#I love that I’ll never be good at art or athletics or sciences or anything compared to eveyone around me

[thisismysecondrodeo]

what if reader went to college w ted (before he met michelle) just someone he casually knew from class and had a crush but never did anything

and they run into each other all those years later in richmond and they talk about how they both liked each other but never said anything

AN: This is such a good idea, which is why it took me so long to get to because I wanted to do it justice. Side note: never seen gone with the wild, this is probably not a scene people would pick. I could have written like 10 times this and maybe I’ll still revisit it!

Rating: General (series becomes Explicit)

Tags: Michelle Lasso, Henry Lasso, Second Chance Romance, Alternate Universe - College/University, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Time Skips, Ted and Beard have the purest friendship, Ted Lasso Deserves Love, Getting Together

Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Fic Masterlist

TW: Canon-typical mention of suicide

-

Of course you recognized Ted the moment you saw him. You’d know him anywhere, even when it had been over 20 years and you were on vacation in a foreign country for the first time ever. You were sitting on the patio of the Crown & Anchor, and had just put a bookmark into your latest science fiction novel to accept a fresh pint from Mae, as Ted Lasso, in all his glory, arrived on the cobblestone path in front of you. He didn’t see you at first which gave you a chance to look him over: the long athletic legs, his middle a little softer and his hair a little more styled, and the ever-present mustache that made you smile just as it had when you met him in college. 

He looked up from his stylish sneakers—the khakis were new, but the sneakers he had always been a fan of—and there was a twinkle in his eye when he noticed you. His head tilted, and you could see from his expression that he knew you as well as you knew him.

“Well, I do declare, I was surprised to see you turn out to be such a noble character,” you said playfully, quoting Gone With the Wild, a movie you both had a shared history with. You wouldn’t expect him to remember the next line, but Ted had always been able to surprise you. 

Ted stepped closer to your table, placing his hands lightly on the top and leaning in as he spoke, “I can't bear to take advantage of your little girl ideas, Y/N. I'm neither noble nor heroic.”

Heat rushed to your cheeks as you grinned but there was no room to be embarrassed when you were too busy contending with every unrequited feeling you had in college flooding your senses. 

22 YEARS AGO

Ted Lasso was a terrible actor. He knew it and so did the rest of the theater arts class but most of the class wasn’t very good either. At least half of them were there for the same reason you were: need of an art credit and no discernable art skills. You’d picked it because you liked words and even if you were occasionally debilitatingly shy, at least you might enjoy reading the plays. From what you could tell, Ted was part of the other half of the class, who picked the elective with pure-hearted enthusiasm. At least you hoped it was an elective, it certainly wouldn’t be a good major for him. Ted was the constant volunteer scene partner, for the instructor and for other students, and despite recognizing that he wasn’t very good, you couldn’t deny that you liked to watch him. He had broad shoulders, a little lanky but strong looking. His hair was unstyled and flopped over his forehead and ears when he was excited and then there was the mustache. You had heard other students poke fun at it in hushed breaths, but you thought it suited him just fine. 

For weeks, you doodled Ted Lasso’s name (and attempts at his likeness) in the margins of your notebook, feeling safe to do so because he always sat as close to the front as he could. You waited in your last-row seat until he left, just to make sure there was no way he’d possibly know. He always left with the same person, a spindly pale guy with a scruffy beard and sunken cheeks, who a few times you'd seen leaning in to say something to Ted and then giving you a pointed look that you pretended not to see. 

And then one day you were doodling so hard you missed the instructor requesting that everyone pick a partner for your final project. No one wanted to be Ted’s partner, which was a shame because he would certainly make any partner look amazing in comparison. He looked around the room, unphased at the lack of interest, and then he spotted you, in the back row, not paying a lick of attention. If you had been listening, you certainly would have volunteered to work with Ted, but since you were distracted the man in question found you. He cast his shadow over your notebook…which was covered in his own name like you were a middle school girl. 

“Y/N, right?” If Ted noticed what you were doodling, he politely ignored it. You slapped the notebook shut, not wanting to look up but also not wanting to be rude. “Do you already have a scene partner?”

“I, uh, no… to be honest with you, I wasn’t paying attention.” 

“Oh don’t you worry about that,” Ted slid into the seat next to you and recounted word-for-word everything you needed to know about the final project, and you thanked him profusely. “So what do you say?”

“What do I say…to what?”

“Being my scene partner,” Ted grinned, and now that you were this close you could clearly see his dimples and smell his cologne and it was all so distracting that you were sure you were coming off as an idiot. For Ted’s part, he looked a little nervous—his hands were folded tightly in his lap and one of his lean legs was bouncing. “I know I’m not very good, but—”

“Oh, I thought it was already decided,” you smiled, not wanting to hear him disparage himself. “Of course I’ll be your partner. What scene did you have in mind?”

In an instant, Ted was still. He wiped his hands on his flat front shorts, and smiled, looking up at you through his long lashes, “Ya ever seen Gone With the Wind?”

PRESENT

Ted was now sitting across from you with a pint of his own, and the two of you couldn’t stop looking at each. Short glances, long appraising gazes—anything to center yourselves in the present. 

You’d gotten braver since college, for better or worse, and you couldn’t wait any longer to break the silence. “So what are you doing in Richmond?”

“Oh, I, uh, live here. I coach the team. Football—er, soccer,” Ted stuttered through his answer. “Sorry, it’s just been a while since I talked to someone that didn’t know what I do…or that called it soccer. God, I sound like an asshole. It’s just, I’ve been in the papers quite a bit recently and it’s been a little stressful.” 

Ted’s hand was resting on the wooden picnic table and you did everything you could to restrain yourself from reaching out to hold it. He’s married, isn’t he, you wondered, but when you looked again you didn’t see a ring. 

“You don’t sound like an asshole at all. I’m sorry to hear it's been stressful, but God, coaching in England must be exciting! I, uh, avoid social media as best I can otherwise I’m sure I would have known...  Last I heard you were married and coaching the ol’ alma mater.” It certainly wasn’t subtle but hopefully it would get the job done.

“Ah,” he wiggled his ring finger in the air, “divorced. Recently. One son, Henry, who’s in Kansas still, but there’s, uh, room to breathe here if you know what I mean.” 

You looked around at the green behind you, the sun setting gently in the distance. “Yeah, I’m starting to pick up on that.” 

Ted tapped the table near your left hand and it seemed he wasn’t in the mood for subtlety either. “What about you? Last I heard you had moved clear across the country with a husband of your own.” 

“Divorced and quickly. Didn’t even last three years, to be honest with you. No kids. Mostly single ever since.” 

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Ted said quickly, but he didn’t look very sorry at all, even a little optimistic, but then he frowned. “Was he nice to you?”

You took a deep breath, thinking deeply about how you wanted to answer that. It was a question you had never been asked before. “It was nothing dramatic, he just…wasn’t a very good scene partner.” 

Ted’s eyes locked on yours, and the conversation lulled but in a pleasant, amorous way. The two of you sipped your beers. 

“Can I ask you something,” you said softly, not shy but meaningfully. Ted nodded and his hair flopped in a way that immediately sent you back 20 years to the past. “Why did you take theater anyway? I’m sure you told me back then, but I always felt like there was some hidden reason.”

“What, because I wasn’t very good,” Ted asked with a laugh, but you could tell he was deflecting and only gestured for him to go on. “You never did let me talk bad about myself.”

Ted sighed, took a deep drag of beer, and then balled his hands into fists. “I wasn’t ready to talk about it then, and I still don’t talk about it much, but my dad died when I was 16 years old. Self-inflicted.” You didn’t know what your face was doing, but you tried to school it into something neutral. “He loved movies. Loved ‘em. He said if he could do it over again he woulda gone to LA and made a go of it. And so when I got the opportunity I thought I’d do it for him, do something he never got the chance. And it was the first in a long line of lessons about living for myself and not others because I was downright terrible at it.” 

This time you gave in. You let yourself reach across the table and slide your hand into his. He smiled, gently squeezing and you squeezed back. He had probably heard all the platitudes, it was 30 years ago, after all, so instead, you talked about class.  

“You know, I didn’t expect you to remember those lines. It’s been, what, 22 years? Clearly, you couldn’t have been that bad.” 

Ted smirked, “I don’t know that I could forget those lines, we worked on that for weeks… and maybe I just so happened to watch Gone With the Wind again a few weeks ago.” 

“God, I hate that movie,” you laughed, and Ted sputtered on his beer. 

“What?! Why didn’t you ever say anything? We could have done something else, anything else!” 

“Well, Ted,” you responded carefully, taking a sip of your beer, “when your crush asks you if you want to be Scarlett O’Hara to his Rhett Butler, you definitely don’t say no.” 

Ted’s cheeks pinked furiously and he looked down at his lap but he couldn’t hide his smile. “You know, Beard told me I should ask you out 1,000 times and I chickened out every single one. On the last day of class, I, you know, asked for your number and you gave it to me…and I wrote it down wrong. I asked around for a while and tried to run into you, but a few weeks later I met Michelle and, well I thought it was fate. Silly me, huh?”

“Not silly at all,” you responded seriously and before you could say anything else, Mae announced last call and you looked at him pointedly, hoping he’d invite you home. 

Ted’s hands were folded in front of him and one of his lean legs was bouncing, and it was easy to picture the flat front shorts and band T-shirt of his youth. “What would you say if I asked you to come over and watch Gone with the Wind?”

You dissolved into giggles and Ted joined you with a little apprehension, worried he was about to be rejected. “I’d say I’d love to come over but I’d like to watch literally anything else.” 

“You got it,” Ted laughed, for real this time, and pulled his coat on. He picked up yours and held it up for you to slide your arms into and it made you feel like you were being courted. And you nearly swooned when he picked up your book and tucked it under his own right arm, and then stuck his left arm out for you to hold. You considered, briefly that this is what you could have had 22 years ago, but somehow you knew that it wouldn’t have been better than right now. 

Part 2 ->

[aceloha]

Now I’m not asking for much I just wish more people would see me as a living person than my English and ceramics teacher did today after learning I fainted on Friday and helped me get to safety and recover but I thinks that’s too much to ask now hsjdndjfkfmgm

[cherry-valentine]

Spring 2021 Anime Season

Mars Red is one of two series this season set in one of my favorite periods, the Meiji era. It’s a vampire series that deals a lot with the politics of war as the Japanese military is attempting to establish a vampire unit, supposedly to compete with the British vampire unit (because of course that’s a thing). It focuses on a human military officer named Maeda who is charged with recruiting and managing vampires. Maeda is the type of character I really enjoy. Handsome, a little older than most anime protagonists, chain-smoking, overly serious, and voiced by Junichi Suwabe (who has to have the sexiest voice in all of anime). The series has a classic, romantic feel to it. Its take on vampires is somewhat traditional (they evaporate in the sun, drink blood, sleep in coffins, have super strength and speed, etc.). If it brings anything new to the table, it’s the concept of vampires having different ranks, from S-class down, and how lower ranks naturally fear higher ranks. Still yet, the classic vibe works in the show’s favor. Combined with the historical setting, it gives the show a certain charm. The art is lovely, from the backgrounds to the character designs, and the music is a high point. It easily has the best ending theme of the season.

Fumetsu no Anata e (To Your Eternity) is a unique series. I’ve seen a lot of people comparing it to Mushishi, but with an overarching plot, and that assessment is pretty accurate. The show follows an entity that comes to be known as Fushi. It begins as an orb, and as it makes contact with other objects and creatures, it learns from them and can possibly take their forms. Among the forms it most often takes are a white wolf and a young man. Originally, it’s a somewhat empty shell, incapable of communicating, but as it meets different creatures and learns, it develops a personality and begins to speak. The series is, overall, about Fushi’s journey through this world and all the experiences it gains, both wonderful and tragic. There’s a subtle beauty to the series, with an early focus on nature, but it also has scenes of trauma and violence. The animation is fluid and the facial expressions are amazing. There’s an overall natural feel to it that, like others have pointed out, reminds me of Mushishi (though it’s definitely faster paced than Mushishi). The show also likes to make you cry, so keep that in mind.

Joran: The Princess of Snow and Blood is the other series set in the Meiji era this season, albeit an alternate version of it that has a strange form of technology. To be honest, I’m a little fuzzy on some of the details, but it seems to be about a group called the Nue who work for the government to fight against a growing rebellion. The main character is Sawa, a member of Nue who has some sort of special powers involving her blood, which allow her to transform and battle monsters, or whatever else stands in her way. Her goal is to get revenge for the death of her entire clan (implied to be wiped out because of their power). Sawa is a decent heroine, a woman who craves vengeance and is determined to get it through any means, but is, at her core, a compassionate person who would rather live in peace. It’s this internal conflict that makes Sawa compelling (even if it’s not entirely original). The other characters are interesting, particularly Tsuki, whom I won’t talk much about because it would involve spoilers. The plot and details can get a little convoluted, but the action and animation are solid. When Sawa transforms, the art style changes, and it’s a really cool visual effect. The music is also nice.

Shaman King received a remake this season. I was a huge fan of the original, and so far I’m enjoying the remake, but to be honest, I’m having trouble seeing the point. The art is almost the same (just a lot shinier), the voice actors are the same, the plot is the same. Maybe it’s just that it’s been so long since I saw the original, I’m unable to remember the details and so I can’t tell what’s different. But to me it feels like I’m just rewatching the show. Which is fine, because I loved it to begin with. Maybe it gets different later on. Maybe it more closely follows the manga. I’ll keep watching to find out. For anyone new to the series, it looks like the remake is a solid place to start if you want to get into it. I won’t go into plot details for a story this old, so I’ll just say it’s a top tier shounen fighting series with a unique art style and some very memorable characters. If you like that sort of thing, and missed the original (or you just want a refresher), definitely check it out!

Godzilla Singular Point is a true delight. I’m a huge Godzilla (and kaiju in general) fan. I’ve watched every single Godzilla movie, as well as all the related movies (the Mothra films, Rodan, etc.), but I never watched the previous Godzilla anime that was on Netflix a few years ago. It just didn’t sound like something I’d like. Singular Point, however, is right up my alley. Set mainly in a small seaside town that’s suddenly attacked by bird-like monsters known as Rodans, we have two geeky protagonists using their intelligence to figure out what’s going on while more and more monsters appear. Mei and Yun are excellent heroes. They rely on their wits rather than physical strength, which is a refreshing approach. It’s also interesting that they have little to no face-to-face interaction. Instead, they chat with each other via text as they work separately. They often challenge each other with science questions. It’s adorable. The show’s overall feel is fairly upbeat and energetic. The colorful art and peppy character designs by Kazue Kato (who did Blue Exorcist) help with this feel. It should be noted that Godzilla himself doesn’t fully appear until halfway through the series. It says a lot about the quality of the show that I don’t actually mind that at all. Some of the science stuff does go over my head, but the general plot is easy enough to follow and the action is very well done. It also has fantastic music, with my favorite opening theme of the season. Even if Godzilla isn’t your thing, consider giving this series a shot if you like nerdy science types as heroes.

Burning Kabaddi is a sports anime about an unsual sport. I’d never heard of it before now, and if people in the comments were not talking about the very real sport, I would have assumed it was made up for the anime. The show is aware that the sport is obscure, so it takes great pains to explain the rules and details so that we can all follow the action. The story centers on Yoigoshi, a soccer prodigy who decides to drop all sports once he gets to high school due to all the drama and angst that surrounded him (mostly due to his teammates being jealous of his talent), and pursue a career as a streamer. All the various sports clubs at the school want to recruit him (especially the soccer club, of course) because they’ve heard of his skill and he has an athletic build. He rejects them all, but the Kabaddi club is strangely relentless. He ends up being manipulated into joining (the vice captain of the team straight up blackmails him by threatening to show his online streaming account to the whole school). Despite this rocky beginning, Yoigoshi actually starts to enjoy playing Kabaddi, and more importantly, begins to bond with his new teammates. It’s pretty fun stuff that doesn’t take itself too seriously. The art is serviceable for a sports anime and the music is fine. The series isn’t going to blow your mind, but it’s a fun way to spend twenty minutes every week. Worth a watch if you have a weakness for hot blooded sports anime.

The World Ends With You finally got its anime adaptation and I was so excited. The game is one of my all-time favorites. So far the anime is pretty good. The art is a near perfect replication of the bold, thick-lined art of the game. The battles are exciting and cool. Best of all, the anime often uses music from the game. This is important because the game has one of the best soundtracks, ever. Every time I recognize a song from the game, I almost squeal. If I had a complaint, it’s that the pacing feels a little off at times. It feels like the anime is rushing through the story, but that’s understandable. In the game, it took longer for everything to happen because you were walking from place to place, fighting battles along the way, stopping to scan NPC’s, shopping at stores, spending time in menus, etc. The anime has to cut most of that out, so naturally things are going to move faster. The result is that you don’t get to spend as much time with these characters, and so you feel less attached to them. Anyone watching the anime who didn’t play the game might feel like the emotional beats are lacking. I feel like this anime is definitely meant to be enjoyed by fans of the game, rather than newcomers to the story. But if you are a fan of the game? You should be watching this every week. It’s an excellent refresher on the story, just in time for the second game to come out this summer. Super high on my watch list.

Boku no Hero Academia has a new season. To be honest I don’t remember what number we’re on. This season, so far, focuses on a tournament-style competition between the two main hero classes. I would much prefer the plot to move on to something more exciting involving the villains, but I suppose they have to throw arcs like this in every so often just to remind everyone of which characters have which quirks. The plus point is that instead of being an individual competition, it’s team-based. What this ultimately means is that characters that are viewed as weaker or having more obscure quirks actually get a chance to shine. These are characters who definitely aren’t going to win one-on-one battles. In an individual tournament, it’s pretty much a given that characters like Deku, Bakugou, and Todoroki are going to win most of the matches. But in a team, everyone has to work together. The end result is that the lady characters, all of whom have fairly weak or situational quirks, finally FINALLY get to actually do stuff! Even better, in several of the match-ups, the girls have taken the lead in planning and strategizing. It’s been pretty nice to watch. The girls from the other class have been very proactive as well. I really wish the girls could do more in “real” battles with villains, since it’s clear that they can step up when they need to. Who knows? Maybe this is a sign of good things to come.

86 is a new mecha/sci-fi anime based on a series of light novels. The setup is fairly cool: In a country where everyone has silver hair and eyes, the people live in what looks like a utopia. There is a war going on outside their protected land but all combat is performed by automated robots, so there are no human casualties... or so the government would have the people believe. In reality, there is a district that exists on the outskirts of the country called 86, where people who don’t have silver hair and eyes are sent to pilot the robots and fight to protect the country that shunned them. Most of the pilots are children or teenagers. The mortality rate is high. Only a few people in the government know of their existence, mostly military types that include “handlers”. These handlers each take on an 86 unit and communicate with them through a system called “para-raid”. Using this, they monitor the battlefield from their safe positions and issue commands. Naturally, most handlers view their units as nothing more than tools in the war, and most 86-ers view their handlers as privileged snobs who know nothing of actual battle. The real plot kicks in when Lena, a young Major, becomes the new handler for a particular 86 unit. Lena is sympathetic to the people of 86, but it’s going to be hard getting her notoriously rough unit to accept her. The plot is a bit complicated and the show deals with some weighty themes (racism, privilege, war, child soldiers, death). Lena is a likable enough heroine and the members of 86 are all interesting and fairly well written. The music is fine. The art... well, it’s pretty to look at, but it feels a bit generic to me. A bit too shiny. The mecha designs are great, but I’m not crazy about the character designs, which feel like they could be from any other modern anime. I also find it sad but hilarious at the same time that the women’s military uniforms are clearly designed for fanservice (they include mini skirts, thigh-highs with garters, and a short jacket that opens up just above the chest to show the tight shirt underneath) while the men’s uniforms are just totally normal military wear. To be honest it’s just too stupid to actually be offensive, so it comes across as comical. Thankfully, the interesting setup and plot carry the show, making it good enough to overlook the generic visuals.

Moriarty the Patriot has a new season... maybe? I think it’s technically still season one, but with a split cour. Regardless, it feels like a new season so I’m treating it as such. The series focuses on famous Sherlock antagonist Moriarty, here represented as a trio of handsome brothers (though one of them is clearly the protagonist and the leader of the group) who work as “crime consultants” and basically help the lower classes wage class warfare against the nobility. This season shifts the focus away from the individual crimes Moriarty concocts and instead focuses on larger-scale conflicts that involve government conspiracies, corrupt cops, etc. We’re also treated to a lady James Bond (finally!), fixing one of the very few complaints I had about the first cour (that it lacked strong lady characters). The show remains very compelling, with beautiful art and excellent new opening and ending themes.

Best of Season:

Best New Show: Godzilla Singular Point

Best Opening Theme: Godzilla Singular Point

Best Ending Theme: Mars Red

Best New Male Character: Maeda (Mars Red)

Best New Female Character: Sawa (Joran)

[the-last-millenial-disaster]

Hi!!! I love ur headcannons!! Can you make a post on the agents favorite subjects please??

(a/n: Thank you for the ask! I’ll assume you mean school subjects? Because that’s what I’ll be doing)

Okay we’re gonna go in proper order.

Brimstone: History nerd. Popped off at every single US history quiz there was, had and still does vast trivia knowledge of world’s history and excelled in any political science related debate topic. Even in the army, he made time to pick up a book now and then.

Viper: You’re not going to believe this but...chemistry. Who would have thought. She was impossible to beat.

Omen: Physical science. I can’t list the exact subject since we dont really know where he went to school, but I always headcannoned him as someone who ended up majoring in Physics.

Killjoy: Math and Computer science. Mainly because it was easy for her. She taught herself programming way before they brought it up in school. She can remember numbers like noone’s business. Killjoy really enjoyed math since she could always come to a logical conclusion, and numbers just made sense to her (as much as many would argue otherwise).

Cypher: He could never keep his fingers from fiddling with something, so he took a liking to technology. It introduced him to a world of possibilities. If he got anything less than top marks in math he would beat himself up about it for weeks. Cypher was one of those talented students that didn’t have to try to excel. He became fluent in French before his sweet 17 (if you didn’t know french is mandatory in Moroccan schools). But like it often happens with ‘gifted’ children, school started catching up to him as he neared the end of his general secondary school. Due to his uh...unlawful commitment he continued his education by himself from 18 forward.

Sova: Homeschooled, since he was brought up in literal tundra. Adores Russian literature and, as a matter of fact, has the biggest book collection in the entire V.P. base. Big enough for them to start calling it The Library. Collection cosists of books in various languages, english alphabet and Cyrilllic script. He liked natural sciences too, but he learned all of that in practice, on the hunt.

Sage: Sage loved social sciences, especially philosophy. She also adored Arts and is still a very talented artist.

Phoenix: PE. I mean. What did you expect exactly. He was quite popular, and played football (soccer not whatever Americans think they’re doing) on the school team.

Jett: Well...for her it’s a bit complicated. South Korea demands a lot from their students, the enviornment is incredibly competitive. Jett really wanted to be an athlete, she excelled in any physical activity. Unfortunately, her parent(s) didn’t support her, so she had to become what they wanted her to be. That caused her to hate school, hate her parent(s), and go trough a long rebellious phase she never truly grew out of.

Reyna: She was generally uninterested in school and never had a favourite subject. However, she enjoyed the competitive nature of PE.

Raze: Chemistry. Raze was always a curious person. Her interests changed constantly, until she found out how to make things explode. Then her interests varied only for the things she could throw high up in the air.

Breach: Ok ok I know what you guys are expecting, but his favourite subject wasn’t PE. They barely let him go to a normal school, since he didn’t have the high tech prosthesis when he was a kid. Breach was always somehow excluded from the PE classes and the only feeling he can associate with that class is loneliness. Instead, teenage Breach focused more on subjects that were more theory than practice. He loved Swedish. He loved English. In the last couple years of high school, he got his first advanced prosthesis. That’s when he started to take a liking to everything that helped him improve his motorics. He started with higher intensity sports and became the Breach you know and love.

Skye: Now here’s a born and raised naturallist. She was always curious about the environment and as a result excelled in environmental studies, along with Indigenous studies and Geography. Being a very outdoorsy person she would have been fine with school, if only they didn’t make her sit in one place for six hours.

(A/N: The amount of research I did for this ask beats my school related search history. Not sure if that’s good or bad. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed it! My inbox is always open for new requests or just saying hello. Seriously, the amount of serotonin that releases after I get an ask is ridiculous.

I wanted to thank all of the people who are following me, the support you have shown me is greatly appreciated and motivating.

The upcoming posts will include:

Reyna headcannons

Theory post about Omen & Viper

Sova Headcannons

I plan to eventually do all of them, but if you’d like me to start working on some earlier, let me know. Right now I’m just making them in random order.)

[mcwriting]

The Marriage Project (3)

Anddddd I’m back with this bby. Sorry I’ve been slowing down some of my content. Last Friday I had to deal with family health matters on top of schoolwork and a sorority function I had to be at. Anyways. 

High school AU. Tom Holland. Yeah.

Story Masterlist

Warnings: mild language

Rating: Between T and M

Word Count: 2351

% approximately the 3rd week of September %

You’d had two away volleyball games that week and Tom had an away football game, so by Saturday you were exhausted. Your Friday game hadn’t been too far, but the football team had traveled a decent distance, so you figured they’d gotten home late.

You still showed up at Tom’s on time, though, as planned the day before.

Nikki opened the door at your arrival.

“Oh, hey, y/n! Come on in!”

You returned her greeting and entered, looking around expectantly.

“If you’re looking for Tom, he’s not up yet. They got home pretty late last night.”

“I figured that would be the case.”

You noticed that on the dining room table were a few grocery bags.

“Oh, do you need help with those? I can wait on Tom,” you offered.

“No don’t worry about those bags, but if you’re looking to do something, I was about to make some apple pies for a get together tomorrow. I’d love your help.”

You agreed and followed her into the kitchen. After peeling and chopping apples for a few minutes, someone else walked into the kitchen.

“Well who’s this? I don’t remember having a daughter,” Tom’s dad said. You turned to look at him and smile, then continued cutting fruit.

“Oh Dominic you know y/n. She’s the one Tom’s always talking about, competing and whatnot. They’re doing that marriage project together.”

Your face heated up so you continued to look down at the apple.

He talks about me? Like how much he hates me or what?

“Yes of course, how could I forget? You’re one of the best soccer players I’ve seen! Good to see you again,” he said.

“Nice seeing you, too, Mr. Holland.”

“Please, call me Dom. Now how come you’re down here and not with Tom?”

“I was waiting for him to get up. Plus, Nikki promised me a slice,” you grinned.

“Well I’d definitely call that a fair trade. Nikki’s pies are the best in the world,” he turned to his wife, “I’ll be back in a bit. I’m meeting with the publisher today.”

“Good luck, honey. I’m sure you’ll be great,” Nikki encouraged, giving her husband a quick peck.

“Thanks, dear. Once again, it was nice seeing you, y/n. Feel free to come make desserts here any time,” he joked and you just laughed and waved.

A few minutes after he’d left, Nikki spoke up again.

“You know, y/n. I’m glad you and Tom were paired up for this project. I’ve really liked having you around the past few weeks, and it seems like Tom has learned a lot from you. I mean, He even went out and bought some pads and tampons and things for his bathroom this week.”

Now your face really burned. 

“He did?”

“Yeah. He said he’d better be safe than sorry. I’m glad you two look out for each other like that, even if you are rivals. By the way, I made sure he didn’t get the cardboard ones,” she added. With that, you fell into rhythmic silence.

Not long after, you heard footsteps coming down the stairs. From the hall, Tom’s voice called out.

“Mom? It’s almost 2. Have you heard anything from-” he walked through the kitchen door. “Oh. You’re here. What are you doing?”

You grabbed a towel to wipe off your hands as you turned to face him.

“I got here at 1 but felt bad about you getting home late so I’ve just been helping your mom make pie. She promised me a slice.”

“You’re really gonna give her some mom? She doesn’t even deserve to see how they’re made!”

“Oh Tom I swear. Y/n is a nice girl, just get over yourself. But, if you two want to go get to work I think I’ve got it handled from here. I’ll bring you both some when the first one’s done.”

You grabbed your bag and headed up behind Tom and got to work quickly. Eventually you took a break when Nikki brought up pie and ice cream as promised with a couple waters. 

You ate in silence, Tom leaned against his bed and you against the wall across from him, when something she had said earlier popped into your head.

“Hey, Tom?”

“Yeah princess?” he replied, not looking up. You rolled your eyes and continued.

“Your mom said something earlier that I wanted to ask about.”

“If she told you anything incriminating it’s not true.”

“Suuuureeee. Anyways, she said you, uh, stocked up your cabinet in the bathroom. That’s really cool of you.”

“Yeah, well, can’t have you bleeding everywhere now can we? But, em. Yeah. The fact that you were so panicked over something that seems so trivial spoke pretty loud. I thought it’s better to just stay safe.”

You sat in silence for a little bit, just eating.

“Mind if I ask you something?” he said.

“Shoot.”

“What does it feel like? You know? They don’t mention that stuff in health articles.”

You contemplated for a little bit before answering.

“Well… like I said before, it’s different for everyone, but I’ll try my best. Cramps are kinda like being scratched and punched from the inside all at once. Freebleeding just feels like… wet and sticky. I find it disgusting so I wear mostly tampons.”

“Interesting. Thanks, princess.”

Once finishing off your snack, you got back to work. By the time you were done, it was almost 4.

“See you Monday, y/n”

“Yep. Oh, by the way, I have a small volleyball tournament next weekend so I can’t do Saturday. Is Sunday okay or do you wanna get together another day?”

“Can you do Thursday? We just have morning workouts that day.”

“Yeah I have practice last period so I’ll just shower and meet you in the parking lot? We can go to my place.”

“Can’t. I have to take the boys home.”

“If you want, you can take them home and I’ll pick you up. It’ll give me time to shower and change and then we can just carpool.”

“I don’t know. Sure you even know how to drive?”

“I’ll have you know I passed that test with flying colors sophomore year.”

Eventually he agreed and with that you were back out the door, giving one final thanks to Nikki.

%

By Wednesday you and Tom had finished your little quilt and Mrs. Flynn loved it. 

You and Tom obviously didn’t play when it came to grades, even if it was home economics.

Thursday, you were leaving your last class before practice and reminded Tom you were picking him up that afternoon, to which his friends looked at him funny and kinda messed with him.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever.”

When you pulled up into his driveway after school, he plopped into the passenger's seat and held out a foil-wrapped object in his left hand.

“What is that?” you asked.

“My mom wanted you to have it. She made bread.”

“Oh. Well thanks. I’ll have to thank her for it next time I see her. You can just set it in the back seat for now.”

You drove back to your place, pulling into the garage and leading Tom through the door. Your parents were still at work, so you told Tom you’d just work in the living room.

“I don’t want them to say anything weird about us being home alone in my room,” you explained.

You sat on the floor quietly typing when you remembered something.

“Hey, how did you do on the calc test?”

“95. You?”

“Damn. 94. I’ll make a comeback next time,” you joked, earning an eye roll.

After a half hour, your mom came home.

“Hey honey, how was your day? Did you beat Tom in whatever you were competing with him in today?” she asked, part joking since she knew of your rivalry well.

“It was fine, and mom. We have a guest, remember?” you said through gritted teeth.

She looked over the couch, where she found Tom waving at her awkwardly.

“Oh. Hi there. I forgot you were coming over today. So sorry about that.”

“No worries, Mrs. y/l/n. I beat her by a point today so it evens out,” he joked. You were annoyed at his banter with your mom and cut it off.

“Okay, well, Tom. Let’s go finish this in my room now that my mom’s home,” you said, getting everything and carrying it to the bedroom.

You tossed your bag and papers on the floor and quickly picked up some random things laying around, such as a pair of volleyball shoes and stray athletic socks. You especially rushed to snatch a rogue lace bra.

From the corner of your eye, you could see Tom standing still, looking around the room like you had the first time at his house.

Your walls were light grey but covered in your paintings and other art. One shelf mounted to a wall held all of your ribbons and trophies from sports, quiz bowl, and art fairs. Your bedspread was baby pink and sheets light yellow, and the same pink was strewn around the room in the form of desk accents and other blankets. You had a large plush cat resting near your pillows.

“Wow. So you’re like… a real girl. Huh.” he stated flatly. You stood up from tossing everything into your closet.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“Well, like, you’re all tough and smart and sporty but you have pink everywhere and a stuffed animal on your bed.”

“You do realize women are complex creatures right? Considering we’re human and all?”

“Yeah, of course. I guess I’ve just never seen this side of you. I shouldn’t have worded it that way. Sorry.”

It surprised you to hear Tom apologize over something so small. Usually he would stand his ground, wave you off, or just move on. 

“It’s fine. I just hate when people stereotype, you know? Like I can love science, art, sports, pink, sweatpants, and skirts all at the same time. And I do. And I’m not trying to sound like the ‘I’m not like other girls’ girl, because I am a girl, but I’m more than just one side or the other.”

“So why do you hide the ‘typically girly’ stuff? I’ve never seen you at school wearing a pink dress and makeup. I mean even at dances you always wear dark colors and at parties I don’t think I’ve ever seen you in something other than jeans or shorts.”

You shrugged as you made your way onto the floor next to your computer, Tom following suit.

“I guess I try to stick to one aesthetic. I mean, it already seems to shock the administration that I’m good at and enjoy doing two sports, art, and honors stuff. I don’t think they could handle another layer of me,” you chuckled. “Isn’t there anything you hide?”

He thought about it for a few seconds, leaning his head against the wall.

“Well, I guess you know this now, but I like Spider-Man.”

“Yeah, but it’s considered normal for guys to like comic book characters. When I tell people I like Spider-Man, they just assume I have a crush on the actor. Come on, there has to be something you don’t show off at school.”

“Okay fine. I’ve got a couple. One, I actually like to cook. A lot. It almost kills me to be partnered up with the guys sometimes because they’re so clueless in the kitchen. And two, I love dance. I did it for a bit as a kid but got embarrassed and decided to go the normal sports route. I still go to the Nutcracker every year, though.”

You found yourself smiling at his honesty.

“Really? You know my mom put me in little kid ballet classes for a while, but I was really disruptive in class because I had too much energy, so I got into other sports instead. Has the football team never done a ballet class? I know some schools make them.”

“One summer. Maybe two years ago? We were doing a team building thing and they made us take one. I couldn’t make myself pretend to be bad so I just let everyone believe I was a natural talent,” he laughed, causing you to do the same. “You should’ve seen those guys. That’s probably one of my best football memories.”

You both sit in comfortable silence for a while. You couldn’t remember a time that you both were open to each other without the slightest bit of tension.

After a few more moments, you both got back to work.

%

You didn’t realize that it was past 5 o’clock until your mother was at your doorway telling you dinner was ready.

“Feel free to stay. We’d love to have you for dinner, Tom,” she offered, then went back to the kitchen. 

“Do you mind? I can just walk home if not.”

“Just stay, man. What’s one dinner? I’d feel at least somewhat bad to make you walk all the way home. We’re done for the week anyways, so I’ll just drive you after we eat.”

You led him to the kitchen, where your mom had cooked some ravioli and tossed a salad. You built your plates and thanked your mom, then sat at the dining room table.

You ate in awkward silence since your parents were in the living room. Your dad had greeted you and Tom when he came home from work, not really realizing who Tom was.

Once your plates were practically cleaned, you cleared the table and took Tom home.

“Thanks again for dinner and driving me. Good luck this weekend.”

Who is this guy and where did he take Tom? He never wishes me luck.

“Yeah no problem. Thank your mom for the bread. And good luck on your game tomorrow, too. I hear it’s gonna be a tough one.”

”They just haven’t met me yet,” he joked, then got out of the car and headed to the door. He tossed one last wave back as you pulled away.

%

A/N: I’m happy to be posting the next part and with the free time that I have at the moment of formatting this I’m hoping that I can reedit ch 4 and have it up by next week. As always, love you all and thanks for reading!

If you want to be added to TMP or my permanent tag list, please send an ask/message so I can verify that you get added!

Story Tag List: @jackiehollanderr, @one-big-fangirl, @l0lmk, @primadonnasdream, @bookworm06, @thenoddingbunny-blog

[glassheartjukebox]

hii!! could i have a haikyuu!! matchup? im a she/they (any pronouns are ok but these are preferred), an intp, and i love astrology (my big three are virgo sun, leo moon and sag rising), and i love science and art! im average height tho my friends would say short, i have frizzy frizzy messy brown hair and brown eyes. i have an athletic built due to numerous years of different sport but now i just regularly work out! my friends would describe me as funny, obnoxious, mom friend and very mature as much as im a dumb dumb. a fun fact about myself is that like.. if im good at everything? like i catch up with stuff quite quickly and get stuff very easily ; im not the best at it doe i need practice. and i can read people like open books and understand their feelings very well. my kins are bakugou, togami, kyoya, tamaki suoh and oikawa (y-yes im ok). im italian-romanian, my bones can pop really easily and loudly, i love bacon and cheese but fish is gross imo. i never reply to texts unless im interested but even then i forget too. also im supposed to wear glasses but i hate them. chronically insecure about everything and have major mood swings but they’re getting a lot better. will fight you about anything and win. idc im right. also have a freakishly good memory but also can’t remember what color was my moms car. also my friends voted me most likely to rule the world one day and most likely to change the world. tysm and have a nice day!!

for the christmas haikyuu matchup event

hello bby !!!! i gotchu on this, i hope the gift is satisfactory ! onto the matchup: i think you’d be best suited to konoha or tendou. i’ll start with konoha. the way you describe yourself sounds similar to a jack of all trades (which also happens to be one of konoha’s nicknames). sharing this trait would allow y’all to grow together and take on new activities/hobbies together. he’s snarky and a lil argumentative which i think you would vibe with. konoha is accustomed to mood swings after playing with bokuto for years. onto tendou — he’s quite goofy, just like you. he also struggles with insecurity so i think you two would be able to communicate that well and empathize with each other. everything about your kins and personality screams fun, adventurous dates. this is right up tendou’s alley. i hope you enjoyed your gift!

[katdvs]

When Riley Matthews was in high school her life changed, now as a professional dancer she’s got a new challenge when she’s paired with professional football player Lucas Friar on the latest season. Can they win the season, or will their past get in the way?

Cross Posted to FFN & AO3

Chapter One:

Ever since she was in the eighth grade, Riley Matthews woke up early in the morning. Before the sun would kiss the sky, Riley would take a modern dance class. It was all her own, she didn’t have to share it with her friends. When things got to be too much, she was able to escape in those early morning hours in the world of dance.

It was her sophomore year of high school that one of her friends discovered her sanctuary, Zay who had always talked about dance showed up one morning for the same class. He was in awe of Riley as she showed off a piece she’d been working on for the recital. It wasn’t long before they became dance partners, and both started taking more classes of different styles.

At the end of the school year there was a talent show, Riley and Zay had decided it was a great chance to show off the piece they had been working on. They had kept their partnership a secret until that night. Everyone else had been busy with their own practices to realize that while they were off getting ready for the city-wide science fair, or football and baseball season, or the art shows, they were dancing, choreographing together.

That night Zay and Riley danced to an old Celine Dion song, not only surprising their friends and family—but also being discovered by a television producer.

Everything changed after that night.

Except that Riley Matthews woke up early in the morning. Now at the age of 27 she woke up in a beach house, in Los Angeles. Instead of sneaking off to early morning dance classes she did Pilates on her deck, with the sound of the waves crashing, before Zay would start the blender going with their morning protein shakes.

Today started like any other day, but both were nervous. “If I get another Disney star, I swear I’ll scream. I hate having to stop for snack time.” Zay poured the protein shakes into their travel cups.

Riley laughed, “Please the last three seasons I’ve gotten the old men. Unless they get me like America’s Favorite TV Dad as a partner, I’m back in the troupe week 4.”

Zay chuckled, it was true, neither had gotten the best partners the last few seasons. They were both due for some actual contenders. “At least when you’re in the troupe you get to choreograph the group numbers.”

“I want to win, I know with the right partner I’ll be able to do it.” Riley shrugged before taking a drink from her shake, “We’ll find out in what, two hours when we meet our new partners.”

“Sure will, but you’ll always be my favorite.” Zay chuckled, just as a dish towel was thrown at him.

“I better be.” Riley laughed as she backed out of the kitchen, “I’ve got to take a shower and run an errand before our call time. I’ll see you at the studio though. I hope you get the up and coming pop star.”

“Well I hope you get the sexy athlete who wants to prove he’s more that someone chasing a ball.” He called out as he heard her feet going up the stairs.

Zay started cleaning up when he saw his phone start to come alive and the picture of his best friend, and Riley’s first love came up on the screen. Quickly he tapped to answer, “Hey Man, what’s going on?”

He stood in his kitchen blinking as he listened to his friend on the other side. “Yeah, um, we’ve got a spare room. I’m sure she’ll be okay with it. Why are you in town?”

Zay laughed, “Fine, don’t tell me. Keep your secrets. What time are you going to be in, because I’ll be honest, I don’t know where Riley put the hide-a-key, and I have to check with her.” He waited for an answer, “Oh, yeah one of us should be home by then. I’m sure she’ll be fine with this. I’ve got to get ready for work though, so I’ll see you tonight.”

#

Riley looked at her phone, she was late. She knew she was late. She’d already called and told them she would be late, and why. Right now, she was waiting for the mechanic to come back with the keys for her rental car while they repaired the heater core in her Jeep.

She’d noticed a leak in the passenger side the night before. She thought it would be an easy fix, she really should’ve googled it first. It would take a few days for it to get repaired.

She had made the mistake of getting a large iced coffee while she was originally waiting, and now the caffeine and sugar were surging through her body. Right now, she should be teaching some former sitcom star the basics of a waltz.

“Here you go.” He came out from the office and dropped a set of keys in her hand, “Sorry it will take a few days.”

“It’s okay, thank you.” Riley finished signing her paperwork before giving him a smile. “Just call me as soon as it’s ready, I love my Jeep.”

“Will do Ms. Matthews, have good rest of the day.” He took the paperwork, watching as she dashed out to the rental car waiting for her.

As soon as Riley was in the driver seat, she texted that she was on her way. She wasn’t too far from the studio but hadn’t been close enough to walk. This wasn’t the way to start a new season. This was not the way to start a season she could win.

She wanted to win.

She needed to win.

Zay had won two seasons before.

Riley had gotten close a few times, she made it to the final three several seasons in a row, but the last few had been relegated to getting the older men as partners, who just no matter how hard they worked, wouldn’t be able to win unless America really fell in love with them, and they hadn’t.

She sighed as she waited in traffic, she could at least keep working on the choreography for that musical the network was producing. Plus, she and Zay were putting together a road show with a few of the other dancers for the summer.

Finally, traffic was moving as she made her way down the familiar streets to the studio, pulling into the lot. Thankful that most of the paparazzi wasn’t aware today was the first day. They at least had a week before the stars were revealed.

She parked in the only free space she could find and quickly moved up the stairs to the entrance. Producers were waiting for her.

“I’m so sorry,” she started as they handed her the mic pack.

“Riley don’t worry. It’s okay. Your partner is in studio 5.” The producer, a woman about her age named Sheryl smiled, “I think you’ll approve of this season’s pairing.”

“Have I ever actually not?” Riley looked to her friend.

Sheryl threw her arm around Riley’s shoulder, “I promise your partner isn’t like the Dad from an old TGIF sitcom. In fact, he might be one of the most sought-after bachelors in America.”

Riley rolled her eyes, “Great, I can’t wait. I can already see the twitter and Instagram messages saying I’m stealing someone’s man.”

They stood outside the studio door, “Actually, I think America is going to love the two of you together. And maybe, if possible, flirt with this guy. Get people thinking something could happen, at the very least it should stir up some fanfare.”

“I’m still doing the cha-cha week one, right?”

“Yes, here’s the music, now go in their and let the sparks fly.” Sheryl insisted.

Riley paused, “If I go in their and it’s some Disney channel ‘tween I’m going to kill you, you know that right?”

“Yes, I promise it’s an adult male, and when you see him, you will drool.” Sheryl was practically drooling herself.

Riley took a deep breath, knowing in a minute she would be on camera for hours while she and someone she didn’t know tried to dance together. She said a silent prayer before she finally opened the door.

Sitting in the middle of the dance floor was a tall man, his back was to the door. His hair short, but a sandy blonde. His shoulders broad, his arms obviously strong, at the very least he probably looked amazing shirtless, that should get them a couple of weeks.

Riley could see the little bit of his wireless earbuds in his ears, maybe he was listening to the music, or a podcast. He was obviously an athlete, not Hockey, baseball maybe, but considering the time of year, most likely football.

She waved to the camera man, motioning for him to not let on she was there as she put her bag down by the door. As she stepped closer to her new partner, she could feel a charge in the air, a wave of nostalgia she couldn’t place considering the setting.

As she moved closer she didn’t see that he had his bag near him, or notice it’s long strap on the floor as for the first time in years, the klutzy Riley of her youth took her over in the blink of an eye she fell into his lap.

Riley was stunned.

This couldn’t be happening.

This couldn’t be real.

This couldn’t be him.

Those green eyes, she would know them anywhere. They were the first eyes she looked into and saw more than friendship. They were the first eyes she had seen heartbroken. They were the first eyes she saw darken with passion.

She smiled, “Hi, I’m Riley Matthews, your new dance partner.”

“Lucas Friar, I’m a football player, not a dancer.”

She felt a chill down her spine, “I’ll make you a dancer.” She stood up, trying to hold her composure while trying to comprehend what was happening.

Of all the men who could end up on this show, of all the men she could be partnered up with, how did Lucas Friar, her first love end up here?

#

Zay came out of his studio laughing, shaking his head. His partner was hilarious, and if she focused, she could make it a few weeks, maybe even further. He saw Sheryl looking at one of the monitors, a smile on her face. “I know, me and Connie, we’ve got it.”

Sheryl swatted him, “Look, I’ve got TV gold this season with who I paired Riley with.”

He looked at the screen, eyes wide, “Is that Lucas Friar, of the New York Giants?”

“It sure is.” Sheryl couldn’t wipe the smile off her face if she had wanted to, “Riley went in there, and Zay I’ve never in all these years seen anything like it. It was a legitimate meet cute like in a rom-com. She tripped over his bag strap and fell in his lap.”

Zay covered his mouth, nodding, hoping he wouldn’t give anything away. So, this was why Lucas was in town, oh Riley was going to probably murder him later tonight. While Sheryl couldn’t see it, he could see the terror, the control in both Riley and Lucas. “You know Riley, she is just friends with anyone she dances with. She’s resisted this all these years.” He joked, but he knew, he could see it, Riley and or Lucas were going to end up heartbroken.

“Lucas Friar is considered one of the most eligible bachelors in the country. He’s sexy, smart, charming, a real Gentleman.”

“Well he always has been.” Zay slipped, “From what I’ve read.”

Sheryl looked at the dancer, “Shouldn’t you get back to Connie, I think you two have what the foxtrot for week 1?”

“We do, I was just going to grab us some waters. She’s not used to this sort of thing, but I think she’s got real potential.”

“She does, and I truly believe that you’re the best pro to bring it out in her. Just like, I think Riley was the right choice for Mr. Friar here.”

“I hope you’re right.” Zay told her before going to the fridge nearby for water, “I really hope so.”

#

Riley and Lucas were stretching on the floor, she’d gone over many basic moves throughout the morning. This was a quiet time she usually took to get to know her new partners. She’d held herself together for the most part today. She just had to get through a few more hours. “So, why do you want to learn to dance?” she asked everyone the same question—it was expected of her from the viewers.

“I don’t want to make a fool out of my Mom at her wedding” he looked up with a small smile on her face. “She wants to have a Mother and Son dance, and at the very least I want to make it, so I don’t step on her toes. Dancing was never my strong suit, but I swear since college I’ve been even worse on the dance floor.”

His mom was getting married? His parents weren’t together anymore? At one point in her life they knew just about everything about each other, now they were strangers thrown together my television producers.

She couldn’t wait for Zay to find out about this. Did they still talk?

“I promise, at the very least we’ll get it so you and your mom have a beautiful dance together at her wedding.” She stood up, moving across the studio floor to pick up the takeout bag of lunches that had been delivered. “But I also think if you do have the focus, and determination you could win this. I think you just have to believe it.”

Lucas watched Riley moving across the room. Years ago he’d been so bitter about her secret love of dancing, the fact that she took off with Zay on some dance tour, missing homecoming, Prom, the City Championship game that got him recruited to a big college. It wasn’t until his Junior year of college that he saw Riley and Zay on TV, performing together that he finally saw that it was her passion. “You think I could get you the trophy?”

“I think I can get you the trophy.” She smiled, wishing the cameras weren’t here. She just wanted this day over. Her mind wasn’t able to wrap around the idea that Lucas was seriously her partner, she anticipated that she would wake up any moment from this dream, as she always did.

Riley pressed play on a remote, music filled the room. It was the song they would be dancing to. As she sat down, with her food she realized what the song was. The Shoop Shoop Song wrapped around them, this was a nightmare, it had to be. “This is going to be an interesting Cha-Cha.” She laughed as she looked to the camera.

#

Zay rushed home, he was afraid of what Riley might say if she saw him at the studio. He also wasn’t sure he should really let Lucas stay at the house now. It had never occurred to him that Lucas would be on the show.

But of course, they would pair him with Riley. Put those two in each other’s orbit, and they would immediately be drawn to each other one way or the other. It would forever be out of their hands.

In all honesty, he wasn’t sure how Riley was going to react to being near him, or vice versa. He didn’t know who carried what animosity towards the other. He could remember how heartbroken Riley had been when Lucas broke up with her, how she’d tried to pretend that it didn’t hurt when she saw the picture on Instagram when Lucas and Maya won Prom King and Queen during their senior year of high school. He could also remember the sound of her crying in her bunk on the tour bus later that night.

“You are so lucky!” Riley’s voice called out from the garage door.

She didn’t sound murderous, so yeah for now he was lucky. He went towards the voice, gathering the grocery bags she carried, “Why am I lucky?”

“Because, you don’t have a past with your partner for the season.” Riley dropped a bag on the kitchen counter a moment later.

Zay knew he couldn’t play dumb, not when Lucas could arrive at any minute. “Who’d you get, Lucas?” he laughed, hoping she didn’t realize he knew.

“Yes.” She sighed, “And it gets better.”

Zay watched as she put food away in the fridge, “How?”

“I landed in his fucking lap.” Riley shook her head, “And the song we’re dancing to, The Shoop Shoop Song.”

Zay began unpacking a grocery bag as a sudden chill swept through his body, he knew he had to tell her. “So, speaking of Lucas. He called me this morning, he asked if he could stay here while in town and I told him yes.”

Riley slammed the fridge door closed as she pirouetted around to face him. “You what?”

“I told Lucas he could stay with us. I didn’t know he was going to be on the show. He didn’t tell me.” He defended as he waved an eggplant at her, “We’re 27 years old. It’s been like ten years since your breakup. Besides I figured you would barely see him because you would go into season mode.”

“Season mode?” She crossed her arms over her chest.

“So, you tend to shut down in a way when you spend all day dancing with someone that’s not me.” He shrugged as he put some items away, “Like you still get up super early, do your morning routine, go to the studio, but when you come home you basically have dinner, and disappear into your room for hours on end. I figured if Lucas was here for a week or something shooting a TV commercial, you might run into him like once or twice, and that was it.”

“Zay, no one wants to be around their ex, how would you feel if I said, ‘Sure Claud, you can come stay with us.’ You would be pissed.”

“Yeah that was a year ago.” Zay rolled his eyes, “Not a decade. I mean it’s not like you fell in Lucas’ lap and still felt whatever it was you felt back in the day.”

“I need to lay down.” Riley sighed, “It’s been a long day, and I just need alone time.”

“Riley, can he stay here?”

She stopped at the staircase, “Fine, just can we keep all of this between us. I’m meaning, please don’t mention our past to Sheryl. The last thing anyone needs is to have them exploit the past.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t tell Sheryl a thing okay. If I was going to, I would’ve when she was gushing over how America is going to fall in love with you and Lucas together this season since you fell in his lap.”

Riley spun to him again, “Wait, you knew before I told you that Lucas was my partner?”

“Yeah, I came out to grab waters today and Sheryl was watching you and Lucas on the screen. I kept my mouth shut. I was stunned. I never in a million years thought that Lucas would ever do this show. The man showed no interest in dance at all, so why would he give a damn now?”

“His Mom is getting married, and he doesn’t want to embarrass her at the wedding.” Riley shrugged.

“That makes sense.” Zay, could hear a little voice at the back of his head already sure that wasn’t the reason, “His parents have been divorced since he was in college.”

“I didn’t know you two still talked.” Riley didn’t really feel betrayed, maybe if she found out he still spoke to Maya—but that was a different story.

Zay took a step towards her, wrapping his arms around her, “Not all the time. He’s been my friend since we were riding sheep.”

Riley chuckled, “I know, I just, I guess I thought they were all behind us.”

The doorbell chimed throughout the house. Zay could feel Riley stiffen. “Go upstairs, take a shower. I’ll get him set up in the guestroom. I’m sure he’ll be ready to crash, I know how you work your partners to exhaustion.”

“Thank you,” she gave him a kiss on the cheek before rushing up the stairs.

Zay crossed the first floor, opening the door to Lucas looking half exhausted with his duffle bag over his shoulder. The grin on Zay’s face couldn’t be hidden for two reasons. The joy of seeing his best friend, also seeing how his ex-girlfriend had run him ragged during their first rehearsal. “Dude, what’s wrong?”

Lucas shook his head, “Had a crazy idea of going on a reality show, and pretty sure my partner is out to kill me in the first week.”

Zay chuckled, “Riley always works her partners hard.”

“You know?” Lucas came in the house, taking it all in. The sleek furniture, the crisp white walls, the glass doors leading out to the back-yard pool. “This is amazing, this is nicer than my penthouse.”

“It’s home.” Zay smiled as he walked to the stairs, “Kitchen is here, help yourself. Just if we’re low on the Apricot La Croix, leave it. It’s Riley’s go to after a long day.”

“Good to know.” Lucas followed Zay up the stairs, he could hear the ocean from an open window somewhere.

“Riley’s room is there, I’m down here, and you my dear oldest friend in the world are in here. I had the housekeeper put fresh sheets on the bed for you.” Zay found himself hovering near the door, “What was it like to see her again after all this time?”

“It was nerve-racking. She landed in my lap, and suddenly I was thirteen years old on a subway again.” Lucas released a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding in, “I just, I don’t know what I was expecting, what I wasn’t.”

“Its been a long time Lucas, just, please remember that.” Zay had a feeling the next few weeks were going to be very awkward and tense. “Hey, why aren’t you staying in a hotel, or at one of Farkle’s houses?”

“Farkle and I are not on speaking terms.” Lucas confessed as he tossed the duffle bag on the bed, “And I’m trying to stay away from the paparazzi. They’re everywhere, and well a certain artist in New York is trying to stir up rumors we’re dating.”

Zay took a few steps into the room, closing the door. “Wait, Maya?”

Lucas sighed, his eyes closed and it looked like he was partially holding back tears, “Yes, she saw a spike in sales after a picture of her, me, and Farkle made it to page six. We’d all been at a fundraiser auction for the Minkus Foundation. Farkle thinks I’m leading her on, Maya thinks we’re actually together, and I’m like no way in hell. We never were together, and we never will be.”

“You guys dated senior year of high school.” Zay reminded him.

“No, I was single.” Lucas stared at his friend, “I dated Chloe in college for like a semester, but that was really it. I’ve been focused on Football all this time.”

Zay took a few more steps towards his friend, “I was with Riley, the phone was on speaker when Maya broke the news to her. I heard it myself.”

“That bitch.” Lucas groaned, “I don’t even know. Its like Riley went on tour with you and no one was around to guide her. It was like she released her inner Regina George.”

Nodding Zay looked to Lucas, “I can see that. She always sort of had that essence brewing inside of her.”

“You two left, and it was, it was awful Zay.” Lucas sighed as he looked out at the view, “Farkle and Smackle ended up barely even at the school since they were in college level courses. Maya, she was always making assumptions about us. It was like we were back in that damn triangle again, I pulled away. I hung out with the football team, I went to parties on weekends. After Riley and I broke up, yeah, I made out with a few girls here and there, but it was never anything more.”

“Like I said Lucas, it’s been a long time. You’re not the same, Riley’s not the same, I’m not the same.” He shrugged, “Maybe this is a chance for Riley and you, me and you, to all become friends again. As who we are, not who we were.”

“For now, I just have to focus on Riley not murdering me during practice.”

“It’s only the Cha-Cha, just wait until Foxtrot, Jive, or Modern. She comes alive during Modern.”

“Why Modern?”

Zay opened the door, looking back at his old friend, “When it’s time, ask her.”

Lucas could only nod as Zay left him alone. He forced himself to get up, going into the sleek bathroom and turning on the shower. His body he hadn’t felt this exhausted since his rookie year playing for the Giants. He stripped out of his clothes, the steam already building up as he stepped into the glass enclosure.

He could finally breathe, relax for a moment. He knew he would see Riley again by being on the show. He just didn’t know that she would be his partner. He had hoped it would be her. Scrubbing his body he couldn’t remember the last time a shower had felt this deserved, this needed in years. He hadn’t worked as hard at anything in a while, not that he didn’t work hard at football, but it was different now.

Rinsing off he grabbed the towel to dry off. He pulled on his pajama pants and grabbed his phone before going out to the balcony. He took a snapshot of the view, the sun setting over the ocean. He thought about posting it on Instagram, but decided it wasn’t worth dealing with Farkle or Maya calling him. If he could stay off the grid for a little bit longer here, it would be better.

The last thing Lucas needed right now was Maya and Farkle invading his life. He was just trying to live his life, support a good cause, and yet was getting dragged into the gossip columns thanks to Maya. It drove him crazy that anytime they were at an event she would start planting seeds they were together. He thought she’d been over it after the triangle, after he and Riley got together.

He felt his phone vibrate as he looked down at the caller id, his Mom. “Hi Mom.”

“Hey Lucas, how did the first day go?”

“I’m exhausted, haven’t been like this since my rookie year.” He told her as he sat in the wicker chair near the door.

“That’s good. Did you call Zay?”

“I did Mom.”

“And Riley, have you seen her?”

Lucas sighed, his eyes catching the light from Riley’s room turn on, “Yeah, she’s gorgeous Mom.”

His mother chuckled, “Did she slap you?”

“No, not even close. She fell into my lap again. She’s my dance partner.”

“Oh wow.” His mother’s voice tensed up, “You know Maya and Farkle are trying to find out where you ran off to.”

“I know, and they don’t need to know. I have never once had any interest in Maya Hart, and if Farkle is going to enable her ridiculous ideas, then I can’t talk to them. I came out here to learn how to dance, I want your wedding to be perfect.”

“Honey, that’s sweet of you, but we both know I’m not the reason you’re doing this.”

“I don’t know what your talking about.” He watched as Riley stepped out on her balcony, her dark curls piled on top of her head. She had a can of sparkling water as she walked over to look out at the view.

“Lucas Friar, I’m your Mother, I know that you are trying to find out if your first love is the one. Remember son, you’re different now. You’re not teenagers. You’re a man, she’s a woman. You’ve had other relationships, you’ve had lovers.”

Lucas cringed as he listened to his mother. Watching Riley’s silohette in the sunset.

“I’m just saying Lucas, that you and she need to get to know each other again. You two had such wonderful conversations when you were younger. Start with that, and then see if anything develops. Lucas I’ve got to get going. I have to get to bed, I have an early meeting in the morning. Don’t worry, no one will every hear from me where you are. Love you son.”

“Love you Mom.” Lucas ended the call, seeing Riley turn around when she heard his voice.

“Hi.” She gave him a soft smile, “The shower pressure good for you?”

“Yeah, it was. Thanks for letting me stay. I’m trying to be as off the grid for a little bit.”

“Things okay in New York, and you know you’re going to be revealed as part of the show in like a week.”

“A week off the grid is better than no time. And once it’s revealed I’m on the show the person I’m hiding from won’t have the guts to show up.”

Riley nodded pretending she understood, “Hey, since the cameras aren’t around can I make a request?”

“Anything Riley.” He meant it, more than he expected as the words came out.

Riley knotted her fingers together as she looked up to Lucas, “Can we not bring up our past in front of the cameras, in front of the eventual press. If Sheryl or any of the other producers find out we were High School Sweethearts, they’ll exploit it. I don’t think that’s fair to you.”

“I won’t say a word.” He promised. He knew he should tell her about Maya, but he couldn’t. He didn’t know where they were friendship wise and one thing, he’d promised himself so very long ago was that he would never come between them.

“The kitchen has plenty of food, just please don’t drink the Apricot sparkling waters.”

“Zay warned me. Thank you, Riley.” He started towards the door before looking to her once more. “I promise I’m going to work hard every day we do this.”

“I know you will. Also I swear I’m not usually so klutzy.”

“I guess I bring it out in you.” He gave her a friendly smile, “Goodnight, I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Goodnight Lucas, get some sleep. Today I was easy on you.” She informed him before going to her own door.

Lucas chuckled nervously, but he knew it was true.

[lunar-writings-love]

College!AU - Yeosang (ateez)

After a break (i’m still super sorry about that) I’m back with the series!! I said I’d do hongjoong second, but a lovely anon sent in a request asking for yeosang or wooyoung and i couldn't say no! 

Author’s Note: bullet fic

warnings: cussing?? ://

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

Yeosang: 

he’s so precious i love him gOD

anyways yeosangie is ,,, just such an interesting guy 

an enigma really 

everyone knows of him, but not many people know about him

he seemed to be everywhere at the university: in the dining halls, the library, his dorm room, the lounge, he was just ,,,

omnipresent 

everywhere you went ,, just ,, there he was

but because of that he became pretty popular 

he’s just such an easygoing guy and his sense of humor is honestly amazing

people loved to come up and talk to him

the cute english major with that old skateboard always glued to his side 

he truly was friends with everyone

the athletes, the bio majors, the humanities and arts kids, e v e r y o n e 

not to mention he was a major heartthrob 

but this dumbass ,,, never caught on 

girls and guys alike would come up and flirt to no end; asking for his number, help on understanding english for their assignments, how to skateboard,  e v e r y t h i n g ,, but yeosang was too pure for that 

he’d agree to all of it not knowing people’s ulterior motives 

so much that now a days all it took was one side glance from someone and wooyoung was already up and vowing to rip them a new one if they so much as even tried it with yeosang 

he was the members’ baby boy lmao rip jongho 

that being said ,,,

you knew who yeosang was

you and yeosang were never close or friends really, and you doubt he knew your name 

but you knew him because ,,,, i mean the man is gorgeous let’s not lie here your friends mentioned him at least a couple times a week 

and you appreciated the fact that he skateboarded everywhere

as an environmental science major, you can respect people who try to minimize their carbon footprint

so while he may have no idea who you were, it was still good to know that you weren’t alone because the catch was ,,

there was a mix-up in the system and you didn’t get to room with your friends

and at first you were kinda down because the girl randomly placed in your friends’ room refused to do a room mate switch, so you were just kinda stuck there 

but when the start of your second year came around you were relieved to see a familiar face as your neighbor ,, yeosang!1

he decided to room with wooyoung and san which didn’t come as a surprise to u because ,,, those three were joined at the hip 

and the girls you got placed with were both third years who you had never met before

they were nice and meant well, but you were so painfully shy and since the other two were already friends you felt awkward trying to place yourself into the mix

but alas , life goes on  

you developed a routine of waving and greeting yeosang in the morning since you both were cursed had 8 ams

a month into the quarter now and you fell into a nice and simple routine;

wake-up for your 8 ams, wanting to die as soon as you realized you only got 3 hours of sleep, get ready, see yeosang leaving his room also looking like he wants to die , greet him , get breakfast , sit through class, come back, sleep , repeat 

lIfE waS jUSt gReat:DDD

but college really do be like that sometimes

and what was even better !! was that one of your room mates had a boyfriend and liked having him over a lot 

which wasn't an issue and you supported her 

it’s just that ,,,, you wanted to stay in on fridays but she had asked you guys if she could have the room from 5-8 on friday nights because ,,,,

,,,,,,so every friday from 5 to 8 you would either watch netflix or study in your floor’s lounge, and because it was a friday night most people tended to go out so you didn’t mind much 

it did come as a surprise though, when one friday night yeosang joined you at around 6:30

he just smiled sheepishly “wooyoung has someone over”

you nodded in agreement 

“my room mate too”

then .// it was silent ,, both of you just kind of looking anywhere but each other

despite yeosang’s popularity, what people didn’t really know about yeosang was that the boy was also painfully shy and awkward much like a certain y/n

BUT HE WAS DOING HIS BEST

so he tried again “Soo what are you doing?”

you were surprised he wanted to continue talking to you 

“uhhhh just watching some demon slayer”

“bro no way i love that”

“wait really??! are you caught up on the manga?”

“hell yeah do you know what’s up with Tanjirou??”

and before you knew it, it was 9 at night and you had been talking to yeosang about everything and anything for almost 3 hours now 

you had been bLEssED 

then the time came when yeosang’s phone chimed ,, wooyoung was finally done sinning 

and it was time for him to go :////

“you’re y/n, right?”

“yep!”

“cool, I’m yeosang”

“right, i know that”

“....right”

then // it was silent yet again 

but the thing was , yeosang really liked you 

he didn't know your name, but he always thought his --always sleep deprived neighbor-- was super cute 

with your bedhead and 

groggy voice 

and sleepy smile 

ugh

 he really wanted to get to know you more 

but he figured it would’ve been awkward

so before he could lose all his courage yeosang practically yelled at you “DOYOUMaYBEwANNAGetsoMEcOFFEEsoMETIME??!/”

it took you a few seconds to process because hAHAHAH WHAT?!!?

but then you pulled yourself together like the responsible young adult you are and mustered 

“I’d love to, we can meet up next week when the new manga chapter drops?”

and then y’all were exchanging contacts and good nights 

and when he left you internally screamed 

what just happened??

did ,, THE kang yeosang ask u on a date??!?

was it even a date?!?

by the way yes it was 

SO THE FOLLOWING WEEK THERE YOU GUYS WERE 

at a cute coffee shop a couple of minutes off campus 

and the rest is history!!

you got to finally get close and get to know the strange and mysterious kang yeosang 

who wasn't really strange or mysterious at all, he was just a weeb a super cute and nice guy you were totally falling for 

y’all finally kissed on the third date after having an extensive conversation on the ending of naruto and because he’s a gentleman unlIKE his Mom SeonGhWA

and omg you guys were so cute 

he taught you how to skateboard

and you taught him how to be more environmentally conscious 

your dates included going to ramps on campus, attending environmental rallies, having him read english literature to you as you drifted off in sleep, 

and most of all /// lots and lots of crunchyroll premium 

that yeosang stole off of mingi poor boy didn’t even know 

BUT YEAH 

after that you met all the boys 

you already knew wooyoung and san, but you got really close to wooyoung because that ,, makes sense 

all the boys love you sm 

you were their baby 

uwu rip yeosang AND jongho 

and you loved all the members!

and on your two month anniversary, yeosang bought you two matching phone cases 

they were naruto ones 

he gave u sasuke and he kept sakura’s 

“wait why am i sasuke? wouldn’t it make more sense if i were sakura”

“don’t question it” he said as he slipped his phone into his case

sakura was his childhood crush and he wanted her phone case bAbY bOY

but anyways, yes // he was the sakura to your sasuke!

and wooyoung was naruto 

~~~~~~

Okay guys! hERE it finally is after like 5 months ....... I’m so sorry!!1 Hopefully you guys like this one! I’m kinda rusty but I’ll get back into writing!!! Thanks a lot for the love and support!! love you guys!!! <333

- Luna

[midnightartemis]

Chapters: 32/? Fandom: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy Rating: Explicit Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Rey/Ben Solo, Finn/Rose Tico, Poe Dameron/Rey, Poe Dameron/Finn, Poe Dameron/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren Characters: Rey (Star Wars), Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Ben Solo, Finn (Star Wars), Poe Dameron, Rose Tico, Leia Organa, Han Solo, Luke Skywalker, Maz Kanata, Larma D'Acy, Amilyn Holdo, Snoke (Star Wars), Boba Fett, Bossk (Star Wars), Armitage Hux, Chewbacca (Star Wars) Additional Tags: Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Abuse, Drug Use, Suicide Attempt, Star-crossed, Dreams, Alternate Universe - High School, High School, School Dances, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Foster Care, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Near Death Experiences, Multiverse, Reincarnation, Attempted Sexual Assault, Assault, Graphic Description, Teenage Drama, Horny Teenagers, Fluff and Smut, Angst with a Happy Ending, Past Drug Use, Drug Dealing

Chapter Three

Tuesday goes by without incident, though Latin will kill me. Rose is more than happy to walk me to my classes, chatting happily about her own, and I’m happy for the company for once. Poe and Finn are in my P.E. class and they’re so competitive. Rose tells me it’s okay to take them down a notch if I can. I’m athletic, but usually never got the chance to stay in a place long enough to participate in anything.

Wednesday rolls around and Rose is buzzing about Friday as we eat lunch. My eyes search for Ben, but I can’t find him anymore. “What’s Friday?”

“Oh, my god. I completely forgot to add you to the group chat.” Rose palms her face and gets out her phone. I sheepishly hand her my half-broken iPhone but she doesn’t bat an eye. “Poe, Finn, and I are having a little get together to celebrate the start of the school year. Please, come. I know you have to ask Maz.”

I’d never been invited to a party before. “I would love that. I’ll ask her tonight.”

I hope Maz said yes. Things were going smoothly there.

Rose and I left lunch early so that we could walk together to class. Rose liked to show up early to vocal class to help set up and I was more than happy to have a few minutes alone, even if it met sitting in awkward silence with him.

I open the classroom door and he’s there sitting where he was Monday. I take my seat across from him and pull out my headphones to listen to music for a bit. I scroll for a while and settle on The Lumineers’ Ophelia album. It takes a lot for me to not dance and hum along, so I pull out my drawing notebook and start in on practicing drawing 3D shapes.

I feel his eyes on me and I look up, realizing that I’ve been bobbing along to the music. He looks away and I think there’s a hint of a smile on his face. I flush. What is it with him? He didn’t look like a hardcore drug dealer, not like the ones I’ve seen. He looked quiet and lonely. Soft. Dammit, Rey.

He looks up again and sees me watching him. He scowls, his mood instantly souring. I look away sheepishly.

“Sorry.”

“Did they get to you, too?”

“What?” My heart races at his voice. My eyes meet his and they’re looking over me intensely.

“The golden trio.” His voice is low, angry.

Poe, Finn, and Rose? I frown. “I-”

Before I can say anymore, the door opens and Mrs. Tico walks in, cheerful as ever. “Hi, Rey! Ben!”

“Hi, Mrs. Tico.” I smile back, but inside my stomach is rolling with anxiety. What did he mean ‘ get to me?’ Rose had made it pretty clear what happened and I doubted Poe just hated Ben for shits and giggles. I look back at him and he’s concentrating on his notebook as if nothing had happened. I scowl and go back to my own work.

“How was school, hun?” Maz picks me up in her bug after school to take me to therapy.

“Good.” I smile. “I have a mountain of homework already, but everyone is really nice.”

“Good, good.” We drive without talking, just listening to the radio quietly. My stomach turns as I think about the party. I cross my fingers and ask.

“Maz?”

“Yeah?” she glances at me.

“I was wondering- well… Rose and Poe and Finn were getting together Friday night and they invited me. And I was wondering if I can go?” I bite my lip and look at her hopefully.

Maz smiles. “Ah… the infamous Dameron Back to School get-together.”

My eyes widen. “Oh. Oh. I didn’t realize it was a party-party. Nevermind.”

“No, Rey. Go! Have fun. Enjoy your friends. Just no drinking or drugs. I’m here to keep you safe and healthy, not ruin your high school experience.” Her eyes sparkle, but there’s a seriousness to them. “11:30 PM. At the latest. Okay?”

I nod, trying to hide my excitement. “11:30. Got it.”

We pull into a parking lot of a small brick office building downtown and Maz walks me in. We go to the second floor where there’s a small waiting room. It’s very zen with comfy chairs, light incense, peaceful art, and meditation music in the background. There are two doors, both closed. Maz and I sit and wait until the door on the left opens. A man walks out and he’s got a wide, open face covered in a grey beard and eyes that radiate kindness and knowing. I instantly feel at ease when he smiles. “Rey?”

I nod and stand. He walks over and sticks out his hand and I shake it. “I’m Luke Skywalker. Let’s go in and have Maz fill out some paperwork and then we will get started on your introductory session.”

Did everyone in this town know Maz? We fill out the usual paperwork in Luke’s office. It’s just as zen as outside. There’s a Buddha sitting on a bookshelf perfectly curated with books on mental health and well being. A fountain trickles gently in the corner. Everything is in order, at balance.

“I’ll be waiting in the lobby.” Maz signs the last paper and leaves us. I take a seat on the couch and Luke sits in the chair across from me.

“So, Rey,” he says with a small sigh. “I’m guessing this isn’t your first time in therapy?”

I laugh a little. “No.”

“Well, I have a few questions that we can discuss, but first, I just want to give you a little overview of what our plan is if you choose to move forward. I like to do a little one-on-one session before placing you in a group. I run a few groups, and it’s all just about trying to place you in the right one where I think you have the best chance of learning and listening to your peers and sharing your own stories. Sounds good?”

I nod.

“So, tell me about yourself, Rey. Your childhood, things you like to do… Anything you’d like in whatever way you want to tell me.”

“Well…” I take a deep breath. The story in my head is one that’s carefully rehearsed, told over and over. “My parents abandoned me when I was six. I was found by some workers abandoned in the Jakku city dump. And they couldn’t find my parents, so I got placed into the system. I jumped around a lot as a kid. No one really wanted me. And then when I got older, I got tired of the abuse and the neglect, so I started gathering evidence on my fosters and getting their licenses revoked. But that just met that I jumped around even more. I’ve just kinda learned how to survive and take care of myself.”

“That sounds hard and exhausting.”

I nod and sigh. “Yeah.”

“What about now? You’ve only been at Maz’s a few days, from my understanding. How’s that going?”

“Good. I think.” I reply. Luke says nothing, waiting for me to fill the silence. “It’s a lot to process. Everything changed so quickly and she’s unlike any foster I’ve ever stayed with. It’s… It’s almost like it's too good to be true… And, I guess I’m worried that it will be. Or I’ll fuck up and it will all be taken from me.”

“Do you think you deserve a good foster home?”

I can’t meet his eyes. Tears prickle at my own. “No.”

“Why not?” Dang, this guy is good.

“I’m not anyone special… There are a lot more kids out there who are a lot more deserving.”

“So… What I’m hearing is that you spent the last few years catching abusers in the system… But you’re not deserving of a good home?” He raises his eyebrow at me. I see his point, but I still can’t reconcile myself with it. “You sound pretty special to me, Rey.”

“I’m not anyone special.” I shrug. “I just didn’t want other people to go through what I have.”

“Do you feel that’s your duty? To save other people?”

I mull over his question and nod slowly.

“There aren’t many people out there who would put others before their own personal wellbeing and safety. What things do you like doing for yourself?”

“I like listening to music… And working with my hands.”

Luke smiles. “Good. Those are really good ways to take care of yourself.”

“They help me a lot when I need a break from the outside world. It can be really… Overwhelming.”

“Tell me about that.” Luke nudges me in that direction gently.

“Well, I don’t know. It’s like… I can get really overwhelmed in crowds. If there’s a lot of noise or people or things going on. It gets hard to think and concentrate.”

“Like at school?”

I nod.

“Is there anywhere you go to get away from the noise and let yourself relax for a bit?”

“Usually after lunch, I go to the art room because there’s no one there before class usually.” Not no one. Might as well be no one though.

“Good. It’s important to create room for yourself and thoughts and to listen to yourself.” Luke smiles. “Tell me about school. Are you enjoying your classes so far?”

“Yeah. Principal Organa was really happy with my interest in science and math. She put me in physics, and pre-calc, and small engines and I really like all three so far. It just makes sense to me. More than English or Latin or Social Studies. Though, I don’t mind Social Studies either. And psychology is interesting, too.”

“Very interesting.”

I laugh. “Right, I’m talking to a psychology master.”

“I have a group on Thursdays after school. It’s some of your age group dealing with some similar things as you. Is that something you would be interested in?”

“Yeah. Sure.”

“I’ll have you start next Thursday so I can let them know that the group is expanding a little. How does that sound?”

“‘Good.”

Luke nods and stands. “I’m afraid that’s all we have time for today. It was great to meet you, Rey.”

I stand and let him lead me out of the room.

[completeotometrash]

Matchup

@i-sleep-like-napoleon

I'm a female on the libra-scorpio cusp and a Slytherin, I'm kind of a mix of ENFP and INFP. Appearance-wise, I'm 5'2, i've brown eyes and caramel brown hair. I also wear glasses and I'm also quite tanned from being out in the sun all the time. Personality-wise: - I can be really enthusiastic about stuff I'm really interested in, such as history (especially world war history), sciences (but physics is trash to me) and anime (I'm a closet nerd hehe) . - I can be really ambitious and competitive, and I would sometimes place unrealistic expectations on myself, leaving me mentally exhausted and stressed, but like i place these unrealistic measures on myself to strive to be the best - I do try to chill and take it slow, but you know, sometimes i just can't 😅 - I'm quite an open book to all my close friends - I also tend to be really possessive, like I dont like people purposely trying to steal my friends (it happened a lot of times before) and i hate it when someone randomly butts into a conversation i'm having with anyone, especially if it's a deep conversation - I can be really awkward around people i don't click with, but around people i click with, i can be pretty wild and will be able to hold conversations with. - I tend to procrastinate a lot, and people say i look intimidating but i don't feel like I'm intimidating. - I can be really sensitive to other's emotions and i tend to put others before me, so like my close friend always told me that i'm too much of a giver, like I try to please everyone else and ignore myself - My love languages are physical touch and quality time - I can't stand people who are attention seekers or just aim to be public nuisances as i feel that they're just really irritating and it gets on my nerves, especially those people who are just doing stupid things to be popular (which is lowkey why i think tiktoks dances are dumb, like seriously i dont get the hype, but i do like tiktok meme videos tho) - I listen to a lot of different genres of music, but i especially love classics (mozart and chopin are my favourites) and pop. - I can really insecure at times, because i always feel that every other girl out there is better than me and i'm just a plain and ugly, and partially because i got bullied when i was younger about my appearance - I like dressing up and putting on makeup occassionally, but i do act like a tomboy most of the time (ie. I hate skirts, like i really dont like them and i have no idea why, but jeans are supreme). - I also love playing the piano and singing as well, even though i'm not that good at it :D - People tell me that I'm very curious and persistent, constantly pushing until i get answers, but i do know my limits. - I'm also very passionate about things I love, and i would do anything to protect people that i care and love. - I'm also very affectionate and supportive towards my close friends and people i love. - I do have trust issues and I often feel like i do not deserve love and that I hate people who betray my trust. - I'm ok with pda, but not anything overly affectionate, like hand-holding and kissing is ok, but not making out 😳😖 - I also tend to be pretty forgettful, and i'll not eat for hours to get my work on hand done (whoop pretty unhealthy but :0) - I'm also really sarcastic when i want to be, and i can't hold a poker face to save my life (i swear i always start laughing like 2 seconds in) and I tend to sass people a lot, especially if I've had a bad day - I'm also pretty fiesty and I hate people stereotyping me for my gender (i.e like when someone says that "oh you're pretty good for a girl") like what does my gender have to do with my ability? Like there is zero correlation - My sense of humour is kind of twisted at times but i really love memes and i tend to crack inappropriate jokes sometimes - I've been told that i come across as really flirty to some guys but it's because i can be really touchy feely to my friends - I'm also quick to anger, especially if i have a bad day, i hate people who nag and i hate people who put down others- I'm kind of touch-starved, so i really like hugs and cuddles, but I'm also ticklish so my friends tend to tickle me when hugging me - I can be a daydreamer at times, like I would get stuck in my own fantasy world when i shouldn't 😂😂 - I'm also a drama queen around my friends, I dont have a lot of them in real life because of some rumours that others spread, so i only have a close circle of friends i really treasure and would do anything for them - I also tend to bottle up all my anger and negative thoughts, and would sometimes like explode on others even though I don't mean to - Sometimes I don't really think before I say or act, which is why sometimes I can come off as a bit rude or unfeeling but it's just me and my impulsiveness 🤪 Fun Facts: - i really love food, especially sweets (dark chocolate and dango is my life) - i really hate horror movies (I'm usually pretty brave, but horror movies just get to me so much ergh) but i love chick flicks and adventure flims - I'm also a hopeless romantic, which is why even little romantic gestures can make my heart flutter - My hobbies are reading, writing and shooting (only air-rifle though) - I used to be pretty athletic, I still am, but to a lesser extend now, because i injured my left knee playing volleyball in the past. It's on it's road to recovery, but it still hurts quite badly when i overexert myself. - I love artic foxes and cats, dogs are too energetic for me 😅 - I'm also a sneaker hoarder and I love collecting and wearing sneakers hehe, heels are like torture devices for the feet i dont care even if they make me taller - Coffee over tea anyday, no offense to peoples who like tea, but a fresh cup of brewed coffee is one of the best things in the world 😚 - I'm really terrible at drawing, I'm not gonna kid you. When i was younger, my art teacher threatened to fail me because im really terrible at drawing. 😂 - I'm also very injury-prone and a bit clumsy, which caused me to have bruises occasionally - I'm kinda bad and math and physics, but like if you take your time to explain to me then I'll understand a bit more lol, my best subject is like chemistry

...........

Thank you so much for the request! Hope you enjoy.

Although I was deeply torn between another character, I believe the suitor you’d be best with is: Sasuke Sarutobi!

I honestly feel like a relationship between you two would be like an, “opposites attract,” type of deal. But despite this, you two still would share a lot of common interests! Unlike all of the other guys, he understands you. He was born and raised in the same time period as you! He knows everything a normal person would from the 2000′s, he’s watched movies, listened to similar music, enjoyed memes, and understands references! Sasuke has made it very clear that he too, is quite the history guru. His former job in modern times was being a scientist. (Although it was never mentioned, I strongly feel like he enjoyed anime before he was sent back in time.) And he loves to not only learn, but teach what he knows! You two have a relationship unlike any other, which is a truly special thing. If there would ever be a time where you want to rant or discuss anything about the future, he would gladly listen!

Sasuke is not very good with his emotions, and is very stoic and self-kept. Seeing you and your expressions and how different you two are is pretty refreshing to him. He doesn’t find you intimidating whatsoever! (More adorable than anything). If you were ever frustrated at him or the world, he knows how to take it without making things worse, (most of the time). Always stays calm and has no problem being the first to apologize. He listens to how you feel and gives his best advice. Rare of you to ever get mad at him, he’s a pretty chill person that doesn’t seek attention or act like they’re better than anyone. He’s not too sure how to help you with your insecurities. Shows his love through actions rather than words, but still gives the nice occasional compliment on how you look or on your personality. (He truly does love you, thinks of you as being better than perfect.) He doesn’t mind that you’re the same way. Also isn’t bothered by you being possessive at all. (Doesn’t really talk to girls other than you unless he has to.)

Loves going and doing things with you. Whether if it’s walking around town or playing games in the castle! (Thinks you being competitive is adorable!) Understands if you just want to stay home and relax. He’s very introverted and doesn’t really understand social ques, so just being alone with you is something he would take any day.

Although he doesn’t show it, he loves pampering you! Enjoys cuddles as well. (Everyone seems to discuss on how he and his s/o would recreate the upside-down Spiderman kiss.) Will just randomly pull up romantic movie or TV show lines, and vines. A secret softy! (But only for you).

Overall, I think this would be a really healthy relationship! Only problem being how bad he is at expressing himself. (Which can be fixed over time.)

Other Possible matches: Masamune Date (almost picked this one tbh), Mitsunari Ishida, and Kennyo.. (Fuck I can’t remember his last name. Someone please educate me.)

[darkestwolfx]

Numbers

I had a few ideas when I first read this one, but I thought I wanted to go with something I don't usually write – not for want of inspiration, but more logistics from the show side of things.

You can play around with the ages in your head as I haven't specified, but we're talking school ages, kind of before International Rescue. I'm thinking of using this in my Young Tracy's series too, so hair colours etc at in TOS form for this one.  Longest one yet I think too.

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18: Numbers

Summary: Gordon had a passionate hatred for numbers and figures.

Words: 2199

Spoilers: None.

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There were people in the world who could achieve great things with numbers. Mathematicians who came up with great problems and solutions and played around with numbers like a baby did toys and a rattle.

There were also people in the world who could achieve great things without numbers. Like artists and athletes and circus performers and… heck, what did it matter? You didn't often hear about people like that, people who struggled with numbers like a baby did walking.

Being a child was hard enough without being a brother.

Being a brother was hard enough without being one of the younger ones.

Being a younger brother was hard enough without having older brothers who could do what you could not.

Gordon was slightly glad to no longer be the youngest, yes. But it still remained that he had three older brothers and those brothers were far more academic than he.

Virgil – lucky bug – could maintain a good average and be artistic, the perfect combination of both who was strong and yet delicate, smart and yet creative. Had the middle child just been creative, his teachers wouldn't have been half as kind, but because he was both it was like summer come early, all bright smiles and praise.

Scott – for all he was the eldest – was not the smartest, though he didn't like to hear it. But the point remained that he was capable of trudging on through, enough that he would be able to join the Air Force just like their Father had. The eldest wasn't the best with numbers on paper, but he was good at crunching any needed for flight. Pilot mode, as Gordon referred to it.

John – for all Gordon loved him, really loved him – was a pain in the ass. He didn't try to be, he never asked to be, but the blonde was inexplicably gifted. And really that should be plural, but Gordon was sure gifted didn't have one of those. No, John was good with words, he was excellent at science (all of them, but physics especially) and he was an absolute wizard with numbers. The red head envied the speed with which his big brother could do his maths homework like it was merely colour by numbers.

It was unfair that all of his brothers were academics, and had set a pretty good record for it at school, raising the bar high, high, high into the sky for him, but it was another thing for John to be a genius.

Virgil had been lucky to be a culmination of smart and creative coming after John, because it made him look somewhat extremely talented too – which Gordon would agree, his direct elder was a master with any medium of art, including the musical kind.

He on the other hand, was not so lucky. He was c**p with words, f***ed with science, and s**t with manipulating numbers. And it was good that he said none of that rant aloud for Dad would absolutely rip in apart for the language, and Scott might have a go to is he was hovering around. It wasn't language Gordon would normally use either even though everyone at school, especially in his year, were at the point where bad language like that was cool. No, Alan wasn't even the reason why he wouldn't use it. They'd always been a family with little need for it, but right now… right now whilst he was pulling his hair out (which, he'd have anyone know was one of his best features) over the bloody, damn nonsensical numbers before him, knowing he couldn't do anything else until his homework – which why did it have to include math! – was done, he didn't care. It was acceptable to use whatever language he so pleased. He'd been here, elbows on his desk and hands in his hair for hours, gritting his teeth and stabbing his pencil into the paper, but the answers were always wrong or the method never came to him- and long story short, he just couldn't do it.

He was so tempted to chuck his pencil across the room, but he'd already snapped one with his anger.

There was a knock at the door. Oh damn! He was tempted to just send whoever it was away.

"What?" He'd hoped his tone would be deterrent enough.

"Not a good time?"

"No."

Of all the brothers it could have been.

"Scott's watching the football. Virgil too."

"Goody for them."

"They wanted to know if you want to join. We're having ice cream."

"Lovely. Off you go."

John was silent for a moment.

"So, I'll take it that's a no then."

"Yes. Go."

But by the sound of it, John didn't 'go' in the direction Gordon had intended, for within moments of careful, quiet footsteps, his brother was stood beside him.

"Oh, you're multiplying polynominals."

"So that's what they're called."

He'd honestly forgotten.

John seemed to be looking between him and the paper, full of erased scribbles and large indents from his eventual anger.

"I thought you only had a couple bits of homework to do?"

"And I'm doing it."

"No, I just meant… well, usually you'd be done by now and joining us for ice cream."

"Well I'm not done so even if I want to I can't. House rule. You know that."

"I do." Gordon felt a little bad. He was being snappy and he knew it. And John didn't deserve that just because he was a genius and the younger wasn't. He decided he should probably keep his mouth shut so as not to do any more unnecessary snapping. "Right. I'll just uh, leave you to finish it then…"

"Yeah, off you go and have some ice cream on me."

He thought John might have actually gone. Scott didn't have the same level of stealth as the second son, so it would have been far easier to tell. But no, the elder's quiet nature had done Gordon no favours.

"Gordon, what's wrong?"

"Nothing."

"Something is because you're snapping. And being sarcastic – you don't really want me to eat ice cream for you."

"No, I don't! I want to watch the football – not because I like football, but because you're all down there and you're eating ice cream and I'm stuck up here with poly what's it called."

"Polynominals."

"Yeah, yeah those."

John walked back over, standing beside him with no awareness to how annoyed his very presence was currently making the copper haired boy. It's not his fault, he reminded himself. He never asked to be born a genius.

"The answer to question one is 8x2-50x+63."

"How?" He finally, finally snapped, throwing his pencil – unintentionally – onto the floor – he'd been aiming for the desk. Damn. "How do you do that, in your head as well! That's not fair."

"Gordon, I learnt these years ago, y-"

"It's still not fair! I've been looking at these for an hour!"

"You should have as-"

"I hate numbers! Why can't we have mandatory swimming."

John… chuckled. And the first thing which came to mind was why? Honestly, Gordon was baffled.

I've just shouted at him, and he's laughing?

He knew John was good at staying calm, but this was almost crazy.

"If they did that, I really wouldn't be any good. You'd have the best grades."

"Yeah. I would."

"Here."

John held out his pencil to him, Gordon never having seen him moved to retrieve it. He took it with a quiet 'thanks'. He still wasn't quite sure how he should feel. His brother was jesting with him like the whole shouting match - or rather, at, since John's voice never rose, not even once – never happened.

"You need to multiply each number by the other numbers in the brackets and then you add and subtract accordingly."

"What?"

"The polynominals you- Sorry. I'll leave you to it."

"No, no, no!" John halted almost abruptly. Gordon realised he'd been shouting, again, and made a deliberate effort to lower his voice. "Can you… can you say again?"

The blonde nodded and made his way back over.

"Do four times two and four times nine, then do seven times two and seven times nine." He made an effort to scribble whilst the elder spoke, his hand moving faster than it did usually, even in class. "Remember if there's x's to times, you have to include them in the answer. So if you times two x's together you get x squared, like if you four times four."

"Ok, ok. Then?"

"Add or subtract it all, and rewrite it in it's final form without the brackets."

"Right, ok. Um… like that?"

John glanced over his shoulder once more, green eyes studying his messy scrawl, made harder to read by the past attempts strewn like ghosts over the paper.

"Yes, but it's plus sixty-three." He frowned, returning his gaze to the paper to look for the reason why. "You times two negatives."

"Oh yeah!" He quickly made the correction, rubbing furiously to get rid of the blasted additional line, hovering even still from al his previous endeavours. "Like that."

"Mmm hmm."

"Ok… oh, did you want to be watching the football."

John all but frowned at him. "I hate football. You know I only watch if Scott's playing. I've got a book waiting for me."

"Sorry to keep you."

"I like math, so it's ok."

He nodded, not really sure what else he should do. He never meant to (inadvertently) ask for John's help, although he couldn't deny he was glad to have it, but now his problem lay in how to keep it. Part of him knew asking would be ok and the other was still torn about whether he even wanted to. He was prideful, for all that he wasn't good at math. He didn't want to appear stupid, least of all to his genius brother. But then again, he didn't want to appear stupid to his class either. He'd unluckily ended up with the same maths teacher all his older brothers had had, so there was no luck there, but he intended to keep the rest fooled.

"Do you want to do the rest?"

"Rest..?"

"Of the questions. I can't do them all for you."

"No. Mrs R would probably know." He jested, trying to lighten the mood which seemed to have descended, and he was overly aware that such was his fault for having shouted.

"Probably." John agreed. "I think the handwriting would give it away."

Yes, because John was even gifted with being able to write nice and neatly, just like Virgil. At least Scott's writing was also abysmal, although maybe not quite so much as his.

"I was thinking more about the math."

"But you can do it."

"You told me what to do."

"So just repeat exactly that."

"But I can't even remember what I did, you- you were talking me through it."

"Gordon, does someone talk you through how to do… butterfly stroke?"

"Uh, no!"

"Exactly. And you do it fine."

"I'll have you know I do better than fine. But that's something I'm good at. I've done it for ages."

"But that's the point. Someone talked you through that when you first learnt, but you don't need that anymore. Same thing with math." He let his eyebrows raise of their own accord. John took an answer from that, as expected. "You'll get there."

"Yeah… No. Well, maybe, but not tonight I don't think, and I'd really like some ice cream."

"Me too." John smiled, and that was kind of infectious because Gordon found himself smiling too. "So, question two?"

The blonde reached out and pulled over Gordon's old bean bag. He preferred to sit on that than a chair after swimming. His brother dropped down beside him and reclined quite happily from what Gordon could see.

"I'll just sit here and wait until you need me."

And he did smile this time, of his own free will.

"Ok."

Part of him was very pleased that he hadn't had to ask: the other part was very aware that John had probably gathered he wanted-but-didn't-want to ask for help and thus had offered.

He had some very good brother's looking out for him, indeed. It just helped when they were a genius.

"Right, question two has stuff outside the brackets, what do I..?"

"Same thing, but only times everything in the brackets by the number outside."

"So, I'm doing five sevens, five fours, and five twos?"

"Yeah. And add in the x's."

"But that one's going to give four x's… Is that right, is that possible?"

"Yeah, just put a little four instead of a two."

"So… like that."

"Yeah."

"Ok, ok, I've got this."

"You do."

"Ice cream here we come!"

John chuckled again and Gordon felt a little better as he powered onto question three. There were fifteen of them, but with his genius brother at his side, he was sure he'd be ok getting through them.

He wasn't the best with numbers, but if the world flooded tomorrow, he'd be ok to stay afloat; and until such a time he could best the numerals, he had John to act as his raft.

[waltzofthewifi]

Kota Chapter 32: Bet On It

Table of Contents

"Alix, I bet you-"

"You gave up your bets when I beat you in that race!"

"Oh come on, that was only for-"

Lacy and Max exchanged looks as Kim and Alix started on another bet. Lacy loved Alix to death, but sometimes...

"It's on!" Alix declared.

The two shook hands just as Bustier entered the classroom.

"Alright, class," Bustier said, quieting the class down. "Let's start with our usual exercise."

Alix and Kim were the first to go, complimenting each other on never backing down from a dare. Bustier sighed a long-suffering sigh.

"There's an 89 percent chance that this bet will take place at my place," Max told Lacy. "Perhaps you could come over and we could play video games in the meantime?"

"I don't really know how to play video games," Lacy replied. And she wasn't supposed to, either - demigods and technology don't mix.

"I could teach you," Max said. "I am the second-best gamer in the class."

Alix and Kim slid back into their seats, and Rose and Marinette were called.

Lacy frowned. "Who's the first?"

"Marinette," Max replied.

"Really? Is there anything she isn't good at?"

"No," Max answered.

"What about waking up on time?" Alix offered. "Or time management in general?"

"That's true," Lacy agreed.

"So?" Max prompted. "Are you up to facing a master gamer?"

Lacy hesitated. She really, really shouldn't. But she liked hanging out with Max and Kim.

"You shouldn't push her too much," Chloe said. "Lacy's horrible with technology."

Lacy scowled. It was the truth, but still.

"I am aware," Max answered. "But I'm sure we could overcome that obstacle."

"And afterwards, we could get ice cream!" Alix added. "Just not from that romance dude."

"Sounds like fun," Lacy said.

Max's apartment was a bigger than Lacy's.

It was all one story, on the first floor of the apartment building - Max's grandfather lived with them, and he couldn't do stairs. It had a main living room with a master bedroom off on one side, and a hallway with four bedrooms off the other. One of the bedrooms was designated a guest room - and it had a lot of stuff that looked like it belonged to Kim in it - and the other was the "tech room."

"My dad and I both use it," Max explained as he showed it off to Lacy.

It reminder her of the few times she had been in the Hephaestus cabin. One table was completely overtaken by robotic parts and diagrams. The walls were covered with different types of diagrams, science facts, and astronomy models. There was a drawer in the cabinet designated as "Markov's room." And, of course, one wall was completely dedicated to computer screens and gaming consoles.

"My mom did, too," Max said. "Before she left for her training."

"Training?" Lacy asked.

"She's going to be an astronaut," Max explained.

"Cool!"

The bet was crazy complicated - Kim said a friend helped him come up with it - but essentially it boiled down to who could stand on one leg the longest (while standing on this and that and the other thing, while listening to a horror podcast, etc etc). Markov would do the timing.

"Three, two, one, go!"

"So, you've never played any kind of video game?" Max asked.

Lacy shook her head. "Nope."

"Then you wouldn't know what type of game you like to play," Max concluded.

"You should show her your game!" Markov suggested.

"That's right," Lacy remembered. "I remember you telling me about that. Let's play that."

Max was perfectly okay with that, and he started setting up while Lacy watched.

"Alright, there we go," Max said. He handed her the controller, and started explaining the rules.

Seems simple enough.

"I don't recognize most of these akumas," Lacy admitted when they made it to character selection.

"They were before you came to Paris," Max explained. "You should be able to see their stats and powers next to the character."

Lacy spent her time looking at each one, while Max immediately choose his. Eventually, she ended up on a roller skater with what looked like good stats.

The round started.

The first round, they didn't do much fighting - Max made sure Lacy knew what she was doing first. The next several rounds, Lacy lost horribly.

By the time they finished round five, the bet had been won.

"Ha!" Kim beat a victorious fist in the air. "Told you."

Alix replied by sticking her tongue out.

A knock on the door interrupted the weird face making competition.

"Come in," Max called.

Ondine peaked her head in. "Is Kim - oh, there you are."

"Ondine!" Kim replied. "What are you doing here?"

"Come in," Max said.

Ondine stepped in, giving Kim a peck on the cheek.

"I got out of work early and thought I'd stop by," Ondine explained.

"Have you met everyone?" Kim asked.

"I know Max and Markov," Ondine said.

"Nice to see you again," Markov said.

"And it's - Lacy, right?"

Lacy nodded. "Yep. We met at the swim meet." Which Lacy had totally come to just to meet Kim's girlfriend (she was curious, okay?).

"And I don't think we've met."

"Alix." Alix held out a hand. "I'm also in Kim's class."

"Oh, the roller skater," Ondine recalled. "Kim's mentioned you."

"Yeah, and he won't shut up about you," Alix countered.

"That's because she's awesome," Kim said. "Lacy and Max were just finishing up a round of Max's game. Want to play?"

"Sure."

No monsters attacked that afternoon, but Lacy was still nervous as she and Alix headed to the bakery.

"You're being jumpy, even for you," Alix commented.

"I just keep expecting an attack," Lacy admitted. "You know, being a demigod and using technology never ends this well."

Alix shrugged. "Maybe that's an American thing. You said the other demigod that you ran into mentioned Celtic monsters - maybe they're not attracted to Greek scents."

"Maybe."

They turned into the bakery. Mrs Cheng waved at them as they entered.

"Are you here to see Marinette?" She asked. "I think she just left with Alya."

"No, we're picking up something for Nath," Alix said. "He's out sick."

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. What can I get for you?"

Alix relayed his order, and a few minutes later they were out of the bakery and heading to Nathaniel's place.

"So, what did you think of Ondine?" Lacy asked.

Alix shrugged. "She seems nice. Her and Kim seem to work together as a couple well."

"Yeah, they're really cute together. Kim's so supportive of her swimming abilities, and she's super supportive of him too! They're just so cute together!"

"If you say the word 'cute' one more time I'm disowning you."

"I don't think that's how friendships work."

Alix rolled her eyes. Lacy bumped her shoulder into Alix's.

"You know you love me."

"Yeah, uh huh."

"- as a way of letting Nathaniel know we were thinking of him," Marinette finished.

The class was gathered in the art room. Marinette had asked for a few minutes to talk to the class about a project before the actual class began.

"I think it's a great idea!" Rose said.

"I'm sure Nath will appreciate it," Alix commented.

"Yeah, he's really out of it," Lacy added.

"As long as I don't actually have to go near him while he's sick, I'm in," Chloe said.

"Alright, so here's what I need each of you to do-"

The project moved quickly, and the teacher didn't mind spending half the class period helping out. It was technically a study-hall period, but Marinette had asked the class to meet in the art room instead.

At the end, Nino helped video the result and send it to Nathaniel.

"Marinette's always so thoughtful about things like that," Rose said.

"She didn't really do that much," Chloe said.

Lacy gave her a look.

"What? I'm only saying that instead of praising Dupain-Cheng, Rose should be proud of what she did to help. That's a good thing!"

"Chloe's right," Marinette commented, stepping up behind her. "I only had the idea. It never would have worked if everybody wasn't so willing to spend time to cheer up a classmate. You should be proud of yourself, Rose."

"Did you just agree with me?" Chloé asked.

"Yep. And you better get used to it, if you're going to make a habit of being right."

Chloé groaned. "Yay me."

Alix reached over the desk and prodded Chloe multiple times.

Chloe turned around. "Yes?"

"We're going to that new superhero challenge place this afternoon," Alix said. "I was originally going to bring Nath along, but since he's out sick, we have an extra ticket. Right now it's just me, Lace, Kim, and Max."

"It would be tempting," Chloe admitted. "If I didn't already have a spa appointment scheduled."

"That's the place that paid Alya for an endorsement on the Ladyblog, right?" Sabrina asked.

Alix nodded. "Yeah, it's supposed to be super cool! Alya said that they'll be going this weekend to check it out, but since we're going today she'll interview me for her review."

"My dad's not thrilled with it," Sabrina said. "Something about a safety risk. He won't be happy if I go."

Alix pouted.

"Hey, we have an extra ticket tonight, right?" Kim asked, leaning up from his desk behind them. "Can Ondine come?"

"Yes, that sounds great!" Lacy replied.

"Hey, I paid for the tickets, I decide," Alix argued. "But yeah, that's fine, if it's fine with Max."

"Hmm," Max said. "With Nathaniel not coming, that makes me the least athletic. I would rather bring someone along that's more my level of athleticism, not another high-level athlete."

"Okay," Alix said. She stood up. "Rose, Juleka, either of you free tonight?"

"No, we have band rehearsal," Rose replied.

"Mylene?"

"I have tickets to my dad's play," Mylene answered.

Alix sat back down. "That only leaves us athletes."

Max sighed. "Then I'll just resign myself to being the slowest."

"You're not that out of shape," Kim said. "You'll keep up fine."

"Besides, it's a team thing," Lacy said. "We're all in this together."

"There's a ninety-eight percent chance I'm going to regret this tomorrow."

"It's closed?"

Max adjusted his glasses. "The sign on the door says something about safety risks."

"But I signed a waiver!" Alix argued. "This sucks!"

"They'll probably refund you," Lacy said.

"Yeah, probably," Alix said, deflating. "Ooh, maybe instead we can look at that climbing gym you were interested in."

"Ooh yes!"

"I'm in!" Kim said. "I always love climbing things."

"I'd be interested," Ondine added. "I've never rock climbed before. But you'd probably want to spend the money with your other friend."

"Hey, we can just get six tickets, or slots or whatever," Alix said. "There's no reason you can't come with."

"Thanks," Ondine said.

"I bet you I can climb faster than you," Kim said.

"No," Alix said. "I'm not taking that bet. I've seen you climb."

"Oh come on," Kim replied. "You're not one to back out of a challenge."

"I'll take it," Lacy said.

That got surprised looks from everyone but Alix.

"Are you sure?" Max asked. "Kim is a great climber."

"I'm an all-around athlete," Kim bragged.

"I'm a pretty good rock climber too," Lacy replied.

"Okay, you're on."

Roi Singe and Chat Noir landed behind Ladybug and Viperion after their patrol.

"This is so cool!" Roi Singe said.

"I know, right?" Chat Noir asked. "There's nothing like the rooftops of Paris at night."

"I'm glad you're enjoying yourself," Ladybug said.

"It's definitely peaceful," Viperion added.

"How are things going with your kwami?" Ladybug asked.

"Great! He had this super cool idea for a bet with a friend that involved this really cool set up and we had to balance on one leg and everything and I totally won the bet!"

"Sounds like you're getting along fine," Ladybug said.

"We are," Roi Singe. "I'm going to rearrange some things in my room over the weekend to give him something to climb on."

"I got my kwami a cat bed and stand once," Chat Noir said. "He never used it. He prefers sleeping in my trash can."

"Your kwami sounds fun," Viperion deadpanned.

Chat Noir shrugged. "Honestly, he acts a lot like what I've heard cats are like. You just have to adjust to their way of showing affection."

"A lot like you, kitty," Ladybug stated.

"So how's your kwami?" Roi Singe asked Viperion.

"Doing good," Viperion answered. "I've been introducing him to different types of music."

"Nice," Roi Singe said. "Xuppu seems to like the weirdest music I can find."

"Sass is cool with whatever I put on," Viperion replied.

"Tikki's like that too," Ladybug said.

"I don't know what music Plagg likes," Chat Noir admitted. "When I give him access to my computer, he usually ends up watching epic fail videos."

"Tikki hates those videos," Ladybug said. "I like them, but I'm super clumsy as a civilian so I don't feel bad laughing at them when I've been them, you know?"

"I'm the same way," Roi Singe said. "Not clumsy, but I'm usually the one trying to do the weird stunts that end badly."

Ladybug nodded, remembering some of the weirder stunts she'd seen him try to do.

"I don't have that problem-"

Ladybug scoffed.

Chat Noir haltered. "What?"

"You can not convince me you never try stunts like that," Ladybug said.

"Not outside of the costume," Chat Noir said.

"Doesn't the Ladyblog have video of-"

"She took it down," Chat Noir interrupted.

"Shame," Ladybug said. "That was a hilarious video."

Chat Noir pouted.

"It's getting late," Viperion said. "You should all get to bed."

"What, are you the team mom now?" Chat Noir challenged.

"I am the oldest," Viperion replied.

"That doesn't mean you have to be all responsible," Chat Noir argued.

"We're superheroes. We all have to be responsible."

"Viperion's right," Ladybug said. "Besides, I'm really behind on homework."

Viperion frowned. "Sleep first."

Ladybug brushed him off. "I'm not tired."

"Viperion's right," Chat Noir commented. "I know you, you need to sleep."

"I'm fine."

"Sleep," Chat Noir repeated.

"Or I'll set Rena on you," Viperion threatened.

"Okay, okay," Ladybug ceded. "No need to get her involved. I'll go to bed."

Luka was waiting patiently outside of the bakery when Marinette left for school.

"So?" He asked.

"I slept," Marinette reassured him. "Tikki can vouch for me."

"Good," Luka said.

"Yeah, except now I'm extra behind on homework," Marinette admitted. "Plus I have another commission to work on."

"Remember, sleep is more important than your commissions," Luka said. "And more important than school."

"Chat's right. You are the mom friend."

It took a lot to make Marc angry, but eventually he slammed his pencil down and turned to Alix.

"Are you bored? Is that why you're bothering me?"

"Hey, I'm just checking in on you," Alix replied. "He's your boyfriend, after all."

"Alix, If Marc doesn't want to be bothered, we can eat somewhere else," Lacy attempted. Again.

This time, Alix threw her hands up. "Fine."

Lacy gave an apologetic look at Marc before following her out of the lunch room and into the courtyard.

"Was that mean?" Alix asked.

"A little," Lacy admitted.

"Ugh, I hate it when Nath gets sick," Alix complained. "At least I have you this time."

"Thanks?"

Alix took a bite out of her sandwich before continuing. "I just never really got along with anyone before Nath, you know? I'm always too blunt or too sarcastic or too energetic for everyone."

"Not for this class," Lacy said. "You have plenty of friends now. Me, Kim, Max, me, Mylene, Marinette, me, Adrien, me-"

"Alright, I get your point," Alix conceded. "I'll apologize to Marc later."

"Oh, there's Ondine," Lacy said, spotting the other girl across the courtyard. She waved, and Ondine waved back. To her surprise, Ondine headed over to them.

"Mind if I sit with you?" Ondine asked.

"Not at all," Alix said.

"Is your friend still out sick?" Ondine asked.

"Yeah," Alix replied. "Nath doesn't get sick a lot, but when he does he's totally out of it for a few days."

"Marinette came up with a really nice present for him," Lacy said.

"Marinette does seem really nice," Ondine said.

"She is," Lacy agreed. "And she's really thoughtful too!"

"Makes you wonder about the rumors going around," Ondine said. "I mean, everyone who knows her talks to highly of her, but then there's all of those rumors about her bullying someone-"

"Lila," Alix sneered. "That-"

"She's not the greatest person," Lacy summarized. "She lies and manipulates people into her liking her, which, yeah, doesn't sound so bad, but she always wants to be at the center of attention, and has threatened people in our class."

"That sounds horrible," Ondine said.

"Yeah, I'm glad she moved classes," Lacy replied.

"I think Kim mentioned her," Ondine remembered. "I remember he cancelled a few dates to help her with something. I'll admit, I was a little jealous."

"Kim's really trying to be nice this year," Alix said. "Lila was really good at abusing that.""He's so sweet," Ondine said.

"He's sweeter than he was," Alix said. "He was kind of a jerk at the beginning of the year."

"I guess," Ondine replied. "But that's all behind him now."

"I guess people can change."

Next Chapter

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #245

“i fell asleep at the wheel again, crashed my car just to feel again.”

What is your favorite condiment to go with french fries? Ketchup. What do you have a habit of doing when engaging in a conversation with someone? Obsess over the appropriate amount of eye contact I make. What color is your mp3? Hot pink. Have you ever laid in a hammock? Yeup. Is there a song or lyrics currently super-glued in your head? "Popular Monster" by Falling In Reverse FUCK What can you go a day without doing? Uhhh a lot? I dunno... oh, drink water because I suck at that gah. I've gotten a lot better than I used to be tho. What can’t you go a day without doing? Touching some form of technology. Who do you spend most of your time with? Myself. Do you have a favorite classical composer? No. What type of quality is a must-have in a friend? Treat others with kindness. Are you any good at reading someone's body language? I definitely think so. What type of art would you hang up in your room? Lol I have some of my own... but let's say it was a clean slate again. I'd put some macabre/gothic art of some sort up, probably. Of COURSE with meerkats making an appearance. What fruit is too sweet to you? Hm, I'm blanking. What was the last contest you have ever won: Uhhhh... I think the giveaway of two Silent Hill: Revelation things? That was forever ago. What was the worst hair cut you have ever had in your entire life: Looking back, the haircut I had before this one (short on the left, faded into still rather long on the right) I don't really like anymore. Looks fine in some pictures, but not most. What was the worst thing you have ever worn in your life: Oh I don't know. Probably some dance costume. Do you like any sort of animes: Yeah, a handful. I'd honestly like to watch more. Have you ever used someone for your own benefits: I don't think so. What is the worst cartoon you have ever seen: Oh boy, idk. There's some dumb ones, a lot that I've only seen peeks of. Do you like to type or write more: TYPE. Writing physically can easily make my carpal tunnel act up. I hated having to hand-write a few essays last semester... I had to stop frequently to roll my wrists and cringe and stuff. What color would you have your skin if you could change it: I'd like pale skin like I have, but I wish it was more flawless/porcelain-ish. SOOOOOO pretty ahahhhhhhhhahhhhhh Do you usually cook your own meals, or does someone cook for you: I usually have to throw something together in the microwave because Mom's barely home, but when she is home, she cooks. If someone cooks for you, do you always thank them for it: YES. YES. NOT SAYING ANYTHING IS SO FUCKING DISRESPECTFUL. What do you do during the day: Almost without question, SOMEthing on technology/usually computer. As for what I do on technology, boy, a lot a lot. I don't even feel like listing it all. When you are online what do you normally find yourself doing: ... Oh, lmao. Uhhh binging YouTube, writing on or just checking up on KM, dA browsing/cleaning my drowning inbox, Facebook, "working" at the SH and SotC wikis, playing games, roaming Tumblr, check my emails, uhhhhhhh,,,, What is the most hated item you own: I wouldn't... keep it if I hated it? Uhhhh yeah, I honestly don't know. What is your favorite item you own out of all the items you have: My iPod, really. I have over 1k songs on this old-ass nano that I've had since middle school. I guess my laptop is kinda tied, but idk. Like, I don't love this laptop itself, just that it allows me to go online at a decent speed lmao. I guess they're my favorites in different ways. So, do you think that you will get where you want in life currently: Not stopping pushing for it 'til I get it. Why is that so. May I ask: I'm "too" determined. It's been a struggle getting to even where I am, but FUCK, I'm getting there. Do you like Halloween: I can't fwu if you don't. Has a teacher ever flirted with you? Not to my recollection. Is it okay for friends to kiss each other, as friends? Personally, I think a simple peck is fine IF that's your thing and it's mutually understood that it's platonic. Ex., I know greeting kisses are normal in some cultures, and I see no reason to shame it so long you're not like making out. Is it okay for girls to hit boys? Fuck no. Unless you're like fighting off an assailant/defending yourself, NO gender hits ANYONE. Do you know a lot of attractive boys personally? I've never thought about it? I'm not gonna dig through all the people I know rn... What happens if you realized you had a crush on somebody? More than anything, I'd be scared of being hurt again, particularly if it's a guy. So I definitely wouldn't make the first move. Do you think you are attractive? No. Which two of your friends would have the cutest baby together? I don't know. How do you feel about your naked body? DON'T COME AT ME WITH THIS QUESTION GO AWAY Have you ever been called obnoxious? No. At least, not to my memory. Do you wish you had a bigger family? No, but a more close-knit one. Which friend would you kiss full on the mouth, no questions asked? Sara. If somebody smacks your butt, you automatically say: I wouldn't say shit, I'd turn around and smack them across the face. How often does your family life conflict with your social life? Pretty much never. Have you ever been emotionally abused? No, thankfully. Do small children like you? They seem to, I guess. If karma is really true, should you be worried? Not very. What makeup do you wear on a daily basis? None. Do you have anything hidden in your room? Yeah, some saved money. What do you wish you were doing right now instead of this? It'd be great to talk to Sara. If you had a baby, would you want to have it at home or in a hospital? Oh I'm going to the fucking hospital for that epidural fren. If I even wanted kids. What was the last thing you ordered online? Uhhh good question. Have you ever had a bad experience with anti-depressants? If so, what? Well, actually the entire time I was ON anti-depressants. Because I'm bipolar, anti-depressants actually ramp up the aggression of bipolarity symptoms. How, I don't recall the science of, but I trust every word that comes out of my psychiatrist's mouth for many reasons. That definitely happened. One also made me gain weight, and the worst instance was in middle school when I was briefly on one that made me SO fucking hyper and happy in the morning but I crashed into an absolute bitchy monster by mid-afternoon. Now a combination of mood stabilizers helps both my bipolarity and depression immensely and are the main reason I'm alive. Are you allergic to any plants? I mean, I'm allergic to pollen. Are you an outdoors person? If the weather is cool, I love it. Does your past bother you? Some parts of it. Do you take risks or play it safe? I tend to play it safe. What forms of art do you like the best? This is an absolutely impossible question. "Art" has such an incredible range of forms, and I enjoy like... all. I guess the one thing I don't particularly care for is abstract art. What forms of art do you want to try? HYPERREALISM IN DRAWING. I REALLY wanna be able to draw/paint/whatever and make it look so true to life, BUT I'd like to add fantasy aspects to what I'm making (for example, my characters). I'd love to do portraits, too. This isn't really a "type" of art, but one thing I desperately want in art is to actually develop my own recognizable style that isn't just a wobbly attempt at realism with shitty proportions. What’s your favorite planet? Saturn's dope. Has a medication ever made you itch? No. What’s your favorite rainy day activity? Cuddle with snacks and like binge a good TV show/YT videos, etc. BUT considering I'm single I'ma just take a nap if I'm actually tired and you can hear the rain on the window. Do you put creamer in your tea? I wonder how many times I'll tell surveys I hate tea lmao by the end of my life lmao. What do you think are some good names for twins? I don't care enough to think about this. What are three things that fascinate you? Animal behavior (particularly social), the paranormal, and genetics. Would you say you live more in the past, present, or future? Present, I think. Have you ever been a victim of a crime? Not me personally, no, but my family. We had our basketball hoop stolen from our front yard and I was mega tilted yo. Does injustice make you angry? More like it infuriates me. Do you have the bad habit of procrastinating? Very badly. Are you afraid of running into a certain person in public? I both am and am not afraid of running into Jason. I have a very strong feeling I'd start having a PTSD episode (by that I mean hyperventilating, crying a bit, and shaking at the very least), but simultaneously I just want him to know I'm sorry. Do you have anyone you avoid? No. Do you have the same dreams now that you did as a kid? No. Who’s your crush? I don't really know if I have one right now. My old friend Ian and I started talking, and he's a fucking hilarious dude with similar ethics to mine with great compassion, but I still don't know him well enough to say I like-like him. I'm honestly just happy to have an irl friend again that actually talks to me regularly. Do you trust the government? I believe in WAY too many conspiracy theories to even try to convince anyone I trust the government lmao. Who do you want to meet in Heaven? I don't know exactly what sort of afterlife I believe in (it's not the traditional Heaven though), but I do believe that souls can reunite. The first thing I want to see again is Teddy. Does your school take sports too seriously? Considering we're well-respected in the sports field to the degree we draw in a huge number of foreign athletes, guess you could say yes lmao. Most of the people I even slightly know here came for sports. If there are bruises on your body, how did you get them? There aren’t. Would you ever go back in time to do something over again, but differently? Yes. Where did you kiss the last person you kissed? The airport. Have you thought about your wedding in detail? Not great detail, no. Do you think you could ever really kill someone? In self-defense, I know I could. Do you like Papa John’s pizza? I couldn't even guess the last time I had it. I don't remember. Do you attend school? Yeah. Do you call it a crush, or do you just say you like someone? The latter. Where were you when the ball dropped? In my bed asleep lmao. Where are your siblings? Probably all at work. Waffles, pancakes, or french toast? French toast. Do you ever judge people based on if they believe in God or not? Not really, but I WILL wonder to myself if you believe in some of the bullshit just about every religion has somewhere. Are you sometimes scared to express your opinions in fear of what others might think? YUP YUP YUP! Mainly irl tho. Have you ever painted your nails on only one hand, forgetting about the other one or getting side-tracked? No. Have you ever gone to one of those parties where everyone is falling around drunk everywhere? No. Been to one where everyone was high, though. Are you “the good guy”, or “the bad guy”, or somewhere in between? I'd hope the good guy. Do you ever erase the numbers off of surveys just because they annoy you? Ha ha yeah. Do you think you will have the same best friend a year from now? Yes. Do you have siblings over the age of twenty-one? Yes, all but one. What do you hear right now? "Another Life" by Motionless In White. Proud as fuck because this song was a MASSIVE PTSD trigger at first and even made me cry, but despite it still making me kinda uncomfortable, I can listen to and enjoy it now. If an ex said they hated you, what would you say? The only three people whose opinions would matter there would be Sara, Girt, and Jason. Sara and Jason would fucking break me, while I think Girt would of course make me cry, but I just. Wouldn't be surprised to lose another irl friend. I'd be so fucking hurt by any. OH YEAH, what would I say? I think Sara would have me speechless. I'd probably just choke out, "I don't blame you," to Jason. Girt, my first instinct pondering this was "are you serious?" because he's such a joker while my stomach dropped. What would you do if you found out your most recent ex was in a relationship? I'd be happy for her, but still feel kinda sad that it wasn't me. What do you think when someone kisses you on your forehead? If I like the person, I feel very comforted. It like... makes me feel small, safe, and permitted to just let my emotions loose, ex. be "allowed" to cry. What do you usually do right when you wake up? Check my phone to see the time. Truthfully, is there someone you used to date that you miss? I don't want to answer this. Do the math. Have you ever gotten burnt by a cigarette? No. Do you brush your teeth right away when you wake up? No. Have you ever made someone laugh when they were crying? Yeah. Would you date someone three years older than you? Yeah. Do you prefer to shower at night or in the morning? Actually as of recently, the morning. It's a nice way to start the day clean and energized. Could you handle living with the last person you texted? I'd love to live with her. Was the last book you read for fun, or was it for some type of assignment? It was assigned, but I loved it. Have you accomplished any goals you set for yourself this year so far? Not really? Well no, I think I'm being a less procrastinating student and also not fleeing so quickly from situations that invoke my anxiety. Are there still movie rental stores where you live or have they all gone out of business? SOBS Blockbuster come BACK we NEED u. What was the last thing to annoy you or make you upset? Eh, it was stupid and something that realistically isn't worth being annoyed by. I was SUPER bored and tired yesterday waiting for Mom to finish her field work while I waited in the library after classes, and I was so ready to go home, but she stayed longer than she thought she would. Do you think you would be a good match for your celebrity crush/es assuming you have one? Why? If you don’t have one, who was the last person you saw that you found attractive? Actually, not really. He's way too motivated and drawn to people who push forward and get shit done, and just in general at least from how I "know" him as a fan I could only realistically see us as friends. But a fangirl can dream ok just let me dream. When looking for something to watch on TV do you tend to pick shows you know you like, or try new shows that look interesting even though you’ve never heard of them before? I'll answer hypothetically if I watched TV: probably something I know I like. Might get adventurous every now and again and try something new, though, especially if it's on a channel I like. How old were you when you had your wisdom teeth removed? I haven't had to. I juuuuust slightly have enough room where I DID have them grow in. Where was the last job application you filled out sent to? Uhhh probably the deli, which I got and lasted for two hours my first work day lmao. Have you ever been fired from a job? No. What do people tell you your voice sounds like? I dunno, kinda deep for a girl and lacking an accent most of the time. What financial class are you? Lower. What poster is hanging closest to you? A huge Nightmare Before Christmas one. Are you more comfortable with men or women? Women. Would you go on a date with someone right now if they asked? Maybe if Ian did? Idk. It'd be a nice way to get to know more about each other, but I'd only agree to it after we talked a bit longer. Does your family keep tons of leftovers in the fridge? Not "a ton." Things we'll eat again though, yes. Favorite FRIENDS character? That is, if you like it. I haven't watched it. Are you thinking of getting another piercing? Where? Hell yes. Pretty sure next is collarbones if I could just lose a little bit more weight so they're more visible. Do you love when people remember little things about you? YES OMG!!!!!!!!!! Do you ‘bless’ strangers when they sneeze? Yes, I just think it's common good manner. Even though the reasoning behind it is whatever, it's a societal thing that I just go along with. How many phones have you gone through? Idk, not too many. Have you always lived in the house you currently reside in? No.

[laracroftsleatherjacket]

Flower Asks: all of them >:3€ (forgive me)

(this is so many omg but I’ll allow it only bc i love u)

Alisons: Sexuality? 

     Gay af (ace lesbean)

Amaranth: Pronouns/Gender?

     Waman (she/they)

Amaryllis: Birthday?

     November 2nd

Anemone: Favorite flower?

     Funnily enough anemones are one of my favs but i think my top favs are chrysanthemums and morning glories but I really love many flowers and flowers in general

Angelonia: Favorite t.v. show?

     As of right now, stranger things duh

Arum-Lily: What’s the farthest you’d go for a stranger?

     Like favors or? I mean I really do try to be a kind and helpful person but if I don’t know somebody or haven’t at least seen them a couple times before I usually don’t do much bc of anxiety 

Aster: What’s one of your favorite quotes?

     "The extraordinary is in what we do, not who we are.” Lara Croft mostly bc I cant think of anything else right now and that stuck with me

Aubrieta: Favorite drink?

     Like a really good cup of black tea with cream and sugar or sweet tea

Baby’s Breath: Would you kiss the last person you kissed again?

     Never been kissed before but I definitely have someone in mind I would kiss ;3

Balsam Fir: Have you ever been in love?

     Hell yeah I am right now and I don’t think I ever have been before now

Baneberries: Favorite song?

     Oh hard question... currently really digging We Fell In Love in October by Girl in Red 

Basket of Gold: Describe your family.

     My family is supportive (for the most part) and very loving, even if they express love in weird ways sometimes. We also like to joke around a lot and make fun of each other but in a good way? Like we all have a good time mostly and I get along better with everyone since I started college

Beebalm: Do you have a best friend? Who is it?

     My girlfriend is my best friend uwu I also have a lot of good friends but yeah

Begonia: Favorite color?

     Purble but specifically like a pastel purple and purples that lean more towards blue than pink

Bellflower: Favorite animal?

     Lynx! I love so many animals tho and I also like many cats and domestic cats in general

Bergenia: Are you a morning or night person?

     Night!

Black-Eyed Susan: If you could be any animal for a day, what would it be?

     Probably would love to just be a loved house cat who gets to lay in front of the fire all day or a lynx bc i love them

Bloodroots: When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?

     A veterinarian (or a special agent lmao)! I also still plan on being a vet tho even tho I get discouraged at least once a month 

Bluemink: What are your thoughts on children?

     I mean I like kids and I was a camp counselor for a summer, but I dont really want any of my own

Blazing Stars: What are you afraid of? Is there a reason why?

     Oh god so many things.. Biggest thing would maybe be death/dying? Like if i think about it too much like the possibility of there just being nothing after death freaks me out. That and throwing up/nausea 

Borage: Give a random fact about your childhood.

     I played soccer and then I was a competitive swimmer so i was kind of an athlete? even tho i hated sports

Bugleherb: How would you spend your last day on Earth?  

     I think I would like to go to waffle house, have the perfect cup of tea, spend lots of time with my loved ones and pet my kitties, play video games with my gf, and sit under a tree in the mountains preferably on a warmer day in the fall and watch the sunset 

Buttercup: Relationship Status?

     Very happily taken

Camelia: If you could visit anywhere, where would you want to go?

     Always wanted to visit Norway

Candytufts: When do you feel most loved?

      Really big long hugs, good morning or goodnight messages, and I also really love cards 

Canna: Do you have any tattoos?  

     I have 6 

Canterbury Bells: Do you have any piercings?

     Yup! I have an industrial, orbital, and 3 earlobe piercings   

California Poppy: Height?  

     5′2 or maybe a little less

Cardinal Flower: Do you believe in ghosts?

     Yeah I think so, but I do also get freaked out easily lmao

Carnation: What are you currently wearing? 

     Red flannel, jeans, fuzzy socks, and big dyke boots  

Catnip: Have you ever slept with a nightlight?

     Yeah I did for a long time and I still sometimes sleep with one or like a bathroom light on if Im sleeping by myself in a new place

Chives: Who was the last person you hugged?  

     Either my mom or my dad I dont remember technically who was last bc my parents are visiting me at college

Chrysanthemum: Who’s the last person you kissed?

     Again, never kissed or been kissed! but maybe soon... :0

Cock’s Comb: Favorite font?

     Font? I like the font in Night in the Woods?

Columbine: Are you tired?

     Pretty much always either sleepy or tired lol

Common Boneset: What are you looking forward to?

     Christmas, getting to see my gf again, and Magfest!

Coneflower: Dream job?

     Like a veterinarian but having my own practice and also being able to take in injured wildlife if possible

Crane’s-Bill: Introvert or extrovert?

     Introvert for sure

Crocus: Have you ever been in love?

     Oh repeat question, hell yes

Crown Imperial: What’s the farthest you would go for someone you care about?

     Depends what it is but I would go pretty far for somebody I care about and Im also a crazy person and would drive/travel no matter what distance for someone I love

Cyclamen: Did you have a favorite stuffed animal as a child? What was it?

     Yup! I had a ballerina bunny, named Bunny because I was very creative and I still have her

Daffodil: What’s your zodiac sign?

     Scorpio

Dahlia: Have you done anything worth remembering?

     I think so? I did a lot of cool stuff with my GS troop like our bronze award project and going ziplining and to sliding rock. 

Daisy: What do you feel is your greatest accomplishment?

     My GS gold award for sure, that shit was hard work and stressful af

Daylily: What would you do if your parents didn’t like your partner(s)?  

     Umm??? I would tell my dad to eat shit and die and I cant imagine my mom being anything but sweet and supportive so I dont even know

Dendrobium: Who is the last person that you said “I love you” to?

     You! This morning uwu

False Goat’s Beard: What is something you are good at?

     uhh Im pretty good at making sense of stuff in my science labs and reasoning and im sometimes good at art? I feel like I do traditional better but Im getting better at digital

Foxgloves: What’s something you’re bad at?

     bad at not being impulsive sometimes and bad at dead by daylight 

Freesia: What are three good things that have happened in the past month?

     a little over a month but officially got a girlfriend who i love very much, my gf came down to visit and we got to chill on the mountains together, and I had a pretty nice birthday 

Garden Cosmos: How was your day today?

     Good! Got breakfast at a diner with my parents and got coffee and a donut at my fav coffee shop so thats all i really need in life tbh 

Gardenia: Are you happy with where you’re at in your life?

     Yeah Im happy even tho Im stressed with school at times 

Gladiolus: What is something you hope to do in the next year or two?

     Get a job after graduation and hopefully get into vet school on the first or second try

Glory-of-the-Snow: What are ten things that make you happy/you’re grateful to have in your life?

     My kitty, mom, wonderful gf, sister, dead by daylight, heated blanket, apartment, waffle house, my sisters kitty, and my dog

Heliotropium: What helps you calm down when you feel stressed?  

     Donuts, coffee or tea, blankets, video games, and loud music

Hellebore: How do you show affection?

     Hmm... I really like to draw art for those i love, tell them how much i love them even though i can be bad with words, and i just try to spend a lot of time with the people I care about no matter what we are doing

Hoary Stock: What are you proudest of?

     uhhh trying to open up more? and Im really proud of my gf 

Hollyhock: Describe your ideal day.

     Going to waffle house. Go to a mountain and hike a little, sit on the top with girlfriend. Admire beauty of mountain countryside. Admire beauty of girlfriend while they admire the beauty of the mountain. Then warm up together with hot chocolate and play video games

Hyacinth: What do you like to do in your free time?  

     I like to doodle and do the arts, play video games, and I like to bake sometimes

Hydrangea: How long have you known your best friend? How did you meet them?

     uuuuuuh I have a good friend I’ve known since kindergarten or first grade when I first moved to where I currently live

Irises: Who can you talk to about (almost) everything?

     My gf uwu and my mem

Laceleaf: How many friends do you have?

     probably like less than 10 

Lantanas: What’s the best compliment you’ve ever received?

     I think its really cute especially when you compliment my laugh

Larkspur: What do you think of yourself?

     ??? I think I am an okay person? And I try to be a good person and be kind and polite to people

Lavender: What’s your favorite thing about yourself?

     Umm... I mean I like that Im kind? and Im not fake and I try to be a good person     

Leather Flower: What’s your least favorite thing about yourself?  

      I hate that I procrastinate and that I can get frustrated easily at myself and at situations like crowds and traffic

Lilac: What’s something you liked to do as a child?

     I liked to play ‘restaurant’ with my sister with our littlest pet shops

Lily: Who was your best friend when you were a kid?

     I had a really great best friend named Rachel :c

Lily of the Incas: What is something you still feel guilty for?

     Losing a lot of friends and for being distant for a long time 

Lily of the Nile: What is something you feel guilty for that you shouldn’t feel guilty about?  

     Cutting off a friend that was bad for my mental health and who didnt treat me well even though we were best friends for a long time 

Lupine: What does your name mean? Why is that your name?

     My name is literally my parents ship name... like they even told me they chose my name by putting their names together lmao but I mean I like my name so i guess its okay..

Marigold: Where did you grow up? Tell us about it.

     Small town in new jersey when I was really, it was nice and family was closer. Then we moved and that was difficult but I ended up adjusting and it was good, had a decent amount of friends and the schools i went to were good

Morning Glory: What was your bedroom like growing up?

     For a long time I shared a room with my sister and we had a bunkbed and I had the top bunk of course, when we moved out of the apartment and into a house I got my own room and it was baby blue only because I told my dad that no, I didnt want a fuckin pink room and that was a whole thing lmao

Mugworts: What was it like for you as a teenager? Did you enjoy your teenage years?  

    It was good? but also sucked a lot. I had a lot of issues with my mental health and struggled for a long while with something. I was bullied and stuff at home wasnt always that great. And i got outed so that was fun. Other than that I enjoyed swimming competitively and I got into art

Norwegian Angelica: Tell us about your mom.

I love my mom!! she is the most Mom mom and is so sweet and always there for me. She helps me out so much with so many things and I just love my mom so much

Onions: Tell about your dad.  

     I mean I love my dad? And hes better than he used to be, but he still doesnt help with shit and irritates me a lot. 

Orchid: Tell about your grandparents.

     I never got to know my grandfather on my moms side bc he passed away a few months before i was born and I sort of knew my grandmother but she lived far away and passed away 10 years ago. I usually see my gramma on my dads side the most and I try to visit often and help her out with stuff and I love her even though she can be a bit... racist and shit.. and I sometimes see my grandpa and step grandma but they can be strict about weird shit and always ask a lot of uncomfortable questions

Pansy: What was your most memorable birthday? What made it be so memorable?

     I dont really do much on my birthdays? Ive had a lot of nice birthdays and it usually involves going out to dinner or having a nice dinner at home and having birthday cake and playing games like jenga or yahtzee.

Peony: What was your first job?

     I did some petsitting for a while but my first real job was being a camp counselor/tower belayer/lifeguard at a girl scout camp

Petunia: If you’re in a relationship, how did you meet your partner(s)?

     Met online after following them for a long time and drawing some arts for them, but didnt really start chatting until stranger things 3 came out bc I saw they had just watched it. Didnt meet irl until fursonacon and I just remember seeing them walking up to my car when I got there and just being like .... oh no.  I had already had a crush but at that point I was just heart eyes      

Pincushion: How do you deal with pain?

     Its a little fucked up but depending on the type of physical pain I like it? Like getting tattoos and stuff.. emotional/mental I just curl up in blankets and listen to sad music lol

Pink: Where is home?

    I feel like I have many homes? I feel really at home in the mountains, at home with my family, and when Im with my girlfriend

Plantain Lilies: If you could go back in time, what is one thing you would stop/change?

     Every event no matter how shitty shaped me into who i am today and Im pretty content and lucky with what I have today so maybe nothing?

Prairie Gentian: Who is someone you look up to? Describe them.

     My GS leader Miss Kristin. So incredibly kind and outgoing and just willing to do whatever she can to help others. Shes so adventurous and outgoing and made my gs troop so amazing. She is such a wonderful lady and shes basically like another mom to me.

Primrose: Describe your ideal life.

     To be with my SO in a nice cabin in the mountains with a nice fireplace. Its cozy and we have pets (especially kitties but also maybe a dog and chickens and such) and life is okay and we’re happy

Rhodendron: What is something you used to believe in as a child?

     God and Santa Claus (i was so heartbroken (over santa not God lmao))

Ricinus: Who’s the most important in your life?

     My girlfriend and my mom

Rose: What’s your favorite sound?

    My gfs voice and their laugh c: and I also really like the sound of thunderstorms and rain

Rosemallows: What’s your favorite memory?

Sage: What’s your least favorite memory?

Snapdragon: At this moment, what do you want?  

     To see my gf again and for winter break to just be here already I am so done with school lol

St. John’s Wort: Is it easy or difficult for you to express how you feel about things?

     Difficult? I try really hard to express how I feel but I usually mess up and I get anxious but I try my best lol

Sunflower: What is something you don’t want to imagine life without?

     Any of my loved ones and my cat 

Sweet Pea: How much sleep did you get last night?

     I wish I got more sleep but it was an okay amount

Tickseed: What’s your main reason to get up every morning?

     Good morning texts from my gf and my gf in general

Touch-Me-Not: How do you feel about your current job?

      I dont currently have a job but I occasionally do art commissions which is usually fun and gives me something to do 

Transvaal Daisy: What’s your favorite item of clothing?

     Any of my flannels and my leather jacket (also not mine but my gfs hoodie they gave to me to borrow)

Tropical White Morning Glory: Describe your aesthetic. 

     mountains, cabins, flowers, fall, flannel, small coffee shops, pastels 

Tulip: What would be the best present to get you?

     Im not one to be picky about gifts? I just love anything that someone put some thought into and thought I would like or reminded them of me but i feel bad if it was something expensive or anything lol

Vervain: What’s stressing you out most right now?

     Final exams and graduation

Wisteria: How many books have you read in the past few months? What were they called?

     0 lmao I used to read a shit ton but Ive been picky about what books I want to read lately 

Wolf’s Bane: Where do you want to be in life this time next year?

    Working towards applying to vet school and maybe thinking about moving out depending on a lot of things.

Yarrow: Do you know what vore is?

     Unfortunately

Zinnia: Give a random fact about yourself.

     I like collecting pins, pennies, and postcards which is funny to me

(So in conclusion,,, I love my gf)

(wow that was long as hell and took forever but done!)

[fanfic-inator795]

RotTMNT/Baron Jitsu fanfiction: Dating… With Children - BONUS CHAPTER

((Just consider this a bonus chapter that could pretty much take place at any day during the story, since it's more drabble-like than the other chapters.

As much as I LOVE writing cute Baron Jitsu stuff, the other main part of this story is Draxum also bonding with the boys and learning to become a worthy stepdad. (or, second dad? Since Lou was never married before? Whatever) And I really didn't want that part of the story to sorta fall by the wayside in favor of romance so, here's a whole chapter focusing on Draxum and the boys. Enjoy! ^v^))

Draxum had never really had much experience with kids in his adult life. No brothers or sisters meant no nieces or nephews, cousins or other distant relatives weren’t really much of an option either, and the lab he worked at wasn’t exactly the type to get field trips.

Still, dating a man with four young boys allowed him to learn quickly and pick up on little things. One of the things he had noticed right away was that once a child thought of you as a good person - or at the very least, considered them someone they trusted enough and didn’t mind being around - they wanted that person to know every single detail about them.

Whether that be their favorite food (pizza, though each of them had vastly different favorite side dishes, snacks, desserts and juice. Draxum honestly wasn’t sure how Lou could keep it all straight), their favorite colors (that one was as obvious as, well, as the colored shirts they were wearing) or, the most ‘important’ of all, their favorite toys…

“-And this is The Annihilation, an’ this is Liberty Bill - he’s part of the Liberty League.”

“Naturally,” Draxum said dryly, adjusting his position slightly on the boy’s floor so that his legs didn’t fall asleep.

“Yeah, they’re okay. My brothers really like them though. But my favorite is-” Raph grinned, holding up an action figure in an orange leotard with a white cape and bear ears on his mask. “GHOST BEARRRR!”

“Ghost Bear, hm?” The scientist could hardly keep himself from rolling his eyes. How on Earth did these wrestlers come up with such ridiculous names and costume themes? Then again, they probably had to do something to help keep the audience’s attention, along with all the manufactured drama between the so-called ‘athletes’. It was no wonder so many children were fans of it.

“-and he’s always won every fight, and he’s super strong and just SO COOL!” Raph continued as he shook the figure around, “An’ sometimes, when I’m playing wrestling with him, I have him tag team up with other bears!”

The boy in red raised back over to his closet and began to pull out not more action figures, but instead plushies. First a small black bear Beanie Baby - “This is Capt’n Snuggles-” then a much bigger, much more plush bear with a small lab coat- “and this is Dr. Huggenstein, you’d probably like him ‘cause he’s a doctor like you-” and finally, a slightly smaller and very well-loved brown bear plushie covered in stitches and patches- “And THIS is Cheech! He was my first teddy!”

Raph’s smile softened a bit as he hugged the toy. He and Cheech had been friends for a long time… Since before he met Lou, since before he met his brothers! And as far as Raph was concerned, they were going to be friends forever.

“...It- er, He definitely seems special then,” Draxum commented.

Raph nodded. “Yeah, he’s great…” He then scowled slightly. “Some of the older kids back at my old home didn’t think so though. They said havin’ teddy bears makes you a baby, but I didn’t believe them…” Even when their words hurt. “Teddies are cool, and so are real bears.”

“Indeed,” the scientist agreed, “After all, they’re resourceful, resilient, protective of their young-”

“Yeah!” Raph smiled, hugging Cheech again, “And strong too! Really strong, like me! But they’re not jerks or anything, they’re just bein’ bears! That’s why I like them!”

Draxum smiled a bit, watching as Raph began to make Cheech wrestle Liberty Bill. “A good choice for a favorite animal, then...”

….

“I can’t believe you’ve never heard of Jupiter Jim!” Leo shook his head. What, did grown ups just miss out on ALL the fun stuff in life? “My brothers and I have seen all his movies!”

“Oh? All of them?”

“...Weeeell, maybe not all of them-” Sixty movies was a lot, even for a young fan, and some of them hadn’t been re-released on dvd yet- “But we’ve still seen a lot of them, and that’s more than you!”

“Hmph, fine, fine, I’ll give one of them a watch sometime,” Draxum half-promised. He enjoyed the sci-fi genre well enough but, much like the Lou Jitsu movies, Jupiter Jim always just seemed too cheesy for him. At least with the Lou Jitsu movies, he could still count on well done and realistic fight choreography as well as a performance by who he considered was a much more charming lead. ...Not that he had any biases or anything.

“You gotta watch ‘em,” Leo insisted as he dragged out yet another plastic vehicle, this one being a moon buggy (or at least, the Sci-fi Hollywood version of one) with a miniature version of the titular character himself in the driver’s seat. “Especially the ones where he’s gotta make an escape in his buggy, they’re SO cool! And he explores planets, and fights the bad aliens and monsters while saving the good ones!”

With a hop and a determined smirk, Leo activated his light-up space sword. Draxum made sure to take a couple steps back as the boy began swinging it around, but thankfully Leo had practiced enough (and seen the movies enough) that he knew the moves well enough. “Jim’s just the best!” Leo continued, “He’s cool, he’s good at sword fighting, and he can always think of a plan to win and get away and save the day! And he gets to do this all while in space! On the moon! In SPACE!”

Draxum smirked. “I take it you like space?”

“Don’t you?”

“Point taken.”

“It just makes everything cooler and awesomer,” Leo shrugged, “And I’m gonna try to go to the Moon sometime too. You know, in the future. But until then, I’m just gonna keep watching Jim go there.” Suddenly, the boy went quiet, glancing around for any eavesdroppers before bringing his voice to a loud whisper. “And don’t tell Dad but… Sometimes I think Jupiter Jim is even better than the Lou Jitsu in the movies!”

Draxum nearly snorted at that, managing to just barely hold back his chuckles as he promised, “I won’t say a word…”

…

“Leon might’ve said that Jupiter Jim was the best, but he’s wrong ‘cause he just can’t see who the REAL best character in those movies is!” With a bit of a dramatic flair, Donnie spun around to reveal the doll he had taken off his bookshelf. “Ta-daaaa~!”

Draxum raised his eyebrow, trying to figure out what exactly he was looking at. The doll had spiky bright-green hair, pink skin, eyes that as far as he concerned were much too big for it, and a blue and purple outfit with an atom symbol on it’s belt. The doll also had a giant plastic hammer in it’s hand. “Oh. Well, it’s-”

“Her name is Atomic Lass!” Donnie stated, smiling as he went into the explanation, “She’s a friend of Jupiter Jim’s! She comes from this town on a far away planet called Uraniumville, where she fights crime using her metal hammer and these really neat radiation beams that come from her hands!”

“Ah, I see,” Draxum nodded. That sounded about right, totally in-line with the style of those movies. “Is that why you like her then? Because she’s powerful?”

“Well, yeah,” Donnie replied, looking at the doll, “But she’s also super cool, and super pretty, and tough and, of course, smart.” He smiled at that. “Really, REALLY smart. That was how she got her powers, ‘cause she was also a scientist on her home planet before she became a crime fighter!”

Draxum nodded again, completely understanding now. When most heroes only seemed to rely on muscles and power boost, he could understand rooting for one who also had a brain. Donnie then sighed, fiddling with the doll’s hair a bit. “I know radiation makes humans sick, but I still wish I could just get some uranium and be a hero too instead of just dying from it. And it’ll take me forever to be strong enough to use a giant metal hammer!”

“...” A bit concerning but nonetheless all part of the childhood fantasy, Draxum assumed. “Why don’t you just focus on the things you can do now that make you feel smart and strong, and then figure out the ‘hero’ parts later?” he suggested.

Donnie thought it over. “...I’m trying to get Pop to let me do another science experiment at home, but now I wanna do something else, like… Like making my own robot! They’ve got books on how to make ‘em, you know! I just gotta find the right library… There’s robots you can buy at the toy store too but, I really wanna make my own - and I KNOW I could!”

With how smart and talented the young boy in purple seemed to be, Draxum had no problem believing that Donnie very well could make his own simple robot. Making a mental note to look up robotic projects for children later on, Draxum just smiled back at him. “Sounds like the perfect project to me.”

Donnie was full-on grinning now, eyes determined and mind already whirling with ideas. “Yeah! First robots, and THEN figuring out a way to get superpowers!”

“Well, I’d still maybe put that idea away for now…”

…

If Mikey wasn’t holding a crayon or marker or paintbrush, then he was usually holding one of his brother’s toys. One of their many action figures, or one of Raph’s plushies or Leo’s toy cars or Donnie’s puzzle toys. All of these toys were happily borrowed, and as long as they were taken care of and eventually put back, the other Jitsu boys didn’t mind whatsoever.

Of course Mikey had his own toys - including a play kitchen where he could ‘practice’ until he was tall enough to safely reach the stove - but more often than not his brothers’ toys were just more interesting to him. ...Still, what he did have that was all his own and that he played with happily was all the more unique, as well as all the more fitting for the young artist.

“Here!” Mikey proudly beamed, shoving the large shoe box into Draxum’s hands, “Look!”

“Wow…” Slowly, Draxum picked up each item one by one. Dolls made out of clothespins and spoons covered in paint, string and googly eyes. Birds and nimals made with paper and sticks and glue (loooots of glue, much to the doctor’s slight annoyance). Creatures that Draxum had no idea what they could be, created with puff balls and chunks of styrofoam and pipe cleaners, but still obviously made with lots of love.

And finally, folded carefully at the bottom of the box, a crane made out of a single sheet of bright orange paper. “Origami, right?” Draxum asked.

“Uh huh,” Mikey nodded, gently taking it from him, “But I didn’t make this one, Papa did! He made it for me the first night we came here to live with him, when I was too excited to fall asleep.” He pulled at the tail a bit, making the crane’s wings flap. “He said that paper cranes caused good luck, and that some people try to make a thousand so they can get a wish! But I don’t need a wish, so I just make ‘em whenever I feel like it.”

“That’s fair,” Draxum smiled, “I’m not sure if you could fit a thousand cranes in this house, even if you wanted to.”

“Heh, yeah, it’d be wayyyy too crowded!” Mikey giggled. He looked at Draxum, and then back at his crane. “...Stay right there!” Mikey told him as he ran over to his small desk, pulling out a sheet of paper. Not having much of a choice, Draxum leaned back slightly on the child’s bed and watched him work.

Mikey was surprisingly meticulous for his age, his tongue poking out in concentration as he carefully did each fold, though not once stopping or making a mistake. It was as if this sort of craft just came naturally to him, or perhaps he’d just done it enough times to know the steps by heart. Either way, it was pretty impressive, Draxum had to admit. Once the actual crane was done, it was onto adding markings and designs with markers and crayon along with the finishing touch of a bit of glitter before finally being given to Draxum.

“Here!” Mikey said, holding the teal crane up as far as he could, “Now you can have a good luck crane too, and it’ll make sure you’ll find a neat science thing at your work, or that you have good dates with my papa!”

Draxum chuckled, taking the crane. “I don’t think I need good luck to have a good time with your father, but thank you very much, Mikey.”

The boy beamed, and quickly climbed back up onto the bed to give Draxum a hug. “You’re welcome!”

The colorful crane never did find its way to Draxum’s lab, whether that was on purpose or on accident. But, it did however find a nice home on his nightstand, silently greeting him each night at bedtime and each morning when he woke up.

So, good luck or no, at least there was the small smile that it always seemed to put on his face whenever he noticed it - which only made sense, considering the place (and the family) it came from...

((It's been several episodes since Raph's mentioned his teddy bear collection in 'Mascot Melee', just SHOW US THE TEDDIES ALREADY! His collection sounded so cute, and I absolutely loved the names he had for them, lol. Also Leo being a huge space/scifi nerd in any incarnation is just amusing to me, heh. But yeah, hope you guys liked this! Next time, more Baron Jitsu with a bit of drama thrown in! See you then!))

[raccoonskoodilypoopdungeon]

“The Firebird Trilogy” by Claudia Gray: A Review from an Eighteen Year-Old Teenager Doing a Bachelor’s in Biology

"So does destiny create the math, or does math create our destiny?" "Insufficient data," Paul said.  

How did I get here?

So, my friend and I were talking, as friends do, and we went through this rabbit hole involving Powerpuff Girls Z and Zenith. And we came to the topic of A Thousand Pieces of You.

In short, we don’t like it. She stopped at this book. I continued because I was interested enough. That was a mistake. An generous 2/5.

And this isn’t like a thing where all of my friends disliked it. Only the two of us disliked it. Everyone else liked it.

I know I’m not the demographic. I’m not a white girl doing a Bachelor of Fine Arts. I’m asian doing a Bachelor of Science. But whatever.

Imma go into a full review.

Spoilers under the cut.

Good Things:

1. Dimensional Travel. It was the only thing that kept me reading.

2. A sort of exploration of Jean Paul Sartre’s Existence vs Essence

3. The cover art is really nice. It so good. Its like home decoration to me it’s so good.

4. Says “Capitalism is bad.” I like that.

Bad Things:

1. The Characters: Paul and Theo really like Margarita

- Marguerite Caine: I’m not like other girls

Margarita is our protagonist. She’s not like other girls.

We’re pretty different, for sisters—she’s average height while I’m tall; she’s athletic while I’m anything but. She inherited our parent’s love of science and is following in Dad’s footsteps by becoming an oceanographer; I’m the odd duck in the family, the artsy one. Josie’s laid-back while I freak out about every little thing.

She has no interest in science. In a household... where everyone is a scientist. As someone who’s lived in a household where everyone’s a doctor, all of my siblings and I are in some sort of science background. My sister’s a medical doctor, my brother’s a Master in Psychology, and I’m doing a Bachelor’s in Biology. I have no doubt it can happen. But it happens a lot in young adult. I’m tired of humanities main characters. I love the humanities. I don’t know why but everyone I know in science has some sort of humanities background. Everyone in my family can play instruments and paints and does photography. 

And can I just say how pretentious that ending was? Here’s my painting its a unique perspective from seeing my alternate dimension selves. She plagiarised herself. She basically plagiarised her alternate dimension selves. I’ll save those in later

- Paul Markov: Nerdy Love Interest

Love interest. Also Russian. Don’t know who he is.

- Theo Beck: Nerdy Love Interest 2: Bad Boy Boogaloo

Love interest. French(?). Does drugs to stay in bodies because idk.

- Henry Caine: Dad

Like the Beatles.

- Sophia Kovalenka: Mom

Depressed without dad.

- Josie Caine: The pretty one

The pretty one. Died in an alternate universe.

- Wyatt Conley: I see why you like Josie

Rich. Villain. Oh... but he’s in love with Josie. Oh no.

As you can see. The characters are well fleshed out. I have headcanons for all of them. Margarita hates sciences because her sister is good at it and she has to be good at something in her family so she pursues the arts. Paul and Theo have no reason to like Margarita. She’s whiny and really unlikeable. But here we are.

2. The Science: So that science huh?

This is a science fiction novel with a murder mystery element. It should something I should be gushing and loving it.

But the science is, uh, meh? 

So, there’s this thing called a Firebird. And this miracle baby lets you travel between dimensions. I’m no physicist. The best of my physics knowledge involves how organisms abuse the universe’s physics engine.

The most unrealistic thing about the science here is... the fact that these people got funding. The firebird’s supposed to revolutionise modern science. And I can see how, steal info from other dimensions. But no one with enough funding would be interested. And I get that Wyatt would be interested because he could be funding from Capitalist Dimension. I get that. Okay. Fine.

But the explanation. The Firebird is made of materials that easily move between dimensions, can grab onto consciousness, and leaves a dimensional trace. What material? How does it grab onto the consciousness? What is the dimensional trace? We don’t know because Margarita doesn’t know because ALL THE SCIENTISTS WON’T TELL HER BECAUSE SHE WON’T UNDERSTAND?!?! Anyone with a PhD in science is a nerd that will jump at any opportunity to tell you how something works. You might not understand but they will try their damned hardest. AT LEAST GIVE US PHLEBOTINUM!!

There’s this whole thing where Paul explains how universes are formed because of an asymmetry and that sort of let’s us travel between dimensions and that lets us save dimensions being destroyed. Oh yeah, there’s a plot where the Capitalist Dimension wants to destroy universes to get all the fragments of Josie because that’s how consciousness works. I don’t know how it works. These people do. Whatever. But it feels like... how do you get enough energy to create enough antimatter to destroy entire universes? I don’t know but they’ve probably done enough research and experiments. Fine. How did they invent the solution though? They didn’t have the time to do any experiments or research. Oh well.

Also consciousnesses apparently show up in CT scans. Which means they’re altering the brains of these people. That’s a human rights violation. Never mind the highjacking free will thing. This would never, and I mean never, be approved. I had a research proposal where I would feed Tilapia feed that had little bits of microplastics to see how microplastics affect growth and everything. That was not approved due to ethical reasons. They’re even stricter on humans. Shocking.

3. Existence vs Essence: Does that mean I fell in love with every Paul, everywhere?

Now Claudia Gray has the idea there. But it really falls flat and the potential it had made it worse. If you want a young adult series that handles this idea well go read The Monogatari Series by Nisioisin. Its not in the entire series but in one of the books, Kabukimonogatari. 

The entire series is filled with fauxlosophy on this whole thing from Jean Paul Sartre. Admittedly I’m no philosophy major. I took a college philosophy 101 class. That’s my whole thing. I got an A in that class. Those are my credentials.

But Margarita keeps asking if she falls in love with one Paul is it all the Pauls? And if someone in an alternate universe is a murderer does that make her a murderer. But, and this is important, we learn that Firebirds don’t actually find alternate versions of you but a genetically identical version of you that isn’t already in that universe. You see where I’m getting at. They even have a conversation with all the Margaritas she’s ruined in the Sextuplet Universe where she’s sextuplets Osomatsu-san style.

Her questioning was pointless especially since it continues after this point. And she tries so hard to be like, “but if my circumstances were different I’d be Murderer!Margarita.” And Mob Psycho 100 by One deals with this concept really well. Mob gets transported into an alternate world, with no memories, and spends six months there being bullied with no friends or anyone to confine to. He ends up evil. And the villain goes on to say like, “see, you’re only good because of your circumstances!” when Mob gets his memories back. And Mob goes, “that’s right. i’ve been shaped by the people around me and my circumstances. I should be grateful!” 

Claudia Gray’s solution is basically Paul goes like “don’t worry because you guys are mathematically close but different so you guys are fundamentally different.” Which is like, no. They’re arguing that essence comes before existence. Which is kinda supported by the fact that every incarnation of her is an artist. Like, not a single Margarita likes science in the multiverse. That makes zero sense. Like what?

In conclusion please do not read this. Or do. Lots of people like this.