#shoplifted this meme even

[elekid]

#secret #secrets #secret meeting #secret menu #discounts #free #coupon #shoplifted this meme even

[eeveelotions]

#polls #eeveelotions #hyper specific polls #will talks #memes #cats #shoplifting #all of these span my entire life #true events lmao #i dont even like cheeseballs

[laiqualaurelote]

for the wip ask meme: cover story!

Thank you for this ask (from this WIP game)! a couple of folks have asked about this one. It's the Ted/Trent spy-AU-in-a-Notting-Hill-bookshop-AU, which stalled because the premise got too unwieldy and the literary references got out of hand. (It did have a playlist I was quite fond of, with a number of Kinks songs including, presciently, A Well Respected Man). Because I am unlikely to ever finish it, I thought I'd just fic amnesty the whole thing here, so:

Cover Story

Trent is about to wind up stocktaking when the door to the bookshop bangs open. “We’re closed,” he calls irritably, and then he turns and sees who it is.

“I got something of a reading emergency,” says Ted Lasso.

Trent takes him in: breathing hard, collar askew, perspiration plastering a lick of hair against his forehead. In his hand is a gun. Trent recognises it as a Heckler & Koch P30L.

Trent ought to be going for his own weapon right about now. Instead he says: “So it is you.”

“Yep,” says Ted.

“I knew it,” hisses Trent. “I fucking knew it.”

“Boy, you sure do like to be right about stuff.” Ted pauses, then staggers. Trent sees that he is favouring his left side, and that the shirt beneath the puffer jacket is darkening with blood.

“Ted,” he begins, “wh – ”

“Like I said,” Ted grits out, “emergency.” And then he collapses in the middle of Trent’s bookshop.

Five weeks earlier

“You wouldn’t happen to have the latest John le Carré, would you?”

Trent has to climb a little ways down the ladder to see the man speaking to him. It’s one of the American tourists who wandered in after lunch. There are always Americans underfoot these days, trawling the aisles of the bookshop as if in hope of a meet-cute out of Notting Hill. Trent, as a rule, finds Americans tedious and does his level best to avoid them in all his lines of work; he achieves this in the bookshop by hiding in the stacks and leaving them to the tender mercies of his assistant. Unfortunately, this appears to be a particularly persistent specimen. Trent descends a few more rungs and braces himself.

“Is that the one with Brexit?”

“The one with the bookshop.” The American has a very distracting moustache. He looks almost exactly like a slide Trent once saw in Disguises 101: How Not To Overdo It. He is also wearing multiple layers beneath his puffer jacket, like some sort of Midwestern matryoshka, even though the shop’s heating is working perfectly well. Trent is automatically suspicious of customers with many layers, lest they are shoplifters. But a shoplifter would not go to such lengths to gain his attention.

“If you mean the posthumously published one, it’s not yet in stock. Shipping delays, I’m afraid.”

“Ain’t that a pity,” says the American. “I was sold on the premise. A bookshop that’s secretly a base for spy shenanigans? Tell me you don’t want to see how that turns out.”

Trent removes his glasses, keeping his expression bland. “You could put in an order, but if you’re not in town for long then I daresay there isn’t much point.”

“Oh, we’ll be here for a while. Long vacation. Thought we’d take it easy, like the Eagles would say. Though this ain’t Winslow, Arizona.”

“You can place an order with Miss Bowen at the counter,” says Trent, after he has cast about for a response to that string of gibberish and come up empty.

“You bet I will. If I could just – ” The American reaches out, and Trent almost breaks his wrist on instinct, but he simply brushes past Trent’s sleeve and pulls a secondhand copy of Call For The Dead off the shelf. “Maybe we ain’t see the last of le Carré, but at least it’s a first.”

“Ah, ha,” says Trent, to mask his surprise that they even have a copy of Call For The Dead in stock. It’s probably languished in here for years, unsold. “Good eye.”

“Well, I thank you for the consultation, Mr…”

“Crimm. Trent Crimm, The Independent.”

“Well, Trent, I appreciate you. Keep fighting the good fight.”

Trent blinks. “Against…?”

“Amazon,” says the American brightly. “Which, as an American, I apologise for.”

“Er, quite,” says Trent. “Sorry about Brexit, and all that.”

The American’s name on the order form is Ted Lasso, which makes him sound like a fictional character. He collects his bearded friend from the philosophy section and they depart, engaged in a discussion so animated that Lasso walks into the shop door, rebounds with no perceptible damage and continues his argument without missing a beat. Trent and Miss Bowen watch them go, mildly perplexed.

“Is he a subscriber? I don’t recognise either of them.”

“Just an ordinary customer, from the looks of it. He wanted to talk about books.”

“I suppose it must happen from time to time, in a bookshop,” says Miss Bowen dryly.

Trent crosses to her side of the counter, which is built in such a way that a customer, standing in line, would not be able to see what her hands might be doing. He leans down casually to check the automatic shotgun mounted under the countertop. 

“He was talking about the new le Carré. It’s about spies in a bookshop, apparently.”

“Oh,” says Miss Bowen, eyebrow raised. “Is it now?”

“Yes,” says Trent. “We ought to get hold of it quite quickly, I think. In case there’s been a breach.”

“Come now.” She turns to him sharply. “Le Carré couldn’t have written a novel about us. I mean, he’d never been in the shop. We’d know, wouldn’t we?”

“I daresay we would, Miss Bowen. But put in the order anyway.”

“Certainly, Mr Crimm. And did you want new grenades on top of that?”

“I did, yes, thank you for reminding me.”

“Of course.” A pause. “We are quite sure that man wasn’t a subscriber, are we?”

Trent scoffs. “What, that guy? Come on.”

*

Trent’s childhood dream was to own a bookshop. He thought of bookshops as places where you could read all day and avoid people, which seemed like paradise. However, his family being who they were, his skills being what they were, the job market for English degree-holders being what it was – he spent a year at odd ends, haphazardly weighing the pursuit of postgraduate studies against attempting to break into the publishing industry, until finally he gave up and took the path he knew had always been there, lying in wait for him. He became a spy.

It was another fifteen years before he revisited the idea of the bookshop, in the wake of his abrupt and unceremonious retirement from the Circus. Cleis was one and a half years old by then, and he knew he must find something, for her sake – he had promised –  even though he could not stomach the thought of going out in the cold again. He was mulling over his various options – heaven forfend he wind up in something horrible, like insurance – when his mother dropped by for tea and said peremptorily: “Mae is retiring, don’t you know?”

Mae – the only name anyone ever knew her by – was a veritable battleaxe who ran the Crown and Anchor, a pub that doubled up as the London station for agents of every stripe working in or passing through the city. The stations, by the unspoken rules that governed their universe, were neutral ground; they served every agency and freelancer without question and in turn brooked no conflict within their confines. To move against a station was to move against the combined powers of the rest of the agencies. Nobody had tried it in Trent’s lifetime.

“Oh?” said Trent. He was only partially listening to his mother; most of his attention was focused on trying to get Cleis to keep her yoghurt in her mouth. “Who’s taking over, then?”

His mother fixed him with the glare she had honed on some of the finest intelligencers this side of the Atlantic, as well as his teenage self. “I rather thought you might throw your hat in the ring, dear.”

Cleis mawed at her in surprise and dribbled watery yoghurt down her bib. Trent sighed. “I’ll talk to Mae.”

Mae thought it was a ridiculous notion to run a station as a bookshop. “You wouldn’t catch half that lot dead in a bookshop,” was her take on it. “Who has time for reading these days? And you’ll have to get in books! Actual books!”

“That’s rather the idea, yes,” said Trent. “It can’t be harder than maintaining a liquor licence.”

“Well, it’s not like I was going to hand the tender over to anyone else,” admits Mae. “What will you call it, love?”

Trent considered. “The Independent. Because that’s what it is.”

Even Mae had to admit, a few years in, that it was working out quite well. He’d even managed to sell some books.

*

“How’s the le Carré?” Miss Bowen asks, amid her reshelving. “Are we in trouble?”

“I don’t think so.” Trent is perusing Silverview at the counter, book in one hand, the other on the rifle. “The bookshop’s in East Anglia, and the protagonist hasn’t the first idea how to run it.”

“Oh, well then,” says Miss Bowen. “It will put nobody in mind of us at all. Is it any good? I’m always wary of these late discovery manuscripts. I don’t think I ever got over the disappointment of Go Set A Watchman.”

“It’s unevenly weighted. Makes you miss him at his best.” Trent turns a page. “Still, I’m glad he didn’t go gentle into that good night.”

He tenses as the shop bell rings, then sees that it is Keeley Jones, resplendent in a fluffy yellow coat. “What can we do for you, Miss Jones?”

“Trading in,” sings Keeley. “On Jamie’s behalf.”

Trent takes off his glasses and gives her a forbidding look. “What, has he gone and lost the lot again?”

Keeley winces. “Only some of it.”

Trent sighs. “Let’s get it processed in the back.”

Jamie Tartt is one of the stars of the agency known as the Dogtrack. He’s also aggravatingly cocky and spectacularly laissez-faire with his equipment; Keeley’s always in here, making apologies for him having thrown his Glock into a volcano, or something. Trent has no patience for the likes of Jamie Tartt. One already has so many people trying to kill one in this line of work, but there he is, giving even more people reasons to want him dead.

The back room is behind a reinforced steel door that can only be opened using either Trent’s or Miss Bowen’s fingerprints and a passcode that changes every day. The passcode is in fact a rolling alphanumerical series that progresses through the entirety of Hamlet, and if anyone ever cracks it, Trent will be very impressed by their grasp of Shakespeare. In the back room, Trent lays out the remnants of Jamie Tartt’s mission kit and purses his lips.

“To lose one dart gun, Miss Jones, may be regarded as a misfortune. To lose both looks like carelessness.”

“Oh, you needn’t have a go at me, I’m proper mad at him myself. You know what he did last week? Tried to murder Roy Kent. Roy Kent!”

“What, for work?”

“Not even that! Some kind of fucking…pissing contest.” Keeley makes a noise of exasperation. “Some days it’s like we gave a bunch of five-year-olds guns and let them loose on a jungle gym. You know what I mean?”

“I’ll just put it on his tab,” says Trent. “Which is astronomical, by the way.”

“I’ll chivvy the folks at the Dogtrack to send you a cover. Only they’re rushed off their feet this week – you must have heard.”

Trent has heard, but it always serves one in intelligence gathering to pretend to know less than one really does. “What’s happening over there?”

“The Mannions are going to war,” says Keeley, her voice lush with the juice of gossip - another reason why Trent likes having her in the shop. “The whole Dogtrack’s splitting up. Christ, but it’s a mess down there.”

“Who’s Jamie backing?”

“Hasn’t decided. Rupert’s putting it about that the whole agency’s going with him, but word on the street is that Rebecca Welton’s brought in someone from abroad to take him out. They’re saying it’s an American.” She sucks in an excited breath. 

“Why would you bring in an American for that?” demands Trent. 

“Beats me. It’s going to keep us all on our toes for a bit, to be sure. I reckon it’s some Tom Cruise type, all Mission Impossible Jack Reacher like. But nobody knows for certain.” 

“Surely not,” says Trent. “You at least must have some idea, Miss Jones.”

Keeley flutters her eyelashes at him. “Who, me? I’m just a humble secretary.”

“Of course you are,” says Trent. “And I’m just a poor bookseller.”

Keeley slants a sly look at him. “You haven’t seen any Americans around, have you?”

“We get Americans in the store all the time. Just this morning we had a Mrs Glenda Johnson from South Carolina complaining that we don’t have a café in the store.”

“Yeah,” says Keeley, “fairly sure it’s not Mrs Glenda Johnson. Isn’t there a Costa two doors down?”

“Precisely,” says Trent. “Americans.”

They return to the front of the store, the afternoon light streaming across the polished wood floors and touching the book covers. “It really is awful pretty, when the light’s good,” says Keeley, running a hand across a row of Sally Rooneys. “You know what you ought to do? You should do #BookTok.”

“That,” says Trent, “is the single worst suggestion I’ve ever heard.”

Keeley laughs. “Give me a pot of money and some Madeline Miller and I’ll do it for you. I’ll make you so famous, you’ll be beating influencers off with a stick.”

“Just tell the Dogtrack to pay for your boyfriend’s damage.”

Keeley sticks her tongue out as she swings out of the shop. “If you see the American, you’ll tell me first. Won’t you?”

*

“Tell me a story,” says Cleis. They’re curled up in her bed, her tiny frame pillowed against his side. 

“You’ve had two already.”

“But I want another.” Cleis looks up at him, her eyes clear and green as the sea. “Tell me about Maman.”

Trent stares up at the glow-in-the-dark stars that speckle her bedroom ceiling. Tell me about a complicated woman, he hears Coralie say in his head. She sounds slightly amused. This is an anachronism, of course. Coralie never lived to see the Emily Wilson translation of The Odyssey. She would have loved it.

“Where do I start with your mother?”

“Was she very beautiful?”

“Yes. She knew exactly how beautiful she was and what to do with it.”

“Do I look like her?”

“The spitting image.” Even at four, Cleis looks so much like her mother that Trent will sometimes look over at her, in the middle of something mundane like making dinner or brushing her hair, and the resemblance will strike him like a punch to the gut.

Cleis is pleased by this. “What else?”

“Well. She loved old poems, and she was a lot stronger than she looked, and she wasn’t scared of a thing. Never listened to anyone either.”

“Not even you?”

“I like to think she listened to me a bit more than most other people,” allows Trent, “but even that wasn’t very much.”

Cleis kneads her quilt between her small hands. “Why didn’t she come back?”

Trent swallows. “She couldn’t. She had to save everyone.” Including me, he doesn’t add. Instead he says: “She loved you more than anything in the world.”

“How do you know?”

“She told me so. It was the last thing she said, before – ” Trent stops. Cleis is silent.

“Go to sleep now, chouette.”

It’s another hour before she drifts off to sleep proper. He sits in the dark, her hand tucked in his, until she does.

*

“So that’s your subscriber number, which you should quote in all correspondence with us and over the phone when placing orders. Orders placed within less than twenty-four hours of pick-up will be subject to last-minute fee increments. Is that understood, Mr Rojas?”

The lush-haired young man beams at Trent across the counter. “Si, entiendo.”

“Book club notices are posted on the board to the right,” Trent goes on. “Those are for freelancers, I don’t vet them personally and you attend book club at your own risk. This is for your first assignment.” He hands over a copy of Roberto Bolaño’s 2666. Dani Rojas makes to open it; Trent slams it shut. “Don’t open your books in the store.”

“Okay,” says Dani, wide-eyed. He hefts the book experimentally in his hand. “It is very heavy. Does it have a happy ending?”

Trent snorts. “It’s a Bolaño, what do you think?”

Dani nods cheerfully. “I thank you for this, señor. Literature is life.”

“I mean, it actually isn’t,” says Trent, “which is sort of the whole point – but never mind. All the best, Mr Rojas.”

Dani leaves, whistling. He passes Roy Kent on his way in. “He’s not the American, is he?” says Roy, not quite sotto voce to Trent.

“I rather think he’s Mexican,” says Trent. “Are you all still going on about that? I’d have thought you’d have worked it out by now.”

“Nah,” says Roy. “No idea who it is. Mrs Mannion – that is to say, Ms Welton – is keeping her cards close to her chest. Old Rupert’s foaming at the mouth. They say he’s got hold of some kind of leverage, but fucked if we know what.” He studies the noticeboard. “Anything good at book club?”

“What, are you freelancing now?”

“Reckon I might as well, since it’s all going to shit at the Dogtrack.” Roy frowns at A Moveable Feast, Wednesday 8pm; A Gentleman In Moscow, Thursday 7pm; and Vengeance Is Mine, All Others Pay Cash, Thursday 9pm. He points at the last. “Where’s that one again?”

“East Java. I hear Indonesia’s nice this time of year.”

“Right, let’s give it a go then.”

Trent scribbles down a number on a Post-It and hands it to Roy. “Call it and burn it. You know the drill.”

“Cheers.” Roy regards Trent, brows thickly furrowed. “You’ve seen the American, haven’t you?”

“No comment.” 

Roy grunts. “Bet you have. You’re just being a prick about it, as usual.”

“Whoever it is, they’re probably out in the community already,” says Trent. “Bravely or stupidly.”

“Stupidly,” decides Roy, stalking off.

*

The problem with The Independent is that, despite Trent’s best efforts and the imminently prophesied demise of brick-and-mortar bookselling, it still continues to be a fairly popular bookshop. Trent has no idea why this is. He puts zero effort into the window displays. He shelves the books in no discernible order, so it is virtually impossible for a customer to locate anything. Sometimes he even leaves terrible TripAdvisor reviews for himself, to discourage casual browsers and tourists. And yet the shop continues to see customers – not subscribers, actual book-loving civilians. People keep popping in to have opinions on how Trent should run his bookshop, to complain that he doesn’t sell stationery or upbraid him for not carrying the latest Stephenie Meyer or insinuate that he should hold poetry readings (of their poems) in the store. It’s a marvel that Trent has gone all these years without shooting anyone in the face.

Still, the shop has regulars somehow. There are the subscribers, and then there are normal people who just show up and spend ages browsing, even though Trent has made sure there is nowhere comfortable for them to sit. There is the elderly gent who pops in nearly every morning to thumb through books and point out printing errors to anyone unfortunate enough to be in proximity. There is the teenage girl who spends afternoons seated cross-legged in an aisle, reading The Sandman in instalments. And then there’s Ted Lasso.

“Why’d you call it The Independent?” Ted wants to know. He’s come back to pick up his copy of Silverview, and despite having achieved this with little incident, has nevertheless once more sought out Trent where he is dusting the shelves.

“Because it is an independent bookstore,” says Trent, who is in fact sweeping for bugs. He finds one planted atop a birding guide and surreptitiously crushes and pockets it. “Can I help you with anything else, Mr Lasso?”

“I was wondering where I might find your Graham Greene.”

“I believe we have The Quiet American somewhere in the shop, if you can bear to wait while I excavate it. Though,” adds Trent, “you are a distinctly unquiet American.”

“You can say that again,” says Ted cheerfully. “You wouldn’t happen to have a copy of The Third Man, would you?”

Most people haven’t even seen The Third Man, let alone are aware that it was based on a Graham Greene novella. “You know your spy fiction, Mr Lasso.”

“Call me Ted, won’t you?”

Trent drags the ladder around the corner and retrieves The Third Man from a high shelf near where the ceiling dips. He looks down, head tilted, at the man beaming up at him from the foot of the ladder. You’ve seen the American, haven’t you? Ted Lasso does not look like the kind of American called in to bring down the head of an agency. He looks like a caricature of an American. He has worn the same pair of khakis every time he has set foot in this shop and it is likely he does so without irony. Yet Trent has the feeling that something is off, the way that shots in The Third Man are framed at a slight angle so that the city looks like a painting knocked askew. 

Ted clears his throat. “Kinda staring there, Trent. Makes a fella wonder if he ain’t got toothpaste in his moustache.”

Trent hands over the book. “Why are you here, Ted? Really?”

“First thing I always do when I land in a new place is find a local bookstore,” says Ted brightly. “Tells you a lot about the town, your local bookstore.”

Trent takes off his glasses. “And what, pray, have you learnt from this one?”

“That nothing is where you think it’ll be,” says Ted. “But it sure helps if you ask for directions.” 

“Perhaps you should ask him if he wants to get coffee,” says Miss Bowen after Ted has left. “Isn’t that why you hired me? So you could have more of a social life?”

Trent pinches the bridge of his nose. “I hired you so that in the event of a terrorist attack on the shop, we wouldn’t be short-handed.”

“I’m glad you did. It was this or go back to teaching kindergarten.” She raises her voice sharply as a man in a denim jacket emerges from behind a shelf and shuffles towards the door. “Stop right there!”

“Uh,” says the man intelligently. “What’s this about?”

“We have CCTV in the shop, you know,” says Miss Bowen. “So we’d appreciate it if you didn’t leave the shop with Jonathan Franzen stuffed down your trousers.”

The man leers. “Like to come over and check on it yourself, love?”

Miss Bowen meditatively flicks open the boxcutter she was using to trim plastic wrap. “You know, I just might.”

The man hastily removes the Franzen. “All right, no need to get all shirty about it. I’ll just put it back then.”

“The fuck you will, we’re not touching that again,” says Miss Bowen. “You’re going to leave twenty quid on the counter – with your other hand, mind – and then you’re going to back out the door and never come back.”

“Can’t do that in kindergarten, can you,” remarks Trent after their errant customer has complied and made himself scarce.

“There’s something to be said about the job satisfaction in this place,” agrees Miss Bowen.

*

Trent arrives at his parents’ just in time to see his daughter stabbing his father in the front garden.

“Ah! Ah! Alas!” cries his father, sinking dramatically into the grass as Cleis bashes him joyously with a foam sword. “You’ve got me, dread pirate!”

“Did you kill grandpa, chouette?” says Trent as she greets him by thwacking him on the shins with her sword. 

“Three times,” says Cleis modestly as she is scooped up.

“She’s a bloodthirsty one.” His father is rising ponderously to his feet, brushing grass stains off his knees. He dotes on Cleis in a fashion that was distinctly lacking in Trent’s own childhood. Trent still cannot get over the incongruity of it – the legendary Chester Crimm, scourge of the Stasi Circle, playing pirates on the lawn with a four-year-old. He does have the eyepatch for it, Trent reflects.

His father turns his good eye towards Trent. “Sell a lot of books today, son?”

“Hilarious,” says Trent shortly. “Where’s mum?”

“Getting her hair done.” They head back into the house. “What’s this I’m hearing about an American at the Dogtrack?”

“Christ, I’m sick of hearing about the American. How’d that even get to you?”

“I was at poker night with the old guard. It’s all everyone’s talking about, the Mannion split.” His father pulls a beer from the fridge and hands it to Trent as Cleis makes for the living room television. “Never liked Mannion. Did you know he tried to get off with your mother, back in the day?”

“Ugh,” says Trent faintly.

“That was before he got mixed up with the Welton girl, of course,” says his father with the alacrity of the generation who can get away with calling Rebecca “the Welton girl”. “The agencies are such a shitshow these days. You know, back in my day – ”

“By all means,” says Trent mordantly, “reminisce about the Cold War, dad. What a splendid time that was.”

“You know what I mean,” his father grumbles. “People just got divorced and got on with things. Didn’t go about involving Americans. You’ve not seen the American, have you? Why are you laughing?”

“I’m just thinking of the rhyme,” says Trent. “From The Scarlet Pimpernel.” At his father’s blank look, he recites: “They seek him here, they seek him there, those people seek him everywhere! Is he in heaven or in hell? That damned elusive Pimpernel.”

“Damned!” exclaims Cleis from the doorway. “Damned, damned, damned!”

Trent stares at her, aghast. “Now look what you’ve done,” says his father.

*

Ted isn’t in the shop today, though his bearded friend has put in an appearance. He has only ever been referred to as Beard, and Trent is coming round to the idea that it might actually be the man’s Christian name, because who even knows with Americans? He’s browsing in the back, which is fine, and has been engaged for the past fifteen minutes in a conversation with Jane Payne, which is not so fine.

“Should we say something?” Miss Bowen wonders.

“We are The Independent,” says Trent. “We have a policy of non-interference.”

“I mean, she’s literally toxic. Did you see the photos from her Dubai job?”

“No. Jesus. Why are there even photos?”

Miss Bowen shrugs. “No idea. Everyone’s been sending them around in the group chats. Did not know you could get blood that colour.”

“Miss Payne can do what she likes, provided she does it outside the shop.” Trent pauses. “Though you could ask him if he wants to get coffee.”

“No thank you,” says Miss Bowen. “I have no wish to be stabbed in the pancreas by Jane Payne.”

They are distracted by the shop bell. Trent is surprised and slightly disconcerted to see none other than Rebecca Welton bearing down upon the counter in all her glory. The agency heads rarely visit the shop in person; Trent typically corresponds with Mr Higgins for the Dogtrack’s interests.

“Ms Welton. What can we do for you?”

“I’d like to see your Canterbury Tales special edition,” says Rebecca without preamble. 

Trent blinks. “Certainly. This way.”

In the back room, he opens the case where the Chaucer collection is stored. Rebecca begins looking it over critically. She hefts a rocket launcher experimentally, testing its weight. “Which one is this?”

“The Wife of Bath. Gives you five shots.”

“Hm,” says Rebecca approvingly. “I rather like the sound of that.” She inspects the double-barrelled shotgun dubbed the Man of Law and the poison darts of the Pardoner. “I’ll take the lot for the rest of the month.”

“That’s a lot of firepower,” says Trent bluntly. “You’re not trying to kill your husband, are you?”

“I don’t know why you’d say that, Mr Crimm. Though I suspect he might be trying to kill me.”

“Is it all for you? Or is any of it for the American?”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about,” says Rebecca, expression immaculate. “Do invoice Mr Higgins.”

*

“Darling,” says Trent in long-suffering tones, “please get out of the tree.”

Cleis responds by clambering to a higher branch. She’ll be a while. Trent sighs and puts his hands on his hips, gazing out across the green. It’s a pleasant Sunday morning in the park, though it doesn’t stop him from tracking every jogger and picnicking couple in the vicinity, combing the milieu for hands in pockets and inside coats, calculating distances and trajectories. 

His gaze moves across and catches on a lone jogger making his way up the path in their direction. That’s Ted Lasso, he’s sure of it: head down, shoulders hunched against the bite of wind off the water, but there’s no mistaking that moustache. As Trent watches, he raises his head and their eyes meet. He does a very convincing double-take. He’s either genuinely surprised to see Trent here, or his acting skills are commendable. That Trent can’t tell says a lot. Then his face splits into a broad grin.

“Hey there, Trent Crimm, The Independent!”

“Hello, Ted Lasso from America.” Trent eyes Ted as he jogs over, beaming affably. He waves his hand awkwardly. “You…live around here?”

“Oh yeah, Beard and I have digs around here. Like to come out for a run on the weekends.”

“Your vacation is stretching on rather,” Trent informs him.

“Oh, we picked up some work,” says Ted evasively. “Thought we’d stick around, make hay while the sun shines. Though you ain’t got a whole lot of hay around these parts. Not like what I’m used to, at any rate.”

“What sort of work do you do, Ted?”

“Human resources,” says Ted blandly.

Trent removes his glasses and fixes Ted with a searching look. Ted meets his gaze, perfectly amiable. Trent narrows his eyes. Ted doesn’t blink. The whole effect is ruined when Cleis leaps out of the tree unannounced and tumbles onto him.

“Oh for f – ” Trent bites off invective as he staggers. “For the last time, my love, climb down.”

“But this is faster,” says Cleis innocently. She appears to notice Ted, and peers at him curiously as Trent sets her down.

“Well hey there, sweetheart,” says Ted. “What’s your name?”

“Cleis.”

“Fais attention,” says Trent, more sharply than is his wont. Cleis stiffens and tucks herself behind his knee. She always takes her cues from him, and he realises too late his body language has been telescoping an ease with Ted that he should not have brooked. She has never introduced herself to a stranger before.

Ted must pick up on some of that, because he stops short of coming over, instead maintaining the distance between them and crouching down till he is at Cleis’s eye level. “That’s a real pretty name,” he tells her. “It’s from a poem, ain’t it?”

“Sappho.” Trent’s throat feels tight.

“Yeah, that’s the one,” says Ted. “Like a small golden flower. Did you name her?”

“No,” says Trent. “That was her mother. She's – she liked the classics.”

On Trent’s first mission to Morocco, he was paired with a young agent with a French accent and a Classics degree. The former was nearly imperceptible except when she was under pressure; the latter was of no use whatsoever on the mission, any more than Trent’s own English degree was.

“You’re gay, aren’t you?” she said after they had spent four minutes making out pointedly in an alcove to distract the security guards of the Casablanca mansion they were breaking into.

“I’m afraid so,” said Trent, picking a lock.

“That’s a relief. I was worried I was losing my touch.” The lock clicked open, and she whistled appreciatively. “Sing to me, Muse, of the man of twists and turns.” 

“The Odyssey? Really?” Trent was secretly delighted that he was no longer the only one pretentious enough to quote classics during a field op. Or Casablanca in Casablanca, even.

She winked at him. “I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

Her name was Coralie Chénier, though they called her “the Owl”. Trent used to envy her this; everyone, despite his best efforts, referred to him as “Chester’s boy”. Then came the Cuba incident, which was such a bloodbath that it earned Trent the moniker “the Jackal”. After that he decided monikers were overrated. At least they matched: the Owl and the Jackal.

Coralie was an orphan – the service preferred either orphans, or those to the manor born, like Trent – and so for the ten years they spent in the field, he was the closest thing she had to next of kin. It was him she told first about Cleis.

“The father?”

She waved a hand dismissively – not in the picture, then. She did not say who it was. Trent knew it to be a crowded field.

“Are you keeping it?”

“I shouldn’t, should I? It’ll take me out of the field for a good stretch.” But he already knew, from the way she rested her hand over her still-flat stomach, that she would.

“I could marry you, if you liked,” he offered.

She laughed. “That’s the sweetest thing any man has ever said to me, darling. But I think I’ll be just fine.”

The last thing she said to him, before she pulled out her comm and charged back into a building rigged with explosives, was: “Promise me you’ll look after her.”

“There must be another way – ”

“I’ve got to do this, Trent,” she said, too gently. “Make sure she knows how much I loved her. All Croesus’ kingdom.”

“I promise – ” but by then she was already gone. 

“I’m sorry,” says Ted, bringing Trent back to the present. His hand tightens on the shoulder of Coralie’s daughter. 

“Thank you,” he says, for lack of anything better.

“Heck of a poem,” Ted adds. 

“Oh yes,” says Trent. I wouldn’t take all Croesus’ kingdom with love thrown in, for her.

#wip ask game #ted lasso #trent crimm #ted x trent #ted lasso/trent crimm #tedependent #rebecca welton #coach beard #keeley jones #roy kent #dani rojas #miss bowen #long post

[shewhoeatssand]

WHY TG BOYS ARE SHIT BOYFRIENDS

I come up with the best topics for posts

Hide 🌞 : axe body spray, probably loves Kaneki more than you, has nicknamed your boobs, has also nicknamed Kaneki’s boobs

Shuu 💐 : introduces you to his entire extended family after less than a month, spams you if he hasn’t heard from you in a week, his house is so so big you will get lost in it very fast (not his fault but still annoying)

Suzuya 🔫 : thinks shoplifting 10 bags of candy is a good date idea, has killed someone in front of you and then desperately tried to explain why it was actually okay because the guy was wearing crocs

Marude 🏍 : refuses to use public transport after having his bike stolen, won’t stop talking about how much he misses his bike, yell-y

Shinohara 😊 : prints out minion memes and shows them to you

Nishiki 🦎 : is ginger, immediately wants to make out with you and have hot ghoul sex after eating a raw lung, easily irritated

Ayato (:re) 🤬 : doesn’t know what a period is and thinks you’re making it up, bullies people on roblox, can be so rude sometimes

Kaneki (pre aogiri) 🥺 : describes everything in incredible detail when he doesn’t like something, will make his best attempt to be talking to you all the time (even when you are pooping) and thinks you hate him if you ask to be left alone, scarily average dick

Kaneki (post aogiri) 🐙 : sleeps on top of you and makes you so sweaty, won’t shut up about fitness and getting stronger, wears a mask with a smile for hours at a time, probably ghosting you by this point tbh (there’s a lot wrong with him so I might make a separate post about why he sucks)

Yoshimura ☕️ : really wholesome, but can’t be dated because a) I’d assume you’re not a boomer b) can’t take hints and c) misses Ukina ;-;

Koma 👹 : he’s actually pretty great and very fun but he brags about how good his coffee is and also about anything else he can think of

Uta 🎭 : eats people’s eyes in front of you and says “it’s okay because they aren’t real, they’re halloween decorations!”, also ate a plastic spider to prove this to you, mind games, spooks you from behind the corner all the time and it gives you anxiety

Amon ✝️ : refuses to kiss with tongue or see you naked until marriage, takes up too much space on the bed, keeps doing long ass speeches about “doing what is right” after killing a guy with a wife and 3 kids

Shikorae 🫠 : doesn’t sit still long enough to have a conversation that makes any sense whatsoever, has so many issues to the point where idk if you’d even be able to befriend him unless it’s by feeding him coffee grounds

Takizawa (pre :re) 🥺: makes everything a competition, disney kid, insists that you have a glass of milk every day

Takizawa (post :re) 🦉: never sleeps, an actual cat, bites your hand, smelly, insists that you have a glass of milk every day

Urie 😶 : first name is “cookie”, punches a hole in the wall when he doesn’t get an award after a raid and someone else does, hides important stuff from you

Shirazu 🦈 : sooooo cool but he can’t spell so you have to edit all his emails for him

Naki 😎 : loud while playing fortnite battle royale, also screams while playing any horror games but insists he should keep playing them, his reading capabilities have the power to instantly kill a literature major

Hanbee 🎩 : unironically loves licorice, absurd fashion, also eats the licorice with a super fancy fork kept in a little fork bag he carries everywhere labeled “the licorice suitcase”

Tatara 🤯 : is always busy so you can’t spend much time together, one time a cat meowed at him and he meowed back in the most serious voice, penis is actually too big to fit inside 😔

Mutsuki 😇 (before the insane shit happened): you have to kill all the spiders, very clingy and has similar issues to pre-aogiri Kaneki, puts cinnamon on a lot of things that don’t really need cinnamon

Arima 🌨 : cold, you’ll never truly know about him, not very open, a general mystery to the point where you don’t even know if he’s actually your boyfriend

Haise 🐼 : BAD PUNS, insists that he spends every afternoon and evening with you instead of doing his work so he ends up doing it super late into the night and gets tired in the morning, too easy to manipulate and too eager to please (kind of an issue with all the Kanekis really), sometimes he talks to the wall or makes a sour face for no reason

~~~~ BONUS ~~~~

Yamori 🕺 : sadistic torturer (obvious part), his farts smell so incredibly bad that you have to evacuate the room while he wonders wtf is going on (not so obvious), unfixable

OS! Kaneki 😎 : walks around shirtless in winter, sometimes he doesn’t even wear pants, touches your boobs randomly and it gets old real fast

#tokyo ghoul headcanons #tokyo ghoul #tokyo ghoul: re #kaneki ken #tsukiyama shuu #nagachika hideyoshi #sasaki haise #nishiki nishio #kirishima ayato #mutsuki tooru #suzuya juuzou #arima kishou #takizawa seidou #urie kuki #shirazu ginshi #uta tokyo ghoul #tatara #tokyo ghoul naki #amon kotarou #shikorae #koma enji #yoshimura kuzen #shinohara yukinori #itsuki marude #tokyo ghoul jason #hanbee abara

[spiderh0rse]

freeman's mind notes part 11, e51-55

e51

rock dust = health hazard. No naps here

finds the idea of breathing ether good

wonders if he can delete his employee status at Black Mesa

thinks in 205X Walmart will have turret guns in the parking lots. To deter shoplifters

perpetually bothered by the incompetence of others

chess does NOT prepare you for being surrounded

compares himself to a knight in a chess metaphor

hes STILL hungry

the plantweb around the snark balls is gross

thinks he's probably safe from alien viruses because they're just that unfamiliar with human bodies

thinks the snarks are imprinting on him

would not make a good babysitter

his first impulse to seeing kids run around is to throw nonlethal things at them

he was firing a BIT faster than reenactors with muskets. They fire once a minute. Twice if they're really fast. It's pretty impressive ngl

finds alien grunts' armour impractical and stripper-like

"yay!"

wants to use the snarks for animal fights

slime mold IS valuable excuse you

threatening the aliens with not giving them fungus

still scared they'll teleport inside him

isn't happy he's functioning with the force of an entire army. It sounds cool but he has to do EVERYTHING or DIE

"peekaboo"

STILL searching for a map

ponders eating the aliens and his only concern is how to cook them

e52

thinks the military should give out a psa for gun owners to shoot aliens in black mesa

underwater mumbling my beloved

bleugh,,

snarks? no. Popcorn bugs

has apparently forgotten the mechanics of the turrets

the illusion of free choice (westward tunnel - westward tunnel)

wouldn't be surprised to find he's been walking the longest possible route around the facility

pretty sure the icthyosaurs have been on earth longer than the rescas

he's that "hold it buddy! you lost your chance!" meme rn

yells WORMS

"bah."

THE WORMS. WHAT NOISES ARE THESE

he doesn't drink THAT much that's what the pills are for

very tired of his explosives not doing all they should

fun fact actually being underwater when an explosion goes off is worse than being on top of the water even if it's closer. That'll collapse your organs with the shockwave

"GAAAAAH."

will take any opportunity to use his rocket launcher

"a lesser man might keep moving blindly, but I am a man of vision and I have seen more rockets . . . Now I can keep moving blindly."

thinks the guard job must be boring without him to spice things up

stutters out a tune similar to march of the gladiators

thinks an elevator is a trap. Walks in after considering this

robots won't take over the world but he thinks others wish they would. Also their battery life is bad

e53

starts the episode by singing poorly

the elevator WAS a trap this is a radioactive roach motel

admits he's scared. the radiation freaks him out so badly

funny noises :3

through the power of hypnotic suggestion and a tank

okay I will be frank he has just gotten gradually more unhinged over time but it really did ramp up after the ambush

mimics Xen turret noise

THIS is why he's such a good theoretical physicist. He solves problems that shouldn't exist

not familiar with media involving aliens invading that are just kind of stupid. Show him Invader Zim right now

watched a documentary of Chernobyl. Remembers it decently. Annoyed the headcrabs are distracting him from it

got SLIMED

we should drop stray dogs and badgers into a warzone.

thinks humans are better at invasions than xenians. We do have practice

thinking about not having a tank depresses him

e54

new intro! room adjacent to the rocket launch room. wikipedia room.

engineering are pretty extremist folks

NINJAS. Occam's shuriken. When the answer is elusive the answer is ninjas

ninjas understanding quantum mechanics was a controversial part of freeman's dissertation

"you can never prove the absence of ninjas, only their direct presence" i say this so often

the ninjas from yesterday were hazy in his memory

can't even be sure if the ninjas he's shot are actually dead

confused at why the lights are still on when the ninjas have night vision goggles

he's sure ninjas will be his death. wouldn't be surprised.

wants to nuke the place as soon as he's out

door opens. He goes to explode whoevers behind it immediately

doesnt want to do shit for others rn

gluon gun,, hey would Gordon call the gauss gun it's proper name or "Tau cannon"? He's subversive. He'd like the syllable of "gauss"

blood on his suit and it isn't coming off :(

abandons some scientist to his own shenanigans

e55

checks to see if anything followed him down the elevator

Loves the gluon gun

blue energy is superior to green energy and beams

considers Black Mesa a redundant bit of nonsense so that no one person knows all of what's going on

listens to the VOX

deduces a guard killed another human. Keep up that everyone wants you dead thing

thinks some people thrive in chaos a bit too much. Sir you're like that too.

"I needed a reason?"

drops the gluon gun due to weight/ammo consumption concerns

the constant metal groaning noises bother him so much

groans at the vortigaunt almost teleporting inside him

hates the references to dimensions. Wants accurate terminology.

I do not know who Buckaroo Banzai is

[growls]

the concrete dust REMAINS a breathing hazard

#freeman's mind #gordon freemind #mindverse #rmanotes

[shejustcalledmeafish]

I didn’t know that the Brennan Lee Mulligan “you’re goddamn right I did” meme was about shoplifting and I love it even more now

#he’s shaking hands with griffin mcelroy #anyway watching game changer for the first time #thanks cam muah

[cyberdragoninfinity]

Can I get Ryou Bakura for the character meme?

RYOU MY BELOVED PURSE DOG.....

First impression: i know ive talked about this before but when I was kid (and later when I was first getting back into ygo in early 2021) i thought ryou was BORING. YAWN.

Impression now: that is RYOU MY FRIEND RYOU. MY LITTLE WRECK OF A WHITE POMERANIAN. LIKE the trick with ryou is that he IS boring but he's also a fucking freak. he's a little saltine and also covered in spiders. Something is wrong with him. He's having a really bad day. I love him so much.

Favorite moment: sorry for dubliker city but "CHECK HIS PULSE, YUGI" will never not send me into complete cackling hysterics.

Idea for a story: so many.... still very fond of "yami bakura is shoplifting food for ryou's special allergy-friendly restrictive diet and ryou doesn't really know how to feel about." it's a good one

Unpopular opinion: LIKE. TO THIS DAY I STILL SAY woe is me...this life is so miserable....i want to die emo ass ryous and it's like!!! DAWG THATS NOT HOW HE ACTS??!? despite his nightmarish circumstances he is frankly keeping his chin about as high as he can! He's remarkably chipper about the whole experience!!!

Favorite relationship: i do really love his dynamic with Yami Bakura, and still think very much about AUs and scenarios when they could have properly been friends or at the very least co-conspirators who tolerate each other. AUs where TKB comes back and Ryou just has this whole sorta-big brother...now that's the good stuff.

Favorite headcanon: celiac ryou my absolute beloved. this guy has food allergies you cant even comprehend. he pops benadryls every night and they don't help. he's always got chapstick. there's always a stray d10 in his bag. i could go on

#THANK YOU HE IS STILL. SO DEAR TO ME.... #ygo posting #asks #anonymous

[magnolia-sunrise]

ALso if you're up for it: 25 & 32 for elise, and 2 & 31 for thorne !!

ahhaha thank u so much i actually got to wrinkle my brain a bit thinking about these two :3c

ask meme

Élise

25. What subject / topic do they know a lot about that’s completely useless to the direct plot?

god i think like. so many things. they're a pro at hyperfixating on random subjects and hobbies for a few months, hoovering up all information available and then moving on when the next thing catches their interest.

not directly relevant but i guess somewhat relevant: they learned a lot about tattooing and history of tatoos and the difference of tattooing on different types of skin and why android skin is not suited for regular ink and needles and oftentimes they return to their dream of actually developing a technique that would make tattoos stick to modern synthetic skin.

completely irrelevant knowledge: history of local beer crafting and the different "wars" of competitor brands over the past decades that lead to this particular very hoppy flavor of beer dominating the market

32. If they committed one petty crime / misdemeanor, what would it be? Why?

the "if" can be thrown out just on the basis of them doing work for the clinic which is not strictly legal but in terms of specifically petty crime definitely shoplifting and vandalising private property (denting a cop car while drunk). they can't actually afford a lot of the supplies they need for their work and their studies, so they got pretty decent at lifting what they need : )

Thorne

2. How loosely or strictly do they use the word ‘friend’?

while many people would want to be her friend with all the benefits they imagine that could bring them, Thorne wouldn't call anyone a friend, at least not where anyone could hear her. i think she has "clients", "sources", "associates" and "subordinates". even the women she's more intimate with she wouldn't refer to as friends or partners, despite caring for them deeply. she is extremely analytical and extremely guarded.

31. When do they feel the most guilt? How do they respond to it?

she would say that guilt is a useless feeling that only blocks your path to success. especially in her position as an android buying and selling information to the highest bidder regardless of her own allegiances... there are many people in her past she has had to step over or make decisions that ended with them getting sidelined or hurt - she can't afford to feel guilty, it would overtake her entire life. all she allows herself is once a year a trip to the coast by herself to quietly ask no-one in particular for forgiveness.

#answered #elise #thorne #thorne has her reasons for being the way she is but at some point its like if you act like this and feel like this is it still a persona #or is it who you are. and i think she doesnt try to answer that question anymore

[ectokelpeigh]

(part 2 of Amity Park tourism)

When AP starts taking pride in being the ultimate Ghost Town, just about everyone respects Phantom's request to not market him specifically.

It would be so easy to sell anything associated with Phantom. He's the face of AP in so many ways, and he's the most personable ghost by far. Everyone around his age swoons over him. He already has a logo, for crying out loud!

But Danny doesn't want his likeness anywhere. Even if he got royalties or whatever he really doesn't like the attention. He also doesn't need any help putting his secret identity in jeopardy, he does that well enough on his own.

At the beginning of the post, I qualified "just about everybody". Most people comply without question because Phantom has done so much for the town. Some people still try to make a buck off Phantom merch. But anything that references him against his wishes doesn't last long. At first it's very clearly a ghost doing the censoring: a statue of him disappears in the blink of an eye. Images of him in murals are covered by scorch marks that could only come from ectoblasts. Every assumes it's Phantom and he won't confirm outright but he doesn't deny it (and he always wears a shit-eating grin at the mention).

His human supporters join in the sabotaging. When a store has Phantom tees printed and won't pull them after being asked politely, they're shoplifted in broad daylight and the authorities refuse to investigate. Any signs with Phantom's face are graffiti'd over in a matter of hours.

"It's not gay if he's dead" is an exception to the "no Phantom references" rule because it's more of a meme than a marketing scheme, and the "he" doesn't explicitly reference him.

#amity park #danny phantom #amity park tourism #klo #dp headcanons

[wadebae]

[Image ID: Meme with the buff dog vs cheems template.

Buff dog is a Shiba Inu breed dog with a cartoonishly large, muscular body. The title above buff dog reads, "Walmart in the 90s." The caption below reads, "Fuck the environment, fuck small businesses, fuck living wages, fuck unions, fuck workers, and fuck you, give us all your money."

Cheems is a Shiba Inu breed dog with a normal dog body, but he is sitting awkwardly and has tears drawn on his face. The title above Cheems reads, "Walmart in the 2020s." The caption below, with spelling errors, reads, "Wah, we have to close our stores beacuse you meaners keep shoplifting. Even though we make record profits every year, it's all your fault, please stop. Frowny face." /.End ID]

#fuck walmart #capitalism is a disease

[novelmonger]

I've been watching American Born Chinese, which is mostly just a fun, delightfully awkward story based on the graphic novel that's one of only three books I've kept from my Asian Lit class back in the day. I really enjoyed it (though, in the end, it wasn't very much like the book), but there's a whole list of things I kept expecting to be at least a semi-important plot point that would come up later, but never did.

Thanks, Disney, now I'll be disappointed about these things forever:

Jin shoplifts a jacket and gets away with it, even though there's a scene where it looks like he feels guilty about it. This is never brought up again. He only wears it one time (because he thinks it will make him confident, which it doesn't), and there's nothing about him returning it or his parents finding out what he did or anything. There was this one scene where his mom is cleaning his room where I was sure she would find it, but nope.

Jin's family (or maybe just his mom?) is Christian, and yet there's never even a whisper of discussion about how you're supposed to reconcile that with this whole dimension of Chinese gods who live in Heaven. I know better than to expect any sort of realistic portrayal of Christians from Disney, of all places, but still.

The whole show, I kept on waiting for the soccer dudes to turn out to be fake friends. There was all this buildup and tension about Jin wanting to be cool and on the soccer team, and Wei Chen being weird and dorky and pulling him in a different direction. Episode after episode, I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. The guy who was clearly just using Jin to get the heat taken off him for making a racist meme. Travis getting back at Jin for punching him in the face. I was expecting at least the hazing situation to reveal that these popular guys don't actually care about Jin at all, and his real friends are actually the dorky, cringey ones because they actually care about him as a person. But nope. Everybody's just cool with him. Jin is super popular. End of story.

WHAT ABOUT THE SOCCER GAME?!?!? I know that's not the point of the story by a long shot and what we really care about is the showdown with the Bull Demon...and I'm the last person who would normally want to see more sportsball being played...but COME ON. At the very least, they could have dropped a line of dialogue afterwards about "Too bad you lost, but at least you stopped the uprising" or something.

And of course they had to end on a cliffhanger. I'll certainly watch a second season, but it feels like they used up all the inspiration from the source material in the first season, so I'm not really sure where they're going to go from here. Hopefully, the second season will tie up its threads more neatly.

#american born chinese

[shigure]

my dad sees "be gay do crime" shirts and is like oh, you would wear that! and i of course say no. and have to explain to him that it's a memed phrase being primarily parroted by twitter users that wouldn't even shoplift, because from his perspective, i'm gay, and break the law shamelessly on the regular. so it makes perfect sense in his eyes. also it's my belief that i shouldn't need to say "I'M GAY" on my belongings, and that people should be able to tell just by looking at me, due to things like having short hair, or breaking the law.

#i'm grateful for the vote of confidence. still wouldn't be caught dead in that shirt #POST

[mcprodigal]

" A golden cage is still, just a cage. "

#MCPRODIGAL, { original character. }

Private / Mutually Exclusive, Original Character Hope Shepherd from the Greys Anatomy Universe. Blog is mostly based on the show but often takes ideas and diverges into au's and runs ten miles in every direction on five different tracks. (i.e. very chaotic). Low activity, penned by Tink, 27, GMT. SIDE BLOG TO: Sacredslaycd. All rules can be found there, bio is available under the cut.

         a study in: growing up too fast, the loss of innocence fighting with your demons, self sacrifice, finding your place in the world, the black sheep, the overachiever, living with anxiety, growing up in your siblings shadows.

MEMES, HEADCANONS.

GENERAL,

NAME. Hope Shepherd. ALIAS. n/a AGE. 28 (start of residency), dependant on verse. BIRTHPLACE. New York. BIRTHDATE. May 18th 1981. SEXUALITY. Bisexual. RESIDENCE. Seattle.

PERSONALITY, POSITIVE. Compassionate, Friendly, Humble. NEUTRAL. Sarcastic, Anxious, Competitive. NEGATIVE. Impatient, Impulsive, Stubborn. LIKES. Running, Nature, Reading. FEARS. Thunderstorms, Failing, Ending up alone. ACHILLIES HEEL / WEAKNESS. Desire to be loved, Family, Her own insecurities / need to prove herself and that she's good enough.

PHYSICAL, HEIGHT. 5"4. EYES. Blue. MANE. Dark Brown. AESTHETIC. Casual. FACE. Margaret Qualley. EXTRA.

RELATIONSHIPS, MOTHER. Carolyn Shepherd. FATHER. Mr Shepherd (Deceased). SIBLINGS. Kathleen Shepherd (Sister, Older) , Liz Shepherd (Sister, Older), Nancy Shepherd (Sister, Older), Amelia Shepherd (Sister, Older), Derek Shepherd (Brother, Elder), Meredith Grey (Sister-in-law), Addison Montgomery (Sister-in-law). OTHER. Zola Shepherd (Adoptive Niece), Bailey Shepherd (Nephew), Ellis Shepherd (Niece), Lucas Shepherd (Nephew), Scout Shepherd (Nephew).

EARLY LIFE,

Being a mere new-born when her father dies, only a few months old and so far apart in age from her other siblings, her mother struggling to cope after her husbands death, Hope falls through the cracks. Carolyn tries her best to provide the infant with everything she needs but everybody struggles with the baby who’s piercing cries seem to invade the shepherd home in an already grief stricken time.

This causes Carolyn struggles to bond with the young girl at such an important time for them both. Later in life Hope would become highly dependant from a young age and becomes somewhat resentful towards her mother and siblings for the lack of relationship she has with them. As a teenager, Hope goes through a highly self destructive phase, almost getting herself kicked out of school, getting into fights, being generally disruptive both at school and home and once even getting herself arrested for shoplifting. It also wasn't uncommon to find her drinking or smoking a joint with a friend, though she never touched anything harder.

This part of her life puts both her mother and siblings through hell which drives them further apart. After this, Hope ends up getting a job at a local bar, just collecting glasses at first and slowly working up to bartending as she gets older. She moves out as soon as she finds the money for a flat deposit. She slowly becomes closer to Amelia as she finds out about her own destructive tendencies, even being younger, wanting to be a support system for her. As Amelia becomes a doctor, Hope begins to look up to her and, by default, Derek, even more and decides that she herself wants to follow that path.

BIOGRAPHY, Being away from her family was lonely, having nobody to turn to or talk to. Hope had always been the black sheep of the family and it's better than being treated as such, of them believing she couldn't change enough to pursue her dreams or perhaps even thinking she's not capable of it. More than anything, she wants to prove to herself and them that she'd good enough, good enough to get in on her own merit and not because of her connections or families money.

Being behind, Hope takes an extra two years of classes after school before putting herself through medical school. Things with her family fall on the quiet side as she does so, working two jobs outside of school just to support herself through it, not wanting to ask her mother for money and wanting to prove to them all she could do it on her own. She later applies for an internship at Seattle Grace, knowing it's one of the best of the country having the likes of Ellis Grey working there in the past. She has no idea that Derek works there, thinking that he was still in New York.

#pinned post

[theladygazingatemptiness]

ok one last thing about this actually and I’m going to try to be nice this time: Pro-Crime rhetoric is 1000000% Useless without addressing and acknowledging the roles that racism and white privilege play in the how the criminal justice system operates.

let’s say, in an instance where a black person steals a loaf of bread to feed his starving family, and then a white person in the same store steals a $2k worth of designer shit for their shoplifting blog, and they both get caught, the latter is, By Default, going to be given Much more legal leeway than the former and it doesn’t matter that the black person had a more Acceptable(TM) reason to steal. even if the white person Does get arrested and charged, it’s still less likely that they’ll be violently tackled to the ground and beaten - possibly even killed - beforehand. point is: the system was designed to target and fuck over people like the black person - poor people and people of color - it wasn’t made to target white people with communism tumblr blogs who reblog memes about killing the president or w/e.

and just fyi this isn’t about Which Race Steals More or w/e because it literally doesn’t matter. even if no black person Ever stole anything in history and every single person who’s ever shoplifted anything was white, we would Still be the primary ones to profiled and targeted by the criminal industry, because the legal system was built primarily on systematic racism and classism. it was against us from the start.

as a black leftist, I need white leftists on the internet who are loud about the “be gay do crimes” narrative to understand and realize that it’s Extremely Easy And Safe for them to be loud about it. as a white person, you’re Safely Able to liveblog about shoplifting luxury items without getting thousands of comments specifically about your race and how everyone who looks like you deserves oppression and death. as a white person, you are Able to loudly promote arson and vandalism and looting without being profiled and potentially tracked down by police. as a white person, you’re Easily able to claim that committing illegal acts is easy and fun to do and that people who won’t do them (aka, people of color who know that they’ll be murdered for it) are just weak.

as a white person, you’re Able to openly romanticize crime, as white crime in itself is heavily glamorized in mainstream media already. the online Serial Killer Fandom didn’t come out of nowhere; in mainstream media notorious real world white criminals are almost always painted as either sympathetic or Cool/Charming. on a similar note, media about a white crime mobs are treated as Epic Film Noirs With Villain Protags, while media about black people in gangs are more or less viewed as Freak Shows about how out of control and violent we are. so, in other words, being a white person bragging about committing crimes isn’t Nearly as radical or counterculture as so many of you seem to think it is.

in the past I’ve compared white “lifter” culture to white men posting selfies showing off their massive collection of guns, and there’s a reason for that; both are essentially at their core bragging about being white and having white privilege. both of them know that their whiteness is what protects them. and without acknowledging and discussing and prioritizing the role that racism plays in the criminal justice system, that’s literally all it is.

#wak #spice tag #racism tw #ok Now I'm done #this is all over the place but my head hurts rn #long post

[dnvdk]

Shareholderfeudalism I've been thinking about the term technofeudalism - as described by Yannis Varoufakis - a lot lately, especially in regards to the media stronghold and the societal implications of very small number of platform news and media get funneled through. The image above is not directly related, but adjacent in ethics and morality. It was placed with an article in a local news site about shoplifting in supermarkets and a newly implemented 'two strikes and your out' rule after which the shoplifter can't shop at that supermarket in the entire region. At face value the issue seems clear;

Shoplifting is illegal and a crime and the supermarkets are making enormous losses through these criminal activities, therefore they have all the right to educate their consumers about the risks of illegal behavior.

There is however, an interesting counter narrative that is as true. In the last decade unemployment nearly vanished statistically but households struggle because the pay in relation to the inflation is out of control. Where the solution for the crisis of 2008 was found in austerity - an incredibly cynical process that cut government funding for basic necessities - this time around it is less visible. Let there be no mistake; we are currently experiencing a similar wave of austerity but the mechanics are more refined and purely financial. The form it takes however is one of optimism - employment is at a record high and governments are doing very well financially. The elephant in the room however is the costs that the covid measurements put on the financial system of the West. The costs were clearly enormous since both income dropped and costs went up. It was however never a topic conversation as it was a crisis that needed an intervention and 'the money printer went prrrr', as the meme goes. The costs of these decisions were obviously astronomical though and the main method of alleviating this burden - and more importantly, getting back control over government finances and spending - is by diluting the value of the currency even further. Kick the can down the road. Pray and delay. Whether it will burst or not is not clear but the fact that many politicians from western governments decided to leave office in the lasts few months could be an indication. And a good old global war is helpful in taking our collective mind of this issue too. Okay so back to the image with the Albert Heijn cardboard-cutout-panopticon. It is taken in a 'self scan area' where customer take on the role of employees. This has been my gut reaction to these things from day one; a dystopian area where, to the plings-and-bleeps that would have suited a Black Mirror episode, the consumer is loaded with the responsibility of an employee - making that employee redundant in the process. And the customer is happy because you remove multiple interactions from their life; no queueing, no talking, no handing over cash. Just wear you noise cancelling headphones and carry on. And then - groceries got expensive. Really expensive. Twice as expensive in a little over a year. We were told it was because of the conflict in Ukraine raw materials and energy became more expensive and everything cascaded from that. But that would or could have been the case in a normal economy. We are currently experiencing something closer to hyperinflation. And the consequences for the average family are dire. Getting your children fed, warm and clean used to be the bare minimum of what could be expected in a western country and now it is no longer a given. And since all of this is complex and opaque, the immigrant gets blamed for taking the houses and stealing the jobs and the far right gains more and more momentum. All in the name of capitalism and to not scare the shareholders. So here we are; people steal at a supermarket because they can no longer afford the groceries and they get the opportunity because the shareholders of that supermarket though cashiers were to expensive. And then that supermarket shows affiliation with one of the two institutions that have a violence monopoly to scare them straight.

#technofeudalism #capitalism #shareholders #ah

[therealaysha]

middle school 2014 simulator:

hi i saw u wearing a black veil brides silicone bracelet do u want to be friends. heres my kik….. here are dank memes and slightly racist jokes, i also self harm and might end my life tonight so please spam text me so i dont actually go through with it, i also wont reply to make u so worried lol. its the next morning im literally fine im going to get breakfast from the cafeteria im gonna get a stale bagel remember its an even day i’ll meet u in 2nd period also do u wanna go to the mall after school so i can convince u to shoplift from hot topic

#my post #horrible. pray for middle schoolers today