#Admittedly I might still work on them since they've been left on the side

[grokebaby]

HAIII ME AGAINNN

Just wanted to pass by and ask: Where are Mewmew's kits now ? They musta grown quite a bit since that photo, so I'm kinda curious myself :33 How's their relationship with m too ? Is it good ? Do they know Bout Evie in the house ?

Hiiiii you can read more on tha kittens here and here :3

Here's also some art I done of them!

[Two slight updates on the kittens' (adult) names but Goop is now Goog, and Turbotuho goes by just Turbo! Other than that there's not too much new.]

•Googy (Mew Jr.), as mentioned somewhere in the fuzzy past, is a housecat for good. Yes, they're on the same level mentally as Mewmew and everyone else, and also has the option to choose to develop some kind of alternative mecha mode. But they completely choose not to, and so remain in cat mode indefinitely. Mew Jr. Is fully content to live as a normal pet cat until the end of time (or until their.. Humans pass away from old age..) Junior is a laidback personality who envied normal cats in their kittenhood and thus made the decision to become one as much as possible. Cannot be convinced to adopt some alt form and is rarely in contact with their siblings. However Turbo misses them sometimes, and Goog has the ability to use a phone (opposable thumbs you see), so they call sometimes. Mewmew is completely accepting of this lifestyle choice, if not very distant to Mew Jr...

•Captain Tiramisu and Turbo are living a space opera/cheesy scifi drama somewhere in the far off cosmos, and they're very close! They're each other's emotional support, even if they're perpetually bickering. Similarly to Mew Jr., they both chose the kind of external mode that they personally found the absolute coolest, and live in robot mode almost exclusively. Turbo is more keen to kitty around every so often tho, for comfort reasons. Turbo is the sweet optimist of the two, and loves breaking stuff. An absolute biting fiend as a cat. Love language is biting (Cap'n Tiramisu also bites but not lovingly).

There's no nicer way to say this but Tiramisu is an egotistical, petty brat. While Turbo is more of a follower personality, they do also blatantly and stubbornly make their own choices and turns along the way. Many people often wonder how these two can stand each other, but Turbo often comforts Tiramisu when things don't go their way and occasionally enables their bombastic revenge plots, and Tiramisu will violently explode you if you're mean to their baby sibling. Turbo likes to test Captain's patience (making them a better person by pettily not leaving them any other choice sometimes), and Captain "Mom friend anxiety hack"s* their way to helping Turbo take care of, or stand up for themself more. *(aka. Oh no I'm too nervous to do this thing. Oh, you're also too nervous to do this thing? I'll fucking do it double for you then!!!)

Both are neurodivergent so they also assist each other in whatever the other can't do. Despite having many petty and childish traits to them, these two make it work.

•Relationship with Mewmew can be summed up with:

Captain Tiramisu - Geez mom/dad, you're embarrassing meeeeee.... Ugh... Fine. I love you.. Yeah yeah I'll send you a post card from the milkyway association's holiday hotel.. Yeah of course I won't get into trouble (gets into trouble as soon as they depart)

Turbo - Oh weee yuppeee It's mom/dad ^~^ so here's everything I've been up to since we last saw (talks for three hours), sorry I didn't call you I forgot, wow you're so cool I love you, and Tiramisu and Mew Jr. Love you too. Okay bye, I wanna go do something now! I'll call you (forgets to call.)

Admittedly they've gotten distant with adulthood.

•To address the.. Evie in the room, I will just say that none of the kittens know of Mewmews life during the galactic alliance, they only know Mewmew "did something in the military but quit to pursue a peaceful life". The kits were born after quitting. They do know of Evilicus, as that scary dark lord that was defeated long ago, and they actually do community service sometimes for planets that Evie's reign has left scarred and ravaged. They however definitely haven't been in touch with Mewmew recently enough to know Evie is roommates now lolol

Thank you for the ask!!! ^w^

[snek-panini]

It's Friday the 13th! Here, have a book completely unrelated to that:

It looks fairly straightforward from here, but this is a bind of @dietraumerei's wonderful Good Omens series, The Sprawl of Life. It's a canon universe, pre-season-2 South Downs Cottage fic, and I typeset it when I did because I'd just watched season 2 and wanted the fluffiest, sweetest, most slice-of-life thing I could think of and this was it. Seriously, if you have been personally victimized by the season 2 finale this might be the antidote you're looking for. Though admittedly some of the lines do hit a lot more bittersweetly now than they did when I first read it in 2019.

More pics under the cut! This one's got an unusual format, go have a look!

It's a dos-a-dos! My first one! Before I started making books I'd never even heard of this format, but I've been wanting to try it ever since I found it. It's hard to find stories that suit the format, though--they've got to be within a certain word count, about the same length, and related to one another, and they have to be a pair, not a three or four part story. They look super complicated without (I've found, anyway) actually being that hard to make. If you want to impress a non-bookbinder make one of these to show them; all my family were fascinated by it.

For materials, the floral cover is scapbook paper from Joann's (the fancy stuff that's very flexible and feels handmade) and the spine is Allure book cloth from Hollander's in the wisteria color. It's a perfect match for the lavender in the paper. I've only previously used the Lineco/Books By Hand book cloth and gotten good results, but my experience with that brand in general was that it's a cheap, readily available base for starting out, but there are wider and better quality options out there once you get away from chain craft stores. Working with this cloth was proof of that. It's stiffer than the Lineco stuff, which made it a little harder to glue down but not enough to cause problems, and it took HTV better than any other surface I've used it on. Here, check out the spines:

Images of the spines. In case the photos are a little blurry, that's Demolishing Proofs We Never Believed In on the left and The World and its Beautiful Particle Logic on the right. The titles gave me some worries. I didn't want to obscure more of the florals by putting them on the front, but was worried they wouldn't fit on the spines since they're so long. I got them on, but it took a lot of careful measurements. Still, though, I couldn't be more pleased by them, and I barely had any of my usual trouble getting the HTV to stick.

Handmade end bands on both sides, in colors matched to the cover paper. I was a little worried about making my own for this project since the text blocks are only about 100 pages each. I was worried they'd be too short. But they're not, and I got a really nice front bead on them. I wanted to do three colors but that proved too challenging for my current skill level. Maybe next time. The second image is the endpaper. Specifically it's the back endpaper, so you can see how the second spine fits into the case. When you read a dos-a-dos, you read the first part, then flip it over like you're going to read the back blurb and there's the second part ready to go. I only explain this because, having never made one, I thought you flipped it over top-to-bottom until I did the case fitting for this one. The top-to-bottom one it called a tete-beche and I think does not have the shared cover board in the center; the pages are connected upside-down. (This is all from my limited research; pro bookbinders please correct me if I'm wrong.)

Couple of interior images. All the graphics came from rawpixel and they are the same in both halves. I kept the typeset really simple on this one, without any extra graphics. Partly that was to keep the page count down (images can take up extra space) and partly it's a reflection of the text. It's a happily ever after story, mostly. Their lives are so much easier here than in canon, and the focus is on communicating without barriers or frills and on building their relationship without other things getting in the way. So it's got a fancy title page, because it matches the cover, but the rest is straightforward with just some simple swirls around the chapter numbers.

I couldn't be more pleased with how this turned out. I was worried it would be very complicated since it's a new-to-me build, but I was exaggerating the difficulty and that made for an easy bind. I hope the author likes it too.

[felixcloud6288]

Fullmetal Alchemist Chapter 51

I've admittedly not been looking forward to this chapter.

The part where Roy's eaten flames come in handy for Ed and Lin shows how Arakawa thought out events in the story. Ed and Lin were going to get eaten by Gluttony and were going to need light to explore. So how do we get light? Let's have Gluttony eat Roy's flame attack prior to that.

It's strange to me how Ed, Lin, and Envy weren't all next to each other in Gluttony's stomach though. Ed ended up around the wreckage of the house, and he and Lin found the piece of ground Gluttony consumed when he swallowed them all. Al's hand is still on that plot of land. But they don't encounter Envy until some time later.

I like how we can see the three tree root ends of that one tree that was barely outside the blast.

When Ed realized Lin's torch was made from a human bone, Ed started to hold it in the way people hold icky things.

It's crazy what stuff we see in Gluttony's stomach. There's part of a building, which I'm going to guess is from East City. Maybe Gluttony had to eat his way out after Scar blew up the sewers?

I wouldn't be surprised if there are bacterial colonies and maybe some small insects or worms living in this dimension. Ed and Lin never indicate any breathing issues.

I kinda want to know what would happen if you fell down that hole.

We have some May Chang and Xiao Mei backstory and Scar being a nice guy. Since they're getting attention, that definitely means something is going to happen with them. So we'll soon have the legendary moment where May's fantasies come crashing down.

I'm going to guess there's a concrete follor right under that fire hydrant and wall piece.

Ed and Lin really did eat the boot. Ed's left boot is gone after that scene.

Envy actually tried to be amicable. They even stopped making fun of Ed's height. But they just can't help but brag about all the horrible stuff they've done.

Meanwhile, Lin doesn't know anything about the Ishbal Civil War, but he's disgusted at Envy bragging about causing it.

Now onto why I've not been looking forward to talking about this chapter. I've tried to come up with a good way to put it and have had no success so I'll just say it.

I've been staring at every panel where you can see Envy's feet.

No, it's not like that!

When Envy is transforming, Lin brings up how Envy's steps in the woods sank the ground, and how they destroyed an iron fence by jumping on it. All this means that Envy is far heavier than their preferred appearance would imply. So I was wondering how many additional hints I could find. The only thing I could find was that one time Envy managed to smash the brick road with a single punch in chapter 39. There might be a slight hint in chapter 6 as well when Envy first appears. Notice the impact effect from their walk.

On a side note, I kind of want to be a little annoying about how Envy's power would work given their mass is near constant. There's this thing called the square-cube law. Let's say you have an object that is a certain initial shape and volume. If you modify the object's size such that it keeps the exact same shape, the object's surface area increases by the square of the size increase while it's volume increases by the cube of the size increase.

As an example. If I have a 1x1x1 cube, it will have a surface area of 6 (6 1x1 square faces) and a volume of 1 (1x1x1). If I double all it's proportions, I'll have a 2x2x2 cube which now has a surface area of 24 which is 4 times greater than before. Meanwhile it's volume is now 8, which is 8 times greater than before.

In simpler terms, your weight increases way faster than your size. And the point I'm trying to get at is Envy having a constant weight means smaller body frames shouldn't be able to support their weight. A small dog's bones would be crushed under Envy's weight. And a horse not instantly collapsing and breaking all its legs under Envy's weight is absurd.

But anyway, that's just me over-analyzing things.

The scene with Al and Gluttony is all sorts of adorable. Gluttony pacing around is really cute. And that bird perched on Al only to get spooked when he spoke. And then Al jiggles Gluttony's belly causing Gluttony to step back embarrassed.

And now Al wants to meet Gluttony's father!?! Oh my!

back

[freddieslater]

Rowing the Rarepair Rowboat: Joe West x Martin Stein (The Flash)

Requested by @light-miracles

Hearing the name was the first thing that tipped Joe off. When Barry said it while talking about Firestorm, he thought surely not.

Surely it's a different Martin Stein, somehow. He can't quite tell if he was hoping he was right or not, but he convinced himself he was, that it's all just a big coincidence.

But here he is, and there's Martin. Standing across from him in the Cortex of S.T.A.R. Labs. Despite it being well over a decade or so, he knows immediately that it's him.

Martin shifts slightly, eyes down, focused on nothing particularly interesting as the team talks away, unaware that neither of them are in their little bubble.

He saw him, Joe knows. They looked right at each other the second he walked into the room. He watched Martin's eyes widen behind those same glasses, the look of utter bewilderment on his face. And in came Barry and Iris and the rest of the team, going straight into introductions and figuring out a game plan.

Joe thinks it's a good thing; it gives him time to wrap his head around this properly, think through what to say when he gets the chance. But no matter what runs through his mind, nothing feels right. Nothing eases the twisting, churning mixture of feelings he's got going on inside of him right now.

"Joe?" Barry asks at last, snapping him out of his daze, dragging his eyes over to meet his slightly concerned gaze. "Does that sound okay?"

In all truth, Joe has no idea what the hell Barry just said. His eyes dart off to the left.

"Uh, what? Sorry, didn't catch that last part."

Martin's eyes flick to him for the second time since he walked in.

"I asked if you could stay here with Stein, make sure everything's okay here while we head out to catch the Meta," Barry repeats gently, and Joe's aware that he's gonna get a few questions about this later.

For now, he nods. "Yeah, yeah, of course. Just be back soon, alright? There's only so long I can stay away before Singh comes back to revoke captain from me."

Barry laughs at that. He promises, and he, Cisco, and Ralph head out while Caitlin and Iris relocate to the lab in the back of the room to go over what they have so far on one of their other cases.

Leaving just him and Martin. Alone again.

Martin clears his throat and Joe lifts an eyebrow an inch, watching him, waiting with this annoying little flutter in his chest.

"So..." Martin starts uncertaintly, but he's looking at him, right in his eyes. "It's been quite a long time, hasn't it?"

Joe makes a quiet noise at that, half a snort, half a chuckle. "I guess forty-six years is a long time, yeah, you could say that."

Martin falters, as if he thought maybe he wouldn't remember. Or at least wouldn't know how long in exact numbers.

He draws in a deep breath, then nods.

"Things have certainly..." he lifts a hand to gesture at him, letting it fall back to his side a second later, "...changed. I hear you're a detective now."

"Well, I was majoring in law when we met, that shouldn't be all that surprising," Joe points out.

Martin smiles. It almost feels forced. Sad.

"It's not. I'm happy for you," he says, sincere. "And rather proud. Working part-time out of a lab? I thought you once said that science just 'wasn't your thing'."

"Oh, it's still not." Joe shakes his head, making a face as he glances around. "I'm just here to help out with the arrests and legal side of things, and because of Iris."

He stops after he says it. It hadn't really processed in his mind before it left his mouth. Martin's still wearing that smile, nodding now. He's got that look in his eyes; he always used to get it before, when he was trying to hide something.

"Yes. Iris. Your daughter. She's rather lovely. And a lot like you, from what I've seen."

"Well..." Joe shrugs. "I did raise her alone from the age of eleven. Guess some things just sort of stuck."

There's a flicker of surprise in Martin's expression. He doesn't comment on it, doesn't ask. Joe's admittedly a little relieved. Telling him about Francine just isn't a conversation they need to be having right now.

"I imagine you're incredibly proud of her," Martin says. "You should be. She's been nothing but kind to me since I got here. Very intelligent. Would make an excellent detective as well."

"Yeah, that's what she said when she wanted to sign up. I talked her out of it."

Martin nods, as if that makes complete sense to him. There's a glint in his eyes.

"You did say you'd never let your child go through the same tedious process as you did," he says. "It's good to see not everything is different now."

Joe hums in the back of his throat. He swallows and waves a hand vaguely at him.

"And--hey, I heard you have a kid, too. A daughter? Caitlin talks a lot about her. They went to some college together, I think?"

Martin nods again, though looks a little thrown. "Yes. They did. Lily is rather fond of her."

"And... her mother sounds lovely."

Caitlin's mentioned her a couple times as well from what he can remember of the snippets of casual conversation. Just little things about going with Lily for family dinners.

The comment definitely catches Martin by surprise. Joe doesn't really know what he's expecting, but he hates that a little part of him is waiting with so much anticipation and dread, already regretting saying it at all.

"Yes," Martin says again, then shakes his head, clearing his throat. "Yes, she is rather extraordinary. A brilliant mother, too."

That same part of Joe sinks. It's just a little stab in his chest, nothing too painful, but still enough.

He presses his lips into what he can muster of a smile. "That's good. I'm happy for the two of you."

Something seems to register. Martin rubs at his jaw with his left hand. It's an old habit, a nervous tick he used to have and apparently still does, and that's why it takes Joe a moment to notice the lack of a ring.

His eyes widen a touch in realization before Martin even speaks. He wasn't going to say anything about it himself; like he said, things have changed since they knew each other. For all he knew, feelings and a whole lot more could have as well.

"Clarissa and I are no longer together," Martin tells him. He pauses, lifts his eyes to meet his. "We divorced a few years back. After I told her the truth."

The truth. "Oh," Joe says slowly.

"It was for the best," Martin says, shrugging. "I loved her more than anything, but..."

"But you weren't being honest with yourself," Joe fills in the blanks.

Martin stares at him. "Precisely."

They both know, the unspoken thing between them, desperately calling out for one of them to just acknowledge it.

Rehearsing possible lines in his head hasn't done him any good. It's like there's this giant elephant just sitting in the corner of the room and they're both supposed to pretend it's not there. But Joe's never really been all that great at ignoring things.

"I feel like I should be apologizing," he says, chuckling nervously.

Martin's brow furrows. "For what?"

Joe tilts his head and softens his voice. "You know what. All of it. I just..." He sighs, shaking his head now, trying to find the right words to explain.

"You weren't the one who ended things between us, Joe," Martin says quietly. "If anything, I should be the sorry one."

"No, I shouldn't have pushed you like I did," he says. "I got too caught up in it all. I thought that everything would magically be perfect after college."

"You can't blame yourself for liking the idea of a perfect world or wanting to get a little lost in a romance."

Joe just shakes his head again, pressing his lips together, a knot pulling tight in his stomach.

"I was the one who pushed you away, remember?" Martin points out, stepping closer. His hands are moving as he talks, palms up, like he always used to do. "I shouldn't have, I know that now, but I got scared."

"Of course you were scared," Joe scoffs, gesturing around them. "The world was terrifying back then--still is! Our entire relationship was against the law and every second day there was some news story about people like us dying."

Even just remembering it makes him sick to his stomach. The fear that was instilled in him. In Martin. They always tried to push it away, focus on the good between them. But it was harder, and the secrecy didn't help.

Martin stops in front of him. The look on his face is so familiar, it reminds him that not everything has changed. The way he's looking at him. A small comfort settles in his chest.

"That's why I had thought that what I was doing for the best. Ending things for both our sakes before it even really started. But--"

Martin shakes his head, his mouth stretching up into that smile. His shoulder sink and he sighs.

"I still regret it," he says. "To this very day. I thought that that day was the last I would ever see you, and I've spent forty-six years since wishing it had gone differently. I never wanted to lose you from my life."

Joe's biting his cheek so hard he worries it might bleed. He breathes slowly, his eyes stinging, and he blinks, glancing away from him.

"Yeah, that was the part I hated the most," he says, his voice tight and straining to his own ears. The pain is finally sinking back in after being ignored for all those years, and it's a lot heavier than he thought it would be.

"I really did love you, you know," Martin says softly.

Joe nods, biting harder. He meets his gaze again, and it's taking everything in him.

"I know," he tells him, sincere. He never doubted it, not really. "I loved you, too."

Neither of them knows what to say now. It's like they've torn the barely healed skin off of an old wound, ripping it open to bleed out all over again. The elephant is gone.

"Hey, dad?"

Joe's eyes widen and he quickly blinks, looking over at Caitlin's makeshift lab to see Iris peering out out of the doorway. It was easy to forget they were only separated by two panes of glass with no actual door.

"Yeah, baby?" he asks, hoping that she didn't notice.

"Would you be able to do a coffee run for us?" she asks, and smiles widely. "Please?"

Relief sinks in. She seems blissfully unaware of anything that just happened, her attention clearly caught up in the work.

He chuckles, and nods. "Yeah, sure. But, uh..."

He glances at Martin, uncertain. Martin smiles back at him and shrugs.

"I'll come with you. I doubt anyone's going to attack me in the middle of a coffee shop."

"I wouldn't be too sure about that, we've seen stranger," Joe says, and Iris agreez.

Martin's smile widens. "I'll have to take my chances then. Believe me, I need some fresh air, as lovely as this place is."

"Great!" Iris says. "Oh, and could you maybe throw in a croissant or something? Cait's hungry and threatened to eat me."

"Hey! You're the one who said that!"

Joe shakes his head at them, rolling his eyes. He gestures to the entrance and starts walking, Martin going with him.

"Be back soon!" Iris calls to them.

[frustrated-writer-skyeknight]

A High School Story, Chapter 50

Not mine. You can read the actual work here. Posting for an Ao3 friend since they don’t have a Tumblr and can’t be bothered to make one. 

Listen to Rewrite the stars by SkyeKnight on #SoundCloud

https://soundcloud.app.goo.gl/qW4KK

After Sharpay's performance, Vance stood from the table and started to move towards the sides of the stage. Frowning, Derby followed him, while Sharpay and Peyton made their stage exit.

    "Honey, please don't make a scene."

Vance turned to his wife, his expression softening at the tone his wife used. After days of cold fronts and only being spoken to if he had to discuss something of immediate concern, like the case they filed against Dalton, hiring the best therapist to help Ryan deal with the trauma, or the talent show preparations.

But her tone had mostly been void of emotion, almost deadpan at times. This was the first time that she was speaking it in softer tone. Almost pleading. How could Vance go against it?

Of course, he wasn't intending on making a scene. He just wanted to talk to his daughter, about allowing her relationship with Peyton once more. That would mean allowing Peyton to be able to interact with Ryan as well, though they would need to talk about him not making himself a bridge for his son and Jack's boy.

Before he could respond though, instead of Fulton's voice coming next to announce the next performers, another song he's never heard before started to play. And when he looked to the stage, he gawked at the sight of Troy Bolton taking the stage, with a starry background similar to what was used during their winter musical. Troy cast his sights towards something above.

Vance gawked as well when his son was shown overhead, being held up by a harness of sorts.

Troy took a moment to look out to the crowd, towards Vance Evans. He figured it might not be in his best interest to single him out pointedly, but the man needed to know it was wrong of him to keep him and Ryan apart just because they were both boys.

He trusted that his mother was right; Troy did nothing wrong, and neither did Ryan. And that was what they were here tonight to show him.

Everyone.

Ryan started being lowered to the stage, holding his hand out to Troy.  And it took much self control from both their parts not to pull each other in for a kiss. It's been weeks, and this is the first time that they've been able to see each other, much less touch each other. But something more important was on the line right now, and they needed to focus on that.

Because that same thing was fighting for the right to be able to do that.

For now, they settled for taking in each other in an embrace before waltzing across the stage. Though admittedly, compared to what Sharpay and Peyton had done, it mostly looked like simple slow dancing and turning.

Of course, for both of them, it was more than enough to be able to hold the other close after being denied it for so long.

They held on to the last note, till Zeke and Jason came on stage with a rolling wall prop.

Vance's blood ran cold, and he immediately made a dash to the side of the stage exits. Like his wife asked, he didn't make a scene. But there were more than one way to put a stop to the show.

Which was something prepared for, it seemed.

    "Daddy, please wait." Sharpay was blocking the way back stage, with Peyton just behind her, where the ropes were to pull the curtains close. "You need to see why it's wrong of you to keep them apart; that they aren't any less meant to be than Peyton and me."

    Vance gave her a hard look. "I could ground you for this young lady," he said. And to think he was considering on going to let her date Peyton again.

    "Then ground me afterwards," The heiress didn't budge, and Vance was astounded at the fact that she didn't even try arguing "But not until you see how they work well together. And if you'll still keep them apart after this, then you'll be no better than the kinds of people you fear would hurt Ryan just for liking the same sex."

    Vance frowned, and felt a touch to his arm. He looked to find Derby, looking at him imploringly as well. "Please dear," she started, "you didn't disrupt your daughter's performance. Don't be cruel, extend the same courtesy to your son. There's time for talk later, isn't there?"

The man sighed, relenting. If there was one thing he hated more than somebody causing harm to his children, it was making his children think he favored either of them more than the other.

Ryan pressed against the walls Jason and Zeke were pressing against him. The blond was amazed at how the prop walls looked similar to the interior of their own high school. It was a wonder at how much the team could accomplished when they worked together, similar to what they'd done before the callbacks.

The blond supposed it wasn't just an exaggeration or pep talk when the wildcats had high regards for team work.

Especially considering the fact that Kelsi managed to come up with two new songs, for his sister and Peyton as well as for him and Troy, in such short notice. Or maybe she already did have it in her reservoir of compositions, Ryan wouldn't doubt the possibility.

Either way, if this doesn't convince his dad to let him be with Troy, Ryan didn't know what else would.

Troy pushed against the walls as well, managing to break free just as Ryan did only for him to start ascending to the air once more, soaring through the air as shimmering lights made twinkling effects around him.

The brunette made a show of looking after Ryan longingly, as if wanting to reach him, which may not exactly be farther from the truth. Before moving off stage.

Troy showed up once more, on top of the same of the same balcony propped used during Sharpay and Peyton's performance. Only it was covered in a large, dark cloth all glittered up so that when the lights reflected on it just enough, it looked like it was shimmering.

As the stagehands, Zeke and Jason helped move it across the stage, so it appeared as Troy was trying to pursue Ryan as the blond continued soaring above. When he flew right, the balcony was rolled far left, and vice versa, so as to portray that they always met at the middle with their arms outstretched to the other, but still far out of reach.

And although his harness wasn't loosening, Ryan made a particular hand movement.

Vance watched his son perform with Troy. More than their performance, he watched how the way they looked at each other. It made him uneasy, but not for the reason he thought.

His resolve was crumbling, and the only thing maintaining it was the fear over his son's well being.

The man knew he had riches, enough to buy off people if necessary. But even he understood its boundaries, and he knew no amount of riches made him above the world. If the world went after his son because of this, he knew he wouldn't be able to protect him forever.

Was he ready to accept not being the only one who has to?

As it was reaching the bridge of the song, his heart leapt to his throat as he watched his son suddenly fall. The crowd released audible gasps as well. But the song continued, as Troy easily caught him in his arms.

The two shared another meaningful embrace before they started to make  their descent down the prop, with Jason and Zeke readying the walls once more. But unlike earlier, the two repelled them from enclosing and trapping them by simply holding up their arms towards it.

The two basketball players laid the walls down in a certain way.

Troy and Ryan stood over them, each of their hands holding the others' as they were elevated a feet off. With each other's help, they kept their balance as they were brought higher and higher.

They sang to each other, trapped in a tunnel vision as if they were the only two people around.

Troy cradled the blond's face into his hands, and Ryan raised his to press them on the brunette's as well.

Letting go of their inhibitions from earlier, the two finally gave into kissing each other, as the platform started to recede and they were slowly descending back down.

Some of the less than open-minded guess their outraged known, drawing a scowl from Vance's expression. He wanted to go there himself and take care of it, until he sees that Fulton had security take care of it promptly.

Although his expression turned to surprise, because he didn't remember Jack Bolton getting an invite to the talent show, nor was he hired as security. But for some reasons, he had the uniform. He raised a brow, looking towards his daughter.

The heiress didn't meet his eyes, simply whistling innocently.

    "You thought of everything, didn't you?"

    Sharpay met his eyes then, but looked all too proud of herself instead of guilty. "I assure you daddy, I have no idea what you're talking about." She said.