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anna-justice · 4 years

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Lost or Found - 15

Summary: As Jay, Hailey, Kim, Adam and Kevin start their junior year in the wake of a tragic summer, the past year of their lives comes back to haunt them. If you enjoyed Pretty Little Liars, this is for you! *UPSTEAD/BURZEK High School AU

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15 - Glimmer ...

“Jay, this has to be perfect.”

Jay scoffed at his friend, who was attempting to paint massive letters on a blue sign. “This seems a bit extravagant Adam.”

Adam rolled his eyes, dropping his paint brush. He had asked Jay to come over a few hours prior to help him. It was Sunday, the day before spirit week and Adam was planning on asking his girlfriend to the homecoming dance the following weekend. The plan was simple: Jay (and Kevin, who ditched because he had an extra practice) were going to help Adam make all the shit he needed while Hailey kept her away from his house. Then after school Monday, Jay and Hailey were in charge of distracting Kim until he was ready. The only problem was, Adam’s ability to paint was about as good as his handwriting and the letters on the sign were equal to chicken scratch.

“I mean, you are already dating.” Jay continued.

“So,” Adam said, standing. “You are telling me that when you ask Hailey you won’t be holding a corny sign and a bouquet of flowers?” Jay began to speak but Adam kept talking. “Because I guarantee you, you will look like an idiot when every other girl has a cute story to tell.”

Jay shot his friend a dirty look, “Who said I was going to ask Hailey?”

“I hate you…”Adam muttered, groaning in defeat. He was sick of watching Jay dance around his feelings, especially since he knew Hailey felt the same way. He knew that he was the one that told him it was a bad idea in the first place, but he had retracted the statement a million times since then.

“Adam stop stressing, you know she will say yes.” Jay said, changing the subject.

Adam shrugged, “I know. That’s not the point. I just want her to feel special.”

Jay grinned, it was fun to watch his usually dickish best friend get all sentimental. “You know, sometimes you have these moments where I forget how much of a sarcastic little smartass you are.”

Adam glared at him. He then put on a fake smile and put his hand over his heart. “Really Jay? That means so much to me.”

Jay rolled his eyes and laughed as Adam got back to work. And even though Jay had dismissed him just a few moments earlier, he had planned to ask Hailey. He was right, it needed to be special, and Jay had the perfect idea.

…

Going back to school on Monday was a bit of an adjustment for Hailey. It was exactly the same as before, Jay picked her up (she really needed to start giving him gas money) and they met their friends in the parking lot and she went to her first block as normal. Except she had had heart surgery, and everyone knew that she was the girl that got trapped in a garage with a running car. That alone made people's stares a little more intense, but she also couldn’t seem to forget about the scar running up her chest.

It was crazy, she was wearing a t-shirt, no one could even see it. But she still felt like she had something she was hiding. It was all too familiar, she flashed back to just a year earlier when she began to hide the bruises caused by her father. There was something scary about her situation (other than the obvious facts), she moved to Chicago to escape the danger she was in, but somehow she had walked into something worse. And now she was a 16 year old with a pacemaker and a stalker, and she wasn’t a fan of either.

Hailey and Jay were walking to first block together, since they both had Criminal Justice. Hailey was still nursing the cup of coffee that Jay had brought her that morning, and she would admit that it made her morning much better. The two ways to her heart were coffee and pizza, and Jay had gotten pretty good at buying her both.

They settled into their seats (of course right next to each other) and Hailey pulled out her textbook. She noticed the sheepish look on Jay’s face and pushed it between them, it wasn’t the first time that he had forgotten his.

Jay smirked as he watched Hailey pull out her notebook and pencil pouch, the girl was a bit of a control freak when it came to her notes. Not that he minded, his looked like a five year old did them, so he’d be studying with hers anyway.

That’s how they spent the whole class: Hailey listening attentively and taking notes and Jay watching her listen and take notes. By the end he couldn’t remember one sentence their teacher said. He looked down at his own blank paper and chuckled, he hadn’t realized how out of touch he had really been.

“Mr. Halstead, did you find something more important to do than paying attention in my class?” Their teacher, Mr. Chavez asked as he stared him down.

Jay was about to respond with a “yes” but Hailey beat him to it, “He has a headache sir, I told him he could copy my notes later.” She explained.

“That’s very kind of you Ms. Upton. Great work as always.” He looked to Jay, his smile faltering. “See to it that you get those notes, don’t throw away Ms. Upton’s kindness.”

Jay nodded his head, stifling a laugh as he walked away. He gathered his things, preparing for the bell to ring and Hailey smirked beside him. “The next time you want to stare at me for an hour and a half, pick a class you aren’t close to failing.”

As soon as she finished her sentence, the bell rang and Hailey jumped up. “Hey! I’m not failing.” He called after her, but she just threw a grin over her shoulder at him and exited the room. Jay shook his head and grabbed his backpack, pulling the strap over his shoulder. That girl was going to be the death of him.

He made his way to his next class, Advanced Physics, which he unfortunately didn’t have with Hailey. He felt a little pathetic if he was being honest, but his happiness at the moment completely revolved around her. When she was around, the air felt a little lighter and he could breathe easier.

It was crazy to think that something so good came out of all of the shit they were dealing with, but it did. Hailey Anne Upton was his best friend, what more could he ask for?

…

Hailey sat in Psychology next to Severide, keeping her eyes locked on Kevin who turned around every five seconds to check on her. It was hard and she spent the whole class a little on edge, but they couldn’t risk Severide knowing that they were onto him in any way. Which meant Hailey had to spend 90 minutes every other day pretending to be his friend.

“How are you doing?” He asked, grabbing her attention.

Hailey looked back at him, startled. “I’m good, thanks.”

Severide nodded, glancing back down at her paper. “Uh, do you have number seven?”

“Yeah, it’s cognitive.” She said, looking at her own.

“Thanks.”

Hailey grimaced at the awkwardness of their conversation. “No problem.” She needed to get out of there. She raised her hand, “Can I use the restroom?” Her teacher nodded and she jumped up and grabbed the hall pass before high tailing it out of the room.

She let out a breath as she entered the bathroom, taking in her disheveled appearance. She hated how riled up Severide made her, but everytime she looked in the mirror she pictured the bruises that once covered her neck.

A toilet flushed behind her and she quickly got herself together. She gleaned in the mirror to see Nadia exit the stall, they made eye contact and quickly looked away. Hailey’s second uncomfortable interaction of the day. “Hailey right?” Nadia asked.

“Yeah.” Hailey said, she patted her legs nervously and gave her a small smile. “We haven’t officially met.”

Nadia gave her a cautious smile, “No we haven’t, but I don’t doubt you know everything there is to know about me.” Her tone turned darker at the end, her facade giving out.

“I’m not one to judge.” Hailey said, hoping to give her some solace.

“I’m not either.” Nadia turned towards the door, “Be careful with Jay, he’s not all he’s cracked up to be.”

“We’re just-” The door slammed shut, leaving Hailey alone to her thoughts, “Friends…” Not that she would be opposed to something more, but she wasn’t sure that was a secret. She ignored Nadia’s jab at Jay, if Hailey was her she would have said the exact same thing. Nadia didn’t know that Jay only ruined her because his mom’s life was at risk.

She grabbed the hall pass off the sink and made her way back to class, against her will. She was ready for the day to be over and she was barely halfway through.

…

After school, Hailey stood at her locker waiting for Jay, something else that had become normal. She was scrolling through instagram, not paying attention to anything going on around her. She was trying to keep her mind off the amount of AP Chem homework she had,but the tactic was proving to be unsuccessful.

“Hey,” a voice said, pulling her out of her trance. She looked up to find Kelly Severide standing over her, and she practically jumped out of her skin. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.”

Hailey laughed nervously, removing herself from between him and the locker. “You’re good, what’s up?”

“Uh, nothing really I was just wondering if maybe you would want to go to homecoming with me?” He asked and Hailey stared at him blankly.

She figured she was going to be asked, but not like that and certainly not by him. She stood there in silence, trying to figure out what to say. She was 100% sure that she had watched this movie and the probability of her ending up dead at the end of it was high. Who else could say that the guy who choked them in the middle of their living room at one in the morning was also their homecoming date? Not many, probably because everyone who could check yes for that box was either murdered or missing.

She was about to respond when she felt a presence behind her. “Sorry man, she can’t go with you.”

Hailey sighed, Jay.

Severide gave Jay a bored look, sighing. “Why’s that?” Hailey looked up at him as if to ask: Yeah Jay, why not?

Jay smirked, glancing down at Hailey and the to Severide, “Because she’s going with me.”

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@lissethsrojas @fuckyeahkillianemma @puckluck28 @chilly7188 @thebigapocalypsewolf @karihighman @upsteadheart @ruzek-halstead

#jay halstead #hailey upton #upstead #upstead au #kim burgess #adam ruzek #burzek #burzek au #kelly severide #chicago pd #chicago pd au #one chicago #chicago fire #high school au

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side-effect-of-the-meds · 5 years

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These last two weeks have been tough so here’s something soft with just a smidge of smut. It is a little bit OOC for Erin but I’m sad and tired. This is an incredibly self-indulgent piece in honor of Nora’s return to Twitter.

Saturday mornings were for Erin. After a long night at Eden’s, serving drinks to daring men and women with far more daring hands, Erin retreated to the back rooms while Nicky and Aaron got shitfaced with the rest of the staff. Erin had never understood why Ronnie refused to participate in the festivities. Of course, it had taken Boyd just one night in Columbia to see what Erin had been blind to for the last year. After Boyd’s wondrous revelation, Erin found herself driving out to Columbia once a week for just one night, one minute, one second with Ronnie. Just to keep herself sane. If only Ronnie didn’t drive her insane.

The handcuffs had been a necessary investment but they made Erin feel just a little cruel. She knew about Ronnie’s long list of abusive boyfriends. All she wanted was someone to treat her as more than a blow-up doll or a punching bag. It wasn’t hard. Not a single one of her past lovers had brought her to a climax, or anything close to one. Ronnie’s standards were right in the gutter where Erin lay. Pleasing Ronnie wasn’t hard. Pleasing herself was another matter.

It wasn’t that Ronnie wasn’t enough. She was beautiful but in the way every rich girl was. Ronnie dressed in clothes that cost more than the twins’ inheritance. Layer after layer of makeup caked her face, smoothing over any imperfection. For her eighteenth birthday, her father had taken her to a plastic surgeon. He said that no man would ever want a woman with a chest as flat as hers. Plastic surgery became a hobby of hers. Ronnie was a woman on a mission to see just how much plastic she could have injected into her body.

“In a thousand years, someone’s going to dig up my grave and not a single thing will have decayed,” Ronnie had joked. Erin didn’t think that was a good thing but Aaron kicked her under the table before she’d had the chance to say so.

Physically, Ronnie was a dream. Emotionally, she was a nightmare. It wasn’t that Erin didn’t want to help her. She really did. Ronnie was the twins’ best friend but Erin wasn’t the most emotionally stable person as it was. Taking on Ronnie and her problems was just too much of a job for Erin. Instead, she settled for distracting her with her hands. Erin’s fingers were long and thin. Piano hands, Luther had called them.

“It’s a shame you don’t play an instrument,” he’d said, inspecting them. In a way, Erin did. Anyone who’d heard the symphony of sounds she’d managed to draw out of Ronnie would agree (not that anyone had heard, Erin had made sure of that).

As nice as her time with Ronnie was, Erin still needed time alone to recover from it all. On Saturday mornings, Nicky and Aaron were too busy nursing hangovers to bother getting out of bed before one. Blissful silence reigned through the Minyard house. There was so little time in which Erin got to savor such a silence. It was the weighty silence of her teammates holding their breaths when she entered the room. It wasn’t the expectant silence of Wymack waiting for her to explain herself after she’d caused another incident with the upperclassmen.

This was a peaceful silence that quieted even the worst of Erin’s demon. It soothed something savage deep inside her, lulling her into an illusion of normalcy. Saturday mornings were the only times when Erin let herself pretend that she was really okay. Sure, Erin told herself she was fine when Aaron shot her icy glares, keeping himself well out of her reach but Saturday mornings were the only time she dared to let herself believe that they could actually get better.

Learning to love herself was the most important step in recovery. Bee was incredibly adamant about it. The first time she’d said so, Erin had sneered in her face.

“No one’s going to love a girl covered in scars. Why should I?” Erin asked as she rocked her chair onto its back legs.

Bee sat there a moment. Her dark brown eyes grew darker as she pursed her lips. “My husband loves me,” Bee finally said.

“That’s because you’re pretty,” Erin said, waving Bee’s smile away. “I’m bitchy, not blind,” she drawled.

“But you said that no one’s going to love a girl covered in scars,” Bee replied. Pushing back the sleeves of her sweater, Erin realized that she’d never seen Bee in short sleeves. She lost her balance at the first glimpse of the thickly roped scars winding up her arms. She was on her feet, seizing Bee’s forearms in her hands.

“Oh, Bee. What have you done?”

“Glass. From bottles. And window panes. Several mirrors.” Erin tore her gaze from Bee’s arms to look at her face. She was smiling softly at Erin. “We’re far more alike than you’d think, Erin.”

That had been nearly ten years ago. In all that time, Erin had never really learnt to love herself. It didn’t matter. She’d found people who’d loved her enough to make up for it. Nicky loved her. Aaron loved her. Kevin and Wymack loved her. Bee and her husband, Colm, loved her. They’d loved her so much that they’d offered to make her Erin Dobson Minyard. She was grateful that they’d offered her a place in their home but to take it felt like a betrayal to the one she already had. Nicky and Matt were as great a mom and dad as Erin could have ever hoped for. Aaron could be a prickly little shit but Erin wouldn’t trade him for any other brother in the world. Bee and Colm hadn’t taken offense to her rejection. They still welcomed her with open arms and it made Erin love them all the more for it.

It didn’t matter that she had the love of her entire family. Erin wanted more. She wanted Ania to love her and for everyone to know it too. She wanted to be Erin Minyard-Josten.

Ania had fought hard to become Ania Alora Josten. Josten was her truth and Erin desperately wanted to be a part of it. In the last eight years, not a single day passed where the thought of marrying Ania Josten didn’t flit through her brain. Staring up at the ceiling, Erin planned a wedding she knew she’d never get to have. The two of them had come a long way from when they’d first met but, in some ways, Ania was still just a pipe dream. Breathing in deeply, Erin rolled onto her side as the sun filtered into the room. From the bed, Erin could see the gray smog that had wound itself amongst the impossibly grayer skyscrapers. Chicago wasn’t a pretty city but, as with all other things, anything Ania touched instantly became beautiful. Even Erin herself felt beautiful when Ania’s fingers danced across her body.

All her life, Erin had been pushed away. Everyone saw her as a monster or a half-starved guard dog that was always on the brink of biting the hand that fed her. Wymack had sat her down more than once and told her that it was wrong. He was a strong man but even he could barely hide the sheen of tears that coated his eyes as he sat beside her hospital bed after another one of her failed suicide attempts, insisting that she was still a person, that she still deserved to live. He’d told her that she wasn’t a monster and made her promise to try to learn to believe that she wasn’t. Laying beside Ania now, Erin believed it. There was something about Ania that made Erin feel… human.

Ronnie had asked Erin to be her answer, something far more than Erin knew she was capable of being. In her haste to banish her own feelings, Erin had told Ania that she wasn’t her answer. Tracing the curves of Ania’s sleeping face with light fingers, Erin regretted it. Ania was her answer, Erin knew that now, and she desperately wanted- needed to be hers too.

My wife. Erin mouthed the words but she didn’t dare say them aloud for fear that Ania would hear her. Erin had never asked Ania her thoughts on marriage but she’d planted the seed in Nicky. As expected, Nicky had gone bounding up to Ania to extract her thoughts on the matter. The interrogation didn’t last long. Ania had made her opposition to the institution of marriage crystal clear. But that was before. Before Drake and Easthaven. It was before they’d started trading kisses on the roof. It was before Erin had let her walls down far enough to let Ania see her lain bare. It was before they’d begun waking up in each other’s arms.

“Staring,” Ania said as she peeled an eye open.

“Shut it, Junkie,” Erin replied but there was no heat in her words.

“Make me.” Two words. Just two words and heat was already pooling in Erin’s stomach. She shifted closer and pressed her lips to Ania’s. An arm wound around Erin’s waist and dragged her closer. “Better,” Ania whispered as she broke the kiss. She was still close enough that their lips brushed as she spoke. It wasn’t enough for Erin.

“Yes or no,” she asked.

“Doe, I’m not even awake yet,” Ania laughed. After a moment’s consideration, “Yes, but only if you make me breakfast after.”

“Deal,” Erin said. She slid her arm beneath Ania, dragging her form so that she lay atop Erin.

“Oh,” was all Ania could say as she processed what was happening. The two of them had been together for nearly nine years now, but Erin still had a hard time relinquishing control of herself enough to let Ania top. But today was Saturday and Saturday’s were for Erin. Self-care is letting yourself want and, right now, Erin wanted Ania on top of her.

“Say it,” Erin whispered. She screwed her eyes shut in anticipation of the words. There were a few things that came before Ania would oblige and she ticked them off her mental checklist as they went. First, she heard Ania’s soft laugh. Then she felt Ania’s left hand winding through her hair, tilting Erin’s head to the side. Erin felt Ania’s other hand snake up beneath her shirt. With it, Ania caressed Erin’s breast. She shivered at the brush of Ania’s lips on the shell of her ear. Finally, finally, Ania said it.

“I love you.” Erin’s breath hitched. Ania’s fingernails scratched soothingly at her scalp. Her grip on Erin’s breast tightened as she started moving her hips slowly, painstakingly. Erin whined. “What’s wrong, love?” Ania asked. Erin could hear the mischief in her voice. It only made her hips buck up harder. Her hands grazed Ania’s waist. “Sit up, Erin.” Erin obeyed. She shifted so that she sat with her back against the headboard.

“What are y-” Erin stopped short as she watched Ania wriggle out of her clothes. After getting permission, she tugged Erin’s bottoms off too. She watched silently as Ania spread her legs apart and settled between them. Ania looked up at Erin, searching for confirmation that what she was doing was alright. Whatever she saw made her smile. It was a slow, sly thing so befitting of a fox. She wrapped her legs around Erin’s waist and dragged herself flush against her body, lining them up perfectly. Watching Erin’s features carefully, she rocked forward. The slide of Ania against her sent waves of pleasure crashing over Erin. She jolted forward, throwing her head back and hitting it against the headboard with a resounding thud.

Ania’s laughter rang through the room as Erin cursed, rubbing at her head. Great. All she’d wanted was to get off and all she’d gotten was a lump on her head.

“Honey, are you okay?” Ania gasped through her fit of laughter.

“Do you want breakfast or not?” Erin snapped.

“Aw, don’t be like that, my love. I’ll be good. I promise.” With that Ania, wrapped a hand around the back of Erin’s head, effectively cradling it from further damage. Once more, she rocked forward against Erin. A low, moan escaped Erin’s lips. She felt the brush of Ania’s lips at the base of her throat, sucking down just enough to send her pulse racing. “Oh, darling, yes,” Ania murmured. Sometimes, when Ania got too worked up, Erin was graced with hearing Ania slip into her British accent. It drove Erin wild. She surged forward, grinding into Ania in the hopes of hearing it again. Erin’s efforts were handsomely rewarded. Ania ground up against her just as hard, babbling a constant stream of barely coherent encouragement.

Their lips crashed together. Their limbs intertwined. The bed creaked. It was Saturday morning and Erin felt so, so good. Most days, she wasn’t any more vocal than she had to be but she knew how much Ania enjoyed hearing the soft, rasping sound of her voice in bed. She moaned right into Ania’s ear, relishing in the way Ania shuddered at the sound of it. As Erin neared her climax, her hips started to stutter. Almost immediately, Ania picked up the pace. She pried her body away just enough that Erin knew she was watching, waiting to see her go over the edge. Ania’s grip tightened in Erin’s hair, anchoring her as she ground her clit against Erin’s and that was it.

For a whole fifteen seconds, everything ceased to exist. Ecstasy. Pure, fucking, ecstasy was all Erin could feel. As Erin’s senses returned, she gasped. Ania was still going, chasing her own orgasm. Every part of Erin felt raw and oversensitive but she wasn’t going to deny Ania her reward. She sat there, trying not to squirm as pain and pleasure wove together until the two were inseparable. Tears burned her eyes as her legs quaked. She tightened her grip on Ania’s waist, working her hard and fast. When Ania reached her climax, her eyes glazed over and her entire body went utterly still. Erin stopped entirely too, utterly transfixed by the majesty of Ania.

It was as if time itself had stopped. Did Erin deserve this? Erin wasn’t a monster but she’d done some monstrous things, never feeling an ounce of remorse for her actions. Instead, Erin only got worse. Every despicable act she committed took her a step deeper into the darkness. For so long, Erin had lived cold and alone in the dark. Kevin might have been the first person to offer her a shard of hope but Ania had given her so much more than that.

Ania had been more than a single shard of light. She was the sun itself: bold and bright and brilliant and Erin couldn’t live without her. Being so close to the sun would only burn her up but Erin was as self-destructive as they came. If Ania had asked for the oxygen from her lungs, Erin would give it to her. If Ania’s heart broke, Erin would take hers clean apart to fix her. From the very second Ania collided into the racquet Erin swung, she’d known that her life would never be the same again. As the words “Fuck you,” dripped venomously from Ania’s tongue, Erin had known she was in love.

Things had only gotten worse from there. Ania Josten had been a pathological liar that offered up little pieces of her truth in exchange for Erin’s trust. She’d broken down her walls just to taste Erin on that toxic tongue of hers. Ania hadn’t given Erin a reason to live. She’d given Erin a reason to want to live, something no one else had done. A future in which Erin had Ania by her side was too good to be true. It was the only future she wanted.

But did she deserve it? She’d hurt so many people, strangers, and family alike. Probably not. All her life, people had taken whatever they’d wanted from her. They’d tried to tie her down and own her. Now that she had complete control of herself, Erin was shocked to realize that what she wanted most was to belong to Ania. At first, it had scared Erin to want something like that so badly. In the years that passed, Erin slowly began to realize why she wanted what she did. Even if Erin gave herself over to Ania, Ania would never truly take control. Not once had Ania pushed Erin further than she was capable of going. Not once had she balked at taking no for an answer.

Ania loved Erin with no strings attached. Up until Ania, everything in Erin’s life had been a constant power struggle. Being with Ania meant that Erin could stop being the monstrous creature she pretended to be. Ania had gazed upon the sad, shattered creature that Erin was and offered to help piece her back together. Erin would never be able to come back from the darkness to which she’d succumbed to. Taking Ania’s hand, Erin knew that. Nothing could ever undo the things Erin had done. Being with Ania didn’t make Erin a better person. It just stopped her from becoming a worse one. If Erin hadn’t met Ania she’d have never made amends with her brother, instead forcing him and Nicky further away. If Erin hadn’t met Ania she might not even still be alive today.

The thoughts were knocked out of her head as Ania came back down from her climax. She settled back down, hissing as her oversensitive labia met the soft skin of Erin’s thighs.

“Jude,” she whispered as she nuzzled into the crook of Erin’s shoulder. Erin wrapped her arms around Ania. “Was… was it okay? Was I good?”

“You were amazing, Doll.” Erin carded her fingers through Ania’s hair, untangling it as she went. They lay there in each others’ arms as they caught their breaths. For just a few moments Erin truly believed that everything was okay. She felt her breath catch in her lungs as Ania began pressing kisses to the scars crisscrossing Erin’s arms. Erin didn’t deserve someone so kind. So caring. So full of love.

“Eri?” Erin looked down to see Ania gazing up at her through her lashes. God, Ania was beautiful. Erin ran a thumb across the burn marks on her cheeks. “Aaron called yesterday.” Erin frowned. Her brother never called Ania. He usually just sent her photos of trash cans captioned ‘I didn’t know you had a twin, too’ or photos of stray cats he’d encountered on his way to work. Ania sat up and reached for the nightstand. Rummaging through the drawers, she continued, “There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you but it never seemed like the right time. One of us was always flying somewhere, or there were too many people around, or we were with Coach. Aaron said that I’d better hurry up before you realize that you can do better than me. He’s right. I think, deep down, I was just scared that you’d say no. I mean, it’s okay if you do. We’ll still find a way to make us work if you do.” Erin’s heart stopped at the sight of the black velvet box that Ania drew out of the drawer.

“Ania-”

“I know there’s a conversation that’s supposed to come before this but I saw it in the window and I- I just couldn’t walk away.” Erin heard the soft click of a button and the box swung open. Inside was a pale bold band, the same color as her hair. A large brown diamond glinted in the morning light. As the light passed through it, the hue seemed to shift from dark brown to hazel, the way Erin’s eyes did. Ania pried the ring from the cushion it rested in. Inside the band, a small heart-shaped key had been engraved.

Erin surged forward, cupping Ania’s face in her hands and forcing it to face her. She kissed her lips so hard she was sure they’d both be badly bruised but she didn’t care. Salt stung her tongue from the tears pouring down her face. “Ask me,” she croaked. “I want you to ask me.”

“Erin Jude Minyard, will you-”

“Yes,” she said before pinning Ania down to the bed. “Yes, yes, yes, yes,” she said between each kiss she planted on her lips. Laughter bubbled out of Ania at the unexpected burst of affection.

“Eri, I didn’t even get to finish asking. What if I was asking you to go make breakfast?”

“I’ll do that too,” Erin replied. Laying her head atop Ania’s she whispered, “I’ll do anything for you.”

“Anything?” Ania asked,

“Anything.”

“Say it.” Erin stared deep into Ania’s eyes. They’d thawed from their usual icy appearance. They sparkled with mischief, daring Erin to deny her. She wouldn’t. There was no fun in telling Ania ‘no’ anyway. Besides, it was Saturday morning and Saturday mornings were for Erin.

Closing her own eyes, Erin took a deep breath. “I love you," she whispered.

#just a pipe dream #fem!andreil #erin minyard #ania josten

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jemej3m · 5 years

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to the moon and back (p1)

a softer high school au because i love high school aus fuck off i know ive written like ten

also, boys like you (by Who Is Fancy) is a gay vibe and is absolutely the vibe of this fic

part one | part two | part three

Andrew swung his legs from where he was sitting on the picnic table, glaring at Renee sitting beneath him. She grinned with crossed legs, pushing at his feet so they would swing.

Andrew, spiteful as ever, didn’t move unless he had to. Moving was motion and motion caught people’s attention and if Andrew gave him the chance, Kevin would continue to plead with him on refusing to join the exy team.

His brother was on it. His best friends were on it. They played a tonne of cute guys from other schools. That was Kevin’s pathetic attempt at appealing to Andrew, to which Andrew had taken his shiny, new pocket knife and stabbed it into the school cafeteria’s table by Kevin’s clenched fist.

It was only the four at this table - Renee, Kevin, Aaron and himself - who knew about Andrew being gay, and Betsy -- of course.

He’d backed off after that, but Kevin’s cool-down period for pissing Andrew off was irritatingly short. He sat, barely a metre away, looking on at Andrew and Renee silently. Aaron was texting, probably that simpering junior Katelyn. Andrew didn’t like it, but what was he supposed to do about it?

You’re just jealous you don’t have a girlfriend. Aaron had teased him the other week, when Andrew grumbled about his twin’s obsession with the girl. Andrew then sneered about probably being able to fool Katelyn into thinking he was Aaron, and then Betsy had to quell their little cat fight.

They never fought about anything seriously. They’d been thrown into the foster system together at birth, and adopted by Betsy a week after their 10th birthdays. They had fought to survive together: Logically, Andrew knew Katelyn wouldn’t put a divide between something like that. But Aaron was the logical one, and sometimes Andrew couldn’t help but let his anxiety win.

Renee tugged on his sneakers to catch his attention. “How was tutoring yesterday?”

He rolled his eyes with heightened exaggeration. “I got stuck with some kid who’s absolutely abysmal with Literature and History. He can’t drop them, because he’s at the bare minimum, so he’s practically going to be riding me so he can pass all his exams. Typical jock.”

Andrew didn’t add that Neil Josten was hopelessly attractive.

“Well, who is it?” Kevin demanded, in his usual Kevin fashion. He really had no idea how to do anything lightly.

“Neil Josten. Year below us.”

The green-eyed boy looked relieved. “Oh, thank god. Coach was going to kick him off the team if he didn’t focus more on school.”

Wait. What?

“He’s on the fucking exy team.” Andrew muttered under his breath. He couldn’t believe his luck.

“Since when were you on the fucking exy team?” Andrew dropped his things onto the table, not caring about the glowers that other students of the library sent his way for being obnoxiously disruptive.

Andrew is often obnoxiously disruptive in class, but performs extremely well in examinations. He must do a lot of studying at home to achieve that result: He might find that he would have plenty of leisure time if he just listened in class, rather than talking to other students or sleeping.

His report comments were always interesting, as were Betsy’s reactions.

Neil flinched at the noise, which was new. Then he shrugged, avoiding Andrew’s gaze. “Since I started.”

“Right.” Andrew drawled. “And you didn’t think to mention it to me, considering we’re trying to improve your grades to keep you on said team?”

“Sorry.” Neil muttered.

He paused. The boy was awfully withdrawn for an unknown reason: Neil Josten was all spitfire and burning scorn, with bouncing red curls, ice-like blue eyes and freckled cheeks, marred by horrific scarring. He told people it was surgery and acne. That was bullshit: It had to be. “I didn’t want an apology. I want a reason why.”

He shrugged again. “You hate Kevin Day. I didn’t think it would be a good idea to mention him.”

Andrew snorted. “Kevin’s been one of my closest friends since middle school. But I do hate him. He sucks all the way to the moon and back. He wont shut the fuck up about exy because we used to play together.”

“You did?” Neil shot up, the spark somewhat returning to his eye. “You play exy?”

“No.” Andrew told the one-track minded jock. “Get your work out. I’m giving up my time for a reason.”

Neil rolled his eyes. “You volunteered for it.”

No, he didn’t. He was avoiding detention. He told Neil so, but the boy still smirked.

“You still chose to tutor me that sit in a room on your own, which I thought was more your style.”

“Fuck off.” Andrew said decidedly and poked him in the cheek with a pen. Neil scrubbed it off quickly, looking worriedly at the ink coming off on his fingers. Andrew forced himself not to care.

Neil was truly hopeless with these subjects. He might be fluent in multiple others and a natural with mathematic equations, but trying to wrack his brain for anything he could remember about King Lear or the Treaty of Versailles was like getting a stone to bleed.

By the time the hour was over, Andrew’s head hurt. Despite the obvious aggravation Neil caused, he couldn’t get himself to give it up. Neil was too interesting.

When they left the library it was dark outside and the last stragglers like themselves were being shooed off campus. Andrew marched straight to his car. It was excessively expensive, due to the twins receiving their mother’s life inheritance and an extra tidbit from Betsy. They’d never met her: they just knew she was estranged from her brother and the rest of her family, which was why they’d received the money instead.

When Neil didn’t follow, he paused to call out to him. “Junkie.” He’d been dropping Neil home after every session thus far. Something had changed.

Neil didn’t look at him. “I’ve got a few errands to run.”

Andrew didn’t press it and left Neil standing alone and dejected on the sidewalk.

“Cut the shit. What’s going on?”

Andrew stayed behind the doorway, listening to the conversation. Wymack wasn’t a gentle person, but this was his compassionate side at work: Pulling his athletes aside and getting to the bottom of their problems. He claimed it was to make sure they lived up to his expectations on court, but that was bullshit. Wymack was an absolute grouch of a softy.

“I’m fine, coach.” Neil said. Typical.

“Bullcrap. You could barely keep up with Kevin this morning, and you’re usually running your little heart out, way ahead of him. What’s wrong.”

A moment of pause.

“Nothing, coach. Just a late night.”

Andrew, Wymack and Neil all knew that they could see right through his lies. Well, Wymack and Neil didn’t know he was there. But that was besides the point.

“Scram, Josten.” He said tiredly.

Andrew vanished before Neil had the chance to flee the man’s office. It didn’t need any convincing: Andrew was going to get to the bottom of the stupid, pretty-faced Exy junkie’s strange behaviour.

It was a new, perplexing puzzle to solve. Andrew stopped his jog a distance away from the coach’s office and watched the boy cross the courtyard. Neil glanced at him only once before ducking his head and running off.

Andrew was only doing this because Neil was interesting. Not because he cared. No, not at all.

“Come here.” Andrew snapped.

It was a bad day. He’d woken up in an awful mood, and nothing could improve it. Small, usually insignificant events had turned his mood from sour to volatile and he was itching to get home and into bed, turn off the lights and hide under the covers with Aaron and play on their old Nintendos until Betsy joined them with hot cocoa and marshmallows. Every gaze upon him was sickening, every noise around him making him wince.

Neil, despite his harsh words and reprimands throughout the hour, hadn’t seemed afraid of him. He looked exhausted but not scared as he approached Andrew’s hunched figure on the hood of his car.

Carefully, Neil took the cigarette from between Andrew’s fingers and looked at it, almost melancholic. When it began to wither away, he took a drag and coaxed it slowly back to life. He breathed out slowly, without coughing or choking. Then he slotted the cigarette back between Andrew’s unmoving fingers.

Fuck you. He thought, bitterly. He thought about Drake, his first boyfriend, and how he had ruined everything for Andrew. Maybe he wouldn’t be so scared to kiss Neil, if it weren’t for Drake. Maybe he’d be finally comfortable with his sexuality, if it weren’t for Drake. Maybe he would be able to go through a school day without being terrified for Aaron’s safety if it weren’t for Drake. He would never had needed to lie to Aaron and Betsy, if it weren’t for Drake.

Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, his mind continued. Neil was looking at him with a blank stare. “Give me one good reason not to cut your throat.”

“You called me over here.” He reminded Andrew. Andrew wanted to sneer, but he was spread too thin today. “Andrew, I’m not scared of you.”

“You’re so stupid.” He ground out.

“Maybe.” Neil agreed.

“Why haven’t you asked what’s wrong?” He demanded, stubbing out his cigarette. His back was hurting from sitting like this, but being on the car’s hood gave him a height advantage over Neil. Neil had to crane his neck up to see him, but he was still unafraid. “Everyone asks what’s wrong.”

“I already know something’s wrong.” Neil shrugged. “I don’t need to know what, or why.”

They were very different, then. Neil was complacent to exist, to have everything at face-value, to accept what he was given and never take more. Andrew was deprived of so much that he grabbed for what he could. Two different methods of coping. Two different boys.

And yet, the same sense of understanding, shared between them.

“Let me drive you home.” Andrew said.

“I can’t.” Neil replied.

Andrew nodded and dismissed him with a flick of his fingers. He watched Neil walk away and didn’t move until he was well out of his sight. Then he sighed, hopped off the car and spent the drive home thinking of an excuse as to why he was later than usual for his adoptive mother.

It never worked. He almost always told her the truth.

There were three taps on his bedroom door the next morning, a Saturday morning, which wasn’t what woke Andrew: It never was. His meds made him sleep extremely heavily, which would be sickeningly dangerous if he wasn’t living in a house with only his mother and his brother.

What awoke him was the smell of hot chocolate being brought into the room, and the shrill tone of the home phone’s end dial. He hated that fucking thing, but Betsy needed it because she couldn’t use her mobile for work-related emergencies. His eyes flickered open as his mom settled the mug by his bed.

“Thanks.” He mumbled into the pillow.

“Feeling steadier?” Betsy stroked his hair carefully, knowing that was all she was allowed to do.

He nodded. She smiled gently and offered him the phone. “A friend of yours called. He said to call him back.”

Andrew sat up too quickly, considering he’d skipped dinner. His mouth tasted like July roadkill, having not drunk any water since midafternoon yesterday and his head throbbed. It was all familiar. He snatched the phone and pouted underneath Betsy’s shrewd look. She poked his nose and left the bedroom just as quickly as she’d entered.

The only ‘friend’ Andrew had who didn’t have his mobile number was Neil - mostly because Neil didn’t have a phone himself, but also because asking to talk outside of their tutoring sessions would be admitting to his interest in Neil, which was, obviously, completely crap. Andrew couldn’t care less about him.

“Come to my Exy game.” Neil said, before Andrew’d had the chance to ask him what the fuck did he think he was doing, and how the fuck he got this number. “Ple-” He cut himself off.

Andrew almost forgot they’d had that conversation.

“That’s a lot of please’s in one sentence.” Neil remarked, looking at the practise exam questions for his lit. exam. Andrew snatched the paper off him and looked: The excerpt was two sentences from some random book he’d never heard of. He got a pen and scribbled it out with more aggression than intended.

“You don’t have to do that question.” He decided, re-centring himself easily.

“What did ‘Ballad to Impress’ do to you?” Neil snorted.

“I hate that word.” He answered. “Don’t do the question.”

The boy just nodded. “Okay.”

“Why the fuck am I going to come to your Exy game?”

“I’ll tell you anything you want to know. Just come.”

Now that caught Andrew’s attention. “One question and one honest answer.”

“Yes.” He sounded nervous. “It starts in half an hour: It’s a home game. Will you be there?”

Andrew had to admit, Neil was impossible to deny. “Yes, junkie.”

He let out a sigh of relief, as though he’d been holding it in. “Okay. Thank you.”

“Shut up.” Andrew hung up.

He threw the phone off the bed and flopped back, staring at the ceiling, his mind and heart simultaneously racing.

He definitely hated Neil Josten. So much. All the way to the moon and back.

#andreil #andrew minyard #neil josten #high school au #DIFFERENT #more innocent #i mean i intended it to be more innocent but somehow worked murder into it anyway #you cant talk about aftg without talking about murder #aftg #all for the game #david wymack #betsy dobson #the foxes #part 1 #not-so-mini fic #jem writes

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thesportssoundoff · 6 years

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The 2018 UFC Calendar That Remains And One Man’s Stupid Attempt To Book It

Joey

July 23rd

Before we begin, I began this project the day before the UFC's debut in Boise. I figured all things considered it would take me about a week give or take to flesh this whole thing out. It took me a week JUST to get through October. I got to the Denver show on Friday and that was when the UFC dropped all sorts of news about Edgar/Korean Zombie and Mike Perry/Donald Cerrone co-headlining said show. I haven't edited it. I'm not going to edit it. IF ANYTHING, I think not touching what I did before Friday is an important piece of the puzzle. Nothing really puts this project into perspective like having to look at what you did and then something immediately changing that renders it moot. Everything AFTER the UFC in Denver was done pretty much on Sunday night.

The UFC released their schedule this week for the rest of the year. There's a lot of fights upcoming, perhaps more than you can shake a stick at. You're talking 14 events, 7 in the US, 1 in Russia, 1 in China, 2 in South America (Brazil and probably Argentina), 2 in Canada and 1 in the always cool Australia. If you give the UFC it's usual average of 12 fights a show then you're looking at probably 168 fights across the course of four months. We've got 3 in September, 2 in October, 5 in November and 4 in December which is about close-ish to what we got last year. Of course two of those cards are on Fight Pass, one is on Big Fox, five are on PPV and unless I'm mistaken the remaining 6 are on FS1. I did this in the beginning of the year (foolishly I might add) but now with the year coming to a close, I might as well take one final swing at it am I right? Here's my belief on what we're going to get from the UFC to close out 2018 from show to show and as Brock Lesnar once lovingly said "From sea to shining sea!"

September 8th

Dallas, Texas

UFC 228

Main Event: Tyron Woodley vs Colby Covington

Co-Main Event: Valentina Shevchenko vs Nicco Montano

There's really nothing immediately on the docket to feel comfortable about as a headliner. A natural-ish fit would be Ortega vs Holloway in a rebooking but Holloway's return to action is unknown. Jeremy Stephens, if he beats Aldo of course, could fight Edgar or Ortega for an interim title fight here if need be. Frankie is apparently a week away from being able to train again so an early July to early September set up is plenty of time for a dude who is well known for his ability to be ready regardless of the circumstances. Already announced we have Zhabit/Yair and Jon Dodson vs Jimmie Rivera plus it seems pretty likely that Montano vs Shevchenko is getting announced soon-ish. That's not a main event and shouldn't be confused as such BUT it could be a respectable #2 on the bill.

September 15th

Moscow, Russia

UFC Fight Night

Main Event: Mark Hunt vs Aleksei Olynik

Co-Main Event: Shamil Abdurakhimov vs Andrei Arlovski

Consider this a mild, tepid dipping of the toe into the Russian fight market. The UFC's first event in Russia is a Fight Pass card; not even cracking the likes of FS1 or a PPV setting. While China got Anderson Silva and Kelvin Gastelum, Russia was getting Fabricio Werdum and Alexey Oleynik. That's still a fine main event but clearly not on the same level as the perceived GOAT and the top MW prospect in the division. That fight got USADA'd and in its place, we got Hunt vs Oleynik which is totally fine. A co-main event of Curtis Blaydes vs Alexander Volkov fell apart with Blaydes being hurt and Volkov opting to get paid to weigh in as a UFC 226 replacement. The UFC cut prices before the event to, in so many words, allow for poor people to get into the event and seats apparently are going to be at your standard UFC Fight Pass levels where they open up the bowl sections and ground floor only. There's been some rumors of the likes of Islam Makachev, Jorge Masvidal, Jimi Manuwa, Petr Yan, Nikita Krylov and Mairbek Taisumov (!) all getting a chance to fight but I'm betting when all's said and done, we're looking at Arlovski and Abdurakhimov being our co-main event of the evening. Or morning depending on where you are.

September 22nd

Sao Paolo, Brazil

UFC Fight Night

Main Event: John Lineker vs Raphael Assuncao

Co-Main Event: Alex "Cowboy" Oliveira vs Neil Magny

The UFC's brazilian ranks are being casually wiped out be it due to injuries, ineffectiveness, fighters leaving or retiring. The last show of the year from Brazil needs A GUY but finding A GUY who can headline is sort of tough in this market. The one thing I hold steadfast is the possibility that they could actually try giving a female fighter a chance to headline (Gadelha vs Calderwood at 125 lbs was something I thought of). I even figured Demian Maia is always like a phone call away as well but I can't think of a guy I'm excited to see him fight (or just a guy for him to fight at all). Gimme Lineker vs Assuncao in a true #1 contender fight since Marlon Moraes' two amazing highlight reel KOs probably vaults him about Raphael even with the loss. Also keep an eye on Formiga vs Pettis here as well since it's a natural "no shit" #1 contender fight at flyweight.

October 6th

Las Vegas, Nevada

UFC 229

Main Event: Conor McGregor vs Khabib Nurmagomedov

Co-Main Event: Holly Holm vs Ketlein Vieira

We've already got the unofficial official announcements of Sean O'Malley and Frankie Edgar/Korean Zombie for Vegas. One of the rumors going around is that the UFC plans on doing something, likely an interim placeholder title, for Holm vs Vieira. If so, you should absolutely do it on THIS card because the only way you're going to get folks excited about that fight is if it's got a McGregor-esque support attached to it. Conor vs Khabib will probably happen this year, if not in October then I'd bet in MSG. Conor vs Khabib IMO is a serious test of what is or isn't a big buyrate these days. The last BIG fight we had was Gennady-Canelo which did (IMO) a somewhat surprisingly meh 1.2 million----and this should beat that and comfortably. If it doesn't then we've got shit to talk about. Conor/Khabib, Holm/Vieira, Edgar/Zombie, O'Malley plus Darren Till (who apparently is a lock for this card) seems like a damn good top 5 to me.

October 27th

Moncton, Canada

Fight Night on FS1

Main Event: Rafael Dos Anjos vs Kamaru Usman

Co-Main Event: Ilir Latifi vs the winner of Glover Teix/Corey Anderson

I don't know what necessarily is in Moncton but the UFC tries in theory to go to new markets and bring special cards. The problem is they always tend to get picked apart due to injuries. As for this card? Well there were rumors that Usman vs RDA was the next fight to make in the Fall sometime and this seems like a fine enough time for it. Usman could also be a sleeper for the 170 lb title picture if there's an injury or whatever. As for the co-main? By all accounts Ilir is expected to be back in the middle of the Fall and so I'm betting this could be a good enough time. Latifi vs the winner of Glover/Corey Anderson isn't a perfect fight but there are worse fights to be co-main events. If anything it's a relevant fight at a division that's still trying to figure out what relevant is. Throw in PVZ vs Rachael Ostovich (come on now it HAS to happen) and Elias Theodorou for good measure for main card related purposes.

November 3rd

New York, New York

UFC 230

Main Event: Jon Jones vs Daniel Cormier

Co-Main Event: Brian Ortega vs the Jeremy Stephens/Jose Aldo winner or Max Holloway Third title fight: Cody Garbrandt/TJ Dillashaw winner vs Marlon Moraes Yoel Romero vs Ovince St. Preux Chris Weidman vs Paolo Costa

I'm betting that we're going to get the Jon Jones news any day now of a one year suspension redacted to July. If so, I'm betting the UFC puts Jones vs DC together with Cormier knowing that win or lose, the Brock fight awaits. DC seems really open to fighting at 205 lbs in the interim while he waits for Brock so I'm guessing/betting that if it's not Jones then it's a Shogun or a Gus here in this spot. The co-main event is a little more....prickly. Until I hear something about Max Holloway, I'm going to continue to believe that the rumors about him suffering something traumatic during his weight cut are true enough for me to not think we see him again this year. That means Ortega's going to have to fight somebody for the belt and if so, the winner of Stephens/Aldo lines up pretty damn well time wise. If Stephens knocks off Aldo then he'll have earned this shot no questions asked. The third title fight (because MSG tradition says three) was a toss up between Mighty Mouse coming back, the rumored Nunes/Cyborg fight or the TJ/Cody winner. Marlon Moraes is coming off of TWO 1st round finishes of the highest order and I think that puts him above Assuncao who has a better overall resume (and the win tie breaker) but no flashy "This is my title shot" moment. Moraes has that. As for the rest of the main card? Yoel Romero vs Gus seems like THE perfect fight to make but Gustafsson is seemingly not up for a Romero clash. That could in turn open the door for Romero vs OSP since they seem to gel up timeline wise (Romero had surgery, OSP has a family matter he's dealing with). Chris Weidman vs Paolo Costa is a rumored fight the UFC wants to put together for MSG and I'd be totally okay with that fight for both guys. Throw in some "names" on the undercard and this card could/should be the 2nd biggest show of the year. If Jones vs DC III with two title fights doesn't get people excited then I'm not sure what else there is to offer y'all.

November 10th

Denver, Colorado

25th Anniversary Fight Night

Main Event: Tony Ferguson vs Dustin Poirier/Eddie Alvarez loser

Co-Main Event: Donald Cerrone vs Mike Perry (at 170)/Kevin Lee (at 155)

The UFC has built a whole marketing promotion for this one so this show might get a big damn deal. Tony Ferguson vs the loser of Poirier/Alvarez seems like a natural-ish fit for this card given that Ferguson is expected to be back by the end of 2018. Ferguson isn't getting the Khabib/Conor winner and I get the feeling that if Poirier wins, he's getting the title shot. This is a damn important stay busy fight at lightweight for both guys. As for Cerrone vs Perry? Donald Cerrone is a big deal in Colorado and if he stays at WW, this is a damn good fight for him. Otherwise? I like Cerrone vs Kevin Lee as a fight if Cerrone TRULY wants to try 155 lbs again. He shouldn't but if he does? Good fit for me. I like this fight a bunch. Throw in Sage Northcutt (!!!!!!!), Chad Mendes vs Mirsad Bektic, Do Bronz Oliveira vs David Teymur, Cat Zingano vs Rocky Pennington and the Rivera/Dodson winner vs Alejandro Perez and we're off to the races!

November 17th

Buenos Aires, Argentina

Fight Night

Main Event: Santiago Ponzinibbio vs Leon Edwards

Co-Main EVent: Dominick Reyes vs Jan Blachowicz

Take two! The UFC heads into Argentina (after flirting with a November 2017/Feb 2018 visit) and with Ponz healthy and ready to go, I'd imagine Argentina is about to experience a Ponzi Scheme. Ya like that? I like it. Ponzinnibio vs Edwards feels like a great piece of matchmaking given their respective winning streaks and the fact that Till, Covington and Usman have all leapfrogged them in the division. Good easy work here. The co-main is more about finding out what Dominick Reyes CAN'T do at this point. I've seen him steamroll dudes with enough ease to get a little curious/froggy as to what necessarily else he's got for us. I am, dare I say, intrigued. Jan has proven himself again after an up and down UFC run. The time is now and it'll never be more ready than now for thesetwo. Blachowicz might even be overqualified for the job but who cares? There's plenty of fun developing Latin American talent to find a spot for on this show, like Julio Arce, Moggly Benitez, Vicente Luque (Brazilian with Chilean roots), the eternally underrated Enrique Barzola and some of the other fine Latin American fighters in the UFC and trying to get into the UFC.

November 24th

Shanghai, China

UFC Fight Night (likely on Fight Pass)

Main Event: Francis Ngannou vs Marcin Tybura

Co-Main Event: Walt Harris vs the Arlovski/Shamil Adburahkhimov winner

Would the UFC try to run back Anderson Silva in China? I'm not sure they wouldn't consider it. As more and more decent Chinese fighters start to filter into the UFC, the Chinese market seems to actually be on the verge of finally breaking through. If there's one thing the UFC is frequently "good" at; it's sending big dudes to foreign markets to try and appeal to casual audiences with size. With the likes of Song Yadong, Li Jingliang, Guan Wang, Kenan Song and some of the Chinese female mixed martial artists at the ready; the undercard should be loaded up with local-ish talent who can be relied upon for undercard support. With that being laid down? Go big at the top. I can't think of a more direct message to send to Francis Ngannou than to put him on a Fight Pass event while still getting max value out of him with a big main event for an international crowd. Ngannou vs Tybura is a fine test for Francis and it trumps a rumored JDS fight which doesn't make a whole bunch of sense given that JDS is coming off his first win in forever while Ngannou has dropped two in a row. Throw in a Yushin Okami fight as well just to confirm you hate your audience. We all know you do! Also would be totally down for Li Jingliang vs Chad Laprise or someone of that ilk.

November 30th

Las Vegas, Nevada

TUF Finale

Main Event: Derrick Lewis vs Justin Willis

Co-Main Event: One of the TUF Finales (below that though and another TUF finale, Brad Tavares vs Thiago Marreta)

If big dudes throwing punches isn't your thing then November might be a rough month for y'all. I ALMOST went with JDS here but I'll pass on that one to be honest. Lewis vs Justin Willis is a good test for Willis and with a lengthy stretch of time off, the Black Beast can maybe get his back right. Wouldn't be opposed to Mark Hunt vs Lewis II either. This is the last TUF of all time and it features HWs so might as well give them a HW fight too.

December 1st

Adelaide, Australia

Fight Night

Main Event: Israel Adesanya vs Derek Brunson

Co-Main Event: Alexander Volkanovski vs Josh Emmett

The Australian/Kiwi/NZ fighter's revolution is still off and popping. Right on time too as the UFC is heading to Australia in December with dudes like Tai Tuavasa, Dan Hooker, Alexander Volkanovski, Jessica Rose Clark and Israel Adesanya at the top of the run. RIGHT off the jump we've got a problem as Yoel Romero and Luke Rockhold are out of the division, Weidman and Costa are matched up, Jacare and Brunson are matched up and you've got Gastelum waiting on Whittaker. That in turn leads us to Adesanya vs Derek Brunson win or lose vs Shoeface. At this point I feel like Adesanya has been sped up so fast that it's basically a lock that he'll take on a Brunson type next. That brings us to the co-main where it's time for Volkanovski to get a bigger name. Dude's earned this shot. Volkanovski vs Emmett makes sense or even Volkanovski vs Lamas, Bektic or any of THOSE guys would be damn cool. Throw in Tai Tuavasa vs a fun punching bag and you've got one hell of a top three and Tyson Pedro vs Devin Clark too.

December 8th

Toronto, Canada

UFC 231

Main Event: Rose Namajunas vs Karolina Kowalkiewicz/Jessica Andrade winner

Co-Main Event: Junior Dos Santos vs Mark Hunt 2 Anderson Silva vs Uriah Hall Stephen Thompson vs Gunnar Nelson Jordan Mein vs Michael Chiesa

The UFC is going to try and give Toronto something special. This SEEMED on paper like the perfect spot to roll out the Whittaker vs Gaselum title fight but Rob is out into February. An interim fight here doesn't make much sense I guess. The best option is probably the most likely option and that's going to be a 115 lb title fight at the top of the bill. In the mean time and in between time, I'm a big fan of the idea of giving the strawweight division EVERY chance to succeed. Maybe a 115 lb title fight won't draw a major crowd on its own but JDS vs Mark Hunt 2 and Anderson Silva (!) makes for a damn fine balance of options across the board for a main card. Throw in two good WW fights plus every Canadian under the sun in the prelim spots and I think we're good to go here!

December 15th

Milwaukee, Wisconsin

UFC on Fox

Main Event: Alexander Gustafsson vs Luke Rockhold

Co-Main Event: Anthony Pettis vs Al Iaquinta

Outside of just popping a number for old time's sake, the UFC really has no incentive to do anything "big" here. It's a finale for Fox, one last chance for them and the UFC to put on a good show before Fox goes into bed with pro bowling and the UFC moves on to ESPN. The main event is a fine enough rebooking as Rockhold's debut at 205 vs Alexander Gustafsson still SEEMS like a pretty great idea. It's not a Milwaukee showcase without Anthony Pettis as the dude looks to continue his career rebuild at 155 lbs. I'm not entirely all in on yet on his return BUT I'm loving the idea of it. I ALMOST went with Mighty Mouse here vs Sergio Pettis as the main event but I don't know if that fight happens on Fox since there's really no major incentive for it to be on Fox. Throw in Mackenzie Dern vs Jessica Aguilar in a showcase fight/test for Dern and Edson Barboza vs David Teymur and we should be fine enough to go here.

December 29th

Las Vegas, Nevada

UFC 229

Main Event: Amanda Nunes vs Cris Cyborg

Co-Main Event: TJ/Cody loser vs Dominick Cruz

Carlos Condit vs Robbie Lawler Cynthia Calvillo vs Michelle Waterson Khalil Rountree vs Jimi Manuwa

And so we might as well end the year hot. With the final show in Vegas, it sure seems like some form of Nunes vs Cyborg is happening. In truth it's the biggest fight that WMMA can conjure up currently so I have no issue with that. Beyond that though? I think no fight is going to sell like that one will so you might as well support the undercard for thee last remaining WMMA anti-fans. Don't want to see Nunes vs Cyborg? Well how about a rematch of the best WW fight ever @ your mom about it? Lawler should be back by then and Condit has already said he wants one more go of it at 170 lbs. If ANY fight is going to get people up for one last final run, it's that one. TJ or Cody vs Dom Cruz buys us some time for Assuncao and company to maybe get a title fight in the interim. That and TJ vs Cruz 2 still has some high upside appeal to me. Calvillo vs Waterson may not appeal to everybody but Waterson is usually in a fun fight and I'm still high up on Calvillo's upside. Khalil Rountree probably fights four times between now and this show but I really think Rountree vs Manuwa can be a bonkers striking battle. Throw in Zhabit Magomedsharipov, Claudia Gadelha vs Felice Herrig, some combination of DWTCS guys, a HW fight of a high caliber and plenty of fake rumors about a second title fight and we're off to the races!

#MMA #UFC #Scheduling #Match Making #Fucking Hell

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afigureofspeech · 6 years

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You were never in any danger: a Kastle rec post

Hey y’all. If you follow me already, you may not have realized that I’ve gained some fandoms recently since I’ve been too busy to do something as time-consuming as reblogging all the stuff I scroll past but yeah, I’ve currently got two other rec posts sitting patiently in my drafts, just waiting for me not to be destroyed by grad school. As you all may know though, The Punisher comes out today, so I really just couldn’t help myself.

I didn’t expect to be here. I get the sense that most people on this ship didn’t either? Cool, we’re all in this together. I haven’t even been here that long; I happened to see someone freaking out on my dash a few weeks ago about that part in the trailer where they’re on the floor and Frank touches Karen’s hair – you know the one – and, well, somehow I wound up rewatching all the Kastle scenes over and over and over… I was even planning on waiting until next week to binge the whole season, when I’m on break and recovering from minor surgery and all, but I’m way too hyped to wait so I’ll probably get to it this weekend instead.

In any case, this isn’t a full rec post cuz the series dropped and I just wanted to get it out. Please forgive the general messy and incompleteness, I’ll do an update later when I have the time. Now a full rec post! Tried to fit in as much as I could think of. Also, if anyone out there has some fics (or anything else) you want to rec, please do! Like I said I am new here and I haven’t had the chance to go through the whole AO3 tag (yet lol).

My other rec posts can be found here.

Hope you enjoy~

* = new

Update 12/19/17: So apparently there is a limit on how many links I can have in a post. In the interest of being able to add more fic, I have removed the extra sections for fanart, fanvids, etc. If you go to some of the kastle blogs I link to at the bottom though I am sure you can find plenty. Sorry about that!

→ FANFIC

alamorn

AKA Under Investigation AO3 Their first meeting after she told him he was dead to her doesn’t go exactly how he thought it would.

glove upon hand AO3 Frank Castle, metaphorically standing in his half dug grave, takes a literal hand to get out. [Post-Punisher s1]

trouble in mind AO3 Frank didn’t like to ask for things. That wasn’t a surprise — she knew that about him before she knew almost anything else. That Frank Castle, he’s a monster, he’s a machine, he doesn’t know how to ask for help. It’s lucky for him that Karen has never waited to be asked. [Warning: explicit sexual content, femdom, pegging]

alchemistc

after AO3 | Tumblr He presses his lips into her hair and breathes deep, chest expanding against her side, arm curled around her, and Karen thinks - Do we deserve this? [Punisher speculation]

can’t no preacher man AO3 | Tumblr She breathes a sigh of relief when she catches sight of the shape of her late night visitor, and then stifles a snort at herself. Only Karen Page would find the sight of Frank Castle relieving. [Part 2 of the devil’s backbone series]

hangman’s knot and three mouths to feed AO3 | Tumblr “Was in the neighborhood. Thought I’d drop in. ”She kinda wants to punch him in his stupid face, but she knows it wouldn’t help. It wouldn’t even land, unless he wanted it to. Besides, it’s not like she could make the bruises littering his skin any worse than they already are. Frank Castle, Walking Bruise. Somehow, it just doesn’t have the same ring to it as The Punisher. [Part 1 of the devil’s backbone series]

walk together with our hands up in the sky AO3 | Tumblr Frank and Karen in the aftermath. [Post-Punisher s1]

you bear the scars AO3 | Tumblr “Men.” “Tell me about it,” Trish says, her voice somehow managing to convey both too-chipper energy and exasperation of the highest level. “I don’t know how much I can, actually.” Trish grins, tipping the plastic bottle in Karen’s direction. “The Punisher has taken you on as a pet project, you spend your days building up more enemies than even Jessica can manage on a bad day, and you’re totally attracted to a vigilante who prowls the streets at night killing people. Does that pretty much cover it?” “How did you - I am not - there is nothing going on between me and Frank!” [Part 3 of the devil’s backbone series]

angel_deux

AKA Puzzle Pieces AO3 Jessica Jones is not an easy friend to have. And Karen’s not even really sure if she can call her a friend. But Jessica is a good person to have in your corner in a crisis, which is good, because one of Frank’s enemies makes a sudden reappearance. [Part 2 of The Sinner and the Saint series]

Between the Sinners and the Saints AO3 A new villain with killer aim nearly takes Frank out, and he makes the call to go to Karen for help. Karen, who hasn’t seen him in months, who has been wishing she could take back those words she said to him in the woods. She never thought she’d get the chance to repair what they both broke that night, so once he’s back in her life, she’s not going to let him disappear again so easily. [Part 1 of The Sinner and the Saint series]

Tough Girl is What I Had to Be AO3 Lisa Castle survives the incident in Central Park, and Karen Page wants to take care of her. Set in an AU where Lisa survived but Frank had no knowledge of it until after the events of Season 2. [Lisa lives AU; you didn’t know you wanted this but I’m here to tell you that you absolutely do]

carrythesky

i started all the wars AO3 | Tumblr (Turns out fighting’s easy, once you start. The problem is that he’s never learned how to stop.) [Punisher speculation, all the angst]

It’s still heavy Tumblr [Karen Page grows up pretending. She escapes to the broom closet downstairs, curls into the dark space and when she closes her eyes she’s an astronaut, a deep-sea explorer, a knight scaling tall towers to rescue damsels in distress.]

things you said in the dark Tumblr [Sometimes, late at night when her eyes itch with exhaustion and the words on her screen become a jumbled blur, sometimes, she thinks of home. The most recent memories are transparent as glass but her childhood is a series of fragments, fuzzy at the edges - rain on the breeze, gingersnap crumbs, Kevin laughing over his shoulder and running ahead, always just ahead - And this, plucked from the haze: Penelope Page hunched over the kitchen table in the middle of the night, crying.]

untitled Tumblr [q: what scares you? a: you have your good arm around her torso, barrel shoved up under her chin and the magazine is an arm’s length away but you’re still careful, careful. she is steel beneath you and that’s when it hits, that’s when you picture your twitchy finger slipping and a bullet going straight through her skull, in and out before you can blink. the elevator door slides shut and you can’t pull away fast enough. (you are the most dangerous thing her hands have touched.)] [How to pack a punch in 500 words or less holy sHIT]

edourado

Bodies make it perfect AO3 | Tumblr Drunk Karen is a test to Frank's will power [Companion piece/sequel to Second Night; warning: explicit sexual content]

Boss AO3 | Tumblr Tumblr prompt: "I need you to scream for me. You're Karen Page he's the Punisher, he will come for you." in which Karen hurt and taken by a villain and Frank is enraged." [Established relationship; warning: explicit sexual content]

But you’re the truth AO3 | Tumblr Tumblr prompt: Frank patches Karen up after she's hurt because of a job and goes after the people who harmed her. Romantic-ish Special appearence: Max, the Pitbull [Companion piece/prequel to For I can’t help falling]

For I can’t help falling AO3 | Tumblr Tumblr prompt: After Frank leaves his hesitation aside, he gets skin hungy [Companion piece/sequel to But you’re the truth]

Have you seen my best friend? AO3 | Tumblr Karen finds a dinosaur toy in the subway. [Everybody lives AU, feat. an adorable Lisa; warning: explicit sexual content]

Hungry AO3 | Tumblr She fought it. With everything she had, she fought it. Karen can only fight for so long. [Companion piece/sequel to Never Had; warning: explicit sexual content]

Karen AO3 | Tumblr Prompt: someone hurts Karen and Frank hunts them down. As he is at it, he realizes his feelings for her [Warning: off-screen attempted rape]

Never Had AO3 | Tumblr How can you mourn the loss of something - someone - that was never truly yours? [Angsty Matt POV, one-sided Karedevil; companion piece/prequel to Hungry]

Not Pete AO3 | Tumblr * She doesn't like the new name [Post-Punisher s1; warning: sexual content]

Ordinary People AO3 | Tumblr (Part 1, Part 2, Deleted Scenes) Prompt: Best friends who are the Old Married Couple but fail to notice they're falling in love until is too late. [AU]

Pour AO3 | Tumblr * She pulled his boots off him before they finished the first glass. They now sat under the couch, forgotten. [Warning: sexual content]

Second Night AO3 | Tumblr Tumblr prompt: Frank shows up drunk at Karen's door, and she's on edge, because she has dated a few unpleasant-when-drunk men. [Companion piece/prequel to Bodies make it perfect]

What do you want AO3 | Tumblr Tumblr promt: Karen accidentaly discovers Frank has a hair pulling kink. She sees an opportunity, she seizes it. [Established relationship; warning: explicit sexual content]

Ejunkiet

dilaudid AO3 This isn’t the first time Frank has shown up on her doorstep in the early hours of the morning, but this is the first time that he’d been extended an invitation.

feel it still AO3 | Tumblr (Part 1, Part 2) w/ evil bunny wolf (evil_bunny_king) Karen’s legs are unsteady as she makes her way to the bathroom to knock on the door, fingers curling against the wood as she hears the water stop, before Frank’s voice croaks through the door. “What is it?” She has to swallow twice before she can get the words out. “Someone knows you’re here.” [Post-Defenders; WIP]

(in our bedroom) after the war AO3 When Karen had received the invitation from WNEX station to speak on Trish Talk, the most popular radio talk show in the city, her first instinct had been to say no. – “With all due respect ma’am, that’s bullshit. Most people, see, wouldn’t be so easy to let the other things” – murder and brutality, bodies littering the floor of the diner and blood on her hands and face – "go. They don’t seek to understand them. They get one good look, and get the hell away.”

meet me in the woods AO3 * Frank doesn’t wait for them to break the lock – he kicks the door open and slams into the first body he makes contact with behind it, lashing out in a blur of kicks and punches. The intruder falls back, face bloody, and then Frank’s gone, and Karen is left alone, crouched beneath her bed like a five year old hiding from the monsters in her closet, except that she’s no longer a child, and now she has a gun. -- Frank turns up on her doorstep on a Tuesday night and stays until Friday. [Part 1 of the corvidae & whiskey series]

elizma_c*

Flight from the City AO3 | Tumblr What are you doing, Karen? she thinks. He might not even be here. Would he even want to see her? What if – The door beside her suddenly swings open. Of course he senses her right away, even as she’s sort of hidden behind the door. He actually puts a hand to his lower back, and she realizes he’s carrying. Of course. “Jesus Christ,” he mumbles, but there’s surprise in his tone. “Karen.” Even with the questionably overloaded vital signs her body is displaying, she gets the sickest sense of pleasure that she’s gotten the jump on Frank Castle.

What You Know AO3 | Tumblr “When reality feels like its slipping away, hold on to those things that you know are true. You have to focus on what you know.” What did Karen know? Karen knows that she likes to read on the subway. She likes wearing heels that click on the sidewalk. Karen hates exercising but is apparently not a fan of therapy, so she goes running on Saturday mornings. She keeps a .380 in her purse and a pot of dying roses in her window. She has a track record for falling in love with the wrong people. She is fine. She repeats the list in her head each morning when she wakes up, until her hands stop shaking and the knots in her stomach go away.

evil bunny wolf (evil_bunny_king) / devilbunnyking

author our own disasters AO3 | Tumblr Frank Castle’s flesh is a litany to disaster. – Karen and Frank meet again for the first time since that final showdown on the rooftop. It doesn’t go as planned. [Part 2 of the you make me feel so criminal series]

feel it still AO3 | Tumblr (Part 1, Part 2) w/ Ejunkiet Karen’s legs are unsteady as she makes her way to the bathroom to knock on the door, fingers curling against the wood as she hears the water stop, before Frank’s voice croaks through the door. "What is it?” She has to swallow twice before she can get the words out. “Someone knows you’re here.” [Post-Defenders; WIP]

Graves AO3 Frank Castle - had cared. He’d broken himself caring; he’d loved with a heart she’d only glimpsed beneath his darkness, broken and bleeding as it was. She refused to believe that that man could be gone. [Part 1 of the you make me feel so criminal series]

Pacific Swells AO3 | Tumblr It’s not morbid curiosity. She’d be easier to scare away, if it were – he could play the part, flog away another shred of his humanity to dangle before her and ask ‘is this what you wanted? This what you wanted to see?’ [WIP; part 3 of the you make me feel so criminal series]

Perihelion AO3 | Tumblr (Part 1) “I’ve had, I’ve had a hell of a week, but that, I think, might’ve been part of the worst of it.” She clears her throat, and then again, drawing her knees in. Her eyes shine a little in the lamplight. “Yeah. I was scared too. For you.” -- Frank visits Karen, after. [Post-Punisher s1]

Touch AO3 | Tumblr “Why are you here?” he settles on, instead. Her hand moves to the marks on his neck, thumb grazing his adam’s apple. “Because I made a choice. And now I’m making another.” [Part 4 of the you make me feel so criminal series]

The Twist AO3 | Tumblr Frank finds Karen trussed up in the back of a van in Queens. [Kidnapping, protective!Frank]

glycerineclown*

glutton for punishment AO3 | Tumblr If she wants it, it's not a punishment. [Warning: explicit sexual content]

Operation Spot AO3 | Tumblr (Part 1, Part 2) A stocky grey pit bull peeks out from the mouth of the first alley that Karen passes. It's Frank, but she doesn't know it yet. [Shapeshifter AU]

Ordinary Citizens AO3 | Tumblr Rawlins’ fist had really done a number on Frank, and he has to get some teeth pulled a few days later. Karen takes him home, after, for rest and mothering. He stays longer than he has to—long enough to figure a few things out. [Warning: explicit sexual content]

idekman / hipsterfrankcastle

around the world my body will roam (my soul’s in new york) AO3 | Tumblr She gets two blankets, one for each of them, and sits out there with him until the sun rises. Frank moves into Karen’s apartment. She dreams. [Punisher speculation]

my girl is tall with hard long eyes AO3 | Tumblr He returns the book the next day. She’s asleep, curled up on her sofa, the window shut. She looks so small like this, fragile and vulnerable and not at all like the electric force of nature she is in waking.

this is all I ever was AO3 | Tumblr 'I always thought you liked tulips.' Karen takes the pot of roses from him, places it gingerly back on the windowsill. He listens to her fiddle with it, twist it this way and that – finding the best spot for it in the sun, he realises. 'Maybe. Before.' - prompt: kastle through matt's eyes [Post-Punisher s1]

jazzonia

come upstairs but not to talk AO3 Frank comes to her straight from the firefight. [Warning: explicit sexual content; part 1 of the we’re always alright series]

don’t care about your intentions AO3 Karen’s world is upended when Matt reveals his identity to her. Frank helps her right it again. [Warning: explicit sexual content; part 2 of the we’re always alright series]

LaMorenaReina

Ascendancy AO3 Karen Page's relationship with control becomes all the more tenuous as she explores a singular and inconclusive friendship with Frank Castle, wages her own war against Wilson Fisk, and has to start answering some unwanted questions about her past that lead to new conclusions about her identity.

Re-Entry AO3 Frank shows up again and causes trouble because he’s Frank. Karen goes along with it because, well, she’s Karen. They have adult conversations because, honestly, they should. [Punisher speculation]

PurpleLex / shipsabound

bloodsport AO3 | Tumblr (Part 1, Part 2) two-part tumblr prompt: "A baddie is threatening/hurting Karen in front of a tied up Frank. And he’s raging?” [Protective!Frank, h/c; warning: mature content, description of torture/violence]

during the dark and storming nights AO3 | Tumblr Frank POV retelling of “the space between dreams and reality” The concrete columns echo again with the second gunshot and he stands there for a minute on shaky feet, disgust and satisfaction twisting and warring against each other within his gut. The satisfaction doesn’t last long, yanked from him harshly when he climbs back into his truck and hears the radio abuzz over a shooting at the tenement building on 47th. Two women sustain injuries — one Sophia Rossum, and one Karen Page. He forgets to breathe for a long minute. [Part 3 of the Dreams & Lasts series]

fourteen weeks AO3 | Tumblr tumblr prompt: “something where Frank has a dog and because said dog has pretty much adopted Karen as his second owner, Karen often times takes care of the dog when he’s away/busier than usual. And it doesn’t take long for someone to start putting two and two together about who the dogs main owner is."

leaving is my last option AO3 | Tumblr Kastle Week Prompt: Lasts Frank rakes his gaze over her entire form, like he’s trying to decipher her. She shifts. He has a way of making her feel like every inch of her soul is being seen, and it’s as much something she longs for as something she’s insecure about. “Sooner or later, you’re going to burn out,” he says, tone flat. “How are you going to take care of yourself then? Defend yourself?” A bitter smile curves her lips. “I could say the same thing about you.” [Part 2 of the Dreams & Lasts series]

meet me in the woods AO3 | Tumblr tumblr prompt: "I would DIE if you wrote a couple of scenes where Karen army trains with Frank. I could TOTALLY see Frank being like, "You can’t get involved in the extra dangerous stuff unless you at least let me train you.” Imagine them running in the mornings??? Karen getting into crazy shape and the tension between them intensifying???“

shine a light through the distance AO3 | Tumblr “You sure about that?” He asks, incredulous, but she doesn’t give an inch. “You help me, you’ll only get blood on your hands.” “I already have blood on my hands.” She almost had his on hers half a year ago by force of a bullet. He put his blood on her hands just a month ago by force of a plea. “Doesn’t mean you need any more,” is all he says before opening the door. [Part 4 of the Dreams & Lasts series]

the space between dreams and reality AO3 | Tumblr Kastle Week Prompt: Dreams He stands in her apartment, by the door, but it is closed this time, and no bullets are coming through her windows. Her gun is in her hand, though, gripped loose from where it hangs at her side. “Why?” She asks. It’s a whisper of a loaded question. He doesn’t respond, just stares at her, gaze too unreadable. Karen wakes with a frustrated sigh. [Part 1 of the Dreams & Lasts series]

untitled Tumblr [Can you do a prompt where Micro yells at Karen and Frank gets the in his face. I literally be for protective!Frank 😂💕] [Punisher speculation]

PunkyNemo / thevampirecat

As days go by, the night’s on fire AO3 | Tumblr She’s lost him, she’s found him and she’s lost him again. And now he’s standing on her fire escape, holding out his hand and looking at her like she’s the only thing on Earth worth seeing. [Canon-divergent AU; part 2 of the Ballads for a dead man series]

Be my saviour and I’ll be your downfall AO3 | Tumblr (Part 1) Once upon a time she derided herself for imagining they were a done deal on a collision course straight to her bedroom. But that’s all over now and he’s gone, hasn’t been back since he walked off her roof and disappeared into the night air. It’s not all bad though. She has friends, she has work and tonight she even has cause to celebrate. It is, after all, her birthday and there’s a chance the universe will be kind. It’s just a chance though. And not a very good one. [Canon-divergent AU; warning: explicit sexual content; part 3 of the Ballads for a dead man series; WIP]

The bullet you never saw coming AO3 | FFN | Tumblr (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3) There are days that he wonders if he’s the worst man on Earth. And then there are the days that he doesn’t need to wonder. But, worst man or not, she’s here, sitting on his couch and crying like the world is ending. And he has no idea how to feel about that. Except he does. He really does. [Canon-divergent AU; warning: explicit sexual content]

Can you wait while the world circles the sun? AO3 It’s hard when you can’t take her out - when you’re The Punisher and the world can’t know she’s your girl. But he can make it up to her, make it right … even if he’s not really sure what it is that he’s wanting. [Warning: implied sexual content]

Could you crawl out of your perfect skin and climb into mine? AO3 | Tumblr * It's just a hug, so why does it feel like it's so much more? [Frank POV, The Hug]

Love me back to life AO3 | FFN | Tumblr (Part 1, Part 2) He can keep her safe. It’s the one thing he knows how to do, the only thing he can truly give her. So why does it feel like it’s not enough?

You’re a ghost town (and maybe I’m a ghost) AO3 | FFN | Tumblr Safe up in the mountains with Frank following a bloody showdown in Hell’s Kitchen, Karen wonders just how much more complicated things between them can get. She’s about to find out. [Canon-divergent AU; part 1 of the Ballads for a dead man series; I cry about this series in the best way, it’s long and plotty and UST-y and so so great]

queensofthekastle / StellarRequiem & homesickblues

For Whom There are No Words AO3 | Tumblr (Part 1) Originally inspired by the prompt “Frank protecting Karen after Fisk finds out she killed Wesley.” A dialogue-driven slow burn exploring their relationship through conversation, spaghetti dates, two incidents involving vodka, and a whole lot of back and forth between who Frank is, and what Frank does. [Canon-divergent AU; protective!Frank, slow-burn]

Nowhere to Go but Everywhere AO3 * Karen has some emotional recovery to do, Frank is still working on "after," and all along the east-west interstate, someone has been abducting children and wiping all record of the disappearances. ** The roadtrip fic has arrived [Roadtrip AU; fake married, sharing a bed]

untitled Tumblr [based on the new trailer (which shook us to the core tbh)] [Punisher speculation]

untitled Tumblr [Kastle+forced to share a bed (best trope ever)]

untitled Tumblr [kastle prompt fill: “matt and frank having a conversation about karen”] [Canon-divergent AU]

untitled Tumblr [OOOH! What about holding their unconscious body WHILST sobbing into their shoulder/chest ] [Punisher speculation]

samssalvation / jonbernhthal

one day Tumblr prompt: between the explosion and the elevator

weak knees AO3 | Tumblr prompt: karen tripping and falling into frank's arms

SecondFromTheRight

All We Do Is Hide Away AO3 But when she opened the door to him that night with a “Frank”, her lip trembling as she stared at him – her eyes were already red from crying and she looked tired – he wondered how much that mattered. He knew what Karen Page looked like crying and breathing – or yelling – his name, he knew what she looked like with blood on her, but he didn’t know who Ben Urich was to her. He kind of hated himself for that. And for a man used to self-contempt, this dose noticeably burned. [Post-Punisher s1]

The Sounds She Makes AO3 * Now, now that he’s had her, had this. Something good and something he feels part of it. Now that he’s remembered life and something he’s terrified could be love - he can go out with Karen on his lips, in his lungs, with her saying his name in his ear. He can go out swaying in this elevator with her, her forehead against his. The elevator scene goes a little differently (they have sex) [Warning: explicit sexual content]

watermelonp00fs

shooting stars in a jar AO3 * Frank doesn’t visit Karen, after. Not really. But the flowers are there by her window — everyday, for weeks, months — until one day they aren’t. She’s stopped going to the river for a while now, too. Not that he blames her for it. Cut the threads loose, toss the baggage she’s carried all this time into the goddamn ocean — He’s alright with it, all of it. Then, one evening she goes home with a man he’s never laid eyes on, carefree laughs and cheeky smiles — and Frank should be, must be alright with this because God knows she deserves happiness that he cannot interfere with — Except he isn’t.

the world on its axis AO3 Inhale. Exhale. “I’m scared, Karen.” Rough. Guttural. He hated how weak he sounded. “I’m gonna forget her voice.” His shoulders sagged from the weight of his guilt. Frank Castle — the man who took a woman to bed and cried to that woman about his dead wife. What a joke. What a fucking joke. A low hum sounded in the back of Karen’s throat as she stroked the line of his back, gentle and understanding and oh he did not deserve her — “I know,” she murmured and kissed his shoulder. “I know.” Inhale. Exhale. [Part 2 of the like diamonds in the sky series]

Wynn / astreetcarnamedwynn

One Worth Knowing AO3 | FFN | Tumblr The message arrives in an innocuous envelope, a plain white one marked only with her name and the address of The Bulletin, the two scrawled on the front in thick black ink. Karen doesn’t even have to open it to know it’s from him, from Frank, though almost eight months have passed since she last saw him. [UST; warning: adult content; part 1 of the One Worth series]

One Worth Trusting AO3 | Tumblr Frank presses the first speed dial and, a couple seconds later, her phone rings in her purse. Karen doesn’t bother asking how he knew her number. She just stares at him instead, caught between irritation at his actions and understanding for the impulse behind them. And if that didn’t sum up her feelings for Frank Castle, the man a murderer but one she understood. The man in question watches her, his brow furrowed but his jaw set, Frank willing to throw down over this, his efforts to keep her safe.Sighing again, Karen points to the kitchenette behind him. “If you’re so willing to do things for me, why don’t you pour me a drink? I’m going to get changed.”His face softens, nearly into a smile. “Yes, ma’am.” A continuation of "One Worth Knowing." Frank accepts Karen's invitation to come by her apartment for a drink. All goes well until it doesn't, until truths are revealed and revelations made. [UST, kisses, & angst; part 2 of the One Worth series]

Yggdra / favrielle

Bluest Skies Of Mourning Light AO3 It’s Karen’s birthday. The Punisher is caught unaware by his own legacy. [Fluff]

On Hallowed Ground I Stay AO3 He never says "I love you”, but whispers every word of it in all the spaces Karen Page leaves for him in her life. [Fluff]

Paint Your Demons Red AO3 | Tumblr Frank Castle tries to keep Karen Page at arm’s length and out of danger. (Really, he does.) She has other ideas about what safety means. [Post-Defenders]

She Who Believeth In Me AO3 Her brightness touches everything he lays eyes on. And he can’t shake her no matter how hard he tries. [Part 1 of the all the devils series]

untitled Tumblr [kastle prompt: after the explosion scene, frank takes karen back to his and micro’s hideout. possibly a shower scene (doesn’t have to be sexual) where frank is comforting karen because she took another life while looking out for frank as they were making their escape.] [Punisher speculation]

untitled Tumblr [plllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllssssssssssss write a fic where Karen and Frank go back to his hideout to patch each other up after the explosion scenes 😙] [Punisher speculation]

Misc.

Been with the Devil in the Devil’s Resting Place AO3 by Amazing_E_ko The development of Karen and Frank’s relationship from Matt’s perspective, as his own life goes slowly downhill. [POV Matt, not exactly kind to him but in a fun, vindictive sort of way if you’re into that lol]

Heaven Sent the Saints Down (Hell Sent Them Up) AO3 | Tumblr (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4) by Ambrosia But no, yes, the Punisher. In her apartment. Staring at her with an unfazed expression on his face. Even from the doorway, she can see the white skull painted on his chest-piece. And this is somehow so normal for her, at this stage of her life, that she honestly takes one look at Frank, at the bruises on his face, at all his gear spread around her apartment, and says, “Okay. It’s 11:07. I haven’t eaten yet. I’m going to order some dim sum from the corner and you are not going to get any of that gun oil on my bed.”

It is So Quite New a Thing AO3 by an_ardent_rain He realizes, as he is about to order, that there is one other thing he has besides his grief and his anger and his never-ending war. That there is something that helps him remember, that reminds him who he used to be. He orders a second cup to go and writes “Page” in blocky letters on the side. [WIP]

don’t fade away AO3 by consultingpathologist* As she unlatches the window to bring the flowers inside, she realizes the yellow is from a piece of paper wedged in between the stems. [Episode tag]

When you drown, I'll drown AO3 by ebethjanna* His voice is gruff, "Not gonna point a loaded gun at you, Karen." (Two missing moments from 1x10.)

Better Natures AO3 by etirabys “Work with me here, Frank,” Karen snapped. “Make some sense here. Talk to me. We can’t figure out what our next move is until you explain why you’re so disgusted at the thought of my being attracted to you — an attraction which, by the way, I’ve never let interfere with our work or our friendship —“ “I’m not disgusted,” Frank said in a strained, calm voice. “You have ghastly taste, but I’m not disgusted. No. It’s just the feeling of having carried a torch for miles and miles in the dark and… having the sun come up.” [Zombie AU with a side of Fake Married feat. HellaBadass!Karen; warning: explicit sexual content of the dom/sub variety; this fic is everything to me READ IT]

loss like the sharp edges of a knife Tumblr (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5) by fandammit* [The stillness of after is suffocating.] [Frank POV, post-Punisher; one of my current favorite fics]

moth and flame AO3 | Tumblr by freedomatsea Liquid courage and exhaustion lead Frank to reach out to Karen after months of keeping away from her. Set post-finale about 6-8 months. Frank’s POV. [Warning: explicit sexual content]

The Fall AO3 by ghoulsngunz “I need a favor.” A favor? Karen crossed her arms over her chest. She had to be dreaming. There was no way that after three months of silence the Punisher would be standing in her kitchen asking for a favor. “What kind of favor?” Frank rubbed his temples. “I need you to help me find my dog.” [WIP]

Elevator Songs AO3 | Tumblr by Inaccessible Rail (strangetales) A series of drabbles or shorter works that I've posted on Tumblr about my two trauma buds in probable love. [WIP]

But I Wish It Was True AO3 by Ideal_Flower* The first time it happened, he was hit with white hot shame. But there was no bullet, no gunshot, no shattering of golden hair and spray of brain and blood and guilt on the wall, on the side of his face. Just her mouth on him, his hand on her, his fingers tangled through the cornsilk strands at the nape of her neck. [Warning: explicit sexual content]

United We Purge AO3 | Tumblr by Jenye "Just remember all the good the purge does.” – Evil runs Hell’s Kitchen, but one night out of the year that evil is legal. [Purge AU]

Come For You AO3 by larkingstock* Pretty much what the tags say. (I'm so sorry. I wanted it, I wrote it, and if I can figure out the rest I'm probably going to write that too.) (Also so so sorry for the title.) [Sex pollen fic; warning: explicit sexual content, WIP; honestly I am enjoying this fic so fucking much]

You Carry My Heart On Your Sleeve AO3 by Morrigan2345 The first thought that comes to mind when her door opens and she’s standing in front of him in what could only be the tightest black dress he’s ever seen is that she looks good. Really good. The second thought is that he shouldn’t have thought that. The third thought is that he couldn’t give less of a shit. [Warning: explicit sexual content]

the root of the root and the bud of the bud AO3 by nagia* There's a new drug in town, a warehouse full of dead shitbags (and newly empty of a strange, tropical-looking flower), and Karen Page has the kind of connections that might help him figure out what this shit is. [Sex pollen fic; warning: explicit sexual content]

ain’t nothing but a monster AO3 by nighimpossible “Is this okay?” she asks, the question just a murmur in the dark. “You’re already close enough to hurt me,” Frank says finally, after chewing on the thought for a long moment. “So hurt me.” [Warning: mature content]

hail, holy queen AO3 by peppermintcas He kisses her and it’s like setting a building on fire: he knows it’s a bad idea, intellectually, but everything in him is pushing him to do it. [Warning: explicit sexual content]

Strays AO3 by Ruby_Wren* Frank finds out what happened to his dog.

The End of the Line AO3 by ruebellab They say there’s a ghost - that he’s a dead man, but Miss Karen’s seen enough to know one thing. Dead men don’t feel, they don’t hurt, they don’t care - so if there’s a man out there, she knows he ain’t a ghost, he’s broken maybe but he’s not dead. [Western AU; WIP]

Fall On Your Knees AO3 by saltandbyrne* She keeps the flowers in her window for three days. [Warning: explicit sexual content]

windowsill AO3 by shuofthewind Eight weeks, three days. She's going to punch him in his fucking nose. The fic that fixes the lack of Karen at the end of The Punisher. [Post-Punisher s1; UST]

Of Gods and Monsters AO3 | Tumblr by silbecoo Frank is the God of the Underworld, quietly ushering honorable souls to the Elysian Fields while ensuring the evil ones start their time in Tartarus as soon as possible. He doesn’t want or need anyone to care about, until one day the beautiful Daughter of Demeter needs him. He can’t ignore his fate, and neither can she. [Yup it’s the Hades&Persephone AU you were waiting for; WIP]

A Hard Rain AO3 by smolhombre* When he starts over this time, Frank tries to mean it. An after; for people who don't believe in them. [Warning: explicit sexual content; WIP]

the floodgates need repair AO3 by stainofmylove* Karen struggles to put the pieces back together again. Post “I’m already dead,” basically.

moving on AO3 by thecoolestfreak* “I’m going to break the truth over Fisk’s head, sure. But I need the backup to do it. Capable parties.” She said it as she’d rehearsed it in her head, and she winced at how unsympathetic it sounded out loud. “Y’need canon fodder, that it?” he said, and she almost spit out the wine she’d nervously poured in her mouth. “God, no! Frank, that’s not— I’m—" He laughed, a small chuckle, but a laugh, and if he were here she would punch him in the arm.“I’ll do it, Karen. Where and when do you need me?” post the punisher s1 & the defenders s1 - the gang fights fisk, but its basically a kastle fic

elevator AO3 by thefudge 1x10. The elevator scene, but with a much needed addition.

but shrapnel is shrapnel AO3 by theworthofhollin It starts like this: Karen gets a dog. [WIP]

to arm your fears like soldiers and slay them AO3 | FFN | Tumblr by viansian Karen had gotten over the whole “soulmates” hype when she was thirteen years old, and she didn’t plan on getting swept up in that shitstorm again anytime soon. aka the soulmate fic you knew was coming. [Soulmates AU]

Sentimentality AO3 by writesometimes* She stood in front of the windows and scanned the darkening New York skyline. The dark concrete, steel and glass of tall buildings blending with the inky indigo sky. There was no way she'd spot him if he was out there somewhere, but Karen knew. Frank was alive.

Ain’t about what I like AO3 | Tumblr by zombieboyband Before the diner, after the gunfire. City nights, late drives, looking for coffee with Frank. Karen is too tired for easy questions. “Pardon, ma'am?” He sounds so goddamn polite it’s incredible. “The meat hooks. The part where you killed people and put them on meat hooks.” [Missing scene]

→OTHER

On tumblr: kastlelibrary, kastlenetwork, kastlesource, queensofthekastle, thecrimescenejunkie

People with good Kastle tags: afigureofspeech, carry-the-sky, frankcastle, hipsterfrankcastle, likcoln, mazikeene, shipsabound, theworthofhollin

On AO3: the Frank Castle/Karen Page tag

Updated 12/19/17

#kastle #kastle ff #kastle fanfic #frank castle #karen page #the punisher #daredevil #rec post #fic rec #frank castle x karen page #i didn't even attempt to add anything not on ao3 currently sorry #i will fix that when i update #just wanted to get this done #this is how i contribute to fandom lol #i will be freaking out about this show shortly i'm sure #if school doesn't kill me first of course

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koganphrancis · 6 years

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Ian Used To Do Better Stuff With Vans OR There’s Another Hour Of My Life I Won’t Get Back

This episode was dumb dumb dumb as fuck-and even more pointless than that. The ONLY redeeming quality in it was that it was completely Terror-free. Read on, if you dare. My recap of Season H8 Episode Dear God Why Isn’t It Over Yet-or 11, if you want to keep it short.

As usual, I’ll get the others out of the way as quickly as I possibly can.

Carl’s still illegally under-aged married, and this week he tells Kasammi, “I don’t think there’s any skin left on my dick.” Yeah, they made that point last year when they had to keep taking it off after his misguided circumcision. Not that the show is referring to THAT, of course. They refuse to acknowledge any plot point that has gone before. He and Kas take a wild tour through his before the show started past and I have no idea what the point is-is it to show us she’s truly insane because none of the horrors of life on the mean streets scare her? Or to show us that Generation Z doesn’t experience reality because their whole lives have been instantly posted on screens of electronic devices? I don’t know and I don’t care-quit trying to be fake deep, Shameless, if you even are. I can’t tell. The only (maybe) pertinent point of Carl’s story this week is he tells Kasammi after her hundredth shit fit on the subject that he won’t go back to military school and in the previews for next week it looks like the family (or at least Frank) will try to help him sneak away to do just that. Yawn.

Debbie loses three toes-Frank chops them off for her. Before that, Debbie is shown signing her 16 year old self out of the hospital-WHAT? She’d need a parent or guardian for that. Anyway, apparently Debbie’s not on any kind of welfare or insurance. And doesn’t know that Ian could’ve gotten the money for her expensive surgery to attempt to save the toes by going down on the old couple just twice. What is it with this show and cutting off toes? They’ve done this before with the body they got to stand in for Aunt Ginger. I’m so sick of the recycled plot points!

Speaking of which-Snore’s old man is out of prison so Lip gets him to fight him to violate his parole and send him back-did this new writer guy not see Yevgeny’s christening episode or is he just really into plagiarism? It was such a fizzle to a going nowhere story to begin with. I think the guy playing Snore’s version of Terry even had some of the same lines but I’m too lazy to rewatch and try to catch them. If we were supposed to hate this guy like we hate Terry, it didn’t work. And Lip was no Mickey showing up to defend people that mean something to him either-it was all a weak as fuck imitation. And it was odd that Lip chose to call the guy out for “beating women” when he lets himself get beaten when he has sex with Eddy. Who the fuck is he to judge? Maybe ten year old Snore didn’t get that her parents were having consensual rough sex that got too violent and ended in death-but the show’s not that deep.

Snore’s telling of her mother’s death once again played like someone complaining about not getting the last bottle of nail polish in their favorite shade at Walgreens or something. If she’s been so traumatized that she can’t put any emotion into the horrific memories that’s fine, but then I would argue that she wouldn’t be terrified of her dad coming after her either. Snore just can’t emote OR imagine what it would be like to be in that setting, I’m sorry.

And here’s what had me super pissed-Snore tells Lip she was 10 when her mom was killed in front of witnesses (Snore and her brother-she specifically says they both testified against him) and her dad’s already out on parole? We don’t know how old Snore is now, but surely no older than 25 (and probably not even that old, but whatever), so the show is saying her dad got out in 15 years max, which is the time Mickey was sentenced to for NOT killing Sammi? Fuck off.

Also, why would the cops not even consider the father’s side of the story that Lip instigated the fight? Lip has Eddy’s niece record the fight on his phone, and after it’s over he goes over to her and asks her how it looks or whatever, and she says Snore’s father threw the first punch. Wouldn’t the cops question why a little girl was filming two men on a porch BEFORE a fight started? Snore’s father must have Mickey’s public defender for a lawyer. Fucking show should’ve shocked us all by having Lip get locked up for premeditated assault.

Fiona meets with a lawyer (Janice from Friends, but she’s not as funny in this, sadly) and as soon as she said Fiona could lose both the apartment building and the Gallagher house I knew that storyline had jumped the shark and somehow next week all will be miraculously fixed-no way will the Gallaghers ever lose the house, that’s another plot point that’s been done to death. At first I was thinking they’ll either come up with some fortuitous traffic camera footage showing that the guy jumped off the roof intentionally, or that Hugh Laurie would show up in a cameo as Dr. House and say that if a man “fell” off a roof that high, he’d have a hell of a lot more damage than one broken ankle, but no, the show isn’t going to even get that clever-they’re just gonna have the family cave and be willing to settle with Fiona if they get custody of her dog that suddenly she’s so worried about in this week’s episode. She’s never shown that level of concern for any of her siblings.

Frank has a tedious, boring couple of scenes about his “retirement plan”-he has a baggie of 3 stolen Social Security cards and anyone can see a mile off that the cards would’ve just been replaced by their original owners-they’re not like a set of fingerprints and you only get one for life and if you lose it someone else has your entire identity. THEN they set up next week’s recycled/stolen plot to have Liam and Frank rip off Liam’s rich friend’s family just like Carl and Frank ripped off Liam and Carl’s gay foster dads-it didn’t work then, it won’t work now (and why didn’t Frank do hard time for that grand theft?).

Svetlana and Vee and Kevin have a scene at a fancy (but not as fancy as the show was trying to tell us it was) bar that was a pathetic echo of both Ian and Mickey’s hotel bar scam AND of how funny the show used to be able to be. Later Svet goes to humble herself to the other hand whore to find out how she snagged a rich fiance and discovers that the dude she’s about to marry is senile as fuck and Svet is going to step in to replace her, which is what I predicted the first time the hand whore showed up. I will give Shameless credit for making me laugh unintentionally-since I’ve been picturing the “old rich dude” Svet was going to wind up with as John Wells’ fantasy version of himself, seeing the old dude in an adult diaper and thinking he’s Wells was very satisfying.

Do I finally get to Ian now? Do I have to talk about his bullshit? There’s a scene of him in bed alone while the newlyweds are having sex in the same room, signalling that he’d rather be there than at Terror’s house, LOL. Then it’s the next morning and he goes down to breakfast with his Bible in hand, but no pills. Is that supposed to be significant? We may never know...

He gets to the “Church Of Gay Jesus” and there’s so many “fans” there it’s like Beatles or One Direction footage. The minister guy gets through the crowd to him with a big young guy and tells Ian the rando is “Bic” and he wants to help (I didn’t know the guy’s name till I saw it in the closing credits, I really thought his name was “Dick” and they were making a “big dick” joke, but no, I guess they were making a “Bic lighter” joke instead). Ian and Bic instantly have more chemistry than Ian and Terror but it’s unintentional I’m sure-the actor playing Bic probably has taken acting classes and knows to look an acting partner in the eye, instantly making him more engaged than Terror’s ever been in a scene.

The minister guy tells Ian, “Your life is no longer your own.” Which first of all, I’m just not buying that all these youths have just been waiting for a messiah to show up and they’ll follow him anywhere, and secondly why was being with Mickey not Ian anymore, but he’ll give away his entire life for strangers? Fuck you, Shameless. (and speaking of his entire life, does he never have to go to work anymore? Also, Fiona turned him down when he asked for a ride to the church-for once she had a good reason, that she had to pick up Debbie-but why is the show acting like Fi does things for him all of the sudden? She DID give him a ride last week, and that was very OOC of her.)

There’s a kid trying to get Ian’s attention-he needs help getting away from his parents who have hired men to get him back. At some point in the proceedings some guys jump out of a van and drag the kid into it. Ian runs to the front of the van before it can pull away and goes all Chris Pratt in Jurassic Park, holding up his arms and not letting it advance. The unintentional humor here amused me no end. Then Ian lays down in front of the van and I actually said aloud to my TV, “Just run him over.” I’m that done with this storyline and this show-just kill Ian off at this point, it’d be a mercy.

Ian’s there on the ground with his arms thrown up over his head (not that the driver could even see him down there, right in front of the van) and we see that this time Shameless didn’t bother covering up Cam’s real life Sailor Moon tattoo. SO LAZY. All the other kids lay down around the van too so it can’t go anywhere The 3 dudes in the van give up and let the kid get out.

The kid is 14 and the minister guy tries to talk sense into Ian, saying the parents have a legal right to their kid and they, more specifically Ian, can’t keep the kid. Ian agrees to talk to the kid’s dad who tells him the parents aren’t bigots, they don’t care that their son’s not heterosexual, but he’s been living on the streets, doing drugs, and prostituting himself. Then the father says, “We believe he may be mentally ill,” and Cameron (and yes, I mean Cameron, not Ian) makes a reaction face to that, but what it means, again, nobody knows.

Ian goes to talk to the kid where they have him hidden away in the Mickey Wedding Venue basement. Ian tells him what the father told him, and the kid says they keep bringing him to a church (is that Ian’s trigger? Churches? and if so, why?), plus they have him see shrinks who have put him on meds that knock him on his ass and he can’t get an erection. He adds, “That’s what they really want-so I can’t have sex with another boy, you know? Ever.” Ian says, “Well you can’t stay here. You have to find someplace where you can be safe, where you can be yourself.” WHAT? I don’t understand. For one thing, isn’t that LITERALLY TERROR’S JOB? To take runaways and provide them with a safe place to stay and a plan to get their lives back on terms that they can live with? I don’t ever want to have to side with Terror, but this episode is basically saying that Terror’s way is right and Ian’s way is oh so wrong and misguided. What the fuck? Secondly, isn’t that what Ian THINKS he’s doing? Why is he telling the kid HE has to find someplace safe? Ian has literally been in this kid’s shoes-he knows there’s no safe places for someone even younger than he was when he got back from the army, living on the streets. Anyway, after Ian’s lines the kid says, “Will you help me?” but Ian doesn’t answer one way or the other.

I totally didn’t get this scene-why the writer had Ian say nothing. I could see if it was to show Ian was getting more and more manic and now is on the downside of that and is becoming too depressed to speak to people-but then where’s his energy for doing anything coming from, plus the story isn’t SAYING he’s manic or depressed, and Cam and John Wells said Ian’s storyline is bold, audacious, great, etc and I don’t think either of them would’ve said those things if the payoff is just going to be that Ian needed his meds adjusted. And why does Ian maybe believe what the kid is saying and not the dad? Again, this IS Ian’s story! Mentally ill, unable to help himself, and unwilling to take his pills! I wondered why Ian didn’t at least give him a version of the Monica “you don’t have to change for them” speech, or his own “you don’t have to fix me because I’m not broken” speech or why in the name of all that’s holy didn’t he tell the kid, “I’ve been exactly where you are-on meds that were supposed to help but made me feel like crap plus I couldn’t get it up-but that’s because they take time-you need to take them to get stable and then you’ll find what works for you and have no problems having sex again (since apparently Ian’s never had an issue since beating Mickey up at the dugouts).” AND the kid’s only 14-does Ian maybe want to advise him that feeling like he needs to be having sex that young to the point where he’s willing to run away and do it with anyone might be part of his symptoms?

Ian COULD be so helpful here, but no. At this point he is literally putting at risk kids at even greater risk.

Later Rando Bic shows Ian that the van’s back behind the church. Ian says, “Get the kid,” like he’s The Penguin and Bic’s his trusty lieutenant. It was so dumb. The kid is used as bait, and when the 3 guys jump out of the van Ian pops up behind the group and starts yelling. “My god’s a faggot! My god’s a dyke! My god is trans, a junkie, a whore!’ Then the van blows up. “We will not be victims!”

What the hell is he on about? That’s a serious question. None of this is making sense. God isn’t human, so Ian giving the Christian god human attributes makes no sense. “We won’t be victims” of WHAT? Gay conversion? This kid’s dad said he isn’t trying to convert his gay son. What is all the yelling and the explosion about? And to get back to the explosion for a moment: That had to be Ian’s brilliant plan, and it just makes me miss Mickey talking him down from stupid shit like that all the more. Bic is the one that actually lights the fire (get it? BIC?) but how did they even know that all 3 guys would get out of the van this time? Based on the first failed attempt to drive off with the kid, wouldn’t it make more sense that one of the guys would stay at the wheel and keep the van running and they’d take off the minute they shoved the kid inside before all of Ian’s disciples could block it again? Before I rewatched the scene this morning I actually wondered if the story is going to be Ian is guilty of killing one of the guys, but then I saw it again and all 3 did get out-but I still don’t think Bic could’ve seen them from where he snuck around to light it up. And I bet we don’t see Bic again-he was randomly thrown in because of course Terror wouldn’t have helped Ian carry out any plan that wasn’t his own. But it’s funny that they couldn’t have him in the episode because everyone, even the shitty writers, know there’s no way Terror could talk Ian out of it like Mickey would be able to.

In the scenes for next week, Terror shows up and asks, “Is Ian around?” and Debbie answers, “He’s not here.” Terror says, “There’s a warrant out for his arrest.” Wouldn’t the cops have gone to Ian’s house FIRST? Where would they have even found Terror to be asking about Ian since Ian doesn’t officially work for the Youth Center or the Church of Gay Jesus. More lazy writing, can’t wait for the whimpering end to this crapfest of a season.

#Spoilers #Recap #Season H8 Episode 11 #Disco isn't dead but that van sure is #Ian had his first Mickey kiss in a van #Ian gave Mickey a Spiderman kiss in a van after a night of fucking fantastic sex #In a van #Ian should know to show a van respect

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marvelousaddiction · 6 years

Text

Rules: Once you have been tagged you are supposed to write 92 truths about you. At the end choose 25 people to be tagged.

I was tagged by @pheonyxstorm

LAST:

Drink: Last thing I drank was a coke, last alcoholic beverage was Gentlemen’s Jack (but I may have regular Jack tonight)

(btw Tay, try Irish Trashcan, optional but add strawberry sour straw candy)

Phone Call: My momma lol

Text Message: @ceobryce

Song you listened to: Rammstein - Feuer Frei! (and Victorious a Breezy original)

Time I Cried: two tears in the shower, I missed the breakdown this time and I took care of myself so yeah...

HAVE YOU EVER:

Dated someone twice: nope

Been cheated on: twice

Kissed Someone and regretted it: yep, four people.....well....yeah four

Lost someone special: yep, some of them died, and one of them is still alive but I wish her the best still

been drunk and thrown up: yes, twice, but only a little bit each time and I’ve never really had a hangover, only maybe a mild headache when I wake up, I barely notice it

IN THE PAST YEAR HAVE YOU:

Made a new friend: I’d like to say so

Fallen Out of Love: no

Laughed Until You Cried: all the time like (almost) errday

Met Someone Who Changed You: no, not really, but people I have always had I’ve come to some realizations about leading to changes in myself, example, I drink sometimes now

Found Out Who your true friends are: mhm, I always constantly play it safe in this department because of my past

Found out someone was talking about me: honey, listen, people been talking about you since you came into this world and they gon’ talk about you after you out of it. (at least you're on their mind)

GENERAL:

How many people in Tumblr do you know in real life?: @ceobryce @wolfsilverlight @leftzombiepenguin @brayamac @violet-soulkeeper17 @talonvictor @oneshoeshort (and Megan, I have to find her name and edit this lol)

Do you have any pets?: Yep. Dusty Leroy (my last name), Simba Sophia (my last name), Angel Clemingtine (my last name), Bobby Lee (my last name) and Loli (Lolli) Pop (my last name)

Do you want to change your name? : First name,no, it made Papa proud I was named after him, Middle name, yes until this past june because I was the only kid of my dad’s kids (and grandkids) without the middle name Marie but in June something happened that changed my mind so I thanked my mom for naming me Irene. Last name, eventually lol, yknow marriage and shiz

What time did you wake up this morning: 6:00

What were you doing last night: laying in bed, talking to @browneyedhunter and ignoring what was going on outside my bedroom or trying with all my might and failing

Name something you cannot wait for: Just one thing, other than actually starting my life (long ass story), tonight (giggidy), the black panther movie and april fools day to take a day trip to Raleigh and see Kevin Hart (if life allows) and down the line a little bit, to be a mom

Have you ever talked to a person named Tom?: not to my recollection, but yes in my dreams, Tom Hiddleston is a amazing man

What’s getting on your nerves right now: nothing really at this moment, i guess being a female has terrible timing

Blood type: blood? red?

Nickname: Nerd, Short Person, BabyGirl, Jess, Jessie, Jessie Jess, Angel, there are so many

Relationship Status: Happy

Zodiac Sign: Cancer (June 25)

Pronouns: She, her, I am a cis girl lol but I will proudly respond to Dude, Bro, Bruh, Broski

Favorite Show: Obviously Supernatural is number 1, top 3 are Supernatural, Sherlock, and probably Penny Dreadful (but I have many favorites)

College: Not yet, I took a placement test and such but I am trying to get things straight first. Fingers crossed, within the next year or so I can start. I took some CP/ college class in high-school, there was one, Physcology, where the professor actually came and taught us and I did well in that also I think I made like a high Cor a B but with the history class they gave us a book, popped us in front of computers. I tried, I really did, but I also did something there that I never did in school before, I tried and couldn’t learn anything (that is when the computers actually worked) and it was just boring so I got fed up basically said fuck this shit and failed on purpose. My education currently is K4-graduating from high school with a diploma. I actually love learning so please don’t misunderstand, I hated school, but I still tried my best and did pretty well and never flunked a grade level or anything, I was also that person everyone hated for reminding teachers of homework when they forgot it because I was the one that, not exaggerating, had mental breakdowns doing it. In highschool there is/was a notorious teacher that everyone hated, literally, someone keyed his truck, but, he saw how hard I worked and such and he actually became like my best friend and I may have been a teacher’s pet but he and my other math teacher my senior year were my best friends. Okay long unnecessary rambling sorry

Hair Color: brunette, naturally, will eventually be black I know for certain. However, I colored it black once years ago, and in highschool I bleached my bangs so they were blonde, about two years ago but longer I put blue where the blonde was and that faded to teal, then i put red streaks throughout my hair when that was gone. Its been natural for a long time

Do you have a crush on someone: yes. celebrities, obviously, but there is one man on campus i sware i cant take my eyes off of lol. My babe,marie, and I have a whole private joke thing about it. He is known as Superman, you had to be there

What do you like about yourself: this one is really hard, honestly. It varies but I guess....I mean, my sweatshirt I am wearing now? that count? Oh! I can drink and not become my big sister, despite having to convince myself of that. It is complicated and my eyes too lol

FIRSTS:

First Surgery: it was getting my tonsils taken out when i was like maybe 5 or 6

First Piercing: ears, although i was never really able to wear earrings because of a reaction but they are closed now. I’m really thinking about getting my belly button pierced

First Sport You joined: there was the time when I was little and wrestling my dad, but that career ended when I kicked his nose/mouth and they swole, and the time I played football as a baby at my moms old family church but I bit my evil cousin? do those count?

First vacation: I don’t know if I ever had a vacation but I know my first time leaving home for a trip we went to Virginia, then Pittsburgh PA, then Niagra Falls NY

First Pair of Sneakers: I am willing to bet were hand me downs or from dollar general or a thrift store

Right Now:

Eating: Nothing at this second

Drinking: Nothing at this second but later Jack & Coke/soda and going to taste green apple Crown Royal with sprite,supposedly tastes like Jolly ranchers

I’m about to: respond to @browneyedhunter, shes been waiting while I typed all of this and hopefully tonight......uh giggidy

Listening to: keys typing and Jimmy’s snoring behind me

Want Kids: in the future, someday, yes, very much

Get Married: maybe, I’ll see if life let’s me but people say Jimmy and I are married. By people I mean my 62 yr old parents and his grandad, and his mom

Career: I really want one someday, but, we have talked, and we would both be alright with being a SAHM too. Right now, I don’t feel like I am doing my part despite what everyone says; but as long as I feel like I am doing that, I am good

SO TIREED!!! SHOULDERS HUUURURRTT

Lips or Eyes: who’s?

Hugs or kisses: again, who are we talking about?

Shorter or tall: I am shorter than everyone, @emoryhemsworth knows what I mean since we are both 4′9

Older or Younger: I have a thing for older guys

Romantic or Spontaneous: both

Sensitive or loud: those things don’t always necessarily correlate

Hookup or Relationship: Relationship. Unless it is another girl’ then I couldn’t do a relationship unless it was Poly

Troublemaker or Hesitant: hesitant af

Have You Ever:

Kissed a stranger: no, that is how disease happens. Unless...I guess Jimmy was technically a stranger when I met him and we kissed

Drank hard liquor: the hardest thing I have found I actually like is whiskey or Irish Trashcan

Lost Contacts/ glasses: nope

Sex on first date: believe it or not i have only ever done it with one person

Broken someone’s heart: I think I broke Faith’s heart when I told her true things about disney,childhood movies, fairytales etc

Been arrested: no, my parents have though XD

turned someone down: nope

Fallen for a friend: Yup, wish her well but she co go screw herself or that sweet soulles-

DO YOU BELIEVE:

In yourself: most of the time, no

Miracles: yes, because of I have lived through some, many of them

Love at First sight: i guess

Ive tagged people lol, I am done

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hero-of-burning-courage-blog · 7 years

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Some personal shit to be ranted about below. This is just me venting into the void.

So for those of you who don’t know, I was physically abused and psychologically tortured by my older half brother within my memory span from ages 3 to 16 (which was when he was kicked out of the house). This happened behind closed doors when we were supposed to be playing when dad (our shared parent) was off to work, and my mom was busy doing things around the house. He would vent his anger and frustrations out on me. He’d hit me in places that would be covered by my clothes until it bruised and I was crying, but I wouldn’t be allowed to make a noise. I quickly learned to adapt to pain and pretend everything was okay, otherwise, he’d kill everyone I loved before he would kill me. Now, he was only 2 years older than me, but as a child, I couldn’t rationalise that he couldn’t do that to my parents just yet. How could I? I was 3 when it started.

I hated summer time because it meant he’d be living with us instead of his mother.

When he turned 8, my parents gained full custody over him, and I cried myself to sleep every night, silently... but I had already been trained to not show it outside of my locked room at night, and I was only 6. A 6-year-old shouldn’t have to worry about their parents knowing they are in pain or scared for their own life. A 6-year-old should be playing, and be okay with telling their parents anything... but how could I? He’d kill everyone I loved before he’d finally kill me.

By no means were my parents perfect. They had their flaws. They could be emotionally and mentally abusive at times. It definitely got worse as I developed my own sense of self. Now I’m an adult, and I’m no longer their little girl... I’m a grown man, and they seem to hate that, but won’t say it anymore.

To them, family must always be forgiven, no matter how egregious the actions of a member... even if said actions were directed at another family member. You must do all you can to paint the picture of a happy family, despite how broken you are on the inside... despite how broken another family member made you.

I kept my mouth shut until November of 2015. I had just turned 21 the month prior to finally telling my parents why I hated my older half brother so much. It took me 5 years to summon the courage to say something about all the horrible things that had happened. To be brave enough to go against what I had been tortured into believing for so long... to know that he couldn’t kill everyone I loved before he’d finally kill me.

As I write this, I’m biting back tears. I shake with fear that somehow he’d know it was me writing this, that he’d make good on his promise, but I need this to be known... because after this horrible secret being spilled to my parents (and he most certainly knows because they confronted him)... not even 2 years after the truth being known, my dad invites him over to my younger brother’s graduation party, and he sneaks up behind me to say hello. I knew he was coming and was already orchestrating how to leave with Kara and Tyler before he showed up, but he was early. I fled to my room and locked the door. I was having an anxiety attack.

My other younger brother (have 3 of them), was the first to notice I wasn’t upstairs for the party. He was sent to ask me if the peach cobbler I was making was finished, or if the collard greens were done. I had finished both just as my abuser had surprised me. I regrettably snapped at Kevin (the one who noticed I wasn’t around) when he couldn’t hear me and knocked hard on my door and tried to open it and found it to be locked. I apologised later for that...

My mother was next. She called my phone to ask me where I was and if all the food was done. I told her I was in my room, trying not to panic (despite already panicking), and that my friend Tyler was on his was to pick me up and take me somewhere safe. She didn’t protest this, accepted it, but informed my dad... who was not okay with this.

My father came down and didn't’ say anything before trying to force my door open, causing me to panic more. How could I not know that it was my abuser? I cleared my throat to make myself sound okay and tentatively responded, asking who was there. Dad said it was him and demanded I open my door. I did as I was asked and he forced his way into my room... only to yell at and reprimand me for wanting to leave and for panicking. He berated me and tried to humiliate me for being scared. He tried to invalidate my gender identity, because years of torture left me frightened and crying... and real men wouldn’t let something like that get to them. Mind you, my father has been to war and also has PTSD. He can’t get in his vehicle without checking under it to make sure no bombs were planted there. Guess he’s not a real man either, based on his shitty definition of a real man -queue eye roll here-

After seeing that he “couldn’t get through to me” by yelling and humiliating me and making me panic more, after an awkward silence for a good 5 to 10 minutes, he quietly asked me what I would like him to do, I responded barely above a whisper, “I’d like for you to get out of my room please.” And this pissed him off further. He called me a selfish asshole and “That’s what you’re going to say to me?!” Then got up and slammed my bedroom door on his way out. I cried and waited for all to go quiet before I fled. My shoes had been hidden, but I found my flip flops, ignoring my strict rule of no socks and sandals, put those on, and proceeded to leave. My mom saw me head out and caught me just as I got to the sidewalk in front of our yard. She asked me where I was going, I told her I was going to the park and Tyler would be picking me up soon. She asked if I’d be home that night, and I said I wasn’t sure, but dad was pissed off and probably didn’t want me home anyways, and I definitely wouldn’t return until my abuser was gone. She let me go without further protest.

My calves burned as I rushed to the park, only to then decide to go further, walking all the way to the high school in my neighbourhood. The walk helped my nerves, but only enough to calm me from my anxiety attack. I was still a paranoid wreck, trying hard to not dissociate. Tyler texted that he was 5 minutes away. That was the longest 5 minutes of my life. I jumped at every sound that wasn’t a bird, kept scanning around and stayed hidden until Tyler’s car showed up. I was safe.

The car ride was mostly silence, with the dull hum of the radio. Tyler kept changing the station, but I mostly couldn’t pay attention to what was on. I could barely focus on his words whenever he spoke. I was safe, but I was still scared. There were several times where I wanted to grab his hand as an anchor, but he was driving, and I dunno if that’d be awkward or give the wrong idea, so I kept my hands to myself.

We made it to a mutual friend’s house, spent the evening with a handful of friends who were aware of the situation, they helped me calm down and get my mind off things. I tried hard to focus on what we were doing, my mind drifting every so often, but someone always managed to pull my attention back to reality and away from all the what ifs and paranoid thoughts of the future when I’d have to return home.

I then received a text towards the later hours of the evening that my abuser might be staying the night in my home. Cass, Adam, and Derek offered to let me stay at their house for the evening, and I definitely stayed. My abuser didn’t leave my house until almost 1 in the morning. Mom asked me if I was coming home, and I told her that everyone already left or went to bed, so I’d be back in the morning.

I did return the next morning, having barely slept and was plagued with night terrors, only to receive a cold shoulder from my dad... which I suppose was better than him deciding to yell at me more. I have been bouncing between apathetic and on the verge of tears since that happened... which was just this past Memorial Day weekend. Dad has barely spoken more than a couple sentences to me since it happened.

I’ve been depressed since then... nerves on edge because now my abuser knows exactly where to find me. I’m hoping to be gone to finish school by next spring, but that feels ages away and it makes me sick thinking about having to wait that long. I feel like I won’t be able to truly get better until I have my own place away from here, a place that my abuser has no knowledge of. Rent is too expensive in Colorado to find my own place now, especially since I’m trying to save my money to move up to Minnesota to finish school.

I have had the impulsive thought to shave my head, change my glasses, put a rush on my top surgery, pick a different name despite how much I love my name now, and move to a different state now... but I don’t have enough to do that. I like my hair and glass and name... I don’t even know where I’d go right now... so I’m stuck. I work 45~ hours a week as a baker, and I’m stuck right now. I’d pick up on commissions for extra cash, but I don’t even have enough of a following for anyone to care enough to pay me. I’m shit at advertising myself on social media. I’m barely capable of running an RP blog. I’m hardly active on Facebook. I go generally unnoticed. Sometimes I prefer to be that anonymous despite my wildly coloured hair and spunky personality (when I’m not feeling like utter shit)... I dunno... I’m working hard now, and I’ll get there. I gotta work on my portfolio to get into the school I’m planning on anyways. I may open up commissions when I’m feeling less frazzled and ready to bolt at the mildest sign of danger.

I’d like to thank my friends Kara, Tyler, Cass, Adam, Derek, and Nate (who was the only unmentioned friend in this, lmao, despite his humour helping me along too) for being there. I’d probably be in a lot worse of a state of mind if y’all didn’t kidnap me. I’d also like to thank my online friends Yuki, Psyco, and Inu for keeping me calm through that anxiety attack while I waited for Tyler to come get me.

I will be okay, I just need time to recover. It’s been one thing after another lately, but I feel like things will get better soon, at least for now.

He can’t kill everyone I love and then me, because he doesn’t live in this town, and my family now knows, and so do you, dear readers. I have survived this long, and will continue to do so for many years, because his threats were probably empty. I am stronger than my mental illness. I am stronger than the torture he put me through. I may hate him for all the horrible things he did to me and my family, he may terrify me still, but I am stronger than him.

I am stronger than him.

#personal #tw: abuse #tw: abusive situations #tw: abusive family #tw: mental illness #a whisper on the wind {ooc}

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junker-town · 7 years

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NHL trade deadline 2017: Grades for every deal made before 3 p.m. on Wednesday

An early start on our hot trade takes.

We’re just days away from the 2017 NHL trade deadline. Rumor winds picked up over the weekend, culminating in two big trades.

So we’re going to get the live grading done early. As we approach the Wednesday afternoon deadline, we’ll grade every single trade made right here. No matter how small. Seriously, there’s a Viktor Loov analysis in here somewhere. We barely remember it, but it exists.

But you’re here for the big moves, and we’ll have those, too. Our takes on Martin Hanzal to the Wild and Ben Bishop to the Kings are here. We love those because they’re an indication of this season’s odd situation: the expansion draft and tight salary cap will make teams create moves with a ton of nuance and thought behind it.

We have a feeling moves will keep coming down over the next 48 hours, meaning the deadline day might be quiet. So read on and bookmark for our grades, and follow our NHL trade tracker right here.

WILD GO ALL-IN FOR HANZAL

I kind of love this trade. I love it for the Coyotes, who squeezed the best possible price out of a decent-but-not-great player in the form of three high draft picks. If you thought their system was stacked now ... yeesh.

I love that the Wild are just deciding to go for it this year. The Western Conference is weak. This is their chance. I love that they can roll a lineup with Mikko Koivu, Mikael Granlund (or Eric Staal), Martin Hanzal and Erik Haula down the middle. Find me a better quartet of dynamic centers in the West. I’ll wait.

And I love that they didn’t part with any of their best prospects. Kirill Kaprizov, Jordan Greenway, Alex Tuch, Kaapo Kahkonen, Luke Kunin ... they’re all still part of the Wild’s bright future. They get to have their Martin Hanzal, playoff run-boosting cake and eat it later, too.

This is good.

Wild grade: A-

Coyotes grade: Eventual A+. Patience, Arizona. Your time will come.

KINGS TAKE BISHOP

I’ve used that chess joke at least five times already.

So ... this trade. There’s a lot of nuance here. More than there would be if he got sent to, say, Calgary or Dallas.

Dean Lombardi essentially confirmed that this is because they want to keep Jonathan Quick from playing all of their remaining 21 games ... but they still want to push for the playoffs. So what better way to do that than carry two elite goalies on your roster?

When the shock wore off, I wrote about how much I appreciate this trade from a logic standpoint. L.A. didn’t give up a whole lot for Bishop, but they’ll get some serious insurance if Quick gets injured again. And don’t count out the idea that they’re taking calls on Bishop already.

As for Tampa Bay ... at least they got something for him. And now they can finally let Andrei Vasilevskiy roam free.

Lightning grade: Knight to E5

Kings grade: Two elite goalies out of two

EAVESY GO

Typical NHL. Wait until the Friday afternoon before the deadline to drop two trades on us in like half an hour.

The first? Dallas sent Patrick Eaves to the Ducks for a conditional second round pick. Ignore the angry Stars fans. Trust the Stars fan writing this thing: this is a good trade for both sides.

Anaheim gets some scoring depth and a guy who can make a difference on the power play if matched with the right teammates. Dallas gets a second round pick for an unrestricted free agent veteran.

It could even turn into a first round pick, but I’m not kidding when I say the conditions attached here are a damn maze:

Based on draft position, Dallas will receive the middle pick of Ottawa, San Jose or Toronto's second-round selections in 2017 per the conditions in which Anaheim acquired the pick from Toronto in a previous trade.

It’s a condition within a condition. Conditional inception.

Ducks grade:

Eaves has seen some shit http://pic.twitter.com/aMO9cc7Sjs

— Josh Lile, TX (@JoshL1220) March 30, 2016

Stars grade:

HUDDLED MASSES JURCO-ING TO BREATHE FREE

What a stretch.

Win-win trade here. Detroit gets a decent draft pick back, and Chicago gets a player with promise and untapped potential in need of a scenery change.

Blackhawks grade: Salary cap wizards.

Red Wings grade: Just the beginning of the sell-off, but not a bad start.

RON HAINSEY GETS A SHOT AT THE PLAYOFFS

So this one kind of came out of nowhere, like many of these earlier deals. Pittsburgh dropped this news on us mid-morning on Thursday, and then revealed why: Trevor Daley is out for awhile after surgery.

Thus, the need for a depth defenseman. And why they ponied up a 2nd round pick. There’s a 10 percent chance that pick turns into an elite player, but if they win a Stanley Cup with this depth it’s worth it.

Also, this is just a great story. Ron Hainsey, 35, has 891 NHL games under his belt without a single trip to the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

Penguins grade: Ten thousand NBC playoff broadcast mentions out of ten thousand

Hurricanes grade: A-

MICHAEL STONE ROLLS TO CALGARY

Whether Michael Stone is actually a good top-four defenseman or not is kind of irrelevant at this point. He could be better than Dennis Wideman this year, so it’s worth the Flames making the move.

Arizona got Calgary’s 2017 third rounder and a conditional fifth in 2018 (only if he re-signs with Calgary this summer). Your typical high-upside deadline deal. Arizona frees up room for youngsters like Anthony DeAngelo or Kyle Wood to play more while recouping two picks. Not bad.

Coyotes grade: 16 prematurely announced new arena deals out of 19

Flames grade: [stone pun]

NOW HERE’S A TRADE YOU’LL LOOV

This trade went down two weeks before the deadline and made many of us wonder if this would be the high point.

Toronto traded defenseman Viktor Loov to the Devils. New Jersey traded Sergey Kalinin to the Leafs. A minor league deal. Enthralling.

Leafs grade:

Sergey Kalinin is bad.

— Scott Wheeler (@scottcwheeler) February 18, 2017

Devils grade:

u could put a horse in a time machine and send it to any era and the horse's life would literally be the same

— chuuch (@ch000ch) June 6, 2016

WE WISH TOM GILBERT WENT TO PITTSBURGH

We had so many Gilbert & Sullivan jokes lined up. Instead, we’ll waste your time with this.

youtube

Kings grade: I should go.

Capitals grade: The very model of a scientist salarian.

PAYING FOR FIDDLER THROUGH THE ROOF

The Preds’ second move of the trade season was bringing back veteran center Vernon Fiddler. Cool. He’s 36 years old and an unrestricted free agent, so he shouldn’t be worth more than a ... wait, a fourth round pick this year?

I like Vernon Fiddler a whole lot as a character guy. Veteran presence. Intangibles. Whatnot. But it’s been a month and I’m still not sure why the Predators paid so much for him.

Predators grade: Fiddler’s Kevin Bieksa impression.

Devils grade: Alain Vigneault’s reaction to said impression.

TOMMY WONGELS

It’s nice to see the Senators joining the sellers’ side of the aisle so early this season. And for such a decent player at a reasonable price!

Tommy Wingels is a meat and potatoes player: a hard forechecker with scoring ability who can play center or wing in the bottom six. And he’s been ... okay since joining Ottawa.

San Jose got a rough-and-tumble player for him in Buddy Robinson, a minor league defenseman in Zack Stortini and a 2017 seventh round pick.

Sharks grade: Fine, I guess.

Senators grade: TOMMY WONGELS

BLACKHAWKS TRADE BLAH BLAH BLAH

This was the most inconsequential trade of the year. I’m only bringing it up because Michael Latta is involved. I never pass up this opportunity.

Hey, remember when the Capitals traded Filip Forsberg to the Predators for Latta and Martin Erat? Remember how the two combined for five goals before leaving the Capitals two years later? Remember how lopsided that trade was?

Anyway.

Blackhawks Predators grade: A +++++

Kings Capitals grade: F - - - - -

COLORADO MAKES THE TRADE NOBODY WANTED

What a tease. We all knew the Avs would blow up their core soon. Who would be the first to go? Duchene? Landeskog? Iginla?

Nope. Noted grinder Cody McLeod, sent to Nashville for a forward prospect named Félix Girard. Considering the cost involved in the trade below, that’s ... kind of a steal.

Avalanche grade: Three missing teeth out of five.

Predators grade: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

LEAFS JETTISON ENROTH

Jhonas Enroth is essentially a minor league goalie now. Or maybe not! We’ll never know, because nobody will ever give him a starting shot again. So Toronto shipped him to the Ducks for a 2018 7th round pick. Pour one out for Jhonas.

Also of note: this is the third goalie swapped between Anaheim and Toronto this season. (Remember the Bernier-for-Andersen trade?) That’s a 2,500 mile trip. That’s torture.

Leafs grade then: Sure, why not.

Leafs grade now: Perhaps you didn’t hear us the first time: Sure, why not.

Ducks grade then: Cool.

Ducks grade now: A 10-2-0 AHL record? Sure, why not.

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