#why is this place inundated with actual children
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I am so fucking sick of mean people.
#seriously this fandom is draining sometimes#thought this was supposed to be a young adult or adult series#why is this place inundated with actual children#being angsty and rude isn’t cool btw#kindness is much cooler
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I wonder who this "classified" client is that had the Gunners going after the HalluciGen stuff?
Same mysterious person/group that is generally pulling their strings who we never uncover in-game?
The items they were after are two of the five or so products HalluciGen were working on before the bombs.
The Irradicator was meant to be a new way to get rid of rads on the field. Like those arches you can walk through, but completely hand-held. Like the very opposite of the Children of Atom's gamma guns. They backfired completely and instead hugely irradiate their users and the surrounding area. Like... a really nasty version of the Children of Atom's gamma guns... Like a mininuke in gun form.
The original design and research could be useful, sure, but with the forementioned arches, as well as biosuits and medical treatments, the only people interested in something like this would be someone expecting to take on large amounts of radiation in short amounts of time that they can't afford to stick to biosuits and other equipment, perhaps environmentally.
The next item is much more interesting:
InvisiWave was meant to be a new step forward in stealth technology, doing away with the need for full suits or cumbersome stealthboy devices. By the time they did their first shows they hadn't gotten anywhere, and just rigged up some mirrors, two hacked Stealth-boys, and a trap door, but when we come through the place we can see that they've managed to create a device that... removes things. Anything hit by the field becomes invisible, inaudible, and intangible. It's just gone. Seemingly. Whether it's still actually there or not is a question left in the air, but we can't interact with it anymore. There are no marks for vaporisation either. Perhaps if someone was hit by this they... become a ghost? Extraplaner stuff happens? It's on the level of some of Fallout's weirder shit, but all possible.
But who would want this? Even if they're going after it for it's actual stealth capabilities, stealth-boys are rare but not in that short of supply, and both the Railroad and Institute have already advanced their own designs on them, with the Institute being able to churn theirs out fairly easily, since Kellogg and their coursers are inundated with them.
My only guess for who would be facing a ton of rads and wanting any edge they can get on not being found is... Doctor Brian Virgil.
So, maybe in this one case the Institute was somewhat involved with the Gunners movements, but in a rather backwards anti-Institute way based on who might be behind it and why?
If it was him, it begs the question of how he contacted them. He couldn't have sent anyone in his place as he probably wouldn't have been able to send a synth without alerting suspicion, and he had to become a mutant before he got out of the Institute, and by then I'm sure he made a bee-line to the deepest areas of the Sea.
Who knows. Either way, the Gunners never made it that far by the time we get to them.
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Santorine: 'Hate Train' Heading to 'Bittersville' Later This Year
I’m looking forward to enjoying the summer. The weather promises to be great, so I’m hoping to get some travel in and to spend time with our children and grandchildren.
Intellectually, though, I know it as a time to relax. June and July are slow, and the chance of getting anything done in August is zero to none. But there is something coming in the fall. It’s an election year. That gives us about 90 days before the hate fest that is our campaign system shifts into high gear.
Starting right after Labor Day we are going to be inundated with media of all kinds that won’t tell us a single thing about either candidate’s positions. But it will be non-stop hate and vitriol. Most of the messaging will be insulting and vile, and there will be a very few that are actually funny.
But if you don’t agree with our candidate, PEOPLE WILL DIE. Hyperbole. Only hyperbole.
The creative (the actual advertisement… print, video, audio or meme) will be well executed, but depending on the magnitude of the lie, it won’t be good. We know it’s coming, too, and we know it’s going to be ugly and insulting and the spin-masters for each candidate will craft new lies for their candidate to spew.
Joseph Goebbels, the NAZI Minister of Propaganda under Hitler, once said, “If you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it, and you will even come to believe it yourself.”
That is as true today as it was 85 years ago, and the media specialists handling all the candidates know this and will try to use this to their advantage, and to our culture’s detriment.
I’ve never been smart enough to lie, so I don’t. What’s scary about the Goebbels quote is that those who lie might “come to believe it themselves.” I can see that happening.
Unfortunately, so many candidates for elected office think they are the smartest people in the room, and that they can get away with lies and plagiarism. Sooner or later, it’s going to turn around and bite them right where they sit, and it’s not going to be comfortable … nor should it be.
Both the Democrats and the Republicans want to load their opposition candidates on the “Hate Train,” and that “Hate Train is headed right to a pointless place called Bittersville. It looks, as a matter of fact, remarkably like our state capital, or Washington D.C., for that matter. When it’s Bittersville, our elected officials don’t get much done for us.
Most votes straight down the party lines. Most like deadlock. Most work to get nothing done, or they just pay attention to the extreme stuff that panders to either parties lunatic fringe.
Remember, we pay them to be our representatives, and they don’t represent us.
The President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House control appointments to committees, and when our elected folks are out of office, that is where the money is. Knuckle under, tow the company line, or you might have to retire on a paltry $174,000 per year.
It’s sad, isn’t it?
Someone once suggested that congressional members should have to wear vests with the logos of their corporate benefactors. Not a bad idea, is it?
Historically, we have respected the Office of the President of the United States, and there was a standard level of decorum, especially during events such as the State of the Union. We have Nancy Pelosi to thank for taking a wonderful and unique event from our government and reducing it to a grandstanding political circus.
All is not lost, however, because we have some representatives who continue to talk about genuine issue. The problem is, though, they lack a large-enough megaphone to effectively sway The People. They sure do try, but those make-sense lawmakers have yet to take center stage.
So, that’s why I urge you to enjoy the time between now and September because soon than later that whistle will blow and the Hate Train will take you straight to Bittersville.
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-More Hearts Than Mine-
Summary: Raising a child is hard. Raising a child with one of Hollywood’s biggest stars is even harder. And raising a child with one of Hollywood’s biggest stars who you’re not actually in a relationship with is even harder still.
Especially when a global pandemic is sweeping the world.
With lockdowns and stay at home orders looming on the horizon, the uncertainty of their situation becomes almost too much for Whitney Taylor to handle. Chris suggests that they quarantine together to avoid any potential separations but, given what happened the last time they spent more than a few brief moments in each other’s company, that could cause more problems than it solves…
Chris Evans x OFC
Sequel to: Once Bitten - Twice Shy
Part Two
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Part Three
I did my best to take Scott's words to heart. It was eye-opening and, while it didn't change my concerns about how Grayson would be affected, it helped me soften my guard a little bit when it came to Chris.
We were both in over our heads, stuck with feelings that we didn't know what to do with and insecurities that left us unable to fight for what we wanted. I had doubts and I had questions, but if what Scott had divulged was true then I did have some sympathy for Chris because I knew exactly how he'd been feeling for the last few years.
So, I decided to talk to him. To hash it out, lay it all on the table and see what he had to say. I wasn't entirely sure I would change my mind about the situation, but I wanted to give him a chance to explain his thoughts and feelings unlike how I'd shut the conversation down after Christmas.
But I didn't count on how chaotic it was to be trapped in a house, all day every day, with a child who was almost three. Even with three adults, there were days when it felt like we were the ones who were outnumbered as we took turns trying to keep him constantly entertained and stimulated. To our credit, it was working and we were managing to keep Grayson from being bored, anxious to go out to a park or noticing that things were all that different, but it meant that I had no time or energy to deal with heavy conversations. Things were fine between Chris and I, we were getting along well enough with no more noteworthy disagreements, but there hadn't been a good time for any kind of heart-to-heart.
Things only got more complicated about a week and a half into our lockdown when Chris had to start doing interviews. He had a new show, Defending Jacob, coming out in a few weeks and he had to start the promo for it.
Most people who were working from home these days with small children running around had way more difficult situations to balance than we did, but we knew it would be tricky to keep Grayson from getting curious and barging into an interview. He'd proven to be quite sneaky when he wanted to be and Chris was anxious about the whole thing. He wasn't a big fan of interviews at the best of times so doing it over Zoom made him even more nervous. He spent the whole morning fretting about it being awkward, concerned that he wouldn't be able to relax and act natural, and it seemed like he was channelling his anxiety into his worries about Grayson. He very much liked to be in control of what the world saw of Gray and having him crash an interview wasn't what he wanted. I completely agreed and assured him several times that I wouldn't let that happen, but I could tell he was still stressed about it as he dragged himself off to get ready.
For the first hour or so that Chris was working, things went well. We read a story and played with some Lego, activities that wouldn't get Grayson too excited and noisy, but when Scott suggested that he curl up on the couch and watch Finding Nemo with him, we ran into a problem.
"Okay!" Grayson cheered, jumping up from where we'd been playing on the floor. "Be right back!"
He took off down the hall and I leapt into action, calling his name and stopping him just as he got to the bottom of the stairs.
"Where are you going, buddy?"
"To get my bear!"
Grayson's room was upstairs, next to Chris' office. He knew where Chris was so I knew there was a good chance he would stop by to say hello on his way past the door.
"Why don't you go get settled on the couch with Uncle Scott and I'll get your bear so you don't miss any of the movie?" I suggested. "Is he in your room?"
"No," he shook his head. "He's in Daddy's office."
I held back a groan, knowing that Gray would not be happy if I explained that he couldn't have his bear for the movie because we weren't allowed in Daddy's office right now. But I also knew that now he'd decided that he wanted to watch a movie, it wasn't likely that he would settle doing anything else either.
"Well, Daddy's very busy in his office right now," I explained. "But I'll go upstairs and see if I can sneak in and get him, okay?"
Grayson agreed to that suggestion and ran off back towards the living room as I glanced at the clock on the wall quickly and hoped that Chris was between interviews. I knew he wouldn't be done for the day just yet, but he had a few lined up so there was a chance that he wasn't currently on a call.
As soon as I pressed my ear to the door of Chris' office, my hopes were dashed. I could hear the sound of laughter echoing through from his laptop so I knew he was in the middle of something, but just as I was about to walk away I heard something that caught my attention.
"You have a son of your own, don't you?" The interviewer asked and I cringed, knowing that it wasn't something Chris liked to discuss. His character in the show was a father though so I wasn't surprised it had come up, it gave them a segue that they hadn't really had before. "How is that going with this lockdown?"
Ever the professional, Chris didn't even hesitate before he answered even though I knew he would be annoyed by the line of questioning.
"Oh, it's great! He's staying with me until all this is over so it's great that we get to spend so much time together," he told the interviewer. "I'm lucky enough to be in a situation where I can just take a few months off until things cool down without too much worry so we've just been relaxing, building blanket forts, watching movies and getting in some bonding time that I miss out on when I'm busy. It's had some challenges, but it's been really nice."
I knew I shouldn't be listening, it was rude to eavesdrop even if the conversation would shortly be broadcast to the whole world, but again, the interviewer's next question had me too intrigued to walk away. Despite all the talking points that he could have chosen from Chris' answer, he zeroed in on one thing.
"He's staying with you for the entire lockdown? Is there a rekindled romance we don't know about?" He asked. "Or is his mother no longer in the picture?"
My jaw dropped. I didn't know who Chris was talking with today, but it wasn't like his team to set him up for any interviews where he would be asked questions like that and most interviewers were too polite to fish for the kind of gossip you'd find in a trashy magazine.
"Oh, I'm not gonna get into all that." Chris' tone was much more clipped than it had been moments before - he was clearly not impressed by the question either. "It's not anyone's business really, is it? But I will say that she is definitely in the picture and one of the best moms that I know. She's staying here with us too."
My heart melted a bit at his compliment even though I knew the words he added at the end meant that we were in for a whole new gossip storm.
It suddenly felt like I really was overstepping by standing at the door listening to this conversation without his knowledge so I headed back downstairs. As I got back into the living room, I pulled my phone out of my pocket and sent a message to Chris:
It would appear that you have a stowaway. I know you're busy, but please return Mr. Bear at your earliest convenience.
I put my phone away as I explained the situation to Grayson, but luckily, he was too interested in the movie to pay much attention to what I'd said. By the time Chris came down with the bear, it was like he'd forgotten that he ever cared about it in the first place.
Most of my attention was on Chris at that point though. The way he scurried into the room, avoiding looking in my direction at all. He looked ashamed and withdrawn and I couldn't hold back a sigh when he left the room quickly as I knew that he was beating himself up over the conversation that he didn't even know I'd heard.
-
Chris was sullen for the rest of the day. He perked up around Grayson, but whenever Gray was distracted there was a scowl or a frown firmly planted on his face. I wanted to say something, but I didn't know how without confessing that I'd overheard his interview. Given his mood and the ease with which we fell into disagreements these days, that seemed like it would cause more issues than it would help.
The news broke at about eleven that night and I knew because I was suddenly inundated with texts from friends and with follower requests on my private social media accounts. I pulled up the video and watched the interview, feeling another wave of empathy when I saw the annoyance written all over Chris' face as he answered the questions. He'd found a subtle way to shut the interview down almost immediately after the incident and I was proud of him for handling it so diplomatically.
I added it to the list of things that I needed to talk to Chris about whenever I got the chance as I pulled myself away from my laptop and headed to the bathroom to brush my teeth before bed. However, when I got into the hallway, I noticed a light coming up from downstairs. As far as I knew, everyone had gone to bed almost an hour ago, but I had a good idea whose thoughts would be keeping them awake so I headed down to investigate.
My suspicions were confirmed as I walked into the living room and saw Chris on the couch, his phone in his hand and his brow furrowed.
"Uh oh," I started, making his eyes snap up towards me. "Are you doomscrolling?"
The angry look on his face softened slightly as he raised an eyebrow at me.
"Doomscrolling?"
"Yeah," I shrugged with a smile. "That's what the kids call it these days when you spend too long scrolling through the news or Twitter, just soaking in all the bad shit in the world."
Chris chuckled as I moved into the room and sat on the opposite end of the couch that he was on, tucking my feet underneath me.
"I didn't know you were so down with the kids these days."
"I'm getting old, Chris. I'm almost thirty-two, I have to stay cool somehow." I shot him a wink. "But anyway, what are you reading that's making you look so grumpy?"
Chris sighed and locked his phone, putting it on the end table next to the couch.
"I said something in an interview today," he admitted. "Something that I shouldn't have said."
I watched him for a moment, waiting for him to look at me and elaborate, but when he didn't, I spoke up.
"I hope you're not about to tell me that you regret saying what a good mom I am or I'll be really disappointed..."
That comment brought Chris' gaze back to me, his shock evident on his face until it faded into a grimace.
"You heard what I said?"
"I watched the video," I admitted. "I had a flurry of Instagram activity that tipped me off."
"You didn't read the comments, did you?"
There was worry written all over Chris' face when I shrugged.
"Of course I did. Can't have my self-esteem getting too high, can we?" I was teasing, but his look of gloom only deepened. "Chris, it doesn't matter. I'm no supermodel, they're not saying anything I don't already know."
"See, this is what bothers me," Chris snapped. "My so-called 'fans' are out there spewing all this crap about you and you're acting like it's all true, so who cares? Well, I care because it's bullshit and you don't deserve it!"
"I didn't mean it like that," I assured him, keeping my voice quiet in an attempt to cool the situation.
We'd been here many times over the years and I knew how enraged the comments made Chris. He saw right through me, he knew that I took some of the things that had been said to heart, but who wouldn't? It's hard not to take it personally when someone points out your biggest insecurities, the things that you hope no one else notices, the things that you tell yourself can't possibly be true or as bad as you think in your head. It's impossible not to let it get to you a little bit, but I was well practiced at dealing with it and had grown a thicker skin.
At least, when it came to the comments about my appearance. The comments about how I'm not good enough and how Chris could do better always struck a cord, but it was nothing I couldn't handle.
"No?" Chris huffed. "What did you mean then?"
"That I know I'm an easy target because I'm not stick thin with a boob job," I answered, wanting to diffuse the situation before Chris got too upset. "They're cruel and mean, but they're just jealous because they think their dream boyfriend is taken now."
"Well, anyone who claims to be a real fan of mine wouldn't talk like that about someone I care about," he grumbled. "I shouldn't have answered, I should have just ignored the question."
"Actually, I'm glad you didn't. I'm glad you set the record straight rather than have everyone think I've abandoned my child. I would probably get even more hate for that."
"He shouldn't have even asked about it," Chris continued. "It was so out of line. Why can't people just mind their own business?"
"Because everyone adores you and has a burning desire to know everything about you," I teased, stretching my feet out to nudge his leg gently. His lips twitched briefly into a smile, but it faded as fast as it appeared. "Even my friends were all messaging me, asking if it was true like gossiping teenage girls. Everyone wants the Chris Evans scoop."
That comment earned me a chuckle and I relaxed slightly, hoping that he was starting to calm down.
"I'm sure your friends were more interested in the gossip about your life, not because of me."
"I dunno," I shrugged. "They always liked you."
Chris smiled, but a sigh slipped from his lips as he draped his arm over my feet where they rested on the couch next to him. We sat quietly for a moment as I continued watching him, wishing there was something I could say to ease the worry in his mind, but his next words left me a little bit speechless.
"I do get it, you know?" He said, his eyes still fixed firmly on the ground in front of him. "I get why you wouldn't want to be with me. I get that it's a lot to deal with."
My heart sank at his admission and I scrambled to figure out what to say.
It wasn't ideal - discussing our relationship, while he was already feeling quite murderous - but he'd brought it up and it was hard to say when we'd get another chance. Once again, I found myself fighting the urge to bolt for the door, but I swallowed hard and took a deep breath, hoping that this would be a civil conversation.
"Chris, it's not that," I insisted, my voice soft in what I hoped would be a soothing tone. "Maybe they didn't do anything to ease my concerns, but the bullies on the internet aren't what scared me away."
"No?" His eyes flicked up to meet mine. "Then what did?"
He sounded so defeated and I bit my lip to keep my emotions from bubbling up. The truth was that I didn't know where to start. There was too much floating around my head, too many questions and too many explanations that made less sense now that I knew what I knew after speaking with Scott. I was scared, but it was a very justified fear that could only be made sense of by answering his question with another question.
"Why didn't you tell me that you were in love with me?"
Chris raised an eyebrow, but shrugged off the question.
"You didn't seem like you wanted to hear it, Whitney. I told you that I was all in after Christmas and you shut me down pretty fast," he pointed out. "I didn't think blurting out a confession of love would do much to change that."
Had that been what I was referring to, it would have been a fair argument. However, I was referring to long before our latest incident so I shook my head.
"I talked to Scott," I confessed as a slight look of betrayal slid onto Chris’ face. "Don't be mad, he'd had a few drinks and was feeling sentimental. He told me that you were in love with me long before Grayson was even in the picture, but you never told me."
"I slept with you, didn't I?" He questioned, a defensiveness creeping into his tone. "Doesn't that make someone's feelings pretty fuckin' clear?"
"Hardly," I scoffed. "People sleep with people they're not in love with all the time and it becomes even less clear when they meet up afterwards to have a discussion about their relationship and that someone makes no mention of being in love."
"Was it really a discussion? Or did I show up at your apartment just to hear you lay out the ground rules?"
I faltered slightly as I thought back, but after a moment of reflection, I nodded.
"It was a discussion."
"I believe the first words out of your mouth were 'I think we both know that we're better off as friends'," he informed me. "Doesn't leave much room for debate."
"I was scared." That confession came out less confidently, but I found my voice again quickly. "And I assumed that's what you wanted too because you never pushed back."
He cocked his head to the side, a hint of a smirk on his face.
"You weren't the only one who was scared."
"I was the only one who was pregnant," I retorted, my tone growing harsher as my frustrations started to rise. "I was the only one who was trying to make a massive life decision while hormonal and growing another human being inside of them."
"That's fair," Chris nodded, his voice much calmer than I expected after my burst of annoyance. "But I wasn't about to pour my heart out and tell you how I felt when you kept talking about what a mistake we'd made as if you'd never regretted anything more in your life."
"Getting pregnant was a mistake," I clarified. "I love Grayson and I wouldn't change it for anything, but we can't say it wasn't a mistake at the time given our situation."
"A situation that you didn't want to change."
"Only because you never told me how you felt," I shot back. "I didn't want you to commit to something out of a sense of obligation. I didn't want you to put up with me for a few years until you dumped me for someone more in your league who you actually cared about."
There was a look of surprise on Chris' face at that revelation as it became more and more obvious to both of us that we hadn't been as good at communicating as we may have thought. It seemed we'd both been so convinced that we knew exactly how the other person felt that we hadn't bothered to actually ask them.
"But I did care about you," he assured me. "And you never told me how you felt either."
"I slept with you, didn't I?"
There was a smirk on my face as I threw his words back at him despite the anxiety that was bubbling inside me.
"A wise woman just informed me that sleeping with someone doesn't necessarily mean anything," he teased, a soft smile on his face. "But I think it's safe to say that we were both cowards."
"Again, in my defence, I was pregnant," I reminded him. "I was trying to make a logical decision while my brain was muddled with hormones."
"But you could have told me after," he pointed out. "We lived together for year after he was born, Whitney, and you never even dropped a hint."
"Oh, please," I snorted out a harsh laugh. "Do you remember what that year was like? We had a newborn baby who never slept for more than ten minutes at a time and you were flying in and out for the first six months, filming one of the Avengers movies. I was delirious, exhausted and emotionally wrecked. I wasn't in the right head space to give much thought to our relationship."
"So, if I had made a move back then? Would it have made a difference?" He asked. "Because it didn't seem to matter much a few months ago."
This was the real issue at hand.
It was all well and good to talk about the past and how we'd managed to come this far so oblivious to each other's feelings, but the real discussion was where we were at now. And the truth was, that I didn't know.
I opened my mouth to answer, but shut it as my words escaped me. I shifted nervously, shrugging under his stare until a sigh fell from my lips.
"I'm not sure anymore," I admitted. "If you'd told me how you felt back then, if you fought for us to be together then I might've been swayed."
"But now?"
"Now, I think we made the right decision for Grayson."
Chris was still staring me down, his eyes locked on mine as if he was looking into my soul. It was an intensity that was hard to endure and I was relieved when he spoke again, despite how his words made my heart ache.
"But what about the right decision for us?"
"That's not what's important," I insisted. "I've seen so many of my friends struggle through their parents' bitter divorces, I don't want that for Gray. I don't want us to lose our ability to work as a team and put him first."
"Yeah, you mentioned that several times," Chris huffed. "But I don't see why you're so fuckin' convinced that we'd end up hating each other."
His frustration and impatience was shining through and I felt my panic rising again. Chris had made his stance clear and I knew I needed to make a decision soon or my lack of decision would decide for me, but I felt like I was stuck between a rock and a hard place. The thought of not being with Chris made my heart ache especially now that I knew the extent of his feelings, but the thought of being with him and the consequences that could come from that set every anxious nerve in my body on edge.
I found myself scrambling for something to say that was non-committal, but would placate the situation. I floundered until, fortunately, a tiny voice from the doorway saved me.
"Daddy said a bad word..."
I leapt off the couch, desperate for any excuse to get away and Chris raised his eyebrow at my swift reaction. I ignored him as I looked at Grayson, who was rubbing his eyes with one hand and clutching his bear in the other. He looked so small, standing there in his little flannel pajamas and I smiled at the sight.
"That is a bad word," I agreed. "Daddy shouldn't have said it. But what are you doing up?"
"I had a bad dream."
His voice was small as he was still half asleep and Chris stood, following me over as I walked towards him.
"I'm sorry to hear that, buddy," he said, lifting him up in his arms. "Do you want to talk about it?"
"No," Grayson shook his head. "It was scary."
"Awe, I'm sorry, sweetheart," I frowned as I rubbed his back, my heart melting at how small he looked in Chris' arms. "Do you want me to tuck you back in or Daddy?"
He rested his head on Chris' chest and pulled his bear so close that his answer got muffled by the stuffed animal's fur.
"I want to sleep in Daddy's bed..."
I looked up at Chris, letting him decide if that was okay, but he was already nodding his head.
"Sure, we can do that," he assured him. "But don't hog all the blankets this time, okay?"
Grayson giggled and I smiled as they headed to the door.
"Goodnight, boys," I called to them before they disappeared. "I'll see you in the morning."
"Goodnight." Chris paused to answer me and flashed me a look that made me feel like a schoolgirl being scolded by the principal. "This conversation isn't over."
It felt like a foreboding warning and it left me so flustered that all I could do was nod before he turned and continued on his way to his bedroom.
He was right.
Our conversation couldn't end there unless we wanted another four years of miscommunication and mutual longing, but I didn't know what to do. I wasn't trying to be difficult, but both options seemed destined to lead to heartache. Of course, I had no evidence to prove that we wouldn't live happily ever after, but he was Chris Evans. He was the man that women all over America, all over the world, would kill to be with. And I was just me. Once I fell off whatever pedestal he'd put me on in his mind and he realized how ordinary and unremarkable I was, it wouldn't last.
And I couldn't spend the rest of my life waiting for the other shoe to drop.
With a sigh, I headed to the stairs. My head was a mess despite my hopes that talking to Chris would bring me some clarity. It seemed I was starting a pattern of coming away from late night conversations with more questions than answers, but I was beginning to think that might be due to the fact that I would never be told what I wanted to hear. No one could make this decision for me and no one could make it a fool proof choice.
There was always a risk when it came to love. I just had to decide if that risk was worth it and start being honest with myself about why I was so scared. Were my intentions really as noble as I wanted everyone to believe? Or was I using Grayson as a shield to protect my own heart from pain as much as his?
-
Part Four
Tags: @maggotzombie @moonlacebeam @mizzzpink @zaylaugh @flowery-mess @flowerjewels @njrronaldo7 @hockeychick10
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"you asked me to the store with you and your child, and now my distant relative we met thinks im married with a baby" for wangxian :3
I doubt this was the thing you expected, but ... [smashes keyboard]
---
It had been a coincidence, really, nothing that he’d planned. He’d just been on his way out of the door to get his groceries done when he came across one of his neighbours in the entrance hall; the really handsome one with the cute little toddler that always smiled at him. The one where the mother of the child had probably left the picture, because he’d never actually seen her.
Quietly, he wondered what woman would leave a man that was so obviously caring well for his child, and a toddler so friendly and cute, but then, that was really none of his business.
In any case, when he ran into them in the entrance hall of the apartment building, the toddler was having a big temper tantrum (that was a first), and his father, despite his best efforts at calming the child, was completely unsuccessful in stopping the wailing. His usually neutral face was, for once, wrinkled in concern and apparent helplessness.
Wei Ying knew the feeling too well, from similar situations with his own family. Recently, it had been happening particularly often because of Jin Ling, his beloved nephew who had taken an unfortunate page from the book of his father and had started an early ‘nonono, I don’t want to’ phase.
So Wei Ying automatically did what he always did with Jin Ling: he made a stupid face at the toddler, and when the toddler looked at Wei Ying in momentary confusion, Wei Ying grabbed him, lifted him up, and wheeled him around. The kid let out a sound halfway between annoyance and enjoyment. Wei Ying took the chance he got, and folded over with the biggest grin on his face, tilting the child upside down with him. Then he flipped back up, and did it again. By the third time, the child was laughing.
“Again, again!”
Wei Ying did it again, and then tried to set the child down, but it was too late. Quick as anything, two hands grabbed him with surprising strength, and he now had a spider monkey on his hands. The child clung to him, eagerly asking for more parentally inadvisable acrobatics.
Wei Ying looked at the father apologetically, who had witnessed the whole event with the earlier frown still on his face, shrugging a little as he held the little monkey in his arms.
���Sorry for barging in like that,” he said. “It’s just something I picked up from handling my nephew. It works with him every time, so I started doing it automatically. You’re probably busy, I should let you go.”
He tried to hand the boy back to his father, but there was no budging. The child clung to him like a leech, whining at Wei Ying to play with him.
“I am sorry,” the father said, clearly unsure how to handle the situation and his uncooperating child. “He is usually not that difficult. Today is…”
He trailed off.
Wei Ying smiled encouragingly. “Hey, parenting is hard. Tell me, where were you going? I was planning to go to the supermarket near the park, and if you’re heading in the same direction, we can walk together until he’s calmed down a little.”
Wei Ying was almost sure there was something akin to relief in the father’s face.
“I was also heading out for groceries,” the father replied. “If it is not too much to ask…”
“Hey, no biggie,” Wei Ying smiled. “If you carry my groceries, all is well.”
He winked at the boy in his arms.
“Always get others to carry your things.”
“Gege is carrying ME!” the boy exclaimed excitedly, and Wei Ying laughed.
“I see, I see, you are a smart one!”
Wei Ying winked at the father, and after assuring him that he was perfectly fine carrying a toddler around, they walked to the grocery store together.
On the way, Wei Yin learned that the names of father and son were Lan Zhan and Lan Yuan, respectively. They hadn’t been living in the apartment building for very long (Wei Ying had suspected as much), and had recently relocated because Lan Zhan had changed jobs.
Wei Ying felt the urge to ask about the child’s mother, but managed to suppress his curiosity.
It was none of his business, he told himself sternly. He had no place nosing around in a stranger’s private affairs, even when the man in question was particularly handsome, and the toddler particularly cute.
---
Shopping turned out to be way more fun than it usually was. Lan Yuan was still stuck to Wei Ying, unwilling to give up the prime real estate in Wei Ying’s arms, so Wei Ying carried him through the supermarket like a little king, and together, they commanded Lan Zhan what he needed to buy.
Lan Zhan was a strict man that was extremely picky about the foods that he put onto the plate of his child, Wei Ying learned quickly. But he was also a father that very clearly loved by his son, and everything Lan Yuan said was considered seriously, even when it was eventually turned down. Wei Ying almost felt bad to ask Lan Zhan to help him with his groceries, since his eating habits were… nowhere near Lan Zhan’s, that was for sure.
Lan Zhan himself frowned a little when he saw all the stuff that Wei Ying was planning to buy, and though he was evidently trying to restrain himself from commenting, he eventually cracked.
“You do not cook for yourself?” he asked, as Wei Ying snatched another box of frozen food out of the freezer one-handed, balancing Lan Yuan on his hip.
“Not really,” Wei Ying replied lightly. “I’m a horrible cook. My sister banned me from her kitchen.”
“Fresh vegetables are important,” Lan Zhan said, clearly not approving of his dietary choices.
“I know! I have them when I visit my sister. She makes the best food.”
He smiled at Lan Yuan.
“Always eat your veggies, mister, if you want to grow as tall as your dad.”
“I’m gonna be taller!”
It was spoken with so much enthusiasm and conviction that Wei Ying had to laugh.
“You have a lot of work to do and many veggies to eat, then!”
“What about Gege?” Lan Yuan asked. “You also need to eat veggies and grow taller.”
“I’m not going to get any taller now, I’ve reached my maximum height already,” Wei Ying replied. “Not everyone gets to be as tall as your dad.”
That opened an entire new can of worms, because now Lan Yuan wanted to know why Wei Ying wasn’t as tall as his father, and why people were tall or small or fat or thin, and Wei Ying found himself inundated with questions he might have been able to answer more easily if he had been able to pull out his mobile phone and search for some scientifically accurate answers.
But Lan Yuan seemed to enjoy the explanations that Wei Ying could give, so honestly, all was well. He’d apparently completely forgotten the reason why he’d had a meltdown in the entrance hall of their apartment block, and seemed to enjoy being babied by someone other than his father, for once.
“A-Yuan is such a good child,” Wei Ying sighed as they left the supermarket (Lan Zhan carrying Wei Ying’s groceries as promised). “If I ever have children, I also want to have a child like A-Yuan.”
Lan Yuan hugged Wei Ying with a smile, and Wei Ying had to squish the little boy, overwhelmed by a sudden feeling of intense affection. He was just too precious. Dammit, he didn’t even have a partner, he couldn’t go around getting baby fever.
“Wei Ying should adopt me!” Lan Yuan exclaimed with enthusiasm. “Like Baba!”
Now that was… Wei Ying looked at Lan Zhan, confused about that little nugget of information.
Lan Zhan, not looking at him but at Lan Yuan, chastised his son gently.
“A-Yuan, you cannot simply ask unrelated people to adopt you. I am your cousin. We were family before I adopted you. The same cannot be asked for from unrelated people.”
It was a very rational explanation, Wei Ying thought. It also answered a few questions about the apparent non-existence of a mother. But it also seriously underestimated Wei Ying’s particular brand of free-spiritedness combined with a healthy dose of disregard for societal conventions, so Wei Ying lifted Lan Yuan higher and gave him a cheeky grin.
“For what it’s worth, A-Yuan,” he declared, “I would totally adopt you if given the chance. I don’t think your father would give you up for any price, but just know that I would.”
Lan Yuan gave him the biggest smile in reply, and Lan Zhan gave him the most severe frown he had ever seen in his life, but he didn’t care.
Lan Yuan was just too cute, and Wei Ying was entirely honest when he said that he would adopt a child like him in a heartbeat. Of course, a decision like that would be a big responsibility. Taking care of a life. But he had never been the type to think about such things carefully before jumping right in. He had always wanted a family. And he had experience in handling kids. He could do it, he knew.
Maybe I should really start to consider having a child, he thought to himself, snuggling Lan Yuan a little tighter, resting their heads together, even without a partner in the picture. I have Dajie too, I can rise a child on my own.
(He did not notice Lan Zhan’s considering gaze.)
---
“Are you a homewrecker now?”
“Hello A-Cheng, it’s nice to hear from you, I’m doing very well, thank you,” Wei Ying sang into the receiver. “Why are you calling?”
“You were seen with a father and his child at the supermarket,” came Jiang Cheng’s angry voice from the other side of the connection. “Flirting inappropriately. Really, now? Don’t tell me you’re sleeping with a man that already has a toddler.”
“Ouch, A-Cheng, who do you think I am?” Wei Ying asked theatrically. (If he was honest, the sentiment hurt a little.) “He’s just a neighbour, I was helping out like good neighbours do. He is in fact not married and the child is adopted, so even if I was sleeping with him, which I’m not, there would be nothing inappropriate about it. Also, I have never slept with any man of my acquaintance and I’m not sure why this is coming up now.”
“So that means we don’t have to reserve a seat for him at the next family dinner?”
Wei Ying spluttered. “Wha- what??”
“My sister was really excited at the thought of getting a nephew. I guess it was too much to ask. If you start fucking him, don’t tell me, but I need to know if I have to make more reservations than usual. That’s all. Bye.”
The next moment, Jiang Cheng had hung up, and Wei Ying stared at his phone beeping at him in disbelief.
What the hell?
How had Jiang Cheng even found out he had gone shopping with Lan Zhan and Lan Yuan?
Still shaken and repeating the entire conversation in his head, trying to make sense of it, he heard the doorbell ring. He threw his phone aside and scrambled to get to the door.
As soon as he opened the door, A-Yuan threw himself forward and latched onto Wei Ying’s leg tightly, grinning up at him.
“Gege! Play with me!” he shouted in lieu of a greeting.
Behind him stood Lan Zhan, all prim and proper, with his arms folded behind his back.
“He said he was missing you,” he said with an apologetic bow.
Slowly, Wei Ying bent down and lifted A-Yuan up to settle him on his hip. He stared at Lan Zhan, standing there and staring back, and thought about the strange phone call that he’d just had.
Of course he was happy that A-Yuan wanted to see him again. And of course he was happy that Lan Zhan had come to actively seek him out.
And of course he thought that–
Well.
Quietly, he wondered what it needed to make Lan Zhan accept an invitation for family dinner.
Well, maybe not a family dinner, first thing. Something a little more private was appropriate.
He gave A-Yuan a small kiss to the crown of his head, and saw Lan Zhan following the movement intently.
Hm, he thought giddily. Maybe not quite as much as I thought it might.
He smiled at Lan Zhan.
“Why don’t you come in? I doubt I’m getting this little one off of me very soon.”
#kuro writes#the untamed#wei wuxian#lan wangji#wangxian#mdzs#mdzs headcanons#not pictured: wwx and lwj lusting after each other in the hallway of their apartment block#lol#anonymous
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Violet Evergarden Ever After: Chapter 3
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No one would imagine that a single drop could be the start of something so big. However, it would earn itself great meaning after a while passed. Should it continue pouring, it could also summon boundless blessings and curses.
Love was almost like rain.
The Journey and the Auto-Memories Doll
That one was a rain of betrayal.
It started with a calm morning, the sky unfolding without any hints of being enshrouded in dark clouds. Regardless, it did not take too long for the capricious rain brought by the heavens to turn into a downpour rarely seen in recent years.
There was no longer any sign of the rain that had started to fall like gentle kisses from paradise on the black hats of gentlemen walking around town, over the backs of cats dozing under the sun or onto the cheeks of children who opened their mouths and burst into laughter. The current season was the end of summer, and it was raining for the first in a long while in Leidenschaftlich, where the skies were constantly clear in summer, but had the god that controlled weather gone crazy? With time, as if a bucket had turned over, the city was hit by a flood.
This story is about an uneventful day, which did nothing but pass, in the lives of people who worked at a certain postal company.
The rain and wind struck the entire building as if attacking it. The doorbell rang loudly because of this, a man standing in place and staring at it with unease.
Creak-creak, the door moved. Ring-ring, the bell resounded. Since it was ringing despite there being no customers, he had become concerned and found himself coming down from his residence in the top floor.
In the previous year, the building had been shot with rocket artillery, and not only had it earned an enormous hole but a fire had also occurred – however, thanks to the quick skills of workmen, the hole was now closed and the walls had been neatly rebuilt.
The man was a stylish redhead. He was the president of this company, which he had named after himself.
Claudia Hodgins had been left all alone in the empty postal office. Still, it was normal for him to be there, as it was both his home and workplace. However, since he was by himself at a time that would usually still be within business hours, no matter what, he looked like he had been abandoned.
The postal office had been in great turmoil because of the storm. Surely, so had its peers. With the deliveries stagnated, complaints were coming from the clients. Nevertheless, the transportation was not carried out by machines devoid of feelings. It was something done by humans, who had been given birth to by someone and who had families waiting for them when they returned home. In lieu of the unpreceded disaster, as the president, he had notified all employees that business would be closed for today.
To begin with, the customers had stopped coming in the middle of the day. If he had to say so himself, this might be the expected. Deliberately going outside amidst such strong wind and torrential rain was an act of sheer madness.
Curious about what was going on outside, Hodgins had approached the entrance from the side. He felt like attempting to open the large doors just a little. He wanted to see how inundated the ground was. Just when he slow and carefully reached a hand towards it, the door opened with force despite him not doing anything.
“Ow...!”
“Oh, my bad. More importantly, we’re screwed; it’s just impossible, Old Man!”
Hodgins was teary-eyed as his precious nose took a hit. He was lightheaded for an instant due to the pain, but soon regained consciousness. After all, one of his employees had come back dripping-wet. Hodgins pulled him – whole body wrapped in rain gear – by the arm, bringing him inside and closing the door. Although it was only open for a few seconds, the entrance was already drenched.
The visitor took off the hood over his head, allowing his face to be seen. He was a splendidly handsome and fine man of sky-blue eyes and sandy-blond hair.
“Benedict...!”
Benedict Blue. One of the postal company’s postmen, who had been working in it ever since its founding.
“It’s impossible – actually, it’s absurd! Working under this rain is absurd! I look like I’m in the bath already. I wouldn’t have come here if I weren’t soaked... Making the staff pull out was the right choice,” Benedict said as if angry-yelling, shaking his head in the same way that a dog or cat would and splattering water splashes at Hodgins.
This wetted most of Hodgins’s shirt and face, but he was unable to reprimand his employee, who had been doing strenuous effort. He accepted it in resignation, wiping Benedict’s face with the sleeve of his shirt. “Okay, stay put.”
“Uoh, what’s with you? Stop.”
“Welcome home. I was worried. Good thing you’re all right.”
“O-Oh. What, hum... I’m back... You were worried about me?”
“Of course,” Hodgins said, to which Benedict turned away with an obviously embarrassed attitude after a moment of bewilderment.
Outside, vases and planters that may have been at the eaves of people’s houses, as well as shop signs, had been turning into weapons for a while now, dancing around the city along with the wind. Managing to come back unharmed and safely amidst this weather, where one could not know what would come flying their way, was something to be happy about.
“I’m just fine. This job’s easier than running around shooting guns. Anyway, I was left with the letters and packages of a guy who fell from his motorcycle and came back by myself. Was best to do that, right?”
“Aah, so someone got hurt?”
“That newbie, Clark. But he only scrapped his knees. He fell lots of times when he was learning how to ride, but for real, it’s surprisingly depressing when you fall off other than during practice. He was crying, y’see.”
“Aah~.”
Knowing who the person in question was, Hodgins pitied him. He was the youngest postman to join the company as of late. It was difficult to find human resources for postmen as they were quick to quit.
“He’s young, after all...”
“You call him young but... he’s already a grown man. I wonder if he ain’t lying to us about his age... I thought he was a baby or something.”
“You can’t compare him to a city boy fresh from the battlefield like yourself. I’m gonna get you a towel and a change of clothes now, so don’t move from there.”
“Why?”
“You’d wet the floor. Don’t tell me to go around cleaning up where you walked.”
“Clean it up,” he said while laughing, to which Hodgins’s shoulders slumped. He was a reliable companion, but also a young man who knew not how to show respect for his elders.
——Well, guess I’m a so-called doting parent for thinking that’s cute – no, doting boss.
Anyhow, they needed towels, Hodgins thought as he went back to his room. He grabbed a few large towels and held a pair of trousers and shirt that Benedict would apparently fit into under his arm. Then returned to the ground floor. By the time he did so, the number of people had increased.
“Uwah... Amazing, it’s like squeezing a rag.”
There were three more other than Benedict. If they were to be separated by types, one of them had evacuated after receiving a report of work, one had evacuated after finishing work, and one had been ordered to clock out, but all had come back halfway through, as their bodies were about to be blown off by the overwhelming storm.
“Please stop.” There was Violet Evergarden, whose golden hair was in Benedict’s grasp.
“Why? You said your hair was wet.”
“You just want to touch Violet’s hair, Benedict. Isn’t that right?” Lux Sibyl, who had given up on wiping her glasses and was glaring at the empty space.
“That’s not it. Don’t say weird stuff, Lux.”
“You knooow, my hair’s just as long as Violet’s.” And Cattleya Baudelaire, who scowled at Benedict with her arms crossed.
The members who had been there ever since the founding were Violet, Cattleya and Benedict, but Lux, having joined midway, was now a skillful secretary who covered up the schedule of the employees and president and moved them around like chess pieces. As the four people whose ages were close to each other’s came together, the conversation naturally livened up.
“You—You’re that kinda thing. If I touch you in a place like this, it’d be that kinda thing. This is our workplace, so there’s all that kinda thing. Morally speaking, it’s that kinda thing.”
“What do you mean ‘morally speaking’?!”
“I wish you wouldn’t say those things even if you think about them. Right, Violet?”
“‘Public morals’...? Benedict, what am I from your point of view?”
“V, you’re like a little sister to me... Aah, Old Man, gimme another towel.”
It was a terribly joyful thing that the company’s young aces had returned to it safe and sound.
“Everyone, don’t move from that spot no matter what. Hey, Cattleya! Don’t move!”
However, wiping all the water off the bodies of those four turned out to be a bone-breaking work.
Out of kindness, Hodgins invited the four people who had gathered up at the postal company to his residence in the top floor.
The whole floor was his apartment, thus it was quite large. A family of five could live comfortably in it. The furnishings were arranged in wooden items and serene shades of dark brown and green. It was a relaxed, adult atmosphere, where was nothing particularly funny. It had a faint scent of the perfume that Hodgins always wore.
The invited four let out sighs of relief. The biggest reason for it, although there was also the fact that this was Hodgins’s apartment, was that they were able to escape the horrible situation outdoors. With the exception of Lux, three of them were tough enough to take part in the act of physically crushing other postal companies, but human beings could not win against natural disasters.
“Hey, what do we do? We can’t go home anymore, can we?”
“There’s nothing we can do. We got no choice but stay in Old Man’s place.”
“First time something like this happens, huh. But we’re all together, so... might be imprudent of me to say this, but... it’s a bit fun. Violet, are you worried about your home?”
“Yes, about the flowerbeds.”
“You should say ‘about the people back home’, V.”
“The two went on a trip, so they are away. I promised that I would take care of the flowers in their absence, which is why... I am worried about the flowerbeds. Besides, if that house were to be destroyed by this storm, this place would meet its end much sooner... We have little time left to live.”
“Don’t go from talking about your family to destroying the company, Little Violet. Hey, hey, everyone, you’ll catch a cold so get changed first. Put the towels in the laundry basket. Benedict, don’t throw the towels wherever!”
As told by Hodgins, the employees firstly decided to change their clothes.
Violet and Cattleya had just returned from a work trip of two days and one night, thus they had a change of nightclothes in their bags, but Benedict and Lux did not. Although there was a height difference between them, Hodgins had no issues with lending clothes to Benedict, who was also a man, but there was a need for careful selection when it came to Lux.
“Shirt... shirt, shirt; all I have is shirts.”
“Hum, President, I’m fine with anything.”
“Eeh... that okay?”
As a result, the boy and girl came into the scene wearing baggy clothes. Benedict looked almost the same as when he and Hodgins first met. When he was left to chance completely naked in a desert, he had borrowed a shirt and trousers just as he was doing now. He seemed pleased with it, however...
“Feels kinda naughty...”
...the problem was Lux.
“Benedict’s fine, but maybe it won’t do for Little Lux? Is this okay?” Hodgins asked everyone with a meek face.
They all had at last settled down, each seated in a place of their preference while sipping tea. The employees were relaxing as if they were in their own homes. Contrary to the peaceful state of the situation inside, there was still a sound of rain hitting the windows and a troubled noise of something colliding against the building outside.
“What is ‘okay’ supposed to mean?” Sitting on the sofa, Violet tilted her head. Being comfortably dressed in a dusty-pink nightwear gave her usually disciplined self a slightly soft and gentle air.
“Little Violet.”
“Yes.”
“Your nightgown is cute, huh.”
“The people from the household bought it for me. Well, what is ‘okay’ supposed to mean? Was there any problem?”
“Little Lux’s clothes.”
For whatever reason, they had the person in question standing in the center of the room. With everyone’s eyes on her, she seemed uneasy.
“Hum... why do I have to stand in the middle?”
“Little Lux, stay like that and don’t move.”
“All right.”
“What is wrong with Lux’s look? You mean to say it lacks adornment?”
“Why would that be the case, Little Violet?”
“You are the one who chooses attires for us Dolls and you have particularities regarding the clothing and accessories, so I concluded that you might deem the plain shirt as not enough.”
“No, no.” Hodgins flailed both hands. The things he was saying had a moral value to them, out of fear that her outfit was perhaps vulgar.
Benedict had dealt with it by securing her trousers with a belt, but as Lux had too thin a waist, the outcome was the belt falling off. In short, she was not wearing pants. Inevitably, she was dressed in nothing but a shirt. However, her short stature fortunately made it look like a shirt-dress.
As Hodgins explained his concern, everyone said, “I see.”
Showered with their stares more and more, Lux began to blush.
“It gives off a dangerous feeling when you think she ain’t wearing any, but on second thought, isn’t that the same for skirts? There’s actually an open hole in them, but it’s not visible, so they’re classified as clothes. No big deal, is it?” Benedict had been standing with his back against the wall just a moment ago, yet had suddenly drawn close to her and started examining her fixatedly.
“Don’t say ‘not wearing any’!”
“Well, I mean, you really ain’t wearing any... but that’s okay. No biggie. You’re probably not an option for Old Man, so no worries. Right?”
“That’s rude!”
“I’m saying you don’t need to worry about that kinda thing... Should I take mine off, then? I see; I’m fine with it. I’ll be the same as you. That all right? I’m gonna take it off.”
“Stop, stop, stop!” As Benedict put a hand to his belt while laughing, Lux repeatedly hit his chest with her fists to stop him. Lux was red up to her ears. “I can’t take this anymore! Violet! Take Benedict to over there!”
“Understood.”
“Owowowow, V, ouch, that’s not it; it was the Old Man who said weird stuff first. We’re friends, so I was showing that she doesn’t have to get hung up over something like...”
Caught in Violet’s arms, Benedict obediently sat on the sofa. Perhaps in order not to allow him to escape, she gripped his hands and sat next to him.
Cattleya cut through the silence, “The tea is delicious.” She was scattered over the bed. She must have been tired from returning from the Doll business trip. Her eyes were downcast. She might be sleepy.
“Cattleya, do you not have any comments to make? I want to hear lots of opinions.”
“Eeeh, me?” Cattleya joined the needless debate as if it were a bother. “Hmmm... if someone were making her wear this because it’s their taste, it’d be gross indeed, but there’s no other clothes for her... It’d also be horrible to leave her with just a towel wrap, so I think it’s valid. Speaking of which, President...”
“Hm?”
“You’re saying that even though you pick open-chested clothes for my Doll outfits? And the times you were choosing Doll attires for me, y’knooow, you were never so considerate to say ‘not this, not this either’ when discussing it with the people from the made-to-order store...”
Her manner of speech was somewhat thorny, but Hodgins did not make much out of it. “That’s because they look good on you.” Rather, he said decisively, with an earnest gaze and excessive confidence, “Because they look good on you. Is my judgement wrong?”
“E-Eh?” Being replied to so unapologetically, Cattleya’s reasoning jumbled up, to the point she found herself wondering if she was the one in the wrong.
The Doll outfit that Cattleya usually wore was composed mainly of a crimson dress-coat, so there was no mistaking that one could not wear it unless the person was remarkably stylish. In addition, there was also no doubt that it was lascivious. Whoever looked at her would find their line of sight momentarily going to her chest. Still, whoever looked at her would remember the woman named Cattleya Baudelaire at once.
“No... it’s not like your choices are wrong... but I only forgive you because you’re the boss. I was shocked when you first showed me that outfit! I didn’t use to wear something like that before.”
“Well, but y’see, an hourglass-shaped person looks more slender when the area around their collarbone is exposed, and it’s pretty.”
An evident question mark floated above Violet’s head at the unfamiliar word. Benedict pointed a finger at the tea set arranged on the nearby table. An hourglass used to measure the time it took to steam the tealeaves was lying there. Perhaps finding the similarity between it and a plump chest and dainty hips, Violet nodded as if convinced.
“You’ve got an hourglass-shaped figure with that slim waist, so I gave you a coat-dress that puts this on display. You can adjust it with the ribbon, so it’s not a pain, right? It has a wonderful line in mathematical terms, y’know? Plus, you also have a cheerful character, so it doesn’t look vulgar. That’s important. It means that outfit takes into consideration even the personality of the one wearing it. And the owner of that made-to-order store is famous not just in this country but abroad. The outfits of our Dolls are on a whole different level in comparison to other companies, aren’t they?”
“Y-Yeah.”
“I don’t want to bring this up, but they’re very expensive.”
“Eh, I’m sorry. S-Should I pay you back? Either that or you can dock my salary...”
“No, you’re my Doll, after all. Nobody waters a flower to get money off it, right? It’s fine, Cattleya. Just stay pretty. It’s exactly because I have obsessions over clothes that I don’t want to make a girl look vulgar. And it’s exactly because I like girls that I want to have them shine wonderfully. That’s also why I have a few complaints about Little Lux’s usual plain clothes, though...”
“I don’t know why you decided to run a mail service, President, but I accept that passion of yours. I’ll wear those clothes with care. But, President, I’m doing my best, so I want a new outfit. A cute one.”
Listening to the conversation of the two in silence, perhaps tired of going along with her superior, Lux looked at Violet and Benedict’s direction with a gaze that quietly asked for help. There was a gap on the sofa that seemed enough for one person to sit. Having locked eyes with her, Violet told Benedict to scoot over after a brief moment and patted the open spot. Lux sat next to them, looking happy.
“Violet, what’re you drinking?” Lux peeked at the teacup that Violet was holding.
“I wonder. I took the tealeaves that were in the kitchen. I do not know what type of tea it is.”
“Darjeeling.”
“Benedict, how did you know?”
“‘Cause that guy likes Darjeeling. All the tea cans he has are nothing but that.”
“Guess I’m gonna drink that too; my body got cold from the long time under the rain.”
“Heeey, the three of you who ended the talk before we noticed! Listen to what I have to say.” Hodgins put his hands on his hips, pretending to be angry.
“We were deviating from the main subject. We deemed that it was not a necessary conversation and took action prioritizing Lux’s rest,” Violet expressed with a clear voice tone.
“Besides, this talk’s about bedroom wear, ain’t it?” Benedict added a two-fold retort. The blond, blue-eyed duo that looked like siblings stared at Hodgins with questioning eyes.
“Ugh, I comply with you two no matter what you say when you both look at me at the same time, so cut it out. But I’m not giving up. I think she needs one more article of clothing.”
“Hum... President, I’m okay with this. I’m already thankful that I could borrow your clothes. Besides, when you make such a big fuss about it, things that weren’t lewd in the first place start to seem lewd, so to say,” Lux said, wanting to end this topic as fast as possible.
“The solution has come to me. Wouldn’t it be best if I took the shirt and trousers and had Lux wear this nightgown?”
However, Violet wound up rewinding it.
——Violet!
Lux hit Violet repeatedly in her mind.
“Ah~, that’s right. If that’s the case, I can do it too. But maybe my nightgown is too big? It’s a negligee just like Violet’s. The shoulder length might be the problem for this one...”
“Old Man, you gonna die if you don’t obsess over the stuff we wear? You ain’t. Give up.”
“No way. Days like this one don’t come by. All five of us are trapped in the company and we can’t get out. You’ve got no choice but stay here in my house, right? We’re having the best of parties, a pajama party. I want it to be a good one. But I can’t enjoy it when I’m worrying over Little Lux’s clothes.”
Benedict contemplated a reply to Hodgins’s words for a few seconds, but soon stopped. He was probably tired. He looked Violet’s way and asked, “Hey, you not hungry? I’m gonna take a look at the kitchen.
“Hey, don’t ignore me.” As Benedict stood up, Hodgins chased after him.
“Benedict’s gonna make something? Yay! You guys probably don’t know this, but he’s good at cooking.” Cattleya lined up behind them.
“I didn’t say I was gonna make anything, though... Well, if you’re hungry, I can do it.”
“I shall assist you.” Violet raised her arms, rolling up her sleeves. Her prosthetics made a creaking noise.
“V, you can cook?”
“To some extent. In the military, I used to make preparations for the cooking. Mrs. Evergarden... Lady Tiffany also trained me on it.
“M-Me too... I can peel the potatoes, and stuff.” Lux hastily went after everyone. In a trail, a big move to the kitchen began to take place.
“Lux. You don’t usually cook, do you? I can already tell by just that statement. I’ll teach you.”
“Most things get solved just by peeling the potatoes... Benedict, you’re making fun of me, aren’t you?”
“Am not, Potato Demigod.”
“Violet, Benedict insulted me!”
“Benedict.”
“Owowow! V—! Don’t poke my sides! A hit from those crazy-ass prosthetics of yours ain’t no cutesy way to poke anyone! It just hurts like it normally would!”
In the end, Hodgins was able to find a light feather-print sweater in his closet and gave it to Lux. As she put it on, with her short stature, its length became the same as that of a long cardigan, which Hodgins was awfully pleased with for how adorable it was.
The madder-red sky was not visible at dusk, the outside morphing into evening with no changes in the rainy weather.
Benedict made a soup at random with the vegetables available in Hodgins’s kitchen, which had seasonings in abundance, while Violet and Cattleya supplied it with cookies that they had brought back as souvenirs from their ghostwriting business trip. Lux brought over small candy marbles that she kept stored in her desk at the company, and Benedict, instructed by Hodgins, reluctantly took an expensive bottle hidden on the liquor shelf of the latter’s room.
“Hey, let’s rummage through the desks of everyone in the company. There are probably gonna be other ingredients in them.”
“If it’s Mr. Anthony’s desk, I think there’s definitely something in it. Mr. Anthony always gives me sweets... We’re in a state of emergency so I’m sure he’ll forgive us for it.”
“There were sweets in the reception guys’ desks. Would they get mad if we took them?”
“Definitely seem like they would. But this sweet... is one of the tasty ones... I wanna eat it.”
Lux, who was still growing, and Benedict, who had missed lunch and did not have enough with just the vegetable soup, procured more food. The sweets that the hungry thieves sneaked from the company employees’ desks turned out as what could be considered a big catch, and so, the five people trapped inside during a day of usual rain commenced a night party.
The five of different ages, genders and positions were already at a state where they could be deemed as a single family through the many incidents they had overcome and the time they had spent together. They laughed a lot, talked a lot.
“You remember when Violet brought Lux over? She went to negotiate it directly with Old Man with so much might, like, ‘I have picked up a puppy. Please give me permission to raise it here. Now, hurry’. They were holding hands and she wouldn’t let go of Lux, explaining the situation all at length as if to say she wasn’t gonna move until he gave the permission. The way Old Man acted so suspicious back then was a real blast.”
“I remember~! He was like, ‘Eh, “demigod”? Eh, “abduction and confinement”? Have you told the military police about that?’... President was so troubled, walking in circles around the two. It was the funniest thing of that year.”
“Hum... I’m sorry.”
“No, no, don’t apologize, Little Lux. You’re our main player now, so you did what you could to get where you are. You really exerted yourself in this unfamiliar land. Work for us forever, ‘kay? Rather, for me. Little Violet does some unbelievable stuff sometimes, but she generally doesn’t do anything wrong, so back then, her first-time deed shook up even someone like me, with plenty of life experience. Saying no didn’t even cross my mind.”
“I knew that President Hodgins would give you a generous treatment. If I had not concluded so, I would not have done such a thing. Thank you very much for that time, President.”
“Little Violet... Little Violet’s all grown up too, huh; you’ve become a wonderful lady...”
“Well, she’s got you as her example of guardian figure, after all.”
“I was raised by both Benedict and President Hodgins. You are my examples.”
“Eh, so I’m Old Man’s son...? Gimme the whole company.”
“No way! Actually, you’re taking a part of the company in the future, so that much should be fine, right?”
“You were serious about that? If you split the company...”
“Yeah, I’ll be the vice-president. V, call me Vice-President Benedict.”
“Benedict will be... the vice-president?”
“Violet, you haven’t been to the company too often because of work, right? I’ll stay as President Hodgins’s secretary, but some of the employees will go to Benedict’s side. That’s gonna be pretty lonely... Still, the company will be built inside the country, so it’ll be close in terms of distance. But it won’t be the same building anymore.”
“Other people... will also be gone.”
“Did I tell you that my role’s gonna change too?”
“I have not heard about that.”
“I’ll be transferred to training the newcomers. Violet, you’ll stay as you are. Well, between you and me, if we were to debate on which one should be the instructor, it’d have to be me. I’m good at looking after others.”
“Cattleya will be... an instructor...”
“I’ll be here like always. The Doll department that Little Violet and the others are in will stay in the main office and you’re largely in charge of the numbers in our Doll department, so your role won’t change.”
“Sounds like I don’t make money when you put it like that.”
“No, it’s not like that... I’ve been keeping the right people in the right places since long ago, right? I asked you to do this because I thought you could be everyone’s big sis. Besides, wasn’t it you, Cattleya, who immediately replied that you’d to it when I said your pay would increase if you became an instructor?”
“Well, that’s because I don’t know how long I could keep on being a Doll. It’s a job you can do even when you get older, but walking up mountains has been hard lately. Probably because of my high heels.”
They truly laughed a lot and talked a lot.
In their feel-at-home looks, they played card games, discussed memories of their trips and laughed holding their stomachs at silly stories. The night went on and on and the heavy rain outside gradually subsided, but no one said, “Let’s go home, then”. Days like these were a rarity. They all knew this much.
“I’m having lots of fun today. It’d be great if it were always like this.” The words that Cattleya muttered with a big smile spoke for everyone’s feelings.
Whenever a fun feast reached its climax, the loneliness towards the fact that it was going to end would cross the corners of people’s heads. That applied not only to this day that God had granted them but also to matters in the long run.
Perhaps the company named CH Postal Company itself could also be considered a feast to the people gathered in it. “May this dream, this fun time go on forever,” they wished.
The dream had begun with Claudia Hodgins. He then picked up Cattleya Baudelaire, Benedict Blue and Violet Evergarden.
“Make sure to just lick it. So, how’s that?”
They had built the company office building in Leidenschaftlich and started it together. As the postal business was a privatized one and the competitors were many, nobody could predict at first for how long this company would continue to exist.
“This stings.”
A local customer then came, earning them a large-scale contract in the delivery business.
“Eh~, you okay, Violet? You’re better off as someone who can’t drink...”
Their Auto-Memories Doll activities began to stand out.
“But everyone is changing.”
“Doesn’t that have nothing to do with drinking alcohol? I drink ‘cause I like it. If you don’t, then stop.”
“That’s right, Violet.”
“No... Major has a taste for drinking during meals, so I had been thinking of learning to do it one day as well. You are all changing one after another whenever I blink. I have started eating with other people quite often at work as well. I, too, shall adapt...”
Along the way, a girl who would later become a brilliant secretary joined them.
“I see... Then I want to try drinking too. I’m a secretary, after all. I have to eat out with other people. What kind of taste is it, if you had to compare?”
Despite the major changes in the personal life of each, all of them had contributed to the development of the company, to the point that they spent every single day being busy.
“Close to that of a perfume. In that it is hard to swallow.”
There would surely be many, many more changes.
“Hey, I can’t approve that opinion. Big Sis here will introduce you to delicious drinks. Rather than being taught by a man, you should learn from me. Lux, you can’t yet.”
Surely, their fates would twist further.
“Eh~?!”
“Benedict, bring another one. And something to crack it open with.”
For people to gather up, an encounter had to have happened. That was what it meant.
“Aight, aight...” Benedict stood up from the sofa. He had been dragged into Cattleya’s scheme, in which she had planned the conspiracy of attempting to make Violet Evergarden consume alcohol, because he himself had complied with it.
“O-Owah. Old Man. You were here?”
“‘Were here,’ you ask... this is my house.”
As they came across each other in the kitchen, Benedict had let out a brash voice without thinking. The reason might be that he perhaps was seen grinning as he walked in. Despite his nihilistic attitude, he was happy to spend time with his friends.
“I-I know. I was thinking you were taking too long in the toilet...”
“Cigar.”
With the kitchen’s small window open, Hodgins was smoking a cigar. All of the women despised the smell, so he rarely ever let them see him smoking. Just when Benedict was thinking about how he had suddenly stood up and disappeared, there he was, smoking in secret.
——He only smokes when he can’t calm down, though.
There was no better day to relax with their companions, and yet.
“Hey, take a look outside. It’s so quiet after the storm... like the wind. Even though it was so loud before.” Perhaps due to him being a little drunk, Hodgins’s face was red.
“True... Hey, need more booze. Ain’t there anything easier to drink?”
“Eh, why? You can’t give it to Little Lux.”
“Cattleya wants to make V drink some. Well, ain’t it okay? I think it’s about time she learns the ropes. Dunno when we’ll get to drink with her again... and it’s better to have people you get along with teaching you this kinda thing, right?”
“Eeh... it’s still too soon. If you insist, isn’t it enough to drip a drop of rum into her tea?”
“Can you even call that a drink? Make it a degree higher.”
Hodgins gave a strained smile. “Hey, hey, her big brother figure shouldn’t be saying this...”
“I say it because I’m her big brother figure. I mean, we’re getting more rookies. She’s the highlight of our Doll department. Eating with people is part of having a big job. Before she gets involved with someone who wants to make her drink...”
“Does this have anything to do with me telling you to be the branch manager?”
Hearing a slightly icy voice coming from the president, Benedict blinked. “No... sorta.”
“She’s still a child, and I’ll definitely always be with her in those kinds of places, so it’s okay. It’s still early to teach her how to drink. Nope, nope.”
“A ‘child’, you say... well, she’s got a childish side, but she ain’t one anymore.”
“She is – you, Cattleya and Little Lux, too, are all kids to me. Because you’re quick to do this kind of thing if I don’t keep an eye on you... My, my,” Hodgins said, blowing out the tobacco smoke. Mismatched as it was for someone with such a mature appearance, Benedict could get a glimpse of childishness in him.
“You’ll keep trying to do that from now on too? That’s impossible; face the reality,” Benedict bit out incidentally.
Silence.
Benedict’s words were not wrong. The CH Postal Company was growing rapidly as a business. The fact that the postal company led by Salvatore Rinaudo had withdrawn from the postal industry in the previous year had a major influence in this. They now reigned at a pivotal position in Leidenschaftlich’s postal service. The CH Postal Company would soon account for nearly all of the commissions from the people living in Leidenschaftlich. Other than being busy with work affairs, there were even discussions about relocating the head office because of problems with waiting areas and break rooms due to securing new employees.
“Like, you and I are gonna get damn busy. The Auto-Memories Doll department is gonna be the main organ of the head office and my place will be ordinary mail, right? We’ll be teaching people how things go, and I’ll be doing deliveries too. You’re the one with the busiest role. Anything and everything’s gonna be relayed to you. Getting to be close to your employees like until now while doing all that is just...”
It was natural for a company that had become bigger to do a corporative split-off and for one of their employees to manage the branch office. Benedict was still young but had the power to bring people together. The task would not be an impossible one if they put a veteran of the head office in charge of taking over it. They could do this, Hodgins had decided, thus he came up with the proposal.
“The regular meetings and other stuff that I take part in happen in the head office... It’s not like we won’t get to see each other.”
“Everyone will have a different post and position. We won’t get to see each other. Same for you, Old Man.”
“If it’s work, I can adjust it. I’ll do my best to administrate everyone so that the employees can get a time every now and then to relax like this...”
“Old Man, even if you do your best, V’s dating that nasty-ass military officer, so won’t they get married someday? Dunno ‘bout it, but... that’s why it’s impossible to always watch over us in the first place...”
Silence.
“Hey, don’t clam up.”
What was being thrust at Hodgins now was something that he did not want to look straight at, despite thinking about and readying himself for it. That was what he was being told.
“Hodgins – hey, Old Man.”
It was something that Benedict Blue had the right to say, exactly because they had been doing everything together from the start.
“Hey, don’t take it in a weird way. I ain’t saying this to be malicious. You left the Auto-Memories Doll department in the head office ‘cause your wish to watch over V is a big deal, right? I get it. She’s special to you.”
“That’s not it; I—”
“But she won’t be a kid forever. She’s different from back when she started working, with you teaching her everything. She’s someone who’s gonna let go of your hand one day. She ain’t your real daughter or your girlfriend. Then, if you had to say what she is, at the end of the day, she’s your employee. You’ll part ways one day. If you don’t get ready for that now, will you manage to get over it if she marries into that bastard’s family and he makes her leave the company?”
“Will you manage to get over it?” The question ruminated in Hodgins’s heart.
Benedict had shot him where it hurt without mercy. He was a gun expert. His aim was precise and the bleeding made Hodgins want to hold his own chest down.
——Will I recover if I ever have to be separated from Violet Evergarden? Hodgins pondered earnestly over the question. ——I don’t know.
He truly did not know.
Bonds were things that could not easily break off once they had connected, yet reality, time and busyness unpityingly caused the existence of “friends” to grow far apart.
——To the point that I don’t know, I...
Surely, a day like this would not happen five years from now. Their place to return to amidst the rain would be somewhere else.
——It’s not just her, but also you and everyone else.
To begin with, they might not even be working in the company itself anymore until then. More of them would fall for someone, nurture their love and move their places to be in life to their “homes”.
Twenty, thirty years from now, it might be hard for them to even work. Or they would not be alive – there was also that possibility.
The one who was more aware of this than anybody else was Hodgins, the oldest of them all.
——I’m the one who’s farthest apart in age.
That was exactly why he did not know.
“I have no idea.”
He did not want to see it. Did not want to think about it.
“I have too many things that matter to me, so I can’t make a move anymore. Y’know, you... you might aught at this, but... rather than when you’re young, getting hurt becomes scarier when you grow older. You start losing the energy to do your best and heal. It’s tiring. Still...”
Hodgins had thought that the youth in front of him, who referred to him as “Old Man” on a daily basis, was probably going to laugh, yet Benedict was expressionless.
“Still...”
He did nothing but listen. His posture of properly listening at times like these somewhat...
——...looks like Little Violet.
“Still, I know I’m the one who has to get moving the most. I’m getting everyone involved in the things I wanna do. That’s why I do what I have to. I also counted on you, because I trust you. I left it in your care. But... that and my feelings for her and you guys...”
“I get it.”
“...are different things, right? Y’know, you’re... mean. I’m like a foster parent to you, and yet... Even if you understand my loneliness...”
While Hodgins spoke as if bursting out, Benedict put a hand to his mouth as though to stop him. “I get it.”
Time halted completely.
Was he supporting the flustered figure of the one who was like a parent to him?
“My bad.”
Before he had noticed, he was carrying a load of things he must protect. Was he doing this due to realizing that he had left Hodgins to chance, thinking, “That’s because it’s him”?
“My bad. That just now was on me.”
Silence.
“I didn’t have to pick today to say this. Isn’t that right?”
“You think I’m being lame right now, don’t you?”
“Nah, you ain’t all that cool in the first place.”
“That’s a lie; I’m a generally-acknowledged beautiful young man... no, beautiful middle-aged man.”
“You might not be cool, but well, that’s what’s good about you. Right?”
Silence.
“The cool thing about my Claudia Hodgins is his uncool side.”
Since Benedict was speaking as if to comfort a child, Hodgins told him to “shut up”, slightly annoyed, yet burst into laughter nevertheless.
The rain caused all sorts of things to pour. The way that people were drowned by the drops trickling down from the sky inevitably made them think about something.
As dawn broke, Claudia Hodgins sat up, body heavy from not getting much sleep. When he peeked at his room’s bed, Violet and Cattleya were sleeping wrapped in the same blanket. On the sofa, Benedict was scattered about, snoring in a way that made him want to laugh.
Hodgins looked for where Lux Sibyl might be. He went down from the third to the second floor, and then from the second to the first floor. She was nowhere to be found.
While thinking it could not be possible, Hodgins opened the front door, and sure enough, he could see the figure of a girl walking down the street towards him.
The clothes she had put to dry yesterday were surely half-wet. What was it that she wanted to do outside so badly to the point of going this far? He understood when he saw what she had in her arms.
“Ah, President.”
Lux was holding a paper bag with a lot of bread in it. The amount was enough that the small girl’s face could not be seen.
“Little Lux... could it be you went to buy us breakfast?”
Thinking back, this young woman was the kind of person who was always quick to act when she was trying to do something for someone. That was all it took to be a considerate person, but without kindness in their heart, they would not turn out this way. The reason why Hodgins had nominated her his secretary was not just that she could do any sort of work.
“That’s so nice.”
“Yes, the bakery owner is very nice. I woke up a bit too early, and when I went on a walk to see how things were outside, the bakery was just about to open and they were getting ready... I went to take a look ‘cause it seemed so delicious and they told me to come in.”
“Ah, hm...”
“I was so touched when they said they baked bread for people who were hungry early in the morning, so I told them many thanks for selling them and bought lots of it. It’s the bakery from that street around the corner.”
“As expected of my secretary. Did you properly get the receipt?”
At those words, Lux showed him a smile that resembled a blooming flower. “Huhu, of course.”
For Hodgins, who had spent the night deep in thought about all sorts of things, that smile was a soothing one. It was like the water of a lake for someone who was feeling thirsty.
Hodgins wordlessly took the bag from Lux. “Little Lux, I’m seriously glad you came to us.”
“Only in this kind of situation, right?”
“All the time. Always. Little Lux, you’re still young, will probably keep working with us... and you’re such a good secretary... I’m the happiest CEO in Leidenschaftlich.”
“Are you going to hire me for life?”
“Eh?”
“Is that a no?”
“No, I could. But that’d mean working with me for life, y’know?”
“Is that bad? I have nowhere else to go.”
When asked with such an innocent look, Hodgins faltered.
“I won’t say the stuff Benedict does, like wanting the company for me.”
“Well, I might... end up giving it to you if you say that, so don’t ever. Hahah... Of course, keep working for us forever and always at my place. Huh, this is kinda like a marriage vow... Wanna take this opportunity and marry me in the future? Just kidding...” Upon thinking that the jest that came out incidentally was an unsavory one right after saying it, Hodgins looked at Lux’s reaction, only to find her staring back at him blankly. He had made himself into a caricature of an old man bothering a girl. “No, it was a prank! But hey. Little Lux, you might be the only one who can go along with me, so having this kind of small talk is... I-I’m not looking at you with dirty eyes, really! We’re too far apart in age, after all! We’re c-close enough that we can crack this kind of joke to each other, right?”
Lux pretended to think for just a few seconds. “Huhu, I can tell. That it’s a joke, at least. But not happening. We’re not getting married.”
And then, she flat-out rejected him.
“Ah, yes.” Although Hodgins would have been at loss if she had accepted it, his shoulders dropped somewhat.
“But President, I’m prepared to nurse you if you ever become unable to work.”
“Don’t... suddenly thrust such a cruel reality at me.”
“Eh, is it? From my point of view... this is quite a deep form of love. President, you’re the first decent adult who accepted me. I’ll devote my whole life to you.”
“Little Lux, you sure like me a lot. Gonna marry me after all?”
This time, Lux actually grinned and replied, “I’ll take that one home and consider it.”
“Amazing; that answer’s like the business talk at the company.”
“Because you’re teasing me... even though you’re well-aware that I don’t even know love yet.”
“Don’t know love yet”. The destructive power of those words caused Hodgins to regret his lighthearted proposal a little.
“Then, I’ll ask again in about five years. I should be at a nice middle age by then.”
“You say that, President, but you’re going on a trip with some hottie next week. I know it.”
The duo, who somehow seemed like they would or other be hanging together for a long time, returned to the office with bouncing chatter.
In order to make breakfast for everyone together, Hodgins and Lux stood in the kitchen by themselves.
Besides the already-baked bread, they would need drinks and vegetables. Those were merely simple preliminary preparations, but Hodgins felt that just this was somehow enjoyable, unlike doing the work on his own.
“President, you have yours with one sugar cube and a slice of lemon, right?”
“And for Little Lux, it’s two sugar cubes with milk, yeah? I know it.”
While arranging the bread on a plate, they also poured water over the tealeaves and left them to steam. Perhaps due to the scenery that could be seen from the kitchen’s small window being a blue sky with not a single cloud in it, it was awfully dazzling.
“Good morning.”
The next person who appeared amidst the morning sunlight was Violet. Her soft golden hair was just a bit disheveled. Hodgins’s hand naturally reached out to it.
“Morning... You’ve got a bedhead, Little Violet.”
“Excuse me...” Violet looked back at Hodgins as he caressed her head, seeming a little embarrassed. Her eyes were just slightly red. She might have not been able to sleep very well.
“Morning, Violet. Are Cattleya and Benedict also up?”
“Benedict was awake until a while ago, but when I got up from the bed, he began sleeping again by Cattleya’s side.”
“Morally speaking, it’s that kinda thing. I’ll go give him a warning.”
Hodgins laughed a little, seeing Lux off as she walked away while rotating her tiny shoulders. He then turned his gaze back to Violet. Her bedhead, which he had supposedly fixed with the caressing, had returned. For some reason, both of them being alone like this in a kitchen bathed in morning sunlight struck him as extremely peculiar.
Just the two of them, having such a tender time. How many more opportunities would they have for that?
They were already at it. He should talk about something. That was what Hodgins thought, but the words did not come out of him. Not because he had no topic to discuss. He could come up with as many things to talk about as he wanted, such wanting flowers to decorate the table or that they would surely have many customers today who were unable to come yesterday.
But he did not want to spoil this morning. He felt that it might crumble if he spoke even one sentence.
Violet was there. She had her blue eyes directed his way, looking at him. It was no longer awkward for the two of them to stay silent. That was their relationship.
Perhaps still sleepy, she was in a haze. He wanted to watch her standing amidst this gentle time for a little longer.
As she would usually always seem wide-awake, Hodgins believed that she was laidback to this extent due to being in the presence of people with whom she could be at ease from the bottom of her heart. That he had played a part in this feeling of security of hers.
——Will you forget one day?
One day, the position that Claudia Hodgins occupied in the life of Violet Evergarden would become smaller.
——She only gets bigger on my end, though.
Going to the hospital numerous times. Pushing her wheelchair. Giving her a notebook and teaching her how to write.
——I for sure can’t forget. These moments, days, everything like this with you.
The fact that he had not stopped her from fighting in the war. That he had thought they could use her.
——I can’t forget.
Delivering to Violet an outfit that could hide her prosthetic arms, yet that would also make her look her most beautiful.
——I’m sure I won’t forget about this morning either.
About that quiet morning, which was much like the one from before everyone was caught in the great storm and barged in.
Hodgins touched Violet’s hair again. Although she had told Benedict not to touch it, with Hodgins, she all but slightly left a strand in his hand’s care and let him take it, almost like how a cat would do.
——Aah, I want to hug you.
He was not in love with her. That would never be the case.
However, if she were his real daughter, on days like these, mornings like these, he would have easily said, “Good morning, precious” and embraced her.
“I had a dream, President Hodgins,” Violet whispered out of the blue with a freshly awake, faintly hoarse voice.
“Dream...?”
The stunning young woman, who was no longer a girl, talked about her dream like a child, “Yes; in the dream... you owned a clothing store.”
“Huhu, that so?”
“I cannot make clothes. You told me that you did not need me, President Hodgins, if I could not make clothes...”
“That’s horrible of me, huh.”
“Even when I said I could polish the shoes, clean up or do anything, you did not listen...”
Unlike the real one, the dream version of Hodgins had apparently chosen to part ways with Violet.
“Little Violet, what did you do about that?”
“I asked countless times. However, you rejected it countless times. I thought about standing in front of the shop until you allowed me in, but it started raining like yesterday.”
“Hm. And then?”
“Major Gilbert came to pick me up and told me to come home with him, but...”
“Hm.”
“I waited for President to come out of the store even as the lights went out.”
“Hm.”
“Despite waiting and waiting, President Hodgins did not come out, and at some point, a passerby told me, ‘This shop has moved’.”
“Even though it was open until just a moment ago?”
“It was a dream, after all... And then – and then, I asked where it was and went after it. Benedict and Cattleya also appeared in-between, but they seemed to have other things to do, saying they would come after me later... As for Lux, she was the only one who had been hired by you from the very beginning, so she also asked you to hire me again, but in the end, you said no could do.”
“Hm...” Suddenly, Hodgins felt so pained about everything that it was hard to breathe. “And then, Little Violet, what did you do...?” His hand reached out to Violet.
“I kept looking at the interior of the store beyond the shop window from outside.”
Not towards her head, but towards her eyes, where her golden lashes fluttered like the wings of a fairy.
“Inside it, many people – people that I know and do not know – came and left... showing how lively the shop was.”
A sea had silently formed in them, which dissolved and disappeared once Hodgins’s index finger touched it.
“Major came to pick me up for the nth time and said you had told him that my standing there was causing him problems. But, for whatever reason, I at the very least knew that if I stepped away from there even for a moment, you would never let me in... therefore, I could not comply. But I did not want to trouble you, President, so I was unable to make a decision... I attempted to ask Major for instructions, but he was also gone before I realized.”
The sea – the teardrop – turned into a pearl and slipped down her cheek.
“I... I... ended up crying.” Violet stared at the sky, the look in her eyes seeming almost as if the scene from her dream was there at this very moment. “To think I would cry like that...”
“Hm.”
“That was why President Hodgins would not hire me, I thought... And also why Major had grown tired and left.”
“Hm.”
“Then, without my notice, you came outside. You looked the same as that post-war day when you went to visit me at the hospital. You were very surprised with my appearance, as I was soaked with mud and rain. And so, you said this: ‘Guess we’ll start with how to hold a needle’. You told me that you had not invited me for the new job because it would surely be difficult with these hands of mine, so I was extremely relieved... Then, then...” Violet’s words cut off at once.
Unable to hold himself back, Hodgins pulled her into an embrace as if shoving her little head into his chest.
While being embraced, Violet said with eyes that looked as though she was still dreaming, “...with some effort, I could still be helpful. I was able to confirm this, after all.”
Hearing her let out a relieved sigh in his arms, Hodgins forgot about both his and Violet’s positions, clasping her to his chest very, very firmly. “You sure are helpful... Was there anything about me that made you feel uncertain?” Upon realizing that his voice sounded tearful, Hodgins allowed the tears to overflow at the truth.
——Aah, I’m such an idiot. Got caught up in it and ended up crying too.
As the girl whom he thought of as his own daughter, despite her being an actual adult, had shed tears, he found himself crying along with her. Almost like a child. Even though he was supposed to conduct himself as an elder in this situation.
“I do not know.”
“But, has anything like that ever happened until now...? You had that dream because you were uneasy.”
“‘Uneasy’... That might have been the case. Yesterday night, I came to know that many things were progressing while I was away, so I have the feeling that I was quite agitated.”
“Sorry; we were doing things on our own accord. Even though we’ve been together since the founding.”
“No, I am often absent, and it is only natural for some things to be decided in the meantime. I am an employee. I feel that your judgement is correct. Employees must correspond to the changes of a company. My surroundings are about to change significantly. I am grateful to you, President, for letting me be here like always. However...”
“‘However’...?”
“However, I do not know if I can cope with it. With the matters regarding Major, the ones regarding the company... with the fact that Benedict will be going to a different office building. When I think about these things...”
“It’s okay.”
“When I think about them, I realize that the number of things I should prioritize has increased too much.”
“Little Violet.”
“The order of priorities...”
“It’s all right.”
“I have to deal with situations of every kind as I live, and yet...”
——Surely, Violet Evergarden wouldn’t be alive if she didn’t do that.
Always, at all times.
She had been living through corresponding to her surroundings despite being at loss regarding its circumstances, putting everything she could do to use while looking for a place to belong and an adult who would take care of her. She was not allowed to waver. For beasts, hesitation was death.
Violet did not know unconditional love. She now had at last earned herself this warm place through her efforts, but it was about to suffer a rapid change with the course of time.
After running, running and running, Violet – previously one such beast – was watching the nest she had finally found crumble down. Even when people knew they had to prepare to start running again, there would come a time when they would be short of breath and unable to move.
Violet had gone from wild animal to person.
Her human parts and animal parts co-existed, occasionally revealing themselves. When she was the animal, she simply did not mind how much a place changed as long as she could live in it. However, it was difficult to live while holding something better, more important.
Now that she had become a person through the increasing of her emotions...
“I shall fight. I can always be of use. President Hodgins, please forget this aspect of me that I just showed you.”
...she had turned into just a girl who was a little bit scared of the future.
“Please... forget about it.”
Who had made her this way? Gilbert was likely the first, but the ones who had done the finishing touches were definitely all the people in this place.
“No way, I’m not forgetting.”
At Hodgins’s words, Violet lowered her eyebrows, looking troubled.
“Don’t make a face like that; I’m not teasing. I meant to say that you don’t need to worry about it. You indeed might’ve gotten weak. But is that a bad thing? You had nothing when you met me for the first time. Not even your brooch, right...? But now you have lots of things. You went on a journey for a long time and got more stuff to shoulder while you were at it, so it’s no wonder that you’d end up in a dilemma.” Albeit knowing that Cattleya, Benedict and Lux were looking at them in shock from the shadows at the doorway, Hodgins went on, “You know... life is a journey. Little Violet, you’ll go on this journey, won’t you?”
He had already forgotten about his anxiety. The feeling of frustration at such things and the overwhelming wish to cling to someone were now gone.
“You started your journey with a little less luggage than other people, so you’re staring at your bag now that it’s gotten a bit heavy, wondering what happened to it. You don’t know what to throw away anymore.”
He was able to think, from the depths of his heart, that he had returned to his usual self. While embracing her, who was indeed still young and confused in the middle of her journey, he was finally able to think so.
“You need clothes and money, of course, and good shoes are vital. Right, and an umbrella too. When you look into your bag and realize that you actually have nothing that you can get rid of, it’s indeed a problem. Even though it’s a hassle because it’s so heavy. What do you think you should do?”
He could still be useful.
“Train... my physical strength... No, calibrate my prosthetics...”
He was still needed.
“You’re such a fool... Either leave it in someone’s care and continue the journey or have someone take half of it.”
Even if it were only for a short while.
“Gilbert will probably take half of the luggage. I can take care of the rest that you can’t carry over here. I’ll be in Leidenschaftlich forever, after all. Little Violet, no matter where you go, I’ll stay here and wait for you to come back, and no matter when you come over, I’ll welcome you. I’ll take care of the contents of your bag with pleasure.”
——Even if you only remember me a few times a year someday...
“Listen up: whenever you’re troubled, remember that I’m here. And then you’ll be able to go on a journey again anytime.”
——...I’ll ready myself to welcome you at any time of the year.
“Am I really supposed to leave my luggage here?”
——I’m the kind of man who can do that, and you need it for sure.
“Hm-hm, that’s not it. Y’see, this is about memories. All you have to do is to know. That I’m here. This is the way to make your luggage lighter. Whenever you’re having problems, bam, remember me. If you do that, the worries you have now will definitely decrease a little. Y’know, at the end of the day... people’s place to come home to aren’t places, they’re ‘somebody’. You should know that much. You’d have gone to any battlefield if Gilbert was there, right? Someday, yes, you might quit being an Auto-Memories Doll. You might not come back to Leidenschaftlich.”
——It’ll be great if this “someday” never comes, though.
“But your current memories are with me. I’ll be a representation of them. So that you, my dear... will be able to open your memories anytime. When this moment right now becomes nostalgic to you, come see me. I’ll always be here. Waiting for you. You’re feeling ‘lonely’ right now. But... Little Violet. You have me. You’re not alone.”
——I want you to remember.
“I do not understand very well... However...”
——I’m always protecting you.
“...you have always guided me.”
——Waiting for your return.
“I never doubt your word.”
——I’ll be waiting here.
“But, President Hodgins, I have only one wish.”
——I want you to show up when your journey ends.
Deciding to deal with the sobbing coming from behind the door later, Hodgins opted for staying like this for just a bit longer. Her lover might get angry if he saw it, but he had the right to do it, at least to some extent. After all, she was Claudia Hodgins’s dear employee.
Hodgins asked with a particularly gentle tone, “What would it be, Little Violet?”
Violet blinked and looked up at Hodgins. The last drop spilled from her eyes.
“If, only if... there comes a time when you will quit the postal company and start doing something else...”
“Hm.”
“...please call me. No matter where you are, I will rush to you.”
“Hm.”
“I will definitely be of help... Even if not, should your luggage become too much, please call me when you need someone to carry it for you. I shall hasten to visit you.”
“For real?”
“Yes. I, too, will carry President’s luggage. You should know it. I am strong.”
“Huhu, yep, definitely. One day, you’ll understand what I mean by ‘luggage’. Hey...”
No one would imagine that a single drop could be the start of something so big. However, it would earn itself great meaning after a while passed. Should it continue pouring, it could also summon boundless blessings and curses.
“Hiya, I’m Hodgins. What’s your name?”
Silence.
“This kid’s such a taciturn.”
“She... doesn’t have a name yet. She’s an orphan with no education. Can’t talk either.”
“That’s so terrible of you. She’s such a beauty. Just give a name worthy of her.”
“Little Violet, thanks for meeting me.”
Love was almost like rain.
#violet evergarden#fyeahvioletevergarden#veedit#kyoani#kyoto animation#violet evergarden ever after#claudia hodgins#benedict blue#cattleya baudelaire#lux sibyl#akatsuki kana#takase akiko#my translation#novel
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I think we should start a protection squad (although they don’t need it because they can protect themselves) for Sun Wukong and Guanyin
“Begone monkie kid fandom trying to down grade these really interesting characters with interesting personality’s and backstory ( the both of them like seriously Guanyin backstory is so cool) to a villain wile trying to justify your angsty backstory (that are no where near as cool as monkey who fights gods and Person who has 1000 arms and heads to help people in need) for the actual villain”
So who wants to join
Me:*raises my hand*
Ps: sorry if I got Guanyin backstory wrong am not an expert on it.
Haha okay so some critiques on the jttw & associated media western fandom & fandom in general coming up, so please skip this upcoming text wall if you don't want to encounter my undoubtedly ~devastating~ words (i.e. don't like don't read as people love to say, & if I have to be inundated with images of my notp every time I go into the sun wukong tag then I imagine people can be chill with me expressing my opinions & giving people fair warning that I WILL be critiquing common fandom trends, but no need for you to see that if you don’t want to. Cool? Cool.)
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PFFFFFTTT oh man there are many times when I feel like signing up for such a protection squad...when it comes to the current western jttw & Sun Wukong fandom I do feel like I'm often swinging at a rapid pace between "well it's fandom & people are allowed to make the stories they want" & "I am once again begging my fellow monkie kid enthusiasts (& sometimes creators) to do more research into the og classic/show it more respect so you can avoid any potentially offensive/off-the-mark misunderstandings of the status & cultural context of the characters in their country of origin (I promise it's super interesting & I can provide you with links to free pdf copies of the entire Yu translation, i.e. the best one ever created, so feel free to ask!) & maybe also stop constantly stripping away all the nuance of Sun Wukong's character for the sake of either making him an entire asshole so your little meow meow can look completely innocent in comparison and/or making the monkey king's entire life & character revolve around said meow meow."
Like I get that fandom's supposed to be a kind of anything-goes environment, but one thing that honestly seems to be true of a lot of fandoms--and the western one for Sun Wukong & co. is certainly not immune from this--is that there often seems to be a kind of monoculturalization at work in what stories are created & what character interpretations are made popular. Across a multitude of fandoms, you frequently see basically nothing but the exact same tropes being made popular & even being insisted on for the canonical work (especially hasty redemption arcs & enemies to lovers these days), the exact same one-dimensional character types that characters from an original work keep getting shoved into, the exact same story beats, etc. And I get it to an extent, as fandom is generally a space where people just make art and fic for fun & without thinking too hard about it & without any pressure.
This seems to, however, often unfortunately lead to the mentality that it’s your god-given right to do literally whatever you want with literally any cultural figure without even the slightest bit of thought put into their cultural, historical, and even religious context, even (and sometimes especially) when it comes to figures that are really important in a culture outside your own. For such figures--even if you first encounter them in a children’s cartoon--you should be a little more careful with what you do with them than you would with your usual Saturday morning line-up. It of course has to be acknowledged that there exists a whole pile of absolutely ridiculous & cursed pieces of media that are based on Journey to the West & that were produced in mainland China, but for your own education if nothing else I consider it good practice for those of us (myself certainly included) who aren’t part of the culture that produced JTTW to put more thought into how we might want to portray these characters so that at the very least (to pull some things I’ve seen from the jttw western fandom) we’re not turning a goddess of mercy into an evil figure for the sake of Angst(TM), or relegating other important literary figures into the positions of offensive stereotypes, or making broad claims about the source text & original characterizations of various figures that are blatantly untrue, or mocking heavenly deities because of what’s actually your misunderstanding of how immortality works according to Daoist beliefs. Yet while a lot of this is often due to people not even trying to understand the context these figures are coming from, I do want to acknowledge that the journey (lol reference) to understand even a fraction of the original cultural context can be a daunting one, especially since, as I’ve mentioned before, it can be really hard & even next to impossible to find good, accessible, & legitimate explanations in English of how, for example, the relationship between Sun Wukong and the Six-Eared Macaque is commonly interpreted in China & according to the Buddhist beliefs that define the original work.
That is to say, I do think it’s an unfortunate, if unavoidable, part of any introduction of an original text into a culture foreign to its own for there to be sometimes a significant amount of misinterpretation, mistranslations, and false assumptions. There is, however, a big difference between learning from your honest mistakes, & doubling down on them while dismissing all criticism of your misinterpretation into that abstract category of “fandom drama.” The latter attitude is kind of shitty at best and horrifically entitled at worst.
Plus, as I’ve discovered, there is a great deal of interest and joy to be drawn from keeping yourself open to learning aspects of these texts & figures that you weren’t aware of! I can say from my own experience that I’ve always really enjoyed & appreciated it when individuals on this site who come from a Chinese background--and who know much more about the cultural context of JTTW than me--have taken the time to explain its various aspects. It often leaves me feeling like woooooaaaahhhhhHHH!!!! as to how amazingly full of nuanced meaning JTTW is like dang no wonder it’s one of China’s Four Great Classical Novels.
And I guess that right there is the heart of a lot of my own personal frustration and disappointment with the ways that fandoms often approach a literary work or other piece of media...like don’t get me wrong, a lot of the original works a fandom may grow around are just straight-up goofy & everyone’s aware of it & has fun with it, yet the trend of approaching what are often nuanced and multi-layered works in terms of how well they fit and/or can be shoved into pretty cliche ideas of Redemption Arc or Enemies to Lovers or Hero Actually Bad, Villain Actually Good etc...well, it just seems to cheapen and even erase even the possibility of understanding the wonderful complexity or even endearing simplicity that made these works so beloved in the first place. Again, I feel like I need to make it clear that I’m not saying fandom should be a space where people are constantly trying to one-up each other with their hot takes in literary analysis, but it would be nice and even beneficial to allow room for commentary that strives to approach these works in a multi-faceted way, analysis & interpretations that go against the popular fandom beliefs, & criticism of the work or even of fandom trends (yes it is in fact possible to legitimately love something but still be critical of its aspects) instead of immediately attacking people who try to engage in such as just being haters who don’t want anyone to have fun ever (X_X).
----
Anyway, I know I didn’t cover even half of the stuff you brought up in the first place anon, but I don’t want any interested parties to this post to suffer too long through my text wall lol. I was asked to try my hand at illustrating Guanyin, but as with you I’m nowhere near as informed as I should be about her, so I want to do more research on her history and religious importance before I attempt a portrait. I’ll try my best, and do plan to pair that illustration with my own outsider’s attempt to summarize her character. From what little I do know I am in full agreement that her backstory is so incredibly amazing...just the fact that she literally eschewed the bliss of Nirvana to help all beings reach it, and even split herself into pieces in the attempt to do so (with Buddha granting her eleven heads and a thousand arms as a result)...man, I can see why she’s such a beloved & respected deity.
----
As for what western fandom commonly does with everyone’s favorite god-fighting primate...I can talk about this at length if there’s interest, but for this post I’ll just say that I guess one lesson from all of this is that for all the centuries that have passed since Journey to the West was first completed, literally no one drawing inspiration from the original tale in the west (lol) has come even slightly close to being able to equal or even capture half the extent of the nuance, complexity, religious, historical, and cultural aspects, and humor that define Wu Cheng'en's story of an overpowered monkey who defied even Buddha.
So thank the heavens we'll always have the original.
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The Spaniard & I
Chapter 7
Pairings: Pero Tovar x reader
Warnings: fluff, small bit of angst, mentions of not wanting children, marriage, smut 18+, p in v smut.
Summary: Pero calls upon Y/N with an important question.
*comments and reblogs really appreciated*
••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
The journey home was tense. You we’re getting daggers from your mother the whole way. You try to distract yourself by speaking with William, asking him what it was Pero discussed with him.
“Ah dear sister, all in good time.”
Rolling your eyes at him you turned to look out at the streets as you passed.
The following morning you got up and dressed in one of your nicer day dresses, excitement coursing through you in anticipation of Pero’s visit. In the parlour you were joined by your mother and sister and as the day progressed Emily was inundated with suitors. You on the other hand had none. Embarrassment now replaced that excitement as you spotted the smug look on your mother’s face. She had been right you thought as you recalled what she has said about Pero taking pity on you. More fool you for believing he may actually feel the same about you as you do him.
Just as you were about to give up hope, a knock comes to the door.
“A caller for ms. Y/N.”
“Send them through.” You can’t hide your excitement.
You fix yourself and pick up a book, giving the impression you were reading. Looking up, you see Pero standing in the doorway staring at you. He approaches you slowly, cautiously almost, the fear that you will be upset with him, consuming him. You make to stand but he speaks up, “please remain seated, I have something I would like to say.” Once he is before you, he turns to your mother and sister, “I would very much like to speak with her alone.” He says it firmly, indicating it was not a question.
“Very well, If it is what you wish?”
“It is.”
You don’t even look towards them as they leave, knowing your mother would only be scowling at you. Although come to think of it Pero is not much better.
“What is it you wanted to speak to me about?”
You think you know, are hopeful even.
“I know we do not know each other long, and we have had our disagreements. You are hot headed, sometimes impossible to deal with..”
“Did you come here to insult me or?”
Pero begins grumbling under his breath in Spanish.
“I am not very good at expressing myself.”
“You don’t say.” Your teasing him and he know it.
“Can you please be serious for a moment? Yes you are an impossible women, but somehow I do not know why, I have falling in love with you.”
Your stunned into silence. He expected this reaction so he continues.
“I have said to you that I do not believe in seeking a wife, I never thought anyone would want me. Then I became a duke, not willing, and then I was a prize to be won, but not by you. I have already asked William for his consent to ask. Will you marry me and become my wife?”
You stare at him as he produces a beautiful silver ring with a generous diamond.
“Yes, I will marry you, and Pero, I love you too.”
He places the ringer on your finger and kisses your hand. He lifts his head slowly looking at you with lust in his eyes.
“You know, we are alone, you could kiss me.”
“Indeed we are.” He moves in closer until you can feel his hot breath fan your face. His lips are gentle, quite the contradiction from the man himself. He pulls you closer by the waist and the kiss quickly becomes heated. You are interrupted by a knock on the door. Pulling away from one another you turn to see William enter the room. He looks to your hand, and then smiles.
“So you’ve done it then, about time, considering I’ve spent all day reassuring you she would say yes.”
You turn back to Pero “so that’s where you were all day.”
William comes close and pulls you both into a hug.
“Let the wedding planning begin.”
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Tagging
@lunaserenade @asta-lily @day-off-inkyoto @librariantothejedi @seasonschange-butpeopledont @maievdenoir @elinedjarin @javierpinme @anaaaispunk @kirsteng42 @ikinmahlen @pascal-rascal424 @dindjarinneedsahug @loserrlauraa @dihra-vesa @thorins-queen-of-erebor @almaeunice @janelongxox
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#pedro pascal#pedro pascal x reader#pero tovar x female reader#pero tovar x reader#regency!pero tovar x reader#pedro pascal x female reader#the great wall
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The Tower: Family - 15
The Tower: Family
An Avengers Fanfic
Series Masterlist
PREVIOUS //
Pairing: Avengers x OFC, Bruce Banner x Bucky Barnes x Clint Barton x Wanda Maximoff x Steve Rogers x Natasha Romanoff x Tony Stark x Thor x Sam Wilson x OFC (Elly Cooper)
Word Count: 1841
Warnings: Pregnancy
Synopsis: With new powers, Thor now living on Earth full time, a wedding to plan, and Natasha and Wanda expecting, a lot is changing for Elly and her large and rather unconventional family. When Elise’s parents try to reestablish connections, Elly questions what being a family actually means.
Chapter 15: First Day
“El, honey, time to get up.”
It took a moment for Steve’s words to seep through into my sleeping mind and when they did I became more aware of my nausea than of the sun coming through the window, how cozy and warm I was, or the press of Steve’s lips against my forehead and the touch of his hand on my arm.
I squeezed my eyes tight and curled up into a ball groaning.
“I know, sweetheart,” he soothed, rubbing my arm. “Everyone is up and eating breakfast. Do you want me to help you to the bathroom?”
I nodded my head a little and he scooped me into his arms and carried me to the bathroom. “You gonna throw up?” He asked.
I nodded and he placed me on my feet in front of the toilet. I stood staring at it for a moment as he gathered my hair back and rubbed my back soothingly. My stomach churned and I dropped to my knees and heaved into the toilet bowl, emptying my stomach. Steve stayed with me, rubbing my back and holding my hair off my face. When it seemed like my stomach was empty he flushed and helped me to my feet.
“Here’s your nausea medication,” he said, taking the lid of a bottle. I held out my hand and he shook a pill out into my palm and poured me a glass of water. As I took it he turned on the shower.
“Alright, sweetheart,” he said, pressing another kiss to my forehead. “Take a shower and get dressed. We’ll have toast and your vitamins ready for you so we can take the kids to school.”
“Thank you, Steve,” I mumbled.
“Of course, honey,” he said. “We don’t want you to miss this.”
He left the room and I showered as quickly as I could. When I was done, I dressed in a simple dress and braided my hair before heading downstairs.
“Mommy!” The twins squealed, running over to me and slamming into my legs. They were wearing matching blue gingham shirts and dark blue shorts. Riley had her hair in pigtails, while Pietro’s sat in wide curls.
“You dotta hurry, mommy,” Pietro said.
“We dotta doe to schoowl,” Riley added.
“I know, babies,” I said. “We can go.”
“Come drink some ginger tea and eat some toast,” Natasha said. “We have time.”
“Mama,” Riley whined. “We wanna doe.”
Natasha started laughing. “Riley,” she whined back. “You have to be patient.”
I chuckled and took a seat, and took my vitamins as I sipped the ginger tea Wanda had poured for me.
“How are you feeling this morning?” Bruce asked.
“Getting there,” I said. “Pills have started kicking in, so that’s good.”
He rubbed my back with one large hand and I smiled at him. “You’re going to be very popular at the school.”
He chuckled. “Yeah, I considered pushing into just Bruce so I wouldn’t draw attention, and you know, maybe I’d fit through the door easier. But Hulk wants to be there.”
“Yeah, I’m not surprised,” I said and finished my piece of toast.
“Weddy now?” Riley asked.
“Yeah, bug,” I said. “I’m ready.”
“Alright, family,” Steve said, getting up and moving the puppies into their playpen. “Assemble.”
We all got up and went to the elevator riding it down to the lobby. We left through the back entrance and Natasha engaged her powers, cloaking our very large group as we walked to their preschool. Wanda used her powers to make sure no one accidentally walked into any of us. Riley and Pietro were buzzing the whole way there, babbling happily about making friends and reading books.
When we arrived, Natasha lowered the cloak surrounding us and we checked them in. We immediately started drawing looks. Even the staff who had been prepared for our arrival kept glancing over. It was easy to tell that the parents in the halls were holding their kids back from approaching us. That all went out the window when we entered the twin’s classroom.
It was full of kids with their parents doing various activities. Some were looking for their desks, some were reading in the corner on the comfortable couches, some were hanging up backpacks, and some parents were soothing their crying children and assuring them they’d have fun.
When Steve and Tony entered the room some kids looked over. They all wrinkled their brows like they were trying to work out how they knew the two men at the front of the group. When Thor came in, more kids looked over and understanding started to dawn on some of the kids and a couple made happy squeak sounds. It wasn’t until Bruce ducked through the door that they all broke.
They all squealed and ran over, little groups of kids choosing their favorite Avengers to speak to. They all crouched down to get on the level with the kids as they were inundated with questions from the class. Riley and Pietro looked confused and Pietro ran over to my side and tugged on my hand. “Mommy…” he whined.
I picked him up as the headteacher approached. “Hello!” She said warmly, extending her hand to me. “I’m Alicia. You must be Elise.”
“Yes,” I said, shaking her hand. “Sorry about the chaos. We all wanted to see them off.”
“It’s fine. The first day is always a little chaotic, and this gives them all something exciting,” she said. “And who are you?”
Pietro hid his head in my chest and Riley grabbed my free hand and began tugging on it. “I don’t think they’ve seen their parents get mobbed by fans before,” I said.
“Plus I’m a new person,” Alicia added.
“This is Pietro,” I said, bouncing Pietro on my hip. “Piet, this is your teacher, Alicia.”
“Hello, Pietro, welcome to the class,” she said, before crouching down to Riley. “And I bet your name is Riley.”
“It is!” She squeaked, like her teacher had just done a particularly amazing magic trick.
“How about you two find your bag pegs and your desks?” Alicia suggested.
“Daddy…” Pietro whined, looking back at the group of kids who were swarming around the others. Clint managed to pull himself out of the pack and took Pietro from me.
“I got you, buddy,” he said. Pietro scrambled up onto Clint’s shoulders and we took the twins into the nook that had the kids bags.
“Why dose kids do dat?” Pietro asked as Riley tried to find her name.
“Well,” Clint said, and looked over at me, with his helpless puppy expression.
“Remember when we were on Asgard and everyone knew who you were and they were very nice to you?” I asked.
“Yeah, dey cawled me a pwince,” Pietro said.
“Well, it’s a bit like that. Mamma, Daj, and all your daddy’s are very well known because they go out and save the world all the time. People like them. Especially kids. So the kids are all just excited to see them because they like them so much and they’ve never seen them before,” I explained. “You’re gonna see some will have pictures of them on their bags and lunch boxes.”
“Pied!” Riley called. “Wook - dares daddy Steeb.”
Pietro began to wiggle down and Clint put him on the floor and the twins went from looking for their pegs to looking for their parents’ pictures on the other kid’s bags. In the end, they found two daddy Steves, three daddy Tonys, a daddy Bruce, a daddy Thor, Two mamas, one Daj, and a daddy Sam.
“Aww, man, no me,” Clint complained.
“Well there’s no me either,” I said, nudging him. “Or Bucky.”
“Damn, poor Buck,” Clint said.
I shrugged and looked out through the door. “He’s got a bunch of kids looking at his arm. I bet tomorrow there will be a tonne of Winter Soldier Merch. Plus you’re all gonna be invited to every kid’s birthday party now.”
“Sweet,” Clint said. “I love cupcakes.”
“Mommy, how come day don’t tawk to you?” Riley asked.
“Oh,” I said. “I’m not an Avenger. That’s all. I never did any saving the world.”
“Well, that’s not technically true,” Clint corrected. “Your mommy definitely did. But we kept it a secret. So the kids don’t know her.”
“Oh…” Riley said, putting her finger to her mouth. “Is a secwet.”
I laughed and rubbed her back. “Did you find your peg?”
Riley bounced over to the peg with her name on it. “Hewr.”
“Hang up your bag then, bug,” Clint said.
Both Pietro and Riley hung their bag up and we went back into the main classroom. “Alright, class!” Alicia called. “Let’s all go to the story area and we’ll do some introductions.”
All the kids reluctantly pulled themselves away from the Avengers and took seats on the couch and little cushions in the reading area, while the parents stood around the area. Alicia took a seat in the sofa chair.
“Everyone’s moms and dads will be going home or to work soon and they’ll come back at the end of the day. We’ll play an introduction game when they’ve gone,” Alicia explained. “But there’s a special situation today. You’ve all been talking to the Avengers, haven’t we? Do you know why they’re here?”
Pietro and Riley started bouncing up and down on their cushions and Pietro put up his hand. Alicia laughed. “Yes, I know you two know,” she said. “You see everyone, Riley and Pietro have seven daddies and three mommies.” There was a group gasp around the room. None of the parents really reacted in surprise. The news that we were in a ten-person polyamorous relationship was old now. It was probably more of a shock just seeing Steve walk into the room in the first place.
“So you’re going to see them all around a lot more, just remember they’re here because they’re Riley and Pietro’s mommies and daddies. You need to remember how when you’re tired or upset you might want to go straight to your parents. Riley and Pietro might need that too, and even though you might want to talk to Iron Man, he might just need to cuddle with Riley and Pietro or take them home.”
“Did any of you kids have any questions?” Steve asked.
There was a little while where the kids asked questions. There were a couple related to how a kid could have ten parents but most were just questions about the Avengers or asking them for hugs. It was pretty cute and eventually, Alicia called for the last questions. All the kids said goodbye to their parents and we were all shuffled back out of the room.
“You think they’re gonna be okay?” Bruce asked, looking back over his shoulder.
“They will be fine,” Thor said. “I am sure we will all be regaled with stories when we retrieve them.”
“Now,” Sam said, wrapping his arm around Steve’s waist. “We have four hours with no kids. What trouble shall we get up to?”
// NEXT
#the avengers#steve rogers#bucky barnes#tony stark#natasha romanoff#bruce banner#clint barton#wanda maximoff#sam wilson#avengers fanfic#avengers x oc#steve rogers x oc#bucky barnes x oc#tony stark x oc#stucky#clintasha#natasha romanoff x oc#wanda maximoff x oc#clint barton x oc#bruce banner x oc#sam wilson x oc#all caps#thor x oc#thor#fanfic#fanfiction#smut#pregnancy#the tower
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Fools Rush In
Part 4
Series: The Royal Romance
Pairing: Liam x OC (Riley)
Previous chapters can be found here.
Series Premise: With two weeks until Liam is to marry Madeleine, the guys throw him a bachelor party in Vegas. As a drunken night, he finds himself with way more than he bargained for.
MC did not exist in Liam’s social season. OC Riley Brooks lives in Las Vegas.
A/N: No wacky drabble for this one. Went a wee bit over and couldn’t cut. Oh well...there’s always next time. This is an 18+ series.
A/N: The lyrics to the song Maxwell sings comes from a Tik Tok video that was shared with me and the idea to include it in this is not my own hahahaha I will post the link to the video in comments to give the maker proper credit and just in case anyone wants to actually watch it. I thought it was funny..
Thanks @burnsoslow for beta reading and all of my lovely pre-readers.
Warning: Mention of STD’s
Permanent Tags: @emceesynonymroll @romanticatheart-posts @burnsoslow @dcbbw @ao719 @jessiembruno @hopefulmoonobject @texaskitten30 @drakesensworld @janezillow @merridithsmiscellany-blog @mskaneko @loveellamae @queenjilian @sirbeepsalot @pedudley @caroldxnvxrs @jovialyouthmusic @forthebrokenheartedthings @desireepow-1986 @bebepac @kingliam2019 @lovablegranny @cordoniaqueensworld @amandablink @blueaster-blog1 @liamxs-world @choiceskatie @iaminlovewithtrr @hopelessromanticmonie @charlotteg234 @twinkleallnight @annekebbphotography @txemrn
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All Riley wanted to do was go home, take a hot shower, snuggle up in a blanket on the couch with a Lifetime movie, and carry on with the rest of her life.
She'd had this crazy but exciting night out with a fantastic guy. They had a little too much to drink and woke up the next morning to find they were married to each other.
And she wasn't just married to anyone. No, it had to be the King of a small European country she'd never heard of before.
That's not something that just happened to everyone.
Depending on how one viewed her circumstances she was either the luckiest or unluckiest woman in all of Vegas.
If she were a betting person, she'd place money on the latter.
Riley stood at the penthouse door, engaged in a stare down with the blonde-haired obstacle blocking the exit.
In front of her was a woman wearing a black and white fur coat, a strand of pearls that hung loosely around her neck, and an impudent scowl.
If evil were a lady, Riley surmised she was looking at her.
Madeleine's green eyes bore agitation and scorn as she studied the petite figure she recognized from the dozens of photos that bombarded her text messages.
"You must be the bimbo who thinks she will steal my crown and title."
"Excuse me?" Riley's eyes narrowed, not knowing who she was speaking to, but could already tell she didn’t care to know.
Leo stepped up protectively behind Riley and growled at the countess. "Go away, Madeleine! How many times do we have to tell you the dalmatians aren't for sale?"
"You wish I were here for dalmatians," Madeleine sneered. "Now, out of my way, heathens."
She pushed her way past the two and stalked inside while Mara shuffled behind. She removed her cashmere gloves and took notice of her fiance with his back pressed against the bar top, one legs crossed over the other, and sipping casually on his scotch.
Liam tipped the glass to his lips as if he didn't have a care in the world and swallowed. "Can I offer you a glass of wine, dear? Or a cronut? Perhaps a ride to the middle of the desert to be left for dead?"
"That's quite alright," Madeleine quipped as she ripped the glass out of Liam's hand and slammed it down on the bar. "But maybe you'd like to first explain why I have been inundated with one message after the next telling me you were married to this ..." She motioned her hand toward Riley with derision. "This ... bitch?"
Liam paused as if he were thinking about it, then shook his head. "No. Not really." She's not a bitch ... she's amazing. He wondered why he couldn't say that out loud.
Stunned, Riley looked up at Leo in disbelief. "Did she really just call me a bitch? She doesn't even know me."
Leo nodded with a compassionate smile on his face, then pulled her further inside and shut the door.
He wasn't about to let her go now.
Liam grabbed his drink, pushed himself off the bar, and strolled to the center of the room. He could feel Madeleine's icy glare following his every movement. The King hoped his flippant attitude was enough to penetrate deep into her frozen exterior and piss her off even more. "I thought you were in New York, Mads. 8 million people in that city for you to torment, and you still make time to hop on your broomstick and find me. I have to say … I'm touched."
Madeleine shot him a dirty look. "Do you have any idea what I've been through because of what you did last night?"
He shrugged. "Nope, and I don't care."
"Well, you're going to care when I tell you everything that happened." She disregarded the audible groan and eye roll from him as she began her diatribe of offenses. "I had just settled in for the night when I get a message from that simpleton, Penelope, telling me what you did. I tried to call you, but apparently, you and the rest of your entourage of losers blocked my number. So I had this incompetent boob of a guard you hired for me book the first flight out here.
“When I got to JFK, I was detained and strip-searched because someone falsely alerted authorities claiming I was a Colombian drug lord, only in the U.S. to sell cocaine and hypodermic needles to children --"
Leo snorted.
Liam curled his lips into a devilish grin, knowing exactly who did it. He glanced subtly to Mara, who winked back at him.
"Are you even listening to me, Liam? As if that nightmare wasn't horrid enough, I find out Mara booked coach class … COACH! Coach is so beneath someone like me. There were babies and old people and sodas. But the worst was when we finally arrived here; they strip-searched me again. I had to get my own baggage and ride in one of those god-awful smelly shuttle vans to this hotel. And do you know why I had to do all of that? Because you're a complete moron, Liam. The people of Cordonia are laughing at you; you know that, right? I always knew you would be a total embarrassment and fuck up, but this is beyond anything I imagined."
A downcast expression was plastered on Liam's face as he stared down at the drink in his shaky hand. Those words stung -- “a total embarrassment and fuck up.” In his mind, he felt she was right. He had let down even his own expectation of himself and the reputation of the monarchy.
There was nothing to do but stand there and stew in silence.
But Riley wouldn’t.
She shrugged Leo's hand from her shoulder and spun Madeleine around by the arm to face her. "Is this what you do? You go around insulting everyone and being a first-class bitch? I will have you know, Liam is not any of those things. He's the kindest, sweetest man I've ever met. And it's no wonder he looked so miserable last night at the club. I couldn't understand why at first, but now ... now it all makes sense. Did you ever stop to think that maybe if you weren't such a fucking cunt, he wouldn't have been drinking so much and been so willing to accept the company of another woman?"
Liam felt his heart twinge. Riley had every right to be upset with him, and he felt guilty for putting her in this situation. But there she was, defending him. God, she was hot.
Madeleine guffawed. "How cute. You've got your little whore taking up for you now."
"That's enough!" Liam's eyes landed sharply on her. Before he could stop himself, the next few words sprang from his lips as naturally as his breath. "You will not speak to my wife -- your Queen -- like that again, or so help me I will charge you where you stand for treason against the Crown. Do I make myself clear?"
Riley's eyes rounded, unsure of what to say or do at that moment.
Leo loudly cheered and pumped his fist in the air.
Liam stood his ground as he glowered back at his slack-jawed, now ex-fiancee.
Madeleine couldn't believe what she was hearing. "You can't be serious? We are getting married in two weeks. I'm going to be the Queen!" Her tone was one of anger and desperation.
He laughed wryly in her face. "Not anymore."
He looked past a stunned Madeleine to the heedless guard smirking behind her. "Mara, please see to it that the countess returns to the airport and doesn't disturb us again."
She agreed and led a vociferously-protesting Madeleine toward the doorway.
"You'll regret this, Liam. You'll both pay for this travesty!"
"Use the taser on her, Mara!" Leo bounced with excitement as he followed them and opened the door. He handed the guard a $100 bill as she walked by and whispered, "Make sure they strip search her again. A bonus if they need double gloves and lube."
"You got it, boss."
Leo slammed the door and clapped. "Ding-dong, the witch is gone! So. Do you need help packing, sis? We still have a couple of hours before we go back to Cordonia. That should be enough time to gather some things."
Riley stammered, looking between the two men, completely dumbfounded by what just took place.
Liam noticed. He knew what he said to Madeleine about her being his wife and Queen was most likely awkward for her.
They didn't know each other; it was a fact, he continued to remind himself.
Liam rubbed the back of his neck, unsure of what to say. "Uh, Riley ... I just want you to know ... I only said that stuff because of Madeleine ..."
"Oh, yes. Of course. I knew that." She chuckled nervously and waved her hand. "But what about your engagement?"
"Yeah, Liam. You gotta have a queen." Leo clapped the back of one hand against the palm of the other and exclaimed, "Dem's da rules."
Liam shook his head and carried his empty glass to the open kitchen. "I know that, Leo. But I will not ask Riley to give up her life here just to help me clean up my mess. She deserves better than that."
Riley crossed her arms on the counter that looked into the kitchen, watching Liam get a bottled water from the fridge. "What happens if you don't have a Queen?"
Liam twisted the cap and gave a half-shrug. "I don't have a choice. I'll have to marry Madeleine." The words stung his lips.
"But she's so pissed at you right now."
He chuckled. "That won't stop her. She wants the crown, and that's it."
Riley could see the sadness in his eyes, the same sadness she saw last night in the club where they first met. "You'll be miserable with her, though," she muttered wistfully.
He nodded, regret written on his face. "Yeah."
Riley stood silent; she weighed the pros and cons of such a massive uprooting. Her life had been slightly stalled and bland for the last few years. Las Vegas was her getaway to a new life from New York, where she left behind both regrets and failed relationships. And yet ... this new place wasn't everything she told herself it would be.
She looked at Liam and felt her heart break. She understood him more than he realized.
But ... to be a Queen?
Riley inhaled deeply and prepared to speak up when Liam's phone rang.
He placed the cap on his water, sat it on the counter, and lifted his phone from the pocket of his shorts. "It's Maxwell," he called out.
Leo rushed to him. "Put it on speaker, Li!"
"Maxwell, I have you on speaker. Leo and Riley are with me. How's Drake?"
"He's in the pharmacy, and I'm standing outside getting air. It's going to take a while to amass all the medication and creams he needs."
The brothers looked at each other with wide eyes. Riley covered her mouth to prevent the chuckle that threatened to escape. "I think I'll give you guys some privacy. I'll just be in the bathroom."
Liam nodded and turned his attention back to the call. "Is it really that bad, Max? I mean, I think we know what he has."
"Dudes, I don't think you can even begin to guess half the shit Drake's got."
"You gotta tell us what the Drakester has, Max."
"I'm not really supposed to say."
They could hear the hesitation in his voice. It was almost like he wanted to tell them, but needed a little more coaxing.
"Maxwell," Liam spoke. "If Drake doesn't want us to know, then you should probably keep it to yourself ... for now."
"I did kind of write a song about everything he was diagnosed with for a TikTok video. Drake only said not to tell anyone. He never said I couldn't sing about it."
Leo nodded his head. "Agreed. Sing that song, Beaumont."
They could hear Maxwell shuffle further away from what sounded like a crowded street.
"Okay, the coast is clear," Maxwell said as he took a deep breath. The boys hugged their ears against Liam's cell phone.
"Drake just left the clinic, and I'm afraid its bad news.
So now I'm singing this song about it hoping it gets views.
Don't know how he's still alive.
Or how he survived.
The doctor said he's got five ... nasty STIs.
He's got some in his balls … got some in his ass.
And what's worse is his curly pubes are crawling with crabs.
He's got herpes! From a booty call!
He's got syphilis …now his dick is raw.
He's got chlamydia … And it's so sore.
And he doesn't even know where he got genital warts."
Liam pressed two fingers into both sides of his temples while he stared blankly at his phone. "Un - believable."
Leo swiped the tears from his eyes and made no attempts to hide the giant smile curling his lips or his overwhelming giddiness. "I've never been more proud of the Drakester than I am at this moment. He actually beat me out on this one. Gotta say ... I don't mind losing to him this time."
“Liam. Leo. I gotta go; Drake’s on his way out. See ya back at the hotel.”
Leo went to the refrigerator to search for a snack, pulling out a leftover pizza. “Ya know, we should probably warn the maid she may need to get a haz-mat team before cleaning Drake’s room.”
Riley rounded the corner. “I hope everything is okay with your friend.”
Liam smiled. “That’s very kind of you say. He’ll be fine … I think.”
She fidgeted with her bracelet and glanced over at Leo placing a slice of cold pizza on top of another slice and taking a large bite. “Leo, I hate to ask while you’re eating … again. But would you mind if I spoke to your brother for a moment? Privately.”
Leo chewed quickly while shaking his head. He swallowed hard. “Sure. I needed to use the shitter, anyway. Pinquee Kittee’s casserole isn’t sitting too well in the Leo tummy.” He grabbed the pizza box and headed for the bathroom.
Liam looked curiously at Riley, not able to read her expression or have any clue what she would want to talk about. “You needed to speak with me?”
She nodded. “Yeah. About our marriage ...”
#the royal romance#king liam#choices liam x mc#king Liam x mc#liam x mc#choices fanfiction#trr#trr au fanfic#choices trr#Fools Rush In#bbrandy2002#tw: std#a lot of stds
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@polska-tankietka I saw your tags and you’re in luck.. I based this Inktober drawing on a fic from Adashino’s perspective I wrote (but never finished or shared) what seems like many many years ago. Way back in 2014.
I looked it up and it actually wasn’t as cringe as I feared! Up until a certain point that is.. It’s actually much longer than the bit I’m willing to share. ^^;
(Lil disclaimer: I wrote this 6,5 years ago, 100% for myself, without any intention to put it online, and thus I didn’t bother researching the apprentice system in Japan, heh)
Our village’s doctor was called Hishina-sensei. As he had a very good reputation, many wanted him to be their master, so sometimes he took multiple students. My time as his apprentice, that started when I was halfway my teens, was such a time. Sensei took no more than three students, so he could teach them all properly. My two fellow students both came from villages a fair distance away from mine, so sensei invited them to live with him and his wife until their apprenticeship was completed. And a bit longer, if they wanted.
By that time, all their children had grown up and moved out and their big home felt empty to them, so while I lived very close by, they tried to get me to move in as well. I usually declined, but as my fellow students had become my close friends throughout the years, I made use of his offer as well sometimes, when I stayed late to have a drink or two.
In the summer of the year I turned 18, Ginko came through our village, looking for a place to stay. He was only 16 but he'd been traveling by himself for years already, and while you'd expect his solitary existence to cause him to become an anti-social teen, he was very well mannered and friendly. After all, he preferred to be amongst people and made it a habit to stay at other people's homes if he could, in exchange for doing chores and often for helping out with mushi problems.
My village's harvest had been meager the year I met him, so while the villagers were usually hospitable, they pointed him in sensei's direction this time. He always had enough room and because he left many of his patients grateful for his help, he often received food as thanks. Besides that, Sensei lived by the saying "the more, the merrier", so if times had been better, I suppose he would've tried to steal Ginko away from whoever had taken him under their roof. Especially since Ginko's appearance aroused his professional curiosity tremendously. He'd never seen anyone with such a green eyecolour and such white hair and was absolutely fascinated with it.
Even if sensei hadn't been interested in the company of well travelled, interesting looking youngsters, Ginko would have instantly earned his stay when he relieved a woman of her complaints in a matter of minutes, where we'd been struggling to even explain her illness for months. He said it was a generally harmless mushi that had accidentally ended up in the wrong place. None of us had ever heard of mushi, so we - especially Sensei and I - inundated him with questions. Even after Sensei left him alone, I thought of a ton more questions I could ask him. Which I did.
And bedtime didn't stop me. When they wanted to turn off the lights, my friends told me to shut up or leave the bedroom, so I dragged Ginko outside into the dark and continued the inquiry. I would have felt guilty, but seating ourselves on the porch, he just lit his cigarette and answered without complaining. In fact, despite his cool act, he obviously liked telling me everything he'd learned throughout the years. He seemed as intrigued by mushi as I was, although every now and then a slight tremble in his voice betrayed that they had also caused him quite some grief. Possibly in more ways than I could imagine.
I tried to find out more about that -about himself in general: if he came to look like that under the mushi's influence, what happened to his parents, why he was traveling all the time - but he either gave a very short reply or ignored the question fully. The only thing he told me was that he had to keep moving because he attracted mushi. Having too many in one place would be problematic.
In time I finally ran out of things to ask and he took over. He was a lot less demanding than I had been with him, but he was very much interested in some medicine related topics, about which I would tell him gladly. Eventually the topic of our conversation would start to wander all over the place until at length we fell quiet. When that happened, it was close to sunrise and it didn't take long for us to doze off. The night was warm and we didn't bother going back inside, so two hours later, when Sensei came to wake his students, he nearly tripped over us.
He was confused to find us there, but for only a moment: he was eager to show Ginko something.
"Look, I made a list of inexplicably sick people," he explained, producing a piece of paper with a couple of names scribbled on it, "Some of them seem to be seriously ill, so I'd like to visit them with you first."
"Sensei!" I scolded him - respectfully. Anyway, like I was one to talk, but sensei flushed red and quickly bowed in apology.
"Forgive me," he said, "Only if you don't mind having a look, of course!"
Ginko put a cigarette in his mouth and chuckled.
"Sure, sure," he waved the apology away, "Let's go."
In the end sensei kept thinking of more patients that he thought Ginko might be able to help him with, but only one of the people we called on could be cured by him. Sensei was very pleased nonetheless. Once we stepped out the last house, he bowed once more.
"Your help is very much appreciated, Ginko," Sensei thanked him, "Please consider staying a few more days as way for us to repay you."
"That's very kind of you, Hishina-sensei," Ginko replied, "I will stay one more day."
Sensei didn't agree with this, but repeating what he had explained to me that night, Ginko insisted that he couldn't stay longer that.
Of course both of us were by that time exhausted, so we sneaked away when sensei's attention was required elsewhere for a moment, and hid ourselves in high grass on the slope of the hill the village was built on. We fell asleep as soon as our heads touched the ground.
I don't know the length of our nap, but I woke up when I heard sensei calling my and Ginko's name.
"Will you come on out already," he cried, obviously annoyed, "It's dinnertime!"
I chuckled and chose to ignore him for now, although my belly was rumbling.
I sat up and looked down at Ginko. Like sensei, I was intrigued by his pale skin, silver hair and his, now shut, clear green eyes. I was curious why he always kept his left covered by his hair. Same as the smoking: he didn't seem like the kind of guy that did it to look mysterious. It was very tempting to just reach out and take a peek, but at that moment I just wanted to look at him.
My interest wasn't professional like sensei's: I thought he was beautiful. During our conversations it was impossible to see him than anything other than human: he was goofy, he teased me, he got annoyed.. But now it felt like he was a creature from folklore.
Who knows how long I sat there staring at him. Sensei seemed to have given up, or maybe he'd started looking for us elsewhere, but all that time I couldn't look at anything but Ginko. Even when he awoke and our eyes met, I didn't shy away. We said nothing, just looked at each other.
After a moment he sat up too, leaned in tilting his head and kissed me gently, but without hesitation. I knew instantly I wasn't the first one he'd kissed. From his assertiveness, I guessed I wasn't even his first guy. I, on the other hand had never kissed a boy before, but it didn't feel all that different. His lips were just as soft and warm as those of the girls I'd kissed and the jaw my hand automatically slid across was smooth. Yet no girl had made my chest feel so tight and my head go hazy like that.
(another note to end this: This fic does involve some sexy times I don’t feel that comfortable sharing/writing about anymore, but I don’t necessarily disagree with it. my head canon for Ginko’s sexuality is very much that he’s ace, and sometimes even aroace. But the thing is: he is a teenager and he is lonely. And when he meets other teenagers who get all starry-eyed about him, it’s very tempting to yield to their sexual desires..)
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And further thoughts about the yaoi paddles.
If you’re under 20, and just now learning that fandom seniors in their late 20s, 30s, 40s, even low 50s, used to run around slapping eachother on the ass with yaoi paddles in anime and comic conventions after anime became a household media staple, you probably have.. questions.
You’re probably thinking, “Wow!! It was really lawless and anarchistic back then, wasn’t it! They never heard about personal space or sexual harassment laws! SOCIETY must have been SO different, back then!”
NO. I cannot stress enough, the Yaoi Paddle phenomenon was borne PURELY because the demographic MOST LIKELY to protest and be wet blankets about everything fun and sexual and admittedly VERY SKETCHY sometimes in fiction, and ALWAYS bad in reality.. turned off and said virtually nothing. Wokesters that’d protest about the environment and sexual assault against women would take off their Problem Glasses by night and act like paddling was harmless, contextually acceptable behavior.
Yaoi Paddle shit appeared because something absolutely magical happened in scifi and fantasy fandoms. It survived purely because boys didn’t complain, or their complaints were not taken seriously. I promise you, I assure you, if you grew up in the late 80s, your night time TV was INUNDATED with heavy handed messages about how sexual harassment (always male-on-woman flavored) was wrong, even proxy or indirect violence to women (tossing rubber gloves in their lap) was wrong, and to never, ever, ever do that thing or they’d rub your nose in it and consider you mentally diseased until the day you died.
Fandom was always niche, with sci-fi and fantasy stuff being off in its own little corner. Conventions, before the internet was king, was one of few places where more rural, disparate suburban and city-definition isolated geeks, nerds and dreamers could get together and just cut loose. Comic books, novels, video games. All that GOOD shit. But if you knew a girl in the 80s and 90s, you knew a girl that knew a girl that was getting them to be less tolerant and “more conscious and aware” (80s and 90s parlance for Woke) and when that happened, a new persona was created. A new bunch of dialogue options, created.
Suddenly they didn’t say stuff like, “Ew. Why is this character dressed like a SLUT? Typical male writers. Like we’d ever draw ourselves in this or put ourselves in this.” Because that’d be a personal, subjective opinion. Instead, the option to say, “It’s endemic in our western culture that male chauvinist authors and writers in a patriarchal system exploit femininity in media and reproduce misogynistic culture.”
And so assured this was true by mob mentality AND the idea that learned, educated, acredited and tenured academics had this opinion, they were scientists, and so they were right, permeated. Suddenly girl-fans had outlets to have justified apprehension for everything they saw and didn’t like or, if they actually liked it, STILL interpreted it through their lenses to be on, “the right side of history.”
It made fandom miserable and a sausage fest for a while, if only out of fear of driving away female friends. You couldn’t share that shit unless you knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that your female peers and friends wouldn’t disregard you like a “typical misogynistic western male” for enjoying that stuff.
Sentiments and peer pressure thoughts emerged. Like, “The comic industry is hostile and cruel to women that try and enter it, and they exploit the image of women for cheap dollars.” So they simply weren’t interested in comics- mostly- unless the comics were written by women and sold with that virtue in mind. In which case, you had boys glowingly mentioning just how much they liked this authentically written adventure by this female comic author. Isn’t that just so special? Not like those horrid anti-woman cigar smoking old man stories, right?
There was always something to nag and get vitriolic about with the media. That’s part of why the Whedon brand of feminist writing got so popular in the 90s. it was low hanging fruit of peppy “sassy” girl characters doing girly things. They weren’t like “other” girls written in comics and cartoons. They were actually girly. Not idealized infantalized children, like those horrible white men write, you know.
Well. Things were looking really bleak for the forseeable future. Lots of boys just felt like comics and cartoons were lost to girls that weren’t specifically into them, and that meant more sausage fest conventions or hobbies, and signing off hope on those things being respected and accepted on the merits of what they are and were. The girls had embraced serials-filed-off radfem rhetoric and lenses, sometimes without even knowing the origins of where those truisms like the Male Gaze even came from, just assuming it was true and indisputable. And it complimented their insecurities, so they’d embrace that shit until they couldn’t anymore.
And then.. something absolutely miraculous and amazing happened that blindsided this whole vitriolic culture.
Anime.
And amazingly, every complaint that a lot of nerdy girls had about the very much sanitized, policed and made PG writing and characterization of characters in western comics and cartoons, just... fucking up and vanished. Seemingly within a fucking YEAR, the entire social culture of Problem Finders, finding everything wrong about these stories, the characters, the writer and the company that produced them being misogynistic male chauvinism, dried up. Those voices quieted, or were shut out of the groups.
Media from Japan was some of the most infantilizing, sexist, tittelating shit compared to mainstream American comics and cartoons and video games, and girls fluttered to it like flies to shit. We had Buffy basically subverting boogymen that a bunch of girls had been taught were still relevant after the 1950s by fighting crime in melee combat with men, and winning, while wearing jogging pants and cracking sassy, like Lola Bunny being a “tough girl.”
Japan had doe eyed, waif bodied ballet dancers that basically farted iridescent glitter, hearts and all the symbols and shapes of the Lucky Charms, riding unicorns and fighting evil in cute outfits. Being childish and not at all mature or professional to show how womanly and competent they were, basically being overgrown 11 year old girls fresh off the playground swing set.
And the fangirls loved it. Those nagging voices that would speak up and remind them about misogynistic, male chauvinistic “societies” and culture? Just.. they fucking VANISHED from the mind for AN ENTIRE GENERATION. I’m not exaggerating. Tolerance and fun and innocence was back again. The problem-glasses felt too ostracized and alienated, or didn’t even want to wear them anymore for personal reasons, and the Radfem Baby Wokes just seemed to grow out of that collective hysteria and pretend it never happened and never existed.
That’s why the very EXISTENCE of Yaoi Paddles at conventions was just so fucking bizarre to those of us that lived up to that point. After, “Stay in your own personal space, boy. DON’T even TOUCH a GIRL unless she VERBALLY AND PUBLICLY CONSENTS or it’s proof you’re just living up to this misogynistic, objectifying society’s evil history!” was drilled into us, day on the playground by day on the playground, by women with axes to grind and good-boy sycophants performing sharing those sentiments for brownie points, it was so fucking surreal to IMAGINE girls just running around sexually assaulting and physically assaulting random strangers because they thought they looked like cute, gay men.
It wasn’t that they didn’t know any better beforehand, it’s that they COMPLETELY put those sentiments away and up and decided, as girls, it was okay to violate male autonomy because they weren’t women, and “it’s okay to paddle a yaoi boy ^.^!” With NO self-awareness whatsoever.
The very fact it existed is testament to how attention starved boys were for girls approving gaze and playful interaction, that they’d tolerate some pocky fingered little cow stranger smacking them on the ass with a plank of wood because it was a socially acceptable way to just interact with girls in their lonely assed fandom and interest. It was an acceptable way to meet girls and positively interact. That’s the degrading bullshit boys said virtually nothing about at the hayday of yaoi paddles, purely to be welcoming to girls in anime and hentai approving spaces.
WE GREW UP hearing and watching horror stories and boogymen stories about true crime and sitcoms and crime shows about evil evil men violating the personal space of women for lewd and lecherous reasons. We had it drilled into our heads that the tolerance for boys and men doing that was negatives, and the general sentiment was men caught doing that (to women, or children of any sex) were effectively free game for any violence you personally felt like unloading on them, confident that in such outraged rape and sexual assault hating times, juries would excuse that passion as a defense.
So if you look back on the era of Yaoi Paddles and think. “WOW. That must be like driving cars before they invented seat belts and cough medicine before they invented the drug safety and scheduling legal system!”.. NO.
It was not like the 50s-70s, where many of the rules hadn’t been written yet so it was anarchy and chaos. Yaoi Paddles existed almost PURELY because girls HAD no rules if they didn’t want to respect them. The Yaoi Paddle phenomenon flew in direct opposition to how interactions were supposed to go, and ABSOLUTELY NO ONE would tolerate the reverse; no cis straight man could walk around randomly smacking women on the ass with a plank of even foam in pantomime, or ‘floating hand’ pretending to be a perverted character. The double standard was GLARING. The Double Standard was a fucking bugbear that had grown from a tiny screaming goblin and was now hanging upside down from the ceiling, roaring.
But because it was GIRLS inflicting it on BOYS, absolutely no party cared enough to raise a stink about it. The Radfems kept their mouths shut, because boys were the recipients. The Radfem Sympathizers really wanted to spank boys, so suddenly they couldn’t find their problem glasses and instead put on their neko ears. The boys were either stoic and amused by it or really wanted to be seen as cool and not buzzkills, so they tolerated to reveled in it.
Many times when you hear about things that happened either when you were a child just too young to really personally experience a thing, or before you were born, we’re quick to assume it’s a medieval place and the people were so uncultured as to have never pondered the social problems of spanking one another on the ass unprovoked. Violation of personal space, personal sovereignty- all that. That was NOT okay at the time. It happened because fujoshi decided it was okay and nobody argued with them to not do hat, or they were told to stop and did it anyway.
And as I’ve laid it out, that is the most bizarre and surreal element to the whole thing. They DID know better, but felt it didn’t apply to THEM because they were girls, and a girl slapping a boy on the ass “as a joke” didn’t mean anything- because it wasn’t happening TO them, FROM a man.
And irony of ironies, it was NEVER okay, EVER, throughout that entire era, for the reverse to be a thing. It was very specifically and exclusively not. As a man if you ran around slapping cute looking girls with the Yuri Paddle, you goin’ to either juvy hall, or prison, boi. Both sexes knew it. And yet, yaoi paddles STILL became a thing.
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Trachyngeim Aerstwyda
thanks for the template @lizzy-frizzle
Name: Trachyngeim Aerstwyda
Gender: Female
Age: 19 at the start of ARR
Race: Roegadyn
Relationship: Single
Family: Pfardaeg (father), Thubyrthota (mother), Blauswys (sister)
Orientation: Bisexual
Nameday: 11th sun of the 1st umbral moon
Abilities/Talents: The tallest person she knows (max height Roegadyn, after all), she can reach up to the top shelf like no problem. She’s not very good at most crafts, but is very adept at gathering. does giving me gender feels count as a talent
Job: Dark Knight; also Monk, Gunbreaker. She’s dabbled a lot, though, in things like black magic, red magic, and the art of the dancer.
Appearance description: 7′6″ tall, with short red hair. Toned muscles, though she’s not as muscular as her strength would suggest.
Unique features (scars, tattoos, etc.): Red facial tattoos, symmetrical on both sides of her face.
Personal Beliefs (religious or otherwise): She used to think of the stories of the primals as nothing more than stories - boogeymen that kept children up at night. Her mother told her of Leviathan, while neglecting to tell her of the primal’s hand in the death of her parents. Needless to say, slaying the boogeyman has led Trachyngeim to have her personal beliefs thrown into turmoil, and they’ve been there for a while.
Residence: Ul’dah is essentially her home. It was where she got her start as an adventurer, and despite her personal connections to Ishgard and Ala Mhigo, Ul’dah shall be where she considers home.
Birth place: On a boat to Limsa Lominsa, as her parents and elder sister made the journey.
Dreams: To repay the kindness of others that for so many years of her life she felt undeserving.
Fears: While not afraid of self-sacrifice per se, she is afraid of what would happen to those she cares about should she become unable to aid them any more. After all, if word got out that the Warrior of Light was all washed up, or dead, some of her past enemies would surely not hesitate to exact their revenge.
Introverted / Extroverted / Ambiverted (bold what applies)
How do they handle stress?: At first, she would just go to the Pugilist’s guild in Ul’dah to see if anyone wanted a spar. Now that she’s famous, though, that’s not really an option anymore. So now, she’s tried to transition to less violent methods of stress relief. Really, though, she just wants someone she could spar with like the good old days.
What’s the state of their living quarters? (messy, clean, etc.): Clean. Cleaning helps distract her from how she feels sometimes.
How do they handle meeting new people?: Used to be that she’d meet a new person every once in a while, but now her... duties as international hero and savior ensure she is inundated with new faces. It can get a bit overwhelming sometimes.
When facing certain doom, what’s their outlook?: “Just a little bit further.”
What do they do to relax?: There’s a spot in the Coerthas mountains that is hard to reach. She uses a mount to fly up there and watch out over the snow.
What’s their favourite outfit?: Currently, a rather comfortable bit of formalwear she picked up in Kugane.
Traumas/Personality quirks: She can go from laughing with friends to being deadly serious in a matter of seconds. She’s trying to get better at managing these shifts in tone.
About Them as of Current story patch: N/A (not there yet lol - in the patch content quests of Stormblood rn)
History: She never actually met her father, growing up. That also meant, though, that she never really had a last name, per se. This led to a fair bit of teasing from other Roe she grew up near. She took the name Aerstwyda, First Willow, in an attempt to assert herself as the beginning of something new, but this only led to further teasing. At one point when she was a teenager, several of her peers even conspired to lure her into the ocean and push her in - only to be rescued by a wandering Dark Knight who happened to be passing that way from Ishgard. It was they who first noticed the power of Trachyngeim’s dark side, though they were not wont to teach her such things at her age. It was this incident, though, that finally made her realize that she wasn’t undeserving of kindness, and that there were a great many debts that needed to be repaid. At that point, she decided to learn to fight, and utilized her impressive strength in becoming a skilled hand-to-hand fighter at a young age. Eventually she struck out on her own towards Ul’dah, and the rest, as they say, is history.
Feelings towards others: (add or remove as relevant)
- Yshtola – She’s got a bit of a crush on Y’shtola, though she’s not good enough with her feelings to admit it. She’s come close a few times, but running in a sewer from people wont to kill you isn’t the best time for it.
- Alphinaud – She’s friends with Alphinaud, but in that true best friend way where she loves to tease him about all the little things and laughs along with Krile, or Alisaie, or whoever else might be teasing him at the moment.
- Alisaie – Definite friends here, if for no other reason than their shared past-time of poking fun at Alphinaud.
- Thancred – He rubbed her the wrong way when they first met, this “handsome stranger”, but eventually grew on her. She felt really bad for not noticing how hard he was pushing himself until it was too late.
- Urianger – She can never tell what he’s really thinking, and it concerns her.
- Tataru – Would protect with her life.
- Papalymo - :(
- Minfillia - :(
- Ser Aymeric - She fell for him, hard. She wouldn’t even think about saying anything - it would be quite a conflict of interest. But she’s sure she’s seen him do things to imply he feels the same way, so maybe, once everything’s over...
- Cid – He’s like the cool grandpa of the group. She can’t wait to see what new amazing machine he and the Ironworks create next.
- Zenos – Terrible human being. Killing him felt good.
- Gaius – Killing him, on the other hand, felt hollow. He himself didn’t put up much of a fight - it was mostly the Ultima Weapon. She didn’t even really land a killing blow.
- Nero – Why can’t this guy stay gone?
- G’raha – She respects his sacrifice.
- Ascians - She wants to personally kill every ascian alive.
- Lyse - She laughed when Lyse challenged her to the fight on the Destroyer’s palm, but she put up a good fight. It was her first real chance to spar with someone else in a long time.
- The Grand Company Leaders - Kan-E-Senna always calms her to be around. Merlwyb is someone she respects for her directness, at the very least. Being an Immortal Flame herself, it’s always surreal to have Raubahn treat her as more than just another officer.
- Magnai - She didn’t like him. While she isn’t one to scoff at religion, she does feel that the belief that every man has a woman especially made for him to be laughable.
- Sadu - Definitely someone to never cross. There was that time during the contest, but that was in the spirit of competition. As a fellow wielder of explosive magic on occasion, she knows how bad of an idea it would be to make her angry.
- Cirina - Could become a fearsome warrior one day, if given the proper training. She’d be glad to help train her, too.
- Yugiri - Perpetually impressed by what Yugiri can do with the ways of the shinobi. Beyond that, though, she trusts Yugiri to keep secrets more than some of the other characters.
- Gosetsu - Similar to Thancred, Gosetsu went from grating to endearing in her mind. She was very conflicted when he reappeared after the castle, though.
- Fordola - She knows what it feels like to be teased for something that was of no fault of her own. She wants to feel bad for Fordola, she does, but there’s always the legions of people hurt by her hand.
- Yotsuyu - She also feels bad for Yotsuyu, but not so bad that she won’t mind fighting her.
- Asahi - She would kill Asshat if she got the chance.
- Other Warrior of Lights - She’s more than happy to step back into the shadows and let others have their time to shine.
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In a fanfic about Pokemon I once heard of League battling being compared to professional fighting sports that we have here in real life(Boxing, MMA, Martial Arts) So how and why did official battling become a thing? How long has this gone on for? And would that mean that both wild battles and underground ones are more savage?
Hi there namelessbaron!
These are some great questions...some that I think we’ll actually get canon answers soon with Pokemon Legends Arceus (I’m so excited for this game)!
As to how it got started, I could see a situation where ancient humans watched Pokemon spar whether in the wild or the domesticated ones who lived alongside them. People began to start calling attacks for the Pokemon, the Pokemon obeyed and now you start seeing mock battles among friends, and perhaps more serious battles for settling ancient disputes
If I had to give a guess as to when official battling became a thing, I think it would have happened at different times depending on the region. I feel like both Alola and Galar have the oldest history of official battling and Pokemon training as a career. When you think of the Alolan island challenge which has a long history and was used as a coming of age rite for Alolan children. For Galar there was mention of ancient stadiums (that we never got to see unfortunately) that proved that there was a long standing tradition of battling centuries before the commercialized success that is the modern day gym challenge.
However you would also have regions like Sinnoh who didn’t really have the concept of Pokemon battling as an official sport until around the time Pokemon Legends Arceus which according to one of my favorite Poketubers Lockstin, would be set around the Meiji period. In fact I honestly think that the Pokemon World’s version of the Meiji Period (which would roughly coincide with industrial revolutions around the Pokemon world) was like the true birth of Pokemon training and official battles across the Pokemon world. And the reason why I say that is because even if we consider the idea that places like Alola and Galar may have had a long standing tradition of training, it would’ve likely been mainly available to the privileged classes especially when you consider the lack of mass produced Pokeballs and other items.
The Sinnoh Meiji Period and other industrial revolutions in the Pokemon World would have been inundated with factories that could mass produce so many things. This would be important not only because it would mass produce items needed for training, but also help to mass produce items for everyday life. So now people who woud be stuck having to handcraft certain items could now have that time freed up to actually train (assuming they didn’t have to have strikes and unionizing because they had better labor laws from the start). Time to train plus better access to materials would’ve made the ideal of being able to be a trainer and hold official battles more of a feasible reality and rather just some past time of the super affluent.
To answer your final question, I think absolutely wild battles are more brutal than regular trainer battles. Especially when you consider in canon you can run into wild double battles, horde battles, SOS battles and pulled into dynamax dens. Being in any of those situations in real life would be terrifying and likely extremely hard for many trainers to deal with. Since we play the part of the OP child protagonist in games, I feel like at times we really don’t get a sense for just how hard being a trainer truly would be. And as far as underground battles go, they would absolutely be brutal
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7 great ways to support your friends and neighbours through covid-19 financial crisis. (without referring them to foodbanks)
Tried and tested great ways to support your friends through covid-19 related financial difficulties that they will really appreciate.
We all know someone who financially struggling at the moment. Even if you’re not aware, chances are you do, and that they’re too embarrassed to say. I have spent the majority of my adult life working, making a good life, providing for my family and their future. For me and so many others so many this is in jeopardy.
There have been over 3 million claims for Universal credit since lockdown. Thousands of small business owners, freelancers, newly self employed, limited company directors and contractors have been left out of government support schemes and their incomes have gone down to £409.89 a month.
These are people who’ve worked hard in their careers, they’ve got mortgages and car payments and families depending on them. You know them, they live on your street, your kids play together, you’ve been enjoying Friday night zoom quizzes together. They’re me.
Its hard to know how to help without risking damage to an already crippled ego. Its actually much harder to accept charity than to give it. UK mental health charity SANE has reported a 200% increase in calls to its helpline since lockdown. Its put many of us into a state of limbo, we can’t get a job in a supermarket, they’re all full, and the UK’s fruit farms have been inundated with applications from Brits (I’ve checked) and of course theres the childcare, with no school, who looks after the kids?
So… if you’re doing OK, and you're still got your job, here are are ways you can support your friends and neighbours.
COMMUNICATE: It sounds obvious but a face to face conversation is a good start. Questions like “How are you?” And “How can I help” will make a world of difference. Mostly people don’t feel comfortable sharing their worries with those closest to them, especially if they’re cooped up in a house together, so bending the ear off a friend can be a huge release. It helps you to determine an appropriate way to help. Don’t just talk about finances though, your beard growing skills deserve a conversation too.
MONEY: yeh sure money would make a difference but you can’t just post wads of cash through your friends letterbox, that would be weird. Besides, who has money to spare when the world faces the worst recession since the great depression? There are other ways to be supportive, but if you think you might be able to help financially then ask if they would accept it. A good friend of mine knew that my fridge freezer broke last month, and they asked if they could give me some money towards a new one. They didn’t make it weird or go on about how they were doing a good deed, they just gave me and envelope, I thanked them and nothing more was said.
SUPPORTING THEIR IDEAS: It is highly likely that your friend has had many sleepless nights trying to think of ways to make ends meet. Ideas are born and they can see a glimmer of a silver lining to a very dark cloud. Please support them! Maybe its a total career change like writing online content (ahem..). They could be mowing lawns or renting out a spare room, maybe they’re making the ugliest jewellery you’ve ever seen. Buy it! Hire them! Share their social media page!
BE MINDFUL OF PERSONAL STRUGGLES: This one really applies to everyone regardless of their financial situation. Adults and children with special needs and mental health issues have had little respite. Again its a difficult subject, as talking about our mental health is as taboo as talking about our finances, but I guarantee that there is someone close to you silently struggling with their mental health. Take your neighbours kids out for ice cream, ask the single man next door if he would be interested in taking your dog for a walk around the block, play socially distanced frisbee. Make each other laugh.
FEED THEM: Food, it’s a tricky one. Nobody wants to admit they can’t feed their family, but its a harsh reality for many. New figures show that last month demand for food banks was greater than ever – an 89 per cent rise for The Trussell Trust, the UK’s biggest food bank network, while the Independent Food Aid Network, which has around 350 food banks, saw a 175 per cent increase in requests for emergency parcels. Believe me when I say that if someone is struggling to feed their family, then they know all about the local food bank, and that if they haven’t used it already, its up to them to decide when they’re ready to do so. What you can do is take them a good old fashioned lasagne, a shepherds pie, share a socially distanced BBQ once a week. Ask them to sample your bread making attempts or the courgettes you’ve grown in the garden or make room in your freezer by giving them 3 pints of milk you’ve been hoarding in there since March.
BRIGHTEN THEIR DAY: Treats are great, they’re a bit naughty and self indulgent and they make us happy. Every now and then my neighbour leaves a bottle of beer on my doorstep, its a luxury I can’t afford and today an anonymous giant bar of dairy milk arrived in the post much to my children's (any my) delight. Its the little things that we used to take for granted that are missed the most. They don’t cost much but if your friend is cutting costs then treats are the first things to go.
DO SOME RESEARCH: Charities that have emergency relief funds but their resources are running low, so they’re a great place to donate to. A lot of local charities aren’t brilliant at online marketing so they take a bit of searching for. Ask at your local council and citizens advice or tourist information, its easier to ask for someone else than it is for yourself. However, and I say this from experience, don’t give them your friends name, its not your place, just gather the information and then hand it over. Also, and I can’t believe this needs to be said but, don’t talk about it in front of their children. “Mummy are we poor?” is a heartbreaking thing to hear.
Writing this has made be realise how lucky I am to have such a great community of friends. I feel supported and valued and best of all I know we can get through this together. Listen to your friends, find out what you can do to support them and do it discretely. They’re your friend, and thats why you’re trying to help. It makes you a good friend too.
#covid-19#friendship#poverty#helpingpeople#thank you for caring#hardtimes#uk politics#mutual aid#coronavirus
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I’ve been on nights for the past few days, so my few waking moments have been inundated with angry messages from friends and family about the furore surrounding Dominic Cummings right now. UK politics is in a weird state. For those not in the know: Mr Cummings is an unelected advisor to the UK prime minister. He’s widely thought to hold unsavoury views.
When his wife came down with coronaviral symptoms, he drove their family hundreds of miles to his parents’ estate - this much has been confirmed by him. His official excuse was that this was to ensure childcare in case he and his wife couldn’t care for his child. However the rules are clear - no unnecessary trips. People are to stay at home. People with symptoms are especially to self-isolate and aren’t even allowed out for shopping let alone travel. The elderly must be shielded: so children are not allowed to be foisted on their grandparents.
People are furious. Many have died at hospital without their loved ones present - because of rules surrounding self-isolating. So many healthcare workers are mad because we’ve been there having those difficult conversations with patients and relatives. So many people have not been able to be with their loved ones, or mourn properly. People are worried about all the people he and his wife may have infected along the way, and the risk they exposed their parents and the local community to. And the example that this sets.
Many have struggled with childcare when they were sick - because the rules were clear that you had to stay home. It’s been pointed out that he and his wife have family and friends in London and that if they felt they were sick enough to need help there must have been a closer option than driving hundreds of miles and endagnering the elderly. It’s been pointed out that Mr Cummings was spotted out and about in local tourist spots during this time - so he was very likely making multiple trips there, and flauinting lockdown unnecessarily.
This isn’t the first time a politician has jetted off to their holiday home - in fact, our prime minister and his partner made unnecessary trips to Chequers (his country estate) under lockdown - there’s no way that’s technically necessary travel for business, and he can work and recover well enough at Downing Street. We’ve had senior advisors resign for visting their second homes, or allowing their lover to visit. It wouldn’t surprise me if a lot of politicians were breaking the rules because. But it shouldn’t be publicly accepted - when prevous people broke the rules, they were condemned. What’s infuriated people is that Cummings has been defended by multiple cabinet ministers, including the Prime Minister, who point out that anyone would look after their family. People who should never have waded in have fallen over themselves to justify his actions. Why? They aren’t even your actions to justify! It’s widely thought that Cummings must have a lot of dirt on people if this many politicians are falling over themselves to lick his boots.
Except the rules specifically asked us to do what was best for everyone - no exceptions. And not make exceptions for ourselves based on what was convenient for us. The rules are clear: by no reasonable interpretation could it have been considered OK to take infectious people hundreds of miles to vulnerable family members. It was not allowed to visit second homes or homes that aren’t yours, particularly from areas of high disease prevalence to those with less. Non essential trips and tourism were also not allowed. And the police are involved: senior police officials in the area where he wa alleged to have gone have demanded an investigation into his rulebreaking.
People are spitting feathers because we’ve all sacrificed under this lockdown. Some people have sacrificed a lot - many haven’t been able to attend their loved ones’ passing. Funerals have gone ahead without loved ones. Special events have been cancelled or celebrated alone - including most recently, Eid. People have gone without seeing their loved ones, including babies born under lockdown. People have been kept apart from their support networks, rendering most lives harder.
I can think of all the patients who have struggled with being alone in hospital - we don’t allow visitors unless patients are critical or dying - regardless of someone’s coronavirus status in my hospital. Even when technically allowed, lots of relatives can’t come in to be with their dying loved ones because they need to be shielding. So many people have limited their lives a lot during lockdown, and so many people are going through a hard time. So I can see why people are really, really mad.
My friend has just had a baby and some pretty severe complications - imagine how she felt struggling alone under lockdown without family to help with her firstborn after a complex birth. I know people with kids who would have loved support when they got sick. A lot of people now feel that it’s one rule for the rich and wealthy, and another for everyone else. I can see why it’s left people feel incredibly frustrated - because they’ve followed the rules and voluntarily given up lots of freedoms to help the vulnerable. Only to find that not only are politicians breaking the rules, but they are falling over each other to justify why it was responsible and absolutely the right thing to do as a loving family member - thereby painting all the people who followed the rules as callous, uncaring, and ignorant of the rules.
We can’t pick and choose the rules - that’s not how things work in a pandemic. If all of us take risks, the chances of us actually controlling this disease get a lot smaller. For example, the rules don’t allow me to see my boyfriend. Well, now they allow me to walk past him at 2m in the park like some Austen-esque charade at propriety - but we can’t actually be together in any meaningful way. He lives alone, so being with him would affect few people - and if we lived together he’d have to take that risk - so the rules keeping us apart feel silly. But we respect them nonetheless because the lines had to be drawn somewhere, and meeting people outside your household does technically increase risk of spread. The rules also don’t let me see my family or friends - the risks in these cases are greater so I feel much more justified in following the rules in this case. But you don’t just follow rules when it feels risky - you have to think of others and follow them even when the risks are lower - because they aren’t zero.
Ultimately I fear that exploits like this have critically weakened the message of the lockdown - that we have put rules in place that are there to protect everyone, especially the most vulnerable, and that all of us need to follow them. No, we can’t make special exceptions for ourselves or what we feel might be most convenient for our own families. Because that would put others at risk.
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