spoke, a smile so wide on his face.

He looked different, having grown a mustache and slight beard. His hair was longer too, but still handsome as ever. I let out a watery laugh once I was out of my trance, blinking to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating. I dropped my stuff in front of my car, throwing myself in his arms.

“Oh my god, are you real? Are you really here?” I blubbered, pulling back to hold his face. He held me tight against him, combing some stray hair from my face.

“I’m here, you’re even more beautiful than I remember.” he gushed, beaming as he laid his forehead to mine.

“I look like shit Ru, I don’t even have makeup on.” I giggled, feeling his facial hair under my fingertips.

“You don’t need it, fuck I’m so happy to see you. I’m sorry we haven’t talked much, I’ve been so busy in meetings and filming.” he sighed, shaking his head.

“You came just at the right time, I have a whole week off of work.” I said, both of us grinning wide.

“Plenty of time for you to show me around then.” he smiled.

Rudy gripped my face in his hands, crushing his lips to mine. I had craved them for so long, having been deprived of the feeling. My heart went soaring, the feel of his facial hair tickling my skin. He moaned into my mouth, his hands moving to hold my hips to bring me closer. My fingers weaved their way into his now long blonde hair, tugging at the roots slightly.

I pulled away once I became dizzy, pulling my hands back to caress his face. He gave me little kisses all over my face, fully caging me against him so I couldn’t move away. Rudy laughed along with me, pulling back fully now.

“Guess you’ll be my chauffeur for the week babe.” he smirked, opening my door for me.

I chuckled as I got in my car, Rudy jogging to the passenger side. He held my hand for the drive to my apartment, pulling it to his lips to kiss the back of it. We jammed out to some of our favorite songs, dancing crazy. I had the windows down so we could blast my speakers, probably waking everyone in the neighborhood up. Rudy even pulled out his phone to record us rapping Ice Ice Baby by Vanilla Ice, he got embarrassed after the first chorus though because that was the only part he knew and I was still going.

“Ok show off, trying to outshine me on my own Insta story.” he scoffed teasingly.

“Not my fault you don’t know the lyrical poet Ru,” I joked, sticking my tongue out at him.

===================================

I threw my bag on the end table as soon as we walked into the apartment, Rudy taking a walk around. He picked up pictures, looked at my bookcase, and even pulled out some of the books I had to skim through. I sat on my couch to flip through some movies for us to watch, not wanting to miss a single moment spending time with him. Rudy walked into my kitchen, opening my cabinets, and my fridge.

“Baby, why don’t you have anything to like eat or drink?” he called from the kitchen.

“I uh...I couldn’t afford to go to the store this payday. I had to pay my rent and my car payment which is basically my whole check, and the rest is for gas to school and work.” I murmured, knowing he was going to be upset with me.

“So like...what do you eat then?” he asked, peaking his head around to look at me.

I stared at the floor, chewing on the inside of my cheek. I could feel his anger radiating off of him, the tension in the room becoming nerve wracking. I was a poor college student ok, I didn’t have the luxury of my parents buying my way through it. I was lucky some nights to even have stuff to make a fucking cheese sandwich.

“I...I don’t.” I confessed, hearing a sharp scoff come from Rudy.

“Get your shoes back on.” he demanded, snatching my keys.

“Wha-...Where are we going?” I questioned.

“This shit isn’t going to continue, not on my watch. I am seriously pissed you didn’t tell me this.” he snapped, taking me aback for a moment.

“It’s not that big of a deal, you’re being over dramatic! It makes me lose weight so what’s the fucking problem?!” I yelled, Rudy whipped his head around, his mouth hanging open.

“The fucking problem is that I’m not going to sit here and watch my girlfriend struggle when I can help. Let me help you and stop being so stubborn. If you want to lose weight for you then that’s fine, but I don’t want you to have it in your head that you need to do it for me. You’re perfect to me.” he stated, earning an eye roll from me.

“Alright Ru, let’s get this over with.” I sighed, secretly melting at how sweet and thoughtful he is.

===============================

Goofing off in the store was all fun in games until I saw him..

Nick.

The guy that shredded my heart, still yet to be fixed. The guy that messed me up so bad I never thought I was deserving of love until Rudy came into my life. Rudy was in the middle of talking to me when I abruptly spun around and high tailed it out of the aisle.

“What’s wrong?” Rudy asked as soon as he caught up to me.

“We need to leave.” I declared.

“Babe, we haven’t even made it through half the store I-” he spoke.

“Hey y/n, long time no see.” someone said, my blood turning to ice. I turned around to see Nick with some of his friends, smirking at me.

“Um..” I stuttered.

“Who’s blondie?” Nick scoffed, pointing at Rudy.

“I’m her boyfriend.” Rudy said, glancing between the two of you. He must have put the pieces together from the very uncomfortable expression on my face.

“Boyfriend? Really y/n? You’re so desperate you hired someone to be your boyfriend? Pathetic really...” he laughed, his friends joining. I just wanted to ground to swallow me whole, I had to turn my head so they didn’t get the satisfaction of seeing me cry.

“You’re Nick, the piece of shit who thinks he can just toy with women how he pleases.” Rudy concluded.

“Guilty, y/n and I had a good run didn’t we?” Nick commented, going to touch my shoulder.

“You lay one finger on her and I swear to god you’ll regret it.” Rudy said, his voice going an octave lower.

“Oh please man, you seriously don’t have to keep your act up. How much is she paying you?” Nick asked, tilting his head.

“Not that it’s any of your business, but this isn’t an act.” Rudy hissed.

“Guys that look like us man don’t go for fat chicks.” Nick chuckled.

“The fuck did you just say?” Rudy bellowed, getting in Nick’s face. I had to intervene now, I couldn’t risk a fight in the middle of the store.

“Rudy please, he’s not worth it.” I said, tugging on his sleeve.

“Nice seeing you again y/n, remember what I said last time we spoke.” Nick cackled, leaving with his posse.

“What did that fucker say to you?” Rudy inquired, his chest heaving with anger.

“I’ll tell you when we get back, let’s just go to a different store.” I offered, checking out whatever we had in hand before heading to the car.

================================

Rudy spent way more than I told him he could, but I wasn’t surprised he didn’t listen to me. It took us four trips to carry in all the stuff we bought, I’m sure I’d be stocked up for a year now. I was seriously exhausted, and my mood hadn’t gotten any better since our run in with Nick. Rudy had tried to cheer me up, but I think he knew that my mood wouldn’t be saved tonight.

I planned on taking a quick shower, but I couldn’t stop my mind running through my past. My chest started to burn, my hand came over my mouth to conceal my sobs. I had hoped the water would drown out my cries, but Rudy still heard them. He shed his clothes and jumped in the shower, taking me in his arms. I leaned my head on his chest as I sobbed, his lips moving to kiss my wet hair.

“I don’t understand! What did I ever do to deserve that!? I did everything for him! I was some sick game our whole relationship, how fucked up is that?” I laughed humorlessly.

“What did he say to you?” he inquired.

“He told me that I would never find someone to love me, that I was undeserving of love, and that I was the ugliest being on this Earth who was stupid to think I ever stood a chance with him.” I recalled.

“That’s fucked up, you should have let me beat his ass.” Rudy muttered, switching places with me so he could wash his hair.

“He’ll get his karma one day, someone will shred his heart beyond repair just like he did mine.” I whispered.

“I’ll have the best time repairing it then,” Rudy shrugged, leaning to plant a sweet kiss to my lips.

“Are you sure you want to go through that Rudy, I-I’m not...I’m not as happy go lucky as everyone thinks I am, I’m broken deep on the inside.” I said, shaking my head as I looked down to the tile.

“I wouldn’t of chased after you if I didn’t want all of you.” he spoke, tilting my chin up.

“Well I guess so but-” I started.

“It’s you and me against the world, no one will ever compare to you y/n.” he inputted.

I kissed him hard, a moan leaving his lips. He pinned me against the wall, showing me exactly what I meant to him....

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ozzdog12 · 3 years

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2020 Top 7 (and 1)

2020 am I right? We saw an insane amount of games come out and 2 brand new consoles. What a wild and weird year for gaming, and life in general. In case you are relatively new here, and to be honest that would be completely fair considering I don't post very often on Tumblr anymore, every year going on the last 4 years (on here) I have done a Top 7 (& 1) for my favorite videogames of the year. Check out 2019, 2018, & 2017. What’s wild, as I look back on my list of games that I’ve completed and played, only maybe 10 came out this year. 2020 was a huge backlog year.

Lets get on with the ‘And 1!”

Favorite Game that Didn’t Come out in 2020: Control (PS4)

Control may very well have been my 2019 Game of the Year, had I played it in 2019. I LOVED Control. I wanted to play it in 2019, but initial reports that it was a little rough on base consoles put me off until it was fixed. And Holy smokes what an insanely fun and trippy game once I finally started it. I knew within the first 20 minutes this was going to be the shit when I went down a hall, walked into a room and talked to the “janitor” left out a door behind him and the entire building had shifted. I’ve always liked Remedy games, but from a distance. Max Payne 1&2 and Alan Wake all oozed with weirdness and intrigue, but never enough for me to finish them. I missed out on Quantum Break. The story is Control is just the right amount of mind f*!$ for me and builds a universe I didn’t know I needed. It take some time to piece everything together, then everything just clicks. The game does have a weird difficulty spike when fighting bosses and the checkpoints were too far apart at times, but those were later patched. I spent an insane amount of time within the Federal Bureau of Control building and even more time after that with the Foundation and AWE DLC and it STILL wasn’t enough. I wanted more. Outside of Prey, I can’t think of another game that stuck in my brain more after I’d finished it. Control is absolutely a MUST PLAY title. In a world where everything sort’ve feels similar, Control stands out of the crowd.

Number 7: Astro’s Playroom (PS5)

I never thought in my wildest dreams that a game I had almost zero interest in playing would end up on my list of favorite games this year. Astro’s Playroom is being labeled as a ‘Tech demo’ but that feels like an insult to what it is. It’s a full fledged game and its free! I’ve paid more for less. A charming little platformer that lives and breathes the history of the Playstation. So many cool Easter eggs and references. It certainly centers its gameplay around the DualSense controller and everything it can do, but at its core, its a completely approachable and forgiving 3D platformer. I played it just to see what it was about, next thing i knew I had completed all the levels and wanted to further explore all the nooks and crannies within the game. I wanted to see everything the game had to offer and I had an absolute blast doing so. Makes me kinda wish I’d played the previous game on PSVR (I’d have to have a PSVR too)

Number 6: Spider-Man: Miles Morales (PS5)

Another quality title, albeit a spin-off, from Insomniac to add to their Spider Man universe. Gameplay felt obviously like Spider-Man, but Miles has unique abilities that made the game feel different enough, especially the cloak and stealth. I enjoyed the fact that it was short and concise. The issue with most ‘open-world’ games is that they are entirely too bloated with unnecessary filler content (I’ll get to that in a later game), something I felt the first game suffered from, but I also understand why they are there. However I could’ve use one or two more story missions to help flesh out some characters, but it wasn’t required and didn’t change my opinion one way or the other. My one BIG gripe was with Miles himself. He is an extremely smart young kid, but so incredibly naïve. Peter Parker tells him the one thing he SHOULD NOT do is tell people he is Spider-Man. I get it, that’s part of his growth, but Miles thinks he can just solve his problems by revealing his identity and it almost certainly never works out.

Number 5: The Last of Us: Part 2 (PS4)

The Last of Us Part 2 may be the most polarizing game in the history of the medium, but for the absolute wrong reasons. I’m in the minority that I very much enjoyed my experience with TLOU2, quite a bit actually. Its better in every single way over its predecessor, except the overall story. There are plenty of fair criticisms to be had about the story and various things within the game itself, but I thought the gameplay was so tight and crunchy. There were genuine moments of suspense and terror that I felt that no other game has ever given me. The entire hospital section (2nd time) was so susensful, I had to put my controller down to gther myself. Some of my favorite moments in the series I experienced with a character I wasn’t overly fond of. How many games can do that? The Last of Us Part 2 was meant to invoke emotion, not necessarily joy. I think that's what people lost along the way. Say what you will about the direction Naughty Dog has taken over the years, but you would be hard pressed to find a studio that makes games graphically better than they do. Yes, I know about their crunch culture, but this is not a place for that. I will say, the game was a tad bit too long, which is not something it typically say for a single player, narrative driven game. The pacing and the way the story was told wasn’t my favorite, but I respect what it was trying to do, even if it failed in some aspect of that, I finished the game within the week it was released. Something I RARELY ever do. I’m a father and I related with Joel a lot in TLOU, but I also recognized how wrong he was. There is a lesson to be learned. Your actions always have consequences and while he was doing what he thought was the right thing, it wasn’t his choice to make, and in doing so set up a series of events that were entirely avoidable, but again, that’s the point isn’t it?

Number 4: Grindstone (Switch)

I’m counting this as a 2020 game since it just came to the Switch this year ( less than a month ago) but its not the first time I’ve played it. Grindstone was the only reason I kept my Apple Arcade subscription and when I let it lapse, there was a void I just couldn’t fill. I bought Puzzle Quest on Switch but it just wasn't the same. Its THE perfect game for bite sized play, even though in its addictive nature, you’ll clear a few levels and an hour has passed before you know it. It has the perfect amount of depth that most ‘match’ games don't. You have different weapons, items, and outfits w/perks to use and experiment with to keep it fresh. I went months without playing my Switch and when this was announced in August, I couldn’t wait! Sadly, I had to wait 3 months, but since then I have spent so much time on the Switch. It gave me a reason to play it again. The art style and humour is great. The variety of enemies and challenge is just right. I can’t recommend it enough. Seriously, check this game out!

Number 3: Doom Eternal (Xbox One)

I will be the first to tell you, I did not like Doom (2016). I found it extremely boring and trite. I understood what Doom(2016) was doing and it succeeded, maybe too much. Nostalgia is a helluva thing. So in saying that, I was mildly interested in Doom Eternal. Doom Eternal is nothing like 2016 outside of it being a Doom game that connects to the rest of them (& also being a sequel to 2016). The mechanics are drastically different with more platforming (for better or worse). Eternal is challenging, at times very hard, especially early on. Eternal has no respect for its players, in a weirdly good way. It laughs at how you’ve played FPS before this one and WILL MAKE you play it its way, not your way. Yes, you point and shoot, but ammo is scare and you MUST use everything in your arsenal. No more using just 2 guns for the whole game. The enemies are relentless. Sometimes you have to pause and take a breath after a battle because you go a 100 mph for the whole fight. You have to continuously move or you die. There is an enticing rhythm to it. I categorize Eternal as ‘Blood Ballet’. Its a game where when your feeling it, much like a rhythm game, you get in the zone and there is no stopping demons from getting slayed. Surprisingly, unlike most games in the genre, it seemed to get easier (sans one extremely frustrating platforming section late in the game) the longer you played it. Was that a testament that I ‘learned’ the Eternal way or it truly did get easier? I don’t know, but the final Boss(es) were....easy.. I had more problems and deaths within the first 4 hours than I did the final 8-9 hours. The multiplayer was also surprisingly fun. The older I get, the less interested I am in multiplayer, but I found myself coming back for more for a good month or so.

Number 2: Gears Tactics (Xbox One)

As 2020 comes to a close, I came to a stunning realization. I might be a bigger Gears of War fan than I had previously thought. Don’t get me wrong. I love Gears, but I seem to love Gears more than I thought. I'm way more invested into the lore than I recall. Anyways, Gears Tactics is everything XCOM 2 SHOULD’VE been. Not only does Gears Tactics utilize the Overwatch action, its makes it EXTREMELY important. The story revolves around the father of Kait Diaz, Gabe and a ragtag group of mostly random soldiers to take down Ukkon. Anyone who is remotely interested in the Gears universe will love the story and references. The gameplay is just so damn satisfying. The bosses are very challenging and different. I actually had to change my strategy to finish the final boss. I experimented with a totally different style of class and was rewarded for it. The post game stuff is also aplenty. This game scratched a VERY specific itch for me and I’m itchy to jump back in. I’m glad this came to Xbox One because I’m current computer could not run it.

Number 1: Ghost of Tsushima (PS4)

I have a very odd relationship with massive open world games. I love them, but I get very burnt out on them. They all have a relatively same-y formula and are often populated with bloat. GoT does have some of that but to its advantage, its not very populated, in a good way. One of the things that I really appreciated about GoT and its side quest is most of them felt meaningful. The thing that really stood out to me about GoT is the absolutely satisfying combat. It just feels SO GOOD. It requires timing and patience. There are different fighting styles for different enemies and even the armor you wear is more than just cosmetic. The combat is so fun and satisfying that I was immediately excited when they announced Legends, a multiplayer add on, for free. Its so much fun and is a blast to play with a group of friends. I’m sporadically still playing the Legends mode. I initially wanted to play the game in ‘Kurosawa’ mode but I am glad I didn’t because the game, even on the PS4 is stunning, and on the upgrade on PS5 is jaw-droppingly smooth. I did play the entire game in Japanese with English subtitles. I still don't know what Jin’s English voice sounds like. GoT does a good job a drip feeding you new abilities and things to keep things fresh. I love stealth and once I unlocked it, I spent the majority of every battle taking out as many enemies as I could while in stealth mode. Ghost of Tsushima does a lot of things very well, that the few things it doesn’t can be easily overlooked.

#videogames #control #grindstone #tlou #doom eternal #gears tactics #ghost of tsushima #ps4 #ps5 #xbox one #switch #nintendo switch #playstation4 #GOTY #spiderman #astro playroom

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megalony · 4 years

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Deadly obsession

This is a new Ben Hardy series requested by the lovely @peterquillzsblog I hope you all like it, feedback is always lovely to have.

Taglist: @lunaticspoem @butlegendsneverdie @langdonzvoid @jennyggggrrr @rogermeddow @radiob-l-a-hblah @rogertaylorsbitontheside @chlobo6 @rogertaylors-lipgloss @sj-thefan @omgitsearly @luckytrashgooprebel @scarsout @deaky-with-a-c @killer-queen-ofrhye @bluutac @vousmemanqueez @jonesyaddiction @ambi-and-sunflowers @milanosaurus @httpfandxms @saint-hardy @7-seas-of-fat-bottomed-girls @mrsalwayswritex @rogerina-owns-me @peterquillzsblog @im-an-adult-ish @crazylittlethingg @allauraleigh

Ben Hardy masterlist

Series masterlist

Summary: Ben and (Y/n) are in a great place in their marriage but (Y/n) starts to get worried when she has a stalker who starts to get very obsessive over her and who seems to know a lot about her.

Enjoy.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

'Good afternoon, beautiful.'- New number.

(Y/n) hovered her thumb over the keypad on her phone as she debated the message she was reading. If she wasn't sat in the car with Ben right now her first assumption would have been that it was Ben who was texting her from a new number. But considering her husband was sat next to her driving the car, (Y/n) took a good guess that it wasn't him who had messaged her.

She didn't recognise the number and she hadn't made any new friends or colleagues at work. Why was someone messaging her this? Why didn't they put their name at the end of the text since it was a new number?

Pressing her lips together, (Y/n) locked her phone and put it down on her lap with a sigh. Either Sasha had a new number and simply forgot to put her name on the message to say who it was from, or someone had gotten the wrong number and was messaging (Y/n) by mistake. If it was a wrong number they would realise their mistake soon enough, especially if (Y/n) didn't message them back and just ignored the message. But it did sound like something Sasha would say, she always called people honey or lovely or even gorgeous if she really wanted something.

'I hope you have a good day today.'

(Y/n) pulled her lips together as her eyes creased at the corners as she read over the new message. It couldn't be Sasha sending this, (Y/n) was going to see her in five minutes. She wouldn't send a message like this if they were about to meet up unless she was confused or drunk.

But as (Y/n) read over the message again, she couldn't help but allow her lips to pull into a very small smile. Whoever it was who was texting her seemed to be an affectionate person. Of course, (Y/n) had no way of telling if this was a man or a woman, someone young or old, what kind of personality they had or who they were. But it just seemed like a rather nice thing to say, calling someone beautiful and then making sure they were being thought of.

It almost made (Y/n) feel sad that she wasn't the intended person to receive these messages.

But it wasn't as if (Y/n) really needed someone to send her things like this, she had Ben and she could see and talk to him right now rather than getting a message from him. And (Y/n) knew that Ben was more cheeky rather than loving in the way of his words and texts and calls. He would say sexy instead of beautiful and he would be generally sly and cheeky in the way he said things, he wasn't all that for romance but he was all for winding (Y/n) up and teasing her. That was more fun and comforting to (Y/n) than having someone be too sickly sweet every day.

"What're you smiling at?" Ben's voice pulled (Y/n) out of her thoughts and she turned her head to look at him, smiling wider when she watched his eyes narrow and his lips curl in curiosity.

"Just something Sasha sent me."

"What's she texting you for, you're literally here now."

"You know what she's like. Thanks for the lift." (Y/n) put her phone in her bag which she slung on her shoulder when Ben parked up.

"No problem, enjoy and text me when you need picking up later."

With a lasting smile, (Y/n) leaned across until she was within reach of kissing him, trying not to smile too widely against his lips when she felt his fingers brushing against her neck. Since (Y/n)'s car was being fixed Ben was being her personal taxi for a while and was taking her wherever she needed to be but even when (Y/n) had her car she usually got a lift somewhere with Ben. He was always either going her way or offering since he liked driving and (Y/n) wasn't so keen on driving too far.

(Y/n) playfully rolled her eyes when Ben groaned as she pulled away but the cheeky hint of a smile on his lips made her chest flutter with butterflies. She didn't want to get out of the car but she knew that if she made Sasha wait much longer then she really would start texting or calling to see what was going on.

Barely a second after (Y/n) sat down at the table Sasha was impatiently waiting at, she felt her phone buzz in her bag and her mind instantly clicked to wonder if it was the wrong number messaging her again. (Y/n) couldn't help but feel a bit sad for whoever was messaging her and the person who wasn't getting the messages which were going to (Y/n). The person not getting these messages could be wondering why their friend or relation or partner wasn't talking to them and the poor person was sending all these messages to (Y/n) thinking someone else was reading them.

Ignoring the thoughts for a few moments, (Y/n) leaned over to let Sasha wrap her arms around her and practically squeal in her ear since it had been almost a month since the last time they had met up.

"Finally! I was literally about to ask where you were, it's been far too long. Here, I got you this."

(Y/n) let Sasha almost strangle her in a crushing hug for a few seconds until she finally relented and leaned back in her seat, pushing what looked like a strawberry daiquiri in front of (Y/n) and grabbing her own to take a sip. It was four in the afternoon, it seemed far too early to (Y/n) to be starting on cocktails that (Y/n) just knew Sasha would have ordered with more rum than any other ingredient.

"Sash, isn't it a bit early to start the cocktails?"

"Like we've never started earlier than four in the afternoon, come on it's not like your driving is it? Ben always takes you everywhere." Sasha rose a brow and pushed the drink further over to (Y/n) as she took a rather large sip of her own.

Sasha had dark chocolate brown hair that went in waves and reached her shoulder blades and she had very pale hazel eyes that were almost controlling. She had a button nose and defined cheekbones but she was very tall which made her rather intimidating to a lot of people, even more so when she was challenged in a drinking competition and could drink any opponent under the table.

"I think I'll have a lemonade for now." (Y/n) pushed the drink across the circular table before she slowly motioned her hand to a passing waiter to ask for another drink. She knew well enough to know that if she herself didn't have the cocktail Sasha would soon take it from her so 'it didn't get wasted'.

"Drink it, come on live properly."

"No." (Y/n) laughed through her words before she pulled her phone out from her bag, just wanting to check the message she had gotten to make sure it wasn't her mum or Ben remembering to tell her something.

'Come on beautiful, don't tell me you're ignoring me.'

What was she supposed to do? Send this person a text to say sorry but they clearly had the wrong number? But that would surely lead to a conversation or an awkwardness or an apology and (Y/n) didn't want to deal with that. This person had to realise sooner or later there was a reason they weren't getting a reply. Hopefully they would read over the number they were texting and realise they had messed up, maybe added an eight where there should be a zero or something so simple as that.

She set the phone down on the table before looking back over at Sasha, briefly thanking the waiter who came over with her drink of lemonade which suited (Y/n) a lot more right now than a strong cocktail.

"So, what have a missed, what's going on with you?"

A shy smile came over (Y/n)'s features and she tilted her head down and looked at her drink for a second, wondering if she should say this yet or not in case she jinxed it. But she wanted to share her suspicions with someone and if she didn't tell Sasha now she would be furious later if this turned out to be right and she hadn't been told from the start.

"I..." (Y/n) glanced her eyes down to her phone that buzzed again and lit up but she didn't bother to read whatever the text said, she didn't want to bother with that silly wrong number right now. "I don't know yet so you can't go telling anyone, but I... I might be pregnant."

(Y/n) could feel her cheeks turning red and her foot started to impatiently tap against the floor out of nervous habit. She watched with anticipation as Sasha's mouth opened but no words left her lips, she didn't even look like she was even breathing. Sasha was the first person (Y/n) had confided in about her suspicions but she was the only person (Y/n) wanted to tell right now. She didn't want to tell Ben or their parents and family because it was very early days and if it turns out that she wasn't pregnant she would be getting their hopes up for nothing. But she wanted to confide in someone and it was so easy to talk to Sasha and she would never tell anyone else if it was a secret.

"Might be? Haven't you done a test yet?"

"Not yet, I want to wait a few more weeks to make sure I'm not just really late or something. But I really think I might be."

Telling Ben or her family her suspicions was something (Y/n) just couldn't do in case this was a false alarm or a false positive like it had been once before. She wanted to wait until she was at least two months late so there was less chance of her suspicions being wrong. It felt safer to wait and keep this to herself until she was sure and then take a test.

"Well I bet you are, and you know Ben will be thrilled if you are- speaking of which, is that him blowing up your phone? Just text him back cause he seems needy right now. Oh, and that drink is now mine."

Sasha reached over and took the other daiquiri and lined it up very neatly behind her own that was almost finished but her eyes kept glancing over at (Y/n)'s phone that had gone off three times now in less than ten minutes. She knew that both Ben and (Y/n) would be over the moon if it turned out that (Y/n) was pregnant because for the past few months they had been trying and got one false positive. Sasha herself didn't want kids, she was happy as she was with her husband and no kids but she was praying for (Y/n) to have a baby.

A shiver ran along (Y/n)'s spine when she dared to look over at her phone that did indeed have three new messages all from the same unknown number that had been messaging her for an hour now. Surely they had to get the message that she wasn't going to respond because she didn't know them?

'Come on, stop ignoring me.'

'Have I upset you? I haven't even gotten to see your gorgeous face today, talk to me.'

'Is it because your husband's there?'

Christ, who was this person supposed to be messaging, his lover? Now (Y/n) really did want to know who this was because he sounded desperate and he seemed worried. She was assuming that the person sending the text was a man, it seemed like a man in her mind and it definitely sounded like he was having an affair with someone. He was being sweet or even trying to suck up to someone who might be upset with him and who was married.

(Y/n) felt bad for the person sending all these texts because he was worried he was in some kind of trouble with his friend but she also felt bad for whoever was supposed to be getting these messages.

For all (Y/n) knew the person these texts were intended for was someone who had a one night stand or just a friend who was in love with them who they didn't love back. This person seemed clingy, if it was (Y/n) getting all these messages in less than an hour by someone who didn't like to be ignored she wouldn't be very pleased. Constant messages weren't always caring and loving, they were sometimes desperate and needy and this was clearly a needy sort of person who wanted confirmation and approval.

"Is it Ben?" Sasha's voice pulled (Y/n) out of her thoughts but she didn't know what to say.

This would be a very funny situation to Sasha, she was the kind of person who would either send back inappropriate and explicit messages to lead this person on or she would ring them outright and tell them they had the wrong number. She wouldn't wait and try to ignore them or go over all the messages and fret about what to do or say in response. (Y/n) didn't think it would be a good idea to show these messages to Sasha or tell her she was getting a lot of wrong texts by mistake.

Nor did she really want to lie and say it was Ben messaging her because Sasha knew Ben and he wasn't the type to send so many messages like this unless there was something seriously wrong or he was very pissed about something.

"Uh, no. It's someone from work, she keeps trying to swap shifts with me. It's nothing, I'll turn it off." (Y/n) quickly turned her phone off before she stuffed it back into her bag to try and forget about it. She was here to have a good time with her friend and catch up and have a break from work and everything else, (Y/n) didn't need a random stranger constantly pestering her due to a case of mistaken identity.

They would stop texting her soon enough.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Babe..." Ben tipped his head down so he could whisper the word against the shell of (Y/n)'s ear and he felt the way she shivered against him at the feeling of his breath tickling her skin. He knew she was almost asleep but the shiver told him she wasn't quite asleep yet like he suspected.

His arms tightened around her waist and he slowly feathered his fingers up and down her arm, feeling (Y/n) wriggle a little in his hold. They were laid in bed and (Y/n) was settled between his legs slouched against his chest with her head laid comfortably on his shoulder. She couldn't remember how long they had been like this for but it had to of been a while since she had been drifting in and out of sleep for what felt like hours.

"Baby I have to go to the bathroom, I need to move you." Ben chuckled against her ear when all he got was a very quiet groan in response.

Ben knew they were both comfortable laid as they were but he really had to go to the bathroom and they needed to try and sleep soon if they ever wanted to be up on time in the morning.

Ben sat himself up a bit straighter before he very slowly shifted one foot to the floor and manoeuvred his other leg from behind (Y/n) until he was standing up beside the bed. He smiled fondly at (Y/n) who was like a rag doll in his arms, half asleep and barely conscious at all. With little effort, Ben moved his arms until (Y/n) was laid down on her side against the pillows instead of him so he could disappear for a few minutes.

"Oh, and I think your phone buzzed a second ago, baby." Ben grabbed (Y/n)'s phone and set it on the bed next to her before he left the room.

(Y/n) almost whimpered at how uncomfortable she now felt after leaning against Ben for what had to have been over an hour and now he wasn't here to keep her warm, even if he was only going for a minute or so. When she plucked up the energy to open her eyes the dim light from the tv was far too bright for her tired eyes.

She didn't bother to lift her head when she looked down at her phone, (Y/n) simply brought the phone to her eyes and swiped across to open her messages. Sasha had been messaging her non-stop since she got home but she would have thought she would have gone to bed by now.

It took a few seconds for the words to actually form in front of (Y/n)'s eyes and for her brain to make sense out of them but when she managed to read the message, her body went stiff. She hadn't gotten another message from the wrong number since she turned her phone off at the restaurant earlier and (Y/n) had been praying that he had gotten the message or the realisation that who he was texting was not who he intended his messages to go to.

But it was past midnight and the message that came up was from the wrong number- if she could even call it that anymore.

(Y/n) felt like she couldn't breathe, her lungs were shrivelling up into nothing and her heart started to bash and pulse against her ribs until every fibre and muscle in her body was beating out her heart's erratic rhythm. Quickly locking her phone, (Y/n) pushed her phone until he fell with a thud onto the rug at the side of the bed. She didn't want to look at it anymore, the message was already imprinted on her mind.

'(Y/n), why are you ignoring me?'

It felt like she suffered an electric shock when Ben broke her from her trance by climbing back into bed and sneaking his arm around her waist so he could pull her back against his chest. She desperately hoped he couldn't hear or feel the way her heart was suffering palpitations from the anxiety dwelling in her stomach.

The more the text swirled around her head, the more (Y/n) brought her knees up to her stomach and pushed herself back until Ben was almost engulfing her in his hold. She tugged his arm until it was pinned to her chest and she could tangle her fingers into the groves of his hand and there was no more space between her back and his chest. He was moulded around her form like a smothering blanket in a feeble attempt for (Y/n) to try and make herself feel calm and safe.

But the more every text seemed to repeat in her mind, the more she wanted to curl up and disappear and she knew Ben could tell because he kissed her temple in a way he always did to calm her down.

Who was texting her and how did he know her name?

#ben hardy #ben x reader #ben hardy imagine #imagine #BoRhap #dad! ben #joe mazzello #stalker #deadly obsession

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harrytheehottie · 3 years

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As a medical assistant, no one should of been traveling period. Nothing Harry did for work couldn’t have been done in LA. Countries put their economy before people’s lives so the country opening borders and allowing people to travel doesn’t mean shit. There were countries considered vacation spots that were running out of tests because it was all being used on tourists. Also, all that traveling did lead to spikes so there’s that. You’re allowed to do a lot of things that aren’t good for you or the people around you, doesn’t mean you should. Theres a reason why New Zealand and Australia basically have zero cases and are having concerts now.

Let’s not make excuses for him just because other celebrities behaved worse.

im not making excuses for him. i completely agree that countries shouldn’t have opened their borders up so quickly without mandatory negative tests/quarantines because if they did that, we probably would be in way less of a mess than we are now but we can’t go back in time and change any of that decision making unfortunately. harry was in LA for several months away from his actual home so when he went back to London in the summer it was to go home which is something you can’t fault him or anyone that did the same for. he then came back to LA several months later and for work, whether that work was necessary/essential he still signed a contract and had to report somewhere for work. he stayed in LA for over a month in order to attend the grammy’s he then went back home to London and has been there for the last two months.

countries put their economy before peoples lives and harry is just a person (very rich but still a person lol) that is trying to do the work that he signed up for. and i think people should also realize that when a movie is being made it isn’t just the big named actors who can afford to not take a role and stay home that are being compensated there are people whose entire livelihood is based around movies/tv shows/live music etc etc etc and if there isn’t work for them to do then there is no pay check. obviously that is a bigger picture issue that could easily be fixed by have a fair/accurate unemployment system that benefits all people but unfortunately that is not the case.

im not defending him because there are other people that have done worse and im not blinded by the fact that its a privilege to have your “work” be making movies and not working in hospitals/customer service/fast food etc etc but im also not going to hold this grudge towards harry when he really isn’t the problem.

this is the last time ill discuss this topic.

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devilatmydoor · 4 years

Text

immortal part 1 - kill of the night

a/n; here is part 1 to the immortal series!! this story has been in the works for MONTHS and it is so exciting to finally have this out there! pairing -Vampire!Lashon

immortal masterlist - playlist - masterlist - prologue

rating; explicit // word count - 2.2k+

warnings - gory elements - voilence and blood mentioned!

feedback would be appreciated - let me know if you want to be apart of the series taglist!

The setting sun painted the sky in purple, pink, and orange hues while the air surrounding them turned cold. They roamed the alleyways in search of their next victims, Ashton pretended not to notice the trail of dead rats and birds as they continued to walk. Ashton knew Luke couldn’t be far ahead, he kept Lydia close as they kept an eye open for a group of mortals they could feed off of. After almost 20 years Ashton was baffled by Luke’s continuous stance on his lack of feeding off of human blood seeing as it was Ashton’s last resort.

“If we don’t find anyone in 20 minutes I say we move to the next town, what do you think darling?” Ashton asked as they continued to roam the streets.

“I agree, I hope we didn’t murder half of the town.” Lydia teased as her eyes scanned her surroundings.

“There is no way we didn’t murder half of the town. Do you think we’ll beat Luke home?” Ashton said jokingly knowing the answer, Luke was always home before them no matter what.

She giggled at his comment and gave him a look, “Without a doubt, he will beat us home. Why doesn’t he hunt with us?” She asked as they walked across the street.

Ashton cleared his throat as he attempted to think of a good white lie, it wasn’t his place to tell Lydia why her father never joined them. Luke hadn’t told her that he preferred feeding off of animals in replace of humans, “Luke thinks us going as a trio would look less suspicious so he hunts by himself..”

Lydia nodded in agreement as her gaze was fixed on the people walking in front of them, “What about them?”

Ashton looked ahead of him and smirked at her, “You think we can take them?”

"Of course." Lydia agreed

Ashton and Lydia walked faster than their usual pace to make sure they didn't lose the group. To their advantage, the group was walking towards the woods nearby. Ashton gave Lydia a look she had memorized, she followed his pace as he closely followed the group unbeknownst to them. Ashton stepped ahead of the group to close in on them.

Lydia recognized the look in Ashton’s eyes as her clue to join him and box the group of their next victims. Ashton’s grasp on the male victim was strong as he held him close to him before drawing his fangs, taking the opportunity to sink his fangs in the flesh in front of him. His eyes turning silver as he fed on his craving, Lydia followed by holding the victim next to Ashtons and gripped their arms as she sank her fangs into her victims neck with zero hesitation, her eyes rolling to the back of her head as she drank.

Luke entered the house as he eagerly awaited Lydia and Ashton’s return from their nightly hunt, he despised how Lydia was following in Ashton’s footsteps. He stepped into the library and grabbed a book before sitting down on his usual spot. Luke started to read getting lost in Shakespeare.

The front door slammed shut jolting Luke as his eyes strayed away from the words on the screen as Ashton yelled his name followed by Lydia stepping into the library, “Ashton he’s in the library!” Lydia made known as Luke set his book down and stood upsetting his book down on the table.

“How did it go tonight pumpkin?” Luke asked as he kissed her cheek.

“Eh it was average, we almost went into the next town,” Lydia explained with a smile.

“We got lucky and found people.” Ashton interrupted with a smile, “I told you he would get home before us.”

“I never doubted he would come home later than us,” Lydia remarked as she put Luke’s book back where it was. “I’m going to take a bath before bed.”

Luke kissed Lydia on the forehead, “Okay pumpkin, go relax.”

She smiled as she walked up to Ashton to kiss his cheek before leaving the library, “Sooner or later you’ll have to tell her why you won’t come with us when we hunt, I’m not sure how long I can lie to her.”

“I’ll tell her when I’m ready.” Luke expressed as he rubbed his temples, “I need to lay down.”

Luke attempted to walk as his vision blurred in front of him causing him to fall forward, he was fortunate that Ashton was nearby to catch him before he fell, “Luke this is getting out of hand. You need to feed on mortal blood.”

“N-No Ashton, you know I can’t,” Luke whispered as his eyes closed from his nausea. Luke knew that he wouldn’t be as weak as his current state if he fed on humans like he was

“Yes you can Luke! You just refuse!” Ashton blurted, shaking his head in frustration. Ashton couldn’t comprehend Luke’s refusal to feed off of human blood. Ashton had been doing it for as long as he could remember and he only fed off of animals when he had no other choice and Luke was choosing to feed off of animals.

“Can you help me get to my room?” Luke asked softly as he slowly opened his eyes to meet Ashtons.

Ashton nodded as he slowly helped Luke stand up straight, Luke’s arm draped around Ashton’s shoulder for support as his weight shifted to him. Ever so slowly they took baby steps back to Luke’s room to avoid Luke falling down again. Leaving the library as they slowly stepped down the hallway past Lydia’s room, Ashton walked with Luke as he carried most of his weight as he helped him get to his room.

Luke opened his bedroom door and they stepped into his room without Lydia finding out what was going on- Luke wasn’t ready to tell his daughter why he didn’t feed off of humans as she did.

The sounds of birds chirping woke Lydia earlier than she anticipated, she stretched before getting out of bed. She closed her window before changing out of her night-wear. She opened her door and tiptoed down the hallway in case Ashton and Luke were still asleep, as she stepped into the kitchen she was surprised to see Luke sitting at the table reading a book. “Morning.”

Luke’s blue eyes met hers and he smiled setting his book down, “Morning pumpkin, how did you sleep?”

“I had the window open so the breeze would help me sleep, how did you sleep?” Lydia asked with a smile before kissing his cheek.

“I slept well. I was thinking about going on a morning walk, do you want to come with?” Luke asked with a smile as he kissed her forehead.

“Of course, where is Ashton?” Lydia asked as she followed Luke towards the door.

“I think he’s still asleep,” Luke explained as he leads her towards the front door passing by the dining room and library. Luke opened the door for Lydia, she stepped outside in the sunshine as the birds welcomed them. Luke locked the door and Lydia looped her arm with Luke’s as they walked towards the tree’s.

“Dad?” Lydia asked softly and Luke’s eyes met hers.

“Yes pumpkin?” Luke asked as he kept her close as he heard leaves rustling ahead.

“How did you meet Ashton again?” Lydia questioned as she looked ahead to see what animal was causing the leaves to rustle and branches to snap.

“I met him one night I had someone watching you, I wanted to visit your mothers grave and It did more harm than good,” Luke mentioned as his eyes narrowed whilst the noises were becoming more prevalent. “I was a mess after I lost your mom, Ashton saved my life. He saw me mourning her and offered me a new life with him.”

“That’s when he turned you?” Lydia commented as she gripped his arm tighter at the moment Ashton appeared from the tree’s with flowers in his hand. Lydia and Luke sighed in relief when they realized it was only Ashton and not an animal.

“Yes pumpkin,” Luke smiled kissing her forehead, “I thought you were asleep!”

“I woke up hours before you did, the birds were quite unpleasant this morning.” Ashton remarked while handing the flowers to Lydia, “Can you bring these to the house and put them in the vase for me darlin’?”

She nodded moments prior to her kissing his cheek, “Of course, these are beautiful Ashton.”

“Not nearly as beautiful as you.” Ashton beamed while she left them behind to return to the house, “How are you feeling?”

“Better now getting some fresh air, what were you really doing out here?” Luke quizzed crossing his arms.

“I was talking to our neighbors, they are moving out west. I was thinking about moving somewhere else. We’ve been in the same place for almost 20 years.” Ashton mentioned as they slowly made their way back to the house.

“That isn’t a bad idea, but where would we go? Do we stay in Louisana?” Luke sighed as he took a deep breath.

“Our neighbors are moving to New Orleans, it sounds like a cool place for us. We can always visit before moving.” Ashton sighed as his eyes met Luke’s.

“I never thought i’d want to leave Baton Rougue but it would be nice to start over.” Luke quipped as they reached the front of the house.

“Me neither, maybe this weekend we can visit. Let’s wait to tell Lydia just in case we don’t like New Orleans.” Ashton grabbed his key and slowly unlocked the front door.

“That’s smart.” Luke agreed as he followed Ashton inside the house, they instantly smiled as they heard Lydia humming.

Luke regretted his stance on only feeding off of animals when he got this week, his powers weakening by the second. Luke despised how fast animal blood turned cold compared to mortal blood that was warm until it was drained completely. He knew he had killed his 4th human of the month but he wasn’t certain how long he would make it without the blood he craved.

Ashton and Lydia left for their nightly hunt as Luke locked the front door behind him, he started walking a different path than he was accustomed too. He strayed away from the sewers and walked towards a town he knew was close to being completely emptying due to the plague. He heard voices as he walked down an alley, they looked in his eyes and advised him to go back to where he came from. He rolled his eyes at their comment, he was far too gone for such a thing. Luke heard a women crying and his eyes narrowed as he followed the wailing as he felt his powers weakening even further, something he didn’t think was possible.

He found the women crying over a corpse, it appeared to be her husband that parished from the plague as it continued to spread like wildfire. Luke pretended to console her before he felt her pulse, vaguely smelling her blood coursing through her veins. He sank his fangs in her neck as he held her body against him. His eyes turning gold as he drank every ounce of blood in her body. Her body temperature slowly transitioned from warm to stone cold as he drained her completely, he slowly set her body down on her deceased spouse. He tore her flesh in an attempt to make her death appear of an animal attack.

Ashton and Lydia returned home fed and ready to take the rest of the night relaxing, they stepped into the empty house aware of how quiet it was. They both looked in spots Luke would be after a nightly hunt and he was nowhere to be found, “I wonder where he is.”

“I have no idea, I’m sure he’s okay darlin. I’ll stay out here for his return.” Ashton reassured her moments before hugging her tight.

“You’re right, he’ll be home soon.” She thanked moments prior to her walking down the hallway to her room.

Ashton sat down in the living room, lighting a candle as he patiently waited for Luke’s return. Ashton thought he was delusional when he began hearing Luke’s thoughts- it only happened when Luke was at his strongest. That only occurred when Luke gave in to his natural desires and fed on mortal blood, He shook it off as Luke’s thoughts became louder. Ashton stepped out of the living room towards the front door while it swung open as Luke appeared, his eyes bright blue and he entered the room - his high evident as he breezed by Ashton not even saying a word as he left the front door open.

Luke’s high from feeding off of mortal blood lasted longer than ‘normal’ because he didn’t partake as often as Ashton or Lydia. Ashton walked towards his room sighing as he knew Luke would be awake for hours.

He slowly opened his door and sighed when he saw Luke sitting on his bed smiling at him, he closed the door behind him causing Luke to stand up and walk towards him. Ashton leaned against the wall and Luke cupped his jaw with his soft hands and pressed a soft fleeting kiss to Ashton's lips, "You didn't just sneak in here to kiss me did you?"

Luke smirked as he fiddled with the hem of Ashton’s bottoms, "I snuck in here to do more than kiss you my love." Luke's eyes glistening as he gave Ashton a look he had memorized.

t a g l i s t - @pxrxmoore @littledrummerangie @sublimehood @calumscalm @talkfastromance4 @twilightmomentswithyou @himbocalum @i-like-5sos @lukeysdimples @spicycal @redrattlers @honeybunchcalum @wastelandcth @notinthesameguey @flowers-on-the-graves @icyicejuice @cxddlyash @wonderland-irwin @metalandboybands @esbisos @jbhmalum @malumsmermaid @karajaynetoday @lashtonswildflower @blackbutterfliescal @sexgodashton @tpwkatsumu @myloverboyash @suchalonelysunflower

#vampire!lashton #lashton #lashton fanfic #luke hemmings x vampire #ashton irwin x vampire #ashton irwin fanfic #luke hemmings fanfic

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ohwereusingourmadeupnames · 4 years

Note

I have so many prompts😭😬 my last one was "Peter works at a rescue, Tony comes to get a doggo because he’s a single man in his 50s starting to feel the emptiness of the penthouse more and more. He gets way more than that."👬🏻🐶 But if that's not your thing and you fancy having a look at the ones I think of + ones others have come up with and I thought were cute I'll leave you the link ( /tagged/pp%3A%20prompt ) 🌸🌸🌸 can't wait to read regardless of the prompt!! have a lovely day!!

Struck From A Great Height

Pairing: Peter Parker/Tony Stark (Starker) Rating: Teen (T) Notes: This was perfect! I love puppies and Tony with a puppy was a true treat to envision. Thanks for the prompt @puppypeter! I’ll take the next one please ;D Oh, & the picture Tony sends to Peter is this one! Word Count: ~3.3k Warnings: There aren’t any - just cute puppies. Summary:

Tony is lonely so he adopts a white lab named Zero. He meets another kind of puppy at the rescue and decides to keep him, too.

do the thing, send in all the prompts

Loneliness – a word that could easily be used to describe the feeling that steadily crept up on Tony Stark.

He couldn’t pinpoint when it became a thing. For most of his life, being alone was the goal – with no one around to want things from him, Tony was free to do whatever he wanted, when he wanted. Building a multi-billion-dollar company up from a structure that Tony didn’t want anything to do with took a lot of time and effort. Simple things like love and affection weren’t really anywhere near his scope.

When getting older started to become apparent, Tony ran from it. He hopped into bed with whatever man looked his way with the right sparkle in his eye. If these people found him to be desirable, did looming near 50 actually mean anything?

The longer he let himself stoop to the lowest of low, the more he realized that men who wanted nothing more than his body weren’t worth the effort it took to get dolled up, go out, entice them, and do the whole song and dance that inevitably led to something quick in the bathroom or a rough fumble in his bed. Waking up alone after that made the emptiness ache a little more.

It became pretty apparent that behavior like that didn’t particularly help, so he reverted back to the lab rat that he truly was and put all of his efforts into the creation of tech and furthering of the projects that were already in the works. If Tony could rely on anything to get him by, it was his brain and the depths that existed within it.

And while that was fulfilling in a professional sense, Tony craved something more. No matter how much he told himself he didn’t need anything or anyone else – the deepest part of his soul called out, his soft bits desperate to take care of another living thing. The grandness of his penthouse that used to bring him so much joy just seemed empty – the multitude of rooms wouldn’t make him happy, that much was for sure.

Rhodey brought up the idea of a pet one night over dinner – he’d been able to step away from his pregnant wife to spend a bit of time eating junk food and playing the latest COD update. Tony didn’t like to admit it, but this time with his best friend was the highlight of his month. The thought of that made his skin crawl slightly – he loved the hell out of Rhodey, he couldn’t deny that. Yet, being completely overjoyed by nothing other than his presence had that pit of loneliness opening up within him a little more.

Listening to him talk, Tony wasn’t put off by it – in fact, having a dog with floppy ears to make a mess around the place might actually be the cure to the melancholy that didn’t want to go away. Tony couldn’t take the blue feeling for much longer – to most people, his life was perfect. Trying to portray that constantly was exhausting and compounded the already shitty feelings that weren’t anywhere close to changing.

The very next day, Tony spent the first part of the day looking up rescues that were open for adoption. His heart started to beat a little faster when he started to scroll through the many adorable little faces of the dogs that were just waiting for someone to come along and take them home. A small white lab puppy caught his eye, the small dog making his decision pretty easy.

Tony took the rest of the day off – he wanted to see about the adoption process and if all things went well, get his new friend home and on the path to adjusting to the good life that he couldn’t wait to provide. Changing out of his suit into a pair of jeans, an old AC/DC shirt, and an open black and red flannel, Tony set out towards Happy Tails, his final destination.

A wave of nerves washed over him when he first walked through the door of the shelter. The smell of cleaner reminded him of the many hospital visits he had over the years, the memories almost enough to send him back through the doors and as far away as possible. Before that could happen, Tony was welcomed by a soft voice – a sense of calmness surrounded him almost immediately. Continuing on his original path, Tony clenched his fist tightly and walked towards the comforting voice.

“Welcome to Happy Tails!” Tony heard again when he got a little closer. Looking up, Tony had to stop himself from gasping – the man behind the counter was the most exquisite being he’d ever seen. Chestnut hair framed sharp cheekbones that were covered with a soft redness that probably sat there enticingly all day. There was the slightest touch of facial hair coating the man’s face, the chin strap he was working on still on the thin side. When they locked eyes, Tony felt himself blush, the wide smile on pink lips knowing and entirely too enticing to actually be real.

Raising a hand like the idiot he actually was, Tony waved at him – his stomach dropping at his stupidity almost instantly. “Uh, hi – “ Tony muttered, his brains attempt to fix the situation failing miserably. The hearty chuckle he was met with was just as sinful as the smile and eyes and cheeks that this man was graced with.

“Hi! Thanks for stopping in. I’m Peter – one of the resident puppy gurus. What can I help you with today?” The man – Peter, said with a wide smile and the most brilliant twinkle in his eye. Tony found himself returning the look without a second thought, his cheeks pinching uncomfortably after a few minutes of the beaming grin taking over his face.

“Puppy guru, huh? You may be exactly who I’m looking for, then. I saw this dog online,” Tony started as he walked closer to the desk Peter stood behind. He showed him the beautiful white lab, the fingers on his phone shaking slightly. “I want to adopt him, if he’s still available.”

“Oh, that’s Zero. He’s one of the newest fellas on the block and is very much available. He’s really chill and likes to sit around a lot for a dog his age. Labs are usually filled with energy. Not Zero – he’s just along for the ride.” Tony listened intently, Peter’s babbling about the dog absolutely adorable. Not to mention the fact that Zero sounded like the best companion – another entity in the house that just wanted to exist.

“Why don’t we got back and meet him? They just got fed, so he’ll be ready for a nice cuddle.” Peter gestured for him to step around the counter and opened the door leading into the kennels, following behind him closely. Tony looked around, his senses overwhelmed by all the sounds and smells that immediately hit him. There were a multitude of dogs in kennels, all shapes and sizes of them, each one looking at him with some sort of look in their eyes.

Peter put a hand on his lower back and pointed towards the end of the hall – “ the puppies have their own hallway.” The hand stayed where it was until Tony was out of the danger zone and in an area that was far less populated. Tony saw Zero before Peter could point him out, the small white lab sat in the middle of its kennel, looking at them curiously.

Tony felt his heart melt a little when Peter opened the kennel and Zero walked right over to him. Crouching down, he put his hand out to be smelt – the wet nose against his skin had him laughing, a huge smile slipping across his face. When the paw shot out to press against his wrist, Tony was a goner. He sat on the floor and let Zero walk into his lap – Tony wrapped his arms around the pup and scratched wholeheartedly up and down his back.

He saw Peter sit down beside him in his peripheral vision, his hands reaching out to run over Zero’s soft fur, too. Tony turned his head to look directly at him, the grin still alive and well on his face. “What do I need to do? I can’t leave here without him,” Tony admitted shamelessly, his chest light in so many ways for the first time in a while.

The smile he got from Peter in response to his question could only be described as breathtaking – the roundness of his cheeks made Tony want to reach out and touch; his entire being ached to see if his skin was really as soft as it looked. He watched Peter slip his tongue out and wet his lips, the other not missing the fact that Tony couldn’t look away. Peter let out a soft breath and kept staring at him.

“The process is pretty easy, honestly.”

And it was – Tony paid the fee and signed the paperwork while Peter ran through Zero’s latest vet visits and the ones that would be necessary in the future. Tony didn’t think to bring a leash, so Peter gave him one hanging behind the desk. “I teach a behavior class on Friday nights. You can bring the leash and Zero back later this week for it,” Peter said confidently, their fingers brushing when the leash exchanged hands.

Nodding, Tony held up the leash in salute. “Whatever you say, puppy guru. Do you happen to have a card? Just in case I have any questions, or anything.” Tony tried to sound innocent, but the smirk that pulled across his face gave him away. It’d been a long time since he tried to get someone’s number – he felt a little rusty.

Peter didn’t miss a beat, however – he pulled a drawer open and de-capped a pen, his hand flying over the card quickly. “That’s my personal. Just in case,” Peter shot back, his fingers pushing the card across the counter.

Tony picked it up before he knelt down to get the leash attached to Zero’s collar – the dog resting heavily against his leg while he did. Petting his head lightly, Tony stood back up and threw Peter one last grin. “Thanks for the help, Peter. We’ll see you Friday.” Tony couldn’t help but smile as Zero started to pull him forward, the dog’s paws slipping on the floor in his haste.

----

After letting Zero explore both the front and back seat of his car, Tony settled into the driver’s seat and set off towards the nearest pet store. He felt a little nervous bringing his brand-new friend into the store – they weren’t used to each other yet. Zero didn’t even bat an eye, though – he followed Tony around the aisles with a wagging tail and minimal barking. Tony held the different toys down for Zero to sniff every now and again, his dog just as indecisive as him.

In the end, they left the store with a whole lot more shit than Tony originally intended. The big bed looked hilarious in the backseat of the small Audi. Zero seemed to like it, though – he curled up on the thing the second Tony started the car. He figured he’d be dealing with an unruly puppy, or overexcited thing that couldn’t control itself. The reality of the situation was even better.

The night went surprisingly well – Tony let Zero take up whatever space he wanted in the penthouse. Peter assured him that he was potty trained, which proved to be correct pretty early on when the dog scratched his leg and looked longingly towards the balcony. He did it again early the next morning, his cold nose pressing against Tony’s cheek more than enough of a wakeup call to get him out of bed, stumbling towards the sliding glass door. The damn dog was too cute, it seemed impossible to hold anything against him.

Physically unable to part himself from Zero, Tony put the brand-new blue collar and tags they got the night before around his neck. The ‘bad to the bone’ leash clipped nicely to it – the whole look totally fitting for the badass little pooch. With Zero completely decked out and identifiable as Tony’s, he felt comfortable enough to leave with the pup for the day.

Tony’s caffeine headache had him pulling into the drive-thru of his favorite café, a smile coming to his face when he got to order a pupachino for the little dog that already owned all the pieces of his malfunctioned heart. Zero climbed up onto his shoulder while they waited in line, so Tony flipped the camera on his phone and took a picture of the two of them. Fumbling around the cupholder he put Peter’s card in, Tony sent the picture in a text – the happiness he felt needed to be shared.

Tony Stark: Look how cute we are. Thanks for hooking us up.

He got a few sips of his coffee in before his phone went off, the number he already typed in as Peter Parker lighting up his screen. Tony shook his head at the giddy feeling spreading through his chest, an old man like him shouldn’t feel as on edge about a cute guy texting him as he did in that moment.

Peter Parker: You two are quite the pair. Peter Parker: It was my pleasure! Glad to have made such a sweet connection.

The soft grin he already associated with Peter stayed on his lips the rest of his drive into the office and even further into the day as the two of them continued to text back and forth. Tony didn’t get much work done – between trying to be as charming as possible in his texts to Peter and loving the fuck out of Zero, there wasn’t much room for anything else.

Predictably, the rest of the week followed suit. Tony couldn’t get enough of the white fur-ball that got more and more comfortable with him as the days passed. Zero stayed by his feet while he was in the lab and followed him around the penthouse when Tony was finished for the night. The mutual appreciation of walks had them wandering around the little neighborhoods Tony never took the time to explore before.

By the time Friday rolled around, Tony was excited to show off his and Zero’s bond – a big part of him thought that Peter would be the most impressed by something like that. In their conversations throughout the week, Tony learned that Peter trained dogs professionally after studying behavior in college. He answered any of Tony’s questions and appreciated all the little anecdotes Tony shared about the short time he’d been enjoying the heck out of Zero.

Walking into the room he was directed to, Tony lit up when Peter noticed him. In a couple of long strides, Peter was right in front of him, his hand already reaching down to press against Zero’s head. “Hey you two! You guys are in luck – it’s a small class, so you’ll get lots of hands on stuff tonight,” Peter caught his eye as he spoke, the smirk on the younger man’s lips making Tony’s throat suddenly very dry.

He nodded his head listlessly, his hand tightening on Zero’s lead. The crush on Peter that he’d been fostering for the past few days doubled in size throughout the next hour. There was one other dog owner and their pup – another puppy adopted from the rescue. Not only was Peter attentive, he knew his shit and didn’t mind explaining things as he went. As someone that put information above almost everything else, Tony liked all things about that.

Zero seemed to like it, too – he showered Peter with affection when he stood talking to Tony at the end of the class. He nosed at Tony’s hand, then pressed against Peter’s leg and licked at his ankles. Tony couldn’t help but grin down at him – the antics already too much.

“I found a local brewery that has a patio that allows dogs – any interest in catching a drink with us?” Tony asked – the conversation had got to the point where they were just staring longingly at each other. It seemed like the perfect time to put himself out there. The grip on Zero’s lead tightened for just a second; he didn’t think he read their interactions wrong, but after so much time away from the dating game, he could never be too sure.

Peter reached out and laid a hand on his arm, the touch the slightest bit reassuring, “I would like that very much. I hope you’re talking about Landry’s – they have the best cheese curds.” He turned his body and started to gather his stuff up like he’d merely been waiting for Tony to buck up the courage to invite him out before getting his shit together. Maybe he was – the idea of that honestly not the worst thing. At least then, he was joined in the intensity of his feelings.

They split up for the few minutes it took them to drive their separate cars to the brewery and met back up at one of the picnic tables closest to the open grass space right next to the building. There were a couple of other dogs milling around the grass – Zero looked over at them curiously, but remained by Tony’s side, his body resting on his feet after a while.

Their view of the sunset was fantastic – they shared a couple orders of cheese curds and truffle fries; Tony liked the way Peter closed his eyes around the bites that were extra indulgent – the redness of his cheeks absolutely divine. The amount of times being caught looking at him probably should have been embarrassing. Yet, Peter simply smiled back and moved his hand a little closer to Tony’s on the table.

It took most of the night for their fingers to finally tangle together – Tony wanted to be sure and enjoyed the build-up to it once he was. Peter’s hands were just as soft as Tony imagined them – his long fingers fit perfectly between his own. They shared a shy smile and sat together until the sky started to rumble a little while later.

Big raindrops suddenly falling on them made the decision to pay the bill and huddle for warmth in Tony’s car easy – Peter climbed into the passenger seat without any restraint. It was obvious that neither man was ready for the night to end.

In hopes of a few seconds to think his next move through, Tony started the car and made sure the vents were open so the car didn’t get too hot. He was startled by a cool hand on his own, Peter’s fingers around his wrist pulling his attention back to where they both wanted it to be.

“I had a really good time tonight,” Peter admitted, his body shifting in the seat. The Audi didn’t have too much space in it, so they were already close. The move of Peter’s shoulders brought them within breath sharing distance. “I like spending time with you.”

Tony didn’t bother trying to find the words to respond appropriately. Without any hesitation, he closed the space between them and pressed their lips together. His hands wandered to the front of Peter’s shirt; the fabric there warm from the heat of his body. A soft moan left Peter’s lips, the sound so encouraging – Peter’s response to it all exactly what Tony was hoping for.

Tilting his head, Tony was about to deepen the kiss when he felt a wet tongue on his cheek. Since his was currently tangled with Peter’s, it could only belong to none other than Zero. He pulled away with a sudden laugh – the excellence of the situation hitting him when Peter beamed at him.

“Better get used to him, Zero. I don’t think he’s going anywhere,” Tony murmured, one of his hands running softly over the puppy’s head.

Peter pulled Tony and Zero towards him, the group hug the sweetest thing Tony figured he’d ever been a part of. The press of lips against his forehead had Tony sighing, his body light for the first time in decades.

The start of something new felt pretty damn good.

#starker #ironspider #puppypeter #bobbie writes #au prompt #struck from a great height

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prorevenge · 5 years

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Former nerd destroys bully's life

This is a story about my older sister. My sister is a super kind and smart person. In high school, she was a typical “nerd”. Never really cared about her clothes really and stuck to her studies and extra-curricular. Her general style was pulling her hair in a pony-tail, jeans, shirt and sweater/jacket. In her class, there were a group of popular girls that made it their life job to make my sister’s life miserable. Think real-life Mean Girls (Regina George and all). Every time I talked to her about it, I could tell in her eyes it hurt her but she just told me she was ok and she’ll just keep ignoring them. One day, Regina and her minions, spread a rumor about my sister being a slut. Telling everyone she acts innocent but has actually slept with a bunch of guys and even hit on teachers. This rumor spread to all of the students and the staff. I texted my sister when I heard about it and she told me she was fine but when I saw her at home later that night, it was obvious she had been crying. The school called my parents about the whole ordeal. The administration knew that it was all B.S. but still had to do investigate since it involved teachers. My sister and even the administration knew who would spread this kind of rumor, but there was no proof since it was all word of mouth. The teachers knew that those group of girls were not nice but they never did anything this messed up before. My sister confronted Regina and all she said was, “you are a loser and losers deserve a crappy life. Deal with it!”

My sister went on to graduate as the class valedictorian and went to Cambridge in the UK for her undergraduate and graduated magna cum laude and then went to Harvard Law. She worked for a few years at some big law firm but eventually started her own practice back in the area we grew up in with her now husband.

One day she gets a mother and her daughter into her office and asks about suing the landlord of the apartment complex the mother was living in. They said that the premises have not been upkept, has hazardous living conditions and repairs are rarely done and when they are done, they’re not done well. For example, when a water pipe burst, the plumber didn’t replace any of the old pipes and instead just patched with adhesives like duct tape and gorilla tape because the to fully repair the ordeal would take a few days so the management company just patched it up. My sister goes on to find out that the management company is owned none other than by Regina’s family and that the complex had been falling apart ever since Regina’s father retired and Regina decided to take over despite not knowing how to run the company. Over the course of a few months, my sister found out that it was not just this one complex but three out of the four complexes the company managed were in terrible condition and my sister’s firm was able to get about 60% of the residents to file for a class action lawsuit. The list of things that were messed up in these places was astronomical. The fire sprinkler system didn’t work, a huge backlog of repairs needed to be done in the apartments, signs of mold were even sprouting in certain areas with more moisture, and rodent infestation. The only thing they didn’t have were termites. On top of that, there were reports of multiple break-ins in the complexes as the security contractors were no longer working for them. Everything was documented with pictures, police reports and sworn witness statements from current and previous tenants, contractors previously hired, previous employees, and expert witnesses. The case mounted against Regina’s company was basically ironclad. My sister never forgot that rumor and if there was even an opportune moment for her to get back at Regina, it would be now so my sister made it her mission to get anything and everything out of Regina for wronging these people. Initially, Regina's attorneys wanted to settle out of court but since Regina was stubborn and also not too bright, she didn’t want to settle and decided to fight back. As the defendant, Regina’s claim was that all of the problems were caused by the plaintiffs and they were trying to fraud her.

Case eventually went to trial, despite Regina’s attorney wanting to settle out of court. On the first day of court, my sis was nervous about Regina recognizing her, however, it seemed like Regina didn’t remember her at all. Throughout the trial, my sister’s firm produced expert witness after expert witness about how all the damage to the property was caused by negligence and any repairs that were done, were not done properly. Former employees testified how Regina cut costs by reducing critical maintenance staff and expecting the left-over staff to take care of everything. When they couldn’t keep up with the backlog, she fired the people and hired unqualified replacements. The only complex that was maintained well was the one she lived in and she spared no expense to remodel her unit with new appliances and luxuries and also had a bunch of her friends live there too either discounted heavily or free.

At the end of the trial, Regina was found guilty on all accounts and ordered to fix everything or the complexes will be shut down. The judge also ordered that no one was allowed to live there while the repairs were being made so she had to pay for all of the current tenants’ relocation to hotels AND the repairs for an entire month. There were over 300 residents. The costs for everything would cost Regina over $2 million dollars, assuming they don’t find more things wrong and need to extend the repairs. If she had just settled with the plaintiffs, in the beginning, it would have cost her less than $500k. Regina broke down outside of the courthouse and was screaming at her attorneys. When she caught sight of my sister, she ran over and started screaming obscenities at her. My sister put up a hand to quiet her and said to her face, “you are a loser, and losers deserve a crappy life. Deal with it.” And walked away. Regina’s face got bright red for a moment and then the light bulb finally went off, as she realized who my sister is. The same nerd girl she bullied and has now destroyed her life.

Aftermath. Regina’s dad had zero idea of what was going on. After he retired, he moved to out of the country to live abroad and by the time he found out the company he built was falling apart, it was a bit too late. He eventually came back to fire Regina and re-establish his company and hired the right people to run the company.

(source) story by (/u/edwadokun)

#prorevenge #by /u/edwadokun #pro revenge #revenge stories #pro revenge stories #pro #revenge #last10

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albatris · 4 years

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mm okay I’m a little bit drunk on baileys n I’m gonna go on that brycengreer sibling ramble I’ve been meaning to go on for like two months now yeehaw

got a bit more intense than i intended

spoilers, spoilers, yeah, kinda, I guess

and, oh, just lots of unnecessary words and being the polar opposite of concise

it’s a reaaaaaaal long one, my fuckin bad, might come back n edit it down later lmao

k so

there is one specific thing that comes up..................... a bit. in the story. and this is the idea that there is pent up resentment and jealousy and anger between the Greer siblings

and IMO I am extremely careful not to lean into the idea that this is the case when I’m writing and when I address their relationship with each other, ‘cause it’s just something that............. isn’t there??? like at all??

here’s what I do, in-story:

all I do is just present their situation and their history and their relationship with each other, I talk about the various feelings they do share and what kinds of tensions are involved at the times when there is tension involved, but overall, they all have a really positive relationship with each other!!!! they love each other!!!!

there is some level of miscommunication between Tris and Becca because of Reasons and that is something that’s addressed in the story and something that gets dealt with, but they absolutely do love each other, all of them do

n relationship between Tris and Becca is never really under that much scrutiny by other folks in the story n that’s not what this post is about, ‘cause like, other folks REALLY like to focus on the relationship that Tris and Becca have with Jacob, right

so, the two things I do, 1) present the situation and 2) voice other characters’ interpretations and perceptions of said situation

‘cause the idea that there’s pent up jealousy and anger that Tris and Becca have directed at Jacob is something that’s almost exclusively voiced by other characters in the story and isn’t supported by...... much else. and it’s something that is presented as a source of a lot of anxiety and discomfort for all three of the Greer sibs, Tris and Becca particularly

n yeah, I don’t know how I feel about readers potentially going through this story assuming that this is actually the case............. though readers are free to do what they would like, regardless of my intent

I just mention it ‘cause like

one thing is that it’s the kind of family dynamic in fiction that’s really frequently used as the setup for a story about jealousy and resentment, y’know, ‘cause at a glance there’s this dynamic, right, this Dynamic

with these overbearing, strict, emotionally distant, controlling, etc. parents who place all kinds of pressure onto their kids and want to project this Perfect Family Image at all times, they’re obsessed with appearances and success and being normal, super normal, More Normal Than You

n then you’ve got this one over-achieving, polite, social, well-liked older sibling who got straight A’s and can do no wrong, who everything comes (supposedly) easily and naturally to, and the younger two who are.................... not good at school, kinda weird, never Act Right, both neurodivergent, can never quite live up to their parents expectations........ generally treated by said parents as kinda just. lowkey embarrassing. some kind of blemish they need to hide because they don’t lend themselves to this We’re A Happy And Normal Family Who’s Doing Better Than You :) :) vibe

like, as a general rule, the Greer parents are more concerned with image than they are with any of their kids’ actual wellbeing

Becca’s got a lot of ADHD going on and their parents Really did not like it when she came out as bi because obviously it’s just for attention (and like, hey, Becca’s really fucking good at arts and sports and eventually goes on to play professional basketball not that that gets covered in story but That’s Not Important because she doesn’t get good grades and that’s all that matters :///)

n Tris began exhibiting signs of psychosis when he was little and their parents were just sorta like “hm we should probably exorcise this child like the nice normal well-adjusted family we are” and then they tried to do that and I think he was maybe a little bit too young to completely understand what was happening but kinda grew up thinking that was a totally normal and reasonable thing for them to do and not just a completely fucked up thing that should never have been allowed to happen

then went on to have his first full-blown psychotic episode at thirteen years old and his parents were just sort of like. Hm. You Should Have Some Therapy To Fix You Maybe. Also We Are Literally Never Going To Speak About This Ever

and I think largely the outlook other characters have (and I think, the outlook the Greer parents have) is that Jacob comparatively just kind of................ cruised right on through with no issues?

so I think a lot of people kind of look at the Greer family and are like.......... well, look at them, there’s got to be some fucked up feelings there, how could there NOT be. n I think pretty much everyone barring Noa and the Greer sibs themselves on some level think there’s some level of bad blood

and their mistake is........ well, two things, from an outside perspective

the first being the assumption that Jacob had it easy, ‘cause like........... YES Jacob is extremely good at keeping up appearances and meeting his parents’ expectations but he’s the human embodiment of that, uh, what is that one The Onion headline that’s like.......... “This Brilliant 11-Year-Old Ballerina Is Living Proof That Children Can Achieve Anything If We Push Them To The Breaking Point”

y’know, as if Jacob didn’t grow up in the same high-pressure environment where love is completely conditional and only given if you can prove that you Earned It, as if he wasn’t constantly plagued by the fear that if he slips up or steps even slightly out of line or is anything less than Completely Perfect And Accomodating at all times, that love will be taken away. n he grew up into a neurotic perfectionist with identity issues who can’t set boundaries and doesn’t feel he has any worth if he’s not constantly being Useful and Relevant and Smart and giving as much of himself as possible

and, more pressingly, he grew up with literally Zero idea how to navigate any sort of healthy balanced relationship, he’s someone who, with the exception of his siblings, grew up only experiencing love as fear, and as such, he’s someone who’s very easily taken advantage of and he doesn’t have the capacity to recognise it

so, like, yeah, Jacob was better at projecting the Nice Normal Family Image that his parents wanted than Tris and Becca have been, but he still grew up facing the exact same pressures and unpleasantness and overbearing control and had the Worst Fucking Time

like, he was not having fun at all, he was terrified 24/7

and the second mistake is, like............ in assuming that the Greer siblings are in competition with each other? like, it’s easy to project all sorts of bad blood and jealousy and pent-up anger onto the two younger siblings if you assume that they’re in competition with Jacob in vying for their parents’ affection and attention but like........ they’re not

n I’ve talked a bit in the past about how Jacob has always been extremely, extremely protective of his younger siblings purely because he didn’t want them to go through the same bullshit he did all on their own. n he’s probably 90% of the reason either of them are anywhere near as well-adjusted as they are, and he’s pretty much been the only consistent source of love and stability and genuine emotional support they’ve had through most of their childhood, ‘cause he knew damn fucking well they weren’t going to get it from their parents

largely due to Jacob, probably, ‘cause like. he has thirteen extra years under his belt and he came to the conclusion, probably when he was quite young himself, that literally nothing he ever does is ever going to be Good Enough and that no matter how well he does in school or socially, his parents will find some new thing to nitpick or to tell him to aim for, and like......... well, that’s horrible to have 2 come to grips with at any age?? he can do lots of things that make his parents happy but nothing he does is actually going to get his parents to love him as a person, their genuine love is completely unattainable

which changed his priorities a LOT

n like, he’s a genuinely good guy. he’s very caring and sweet and kind and supportive and he loves his siblings very much

n I think there's this assumption that Jacob is the only one of the kids their parents actually love when that's not really it at all? he's the one they LIKE but they don't love any of them

which is oversimplifying it by a lot, because Tris and Becca have all sorts of complicated feelings about their parents and definitely don’t hate them (yet), but, like, you get what I mean

which I think is where people make the mistake, y'know, bcthe Greer sibs are not in competition with each other, they’re kind of, supporting each other against a common enemy

like, both Tris and Becca struggle a lot with their feelings about their parents, and over the course of the story, Tris is kind of............... juuuust starting to come to grips with how fucked up his relationship with his parents is, or more like....... I mean he kind of Already Knows, but assumes that he on some level deserves it, and over the course of the story is kind of like

Oh Wait None Of This Was My Fault And None Of What Has Happened To Me Was Normal

and even from THAT regard though, that was something that Jacob had been kind of pushing for from day one, Jacob is kind of the person who laid a lot of the foundations for him to eventually realise that, although of course that kind of final leap is one you have to make on your own and something that takes a lot of work

but he kind of struggles with the complicated grey area of being like “I love my parents” and “the way they treated me was legitimately fucked up and I didn’t deserve it” and that’s.......... a whole thing

n like.............. from a readerly perspective, this is stuff that comes out over the course of the story as you kinda learn more about their backstory and their relationship with each other

but again, the familiar setup most people associate with resentment is kinda there, and there’s a lot of kinda........... pressure from other (sometimes well-meaning) characters when they voice their opinions about the Greer siblings’ situation from outside perspectives

and like I said, I’m not sure how I feel about readers potentially going through this story assuming that those characters are Right, ‘cause I don’t think that’s necessarily something I lean into or build towards if you’re paying attention

like, I think those readers who DO assume that there is bad blood, they might be a little disappointed if they feel that the story is building to An Explosion and then there just............ isn’t....... but part of me is also like

well lmao that’s entirely on you, and you’re just illustrating my point, actually

like at no point did I express that this was a thing or even hint towards it, all of this came from Other Characters Projecting and from You Projecting

n also while I don’t want people to feel cheated there is a part of it that’s just like. super fucking funny to me. if like

someone reads this story and assumes there’s all this Bad Blood just waiting to finally bubble over and explode in some climactic moment, y’know, and the story gets to this real heated tense moment where the cracks are starting to show and push is coming to shove and then the huge plot twist is just like

“no they all do legitimately love each other so much and support each other unconditionally and want each other to be safe and happy and loved and they’d do anything for each other and the entire point of their story is how much they care about each other and how powerful and important the connection they have with each other is”

fuckin LOVE that. that’s so fucking funny to me

you wanted edgy bullshit??

TOO FUCKIN BAD

ONLY WHOLESOME BULLSHIT HERE

also happy endings for all three Greer siblings involve them at some point in their early adult lives saying “fuck it” and moving interstate never to return

#alcohol mention #i mean just cuz i mention it at the top there cuz baileys there's no alcohol in the post itself #also tw for i guess emotional abuse in main text and unhealthy parent relationships if you don't wanna read abt that #atdao #n like #idk how i ever initially thought i could make tris's plotline work without jacob at the centre of it bc its like #y'know #he's a person who's spent so much painstaking time building up a structure in his life #that feels Safe and Protected and Normal #building up this comfort zone and this kind of safety bubble that's the only way he can navigate the world without being #in a constant state of panic #n then there's the question #''what would make him immediately abandon this safety bubble and throw himself into danger with zero hesitation no questions asked?''#to which the answer is obviously Jacob Greer Is In Trouble And Needs Help #which i dont want to read as like...... y'know; tris feeling useless compared to jacob and this is a chance #for him to kinda prove himself #it's not that at all it's just like #literally the most obvious thing in the world to him there is zero doubt or hesitation #and yes he screams in terror the entire fucking time but that's hardly the point

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darkestwolfx · 4 years

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Colony - Re-Review #31

Note: due to CITV changing the time of their reruns (hooray - not), the Re-Review series will be moving from 6:30pm to 6:45pm for uploads.

Wow... it’s difficult to find screenshots for this episode online, that’s for sure!

“You’re a hard man to find, Captain Taylor. I wish you’d find less dangerous ways to spend your retirement.”

“Just trying to keep busy now that I’m back on Earth. Taking it easy’s never been my style.”

“Then this may interest you. Can retirement wait a little bit longer, Captain?”

The answer is yes, of course it’s a yes! It makes complete sense since Lee used to help Jeff with IR.

“The Helios is a transport ship, designed to reach Mars, and send landing pods to the life support systems on the surface. Dozens of families are on board, and would be the first to actually live on the planet.”

“Unless you count all the aliens!”

“Ignore him.”

Let’s remember Alan did see alien life only two episodes ago... I get the feeling he’s been going on about it in those scenes we don’t see. A lot. I want to say that John is talking to EOS in this scene (where has she gone again, writers? I will eternally ask this question), because there is no other imaginary figure in the room.

Anyone else getting ‘The Martian’ (2015) vibes?

I really loved having this man back! It’s been a while since we last saw him and I was so pleased that they had him return. 1. because he is a great character, but 2. because he is one of the last surviving links to Jeff, and so you can be sure hints are going to drop when he’s around. It’s nice that Alan gets to spend more time with him in this ep as well, considering it’s Alan who always has the gap in memories on his father which his brother’s don’t.

This seems like the perfect way to fill that gap to me.

“Plus you were second person in history to ever set foot on Mars.”

“Just behind the great Jeff Tray himself, those were the days.”

Look at that - I told you, didn’t I tell you? - and it only took three and half minutes! And that’s only the first reference, there’s bound to be more.

“Like you boys say - Thunderbirds are off! Wait, that’s not it. Thunderbirds have left the building! Thunderbirds are...”

“Go?”

“That’s the one.”

Mars. There’s a Mars launch mission. Now, we’ve seen a story a little like this before in ‘Thunderbirds Are Go’ (1966 film) with the crew of the Zero-X (who okay, made it to Mars), but with a few problems on the way. Similar story here. Sort of.

I love how Scott was relegated to the backseat for the launch as well!

“Captain, there’s even a handy chart that lists all our names and vehicles. Just in case”

“Thanks Brian.”

“It’s Brains.”

Yeah.. no “just in case” about it. Let’s pull up the chart.

“Are we there yet?”

Um, did anyone else kinda feel like Scott sounded a little like someone else in that moment? I’ll even give you a hint.

“You and Dad were the first team to ever land there.”

“Nearly didn’t. Dust storm almost made us call off the descent, but we took the risk and went anyway. Jeff said ‘humanity never got anywhere taking it easy’. I’ve always remembered that. Gordon here should take it to heart every time he pilots Thunderbird Three.”

“Um... I’m Alan, Sir.”

Let’s pull the chart back up... At least he got a name correct, if not the right brother.

“Will do, Virgil!”

“It’s Scott, Sir! Nevermind.”

I spoke too soon. My apologies everyone.

“Captain Taylor, do you read me?”

“FAD, uh B. Whatever that means.”

You were there with Jeff when he set IR up! We were relying on you to know Lee! Right, we’re all doomed to never know the full truth.

“She may still be trying to fix the engines.”

Yeah, she probably could have done with Lee there sooner.

“Why are you reconnecting the power feed coils? That could take the systems offline.”

“Exactly! The proton storm didn’t damage your systems, it put them on hold. We need to manually re-jump each connection to get things running again.”

Captain Taylor really is the expert in fixing things, isn’t he? Can he come and fix my WI-FI? Seriously, I still need to choose who I’m swapping to after all this is over.

“Remind me to thank Brains for this.”

“Ok. Hey, Scott, remember to thank Brains.”

“Very funny, Thunderbird Three.”

Look at Alan thinking on the spot and doing his little commentaries.

“Impressive Thunderbird Three. Remind me to thank you later.”

“Ok, Scott-”

“Later, Thunderbird Three.”

“We got a big rocky problem ahead.”

Yeah you do, Scott...

“We just lost the landing pods.”

“I can’t keep this up Captain.”

Breathe, everyone. They all survive.

“Glad to have you back Pod Explorer. Remind me to thank you sometime.”

“Ok, Alan?”

“Later, Scott.”

I’m liking these little thrown-in bits of humour.

“It’s never too late to start again.”

Very true Captain Taylor.

“The chances of the Helius landing without breaking apart are very slim.”

“But it’s the only option we have.”

And so that translates to Scott as ‘let’s get on board the floating ship of possible death, even though Alan’s idea might get me killed’. Yeah... I wouldn’t have done that personally but hey, there we go.

That landing still makes me nervous, don’t know about annyone else.

“Alan! You’re back!”

“Sorry, Scott, couldn’t let you have all the fun.”

Meaning ‘couldn’t let you get yourself killed on my watch’.

“Scott? Captain Taylor? Does anyone read me?”

“Loud and clear, Alan.”

“Captain! You’re alive! And you got my name right!”

And because I’ve only just realised I forgot all about keeping count, here is the updated rescue score.

Rescue count: 38

Are we nearing anyone’s bet for the whole series yet? I still need to work out a suitable prize for the person who guesses the closest...

This was a moment I loved to the death - the amount of times I must have watched just this scene alone when this episode first came out... I’ve lost count.

“This is the same site your dad and I landed on all these years ago. Actually, Scott, if it’s all the same to you I think I’ll stay a while. It’s never too late to start again. I can’t think of a better place than Mars to spend my Golden Years.”

“Should we get back to you in a month?”

“Better make it two.”

Yeah... we’ll get around to that at some point.

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summerspn · 4 years

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Felicity

Tv series (1998-2002)

Spoilers...

I’ve gradually been watching Felicity for the past few months & have completed watching the series. I gotta say it’s charming & oddly addictive.

At the beginning of the series Felicity (Keri Russell) is an extremely shy & introverted character. She’s adorable. We see her proudly graduating high school but also feeling some trepidation about it. Naturally.

She sees her high school crush, Ben Covington, (Scott Speedman) at their high school graduation & decides to just go & talk to him. She regretted not getting to know him before. So she fixes that. Her yearbook had some sort of printing issue so they gave it to her on graduation day. So she asks Ben to sign her yearbook.

Surprisingly he sits down & writes a very thoughtful message to her. It’s sweet & inspiring. She decides to follow him to New York & she gets into NYU.

In tv land one can get into school in just a couple months - ya know completely ignoring the hundreds of people waitlisted lol That made me chuckle when watching. No big deal though.

Felicity gets to school & realizes Ben was just a nice guy & wasn’t in love with her of course. So she gets a bit of a reality check.

She makes a few friends & lives in the biggest dorm room on the history of planet Earth!

My room in my old dorm was ‘big’ and it had 3 feet of space between the beds...much bigger than my sister’s dorm lol

Felicity is likeable because she’s sweet, smart, shy & confused & just trying to figure her life out. All she knew is she didn’t want med school as her parents kept trying to shove it down her throat.

Ben is a nice guy who struggles with feeling stupid sometimes (though is actually really smart). He struggled with some of his classes & lacks a clear path for his major.

Occasionally Ben has these lines & that message in the yearbook which made me stop & go ‘you’re a writer’. I kept thinking he was going to become a writer...then in season four he decides to be a doctor. Okay...it was an alright decision & I like his academic plot lines in season 4 so no real complaints there.

We meet Noel Crane (Scott Foley)who is super dreamy. He’s smart, nice, outspoken but sensitive. A straight laced student & Resident Advisor (RA) who becomes Felicity’s friend & has a crush on her.

Throughout the series that’s the love triangle. It was interesting but there was far too much emphasis on it. Often it overshadowed the more interesting storylines on the show, IMO.

Noel pines for Felicity & loses sight of his life then soon graduates without a plan then later develops depression. I thought that was a great storyline. Noel’s family history of depression was compelling & how the character described it was very well done.

Back then tv shows didn’t talk about mental illness but this was handled delicately.

Noel gets help & gets better. He gets his life back on track, pursuing his dream of graphic design. There’s a line where he gets teased for liking computers...ya know as only ‘nerds’ like that stuff 😂

Felicity’s roommate Meghan Rotundi (Amanda Foreman) is a bit of a goth/Wicca practitioner. Every other character wear clothes I assume that are from The Gap so Meghan looks very different in her black mesh clothes & dark makeup. Nice contrast but I feel like Meghan’s development was overlooked for the most part of the series. She’s very blunt, unapologetic, sometimes mean...but she also cares for others even though she’ll deny it.

In her romantic life there’s growth but not academically. It’s only in the end of the last season does she realize she wants to pursue psychiatry. I think there were some missed opportunities there.

Though I will say I like that her uptight parents accept her for her quirks & clothing choices.

Sean Blumberg (Greg Grunberg) ...I have mixed feelings about his character. He’s an ambitious inventor & sort-of businessman. He owns a loft where Ben sublets /shares with him. Sean’s nice, caring & excitable. He’s also several years older. Around 5 or 6yrs difference I think.

His age difference was brought up several times, as if it were supposed to be important. In my last year of school I lived with a woman who was 15 years older than me. So what? Not a big deal. I’m not sure why the show kept pointing it out.

The only issue with his age is that at one point he’s 27 and STILL has no steady job. None! He’s all-in with his inventions that make no money & his family isn’t rich so how does that work now? He has a loft in New York with zero income? One episode talked of him owing money but come on, get rid of the loft, downsize then get a job, even if part time. *sigh*.

At the start of the series I liked Sean but then they turned him into a pathetic leech who gets mad & throws tantrums easily. He became incredibly annoying.

When I was near the end of the series I started to think that Sean would actually make a good salesman. Imagine him trying to sell cars, just the right amount of pushy. Though they put an episode in that made him look like a buffoon when making a sales pitch. So I feel like the writers were confused or trying to sabotage his character because he still ends up leeching off his buddy Noel & they end up business partners. 🤷‍♀️

Sean & Meghan date & eventually marry. I thought they were cute together at first but not as long term. I feel like Meghan would murder him due to being sick of his shit.

Elena Tyler (Tangi Miller) becomes a good friend to Felicity. All the ladies care for each other a great deal. Elena is very intelligent & a hard worker. She had a few romances & nearly got married. But I’ll be honest I found her boring. Not sure why. I think the most interesting part of her character was that she chose not to marry her fiancé Tracy. I thought it was a very smart move. And I found her background with her mom interesting but they didn’t do much with that.

Richard Coad starts out as an annoying member of the dorm. He & Noel become friends then later gets befriended by the group. Richard is a neurotic, blunt talking mess. He’s somehow still kinda adorable though does have some rough spots. I really liked him up through season 3. Season 4 he was in much less and then the writers turned him into a racist moron. Even if he had those thoughts I feel like his character would be more subtle & not as rude due to his overly developed sense of self preservation. Plus he’s not stupid, just blunt & a bit disconnected.

He did apologize but still it felt just so...wrong. Out of character even.

In any case I think the writers should have made him a little more like Rob Benedict, the actor who played him. Rob’s loveable.

Javier Quintata (Ian Gomez) is the owner at the coffee shop Dean & Deluca. He’s the boss but becomes very close with everyone, especially Felicity. I really liked him at first. Eventually his personal favours become outlandish & his stories started to make my eyes roll.

He & his devoted husband break up over non-issues. Why? It added nothing to the plot. Javier also wants to pursue acting at NYU. He’s really not good so it came off as a dumb idea & all scenes in acting class become annoying. I feel like the writers didn’t know what to do with him. I’d have preferred if he pursued a different dream- one that made sense. Like maybe all the years working with coffee & pastries inspires him to want to be a chef? 🤷‍♀️

Felicity. Throughout the series she’s shy, gradually getting more of a backbone. She admits to loving art & wants to pursue it. Her parents constantly pull her down , try to talk her out if it, even bully & manipulate her. She is for the most part uncompromising. I loved that! She held her ground & from a person like her, who always kept the peace at the expense of her own happiness, that’s amazing.

We see her grow though she spends far too much time angst-ing over Ben & Noel. Often she seems tortured with very few moments of being free & having fun.

I loved how in season 4 she befriends fellow artist Owen. I feel like that was huge. I loved how they went to galleries together & talked about their art & life. It was refreshing. I love that Felicity’s honours art class was so important to her & everything around that plot.

I hated however, how she always put others first.

So...I have to mention Felicity’s haircut from Season 2. I didn’t find it that bad...but apparently Keri Russell got death threats from it. Complete insanity!

Though I do think as it was 1999 back then, people were more uptight with personal style. If she had dyed her hair pink instead people would have flipped out too.

I do think there were better hair styles to choose from though. I think if she had a cut her hair to chin length & straightened it it could look pretty & still have a big impact. Something like that.

But honestly it’s just hair. I had a horrible haircut one year in university but it grew out on a few months & was fine. No big deal....but I wasn’t on tv so no one cared I guess 🤷‍♀️

In the ‘series finale’ , Felicity abruptly chooses medicine. Why??? That uncompromising love for painting just gone....And back to medicine? I wanted her to be an artist!

Every artist has a day job to support them. Felicity was acting like she was going to starve because she couldn’t sell her paintings.

I wish they found her a day job she really liked to support herself. I wanted her to be all-in.

Or they could find her a middle ground. That internship at the architectural firm, she could have realized she wanted to be an architect or something. Something other than medicine.

I really like though that she chose herself finally. Then Ben follows her to school. That was perfect. I just wished she didn’t want to be a doctor. I feel like that goes against everything she wanted.

Overall a great series. I love how they approach mental health - Felicity’s too. She was getting therapy regularly. It was nice to see. Very healthy.

I like JJ Abrams’ work but I (like everyone else) question the last several episodes. Nonsensical & out of place.

Personally I think the show should have put less emphasis on the romantic relationships & drama & more on self discovery by all characters. That’s more interesting...then sprinkle in a few moments here and there. A few episodes on love etc each season. We didn’t need the constant longing looks & drama of Will they won’t they.

I know I’m in a minority when it comes to such things but I feel the media - tv & movies especially focus WAY too much on the romance.

Then of course people like me who are borderline Asexual (except when it comes to fictional characters lol), I find it exhausting to always be bombarded with romance from all angles. However, if Felicity (and other shows) just used it occasionally & not every single episode I wouldn’t mind.

It’s just hard to care about a show if it just feels like it’s only about relationships and not much about life. But that’s just me.

The storylines that had me intensely interested in this show were:

- Ben’s relationship with his dad

- Ben gaining self confidence & realizing he’s actually smart

- Noel’s graphic designs & career

- Noel’s mental health

- Meghan’s rebellious nature & wanting to see what happens when she gets over the need to rebel (though we didn’t see much of it).

- Felicity’s parents’ attitude - I wanted them to see that they were wrong & admit it to her (though they don’t) 😞

- Wanting to see Richard find something he was really interested in & good at (which never happened)

- Wanting Felicity to have fun! Random silliness or parties...they rarely partied or did weird outings to things like paintball or bowling. College is for doing a million things. I wish tv land would do more if this

- Wanting Felicity to stop making decisions because of her love interests

- Wanting Felicity to go on a summer trip or internship to Europe on her own (never happened)

- Wanting Felicity to choose art (also didn’t happen) & support herself with either a job she simply likes (dog waking, tutoring, retail etc) or something in the art field (art therapy, illustrator etc)

To me these should have been the priorities & add romance occasionally...

But overall the series was good. The acting was really good from everyone. Even minor characters had pretty good actors. So well done!

The actors are great in other projects too. Keri Russell was in The Americans, even the Rise of Skywalker. Never saw them but I heard great things. Personally I really liked her in Austenland, August Rush, Mission Impossible 3 (small but great role), and I LOVED her in the movie Waitress.

Definitely give the actors a watch in other projects, even if you have mixed feelings about them in Felicity. They’re all good.

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ecoamerica · 15 days

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youtube

Watch the American Climate Leadership Awards 2024 now: https://youtu.be/bWiW4Rp8vF0?feature=shared

The American Climate Leadership Awards 2024 broadcast recording is now available on ecoAmerica's YouTube channel for viewers to be inspired by active climate leaders. Watch to find out which finalist received the $50,000 grand prize! Hosted by Vanessa Hauc and featuring Bill McKibben and Katharine Hayhoe!

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johannesviii · 4 years

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Top 10 Personal Favorite Hit Songs from 2019

The last list, for now. It’s been a wild ride.

Not the best of these lists, but some really refreshing stuff charted that year, and what was good was super good. And also, here’s a barely elligible #1 that nobody seemed to care about for some reason.

Disclaimers:

Keep in mind I’m using both the year-end top 100 lists from the US and from France while making these top 10 things. There’s songs in English that charted in my country way higher than they did in their home countries, or even earlier or later, so that might get surprising at times.

Of course there will be stuff in French. We suck. I know. It’s my list. Deal with it.

My musical tastes have always been terrible and I’m not a critic, just a listener and an idiot.

I have sound to color synesthesia which justifies nothing but might explain why I have trouble describing some songs in other terms than visual ones.

In 2019, my finger was fixed, I dropkicked depression in the garbage bin (with a little help from Eurovision because it was super good and full of hilarious shit), got married, and went on a roadtrip on Vancouver Island (BC, Canada), and that was my first real travel in 13 years. Met a lot of great people, seen amazing places, trees, bears and whales. And planes are also part of the adventure when you’re not used to them (you can watch movies on little screens from your seat now?? I had no idea. I watched so many movies). It was very exciting.

I also saw VNV Nation live in February, for the third time in six years. This time I had enough budget to buy a tshirt. I wasn’t expecting that concert to be even better than the previous two. At that point the new album had only been out for a couple of months and we still knew the lyrics of most of the new songs and Ronan’s face was constantly broadcasting a kind of “...........how” expression (face it guys, we like you. A lot). And they finished with All Of Our Sins and let me tell you, half the club was ready to start a revolution by the time that was over. Super intense.

Ok. 2019 albums! First, let’s talk about some negative things. Coldplay released Everyday Life at the end of the year. It was... uh. It was basically how I stopped loving their new stuff. That’s a very sad conclusion (for now) to this saga. This is exactly what I feared would have happened after Viva La Vida, aka them trying to go back to their earlier sound - except in the meantime we’ve got three fantastic albums with songs full of energy and joy. So I’m not too mad about this, just disappointed.

Within Temptation released Resist, and it wasn’t very good either, but I appreciated the general aesthetic of it. More SF-themed albums in symphonic metal, please. NF released The Search and while I’m still not a fan there’s a song on it that would have been #1 on this list if it had been elligible, so that’s something. And Carly Rae Jepsen released Dedicated and it was super good so why isn’t she getting new hits. Why. It feels unfair. Oh, and Avantasia made Moonglow and that’s the first time I’ve cared about their stuff in like a decade or so. Ghost In The Moon is super good, check it out.

But the big event of the year music-wise, as far as I’m concerned, was the return of two bands I thought we had lost forever. Of course My Chemical Romance reformed, but they don’t have new music yet, so the main event for this post is the return of Tool with Fear Inoculum. It’s not even their best album, but having a pretty good new Tool album in the year of our lord 2019 wasn’t at all something I was counting on. Of course, the hardcore fans are still as insufferable as ever (insert the “you need a pretty high IQ” copypasta here), but it didn’t spoil my enjoyment of it. Come on! Their first album in 13 years! 80 minutes of hypnotic heavy rhythms and weird shit, an album that trolled me when I opened it by playing a music video while I was looking somewhere else (yeah I jumped), and they even managed to land a track for one week on the US hot 100! Again, Tool! On the hot 100! in 2019! Unbelievable. Are we starting to return to the good timeline? I certainly hope so.

Unelligible songs, now. The Search by NF would have topped this list super easily. Might be one of the songs I listened to the most in 2019, actually. Now That I Found You by Carly Rae Jepsen, again, should have been a hit, and I beg you to watch this music video if you’ve never seen it. The 1975 released the super unexpected People, which was still good, and also Frail State of Mind. And most unexpected of all, three artists I didn’t care about at all teamed up and made absolute gold: I Think I’m OKAY, by Machine Gun Kelly, YUNGBLUD and Travis Barker. That would have been the second slot on this list if it had been elligible. Or maybe the first, even? Not sure. I’m just so happy this kind of angry but uplifting music is starting to become popular again. I just love everything about this song.

Here’s a short list of honorable mentions!

Roi (Bilal Hassani) - I don’t like this song a lot, but I do like it, I’m glad it was our song for the ESC 2019, and Bilal is a very nice and endearing person, and everyone who disrespects him on twitter is free to come fight me in the pit, where I’m still waiting with that tambourine from my 1992 list.

Con Calma (Daddy Yankee, Katy Perry, Snow) - You already know I liked the original Informer a lot, so I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t pleased to hear this clone of it on the radio.

Breathin’ (Ariana Grande) - Here’s the usual “if I had better taste this would be higher” honorable mention.

Summer Days (Martin Garrix) - In the absence of any new hit song from Macklemore this will do in a pinch.

Circles (Post Malone) - The fact that everyone seems to adore this and I’m over there saying “it’s ok I guess” probably means I will never love Post Malone nor understand the hype about him, and that’s okay, I can live with that.

High Hopes (Panic! At the Disco) - Still elligible. Still good but too borderline annoying to make the list.

How Do You Sleep (Sam Smith) - This year Sam Smith pulled a Viva La Vida and decided to stop making boring music all of a sudden and I’m LIVING FOR THIS. I certainly hope they continue in that direction.

And now, the list.

10 - La Grenade (Clara Luciani)

US: Not on the list / FR: #55

The only semi-filler on the list. I still like it a lot. Don’t have anything to say about it, though.

9 - Panini (Lil Nas X)

US: #40 / FR: Not on the list

Wasn’t too impressed by this at first and it took a while to grow on me, but the chorus is a nice little earworm, and “hey panini, don’t you be a meanie” has a tendency to pop in my head when I read hateful comments on the internet now. And Lil Nas X is just too endearing to be ignored. We’re so lucky to have someone who became famous so quickly and instantly decided to dress like a Jojo character and have the geekiest music videos possible and still be super nice and humble. We don’t deserve this guy.

8 - Dance Monkey (Tones And I)

US: Not on the list / FR: #6

I’m super glad the US are finally getting on the hype train in 2020 because this is a ton of fun. If the voice was juuuuuust a little less grating this would be even higher. Impossible to get it out of your head and somehow in this case that’s a good thing.

7 - Dancing With a Stranger (Sam Smith & Normani)

US: #14 / FR: Not on the list

As I said in the honorable mentions, Sam Smith pulled a Viva La Vida and decided to stop making boring music all of a sudden and I couldn’t be happier about that. This song is still a bit too calm for my taste most of the time, but when I’m in the right mood, it’s just fantastic.

Again, I hope Sam Smith continues in that direction, because if you had told me a couple of years ago that I would start to like their stuff one day, I would have laughed out loud.

6 - Bad Guy (Billie Eilish)

US: #4 / FR: #16

Duh.

I’m not as enthusiastic about When The Party’s Over as a ton of people are, mostly because, well, it’s a slow emotional song with little to no colour in it and by now you’re already aware I tend to have next to zero interest in that kind of songs. Bad Guy, on the other hand, is half hilarious half scary in equal doses, and even if I’m not super fond of the weird outro, it’s still a fantastic, weird as shit song, and I’m really glad Billie Eilish exists. Can’t wait to see where she goes from there.

I’m super glad this song didn’t come out when I was a teenager myself though. Come to think of it, I’m not sure I would have survived if the musical landscape from 16 years ago had been as depressed as it currently is. Thank god music is slowly getting more energetic again in 2020. Let’s stay on that track.

5 - Hey Look Ma I Made It (Panic! At The Disco)

US: #61 / FR: Not on the list

I follow several music critics on youtube and over the course of 2019, I’ve seen undiluted vitriol and hatred against this song (Spectrum Pulse even made a list of his “worst hit songs” of the decade and put this one at #10! TEN!!). And... I don’t really get where it’s coming from? Maybe I’m too literal-minded to see what the problem is with a sarcastic song saying “look I sold out and now I found success again! And it’s not that great!”. I just think it’s a lot of fun. Thank god Todd put it on his best list, at least we can agree on one thing for once.

It is hilarious that after putting so many Fall Out Boy songs on my lists, the one that I love the most from Panic! is the sellout song. Not sure why this was huge while the even better Say Amen wasn’t, though.

4 - Sunflower (Swae Lee & Post Malone)

US: #2 / FR: Not on the list

I usually don’t get the “chill” songs that tend to be successful these days but this one, unlike most Post Malone songs (bar Circles), has lovely pastel colors and a cloudy texture and it’s a really good vibe. It took several months to grow on me but it sure did.

In about ten years, people will listen to Sunflower and be submerged by nostalgia, mark my words.

3 - Old Town Road (Lil Nas X)

US: #1 / FR: #1 (see, everyone agrees for once)

Everyone on the planet already wrote a thinkpiece about this song and yet I’ve only seen maybe one out of five mentioning, just in passing, that the entire song is based on a Nine Inch Nail track from Ghosts I-IV, superbly re-used to make a weird and insanely catchy country hip hop song out of it. Ghosts has been one of my go-to albums to listen to while I’m painting for about ten years now. I’m saying all this because hearing a track from Ghosts on the radio for months was absolute bliss for me, especially in a new and improved version.

Thank you Lil Nas X for everything you’ve been doing and I wish you a long and successful career. You deserve it. I love this and I love you.

2 - Bury A Friend (Billie Eilish)

US: #73 / FR: Not on the list

Hello again, Billie Eilish.

This song is absolutely terrifying and that was before I even saw the music video. This is the soundtrack of your nightmares right there. I’m not even sure it deserves to be so high on the list, but frankly I’m too terrified to care. Maybe Old Town Road should be higher. I don’t know.

Also you have to know that when I’m super tired I go into echolalia mode and automatically repeat words or entire sentences that my brain considers interesting, like “potiron” (pumpkin) or “dramatique” ; and recently, my brain decided “when we all fall asleep, where do we go?”, sung exactly like it’s sung in this song, was its new favorite sentence. So. Hearing yourself saying that to an empty room while you’re drawing or folding clothes or cleaning plates is not a very pleasant experience, and it makes this song extra scary to me.

And now, here’s the last #1 of the last one of these lists (for now), and I’m glad to announce it closes this series of posts in a super fitting way.

Check this out. It’s so perfect in every way.

1 - Walk Me Home (Pink)

US: #99 / FR: Not on the list

Nobody seemed to care about this song over the course of 2019, and it's barely elligible, and I still have no idea why. The music reviewers I follow only either talked about it super briefly when it came out, or not at all. The rare ones who were making top 100s at the end of the year instead of top 10s usually put it somewhere in the middle of their lists. And yet it’s the elligible song I’ve listened to the most.

If you’ve been reading this series of posts for a while now, you probably already know exactly why it’s here, but here’s a quick recap.

The second album I ever bought in my life was Pink’s Missundaztood in 2002, and I loved her music a lot:

I was still really fond of her stuff in 2007:

Then she started to become less interesting and I basically ignored her apart from a brief blip on my radar in 2017:

Meanwhile, in 2012, fun. made some of the best songs of the entire decade before vanishing instantly, and I’ve been mourning them ever since:

And in the middle of last year, here I am, listening to the radio, and suddenly I hear something that sounds exactly like a fun. song, except I’ve never heard it before and it’s sung by a female singer, and, most importantly, it’s 2019 and fun. broke up more than six years earlier. And I’m like, what’s going on. This is so good. What the hell. What is this.

And I hear it a second time weeks later, and I google it, and I discovered that 1) it was Pink singing this, which made it my favorite Pink song in literally more than ten years, and 2) it was, indeed, written by one of the guys from fun., among other people who’s influence is less obvious.

I guess the main lesson from 2019, between newcomers making great music based on dead trends, old groups reforming, and this song, is that nothing’s gone forever, and things you used to enjoy can come back at the most unexpected time and in the most unexpected form.

There’s always, always gonna be new music to love, and it’s just a question of time.

Quick note

And with this, these lists are over... for now.

I don’t regret making them even if they were a ton of work, because that was super useful for a lot of different reasons.

They helped me get a better understanding of my own life’s chronology. That may sound stupid but I tend to link events to the music I was listening to at the time, and putting all that music in chronological order helped a lot.

I rediscovered a ton of songs I had completely forgotten about, and a lot of new ones. My playlist is much richer now and I’m happy about that.

I also discovered a few artists I knew nothing about.

It forced me to analyse two depressive episodes in my life and just because everything was now in exact chronological order, it accidentally helped me pinpoint what caused both of them. Better and cheaper than therapy. Impressive.

It made me realise how important some bands and artists had been in my life, and I relistened to some of their catalogue while making these lists. For some it was really obvious (Indochine, Placebo, Mylène Farmer, My Chemical Romance among some others), and for some others (Moby, Linkin Park, Mika in particular), it was a real surprise.

It made me realise that Placebo might have been huge in France but weirdly enough not that huge in the UK nor in the US. It’s especially striking when you look at their wikipedia page in English then in French and realise how detailed the French one is compared to the English one. Can’t believe Sleeping With Ghosts was a n°1 album here and basically nowhere else. That was the band where that discrepency was the most obvious but it wasn’t the only one like that. Really puts stuff in perspective.

It also helped me realise how cyclical popular music is. 1) trends tend to die near the end of every decade and the worst year is usually somewhere between the 8th and the 9th year. 2008 and 2018 tend to confirm this. 2) For the same reason, some new & interesting stuff appears at the beginning of every decade, and reaches its high point of quality between the 2nd and 4th year of the decade. 3) Basically I’m saying we’ve now passed the lowest musical quality in recent memory and 2022-2023 will have some exceptional music.

See you in December 2020. I have no doubt there’s a ton of great music coming up in the near future.

#Johannes’ bad not good pretty terrible music lists #music #long post #the last one #I can't believe this is over #I loved making these lists #spider tw #eye contact tw

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going-dead · 5 years

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What if..?

Hey back from months of making zero DP content, hyper fixation is back and here for a while. So here’s my entry for Danny phantom angst day as well as Ectober day 1 prompt: What if? (list by @fruitloopghost ) I wrote this in one sitting instead of doing something productive like homework so sorry for any errors, I’ll comb through and edit when I have time. Click the read more to read it.

What if they hate him, try to capture him, or just shoot him? What if he gets thrown out, allowed to live but not around them. That would somehow be worse Danny figured. “Well are you going to say anything?” Danny asked, staring at his parents. He would settle for anything talking, questions, yelling, any type of reaction just not silence. Transformation rings split once more leaving a dark haired boy in their wake. Jazz was nervously looking between their parents. Danny didn’t know what she was nervous about, it was his half-life at stake.

Maddie’s hands were shaking as she lifted them as if to ward off her son. Her face steeled. “No. Jazz take Danny upstairs and make sure he gets to his room. Your father and I are going to work this out, we will solve this Danny don’t worry. You’ll be rid of Phantom soon”

Danny’s face twisted in a mixture of hurt and confusion. “But there’s nothing to get rid of? I’m me still, kinda human still, I just have a bit extra tacked on. But that bit is still me, Phantom is me as much as I am Phantom. It’s not a ‘we’ scenario it’s me.” He tried to explain, turning his hand invisible as if to prove a point. He looked to his father pleadingly who had yet to speak up,

“It will be okay Danny, but we’re scientists. We observe the world with facts. And the fact is that we just found out our son as you put it is ‘half ghost’. This is an unknown and we are going to have to be wary until have the facts.” Jack gave a smile, but it was obviously forced. The man smiles so much it’s easy to tell when it isn’t genuine. He gave Jazz and Danny a shooing motion. Leaving no room for argument as he and Maddie descended into the lab with hushed argument.

Jazz rested her hand on Danny’s shoulder, a gesture of comfort, and led Danny upstairs. “Don’t look so glum Danny. Look on the bright side, they didn’t shoot you or try to take you into the lab!” They stopped outside his bedroom door.

“Honestly I’d rather have them try to attack me, at least that way I’d know how they felt about all of this.” He shrugged. Just because they were tolerant of him at the moment didn’t mean that their attitude won't change at any moment. He didn’t have to alert Jazz of that though she had enough worries.

“I’m sure they just need some time, they’ll see that your ghostly half doesn’t make them any less their son.” She gave him a hug before going to her own room. They had school tomorrow, it would give their parents time to adjust by themselves.

Danny gave a weak smile before retreating into his own room. He fell face first onto his bed and hugged his pillow. No matter the end outcome of this his relationship with his parents would never be the same as before. He let his thoughts fade as he drifted into sleep.

Danny didn’t wake up strapped to a lab table or connected to a bunch of instruments, so that was a plus. Did normal teens have to worry about that? Probably not Danny mused. He threw on some clothes and headed downstairs for breakfast. He was surprised to see the table set and filled with food. His brows knitted in confusion, usually he would have to make himself breakfast, his parents still asleep or already down in the lab. Jazz would cook occasionally if she woke up a bit earlier but nothing like this.

Jazz herself came down a few seconds later, confusion evident on her face as well. The question of who was answered shortly after when Jack and Maddie stepped into the kitchen. “Ah good you’re both up. I was starting to worry you wouldn’t have time to eat. Your father and I decided it was time we had a family breakfast for once.” Maddie smiled clapping her hands together.

Danny and Jazz looked at each other in suspicion, but sat down all the same. Food was loaded onto everyone's plates, everyone except Danny started to eat. He poked his pancake with his fork, as if he expected it to explode. Jack was already halfway done with his food when he noticed Danny’s plate was still full. “Come on Danny-bo… Danny, the pancakes aren’t going to bite you.”

“Biting isn't what I’m worried about.” He mumbled, though food trying to eat the Fenton family members wasn’t unheard of, ecto-radiation was no joke. All the same he slowly took a bite of his food. He waited a few seconds, not passed out or hunched over in pain, he shrugged and continued to eat. That wasn’t to say he was comfortable, the moment the food passed his lips his parents seemed to watch his every move, studying him. He suddenly felt like an animal in the wild being observed by researchers.

Not soon enough it was time for Danny and Jazz to head to school. Jack had already excused himself, Danny not sure to as where he went. He shouldered his bag walking with Jazz towards the front door. “Bye mom, I love you.” He called over his shoulder.

“Goodbye Danny.” Danny pretended it didn’t hurt when she didn’t say I love you back, she always said I love you back. But it was fine, teenagers aren’t supposed to tell their parents they love them anyway. Right? It didn’t matter, he had to get to school. At least that way he wouldn’t have to see the disappointment in his parents eyes everytime they looked at him. At least his teachers had a reason to look at him in disappointment.

School was uneventful, other than Sam and Tucker being relieved to see him okay. He was pretty sure the whole school could feel how nervous he was as the school day drew to an end. He didn’t want to go back home and have his parents treat him like something other. His teachers didn’t call him out when he fell asleep in class, even Dash stayed away from him that day. It wasn’t until he was in the car with Jazz did he figure out why.

“Um Danny are you okay?” His sister asked almost warily.

“You mean other than the fact that our parents could turn on me at any second? Just peachy.” Danny snapped. He was surprised to see Jazz almost flinch.

“Can you tone whatever you’re doing down a bit? I’d rather not get frostbite and feel an overwhelming sense of terror driving. It’s just not safe. You can talk to me you know that right?”

Tone it down…? He looked down at his hands and saw his ghostly aura flicker around him, much brighter and far reaching than usual. And while the green and blue mixture was pretty to look at, that isn’t the case if a human comes in contact with it. Of course they can’t see it, but they sure as hell can feel something wrong. He flinched. “Oops sorry Jazz, didn’t even notice I was doing it. It’s probably just because of nerves. I really don’t need to figure out a random new power while mom and dad are watching my every move.”

Jazz nodded her head in agreement. Shaking the effects of Danny’s aura off her she pulled out of the school parking lot. “If you want, I can spend the day with you. That way you don’t have to be alone in a room with mom and dad.” She offered glancing at Danny out of the corner of her eye.

“Yeah that’d probably help.” Danny answered. Secretly relieved and happy she offered. When they entered the driveway he took a deep breath, scaring his parents with his aura or ‘scary eyes’ would not help his situation.

Entering the house his parents voices immediately called out from the lab “Danny? Could you come down here for a second?” Danny shot a panicked look at Jazz. She motioned for him to breathe, grabbed his hand and walked slowly down the stairs and into the lab.

Jack looked up hearing footsteps descending down the stairs. “Oh hey Jazzy-pants, you don’t need to be down here. Just going to confirm some things with Danny.” Seeing Jazz’s glare he quickly backpedaled. “Not saying you have to leave though! More the merrier right hun?”

“Of course dear. No need to look so worried Danny, we’re your parents we wouldn’t ever hurt you intentionally.” Maddie walked over to her kids. “Nothing bad, we just need a few samples. Hair, saliva, vitals those sort of things. Only blood if you allow it of course.”

Danny shifted on his feet uncomfortably, he couldn’t really say no now could he. Plus he was a bit curious about what they’d find. They led him to the chair near the computer and sat him down. Jack grabbed the hair, saliva, and blood samples, with Danny’s consent. While Maddie started on taking his vitals. “So what we were thinking was: What if we could find out what is causing your ghostly abilities. Could we remove them? Make you normal again?”

Danny was about to speak up about being ‘normal’ but Jack interrupted. “Maddie come look at this!” He was leaning over a microscope. Danny took off the blood pressure cuff and followed his mom over to where his father was. Jazz was on her phone looking up occasionally to make sure Danny was fine. “It’s incredible, I haven’t put it through the scanner yet but I’d bet my fudge that is ectoplasm mixed in with his normal red blood cells. There that word was again normal. What if Danny didn’t want to be normal.

Maddie took the samples and carefully put them into the scanner. She tapped her foot waiting for it to finish. She jumped to attention when the results showed up on screen. “DNA...blah blah blah...fifty percent… Oh no.” Maddie staggered away from the machine, looking absolutely crushed. “Oh Jack!” She pulled her husband into a hug. “There’s ectoplasm directly entangled with his DNA, we can’t fix him. Our boy Jack, he’s never going to be the same baby boy we held in our arms.”

Danny looked at his parents, not in fear or anger, no it was in defeat. “Does that really change the fundamental aspects of who I am? I’m still me still Danny, i’m still a teenage boy who sleeps in class and likes video games. I’m not a broken toy you can just throw out because I'm no longer what you want. I’m your son! You’re supposed to love me and accept me for who I am unconditionally.”

Maddie looked at Danny confused. “Of course we still love you. This is just a hard thing to accept, it’d be one thing if it were something like you and Tucker decided to date, we would support you fully. But you have to understand this from our perspective. We found out that our son who we’ve cared for since he was born, is part ghost.”

Danny shook his head. “I understand just fine. I’m the one who had to come to terms that I pretty much died. That I was the only one actually qualified to fight ghosts without obliterating them. I’m the one who had to figure out ghost powers while still going to school, alone except for Sam and Tucker. I’m the one who had to stitch wounds closed and hide the pain of broken bones, that thankfully only lasted a few days. Injuries I got trying to save people all while the government, my classmate, and my own parents tried to kill or tourture me. But no, you're right, finding out your son happens to be different, that has to be so much harder.” He gave a dry laugh. “I’m going to my room. I can figure dinner out myself. Come get me when you’re done mourning, not all that or that you’re the reason I’m like this in the first place, but a son who is still here.”

#ectober #ectober day 1 #danny phantom #My fic #Danny Phantom angst day #fanfiction #ectober 2019

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simplysolveduae · 4 years

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Affordable & Reliable Zoho CRM Platform for Your Business

The one other thing that we have found working with Simply Solved is that they're quick; I mean, I wasn't expecting this, and you know they've been quite good. You send an email response within a couple of hours at the worst, sometimes within minutes.

If you want something doing, they'll turn it around, and while we were building the system that they work full shifts even overnight in some cases to get it delivered on time, so yeah Simply Solved did come up with the goods, and yeah I could recommend them for that.

What Made You Choose Zoho?

The starting point wasn't Zoho platform; the starting point was I realized we needed a CRM system, and we'd been looking for some time for a CRM system. We'd done a lot of due diligence, and Zoho was one of the ones that we just kept coming back to you because it seemed to have everything we needed all in one box.

What Advantages Does Zoho CRM have?

There are a vast number of advantages to having the Zoho CRM in place, and Zoho has mainly been a revelation for the Business. One of the reasons that we went for this because we were finding we were missing parts of our process and having Zoho CRM in place means that we now don't miss parts of the process, we do what we say we're going to do.

What Impact has the Zoho platform had on your Business?

One of the problems that we were finding was that customers were contacting us with specific requirements. Somebody was saying yes, we'll do that piece of work, but it was disappearing between the cracks, and six weeks later, we were finding that we'd missed a big thing that we should have done for a customer that's just unacceptable. So to close those gaps, we needed something, and Zoho's provided the answer for that.

Why did you choose Simply Solved as your CRM Provider?

When we decided to go with Zoho one, there were two providers we could have gone with, and in the end, we decided to go with Simply Solved. Simply Solved for us working with a partner that best matched our requirements, we knew that they were going to be flexible. We knew they were going to be quick, and to be honest, we planned, executed, implemented, and got running with a Zoho CRM system in less than four months, which is unheard of in the Business.

What are the advantages of Zoho Projects?

So at the moment with Zoho Projects, what we're tending to find is that when work comes in, a requirement comes into one area of the Business anybody can load it straight onto projects. If it's on the project, it then syncs with everything else, so it also gets an owner. It gets a date, it gets a priority we can't miss stuff anymore, there are no excuses, and there's nowhere to hide.

How easy is it to Customize Zoho to Your Business?

Yesterday, one of our customers phoned me as the managing director with a bit of an issue, and we'd put a new website live but had forgotten to do one thing. I was surprised about this because our processes usually are quite good and everything, of course, is in Zoho Books these days.

So there's no excuse when I went back into the project I realized we'd miss something in our process within two minutes I'd created a new flow within Zoho which is now part of a template. Every other web build from now on has that thing built into it, so there's no way we can miss it in the future.

Why is Zoho Chat Effective?

One of the things that we have found incredibly useful is the Chat, so Chat built within Zoho is a useful tool; it's an instant chat. It's the communication and when you're working with remote teams. Sometimes we are we've got that opportunity to have instant access to these people, the other.

The advantage of it is that it records everything in the Zoho CRM, and this takes it away from being lost in something like a WhatsApp group.

How Does Zoho Improve Productivity in the Workplace?

As a business, we've seen quite an improvement in the productivity that we're getting out of the teams, primarily because they actually can see at the start of each month exactly what they need to do. We can pre-plan this work as well, so that's been quite a revelation for us.

Setting up Zoho with Simply Solved

As part of the set up Simply Solved helpful because they managed to integrate our accounting system, which is zero with Zoho accounting, but in doing so what it meant is we can pull through real-time data from the accounting system and show it in all sorts of ways some of the visual information and the management information I can now get from that is something I could never get before just from the accounting system alone.

What are the Advantages of Zoho Vault?

An unexpected bonus of Zoho is something we didn't realize. Still, it has something within it called Vault, Zoho Vault is a password keeper, and that's great because in an agency like ours where you have single passwords for applications but multiple users somebody leaves you to need to change all the passwords quite quickly using Vault we can do that in just one go.

What is Zoho Sign?

So the previous process we were using for signing up a customer was that we'd send them a Zoho email with all the details on and a direct debit attached they would then send the email back saying yes I agree to it and they'd have to print off the direct debit. They'd have to fill it in and then either scan it or send it or post it to us, which doesn't work that well for digital Business.

Using Zoho Sign, we've managed to integrate the direct debit form as well, so we now simply send them one suite of paperwork which they sign electronically, press a button it comes straight back in. So we know the orders with us, and it's compliant as well, and it sets up a workflow for the accounts team to start creating the invoices.

Is Zoho a Portable System?

One of the advantages of Zoho that we found is that the sales team particularly has access to the entire suite while they're out on the road. All the suite of applications is available as apps that come down to your phone.

You can access all the system while you're out on the road, the beauty about doing that, of course, is that you don't have to wait until you get back home at night to put that urgent request into the office to do something, you can create a task while you're out. Somebody can action it while you're driving to the next call.

Email Integration with Zoho?

One of the significant issues we used to have was when somebody left the Business there was no record of what they'd said to any customer other than on their email account, which of course, over time starts to degrade or gets put somewhere electronically in a back burner.

By integrating the emails with Zoho mail, you can have all your customer correspondents appear against the customer account in Zoho Mail. It doesn't matter which member of the team's emailed them. It will still go in, and of course, what that means is that anybody at any time can see what's been promised, what's been delivered, and what the customer wanted.

How has Zoho increased your Profit Margins?

Previously we were having issues with some salespeople thinking it was okay to discount our products to the point where they were well no longer profitable. Using Zoho books, what we've now been able to do is built-in processes, which means that they can't do that.

So when they create the order on the system, they have some flexibility to move the price up or down but only by a specified percentage, so if we don't want them to discount by more than let's say 10%, we can fix that in the system, they can't process the order if it's outside of those parameters that are critical for profitability.

Mission, Vision, and Values

As a business, we're proud of our mission, our vision, and indeed our values and our values are essential to us the trust, loyalty in collaboration with Simply Solved. We felt we found a partner that mirrored our values but, more importantly, somebody we knew we could work with for the long term.

#Zoho #Zoho CRM #zoho books #zoho projects #zoho login #zohobooks #zoho one #zoho invoice #zoho campaigns #zoho erp #zoho software #zoho mail #zoho mail login #zoho books login #zoho crm login #zoho accounting

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arabellaflynn · 4 years

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Life continues. Kind of.

I have a place to go as of this end of this month, although I still have no idea how the fuck to move my stuff during Plague Times. I don't own that much, but I also don't have a car. I am tempted to not bother moving the mattress, but I am very much afraid that if I don't I will literally never manage to own a comfortable bed ever again. Being someone who discombobulates joints on a regular basis, not being in extra pain every time I wake up is kind of important for my quality of life. I could eventually figure out how to replace the futon I use as a topper, but a futon alone is not enough padding -- I've learned the hard way that I can very much feel the hard floor or the hard pipes of a futon frame through one of those things, and it is Not Good for my sleep.

Massachusetts is, as of this writing, continuing with their re-opening plan. We've hit the phase where the dance studio has been cleared for operation, with appropriate procedures. I'm going back. Like millions of other people, I have a job that I cannot properly do without at least some access to specialized work spaces. In my case, dance is also a substitute for physical therapy that is far more expensive and difficult to access than it ought to be. I've kept myself in reasonably good nick over the past four months, but there's a lot that I just can't do. Two of three housemates work from home, both involving teleconferencing, and I can't get to the bathroom or kitchen without going through the common spaces, so I'm more or less stuck in my bedroom during working hours. There's nothing I can use as a barre in here, and not enough room to spin, kick, or use props without whacking something, and I'm not sadistic enough to do anything rambunctious in the kitchen at 2 am.

Not gonna lie, it's reassuring that one of the instructors who opted to come back is actually an MD moonlighting as a dancer. His day job is with Harvard Public Health. Masks are required, but since we've dropped the standard from "filter virus particles" to "try not to breathe too moistly on your fellow man", I've got some I can deal with. (Moisture-wicking t-shirt fabric! The mask eventually gets damp, but it stays away from both other people and my own personal face, which is what you want.) It's not fun but I also didn't pass out during class, so that's something.

Other people are freaking the fuck out. I want it noted that what MA is doing is exactly the thing I have been advocating for months: Giving people the option (but not the requirement) to go out into the world and interact with others, with harm reduction practices. You cannot keep people locked in their houses forever. You can issue the order, but they're not going to do it. Counting on "never go out" to stop the spread of coronavirus is like counting on "never have sex" to stop the spread of HIV. You can try to apply official consequences, and unofficial shaming, but people are going to sneak out and fuck anyway. They just won't tell you. And, as we are now finding out for unrelated reasons, there do not exist enough police officers in the world to make everyone do as you say.

Everyone is aware of the assholes who think the very concept of a mask is an infringement of their human rights, but I find the pathologically cautious almost as upsetting. There is a loud minority who think nothing should re-open at all anywhere until it's "safe". I'm not sure what they think "safe" means. No chance of catching anything ever? That level of safety never existed. You just don't think about measels and MRSA and TB and tularemia and Lyme disease because those are normal risks that have been around all your life. Leprosy continues to be a thing, you know. I went to college on the edge of the Colorado Plateau, where bubonic plague and hantavirus are endemic. I could argue that if you never got a warning letter about mono or meningitis when you were in the dorms, you didn't have the full residential campus experience. Wash your hands, keep your distance, try not to breathe on other people, and realize that you cannot control every single variable in the entire universe. There is a non-zero chance that Fate will kick you in the head every time you get out of bed in the morning. I am a pedestrian in Greater Boston, ffs, I have accepted my own mortality. You can't be "totally safe". You can be "safe enough".

The Late Show is back from hiatus. Colbert is badly in need of a haircut; he slicked it back on the first Monday but opined that the look was a little too "Don Jr" for him, and vowed to come on camera without hairspray after that. Judging from the headbanging a couple nights later, he meant it. He did the first few home tapings in a suit (although, as he demonstrated to camera, no shoes), but then Twitter told him they'd rather see him more casual, so he's been wearing button-ups with the sleeves rolled to the elbow. Gray has started to come in at his temples. I'm sure he could fix that at home if he really wanted to, but he's opted to point it out on camera instead.

He's even more contemptuous of 45 than he was when they were still taping in the theater, which I was not sure was physically possible. Our TV comedians are making stirring speeches about working together whilst our actual President babbles nonsense about dishwashers. I want to ask how this happened but I'm pretty sure I know. People who have no good options have been known to choose the bad option that takes the enemy down with them. Although I feel the need to point out that Joe Exotic also ran for POTUS in 2016. We all started quarantine watching Tiger King on Netflix and the Drumpf debacle on CSPAN -- if we had all voted for the other reality TV idiot, we could potentially have 100% juicier sex scandals and 100% less interference with the CDC right now.

I wonder how Colbert is coping with all this. When he first took over the Late Show, he did a bunch of interviews where he talked about the difficulty of finding a balance between being your authentic self on stage, and still being performative enough to read well to the back of the house and keep the show rolling along. If he made great strides in his first year out of character, quarantine production has sent him into freefall in the same direction. I find it disquietingly relevant to my own life. I'm about to embark on a couple of projects that will mean I have to stay physically and mentally camera-ready, or at least ready to be camera-ready, pretty much all the time for a while, but first I have to figure out what I think camera-ready looks like for me, and how much work I'm willing to put into it.

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