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honeykngdom · 8 months

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𝚜𝚠𝚎𝚎𝚝 𝚊𝚜 𝚑𝚘𝚗𝚎𝚢 | 𝚎. 𝚌𝚊𝚕𝚕 | 𝚌𝚑𝚊𝚙𝚝𝚎𝚛 𝚎𝚕𝚎𝚟𝚎𝚗

Pairing: Embry Call x Original Character Summary: Join Ainsley and Embry as they embark on a journey where they are forced to question everything they thought they knew, and embrace the pain that is inevitable to avoid in love. An imprint story. Self-discovery. Angst and romance. Word Count: 5.2k Warnings: N/A Taglist: @leilaniers - message / comment if you'd like to be tagged in new chapters (or for Embry content in general)! prev. chapter

Several weeks went by like that. Once a week, I would tell Embry that I was heading to work but would detour to the Cullen household instead. Alice and I would often coordinate together to make sure that Jacob and Renesmee weren’t in the area before I showed up. Keeping them in the dark for now still seemed like it was our best option – Jacob wouldn’t be able to withhold it from Embry even if he wanted to. In between working at the diner and helping Maddox push the boundaries of his control, I spent every ounce of my free time with Embry and the boys.

So many parts of me felt guilty for lying to him – especially when he had been putting forward more effort to fit into my life.

The pair of us visited home once every other week to have breakfast or dinner with my family. Embry and the pack spent more time trying including my brothers, which helped integrate them into the pack in their own unique way. It was nice to have Travis part of the mix now, but I still worried that he might get hurt. Understandably so, Sam still had reservations when it came to some of the younger members, but as long as we kept it within the main ranks, he seemed satisfied. With the tension growing thicker between the pack and the obvious need to find the nomads, everyone’s control had not been the greatest. Jacob and Embry had gotten into it a few times, even Seth and Quil were more on edge.

I asked a few times about his mother – she had remarried and moved off the reservation to Tacoma. Had a second child now that Embry was independent and a man of his own. For the most part, Embry didn’t speak much about her. Part of me found it incredibly sad; Quil had explained that Tiffany had been incredibly upset and scared during their teen years when the pack first began phasing. Unlike Billy and Sue, Tiffany had no idea about the tribe’s legends, or that there was any possibility they may hold any semblance of truth. Embry was never able to tell Tiffany the truth about what was going on, and the distance put a heavy strain on their relationship.

“When’s the last time he went to see her?”

Quil shrugged, “Not really sure. Christmas a couple years ago, maybe?”

Vague, but that was Quil. Sure, it wasn’t my place to meddle, but Embry had given me such a hard time about maintaining a relationship with my own mother that I thought it was a little hypocritical that he hardly maintained one with his own.

Christmas came and went; Embry opted to ‘gift’ me quite a few things, including an actual coffee machine for his kitchen, as well as a pretty white gold chain with a sterling crescent moon cut out. We spent most of our time together on his new couch (which he purchased a few days after he attempted to sleep on the loveseat following my initial run in with Maddox) wrapped in each other's arms with the fireplace going.

Each week, Maddox would return to the Cullen’s with more accurate locations on the safehouses for any vampire Garrett turned, making a total of five by the time the new year had come. Edward would inform Jacob regarding their locations, trying to make it seem as though Alice had seen it in a vision while following the female nomad – Jacob would bring the news home to the others; they then tore through each house one by one tear and destroyed whatever nomad kept residence.

I tried not to think about it too much. If I got too caught up in the semantics, things always got bad.

There were only three nomads that remained, apart from Maddox. The closer the pack got to taking out the threat, the more uneasy things began to feel at home. Emily was nearing six months into her second pregnancy – bloated and hormonal as ever, causing quite a bit of strain on the pack's eating habits as she was more tired and more hungry. She cared less about feeding everyone else, moreso intent on getting food into her own belly. With no definitive place to gather at, the pack had dispersed their separate ways and only saw each other twice a week as opposed to every day.

Jared and Kim’s wedding was right around the corner, so the pair had been hellbent on having Embry and I help them with the finishing touches. Kim and I spent many late nights and early mornings camping out in Embry and Jacob’s living room, making sure we had a final head count on those invited to the wedding.

When it was mentioned that I was still waiting on the Cullen’s to RSVP, I made sure Kim knew I would have Jacob ask to confirm. We were two weeks into January now – Jacob’s birthday had finally come around. Being the first of his friends to turn twenty-five was a big deal for him, and so the group had collectively pulled together what they were sure was the ultimate birthday experience. After what appeared to be a heart-felt dinner celebration, the boys prompted Jacob into a blindfold and carried him out to Paul’s truck

“We’re taking him to a strip club.” Jared said casually, pulling out a wad of bills larger than I had ever laid eyes on.

“A strip club.” I repeated, watching Paul nod excitedly.

“We did this for my birthday last year – lots of lap dances, lots of booze –”

“I see.” I shared a knowing look with Kim, the pair returning to their post-food comatose on Embry’s couch. Kim had agreed to stay the night with me, knowing the boys would not be home until the early hours of the morning and much to everyone’s dismay, Maddox was still unaccounted for.

The idea that a vampire that had previous connections with his imprint was still out made Embry a little uneasy – the longer the pack went without catching his scent, the more erratic he became. I was being babysat as per Embry’s instruction – the only person that knew of Maddox’s whereabouts apart from myself was Trenton.

Speaking of.

“Are you bringing my brothers?” I asked, shrugging my arms into the sleeves of Embry’s heather gray hoodie.

“Hell yeah,” Jared laughed. “Travis was the one who really pushed for it.”

“That’s because Travis is lonely and miserable while the rest of us have hot as fuck girlfriends.” Embry cooed as he joined us in the living room, leaning over the back of the couch to press his mouth against mine. He enticed a quiet hum from my chest when he sucked on my lower lip.

“Be nice.” I mumbled against his lips, smiling nonetheless.

When the men left for the evening, Kim and I sat curled up on our respective sides of the couch, scrolling through our phones. Undoubtedly, Jared messaged Kim just as quickly as Embry messaged me. We spent what appeared to be well over an hour in silence before I lazily pulled the remote from the coffee table and flipped on the television.

“I can’t believe I’m going to be a wife.” Kim said into the quiet room suddenly.

I blinked slowly, shifting my eyes to look over at her. She sat upright, eyes wide with a sort of fear. I was sure this was where I was supposed to say something soothing and reassuring but honestly, I couldn’t believe it either.

Kim and Jared were the least serious couple of the group – which made them the best sort of couple to me. Watching them crack jokes and pull pranks on each other was my favourite pastime – but I knew how marriages worked. They pulled some people apart. And I wanted to believe that wouldn’t happen to them, but I knew there was a chance. Nothing was impossible.

“I can’t believe you’re marrying Jared.” I retorted, turning my attention back to the television. “He’s an adult, male version of Claire –”

“Exactly!” Kim huffed, shaking her head. “Ains, what am I gonna do? I can’t be a wife, I barely know how to cook.”

“Doesn’t Jared?”

“Yeah.”

“Then you don’t have to cook.” I said simply.

Kim deadpanned, mouth slightly ajar as I pulled the wrapper off another holiday mint and popped it into my mouth. “How can you say that?”

I shrugged, shoving my hands into the pocket in the front of the hoodie. “Embry does all the cooking.”

“You don’t help?”

I rolled my eyes, flipping onto my back. “Of course I will help. I just don’t do the cooking – I clean, I do laundry, I wash dishes. I help Emb and Jake make sure the property tax is paid on time and that bills are kept up with – that sort of thing. You’re already doing most of that on your own, anyway.”

Kim let it all process, chewing on her lower lip. “I don’t want to live with a boy. He’s so messy!”

I could only laugh. “It’s less scary than you think, though I’m not the one with a ring on her finger.”

“Easy for you to say – Embry makes more money than Jared does. You’re both sitting on a nice, fluffy cushion of savings, and have the luxury of personal space. Jared’s losing his shit and can barely afford the place he has now.”

“What’s wrong with Jared’s place?”

Kim rubbed her face with her tired hands. “He lives in a very small, very tight one bedroom apartment. We’re both going to be stuck in a very cramped area for a solid year before we can even think about moving out.”

“It won’t be so bad –”

“Embry and Jacob have this entire two story house, Ains. That’s not exactly something people making ends meet have the luxury of owning. You’re already doing better than most people in their thirties.”

I tried to process that information. It hadn’t fully dawned on me that Embry and I were better off than most of their brothers – and hadn’t realized that Kim and Jared were digging themselves a hole. They were one foot in the door to being in debt, and I was stressing out about not having any spending money after paying off next year's tuition.

“Then why get married right now?”

Kim sighed loudly, shaking her head again, this time with a smile that screamed ‘isn’t it obvious?’. “Because I love him.”

“Okay,” I lamented, sitting up, “and he loves you. And that isn’t going to change – in twenty years from now, you’ll still love him and he’ll still love you.”

“Stop being right,” Kim grumbled, pushing my shoulders so that I fell back into the couch, “can you make a stupid decision so the rest of us don’t feel so brain dead?”

I forced a smile. “I’m already making plenty of bad decisions, Kim.” Just none that you can know about.

𝙹𝚊𝚌𝚘𝚋

Jacob nestled into his corner of the couch, watching as Rosalie ran her fingers through Renesmee’s hair; the trio had been cooped up in the Cullen household all morning. Fork’s was covered under a near constant stream of storm clouds that had yet to let up long enough for him to return home on terms that Nessie deemed ‘safe’. He chalked it up to her wanting some more time with him – which he was always willing to give. In the last seven years, she had grown into quite the remarkable individual. While being incredibly strange to the others in her life, she had a charm that Jacob was certain would bring her sunshine even on the dreariest of days.

Bella and Jacob spent many conversations discussing what they considered appropriate in regards to his relationship with Renesmee. Jacob agreed that it seemed beyond normal to expect anything other than a friendship from her daughter. Regardless of what the Elders might have believed, Jake couldn’t see past the babyface. There was a small part of him that didn’t sit well at the thought of trying to pursue a romantic relationship with her; he genuinely feared there might be a day when Renesemee asked for more, and he wouldn’t be able to refuse. That his genes wouldn’t allow him — they had taken so much autonomy from his as it was.

Instead, Jacob made a vow to be the shoulder to cry on when boys attempted to break her big heart. He would be her best friend and protector – and he would love her unconditionally and always think of her safety and comfortability above all else. He was perfectly content watching over what he considered his family. But that was where it ended – there was nothing romantic about it, or to come of it. He needed to be sure of it, so much so that no one had referred to Renesmee as his ‘imprint’ since her first few months of life.

Small pale fingers touched his knee, pulling his sight into a tunnel before images played in fast-forward: circling glimpses of Ainsley and Emily, along with the unspoken question of their well-being led Jacob to believe that Nessie missed the reservation, and had not felt wanted or welcome since Thanksgiving. The last Nessie had heard from Ainsley was a few weeks ago, just before Christmas. She had gotten a phone call, asking where the Cullen’s resided, mentioning something about wanting to come see her – to apologize.

Ainsley had never shown up.

Jacob had apologized for his cousin's ignorance many times – tried to explain on multiple occasions that Ainsley just hadn’t known about anything. Despite that knowledge, Edward and Bella still believed it would be better if Renesmee remained on their side of the border.

This resulted in Jacob’s absence at home – which he soon realized was putting strain on the rest of the pack. Everyone withdrew into their own personal lives again, just when things were finally beginning to look normal. It was so nice, having everyone together all the time. He remembered a time when he hated spending every waking second with a group of rowdy, immature boys but he longed for those days all the time now. The only reason why they had fallen back into old habits was because of Ainsley and Embry – a sort of means to help her feel inclusive. Especially after Embry’s shitshow.

It appeared as though Ainsley was tougher than everyone gave her credit for. She handled Embry’s temper like a champ, dutifully stepping up to the plate when the others fell short. Acted as a mother hen whenever Emily couldn’t be bothered to scold or bake for the group. But even that had become daunting. In between working and trying to keep up with everyone in her life – the pack and her own family, Jacob could see the strain and exhaustion in Ainsley’s eyes.

Things would’ve been different now, he’d tell himself. If he could just bring Nessie back to the reservation, if they’d just let him, he could pull everyone back together again.

He offered his best friend a sad smile, and wrapped an arm around her shoulders in a tight squeeze. “I’m sure you’ll see them soon.” He promised.

“C’mon, Ness,” Rose said quietly, urging her to stand, “let’s get you something to eat.”

“What about me?” Jacob complained, watching Nessie disappear into the kitchen.

Rosalie looked over her shoulder, the corner of her mouth upturned in an exhausted smile. “You can fend for yourself, Jacob. You’re no stranger to our kitchen.”

The wolf scoffed, turning his attention back to the television mounted to the wall. The news was muted, the screen split between the terrors that were turning Seattle upside down for the second time this decade, along with whatever college basketball game was playing in the local area. From his peripheral vision, Jake caught the figure of a stranger trudging up the driveway.

It wasn’t until said visitor started taking the steps at the front door two at a time that Jacob stood and rushed down the stairs. Obscene anger and rage filled his body, a searing heat bubbling at the surface. The part of him that needed to ensure Renesmee’s safety overtook his judgement. The scent filled the room before the door had even had a chance to open – Jacob’s hands pressed flat against their shoulders and shoved them hard, sending the body flying back a few several feet.

The man’s response was automatic: cold hands gripped his throat tightly, the growl rising from somewhere deep within both their chests. The sounds clashed together, so different but with the same underlying warning. Jacob clenched his fist around one of the vampire's wrists, pulling roughly with a loud snarl, twisting the figure away. Just as quickly, Jacob found himself being hoisted up – not by much – before his body came crashing down on the cement of the stairs, the brick crumbling under his weight and the sheer force of the impact. Jacob heaved in air, desperately trying to breath around the vice grip on his throat; it wasn’t until he really looked at the intruder that he stopped struggling.

His face was smooth except for the slight stubble that permanently resided on his lower face. His hair fell in loose waves, framing his squared jaw in that sort of subtly perfect way. Every fiber in Jacob’s body, every vein screamed in protest as his scent overwhelmed him. Over some time, he had grown accustomed to the stench of the Cullen’s, but his was different.

Familiar, but different.

Jacob thought back, trying to pinpoint where he had picked up on the scent before. Jasper was pulling the man – Maddox, as he called himself – away from Jacob’s limp body, his mind swirling when Renesmee placed her hands on his shoulders, worry and anxiety filling his mind.

Jacob shut his eyes tightly, shaking his head quickly as though to clear her thoughts from his head. He had definitely caught this scent before. Not from patrol. Not from a local bar. Not from the diner –

The diner.

Ainsley.

His eyes shot open, frame bolting forward as quickly as he could manage, tremor rolling down his spine as he collided with the nomad’s body and sent him backwards again – this time far enough that he disappeared momentarily into the underbrush of the forest.

“What’s he doing here?” Jacob growled.

Maddox stood slowly, readjusting his jacket, amber eyes locked on Jacob’s heaving frame. “Control your guard dog, would you?” He muttered to Jasper, picking a leaf out of his hair.

“I thought you said you didn’t know where the nomads were.” Jacob accused with heavy disappointment, looking down at Renesmee. She shrugged under the weight of his gaze, seeming just as confused as Jacob.

“He’s not the problem, Jake.” Jasper said quickly, holding out one hand as a means of halting Jacob from moving forward. “He came to Carlisle for help. That’s all we’re trying to do.”

“Yeah, expand the family a little more, it’s not like you’re big enough already.” Jacob spat, pulling his lips back over his teeth. “It’s not like the large quantity hasn’t already put enough strain on us before. What’s a few more kids, huh?”

“Jacob …”

“There are seventeen of us,” he growled, taking a step to the side, “half of them are trying to stop it from happening again, some of them left altogether, and the rest of us are trying to settle down and start our lives.”

“We didn’t turn him –”

“This wasn’t part of the agreement.” Chief Jacob was slowly starting to break out of shell. Very rarely did Jacob like being the alpha – more so settled into the role because Sam had made a definitive decision to leave it behind. It had been two years since Sam had last phased – two years until the night the nomads crossed onto their land. No one was entirely certain how long it would take to break the bond – Sam stopped after expecting his first child, but now would have to start all over again.

Not exactly the stress Emily needed.

“Jacob.” The wolf tensed, halting his feet from moving as Carlisle came down past the ruins of the stairs and placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. “Allow us to explain. Please.”

After an hour of arguments and several hand tremors, Jacob was finally seated in the living room, watching Maddox carefully. So, he had sought out help for control. So, he didn’t want to be a vampire. So, he didn’t anticipate all of the downfalls to being an immortal bloodsucking killer – what a shocker. That didn’t excuse that Jacob couldn't trust his loyalty.

“And no one knows?” He asked again, squinting his eyes at Maddox.

The vampire’s facial features remained smooth and even, his head tilting to the side, “None of the dogs know, no.”

“Would you stop calling us that?”

“Would you stop trying to find a loophole so you can kill me?” Maddox asked angrily, leaning forward with his knuckles on his knees.

Jacob growled inwardly, pulling his eyes away from Maddox. Nessie sat on the other side of the couch, her legs folded under her, her arms wrapped around one of the throw pillows. He could see the wheels in her tiny, brilliant mind turning. She was trying to piece it all together, trying to pinpoint exactly what fit and didn’t. What was a lie and what was the truth.

“Speak your mind, kiddo.” Jacob encouraged, folding his arms across his broad chest.

She shook her head, gnawing on her lower lip – a human Bella trait she had picked up in the last few years – and sighed. “It doesn’t add up.” Renesmee was looking at Maddox now, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “How did you find us? We’re not exactly easily accessible.”

His amber eyes darted up from the frayed string of his shirt to meet her eyes. He took a few moments before he responded. “I had an inside friend help.”

Renesmee’s brows pulled together in frustration, letting out a petulant sigh. “We do have a lot of friends …” She mused to herself, still working to fit two and two together.

“Give it up.” Maddox suggested angrily, pushing himself up out of the recliner.

Jacob shot him a look in warning. “We’re just trying to piece it together –”

His voice boomed, overpowering Jacob’s easily. “Trust me when I say that you, of all people, do not want to know.” There was a certainty to his look. The way his eyes hardened in a definitive way. The way that halted the conversation. Jacob knew that look – Jacob had mastered that look.

“What do you mean ‘me of all people?” Apparently Jacob was going to play Paul today – asking useless questions, taking personal offense to the nomads words.

“It’s just in your best interest to not know, that’s all.”

“Oh, bullshit.” Jacob bit back, rising to his own two feet. “If you want an in with this family, you’re going to have to get used to letting me in, bloodsucker.”

“I don’t owe you anything.” Maddox laughed, tucking his hair behind his ears. “Cute that you think so.”

“Jake –”

“Dude, you seriously need to start talking or I’m going to find a loophole –”

“Jake, stop it –”

“-- and I’m going to rip your head off –”

“Jacob, enough –”

“-- and deliver it on a silver platter to my brothers –”

“Jacob!”

“What?” His voice boomed, eyes glowering over to where Renesmee sat, watching the pair anxiously.

She licked her lips, looking over at Carlisle before she looked past Jacob to Maddox. She took a deep breath, and then sighed. “Ainsley brought him here.”

Jacob’s face contorted, his brows pulling together and up, confusion littering his face. “What? No she didn’t.”

“Think about it.”

“I know Ains, okay? She wouldn’t help this scumbag –” Jacob paused.

His thoughts snapped back to the afternoon that started the mad-leech hunt. The night before the babyshower. The night Ainsley had come home reeking of one of the leeches, the night Trent had muttered something about how she had tolerated sitting with a scumbag.

“Maddox.” He whispered quietly, the last of the puzzle pieces falling together. He lifted his eyes to meet the vampire’s, his face crumpling as guilt registered across the other's face. “She brought you here.”

“I asked her to.”

“Why?” Jacob pressed.

Maddox blinked, “Because this isn’t for me. What they’re doing – to innocent people – isn’t me. I came here to learn control, Ainsley helps a lot with that.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Jacob said, holding a hand up, “she helps?”

“Yes, she does.” Carlisle conceded from the archway, leaning against the wood with his shoulder. “It appears as though the personal human tie he had with Ainsley helps keep him grounded. We’ve made incredible progress in the last few weeks – far more than Jasper was comfortable with in his first few years of this lifestyle.”

Jacob felt his heart sink, the realization hitting him that he was going to be the one to tell Embry.

Tell Embry that his imprint was lying to him.

Tell Embry that his imprint was hiding one of the nomads.

Hiding the nomad Embry wanted dead the most. The one he spent nights envisioning, the one he had torn to shreds in his mind over and over again –

“Why did you tell me this?” He asked angrily at no one in particular. “Do you know what this is going to do? Do you know what’s going to happen now?”

“You can’t say anything –” Maddox started, reaching for Jacob’s arm.

“The fuck I can’t.” He growled, glaring at the pale fingers. “I have an obligation. I’m an alpha to a pack that can read my fucking mind, I literally have no way of withholding this.”

Maddox froze, slight terror sinking into his features. “If they know –”

“They’ll cross the border and come for you. And I won’t be able to stop them.” Jacob finished angrily, nostrils flaring. “You’re directly linked to one of their imprints, that makes you a bigger threat than the rest.”

“I’m not killing anybody!”

“Ainsley isn’t just anybody.”

“I’m well aware.” Maddox spat in return, his face quickly shifting. “I wouldn’t hurt her.”

“Won’t stop Embry from trying to sink his teeth into you.”

“Right – the whole soulmate thing –”

“Do not,” he growled, letting out his breath in a big huff. “Imprinting is more than some soulmate. Especially to Embry, alright? This is his person. She is everything to him – if not being able to kill you doesn’t kill him, knowing she lied to protect you will.”

Maddox stopped, his vision pulling into the middle before images flashed through his mind. Renesmee’s warm hand touched his chest, forcing visuals into his mind. The sensation ran over his body, the chilling vibration that was accompanied by the pounding in his skull.

Ainsley’s bright, cheery smile took up the majority of the images, along with a man. He was tall and tanned, and appeared to look very much like Jacob. His hair was short and nearly buzzed, his frame was thinner than Jacob’s, and certainly just as tall. Together, Ainsley and Embry looked like a match-made in heaven; she fit perfectly under his chin, fit perfectly in his arms. Her arms draped over his shoulders and around his neck, the intensity of what appeared to be an innocent display of affection made Maddox feel as though he were intruding on a personal moment.

Renesmee was showing him exactly what it meant to be an imprint – showing him exactly what kind of bond was at stake. What Ainsley was at risk of losing.

In the next set of images, she showed Embry’s frame convulsing, his bones shifting in slo-mo, his body exploding out of pure rage into something nearly ten times his original size.

It showed Ainsley hunched over another's arm, emptying the contents of her stomach onto the floor.

Maddox had to pull away, taking a few steps out of reach. He struggled for breath he didn’t really need, thinking about the importance this relationship might have actually been to her – and how he had forced her into a corner to help him, just so he could possibly stick around, just so he could see her again.

“Please,” he said finally, looking at Jacob with desperation, “please don’t say anything.”

𝙰𝚒𝚗𝚜𝚕𝚎𝚢

I sat on one of the couches in the basement, eyes glued to the television as Travis and Trenton argued back and forth on pizza toppings for their dinner, prolonging our dart game far longer than necessary. TJ had been called up to Seattle for investigations, while Jennie worked double shifts to cover the incoming trauma’s. The collapse of all the dominos linking all pieces of our family had both Trent and I on edge – hence the current ongoing battle between my brothers.

“Oh my god,” I cried, rolling my neck. “Just pick something already, I’m starving!”

“Just let Ains pick something!” Travis growled, ripping the pamphlet out of Trent’s hands.

“Uh, no,” he laughed once, taking the menu back, “she likes shit like chicken on her pizza – I don’t fucking think so.”

“What’s wrong with chicken?”

“It doesn’t belong on pizza – that’s what’s wrong with chicken!”

I rubbed my temples, blowing out my breath slowly. Each passing day I spent confined in my parents house made me more irritated and miserable. The boys had not stopped fighting, Embry became more preoccupied as the pack circled in on the final safehouse Alice and Edward had provided. In an effort to ease his mind, Leah had asked that Trent keep an eye on me.

Of course I had objected, but that didn’t seem to matter much, seeing as I was (essentially) moved home.

Once food had been ordered, and I stuffed my face with my share, I retired to my bedroom. I flipped the lock on my knob, sighing as I leaned my back against the door. I had half-expected Embry to be settled into my bed, instead the room sat empty and cold.

I wandered to where my phone had been plugged in, scrolling through the notifications. Two messages from Embry.

Won’t see you 2night. Jake needs me to cover his shift.

Sleep tight xoxo

I smiled to myself, pulling the phone to my chest as I collapsed onto the bed. Iyah looked up from the floor, tilting his head to the side in question. “For one night.” I nodded, laughing when the puppy happily joined me on the mattress, circling into his place in the corner. “Just don’t tell Embry, kay?”

The dog huffed in response, enticing another giggle from me. I scratched behind his ear, pressing a kiss to his muzzle before I rolled onto my back.

I wondered what Jacob was up to – being as responsible as he was, it wasn’t like him to pass along his duties to anyone else. Especially not Embry. That was moreso what Seth was for, being in his prime. I ripped my hair tie from my head, stretching my legs out as the moon casted the shadows of the treetops into my room.

From somewhere in the distance, I could hear a wolf howl.

#embry call #embry call imagine #embry call fanfiction #embry call x reader #embry call x oc #twilight fanfiction #kiowa gordon #twilight imagines #series: SAH #* mine #jacob black #paul lahote

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kitkatscabinet · 2 years

Note

Heyy!! Could I get some HCs for Jacob and Kaitlyn and someone else of your choice (separately ofc) having an S/O who’s like really tall? I just see like A LOT of fics with the reader being short yk?

If not tho that’s totally okay too :) sorry for any spelling errors English isn’t my first language

Your English is completely fine don't worry! While I don't like to use physical indicators most of the time I'm happy to do this one :) I'm sorry I didn't have many ideas but I tried not to make things too cliche or stereotypical

Kaitlyn

look, everyone is taller than Kaitlyn so pretty much everyone she dates is the same.

I hc Kaitlyn as someone that's mostly ok with her height, but as soon as someone she likes starts to tease her about it she loses it

you once tried to use her as a headrest for your arm, her resulting fury was enough that you never tried again.

however, when it comes to cuddles (even if she won't admit it) she adores being wrapped up in you. Likes to sit with her back against your chest as your head rests on top of hers.

Kaitlyn likes to maintain the facade of independence but secretly, very deep down she really likes it when you can reach things for her.

she really likes wearing your clothes, ultimate hoodie thief and half your shirts end up becoming her pyjamas

you have to lean down so far for kisses it causes back issues, even if she’s sitting on your lap your poor neck has to bend a ridiculous amount. This happens so often you start demanding massages as payment

Jacob

not used to people being taller than him at all

I see him as someone that is initially a little unsure about dating someone taller than him, he’s always been the tallest after all. But that quickly changes and I think of all the counsellors he would be one of the ones to enjoy it the most.

Cuddles become one of his most looked forward to events, the two of you switch it up a lot but you introduce him to the world of being the little spoon and mans is gone. It’s one of his favourite cuddle positions and after a particularly bad day he absolutely adores collapsing against you as you wrap your long limbs around him like an octopus.

Forehead kisses become a staple of his life, having to lean up/down so much causes too much of a strain if your standing so you just started to leave little pecks here and there and now he absolutely cannot sleep as well without his forehead kisses :(

you also give him your clothes, he’s defs used to being the one getting clothes stolen and he gets all warm and fuzzy when you force your hoodies onto him. They smell like you and yeah he definitely gets the hype now.

Max

He’s the most casual with the height difference, not really caring in the slightest. He doesn’t care what size or shape you are he just loves you.

That being said he is another person that thrives with a taller partner

You are his personal jungle gym, your lap: his seat of choice, your chest: prime pillow. Max absolutely hangs off of you at every opportunity. He definitely demands piggyback rides at all opportunities.

Another clothes thief, likes your clothes more than his, they’re so comfy and cosy.

If the two of you are out together he definitely uses your height to intimidate other people.

He’s the one flexing on every social media platform he has, boasting about how great you are and how perfectly he fits against your side. The two of you prompt a lot of ‘screaming, crying throwing up’ comments.

Taglist: @laurakearnxy @wolfsquad @rainbows-dreams @kestisvrse @aaetherr699 @jjkk1m @ghostverz @askeirkxkex @homebyeleven @infamousvampcx @seafoamfellyy @innergardentoadponyy @aspendvd @sheriff-hackett @thebookbakery @1kaitlvr @damndirtylitch @g0th1ka

#the quarry kaitlyn #the quarry x reader #x reader #the quarry #the quarry request #the quarry jacob #jacob custos x reader #the quarry max #jacob custos #max brinly #max brinly x reader #kaitlyn ka x reader #kaitlyn ka

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denimbex1986 · 3 months

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'Andrew Scott remembers the exact feeling he had when he first read Andrew Haigh’s screenplay for All Of Us Strangers. “I was actually really upset reading this script. It wasn’t because it made me sad, it was that it made me feel raw. I saw a huge amount of tenderness in the script and I related to it so much.”

All Of Us Strangers — which premiered at Telluride in late August, and releases via Disney’s Searchlight Pictures in the US on December 22 and in the UK in January — stars Scott as Adam, a 40-something screenwriter living an isolated life in a London tower block. He meets a mysterious neighbour, Harry (Paul Mescal), at the same time that he visits his childhood home in the suburbs and, suspending reality, remeets his mother and father (Claire Foy and Jamie Bell) who died in a car accident when Adam was 11.

Haigh took the conceit of going back to meet one’s parents as an adult from the 1987 Japanese novel Strangers by Taichi Yamada, but toned down some of the book’s more traditional ghost story elements, relocated the setting to the UK and made the lead character gay, all of which made it much more personal to the filmmaker. The director of Weekend, Lean On Pete and 45 Years even returned to his childhood home near Croydon, south London to shoot the family scenes (he had not lived in the house for 40 years).

Scott says he did not talk to his own parents about the role but “certainly I drew on my own experience”. He also felt a close connection to Haigh’s background.

“I have never met Andrew’s parents and Andrew has never met mine, but because we were shooting in Andrew’s family home, sometimes I had this feeling, ‘Oh my god, he would have lost a tooth in that little bathroom, and now a crew is stampeding through here.’ It was an extraordinary thing for him to take us back to that childhood house.”

Born in Dublin and now living in London, Scott is best known for past roles including MI5 boss ‘C’ in Spectre, as a gay Welsh activist in Pride, antagonist Moriarty in Sherlock and the hot priest in Fleabag.

His Irish childhood did not exactly match Haigh’s near Croydon but they shared a lot in common. “My challenge was to make a marriage between his story and mine,” Scott explains. “We spoke an awful lot about our own experiences, and our own times of growing up in the early ’90s, so I could feel so much in relation to my own pain or joy. Sometimes I think what is really required of you [as an actor] is to show as much of yourself as possible, and that’s what I tried to do… and it was a real catharsis for me.”

A love story

While All Of Us Strangers does explore loneliness and grief, at its heart, Scott says, “It is a story about loving and being loved… Of course, this is a queer story at the centre of it, but everybody has a parent, whether they have a relationship with them or not, or you may have children or you may have a lover or you may understand the real feeling of being lonely.”

Scott’s journey as Adam is multi-layered, starting with the physical — for instance, being a grown man in children’s pyjamas crawling into bed with his parents.

“The way a child might be physically with their parents is being smaller than them in almost every way.” Scott also mapped out Adam’s emotional journey — he is changed through a series of encounters with his parents — allowing him to open up in his burgeoning relationship with Harry.

The family scenes shot for two weeks with Bell and Foy. “We did that more or less chronologically [so it was] an intense time in that house,” Scott recalls.

Scott, Mescal, Foy and Bell were all nominated in the performance categories of the British Independent Film Awards (among 14 nods in total).

Scott enjoyed a strong working relationship with Mescal, and the pair have maintained their friendship since the shoot. “Paul is a really hard worker — he wants it to be right and he wants the tone of it to be right,” Scott says. “I love that the relationship is so tender between the two of them. Sometimes sex scenes between two male actors can veer towards the sexual and I think it is more radical to show the tenderness between these two people — not that these things have to be mutually exclusive.”

The pair worked with an intimacy co-ordinator for the sex scenes. “Sometimes those scenes that are postcoital have a gentleness that can feel more exposing than the ones that were purely physical,” he adds.

Scott, who has been openly gay for more than a decade, carefully considers the calls from some parts of the industry for more gay actors to be cast in gay roles. “I remember growing up and reading Empire magazine and thinking I would never get a chance to play leading roles in the cinema. And I am thrilled that has changed,” he says.

“As much as I feel like representation is important, so is transformation… I don’t love the idea of being cast for something purely for my own sexuality — you’re not just playing ‘gay’, you’re playing the attributes of the character. I don’t want a totalitarian regime — we have to look at each individual story we’re telling and what’s right for that.”

He has certainly had a few years of intense experiences — he read Haigh’s script in 2021 when he was in the midst of a long pandemic-delayed Italian shoot playing Tom Ripley in Netflix’s new Patricia Highsmith series Ripley, created by Steven Zaillian. Then he shot All Of Us Strangers and soon followed it with his acclaimed one‑man Vanya in London’s West End.

The actor finds commonalities in Ripley, All Of Us Strangers and Vanya: “They definitely all explore themes of loneliness or solitude. That’s not something I chose by design, but this feels like a phase in my work… I don’t mind that, if you’re always looking towards the light. I think if our job is to reflect what it’s like to be a human being, and if you are a human being in a state of despair or loneliness or grief, you look for the light, you make a joke.”

Scott is moved to tears when talking about Strangers as being a personal and unique project (Screen International is the first publication to speak to him about the role after the SAG-AFTRA strike lifted). He tries to put it in words: “One thing that I felt was that I didn’t want to ‘act’, I don’t want to be false. It is so wonderful to have this opportunity to tell the truth — I know some of the things that [Adam] is going through — with people who you trust. With Andrew and the actors, to create something that makes people feel seen or feel better, it feels magical.”'

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faegoddessog · 11 months

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Seventy Two Hours of Bliss Ch. 28/41

Chapter 28: A Glittering Night Out

Chapter Warnings: Explicitly mature content, 18+ only

Series Masterlist

Series Summary:

You are neighbors with Austin Butler on the Gold Coast of Australia just prior to shooting Elvis. You become just friends because he is taken. However, after he is single again, you both find out just how attracted you are to one another and things get unrelentingly hot.

SERIES WARNING: Explicitly mature content, 18+ only, here there be lemons.

Authors Notes: I started writing this while remodeling my kitchen, so that informed the slightly quirky narrative. It starts slow, but once it heats up, it is on fire. I have tried to pull facts from RL as much as I could, but obviously there are some assumptions and flat out dreamy wishes involved here.

Notes:

PSA: You shouldn't wear a butt plug for extended periods as it could result in ulcerations. However this is a fantasy story without such parameters, so...

Chapter 28: A Glittering Night Out

You do up your hair in an elegant but quick twist and put on some quick makeup in the bathroom mirror. You walk into the dressing room and find your bee undies and a butt plug lying on the vanity counter. You didn’t bring your plugs, and this one looks different.

“What’s this?” you ask Austin, who has just finished his hair in the mirror with nothing but his boxer briefs. Fuck his hair is gorgeous. You just want to fill your hands with it as he tongue fucks you into oblivion….

Damn, you need a fucking climax before you jump him outright in front of all the paparazzi.

“That’s for you, I want you to wear it tonight,” he says, as though it were jewelry.

You pick it up. It’s heavy stainless steel, in a size somewhere between the two you already have. The base is long and narrow and when you flip it over, you see it has a blue jewel embedded in the base and the words ‘My Kitten’ engraved on each side. It IS kind of like jewelry.

“Did you have this made for me?” you ask, a little shocked. See, girlfriend. SHHH!

“Uh huh, and um, it’s the exact diameter of me, well, when I’m hard,” he takes it from you, “ so you’ll be perfectly ready for me when I fuck your ass later.”

“This… I… Wow. Thank you babe,” you stutter, this was totally unexpected and makes you feel warm and fuzzy.

“And this is an actual blue sapphire,” he taps the gem with his finger, then reaches into his bag sitting on the luggage rack, “that matches these.” He pulls out a long thin box and hands it to you.

You open it to find a sparkling teardrop sapphire necklace and earrings, set in an infinity swirl studded with diamonds. It’s gorgeous.

You are speechless. You just look up at him open mouthed. You have never received a gift like this from anyone. He is smiling ear to ear at your reaction.

“Thank you Austin, I - I, didn’t expect any of this, I am stunned,” you whisper.

“Clearly, here let me help,” he puts the plug back on the counter and takes the necklace out of the box. You turn to the mirror as he fastens it around your neck. It sparkles in the dressing lights. Austin turns you around, holds your chin in his hand and gazes deep into your eyes, into your soul with his own sparkly sapphires.

“You are so special to me, Kitten. I never want you to forget that, no matter what,” he takes a big breath and grabs your hands, “and although I’m a little scared right now of what you will say, I really feel like it’s time we stop trying to fool ourselves into thinking we aren’t actually in a serious relationship.”

You feel like you are in some movie right now. Did he HEAR the conversation you had in your head earlier? Was it some sort of voice over?

I must not fear. You nod at him.

“And I think we can do the whole boyfriend/girlfriend thing and maintain our own independence,” he goes on. “I mean, we kinda are already. And I know you might be leaving for Antarctica and that you shy away from talking about it because you are scared. Frankly, it scares me too. But every time I’ve walked towards what I fear, it’s made me a better person. You make me a better person. I’m already head over heels for you and if I didn’t try, I’d regret it. I really want to be yours and you to be mine, but in a sort of non-possessive way. Fuck, am I making sense?” His face is begging, pleading that you understand

“Why Austin Buhtluha, are you askin’ me to officially go steady wi’ you?” you drawl in your southern accent, “yet continue to maintain our heretofore carefully cultivated interdependency?”

“Yes Ma’am, I am,” his southern Elvis drawl rolls over you as he smiles relieved that you get what he is trying to say.

“Well,” you reply, dropping the accent, “I think you are right. We are already there in all the ways that matter. And I am scared, but that’s ok cuz I’m more in love than I am scared.” You press your body close to him, “I’m already yours.”

He leans down and plants a sweet kiss on your lips. You imagine this is how the scene between Rhett Butler and Scarlett O'hara would have gone if they had a healthy relationship.

“God I love you, Kitten,” he holds you close,” and I’ve been yours since you sang back to me that you loved me too.”

You stand holding one another in the middle of the closet, in nothing but underwear and sapphires. Fears dissolving as your hearts overflow.

...

“I'll be right back,” he says, kissing your forehead and stepping out.

He comes in with a bottle of lube in his hand and stops at the door, admiring you.

“You are so gorgeous,” he sighs,” I want to put your plug in, if that’s ok with you?” he asks.

“Is this your way of ‘pinning’ me?” you giggle as you climb eagerly onto one of the stools and press your hips back and up towards him.

“Maybe, but I’m going to love knowing this is in you while we are out this evening,” he drips lube on your rosette and rubs it around with his finger. Oh lord, that feels good, you bite back a little moan of delight.

“Me too baby, Oh!” he pushes his finger inside you sliding slowly in and out. Rubbing your labia at the same time. Then he pushes in two fingers. After sliding in a few times, he pulls his fingers apart. He drips lube into the gap made by his fingers. The cool feeling in your ass makes you gasp a little.

He pulls out his fingers and drizzles lube on the plug. It’s cold against your ass, making you pucker up tight.

“Relax Kitten,” he says soothingly, gently rubbing circles around your ass cheeks.

He starts to push it in, you relax around it as best you can. It just feels bigger and bigger, then he stops and lets you acclimate a little.

Finally he just keeps pushing and it slips over the drop off point and snuggles into your ass.

“God that is hot. I need a pic of that I don’t have anymore film, is it ok if I use my phone baby?”

“Yes.” you trust this man implicitly. You clean any extra lube off with the wet wipes you have in your bag.

He disappears and comes back with his phone, taking close up pics. Asking you to spread your cheeks so he can get a shot of the words. He finally checks the time.

“Shit we have to go in 5 minutes!” he says.

In a flurry, you both dive for your clothes. Bee panties on, you slip into your dress, no bra needed as it had a built in one. You strap your heels on and grab a clutch with your phone and lipstick and you are ready to go once Austin zips you up.

Austin looks phenomenal in a tailored dark gray suit and a white shirt. No time for a tie, so he leaves it unbuttoned to his sternum. Fucking sexy. You don’t know if it’s a designer or not, but Austin makes everything he wears look designer.

You find out the restaurant is a 6 minute walk from the hotel and decide to walk it. It would take longer to get an uber. The heaviness of the plug in your ass is a reminder of what will come later.

You get to Bachus right on time and end up having the three course Pre-Theatre Menu. The food is amazing. You can’t help periodically rocking back and forth, feeling Austin in your ass, well the girth of him at least. And true to advertising, you get done in time to walk the two blocks to the theater.

As you walk into the brutal, concrete structure of the playhouse, you think you see a flash go off in your direction. Austin quickly sweeps you through the doors. No red carpet photos here! Even though you both look red carpet ready.

The theater is very small and intimate, your seats are down about 4 rows back from the stage in the center. He chatters on about how much he loves the theater. How he wants to do more. How he would spend weeks at a time just going to plays in New York every day. You say how much fun you think that’d be. He promises to take you someday.

You are seeing a solo play called “Mother”. It is powerful and moving, Thankfully the lady next to you knew what she was in for and had brought a box of tissues to share. The actress, Noni Hazelhurst was absolutely stunning!

You were so swept away that you nearly forgot about the plug in your ass, until you stood up for the standing ovation at the end. The weight of it making you clench around it.

As you are leaving, Austin is recognized by a female fan waiting for him in the lobby. He takes a picture with them and signs an autograph. You stand back and watch how kind he is to her even though she is a bit much. He waves goodbye and with his hand on your waist walks with you out the door. You hear squeals of delight and ‘who was that with him?’ as the door shuts behind you.

In front of the theater is a courtyard with rows of trees and the big observation ferris wheel off to the side and the river bordering the North. There are some couples walking hand in hand, and a few people milling about near the wheel, not any big crowds.

You start to wander, hand in hand, in the opposite direction away from the people. Chatting about how you are going to get home. He insists on an uber back to the hotel, just to be safe. You would rather walk the river. He points out that dressed up as you both are, you could be targets. You suspect that getting recognized and that potential camera flash has him feeling skittish.

So you wait for the uber near the famous BRISBANE sign, talking about the play. He really gets into analyzing her performance as only a dedicated actor can. You keep coming back to how it made you feel.

“It just was like a kick to the belly,” you comment, “ I mean the madness she was going through. How out of touch from reality she was.”

“But was she really?” he asks, “I mean the madness to me is that most people spend all day sucked into screens, or preoccupied with social media, is that being in touch with reality?”

“Oooo, nice. It’s like two sides of the same coin,” you say. “Ok, what if you take it through the lens of ‘we are constantly creating our own reality’ does that change the story?”

Your conversation morphs into the theories of consciousness and flows into manifestation and ends with a ‘what if’ analysis of different types of governments if they used such ideas in earnest. It is intellectual arousal at its finest, minus the french salon and brandy.

At a lull in the conversation, he pulls you close behind the tree you are waiting near. You melt into him, hands slipping around his trim waist under his jacket.

“You really are remarkable. That you can be so ladylike in public, have such cerebral conversations,” he bows his head to your ear, “even with my little gift in your ass. And yet be such a wild vixen in private. I’m still stunned that you agreed to be mine,” his lips brush your cheek in front of your ear.

“I could be wild in public too…” You say suggestively, your fingers straying between the buttons of his shirt to rub his nipple.

“Oh, I remember, Kitten,” his voice pours like honey into your ear, “you straddling my face then my cock in the forest, trying not to scream as you came. And last night in the park,” he blows out a ‘whooo’.

Your breath catches as his exhale swirls onto your neck, awakening your demon.

The uber arrives and in the 10 min it takes to get back to the hotel, the moxie vibe is back in place next to your clit and Austin has the scent of your pussy on his fingers. Thank you thigh slit.

You traipse through the lobby, barefoot, those strappy heels expired an hour ago.

You have every intention of making a beeline to the elevator, but find your feet veering towards the music, coming from the piano bar.

“Hey babe, let’s have a drink,” there is something about the 1920’s piano bar that makes you feel glamorous and sexy. Plus you kinda want to be a bit wild in public now.

“Alright, Kitten,” Austin agrees. You lead him in and find a dark table for two tucked up next to the wall where his hand can sit on your thigh unnoticed by others.

You order the Le Coup de Foudre, ‘Love At First Sight’, made with Vanilla Vodka, Myrtille, Strawberry Gum, Lime, and Sparkling Wine. Austin goes classic with a dirty martini.

Under the table cloth, he pulls at your thigh slit. You smile at the three handsome men in business attire at the table next to you as you open your legs to give Austin a little more access. As you settle back into your chair, the vibe turns on. You shiver. One of the men blows his breath out through pursed lips appreciatively, another rolls up his sleeves.

‘Why honey, is it getting hot in here? ’ your demon asks.

Out of nowhere, your ‘two men at once’ fantasy pops into your head. Austin runs his finger-tips up and down your inner thigh, and with his phone in his hand, changes the vibe to pulse.

‘Just imagine’ says your succubus, ‘taking one of them back to the room with you. Austin fucking you in the ass while you take that man deep in your mouth before he drills your pussy. Hell, take another so you can have all three… ’ SHHHH!

You bite your tongue and rock forward, putting pressure on the plug and the vibe. You shiver as Austin casually puts his elbow on the table, watching the piano man play. You look back at the trio of men and realize that one of them is the man who told you to ‘have fun’ while he got into the elevator. He is watching you with that knowing grin.

“Having fun?” he mouths to you. You smirk and nod. The vibe changes pattern again. Your eyes involuntarily flutter as your abs contract.

You look back to Austin, who is now watching you. Your eyes go big. What if he thinks you are flirting, well, ok you kinda are, but not like that! He looks up at the man, who bows his head and raises his hand in concession. Austin nods his head back, with a smirk on his face.

Austin leans over to you, “someday, maybe I’d be willing to share you for a night. But right now I want you for myself.”

You are floored and fucking more turned on. That was the last thing you thought he’d say.

You tap his thigh 3 times. The vibe goes off.

“Oh yes,” he replies to your dropped jaw, “I remember your list of fantasies. If we ever meet Tom Hiddleston, it’s your job to talk him into it. Plus, I’m still looking out for that exotic brown eyed girl,” he winks at you. He kisses you lightly on the lips as your panties threaten to soak through to your dress.

Drinks are set in front of you. You drink, trying to calm down. All the thoughts of Austin making your fantasies come true racing in your head. Your succubus is making a list, complete with little check boxes. You focus on the music, filing your list away.

The musician at the piano is taking requests with slips of paper and tips. You start singing along with the songs you know, Austin turns the vibe on and off depending on the song. The length of your ability to withstand the vibe’s attention without cumming, getting shorter and shorter. Then he goes up and sets a request on the piano winking at you as he walks back to your table. A song or two later the guy opens it.

“Ok, wow we have a 20$ bill here with the promise of 100$ more if I can get the lady in blue to come up and sing. Where are you lady in blue, I’ll give you 20$ to come sing with me!”

You look at Austin open-mouthed. He just smiles deviously, hands you a 100$ bill and motions for you to go up. The man at the table raises an eyebrow at you and claps along with the encouraging cheers from the audience. You slam the rest of your drink, walk up and are handed a microphone.

“Well, for the record, I am just as surprised as you are,” your extrovert self kicks in, plus your succubus has ulterior motives. “What song are we singing Joe?” you ask the piano man. Is his name ‘Joe’? You have no idea.

“Feeling Good, I assume you know it?” he replies.

You shoot Austin a knowing smile, you are surprised he remembered what you were singing that day, considering the distracting things that happened afterwards.

“I do, but give me a second,” you pull up the lyrics on your phone.

“Time is money honey!” says Joe.

You put your heads together with the piano man, making sure you are on the same page.

He gives you a starting note. You hum it, take a big breath and start acapella:

“Birds flying high, you know how I feel,

Sun in the sky, you know how I feel,

Breeze drifting on by you know how I feel,

It’s a new dawn

It’s a new day

It’a new life for me

And I’m feeling good.”

‘Joe’ comes in with the piano… it’s spot on and amazing.

You sing to the crowd, they are enthralled with you and drunk enough to not notice when you stumble a bit on the 3rd verse.

You belt out the last repeat of the chorus, feeling like fucking Adele, holding the microphone up and singing in profile.

Then soft and sultry

“And I’m feeling good” you are fucking Austin with your eyes as you sing,

“I feel so good,

so goooooood.”

The crowd goes wild, even ‘Joe’. You curtsey and hand the microphone and the 100$ to him. The man lifts his drink to you, impressed. Austin stands up clapping and extends his hand to you as you step to him, he twirls you and you curtsey again.

“That was amazing Kitten,” he says close to your ear, “I didn’t know if you’d do it or not, but damn you have some pipes on you!”

You lean up to kiss his cheek. “Thank you, Are YOU going to sing for us, Elvis?” you say in his ear.

“Oh no,” he shakes his head, “I am not allowed.”

You look at him confused. He nods his head toward the door. He sweeps you out of the bar, your shoes and clutch in is his other hand. With shouts of “Bravo!” behind you.

“What do you mean you aren’t allowed?” you ask once you are outside the cacophony of the bar.

“Well, what if someone videos it and it gets leaked on the internet, it could be a breach of contract,” he explains, “Baz would kill me, well no, Baz would just be disappointed, and that would be 100 times worse.”

“Ahh, yeah we can’t have that, he is good to you,” you agree, walking towards the elevator.

“Plus I don’t sing for people,” he states.

You raise an eyebrow, “ah yes, the man playing Elvis to a T, refusing to sing for people.”

“I mean as myself, when I’m being Elvis, it’s obviously different,” he explains, a little defensive.

“I know, baby, you are shy,” you stop in front of the shiny elevator doors and reach up to cup his cheek in your hand, “it’s one of the things I adore about you. You are my shy, sexy-as-hell man who gets me and my inner demon. And I just want you to kiss me, right here.”

He does. In the middle of the lobby, with an actual jeweled butt plug in your ass, and a vibrator pressing against your dripping cunt.

“Now,” he whispers in your ear, ”are you ready?”

Your leg is shaking, “I can’t wait any longer.”

#Austin Butler #Austin Butler smut #Austin Butler x reader #Austin Butler fic #Austin butler fanfic #@purejasmine #@slowsweetlove #@richardslady121

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trilobiter · 9 months

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Worried about my brother, worried about my dad. Going to vent a little bit.

I've written a little about my brother before, but for context he is autistic and has an intellectual disability. These have obviously been the case for his whole life (he's going to be 34 this year), but in recent years he's also developed a gluten intolerance. For a guy who loves pasta as much as he does, this is a blow.

Now, this brother lives in my hometown, close to our youngest brother and our dad, while I live too far away to have a direct hand in things most of the time. But this week, he informed me and the younger brother by text that he had gotten in a fight with our dad after sending him a profanity-laden text message blaming him (dad) for his gluten intolerance. He then "ran away from home" by taking an Uber to a water park about an hour away, spending the day there and then Ubering right back home.

We tried to remind him that, as a grown man, he was allowed to go to the water park whenever he wanted to, and that it was OK if he wanted to put a little distance between himself and some one he was upset with. But he insisted on characterizing this excursion as "running away" and insisting that it would make dad "worried sick."

I should point out that while our dad is not a perfect person, one of his best qualities as a parent has been going consistently above and beyond expectations to ensure this brother of mine has the ability to live as independently and comfortably as he possibly can. There is no greater ally to my brother in all the world, and all he did in this case was tell him he didn't like being cussed out and blamed for something that wasn't his fault.

The next day, my text messages were again blowing up, as my brother was again telling us (as well as his ample support team) about how devastated he was that he'd totally and permanently ruined his relationship with our dad, who was "too much of a coward" to call the police the previous day and report him missing. I felt compelled to remind him that he was a grown man and had told people where he was going, so he was in no sense missing. But I knew this wouldn't settle things, because he was zeroed in on this fantasy that he is a little kid who can run away from his dad's house, even though he lives in an apartment that he can walk in and out of at any damn time he pleases.

Most of the time, he's a kind, gentle person to be around. He's never hurt anybody physically that I'm aware of. It's just that every once in a while, he throws these temper tantrums, and he's run this kind of runaway scenario many times before. I doubt very much he could ever permanently damage his relationship with dad, but he has burned bridges with neighbors and prospective employers by unleashing vile streams of invective in text or email form. He's recently started to see meaningful doors close because he couldn't be talked out of sending very nasty words in a moment of passion.

What worries me is that dad is getting old. He's in great shape and I am hopeful he'll be around for many more years, but he can't keep taking care of my brother forever, and these occasional explosions are taking more and more of a toll on him. We're all just hoping at this point that my brother will truly learn to moderate his behavior by the time he's in his 40s or 50s, or whenever it is he truly cannot count on my dad any longer to connect him with support personnel, or manage his trust, or any of the other ways he maintains him. At that point it will fall to us siblings to pick up the slack, and we'll do our best, but we have other priorities and we can hardly be a father to him.

My sister and I both got married in the last couple of years, and she's got kids of her own now. I know that our brother is frustrated because he knows that his options are limited, and I've heard him express the desire to live a life more like we have. I wish I could help him appreciate what he has and understand how important it is that he take care of it.

#trilobiter #personal

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whimsicaldragonette · 2 years

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ARC DNF Review: The City Inside by Samit Basu

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Publication Date: June 7, 2022

Synopsis:

“They'd known the end times were coming but hadn’t known they’d be multiple choice.” Joey is a Reality Controller in near-future Delhi. Her job is to supervise the multimedia multi-reality livestreams of Indi, one of South Asia’s fastest rising online celebrities—who also happens to be her college ex. Joey’s job gives her considerable culture power, but she’s too caught up in day-to-day crisis handling to see this, or to figure out what she wants from her life. Rudra is a recluse estranged from his wealthy and powerful family, now living in an impoverished immigrant neighborhood. When his father’s death pulls him back into his family’s orbit, an impulsive job offer from Joey becomes his only escape from the life he never wanted. But as Joey and Rudra become enmeshed in multiple conspiracies, their lives start to spin out of control—complicated by dysfunctional relationships, corporate loyalty, and the never-ending pressures of surveillance capitalism. When a bigger picture begins to unfold, they must each decide how to do the right thing in a world where simply maintaining the status quo feels like an accomplishment. Ultimately, resistance will not—cannot—take the same shape for these two very different people.

My Rating:★★

***My Review and Favorite Quotes below the cut.

My Review:

DNF at 50%

This was the weirdest reading experience. While I was reading I felt almost compelled to keep reading. But the moment I stopped I didn't want to pick it up again AND I had no idea what I'd just read. It's like it magically turned to gibberish the moment I stopped to think? It was bizarre.

I couldn't decide whether I liked any of the characters or not. They were all just sort of drifting along in this dystopian future existence that was both chillingly plausible and totally out-there. It reminded me of the experience of reading 1984, actually.

In the end I decided that I'd dedicated enough time to it and since at 50% I still had absolutely no idea where the story was going - or even if there was a story - it was time to put it down.

*Thanks to NetGalley, Edelweiss, and Macmillan-Tor/Forge for providing an e-arc for review.

Favorite Quotes:

That a day wouldn’t come, soon after, when Joey wasn’t allowed to leave her house and her parents didn’t know whether to blame the pogrom or the pandemic, because they’d known the end times were coming but hadn’t known they’d be multiple choice.

---

So she looks away, as usual, a skill everyone she knows has learnt since childhood, because not looking away means seeing terrible things.h

---

The world is better now, definitely. At least the bits of it she is allowed to see.

---

He tries to convince himself he’s home, genetically speaking. If home is where the people you love most are, his real home is currently a server in New Zealand.

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…being all self-reliant and independent but so inherently obedient that even his rebellion is budget-friendly.

#the city inside #samit basu #dystopian #netgalley #arc review #shilo reads #dnf review

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prisoncrow25 · 2 years

Text

3 Surefire Methods Stretching Will Drive Your business Into The bottom

massage , Wellness, Osteopathy, Therapies - Wallpaper Flare"> The high line of Liverpool ought to include a Government health warning - I bet there were greater than a number of fans in Merseyside who have been nervous seeing all of that area in behind their again four. Liverpool didn't disappoint with both sides showcasing their high quality in a thrilling 2-2 draw. There is a compromise between accuracy and speed.reynolds82 An excellent wave-perform might need a very small variance in the native power, however whether it is costly to evaluate one may receive the same statistical error in much less wall-clock time with a quicker lower high quality wave-perform. There are various similarities but what's glaringly totally different is the special respect that Pep Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp reserve for each other. One officer received a slash harm to his arm and was taken to hospital. At round 19.15hrs, officers arrested the 31-12 months-old man on suspicion of tried homicide of the police officer. At approximately 11.50hrs on Sunday, 10 April, police were called to studies of a man armed with a machete suffering a psychological health crisis at a home in Skelton Road, E7. Newham coping with reports of a man suffering a mental health crisis inside an handle. A police statement stated: 'A man has been arrested by officers responding to an incident at a home in Newham.

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Previously, the StoreFile’s block distribution was calculated on StoreFile open and never modified. As it did with Arsene Wenger and Sir Alex Ferguson at occasions, especially within the early days. Beth Ewen is senior editor of Franchise Times, and writes the Continental Franchise Review® column in each subject. But gross sales of home-grown rose bushes have plummeted in current a long time as they're deemed ‘old-common and twee’. This statement is unexpected, but a potential clarification is that the polymer undergoes photo-oxidation and chain scission throughout photodegradation, with each processes are identified to happen in undoped aliphatic polyurethanes Rabek95.01 , leaving the polymer in a non-equilibrium state which slowly relaxes after the pump has been removed. POSTSUBSCRIPT is the baseline transmittance that is measured prior to illumination with the pump gentle that's used to wreck the material. POSTSUBSCRIPT is the number of inequivalent nodal pockets. Our approach is incremental, as its complexity is independent of the scale of the system architecture and solely influenced by the variety of applicable adaptation rules and variety of issues to be addressed by self-adaptation. Certainly one of the benefits of SHDMC is that the diagonalization of a big matrix of excitations is prevented, which makes attainable the consideration of a larger number of degrees of freedom.

We additionally tried to mix them into one. Our rivalry wasn’t the healthiest but this one is. KEOWN: The rivalry between Arsenal and United was such that we didn’t like them and they didn’t like us. I don’t assume you’d find Arsenal and United’s managers and players of outdated doing that. This respect between the two sets of players stems from the managers. Klopp stated he was pleased with his players for his or her efforts. Klopp will most likely tell us that’s an example of his system working to perfection - the defence held its line and Sterling was off. Both sides went out there with a plan to play their very own game on the Etihad Stadium and benefit from the duel, and that’s what we witnessed over a pulsating 90 minutes. The results are offered in Figure 7. The graphs depict that throughout some measures there are notable variations between customers in states with a Trump vote share over 50% (depicted with red traces, the “red states”) in comparison with these under 50% (depicted with blue lines, the “blue states”). There was nothing controversial of word. Celebrity gardener David Domoney, who is backing the campaign, advised The Sunday Telegraph: ‘Young individuals see the rose as old style and twee and what their grandparents grew.

David White, managing director of Harkness Roses, which is also supporting the marketing campaign, stated: ‘When I used to be a boy roses were seen in public parks and gardens in all places, but over the years their popularity has gone down as folks suppose they are too difficult to develop and you have to go on a 3-day pruning course to look after them. ‘A typical plant costs £15 that will give one hundred flowers a yr for 15 years which works out 1p a flower. This, in flip, will have an effect on the kinetic vitality: on account of quantum confinement results, the difference in fastened-node energies will improve in the following iteration. Some 5,000 rose plants have been despatched to neighborhood gardens throughout the UK as a part of the campaign - with 100,000 more to be given away over the following decade. Now, alarmed by the plant’s wilting recognition, consultants have launched a campaign to revive the rose - with subsequent month’s Chelsea Flower Show presenting an opportunity for a formal ‘call to arms’. Flower power on the Tower of London! This current is shown in Figure 4b as a perform of the external impedance used.

#massage #health #well-beng #beauty #spa #aroma #healing #life #theraphy

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i-spilled-my-soup · 2 years

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pre-the last olympian nico doodles

#its big nico and bianca hours #i like to think that nico feels guilty for bianca's death #since she joined the hunters of artemis to escape the responsibility of being a big sister #so now he tries to maintain total independence #and spurns anything that could thwart that aspiration #(i.e. friends and relying on others)#and he wants to apologize to her by bringing her back #by correcting what he views as injustice #for the fates' wrongdoing and his own #its just grief and guilt and anger with nowhere to go #so he channels it into one mission that can be realized #to bring her back to life and offer her the immortality she so sought #even if it's at the cost of his own life #it's all he can do now #the only way he can feel closure is to be of use to the person he holds so dear and feels he has wronged so deeply #he doesn't want his last impression on her to be one of frustration and annoyance #he wants to be more to her than the cause of her death #and he needs her to be alive for that to happen #anyways!#nico di angelo #bianca di angelo #(mentioned)#pjo #pjo/hoo #pjo fanart #percy jackson #pjoverse #nico di angelo fanart #percy jackson and the olympians #soup art

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autisticandroids · 3 years

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yknow those episodes where a character's whole personality gets split into 3-5 different distinct separate bodies? what bodies would cas have? I feel like it'd just be a mess tbh, imagine 5 different castiels all of them loving dean to a certain extent but showing it VASTLY differently. one cas would literally want to murder the others lmao

okay so i don’t actually think this trope would be an effective tool for analyzing cas? he’s not conflicted enough in himself. he’s too impulsive, too singleminded, too uninhibited. like, in the end, cas always ends up doing whatever he wants. there aren’t multiple discrete voices vying for control, really, or rather, if there are, one is always significantly stronger than the others. like in the end cas will always end up eating raw meat off the floor, you know? he’ll do what he wants. if i was going to do personality splitting i’d do it to someone intensely internally conflicted, like dean.

however, because i’m in an essay writing mood today, i’ll answer a question slightly to the left of the one you asked. cas may not be internally conflicted, but he is intensely changeable. these two things are related, actually; the same impulsivity and singlemindedness that mean he doesn’t have a ton of internal conflict at any given time mean that different ideas sound good to him at different times, because he isn’t really thinking about, say, what future-him will think of them. and he’s not really trying to maintain an image or identity. he’s just doing what feels right at the time, which is very different at different times and in different situations.

anyway, that in mind, i think a lot about ways to bring together many alternate versions of cas which sort of correspond to different times in the show.

i have a fic in my head about a bunch of cas-es pulled from alternate timelines by some kind of spell. so this would be set during the widower arc because the basic impulse here is to show dean a very bad time. just absolutely put him through hell. also, all the alternate timelines are different because different stuff happened, not because cas made different choices, because if we’re torturing dean it has to be like 5x04, the changes in cas can’t be cas’ fault. they have to be dean’s or just like, the universe’s (which makes them dean’s).

so dean is trying to bring cas back, and he finds some kind of spell that can bring someone “from another world.” and he tries it because hey. can’t hurt to try. anyway i’ve thought a long time about different versions of cas i would put in this and here is what i have. in order of when the timeline split off.

- a cas who never raised dean from hell. think 14x13 “lebanon.” this one i’m not too sure about, like, this could be fun, but i don’t know if it’s different enough from the next one. like this castiel would have lived through the averted apocalypse and subsequent general fuckery that happened as an angelic footsoldier, which would actually be pretty interesting now that i think about it, especially since all that stuff would have gone down soooooooo differently without cas specifically for your average angel footsoldier. like cas has PERSONALLY caused more upheaval in heaven in twelve years of spn than there seems to have been in millennia. so he would be the point of view of a normal footsoldier from a totally other world.

- a cas who died mid season four, and is pulled out of the empty in 2017 by this spell. i’m not sure when this cas died. my thoughts are (1) killed in on the head of a pin by alistair, (2) killed during his torture in the rapture, or (3) simply never resurrected after lucifer rising. (3) makes the most sense, but that cas has already thrown away everything for dean. i prefer the idea of a cas who loves dean, is already on the brink of disobedience for him, but has not yet taken the plunge. both on the head of a pin and the rapture are great places for this, and they both have strengths and weaknesses. if he died in the rapture, he was killed by heaven, which is fundamentally more fun, but he was also really very much over the edge already. if he died in on the head of a pin, he wasn’t killed by heaven, but he is perfectly teetering on the brink of falling for dean. regardless of when he died, the purpose of this cas is to be horrified at all the various and myriad ways he has destroyed and corrupted himself for dean in the other timelines.

- possibly endverse cas, who would have died in 2014, but like s4 cas, would have been pulled from the afterlife by the spell. i’m not so sure on this one. we as a society love endverse cas but i dunno what purpose he would serve. maybe endverse cas didn’t die in 2014, and instead was imprisoned by lucifer, because, you know. he’s the only brother lucifer has left. so he is very excited to see dean alive and well, since his dean is dead, and, not being an angel, cas can’t bring him back. the purpose of this cas would be to horrify dean that cas loves him and needs him so much, and to disgust the other cas-es with his neediness.

- a cas who was in some way on better terms with dean during s6. maybe dean and cas ride off into the sunset together after swan song instead of dean going to live with lisa, maybe dean prayed to cas while he was with lisa because he missed him, who knows. either way, cas has dean’s help with the angel revolution in season six from the start, and never goes to crowley. the plan cas and dean come up with to beat raphael includes breaking into the cage and stealing the grace of michael and lucifer, freeing sam and adam in the process. incidentally, it also involves cas possessing dean, because if cas is gonna eat archangel grace to become more powerful, he’s going to need a stronger vessel. so cas and dean have a whole like. midam situation happening. they’re a double archangel together, and godstiel never happened so none of the other terrible apocalypses that stemmed from that happened, and everything is pretty cool where they’re from, and also they’re obviously uhhhhhh SOME kind of together. the purpose of this cas is to upset dean because this cas shows how much better everything could have been and how much better his and cas’ relationship could have been if dean had simply been more considerate of cas in s6, and also freak dean out with how uh. close. this dean and cas are.

- a godstiel who managed to swallow purgatory without swallowing the leviathans and remained god. he’s probably soooomewhat less scary and murdery than canonverse godstiel because no leviathans, so you know, not as many angel purges or massacres on earth. and he probably went and fixed sam’s wall within about three days because cas is prideful but he does NOT like it when dean is mad at him. so they did kiss and make up, and so this cas would have had dean to act as his morality chain. but he’s still very scary and godstiel. and also he refers to dean as “The Beloved” you know. his purpose is to freak everyone out, because he’s scary, but also, for the past cas-es, because he is a terrifying abomination that they could never imagine becoming, for the future cas-es, because he is a reminder of their worst selves, and for dean, because he is a reminder of how dangerous cas is, but also because he uh. obviously has some feelings about his dean. unclear if they are consummated or not.

- a cas who naomi never rescued from purgatory, and who stayed there. hasn't spoken to another being in half a decade, has not recovered from his emotionally destroyed state in purgatory in s8. believes at first that the spell is his dean rescuing him, and is crushed when he realizes he was wrong. like endverse cas, his purpose is to show dean how much cas needs him and depends on him emotionally, and how he (dean) is capable of destroying cas, as well as his guilt for leaving him in purgatory and how lucky he is that his cas got out. this is especially noteworthy since the guilt for leaving cas in purgatory is part of the reason dean is trying to get cas back.

- a cas who stayed human after season nine, and has built himself a small human life over the next four years. he has a job and an apartment and friends outside the winchesters and yes, he still goes hunting after work sometimes, and he's still in contact with dean, but he is also independent in a way no other version of cas has ever been. he exists to freak out dean because dean has never seen cas independent of him. he is also fairly bitter at dean since dean did kind of stop spending time with him when he was no longer useful, and our dean feels guilty for that.

- a cas who showed up twenty minutes later in 10x03, finding sam dead and dean gone, and had to chase down demon dean, and has now spent three years following demon dean around as his tragically adoring stalker, because he hasn't found a way to resurrect sam yet and he doesn't want to put dean through the demon cure until he can save sam because he doesn't want dean to experience that guilt, but he also adores dean and wants to keep an eye on him and keep him safe and also keep him from doing anything too heinous, so he just covertly follows him around the country and watches from a distance as he commits various murders and fucks his way through every local bar scene. and occasionally cas finds dean something to kill, when the mark gets hungry, and drops it in his path. his purpose is to freak dean out with the lengths cas would go for him, and the depths cas would sink to.

anyway. lebanon cas and season four cas are horrified and perhaps disgusted (lebanon cas more than s4 cas) by ALL of the later cas-es, and how far they’re fallen, all of it for dean. godstiel and archangel cas being abominations, endverse cas and s9 cas being fallen, even purgatory cas and demon dean’s cas for their total dependence on dean.

purgatory cas and endverse cas are just happy to see a dean, even if it’s not their dean. demon dean’s cas, too, in a way. he’s happy to see a dean who is still human, who he can still have as a friend.

human cas is pissed to see that he was right, that dean would have stuck by him if he’d still had his powers, that this version of dean is doing spells to try and bring his cas, who is still an angel, back, whereas he and his dean only see each other once every couple months.

everyone is terrified and disgusted by godstiel, as i said before.

they’re mostly kind of thrown by archangel cas. a lot of them are jealous. godstiel is furious because how dare anyone, even an alternate version of himself, take dean as a vessel (even if dean likes it). godstiel isn’t really there, though, he resisted the summoning and just sort of popped his head through to see what was going on, and he goes back to his own reality pretty fast without murdering anyone.

also to be clear dean has not at this point examined or acknowledged any feelings he may have about his cas besides “friendship,” nor has he wondered what feelings his cas may have for him. given how many of the cas-es were clearly in some kind of relationship with their dean (endverse cas, archangel cas) or just openly in love with their dean (godstiel, purgatory cas, demon dean’s cas), dean is forced to reevaluate the nature of his and cas’ relationship.

#spn #asks #anonymous

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junicai · 3 years

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Aria + Her Personalities with NCT Units

Aria + 127 = ‘Maknae on Top’ Aria

aria runs this unit

not literally, but definitely figuratively

the boys will do literally anything for her if she was to ask them

lowkey its cute

it’s not like she abuses this power though

... not often

but it’s entertaining to see it happen once in a while

for the most part, aria is pretty well put together

this is in part, due to the fact that 127 was the first unit aria debuted with

and was therefore given a certain set of parameters to act within

but also partly due to the fact that aria just doesn’t like needing help

the boys try to respect that as much as possible

while also maintaining some level of supervision over her because aria’s also the type of person to never ask for help, even when she does need it

it’s rare to see them coddle her though

especially on camera

yes they look out for her and take care of her to the best of their ability

but they leave her to her own devices the majority of the time and just observe from a distance

aria likes being independent she don’t need no man

however occasionally

on rare occasions

cannot stress the rare enough really

you’ll get to see the softer side of aria with 127

this aris is the one that goes looking for someone’s attention and affection

not that she needs to work hard to get it, there are eight (8) men here fully capable and willing to offer exactly that

normally this really only happens when she’s sleepy and/or sick

for example

in the BKLYN BOYS vlogs when they were all getting ready to go to sleep

aria just

popped herself in between mark and yuta on the bed

and snuggled into the warm covers on the bed knowing full well that yuta would cuddle her immediately after she stopped moving

and then went to sleep

she slept through that entire segment actually

just smooshed in between the two boys and curled into a little ball around yuta’s arm that she’d hugged to her chest and refused to let go of

jungwoo kept shushing the others when they got too loud

now a sick aria

is the poutiest baby you will ever find

she’s miserable and she wants someone to hold her

that is all

this is the sole occasion that she will not vehemently protest taeyong or doyoung’s coddling

and johnny usually pops in every few hours or so to make sure she’s feeling alright

jaehyun stays away from her room for the most part

but he’s the person to secretly sneak in strawberry milk to her under the guise of a new blanket

tldr: aria is an independent woman who occasionally needs love and reassurance and affection from her older brothers.

Aria + Dream = ‘132 Hertz’ Aria

aria is here to heal your heart

happy and positive vibes only, you are not permitted to be sad around her

aria in dream is the equivalent to one of those uber-happy antidepressant

but this is one that actually works

*poof* no more sad ~

as opposed to the cooler and more capable image she projects when she’s with 127

aria with dream is much softer around the edges

it’s not just the concepts that give that impression, although the stark contrast between the futuristic plastic skirts and the baby pink sweaters really makes for a bit of whiplash

the vibe is totally different with dream because they’re all so close in age

it’s less of a older brother/younger sister relationship

and more of a rag-tag group of best friends who just happen to make music together

aria doesn’t have to focus as much on trying to maintain a certain image for the media

because the other boys helped her shape a more fluid one

when aria’s with dream, you can tell that she’s comfortable, and that the boys are as close with her as they are with each other

dream is her home, it’s an indisputable fact

aria gives off intense girl next door vibes with them

very smiley, very happy

she doesn’t get doted on when she’s with dream - she gets the same treatment as the rest of them, and that involves relentless and unforgiving teasing over events that happened years ago

there’s a very set role that comes with being the maknae

and being a girl on top of that only put more restrictions on what she could and couldn’t do

with dream those restrictions were lessoned a great deal

the fact that she’s not the ‘baby’ of the group meant that she was given the space to really grow as a person and show off different sides of her character

she got to show that she was a reliable person as well as a cute one

someone who was dependable, and someone that the members came to when they needed emotional support

aria really likes taking care of other people, and she’s given the chance to with dream

one can see it in the way that she watched chenle out of the corner of her eye after she had slid on a slippery part of the stage - and stuck out a hand to make sure that he didn’t make the same mistake

the way that she was the first to notice that renjun had slipped away from the microphone with damp eyes when dream had won their first award

she’s no parent to the boys

and they’re no parent to her

but the dreamies look out for their own.

growing up together through teenage years is hard, and arguments are unavoidable

but aria’s not the type of person to back down from a fight

normally she tries to be the mediator

but if she gets dragged in, then all bets are off

renjun picked a fight with her once

it was over the smallest thing in the world, completely insignificant

but the entire group was running on less than sufficient sleep

renjun snapped, and turned his anger on aria

who in turn, started yelling back

it wasn’t malicious (anyone could tell that)

it was just two teenagers who were overworked and overtired and frustrated at the same thing that they couldn’t yell at

so they were yelling at each other instead

aria slept in the 127 dorms that night

but come morning, they had both apologized

if there is anything that aria hates more than fighting, it’s holding a grudge

tldr: aria’s someone with layers, someone who is funny and bubbly but is strong and sometimes stubborn, but ultimately wants to be there for her boys the way they are for her.

Aria + WayV = ‘The Neighbour’s Kid’ Aria

aria’s been adopted into wayv

that’s not up for debate

you can ask kun for the papers

but her personality so to speak really depends on who it is from the group that she’s interacting with

because she’s not a part of this sub-unit

it means that the only people she has real interactions with are those that are also in her own sub-units

namely ten and lucas, but previously sicheng as well

with lucas and sicheng, aria’s a lot rougher around the edges

the boys are like older brothers to her, so she’s used to a little rough-housing when it comes to them

affectionate verbal abuse?

lets go with that

whereas with ten

she’s coddled within an inch of her life

ten is the Only member who is allowed treat her like a baby

and the only reason is because he was so insistent, that aria just eventually gave up protesting it

when aria’s with yangyang

she finds that she tends to act more her own age

with her position in the group and subsequently the industry as a whole

its easy to forget that she is still a newly turned 20 year old

someone who’s meant to still be acting like a teenager sometimes

who’s still meant to be finding her alcohol tolerance in crappy bars

who does stupid things but makes the best memories out of them

with yangyang, aria does a lot of those stupid things

and get in trouble for it afterwards

impulse control gone out the window

she lets herself be a little more free and lets the reigns go lax for a while

sometimes its nice just to sit back and experience life for a bit

when it comes to kunhang and dejun

they would be the members that she’s least close with

so although they’re not strangers, things are still kept a little bit more on the professional side

as most of their interactions happen while they’re ‘on duty’ so to speak

the boys as a unit really go out of their way to make sure that she’s comfortable

especially kun

he doesn’t baby her like ten does she’d never appreciate it

but he does care for her a great deal

aria’s very honest around kun

she doesn’t like beating around the bush anyway

but with kun it’s like she can’t lie

even if she wanted to

tldr: aria’s like the neighbour’s kid. she’s in their house a lot and they’re not really sure why? but they’re happy she’s there and sad when she has to leave again.

Aria + SuperM = ‘Favourite Child’ Aria

maknae aria taking her final form

she’s evolving

it’s 127 aria but on steriods

because taemin called her cute in their first practice

and she ran with it

in awe at the fact that these men haven’t died yet

she’s so? cuddly? and just unlike any aria that nctzens are used to?

jungwoo taught her how to do aegyo

and aria levelled up from a level 2 to a level 93 in a week

now with superm

aria gets babied and she gets babied hardcore

its pretty unavoidable when your oldest member has eight years on her

and calls her 183cm tall best friend ‘adorable’

so its no wonder she’s the baby of the team

she likes it though

more than she thought she would

jongin has absolutely zero qualms with picking aria up at random points in time

and just giving her a piggyback

aria spent 50% of mtopia walking, and the other 50% being carried by jongin

its like how a kid would fawn over a puppy

no matter what she does its, ‘아 귀여~’

seriously save her

at first the change in dynamic unsettled her quite a bit

she wasn’t used to literally having zero responsibility in a group

but suddenly when it came to superm

aria was having things taken care of for her - not because they thought she wasn’t capable of doing them herselves

but because they were taking care of her

aria had to grow into that mold so to speak

it wasn’t something that was forced - the dynamic did develop naturally over time

aria was stubborn in the fact that she wanted to prove that she deserved her spot on this team just like everyone else

she didn’t need to prove it to anyone besides herself, as baekhyun later explained to her

but slowly, aria became more comfortable with looking to the older members for help instead of struggling on her own

the first time aria really understood that the guys were really just looking out for her, was in their first few months of practice together

they were eating in one of the practice rooms together, sitting on the floor

when taemin leaned over to take the egg from on top of his rice to put on top of aria’s instead

aria had looked up, surprised, and taemin had shrugged

“you haven’t eaten yet today, right?” he offered by way of explanation

it was true, aria hadn’t eaten that day, but she hadn’t expected taemin to notice

she hadn’t expected anyone to notice actually, given that it was a dream schedule that she was coming from, and mark had graduated the year previous

aria had blinked twice, before smiling awkwardly, nodding a small thanks

tldr: aria is precious and deserves to be treated as such.

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dreamsmp-au-ideas · 3 years

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Something I've always found interesting is the fact that L'manberg was blown up a total of three times. In a way, the country itself followed the three lives system. What makes it even more interesting is the fact that no other faction has gotten this treatment. So, let's take that detail and make an AU.

AU where just after L'manberg was created, it gained sentience. Becoming just as much a person as any of the players. The more it grew, the more alive the country became. Until eventually, L'manberg was able to manifest a body of it's own.

Now, who do we know that was canonically born within L'Manberg's walls? Fundy.

So Fundy is an extension of L'manberg itself. He can feel everything that goes on within it's borders; feel as crops are maintained and homes are built. As potions are brewed, and spawns are set.

He feels it and stops it when TNT is placed under the earth during the War of Independence, sparing L'manberg from it's first explosion.

He can sense the hollow corridors behind the walls of the final control room, knows instinctively about the redstone lacing the room. And so he ushers everyone out before Eret can spring the trap.

He's almost fast enough. Everyone else makes it out, but he himself doesn't.

He wakes from the fatal blow expecting to be down to two lives. But he still has all three. He counts himself lucky and rejoins the others as they decide what to do with the traitorous would-be king.

The first time his connection to the country is unable to help him is during the election. He can sense all of the goings on in the borders, but he could never have predicted that Schlatt would exile Wilbur and Tommy.

When Schlatt makes him tear down the walls, every single block removed leaves something empty inside him.

He does all that he can to keep his country from falling under Schlatt's tyrannical rule, but he's left helpless when he feels layer after layer of TNT build beneath his feet.

He tries to stop it, but every time it's removed, it returns the next day. He tells Schlatt, but the dictator doesn't care enough to listen. He assumes the explosives must be Schlatt's doing, and hates him all the more strongly.

When Tubbo is executed at the festival, Fireworks ring through Fundy's head for days. When the White House is torn down, he holds back cries of pain.

But when he reclaims his home, alongside Pogtopia, he finally has hope. That maybe things will be alright after all.

And then Wilbur presses the button.

Pain. Like nothing Fundy had ever felt. His world is nothing but explosives as he respawns from a death. But this time, he really has lost his first life. Because L'manberg had lost *it's* life. It's then that he realizes that his life is tied to the country, and that by blowing it up, Wilbur had unknowingly taken his own son's first life.

(I let L'manberg skip the first explosion so that Doomsday wouldn't straight up kill Fundy. And Wilbur surviving the control room means Fundy can confront him about indirectly killing him with the button room, and all of his other issues) (🍳)

Holy fuck. This is amazing. Oh my god.

Fundy being tied with L'Manberg? Beautiful. Oh my god.

We can make angst with this and so much stuff with it.

Holy hell, Doomsday is going to be hell for Fundy.

#mcyt #dream smp #dream smp au #fundy is l'manberg au #fundy #jschlatt #wilbur soot #ask #fried egg anon

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bestworstcase · 3 years

Note

to the last post, New Dream? real hard analysis if u can

this thing

tts really Salvaged new dream for me because the film failed utterly to persuade me of this being a relationship that could last. i know “rapunzel falls for the first man she meets!” is sort of a common refrain that folks like to lob scathingly at tangled, but to my mind it sort of misses the mark? the issue isn’t that eugene is the first man she meets so much as it is that the first man she meets is... eugene.

early in tangled (2010) we’re introduced to eugene as this devil-may-care rogue who snatches a royal artifact out from under the nose of the kingdom’s guards and then screws over his own partners in crime to escape. he’s an adult man of indeterminate age [remember that before tts pinned his age at 23 during the events of the film, there was speculation about him being as old as 26!] whose first impulse upon meeting a baby-faced teenager a few days shy of 18 is to put on this persona of suave insincere charm and hit on her. rapunzel asks him to do her a kindness, and he repeatedly tries to manipulate or intimidate her into just giving him back his satchel - it isn’t until they’re trapped in the flooding mine that he demonstrates any real concern for her as a person. all of this is intentional - eugene is supposed to be a smarmy, self-centered jerk who discovers his heart of gold as he falls in love with rapunzel.

you know, over the course of just three days.

meanwhile, of course, rapunzel is a teenager who grew up in total isolation, and eugene is the first person she’s ever met besides her exceptionally abusive ‘mother,’ and that puts her in a very vulnerable position. there’s a reason that the best inoculation against abuse is a wide, diverse network of interpersonal relationships - cruel, toxic, unhealthy, or outright abusive behaviors are all much easier to spot if you see them against a background of normal, healthy relationships. but rapunzel? the only thing she knows when she meets eugene is vicious emotional abuse. that’s her one point of comparison.

so here’s what i always think when i rewatch tangled: what if eugene hadn’t changed? what if he hadn’t undergone this rapid, radical shift in personality? what if he hadn’t rediscovered his conscience and ability to care for someone other than himself?

the entire romance hinges on eugene metamorphosing into a whole new person in a matter of days because rapunzel is just that wonderful. it is a changing-the-bad-boy fantasy, featuring a jerk in his twenties and a sheltered girl who turns eighteen in the final third of the film—and then the ending narration is like ‘i asked her over and over and over to marry me until she finally said yes! we got married! she ruled her kingdom and we lived happily ever after!’ and lol.

sure.

it is a house built on quicksand.

now i’ve said this before, but i really do think the tts team was aware of how perilous ND would be, realistically speaking, as a long-term relationship, and while of course there were some constraints on where they could take that (obv rapunzel and eugene have to stay together and get married in the end), to the greatest degree possible within those bounds, tts did the work that tangled didn’t in order to sell ND as a functional and healthy relationship.

tts examines how eugene and rapunzel are in different stages of life, with different emotional needs, and shows how they communicate with each other and work together to build bridges over those divides. it shows eugene continuing to grow and change, continually improving himself as a person, concurrent with rapunzel becoming more confident, self-assured, and independent without relying on him for protection or guidance as she did in the film. it gives both rapunzel and eugene lives outside of each other, friendships that they build and maintain independent of each other. it takes the uncomfortable ‘after asking and asking and asking’ line from the ending narration of tangled and turns it into an exploration of how they go from two people who should absolutely not under any circumstance be thinking about getting married right now to two people who are completely in sync and ready to make that lifelong commitment with each other. like... it can’t be emphasized enough how much effort went into taking the ridiculous fantasy relationship sold by the film and transforming it into i would argue the strongest and most believable relationship in the disney princess franchise.

#talk about a glow up #rta #tts #Anonymous

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dongfangxunfeng · 3 years

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what do you think of the whole actor in shrine situation? is this why you're moving away from s/h//l?

lol

A medieval fisherman is said to have hauled up a three-foot-long cod, which was common enough at the time. And the fact that the cod could talk was not especially surprising. But what was astonishing was that it spoke an unknown language. It spoke Basque.

This Basque folktale shows not only the Basque attachment to their orphan language, indecipherable to the rest of the world, but also their tie to the Atlantic cod, Gadus morhua, a fish that has never been found in Basque or even Spanish waters.

The Basques are enigmatic. They have lived in what is now the northwest corner of Spain and a nick of the French southwest for longer than history records, and not only is the origin of their language unknown, but the origin of the people themselves remains a mystery also. According to one theory, these rosy-cheeked, dark-haired, long-nosed people were the original Iberians, driven by invaders to this mountainous corner between the Pyrenees, the Cantabrian Sierra, and the Bay of Biscay. Or they may be indigenous to this area.

They graze sheep on impossibly steep, green slopes of mountains that are thrilling in their rare, rugged beauty. They sing their own songs and write their own literature in their own language, Euskera. Possibly Europe’s oldest living language, Euskera is one of only four European languages—along with Estonian, Finnish, and Hungarian—not in the Indo-European family. They also have their own sports, most notably jai alai, and even their own hat, the Basque beret, which is bigger than any other beret.

Though their lands currently reside in three provinces of France and four of Spain, Basques have always insisted that they have a country, and they call it Euskadi. All the powerful peoples around them—the Celts and Romans, the royal houses of Aquitaine, Navarra, Aragon, and Castile; later Spanish and French monarchies, dictatorships, and republics—have tried to subdue and assimilate them, and all have failed. In the 1960s, at a time when their ancient language was only whispered, having been outlawed by the dictator Francisco Franco, they secretly modernized it to broaden its usage, and today, with only 800,000 Basque speakers in the world, almost 1,000 titles a year are published in Euskera, nearly a third by Basque writers and the rest translations.

“Nire aitaren etxea / defendituko dut. / Otsoen kontra” (I will defend / the house of my father. / Against the wolves) are the opening lines of a famous poem in modern Euskera by Gabriel Aresti, one of the fathers of the modernized tongue. Basques have been able to maintain this stubborn independence, despite repression and wars, because they have managed to preserve a strong economy throughout the centuries. Not only are Basques shepherds, but they are also a seafaring people, noted for their successes in commerce. During the Middle Ages, when Europeans ate great quantities of whale meat, the Basques traveled to distant unknown waters and brought back whale. They were able to travel such distances because they had found huge schools of cod and salted their catch, giving them a nutritious food supply that would not spoil on long voyages.

Basques were not the first to cure cod. Centuries earlier, the Vikings had traveled from Norway to Iceland to Greenland to Canada, and it is not a coincidence that this is the exact range of the Atlantic cod. In the tenth century, Thorwald and his wayward son, Erik the Red, having been thrown out of Norway for murder, traveled to Iceland, where they killed more people and were again expelled. About the year 985, they put to sea from the black lava shore of Iceland with a small crew on a little open ship. Even in midsummer, when the days are almost without nightfall, the sea there is gray and kicks up whitecaps. But with sails and oars, the small band made it to a land of glaciers and rocks, where the water was treacherous with icebergs that glowed robin’s-egg blue. In the spring and summer, chunks broke off the glaciers, crashed into the sea with a sound like thunder that echoed in the fjords, and sent out huge waves. Eirik, hoping to colonize this land, tried to enhance its appeal by naming it Greenland.

Almost 1,000 years later, New England whalers would sing: “Oh, Greenland is a barren place / a place that bears no green / Where there’s ice and snow / and the whale fishes blow / But daylight’s seldom seen.”

Eirik colonized this inhospitable land and then tried to push on to new discoveries. But he injured his foot and had to be left behind. His son, Leifur, later known as Leif Eiriksson, sailed on to a place he called Stoneland, which was probably the rocky, barren Labrador coast. “I saw not one cartload of earth, though I landed many places,” Jacques Cartier would write of this coast six centuries later. From there, Leif’s men turned south to “Woodland” and then “Vineland.” The identity of these places is not certain. Woodland could have been Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, or Maine, all three of which are wooded. But in Vineland they found wild grapes, which no one else has discovered in any of these places.

The remains of a Viking camp have been found in Newfoundland. It is perhaps in that gentler land that the Vikings were greeted by inhabitants they found so violent and hostile that they deemed settlement impossible, a striking assessment to come from a people who had been regularly banished for the habit of murdering people. More than 500 years later the Beothuk tribe of Newfoundland would prevent John Cabot from exploring beyond crossbow range of his ship. The Beothuk apparently did not misjudge Europeans, since soon after Cabot, they were enslaved by the Portuguese, driven inland, hunted by the French and English, and exterminated in a matter of decades.

How did the Vikings survive in greenless Greenland and earthless Stoneland? How did they have enough provisions to push on to Woodland and Vineland, where they dared not go inland to gather food, and yet they still had enough food to get back? What did these Norsemen eat on the five expeditions to America between 985 and 1011 that have been recorded in the Icelandic sagas? They were able to travel to all these distant, barren shores because they had learned to preserve codfish by hanging it in the frosty winter air until it lost four-fifths of its weight and became a durable woodlike plank. They could break off pieces and chew them, eating it like hardtack. Even earlier than Eirik’s day, in the ninth century, Norsemen had already established plants for processing dried cod in Iceland and Norway and were trading the surplus in northern Europe.

The Basques, unlike the Vikings, had salt, and because fish that was salted before drying lasted longer, the Basques could travel even farther than the Vikings. They had another advantage: The more durable a product, the easier it is to trade. By the year 1000, the Basques had greatly expanded the cod markets to a truly international trade that reached far from the cod’s northern habitat.

In the Mediterranean world, where there were not only salt deposits but a strong enough sun to dry sea salt, salting to preserve food was not a new idea. In preclassical times, Egyptians and Romans had salted fish and developed a thriving trade. Salted meats were popular, and Roman Gaul had been famous for salted and smoked hams. Before they turned to cod, the Basques had sometimes salted whale meat; salt whale was found to be good with peas, and the most prized part of the whale, the tongue, was also often salted.

Until the twentieth-century refrigerator, spoiled food had been a chronic curse and severely limited trade in many products, especially fish. When the Basque whalers applied to cod the salting techniques they were using on whale, they discovered a particularly good marriage because the cod is virtually without fat, and so if salted and dried well, would rarely spoil. It would outlast whale, which is red meat, and it would outlast herring, a fatty fish that became a popular salted item of the northern countries in the Middle Ages.

Even dried salted cod will turn if kept long enough in hot humid weather. But for the Middle Ages it was remarkably long-lasting—a miracle comparable to the discovery of the fast-freezing process in the twentieth century, which also debuted with cod. Not only did cod last longer than other salted fish, but it tasted better too. Once dried or salted—or both—and then properly restored through soaking, this fish presents a flaky flesh that to many tastes, even in the modern age of refrigeration, is far superior to the bland white meat of fresh cod. For the poor who could rarely afford fresh fish, it was cheap, high-quality nutrition.

In 1606, Gudbrandur Thorláksson, an Icelandic bishop, made this line drawing of the North Atlantic in which Greenland is represented in the shape of a dragon with a fierce, toothy mouth. Modern maps show that this is not at all the shape of Greenland, but it is exactly what it looks like from the southern fjords, which cut jagged gashes miles deep into the high mountains. (Royal Library, Copenhagen)

Catholicism gave the Basques their great opportunity. The medieval church imposed fast days on which sexual intercourse and the eating of flesh were forbidden, but eating “cold” foods was permitted. Because fish came from water, it was deemed cold, as were waterfowl and whale, but meat was considered hot food. The Basques were already selling whale meat to Catholics on “lean days,” which, since Friday was the day of Christ’s crucifixion, included all Fridays, the forty days of Lent, and various other days of note on the religious calendar. In total, meat was forbidden for almost half the days of the year, and those lean days eventually became salt cod days. Cod became almost a religious icon—a mythological crusader for Christian observance.

The Basques were getting richer every Friday. But where was all this cod coming from? The Basques, who had never even said where they came from, kept their secret. By the fifteenth century, this was no longer easy to do, because cod had become widely recognized as a highly profitable commodity and commercial interests around Europe were looking for new cod grounds. There were cod off of Iceland and in the North Sea, but the Scandinavians, who had been fishing cod in those waters for thousands of years, had not seen the Basques. The British, who had been fishing for cod well offshore since Roman times, did not run across Basque fishermen even in the fourteenth century, when British fishermen began venturing up to Icelandic waters. The Bretons, who tried to follow the Basques, began talking of a land across the sea.

Bench ends from St. Nicolas’ Chapel in a town by the North Sea, King’s Lynn, Norfolk, England, carved circa 1415, depict the cod fishery. (Victoria and Albert Museum, London)

In the 1480s, a conflict was brewing between Bristol merchants and the Hanseatic League. The league had been formed in thirteenth-century Lübeck to regulate trade and stand up for the interests of the merchant class in northern German towns. Hanse means “fellowship” in Middle High German. This fellowship organized town by town and spread throughout northern Europe, including London. By controlling the mouths of all the major rivers that ran north from central Europe, from the Rhine to the Vistula, the league was able to control much of European trade and especially Baltic trade. By the fourteenth century, it had chapters as far north as Iceland, as far east as Riga, south to the Ukraine, and west to Venice.

For many years, the league was seen as a positive force in northern Europe. It stood up against the abuses of monarchs, stopped piracy, dredged channels, and built lighthouses. In England, league members were called Easterlings because they came from the east, and their good reputation is reflected in the word sterling, which comes from Easterling and means “of assured value.”

But the league grew increasingly abusive of its power and ruthless in defense of trade monopolies. In 1381, mobs rose up in England and hunted down Hanseatics, killing anyone who could not say bread and cheese with an English accent.

The Hanseatics monopolized the Baltic herring trade and in the fifteenth century attempted to do the same with dried cod. By then, dried cod had become an important product in Bristol. Bristol’s well-protected but difficult-to-navigate harbor had greatly expanded as a trade center because of its location between Iceland and the Mediterranean. It had become a leading port for dried cod from Iceland and wine, especially sherry, from Spain. But in 1475, the Hanseatic League cut off Bristol merchants from buying Icelandic cod.

Thomas Croft, a wealthy Bristol customs official, trying to find a new source of cod, went into partnership with John Jay, a Bristol merchant who had what was at the time a Bristol obsession: He believed that somewhere in the Atlantic was an island called Hy-Brasil. In 1480, Jay sent his first ship in search of this island, which he hoped would offer a new fishing base for cod. In 1481, Jay and Croft outfitted two more ships, the Trinity and the George. No record exists of the result of this enterprise. Croft and Jay were as silent as the Basques. They made no announcement of the discovery of Hy-Brasil, and history has written off the voyage as a failure. But they did find enough cod so that in 1490, when the Hanseatic League offered to negotiate to reopen the Iceland trade, Croft and Jay simply weren’t interested anymore.

Where was their cod coming from? It arrived in Bristol dried, and drying cannot be done on a ship deck. Since their ships sailed out of the Bristol Channel and traveled far west of Ireland and there was no land for drying fish west of Ireland—Jay had still not found Hy-Brasil—it was suppposed that Croft and Jay were buying the fish somewhere. Since it was illegal for a customs official to engage in foreign trade, Croft was prosecuted. Claiming that he had gotten the cod far out in the Atlantic, he was acquitted without any secrets being revealed.

To the glee of the British press, a letter has recently been discovered. The letter had been sent to Christopher Columbus, a decade after the Croft affair in Bristol, while Columbus was taking bows for his discovery of America. The letter, from Bristol merchants, alleged that he knew perfectly well that they had been to America already. It is not known if Columbus ever replied. He didn’t need to. Fishermen were keeping their secrets, while explorers were telling the world. Columbus had claimed the entire new world for Spain.

Then, in 1497, five years after Columbus first stumbled across the Caribbean while searching for a westward route to the spice-producing lands of Asia, Giovanni Caboto sailed from Bristol, not in search of the Bristol secret but in the hopes of finding the route to Asia that Columbus had missed. Caboto was a Genovese who is remembered by the English name John Cabot, because he undertook this voyage for Henry VII of England. The English, being in the North, were far from the spice route and so paid exceptionally high prices for spices. Cabot reasoned correctly that the British Crown and the Bristol merchants would be willing to finance a search for a northern spice route. In June, after only thirty-five days at sea, Cabot found land, though it wasn’t Asia. It was a vast, rocky coastline that was ideal for salting and drying fish, by a sea that was teeming with cod. Cabot reported on the cod as evidence of the wealth of this new land,

New Found Land, which he claimed for England. Thirty-seven years later, Jacques Cartier arrived, was credited with “discovering” the mouth of the St. Lawrence, planted a cross on the Gaspé Peninsula, and claimed it all for France. He also noted the presence of 1,000 Basque fishing vessels. But the Basques, wanting to keep a good secret, had never claimed it for anyone.

#citing my sources cod by mark kurlansky xoxo #asks #anon #long post

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pixelwisp-archive · 3 years

Text

Itadakimasu!! | Part 3: Fly, Little Bird (Written Chapter)

word count: 1.2k

Tendou never thought himself to be a selfless person. He didn't really consider himself a selfish person either, necessarily, but he promised himself a long time ago that he wasn't going to set aside his own dreams for the comfort of someone else. His ambition always came first, and the endgame had always been Paris. He supposed, in a way, that had never changed - so why was there a familiar pool of guilt settling at the pit of his stomach?

The corner of his lips tugged downward at the slight, involuntary tremor that rippled through his hands - the ivory envelope with gold trim, 'La Maison du Chocolat' written in a delicate golden font across its center clutched in between them. You knew about Paris - about his dreams, his ambitions - and not once have you given him any reason to doubt that you would regard this news in any way other than with a painfully large grin and arms spread impossibly wide, pride radiating off you like a sunbeam. So why...guilty. Thoughts wandered to the pickle jar. The drunken nights on the balcony of your tiny apartment; stupid, cheesy French music playing on one of your phones as the two of you laughed and talked about what Paris would mean for the both of you. Tendou knew exactly what to say every time, but when the conversation trailed back to you, you would grin, sometimes laugh, but your answer was always the same - 'I'll figure it out when I get there. I don't really care as long as I'm with you'.

Ah. There it was.

Paris was his dream. Not yours.

'I'll follow you anywhere, Ten.’

Even if it wasn't what you wanted.

He was neither a selfless nor selfish person, but he knew you, and you were as selfless as they came. You would give up everything you’ve worked so hard for to follow him if he asked, completely setting aside your own whims to entertain his. Tendou shoved the envelope into his bag and hurried up the stairs to your apartment, trying desperately to will away the unwanted feeling that gnawed at him as he flashed you his usual Cheshire grin.

In 12 months, he would be leaving for Paris to begin a paid apprenticeship with one of the most famous Parisian Chocolate Boutiques, working directly under the famous Sculptor and Chocolatier Patrick Roger himself - and you would not be going with him.

There wasn’t any way to break that news to you now, not when you were still so unwilling to stand on your own. He knew he needed to nudge you out of the nest the two of you built, reminding you of your independence, and hopefully, the will to chase your own dreams. He grabbed the pickle jar from under the sink, took a little extra from his own savings, and began the search to find you a new nest, one with more room for you to finally learn to fly.

“I’m sorry, you what?” Your body twisted toward him at the news, eyes bulging out of your skull.

“I bought a new location. In Osaka! Trendy neighborhood, good lighting, pretty cheap actually-”

“When?! How?! With what-” your voice died in your throat as you picked yourself off the floor and scrambled to the kitchen. You ripped open the cabinet underneath the sink and fished around, a grunt of victory leaving you as you felt your fingers clasp around the familiar lid. Successfully retrieving the pickle jar from the depths of the cabinet, the faint glow of the kitchen light brought the full makeshift bank into view, and you couldn’t help but gawk when you saw its emptiness.

“Tendou, why...” Your voice trailed off as your brain began to flood with worry. What made him decide to just buy a new location without talking to you first? It’s not like you would have said no. You couldn’t help but feel a pang of betrayal at the notion that he didn’t value your opinion as a business partner. Feet pattered against the linoleum as he rushed to stand in front of you, and your lifted your eyes to lock onto his own. The usual mirth that accompanied his features was ever present, but you knew him well enough to see the tiny sheen of something else that rippled over his features. Guilt?

“Paradis, it’s nothing against you, I promise. I just...I wanted it to be a surprise,” he explained, crouching down so he could maintain an even eye level with you. “I forgot you’re not a huge fan of them.” Your lack of response was probably beginning to gnaw at him, you thought, but whenever you tried to come up with something to say, it fizzled before it could reach your tongue.

“I saw your notebook, Y/n,” he mumbled. “You have so many plans for Paradis, and they’re all amazing! This new place has all the room to make your ideas on the page come to life. You could have a dining area, expand the menu, try new crazy things - this location can be your passion project; your baby.”

Spontaneity wasn’t a new trait for Tendou. There were days where he would come home, tell you to collect your things, and wisk you away on a road trip for two days with no destination in mind, no other notice except a quick text to the team to take care of the shop while you two were away. Generally, you didn’t mind his antics, but this seemed next level, and you couldn’t ignore the feeling that it came with ulterior motives.

Something else nagged at the back of your mind too - if you were going to Osaka, was Tendou coming with you? Was he staying here? What about the apartment? There’s no way he can keep it up himself. How did he get the money for a location in Osaka of all places-

Your brain shut down the moment Tendou’s finger poked in between your eyebrows.

“Paradis, you’re gonna get wrinkles. I already took care of everything, so ask me whatever you wanna know.” You sat on his words for a moment, rifling through the growing number of questions to deem which one most important.

“Are you coming with me?” His silence was loud enough to answer for him, and you looked down. You haven’t done any of this on your own before. You’ve always had someone’s arm held out to you to hang onto whenever life tried to rear its ugly head and swallow you.

“I won’t be able to do it all myself, Ten.” Tendou frowned. “You don’t give yourself enough credit, Y/n. You can always call me if you end up stuck. Also,” he pulled out his phone as if to confirm his next words. “Kuguri has been wanting to move out of Tokyo for a fat minute now. He said he’s totally down to go with you.”

The news of Kuguri accompanying you lifted a huge amount of pressure off you. At least you weren’t going up there alone. Your thoughts drifted to the potential Osaka had just granted you; A new opportunity, a blank slate for your ideas to come to life. You could finally try things you’ve always wanted to with this new location. The worry that plagued you began to dissipate, excitement taking over as you brought your eyes to meet Tendou’s once more.

“When are we supposed to leave?” Tendou grins, and places his hand over the one you had resting on top of the pickle jar.

“Three weeks.”

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Fun facts -

I promise this is an Osamu x reader lmao just give it time

For Tendou’s apprenticeship, I combined two popular Parisian Chocolate companies: Patrick Roger, who’s style just seems so Avant Garde and very Tendou energy, and decided to make him the head of the popular chocolate boutique La Maison du Chocolat, solely because I thought the name was very ~French~ and ~Fancy~ lol.

I know nothing of Chocolate or France tbh - I got my info from this Vogue Article that you can read here.

A/N: So sorry for the wait with Chapter three!! I was kind of struggling with which route would best keep the plot rolling the way I want it to. I hope you guys don’t mind that this chapter is entirely written, next chapter will def have more social media caps! As always, thank you so much for reading, feel free to shoot me an ask and engage or ask to be added to the Taglist!!

ps: This wasn’t beta read so pls ignore the bad bits lmaofnjkasndfaksj

Taglist -

@larkspyrr @oikawaandkuroostan @fucktheworlddude @doctorspencereid @keiarma @cherriechurros @halesandy

I heard you guys aren’t getting tagged with updates and I’m p sure its because I’m st00pid so if this doesn’t work I’ll reblog and tag again! Sorry if you guys get notified multiple times lmao

#Itadakimasu!!#osamu smau #haikyuu smau #osamu x reader #osamu miya x reader #osamu miya smau #hq!! smau

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