#I understand that she was a teenager who’s parents were more at fault for giving her those powers anyway

[alien-insomniac-05]

Since I saw a random little post on Reddit talking about this (reddit is a place of horrors, I know)

I think jerboa III/boa should have been punished for destroying animus magic. Not in the same way that Darkstalker was as that would just be a repeat of what had already caused her actions (also I don’t think Darkstalker deserved to have his memories wiped either) but I feel that she should have gotten an appropriate punishment for it.

[long-live-astronerd-ghost-king]

DPXDC: I wanna be like most girls ghosts.

or Danny: What should I do to make my mom happy?

or ~Danny deserves a little teenage rebellion as a treat~

Maddie: I just want this damned Phantom to stop pretending to be a hero! All ghosts are pure evil, who is he trying to deceive? Danny: Oh, really? And Danny took it personally.

It’s not Danny’s fault that he’s a good kid and wants to make his parents happy. But why would he have to be a monster to make them happy? Why must they hate him to be happy?

Danny’s obsession was going crazy.

Well, when your own parents call you a monster in the face, it hurts. Why do they always believe that only their opinion is the absolute truth? They have no idea how much worse things would be if at least some of the ghosts really behaved the way Maddie and Jack think they’re supposed to. If he really is evil by nature, is there any point in fighting his own fate? They want to see him as a villain, he will become one. He will. He just needs a little help and practice. And not bring it to the level when Clockwork has to clean up his mess. Poor guy is without a vacation for how long? Couple of millennia?

Johnny 13: Sup. Danny: F*ck off, Johnny, I’m not in the mood. Busy thinking about world domination. Get out of here or I’ll call Kitty. Johnny 13: What’s wrong? You’re usually so grouchy only towards the end of the week. Danny: Nothing. Just parents. Again. They are wonderful but I can’t help but feel sometimes that they, em… Johnny 13: Suck? Danny: Right…Damn. I’m a terrible son. Maybe something is wrong with me. Johnny 13: What? No, no, dude. You’re just growing up. And you’re a little late, usually teenagers go through that stage before they graduate. Well, you’ve probably been busy with other issues, so just missed it. Danny: I wonder whose fault it is. Aren’t there ghosts who enjoyed to ruin my life in the middle of school day?

Johnny 13: Oh, bother. Anyway, you’re entering a beautiful time of emancipation, where you’re going to shape your own view of life and, along the way, to get drunk on cheap alcohol at parties, maybe to go to jail and to become the greatest disappointment to your family..And then you will be ashamed to remember it for about the next ten years. Danny: Well, it looks like I’ve already done two out of three additional things. Great success. Johnny 13: When did you get drunk? Danny: I didn’t. Johnny 13: Oh. Want to fix that? Danny: What? No. What an idiot wants to add a headache to his problems? Johnny 13: Well, your loss, then I’ll go terrorize the bars of Gotham alone and no one can stop me. Let’s see what your boyfriend will say about it. ~~~~~ Danny: Bartender, another shot of Dead Man’s Fingers, please. Red Hood: Babe, haven’t you had enough? Danny: Have you ever felt that no matter how hard you try, no matter how many sacrifices you make, in their eyes you’ll always be nothing more than a monster? Nothing more than a mistake? Oh, Death doesn’t give people like me a break. Red Hood: …I’ll have what he’s having. *gives the bartender a sign to switch the rum shots to a batburger milkshake for them, and starts talking to Danny so that he doesn’t understand Hood's scams*

~~~~~

Johnny 13: Other people’s kids are growing up so fast. It seems like yesterday he didn’t know how to shoot ectoblast, and now.. Kitty: Stop trying to make me feel bad, we’re leaving. Johnny 13: But the boy needs our support, honey boo!

~~~~~

Danny: I'm fine. Really, I am. This isn’t the first time mom’s called me a monster. She often called me that when she was upset with my behavior in my childhood. Huh, it's even funny. Jason: There’s nothing funny about that. Danny: No, you don’t understand. Looking back, I was really a very active child and didn’t know when to stop. Not surprisingly that I often annoyed my parents. They’re very busy people, and Jazz couldn’t always keep an eye on me. And I was often afraid to go to sleep alone because there were shadows in the darkness of my room. Well, I used to think they were. But I pretended everything was okay to not distract parents from work. Jason: Hey, it’s not your fault. You were a child. Obviously, kiddo requires a lot of attention, they must have understood that. You are the second child in the family, right? Danny: Well, Jazz was different. I don’t know. Anyway, I thought if the monsters behind the curtain and under the bed were just like me, well, according to my mom, you know, then they wouldn’t want to hurt me. And since they look after me, they are friends. So I kinda greeted all the suspicious noises and howls. Huh, I was a strange kid. Jason: If you smile at someone in the dark alley right now that someone is more likely to wet themselves or faint. Danny: Rude! I’m not that scary. Admit that I’m adorable. Do it right now. Jason: Stunning, darling. But still carry a gun and a knife, please. My childhood taught me that what's hiding in the dark is worth beating up. Danny: Come on, what should I be afraid of? Death? Anyway, I want to try this shit. Like, the inevitable one. Being a bad boy, you know? Hood *raises eyebrows*. Danny: Oh damn it man, I'm talking about ghostliness. I want to try to be like most of dead ones. I want to unleash my side of the trickster and the villain. But only a little bit. I have to be supervised so that things don't go too far. Would you help me, honey?

~~~~~2 hours later~~~~

~~~~~

Goons used to expect a lot of weirdness from working with the boss.

Sometimes Bruce Wayne would go into their base and yell at the Red Hood like he's one of his kids. Of course Wayne's well-known as 'Gotta adopt them all' but the guy must really suffer from insomnia to count the Red Hood into his brood of chicks several times. Sometimes the boss would fight Robin or Nightwing over differences in morals…or for biscuits. It varied from moment to moment. Sometimes the boss caught the local street children, fed them and taught them to steal correctly. And most of the foundlings stayed with them under their protection.

To make a long story short, Red Hood is not the typical crime lord that some of them had to deal with before. Which is a blessing. Thanks Lord for the health insurance. But still the crime lord. Which means he's still scary, and sometimes deadly.

Anyway, when the boss brought in a guy who looked more civilian than any civilian in the whole Gotham and said he was going to be their intern, they thought it was a joke at first. Despite the fact that Hood was not in the habit of joking while working.

The teenager was too well-mannered and sweet to come from Crime Alley. Phil thought the guy was gonna run when he saw the first murder, Jessica didn’t think the domestic boy wouldn’t chicken out at the sight of a fight. But arguing with a boss’s orders in their profession is like asking for a bullet in the head, so these conversations were taking place outside of their boss's sight. God, how can they teach him anything? What do you take from a boy who’s only good to do the coffee run? Fenton will fall if they’ll give him something heavier than 10 pounds. And then boss will yell at them because he treats the new guy like a princess on a pea. Well, at least that’s what they thought until the boss decided to give the new guy his own assignments:

~~~~~

Red Hood: So, what have you learned during your internship, my young Padawan? Danny: Well, it looks like I’m gonna suck at being a criminal mastermind. I think I may have to find myself some other profession. Red Hood: Come on, you just need a little more practice. Danny: Thank you but I don’t think that’s fit my obsession that good. Don't misunderstand me, I wanna be like most ghosts. But I was wrong to go to hit that goal only base on human stereotypes about my nature. Red Hood: What a pity. The newbies just learned not to flinch when you walk in. But, to be honest, I'm not gonna miss the adrenaline-boosting roller coaster of you at work. Danny: Oh, and I guess to hold on to the concept of humanity was really stupid too. I clearly no longer fit in and I’m finally ready to accept that. So, hopefully, if you get into trouble, you can rely on my ghostliness and call for help. I am the spirit of many talents and of my word. I can haunt your enemies or walk through the walls of Arkham Asylum. Whatever you need, I’ll be here. Red Hood: I’ll bear that in mind.

[lovesuhng]

Wines and confessions - Johnny Suh

couple: johnny x fem!reader genre: fluff; a little bit sugestive; friends to lovers sinopse: in the middle of a drinking some wine, your friend makes it very clear why none of his dates work out

Johnny was at home, after a long day at the photography studio where he worked. It was Friday, he was ready to rest after taking a long shower, until he received a message from his best friend.

“You must be very tired, but I got some wine from the parents of one of my students. Do you know how rare it is for me to receive gifts at work? I’ll be at your apartment in 40 minutes.”

Johnny laughed at your message. No matter how tired he was, he always had time for you. You were a teacher at a private school, you taught some classes in elementary and high school. If Johnny's routine was tiring, your routine was even crazier. The two had been friends since they were teenagers, which didn't stop Johnny from feeling something more.

A short time later, they were lying on the couch in the man's apartment. Johnny was on his first glass, he liked to taste the wine, drinking it little by little, as well as researching more about it. You, on the other hand, were on your second glass, didn't understand anything about wine and drank any alcoholic drink as if it were water. You talked about various things, you about your students, Johnny about the various editorials he had to do this week.

“And how was your meeting with that model you photographed last month?” You said taking a sip of your wine. Johnny always went on these dates to try to forget the feelings he had for his friend, but he always found himself comparing his date with you and couldn't move on to anything beyond a simple dinner. On the one hand, he felt uncomfortable when you asked about it, but on the other hand he knew that you weren't to blame for anything, because he didn't have the courage to talk about his feelings.

“Same old thing. It was just dinner. I’m not in the mood to date right now.” Unless it's with you, that's what he wanted to say.

“It's not because I'm your friend, but you're one of the hottest guys I know, independent, polite, funny. Why are you still alone? I already know! There must be someone in that little heart and you don't want to tell me who it is. Wants to know? I'm going to introduce you to a friend of mine who is a teacher. She’s beautiful and you two would look great together!” You saw your friend roll his eyes. “Don’t even make that face! In addition to being beautiful, she loves photography. Hey!"

“I think you’ve had drink too much.” Johnny took the glass from your hands, making you stop blabbering about his love life. The man took advantage of his height, lifted the cup and laughed at his frustrated attempts to get the cup back.

“Give it back Johnny! I didn’t even get halfway through the bottle.”

“And you’re already talking nonsense, imagine if you put an end to it.”

With the jump you made to retrieve your precious wine, you ended up losing your balance and were about to fall, if it weren't for Johnny's big hands, which stopped your fall and made your bodies very close and your faces inches away from distance.

The exchange of glances was intense.

You had already become so close to your friend, but you didn't know if it was because you had been drinking, you had a huge desire to kiss him. You looked at his lips and found them very kissable, his honey eyes exuded love and desire.

It was the wine's fault.

The heart beating faster had to be the wine's fault.

You internally asked him to break his gaze, but he couldn't do it. In fact, any opportunity he had to be close to you was taken advantage of by the man.

“Do you want to know why I can’t date other people?” Johnny asked. The man's deep voice was leaving you stunned. You just nodded.

Johnny knew he was going to take an important step and that perhaps he could change the course of the friendship you had, but he knew that he had to do that at that moment. Then, he ended the minimum distance he had between you, bringing his lips to yours. Despite being a little confused, you surrendered to your best friend's kiss. It was all so new for both of them, but at the same time so right.

“I'm glad you didn't push me or hit me.”Johnny said with a smile on his face as soon as he stopped kissing you. “And don’t blame it on the wine because I know more than anyone that you need a lot more than that to get drunk.” He continued when he realized you were about to say something and ended up taking the words out of your mouth.

"Wow. It’s scary how you know me so well” You responded by patting your friend’s shoulder and realized you were still in his arms. “Since you can’t let go of me, could you at least tell me when you started liking me?”

Johnny was embarrassed, which was rare to happen, but he let go of him and placed the glass of wine that was still in his hand on the kitchen table. “I don’t know, I think I’ve always been in love with you, it just took me a while to understand that.”

"Can I confess something?" Johnny just nodded. “I loved knowing that your dates didn’t work out.”

"Oh really?" Johnny once again approached you and placed his hands on your waist. “So why did you always throw me at your friends?”

“I don't know, maybe seeing you with other people would take that feeling away from me." You said, placing your hands on Johnny's shoulders again.

“And what is this feeling?”

“That I’m in love with you.” It was time for you to kiss your best friend. If the first kiss was sweet, this one was much more urgent and hot. Johnny led you to the couch, bringing you with him as he sat down. Your nails lightly scratched the man's muscular arms.

Johnny's big hands, which had previously stopped you from falling to the floor, now fervently smoothed your thighs, which had been exposed because your dress had ridden up as soon as you positioned yourself on Johnny's lap. When the man's warm lips touched your neck, leaving a few kisses there, a signal alerted you and you quickly moved away from the man, leaving him confused, sitting on the couch completely out of breath. 

“I better go, before something happens in this apartment” You said, collecting your belongings and heading to the door of Johnny’s apartment. “Oh, you better cancel your plans tomorrow night if you have any.”

"Why?" Johnny asked confused.

“Because we have a date. Be ready at 8pm.”

“Shouldn’t I invite you?” Johnny approached you once again, who was already outside his apartment holding the door.

“What year are you, John?” Johnny smiled and pulled you in for another kiss, but you surprised him by placing your hand on his lips. "No! Kiss now only after the date. See you tomorrow." You pushed Johnny into the apartment and closed the door. The man didn't understand what was happening, he just laughed at your behavior, because it didn't even seem like 5 minutes ago you were making out like crazy on the living room couch. It didn't take long for the doorbell to ring again. Johnny opened it without checking who it was, but was surprised when you threw yourself into his arms.

“Okay, I won’t be able to wait until tomorrow. I want one more kiss.” Johnny let out a hearty laugh, the kind where he threw his head back and left you completely in love.

More wines and confessions

[jennyboom21]

It might seem strange, especially for those who only know Marshawn Lynch for his football career, to see the Super Bowl champ in a comedy about queer high school girls launching a fight club.

Bottoms (in theaters now) features the 37-year-old former NFL star in a scene-stealing role as Mr. G, a clueless teacher overseeing the feminist after-school club launched by Rachel Sennott’s PJ and Ayo Edebiri’s Josie. Even the film’s director and co-writer, Emma Seligman, admits she initially thought landing Lynch was a long shot.

“It was such a random movie for him to be in that I was so shocked that he even was considering it,” the Shiva Baby filmmaker (who goes by she/they pronouns) tells PEOPLE.

But the real reason for this unlikely casting is altogether more personal: Marshawn Lynch’s queer sister, Marreesha Sapp-Lynch, says he asked her whether to add Bottoms to a growing acting résumé that includes Westworld and Murderville.

“From the beginning when he read the script, he said that I came to mind,” recalls Sapp-Lynch, 34. “I was like, ‘Most definitely you should do it.’ I just told him, ‘It'll get you to understand, get more knowledge about the lesbian community.”

Like the characters of PJ and Josie, Sapp-Lynch has identified as a lesbian since high school. It felt easy coming out to her mother Delisa, she remembers — “She'll tell me to this day, 'I always knew you liked girls!'” — but brothers David, Marshawn and Davonte had a less straightforward reaction.

“They were understanding, but they didn't understand,” Sapp-Lynch tells PEOPLE. “Marshawn had a lot of questions and was thinking it was his fault: ‘What did I do?’ Because growing up he would always say I couldn't have a boyfriend, ‘You can't talk to boys.’ We’d go to a party and he'd be asking everybody, ‘Did you dance with my sister?’ But I wasn't attracted to boys, so I didn't dance with them!”

Her brother has accepted and celebrated her sexual orientation since those teenage years, Sapp-Lynch says. Case in point: Marshawn helped plan her 2021 wedding and walked her down the aisle.

“I asked him to walk me down the aisle because our dad passed away,” says Sapp-Lynch with a smile. “He cried the whole time,” she adds.

“He doesn’t cry — or I don't see him cry. The fact that he did cry and shed some tears, it meant a lot to me.” (Marshawn was so invested in his sister’s wedding, in fact, he urged the pair to reschedule it from 2023 to 2021. “He was very much involved in the whole planning... He called us at 5:00 a.m. talking about the cake designs and party favors.”)

But with Bottoms, a comedy produced by Amazon’s Orion Pictures and Elizabeth Banks’ Brownstone Productions, Marshawn had a bigger opportunity to honor his sister. Discussing the role of Mr. G with the footballer, Seligman, 28, remembers thinking there must have been “more of a connection here beyond him wanting to be in a funny movie or something.”

“In his words, he said he wasn't amazing about it when Marreesha came out in high school and that he felt like this was the universe giving him a chance to right his wrongs,” she adds. “He made it seem like that was really what was interesting him the most about it.”

Throughout the film’s shoot in New Orleans, Seligman says, “he kept on bringing up Marreesha.” Especially when Sapp-Lynch and her wife visited the set, she recalls, “He kept on being like, ‘That's my sister.’ In a way where it was like a proud parent [of queer kids] — a proud brother.”

And when Orion Pictures president Alana Mayo suggested Marshawn for Mr. G, Seligman says, she realized it might expand the moviegoing audience of Bottoms. “Him believing in these girls and getting to know them and getting to understand them means a lot in the grand scheme of things within the crazy conservative town that they're in.”

Plus, the story’s homophobic characters are obsessed with the high school football team, Seligman points out. “To have a legendary football player like him playing this character that's getting to know this subsection of this town, and see them as real people with valid desires and hormones and feelings — that's pretty cool that Marshawn is representing that kind of straight, male character.”

Sapp-Lynch agrees, and says seeing a movie full of gay characters like Bottoms while coming out in high school “would've helped me make me feel easier, make me feel better about me being who I am.”

“I didn't understand my sexuality in high school, so I actually think it might've freaked me out,” admits Seligman. “It would've excited me. Maybe it would've jumpstarted some things!”

Of co-writing the film with Sennott, she says, “I really just wanted to see my high school self in a stupid comedy.” She recalls a quote from Edebiri: “Being stupid is a political act.”

“Just having queer characters in something so silly and that's not serious feels subversive,” Seligman continues. “I don't think we're trying to prove anything political or have some sort of deeper message or meaning out of the movie. Other than ‘Gay people can be funny, sexy and horny, and that's normal.’ Sometimes just normalizing something is enough.”

“Marshawn in the movie,” she adds, “beyond him being a wonderful actor and improviser and a lovely human being, it is wild that it might be seen by so many more people who wouldn't have otherwise seen it.”

[iammissingautumn]

genuine question, in the kindest way possible: why do you like south park? i truly don’t get what the appeal is, especially in a sense of wanting to make fan content for it. i understand that it can be funny to watch sometimes, and i get when people like it casually, but i am continually confused when i see people making fan art and fanfics and intense in depth meta posts about characters and characterization because it’s like. a joke show? it’s all a joke. it’s all satire and inappropriate/sometimes genuinely over the line humor. i don’t understand why there are so many people who seem to resonate with it in such a way, especially because as far as i can tell most of the fandom seems to be very young people - teenagers and young adults. again, i don’t ask this in a mean spirited way or to judge or shame, i just am genuinely baffled every time i see south park content you share and i wanted to ask… what’s up with that? what’s the appeal, for you? why do you think people are so into it in this fandom way? do you think that the fandom is just very divorced from the content itself?

Oooo thank you so much lovely follower. This is an amazing ask. And if you’d want the answer I’ll give!!! And there’s a TL;DR at the end of this :>

Why do (you) so many people like South Park?

(C.W. for south park typical stuff, mentions of abuse and s/a in many forms and serious topics.)

1. What’s the appeal for you?

I got into the South Park fandom at the age of probably ten or so. Eight years ago. How did I get into it? Uhhhh I watched the series rarely as a younger kid. What made me want to get into fandom? To tell the truth it was Stick of Truth. That was South Park’s first video game where you are put into the town and play along side the kid. South Park was the first fictional series I ever got into. Before that I had been a youtube shipper (Septiplier). And then I saw South Park. To be fair, I saw Kenny. Early memories of South Park is fanfiction and pinterest art and playing hours on hours of Stick of Truth, and later the next game.

What did I see in Kenny McCormick? He was a poor kid, who died everyday, with parents who fought physically and verbally. He was the fourth wheel in a best friends/obsession dynamic of his close friends. Pretend this isn’t a comedy. Pretend this isn’t some silly show. It’s a boy who can barely have enough money to eat. He had a younger sister he was willing to sacrifice anything for. And an older brother who never said much without a slur to his words. Without saying too much about my life on main I had a lot of reasons to identify with that. This is a house that many people can identify with, drunks as parents and kids who have to take care of themselves. On top of this he’s Princess Kenny :) Get’s treated as a girl in a roleplaying context and loves it. She’s a great princess. My interest in Kenny then went to Bunny (Ship of Kenny McCormick and Butters Stotch).

What is there to see in Butters Stotch? He’s a boy being dragged into sexist, racist, and homophobic talk. We quite literally throughout the series see him become more and more mean. How does a nine year old boy get dragged through those things? His parents are incredibly abusive, often grounding him for things he didn’t do and finding any excuse to blame anything for. He believes he’s at fault for everything he’s in trouble for. The only friend he eventually gains is a boy who uses him for schemes and tried to kill him at least once. The other person he considers to be a friend doesn’t speak or lead. He finds someone who sticks with him and isn’t a hypocrite and sticks to him no matter the pain he’s put through. He also want made for conflict and enjoys femininity. This will be talked more about later, but I assume you can make some assumptions as to why a ten year old could like the stuff shown here. Then again the next list will be why I like it as well. But Kenny and Butters were my start. They’re on of the most popular ships in fandom. So there’s a lot of content.

2. Why is this a popular fandom?

It’s like. Have you ever been neurodivergent? Have you ever been gay? Have you ever been trans? Have you ever been abused? Have you grown up in a simple U.S. town?Have you ever accidentally become codepdent to your childhood friend as a child? Have you ever been born into a situation that hurts you for years but you’re a child you don’t know what to do? Have you ever been a child and all the adults are so stupid and they’re supposed to be protecting you?

Have you ever been all of those things or some of those things and wondered. Holy Fuck. How am I going to handle this all? I hope I don’t need to explain how or why some people would feel these things and how they would use South Park to express these feelings. (Relatability.)

(Age.) A big criticism I’ve heard is. Oh no. They’re Ageing Up These Characters To Have Sex. It’s a very weird assumption and very strange to assume that people would only care about themes of childhood, being a son, or growing up if it’s about sex. Aging up the characters often has to do with wanting to give them maturity and time to learn. You have access to kids still forming their brains, you have access to 50 year old adults who are still growing and dealing with their current problems. High schoolers going to teen parties for the first time and drinking and smoking. College kids going to parties for the first time drinking and smoking making steps to join their profession and figuring out what they want from live and having the freedom of life or being trapped by family expectations.

Infinite scenarios. The amazing thing about South Park is you have at least ten characters to make whatever drama you want with at a time. You can make an ensemble piece of friend groups full of years of love and hate or a focus on one characters inner turmoil. You can make them into fucked up adults with complicated feelings, a gay man who’s never accepted himself sees his childhood best friend and Understands. The kid being drugged secretly by his parents dies of overdose and now everyone has to deal with that and the feelings towards the person. It’s winter and there’s too many holes in kenny’s house so he asks to stay over at someone else’s by knocking on a window and sneaking in. On top of this for many seasons one of South Park’s things is they would make fun of specific movie concepts that have been run into the ground by putting the kids in it. Losing Edge, Stanley’s Cup, and Up the Down Steroid are great examples of this.

People love to take the absurd seriously. I don’t think I can explain how people who see something silly and take it seriously do it. If you don’t see the appeal that’s really fair. But when Kenny Dies plays and we see Kyle Stan and Eric deal with death in their own ways. We see their differences highlighted. As we watch The Passion of the Jew we see this internalized anti antisemitism, that many people who have the same thing or something similar like internalized racism, homophobia, transphobia, ablism, etc. see reflected on the screen in this surprisingly real way.

A lot of content. There are 26 years of seasons in this show. That’s a lot of content, but genuinely a lot of people don’t watch even half that shit. Majority of the time I’ve spent being invested in South Park I had only seen a few dozen episodes. There are two full videos games with extra content and a phone game. A movie as well. A lot of content you can pick and choose from! A lot of small moments to hang on to. (I.e. Good Times With Weapons Butters get his eye hurt, fandom draws him with a scar more often then not. Eric got Kenny’s eye as a transplant after Kenny died one time. Kyle is said to have the same nose as his mom; hooked.) these build the fandom, but everyone has always embraced those who reject and those who accept canon. There’s so many different things to sink ur teeth into, including serious AU’s of the canonical fantasy and superhero games the characters play together.

But once again I’ll harp on this. I think what brings people to this show is seeing damaged things and giving them the chance to heal. Or giving them things to make their damage a bit easier. Or maybe damaging them more. Standard exploring relationships and feelings. But on top of this we see character who have been sexually assaulted, groomed, abused, neglected. While also the show gives very liberal takes and knows how fucked up these situations are. That’s apart of the comedy (Tsst. Where we see Liane Cartman take away the chance for Eric Cartman to become more respectable and less bigoted and everything because she wants someone to hang out with her.). There’s always something enthralling about seeing yourself on the big screen, and seeing my friends right there too etc. (Relatability, again.)

Simple designs. A child could make the cardboard cutouts that we see the characters as. That’s motivating! What’s also motivating? Giving these characters with specific color schemes a full face body and wardrobe of clothes ! Oh so that means I can make my favorite superhero team Coon and Friends all hanging out together? So that means I can draw something about Kenny dying? So I can make them play dsi’s together? There’s a lot of one off concepts we get that are very cool and some people love to reimagine them in their own style. Others love to make the setting more fantastical like Princess Kenny in the rose garden during the Black Friday Trilogy. You can make them anything!

Sand box! We have set up friend groups, conflicts from twenty years ago, and a mayor of the township! We have the entire map laid out in front of us and more from every episode’s location that hasn’t been included. We have the local coffee shop and the local movie theater. We have a whole city! We have canonical neighbors and stores and everything! Where would you like to start? We have it all.

Taking things “Seriously”. Most importantly, South Park wants to be take seriously. SP doesn’t work without being able to take it seriously. The comedy in Passion of the Jew doesn’t work unless you sympathize with Kyle. I laughed at the obliviousness of the adults as Cartman formed his group and then a pit grew in my stomach as I saw Kyle and them about to crash. The comedy in World Wide Record Concert doesn’t work if you don’t know that Mr Garrison feels bad for a very dumb reason !!!! But that episode is genuinely one of the funniest to me. South Park did not make it a character trait that Mr Garrison is gay for all those early seasons just for us to not notice. And more importantly he feels like a very very ignorant gay man in those seasons, but he feels genuinely gay. As Kenny Dies it asks you to take this seriously, and we watch in Coon Vs. Coon & Friends and are asked for it to be taken seriously as Kenny describes the many deaths he’s faced. This show quickly shows how absurdist and crazy it is in most if not all episodes it has yet it still cares to ask you to take things seriously, to sympathize, empathize with these characters. It tells you to laugh at Kenny’s deaths and then it has the audacity to tell you he remembers Every Single One and is reborn every time, and that Cartman always knows and they never talk about it. They never mention it more then once. They lull us into personal moments and then never bring it up again. The fandom is built around these one off moments, these things the creators didn’t think too much about. These characters have such strong personalities and back bones that have existed for YEARS. Stuff set up and shown in the first five seasons makes sense to the characters of today. The character consistency goes rlly hard for a 25 year old show that only stops itself for exploring character because they know they’re there to be funny and not serious. It’s crazy and amazing and we want the serious shit!

History. South Park history is crazy, what’s ever crazier? Fandom history. The shows history doesn’t matter too much (except that time Matt and Trey went to The Oscars for sp while on LSD) but the fandom history is legendary. The development of fandom, the fandom blorbo of the time, the Stan and Wendy baby guy. It’s really neat. We have a steep history with artists that have come and gone in a very unique way because of how tumblr’s algorithm is set up. South Park’s fandom existed before most popular social media sites. And while this allows you to put the character in Any decade it also lets you see how old some of those ff.net fics are. The fanart on tumblr can easily be a decade old if you look at the right blog. A deactivated user behind it. Ships that have come and gone, we’ve been here this whole time !!!! I love hearing about different sites issues and problems. And also the beloved stuff that has happened here. Some people weren’t here before Creek was canon, some people came in with a canonical gay couple amongst the kids as just an average background thing.

So those are some reasons. The most important ones that I think most south park fan in the fandom. will list at least one of when being asked Why. I value all of these things heavily. You also meet some really great people with mostly solid opinions ! It’s great ! Genuinely a really understanding and accepting place with unique stories from anyone you meet.

3. Do you think that the fandom is divorced from the canonical content?

Off the rip I would say no. But it’s complicated. To those who have seen all or most of the show I’d say; We’re pretty connected. I think the majority of us are just smart enough to understand that Cartman is a bad person on purpose. A lot of this has to do with he’s something the creators use. He’s an archetype of the worst person and is the only character imo that gets pulled ooc in order to do What The Plot Needs. But majority of the fandom is gonna give Kyle curly hair, green eyes and he’ll love to study with some side sports interest. We have a lot of continuity in many ways.

That being said there’s MANY people who have seen Five episodes and read the wiki and maybe play the game(s?). And they treat the show the same as those who have seen it more. Those who have not seen the show might be a bit more outspoken about how it’s Bad or Wrong when they haven’t seen it and I usually don’t trust those people. Hence why I’m watching the entire show rn on my own, to get my own opinion. Those people who haven’t seen shit are also probably connected mainly to a duo or one character. Popular examples of this are Creek (Craig x Tweek) and Bunny (Kenny x Butters). There’s non watchers in the Style (Stan Marsh x Kyle Broflovski) and Kyman (Cartman x Kyle) community but less so from what I’ve seen.

But we’re looking at this show in a different genre. Many of us act like we’re creating CW Shows except Better. Many of us lean into drama and tragedy. Others are in it for the sillies. Majority of people know what’s bad in this show, some people are sometimes so hurt or misguided that they think Cartman is the only evil and never want to see him. Other times ppl are just uncomfortable with him (Like I’ve spent the majority of my time here being). There’s a scale! I think it’s important to realize what is wrong with the show in your own way, and I think the show gets demonized for its effects on main stream media and boys who couldn’t grow a spine for themselves so took Cartman’s personality. It’s pretty apparent that Matt and Trey are very liberal they just thought “making fun” of everyone “equally” was right which got some bad apples. No one likes season 9 episode 1. Not a soul. Tbh most of the drama doesn’t relate to bigotry, though enough does that it matters. And if you aren’t interested in exploring how bigotry effects ppl I’m not sure why you would be interested in South Park.

Like yeah Matt and Trey haven’t thought about Marjorine more than once, but everyone saw a boy being accepted and cared for and enjoying himself seen as a girl more than ever before. And Matt and Trey aren’t gonna give these kids real mental illnesses when we see the symptoms clear as day (price of making characters “unique”). We’re playing a different game then they are, so yeah we’re disconnected in some ways. But we’re very connected in others. We don’t let all 25 seasons go to waste.

And what has my opinion been from watching the show so far? Well I’m on season 11 and so far it’s not as bad as I expected. I agree with a lot of their messages and the stuff that’s obviously just. terrible isn’t as common as I thought it would be? Again, s9 e1 is the worst of it, and you phrased it really well when saying it’s mainly inappropriate humor that often goes over the line. They’re very liberal though, I mean they introduce a gay character in the first episode and in the 90’s teach a kid gay is chill. There are episodes I dislike or just get bored by, but most of what I’ve gotten through which is getting closer to half of the show runs from decent to surprisingly well made (pick any s8 ep tbh. oops all bangers). Mattrey aren’t me, and I’m here to develop the characters, they’re there to develop a comedy. we are not the same but we appreciate each other even tho we probably squint and think the other is more in the wrong then ourselves. But we enjoy each other occasionally.

EDIT: I meant to put this originally but not everyone here is a young adult. I’ve seen 11 year old fans I’ve seen 50 year old fans. we have a lot of diversity in stuff like that. I think young adults had a wave of coming into the fandom because creek became canon which gave the show credit for showing how good it can be at times. Every one of my south park friends are at least two years older then me. That being said I joined a discord that I hadn’t realized was for minors and saw the swath of young ages we get. a lot of us have a decade between each other, but even more of us are in that 17-25 range. I think it’s just more common for young adults to get into it since we have the freedom to watch whatever we want and it’s a household name some may have been restricted to. Then again I joined this when I was 10 as well so like. i may be a bit warped. either way this shows rlly has smth for everyone.

Oh wait! Oh no!!! TL;DR: South Park is a show that’s important to me and others for a lot of reasons. Nothing butters me up like seeing people in broken worlds be able to put it together again in the future, or to be torn apart idk it depends. Other reasons to like the show are: Relatability, they can be literally any age, Infinite scenarios, People love to take the absurd seriously, A lot of content, Relatability; again, simple designs, the setting is a sandbox, creators kinda want us to take this seriously, and a lot of fandom history! And probably more. We’re not that disconnected from the series itself but everyone is pretty aware how problematic it is and many disconnect entirely from the series. Other choose to embrace it to Fix Them. Ppl love to do a lot.

[tea-time-with-london]

It was not Steve's fault at all that st*ncy ended. Him trying to get her not to tell barbs parents was literally him trying not to break an NDA that could've gotten her and other people killed. Him trying to get her to go to the party was an attempt to get her to loosen up and stop worrying about it, so that she would break the NDA and get people killed. Steve was not a shitty boyfriend.

Confession #70

Before I answer this, y'all don't have to like...censor ship names with the * on my blog LOL it's okay to type them out.

Okay so...personal opinion...neither Steve nor Nancy were solely responsible for the break up. I don't believe it's fair to place a break up on one person's shoulders. These are two teenagers, who tried to navigate a relationship, while also being exposed to supernatural forces, death, trauma, etc. The blame for their relationship ending is not placed on just one person's shoulders. They're just kids.

Diagnostically, Nancy has PTSD. She meets the criteria for it. This 16 year old was traumatized by her friend's death, and wanting to investigate, to find answers, is quite literally how she attempted to cope with Barb's death. We can make the argument that she had tunnel vision, and the only thing she was focused on was getting justice for Barb, even if that meant breaking the NDA. And sure...maybe she wasn't totally thinking about how breaking the NDA could potentially harm other people...but Nancy knew something was up with the government and Barb's death. Nancy Wheeler, in her own way, wants to make the world a better place, and that includes getting justice no matter the cost.

Steve was exposed to these things, too. Maybe not to the extent Nancy was, but still. The way he copes is by using distraction techniques. This isn't something that can work for Nancy because she is, by nature, a very investigative and answer driven person. She cannot afford to use distraction techniques, like a Halloween party, to cope with her friend's death. This is Steve's coping skill, and that's not a bad thing. They had been working on their costumes, so clearly they were both at one point excited to attend the party, so Steve talking about the party wasn't out of malice, and it wasn't him trying to be dismissive of Nancy even if it could have come across that way. It was him trying to get Nancy to use his coping skill, not knowing that she needed something different. She wanted him to take action with her.

Steve and Nancy, not purposely and not maliciously, hurt each other. There is no 'one is more wrong than the other'. Steve and Nancy got together at a time in their lives where they, unfortunately, could not give the other person what they needed. Nancy could not give Steve the reassurance he needed, and Steve could not give Nancy the action she needed. That is so heartbreaking to think about, given what they've gone through. Steve and Nancy deserve grace and compassion, not blame. If all of us were in their position, we wouldn't want people to blame us. We'd want compassion and understanding.

All in all, they both needed to understand each other more. They both needed to grow, respectively. The one thing I love about season 4 is how you can see their growth. The audience can see Steve becoming more emotionally vulnerable, wanting to take part in the action that Nancy needed in the first place (volunteering to go with Nancy to the library, being the first one to jump in the lake). I believe in season 5 we will see Nancy start to come to terms with her trauma, and realize that it wasn't Steve's fault, or her's, for Barb's death. And there's where the reassurance piece comes into play, with Nancy reassuring Steve that neither one of them were to blame.

I'm curious to see where the Duffers take them in season 5. I'm curious to see the...what did Robin call it? "The rekindling of two flames who never should have been snuffed out." Maybe Steve and Nancy's flames needed to be snuffed out in the beginning, only to be relit and burn brighter in the end.

[deathtastegirl]

i love u millennials but i really hate how millennials just gave their kids unrestricted access to the entire internet just bcuz they did as kids also. im a teenager with elder millennial parents and they let me see everything at the ripe age of 5. the ipad baby phenomenon was started by them in the mid 2010s bcuz they honestly had no clue what to do with their kid which i understand but u dont just? give a kid a phone the second they start talking? there's a reason why cybersecurity for minors has gone so much bigger and its bcuz these ppl keep giving their 6 year olds ipads and doing nothing with them. i remember going to my friends house and her little sister got a chromebook for christmas. shes 6. the entire time we were there she was just scrolling on youtube shorts. btw can we talk about youtube shorts? make fun of gen alpha brain rot all yall want but that stuffs genuinely serious. brainrot at 5 isnt okay! i had 5 year old brainrot and that isn't okay! and i know that its not only millennials but have you SEEN how many of them post on tiktok saying 'my 7 year old is addicted to their phone they never wanna go outside😫😫😫' ....and whos fault is that? YEAH BITCH!!!! YOURS!!!! do me a favor and dont let ur kids on the internet until they're around 13 or so. its much more serious than a simple 'dont let ur kids on tiktok ehehehhe'

tl:dr; im tired of ppl (millennials mostly) giving their child unrestricted internet access just bcuz they did also.

[lilredniki]

Caught

Prompt: If we get caught it’s your fault

Character: Marilyn Manson

They knew each other from school.

She was the straight A student and he was the misfit that didn’t fit in much.

But to each other, their flaws were perfect.

He loved to play music, she loved to dance.

They hooked up from time to time but it was only as friends.

Her boyfriend that her father picked would beat her when they were alone.

So the only option was to not leave them alone.

“Why do you hang out with him. He’s odd and strange.”

That’s how it all started.

“I don’t love you Y/n. But to keep our fathers happy we need to act like we care for each other.”

“How about no.”

“What.”

“You heard me.”

He walked over and smacked her so hard her lip broke open.

Brian saw and ran at him.

They started fighting.

The headmaster came and stopped it.

~

They sat in the office. It felt like waiting for a death sentence.

“Miss Y/l/n, the headmaster will see you now.”

She got up and walked in.

Brian watched as her mother and uncle walked in.

Y/n walked out with tears in her eyes.

He got up and ran to her.

“Y/n what happened?”

“They kicked me out over a lie that he told them to keep from getting in trouble.”

Brian growled.

“It’s okay. You saved me from him. Thank you.” She gave Brian a hug. “Don’t forget our promise.”

~10 years later~

Brian stood on stage as people screamed his stage name.

He kept his promise to Y/n.

People know him as Marilyn Manson now.

No one even cared where he came from except annoying adults whos teenagers listen to his music.

So here he was trying to explain himself once again.

“Well just so all of you older folks know, his music was never meant to be interpreted the way all of your young adolescents are taking them.”

Brian looked up and saw her.

“How would you know miss?”

She smiled. “Because I’m Abigale Manson.”

“Come down here and sit with us then and you can give us your opinion.”

She walked down and sat next to him.

“Hello Abby.”

“Hi Marilyn.”

“So Ms. Manson...”

“Actually could I talk for a moment?”

“Of course.”

“Marilyn do you remember what I told you?”

He shook his head.

“If we get caught, it’s your fault.”

“Oh.”

She smiled and looked into his eyes.

“It’s not Ms. Manson.” She held up her hand. “It’s Mrs. Manson.”

Everyone gasped.

“And as to who I am to the band, I helped write the songs that everyone says are bad.”

Brian put his arm around her.

“Alright could you explain them to us?”

“Yes but first I want to express my deepest condolences to you. I am usually at the shows to help if someone is hurt but I was extremely ill the night it happened.”

“Thank you Mrs. Manson.”

“As for the songs, they are different ways that I had tried to get out of a forced relationship that turned abusive.”

“I had tried to help her as we both went to the same school.”

“The abuser lied to save himself, got me expelled and kicked out of my childhood home, and realized I was the only thing keeping Marilyn from hurting.”

“Her uncle took her in and here we are married and living our dream.”

After the annoying stupid show was over Y/n and Brian stood with the parents of the teenager.

“Please let us help with the expenses?” Y/n spoke softly.

“Oh we couldn’t do that. It wasn’t your fault dear.”

“We insist. Please.”

“Well then, I guess we have no choice.”

Y/n handed them a check.

“Mrs. Manson this is too much.”

“Nonsense. A child is worth more than all the money in the world. I’m just so sorry you lost yours at our concert.”

“Thank you.” The man said.

“And congratulations. Only a new mother would be able to understand how much a child could mean to their parents.”

Y/n blushed.

Brian went silent.

“Thank you.”

[credince--writes]

Humble Beginnings

AN ACT OF ARSON

JITTERS AU

AO3

A/N: IT IS HERE! I SPLIT IT INTO TWO. WELCOME TO THE CONTINUATION OF JITTERS!

WARNINGS: SA Themes are discussed. Not fuckin around on that note.

At first, it started with the shitty online tutorial classes. Following Reddit threads and watching hours of YouTube videos as if she were learning an entirely new language. She was scraping up as much information as she easily could to harass her high school's IT guy. 

Maybe he allowed it because she was interested.

Maybe he was a pervert.

Either way. She had started to get what she wanted- feeding the beast, soon enough it changed from reading Reddit threads not understanding what was happening to selectively strangling the internet connecting in a class she didn’t want to work in, maybe even remotely triggering the fire alarms in a separate building if there was a test. 

Then, it morphed into more.

When she was sixteen, she had begged her friend who had her driver's license- and such a rickety and old piece of shit car that it was a wonder they got to their destination in the first place- to take her to a college party. For them both to slink around the background of the party to rub elbows with a computer science major she barely knew- one she was fascinated with. 

He spoke with sweet, honey-like words that made her feel like she was special. Like she wasn’t a stupid teenager that he could easily manipulate because the simple concept of his attention made her giggle as no one had ever gotten her to do before.

The way he softly touches her shoulder lures her into a sense of safety. 

The way he would pick her up after school and take her to get food before dropping her off at home- not that her parents were home to notice that she wasn’t walking home anymore. That it wasn’t her friend taking her home and dropping her off.

The time that he was unconscious, in the back seat of one of his friend's cars while she sat next to him. Leaning down and reached into his book bag because he’d come straight from the university- there was no time to stop and drop his things off. Just toss the bag in the back of the dar, drive to the party and then move about his night with it in tow. Sticking her hand into his back and pulling the USB drive that held all of his TA documents, logins, files, and grading information. Quietly tucking it into her pocket and playing dumb and innocent when he couldn’t find it the next day.

And he would fade from her life, when she was no longer fun to play with. When she didn’t put out enough she supposed. When she wasn’t going to reach that goal of another pin in the wall for him to brag to his friends about. As if all of those sickly sweet words never meant anything- which she realized now never did mean anything.

It made her feel a lot less guilty about all of the drives, files, passwords, and more she’d stolen from him.

It marked the change.

Her realization.

The malicious intent blooming in her.

She knew his fucking birthday - what his first dog's name was. 

It was the first time she’d felt so alone- her friends could only do or say so much. Not that there were many for her to console her pain in. Horrified of admitting her faults outward to her parents in fear that yea, maybe she would be reprimanded and punished on top of her emotional suffering.

It was the first time she had wanted to give that pain right back to the person that brought it onto her.

And what a dark, dirty feeling that was. It scared her- it really did. To look into the mirror and to be able to say ‘I want to ruin his fucking life for breaking my heart’. 

But she didn’t.

It was her pain.

Not anyone else.

Maybe that was her way of wallowing in her own sorrow. For her to say ‘This is it, I’ll never do this again because I’m gonna make sure it really hurts this time.’ Like she was little, sticking her hand on the metal coil burner on top of the stove wondering why it had turned red.

Or that she was terrified- terrified of hurting the same man that hurt her. That maybe those sickly sweet words still had some purchase. That she was still worth something in his eyes and that all of it wasn’t a lie- even though she knew it really was.

But life lives on.

She graduated high school and started her work on classes at college at seventeen.

Then her parents got divorced. They just wanted to wait until she was old enough to move out- she was the only reason they were together in the first place .

And she had to move into the dorms.

And they stopped talking to her.

Her grandma died-

Then her grandpa.

Said he couldn’t live with a broken heart.

Couldn’t blame him.

The familiar light blue of her bedroom walls turned into white-painted cinderblocks in the dorms. Where they hid a air fryer under their bunk rather than a bottle of wine so that they could fry up snacks late at night while she crunched on a topic, going above and beyond as she always did because lackluster wasn’t a fucking option in her mind. She was proving herself, proving that she could set the curve without any remorse to those behind her. That she was able to build friendships- build bonds with the people around her.

Searching IRS documents and finding the home address of Zoe’s- her roommates- professor. Some staunch asshole who taught physics. The two of them made a trek out early in the morning- timing it out with maps from the rough time it took for him to arrive in the university parking lot every morning, calculating the rough time of his sitting in a coffee shop line, to leaving his house safe some traffic. That his TA would unlock the door, drop some shit off, and pick up papers before leaving for the printer room. Just so that she could plan the perfect time to go in for office hours- catch that TA and bat her eyelashes in a way that made Jayme want to vomit.

The way Zoe’s eyes followed the TA, trailing down as if she were going to drool onto her dark purple top and stain the basic cotton fabric.

“Hey.” Jayme hissed.

“Sorry, I can’t help it.” Zoe would whine.

The two of them, sat on the floor of their shared dorm room. 

“We need to make a blood pact if I’m going to do this.” Jayme said, casually.

“We aren’t making a blood pact.” Zoe sighed.

“Then I’m not helping you.”

“I’m going to fail the test.” She whined.

“Maybe you should have, I don’t know, studied?” She questions.

“Oh shut up, you hermit.”

“Just saying. Why would you take a physics class?”

“It’s in my major!” She protested.

“Maybe you shouldn’t be majoring in underwater basket weaving.” Jayme snarked.

“Not everyone gets to sit with the stinky computer nerds all day long.”

“Submissive and pliant men, ripe for the picking with mommy issues.” 

“Maybe you can lure one in with a sun dress and a pot roast.” Zoe joked back.

They laughed.

Then it fell quiet.

She hated the quiet- Zoe was just fine with it.

It meant an empty house.

It meant being alone.

It meant she could go down a rabbit hole of thoughts.

“Please? ” Zoe whined, again.

Jayme glanced up at her, from her laptop screen. As if her glance was going to break her determination- she was sure she’d grovel at her feet even in the showers if she had to if it meant she could get her help.

“How do you know I can even help?” Jayme questioned.

“You found his tax return- I’m sure you could find something to help me with a test .”

She wasn’t wrong.

Jayme sighed.

“Yea. I can help. Just go to class and be normal- I’ll figure it out.”

She honestly felt like a burglar. She’d done this before, didn’t know why it would be so nerve-wracking to do now. The cameras on these hallways didn’t work- she had checked. Always double checking, sometimes triple checking if it was going to be something really sketchy. This wasn’t something horrible- she wasn’t burning down a server room or anything. She was simply triggering a fire alarm- cutesy little gadget tucked into her pocket she’d already mimicked the frequency the trigger would emit when the original handle was pulled. 

It was a good purchase, she’d scrounged around for the cash to buy it- doing others' homework and projects for them until she was able to obtain enough funding to buy the gadget all the way back in high school. Which was the first place she had managed to do it. Even though it wasn’t entirely on purpose, sitting in the back of the class fidgeting with the little gadget- accidentally locking it onto a frequency and suddenly all of the fire alarms start going off.

She was wearing a sweatshirt with the hood pulled up over her face, a black fabric gater pulled up from her neck covering her nose and lips. Striding out, keeping her steps even as she walked down the hallways meeting the most important factor of the whole thing- look like she was supposed to be there. It was a little scary how complacent people could be, even if the person was a little suspicious- how could they be suspicious if their steps were entitled? If they weren’t nervously walking around, as if they were about to commit a crime?

Was it a crime?

She’s pretty sure it’s a crime.

She glances down at her watch.

Thirty seconds-

Twenty.

Then seven.

Three,

Two,

One.

Her hand slides into her pocket, feeling the slightly warm plastic- smooth with some small notching on its corner. Pushing down on one of the buttons as she keeps walking, keeping her steps even and her eyes on the prize- the doorway she would be walking out of in no time.

The lights on the fire alarms flash first, following the piercing, chirping noise that lets anyone within earshot know that the building is being evacuated for a fire. Drill or not- the teachers never mentioned anything about a drill. Maybe a stoner set the trash can in the bathroom on fire again.

She keeps walking forward, and the doors in front of her push open, lines of students filing out into one giant sea of people heading towards the same door as her. They mesh around her, and she blends into the crowd as she keeps walking.

Went smoothly, and if she keeps up her pace, she won’t be late for class across campus.

“ It is a crime called "identity theft" when a fraudster acquires vital pieces of "personal identifying information" (PII), such Social Security numbers and license numbers, and utilizes them for their own financial advantage. ” He speaks.

He’s older- at least to the point where his hair has begun to grey.

“Our data can be formatted and transformed using cryptography to make it more secure when traveling between computers. Modern mathematics is added to the technology, which is founded on the fundamentals of secret codes and safeguards our data in powerful ways. The manager in charge of security needs a methodical approach to identifying security requirements and characterizing options to satisfy those criteria in order to analyze the security demands of a company effectively.”  

Professor Wills.

Cold hard bastard- with a seeming soft spot for gingers. That’s at least what she noticed when she stalked his social media accounts. Well, maybe not his social media accounts. Found photos of women he was seen with taking them out to dinner- no doubt paid by him with his tenured salary.

He had started out the first day of class introducing himself, as well as his ‘resume’. He’d apparently worked for the CIA- counterterrorism projects since the seventies. When he retired- he decided to un-retire himself and crawl his ass back to work. So now he sat here, droning on about the lecture she wasn’t sure why he was giving it- this was all surface-level information.

Maybe this was another one of his tests.

“The Playfair Cipher, which treats diagrams in plaintext as single units and converts these units into cipher text diagrams, is the most well-known multiple letter encryption cipher. The Playfair algorithm relies on a 5x5 letter matrix that is built using a keyword. Let "monarchy" become the crucial keyword. The matrix is created by first filling in the letters of the keyword (after removing any duplicates) from left to right and from top to bottom, and then completing the matrix with the remaining letters throughout alphabetically.”

He projected himself across the room, strides forward, sideways. Maybe if he was feeling especially spicy he would throw something across the room at someone seemingly drifting off.

“One Time Pad Cipher.” He drawls out, meaning he will be starting an important topic- or spiraling into a tangent about Panama. “A secure cryptography system. The message is represented by a series of 0s and 1s. This can be achieved, for instance, by writing all integers in binary or by utilizing ASCII. The key is a coincidentally long random sequence of 0s and 1s. A key is never utilized again after it has been used once. And….” He pauses, reaching over for a whiteboard marker, and stalking up to the board. “Is represented as such.”

‘C/i = P/i K/i C/i - i^th binary digit cipher text P/i -^th the binary digit plaintext K/i - i^th binary digit key ’ Is scribbled onto the board- in his nearly illegible handwriting. 

“An extremely lengthy key is needed, which is expensive to make and send. Reusing a key for a second communication after it has already been used is risky since any knowledge about the first message would also reveal information about the second…..” He starts again, her eyes slowly closing as she starts to drift off in the lecture. “Developed by IBM, the digital immune system is a thorough method of viral defense. The growing threat of Internet-based viral spread has been the driving force behind this advancement. Recent years have seen an increase in the effects of two significant Internet technology advances on the viral spread: Integrated mail systems: Programs like Microsoft Outlook and Lotus Notes make it very easy to send anything to anyone and deal with received objects. Systems for mobile programs: Programs can transfer themselves automatically from one system to other thanks to features like Java and ActiveX.”

She swore to herself she’d never fall asleep in class.

She almost broke.

She didn’t quite a few other people did though.

“Remember class. Detection, Identification, Removal .”

…

The SQL Slammer worm first appeared in early 2003. A buffer overflow flaw in the Microsoft SQL server was used by this worm.

She sat- more correctly lay in her bed. Her eyes were tired. Past that point where she had been staring at a screen to long. Feeling cry- maybe borderline itchy. Zoe had offered her eye drops the first time she had complained of it. 

She’d never take them.

God, she hated eye drops.

Just the concept of it freaked her out.

Well, it made sense. She couldn’t even open her eyes in the pool.

The sound of the door knob jostling, the jingle of keys, and then the door being thrown open broke her from her trance. She should really be studying. She should really be doing something other than feeling sorry for her dry eyes and actually being productive.

“Jayme!” Zoe charges forward, arms reaching up as she scuttles over the small ladder leading up to her bed, climbing on top of her.

“Fuckin- What?” She half hisses out, moving Zoe over to her side and rolling over to look at her.

“He asked.” Her mouth was split open into a huge grin.

“What?” She asked.

“He asked me out! To coffee!” She squeals, throwing her head back.

“Ohhhhhh.” Jayme grins, raising her hand up and pinching Zoe’s cheek. “See? I told you it would work.”

Zoe lifts herself, pushing off of the bed and jumping down onto the ground, starting to rummage through her things. “No, no you didn’t. You spent the entire time telling me how bad of an idea this was. Because A, you’re bitter and lonely, and B-” “Wanting to fuck your TA is on par with sucking your professor's dick?” Jayme asks aloud.

“No, oh my gosh.” She groans, throwing her head back. “I’m filling in for a coworker at the store until closing, so you’ll be all alone.” She grins again.

Zoe worked at a run-down, stinky, Office Depot. Her uncle was the manager- and sometimes, he’d offer up free school supplies to them. Cutesy little pens, sometimes Journals and notepads. They usually had some kind of flaw about them that made it so they couldn’t be sold on the floor, but regardless. She’d gotten a few nice binders out of it and she wasn’t one to complain. Even if the man's constant wheezing raised her blood pressure and made her swear to herself to never pick up the habit of smoking.

“I’ll enjoy every moment,” Jayme replies, rolling back over, grabbing her pillow, and covering her head with it in hopes it’ll drown out the buzz of people walking down the hallway outside.

It never does.

The buffer overflow vulnerability that the worm took use of was first identified by David Litchfield, whose proof-of-concept code was used to present the worm at the Black Hat Briefings. The only thing this short bit of code does is generate random IP addresses and transmit itself to those addresses. A computer that is running an unpatched instance of Microsoft SQL Server Resolution Service listening on UDP port 1434 and receives a specified address becomes infected and starts spreading the worm program throughout the Internet.

She should really be studying, not working on other people's projects.

But, she was hungry. What could she say?

In all honesty, it wasn’t that hard. As dirty as it was, she was feeding it all through an AI system to generate the text, she would read through it and dumb it down because there was no was this asshole knew how to use the word ‘eloquently’. Then feed it back through, generate some filler to get some dings on his grade, all to make it more believable and then give it back to him. Grab the cash, and go buy something for her and Zoe to eat for dinner. 

She owes it to her, really.

Without Zoe she wouldn’t really make it. Yea, she was being supported by her parents and whatever pocket change she made off of working at that stinky ass office supply store went to her crippling shopping habits-

But Zoe took care of her. And Jayme would try to help in any way she could back.

Even if it meant stalking a professor to get the perfect window to insert Zoe into a TA’s life so that he would fall in love with her.

As if love were a real thing, she’d muse with herself. Her parents were in love- or at least they said they were. It left a horribly bitter taste in her mouth to be thinking about it. To be thinking about how it was a long haul to wait until she was old enough to move out- out of high school so that they could move on with their lives as if she were a burden.

Not that they ever called her a burden, it was just how she took it.

She was probably right to take it that way.

It would happen the way it normally does.

Zoe gripped the doorknob and jiggled it a bunch of times as if Jayme ever forgot to lock the door. Not ever- never once in their continued stay in these dorms had she ever found Jayme in the room- unlocked. It was like a paradox.

Pushing the door open after she clatters around with her keys for a good while, throwing the door open giggling and squealing about how amazing the coffee date was, and how he was ‘soooo hot’, he had even opened the door to the coffee shop for her, and pulled out the chair.

Jayme would nod, trying not to rain on her parade with her bitter outlook on the concept, and allow her to ramble, at no one in particular if not her about how great it was. Oh, and how she has to try out this new mocha-chai-something-bullshit concoction that he had recommended she taste. Leaning forward and letting her take a sip out of his cup as if it was the same thing as them aggressively frenching out in the bathroom.

She’s back in the classroom, staring at the whiteboard spacing out as Professor Wills rambles about the importance of the autonomy of American citizens- as well as their online privacy.

“I've made light of the fact that I don't really care if the NSA can read my emails during class. They will not be bothered about whatever I have. There are, however, bigger issues involved. ” He starts, standing up and starting to pace, back and forth and back and forth in a way that makes her motion sick.

“ Our best look at how a government can employ computer surveillance to monitor and control its populace comes from the Chinese government, most likely. ” He snickers at the end of it, as if it were some kind of joke the class would get. No one else laughed, because they didn’t get it. Only he would understand it- probably doing his fair share of rooting through, crossing that fine line in the name of evidence. “ The goal is to compile all online data about Chinese businesses and individuals in one location, score each of them based on their political, commercial, social, and legal "credit," and then compile the results.”

“I bet a lot of you in this room would fail on the social aspect, with those Instagrams of yours.” He teases. 

There's a light- may be forced in the name of politeness laugh that fills the room. 

“ The three V’s !” He yells, throwing another object somewhere in the room.

“Volume – The amount of data. The size- quantity. How many gallons of dirt do they have on you? 

Velocity- The speed at which data is produced is known as velocity. Different processing approaches may be employed depending on the velocity.

Variety- Data might be structured or unstructured. The processing of structured data is ideally suited for computers. Not so with unstructured data. A passenger manifest is an illustration of structured data. Unstructured video from a CCTV camera shows passengers leaving and entering a passenger terminal.

And last of all?

Veracity – Your accuracy.”

There was a stiff silence.

“Um, Professor.” One of the guys in the front pipes up. “That was four.”

“At least someone was paying attention! Class is dismissed!”

The recognition of the worm spreading was recognized too little, too late.

Jayme sits on the cold linoleum-tiled floor, scratching at some kind of chart when the telltale sign of footsteps up to her door breaks her from her train of thought. 

The sound of keys jingling first- not the jiggling of the knob. And the distinct sound of her choking on a sob at the door.

She stands, ready to hear about how horrible the date went- that he was talking to another girl. It had happened what- six times already in the few years she had known Zoe? It wasn’t anything new. They’d go somewhere- Trader Joe’s probably. Buy a bunch of snacks and shit talk and pig out until Zoe felt better.

Walking over to the door and opening it up, she’s met with the dark mascara splattered down her face from Zoe’s tears. She opens the door more, stepping out of the way as Zoe drops to her knees- at Jayme’s feet and lets out a sob. One she’d never heard before- ever. She sheer amount of fear- rage- hurt. She blinks, kneeling down with her to realize her horror.

She’s back in her childhood room, sobbing, staring up out of the window, and watching the stars. Her heart aches and the feeling of her puffy eyes and stuffed-up nose do nothing to fight against the horrible headache that blossomed in her head either from the stress, or the dehydration of crying like a baby for this long.

She's standing up, walking into the little bathroom connected to her room, and looking in the mirror, smearing the snot and tears off of her cheeks and seething.

She didn’t want to inflict the pain for her own sake. To make her feel better.

But she would, she will, she would inflict pain for her sake. 

The hospital is cold.

Quiet.

The buzz of people moving about doing their jobs. Sipping on stale coffee and listing to the chatter in the radio or clicking on a poorly hidden tab of solitaire.

It makes her itch. The kind of itch you feel when there's a spider crawling up your arm in the dark- you can’t see the spider but it’ll wake you from a dead sleep to freak out. She picks at the skin on her thumb, bites her lip, and taps her foot. Anything while she waits. 

One of the nurses brings her a soda from the vending machine.

It was a nice gesture, but she ends up with the tab cracked, listening to the sound of the carbonation fizzling off while she stared off into space feeling nothing but anger- and guilt.

How it was all her fault-

She had started the spiral,

The snowball.

Had she not of given in- had she not of let Zoe blindly chase tail as if she were a neurotic dog. She’d be ok- she wouldn’t have been kneeling at her feet sobbing .

The police arrived. One young male officer, and one female. 

The female stepped behind the curtain.

The male officer sat down next to her.

He tried- awkwardly. To try to coax information out of her, what happened? What really happened.

The condescending words as if she had been lying.

As if it was just a jest .

So she calmly, even if she had to stop a few times breaking down crying. Explaining the situation.

He took his notepad and fucked off a while later.

It was three weeks later.

The Disciplinary board ruled in favor of the TA- put him on suspension with no pay due to the circumstances.

She never saw Zoe again.

She Just kind of… Left. One night. She woke up the next morning. She had packed up some clothes, and left in the dead of night.

Leaving her alone.

In Silence.

Again.

Soon enough, one in four computers connected to the internet was affected.

[sparrowmoss]

okay i have more thoughts im gonna put them under a cut though because people have some very strong opinions about who is at fault after this weeks ep and i want to share my own for my own purposes but i dont want people to try to argue or fight me

this entire thing is sol’s fault. like borderline mental break unhinged moment wack behavior, sol’s fault. it is deeply deeply strange for him to have encountered two child strangers and instantly claim to become as attached as he was showing, acting and reacting very strongly to his perceived claim over osha, a STRANGER and a YOUNG CHILD, yet he could not even fucking tell her apart from mae when he saw one in the coven doorway.

indara should not have had to deal with, on top of trying to make her teenage padawan with normal teenage desires and normal teenage bitterness understand that their assignment was not a personal attack on him and would not last forever and he could eventually go home, her adult peer sol going borderline obsessive nuts over a child who was a stranger. she should have punched his fucking lights out on the ship after all that.

yes the jedi as a group should have been more respectful of the coven and clear with their intentions about making an offer to osha, should not have implied that they had any right to remove her or even test her for force sensitivity (and the whole concept of jedi taking children from their parents due to their force sensitivity is something i have potentially serious issues with depending on how much say the parents have in it and how much pressure the jedi order places on them to relinquish their children, but we haven’t really seen how that works completely clearly, so i give the limited benefit of the doubt for now), and DEFINITELY should have spoken to aniseya and the rest of her coven about mae’s “they’re going to sacrifice themselves” line (which mae misunderstood/misremembered, aniseya had said “sacrifice A PART OF ourselves” not “sacrifice ourselves” but only the audience knows that) to clarify what was actually going on.

like. almost all of the issues in this event were due to everyone assuming the worst of the people on the “opposite side”. and all of those bad faith assumptions spiraled so out of control that basically everyone died. but not sol’s unreasonable and instant attachment.

it just makes me feel so crazy that he was like, oh i feel connected to her, i’m MEANT to teach her, she’s MEANT to be my padawan, in a destiny sense, like immutable fate. and in the heat of the moment he can’t even tell that mae is mae and not osha. he cant even fucking tell them apart!!! the connection he feels is entirely made up by him in his fucking head. either that or whatever part of it is real, he is taking it and running with it and assuming that everything that happens is proof of that connection, so when mae runs out toward him he thinks it must be the one he felt connected to.

i truly have no ideas on what may have led him to instantly connect to her in such a way that he disregarded her wants and needs and safety. in a way that blinded him to the fact that that coven was still her family and still loved her. in a way that made him go for the kill on osha’s own mother for basically no fucking reason, so much so that he immediately clearly wondered “why did i do that?”

and i think indara was right, and sol was right for following her suggestion, when she said he could not go to the council and confess what he had done. to cause all of that for the self stated reason that he felt a connection to osha so strong he just had to do whatever it took, no matter the cost, to get her as his padawan. then end up getting her whole family killed and THEN leave her after that? yes he would have faced punishment that he deserved but SHE would not get the support and help that SHE deserved. i think indara was right to make the decision to hide the truth from the council. i think sol staying by osha’s side and being there for her was in osha’s best interests, as unfortunate as it is. indara couldn’t take her on because she already had a padawan, and maybe kelnacca could have but i think there would have been some nervousness on her part as she likely could not understand anything he said. it basically had to be sol or she would have suffered a lot, on top of losing her family and leaving her home and everything she knew behind to live a completely different life. sol had to lie to keep his position to be there for the person who he had caused great loss. he had to do what he could to make up for it.

and i think his guilt since that day is genuine. i do think that whatever weird intense mental break state he was in, he came out of it. i think his attachment to osha in the present timeline of the bulk of the story comes more from knowing that his actions cost her the lives of her entire family and now he is all she has left. like, the feeling that he owes her, if that makes sense. that since he caused her family’s deaths, he has to do whatever he can to make her happy and fulfilled now. and i think his line to the kids in the temple about not always trusting your eyes, comes from stuff he learned through this mistake with mae and osha.

but i still think its also fucked how little he seemed to care for jecki in this situation. he clearly doesnt feel the same protective need and care toward her as he does toward osha, even though osha left the order. he brought jecki on this mission and dragged her into the mess that he created all those years ago and got her killed and just left her body there. i do not think he would drag osha into a mess he’d created in the same way. and i know he wouldn’t leave her body!

i dont know man like i dont think sol is the most evil guy ever but i think even though he has changed and tried to do a lot to make up for his failings, not all his motivations are good even now. he really seemed to decide to tell mae his side of events for selfish reasons, for alleviation of his own guilt, not for any benefit to her.

we still have one left and i am really curious to see if his motivations are elaborated on further, what mae’s reaction to his side will be, if osha will find out the story as well before the end of the season, etc etc… so much… its hard to make any definitive judgments or assumptions when it isn’t finished. we’ll see.

[mythicalmisery]

Chapter 2: Meetings

October 16th 

11:35 A.M. 

Manchester Royal Hospital

Soap jerked his head up as the thick stack of medical files plopped down beside his head.  

“What is up with you, MacTavish? You’ve been walking around here like a zombie all day,” Farah questioned. Soap was usually annoyed with her mother-hen personality, but he knew it came from a good place. Despite her good intentions, he couldn’t exactly tell her that he was running on maybe three hours of sleep because of the constant state of anxiety he had been in all weekend. 

“Oh yeah, I’m fine. Just had a man bleeding out on my table this weekend from a bullet wound that was probably achieved by some illegal activity, more or less, which now makes me an accessory,”  is what he really wanted to say, but a simple “just tired is all” had to suffice. He could tell she wasn’t satisfied with his obvious avoidance, but he was thankful she decided to concede anyway and left him to wallow on his own again.

Five days.

It had been nearly five days since the incident, and not a peep from Gaz. ‘I’ll call and explain everything,’ my ass. Soap knew bombarding Gaz with fifty texts or phone calls wouldn’t do anything; if he wanted to contact him, he would. He just wanted to know if his best friend was safe. Bullet wounds don’t usually transpire from safe activities. 

Soap just couldn’t understand the younger man sometimes. He was smart and charming, always in the top 5 of his computer science classes. He came from a good family- his parents were environmental engineers who traveled around Africa helping build new water filter systems, practically saints. Gaz would spend holidays and breaks back in Glasgow with the MacTavish’s since his parents were usually abroad. He was basically family, as much as Price was, at least. 

His only faults were his affinity for unsavory company and weird craft beers. Soap tried to set clear boundaries during Uni, not hanging out with Gaz if his other friends were going to be with him. He eventually just stopped lecturing Gaz, sick of the other man accusing Soap of not trusting him and making him the bad guy for worrying about his friend. Well, look where that blind trust got you now.

— — —

“Oh come on, he’s basically stripping you with his eyes,” Soap snickered.

“Fuck off, Soap,” Farah quipped back before taking another bite of her salad. 

Soap just huffed a laugh as Farah subtly glanced at the American sales rep across the hall, staring back at her, not so subtly. He hadn’t taken his eyes off her during the whole time some nurse rattled his ears off, thinking she still had his full attention.

 Alex Keller. He worked for the company where the hospital got all of its prosthetics, which meant they saw him often. During his many visits, Soap found pure joy in the American’s attempts at flirting with Farah. He couldn’t blame the man. If Soap was straight, he would also beg and plead with Farah for one chance. He didn’t know whether to feel pity or admire the man for his efforts. He was like a damn kicked puppy that wouldn’t give up. Anyone who kept at it even after the Farah Karim chewed you out in front of the whole hospital was a worthy contender in his eyes. 

“I don’t know why you have to torture him like that, you clearly like him,” Soap teased. It was like dealing with teenagers watching the two of them dance around each other. 

“I do not. You expect me to take him seriously with that mustache?” Farah responded. 

Soap took another bite from his lunch before mumbling back, “Don’t let Price hear you say that.” 

Just as he was about to deliver another snarky comment, his gaze darted past Farah’s shoulder, attention snagged by the unmistakable sight of a navy blue Nike wind jacket he was all too familiar with. The owner’s identity was obscured by the hood and a white ball cap, yet he knew exactly who it was. Soap put his food on the desk counter before abruptly standing up.

“Give me a moment,” he declared, his tone brisk. “I’ll be right back. Also, throw the poor man a bone before I show the cowboy a good time instead.” Soap received a perfectly manicured middle finger in response as he walked away. 

It took all of his willpower to remain calm as he rounded the corner of his desk, grabbing the man by his arm before he could even get a word out. Soap pulled him into the nearest empty on-call room before locking the door and rounding on Gaz.

“What the hell, Kyle! You said you would explain everything and then you just go radio silent on me for days?” His voice rang out as much as he dared, straining against the confines of the small space. The room was far from soundproof, despite what all the horny interns might assume. 

Gaz wore that same pained expression from that very night, like a scolded child. “I know, Soap, I know,” he breathed out. He took Soap’s silence as his invitation to continue explaining himself. 

“Look I tried to get away long enough to call or even meet you in person, but we were practically in lockdown after that night,” Gaz explained, his words weighted with what Soap could tell was true remorse. 

“And what the hell happened that night, Gaz? Who were those men, and what were you doing with them that led to a gunshot wound?”  Soap’s voice cracked with anger, demanding answers. All pretense of staying calm now out the window.

“Listen, Soap, for your own safety, you don’t want to know too much. I’m try-”

“My safety? Are you fuckin’ kidding me?!” Soap erupted, his patience finally snapping. “You bring those bastards into my home and then try and say you’re worried about my own safety?” he scoffed. 

Gaz grimaced before reluctantly continuing, “I work for them, okay…”

“And what exactly does that entail, Gaz?” Soap’s tone was sharp, his frustration palpable.

“Let’s just say it’s a…business that operates in a bit of a legal gray area,” Gaz admitted.

“Fuuuuck Gaz,” he huffed out while running his hands down his face in exasperation. 

“Hey, don’t act like you’re above it all, mate,” Gaz retorted defensively. “Not everyone can be a high-and-mighty doctor.”

“You have a degree, for God’s sake! Don’t pull that shit with me,” Soap shot back.

Gaz slumped back against the wall, sinking to the floor defeatedly. Soap sighed and moved to sit beside him, the tension still thick in the air. They both knew that yelling wasn’t going to get them anywhere. Soap just laid his elbows onto his knees, resting his head on the wall behind them. 

“What exactly is it that you do for them?” Soap’s voice was calmer now, though still laced with concern. 

Gaz hesitated before answering, “I guess you could say I’m the computer guy. I handle security, accounts, pretty much anything that needs to be done electronically.”

Soap absorbed his best friend’s words, maintaining his composure. “And just how illegal are these activities?”

“Very,” his voice tinged with resignation. 

“Is it worth it?” Soap asked. 

“To me, yes,” he replied. 

“And that’s what concerns me, Gaz. How do you honestly expect me to react when all your actions are going to get you thrown in a cell someday?”

Soap turned his head slowly to find Gaz already staring back at him. “You know I can take care of myself, Soap. I was doing it long before we met. I’ll always appreciate everything you and your family have done for me. But you just need to let me take some responsibility for my actions instead of protecting me all the time. I know what I’m doing is illegal, but it’s my choice. I know my limits and I have contingency plans in place. I may be a delinquent, but I’m not a stupid one.”

Soap lets a small laugh escape as he grapples with Gaz’s words. “You promise you’ll let me know if you ever need help, right?”

“Of course, Soap.”

“I don’t really want to know all the details for plausible deniability but.. are you frequently in situations where you’re getting shot at?” 

Gaz laughed lightly at Soap’s words. “No, not typically. I’m the lame computer nerd in the movies that stays back on the intercoms while the spy gets shot at.”

“Well, I guess that makes me feel a little better,” Soap replied, a hint of relief in his voice. “You ever get shot, I’ll raise you from the dead and strangle you myself, Garrick.”

“I know.” Soap could sense the grin on his friend’s face without even having to look. 

“Wanker,” Soap teased. 

“Shit bag,” Gaz shot back. 

They lapsed into a comfortable silence, but Soap just couldn't shake the burning question at the back of his mind.

“Is the guy still alive?” he asks plainly. 

“Yes. And thank you for that,” Gaz replied sincerely. 

“Why exactly did he get shot?” Soap pressed. 

“So…about that,” Gaz began tentatively, rising to his feet.

Soap looked up at him, confusion etched on his face. That feeling of impending doom once again brewing in his stomach. “What?”

Gaz scratched the back of his head before forcing out the words. “So, I did come here to make sure you were okay after everything and give you an explanation. Buuut… I also came here to tell you that my boss would like to have a word with you, about that night.”

Soap looked up at the man with a deadpan stare. “You’re fuckin’ joking with me, right?”

Gaz simply smiled in response.  

“I am not voluntarily meeting up with a criminal who would more than likely kill me!” Soap argued back. 

“He won’t kill you, Soap. He knows you’re my friend. He just wants to make sure you won’t go to the police himself,” Gaz reasoned, attempting to calm Soap’s fears albeit futile. 

“If… I agreed to meet him, that’s it. I’m done. I don’t want anything to do with any of your so-called friends,” Soap declared, extending his hand toward Gaz. 

Gaz nodded in agreement as he helped Soap up from the ground. “Deal.”

Their agreement was suddenly interrupted by the buzzing of Gaz’s phone, echoing through the room. “I gotta go, Soap. Sorry,” Gaz said hurriedly, heading towards the door. 

“Wait! When and where do I meet your boss?” Soap called after him, Gaz already halfway out the door.

“Uh, just swing by the Oak Tree Lounge when you get off your shift. Ask for Roach at the door,” he tosses over his shoulder before leaving the room entirely. 

“Wai—” Soap sighs as the click of the door closing leaves him alone and with even more questions. 

Why the fuck am I meeting Gaz’s boss at a nightclub?

— — — 

Soap decides to park his motorcycle a block over from the club. The heavy rain throughout the day caused him to drive more cautiously than usual. Definitely the weather and not the sinking dread in his stomach causing him to prolong the drive. Gaz wouldn’t send you to your death can only be repeated so many times in an attempt to calm down. 

Soap despised this feeling. He wasn’t an anxious person. He was an adrenaline junky through and through. His idea of a good time included extreme snowboarding, cave diving, and mountain biking. He’s even jumped off a plane, twice! A meeting with one man shouldn’t have his heart racing like this. Maybe it’s different when it wasn’t your choice to be put into dangerous circumstances. Either way, it was truly pissing him off. “Grow some balls, MacTavish,” he mutters to himself as he dismounts his bike. 

Stepping in front of the club’s entrance, he ignores all the protests from people in line accusing him of cutting. If only they knew just how little he wanted to be there. The bouncer, engrossed in his clipboard, doesn’t bother to even glance upwards as Soap approaches. “Back of the line, mate,” he grunts dismissively. 

Soap didn’t have time for this. “I’m here to see…” Fuck. What the hell was that guy’s name? Something weird, like a bug. Moth? No… Gaz only said it like twice. Something with an R, maybe…. 

“Roach! I’m here to see Roach,” he blurts out. The bouncer finally lifts his gaze, eyeing Soap up and down with a scowl. “Wait here,” is all he gets before the ray of sunshine has someone else take over his esteemed clipboard duties before disappearing into the club.

Time seemed to stretch on endlessly as Soap waited, tension coiling in his stomach. Was it a bad time? Do you call ahead for criminal meetings? Maybe the police got to them. They all died at the hands of a rival gang or something. Would Gaz have been with them? Soap’s spiraling was interrupted by a whistle directed his way. He looks up as the bouncer gestures for Soap to follow him inside. Soap squares his shoulders, attempting to regain his composure before trailing behind the man. Alright, easy parts over.

They walk silently through the main hallway before he’s ushered into a small side door marked with an EMPLOYEES ONLY sign. Soap could hear the distant thump of music and people echoing from the main part of the club as they walked. He turned the corner into another hallway, where they found Roach lighting a cigarette. He flicks his lighter shut, acknowledging the bouncer behind Soap with a nod, signaling for him to leave them alone. 

He casually looks Soap over before ascending a pair of worn wooden stairs without a word. Soap isn’t entirely sure what to do but he thinks following the man is a safe bet. He can feel the vibrations of the pounding music through the creaky floorboards underneath his feet. 

At the top of the landing, Roach stood pointing towards the door at the end of the hall. “Just go in?” Soap asks. The taller man takes a drag from his cigarette before grabbing Soap’s shoulders and gently pushing him towards the door. “Good luck,” is all he says before retreating down the stairwell. Thanks Roach, that’s fucking reassuring. 

Soap hesitates at the threshold of the door, uncertain of the appropriate course of action. Should I knock? Roach's ambiguous instructions left him at a loss. After two tentative raps of his knuckles yielded no response, Soap decides to risk it and turns the doorknob.

The door swung open to reveal a fairly large and empty office space. A large desk occupied the center of the room, flanked by full bookshelves lining the back wall. Chairs and couches were arranged for guests, presenting a typical office setup. However, what caught Soap’s attention was the nearly floor-to-ceiling window that overlooked the lively club below. It must have been soundproof due to the muffled music barely permeating the thick glass. The occasional strobe light passed over his face as he watched oblivious people dance below him. Mesmerized by the sight, Soap hadn’t noticed the presence of another in the doorway, their gaze fixed upon him. 

“They can’t see you.” 

Soap jumped at the deep voice cutting through the silence. He nearly got whiplash at how fast he turned his head to see the person who spoke. 

Standing in the doorway was a man, tall and imposing as hell. His outfit was entirely black, and doing nothing to hide just how fit he truly was, while letting no skin besides his face show. Even that was partially obscured with a black gaiter pulled up to the bridge of his nose. Short blond hair framed his angular features, amber brown eyes bore into Soap with an intensity that sent shivers down his spine. It was the same gaze that had haunted him since that night in his kitchen. 

“What?” Soap manages to croak, his mouth dry as desert sand. 

The man pushed off the doorframe with a casual grace unnerving for someone his size, strolling leisurely over to his desk.“The glass, it’s one way. The people down there can’t see us,” he simply stated. 

Soap’s subconscious was attempting to twist the simple statement into a thinly disguised threat: “No one can see you if I decide to do something to you.” His stomach churned at the thought that his apprehension might not be as irrational as he had hoped. 

He simply hummed in response, taking one last look at his once would-be potential witnesses below, and shuffled towards the velvet chair placed directly across the desk. As he settled into the seat, Soap couldn’t help but cast a quick glance at the man’s stomach where the bullet wound had been. Perhaps it was the eight years of medical training ingrained in him, but the man’s injury somehow made its way to the top of his list of concerns at the moment. 

“How’s the injury?” Soap rushed out before the man could speak first. The question seemed to catch the man off guard, freezing him momentarily as he slightly lifted a brow at the question. “Fine,” he replied in that gruff voice. 

Soap couldn’t help but bristle at the man’s tone. “You know, when someone saves your life, it’s pretty standard practice to say a bloody thank you.” Yep. That one earned both brows to raise. Price did always say his mouth was gonna get him in trouble someday. 

Soap tenses for a moment, his eyes analyzing the man’s seemingly relaxed posture and expression- or the amount of expression that was visible behind the mask. Maybe he was pushing his luck a little too far this time. 

 “Thank you, doctor,” is all he gets in that indifferent, monotone voice. Whatever, he’d take what he could get from this oversized prick. 

Soap leaned back in his seat, feeling a bit more at ease now that he wasn’t immediately met with a bullet to the head for a bit of sass. Give the man an inch…

“Listen mate, what I did was a favor for Gaz. I already told the Roach guy I wasn’t going to the police, so I feel like this ‘meeting’ is a little redundant. I’m not stupid enough to blackmail anyone, so can we just cut all ties here? We never met each other, simple as that. Hell, I don’t even know what you really look like.”

The other man didn’t say anything as he took in the Scot’s words. It seemed like a fair enough agreement, so Soap was more than confused when the other reached into his desk drawer and pulled out a thick unassuming manila folder. Plopping it down on the desk in front of Soap as some sort of response. 

The man nodded at Soap, gesturing for him to take a look at the contents of the folder before speaking. It felt as though pure ice filled Soap’s veins as he flipped through the thick folder. Page after page displaying his entire life, laid out in excruciating detail. Transcripts, lease agreements, rugby stats, school photos, parking tickets, bank statements, his fucking Tesco Clubcard. His whole life was packed away into a single folder. He wouldn’t be surprised if his favorite color was listed somewhere in there as well. 

The utter violation of his privacy was overwhelming until he flipped a page and was met with those dark blue eyes gifted by their father. Splayed over his lap were his sister’s photos, news articles about her equestrian team, essays for her classes, and even her dentist’s business card. The anxiety and nerves from before were instantly snuffed out by raw anger, his body was tense and his voice barely holding onto the guise of control.

 “Is this a threat?” was all he could grit out, his knuckles now white from nearly crushing the folder in his lap. 

The same calm, dead eyes stared back at him, and this time, Soap could have sworn the bastard was smiling under his mask. The man sat up in his chair, resting his elbows on the desk before him. “Not a threat doctor. An offer.”

“What?” Soap’s anger was quickly replaced by confusion at the man’s words. What the fuck was this wanker on about?

“Med school isn’t cheap, doctor. Neither is paying for your younger sister’s schooling as well. Even after all these years, you still owe nearly £140,000 ($175,000) as you can see in the documents provided,” the man continued, his tone matter-of-factly.

Soap’s stomach dropped at the staggering amount. He knew his debt was substantial, but hearing the figure laid out so plainly was a gut punch. He had gotten as many scholarships as he could, but the interest on the loans just kept moving the goalpost. The man was right, Med school was not fucking cheap. He made good money now but after rent, loan payments, and his sister’s bills he was barely making it by. He was too stubborn, and maybe a little ashamed, to take money when Price offered and he owed his mother too much to burden her with paying for school. He was the man of the family, it was his turn to take care of her and his sister. 

Soap blinked at the man, feeling a twinge of embarrassment at being called out for his financial struggles. “I’m not selling no bloody drugs,” he blurted out, unsure if he even had a choice to begin with.

That actually managed a small huff from the other man. “I don’t want you selling drugs. I want you as my on-call doctor,” he clarified, and Soap felt another pang of embarrassment at his assumption.

“What would you need an on-call doctor for?” Soap asked, his curiosity winning over his apprehension. 

“Well, let’s just say I’m not the only one who gets occasionally shot around here. I also can’t send my people to the hospital without people asking questions they have no business asking, now can I?” the man posed.

“Listen, I’m not even technically a doctor yet. I’m just a resident, and besides, I specialize in orthopedics. You’re lucky your wound wasn’t worse because I probably wouldn’t have been able to save you. You got bad knees or a broken foot, I’m your guy. I’m not trained to handle gunshot wounds,” he explained, his frustration mounting. 

“Still better than a vet,” the man quipped, pushing Soap’s patience to its limits. He was very close to jumping over the desk and throttling this man. Self-preservation be damned. 

“Look, the deal is you come when called, provide medical attention, and I’ll pay off part of your debt each time. You get paid to save lives during the day, what does it matter if it’s off the clock?” The man continued, unbothered despite the seething man across from him. 

Soap couldn’t hold it in anymore, standing up and slamming his hands down on the desk. “It matters because the people I help save aren’t being injured from breaking the law. And that’s exactly what I would be doing if I agreed. I could lose my license for that,” he pointedly stated. 

“I wouldn’t let you get caught, doctor,” the man assured, his tone infuriatingly confident to the point Soap actually believed him. 

“Stop calling me doctor!” Soap snapped, he was letting this man get under his skin and it was pissing him off. He sighed and sank back down in his seat. This conversation wouldn’t go anywhere if he kept getting angrier. 

Running his hands through his hair and over his face, Soap looked at the man with resignation. “I don’t have a choice, do I?” he muttered, the words tasting bitter on his tongue. He felt utterly defeated, his pride wounded by the circumstances. 

“I always give people a choice, they just usually know which one’s the right option,” the man offered. 

“I’m not some medical prostitute,” Soap stated firmly through clenched teeth.  

“Of course not, doctor,” the man flippantly replied, the use of the title irking Soap to no end. 

“If I say no, are you going to let me walk through that door?” Soap asked, his gaze fixed on the man, searching for any hint of sincerity. The bastard slowly looked up at the ceiling, his hands folded as if he was genuinely considering his options. 

“I don’t know where you came up with the assumption I am a monster, doctor. No one is keeping you here. We both know you won’t go to the police, either out of fear of incriminating yourself or Gaz. It was a generous offer on my behalf, only trying to help,” the man punctuated with what Soap was sure was an overly dramatic smile, judging by the crinkle of his eyes. The man using his friendship with Gaz against him had that anger from a few minutes ago bubbling back up. 

“Then my answer is no. May I leave now?” Soap’s exhaustion was palpable. He longed to escape the suffocating atmosphere of the office and go back to his flat and sleep for five days straight. 

The other man didn’t say anything for a moment before standing up and reaching out a gloved hand towards the Scot. Hesitant, Soap pushed himself up on slightly shaky knees and grabbed the giant’s hand. His grip was ice cold and nearly crushing. He hoped the other couldn’t feel just how clammy his own hands were in comparison. While maintaining steady eye contact, the man finally spoke, “Thank you for saving my life, doctor.” Soap’s mouth went dry at the intense stare. “Yeah sure, no problem,” he managed to squeak out.

The taller man rounded the corner, his arm stretching towards the door for Soap to exit. As he got to the door, the man reached around to grab the handle, leaning in. His breath was hot against Soap’s neck even through the mask, sending shivers down his spine. 

“Name’s Ghost, by the way. I do hope I’ll get to see you again, doctor,” he murmured softly. Much too softly for a man of his stature. Soap’s brain felt like it had melted at the proximity of the other man, or rather, Ghost. And people tell him ‘Soap’ is a stupid nickname?

 In a poor attempt to save face, Soap awkwardly rushed through the door’s threshold, “Well, let’s fucking hope not,” he tossed over his shoulder, too afraid to look back at the man. 

Soap didn’t realize he was holding his breath until he turned the corner of the staircase and was out of Ghost’s sight. He rested against the wall, trying to calm his racing heart. Focusing on the pulsating vibrations emanating from the club below rather than his own beating heart. 

— — —

He didn’t even remember walking out of the club or the ride back to his apartment. His body operating on autopilot after the unsettling meeting or whatever the fuck that was. Soap didn’t even bother showering when he got home, opting instead to instantly collapse onto his couch as soon as his shoes were off. He could feel tears of relief and pent-up frustration welling up as soon as his head hit the cushion. 

Me

On-call doctor?! 

Yea, the ‘Ghost’ needed to stop smoking his own product. Like he was just gonna abandon years of schooling and hard work, and not to mention his eventual license, to cater to him and his ‘business’. And on the off chance he didn’t get caught, how could he live with himself saving criminals? Sure, he knows everyone deserves saving. Price engraved that into him a long time ago. He wouldn’t have become a doctor if he didn’t believe that. But he wouldn’t leave his legitimate patients to go save a random dealer who was more than likely shot by a cop at the drop of a hat. At worst, he’d go to prison; at best, he’d lose his job. Both options sucked. 

The only thing keeping the thought in his head was the money. Desperately needed money. Soap had considered getting a part-time job, but his busy schedule made that option nearly impossible. He was barely getting enough sleep as it was, and Price would skin him alive if he found out he got a second job instead of taking money from him. 

The man had been there for every rugby game, every time he was drunk off his ass and needed a ride, every existential crisis- including the time he popped a boner in the boy’s locker room and panicked. Price could have just offered his condolences at his father’s funeral and went on his way. Instead, the man was always there for them, no matter what. Soap refused to repay that loyalty with a mountain of debt. 

That fucker knew exactly what he was doing by putting his sister in that damned file. She was his weak spot, and Ghost wielded her like a perfect weapon. Even so, he’s managed this far, and he can manage for a bit more. He hadn’t hit rock bottom just yet. 

His thoughts were suddenly interrupted by the resident ball of fur hopping up in front of his face. A muffled, “ello beasty,” was all he got out before closing his eyelids one last time. That cold, amber gaze from earlier burned into his brain. Forever watching him, even in sleep. 

Chapter 3

[idlebeks]

New Bundle of Multi Fandom Fic Recs

Fics from various fandoms that have made it into my favorites pile in the last few months. I’ve included the first fics in some unfinished series in this bunch, so if that bothers you be sure to check the series pages before you start to read. Here you will find recs for The Untamed/MDZS, SVSSS, Word of Honor, and Star Wars. One of these days I will create master lists for each fandom.These are a mix of gen and slash with a range of ratings, so read at your own risk. Don’t forget to leave some love for the authors.

The Untamed/MDZS

Stray Dog's Parable by natcat5

Innocence isn't the only thing to die in war. Propriety is the last thing on the minds of the teenaged generals, the orphan clan leaders of the Sunshot campaign.

Jin Guangshan is the only leader who ascended as an adult, who didn't have his parents murdered by the Wen, who didn't come of age during a war. The last adult standing, the only one with experience and age. He assumes this will put him in the most advantageous position, once the war ends. That the infant leaders of the other clans will gladly fall into step within his shadow.

He is wrong.

Your Heart and Mine by natcat5

Wangji and his swan have never met a daemon so terrible and improper as Wei Wuxian's wretched, shameless raven.

Fierce Rabbits by FaiaSakura 

Lan Yuan didn’t mean to start a collection of undead rabbits.

Inquiry by incendir

Sizhui cannot fall asleep for a long, long time that night. He hears the ever-familiar melody again. He thinks perhaps he has memorized it by now.

the anger remains by Gaez (bell_flowers) 

The ghost, when it comes to Lotus Pier, is not entirely unexpected. That it is the enraged shade of his elder sister, does give Jiang Wanyin pause.

just as the stories say by TheDameJudiWench

When a young girl tries to kill the Yiling Laozu, she learns that revenge may not be what she seeks. As Wei Wuxian fights for his life in Cloud Recesses, she begin to carve out an existence she never imagined. Suddenly, she has far more to lose than she ever believed she could gain.

The more she learns about Wei Wuxian and the people who love him, the more she understands about grief and atonement.

This is a story about forgiveness.

Whatever you do [Podfic] by gndmlvr01

Podfic of Whatever you do, by apathyinreverie

Read by gndmlvr01, and posted with blanket permission Please note: I did adjust tags that I find helpful to locate works like this (ex: Genius WWX)

Original story summary:

During the attack on Cloud Recesses, both Jades of Lan are captured. It changes everything. Not so much by way of their capture. But rather by way of who ends up coming to their rescue.

(Or, a Wei-Ying-is-appreciated fic. ‘Cause, there can never be enough of those.)

To a fault by apathyinreverie 

The one where Jiang Cheng wakes during the Golden Core transfer procedure, wakes to the sound of his brother’s agony, to the sight of Wei Wuxian letting his Golden Core be torn from his own chest.

SVSSS

anachronism of the moment by plutoisgay 

daemon au that follows Shen Yuan through his transmigration and life in PIDW

We Are Not Wise by Boomchick, Suzoomie

When Shen Qingqiu drew Shen Yuan’s soul sword, it felt like being burned from the inside out. The fire wasn’t cruel, but it was still fire—hot and destructive, searing the softest pieces of him.

When Binghe’s fingers touch the hilt, he is ready for pain.

Transmigrated into a version of Proud Immortal Demon Way where cultivators manifest their own souls into spiritual weapons, Shen Yuan finds himself sort of kind of…accidentally blackmailing Shen Qingqiu into taking him on as a disciple before Luo Binghe joins the sect.

That should give Shen Yuan plenty of opportunities to make sure nothing goes wrong for his favorite protagonist, right? RIGHT!?

Protagonist Rehabilitation Programme by cinnamonsnaps

(oh my god they were roommates)

"Thank you, valued user, for accepting the Protagonist Rehabilitation Programme. Your task: Ensure the protagonist's happiness."

Shen Yuan is convinced that his favouri... least favourite novel's main protagonist isn't really happy. He has babes, money and power, but does he have any friends? Cue the system handily dropping Demon King Luo Binghe into his bedroom. Can Shen Yuan make him happy before the timer runs out?

(90% light-hearted comedy, 10% existential horror and fear because this is the OG PIDW Binghe we're talking about)

Can't we just skip to the end? by chaoticgoodlawyer

When it was all said and done, Shen Qingqiu comforted himself that the end of the plot meant that, surely, all major events were out of the way. They were firmly in HEA territory and he could relax a little. Right? Right.

A year and a half into his marriage to the protagonist, he cursed himself for a fool when he woke next to a Luo Binghe from ten years in the past.

Meanwhile, a recently transmigrated Shen Yuan struggled to retain what little face he had when confronted with an overgrown, disturbingly gorgeous demon lord claiming to be his husband. Which is impossible, because he’s straight, the most hetero heterosexual to exist. System? A little help here??

Sit With Your Soul by Tossawary 

The original Shen Qingqiu suffers a severe deviation that unsettles his daemon, transforming them into a childish and inconstant creature, too curious and without any memories of the life that has made him so bitter. His soul is now unrecognizable to him and everyone can see his humiliation.

Shen Yuan isn't exactly happy to have transmigrated into Proud Immortal Demon Way at all, much less as this doomed scum villain's daemon.

A His Dark Materials Fusion AU. Knowledge of HDM not required.

Celestial Afterglow by elanor_pam

Shang Qinghua, also known as Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky, stared flatly at what had once been a field boasting near sect-level Feng Shui alignment, and the drowned, bloated remains of the Sun and Moon Dew Flower cuttings that had sprouted within it. Their plan was now quite literally a wash.

If only he could consult Cucumber Bro on how to save Cucumber Bro! But in the absence of Cucumber Bro, he could but rely on the one plot coupon the infamous Peerless Cucumber had ever applauded.

Tongfang by The Feels Whale (miscellea)

Shen Yuan is reincarnated as a cannon fodder character and eventual murder victim in one of the whodunnit arcs in Proud Immortal Demon Way. Things escalate quickly.

Or: that one where young Luo Binghe’s career goal is ‘Bride’.

---

Shen Yuan shut his eyes as a young man waiting to die in a hospital and opened them again as a wrinkly infant covered in substances best left unimagined.

[Welcome to the System! The System is based on the concept ‘YOU CAN YOU UP. NO CAN NO BB.’ We hope to provide you with a rewarding experience. It is our sincere hope that during the course of your adventure, you can achieve your desire to transform a ‘Stupid Novel’ into a high-end and impressive classic. We pray for your happiness,] a mechanical and inflectionless voice announced over the general hubbub of the group of women handling him. Then it added, somewhat more worryingly, [Error.]

In Service by x_los

Emperor Luo Binghe goes looking for a Shen Yuan of his own. The one he finds has yet to fully ripen, but Luo Binghe is used to turning adversity into advantage.

Go Down With You by SpiritOfFox

Your experience when transmigrating largely depends on what role you assume. For example: - you might become the protagonist, the favored golden child of the world... ୧(ಠ⌣ಠ)୨ - you could be the scum villain, the most hated character in the novel... (งಠ_ಠ)ง - you could also end up as the protagonist's wife, one of the many many members of the harem... ❤(ಠ_ಠ)❤

Let's say that Shen Yuan would like to lodge a complaint against the Transmigration System.

AKA the fic where Shen Yuan transmigrates into the role of a certain wife.

Word of Honor

I tend to sleep with my boots on by etymologyplayground

"I just mean… What if Xiao Shu is really Shifu? Shifu left and didn't tell us anything, and then this cat shows up out of nowhere, and it hangs out with us and hisses and scolds me with a single look!!"

"How old are you?" Wen Kexing wonders with a laugh. "Maybe you're just easily bullied, you ever think of that? No, men don't turn into cats. That doesn't happen in real life, you little dummy."

-

It's true that Wen Kexing doesn't know everything.

[Podfic] The Will of Heaven by elrohir podfic (elrohir) 

Zishu straightened up as someone knocked gently on the door. “Da-ren, a refill while you wait?”

About to dismiss the staff, Zishu hesitated as he poured out the last of the tea from the small black pot into his cup. “Fine.”

The man who walked in was handsome, bordering on pretty, an elegant beauty who wouldn’t look out of place among the brothel’s most valuable courtesans. His clothes were too finely made, though, in shades of pale jade and snowy white, and his red mouth wore a smile that was too sharp. He glided across the floor with a poise and gait that was far too considered for anyone untrained in martial arts.

Star Wars

canis by peradi

Rather than obliterating Alderaan, Anakin makes a different choice. How the universe changes; how the Force sings.

(The Jedi and the Sith should have known: Anakin Skywalker will do anything for his family.)

the tiger is out by elumish

Wolffe looks like he’s regretting having a second Jedi with them. 

Smash the Walls of the Clock and Run by Drag0nst0rm 

Cody's memory of Order 66 was strained at best.

But he was pretty sure it hadn't happened like this.

Memo: Jedi Maintenance (The Care and Feeding of Your Jetii) by RainofLittleFishes

The Care and Maintenance of Your Jedi: A Clone Trooper's Guide

Let's be real, a document with the above title totally existed during the Clone Wars. Write an excerpt from that document. That's it, that's the prompt.

* Ding!

You have a memo (Level: Non-Urgent, Confidential, Ongoing Maintenance, Internally Generated).

Memo: Jedi Maintenance

To: You. Yes, you. Presuming you don’t want to get shot up or be responsible for getting your unit shot up because you were too lazy to prep properly in a moment of downtime.

From Orbit by astolat

“You’ve got to quit doing this,” Han said.

Luke glanced at him. “What?”

Han made a wide impatient sweep of his arm. “This. Standing in the bay staring out into the void. It’s creepy, kid. Come on, it’s dinnertime. The fleet can make it into hyperspace without your personal supervision.”

If Blood Be The Price by cadesama

Anakin promised to free all the slaves and it is a promise he intends to keep. Struck by visions of a slave uprising on Tatooine, he runs away to join the fight. Five years later, it his new alliance of former slave worlds that the Republic fears, rather than a Separatist threat. Enlisted to negotiate a peace treaty, Senator Amidala is dispatched to find Anakin, alongside Obi-Wan Kenobi, who only wishes to bring his former Padawan home. AOTC timeframe

[prosperdemeter2]

Behind the Scenes for “almost home” if you have the time?

OH MY GOD yes I have time for this. The entire day by day series means so much to be and I still fully believe it's potentially some of the best work I've ever done.

I don't know if I have a favorite scene in the installment, tbh. So I'll just pick one that I've brought up in therapy (literally 😅 my therapist has a link to this series because I worked through so much while writing it.).

I'm hiding it under the Read More so people can scroll past this if they want 😅

It's the scene where they're in the car on their way to pick up Chris and Liana from the Hershey police department. That big confrontation between Adriana and Buck. This entire trip was meant to sort of... symbolize everything the Buckley-Diaz family has gone through so far to get to a stable place of being. Like... can you really be healed, if you don't also end up confronting where your pain comes from?

Funnily enough, I didn't have Adriana set up to be the bad guy, so to speak, when I started the story. It was never supposed to actually go as far or as long as it did, I just... loved the story so much. And then when I was on vacation I couldn't get the potential plot point of Eddie’s relationship with Sophia out of my head and... things with Adriana sort of spiraled to represent my deteriorating relationship with my own sister (one of them). BUT anyway, Buck finally confronting Adriana was so important to me to put in, because so far he hadn't been in the right place to ever give Adriana what she wanted - a fight.

It was incredibly important to me to show the entire time that Buck understood exactly what it was that Liana was going through, even if the two of them weren't on the same side of the coin. He was sort of, accidentally even, projecting his own anxieties onto her (evidenced by him flashing back when Liana and Adriana get in a fight).

“Because Christopher is perfect ,” Adriana crossed her arms and looked out the window. Inside the little convenience store Eddie was at the counter, paying with a tired frown on his face. They were all still in their pajamas, but Buck was thankful that his and Eddie’s, at least, were simple sweatpants rather than fuzzy blue things like Adriana was sporting. “He can’t do anything wrong.”

Adriana compares her entire life to Eddie. It's a fault of the way they were raised, but it's also just who she is as a person. She's so incredibly jealous of the person he's become that it comes out in every single aspect of her life. In her eyes, he's perfect to everyone else and she is the only one that can see the flaws. She's projecting that same feeling onto Christopher, because their parents unknowingly do the same thing to him that they did with Eddie.

“You don’t get it, do you?” Buck couldn’t help himself, Liana’s face at the mention of their wedding floating in his mind.

Adriana rolled her eyes. “I was fifteen once,” she rolled her lips with a scowl. Buck realized he had never really seen her smile. He wondered, absently, if it looked anything like Eddie or Sophia’s. “I too tried to run away from home.”

Adriana doesn't get it. She's like... she's like all of those moms who's have trauma themselves that think that their trauma informs them of the kind they throw onto their kids. She has given Liana a stable home, with both of her parents around, and she doesn't understand why her daughter isn't THANKFUL for that over angry. She sees it all and labels it as "typical teenage angst", missing the fact that, when you're a teenager, everything feels so heightened.

“She didn’t run away from home, Adriana.”

She laughed, a bitter eye-roll painting her face. “Imbécil.”

The leather cracked as he sat up, a stream of anger clawing at his insides. “She ran away from you .”

Now THIS part, I had stuck in my head since dreaming up this conversation. Not a lot of kids run away from home without a reason, and Liana isn't excempt from that. And who better to point it out to Adriana than someone who so BADLY wanted to be seen when he was that age? Buck has been where Liana is here - he begged and begged for his parents to see him and they never did. Instead of him running away physically, he did it mentally. And then he tried to do it in body and soul by attempting suicide.

“You think I purposely pushed my daughter to run away?”

“I think you’re telling yourself that it’s everyone else’s fault but your own.” He corrected. “I think it’s easier for you to sit here and take out all of your anger about everything that’s gone wrong in your life on your brother than it is to accept responsibility.”

“You’re wrong.”

“I think you spend more time comparing your child to ours than you do accepting her for who she is regardless of flaws.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I think there have been signs staring you in the face that something was going to happen for years and you just ignored them.”

“You’re wrong.”

“I think you’re incredibly lucky that Liana decided to physically run away rather than do anything far worse.”

“She wouldn’t .”

“We both know that’s not true.”

And then there's! There's this! And this is huge! For more than just because someone is finally confronting Adriana but because this shows SO MUCH how Buck has grown over the series. He went from not even TALKING about his attempt unless it was on the surface to outright telling Adriana what he needed when he was that age. The signs Buck’s talking about were there with him too, and just like Liana, they were ignored until they couldn't be anymore.

"That's exactly what you're saying. I'm doing such a bad job and obviously my daughter isn't just acting out -." 

"It's never just acting out ." 

"And she's not just trying to drive me crazy -." 

"No kid wants to be fighting with their parents all the time." 

"Please, you tell me, with all two years of your experience what it is that I'm doing wrong." 

"You're not listening ." 

"Oh, I listen, alright. I listen every single time Liana screams at me and tells me I'm a horrible mother. As if I haven't given up everything for her and her brother! Like I didn't put my dreams aside when I had her at sixteen -." 

"She didn't ask to be born!" 

"Well, I didn't ask to be her mom!" 

"But you consciously made that decision!" 

"I was sixteen!" 

"You are thirty-four!" 

I'm going to be honest here, this was ALL ME. This was everything I wanted to scream at my own mother over and over again until she understood. There is only so much that you can use your own trauma as an excuse. Adriana was a child with a child, just like my mother was a child going through some terrible life experiences, it was not Liana's fault (just as it wasn't mine) that she was born. It's not her fault that her mother is incapable of offering her the same sympathy and understanding. she wanted when she was her age. And it also does still directly parallel Buck’s own story growing up - he didn't ask to take Daniel's spot. He didn't ask his parents not to mourn. He just asked to be loved.

"You know what? This is about Eddie."

"Not everything -."

"I don't know what your parents did to you guys growing up to make you think there's this… this… this competition between you two but this is affecting your kids ."

"That's not what's happening -."

"If you're not careful with how you step you are going to lose your daughter, okay? You're right, I don't have any idea what you've been through but I do know what she's been through. I know what it's like to be the kid that your parents very obviously never wanted."

"I want my daughter -."

"You just said you didn't."

"You're misunderstanding me!"

"No, you just can't make up your mind!" He tossed up his hands in frustration. "Listen, if I can't wrap my head around it how can you expect her to? If all she hears is everything you've given up in order for her to survive, how is she ever going to be able to trust that?"

"I love her."

"Adriana, this isn't love!" He wanted to beg her to understand. There was so much Evan would give for someone to have told his parents this, to have woken them up with harsh words when he needed it most. But no one had, as far as he knew, and he had been left to deal with it all alone. "You know what it's like to be the kid that's not the favorite. I know you do." Her eyes flickered to his and then down at knees, her lips pursed and fingers picking at a thread in her pajama pants. "Don't you remember being fifteen? Seeing how your parents looked at Eddie and wondering what you did wrong ?"

Sharply, Adriana looked back up at him. "You don't…"

"It took twenty- eight years for me to figure out why my parents acted like I ruined their life by being born. Another year after that to learn that that's not my fault ." He shrugged. "And not to even think about what that did to my sister to know she's the favorite because she was the one they planned ."

"That…" Adriana trailed off, seemingly at a loss for words. She licked her lips and rubbed a hand through her hair.

"It's not my fault for how I was raised any more than it's Liana’s."

"That's not fair ."

"Life isn't fair, Adriana. I'm sorry you had to live in Eddie's shadow, okay? And I'm… I'm sorry your parents won't ever apologize for that. But you're an adult now. Liana’s a kid, " he was pleading, if that could be it. Begging her to understand something he had tried for years to get his parents to see. "It's not up to her to put in the work, okay? Being a parent… I think it means putting in all the work yourself so that your kids aren't stuck doing all the hard stuff by themselves, right?" He licked his lips, drumming on his knee nervously with his fingers. "It matters what's going on with you and Eddie."

The amount of times I was told that love meant being in pain... that love meant giving up parts of myself to keep the peace... it made this whole conversation so visceral to write. Buck screaming that "this isn't love" was something I remember thinking myself when my mother made me feel so terrible about myself that I turned to harm. Love isn't meant to make your children turn inwards instead of turning to you and this was a very important lesson that Adriana had to learn and no one was bothering to tell her. No one is at fault for how they were raised here, not Adriana or Eddie or Buck, but there does reach a point where you have to start working on yourself in order to make sure your children don't get stuck in the mess.

This is so long and I could go on and on about this series forever xhsisjnsns.

[samieree]

Goddess of Muspelheim || GOW Ragnarök

Heimdall x OC

-> Introduction + Prologue  -> masterlist

*Chapter 1 || We have to make some rules*

At first, Amaris wasn't positive about leaving her home world, thinking what had she done that her parents were sending her to Asgard for she didn't know exactly how long. They only told her that it would 'calm the atmosphere' between Asgard and Muspelheim. She didn't want to believe it too much, but all she could do was enjoy the fact that she would avoid the lessons with her aunt and see more of the other world.

Not that she'd never been to Asgard, but it was only at the feasts and she couldn't roam the land freely. Although who knows how it will be now, looking at the fact that she got a nanny in the form of... Heimdall.

Not going to lie, she doesn't know him very well, but she already knows what an asshole he is. And he's supposed to be the best person to make sure she doesn't accidentally hurt herself?

It'll be... Interesting.

"Of course, I love being a babysitter, but we need to set some ground rules." it's already starting, and they barely had time to leave Odin's house...  "You should write it down, you don't look like a person who has a good memory."

"Hey!"

"Rule number one: If you're not dying or losing a limb or something like that, don't scream or talk. Everything bright, clean and clear. Two: I don't care if you're bored. Third: DON'T touch me. Four: I'm not going to do anything with you." and so they walked slowly towards the wall, and she listed all his rules one by one... Honestly, Amaris only tried to listen to him a little, because she knew what skills he had and would probably know if she started ignoring him. "Twenty-fourth: If you get a bump or something, I don't care either, because it'll be YOUR fault." how much does he have? "Fifty-nine: I'm not a punching bag you can try to vent your teenage hysteria on." they go and they go, and he keeps talking... "One hundred and eighty-six: Just because I have to babysit you doesn't mean I'll be nice. " wow, like it's something new... "Rule number two hundred and four: You don't touch me under any circumstances..."

"You already said that." the fourteen-year-old cut him off, crossing her arms over her chest.

"Did I tell you not to talk?" He stopped abruptly and turned to her with his piercing gaze.

"Maybe there was something in the first ten rules..."

"Then you are not to speak." he interrupted her. "Rule two hundred and five..." he wanted to continue and go on as if nothing had happened, but Amaris spoke again.

"And if I do? And you skipped rule two hundred and four because it was before."  she noticed, and ran a little to catch up with him.

I hate children.

"If you do, I'll tie you to a stake in the middle of town, and I'll come only if someone wants to murder you. Do you understand, baby? Great, so rule two hundred and four..." She sighed heavily and rolled her eyes, just wondering how many more rules he'll come up with that she won't remember anyway...

What does it matter? He'd probably make them up anyway, whenever she did something he didn't like for some reason.

"And last, rule three hundred and forty-eight: I'm an adult, so I'm always right." He finished listing all these rules once they were on top of the wall encircling Asgard. "All clear?"

She was silent. He had told her not to talk to him, hadn't he? Well, she won't say anything, as he wish.

"Well, yes, to a child with special needs, I need to clarify a few things... You don't speak without being asked. When I expect an answer, you are to give it to me."

"How do I know you're expecting answer?" Did Odin really think he was the best babysitter here?

Sure, Thor would probably be even worse... And Sif has three children to deal with, but there's sure to be someone in all of Asgard more qualified for the role than Heimdall. She didn't doubt that Aesir had some advantages, but... Dealing with teenagers was definitely not one of them.

"Are you really that dull? I get it, you're young, but so unintelligent?"

"Are you so old that you forget to be clear?" she replied in the same tone. After all, what's wrong could happen to her? He's teasing her already, so why shouldn't she respond to him the same way? He won't do anything to her.

Right?

"Oh ho... The girl wants to argue with me?" Great, he laughed at her. "That's the fun you found to yourself?"

"I have a name, you know?" she snapped back.

"Yes yes, and now it's time for another game so I don't beat you up on the first day..." what? Is he just saying that or will he actually hit her if she pushes him to the brink? More probable is that she'll be the one whose psyche will fail faster, but what if not?

Maybe he'll even threaten to throw her off that wall?

"You said you won't care if I'm bored." But she decided to take the risk of teasing him further. At most, he'd kill her, and then her parents would kill him.

"You see this stone?" he asked, picking up the first stone he came across. She didn't quite know what he meant, but he walked to the edge of the wall and threw it somewhere in front of him. "Come back when you find it. And hope it didn't land on any rooftop."

Is he mocking her? Does she look like the kind of dog who'll take care of bringing back not even a stick, but some stupid stone?

And what's even worse is that Heimdall would know perfectly well if she brought some other stone to get him off her mind, after all, this damn Aesir can read minds.

That's why she didn't plan to participate in this 'game'.

"I'll be back when I find you a better sense of humor, it shouldn't take me long." she muttered angrily, watching him jump on one of the stones and sit on it as if nothing had happened.

Excuse me, this is his job? Lying all day, because few people are stupid enough to climb this wall, and even fewer will do it successfully?

Life is unfair.

"Seek what you want, just don't bother me and don't get yourself killed." I wonder what would happen if I tried to burn his braids... she thought, actually considering this option. Her hands literally burned her to try, even though he probably would have easily dodged her innocent attack. "Don't even think about it, sunshine. You can burn your hands by accident." Now I understand better why no one likes him.

"That would be a low price anyway." she answered.

"Oh, and grab something to eat while you're looking for that stone or sense of humor or whatever..." He waved his hand as a sign that she can go. I'll put rat poison in there... "And don't try to put rat poison or anything else in there!"

She still hadn't moved a step. She gave him a hateful look, which he obviously enjoyed.

When she couldn't bear his piercing gaze any longer, she turned her back on him and sat down on the ground. She quickly heard a sigh behind her and that he was rising from the stone.

"I swear, you get offended the fastest in the nine realms." She didn't react in any way. "Come on child, let's go get something to eat."

Before she knew it, he strode past her, ducking down for a moment, only to grab her arm tightly and start dragging her along the ground behind him.

"Hey, let me go! It's not funny!" no reaction. "I can walk by myself, you idiot!"

"So far, all I've noticed is that you're complaining." He finally released her. Amaris had never gotten up from the ground so quickly and brushed herself off. "Great, now that we've got your little sulk over with, let's go get something to eat. Or at least me, because I don't know if you can use cutlery yourself." After sending her one of his smirks, he moved forward again, and she slowly followed him.

Pff, of course she can eat with cutlery, what a stupid remark... She could even stick a fork in his neck with pleasure.

"Stop thinking about such things, because lest you hurt yourself, I'll have to feed you myself. And I absolutely don't want to." mocking him under her breath, she walked on.

Oh, it will take a long time for her to get used to her 'nanny'... But maybe she will find a way to make his life miserable and not spoil hers at the same time?

One thing is certain, her stay in Asgard will be interesting.

-> Next Chapter -> general masterlist -> God of War: Ragnarök masterlist

[shadowdoodles]

The chill in the air was cellpulchral, the young demon was dodging the bone demon's attacks. With very obvious and serious wounds, there was no one around but xe could hear the others fighting with the rest of the witch's army.

-There is no one who can save you from your fate- shouts the bone spirit before launching a direct attack on the body of the minor, at the moment the teenager's body hits the ground, xe looks directly at her, unable to move and with his whole body completely numb. The woman in the body of a girl continues walking until she grabs the kid's neck -Your sacrifice will not be in vain- the woman looks at xem with light blue reflections in her eyes -You will not be able to stop me anymore! And your power will restore me completely- MK could feel how the magic of xyr body was less and less, tears started to come out of xem eyes.

This was the end...they would all die and it would be xem fault. Xe was never as strong as xyr parents, nor xyr siblings, xe was devil, and useless and now it would all be over and it would be xyr fault?

Tears came in floods, each time more weak than before, but... for some reason an old memory came to his mind

"-His power is unstable- began the Kitsune -especially if it's not in his body- the doctor looked at the older monkeys -That's why you shouldn't absorb his power... or it will end up killing you-

-His magic is only made for the child to handle it-  he says finishing ordering some papers, -Even if someone manages to absorb some power..., if he absorbs all of it he will end up killing him- the doctor once again looks at the family with a serious face so that they understand the problem"

It was the only way, wasn't it? That was what the young demon thought, xe knew xe would die if xe gave she all xyr power...?, absolutely, but xe didn't care.

That was xyr destiny, the witch had already said it, xe would finish her off even if he had to die to achieve it.

-If this is my destiny...- xe said to give all xyr power to the witch, fearing that it would not even work, -I will fulfill it!-

The woman could feel the power being transferred to her, and a horrible smile was forming on her face. But then she noticed that all that power was hurting her, but it was already done no matter how much she fought, how much she fought the magic of the Monkey cub was killing her and this time there would be nothing to do.

-Why are you doing this to me?!- shouts the witch with pain, the adolescent with what was left of xyr strength smiles "I-it's what you wanted..." xe says almost whispering with a smile on xyr face. At least xe did something right..., at least she will die and xe will go with that demon and honestly xe didn't care. Xe was happy the witch would die and he hoped the hostess would be okay....

The young demon watches as the witch dies in agony and the girl's body falls to the ground, if he could he would check her but xe had no more strength...., and is large pool of blood that formed under xem was just a reminder that it will all be over soon.

Xe can hear celebrations in the distance, they had won..., xe had done it, xe just wanted to say goodbye to xyr parents..., but, xe couldn't do it xe hopes they are not so disappointed.

The last thing xe hears are rapid footsteps coming to the den, xyr eyes were already closed but xe still smiles ...., and the last thing xe hears is the shout of one of xyr parents -Xiaotian!- and everything goes black.

Guess who advanced in the story and not in the next chapter!

Yep this author :3

X is going to kill me for not being tidy... but with the anguish of this part xe get over it!

I hope...

[djretard]

and then after a couple years I "broke up" with mackenzie (in a friend way... we never dated) and I lost all of those friends and so I went to haylee bc I felt like I should apologize to her. and she forgave me and we started being friends again. that year or so was one of the best times of my life, haylee didn't treat me like a little kid but she didn't sexualize me either, we had a lot of teenage fun that eventually grew into delinquency. we met hannah, and I reconnected with sean. this was when I was around 14. so haylee + hannah were 17ish (give or take) and sean was 16. I had known sean when I was friends with mackenzie, and we actually got pretty close, he liked making people laugh and I thought he was hilarious. it used to make mackenzie so mad, she would leave the room and give me the silent treatment until I stopped talking to him. I reconnected with sean and told him everything, and I didn't think he would believe me but he did. he said mine and mackenzie's relationship was inappropriate and he was getting tired of her anyways, and we started hanging out.

that friend group was the most codependent toxic yet life altering amazing thing. we had so much fucking delinquent fun. the four of us was all we needed for a party, and luckily for those three my parents didn't care if we drank or smoke or whatever, the only rule was none of could have sex in their house. (was already doing that at this point... lost my virginity at 11 LOL). we were vocally all in love with each other, but it was never sexual (apart from haylee and I... we started dating/doing things around that time, when I was 14.) but I was always closest with sean between him and hannah. he told me things about himself and would tell me I was the only one who could understand him. I now clearly see he was grooming me, but at the time I just felt so special. I know I was in a relationship, but I will admit I had a crush on him. his attention was so special because his "thing" was to be mean to people as a joke, or indifferent bc he's so "cool." he was also so nice and gentle with me and he engaged with my interests and even let me hold his hand. at some point between there and the end he waited until I was drunk and either touched me or thought about it, he wouldn't tell me which one. I feel that's telling.

that is what ended the friendship, him admitting that. on top of, um, admitting he was a pedophile. he said he never knew until he met me, and that as we got closer he started seeking out c*p. he also started bringing me around mackenzie again, which scared the shit out of me but I went with him bc he said he wouldn't let her talk to me even if she wanted to. haylee was extremely upset at both hannah and sean. haylee wanted to go over to sean's house and like, hurt him, but I begged her not to and she listened. this was when I was around 17, when this all came out. hannah sided with him, but not before telling me at that same party that she always wanted to fuck me, we made out. haylee felt like it was largely her fault bc the night sean apparently did that we were all in the room together, and she felt guilty that she didn't know. I know it's not her fault, I don't think she has ever fully come to terms with it bc it's hard for her to talk about. she started drinking a lot more after that revelation.

there's the tea on my friends. I don't talk to any of them anymore, all my friends are online or haylee, which doesn't count bc we're dating. and it's a little codependent. I like it when she takes care of me and she likes to take care of me. she also likes to fuck me. people often do