#this cap has been on my mind for DAYS and i finally decided to post about it

[shit-before-the-shovel]

i was casually scrolling through libby tanner's youtube search and suddenly something hit me in the face hARD

it's her jawline

i am NOT OK

#libby tanner #i'm so gay it's ridiculous #this cap has been on my mind for DAYS and i finally decided to post about it #i can't be the only one going absolutely crazy over this right????

[bennyden]

User hamatoanne's fic plagiarism

Hello, I’m the author of The Android, an AO3 Robot OC x Reader fic that was plagiarized by hamatoanne on Tumblr in her Aemond x Reader story, System Error. You can read my AO3 post for more info about the issue. As you can tell by the timestamps on AO3 and the screenshots of her now-deleted story, mine was posted months before hers. I didn’t want to make this public, but it appears Anne has not learned her lesson and is grasping at straws to keep her readers in the dark. She’s been deleting her stories to hide evidence of her plagiarism. I think you deserve to know who your beloved writer gets her words from.

I don’t know this fandom, but I’ve heard you guys can get pretty crazy. Control yourselves. The only one who needs to take responsibility is Anne. Don’t send hate to her mutuals. Don’t send hate to her followers. Don’t stalk or harass or dox anyone. Read through this post and form your opinion.

First bunch of screenshots: A side-by-side comparison of her story (now deleted) and mine (still up and linked above). I took screenshots in advance in case something like this happened so I’d have proof if I needed it. I decided to compare the first chapter of my fic with the first part of hers. I could do the whole thing, but I’m a busy college student and I think just a quick skim of the pictures below is enough for people to see the extent of her plagiarism. 

I have screenshots of her entire post, but I don’t want to make this too long to scroll through and Tumblr posts cap at 30 pictures. I’m assuming some of you have already read her story multiple times, so you’re familiar with the words. If you haven’t, then I should warn you that the fic that she plagiarized is very not SFW. I’ll let you know where the not SFW content starts so you can skip it. 

On the left is my story. On the right is what Anne posted (and took down).

Not SFW content starts here. 

Not SFW content over.

Finally, I DM’ed her. This was just before I posted to The Android on AO3 about the situation. To summarize, I wrote about how I would go about the situation and how hurt I was about a bigger creator stealing from me. I admit, I was too kind and too much of a pushover. I just wanted things to go quietly. She later replied with this and deleted her fic immediately. 

“I was completely stupid for not giving your credit” Why do they always play dumb? You copy that much and can’t even think to put my name there? You credit the artist but not the person who basically wrote your whole story? The story that gave you over 3k notes, so much more clout than any of your other stories has earned you? Total BS.

“I had every intention of giving credit where it was due…But I forgot” Right. Sure. Of course. If she felt guilty about plagiarizing, she would not be so shameless to accept praise like she did. I have examples of where she happily thanked people for complimenting "her work”, but didn’t want to bring other blogs into this, especially since they were none the wiser to her plagiarism. Ironically enough, someone even gifted her a badge for being a good writer the day she replied to my DM. She tagged that post “#a breath of fresh air on a horrible day”. I wonder why her day was horrible. Whoever gifted her that badge deserves their money back.

My thoughts when approaching her DMs were:

If she wants to keep up the story? Fine, just edit the post to say that it was heavily influenced by my story and leave a link to the original. I don’t mind. The readers will see that, click my story, compare the two, and think, “Hey, that’s not just inspiration! She plagiarized!” and her downfall would start from there without me having to do anything.

If she ignored me and didn’t fulfill that request, i would take matters into my own hands and expose her on her own post. Even more damaging.

In the end, she chose to delete the post entirely, getting rid of the evidence and her clout. I actually didn’t expect this outcome since I thought she’d like the clout too much, but I guess she decided this route would be the least damaging to her reputation. Everything was swept under the rug for now. 

And like a fool, I said thanks and went on with my life. But I decided to keep track of her. Because while I was too cowardly to do anything, I knew there would always be someone in the crowd who would take action. And it seems like people did. 

After reading the supportive comments from readers of my fic, I started to regret how lightly I handled it. I wanted to be mature even though I wanted her entire blog to fall and her reputation taken away. But I didn’t want to be a “bad person”. I wondered if I should keep pursuing the issue. I realized that my overly-people-pleasing behavior might lead her to continue her ways. I decided to speak out because others might’ve had their works taken by her and that my silence wasn’t helping. 

Next is her post, now deleted (I wonder why), about how she’s been so sad and how she’s going to be deleting her old stories and starting over. I’m likely not the only one she’s plagiarized from if she’s deleting other stories. At the time, I only saw supportive replies and reblogs on it, but maybe she deleted it after people started calling her out? Idk.

She’s playing the victim game pretty hard. Acting as a kind underdog even though she’s the big creator who stole from a nobody like me. I know I said on my AO3 update that people shouldn’t send hate to her (and even censored her name after she deleted her story) but I guess I’m a little happy that people sought to call her out on her shit. I wish I was as brave. 

Later, a nice person (we’ll call her Bob because she asked to remain anonymous) DM’ed me directly with a kind message. After seeing this, I decided I should take action and expose all of this since Anne obviously hasn’t learned and wants to keep it all hidden. Bob confirmed that I’m not the only victim of Anne’s plagiarism either.

Bob asked that I not use screenshots of our DM’s so here is a transcription of the important parts:

“Hey! I just found out that one of your fics had been plagiarized by someone in the HOTD community. First of all, I am tremendously sorry that happened…”

(For Bob’s privacy, I won’t explain her relation to Anne. Just know that Anne has refused to message her back).

“I definitely think you should make a blog post. with side by side comparison. I am still completely gobsmacked that she pilfered your entire story word for word and changed a few things. We found evidence that she had plagiarized multiple stories. Not just yours. We found out her mermaid!aemond fic was entirely stolen as well as a few others. She has quietly deleted them and hasn't spoken on them since.”

“We surmised that she takes ‘underrated’ fics from different fandoms and changes the name and that's it. It's almost like she believed that stealing from other fandoms was going to draw less attention than stealing directly from the HOTD fandom.”

So if you noticed that one of your favorite Aemond fics is gone, now you know why.

‘But benny, she still wrote her own sentences and just changed it around to fit aemond!’

Fanfiction is transformative. You know what the source material is and who created it. You know you’re not reading a copied and pasted text with maybe some words and sentences switched around. This wasn’t fanfic. According to Google, plagiarism is defined as, “the practice of taking someone else's work or ideas and passing them off as one's own.” (See what I did there? I credited Google. Is it so hard to give credit where credit is due?) She copied people's work, didn't give credit to the source material, and claimed it as her own. That's plagiarism.

I wouldn’t have had a problem if she properly credited me and linked the original story. I wouldn’t have had a problem if she didn’t blatantly copy and paste the entire text and premise. I wouldn’t even require getting permission to write a story based on my fic if she had satisfied those conditions.

She’s a 27-year-old grown-ass woman with enough free time to simp over some blond guy with an eyepatch. I’m a 21-year-old college student who only posts fics during the summer and winter because that’s when school’s on break. I’m too busy writing lab reports and essays to be an active writer online. The fact that she can disrespect smaller writers so tremendously should not be acceptable. The fact that she also deceived her devoted readers and friends about her "works" is also unacceptable.

What can you do about this? To be honest, I don’t know what to do. I’ve never had to deal with this before. I want to be a good person and say, “Don’t send any hate to Anne, don’t harass her. Just unfollow her and stop supporting her.” But that obviously hasn’t taught her anything. She’ll just make a half-assed apology, maybe go on hiatus, maybe disappear, and then pop up again under another name to steal from another creator. If you have any ideas on how to deal with this, please tell us. 

She can try to block me or delete her posts, but the evidence is out and the damage is done. Anything she does to hide this mess will only make it worse for her. I’d appreciate people bringing more awareness to this issue, especially if it can reach the eyes of others she’s taken from. 

Thanks for reading.

#aemond targaryen #aemond one eye #aemond x reader #hotd #house of the dragon #reader fanfiction #prince aemond #plagiarism #android x reader #robot x reader #ao3 #aemond and reader smut

[hamiltonaf]

Payback | Kylian Mbappé

Pairing: Kylian Mbappé x Female Reader

Word Count: 2.4K

Warnings: Cursing

A/N: My apologies for not posting part 2 of ‘One More Dance’, I’ve been so busy and I’m currently working on it so hopefully it will be up soon. Inspo is from an old tiktok trend. Enjoy .xo

(Y/F/N) - Your Friend’s Name

The thud of heavy rain drops hitting against my window set the mood to do absolutely nothing today. Though it doesn't work like that today since I have an assignment due in a few days time. It would also be ideal to cuddle someone right about now but that's out of the question because of a certain someone.

After completing half of my assignment, which I was quite satisfied with, I decided to call it a day for work and take advantage of the gloomy weather.

Taking a look at Instagram was a bad idea since I came across rumours of Kylian dating another girl. So much for breaking up a month ago and wanting to 'focus on football'. His excuse still bothers me since it was a poor one after dating for almost 3 years. I don't see a change of performance on the pitch if I’m being honest. I guess everything happens for a reason, maybe we're just not meant to be.

I mean if he moved on then so should I, right ? It then hit me that I should spice things up and give something for people to talk about. We’ll excuse my petty behaviour and blame it on the weather for making me somewhat evil. Before causing some drama, I called (Y/F/N), "Ello !" she answered. "Hey girly ! How are you doing on this beautiful day ?" I asked. "Ugh I’m so bored, you have no idea” she whined. “But never mind me, how are you doing more specifically ?” She asked curiously. “I’m doing okay, but-“ “I can already tell something is up your sleeve” she cut me off.

“Damn you really know me well” I pouted. “Of course ! Otherwise I wouldn’t be your bestie. Anywho, spill the tea…I’m all ears” she said enthusiastically. “So word of mouth right now on insta is that he is dating someone else, there’s literally pictures of them at dinner together” I rolled my eyes. “Shut up ! What the actual fuck dude. That’s so messed up. He’s such an ass” she yelled. “Yeah yeah I mean it hurts but the only way for my petty ass to get over it is-“ “If you do the same thing” she finished my sentence.

“Exactly ! So remember that TikTok we wanted to try out ages ago where one of us is dressed up as the guy and take out a bunch of pictures to look like a couple” I reminded her. “Oh my god ! Our time has finally come ! Okay I’m on my way, I’ll literally be there in like 5 mins” she said lastly before ending the call.

As soon as (Y/F/N) came over, we went straight to my dresser and got working on her makeup. We started by accentuating her veiny yet bony hands and then contoured her cheekbones, as well as her jawline to look more masculine. I failed to mention how smart she is, she came through with a bouquet of my favourite flowers so I had something else to post about.

Once we were done with her makeup, she slipped into one of my high heels so she was much taller than me. With her oversized hoodie and cap on you’d literally think that she’s a guy - a hot one at that too. I changed into a black slip dress and took off my shoes to spice up the picture, and exaggerate her height.

When (Y/F/N) came up behind me in the mirror, we both burst out laughing over how accurate she looked to a guy. “Shit. Even I would date me” she said before getting serious and wrapped her arms around my waist. After a few pictures of my head tilted and her face nuzzled into my neck, we finally had the picture. Her side profile looked so sharp, it’s actually insane.

After all of this, I suddenly felt hesitant to post for some odd reason that even (Y/F/N) noticed. I think it was pretty obvious how long I was staring at the pictures. “Girl don’t hold back now, just do it. He should see that you also moved on” she wiggled her brows. “You got a point there” I said to myself. I then uploaded 2 stories, one of the bouquet and one of us together - both simply captioned with a white heart. “If I saw this for the first time, I’d literally scream. Everyone is gonna lose their minds, especially him” she smirked. “Feels good to throw this back at him” I smirked back. “Welcome to the dark side bestie” she patted my back. “Anywho I need to run, got a few errands. Love you and call me later to update me on the drama. I’ll desperately be waiting for your call” she said as she gathered her things. “Of course ! Will do. Thanks bestie” I quickly hugged her before she hurriedly left.

I proceeded to spending the rest of my afternoon binging on early 2000's chick flicks, it wasn't until the evening when I decided to check my phone again that I noticed how many notifications I received. My notifications were the highest its ever been, well shit. We love to see it I guess.

I received countless tags on reposts as well as comments from fans, and surprisingly messages from family - understandable how many messages I received since it’s so evident that it’s not Kylian in the pictures. Scrolling through my notifications I decided to ignore all until my eyes landed on Kylian’s contact name, 'Kyky'. Surprise surprise.

"Heyy" the text read, I rolled my eyes, I don't have time for a conversation starter. I left him on read and proceeded with watching my movies. It wasn't even 5 minutes and my phone started to ring. It was Kyky calling. My heart started racing, I was hesitant to answer the call because what are we going to talk about and why call now ?

"Hello" he greeted. "Hey" I answered plainly. "Are you busy ?" He asked curiously. "Well kind of.. I'm actually just getting ready to leave" I said with a devious smile creeping onto my face. "Oh. Erm okay never mind" he said disappointed. "Why ?" I raised a brow. "I'm actually outside your apartment" he said embarrassed "No way" I said lowly to myself. "Have a look" he said as I then walked towards my front door and was met with his face. I ended the call and looked at him in shock, "You- here- like..what are you doing here ?" I asked.

"Can I come in please ?" He asked pleadingly. "What for ?" I asked back. "To talk about us" he said. "Theirs no us anymore. Theirs nothing for us to talk about" I said as I was about to close the door. "Wait. Just give me a chance" he said softly. "Theirs literally no point. You moved on..I moved on-" "You have another boyfriend already ?" He asked in shock. "I'm offended that you think I'm not capable of moving on so soon" I shook my head and crossed my arms over my chest.

"So you must've known this guy whilst we were dating ?" He asked as he started to grow angry. "Yeah so ?" I scoffed. "You were just waiting for us to break up so you can date this guy" he said as he started to raise his voice. "You literally did the same thing. You made it seem like it was such a simple break up for your own good, but for the last 2 weeks you're rumoured to be with another girl !"I said as I started to grow annoyed. "Yes, but she's just a friend" he said.

"Funny how we’ve been together for so long and I never met this friend before" I said. Just then my next door neighbour yelled at us for raising our voices. "Please do yourself a favour and leave" I said as I shut the door. I then heard rattling of the door and in came Kylian. "You weren't invited inside" I said. "Well I had a spare key" he said as he held up the key. "That was supposed to be returned to me when we broke up" I said as I snatched the key from his hand and went to sit on my couch. “Also, how could you act surprised that I moved on when you’re literally here after I posted a picture with another guy ?” I questioned. He then sat beside me, "Can you just stop talking about that idiot ? I came here to talk about us…How do I make you love me again?"

"Love ? Dream on" I half laughed. "I'm being serious" he said as he looked between my eyes. "Forget about me loving you. How do I know that you love me ?" I asked. "Well I missed you all this time so I came back" he smiled. "It's not that simple. If you truly loved me as you say, you wouldn't have wanted to break up after all these years" I said. "Look I'm sorry okay ? I really am. I wish I could go back in time and reverse what I did...I just needed some time to myself to think about my future personal life and I kept imagining you in it..." he said as he gently moved a strand away from my face.

"Don't play with me right now" I warned. "No jokes. I love you. I really do, and I want to continue to spend the rest of my life with you" he said as he held my hands. "Okay cute. Anyways I have to go meet my boyfriend. It was nice of you to stop by..I'll think about it" I huffed as I got up. He grabbed a hold of my wrist and pulled me towards him to sit on his lap. "Stop lying" he smirked. "What makes you think I'm lying ?" I raised a brow. "I know your facial expressions when you lie. I just know you all too well because you literally could've left the second you opened your door instead of coming back inside" He said with a smile.

"Well I've changed my mind, I rather be with him right now" I shrugged. "I want my old (Y/N) back" he pouted. "She left the building the day you left her" I said lastly and got up to walk to my room. "Ouch" he pouted as he followed behind me. "I still love you no matter what. Always have and always will" I gave him a brief look before pretending to rummage through my closet. "So is this how it's going to be ?" He asked as he leaned back in my bed and watched me. "I told you that I need to think about it" I said as I continued to skim through my closet. "I'm not going until we stop fighting" he said casually "This isn't fighting. People don't get back together based off 5 minutes of talking to them after a whole month" I said as he stood up to stand in front of me.

"I like it when you're angry" he said as he got closer. "Don't" I said softly as I looked down. He lifted my head to meet his eyes as he cupped my cheeks, his thumb tracing over my lips. "You're making this harder" I pouted. Just when his lips were a mere centimetre away, he mumbled "It shouldn’t be hard if you have a boyfriend…Should I stop ?"

I hesitated to answer. To give up the game and kiss him or keep annoying him. “I can’t” I faked a pout. “Why not ?” His mood dropped. “I can’t do this to Nico” I said as I looked down. “Fuck Nico !” He yelled. “How the hell do you even know this guy ?” He asked frustrated. “We met at a party” I answered casually. “Besides him, it’s wrong of you to cheat on your girlfriend” I said looking everywhere else but him. He walked closer which made me take a step back, my back hitting against the wall. He placed his hands on either side of me, cornering me. “I just told you that she’s a friend and nothing more” he tried to say calmly. “I’m not convinced” I shrugged.

“Forget about her, she’s irrelevant right now. I came to claim back what was once mine. If I have to fight this stupid so called boyfriend of yours, then I will” he said as he inched his face closer to mine. There was a moment of silence. Both of us holding eye contact and switching between looking at each others eyes and lips. He leaned in and I didn’t stop him. It was a sweet soft peck. His forehead against mine, he sighed and said "I'll give you your space.” I surprised myself by grabbing a hold of his hand and pulling him back into place. “What’s wrong ?” He asked. “You’ll fight for me ?” I teased. “I know that I’m not fighting anyone because you’re lying, but if I have to then I will” he said as his hands were on my waist.

“How can you tell I’m lying ?” I instinctively wrapped my arms around his neck. “Besides reading your facial expressions, we wouldn’t be in this position right now” he said. “Or doing this” he said softly before placing his lips on mine. I pulled him closer against me and just then he broke away from the kiss. “I think I should go” he teased. "No no wait just a little more" I hushed him as I pulled him closer to connect our lips once again.

#football #football fanfic #football fanfics #football imagine #football fluff #football angst #football smut #football x reader #football x you #football blurb #football drabble #kylian mbappe #kylian mbappe fanfic #kylian mbappe smut #kylian mbappe x reader #kylian mbappe imagine #kylian mbappe fluff #kylian mbappe blurb #kylian x reader #kylian imagines #kylian mbappe oneshot #kylian mbappe x you #ricciardoaf oneshots

[flyingfabio]

Why Fabio chose to stay at Yamaha

Or why the Devil still wears Yamaha. You know it’s getting serious when I bother putting caps on a Tumblr post. I have to admit this is largely self-interested as I try to put some order into my thoughts. Putting this under read more because this is very long (probably too much).

The reasons why:

The factory team. Perhaps the most important, as I think Fabio wouldn’t have settled for anything less. He’s in a state of mind where, at this stage of his career, going back to a satellite team would means defeat. So this already eliminates the best bikes of the grid, as factory Ducati have three Ducati riders lining up to be Bagnaia’s teammate, and as KTM will most likely have Binder and Acosta on their factory bikes next year. You could make a point for a Pramac seat, as it’s “almost” a factory seat, but Pramac has already made it clear they want to have a junior team and grow talents there by signing Aldeguer for two years. Fabio is still young, but he’s an experienced MotoGP rider. And as I said before, I don’t think he would accept being anything else than Pecco’s teammate. So what is left? Honda but the point is to go to a better sorted bike, which the RC213V clearly is not. Already the only option left is Aprilia. 

The Aprilia option. This is assuming Aprilia offered Fabio a factory seat, which might not even have happened. Aleix keeps telling everyone he doesn’t want to retire yet, and Aprilia look like they want to keep Maverick. So what if Aprilia only offered a factory bike in their satellite team? If so, see point one. The thing is, I think Fabio did receive a factory offer from Aprilia, and there are two main factors to consider. First, the inconsistency and unreliability of the Aprilia bike. It’s no secret to anyone, the Aprilia suffers from technical issues every race weekend, and often prevents riders from bagging points on race day. It’s been an ongoing issue for years, and for now, there is no sign of actual improvement on this matter. The Aprilia is also inconsistent depending on the race track, though I think it's a lesser problem as Aprilia have sort of improved there, and the right rider can make up for this weak point. This first factor is strongly correlated to the second, which is money. According to early reports, Aprilia’s offer was 4 millions per year while Yamaha’s was the TRIPLE of that number. Now, if this offer was coming from factory Ducati instead of Aprilia, I think Fabio would have jumped ship, because the Ducati is a proven championship winning bike. But the Aprilia? Why would you turn down that much down money to go to a bike that keeps having critical failures? No matter how good of a rider you have, if your engine goes bop, there is nothing you can do about it. Maybe Aprilia will manage to sort out this problem, but maybe they won’t, and you would have turned down a huge load of money for a few race wins a year. Wins are good, but nothing compared to a championship. Riders’ careers are short and come with very high risks, so making as much money as you can in short periods of time is critical.

Last main reason is the timing. Yamaha is FINALLY making ACTUAL changes in the way they operate after years of riders complaining about the slow or non existent development, Fabio being the most vocal about it. F1 motorist Marmorini is two years in working on the engine, and Yamaha have finally decided to get some key players and hired Ducati’s ex number two Bartolini (for who Fabio had only praises after working with him for a few days) along with former Ducati aerodynamicist Nicotra. They are apparently working closely with an Italian aerodynamics company, have started a partnership with a 3D printing company and are basically strengthening the operations of the brand’s base in Italy. Does all of this come so fucking late? For sure, and Yamaha is paying the price for their complacency. It’s too early for these recent changes to bear their fruits on the track, so could Fabio have left now after finally getting what he asked, without ever seeing what these changes could have led to? He could have, sure. I think he would have if it meant switching for a factory Ducati, but the only option was Aprilia and it’s a less sexy option. See point two.

Bonus reason: sponsors. I think Monster Energy played a part. Monster sponsors many riders in MotoGP, but Fabio is their guy. He is the number 1 in the team for which they are the title sponsor. They wouldn't let him go that easily.

The gloomy part now, the reasons why there is doubt to have about this renewal (I won't elaborate as much because I don’t want to get depressed):

Yamaha is Yamaha… Disappointing fans since 2016 (minus 2021).

The il4 engine problem. With Suzuki gone, the il4 is yet to show how it can be competitive in this heavy aero era of these last few years. Maybe it has reached its peak and bears too many disadvantages compared to the v4. Then Yamaha will have to wait and pray for the 2027 new regulations to be more favorable…

This renewal doesn’t make sense if Fabio doesn’t plan to stick with Yamaha for the new 2027 regulations. He will help develop the new 850cc bike, and if the development doesn’t go completely awry, why would he leave then?

Fabio will not be able to test himself on another bike for another two years. The il4 style suited him, but what if he liked the v4 more? For now, we will never know. 

Bonus part, because I want to end on a good note:

The response of the Japanese fans has been overwhelmingly heart-warming. Look at any comment under a Japanese post, they are SO happy that Fabio is staying, and that not every rider is leaving to go to an European team. Japan is so important for MotoGP, and after Marc leaving Honda, Fabio staying at Yamaha is important to prevent Japan’s MotoGP stronghold from further decaying.

Fabio will be the highest paid rider in MotoGP. He will be able to take care of his family like he intends to. No worries for the bills of his new very big house. 

Fabio looks damn good in blue. 

Bonus hater point (I can’t help myself): 

Ducati can fuck off for wanting to pay its riders with pennies.

If you have made it through all of this, thank you…? Why are you still here...?

#fabio quartararo #motogp #elie.txt #why is bro (me) still talking

[ineffablecrisp]

Soviet!Ice Headcanon 3/?

(also in this kinda maybe AU Sarah is his sister)

An idea I've been playing around with that I kinda briefly mentioned in the last post about this was Ice's family becoming religious after immigrating to the United States.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, there were many Jews who became religious through the Chabad movement, now that they were able to be more open about religion. Most, if not all, religious Jews in my community became religious this way.

And bringing this back to Ice, I've kinda been exploring some scenarios in which his family decides to take on more religious observances.

It starts off small, like being invited to the local Modern Orthodox shul by someone helping them assimilate into their new lives in America. They do have a hard time following along with the liturgy since they barely speak English yet, but the Rabbi is kind and invites the Kazansky family to learn more about Judaism.

This leads to Ice and Sarah attending Hebrew School with all the other kids in the shul. At first they feel like outsiders since they haven't had as much exposure to Torah as the other kids, but they quickly warm up to it and even improve their English when interacting with everyone.

Ice ends up having a Bar Mitzvah, even if it's a bit later than the other boys. He doesn't mind- he finally feels connected and like he found a missing part of himself.

(quick little note that around Ice's time, Jewish males didn't get circumcised as many traditions were pretty much abandoned in order to fit in)

Over time, his family as a whole takes on more religious observances. Ice and his father start wearing a kippah and tzitzit, and his mom experiments with covering her hair. They begin to keep kosher and keep Shabbat.

Unfortunately, becoming more visibly Jewish made Ice even more of target at school. Aside from being called a communist, his peers have taken to calling him a wide variety of Jewish slurs, and have even removed his kippah from his head numerous times.

By the time Ice gets to the academy, he becomes so fed up with the taunting that he starts to hide his observances. He doesn't wear a kippah, and tucks his tzitzit into his pocket (I imagine he got some kind of exemption for religious purposes for him to even be wearing a kippah and tzitzit in the first place). He davens in secret, hoping nobody finds out.

Eventually Slider starts noticing there's something off about Ice. Mainly, why he never consumes meat and cheese at the same time, and why he always disappears at certain times of the day. He confronts Ice who's initially panicking because he thinks Slider is about to say something nasty. But he doesn't. And for the first time, Ice finds himself opening up about his experiences and tells Slider everything. From that moment on, Slider vowed to always look after Ice, no matter what.

When they get to Top Gun, Ice still isn't comfortable enough to wear a kippah in front of everyone, but has started to wear baseball caps as a head covering when he's out of uniform (this also gave me an idea of Ice wearing a baseball cap during the volleyball scene which probably isn't very practical, but at least the sun isn't in his eyes). The tzitzit stay tucked in his pockets.

When he admits to himself and later Slider that he wants something more with Maverick, he's hesitant to pursue a relationship with him because of his observances. He's terrified but as he starts getting closer with Maverick, he finds himself opening up more and more about his struggles of being visibly Jewish.

It is a few years into their relationship when Ice feels ready to once again wear a kippah in public. He figures that if it wasn't for his boyfriend's support and encouragement, he never would have done it. From the very beginning of their relationship Ice has been firm in his wants to keep his observances. He teaches Maverick about the laws of kashrut so they can keep a kosher kitchen. Maverick doesn't mind, even if he was initially confused. They also find a synagogue nearby for Ice to attend.

By the time they're getting ready to be married Ice doesn't strictly consider himself to be Orthodox due to the fact that his marriage to a man wouldn't be seen as legit. He finds a more egalitarian synagogue that does accept queer Jews (also since the mechitzah doesn't do anything for him as he pays more attention to boys instead of girls) and for the first time, he is able to bring Maverick as his boyfriend, instead of his "friend." He fulfills his dream of standing underneath a chuppah as he gets lost in his now-husband's eyes and thinks back at how everything came to be.

#top gun 1986 #jewish tom kazansky #pete maverick mitchell #ron slider kerner #icemav #yeahhhhhhhh so this took me a hot sec to write and is way longer than i planned but i'm never capable of writing anything short

[unseededtoast]

Turtle Doves | Joel Miller

Part Twelve

Chapter Directory

Series Summary: In which two broken souls connect so deeply, that if one should perish, the other would surely die of a broken heart. (slow burn, timeline changes. After TLOU1, before TLOU2, assumed knowledge of infected, uses elements from both show and game)

Series Warnings: Graphic depictions of violence, death, and sexual content.

Also cross-posted on Wattpad and AO3. Link to my masterlist for everything else I’ve posted!

"Don't take another step."

Someone nudging my shoulder wakes me from my sleep. I lazily blink my eyes open and see Joel staring down at me with his chocolate brown eyes. He probably either found something, or it's time to keep walking. Either way, my time on this mattress is coming to a sad close, and I wish I could stay here forever. My limbs stretch out before I get up, soaking in one last moment on the soft bed.

Joel moves out of my way as I get up and put my bag on my back. He picks his up as well and opens the camper door for me. The day is hot, the air is sticky with humidity.

"Follow me." He says and walks ahead of me, leading me further into the campground. Joel has some unusual pep in his step, and it's getting my hopes up that he found something good.

The rest of the campground is desolate, it's probably been abandoned for a decade now. It's almost like a time capsule, everything is exactly where it was left ten years ago. There are children's bicycles left, tents that have been blown over, and remnants of happy memories everywhere I look. Once upon a time, this place would have been a lovely destination for a weekend getaway.

The campers become less densely packed as he keeps walking deeper into the woods.

"I thought you said you weren't going far." I call him on his lie. His shoulders shrug in front of me.

"I guess it's all a matter of perspective." He refutes and I let out a short laugh.

"I'll have to keep that in mind." I say as we pass a rusted out truck.

We walk a few more paces until I see a blue pickup truck sitting out by itself. It looks a little out of place, like it should be back towards the front where most of the campers are. Joel comes to a stop in front of it and lightly smacks his hand on the hood. I'll admit, it's one of the nicest looking cars I've seen in a while. The rust is at a minimum, it still has all the doors and windows. In my eyes, this truck is on par with a Rolls Royce.

"Does it work?" I ask before my hopes get too high. This truck could need parts before it runs. And if that's the case, who knows how long we'll be here searching for them.

"It runs, we just need some gas." He says and I nod. I knew we couldn't get lucky enough to find a car without any sort of issue to deal with.

"Okay, then let's find some gas." I say, hopeful that in this campground there's fuel stored somewhere. Sure, it's frustrating that our trip is being delayed, but the thought of finally having a car offsets any negativity about searching for gas.

The two of us split up, each taking one side of the campground to make the most of our time. I start at the front and decide to make my way back towards the truck. I search through the unlocked campers and cars left to rot, finding nothing of real use in the front. In the back half of the campground I find a gas container with a quarter tank, it's better than nothing. Other than that, I don't find anything.

Joel and I reconvene at the truck after thoroughly searching. It seems his search was more fruitful, he's got two full containers in his hands.

"Where'd you find all that?" I'm not sure how he got so lucky. He just shrugs,

"Was just layin' around." He opens the gas cap of the truck and pours the gas into it. Hopefully this gets us a few hundred miles at least.

I watch as he tosses the empty gas can aside and climbs into the driver's seat. He rubs his hands together excitedly before turning the key in the ignition. The truck makes a few clicking sounds before it finally roars to life with a deep growl. It's music to my ears and I can't keep the wide smile off my face.

"I can't believe it." My voice is awestruck as I climb into the passenger side. The seats are faux leather and the air in here is quite stale and stuffy. Joel begins navigating back to the road as I roll the windows down and let my arm hang out the window.

He drives us out of the campground and we're back en route. The wind whips my hair around in the truck and my eyes close as I take in the feeling. It's been so long since I can remember enjoying driving with the windows down. We drive for miles as I soak in the almost forgotten feeling.

Opening my eyes, I look over to Joel, who has a small smirk on his face. His eyes glance from the road over to me before flicking back to the road. I roll the window halfway up, the air becoming a little much.

"Thought you fell asleep over there." He says. I shake my head and try to tame my hair from the wind.

"No, I slept pretty well. I think we can count that as a five star hotel." I flip down the mirror attached to the visor on the ceiling and use it to part my hair the correct way before glancing over to Joel. He just shakes his head with the same smirk on his face, and then we fall back into our usual silence.

Deciding I can use this time for something other than looking out of the window, I grab my bag and unzip it, grabbing the map. It's torn around the edges from wear, but is still intact enough that it won't disintegrate if it gets folded the wrong way. My eyes find the spot where we just passed through, marked with the star. The stars must mean other groups, so we'll want to avoid those in the future.

I look ahead in our route to see what we'll be coming up on. The next group we should be crossing paths with are the Fireflies. It'll be interesting to see what happens when we get to that point. I know both Joel and I dislike them, but they're also involved in the slaughter of children in QZs. For that reason alone I want to seek them out, just to see if there's any information we can get from them.

But then again, if Joel was there when Marlene died, other people might know about that and it might complicate things. I heavily sigh as I weigh the pros and cons of finding them.

Then again, Joel doesn't have to go with me to seek them out. He's more than welcome to keep going and if he wants, we can meet back up after I'm done. One way or another I know I need to find them, and I need to see for myself the extent of their involvement with the T group. In my mind, there's more to lose from not finding them and not getting every ounce of information that I possibly can. From my estimate, if we keep driving for the rest of the day, we should reach them by tomorrow afternoon. That's assuming we don't run into any obstacles.

I fold the map back up and put it inside my bag and my fingers find the two scraps of paper I found in the fire back near Boston. The word "immune" strikes me, and my thumb runs over the ink. What could this mean? What context was it written in? Does it even have anything to do with this?

Surely it has to, it was among other vital pieces of information like the note and the map. But why would they burn this letter and not the rest?

Joel glances over to see what I'm holding and his eyebrows draw tightly together. He reads the word on the scorched paper and his eyes trail up to meet mine. His jaw sets and he swallows hard. It reminds me of the night we spent in the little suburban home, how he went over all the evidence.

"What is it?" My mouth blurts out before I can stop myself. I have to know why he's acting this way about the evidence. Out of the corner of my eye, I see his hand grab the steering wheel more tightly and his knuckles turn white. But his face relaxes and he shakes his head,

"Nothin'." His subpar answer lingers in the air between us. I have a gut feeling he's not telling the entire truth, and it's really starting to get under my skin.

"It's not nothing. What do you know?" I ask him, my voice firm. My eyes scan over his face for any clues, but his demeanor is cool and collected, save for his death grip on the steering wheel.

"I don't know anything." His voice is deep and has a tone of finality, urging me not to continue on. I bite my tongue before I begin accusing him of things I'm not even sure of and look back out the window.

An anxious feeling creeps up my spine as I try to rationalize why he would want to keep information away from me. It's plain as day now that he definitely knows something, and it has to be centered around this one scribbled word. He reacted to it back in the suburbs, and he reacted to it again just now.

If he's willing to go out of his way to save me not once, but twice, and is sincere enough to keep his word about tagging along until Omaha, then what could possibly be so classified that he won't tell me? It just doesn't make sense. And in that moment, the man who once made me feel safe, makes me feel uneasy. Maybe I wrongfully placed my trust in him too soon.

Quietly, I place the scrap of paper back in my bag and zip it up. The bag now rests in my lap and I crane my neck even more so that I can't even see him out of my peripheral vision. My heart thumps in my chest and I try to calm myself. Wild thoughts run rampant in my mind with theories about what's going on, but not one theory is able to check every box of the situation.

As the day goes on, the trip continues to pass in silence. After hours of mulling over my theories, I still can't settle on anything that makes total sense. Everything about his behavior is paradoxical to me. Until I can figure it out, I think it's best if I keep my distance and and keep my mouth shut. He already knows a fair bit about me, but I know practically nothing about him. There's a power imbalance here and that adds to my uneasiness.

Our silence is now filled with tension once more, and my nervously tapping foot is the only thing that fills the quiet cab of the truck. The sun has set and the headlights of this truck are very dim. Truthfully, it's probably dangerous to be driving with such dim lights but I don't care. I just want this truck to get us as far as possible.

Unfortunately, he doesn't keep driving through the night. No, he finds a rest area off the highway and stops at it, pulling the truck over the curb and into the woods for cover. As soon as the truck is put into park I get out and sling my bag over one shoulder. My feet can't carry me fast enough as I make my way to one of the small buildings.

I duck behind one and revel in the feeling of being alone, being away from the suffocating silence and tension. My chest deflates with a sigh and I turn my attention towards the dark sky, dotted with bright stars. For a few moments my problems melt away, it's just me and the wide open sky. My fingers wrap around the gold chain around my neck as I gaze at the stars, hoping that somehow the right answer will come to me. Should I stay with Joel? Should I go on my own? I just don't know.

I don't have enough time to dwell on it as I hear Joel's footsteps crunching in the woods next to me. Fixing my posture, I bend over and make it look like I was tying the laces of my boot and not debating whether or not I should take off. As casually as I can, I look up through my eyelashes and see Joel coming out of the woods in front of me, logs tucked underneath one of his arms. He looks at me quizzically, and I think quick to excuse my hightailing.

"Sorry I um, I just had to go." I say, implying that I ran off for the bathroom. He nods his head once and then clears his throat.

"Was thinkin' we could build a fire out here." He gestures to the sidewalk that borders the woods. Like last night, there's a risk to it, but it's not a detrimental one, at least I don't think.

"Yeah, that's fine." I say and stand up from my kneeling position. He walks in front of me, his shoulders tight with tension and I'm not entirely sure it's from hauling firewood.

I stay a few feet back as Joel constructs the fire, much like he did last night. He does it with an expertise that shows how long he's been out here for. Leaning against a nearby tree I chew on my fingernails, my brain unable to let me be calm. Joel lights the fire and he takes a seat on the plush grass, stretching out.

"I can take watch tonight." He offers. While the offer is nice, I don't know if I'll be able to sleep. There are several reasons why I should trust him by now, but there's also one major reason why I can't. I shake my head, turning down his offer.

"That's okay, I'm not even really tired. Plus you drove all day." My lie comes quick and smooth. He looks up at me, and I worry he's going to see through my facade. He shrugs his shoulders,

"Doesn't bother me." His voice sounds sincere and I wish I could accept his offer as easily as I did last night.

"I might stay up and plan a little." This isn't the entire truth, but it's not a complete lie either.

"Plan for what?" His brown eyes are illuminated by the fire. Nervousness crawls over my skin.

"Um, just, just for our next stop." I say, deciding that this conversation has to happen eventually.

"What stop is that?" He readjusts his position on the ground so he can look at me easier.

"The Fireflies. We're going to run into them next." I flatly state, waiting for his reaction. Joel's eyebrows shoot up,

"Thought you hated the Fireflies?" His voice is gruff and he sounds irritated. My head nods, agreeing with him.

"I do. And as much as I hate to admit it, I have to talk to them. You saw, their emblem was on that letter. They're involved in this and I can't just pass it up." I feel slightly more confident. He huffs with annoyance and I try to keep my facial expression under control, he can't know how apprehensive I am right now.

"Damn Fireflies." Is all he says, and I think I was hoping for more insight. I decide to leave the conversation there, not wanting to tread on rough waters with him again.

Eventually I take a seat on the grass across the way from Joel. The fire's smoke burns my lungs each time I inhale, but I don't mind it. My thoughts are too occupied with my own internal conflict.

Am I overreacting about what happened earlier? After all, this is the same man who helped me over the barricade, saved me from the perverted men in the town, and insisted he stay with me until Omaha. If his intentions with me were foul, he's had plenty of time to act and he hasn't. But there's something about how defensive he got that's concerning.

My repeating thoughts are interrupted as I hear twigs breaking in the woods behind me. My hand reaches for the curved blade and I'm on my feet in the blink of an eye. There's a shadow moving in the trees, I see it coming closer. Joel stands by my side and pushes me behind him slightly, a knife in his hand as well.

"Don't take another step." Joel's voice threatens. The footsteps stop. It's not an infected. My head turns from side to side to watch for anyone else that may be tagging along with his person.

"I'm just passing through." A manly voice calls back and the footsteps resume. My grip on my knife gets tighter, ready to use it if things go sideways.

"Walk towards me with your hands up." Joel demands. Through the darkness I see the man's hands fly up in surrender and he takes slow steps towards us. I back up so that the man can come to the light, so we can see his face.

He's a young kid, maybe early twenties. His hair is all disheveled, clothes tattered and torn. There's a fear in his eyes as he steps out towards us, like he's never been in this situation before. Raised high above his head, his hands tremble.

"Sit on the ground and cross your ankles." Joel instructs, knife still at the ready. Quickly, the young man nods his head and follows Joel's instructions. I put my knife away, seeing as how Joel has this covered apparently.

"Who are you?" Is Joel's next demand. The kid's eyes raise to meet his.

"Name's Tate." His voice cracks as he talks. From his perspective, Joel has to be terrifying. He's a large man with a knife, of course he's going to be scary. And I'll admit deep down he scares me too.

"What're you doin' out here?" Joel's form is rigid and tense.

"Like I said I'm just passing through." The kid's wide eyes turn to me and Joel snaps his fingers.

"Don't look at her, eyes stay right here." Joel points to his face. The boy nods his head and tears his gaze off of me. The kid's nervousness causes him to keep blabbering.

"I swear man. I'm headed to Pittsburgh. I've got family out that way." Joel shifts his weight, refusing to lower his weapon.

"Pittsburgh is full of raiders and hunters." The kid swallows hard at Joel's words and a look of exasperation comes over him.

"What? No, no that can't be right. How do you know?" Joel sighs and adjusts his knife in his hand.

"Went through there a while ago. Checkpoint's been abandoned. I can almost guarantee that your people aren't there anymore for one reason or another." The kid looks down from Joel's face and I think he might get sick.

I look over what the young man has on him and see that he's travelling suspiciously light. In fact, I don't even see a bag anywhere. If he's travelling all the way to Pittsburgh with nothing but the clothes on his back, he has to be trying to evade something, or someone. Finding my voice, I speak up.

"Where's your stuff at?" Both Joel and Tate look over to me. Joel looks angry and Tate looks confused. Tate's mouth hangs open for a few seconds as he digests the question.

"This is all I have." He confirms my thoughts, which makes me even more curious about why he's out here.

"You're travelling to Pittsburgh with no supplies?" My voice is obviously skeptical. This could be some sort of trap for all we know. Tate's head nods.

"I didn't have a choice. The Fireflies are losing their damn minds, everyone's trying to take charge and it's a mess." His voice seems to calm down as he speaks to me.

"How many are left?" I ask, hoping that there's enough there that someone is bound to know something. Tate shrugs his shoulders.

"I don't know, maybe thirty, maybe less by now." His voice trails off at the end of his sentence and he glances back to Joel, who has not stopped staring him down.

If Tate is fleeing from the Fireflies, he might be more likely to spill what he knows. After all, if he has no loyalty he doesn't have to worry about covering for anyone. Within seconds I'm fishing out the pieces of paper from my bag and I bring them over to Tate. The documents are fanned out in my hands and I sit beside him, letting him look over the materials. His eyes scan over them, reading the instruction note twice.

"What do you know about this?" My voice is low and somber. Tate's eyes meet mine,

"I don't know. This looks like serious shit though. I wasn't high ranking enough to know about stuff like that. No, I was the one who they sent out to kill infected and to be people's bodyguards. But if you get to their base, I'm willing to bet Trevor knows something." His words seem genuine, and I pack all the documents back into my bag.

"Trevor." I confirm and he nods his head. It seems like he's being honest, lies usually aren't that thorough. Standing from my spot beside Tate, I walk to Joel and meet his hard gaze.

"I think we should let him go." I whisper so Tate can't hear. Something tells me that Joel doesn't want him making it out of here alive, but I don't think Tate is going to be any sort of threat to us. Joel's eyes bounce between me and Tate, looking uncertain.

"What if he's lyin'?" Joel asks and I sigh.

"I don't think he is. Look at him, he's scared. Doesn't seem the type to hurt others." I glance over my shoulder at the skinny kid sitting with his ankles still crossed.

"Fine. You can let him go, but you're taking watch if you do." Joel grumbles and brushes past me. I roll my eyes at him before I turn around to meet Tate once more.

"Get out of here." I say, kicking the side of his shoe.

"Really? You're going to let me go?" He sounds shocked, and I nod my head and gesture for him to get going. Tate scrambles to his feet and takes off through the woods again without another word. I hope he finds whoever it is he's searching for, poor kid.

I watch him until I can't see or hear him anymore, and then take a seat across from Joel at the fire once more. He's obviously angry, but I don't care that much. In a passive-aggressive protest, he's turned his back to me to sleep, and I try to make myself comfortable on the sidewalk for another long night of keeping watch.

#joel miller #joel miller hbo #joel miller tlou #tlou #the last of us #joel the last of us #joel tlou #tlou fanfic #tlou fanfiction #joel miller fic #joel miller fanfic #joel miller fanfiction #joel miller series #pedro pascal

[evicted-oc]

Admin: hey I'm still alive :D I haven't done a main post in so long and I'm slowly getting back into it! I felt like doing a little bit of angst so here's this monstrosity. Keep in mind I'm not a writer. Except more writing in the future! I want to progress this bot more

A bit of background knowledge: Hœnir's original home was constantly at war with another group. They fought for years and neither side were winning. The leaders of both groups decided to offer up their best warriors to give to the other side. Hœnir happened to be one of them who was traded off. They would torture Nir constantly. It took Nir years to escape and ever since then, they have been looking for him.

Warnings: my shitty writing skills, kidnapping, torture, stabbing, force fed glass, blood, broken bones, beating

Arawn was sitting at a table along with some of the other Celtic and Norse gods. They all had a meeting planned and more gods started to trickle in. Arawn was bouncing his leg nervously and chewing on his lip. It was rather quiet amongst the gods, they all could hear his platformed shoe squeak as it bounces on the marble floor.

He taps his finger on the arm rest before clearing his throat to break the silence. "Has anyone seen Nir recently?" He asks, scanning the other's faces. Most mutter quietly, trying to think back to the last time they saw the small god.

"I saw them yesterday at their café. He gave me a cookie." Morrigan speaks up softly, already starting to get worried. "I've had an off feeling all day... do you think?-" She gasps and covers her mouth. "No it couldn't be them. Would they really do that?"

All the gods and goddesses eye each other sadly before collectively getting up and preparing what they need.

*28 hours earlier at Hœnir's café*

It was around 8 at night when Hœnir was closing up their café. They locked the door and put on noise canceling head phones. There was some loud noises going on outside and it was giving him a headache. The only thing they could hear was his own thoughts. They quietly humed to themself as they cleaned up around the café and tidied it all up. He stood up straight and took a minute to look around at everything, making sure nothing was out of place.

Just as he was looking over the café, a group of three people snuck up quietly behind him. One of them took a cloth and put it over Nir's mouth and the other two held his arms and legs still.

Nir was thrashing around and attempting to use their powers to get out of the unknown peoples grips. However, whatever was on the cloth prevented Nir from using any of their powers. His eyes slowly rolled back into their head as they fell unconscious.

*back at Asguard*

Morrigan was focusing on trying to find Hœnir. Due to some of her powers, she can sense where any sort of violence and disruption is. Her eyes shoot open when she finally can see a glimpse of Nir. "He's there."

Those were the only two words she got out before Arawn, her, Cailleach, Donn, and Balor got up to leave. The other gods were on stand by and watching from the sidelines, ready to jump in.

Loki said their goodbyes to Donn, doing their best to hold back any tears. "You die and I bite you." She mumbled to Donn, who only chuckled in response. They share a kiss and Donn leaves to go to the chariot.

Arawn was facetiming his boyfriend, mumbling quietly to keep their conversation private. He puts the phone in his pocket, but doesn't hang up. He zips up the pocket and follows close behind Donn.

"Am I the only one excited for this?" Cailleach bounces. "I'm ready to make people sick!" She squeals as Morrigan nods her head in disappointment. Balor grins and wraps an arm around Cail. "I'm excited too~ I haven't hurt anyone since I got locked in that damn cell." He fixes his mask and pulls both Cailleach and Morrigan to the chariot. And with that, the five gods and goddesses were off.

Below this cut has a bit of a torture scene! Please read the warnings

*It has been 32 hours since Hœnir has been captured. They have been taken to a dungeon and is tied up with enchanted rope. During those many hours, they have been hit and kicked countless times, and both of his legs are broken. He's positive one of the bones in their legs have been shattered*

Hœnir is exhausted. They don't know how many hours they have been awake for. They just want to fall asleep and hope this nightmare will be over. His legs were aching from being forced to sit on and because both were bent at angles that shouldn't be bent.

It was silent in the room. Hœnirs eyes slowly started to fall close. He thought he was safe at the moment. They let their guard down as they slowly fall deep into their thoughts. Nir was ripped away from that trance by a heavy kick to the side. Loud crunching can be heard which causes Nir to grit his teeth, trying their best to fight off a pained whimper.

They do their best to keep a straight face, not wanting to show any pain or weakness. His nose scrunches up slightly when his hair was grabbed, forcing his head back. One of his kidnappers was holding up a small bag full of glass shards.

"Remember this?~" They ask with an evil grin. Any colour left in Nir's face dropped. "No-" he barely mutters out before his mouth his forced open.

"Oh yes you do~ now open up. This will only hurt for a bit~" He laughs and grabs a shard of glass, shoving it into the back of Nir's throat.

*back to the 5 gods/goddesses*

The five godly beings arrived at the destination. They made it into the building quietly before all hell broke lose. There was about 40 people waiting inside for them.

*I'm really bad at fight scenes but basically it takes the gods about 15 minutes to defeat all of them*

Morrigan stood up once she defeated the last person. She stretches her arms up and wraps the deep stab wound she has on her arm. "Its been a long time since I've done this- I'm rusty as hell."

Cailleach runs over to Morrigan and hugs her tight. "I got to fight people!" She squeals happily. There was one person still barely left alive. He grabbed Cail's foot and yanked her down. She smacked her cheek hard on the ground, causing the skin to break open. "Well thats fucking rude-" She coughs on him which causes him to get sick with the bubonic plague and slowly die. She hops up and dusts her shirt off. "Did you see that Morr?! I missed making people sick!" She bounces and hugs Morrigan tight again.

Morrigan chuckles and tugs Cail. "You can tell me all about it later. But first we need to get Hœnir."

Balor slowly walks behind the two girls with his ax swung over his shoulder. "Huh.. I don't think my fingers are supposed to be facing that direction." He mutters and looks at his hand curiously.

Arawn practically drags Donn out of the main room and the two of them run everywhere to find Nir. They head down into the dungeons where they can hear small pained noises. Arawn quickly covers up his bloodied hand with a bandage and looks over at Donn.

Donn nods, silently communicating with each other. He summons the dead which causes his arms to go black all the way up to his shoulders. He tightly closes his eyes, trying to ignore the burning sensation. He acts quick and commands the dead to barge into the room.

*Hœnir's perspective*

He was handling blow after blow. Hit after hit. Stab after stab. He knelt there and quietly took all of it. Whatever the three people threw at him, they took it without a peep.

Hœnir's head shoots up when the doors slam open. They knew immediately who it was and the tears they were holding back started flowing down their cheeks.

The dead dragged the three kidnappers down to hell where Donn and Arawn would take care of them later.

Arawn rushed over to Nir and immediately untied him and picked him up. Nir was sobbing, weak and covered in blood and bruises. "I-i want to go home." They cry and cling onto Arawn.

Arawn quietly comforts them and holds them as carefully as possible. "We'll get you home."

AND FINISHED. Welp that was long. Please let me know if I need to add anymore warnings or anything like that. This was way longer than I expected. Hope you enjoyed :D be prepared for more angst in the future

Tags: @livealittleoc-cb @the-hellhounds @kardpackcb @beaconhillsxbot @domxbot @florintradat @beastfights-starting @romeochen @welcometosector1 @dawnswonderland-entertainment @mxthxbot @k-venturetime @cafesongmingi @reve-rv @multi-esme @3rachabot @elemental-dream @badbf-cb @mutant-academy @pasdrak @theonesxcb @clubwnderland @kenharu @dark-royals-cb @namiras-rose-tattoos @hoteldelluna-rp @model-boyscb @logan-oc-cb @moongods-cb @enhanced-cb @thedevoted-cb @tsunfullsunbot @san-cb @domrachaa @silcntxnight @timmburrton @league-of-assassins @androidmuses

[the1975attheirverybest]

i need a blurb where matty and the reader are a couple but they have an argument while they are on tour so they do not talk for a day. But george sees the reader very sad and tries to confort her and he also talks with matty to know what was the argument about

Omg I love this so much cuz you know George would try not to get involved at first but wouldn’t be able to help himself and would absolutely end up being the mediator.

—

“So,” George sighs loudly, sitting next to her on the couch in the dressing room, and offering her a sip of his drink. “What’s he done this time?”

She frowns and looks at him from the corner of her eye, her arms folded over her chest. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She mutters, taking the drink from George’s hand and guzzling it down way too fast.

“Whoa…I…kinda wanted the rest of that, but okay, you clearly need it so, never mind…umm, you still wanna pretend you and Matty aren’t in some kind of Cold War?”

“I can’t believe he’s told you already! Ugh, that childish, stubborn S-“

“Hey, now! Careful. That childish, stubborn shithead is my best friend.” George interrupts, teasing.

“I never said shithead.”

“I know. I did….wanna talk about it?” He wraps his arm around her and she leans her head on his chest.

Tears start stinging the backs of her eyes as soon as she replays the fight in her mind. She shrugs and tries to speak, but her voice cuts off. “It’s all- just so stupid- we- were both stressed about work, and…he said that I’d given up on my own writing when I decided to work for someone else-“

George mumbled something about what an awful thing that was to say but she couldn’t hear him over all her sniffling. “I just- I know that he’s stressed, and he tends to just- say shit sometimes- but, I can’t talk to him right now. Every time I see him, that comment is all I can hear.”

“I’m sorry, Darlin.’” He gives her forehead a kiss. “Matty, he can be so insensitive sometimes….he doesn’t mean to, but, let’s face it, that’s a shit thing to say regardless.”

“ I just hate that we’re fighting. Can feel the tension. And…it’s making everyone else uncomfortable, I can tell.” She wipes her tears with the back of her hand.

“Hey! None of that. Only person who should be uncomfortable here is Matty, alright?” He squeezes her tighter.

***

George hands everyone their post-show beverages out of the fridge when he reaches for his own. Adam and Ross both take theirs and walk away, on the hunt for whatever food catering has brought in, but when Matty reaches for a drink from George’s hand, he doesn’t let him have it.

Matty frowns. “Give it!”

“Not yet…” George makes sure they’re alone in the room before nodding towards the couch. “Sit down. Wanna talk.”

“Alright…’bout what?” Matty takes a seat hesitantly. Finally, George let’s him have his drink, and he loosens the cap and takes a sip immediately.

“You’ve been in a shit mood all day.”

Matty can see where this is going. He just shrugs and pretends not to be aware. “Have I?”

“You need to apologize to her, you know.”

“I don’t-“ Matty attempts to act as clueless as she’d acted when George had first approached her. George thinks they’re perfectly made for each other.

“Yeah you do, mate. Yeah, you do. You know who I’m talking about cuz you know you’ve fucked up. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t be upset. You’d be feeling self-righteous and indignant. But you’re not. You’re embarrassed.”

“I….” Matty tried to think of something to say, but he couldn’t, in good faith, argue against that. George knew him well enough to tell the difference. And he was right. Matty knew he’d fucked up.

“Just- make it right, man. Cuz, she looks so upset, it’s hard to watch. She probably misses you loads. And…don’t you miss her, too?”

Matty looks up at his friend, nodding slowly.

“Thought so. The two of you are practically joined at the hip. It’d be nauseating if it wasn’t kind of sweet.”

Matty finally laughs, shaking his head. “Alright, alright. I get it. Thanks, man.”

George thinks he has one final step left in this negotiation. He goes back up to her. “Hey, sweets. Ummm.. have you seen Adam’s new metronome? Think he’s looking for it, and we do need to be packing our equipment and heading out, so…”

“Oh, yeah! Wasn’t he testing it out before the show? It’s in the dressing room, I’ll go get it!”

George smiles to himself. He has them both under one roof now. His work is done.

Later in the evening, when it really is time to leave the venue, George stops by the dressing room to grab his backpack and he sees Matty and his girlfriend making out on the couch.

“You two are disgusting, knock it off. We’ve got to get moving now!” He rolls his eyes and closes the door behind him.

[linagram]

[ 𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚊𝚐𝚛𝚊𝚖 𝚏𝚒𝚕𝚎 #𝟶𝟹 ]

I'M FINALLY DONE WITH THIS FILE AND EVERYONE'S BEHIND THE SIN VDS.. if anyone's wondering how everything's going (horribly), i have everyone's voice and album trailer lines, mv previews (as in. the song lyrics) and most mv concepts (akio, aimi, naomi, asahi, yurika and riku. staring at 030506 and reina and thinking what to do with them) and akio and aimi's t3 designs ready (+ both pre-t3 vds) now i have to work on. uh. EVERYTHING else. again, i don't have a schedule in mind bc my life doesn't allow me to have one, but i'm planning to get it done until april or may. maybe june. we'll see.

now that we're done with the files, i'll post everyone's vds that are supposed to reveal what happened a few days before their crimes! and after that. uh. yeah, waiting for t3.

as i've said before, this file is a little more tricky to understand and there's a hidden message too, so put your thinking caps on <3 it's a bit short though but it's okay.

(the door opens)

???: Uh.. I've brought some donuts.

Goddess: Really? Yay! Put them here.

Goddess: I'm taking the strawberry ones.

???: You can have all of them. I don't really care.

Goddess: Thank you~ That's why I love you so much!

Goddess: You should learn to be more.. assertive though, you know?

Goddess: Like, stand up for yourself! Be more greedy!

Goddess: Or else..

Goddess: You'll never be a good [REDACTED].

???: ...

Goddess: How else do you plan to deal with [REDACTED]? They're not gonna listen to someone like you.

???: Why do you think making me a [REDACTED] is a good idea anyway?

???: Do you just want to get rid of me?

Goddess: No, not at all. It's just.. I can see that this job doesn't bring you that much joy either.

???: .. I love this job because I get to see you every day.

???: And if I become [REDACTED].. I won't be able to see you anymore.

Goddess: Well.. Maybe you don't have to remember me.

???: .. You're so cruel.

Goddess: I know. That's something you have to be if you want to keep the position that I have.

???: Do you even like this job?

Goddess: I think so. I get to see a cute bunny every day.

Goddess: And we even have more of them hidden somewhere!

Goddess: How can I not like this job?

Goddess: And also..

Goddess: It's not like I have a choice. I was born to become a goddess of this place.

???: Don't you have any other interests? Or passions?

Goddess: I do, obviously. But..

Goddess: I don't think I'll ever be able to escape.

???: ...

???: Could it be..

???: That you have decided to make me [REDACTED] to give me the freedom that you can never have?

Goddess: .. Dummy.

Goddess: Of course that's why I've made that decision.

???: .. I promise I'll do my job well.

Goddess: I know you will.

Goddess: Kidnapping all these guys was a surprisingly easy task for you, I'm sure being [REDACTED] won't be hard.

Goddess: And also, you're definitely going to be better than.. well, them.

???: .. So, we're going to have a third trial soon, right?

???: We'll have to say goodbye to all of them too..

???: Do you think all of them are going to get out of here alive?

Goddess: We'll see. Jackalope is supposed to tell them about the verdict system soon.

Goddess: But who knows, maybe dying in an outside world would be better for them than dying here.

???: We still have to make sure [REDACTED] lives though.

Goddess: Haha.. Don't you think that's unfair to the other prisoners?

Goddess: And I don't remember the last time this prison has been fair.

Goddess: If [REDACTED] dies, that's on [REDACTED].

???: .. I wonder what the future prisoners will be like.

Goddess: Haha, yeah, I'm curious about that too.

Goddess: Again, we'll have to wait and see-

Goddess: Wait, did you just steal my donut?!

#the fact that these guys have one of the most wholesome dynamics here.. #“hey how did one guy kidnap all of them in one day” this prison has a mv machine. they can do anything #the song used in the message is the fruits by paris paloma and i edited the audio #fun fact i've originally planned to add a sound of a woman laughing and then that laugh turning into crying #but then i've changed my mind. and that moment was supposed to reveal something about current linagram's ending #yes all of my prisoners look the same without their colors i know. I KNOW #btw i'd like to ask y'all not to assume the new prisoners' genders until i confirm smth myself #just refer to all of them with they/them pronouns for now please ^^ #milgram #milgram oc #ocgram #milgram project

[ravetaper]

Mark Farina Halloween 2015 Live Set

This is a 3-hour audio recording of Mark Farina Halloween 2015 live set recorded in Orange County, California, on October 31, 2015.

Mark F'ing Farina. Easily in the top 5 deep house dj's. Probably in the top three. Maybe in the top 2?

Come on. I've never heard someone deliver such deep funk so consistently. Every. Single. Time.

So this is an interesting recording. It's not from my archive of classic rave recordings, nor something recorded recently. This is the audio counterpart to a live video stream I did all the way back in 2015.

Today, post Covid, the mention of live streaming elicits not even a yawn, we are so desensitized to it by now. For obvious reasons, the real streaming revolution happened 2019-2021. So I consider it a little feather in my cap that Rave Tapes was running good-sounding, multi-cam streams long before the trend took off.

The event? A cozy Halloween party hosted by Swerve Underground, the monthly event hosted by producer/dj Wally Callerio of Dufflebag Recordings and partner/dj 1st Nature. Wally has been a respected producer for years and had the right connections to pull some amazing names down to their Orange County venue, an hour south of Los Angeles. Names like Dereck Carter, Doc Martin, and other titans of the deep house movement.

So when the opportunity came up to do a live video stream of their Halloween party, taking place in a cool bohemian art space, with special guest Mark Farina? Pfft. It was the chance I had been waiting for, lol!

So, miraculously, the whole thing went off almost without a hitch. I say almost because I believe power was cut to the decks at one point. But considering it was a 2+ hour set, we forgot about it almost instantly after power was restored. Otherwise, the internet connection was good, my gear held up. It happened. In fact, here's the video evidence:

So this is the audio to that. While the audio in the YouTube version sounds unbelievably clean, this sounds even better. I finally went back and properly mixed the four audio channels, left-right stereo pair from the dj decks, then left-right stereo pair from the room mic.

It sounds absolutely pristine, if I do say so myself. I had to decide how loud to keep the mic levels vs the feed from the dj mixer. I think I am happy with these levels but I might change my mind and update the file at some point.

The content? Well, it's good ol' reliable Mark Farina. Of course every dj has a "look" and Farina certainly has his trademark glasses and scruffy chin. But man, when you see that familiar visage behind the decks and hear the funky bass line over the system, you know you have nothing to worry about. You know you're in for a good time.

Last time I saw Farina was EDC 2022 Bionic Jungle stage. It was very late Sat night. Actually very early morning Sunday about 4 am. Still dark and trippy.

Saturday. Hump day. People are grinding in more ways than one. And Mark is closing out little Bionic Jungle. I don't mean little in a condescending way. Actually, the inconspicuousness of the stage is what made it so great. It was def an intimate space and you could get right up close to your favorite deep house dj's. My only issue that night was that it wasn't going to yield a complete Rave Tapes recording. Yes, I recorded while I danced there. But knew I was arriving late because of another set, and I knew I was leaving early because I don't like getting stuck in parking. While there may have been an hour of material, the other issue was there was a nasty buzzing coming from some vibrating stage rigging.

So that's probably why I'm mentioning EDC here, because it's a good opportunity to discuss it since there will never be a Rave Tapes recording from that night to link it to.

I guess my point is, be it at Swerve Halloween 2015, EDC 2022, or the other times I've heard Farina play, Farina always, ALWAYS, delivers a top shelf performance.

While I'm always eager to bring these live sets to you for the sake of your listening pleasure, truth be told, I get excited when posting these because in most cases it's the first time I get to have easy SoundCloud access to the mixes, too.

And with this one, I'm over-the-moon thrilled for completely selfish reasons ;)

Nevertheless, please enjoy!

Follow and support Mark Farina!

Mark Farina Instagram

Mark Farina Beatport

Mark Farina Spotify

Mark Farina SoundCloud

#mark farina #halloween 2015 #live set #mushroom jazz #rave tapes #deep house #SoundCloud #Youtube

[cap-ironman]

Cap/Iron Man Remix 2023 works unveiled on March 10

It is time for the final Cap-IM Remix works to be unveiled! Come and see what creators came up with and leave them some love. Remember, remixes will remain anonymous until all works have been revealed, so please refrain from posting or sharing what you created until creator reveals on Sunday, March 12th. Mind the warnings and content notes on all works! If you're feeling adventurous, try your hand at guessing who the creators are - this is always a fun challenge. Head over to our Guessing and Discussions Post to discuss the remixes and make your guesses! Or, join our Cap-IM Challenge Chat Discord Server, where a #creator-guessing channel is open for conversation! 

REMIX EXCHANGE ★ My Dream, Your Nightmare (Again in the Dark Remix) (616, E, 1414 words)

Tony wakes to an empty bed and remembers a time when he was betraying Steve, because the world was threatened to be destroyed by incursions.

Remix of Dreams and Nightmares by Missy_dee811

★ Unexpected Heat (Pole Dancing Man Making It Rain Remix) (Marvel Adventures: Avengers, T, 1667 words)

Tony worries about Steve during their mission at a local strip club, but he finds he should have other concerns instead.

Remix of Make It Rain Emerald Bills for Me by ralsbecket

REMIX RELAY

★ Flying with Love (It's Always Aliens Remix) (Avengers Assemble, T, 1380 words)

When Tony and Steve go flying and run into aliens, Steve has unpleasant memories. At least Tony is there for him.

★ Time Is Right (The Remix) (616, G, 2418 words)

A time agent needs help with fixing something - and for some reason he needs Tony Stark for the job.

REMIX MADNESS

★ Consequences Of Living With Tony Stark (Consequences Of Living With Steve Rogers Remix) (MCU, M, 1162 words)

Living with Tony Stark is not at all how Steve thought it would be. It is, in fact, much better. The only problem is that Steve is in love with him, and decides to keep his feelings to himself, afraid of ruining their friendship. That is, until he catches Tony touching himself and moaning his name.

Remix of Consequences Of Living With Steve Rogers by MayBiTheWay

★ Reaching Inside An Armored Heart (Avengers Assemble, G, 3881 words)

Realistically, asking Tony Stark out on a date was a big deal, Steve knew he needed to do some convincing, but not in a million years he’d think Tony’s answer would be this certain, this final. But he was not about to give up on this, on Tony.

It's just that there have been more pressing things to deal with at first, like return of the Skull or MODOK...

Remix of An Armored Heart by ishipallthings

★ watching seabirds fly (Nightcap Remix) (MCU, not rated, 1060 words)

A beach wedding had sounded romantic. (In which Steve and Tony sneak away for a moment by the beach on their wedding day, and deals are made).

Remix of Nightcap by Neverever

★ Your Mouth Gives Me Bad Ideas (Kidnapping Day Remix) (MCU, T, 3445 words)

The first time Steve kisses Tony, it’s in the cockpit of the Quinjet, right in the middle of Tony insisting that no, I’m fine Rogers, I don’t need to go lie down, and someone needs to fly this contraption properly. He knows it’s a bad idea before it even happens—he kisses Tony anyway. (Or: 5 times Steve kissed Tony even though it was a terrible idea, and 1 time it wasn't a bad idea at all)

Remix of Kidnapping Day by navaan

You can view all the works on AO3 as they are revealed in the following collections:

Remix Exchange

Relay Remix

Remix Madness

Please don't forget to thank your remixer and leave comments and kudos on the works you've enjoyed, so all creators know their work is appreciated and we can all have a fun event experience!

Creators, please note:

As AO3 does not do this for you, you may want to change the publication date of your work to today's date to help it show up in the AO3 listings for recent works. (Sadly this will not trigger inclusion in automatically generated AO3 feeds.) AO3's guide is available here, or you can refer to our guide here.

We hope you enjoy the works and check back for the masterpost and author reveals!

#stevetony #stony #superhusbands #capimremix #capimevents

[kettykika78]

KettyKika78 fic - after the sex - cap 1

notes: With ao3 down, I decided to post here my only -for now- online fic. It's 3 chapters, about 1200 words, nothing explicit, POV First Person, Idiots in Love, Missing Scene, Sherlock in Denial, Sherlock Holmes Has Feelings, Damn Mycroft, Episode: s03e02 The Sign of Three, Second Time, 221B FicletPost-Canon, John Watson Has Feelings, we don't see the sex, we see the aftermath, It can be read as Canon compliant. Angst, happy ending. The beta work was done by the fabulous alto_mumma, and totallysilvergirl was my soul support.

After the Sex. _ by KettyKika78

Chapter 1.

No. It wasn't the sex that changed me. Us. One might think that overcoming the obstacle of intimacy between two people is like turning on a switch. But there are many ways to ignore what happened in retrospect. I can make myself delete things, overwrite, replace the actors of the moments I've lived.

The term Mind Palace can deceive those who have never used mnemonic techniques. For a simple mind, it is easy to imagine vaults in the corridors of a luxurious villa, or a filing cabinet to consult an ethereal library. But for me, these are familiar places, people, sensory stimuli that have the role of driving the simulations of actions. Thanks to data that functions as fuel, my mind is like a racing engine.

My mind has always been my main resource, my pride, my damnation. Since I was a child I have recognized how this was the element of distinction between me and everyone else. Except Mycroft, damn it. No, don't put parents in the equation. Mycroft's mind has always surpassed me, because he has always been able to handle any problem related to the goldfish he was dealing with, and has always enjoyed managing anyone's relationships. He can predict people's behavior and outcomes way better than me, such that his capacity to manipulate is at top level, Demiurg like. Following Mycroft's method of walking the world was not for me, but the basic concept has helped me since I was a child. Caring was not an advantage. And Redbeard's case was a painful reminder for me. Yes, I asked Mycroft to tell me that word whenever I would come near to a sentimental disaster.  I suppose he could use it during the wedding day. Damn him! 

But no, I wouldn't delete that heated intercourse during the stag night. After our dancing lessons, that was the moment I felt his undeniable affection for me on my skin. I cannot delete it. His mouth on my skin, his taste, all blurred and heated, still so intense, heart shattering, something I had never felt before. I will treasure it. 

I denied to him the meaning of that night. 

“Who could be better to do it with than your best friend? I'm here to help you. You can trust me, I would not spill the tea." 

John was somewhat taken aback, because his ever expressing handsome face suddenly went blank. I cannot – I would not – let myself be ruled by sentiments. 

This is who I am. Sherlock Holmes: High Functioning Sociopath. I made myself! Alone is what I am. Readbeard’s loss teaches me my weakness. I'm too vulnerable, too sensitive when I lose my armour.  

So, it will be.  The case of Watson's wedding will be over soon, I just need to wait until that hideous notion of a sex holiday will finish so we will be finally ok. The two of us against the rest of the world, like before. Well, except the flatmates bit. 

I want to have a happy blogger by my side, so I choose to believe her. 

“Yes, it will be fine. 

Sure John. 

Fine.” End Chapter 1.

#sherlock fanfic #kettykika78 fanfic #johnlock fanfic

[strawberrynida]

Jewelry-Tober Day 16: The Final Necklace!

𖦹˚ ༘🦇 ೀ⋆｡˚Did you know that for Halloween, my favorite costume was to dress up as a witch? All I needed was a bell-sleeved dress, a pointy hat, and dark brown lipstick, and I was set. It's nearing Halloween and I wanted to create something intricate and elaborate to go with any costumes, but I mainly had "witch" in mind. ₊ ⊹☆

This witchy necklace features black glass beads that are both smooth and faceted, bead caps, and a stainless steel glittering chain. I've been having a fun time thinking of something dangly. I hope you enjoy and thank you for allowing me to create jewelry. <3⛥🕯𖦹

⛥🕯𖦹 I decided to skip posting the day 15 necklace as it wasn't my best work. I was experimenting with adding a ball chain and it didn't work as expected. Instead, I'm posting my final necklace for October and it's this intricate witchy gothic-inspired beaded chain. 𖦹˚ ༘🦇 ೀ⋆｡˚

🖤 ₊ ⊹ This necklace has already found a home. But don’t feel down! I create similar necklaces like this on my Etsy @Strawberrynida. Simply type it into Etsy OR click on my website link below to access it. Only one of one and handmade by me <3

Thank you and have a great day! 🖤 ₊ ⊹

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pssstttt, use code “TUMBLR” for a discount!

All socials are under the username StrawberryNida with the same profile picture.

Etsy: https://strawberrynida.etsy.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/strawberrynida/

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/strawberrynida/

My account is a safe place for any kind, strawberry-loving, person <3.

⋆☆˖⋆☆˖ ⋆☆˖ ⋆☆˖ ⋆☆˖ ⋆☆˖ ⋆☆˖ ⋆☆˖ ⋆☆˖ ⋆☆˖ ⋆☆˖ ⋆☆˖ ⋆☆˖ ⋆☆˖ ⋆☆˖ ⋆☆˖ ⋆

#witchy #witches #witchcore #witchcraft #witchblr #whimsigoth #whimsycore #whimsical #jewlery #goth aesthetic #dark acadamia aesthetic #gothic #dark aesthetic #necklace #fashion #halloween #strawberry

[auxiliarydetective]

Love and War, Chapter 1

The Rigger

This has been sitting in my drafts for a long, long time but I'm so glad I finally get to post it. This fanfic will have 13 parts and you'll get one part on Tumblr every day, starting today. Or you can go to AO3 and read it all in one go right away, whatever you prefer. I hope you have fun and you fall in love with Anita like I fell in love while writing about her.

i. | ii. | iii. | iv. | v. | vi. | vii. | viii. | ix. | x. | xi. | xii. | xiii.

AO3

▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄✼▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄

Life at Aldbourne could be monotonous sometimes. Days consisted of various forms of training and some evenings at bars and not much more. But that was bound to change when one day during a run, trucks brushed past Easy Company. Now, trucks were nothing too special, but what was on them was. Or rather, who was. 

These trucks didn’t carry cargo, they were carrying women. WACs in their service uniforms, overseas caps on their neatly styled hair. Every now and then, a man in a red cap was with them. Once the run was over and everyone was dismissed, wild speculations started to arise. What were these WACs doing here? What were their jobs? Where would they be staying? And most importantly of all: Would they be allowed to mingle with soldiers?

Those questions would remain unanswered for three days. During this time, WACs could sometimes be seen walking around HQ and in and out of a building complex not too far off from the mess. However, they were never seen inside the mess. Their break times had to be far off from the men’s. On the fourth day, Sobel summoned Easy Company to the main courtyard in front of their barracks. What seemed like a surprise inspection or a lecture at first soon turned out to be something else: A tour. A man with a red cap approached Easy Company and introduced himself as Captain Simmons.

“I’m sure you’ve noticed that a company of WACs has joined you here in Aldbourne,” he remarked, “and I’m sure you’ve been wondering about what exactly their work here entails. Well, you’re about to find out. They’re a unit of riggers, meaning they’re in charge of packing and maintaining parachutes and preparing supply drops. I’ll now be taking you to where they work.”

Immediately, excited whispers travelled through the rows, only for them to be silenced by Sobel. Simmons led the company across the grounds, past the mess hall and towards the building complex the WACs had been spotted walking around. It consisted of one large building like a barn and multiple smaller ones. They headed for the barn first.

“This is the pack shed,” Simmons explained. He tore the large doors open, “This is where parachutes are packed, as the name suggests. It’s crucial work that decides over your life or death, so try not to disturb the ladies while you look inside.”

Like an excited school class, Easy Company formed a crude line of multiple rows in front of the doors and gazed into the building. Don let himself be pushed along, still listening to Simmons’ lecture as he went. He had reached the door now.

“All major steps are verified by an in-process inspector, the men with the red caps, who-”

Those were the last words Don heard. After that, his mind was whisked away. His eyes got caught on a woman at the other end of the room. She was beautiful, almost inhumanly so. Her round face, large eyes and full, painted lips made her look like a doll. To make things even worse, she had the body to match. The brown uniform fit her well and it suited her too. To Don, the tour was long forgotten. Now, all he could do was watch this woman as she leaned over the long packing table, separating the different canopies of a large parachute with precision and care, almost gentleness. For a moment, she looked up from her work and her eyes met his. It was like the world stood still right then and there. Then, Don felt a tug at his arm.

“Don’t stare too much or you’ll go blind,” Muck murmured and pulled him out of the doorway.

“I wasn’t staring,” Don quickly defended himself. “I was just looking around.”

“In one spot,” Penkala said.

“Pretty, isn’t she?” Guarnere commented. “Yeah, a real beauty. Pity if someone took ‘er from ya.”

Don just stared and blinked as sirens went off in his brain. Was he trying to say…?

“I mean it, if you don’t ask ‘er out, I will.”

“And how would I do that?” Don blurted out. “I don’t even know her name.”

“Well, I won’t help ya. This is a competition now.”

A competition. Great competition. As he shuffled across the courtyard, away from the pack shed, Don’s thoughts were spinning. Now, he had another thing to think about, on top of training and the upcoming invasion of Europe. How long did he still have? And what if Guarnere got to the girl before he did? What was he even supposed to say?

Those worries faded into the background during tactical training and yet another surprise drill from Captain Sobel in the evening. But as Don stood in the shower afterwards, they resurfaced, stronger than before. However, it was late. He couldn’t just waltz into the WACs’ barracks looking for her. The only place he knew to search for her was the pack shed where he had seen her during the tour this morning. But at this hour?

Well, it was worth a try. If she wasn’t there, this would turn into an evening stroll. So, Don got back into his uniform and left Easy Company’s barracks into the cool air. He recalled the path across the grounds and soon reached the pack shed. “Shed” was really a funny name for it considering its size. But that was besides the point: What mattered was that there was still light inside. Don took a deep breath, then pushed the door open.

Unlike in the morning, when the room had been filled with Wacs and red-capped inspectors, it now seemed almost abandoned. The long tables where parachutes had been lying as if for surgery were now empty. Only one was still in use. Don’s heart jumped. Working at it just like in the morning was the doll-faced woman, focused only on her work. She seemed to be finishing up just now and was folding the parachute into the deployment bag, or so Don guessed, judging by what he knew about parachutes from the basic rundown they had gotten during training. Maybe Simmons had said some things about the process during the tour, but Don had been too distracted to listen. Once the parachute was fully in the bag, she looked up, staring directly into Don’s face. For a few seconds that felt like an hour, neither she nor Don said anything. She looked perfectly perplexed.

“You’re not my IP,” she finally remarked, chuckling lightly. “Can I help you, Private?”

“No, I,” Don stammered, “I mean, you already are. I, uh, I wanted to get a closer look at how you pack the parachutes since, y’know, I’ll be dangling from one over Europe soon,” he lied. Well, half-lied. He would be jumping into Europe, but the reason he was here had, of course, been a lie. Was he supposed to tell her to her face why he was really there? No, of course not!

“Oh, right,” the woman said, a kind smile on her face that made Don feel fuzzy inside. “Well, there’s not too much to see here right now. I have to wait for my inspector to continue. But come take a look if you want.”

Don smiled shyly and made his way past the other tables to where she was standing.

“Sergeant Anita Reed,” she introduced herself and extended a hand out to him.

It took him a while to register what was happening, leading to him taking her hand a little too hastily for his liking when he did. “Donald Malarkey. Or Don. Or Malark. Whatever you prefer, I guess.”

“Well, if we’re at nicknames already, you can call me Annie.”

“That’s, uh, that’s a nice nickname. Well, uh-”

“What are you doing here, Private?” a voice called from the door, interrupting their conversation.

A man wearing a red cap had entered, looking stern, almost as stern as Sobel.

“He wanted to look at the process, sir," Anita quickly threw in.

“Did I ask you, Sergeant?” the inspector snapped back.

“No, sir.”

“You’re disturbing her work," he declared. “Wouldn’t want to fall and die at your jump when your parachute fails because the rigger was distracted.”

“No, sir,” Don said, stepping away from Anita and the packing table.

“Out,” the inspector ordered. “No romancing my riggers while they work.”

Don obeyed, his heart pounding in his chest. That had been his chance. Would he ever get another one? Halfway through the shed, he gathered his confidence together and turned around again.

“Sergeant, do you wanna take a walk after you’re done here?”

“Sure!” Annie called back with a smile.

This little maneuver gained Don a sour stare from the inspector, but a rush of happiness inside. When he got out of the pack shed, the weather seemed nicer, the air easier to breathe and he could swear the rain clouds overhead had disappeared. He didn’t even mind waiting. A few minutes later, Annie exited the shed, throwing Don another smile.

“Sorry about Walker,” she said, rocking back and forth on her heels. “He’s not really a social butterfly.”

Don chuckled. “Still not as bad as our CO, Sobel.”

“Ah, yes, Captain Sobel,” Annie sighed as they started walking. “I’ve heard of him. Heard he’s pretty rough with training. But I also heard he’s just slightly incompetent.”

A grin spread across Don’s face. “What, the time he got lost? Or the other time he got lost?”

“Hey, not everyone can be great at everything,” Annie shrugged. “But, because of his training, you guys are considered one of the best companies in the regiment, if not the best.”

“Aw, shucks.”

“Yeah, I mean it. You might also wanna know that you’re the reason I’m in that shed. Usually, they’d have qualified paratroopers become riggers. That’s what Walker and the other inspectors are, they have their jump wings and all. But they need you guys to fight, so they got us WACs instead. We’re available for any kind of job after all.”

“What’s training like for a rigger?” Don asked.

“Well, normally you’d go through everything you’ve gone through first and then you’d be picked out, interviewed and attend the parachute riggers’ course for three months. For me, it was a little different. I was a mechanic when they started looking for riggers. They told us we’d go through jump training and all that and I was ecstatic.” Anita scoffed and looked at him with a smile of irony. “Well, we jumped off stuff, alright, but I’m pretty sure it was far from actual paratrooper training. Anyway, I’m jumping ahead in my story. They were looking for riggers. I volunteered and I was even recommended by my CO, so that might’ve given me a leg up in the interview. Then, we went through our fabulous jump training. A rigger has to always be prepared to jump along with their parachutes, you know. I doubt they’ll ever let us do it though.”

“Because that means you’d get close to the frontlines,” Don said.

“Of course, that’s the point,” Anita replied in a cheerful manner. She made it sound so natural. “I signed up to do something meaningful and to get as close to the action as I can. Being a mechanic was alright, but I wasn’t getting out of the States. Now, I’m a rigger. At least it feels like I’m playing a bigger part now and I got a bit closer to the European mainland. I just hope I get an opportunity to actually cross that sea.”

Don was quiet for a while. He could understand Anita’s wish to make a difference and do her part, but to get close to the frontlines… She was a WAC, not a soldier.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Anita sighed. “What a crazy woman. What a wacko.”

“No, no,” Don stammered. “I don’t think you’re crazy. Why would I think that?”

“But you think I shouldn’t be at the frontlines.”

“... Yeah.”

This was suddenly not going well. She would get mad at him. He was going to screw this up.

“Why?”

“Well, because… Because you aren’t trained.”

“I can be trained," Anita remarked. To his surprise, she still looked cheerful. Smug even. “Was I a rigger before I took that course? No. Were you a soldier before training? No.”

“I guess you’re right,” Don murmured.

“I can learn what you learned, at least the basics of it to survive out there. You know, run away from a fight in an orderly manner or jump in a foxhole without breaking a leg. I’m not asking to fight - which, for the record, I could do, I know how to fire a gun - I’m just asking to get out there. Even if it’s just to sort letters, I’ll be jumping after you one day.”

“Maybe.”

A smile spread across Don’s face. He was glad he had fallen so head over heels for Anita the moment he had seen her. Maybe he should even be thankful for Guarnere pressuring him into talking to her as soon as possible. Otherwise he might not have gotten this opportunity. Getting to know her, her personality was even better than her looks. She was kind, she was energetic, she was confident. Maybe, if she believed in it hard enough and kept her ears open, she would really get to go closer to the frontlines. After all, WACs were replacing male soldiers everywhere. Her idea of what fighting meant was questionable to say the least, but that was what training was for. Part of him felt awful for letting her potentially get in harm’s way, but the other part would be happy to see her wish fulfilled.

They kept walking across the grounds for a while, seemingly without a goal, telling each other of their lives. Don learned that Annie was from Marble Lake, Arizona and that her house was close to the lake that gave the city its name, that her mother had died while giving birth and that her father had given his all in raising his daughter, that he had often taken her duck hunting and that she loved to dance. After walking once around the grounds, Annie slowed down next to a multi-story building.

“Well, I think I’d better get to my quarters now,” she sighed, nodding at the building behind her. So, this was the WACs’ barracks. “My roommates are awfully nosy. The things they could be imagining if I stay out too long... And if they saw me here…” She gasped dramatically, covering her mouth, her eyes becoming wide and sparkling in the street lights.

Don laughed and shook his head. “Oh no,” he remarked sarcastically. “They might even think we’re dating.”

Why had he said that? He desperately hoped the low light would hide the redness crawling into his cheeks. Panicking inside, it felt like Anita took hours to respond. But when she did, she laughed.

“With their imagination, I wouldn’t put it past them,” she said.

Now, there was silence between them. It always felt like one of them was going to say something, but nobody did. Finally, Don gathered his thoughts together. He had a goal in mind.

“Do you always get off work this late?” he asked.

“No, pretty much never,” Anita replied. “I just got really unlucky with my parachutes today. Some were damaged and I had to get them to the repair station and the others were so badly tangled it took me hours to get them into a state where I could pack them.”

“Good, good. I mean, not good that they were tangled but good that it’s not always that late, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah. … So, uh, I was wondering if you’d like to go grab some drinks tomorrow night. I know a good bar around.”

A smile spread across Annie’s lips. “Sure," she said. “At 1900?”

“Yeah, sounds great. Do I just meet you here?”

“Yeah, that’s probably easiest.”

“Great!” Don grinned. This might not be an official date, but it was close enough. Even if it wasn’t a date, spending time with Annie seemed perfect to him.

“I’ll see you tomorrow then,” Anita said before going up the stairs to the barracks’ entrance. At the door, she waved at him again, then went inside, out of his sight.

Don let out a happy sigh. Getting through tomorrow would be a hell of a lot easier.

#band of brothers #band of brothers oc #oc: anita reed #fanfiction

[ghostboyjules]

about me

omg tagged first by @mathomhouse-e and then right as I was abt to post this @wordsinhaled tagged me too!! so delighted and honored to be in this wonderful group of mutuals, y'all make my heart warm 💖🥰

Nickname: Jules, I guess, counts? other than that I don't really have a current one... @weirdfishy has been calling me ghostie tho, which I absolutely adore 🥺💕

Sign: Aquarius Sun, Aries Moon, Gemini Rising (Cap Mercury, and if y'all wanna talk astrology my dm's are always open lmaaoo)

Height: 5'7 or 5'8 on a good day (a.k.a when my sciatica isn't elbow dropping me to death)

Last thing I googled: "piercing places" and before that, "images of a shrimp" which I'm including because I thought that was very funny

Song stuck in my head: surprisingly I don't have one up there right now?? well.. I guess kinda,, but it's like a mix of a couple. All Up In Your Mind by Beyoncé, Genghis Khan by Miike Snow, Go Your Own Way by Fleetwood Mac, and In a Week by Hozier.. weird combo of songs but they're kinda cycling through my brain like a weird spirit box-esque radio station

Number of followers: 713 (😳, most of these are like, weird bots or deactivated blogs but still woah..)

Amount of sleep: hmm generally I get anywhere from 3-7 hrs, but as of right this moment (10:38pm) I've had 4hrs 36mins of Actual Sleep (from last night to when I woke up for work this morning) and then a 2 hr nap (before I started dinner this evening)

Dream job: Archivist of Some Sort™ in the Library of Congress,,, with a specialty in Thanatology?? I don't really know the specifics yet but something along those lines ig, if at all possible

Wearing: ..... a gray Cowboy Garfield t-shirt with the phrase "when I die I may not go to heaven. I don't know if they let cowboys in." and black underwear (THESE ARE MY PAJAMAS, OKAY? had to include the undies so you would get the Look™, I can't just say I'm wearing a t-shirt and leave it at that obvi... ajdjakfkg)

Movies/books that summarize you: my brain can't decide which way it wants to take this, so I'm just gonna answer with the Books/movies that I feel has shaped who I am as a person, currently. LOTR & the Hobbit trilogies, The Raven Cycle series by Maggie Stiefvater, the Conjuring (only the first one 🔪), Spirited Away, and The Labyrinth. OH SHIT almost forgot, Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children.

Favorite song: this changes daily 😐 rn tho I think probably Blood Upon the Snow by Hozier and Bear McCreary

Favorite instrument: Pipe Organ, Cello, Bass Clarinet, and the voice

Aesthetic: uh... weird goth gay uncle who is lazy and also a witch? is that anything?

Favorite authors: oof alright, well. Maggie Stiefvater, Neil Gaiman, Nora Sakavic, Gege Akutami, Lemony Snicket (Daniel Handler), and a handful of Fanfic Authors that I won't list here because I'm terrified of forgetting someone, but know that I am absolutely counting them and will forever remember their names

Random fun fact: I really love playing guitar hero games but I've never once really tried to learn how to play the guitar

thanks again for tagging me, you two 🥺🥰🥰 y'all have already tagged a lot of the peeps I would have tagged in fandom (so if I tag you again, my bad beloved homies just ignore me lmao), but let's see here... @weirdfishy, @watermelon-mafia, @rabooots, @aquilathefighter, @leave-me-alone-doctor, @eel-divinity, @an-asuryampasya, @pacospandora, @rainbowvamp, @runningheadless, and @howlittleweare <3 WHEW no obligation to do this at all obvi, but if you don't, this is just a reminder that ily 😘 if you do tho, I also love you 💖 okay g'night, loves

#my beloved mutuals ✨ #jules.taggame✨ #y'all my brain is... it's a wild time up there #okay not gonna ramble here too long I'm sleepy again ajakfkgk #if y'all need something elaborated on by all means #ask away cause I know I said some weird shit in here 💀 sjfisifkkg #mathom and N are like the coolest ppl ever and their answers reflect that and then here I am just being #absolutely unhinged #the outfit answers are ones I'm thinking abt specifically like theirs sounds fuckin PHENOMENAL and I'm just like '... Garfield Shirt'

[mysteriousteaposts]

Posting my second write-up! This is absolutely different from what I usually write. Just tried to write something different for a change. Feel free to leave suggestions/comments or anything you think I need to improve.

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

The Manuscript

Looking at the distant silvery cliffs, Jenna felt relief wash over her entire being. Before her was a vast array of mountains, green canopy and distant snow capped peaks. It was peaceful and calming, it was all that she wanted. The view and the overall environment was reposeful. It calmed a threatening storm inside her, everytime she laid her eyes on the entirety of the picturesque alps and the verdant valleys.

She breathed in the crisp mountain air before settling down to work. It has been a year since she moved in. What was once her place for a weekend getaway was now her home. She took a job of proofreading in the local publishing company and was doing well on her own. The piece she held in her hands was lying with other mails this morning. It wasn't titled. This piece, particularly, was a manuscript unlike the others which were printed ones. She was deeply intrigued, with the way it was handwritten, black ink on a brown paper. She put her reading glasses on and began reading intently.

Jenna realised that it was a story, beginning just like how a normal story begins, a woman named Anne, lives with her parents,happy and content with life. Mildly surprised seeing her middle name given to the supposed main character in the story, she continued reading. The first few pages contain her happy memories, with her family, her colleagues. She read all the while having a smile on her face, she could somehow relate to Anne. Soon Anne, in the story, meets a man. In the story, Anne senses something wrong in the man and immediately rejects his advances. The man, not satisfied with how things turned out, decides to sway her decision.

Her breath hitches as she continues reading. Her mind constantly reminding her of the insane similarity of the character with her life. The man in the story first starts following Anne,on her socials, to her workplace, even to her home, which later develops into an act of stalking. He asks people about how she's doing, keeps tabs on every action of hers, sends threats to her male colleagues. So much until Anne leaves her job. She stays at home most of the day and discards social involvement. Finally, one day, Anne decides to leave the town for a few weeks. For the closing paragraph the author wrote that over the few weeks of her staying out of town Anne realises the good intentions of the man and comes back to him. Soon they meet up, Anne apologizes and gives herself over to him.

Jenna lets out a sigh, placing the manuscript on her table while pressing the bridge of her nose. Apart from being eerily similar to her life, this story had views dedicated to the man's perspective, in different events. It was almost as if the author wanted to explain why he stalked her, everywhere. The author wrote that he was insecure, that he swore he would be her guardian knight. He would keep trying to make her his. He would remain devoted to her even if she never returns his feelings. That he would always take good care of her from afar. The author vividly mentioned the fear the man felt when she was around her male colleagues. It haunted him like a nightmare.

Jenna exhaled jaggedly. She could feel she was terribly anxious. She didn't know whether it was because of the uncanny similarity of the story with her life or something else. Jenna too had come here, in the hillside to get away from a man. Who is the very reason she breaks into cold sweats every time she thinks of going out. The very reason she took a job where she can stay at home and work. Slowly, upon pondering more about this unnatural ending, she realised that the book's protagonist is not Anne as she had thought earlier. The protagonist is the man, the stalker. The book, although, seems as if it tells the story of Anne is actually about him, all along. How the man had made Anne his everything, how even when he was telling his part of the story, he portrayed Anne as the main character, depicting she was his everything.

The doorbell suddenly rang, which broke her trance. Jenna noticed the clock which was pointing at 1:25pm. She slowly trudged towards the door, still thinking about the story. She peeked at the eye hole and froze.

"Jenna… open the door" A muffled voice of a man outside said. Jenna could feel her hands and feet turning cold, her heart rate speeding up, hearing the voice.

"Jenna…?" The voice drawled.

"I know you're in there, open up sweetie, let me see you, it's been so…long"

Jenna could feel her entire body shaking. A thousand questions ran in her mind. An unknown fear engulfed her in a tight embrace. She whimpered.

"What's wrong Jenna? Are you crying?" The voice sounded concerned at once.

This again scared Jenna, that he could somehow hear her. She tried not to whimper and clasped her hands over her mouth, shivering in fear.

"Jenna!! What's wrong! Speak up!" The man was now violently banging the door and turning the knob simultaneously. The door rattled with the impact.

"G-go aw-away" Jenna spoke, breaking down into a full blown sob.

"You know I can't sweetie, I would come back to you…" He said, his tone suddenly coming back to normal.

"Always…" He whispered through the small opening of the mail slot.

Jenna shakily held the flap in place. Almost crying out of fear.

"Your little vacation's over Jenna, you..should..come home..now..I'll be waiting.." He said in a sing-song voice.

"You know that I do, right?" He said, his voice threateningly deep. "You know that I wait for you every day, every night right Jenna?" His voice immediately sounded sorrowful.

"Right, Jenna!!?" He spoke loudly, eliciting a scared and weak yes from Jenna.

"You know sweetie? The day I saw you I felt you and I were destined to be and I know that we are" He said, sure of it.

"I know we are meant to be Jenna.." His voice sounded close to the letter slot.

"You…are…mine" He said, tapping the door after every word

Soon Jenna heard footsteps getting away from the door. She was still shivering vehemently and broke down again. Few minutes later her phone chimed with a notification. She slowly got to the table and took her phone, her eyes widening with pure horror seeing the notification which read,

We do need a good ending don't we, Anne?

Just like my story…

#writerscommunity #writing #yandere stories #original story #writeblr #writers on tumblr #short story #my story #original writing #idk what else to tag