#RIP to algorithm babies

[the-most-humble-blog]

The Most Humble Blog Goes Multi-Platform: Bluesky Edition.

Let’s See How Long Before They Regret It.

Alright, family, I just rolled up into Bluesky!

No hashtags. No algorithm hand-holding. Just raw engagement, lost Twitter orphans, and a whole lot of people pretending this place is the second coming of Christ.

I’m still talking my shit over here on Tumblr, but now there’s a second battlefield.

If you want the same razor-sharp humor, unapologetic chaos, and well-placed verbal violence, follow me on Bluesky:

@themosthumbleblog.bsky.social

💀New platform. Same energy. Same disrespect. Let’s see how long before I make someone cry. Thanks Fam!

[solxamber]

Workplace Hazards: Romance || Idia Shroud

You're a feral SS-class Esper with no off switch. He's an anxious shut-in SS-class Guide just trying to game in peace. Through lies, HR nightmares, dramatic near-deaths, and one candy ring proposal, you accidentally become soulmates. Government benefits may or may not be involved.

Series Masterlist

Life, in its infinite wisdom, had decided to take a sharp left turn off the highway of normalcy and drive screaming into the wormhole of cosmic horror.

One day you’re just a person trying to buy goat milk, and the next, the sky rips open like a microwaved burrito, belching out monsters that look like someone tried to 3D print your worst nightmare with a spaghetti code of malice and slime. Scientists call them "Gate manifestations." Everyone else calls them "oh no no no NO—"

But humanity, being the scrappy little infestation it is, adapted. Not by solving the actual problem (of course not, that would require shutting up billionaires and redirecting global funds from "missile measuring contests"), but by evolving. Or rather, mutating—suddenly a percentage of the population started exhibiting terrifying, physics-optional powers. 

These people are called Espers—a sanitized title that really just means "Congratulations! You are now licensed to punch interdimensional horrors in the face and traumatize yourself in the process."

Now, if the Espers were just laser-wielding sad little soldiers, that would be one thing. But no, their powers came with a side effect: unmanageable psychic noise. Think psychic radiation plus the emotional intensity of a sleep-deprived theatre kid on their third espresso shot. 

This is where Guides came in. Not to lead anyone (the name is misleading, like “boneless chicken wings” in Ohio), but to stabilize Espers before they exploded into a Category Five Meltdown and leveled half a city block because someone forgot to restock the vending machine.

Guides don’t just talk you down—they shove their psychic aura into your brain like a weighted blanket made of competence and condescension. They are therapists, emotional janitors, and living surge protectors. Some are kind. Some are terrifying. Some, unfortunately, are hot.

So now the world runs on a system: gates appear, Espers go in and fight, Guides catch them when they fall out twitching and covered in monster goo. Rinse. Repeat. Cry. Go to therapy if you’re lucky. Take a nap if you’re not. Don’t die. (Please. HR paperwork is a nightmare.)

And if you’re very unlucky—like catastrophically, cosmically doomed—you fall in love with your Guide.

But that’s not your fault. That’s life now, baby.

You’re an Esper. A good one, actually. Or you were. You were ranked S-Class and living the dream: minimum paperwork, maximum destruction, and you had a Guide who made you drink tea and pretend your trauma was a garden to be tended. You even humored him and tried to visualize your “inner zen koi pond” until the koi started screaming back. Good times.

But then came The Incident.

Now, to be fair, the gate had looked normal. It wasn’t your fault it turned out to be a Class Alpha Instability Spiral—whatever the hell that means; you don't read the reports, you're just the explosion part of the team.

It also wasn’t your fault the emotional stress made you unlock a new tier of Esper abilities mid-battle. And it definitely wasn’t your fault that you accidentally bent the laws of physics so hard that five square kilometers of space-time decided to just... sit this one out.

But sure, blame the walking psychic warhead. Classic.

Congratulations! You're now SS-Class. The extra “S” stands for “Somebody please help.” Your previous Guide has politely resigned, citing “irreconcilable sanity differences.” HR gave you a pamphlet called So You’ve Accidentally Become a Government Weapon, and you were told your new classification required a compatibility reassignment.

Soul-sorting algorithms that spat out exactly one name. One room number. One very troubling lack of further details. Because while every other high-ranking Guide had reviews, commentary, threat assessments—your new match had... whispers.

"Doesn't take anyone."

"Turned down a whole squad of Espers."

So naturally, you knocked on the door.

Then knocked again.

And on the third knock, after contemplating whether this was some elaborate prank designed to push you into spontaneous combustion, you heard it: a whispered, "Come in," like the voice of someone who’d been emotionally concussed by mere social interaction.

The office was dark. Not ominous-dark, more... someone-didn’t-want-to-pay-the-electric-bill dark. The curtains were drawn. The monitor light was the only glow in the room, and behind it was a figure so slouched, so cocooned in hoodie and existential dread, you almost mistook him for a sentient couch cushion.

Idia Shroud.

SS-Class Guide. The Anti-Social Sorcerer. The Mothman of Mental Stability.

He looked up at you like you were the ghost of an unpaid internship and visibly recoiled.

"Hi," you said, very brightly, like this wasn’t clearly a mistake and the man before you hadn’t just contemplated leaping through the window to escape human contact.

He blinked. Slowly. "You're the SS?"

“Apparently,” you replied, sitting down calmly and very much not vibrating with barely-leashed doom energy. You folded your hands in your lap like someone who hadn’t just melted part of the training center during compatibility testing. “And you're going to be my Guide.”

That clearly short-circuited something in his brain because he made a strangled wheeze that sounded like a laptop dying.

So, obviously, the next logical step was pretending to be emotionally stable.

“Yes, I’ve been told I have excellent boundaries,” you said, lying through your teeth. “I meditate. I go to therapy. I drink water.”

Your nose might have twitched at the last one. Idia squinted.

“I’ve... seen your incident reports.”

Ah. Well. Time to double down.

“And yet,” you said, flashing a smile that could win awards for Most Suspicious Aura, “the test matched us. Fate, right?”

Idia looked at you like fate had personally wronged him.

You maintained eye contact. Calm. Cool. Collected. Just another emotionally well-regulated citizen of the world, absolutely not about to snap and launch a fireball into a vending machine if it ate your coins again.

And to your surprise, after a long, tense silence and a muttered line that sounded suspiciously like, “If I ignore it, maybe it'll leave,” he didn’t kick you out.

He just sighed. Opened a drawer. Pulled out your file like it physically hurt him.

And so it began.

You and the man who looked like a sleep-deprived curse word.

Esper and Guide.

Chaos and more chaos. 

Willing participant and deeply unwilling participant.

Honestly, this was going to go great.

Idia sits next to you like someone forced him into a live-action horror movie adaptation of his worst social nightmares. He perches at the very edge of the couch, knees turned sharply away from you, shoulders hunched like he’s expecting to spontaneously combust just from proximity. He’s sweating. Actively. You can hear it.

He doesn't look at you—doesn’t dare to. Eye contact might trigger some kind of emotional subroutine he’s buried under six years of anime quotes and avoidance. So instead, he glares at the floor like it owes him money and says in the driest, most pained voice you've ever heard:

“…I’m going to initiate touch now.”

You blink. “Cool. I won’t bite.”

“Statistically, there’s still a 17% chance.”

Before you can ask how he got that number, he reaches over—very gingerly—and clasps your hand like it’s a ticking time bomb. It’s the least affectionate, most clinical hand-hold imaginable. And yet—

Your brain goes silent. Completely. All the psychic noise, the static, the ghost of that one Gate entity that’s been whispering “eat drywall” for three weeks straight—gone. You breathe out, deeply, for what feels like the first time in months.

“Oh,” you say, blinking slowly. “That’s… good. That’s really good.”

Meanwhile, Idia has gone stiff as a corpse. He looks at you, then at your hand, then back at you like you’ve just transformed into a philosophical dilemma.

“How are you alive?” he asks, genuinely horrified. “You’re… you’re an unstable esper. Your baseline resonance is like an overcooked spaghetti noodle wrapped around a hand grenade. You should be fried. You should be paste. What the hell have you been doing for guidance?”

You shrug. “My last guide made me listen to podcasts. And sometimes put a warm towel on my neck.”

Idia just stares at you in disbelief. “A warm towel?! A warm towel?! That’s like trying to fight a house fire with herbal tea!”

You grin at him, relaxed in a way you haven’t been since your promotion. “Hey. I’m adaptable.”

Then you wink.

He jerks his hand back like you just slapped him with a legally binding marriage proposal. “Okay, what does that mean?! Are you flirting? Threatening me? Both?!”

You stretch luxuriously on his couch, now absolutely high on the absence of psychic distress.  “Wouldn’t you like to know, Guide boy?”

He looks at you like he’s re-evaluating every decision that led him to this moment—including being born.

You close your eyes, content, while Idia frantically Googles “how to tell if your newly assigned Esper is insane.”

You don’t need to see him to know he’s panicking.

But you feel better than you have in weeks.

You exit the Gate with all the dignity of a baby deer on roller skates. Technically alive, mostly upright, and riding the high of “I didn’t die today” like it’s a stimulant. There’s smoke rising from your gloves, your hair’s doing a very bold interpretation of ‘windblown,’ and you’re about three seconds from either vomiting or adopting nihilism as a full-time lifestyle.

And then—you spot him.

Your Guide.

Idia Shroud.

He’s lurking in the far corner of the clearing, half-shielded by a vending machine and what looks like pure, unfiltered spite. His hood’s up, his glowstick hair is practically vibrating, and he’s watching the post-Gate Espers like a cornered Victorian orphan who’s about to throw hands over the last piece of bread.

One comes within five feet of him and he physically recoils, clutching his comms tablet like it’s a crucifix. You're ninety percent sure he hissed.

So naturally, you make a beeline for him.

“Hi honey, I’m home,” you chirp, still crackling with energy like a downed power line.

He jolts like you just poured emotional commitment down his spine.

“Oh my GOD,” he mutters, dragging you by the sleeve like you’re radioactive (which, in fairness, you might be). “What took you so long?! I was standing here surrounded by—by unregulated feelings and eye contact and—oh my god, one of them tried to hug me.”

You let him pull you behind a barrier, where he sits you down with the dramatic flair of someone absolutely done with his entire existence. He doesn’t even wait—just snatches your hand and starts stabilizing you like he’s diffusing a bomb, holding on like letting go might summon the apocalypse.

Instant, blessed silence.

Your brain, which had been screaming like a dial-up modem on fire, goes quiet. Your chest unknots. You remember that oxygen exists and taking it in is actually encouraged. You sigh, blissed out, while Idia makes a face like he just stuck his hand in radioactive soup.

“I know it was, like, a gate collapse or whatever,” he mutters, eyes fixed on the skyline like he’s begging some higher power for patience. “But maybe next time don’t take so long to get out? You were in there for seventy minutes. I counted. Every second was emotionally damaging.”

You grin, eyes still hazy. “Aw. You missed me.”

“I panicked,” he snaps. “There’s a difference. I had a backup plan. It was called ‘run.’”

You lean toward him with a smug little hum. “You care.”

“I don’t care,” he says immediately, voice cracking like a damaged violin string. “I just don’t want you getting so emotionally unhinged you come back here all weepy and soulbond-seeking and—” he gestures vaguely. “Clingy.”

“I’m not clingy,” you say, still not letting go of his hand.

“You’re currently latched onto me like a trauma koala,” he deadpans.

You wink. “So you do care.”

Idia looks at you like he’s actively calculating how many regulations he can violate before someone notices. His expression lands somewhere between “why me” and “I should’ve become a dental assistant.”

But he doesn’t let go.

In fact, he shifts slightly so you can lean against him more comfortably. Not that he says anything about it. No. That would imply emotional maturity and gross things like “communication.”

Instead, he mutters, “You smell like space lightning and poor decisions.”

You beam at him. “Thanks. It’s my natural musk.”

And despite everything—despite the chaos, the imminent paperwork, and the looming threat of another Esper trying to trauma-bond with him—Idia doesn’t move away.

You’d like to think it’s because of your immense charm.

He’ll tell himself it’s just because it’s the most efficient way to keep you from frying your nervous system.

But deep down—deep down—he’s already doomed, and you both know it.

Congratulations. You’ve adopted a reclusive Guide with the emotional range of a scared wet cat.

And he cares.

Desperately.

You were having a very productive day doing absolutely nothing.

Flat on your bed, hoodie pulled over your face, limbs at the exact angle of maximum immobility, you were experiencing true stillness. The kind of stillness monks meditate decades to achieve. You hadn’t moved in hours. If someone were to enter your apartment right now, they’d probably mistake you for a corpse, but with worse fashion sense.

And then your phone rang.

You ignored it. Of course you did. Whoever it was could wait. You were on a spiritual journey to become one with your mattress. But it rang again. And again. And then came the messages. Ping. Ping. Pingpingpingping—

With the groan of someone who’s known true peace and been dragged back to hell, you reached for the phone.

[Guidia]: B-Class pest in hallway. Halp. He's monologuing. [Guidia]: SOS. EMERGENCY. COME NOW. I’M NOT KIDDING.  [Guidia]: HE'S OUTSIDE MY OFFICE. HE HAS A CLIPBOARD.  [Guidia]: I’M HIDING BEHIND MY ROLLING CHAIR.  [Guidia]: IF YOU DON’T COME I’M FAKING MY OWN DEATH.

You stared at the messages. Debated pretending you didn’t see them. Debated harder. Lost.

Twenty minutes later, you're standing in front of the office building, internally mourning the loss of your free day and dressed like a walking stress nap with an energy drink in hand. You shuffle into the building, make your way to the guide floor, and as soon as you turn the corner—

There he is.

A junior Esper. Knocking on Idia’s door with the determined rhythm of someone trying to summon either a guide or God himself.

You slow down, then stop completely a few feet away, watching the scene with mild interest and the deadpan curiosity of someone who’s just been pulled out of bed to witness this madness.

He looks fresh out of training. Blue hair perfectly combed, posture painfully upright, shoes that don’t have a single scuff on them. He’s also got that nervous, earnest vibe that screams “will fill out extra paperwork if asked.”

You raise an eyebrow. “What’s going on?”

He turns, a bit startled, then gives you a hopeful little smile.

“I’m here to meet Guide Shroud,” he says. “I heard he’s an SS-Rank and that he has only one Esper on his schedule, so I came to ask if he’d consider guiding me!”

You blink slowly. “You’re…?”

“B-Class!” he says proudly. “But I’ve been training hard. My instructors say I’ve got potential!”

You resist the urge to say “uh-huh” and pat him on the head. It is bold, you’ll give him that. You’d admire it more if you weren’t already picturing Idia foaming at the mouth behind the door.

Before you can respond, the door opens a crack—and a pale hand shoots out, grabs your wrist, and yanks you inside like you’re being abducted.

The door slams shut behind you. You spin and there’s Idia, crouched behind his desk, wide-eyed and absolutely vibrating with panic.

“WHY is he still out there,” he hisses.

You shrug. “He’s got dreams?”

“I SAW THE CLIPBOARD.”

“What’s on the clipboard, Idia.”

“I DON’T KNOW. GOALS? AMBITIONS? A LIST OF ICEBREAKER QUESTIONS?”

You give him a flat look. “So you dragged me out of bed—on my day off—because a baby Esper wanted to talk to you?”

“Did you SEE him?! He’s wearing a BUTTON-UP. He brought a PEN.”

“And your solution is what? Hide in your office until he dies of old age?”

“YES,” he says, without shame.

You sigh, long and dramatic. “Fiiiine.”

“You’ll get rid of him?”

“Yes.”

“WITHOUT making a mess?”

“No promises.”

You step out of the office, roll your shoulders, and walk up to the junior Esper with your best tired-but-stern government-employee face.

“Hey,” you say. “Guide Shroud can’t take you.”

His face falls. “Oh. Why not?”

“He’s bonded.”

“Oh.” He looks down, disappointed. “Wait—bonded? Like, permanently?”

“Yep.”

“…To who?”

You tilt your head and flash a smile. “Me.”

A beat passes.

“Oh,” he says again, eyes wide. “I—I didn’t know. That’s amazing. Congratulations! You two must have a really powerful connection.”

You nod solemnly. “We do. He definitely doesn’t hide under the desk every time I sneeze.”

“I hope someday I get to experience something like that,” he says, eyes shining.

You pat his shoulder like the elder cryptid you are. “Maybe. But for now, go back to your training. Don’t skip on the cardio. Gates love people who skip cardio.”

He scurries off with a polite bow and a visible resolve to become the best version of himself.

You reenter the office. Idia’s peeking from behind his chair like a horror movie extra.

“Gone?”

“Gone.”

“What did you tell him?”

“That you’re soul-bonded to me and emotionally unavailable.”

Idia goes still. Then slowly slinks out of hiding and collapses into his chair like a dying star.

“I can’t believe you just lied to a government-registered Esper,” he mutters.

“I can believe I did it to get my day off back.”

“…Fair.”

You yawn, stretch, and head for the door. “Anyway, congrats on our fake bond. I expect fake anniversary gifts.”

“I'm gonna submit a fake complaint to HR.”

“Romantic.”

Idia glares.

You blow him a kiss and leave.

You realize just how feral Espers are for high-grade Guides when one tries to poach yours in broad daylight, in public, with the social grace of a raccoon trying to steal your fries at a bus stop.

You’ve just finished a gate run, which—if you ignore the part where you took on three more phantoms than assigned, broke your regulator, and got launched through a wall—went rather well. Minor details, honestly. 

Idia, however, is not ignoring any of that. He is, in fact, still cataloging your crimes in a tired monotone that suggests he’s preparing a very long, very strongly worded complaint for HR. Possibly engraved on stone tablets.

“You absolute menace,” he mutters, slumped against the wall beside you. “You promised—promised—you wouldn’t go after the untagged ones unless backup arrived, and what did you do? You ran at it. With a stick. A stick.”

“It was a long stick,” you say helpfully, grinning as you lean a little more of your weight against him, fully aware he’s too drained to push you off.

“I had to leave my desk, you tyrant,” he hisses. “Do you know what it’s like being forced to cross a city-wide barrier while wearing socks with holes in them?! My soul is chafing.”

You laugh, and the sound is light and easy, the kind that says this is all routine for you now—him grumbling, you ignoring, the two of you attached at the hand like mismatched puzzle pieces that somehow just work.

It’s been nearly a year since you first met, and though Idia still resembles flight response in human form, he doesn’t flinch when you touch him anymore. He doesn’t hide behind walls of screens and sarcastic muttering. These days, he’ll even look you in the eye if he’s feeling particularly emotionally reckless.

And today, you’re halfway draped against his side, gripping his hand like it’s your personal grounding wire, while he complains about your irresponsibility with the dulled, weary cadence of someone who has long accepted his fate.

Everything is calm. Peaceful. Slightly sweaty, but serene.

Until it happens.

You feel it first—a disturbance in the air, a sort of psychic shift like a mosquito entering your periphery. And then a hand—not yours—wraps around Idia’s other hand.

You both freeze.

You turn your head slowly, like a haunted doll in a horror movie, and lock eyes with the offending Esper: a stranger, grinning with the unnerving intensity of someone who’s never once respected personal space in their life.

Their grip is firm. Their eyes are gleaming. You get the immediate and unshakable impression that they brush their teeth with motivational speeches and do pushups while listening to alpha wave affirmations.

“Hey,” they say brightly. “I felt your energy from across the lot. You’re an SS-ranked Guide, right? I need a sync. This is urgent.”

You blink. They just walked up. Grabbed his hand. Started a conversation. Like you’re not right there. Like you’re not holding his hand already.

Idia makes a noise. A terrible, high-pitched, panicked noise that sounds like a dying computer fan combined with a stress wheeze. His grip on your hand turns into a death clamp so intense you briefly lose sensation in your fingers.

You can feel his aura spiking erratically, his hair going from blue-flame to fire-hazard, his whole body broadcasting something between fight and flight but mostly error404.human.exe has stopped responding.

The other Esper keeps smiling.

So naturally, your half-dead, gate-fried, emotionally responsible brain decides to handle the situation with grace, poise, and logic.

“That’s my bonded Guide, how dare you?” you say loudly, voice ringing across the field like you’ve just declared war at a royal banquet.

The Esper blinks. “Wait—bonded?”

You stare them down with the weight of a thousand lies and the calm of someone who has absolutely no plan but is fully committed to whatever this is now. “Yes. Bonded. Anchored. Spiritually entangled. Aether-twined in the eyes of the Bureau and every known deity.”

The Esper takes a step back. “Oh. I—I didn’t realize, you weren’t listed—”

“It’s private. Sacred. We don’t believe in paperwork,” you say solemnly, as if this is an ancient vow passed down from your ancestors and not something you just made up to avoid watching Idia break down like a damsel in the middle of a syncing field.

“I—I’m sorry,” they stammer, already backing away like you’ve slapped them with a restraining order made of pure energy. “I didn’t mean to—good luck with your, um. Bond.”

And then they run. They actually run. Kick up dust and everything.

You turn back to Idia, who’s frozen in place like his entire reality has blue-screened.

“What,” he croaks, “the hell was that?”

“A problem solved,” you say, settling back into your lean like nothing happened. “You’re welcome.”

“You told them we were bonded. In public. Do you have any idea what you just—? That’s a federal registration. There’s ceremonies. There are retreats. I’m going to start getting targeted ads for matching sync robes!”

You shrug, resting your head on his shoulder with the peacefulness of someone who knows, with every fiber of their being, that they have zero intention of fixing this. “Eh. If the ad algorithm knows something before you do, maybe it’s just fate.”

“You’re the worst,” he whispers, deeply and with feeling.

And yet, his grip doesn’t loosen. Even with both your hands clasped like that, even after the emotional equivalent of a car alarm going off in his soul, he keeps holding on.

So really, you figure everything’s fine.

After one little white lie (okay, two), things spiraled faster than you expected. Who knew that telling two different Espers that you and Idia were bonded would spread like someone set the office gossip group chat on fire and dumped rocket fuel on it?

Now you’re both sitting in HR.

The room is sterile in that special, soul-draining way that only HR offices can achieve—walls too white, chairs too plastic, a single wilting plant in the corner that’s seen more existential dread than most therapists.

You’re slouched in your seat, one leg bouncing like a ticking bomb, while Idia sits stiffly beside you, arms folded, looking like he wants to sink through the floor.

He's glaring at you with the intensity of a thousand blue suns. You can feel the judgment radiating off him like he's trying to guilt-force an apology through sheer mental anguish.

"Look," you mutter, nudging his boot with yours. "It’s not that bad."

"You told people we were bonded,” he hisses under his breath. “Twice. You turned it into an office-wide feature presentation. They sent us an official celebration cake, do you understand how terrifying that?”

You grin. “People love love.”

“I’m allergic to attention,” he snaps. “Do you know how many people tried to make eye contact with me this morning?”

“I made your life more efficient. Think about it—if we just roll with it, you never have to guide another Esper again. No more weirdos grabbing your hand in public. No more field calls. No more small talk.”

Idia pauses. You can see the moment he processes it. He goes very, very still, like a prey animal realizing the trap is actually a very comfy bed with Wi-Fi.

“…If I say we’re bonded, you're the only Esper I’ll ever have to guide,” he murmurs, eyes flicking toward the ceiling like he’s consulting an invisible divine entity. “I could work from home forever. No more missions. No more rando Espers breathing at me. I could build an AI version of myself for you to sync with. I wouldn’t even need to be conscious.”

“There you go!” you whisper, triumphant. “Fake it till we make it. Just smile, nod, and look like you tolerate me.”

“I don’t know how to smile on command.”

“Perfect. That’s our natural chemistry.”

Before he can spiral further, the HR door opens and a clipboard-toting, tired-eyed official waves you both in.

You sit. Idia sits like he’s never sat before. The HR guy folds his hands and gives you both that “I don’t get paid enough for this” expression all HR personnel master within the first week of their job.

“So,” he says. “You’re claiming a bond. You understand that means your sync scores, mission pairings, and emotional resonance charts are now considered federal data.”

“Absolutely,” you say confidently.

“Nope,” Idia says at the same time.

The HR guy pauses. “Right. Let’s just verify a few details.” He flips through the clipboard. “When did you begin your relationship?”

“About eleven months ago,” you reply smoothly.

“Two months ago?” Idia echoes, blinking. “Wait, what?”

“Where was your first official sync?”

“Field 17,” you say.

“The cafeteria,” says Idia.

A silence. You shoot him a quick look and whisper, “Why would we sync in the cafeteria—”

“I was thinking of lunch!” he hisses back.

HR guy clears his throat loudly.

“Okay,” he says, clearly fighting for patience. “Can you describe the moment you knew you were psychically compatible?”

You nod solemnly. “He touched my hand during decompression and I felt peace.”

“...When I almost blacked out from terror on field 206” Idia mutters.

You both blink at each other. There’s a horrible, choking silence.

The HR guy just sets down his pen, pinches the bridge of his nose, and sighs like he’s about to file for retirement. “Are you sure this is a real bond?”

Panic grips you like a sudden gust of wind. You think, fast. There’s only one thing left to do, one final act of desperation.

You rise from your chair.

Idia blinks. “What are you—oh no.”

You drop to one knee. “Oh yes.”

You pull out a ring. It’s a candy ring, the one you were saving in your jacket pocket for a sugar crash emergency. It sparkles like cheap sugar-coated destiny.

“Idia Shroud,” you say, with all the theatrical sincerity of a soap opera star in a season finale. “From the moment we synced, I knew you were the only socially avoidant, high-strung disaster I wanted to illegally claim government benefits with.”

Idia makes a noise that’s one part static feedback, one part soul exiting the body.

“Will you continue this extremely bureaucratically convenient charade with me?” you say, offering the candy ring with reverence. “For the tax write-offs and the peace of never having to talk to anyone else ever again?”

The HR guy is stunned. Mouth open. Not blinking. Probably buffering.

Idia stares at the ring. Then at you. Then at the HR guy. Then at the ring again.

“…I hate you,” he whispers, but lifts his hand anyway. “It better be lemon flavor or I walk.”

You slide the ring onto his finger like this is a fairy tale gone deeply, deeply off script.

HR makes a note. “...Right. Well. You’ll receive your bonding paperwork in three to five business days.”

And just like that, the meeting is over.

You and Idia walk out in silence, side by side, your new “engagement” ring glinting like the chaos it truly represents.

“...I hope you choke on candy,” he mutters.

“You love me.”

“No one will believe we’re bonded.”

“Oh, honey,” you grin, linking your arm through his. “They already do.”

These days, you and Idia have reached what scientists might call a stable orbit, and what HR calls a “gross misuse of company time and space.” But whatever. That’s between you, Idia, and the slowly dying office fern neither of you have watered in months.

You don’t bother him too much anymore—which is to say, you only rearrange his collectible figurines once a week now instead of every time you enter his office. And in return, he no longer looks at you like you’re an invasive species he’d like to report to pest control. Progress.

Sometimes, your days are quiet. Idia’s hunched over in his gaming chair, absolutely violating some poor boss monster on screen while whispering insults under his breath like, “Die, you HP-bloated RNG hellbeast,” and you’re sprawled face-first across the couch like a very emotionally fulfilled potato.

You’ve made a perfect depression nest out of spare jackets, your limbs dangling off the side like you’ve been freshly thrown there by fate itself.

You should be working. Technically. But Idia’s the one who put the “Do Not Disturb Unless You’re On Fire” sign on the door, so really, you’re just honoring the sanctity of that promise.

Other times, you swing by with takeout—because you both forgot to eat lunch, and if left alone, Idia will subsist off instant noodles and spite. You shove a container into his hand and collapse next to him on the couch, your thigh pressed against his as he awkwardly elbows you for space but doesn’t actually move away. Not that you’re keeping score.

(You are. You're absolutely keeping score.)

"Okay," he says, opening his container. "So this season's adaptation is garbage—they cut the backstory arc, the budget tanked, and the studio didn’t even animate the hair properly, it’s criminal. But the original light novel? Peak fiction. High literary art. Shakespeare is in shambles.”

You nod sagely as you munch on your fries. You don’t know what the hell he’s talking about—something about time loops and cursed bloodlines and a vampire love interest who’s actually a sentient program??—but you listen anyway.

Not because you care about the plot.

But because he talks with his whole soul, voice quickening, eyes gleaming like he’s just rolled a nat 20 on the Charisma check against social anxiety. He flails with one hand, gesturing wildly with his chopsticks like a tiny conductor of chaos, while his other hand never leaves yours.

And sometimes, in those moments—when he’s mid-rant, flushed with nerd rage, and you’re half-listening, half-dozing, fingers tangled with his—you catch yourself looking at him a little too long.

You catch the sparkle in his eyes, the way his shoulders drop around you, the way he stops stuttering when he gets excited and trusts you to listen even if you don’t understand.

And it takes every single molecule of willpower in your rapidly melting brain not to say anything.

Not to say how much you like these moments. Not to say how much you like him.

Because, sure, you’re fake-bonded. Pretending. Faking it for HR and for peace and quiet and to stop weird Espers from flirting with your favorite (and only) antisocial Guide.

But maybe—just maybe—you wouldn’t mind if it weren’t pretend at all.

Despite being a somewhat unmotivated little gremlin who once filed a formal complaint about being asked to show up to a meeting before noon, you have a bad habit of pushing yourself too far when it came to gates.

Not for glory. Not for stats. Not even for the sweet, sweet serotonin of a job well done. No, you did it because you’d seen what happened when gates breached—when help came too late, when the wrong Esper got caught in the crossfire, when someone broke apart in a way no guide could patch back together.

You remembered one of your old friends, a Guide with the sunniest smile and a laugh that always rang louder than anyone else’s. Until one day it didn’t. They’d walked out of a particularly bad gate breach in stunned silence, hands shaking, mouth opening and closing like they wanted to say something—anything—but couldn’t. They handed in their resignation the next day.

So yeah. Maybe you were lazy about laundry and paperwork and showing up on time. But when it came to gates, you didn’t play around.

You fought like hell to make sure no one else had to go through what your friend did. You fought out of bounds. You fought monsters that weren’t yours. You fought so Idia never had to wear that hollow, too-still expression you remembered from that day.

And today?

Today was bad.

A sudden gate, not enough backup, and you were the highest-ranked Esper present. Which meant it fell on you.

You lasted twelve hours in there. Twelve hours of back-to-back fights, suppressing, clearing, burning through your stamina like your life—and everyone else’s—depended on it.

By the time the gate sealed and spat you out, you were barely standing. The world tilted hard to the left, your vision turned into that weird static-y filter they use in horror movies right before someone dies, and your stomach made a noise that might’ve been a scream. You took one step before your knees gave out.

You didn’t hit the ground.

Because suddenly, there were hands on you—arms catching you just before you collapsed, dragging you out of the danger zone with a surprisingly solid grip for someone whose most strenuous physical activity was switching charging cables.

You didn’t even need to see him to know who it was.

Idia. Your Guide. Your terribly anxious, semi-voluntarily associated handler, whose voice was sharp with panic as he dragged you to the safe zone and sat you down with all the gentleness of a malfunctioning robot.

“Oh my god—oh my god, what the hell is wrong with you? Are you trying to die? Is this your new thing? Is this a hobby now?!”

You tried to respond but only managed a weak groan and a half-choke that might’ve been, “I’m fine,” or “I’m dying,” honestly it was 50/50.

He pressed his hands against your temples and started guiding immediately, energy steady and practiced. You felt the tightness in your chest start to ease, your pulse gradually slowing, your lungs actually filling up for once instead of fluttering like a dying balloon.

It was kind of nice. You hadn’t realized how close to blacking out you were until the static started fading. And then—

SMACK.

“OW—!”

“Shut up,” Idia hissed, yanking his hand back after slapping your shoulder hard enough to knock your soul a little looser. “You—you absolute fool of an Esper, you think I have time to be picking your half-dead corpse up off the ground like this?! I have three games on cooldown and a raid to prepare for next week and a life, you inconsiderate idiot!”

You opened one eye. “Wow, you’re yelling so much. Are you worried about me or just mad your stream got interrupted?”

“I’m both,” he snapped, color rising fast in his cheeks. “This—this can’t happen again. If you do this again, I’m gone. I’ll walk. I’ll— I’ll turn off my communicator. I’ll delete my file. I’ll fake my death. I will abandon you.”

You hummed, barely keeping your head upright. “You’d never.”

“I would.” His voice cracked like glass under pressure. “Don’t—don’t you dare test me. I mean it. I don’t want to… I don’t want to see you like that. Not again.”

You blinked at him slowly, the weight of exhaustion settling back into your limbs now that the adrenaline had burned out. And maybe it was the guiding haze, or maybe it was just him, but you let yourself rest.

Just for a little.

Because despite the dramatics and the hissy fit and the aggressively uncoordinated yelling, you knew what that panic meant. You knew what his hands trembling over yours meant.

And if your Guide was threatening to fake his own death for you, well… wasn’t that kind of romantic?

You took a few days off after The Incident™, otherwise known as You Being A Reckless Maniac Who Nearly Died On The Job While Your Guide Watched In Real-Time. The official report called it “extreme physical exertion in a high-risk environment.” You called it “a regular workday.”

But now, by some miracle of medical leave and your supervisor’s desperate plea for you to “please just stop doing this to us,” you were free.

And what did you do with your precious, well-earned downtime?

You healed your soul.

Which, for the record, looked a lot like wearing the same hoodie for three days, eating spicy chips with reckless abandon, and watching a reality show so unhinged it had to be imported from three countries over and aired exclusively at 3 a.m. due to moral concerns.

It was everything you wanted. Stupid people making stupid choices while you lived vicariously from the safety of your couch.

You were mid-cringe—some poor contestant had just confessed their love to the wrong twin—when someone knocked on your door.

You paused the TV and blinked. You weren’t expecting anyone. Delivery? Nah, you hadn’t even ordered anything today. Maybe the neighbors—

You opened the door and froze.

Idia stood there. Hoodie too big. Hair slightly frizzed as usual. One hand holding a plastic bag that looked like it could house a small cow, the other awkwardly dragging a suitcase. A suitcase.

You stared at him.

He stared at you.

Then, without saying a single word, he walked right in. No greeting, no explanation, just brushed past you like he’d done it a hundred times before and knew exactly where he was going.

He set the bag down with a thunk, the suitcase with a thud, plugged a drive into your media player with all the confidence of someone who had practiced this, and loaded up an anime you didn’t even recognize—something with neon colors, probably three timelines, and a cast of beautiful characters with extremely tragic backstories.

Then he turned to you.

And stared.

Not a single word. Just pointedly stared until you sighed, flopped back down on the couch, and scooted over to make room for him.

He joined you immediately. Threw a blanket over the both of you with the elegance of a man conducting a sacred ritual. Pulled your hand into his and laced your fingers together like it was the most natural thing in the world.

Still didn’t say anything.

You glanced at him. “So… are you living here now?”

No answer.

“Did you bring me snacks at least?”

He reached into the bag with his free hand, pulled out your favorite candy, and passed it to you without looking.

You raised an eyebrow. “You’re really committing to the whole silent anime protagonist thing, huh?”

He finally opened his mouth.

“Shut up. The sad backstory part is about to start.”

And that was that.

Apparently, your healing arc had a guest star now. One with a suitcase, great taste in melodrama, and a grip on your hand that never loosened.

You wake up with a distinct sense that something’s wrong.

Not life-or-death wrong. Not “gate-breach-imminent” wrong. More like “you-fell-asleep-in-a-position-that-defies-basic-anatomy” kind of wrong.

Your limbs are a mess. There’s a hoodie-clad arm loosely wrapped around your waist. Your face is very much pressed into someone’s collarbone. Someone who is radiating body heat like a human furnace. And you, like the enlightened creature you are, sniff before you register what your eyes are seeing.

Wait.

Wait.

You blink blearily, and that’s when you realize: the human furnace is Idia Shroud.

You’re practically draped over him. Your leg is slung over his hips like you own him. His fingers are curled gently in your shirt like you’re his last tether to life. It’s less “sleepover” and more “Netflix and accidental marriage.”

And just as you situation begins to settle in, he stirs.

You freeze.

He opens his eyes.

And then—it happens.

He makes a sound. A terrible, wretched sound. Like a dying Roomba. Or a haunted fax machine possessed by a demon with asthma.

Then he squints down at you, eyes wild with confusion and betrayal.

And with a trembling breath, he whispers, “…I hate you.”

You blink. “What.”

“I hate you,” he repeats, louder this time, like you’re hard of hearing and he’s your dramatic high school ex. “I hate you. This is all your fault.”

You squint. “Did the genre shift? Are we friends to enemies now? Or, like, lovers to enemies to something worse?”

He sits up with you still partially on him and gestures dramatically at the tangled blankets like he’s presenting evidence in court. “Look at this. Look at what you’ve done to me. I used to be a recluse. I used to avoid human interaction. I had peace. Quiet. I had ten hours of gaming time per day.”

“You still have that,” you point out. “You just make me sit in the room now and pass you snacks.”

“Exactly!” he snaps. “I started liking it! I started looking forward to your dumb commentary during boss fights! I started… craving your presence like some kind of socially-adjusted moron!”

You stare.

He rants on, wild-haired and red-faced and approximately one and a half steps from throwing himself out a window. “You fake proposed to get out of HR trouble! And then you stole my hoodie! And you keep showing up in my space and making it better and more tolerable and I hate you for it!”

Your mouth twitches. “You sure this isn’t just a confession disguised as slander?”

He glares at you. “Don’t flatter yourself. I am merely experiencing symptoms of long-term emotional contamination. Also known as affection. A known virus."

You’re laughing now, arms still loosely wrapped around him. “So you like me.”

“I can’t believe I fell for you,” he groans, throwing his head back dramatically. “Of all the people in this world, I had to fall for the unhinged disaster gremlin who pretended we were bonded because it was ‘funny.’”

“You asked me to keep the lie going!”

“Because you said we were soulmates in front of an HR rep with a clipboard!”

You grin. “Okay, but was I wrong?”

He makes a noise that sounds like a tea kettle having an emotional breakdown.

Then he slumps like he’s aged thirty years in three seconds and mutters, “Just reject me already so I can go die in some cold, dark corner of a server room.”

You kiss him.

It’s soft and simple and smug. Mostly because he’s still glaring at you and now he’s also short-circuiting. His ears go bright pink.

You smile against his lips and ask, “So. You wanna make the fake bond real?”

He glares harder. “You’re the worst.”

And then he kisses you again like he’s never been more offended to be in love in his entire life.

Idia hated that he was a high-class Guide.

It was like being the rare shiny Pokémon everyone wanted to catch, except instead of admiration, it came with a nonstop barrage of overcaffeinated Espers trying to hold his hand without warning and HR emails that read like increasingly desperate dating profiles: “This one is only mildly feral! Just give it a shot :)”

He didn’t want to “give it a shot.” He wanted to crawl into his anime pillow fort and watch seventeen episodes of Mecha Scream Force: Ultimate Uncut Directors’ Deluxe Edgelord Edition in peace.

And then your file landed in his inbox.

Subject: SS– BATTLE-LEVEL ESPER. NOTES: Known anomaly. Exhibits unpredictable energy flux due to post-gate mutation. Possibly cursed. Re: Sync pair recommendation – IDIA SHROUD. Good luck. [Attached: a video of you almost biting into a monster’s neck mid-fight]

Idia stared at it for a full minute. Then he closed the file, reopened it, and checked the name. His name.

“Whyyyy me?” he whispered to the heavens, even though he was indoors and had blackout curtains drawn so tightly it looked like the void itself lived there.

Clearly, he’d wronged someone in a past life. Probably a whole list of someones.

When you walked into his office, he expected chaos. He expected explosions. He expected you to tackle him to the ground screaming “LET ME ABSORB YOUR AURA” or something equally traumatic.

Instead?

You looked at him, grinned like this was a lunch break, and approached him. 

Then you stuck your hand out like you were offering him a pen.

“Yo. You guiding or nah?”

Idia blinked. The sheer normalcy hit him like a truck. 

You just kept smiling, not even a glimmer of feral gate trauma in your eyes, and said, “Wanna do the hand thing or are you one of those forehead touchers?”

Idia was so caught off guard he actually stuttered, “J-just hands is fine.”

“Neat,” you said, and took his hand like it was no big deal. Like you hadn’t allegedly suplexed a gate beast using only your pinky. Like you didn’t have a file thicker than some light novels.

And… that was it.

You let him guide you. No whining. No dramatic speeches. No weird vibes. Just sync.

When it was over, you looked at him and said, “Wanna grab noodles?” and then skipped off to bother a vending machine.

Idia stood there for several minutes, buffering like a corrupted cutscene.

You weren’t loud. You weren’t clingy. You didn’t even try to oversync. And your handshake? A solid 8.5/10. Firm, but not emotionally traumatizing.

He texted Ortho:

“I think I found a non-feral one. Do you think they’re a spy.”

Ortho replied:

“Or maybe they’re just not like the others.” “Bro do NOT fall in love.”

Idia stared at your file again that night. He looked at the chaos reports, the combat records, the notes scribbled in red pen by HR.

And then he thought about your stupid little grin and how you didn’t even complain when he made you wait twenty minutes while he charged his noise-canceling headphones.

Maybe—just maybe—you weren’t going to ruin his life.

Yet.

The first time Idia waited outside a gate for you, he genuinely thought, How bad could it be?

Spoiler: it was bad.

He was standing there with his coat flapping awkwardly in the breeze, hunched like a socially anxious gargoyle, trying to blend into the concrete.

But alas—there was no blending in when you were wearing a neon SS-rank Guide badge that practically screamed, “HELLO! I’m high value and emotionally unavailable for syncing, please invade my personal space immediately!”

Espers began swarming.

Like moths. No. Like moths with abs.

“Yo, you synced up with anyone?” said one particularly muscular guy who was chewing gum with the intensity of someone trying to seduce through molar power.

“Wanna test compatibility?” offered another, already reaching out like this was some kind of handshake.

“I could use a cool-headed Guide like you,” purred a woman who looked like she bench-pressed trucks in her downtime.

Idia, for his part, simply froze. Not because he was considering it. No. He was buffering. His brain was lagging so hard it was displaying the mental equivalent of the spinning beach ball of doom. Why were they all so close? Why was that one flexing?

He wanted to vanish. He wanted to dissolve into the sidewalk. He wanted you to COME OUT OF THE GATE ALREADY.

And then, like some kind of disaster-themed magical girl, you stumbled out of the gate with your jacket halfway falling off your shoulder, a smear of monster goo on your cheek, and your smile crooked from adrenaline.

You blinked at the scene. Idia surrounded by sparkle-eyed Espers. And you? You grinned like a menace and called, “Aww, were you being courted while I was gone?”

He immediately flushed three shades of cherry blossom pink and hissed, “W-would it kill you to come out faster?! I almost got bond-napped!”

You just laughed, clapped him on the shoulder (with the force of a medium earthquake), and said, “Don’t worry, Shiny Badge. I’ll be faster next time.”

And shockingly… you were.

Next gate, you practically threw yourself out as soon as the rift closed, stumbling directly into Idia like you were being ejected from a monster meat blender.

He squeaked. You beamed. And every other Esper in a ten-foot radius suddenly looked like they’d just found out their crush was married.

“You happy now?” you asked, trying to wipe blood off your face with a wet napkin. “Did I make it in time to preserve your purity?”

“I am never wearing that badge again,” Idia muttered, clinging to your arm like you were his emotional support chaos.

But secretly?

He was just a little happy you’d listened.

A few months into this partnership—not that Idia was counting (he totally was, he had a spreadsheet tracking your interactions and categorized emotional events, but that’s beside the point)—he was enjoying what he considered peak compatibility.

You didn’t ask invasive questions. You brought snacks. And most importantly, you didn’t try to poke at his psyche with metaphorical chopsticks like all the other Espers seemed to enjoy doing.

So when a baby B-class Esper showed up outside his office and refused to leave, he had one reaction.

Panic.

He were earnest. Bright-eyed. Starstruck. Speaking through the office door in a tone that suggested he was auditioning for a sports anime.

“I just believe it’s my destiny to be guided by the best! And the system says you have many open slots!”

Idia, crumpled in his gamer chair like a depressed shrimp, texted you in the most pathetic SOS syntax he could manage.

SOS. B-Class pest in hallway. Halp. They’re monologuing.

To his relief and eternal confusion, you actually showed up. On your day off. Dressed in sweatpants and judgment, hair a mess, holding an energy drink in one hand and existential dread in the other.

He thought—great, you’d flex your seniority, threaten the rookie with HR, maybe gently suggest they find a less traumatized Guide.

But no.

You looked at the Esper, and said, “Sorry. He’s bonded. To me. Permanently.”

The B-class Esper’s eyes widened with sparkling heartbreak. “O-oh. I didn’t… I didn’t see a bond registration?”

You didn’t even blink. “It’s private. For, uh… spiritual reasons.”

The kid left with a sniffle and a salute—a salute, like they’d just witnessed a great romantic tragedy.

And you?

You slurped your energy drink and said, “You’re welcome. You owe me dinosaur nuggets.”

And Idia, poor Idia, just sat there in the background with his hands halfway to his face, mumbling, “I’m gonna fling you out the window. Then I’m gonna follow.”

He just curled up in his chair, stared at the ceiling, and began calculating how long he could fake his own death before HR caught on.

And the worst part?

The lie worked too well.

Idia had survived a lot of things in life.

He’d survived MMORPG guild drama. The Y/N self-insert fic someone wrote about him that got 80,000 kudos and a spin-off comic. That fic someone wrote about him marrying Malleus in a pasta-themed AU that still somehow had an 8k comment thread.

But this?

This was unforgivable.

He was in HR. Again. With you. And no one had even punched a hole in the wall this time. This was all preemptive HR. Preventative HR.

The worst kind of HR, because it meant someone somewhere thought he might be a problem. Him! A problem! As if he didn’t already take up negative space in most social situations!

And you—you, the original source of his misfortune—you were just sitting beside him like you hadn’t just committed the equivalent of marriage fraud by loudly claiming, in front of at least seven witnesses and a vending machine, that the two of you were bonded.

Permanently. Irrevocably. Like a pair of idiot soulmates who'd stumbled out of a romcom written by an unpaid intern.

As if the “we’re bonded, teehee” debacle with the B-class Esper wasn’t enough to shave a year off Idia’s already stress-shortened life, it had happened again.

Some random esper held his hand post-gate when you were both still high on adrenaline and trauma, and instead of, Idia didn’t know, punching them or using your words like a normal person, you just went “excuse me, that’s my bonded Guide, how dare you,” like you were a jealous ex.

That was the moment the rumors really took off.

And now here you were. Both of you. In HR.

Because HR had questions. Many questions. And neither of you had done the bare minimum, which was maybe talking about what fake answers you should give in advance. Like you didn’t even rehearse. Not a single shared Google Doc. No coordinated lies. Just vibes.

So when the HR guy (who looked like he’d rather be anywhere else on the planet, including the bottom of a sulfur pit) asked, “When did the bond occur?” you said October 3rd and Idia, with absolute confidence and zero hesitation, said March 22nd.

There was a pause.

Not a silence. A pause. The kind that echoes through generations.

“And where did it happen?” the man asked again, in the voice of someone whose therapist was going to be hearing about this in excruciating detail later.

You, smiling: “Field 17.”

Idia, barely restraining a grimace: “The Cafeteria.”

Another silence. This one more like an oncoming freight train.

“Do you at least know each other’s middle names?”

Idia blinked. “They have a middle name?”

You, helpfully: “His is ‘Trouble.’”

The HR guy looked like he aged six years in that moment. He pinched the bridge of his nose, sighed deeply, and began massaging his temples in slow, pained circles like a man who had seen the abyss and wished it had swallowed him.

And then.

Then you moved.

Idia saw it happen in slow motion. You stood up. Reached into your hoodie pocket. And pulled out something shiny and crinkly. Something artificial. Something glowing with malevolent intent.

A Ring Pop.

A goddamn Ring Pop.

“Don’t do it,” Idia whispered, “I swear to everything, if you—”

You dropped to one knee in the middle of the HR office like you were auditioning for a live-action soap opera.

“From the moment we synced,” you said, voice loud, clear, and completely free of shame, “I knew you were the only socially avoidant, high-strung disaster I wanted to illegally claim government benefits with.”

ILLEGALLY.

CLAIM.

GOVERNMENT BENEFITS.

In front of HR. 

Idia's soul left his body. Again. He was nothing but a faint outline of smoke and anxiety in the shape of a man.

The HR guy did not react. He simply stared into space like he had become untethered from time and reality. Somewhere in the distance, someone’s computer pinged. A bird hit the window. The printer made a noise like it was trying to weep.

Idia looked at the Ring Pop. It better not be raspberry flavored. The worst possible option. The flavor of betrayal and poor decisions.

“If it’s not lemon, I walk,” he muttered, even as he extended his hand like the fool he was.

You beamed like you’d just won a reality show. Slipped the candy ring onto his finger with great ceremony. He stared down at it, sticky sugar starting to melt onto his knuckles, and wondered what series of decisions had led him to this moment.

You leaned close as you walked out of the office and whispered, “We’re truly fraudulently bonded now. I hope you’re happy.”

“I’m the opposite of happy,” Idia hissed. “I am… anti-happy. I am negativity incarnate. We are legally entangled. We have created an HR file. I’m going to have to explain this to Ortho.”

You smirked.

“Tell him it was a shotgun wedding. He’ll love it.”

You didn’t let go of his hand.

And—God help him—he didn’t let go of yours either.

It definitely got worse before it got better. 

Ortho, for one, did not let him live it down. Not for a second. There was a party. A full-on celebratory bash. With banners. One of which read “Congrats on Your Emergency Government Sanctioned Soul Marriage!” in Comic Sans.

Idia had tried to crawl into the floor. The floor, unfortunately, remained solid. He was forced to attend the party in body, if not spirit.

Ortho had even made a slideshow, complete with sparkly transitions and lo-fi music, documenting “every known moment of you two being disgustingly bonded.”

There was cake. The cake said “Congrats, You Played Yourself.” It tasted like guilt.

But… after the glitter and humiliation settled… things became weirdly good.

You didn’t treat him differently. That was the weird part. You still flopped dramatically across his office couch like you’d just fought a battle with gravity and lost.

You still made horrendous snacking noises and tried to convince him to watch cursed reality TV. You still made offhanded jokes during his games that were so sharp and stupid that he had to pause the cutscene and stare into the screen like it was a black void of disbelief.

He never laughed—obviously—but his shoulders shook a little sometimes. Just from rage. Definitely.

Sometimes, you brought him takeout. Unprompted. Just dropped it on his desk like a raccoon delivering tribute and started poking through your own container.

You always let him talk about whatever show had emotionally ruined him that week. You even listened. Like, actually listened. Nodded at the plot twists. Called the villain a loser. Asked about the fan theories. Like what he said mattered.

And sometimes, when you were too distracted counting shrimp in your fried rice, brows furrowed like you were solving a shrimp-based tax puzzle, Idia would stare at you.

Not in a creepy way. Just in a very... intense... anime-protagonist-moment kind of way. Like if someone added a wind filter and dramatic music, it would be a whole romantic B-plot arc.

He’d stare and think: Please don’t change. Please don’t leave. Please let this be real, even if it’s dumb. Even if it’s fake government paperwork and Ring Pops and nonsense. Please let this nonsense stay mine.

And then you’d look up mid-chew, mouth full, and say something like, “Do you think shrimp ever get existential crises about tempura?”

He’d immediately look away, ears red, heart a mess.

He was doomed.

Absolutely, sugar-glazed, takeout-fed, soul-bonded doomed.

There was an emergency gate.

Idia was outside. He’d been outside for twelve hours. That was twelve hours of sunlight exposure, twelve hours of people trying to talk to him, twelve hours of not knowing if you were dead or just being dramatic. Which, okay, to be fair, the line between the two was thin when it came to you.

He paced. He vibrated. He glared at anyone who so much as breathed in his direction. Someone tried to hand him a water bottle and he hissed like a wet cat.

Every five minutes, he checked his comms, even though he wasn’t cleared for internal updates. SS-ranked Guide my ass, he thought bitterly, hands twitching. Can’t even get an accurate live feed on the one maniac I’m synced to.

He told himself—repeatedly—that he was only mad because he had to wait outside for twelve whole hours. That it was purely logical rage. That the sun had permanently crisped his skin and fried his nerves and this was just normal vitamin-D-overload fury.

He was a filthy liar and he knew it.

He was anxious. He was anxious because you were in there alone. Well, not alone—technically there were other Espers—but they were all juniors. Babies. Snot-nosed kids who couldn’t fight their way out of a tutorial level.

You were the highest rank inside. Which meant you would push yourself. Which meant he had to sit there for twelve hours imagining every possible worst-case scenario his very creative and extremely deranged brain could come up with.

So when you finally stumbled out—filthy, bleeding, and doing your best impression of a half-dead Muppet—Idia didn’t even think. He caught you before you hit the ground, arms wrapping around you like instinct.

You were half-conscious, mumbling something about how the last monster looked like your elementary school English teacher, and Idia just about blacked out.

He dragged you to the side with the strength of pure panic and adrenaline. You were barely upright, clinging to him like a sleep-deprived spider monkey, and he was guiding you with shaky hands and a full-body tremble of what the hell, what the actual hell, what is wrong with you.

And then—he slapped your shoulder.

Hard.

Harder than someone with his spaghetti-noodle limbs had any right to.

“Are you out of your mind?!” he snapped, voice cracking. “Do you have a single functioning brain cell?! Were you trying to die in there? Is that it? Were you like, ‘Wow, you know what would be awesome today? Ruining my lungs and my Guide’s entire life in one go’—was that the plan?!”

You wheezed a laugh and gave a thumbs up.

He smacked you again.

“You can’t do that again,” he said, quietly this time, guiding aura flaring warm and sharp around his hands. “You can’t. If this happens again, I swear, I’m done. I’ll walk. I’ll turn in my license. I’ll go live in the woods and talk to raccoons. I’ll abandon you. I’m serious.”

You blinked at him, eyes bleary. “That’s dramatic.”

“So are you!” he snapped, and ran another guiding pulse through your body, scowling.

You slumped into him, letting the energy steady your limbs, and mumbled something about him being overprotective.

He told you to shut up.

You smiled.

He didn’t mean it about leaving.

But you didn’t need to know that.

You took a few days off after the gate incident. Not that Idia was keeping track. Not that he had an entire spreadsheet titled “Gate Trauma Recovery: Dumb Gremlin Edition” with daily updates on your recovery status that he absolutely did not check every thirty minutes.

But okay, maybe he was spiraling a little.

Because no matter how many games he played or anime episodes he queued up, he couldn’t get the image out of his head—you, bruised and burned and half-conscious, slumping into his arms like you were seconds away from not existing anymore.

It lived rent-free in his head. It had set up a cozy studio apartment in his cerebral cortex and was not paying utilities.

So, naturally, like any emotionally repressed SS-rank Guide with the common sense of a decorative rock, he packed a suitcase.

In went his portable gaming setup. His backup backup controller. Six different cords for reasons known only to the universe. Two sets of headphones. His lucky gamer hoodie. A USB fan (essential). And then a bag of snacks roughly the size of 6 corgis, filled with everything from neon sour gummies to obscure off-brand Pocky flavors.

Then, in a fit of either romance or psychosis (jury’s out), he showed up at your front door.

You opened it mid–reality show binge, wearing pajama pants with some loud pattern that made his eyes hurt. He stood there, suitcase in one hand, snack bag in the other, looking like a socially anxious door-to-door apocalypse salesman.

Neither of you spoke.

Because what was he supposed to say?

“Hi, I couldn’t stop thinking about the way your breathing was shallow and your skin was cold and I panicked so hard I packed my whole life into a bag like we’re running away from a zombie uprising and now I’m here because not seeing you for three days makes me feel like I’m gonna hurl?”

Absolutely not. He would rather eat drywall. He would rather die.

So instead, he walked in silently like a weirdo, set his stuff down like it was totally normal, and plugged in his drive into your media player like this was just a casual day.

You, either out of kindness or shared delusion, didn’t question it.

You just moved things over on the couch to make room and handed him the blanket. Like this was normal. Like he hadn’t just barged in with a small suitcase of emotional instability and bad coping mechanisms.

He put on a new anime. One he’d been saving. One he hadn’t planned on watching until you could roll your eyes and make your dumb little commentary at the plot holes.

You leaned against him, not saying a word.

And he held your hand like you hadn't absolutely blown up his entire emotional firewall. Like he hadn’t nearly lost you. Like this wasn’t already his favorite memory.

He didn’t say a word the whole episode.

But his fingers stayed curled around yours like a promise he was too much of a coward to say out loud.

Idia woke up with a full-grown human person draped across his body like a weighted blanket with boundary issues.

His brain booted up slowly—first registering the dull ache in his spine from sleeping on your disaster of a couch, then the soft warmth of your face smushed into his shoulder, and finally the fact that your entire existence was currently entangled with his like some kind of romcom final episode cuddle position.

He did not survive twelve hours of panicked gate-waiting, emotional damage, and spontaneous suitcase-packing for this.

Actually, no. That was a lie. He absolutely did. And if anyone dared to move you right now he would bite.

But unfortunately for him—and also, somehow, for you—he had the emotional self-control of a feral raccoon near a garbage can of feelings. So when you stirred a little and blinked sleepily at him, he opened his mouth and said the first thing that slithered out of his traitorous brain.

“I hate you.”

Your eyes focused slowly. “...Huh?”

“I hate you,” he repeated, voice cracking like a cursed record. “I hate the way you act like it’s totally normal to almost die in my arms and then go eat egg tarts like it’s no big deal. I hate that you lie to HR like it’s your full-time job. I hate that you keep doing stupid dangerous things and now I can’t function unless I know you’re alive and breathing and not about to faceplant into death.”

You blinked. Then—as if you weren’t being confessed to in what could only be described as a monologue from a melodramatic anime villain—you grinned.

“You sure this isn’t just a confession disguised as slander?”

“I—!” Idia made a noise so high-pitched only dogs could hear it. “I can’t believe I fell for you. Out of everyone. I fell for a chaotic war goblin who proposes with candy rings and lies to government officials like it’s foreplay.”

You were still grinning.

“Okay,” you said, ridiculously chipper for someone in a horizontal cuddle chokehold. “So do you wanna actually permanently bond and make it official or are we just going to keep emotionally edging each other until one of us passes out?”

Idia stared at you like you’d just offered him the keys to the universe and then spit directly on his soul.

He opened his mouth. Closed it. Short-circuited a little.

Then, quietly—so quietly you almost missed it—he said, “...Only if you still have that candy ring.”

You beamed. “I always carry the candy ring.”

He looked like he wanted to crawl under the couch and die from happiness. Instead, he pulled you closer and mumbled against your forehead:

“You are the worst thing that’s ever happened to me.”

Then he kissed you again like he never wanted to let you go.

You and Idia actually end up permanently bonded.

Legally. Emotionally. Spiritually. Psychically. All of the above.

You signed the forms (well, you dramatically slammed them onto the HR desk and said, “Guess we’re actually married now, huh?” while Idia tried to phase through the wall from secondhand embarrassment), synced up your brain waves or whatever, and boom—done.

And honestly? It doesn’t feel like fireworks. Or fate. Or some dramatic crescendo of music and soulmates.

It feels like wearing your favorite hoodie.

It feels like sleep.

It feels like finally putting your phone on Do Not Disturb and flopping face-first onto your guide.

Gates still suck. They still open at 3 a.m. when you're already two bites into a reheated burrito. They still spit out eldritch horrors that look like tax fraud made flesh. And yeah—you still fight recklessly. You're still you.

But now there’s a pause before you push too hard. Now there’s a voice—his voice—filling your head mid-fight going, “Hey, I don’t mean to backseat or anything, but MAYBE don’t solo the three-headed acid wolf?”

And you listen. Mostly. Sometimes. At least you try.

Because you remember what it was like, the way his hands shook the first time he caught you after a gate—your blood on his shirt, your laugh too weak, your legs folding like bad origami. You remember the way he smacked you while guiding, voice cracking, saying, “Don’t you ever do that again or I’m uninstalling myself from this entire dimension.”

So you ease up. A little. For him.

Life is still a mess. You're still a mess. Idia is a different flavor of mess, like the kind that alphabetizes their video game collection but forgets to eat lunch.

But it’s your mess now.

Sometimes, you watch terrible reality shows together and he pretends not to care but makes offhanded, emotionally devastating comments about character arcs. Sometimes, he lets you nap on his shoulder as he games and blushes violently if you drool on him.

Sometimes, he just sits next to you with your pinkies intertwined and doesn’t say a word—but you feel it anyway. That weird quiet peace. That “please don’t ever go into a gate without telling me again” kind of love.

And sometimes, when the world isn’t ending and your head isn’t splitting and the shrimp-to-rice ratio is finally correct, you kiss his cheek mid-battle and he yells, “This is emotional sabotage during a DPS rotation!” but he doesn’t pull away.

Life is chaos. But hey, at least now it’s your chaos. And you’ve got a socially anxious gremlin who chose you—every unhinged, exhausting part of you—on purpose.

And you’d choose him every time.

Series Masterlist ; Masterlist

[gunpowderdtim]

It's no wonder Out happened when you really think about it. Nastya doesn't like organic life because it's complicated, it can break, sometimes it's even unfixable.

quote from gender rebels

Nastya is in love with Aurora, and in saying that she is saying "you are not organic life, I can deal with you because you are metal and algorithm and predictable" - we can see this in bedtime story when she says she'll tweak Aurora's story creation algorithm

screenshot from A Bedtime Story

Aurora is not inorganic. She is not ai. She is a space moon made of flesh and blood and teeth and bone. She is not an ai. She is a body that was taken and stripped of autonomy, of the right to self identify, of the right to think- to be imperfect and organic.

The metal is a veneer that hides how messy and traumatized and unfixable she is. From the outside she is a starship. From the inside she can still bleed.

And this makes them fundamentally incompatible. But yet, they are in love.

And really, it's no wonder Nastya fell in love with Aurora. Let's take a look at Nastya's home planet, or at least home society:

"Terminals were scattered across the planet. There was one on every street corner, one beneath every lamppost and one in every commune block." "The midwife-machine performs a series of programmed manœuvres to quieten [the baby]. It cradles it and hums at several pitches until it finds one that seems most soothing. Mechanical arms stroke the baby’s flesh even as others start the process of implanting augmented reality interfaces into its nervous system." "The Czar an atrophied frame, never present in the real world and worn to dust by the chemical compounds that kept his brain alive so it could live forever in a perfect virtual paradise. The Rabotnik a copy, a mind preserved unchanging in the instant before its death and placed in an everlasting metal frame." (Cyberian Demons)

Its safe to say the world Nastya was born into, from the very minute she was born, was ridden with technology. She has augmented reality interfaces inplanted into her from birth. It would stand to reason that being taken from this society, wherein technology is everywhere, inside and out, would stand for a bit of a shock.

Aurora too had been augmented by the Cyberia.

While it is stated that the last time Nastya had used the ports themselves was directly before her death — "The last time she had used the ports, her tutor had ripped them out of her as the rebels stormed the palace" — Aurora is laced with Cyberian technology. I'd imagine she has something of a 'bluetooth wireless connection' with Aurora, rather than the physical data transfer of files between the ports and Nastya, it may as well be similar enough.

Imagine being Nastya, going from Cyberia, wherein there is augmented reality contantly, transplanted onto a ship with metal blood, a jonny, and a vampire. To Aurora, where the only bits of augmented reality run through Aurora.

Of course she'd fall in love with her. Aurora is familiarity. Aurora isn't organic. Aurora isn't human.

And of course when the undeniable part of aurora that is organic, that is a flesh moon plated in metal with her brain hooked to machines, when so much has broken and been replaced, when, presumably, aurora is less of an algorithm, nastya leaves with the brand cyberia left on her.

Because Aurora healing, becoming more of herself and less of a starship, is messy, and organic, and human.

and hard for nastya.

‘Think how long she’s been flying you around. Think how many bullet holes you’ve punched through her and how many atmospheres you’ve dropped her through. Think how many alterations and improvements we’ve made, Tim to her guns and Ashes to her storage and Brian to her engines and the Toy Soldier to who knows what. How much do you think is left of her after all she’s brought you through?’ Nastya held up the ancient, battered piece of hull plating. Just visible under the grime and scars of particles of space junk was a fragment of the Aurora’s original logo and serial number. Jonny honestly couldn’t remember the last time he had seen a version that hadn’t been painted by the Mechanisms themselves. ‘So she’s free, now.’ Nastya gestured around at the spaceship they were standing in. ‘This Aurora can take you where you want to go. I’m going to take my Aurora somewhere else.’

Aurora was ship of theseus'd. Aurora was improved. Aurora was no longer cyberian. (both literally, and metaphorically)

So nastya left.

[reconstructwriter]

Star Wars Fix-it: The Holonet Edition

The well-bribed algorithms of the Holonet should have relegated Tookruta1387’s clip to the tender hearts of a few friends. The days of spontaneous viral posts – without credits to grease the wheels – died not long after the rise of megacorps in the Republic. But the poster was either lucky or savvy enough to play the algorithms because “Jedi Being Cold” exploded. Screens, conversation, even news. And their post was just the start of a trend…

“Jedi Being Cold”: An old transport ship, frost coating the inside of its windows. A corner swathed in a nest of robes. Within three padawans snuggle together, fast asleep. If they were cats they’d be purring. One is purring despite a lack of feline attributes. A hand nudges them with a datastick, only for it to float away to a cloud of similar items.

“Jedi Being Cold” part 2: A snow-covered lake. One knight finishes sculpting a realistic snow tiger. Two others Force push each other like hocky pucks across the ice. One goes flying towards the statue. An expression of ‘oh crap’. Incredible, Force- assisted acrobatics deftly avoids the sculpture but crashes right into the sculptor in a tangle of limbs, sending them skidding into a snow-bank. The third Jedi pokes their head into the many-limbed hole and gets snowballed for the trouble.

“Jedi Stealing Children”: A child at a slave auction. A robed figure swoops in like a hawk, slicing through chains with their lightsaber and ripping apart cages with the Force. The camera pans to one slaver Force shoved into a cage, clearly furious as the Jedi escapes with a whole crowd of people, many children.

“Jedi Stealing Children” becomes the title for 1287 pictures, clips and gifs before someone adjusts the algorithm. This makes them surprisingly hot commodities on the Dark Holo, especially the one with a Nautolan Master dramatically fleeing the capture attempts of a horde of children – ending in one dramatic arm reaching out as kids bury him

“Jedi As Warmongers”: A young Padawan, blood splattered, has a ‘does it get better’ look on their trembling face as they stare up at their Master. The Master is even grimier and gorier as they gather their Padawan up with an ‘I’m sorry but no’. The Padawan weeps and shakes, burying their face in their Master’s robes, who has silent tears down their face. In the background is a war zone.

“Jedi as Warmongers: part 2” Has war holomovie music playing in the background as the snap-thumm of a lightsaber echoes, vivid blue piercing the dark. The blade raises over something, is brought down…over a block of cheese and loaf of bread. The Jedi padawan gleefully declares: “Grilled Cheese for all!” The sound of sprinting footsteps is heard and a dramatic “Noooo,” from a Jedi Knight.

“Jedi as Warmongers: part 3”: The music has switched to aftermath of war horror, the kitchen looks like a cheese atomic bomb hit. The children are cleaning up and one wipes cheese with bread and pops it in their mouth: “grilled cheese for all!” An adult admonishes “You spit that out right now that’s not sanitary.” In the background the Jedi Knight is doing the same thing.

“Jedi Showing Off” Is Yoda’s contribution to this mess – which is just him going through an entire stack of photo-albums on his previous padawans. He opens the last book to Dooku the Padawan when Dooku the Master barges in: “Stop this indignity immediately!” The camera shows an intense close-up of someone’s palm. “Who even taught you how to operate holo-video? –” feed cuts off.

“Jedi Dignity”: Feed resumes from a different perspective as Master Dooku – previous camera still in hand – gives Yoda and several other watching Jedi a lecture on appropriate Holonet-posting behavior. “Not appropriate baby photos are?” Yoda asks, a card-shark’s spread of pictures with Dooku’s baby face. Dooku yanks them out of Yoda’s hands. “Not without m-the person’s permission!” Does a double-take. “Are you filming –?” Horrified glower. “Mace you traitor!” Video abruptly cuts off. Permanently this time.

Not even algorithm adjustments – and there are clearly several – can stop that from becoming viral. “Mace you traitor!” becomes slang for the latest generation. Mace himself rolls with it. Dooku attempts to entomb himself in the archives until this all blows over.

Actions may speak louder than words but memes speak loudest of all.

[honeyjars-sims]

Part 2 Prologue #2: Goatzilla vs. The Influencer

In addition to the chickens, Gail and Ellie bought a mini goat. Since I’ve been helping out a lot with the animals, they said I could name her. I went with Goatzilla–"Zilla" for short. She’s a big hit with the kids in the community, and even Taco seems to like her. 

I’m taking care of Zilla when I spot two of my neighbors near the greenhouse. I’ve seen them around but we haven’t officially met. Judging by their resemblance to one another, I assume they’re sisters and they appear to be around my age.

The blonde one is dressed for the hot weather in a crop top and skirt, but she doesn’t look ready for outdoor labor. She has a full face of makeup, long nails, and her clothes are clean and freshly ironed. The brunette looks more in place in ripped jeans and boots, both lightly dusted with dirt.

She’s holding a pink glittery cell phone in her hands that I can only assume belongs to her sister.

“Okay, I want it to look casual, like you just happened to catch me looking this way,” the blonde tells her while striking a pose I’m sure I’ve seen on Simsta somewhere. 

“I’m pretty sure people will know that it’s staged,” her sister complains.

“Oh my God, just take the picture, Glynnis!”

Glynnis sighs and holds up the phone just as Zilla scurries towards her sister’s skirt, which apparently looks like something good to much on.

“AHH,” the blonde screams. “He’s eating my CLOTHES!” 

I shoo Zilla away as the girls sit down on a nearby wooden swing. 

“She,” I correct the blonde. “Zilla is a girl. Sorry she ruined your photoshoot. And your skirt.”

“It’s fine,” Glynnis tells me. “I told her she shouldn’t have photoshoots near the animal pen if she doesn’t want to get dirty.”

“I think my skirt’s okay,” the blonde says as she smooths it out. She looks up at me. “I’m Hollis. I think I’ve seen you around. And this is my sister, Glynnis.”

“Nice to meet you both. I’m Johnny. And I guess you’re acquainted with Zilla.”

Hollis laughs. “I’ll say! You live with that hot Tartosan guy, right?”

“Uh yeah, that’s Paul,” I tell her.

“Cool. How long have you two been together?” 

I can feel my cheeks getting hot. “Oh, we’re not…together,” I explain. “We’re just roommates.”

“Oh, sorry,” Hollis responds. “I just assumed. Does that mean you're both single then?”

“Hollis, stop,” Glynnis pipes up.

“What? I’m just asking.”

“Yeah, we’re both single,” I tell Hollis. “So, what’s the photoshoot for?”

“Oh, just my Simsta,” she says, waving her hand nonchalantly. “People seem to enjoy the outdoorsy pics. Or at least that’s what the algorithm tells them they like.”

“Ah, yes, the algorithm,” I say, and we nod in solidarity like we’re speaking in a secret code language. Glynnis rolls her eyes.

Taco strolls over and mews loudly at Hollis, excited for the opportunity to receive attention from a new person. Hollis leans down to pet her.

“What a cute baby,” she says. Taco purrs and jumps into her lap. 

“That’s my cat, Taco,” I tell her. “She’s very affectionate.” Taco mews louder.

“And talkative, too! Ooh, would you mind if I took a few pics with her? Cats always get lots of engagement.”

“That’s cool with me,” I respond. I look at Taco. “Did you hear that? You’re gonna be famous on Simsta!” Taco lets out another big meow and we all laugh at her comedic timing.

Glynnis takes a few snaps of Hollis with Taco, who I have to say killed her first photoshoot. 

“Thanks for letting me borrow your cat,” Hollis says afterward.

“No problem! She’s just happy for the attention. Oh, by the way, my sister and I are having a little get together for our birthday here this weekend. Gail said we can use the seating area by the food truck to set up. Feel free to come by if you’re around.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Hollis says, and Glynnis nods in agreement.

“Cool, see you around!”

“See you!”

Previous | Beginning of story | Beginning of chapter | Next

[thdorkmagnet]

Avenging the Baby Brother (Turtle Tots: Before the Rise)

@flufftober 2024 Day 3- Getting Revenge

Chapter Summary: Some poor unsuspecting scammers learn not to mess with Donnie’s little brother.

Duo: PB&J/ Smarts and Crafts

A/N: This one is actually another alt prompt for the 'make it fluffy challange'. And of course, Donnie was the first person to come to mind for a chapter about revenge, hehe

Also please note that I know nothing about hacking or coding and any efforts to try and educate myself on the subject just leaves me more confused so if I got anything wrong, then sorry. I really tried haha.

Disclaimer: Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles belongs to Andy Suriano, Ant Ward, and Nickelodeon. All rights belong to them.

“It's here! It's here!” came Mikey's excited squeal from downstairs, audible even over the heavy thrum of electronic music in Donnie's headphones. He was content to ignore the yells of his younger brother- as it was really nothing new- until he heard his name called. “Donnie! Donnie it's here! Come see!”

“Sigh,” Donnie moaned, pulling the headphones off and reluctantly rising from his desk. He had been knee deep in algorithms for over an hour and had really wanted to finish up before getting torn away by one of his dumb brothers’ antics. But such was the life of a misunderstood genius, he supposed. 

Oh how he wished for soundproof walls. 

Donnie mentally added that to the project list and, with one last longing look back at the half-finished code, headed downstairs to find out what all the fuss was about. 

…

That fuss was apparently a cardboard box which Mikey was happily brandishing around the Lair when Donnie arrived. Of course, naturally it was what was in the box that was the source of Mikey’s excitement but Donnie was still feeling a bit bitter about the whole ‘interruption’ thing. “Dee, Dee, look! My new toy came in!” Mikey squealed, practically vibrating with excitement. 

Donnie offered him a small smile, saying simply, “Yes, so I see.” 

“What is it, Mikey?” Leo asked as he and Raph crowded around their little brother. They both looked immensely curious and even Donnie had to admit he was getting a bit invested now. 

Mikey beamed back at them, setting the package down on the floor. “It’s a Stella Snail plushie! Y’know from Space Friends?” 

Ah,Space Friends. Yes Donnie was quite acquainted with the show at this point. It was Mikey's favorite non-Lou Jitsu/Jupiter Jim show and he'd been obsessing over it for months now; humming the theme song constantly, forcing Donnie and the others to binge watch it with him, incorporating it into every game they played, and practically memorizing every line of dialogue from all three seasons.

And Stella Snail happened to be Mikey’s absolute favorite character. 

“That’s great, Mikester,” Leo encouraged, lightly bumping shoulders with his little bro. But Donnie had a small concern. 

“Isn’t Space Friends merchandise quite rare?” Donnie asked, narrowing his eyes at the box Mikey was trying to tear into. 

“Um, yeah, but I found a website selling it,” Mikey explained quickly, tongue sticking out as he tried to peel off a strip of tape. 

Donnie’s breath caught. “What kind of website?” 

Mikey shrugged, focus entirely on his prize and not his big brother. Raph stepped in to help rip the last of the tape off, leaving the little box turtle bouncing on the balls of his feet. 

“Um, Raphael, maybe you shouldn’t-” But Donnie’s voice went entirely unheard as the box was finally pulled open and Mikey shrieked in joy, reaching inside to pull out-

The doll in Mikey’s hands hardly resembled the character it was based off of, ragged and cheap and clearly thrown together with little care or attention. The stitching was atrocious, one of the eyes had fallen off in transport (or perhaps never been there at all) and the loose pieces of fabric hardly came together to form a coherent whole. It looked about as knock-off as knock-offs could get. 

And when Mikey’s bright shining face turned to a sad frown it made Donnie’s blood boil. 

“....What?” Mikey said in a small voice and both Raph and Leo grimaced at the sound. Donnie just clenched his fists and glared at the offensive thing in his baby brother’s hands. 

Mikey turned to his brothers with tearful eyes and said, “Why- Why doesn’t it look l-like Stella?” His lip wobbled and it made the blue and red turtles snap into action. 

“Oh I’m sure they just sent you the wrong thing by mistake,” Raph said in his panicked voice.

“Yeah. This is probably just some dumb April Fools joke,” Leo soothed and Donnie held back the urge to mention it was summer. The slider wrapped an arm around his little brother and discretely snatched the doll away from him, examining it with a lopsided smile. “I mean look at this thing! It looks so wrong it's almost funny!” He wiggled it a bit in Mikey’s face, making goofy noises with the motion and the youngest's sniffles turned into reluctant giggles.

“I'm sure they'll send you the real thing soon,” Raph encouraged, patting his head reassuringly. 

Mikey’s sad face pinched with hope. “R-Really?”

“Yes,” Donnie spoke up now, drawing the attention onto him and he did his best to not look violently angry, clenching his hands so tight at his sides they hurt. “I'll do some research and find out what went wrong. I'm certain I can help speed things along for you, Angelo.” 

Mikey smiled again, bright and happy, before launching himself across the room to hug his big brother. Arms and legs wrapped around him, forcing Donnie to readjust his weight so they didn't topple over. Mikey just buried his face in Donnie's plastron, clinging to him like a koala on a tree. “Thank you Donnie, you’re the best!”

Donnie smiled, giving his baby brother an affectionate pat on and head. “I know,” he said, soft. 

“Hey Mikester!” Leo called across the room, dropping the toy unceremoniously back into its box. “I don't know about you but I think I'm in the mood for a Smiling Friends marathon!” 

“Yeah!” Mikey shouted, hopping off his brother and making a beeline for the TV room. Leo was fast on his heels, giggling the whole way. 

“Raph too!” the snapper added, running after the pair.

Donnie watched them go then slunk back to his lab to start researching, scowling angrily the whole way there. 

It didn't take much scrolling to find what he was looking for, a very sketchy website promising “quality products from all your favorite franchises”. Scoff! Clicking onto the home page, Donnie’s nose wrinkled as he took in the truly horrific web design on display. 

The background was an unrelenting neon blue, the bright pop of color hurting Donnie’s eyes and giving him a headache. The text was all written in either impossible to read cursive or bland comic sans. Some entire sentences overlapped and any text meant to accompany photos was bleeding into the picture itself, making it near impossible to tell what it even said. 

But the worst of all was the actual ‘merchandise’ on display, the images clearly either photoshopped or stolen. Donnie even found one that still had a watermark for a different company in the corner. How lazy could they be?!

It quickly became clear who the targets were for this frankly pathetic scam, either grandparents who didn't know better or naive, gullible little kids too trusting to see the metaphorical writing on the metaphorical wall. Like his baby brother. Who was pure and sweet and believed anything anyone told him. 

Donnie could feel his anger rising more and more as he scrolled- practically snarling at his computer screen- but his blood boiled when he came across the fake Stella itself. Because the picture looked like the real deal- like ‘practically stepped out of the show itself’ real- and the description had enticing buzz words like “official”, “limited time” and “rare” so it was no wonder Mikey had bought it. Any of his dumdum brothers would have, despite how incredibly overpriced it was. Because of course it was! 

These scammers, while clearly amateur- one look at their web design and that was apparent- had created quite an effective scheme, robbing poor young kids who didn’t know any better. It was almost cartoonish in how evil it was. 

But lucky for them, Donnie was about to give them a lesson in morality. 

By hacking them. 

Which was painfully easy to do, since their encryption system was complete garbage like the rest of the website. Honestly it was like they wanted to be hacked. It took Donnie less than ten minutes to gain full access to their servers, giving him free reign to cause whatever havoc here he wanted, grinning wickedly to himself. “Relishing chuckle,” he muttered, tapping his fingers together like a supervillain. 

He had plans for revenge and oh, was he gonna enjoy exacting it. 

First things first, Donnie started compiling data, storing it away for later use. He quickly found names behind the shady site as well as personal information for blackmail. And sweetest of all, the company used for the actual production of the toys were notorious for bootlegs. And he just gained full access to their system. If he played his cards right Donnie could effectively kill two birds with one stone here, which made him snicker. 

After some more digging and data mining, Donnie hit the jackpot, the bank account linked to the website. This, this was going to hit them where it really hurt. Where it mattered. 

Donnie drained the account dry, leaving the scammers with nothing but bankruptcy to their names, transferring the dirty money into his dad's checking. 

It was a good thing his father was napping right now otherwise he would probably die of a heart attack to see half a million dollars in his name. 

With the important stuff out of the way, Donnie focused on the more petty part of his revenge, giving the website a full makeover. Starting by changing the hideous background color to a much more satisfying purple, mostly so his eyes wouldn't bleed from staring at the screen too long. Then he got to work swapping out the fake and/or stolen pictures with images that more accurately represented their counterparts. Other small changes were made here and there as he went, Donnie snickering quite a bit to himself at the new tagline heading the page. “Scams'R’Us. Fools’R’U.” He felt particularly proud of that line. 

Finally, he installed a virus to cause a server-wide crash that should keep anyone still trying to get on the website from actually purchasing anything, even knowing exactly what they were getting into. People were gullible that way. 

All in all the changes ended up an improvement over the original- the web page both factually correct and aesthetically pleasing, which were both a mission success in Donnie’s books. Honestly, he should be paid for the services he just provided these amateurs, even if those services did include upending their entire business and dragging their names through the mud. 

At least his webpage didn’t look like the failing grade of a high school web design class. 

Donnie sat back in his chair, arms folded and smile smug, admiring his handiwork. Yes, his revenge really had come together quite nicely if he did say so himself. That would teach them to mess with his little brother and make him cry! 

A shiver of wicked satisfaction crawled up Donnie’s spine and another evil laugh passed his lips, taking a moment to really soak in his victory. 

Once he got his fill, he opened up a new tab and ran a web search. He had more important things to do right now than just gloat. 

He still owed Angelo a new stuffy, after all. 

…

A week later Donnie was once again drawn out of his lab by excited shouting from his baby brother. But this time the softshell gave no token protest, instead smiling and shoving his chair back to stand. He’d been waiting on pins and needles all day for the package to arrive, the independent artist he’d commissioned assuring him it would be delivered on time. They certainly worked fast, much faster than Donnie had expected, and he might have worried they’d ripped him off the same as the scammers had Mikey if not for the extensive research he’d done before ever hiring them. But their credentials matched up and their quality had been backed by multiple sources so it was a safe bet going in. 

The rest of the money he’d redistributed to the victims of the scam, though the temptation to keep it for his ‘uranium fund’ had been hard to fight. Ultimately though it was better to ditch the evidence before his dad or Raph caught wind of what he’d been up to. Because they would definitely have words with him if they knew.

The package had already been ripped apart when Donnie made it downstairs, Mikey spotting him and holding the toy aloft as if it were a trophy. “Donnie! Donnie! It came! You were right! It looks just like the real thing, see!” He held it out for Donnie to inspect and...  yes, the craftsmanship was fantastic. Professional. Not a seam out of place. 

Donnie nodded, saying in a clipped tone, “It does seem up to standards now.”

“Can you tell them I said thanks.” Mikey squeezed the toy tight to his shell, smile brighter than a thousand burning suns, making Donnie feel all warm and squishy on the inside. 

“I will.” He offered a much duller smile in return but his baby brother didn't seem to mind, hugging him tight around the middle, burying his face into Donnie’s plastron and nuzzling. Donnie gave him a pat on the head because he was bad at physical affection. 

“Just please check with me next time you make any purchases like this again,” Donnie said, careful of his wording here. “So I can, ahem, oversee production to avoid this incident in the future.”

Mikey didn't seem to notice the lie, just nodding into Donnie’s chest. “Okay,” he replied sweetly. It made Donnie feel warm with pride. 

He squeezed just a bit tighter before adding, “Thanks for helping me get Stella, Donnie.” And when Mikey looked up at him with that adorable, doe eyed smile, it made every part of him surge with love and protective energy. 

By now the data Donnie had collected would be uploaded onto every social media site across the world, effectively stomping out the last dying flickers of the scammer’s reputation once and for all. But for Mikey, Donnie would do so much more- so much worse- to protect his sweet smile and make sure it was never taken away. 

“Anything for you, Mikey,” he said, voice soft, finally applying his own pressure to the hug, holding his little brother close to his heart.

Donnie would burn the world down for his baby brother. 

But for now, he'd settle for making him feel loved. 

A/N: Remember kids, revenge is never okay. Unless the person you are getting revenge on deserves it and then it's fine.

Haha, I just really love Donnie going all supervillain unhinged on his brother's behalf. It's sweet! Plus, having the big brothers spoil the youngest is like one of my favorite things to write on here.

[theitgirlnetwork]

Better

Chapter 10: I Want Her

Charlotte's Club Outfit:

Charlotte's Baseball Outfit (Except Pretend it's a Cubs Jersey:

A Pic of People Being Subjected to Charlotte and Lip PDA:

Note: Hiii! This took longer than I thought, apologies, but here it is! It's a little shorter but when I'm less busy we'll be back to our regularly scheduled programming. Thank you so much for all of the love I've been receiving on this, it means the world. I hope you all continue to enjoy reading :) <3 Also hopefully I got this damn tag list right this time. Let me know if you wanna be added!

Taglist: @comeonatmebruh @heavenly1927 @th3h0nkz @yezzyyae

“So, you don’t think he’d like a flask with a drunk Mickey Mouse on it?”

Lip chuckles as he balances his phone between his shoulder and his ear. His hands are busy jotting down a string algorithm for one of his bosses that he’d figured out and memorized earlier that morning. “I think Mickey would like us to buy him some shots while we’re out tonight. And I think Mickey deserves nothing but us showing the fuck up.”

“Aww,” Charlotte whines on the other line, Lip can basically hear the pout he knows is on her face. “I wanna give him something to open. Knowing you Gallaghers Ian’s probably just giving him dick for his birthday. He can’t unwrap that. Unless I pick up a bow for him to put on it.”

“Uh, really don’t want to think about you helpin’ my brother put a bow on his dick for his boyfriend, babe.” Lip sniffs, curling his lip up in distaste.

“Such a prude.” she chirps. 

Lip ignores her, finishing up what he’s doing and ripping it from the notepad, going back to his computer to check his work. Suddenly, there’s a knock at his office door. It’s so weird for him to say, his office. Well, it's his and the other paid intern’s office to share. All of the poor fucks working for free share cubicles downstairs and the real employees get their own offices on Lip’s floor. But it’s mostly his, the other guy’s uncle is one of the big bosses and he rarely actually comes to work and normally when he does, it’s to play foosball with the other trust fund babies before going to happy hour. “Yeah?”

The door swings open and Eric comes strolling in, tossing a foam stress ball back and forth between his hands, the same douchebag look he always has is painted on his face. “Hey, Gallagher, you got time for a quick favor?”

“Uh, yeah. One sec,” Lip brings one hand to the phone, holding it sturdily against his ear. “Charlotte, I gotta go.” He tries to ignore the immediate irritation at the way Eric straightens when he hears Charlotte’s name.

“Ooh, Charlotte, huh? Someone important must be in the room.” she jokes.

“Oh, shit, the girlfriend. Put her on speaker.”

“I’m,” the blond tries and achieves, albeit poorly, to contain his temper. “I’m not putting her on speaker, man.” 

“No, bubba, it’s okay, I’ll say hi.” her sweet voice intercedes. Lip curses under his breath before putting the phone on speaker. “Hi, I’m Phillip’s girlfriend, Charlotte.”

Eric pulls up one of the extra seats of the room, leaning into the phone rested on Lip’s desk. “Nice to meet you, I’m Eric, Gallagher’s boss.”

Lip scoffs disbelievingly, shaking his head, looking away. He could tolerate shitheads like Eric all day, but with his girlfriend watching? It was a whole new ball game. “Aye-”

“For now,” Charlotte hums on the other side of the line. “But my baby is a genius, he’ll be running that place soon.”

Both Eric and Lip go silent for a moment, the latter trying to work away the smug smile that starts to spread on his face. Eric blinks before schooling an easy look on his own face and offering a laugh that’s a little too loud. “Yeah, I believe it.”

There’s an awkward silence where Lip just watches Eric rock between his two feet, staring at the phone on the desk, waiting for Charlotte to take back what she said, compliment him to even things out, or just politely hang up. He smirks, ducking his head at the fact that this dickhead just doesn’t know his girl. Charlotte would ride an awkward silence until the wheels fell off. Simply because she doesn’t think to fill it. That’s just who she is, she doesn’t fill silence, she doesn’t laugh at jokes she doesn’t think are funny and her fake smile looks more like an awkward grimace. 

After a minute passes Lip decides to take mercy on the poor guy and hang up. “Uh, bunny, I gotta get back to work, alright? I’ll meet you at the house when I get off.”

“‘Kay!” she chirps. “Love you.”

“Yeah, love you too.” Lip leans on the small wooden desk and waits for Eric to recover from the uncomfortable moment. “You, uh, needed something?”

“Right! Right, I did. Do. I need you to run some diagnostics on a program my dad sent over, I’d do it, but there’s so much on my desk right now, and you’re the only one who's as fast as me.” 

“Sure,” Lip shrugs. “Send it over.” 

Eric claps his hands together, a wider smile on his face as he turns to leave. The man stops mid-step, turning to face the blond again. “Hey, Gallagher, what’re you doing this weekend?”

“It’s my brother’s boyfriend’s birthday tonight so I’m gonna go to that. After that, I'll probably just find something to do with my girl, why?”

“You like baseball?” Eric asks. “Cubs are playing, me and some of the guys are going. You should come.”

Lip tries to look disinterested. He knows however much the tickets are he couldn’t pay it unless he dipped into the money he and Charlotte had been saving, and even then, it wouldn’t be enough to sit where these rich pricks sit unless he emptied the damn jar. “I dunno.”

“C’mon man, my dad already bought the tickets. It’s team bonding and shit.” Eric continues, leaning against the door frame. “It’s on Sunday, there’ll be beer and baseball, what more do you need to know? You can even bring your girl, everyone else does when we go. Except the ugly fuckers who don’t have one.”

“Alright, I’ll uh, talk to Charlotte.” Lip says noncommittally, eyeing the other man as he nods, turning away and exiting the office. “‘Fuckin’ weirdo.”

Ian used to worry about his brother a lot. Really. See, Lip is the oldest brother, and he’s never stepped out of that role. Despite coming off as a pretentious, narcissistic asshole, his big brother was actually a decent person. He cares about his family. When they were younger and Monica and Frank were in and out, Fiona and Lip had to grow up quickly. Everyone always talks about how Fiona stepped up. How she became their mom, but no one talks about how even though he was only a couple years older than Ian, Lip became their dad. For the younger kids, Lip is the only steady father figure they know. 

And being real, the kid has fuckin’ issues with women. Probably Monica’s fault, and all of their mommy issues manifested in different ways, Lip and Carl just have the misfortune of being straight. Between that raging bitch Karen who literally got off on fucking shit up for him, that old bag he was fucking at school, that one rich crazy bitch, and Mandy, Lip had been through the ringer. Not that most of that chaos wasn’t self-made. Ian wasn’t blind, he knows his brother is a slut. 

So, when sweet, prissy, little Charlotte Fisher rolled into town with her big innocent brown eyes, wide smile and soft hands that would tell anyone she’s never worked a day in her life, Ian had been nervous. She’s nice, their little siblings love her, and he thought his brother would absolutely ruin her. Sometimes he still does think that. 

But as time goes on, his mind has started to change. Lip has never called a girl his girlfriend outside of trying to get her into bed before. He’s never walked around with a polaroid picture of a girl in his wallet. He’s never tried this hard. This shit might be for real and Ian is happy about it. 

Now, he and Mickey have an actual couple to hang out with.

“Last one.” Lip takes a deep drag from the blunt between his fingers, turning his head in the direction away from Charlotte as he blows out the smoke. He passes the blunt back to Mickey before walking a couple steps away where his girlfriend stands, wrapping his arms around her to share the warmth as she shivers. “Told you you’d be cold. Gonna catch fuckin’ pneumonia.”

“The cold doesn’t make p-people sick. G-germs do.” she sasses, leaning into him, letting out a small sneeze. “Don’t say anything.”

“Too worried about being cute. Should’ve made you put some fuckin’ clothes on.”

“Nah,” Mickey says, flicking the burnt leftovers of the blunt to the ground, walking over. “Princess here is our ticket to free drinks, she’s dressed the part.” 

“We’re not pimpin’ my fuckin’ girlfriend, Mickey.”

“Isn’t she gonna start strippin’ like, next week? What’s the difference?”

“Oh-kay.” Ian interrupts, throwing his arm around Mickey’s shoulder, pulling him closer to him, “Let’s go in.”

“Wait,” Charlotte pauses, before they can start walking up the street to the bar. “Is, um, is Mandy coming? Because, you’re her brother and I don’t wanna, like,” she gestures between her and Lip, “rub it in, you know?”

“Nah, you’re good. M’seein’ her tomorrow, shithead has to work tonight.” Mickey shrugs. “Now, I’m sick of standin’ here talkin’, it’s my fuckin’ birthday and I’m fuckin’ sober, it’s ridiculous.”

The group makes their way into the busy bar. It was one of the few nights they had a DJ instead of a live band which was likely the reason it was so busy. Mickey and Ian shove their way through the crowd, Charlotte right behind them with Lip’s arm around her waist, hand resting on her stomach, holding her to him. 

Once they find a spot with a little space, Mickey turns around and nudges Charlotte. “C’mon princess, this pussy already said he’s not drinkin’ cause he thinks he needs to watch me or somethin’, go shot for shot with me.”

Before the woman can even answer her boyfriend’s free hand is cupping her jaw, guiding her to look back at him, pulling her into a kiss. The word ‘no’ mumbled against her lips. She pouts, and the pair mumble amongst themselves as Ian and Mickey watch. After a few moments Lip rolls his eyes and nods, kissing her lips again before letting her go. 

Charlotte bounces excitedly, grinning at Mickey. “Kay, you wanna see something cool?” Without letting him answer, she straightens, rolling her shoulders back and putting an arch in her back as she walks a little ways away to the bar where a couple of guys are standing. She leans forward on the bar, poking her butt out a little as she looks around, appearing bored.

It’s not long before one of the guys turns to her and starts talking, leaning down to whisper in her ear as his friends behind him stare at her ass. Ian turns his head to look at Lip, who is looking away from his girlfriend, the muscle in his jaw working overtime. 

A couple moments later, Charlotte was coming shuffling back with three shots and a beer balanced in her hands, a bright smile on her face. “Drinks on me gentlemen.” she says, passing two shots to Ian, one for him, one for Mickey and handing Lip the beer. Lip’s finger slips through her back belt loop, tugging the girl to him again as he locks eyes with the guys who've purchased them over her head, sipping the beer they’d just paid for. 

“Bottoms up, princess.” Mickey says, bring his glass to Charlotte’s before tossing it back. The men chuckle as the girl sputters and gags at the taste, one eye twitching with discomfort.  Lip runs his hand along her side soothingly.

“Yuck, I don’t want any more of those.”

Charlotte had several more. Three and a half. She didn’t get a chance to finish the last shot before Lip wrestled it from her hands, slamming it down on the bar and pulling her away from it. 

She, Mickey and Ian had done their fair share of dancing. It mostly consisted of Ian and Charlotte taking turns grinding on Mickey to irritate him and the two men occasionally stepping away to dance with each other, only pausing to scare off whatever guy that was trying to get Charlotte to give them the time of day. Lip lingered at the bar, offering them supportive nods and nursing his beer. He’d chosen not to drink too much considering he’d already smoked and his girlfriend was currently slurring her words together as she stumbled her way over to him.

“Hi, bubba.” she hums over the loud music, swaying to the side a little as Lip’s arm shoots out to balance her, pulling her to him. He nudges her nose with his before looking at her wide smile and lidded eyes.

“Hi, baby. Havin’ fun?” He smiles.

“Yeah.” she tosses her arms around his neck leaning into him. “Stop laughin’ at me.”

“M’not, c’mon.”

“You haven’t danced with me at all, let’s go over there.” she whines, pulling at him and pouting.

Lip taps her lightly on the back of the thigh, “Stop whining” he murmurs in her ear before turning her so her back is against his front. Lip slides his hands down Charlotte’s sides to her hips, pulling her close to him. “I don’t dance.”

The woman in front of him rolls her eyes, placing one hand over his and the other going to the back of his head, burying in the hair at his nape. She turns her head so she can look at him with a sleepy smile. “You do with me.”

Lip leans back on the bar, wetting his lips as he watches Charlotte roll her ass back against him, grinding on his dick. His blue eyes shift between her ass and trying to get a glimpse of her face, one of his hands moving to the gap in the back of her jeans, grabbing the space there to guide her movements, biting back a groan when she bends in further, arching in front of him. 

“Gettin’ sick of this place, ready to go birthday boy?” Ian asks as Mickey yawns. His mission was accomplished, he’d taken his boyfriend out, showed him a good time for his birthday. Tomorrow they’d do the family vibe, with cake, streamers, and his one sane sibling. He slings his arm around him and goes to guide him over to his brother and his girlfriend. The last he’d seen the pair they’d been basically fucking through their clothes against the bar.

The redhead pauses in his steps, laughing disbelievingly at the sight in front of him.

A couple feet away is his brother, his girlfriend in his arms. The pair are quietly laughing and leaning back and forth to whisper in each other’s ears. His brother’s stance is relaxed, the only thing tense on him is his grip on his swaying drunk girlfriend, an easy smile that Ian hasn’t seen in a long time on Lip’s face. If he didn’t know better he’d say he seemed happy. Charlotte’s hands cup his face as she drunkenly presses kisses all over his face, leaving pink lip stains all over his mouth, cheeks and neck. 

Ian didn’t want to break up the scene but he’d really needed to get Mickey home. Once he’s rounded up the group, he and Lip guide their drunken partners to the car, ushering them in, and shushing Mickey’s slurred curses. After he drives Ian and Mickey to Mickey’s home Lip pulls off with a still very drunk but now a lot less rowdy Charlotte in the passenger seat, promising to return the car the next day. 

Ian watches as his older brother climbs into the driver’s seat of the car, checking the girl’s seatbelt and brushing the hair out of her face tenderly before the drive into the night. As much as he’d felt bad for Mandy he’d known that she and his brother would never work. Ian loves her, but Lip didn’t. Not the way she wanted. He couldn’t convince her of that. But Ian almost wishes that she’d seen Lip tonight. He was a different person when he was with Charlotte, not so bitter. Not acting like he was walking around with the weight of the world on his shoulders. As crazy and fucked up he is, Ian knows Mickey is what’s best for him. He’s starting to think Charlotte is what’s best for Lip.

“Fuckin’ Frank.” Fiona huffs, ripping her covers off at the sound of her front door opening. She’d bet all of the dollars she doesn’t fucking have that it’s him. Either way, him or whatever idiot decided to try to rob them were gonna get a bat to the face. She eases down the stairs, wooden weapon in her hand as she flicks the light on. “Jesus, Lip!”

“Shut the fuck up!” he whisper-yells. Slung over his shoulder is a giggling, very likely drunk Charlotte. 

“Shit, is Lottie drunk? Good going genius she’s not supposed to drink ‘til her birthday.” Fiona hisses, running a hand over her hair and dropping the bat onto the couch.

“Well, Mickey decided they’d share today.” Lip grumbles, adjusting his girlfriend on his shoulder before pushing past his sister and going up the stairs, rolling his eyes as he feels her following closely behind. 

Lip rests Charlotte softly on the bed, looking sighing as she flops backward. “No baby,” he pulls her up by her arms. “Up.”

Fiona leans in the doorway and watches in shock as her little brother cares for the girl on the bed in front of him. She’d never seen him be so gentle with anyone they weren’t related to. He chuckles lightly as he encourages the still giggling girl to lift her arms, tugging her tight t-shirt up and over her head, reaching around and unhooking her bra before digging in his drawer and pulling out one of his bigger shirts to pull over her head. “Pass me one of your wipes if you’re gonna stand there.” 

“Oh-” Fiona had forgotten herself, so shocked by the scene, she quickly walks over to the bathroom, grabbing her pack of makeup wipes and handing them to her brother. 

Lip takes the wipes and crouches in front of the girl, resting his hands on her knees. “Wanna go wash your face or are wipes good for now. Can you get up?” Charlotte’s eyes are clearly heavy, she leans her forehead against his, giggling as she shakes her head no, rubbing their heads together. “No? Okay, eyes closed, bunny, or it’ll burn.” The woman whimpers and struggles drunkenly as he drags the cold wipe across her face. Blue eyes sharp with focus as he tries to get every bit off. When he’s satisfied that he’d gotten all he could he kisses her lips before pushing off of the floor and reaching under his pillow, producing a light pink scarf. “Stay still, you know m’not good at this part.”

“Don’t wan’it.” she whines.

“You’re drunk, and you’re gonna be pissed tomorrow, if I don’t put this shit on you. Sit still.” Lip cups her jaw, giving her a serious look, only to be met with a wide grin. Fiona chuckles behind them, shrugging when her brother cuts his eyes at her.

“She’s gonna need aspirin and water for tomorrow.” Fiona offers.

“Yeah, I fuckin’ know, I’ve had her chugging water since the bar-ow!” 

Both Gallagher siblings look down to a now half asleep Charlotte, clean faced with her scarf tied as neatly as Lip could manage on her head, hanging slightly to one side. Her hand is up, offending fingers suspended in the air after pinching Lip’s arm roughly. “Ow.” she mocks, her eyes closing. “Be nice. She’s helping, trying to help me.” she slurs.

Lip rolls his eyes, offering a gruff, ‘sorry’ to his sister, as he nudges his girlfriend to lie down in the bed, kissing her forehead. “‘M’fuckin’ helpin’ you, brat.”

Another hand reaches out, this time to roughly tap him on the cheek. “Thank you, bubba.”

Fiona snickers again. “Bubba?”

Lip huffs, now starting to get himself ready for bed, flicking his sister off as a cue for her to exit. Fiona quietly closes the door behind her and returns to her room. 

As she climbs into bed, she thinks to herself about all of the times she’d been embarrassed about her brothers’ behavior with women and men alike. They were sluts, the both of them, minus Liam and Carl. And often selfish, rude and disrespectful. But now they’d both found people who made them better. Who taught them how to care for people the right way, outside of the family. She was happy to watch them experience young love, no catches, no conditions, no reason to be hard all the time. They’d found people who looked at them like they were worth something. Worth everything. Fiona resolves to herself that she would find that for herself and hope her remaining siblings would do the same. She hated not being able to chat with V about the extent of Lip and Charlotte’s relationship. But maybe it was worth it. Maybe Charlotte and Mickey were. Even if they are extra mouths to feed. 

Eric takes a sip of his beer and nods along with another dull conversation with his coworkers that he was forced to pretend he was friends with. They’d been here for fifteen minutes and thus far, two of them had disappeared to do coke in the bathroom, several of them had fought with their girlfriends/wives/fiancés and the rest had been droning on and on about the stock exchange, something that he truly knows nothing about. His fucking accountant handles that shit for him. He was bored and annoyed to say the least. The game hadn’t started yet and Rebecca had been a bitch all morning. She was mad because she didn’t feel like coming to sit through a baseball game, despite the fact that they’d not only have a box but an open bar pre-paid for. The only thing that got her dressed was a promise to take her out for sushi after. Eric fucking hates sushi. 

Really, he was waiting on Gallagher. He’d actually been surprised with how much he liked Lip. He figured they’d have nothing to talk about, but the guy was pretty quiet in general. He was a great listener, and when he did say shit, it was actually important. Sure he seemed a little wound-up but he’d heard from his dad that their family friend, Ms. Helene helped him get this job because he’s broke and has got like, a family of 9 or something. Eric found the little snippets of Lip’s life he shared interesting. Like…well…his hot sister who’d stopped by for lunch one day. And his even hotter girlfriend he has a picture of on his desk, next to the picture of the 5,000 kids he lives with. 

Lip shows up with Charlotte fifteen minutes before the game is about to start. The pair walk up, hand in hand, matching pace with his easy strides and her peppy steps. When they approach one of the guys from legal (Eric thinks) says what they’re all thinking under his breath. “Goddamn.”

The woman is wearing a cropped, long sleeved black top with low hanging black pants, her sparkling belly button ring on display. Over top is a button down jersey she’s left open and on her head is a matching Cubs hat, her long, silky black hair hanging down over her shoulders. 

Lip is wearing a similar outfit, but with a black fitted sweater, his larger fingers intertwined with her smaller manicured ones. 

Eric forces himself to stop ogling the girl, clapping his hands together and welcoming them over. “Gallagher! You made it, glad you came.”

“Uh, thanks for having us.” he pulls the girl closer by her waist, obviously noticing the eyes on her. “This is my girlfriend, Charlotte.”

“Hi, nice to meet you.” The girl says sweetly, offering him a smile as she leans into her boyfriend. 

Eric urges his eyes to stay on her face, and off of their body language. But the way Lip’s thumb is rubbing along the skin on the girl’s waist, the way she’s staring up at him so adoringly, Eric felt like he was being excluded from something, despite fully being part of this conversation. 

He doesn’t realize he hadn’t spoken until Lip takes it upon himself to introduce him. “Bunny, this is Eric.”

“Oh, uh yeah, I’m Eric, I uh-” he remembers her negative reaction to him referring to himself as Lip’s boss and flounders for an alternative. “I work with Lip.” 

“Yeah, he told me.” she chirps, rocking on her feet a little. “Thanks for inviting us. I’ve never gone to a baseball game. I’m gonna try my best to keep up, Phillip tried his best to explain to me on the way here.” 

“Aw really? Well, my girlfriend Becca is an old pro, I drag her here all the time, she’ll teach you the ropes of how to keep occupied while we watch the game. Go join the ladies, she’s the one looking like she didn’t know she was coming here in slacks.” Eric smiles. His smile drops slightly as he watches the couple exchange a look. 

Lip tilts his head downward, lowering his voice to a murmur Eric strains his ears to hear. “Do you wanna go?”

Charlotte mulls it over for a second before shrugging and patting his chest. “Yeah, it’s fine, hang with the guys, I’ll come back over if you miss me too much.”

“Yeah, whatever, brat, go make nice.” The blond banters back, patting his girlfriend’s ass as he kisses her before playfully shoving her in the direction of the women gathered around the drinks. Lip sidesteps a little, blocking the crowd of men staring at the woman’s ass as she makes her way over to the other girls. “You, uh, guys make bets already?”

Trevor, some guy from…marketing (Eric swears he’s seen him on that floor) sighs, “No, thank God you brought it up-”

Suddenly, they’re a very lively bunch, placing bets that Lip is apparently calling, pulling off his own hat and placing the money in it. Eric tries to focus on the fun and Lip’s apparent godlike memory that allows him to remember who said what, but his eyes keep drifting. He watches as every couple of minutes, Charlotte and Lip look at each other, checking in without saying a word before returning to their respective groups. Once, Charlotte had come over to bring Lip a beer once she’d noticed all the other guys had one. The only time Rebecca had come over was when she wanted money for a fresh pretzel and even then, Charlotte had been in tow. Apparently, the two women had been getting along well. Becca had demanded enough money to get Charlotte a pretzel too, to which Gallagher immediately reached in his wallet and produced money Eric knew he didn’t have to spare, and gave it to the woman. When they’d come back, Eric’s girlfriend had a pretzel she was already eating and Lip’s had chicken tenders and fries for them to share. 

As the game got more interesting and the men started shouting and getting excited, the women grew antsy, Charlotte included. Seth’s girlfriend was really intrigued by the game, but that may have also been because she’s into baseball players. Becca was posted up in the corner, on the phone with the restaurant she wanted to go to and Charlotte was standing behind Lip’s chair, hands on his shoulders. 

“Come sit, baby.” he says, patting his lap. Charlotte huffs as she makes her way around the front, plopping down in his lap and resting her cheek against his. “Lemme hear it.”

“I’m bored.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah and this game is long and you didn’t mention that.”

“You done?”

“No, and it’s cold.” Charlotte sighs. “Now, I’m done.”

“Now you’re done. Cool, I can go back to watchin’ now or what?”

Oof. Eric thinks, waiting for her to start yelling, throwing a fit until Lip offers her something to calm down. That’s what they all want, he thinks. Instead, her brows furrow and she glances at Eric before grabbing the color of Lip’s shirt, tugging his ear to her lips to whisper into it.

Blue eyes go wide for a moment before a ‘uh, fuck yeah, I wanna do that.’ is murmured and she’s hopping off of his lap. “Uh, hey man, we’ll be right back, do we need a code to get back in or…”

“Oh, no, man you’re good. You guys okay? If you need something they’ll bring it in here if we call down-”

“I left something I need in the car.” Charlotte intercepts, pulling at Lip again, leading him out of the suite. Moments later Rebecca sits down in Lip’s seat next to Eric, letting out a sigh.

“So, Phillip’s girlfriend gets to leave and I don’t?”

30 minutes later and the pair comes back, looking relatively the same, despite being slightly disheveled and what appears to be a fresh hickey blooming on Charlotte’s neck. The game is almost over and immediately Lip gets back into wheeling and dealing. He starts settling up on bets while Charlotte collects the numbers of the other girls.

“No seriously, we need to keep in touch.” Rebecca smiles, hugging the girl tightly.

“Yeah, girl, I’d love that, we should hang out soon.” Charlotte hugs back. “Maybe we’ll even let Phillip and Eric come on our date.”

“Maybe, but we’re gonna have to hang out without prying ears too. I’ve been watching you two, you’ve got to tell me what type of shit you’re pulling in the bedroom, you’ve got blondie wrapped around your finger. Eric told me you’ve only known each other a couple of months and at this rate you’ll end up with a ring before me.”

“I…I’m sure that’s not true.” Charlotte says quietly, letting her eyes travel over to her man, unsurprised that he looks over to her as soon as she reaches him, eyes locking. They’ve been in sync like that a lot lately. “How long have you two been together?”

“Since high school,” The girl huffs. “He’s dragging his feet as all men do. I mean, I’ve played my part, even got mommy and daddy’s approval. On both sides. We’re all fucking waiting on him. You’re smart, getting in on the ground up, not picking one that was born with a golden spoon shoved down his throat. But my parents wouldn’t settle for less. Guess yours are trusting the process.”

“Um, exc-” Before Charlotte can finish, Eric gestures Rebecca over and the girl pats her arm one more time before going to her boyfriend. Charlotte makes her way over to Lip, thoughts heavy. They are getting more serious. Despite being together for a short amount of time, she can’t imagine her life without him now. She’d been dodging the concept of introducing him to her parents for a while because she knew how’d they’d act. She’d seen a live demo of it with Kev. They’d treat him like white trash, the last thing Charlotte thought of him as. They’d be condescending, and mean. But it’d happen eventually, because…well she doesn’t plan on going anywhere, and she hopes he doesn’t plan to either. 

After everyone gets separated in the crowd of people leaving the game, Eric waits on the sidewalk for the car he’d called for him and Rebecca. She was babbling about something or another he didn’t care about when he saw Charlotte and Lip. The woman is giggling loudly as the man tickles her, the two of them damn near bumping people every few seconds as if no one else was here. 

“I’m never going to a game with you again” the girl breathes, gasping in air as he stops tickling and starts holding her hand. 

Eric watches as Lip rolls his eyes, pulling her into him as he walks her to the passenger side of some old, beat up truck. “Yeah, okay,” he laughs, opening the door for her, “I can hear you now when I try to go without you, ‘bubba, please, take me with you, I’ll be bored without you,’” he mocks.

“I don’t sound like that.”

“No?” he snorts, closing her door and going around to the driver’s side. 

As he watches them interact Eric can’t help but think, he wants what they have. There’s a small pang of jealousy that rings in his chest. But it isn’t until he watches Charlotte lean over to manually unlock the door on the driver’s side so Lip can get in that an even more intrusive thought enters his mind.

I want her.

[randomthunk]

I've been a mom for almost two months now. I don't heavily dabble in "mom" videos or websites, and thank God I don't follow any "momfluencers", but part of my Instagram algorithm has gotten baby stuff to be suggested on my feed.

"Mom shaming" is honestly pretty funny to me, because it's so stupid. Hands down the funniest war that is raged is breastfeeding vs. formula feeding, and it's because the breastfeeding zealot moms LOVE to rip apart moms who are formula feeding. (In before someone comes to lecture about the merits of breastfeeding - I am well aware of the merits, that is not the point here.)

The vast, vast majority of formula feeders are not doing it because they are "lazy" or "don't care about their child". They are doing it because their breastmilk didn't come in, or because they don't make enough breastmilk so they have to supplement. Maybe baby has trouble breastfeeding. Maybe they are adopting/fostering, and there's no breastmilk to be had. Maybe it's some other reason - but it certainly isn't the mom rubbing her hands together nefariously.

Baby needs to eat. Breastfeeding zealots acting like any of the above scenarios don't exist and you're just not trying hard enough are, frankly, hilarious. Thank God I don't have any of them in real life and they are just relegated to the hellscape of comment sections, it's an endless source of comedy.

[the-90s-music-colosseum]

Round 2 Group A Match 2

expand for propaganda ↓

Sinead O'Connor:

"she is so gorgeous COME ON. and her VOICE????? HER VOICE??? i want her to sing me to sleep. i want to hold her hand and frolic in a field of flowers with her. absolutely my gay awakening. if she told me to eat roadkill id do it."

"She makes me want to shave my head until I remember I'm not as hot as her and probably couldn't pull it off as well."

"Remember when she ripped up a picture of the Pope on live TV? Nothing hotter than a woman willing to stand up for what is right even at the risk of her own career. Also she's just stunning, have you seen those eyes?"

Blixa Bargeld:

"Blixa, especially in person, is just… otherworldly. Ethereal. The way their physical body has changed so much while remaining Exactly The Same is just. Nick Cave is right. It’s hard to imagine Blixa having human parents. I think it was Christiane F. who called Blixa “a beauty queen from another planet”? She was right. That’s Blixa. We stan a nonbinary queen."

"Blixa's just objectively attractive: cheekbones, long legs, a sense of humor. And all that early days bondage gear. Blixa's both the sexy sidekick guitarist (Bad Seeds) and the moaning and screaming lead singer (Neubauten): what about that, peggability algorithm?! Blixa sweeps! Wim Wenders straight up calls Blixa a legend in the DVD commentary for Wings of Desire. That's validation, baby! Vote Blixa!"

"he has such pretty hair in the 90s! he's just very beautiful and i want his gender"

[spurgie-cousin]

While we’re talking details in old Jrod posts, I’d be remiss if I didn’t ask if you know anything about the accidental “Teen Mom” facebook repost she refers to in the first screenshot? As a former avid TM viewer, I’m dying know to what one of them could have possibly done that Jill would find worthy of reposting lol

I was curious too because I'd heard of her doing that, but I've never seen what picture she used or how (plus like any good millennial i'm versed on the Teen Mom universe). So I looked up and down but couldn't find a screenshot, maybe it was before the time people were diligently preserving all of her snafus lol? Or maybe I just didn't look in the right places, so if anyone knows where to find that, let anon and I know

I'm guessing it was a picture of either someone pregnant or someone with a baby, maybe to help advertise a speaker for young moms or something? Although for the life of me I can't think of one of the Teen Moms that would live up to Jill's modesty standards, they're all pants-wearers at least lol, so that makes me even more curious about what kind of picture it was. Maybe in a hospital or something?

Also I'm sure the Google algorithm is different today than it was then, but I couldn't get any random images of the Teen moms without searching "young and pregnant" or "teen pregnancy" or some variation of that (RIP my search suggestions). Just searching "pregnant woman or women" or even "pregnant" brought up hundreds of stock images and a few real life maternity shoots of obviously adult women so. Personally, I choose to believe Jill was being very creepy with her search terms 👀

[artemisandhersilverbow]

Ok, if you, like me, were in the minority of people who didn’t immediately fall in love with One Dark Window… like, the consistent rave reviews popping up on various algorithms have been simultaneously confusing and making you feel very left out? Well, I’ve got news!

In my humble opinion, Two Twisted Crowns (book 2) is mostly a total knock out. I obvi gotta sit with it longer (I just finished at 3am)… revisit some exceptional quotes that left ya girl blushing (dresses were almost ripped).

Duologies can feel like such a mercy in the fantasy space and looking at the series as a whole, i’d now happily recommend it to anyone not looking to tackle a new 3-6 book series/investment at this time. Also a good one for newbies to the genre. It also isn’t just another copy-paste SJM variant and that almost feels like a rarity with the big new releases.

Book one, I really struggled with the messy (albeit cool on the surface) magic system, the constant rhyme thing felt really hokey and made me struggle to get into the writing (which is mostly very good), the MCs were outshined by the side characters and just weren’t really my type, and the pacing is so odd like - sometimes so slow and sometimes so fast - it’s like, “Wait hi, I need more info please.”

25% into book 2 I genuinely thought, “I think more has already happened in this book than in all of book 1.” And that’s when I realized I was hooked and in for a late night.

Book two is action-packed and the plot is operating on so many levels - thanks in part to more povs. Ironically, part of me was like so grateful I had read book one, even if I didn’t like it, so I “knew the rules,” and could run along this faster-paced, more ambitious book 2.

Obviously I think the magic system, and general world building, was infinitely more successful in TTC. Gillig just used the framework and the lore with a higher level of craft and focus. We scaled back on the goofy rhymes - tho not entirely lol. But I credit the attention paid to the world/magic as a big part to why I read this whole thing in an evening! It felt like a really unsatisfying missing piece from ODW and, clearly, with that amended I more than liked it! I got that unmistakable all-consuming euphoric rush that only binging a great fantasy can give you.

*spoilers ahead*

I would also be fully lying if I said that what made this book work for me wasn’t just… the big focus on Elm and Ione. Yes, I had to google that name pronunciation for my own sanity at a certain point. But within their plot, in particular, I was like “ok, now this is what I call a magic system.” I have no idea why this same concept was just utilized and pulled off so much more successfully in their narrative arc… but it was. I still liked the odyssey into the woods with Ravyn and the Nightmare, but I fully credit Elm and Ione for making me love this book. Did I miss Elspeth a lot… I plead the fifth.

The Elm-Ione romance had everything I was missing in ODW! Like hot, hot tension. Sexy build up. And idk their growth and stories and strength genuinely made THIS tender little reader shed a tear. Their dynamic felt really honest and fresh and different. I’ve been getting a little burnt out by copy and paste romantic plots, in fantasy in particular, so these two took me by surprise. Yeah, I was just kind of floored by their romantic journey.

What can I say, I’m weak for an emotionally intelligent boy who can communicate his need to be topped (and like traumas and other things). Some of their build up tension scenes had me blushing the hardest any book has made me blush in 2023. RIP OFF THAT DRESS BABY!!!

Anyway, if you felt gaslit by the hype around ODW, but you already read it, I’m hear to say that TTC is more than worth it. You’ve already made it that far, what do you have to lose?

Unless your me who is going to be feeling that decision to not go tf to bed!

[missmaywemeetagain]

A Million Little Heartaches: Pandora's Box 💔💫❤️‍🔥

A/N: Hi, my darlin's! I was feeling a little hesitant about posting my first non-EP fic, but I got over myself lol. This one is a bit of an experiment as it's not told in chronological order, and we'll see if I continue it based on inspiration and interest. Please let me know your thoughts! As always, they are so appreciated and what helps keep me motivated a lot of the time, especially as I'm trying new things. I really hope you enjoy it and can't wait to hear what you think. 💗

ALSO, I'm not sure if tumblr has changed its algorithm or what, but I know I'm not seeing people's posts in my feed like I used to. Turn on notifications for me to not miss anything and if you like this, it would be super helpful if you reblog this post! Thank you babies! 💗

Key Tropes: Angst, right person(s)-wrong time, star-crossed lovers, slow burn kinda? friends to enemies to friends to lovers?(LOL), forbidden love, second chance love

💥 Head's up! My first Scarf Universe exclusive (Red Scarf) is set to come out THIS WEEK for my Patreons! It's utterly filthy and indulgent, so if you are interested, you can join my Patreon community HERE to get access! 💥

A Million Little Heartaches

Part 1: Pandora’s Box

March 2026

I’ve curled my legs up under me in an oversized armchair, staring aimlessly at the fire. My empty wine glass is precariously balanced in my hand as I am hypnotized by the flames. Liam’s angry outburst shocked everyone, and his words still ring like poison in my ears:

You abandoned me.

I run through all the things I could’ve said in response instead of just standing there speechless as he ripped me into pieces in front of everybody.

Namely, you made your choice, Liam. And it wasn’t me.

It was never me.

Good ole Lily, forever the consolation prize, I muse, shaking my head.

There’s a hollow feeling in my heart that hasn’t been there for a long, long time.

“Mind if I join you?” Jake’s rumbling voice startles me out of my staring contest with the fire.

Oh god, now? Seriously? is what I’m thinking, but I manage a cordial nod instead, setting my empty glass on the side table next to me.

He sits in the chair facing mine. A glance over reminds me he’s a man now, not a boy, the firelight hitting the weathered but not unattractive lines on what used to be a baby face. The peach fuzz which had tickled my cheek so long ago is now a short, dark beard on a sharper, less rounded jaw. His once sandy hair has darkened some and is peppered with grey. He has aged well.

I can’t imagine how he must be looking at me after all these years, at the changes he must see. I know I’m not the girl I was. I look back at the fire.

“Are you okay?” he asks after a moment of silence.

I roll my eyes over to him and huff a bitter laugh. “Does it matter?”

I shouldn’t have said it like that—Liam’s freak out wasn’t Jake’s fault—but everything feels so fucking raw that I don’t have the wherewithal for a filter.

“It always has,” he says quietly.

The words hang there between us, heavy. There’s a poignancy and deeper meaning to them that slaps me out of my pity party.

“Excuse me?” I breathe out, blinking. My heart starts racing, like a hummingbird trapped in my ribcage.

He doesn’t get to say my feelings have always mattered. Not him. Not the guy who dragged me to hell and back because he was too much of a coward to let me down easy. Not the one who I spent nearly six years trying desperately to know and wishing for him to know me, too. Who I tried, only somewhat successfully, to forge a friendship with after it seemed all between us was well and truly done.

Jake shifts uncomfortably in his seat, looking at the fire before he finds what he needs there to bring himself to look back at me.

He only knows a fraction of what he put me through, or at least I think he does. He was ever the master at shutting me out, so it’s always been hard to know what he’s thinking or feeling without having to pry it out of him with a crowbar.

His voice echoes in my head, a long-forgotten memory: I guess I’m just the kind of person who hides my feelings.

An understatement.

This makes it a surprise when he looks straight at me with those warm brown eyes that used to melt me into the floor and says, “Your feelings have always mattered.”

Maybe it’s the wine, or the blowup with Liam, but my filter disappears completely. There’s a latent, hot anger that boils to the surface.

“You’ve got to be kidding me. You, of all people, think my feelings have always mattered?” I throw back at him, scoffing.

He looks as though I’ve slapped him, and if I wasn’t so upset, I might try to backtrack. But I spent six years of my adolescence trying to shield him from my feelings, and as an adult, I don’t have time for that shit anymore.

“I suppose I deserve that,” he recovers, looking back at the fire.

I’m surprised, to say the least. It’s not as though we hadn’t talked about it back in the day, at least somewhat, but I never let him know just how deeply he hurt me. I never told him about the panic attacks, the intense depressions, or the manic feelings I’d get from just a morsel of attention from him. No, I’d buried all that for the sake of our “friendship” or whatever it was.

Part of me knows it’s stupid to try and rehash things that we put to rest so long ago. I shouldn’t hold it against him—we were just teenagers—but it wasn’t until my twenties that I finally grasped just how much Jake fucked me up. He made me think that if you love someone enough, they can treat you however they want and it doesn’t matter, and if it’s “meant to be” then someone can string you along indefinitely without consequence. I’d been so convinced we were these star-crossed lovers that had such a deep thread of connection that we’d someday figure it out. But someday never came.

Liam had. Liam pulled me from the ashes of my heartbreak and showed me real love. Or so I’d hoped. I’d hoped so much that I’d ignored and excused all the similarities between the way he and Jake treated me. But he had loved me and risked it all for me at one time. I mattered to him, to a fault.

But with Jake, I’m never sure I mattered. I always felt on thin ice, or at least that’s how I remember it. But memory warps over time. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I’ve been wrong about all of it.

God, he still has me running circles around myself.

“Yeah, you do deserve it, a little,” is what I finally settle on, but it comes out gentler than I want it to.

He gives me a familiar sardonic half-smile.

Ah, there he is, the little shit. It was a look that twenty years ago would set my heart a-flutter on a good day and made me want to throttle him on a bad one. Some things never change.

Another thing that hasn’t changed is my need to shove him past his comfort zone with all my thoughts and feelings.

“Sometimes, I’m still not sure I mattered to you at all.” The words catch in my throat, giving away more than I want to.

His eyes snap back to mine. “How can you say that?” he asks with a surprising level of hurt in his voice.

I’m taken aback. “Jake, I don’t think you entirely understand the way you…” I stop myself and shake my head.

“The way I what? Say it,” he challenges, uncharacteristically.

I take a deep breath. “The way you broke my heart completely. How I spent months—no, years—trying to figure out what I had done that was so bad that you didn’t have or couldn’t really admit you had feelings for me, or why I was so repulsive you couldn’t bear to be with me. You had me so tied in knots I could hardly breathe.”

“Lily, you were never—” he starts, shaking his head, but I don’t listen, plowing right through whatever he thinks he needs to say.

“And then Liam came into the picture and helped me heal, and still I was so desperate for your approval, for us to be friends. But you always, always kept me at arm’s length. I could never figure any of it out. I still wonder if it was all one-sided and I was just a crazy little girl who manufactured this epic love story in her head,” I ramble out, shaking my head.

I’m saying too much, I know I am, but what the fuck does it matter now, after all this time? I have no need to impress him anymore.

   He shutters down, and it’s so entirely familiar that I have to laugh. “That. Right there,” I point, “is the same thing you did to me 27 years ago. You could never let me in, could you? As much as I hoped you would, as close as I swear I got sometimes, this brick wall is what made me question everything about us. It always has.”

His eyes widen as he’s called out so viciously, his hands tensing then releasing the arms on the chair. I let him sit in it for a moment before I drop the last bombshell, the one I’m sure will ruin the precarious balance between us:

“You were my first love, Jake, and I was so in love with you it hurt. God, I was so convinced we were connected in some timeless, deep, soulmates kind of way. And sometimes you did things that seemed to confirm that, but then you’d turn around and…well, I tried so hard to understand why you didn’t feel it, too. But I was young and stupid and obsessed, I guess,” I laugh, looking into the fire. “I finally just had to accept I was never gonna figure you out or understand why you didn’t love me back.”

He’s quiet for a long moment and I’m almost afraid he’s going to get up and walk away.

“Sorry, I guess old habits die hard. Here I am, still blasting you with all my feelings, 25-plus-years later,” I chuckle. “No wonder you never wanted to be with m—”

“You’ve got it all wrong,” he interrupts.

My head snaps back to him. “What?”

“I never meant to hurt you like that. I never meant to drive you to…Liam,” he says, with a frustrated bitterness in his tone that surprises me.

“Okay…?” I’m not sure where this is going, but my heart kicks up again.

“I told you back then I liked you,” he says blatantly, as if it were ever that simple between us.

I can’t help but laugh. “Did you, really? You told me in different ways how you were ‘gonna ask me out, but…’. And there was always a ‘but.’ And it was never in the present tense. I heard from other people that you liked me, sure, but you never really told me. Not in a way that felt like I wasn’t forcing something out of you that you were ashamed of or just telling me to save face. And it was always me who came to you. Always. You had a thousand chances and never followed through. We never even kissed, Jake! You kissed everyone but me. What was I supposed to think?”

“I-I-I…damn it, Lily,” he growls. “I couldn’t.”

 “Excuse me? You very much ‘could,’ you just didn’t want to. And that’s fine, you never owed it to me to reciprocate my feelings. Just don’t pretend—”

“Of course, I had feelings for you!” he yells.

I’m stunned into silence.

“I had feelings for you since we were 12! You were the first girl I ever really thought of in that way and I had no idea how to deal with it. And the moment you showed any interest in me I panicked and pushed you away. And I regretted it after and thought I’d ruined everything, but you came back, and I-I-I did it again. And again. Because my feelings for you scared the shit out of me.”

My heart is jackhammering now. I can barely breathe. “Why?”

“You were special. I couldn’t—I couldn’t ruin that…or you.”

“That doesn’t make any sense! You didn’t want to ‘ruin me’ so you broke my heart, over and over?”

“I didn’t deserve you. You were way too good for me and way out of my league.”

Flabbergasted, I blink at him. The pure insanity of this conversation has me whirling.

“But you kept flirting with me anyway, leading me on? You’d hug me, hold my hand…Lord, you even snuggled me and popped a fucking boner against me at that party freshman year…” I babble.

A blush floods his cheeks. “I was only 15, I-I-I didn’t know what I was doing.”

“You knew enough to fuck Talia.”

He looks like I’ve struck him again, but I can see in his eyes he knows I’m right. Talia would forever be a sore spot between us.

“I was young. And dumb.”

“No shit. And it doesn’t track. You did the same with Tina, Heather, and pretty much any other girl who showed the slightest bit of interest in you. Everyone except me.”

“I know. I was wrong. I was in a…bad place.”

“I practically handed myself to you on a platter and you humiliated me. How do you think it felt that I was the only one you never…you just kept me dangling on a string,” I say, shaking with anger.

“I know,” he whispers, “I’m sorry, I just couldn’t…”

“Sure,” I shake my head and look away. I don’t know why I care so much. I shouldn’t. This is all ancient history, and maybe it is Liam’s doing for sucking me back into the past tonight, but for some reason it all feels like it happened yesterday.

“I knew it was wrong, that I was treating you badly, a-a-and that’s why I found God. I wanted to be better…for you.”

Something cracks inside of me at the gesture. It doesn’t make any sense—why would he do that for me? My breath starts to falter a bit.

I remember he had changed dramatically mid-sophomore year, turning into a nicer, happier, and kinder version of himself. He’d stopped going after every girl in sight and wasn’t blatantly ignoring me anymore. We’d become friends again. I’d thought he was swept up in wanting to hang with the cooler, older Christian kids in the group, bowing to a weird form of peer pressure, just as I had done.

Of course, my “conversion” had not stuck after everything that happened later, but that’s beside the point.

Slowly, pieces start falling into place. Things I’d never considered.  

“You didn’t. You did it for…me?” I say breathlessly. “That’s a pretty drastic thing for a 16-year-old to do…”

He nods.

A shiver runs down my spine.

“Why…why would you do something like that for me?” I hold my breath and quell the trembling of my hands by clasping them together.

In the heavy pause, it feels like all the air gets sucked out of the room, and everything else around us warps and stops.

“Because I was completely in love with you.”

My heart stops. “What?” I whisper.

This can’t be real.

But his eyes are as open and pleading as I’ve ever seen them, begging me to finally understand what he couldn’t impart all those years ago.

“Then why didn’t you tell me?” I manage to choke out.

A pained look crosses his face. “I was too late.”

It’s like I’m 16 again, the way my heart is ready to explode while simultaneously being yanked from my chest. The air whooshes out of my lungs and I can’t bring myself to speak. All I can do is look over at him with questioning eyes.

“Me being such an asshole pushed you straight into his arms and by the time I came to my senses, it was too late. You’d fallen for him, even though he was with someone else,” he says bitterly.

He is not wrong. The whole reason Liam and I became friends in the first place was he listened to my heartbreak over Jake.

“So, I tried to be your friend instead. That was what you wanted, right? I thought maybe I could get closer to you and change your mind, talk some sense into you.”

I find my voice. “What are you even talking about? Liam and I were very much not together that spring and summer because of Melissa. You had the perfect chance, but you started dating Tiffany right when school got out.”

His jaw sets, clenches. “Oh, come on. It was beyond obvious you weren’t over him. So, yeah, when Tiffany showed interest, I gave it a chance. But I couldn’t stop thinking about you. You probably don’t remember how I messaged you all the time. How our conversations got longer a-a-and deeper. How I begged you to call me.”

Vague memories flash back to me. “I did call you. And I definitely would’ve remembered you telling me this!” I shake my head.

He has no idea how this revelation would have changed everything. God, I can’t breathe.

            “I tried to feel you out that fall, but you were pretty focused on Liam.”

            Mind racing, I try to remember how it all went down. My attraction to Liam had been all-consuming, made worse by the way we desperately tried to keep our hands off each other when Melissa left for college. We weren’t officially together, but it was obvious to anyone with eyes that we were mad about each other. Between that, the play, and keeping my grades up, things were intense that fall, to say the least. But there had been some weird moments with Jake that I’d tried to brush off as friendly at the time, but maybe they weren’t.

            “Friendsgiving.” It pops into my head suddenly, and I look at him with wide eyes. “I couldn’t figure it out—you went out of your way to take me home that night, then you were so teasing and flirty. We sat in my driveway for like half an hour. You couldn’t keep your hands off me—tickling me and putting your arm around me. I thought it was strange…but you were with Tiffany. I convinced myself I was imagining it.”

            It starts to dawn on me that perhaps my instincts had been right this whole damn time.

            I ramble as I recall more, “You were so obsessed about Mick having to kiss me for the play. We talked about how weird it would be if you had to understudy and it was us who had to kiss instead.”

            Jake looks at me sheepishly. “I wanted to kiss you so badly.”

            “God, why didn’t you?!”

            “You were in love with Liam!”

            “You are still such an idiot. Did you not hear anything I’ve said to you? If you’d kissed me, it wouldn’t have mattered. You were always there in the back of my mind. It was always you.” My hands are trembling at the admission, at how easily I would’ve folded if he had come for me.

            His eyes narrow, almost incredulously, as if he can’t believe it.

            “That’s all I ever wanted, Jake—for you to care enough to show me, or tell me, or anything at all! To fight for me…for us. But you never had the balls to do it, and that’s why we never happened. Not because of Liam. Not because I didn’t feel the same way. Because of you,” I say, voice shaking as hard as my hands.

            I’m coming apart at the seams, unravelling for the second time tonight because of men who never truly understood me or put me first. Refusing to cry in front of Jake and let him know just how much he’d changed with his inaction, I stand too quickly, wobbling on my feet.

            Jake jumps up to steady me, one hand at my forearm and the other at my waist, touching me for the first time in over 20 years. My stupid body responds with a jolt of electricity now just as it did then, like a phantom limb come to life. Logic tells me to pull away.

I don’t.

            He steps closer. “I’m sorry,” he whispers into my hair, “I feel like all I’ve ever done is hurt you, and I hate myself for it.”

            Oh, god. His proximity is dizzying, a reminder of moments long gone. A whiff of cologne. The way his thumb gently rubs the dip of my waist through my dress. The not-so-subtle way he lures me in closer.

            I don’t understand. How is it after the decades of life that have occurred, after having my heart swell and break and swell again with different types of love, that this man still can send me reeling?

            And he’s right—all he’s ever done is hurt me and tie me in knots. Being near him is like being edged in the most painful of ways because there is never any payoff. He had seen to that.

            There is something inherently cruel in the fate of it all. How the moment I had moved on all those years ago, the moment I released my hope of being with him and found another, that was when he figured his shit out. The worst part used to be feeling like he’d never felt the same about me, but knowing now that he loved me somehow makes everything ache even worse than it did before.

            Tears sting the corners of my eyes, even though I promised myself long ago I’d never shed another tear over Jake. I hate he will forever be the one that got away. The one who I’d never felt closure with, like a scab that crusts over but won’t heal underneath. As stupid as it sounds, there has been a part of me since the moment he so sweetly helped me solve a math problem in the 7th grade that has unwillingly left a piece of my heart in his hands ever since, no matter how many others there have been to take his place in between.

            And I hate him for that. I hate him even more now that I know I was always right about us from the start, about the thread of connection that bound us to each other almost 30 years ago.

“Does it even bother you? The ‘what could have been?’ Did it cross your mind that maybe everything would be different if you’d just said something? Or did you just forget about me, about all of it?” I whisper angrily.

God knows, I haven’t.

Furious and frazzled, I press my hands into his chest to push away. It’s a terrible move because his large hand covers mine, pinning it to him. He’s warm through his dress shirt and his heart beats wildly under my palm. My eyes fly up to meet his.

“I think about it all the time. More than I should. But God works in mysterious ways,” he says, as if that explains it all.

I roll my eyes. Another wonderful excuse. “I guess he does,” I add sarcastically.  Extricating myself from him, I immediately feel clearer, but part of me wants nothing more to feel his touch on me again. I shake the feeling off.

I had abandoned religion and the guilt and bigotry that came along with it the moment I got to college, when I realized just how much it had fucked my young brain up. Not shockingly, the religious friends who’d taken such offense when I’d gotten together with Liam were the same ones who quickly fell out of my life once they realized I wasn’t going to tow the line. Jake had only dug his heels in deeper into his religion after that, with Tiffany and his cookie-cutter perfect family and church going ways, and now it crosses my mind that it’s all because of me.

Don’t be stupid.

He’s waiting on me to say something. It takes me a moment to absorb the fact that he admitted thinking about me more than he should. This good and pious Christian man was thinking about me when he should have been thinking about his wife.

But I am in no place to judge. Not about this.

I want to know what salacious thoughts have run through his mind about me, but I can’t bring myself to ask. Part of me wants to utterly ruin him in all the ways I couldn’t when we were teenagers. A heat gathers low in my belly at the thought, at his nearness.

Romantic and physical chemistry is no joke, I realize. It’s like my pheromones were preprogrammed by the universe to be attracted to his, and by the cautiously heated look he’s giving me now, I’m wondering if it’s always been the same for him.

One of my biggest regrets about us, since the beginning, was the question that if we had even just kissed once and got it over with, would it have broken the tension between us like a summer rainstorm breaks the heat? Would we have gotten it out of our system and figured out if whatever chemistry we had was real or just something we’d worked up in our imaginations?

But it’s too late for that. The past can’t be changed. Now the ‘what if’s’ that plagued me for all these years hurt worse than before, knowing that with one stupid admission or one kiss all those years ago, we could have had it all. Maybe we would have been the high school sweethearts who got married and annoy our 2.5 kids with stories about what an idiot their dad was until he’d finally told me how he felt.

There would’ve been no me-and-Liam, or him leaving me because the world had gone to shit. I wouldn’t have met my husband. All of it, an entire life I’ll never know, flashes before my eyes and nearly brings me to my knees.

And while I don’t subscribe to his God, I do think the universe puts things in our path. But what was the point of all this, then—of us never being the “us” we both know we wanted it to be? I just don’t see why this thing can’t seem to die and fade into the ether. He’s like a bad penny I can’t shake.

At least with Liam, there was closure. We had loved and dated and all of the milestones that go with that. Knowing Jake loved me doesn’t make me truly feel any better, other than the fact I know I wasn’t a delusional, lovesick teenager.

But he loved a version of me that’s grown up into someone different, just as I begrudgingly loved a version of him that I’d made up in my head to be better than he was.

I’ve been quiet too long. “Why?” It pops out of my mouth unwillingly. “Why do you still think of me?”

“Do you still think of me?” I expect him to shirk away from the question, but he flips it on me so fast I have whiplash.

I close my mouth, my eyes darting away, answering his question.

He nods. “Then you know.”

Does that mean he replays fuzzy memories of interlocking his fingers with mine or pulling me too close in a dance? He sees the stolen, meaningful glances in his mind’s eye? He thinks about the multitude of chances he had to press his lips to mine but didn’t and what may have happened if it had gone farther than that? He thinks of how if he and I became a “we” it would’ve completely altered the course of our lives?

I have trouble thinking he ponders any of that.

But if he loved me like he says he did…

The hollow ache in my heart is back with a vengeance, erasing all hope I had at getting out of here relatively unscathed.

“Maybe we were just destined to hurt each other. Maybe we’ve always been bad for each other,” I say indignantly instead of voicing all the other thoughts buzzing in my head. But it feels true, nonetheless.

I watch him shake his head rather vehemently. He opens his mouth to speak, but I beat him to the punch.

“But too bad we never had the chance to find out for sure,” I add with venom. After this, I don’t think I’ll ever stop feeling like he stole that chance from me.

We were babies. Give the guy a break, a tiny voice in the back of my head chimes in.

            Unfortunately, I’m a little too emotionally wrecked to let a silly thing like logic get me back on track and remind me I’m a goddamned adult.

            Star-crossed lovers aren’t real. “Meant to be” isn’t real. Threads of fate tying us together in inexplicable ways aren’t real. What’s real is hormones and youth and cowardice and terrible timing. What’s real are jobs and spouses and children.

            Then why can’t I shake the feeling that this isn’t even close to being the end for us? It makes no sense.

            It never has.

            I grab my purse. Furious and regretful, I can’t be around him anymore, which is made evident by the fact that I want to stay so badly, even if it means my heart is bleeding out in front of him. But I have more self-respect now than I had when I was 16, and I certainly am not going to cry in front of him.

            “Goodbye Jake. I hope your life is everything you want it to be. Give Tiffany my best.” It’s a dig, to be sure. We both know Tiffany wants nothing to do with me, and now I finally know why. I turn and walk away, quickly, escaping my past down the darkened hallway towards the bathrooms.

            “Lily, wait,” he commands from behind me, catching up and grabbing my hand. Shocked at his tone of voice and forwardness, I have no choice to spin back to him. His eyes are blazing.

            “What? What is there left to say?” I say, my voice cracking with emotion. “That one of my biggest regrets is that we never made this work, this—this silly pseudo-romance from our teens? That I hate how much this matters to me, even now, even though I haven’t seen you in years?”

            He advances, his eyes never leaving mine, and a small huff escapes my lips as my back hits the wall. It’s hard not to notice he’s broader and taller than he used to be as his body comes so close to pressing against mine. Every one of my nerves sparks to attention at his sudden proximity, a buzzing static electricity.

His hand clasps my neck, the rough pad of his thumb trailing along my jaw. I have no choice but to keep looking up at him, into those darkened brown eyes.

“What are you doing?” I whisper.

Shock precedes a pool of fire low in my belly when he boldly brings his thumb to the center of my lips and slowly drags it down. My lips part and a small moan escapes them. I’m vaguely aware of my purse hitting the floor with a thunk.

“What I should’ve done a long time ago,” he says definitively. His warm breath tickles my cheek where his mouth hovers too close to mine.

As my body fully kicks into overdrive, I’m reminded of what I’ve always known: I’m incapable of resisting Jake Lawson. One last rational thought pushes through the fire that is rapidly consuming me.

“This is a bad idea,” I pant, my eyes scanning his face.

“A terrible one,” he agrees, and when he nods, his nose brushes against mine.

I expect a crash of lips and teeth, but instead his soft lips brush mine tantalizingly, dragging in a way that sends an explosion of heat through my chest. The warmth of our breath mingles, and I can’t stop the way my hands instinctively reach for the lapels of his jacket. His hand on my neck pulls me closer and when our lips finally press together in earnest, oh, god, it’s everything I’d ever hoped it would be.

Instead of breaking away, we are pulled into each other by some unknown force that makes my entire body tingle from head to toe. Jake deepens the kiss, and I turn as pliable as putty in his arms, wondering how it is possible that we went this damn long without doing this. His fingers tighten in my hair, eliciting a groan as his mouth opens and his tongue persuasively brushes against my lips. Granting permission, I open to him further and our tongues roll gingerly against each other.

Something ignites in me that hasn’t in a long, long time. It’s a blast of desire and truth so strong it threatens to undo me. It’s different than pure passion—there’s a yearning, a need, a rightness lacing every touch between us. And based on the way he clings to me now, I have no doubt he feels it, too, this sense of fate that we were always destined to end up here.

Every instinct I have wants to feed the fire that is swirling in my belly, but the last thread of rationality left in me reminds me that I shouldn’t let this go too far. It has gone too far already. I force myself to pull away, which is like prying two strong magnets off each other. I can’t move more than an inch, just enough to separate our lips. I’m too dizzy with the smell of him and what must be a lack of oxygen. Or maybe it’s because my entire world feels upended.

His forehead rests on mine, his thumb caressing the hollow of my throat. “Shit,” he sighs out with a shudder, his breath tickling my face as he struggles to control himself.

For once in my life, I have no doubt of what he’s feeling. The way he says that one word tells me he is every bit as blindsided, connected, and aroused as I am. But it’s more than just that. A tether of knowing has tightened between us. It’s so overwhelming I feel like I might cry.

As we stand pressed close together in this dark hallway, I don’t think either of us truly expected it to feel like this. Like everything that’s been wrong between us was because we resisted this bond, a power that feels beyond anything I could have imagined. In mere moments, we’ve confirmed what both of us have inherently known but tried to ignore for almost three decades.

That’s when I realize we’ve opened Pandora’s box. We can never go back.

“Jake…” I choke, trying to get the words out, but they won’t come.

“I know,” he responds solemnly, and I have no doubt he has come to the same conclusion as I have:

We are in deep trouble.

*

taglist

@sassanoe @re3kin @thella @suspiciousmidge @hiddlepiddlediddlewiddle @carolinesbookworld @juggernort @aesthetic-lyss @stitchattacks @donnamarie23 

@lacyluver @littlebitofgreen @paigevis @bugg06 @xhannahbananax03 @artlover8992

@18lkpeters @frozenhuntress67 @girlblogger2002 @kendralavon7 @misspresley @elv1s-is-pretty 

@be-my-ally @whositmcwhatsit @vintageshanny @ellie-24 @thatbanditqueen @powerofelvis @from-memphis-with-love

@precious-little-scoundrel @stylespresleyhearted @prompted-wordsmith @crash-and-cure @elvisgf @ohjustpeachy1 @lookingforrainbows @fic-over-cannon @godlypresley @ab4eva @whatstruthgottodowithit @elvisabutler @ amydarcimarie @idontwanttoputanything  @callieselvisobsessed @captainamerica1235-blog  @xenaspace3-blog 

[hellou-i-guess]

Hello, hello

Welcome to Hellou what the - or episode 3.1 of Analysis no one asked for

Today I present to you:

Somebody get Wing family a therapist ASAP

But, like seriously, none of these guys are ok. Like we saw Day and Eden being not ok. RIP John. Daniel Batu was referenced to have childhood trauma (I did a post) and now I break down Asher.

Originally this was supposed to one piece, but it was getting very long, so I split it in two parts. In the second part I'll discuss his personality and get into like one snippet of childhood we have.

I have three things to discuss in this part: the position of captain, Asher's age and his career.

The Captain position in the game

So, to summarize we know of the 5 positions in Warcross: Thief, Architect, Shield, Fighter and Captain.

It would make sense that in the beginning when you log into the game you can choose between four options - Thief, Architect, Shield and Fighter. All of which have been described including the uniform i.e. Thieves having a lot of pockets.

The Captains uniform is described as 'looking like the captain' which ??? Not sure what that means, but from the description of it, it seems more behind the scenes type of thing and game wise relies more on strategy.

Also, the position of Captain is never mentioned as one missing from the teams in the wardraft, meaning that the captain is individually chosen among the teammates.

One more interesting thing is that at no point is any of the professional teams described as having more people than the players. Like there are no PR or management. Which is a problem especially when it came to big drama like Emika and Hideo's relationship braking out to the public. Neither is there a coach.

Since there is no people behind the scenes, all of the responsibilities fall onto the shoulders of the Captain, meaning that at the same time the Captain is the manager, PR manager, coach and strategist while being the literal target of 5 people on the opposing team.

All in all, it makes sense that if teams were formed professionally or not that not some random person will be in charge of the team. But in a game with random people, yeah, the algorithm will choose one random player to be captain.

Like, in Ash's case in particular, we know that he wasn't in the first championship and I highly doubt that Riders, as a professional team, would take a random wildcard none of them know as a captain. So, most likely Ash became a captain later in the games and played some other position in the game.

Asher's age during the events of the book

So, I did say in the analysis of Daniel that at some point I would analyze Asher and how I got to what I assume are their years.

I may have explained this earlier, my personal headcanon is that there is like 3 year age difference between Daniel and Asher, mostly because that is the most common age difference between siblings.

Other clue we have about Ash's age is that Emika could tell how much time passed between Ash's current age and the memory we were shown in 'Wildcard' (about 8-9 years) which means that Ash was most likely 14-17 in the memory, placing him at 26 at the oldest at the games. Personally I lean towards the younger age in the memory (14/15, which would make him 23/24 during the events of the book).

For that I have no other reason besides the larger span of years Emika was able to tell, because it's easier to tell 9 year difference between 24 and 15 than it is between 26 and 17. If you were to look at your yearbook pictures from those ages or anyone really, you'll notice the baby fat maybe and not that much change in the face, but in the early teens and early twenties you can tell said difference at the first glance, because it's a difference between a child and an adult.

Of course Emika could have always seen Asher's pictures from his younger years and made a connection about time span there.

Another thing were my headcanon falls flat is that, during the most logical flow of Ash's career, he would be about 17 when he becomes captain, but then again Jena MacNeil is an established captain at 18 meaning that she would have also taken up the position at 17 at the latest.

Career

I'd say I wouldn't make this long but alas I could probably break that promise so step-by-step onto the actual analysis.

First I'd like to present the above mentioned career flow. I don't think Ash was in the first games. Hamilton makes a comment to Emika about being the first pick and how she didn't think they'll have an American first pick, so she'll have to stop teasing Asher.

Meaning that Asher was either a) the second pick b) the last pick c) he was the first pick, but isn't American. Option c) holds some merit, as Ash is the only side character that does not have his citizenship stated. Hamilton and Roshan have theirs stated in 'Wildcard' and Tremaine grew up in UK and still lives in UK, so there is no other option for him. Asher, however, is only stated that he represents Los Angeles (by himself) and almost 36% of L.A. population doesn't have American citizenship. Where this falls flat is low chances that Phoenix Riders would have first pick of the draft 3 times and there are 16 teams.

Citizenship wise, Daniel (his brother) has a middle name Batu, which is used in Mongolia from what I could find online (often not by itself, but it is a Mongolian name and Turkish as is Altan). Speaking of Altan - the other Daniel, Daniel's descendant Daniel, to us known as Day is stated in 'Legend' to be of predominantly Mongolian ethnicity. Do with this information as you will.

Back to drafts and first picks: 8th championship - Emika, 7th championship - Anna, 6th - Penn, 5th - Kento, that's as far as canon is concerned. Going off of the fact that it took Roshan 2 years to get to the draft it's safe to assume that he started some time after the first championship as that would be when it got more traction and had the highest possibility to distract him from Mario. So that would make Roshan the first pick in the 4th championship. Asher was already a captain by then.

Another interesting thing to note is Hamilton, who transferred from Titans to Riders (this will be relevant later) and who does not strike me as a person who would make comments or judge others after just having a horrible season or burnout. She probably got back on track and then made comments about Roshan, which would mean that Hamilton transferred to Riders between second and third championship. Again guess who she described as better captain? Asher.

Going off by this there are two possibilities: Captains are chosen as wildcards occasionally and Riders chose Asher or when he was chosen he played on a different position, proved himself in that season enough that they entrusted him the position of Captain (considering that Ash was playing warcross obsessively it could be very well that he was drafted in the first games and wildcards were always a feature and took two seasons to prove himself a capable captain).

Going off by the second option - what position did he play?

This is where we get into personality a bit. Asher is described as one of the most intuitive captains and from his gameplay we can see that he is observant (opening game - 'And there is no doubt, Asher noticed something before anyone else') and a pretty quick thinker (First game). Based on those traits I would say that he either played Thief or Architect.

Bringing up the Hamilton transfer again, teams most usually take other players when they are better than what they currently have or to fill position they lack. Hamilton is one of the best thieves in game currently and she was good enough to be chosen in draft or just straight up for the team when they formed and gets transferred to Riders. Considering the horrible season she had it wasn't very likely for her to be taken by another team if not in need. My theory goes that Ash was a Thief for Riders and when he got the position of Captain, he chose Hammie as his successor.

This is in character for what we know of Ash and his choices. They are described as odd. A burnt out thief, Tremaine (by Tremaine's admission), a DJ, and untested player. All choices that were fine in game and gameplay wise, and when they backfired it was due to personality issues.

What this tells us is that Asher is very good at recognizing people's skills for the game. (Emika notes that Ash does pay attention).

I'd finish this part here as other examples are more related to who Asher is as a person then they are to his career.

Apologies for a long read, but thanks for reading nonetheless,

Hellou :)

[another-lost-mc]

finally beat covid and im finally getting back to my headcannon that i will send later but this is simply for myself the zekhan girlies and simps totally 100% not me

but i used to be obsessed with bats (my animal obsessions change quite often) and so im very interested to see how his what could be explained as animal characteristics and sin are correlated aswell as if theres a specific breed of bat or a more mythical one he’s related to (in the sense of how azra is realted more to a hell hound than an actual dog/wolf)

as always

~⭕️ anon

Firstly, I want to say how happy I am to hear that you're feeling better! <3

I can't say I was obsessed with bats when I was a kid but I liked a lot of bat-themed things if that makes sense? I had the bat beanie babies and books about bats (mostly the Silverwing series). Winged characters/creatures in general really appealed to me too.

I wasn't originally planning on drawing animal inspiration for Zekhan's demon form, but it made sense when I pieced together the parts of his character that I already established:

he had/has worse than average vision (partly due to an injury hence the scarring around his eye) but better than average hearing

he's skilled when it comes to investigating/information gathering that require covert behaviours or stealth

he's not as skilled when it comes to fighting

his wings are leathery instead of feathered

The bat motif kind of came to me after. There isn't a particular type of bat (real or mythical) that he's based on. I've been combining elements from research I've done on different bat species (RIP my algorithm) and fantasy bats or bat-like creatures from games I've played (yeah, WoW again). I knew I didn't want him to have a vampiric element (even though he is fond of biting/being bitten).

His demon form is heavily inspired by Gargoyles (the old cartoon) and what I think a human with certain bat features (notably the larger ears) might look like.

[chipped-chimera]

3 things about this:

Making it opt out is always an asshole move whenever it's anything that's appropriating other's content in any way (unless it is warranted critique - e.g. whatever Hbomberguy feels like doing, but that is 'transformative').

This is actually super good for accessibility and we shouldn't throw that baby out with the bathwater like we always do as soon as someone says "AI".

AI is a tool. It is morally neutral.

I am not against this idea, it's the equivalent of a screen reader condensed into a specific app. This would let people who have not been able to access fanfic access. Accessibility is never a bad thing.

Text To Speech (TTS) has been around for years and honestly I am super hyped that TTS now sounds coherent and realistic instead of stilted and robotic! That opens up a lot of content for those with vision issues! It's great!

Also in MOST legally licensed uses of AI generated voices for TTS, it has been consented to by the individual to have their voice reconstructed. They did work, they were paid for it. The only time TTS is morally bad is when the voice source has been approximated from stolen content. So anyone user-making AI voice TTS from audio clips that have been ripped from anyone non-consentually. This is not a rocket science take, y'all gotta stop knee-jerk reacting to AI being bad immediately. You've been using AI for years. A lot of the shit on your phone technically falls under the 'AI' umbrella (face tracking in photos, algorithmically enhancing pictures when you've zoomed past the physical threshold, text prediction etc.)

That said, yes, the legality grounds are extremely grey-area here. But at the same time I don't think we'd be making the same noise about this if we were talking about someone's desktop screen-reader program which is functionally doing the same thing. This is just that but with internalized bookmarks.

That said, grey area. If lore.fm plans on releasing this completely free, in spirit of what Ao3 is as just a way to increase accessibility for users - great. However any attempt to monetize it, off content they do not own - that is 120% in the 'probably illegal' area and I'm pretty sure is against Ao3's TOS. That's when someone needs to be held accountable.

Take that as you will, but I'm begging people to remember as more things like this are developed that accessibility is a good thing and AI is a tool that is morally neutral. It's all about how it's a. developed and b. used.

Anyway that's today's AI TED talk everybody, as you were.

Hey I don’t know if this is being talked about on Tumblr but thankfully the AO3 subreddit has a conversation going about this app that just went live.

TikTok user unravel.me.now has just launch an app (lore.fm) she is calling “Audible for AO3”. It’s an app that uses AI voices to read out fics.

🚨She is requiring any authors who do not want their fics to be on this app to OPT OUT by emailing team@lore.fm 🚨 🚨She has not given an actual template or how you’re supposed to prove you’re the author or said how her team will process this or how she will keep these requests secure🚨

I do not have this app. I haven’t seen anyone use it yet. According to Reddit users, unravel.me.now’s earlier TikToks stated she envisions the app being able to create libraries stored on that app and to have version of “Spotify wrapped”. That implies that eventually data collection must happen, if it’s not happening currently.

I don’t know the actual capabilities of this app. I don’t know the legalities. I do know that it personally feels like this app is trying to turn AO3 into a content generation source and I haven’t heard of the app allowing you to leave a comment or kudos or interact with the original work.

I’m just sad about this.

[wyngie]

kpop report february 2025

hello! and welcome once again(?) to my adventures in listening to every single kpop song released in 2025. already i can tell that this project will have serious repercussions on my spotify algorithm, from which i may never recover..... alas! the things we do in the name of journalistic integrity.

anyway, overall i'd say that february was a very funky & groovy month in kpop. great news for people of taste (in general), and especially for me (specifically). happy birthday to me!! anyway:

my top 5 tracks

G-DRAGON - Take Me

god this song rules. the production is incredible, g-dragon's kind of throaty/scratchy vocals rule, and then when the guitar solo hits??? whew! even if every other kpop song i listened to this year was absolute hell, this song alone would have made this whole project worth it, and i'm deadly serious about that. side note - i don't think there's been a single time that i've listened to this song without succumbing to the urge to dance, and that includes the time i was laying flat on my back in bed.

ONE PACT - 100!

another instant, irresistible banger. this song dares to go in some unexpected and borderline corny directions, but it goes there with such unabashed confidence that i can only respect it. thank you boys!!!!!!!

JISOO - earthquake

this song feels deceptively simple, and to be honest if i hadn't been listening to it with headphones the first time i heard it i'm not sure i would have given it a second listen. the mix and panning on this song are seriously so good and compelling - listening with headphones feels like you're wrapped up in it completely.

RESCENE - CRASH

now that's what i call pop music! this is quite simply a great girl group song. i love that most of the song is pretty pared-back as compared to the fuller instrumentation and harmonization in the choruses. it really gives those moments a sweeping, dreamy feeling that makes this song so fun to listen to.

LISA (feat. Doja Cat, RAYE) - Born Again

i'm pretty sure this was the first kpop single released this month, and boy did it set the tone for a whole month of great dance tracks. i don't know the, like, technical terminology to describe this, but there's some cool key/chord progression stuff happening on the lines 'baby to be born, oh baby to be born again' starting at around 3:30 that surprises and delights me every time. just a nice little treat to close out the track. also, looooove to see doja on a track! more kpop collabs please!!

BIBI - Bluebird

beautiful, simple. sounds like a lullaby. i love bibi's vocals.

my top 3 albums

ONE PACT - PINK CRUSH

i didn't discover one pact until i saw a bunch of people on twitter talking about deserved, which is absolutely wild because jay and jongwoo were two of my favorite boys planet boys. like.... i literally follow them both on instagram.... wtf. anyway, all this to say that i was very excited when i saw they had a comeback this month and that excitement was warranted! this album came out on valentine's day and it is a wonderful demonstration of lover boy-ism. at times dreamy and dramatic, at others upbeat and fun, at others just kind of like.... vaguely kpop horny r&b, the boys really brought it all on this album. plus we are treated to the absolute joy of jay chang's beautiful, perfect voice. i said it before and i'll say it again: thank you boys!!!!!!

G-DRAGON - Übermensch

the soundscapes g-dragon created on this album are incredible. there are soooo many surprising and delightful things going on here. i guess for some it could be too much? but not for me.

put simply:

ARrC - nu kidz: out the box

honestly i just think this one's fun. every song kind of feels like it's ripping off an nct song, which sounds like a huge insult. and..... i mean i guess it would be if i didn't love and cherish nct!! i'm sorry arrc! in the future i promise i will try to appreciate you for you.

side notes

listened to plave for the first time ever this month.... normally i would try to be nicer about saying this kind of thing, but plave fans please demand better for yourselves! listening to the full album literally felt like i was being held hostage in the worst possible way. even worse, i only just found out that there are actual men behind the virtual boys and it has me feeling really bad for these guys. do they get to express any real parts of themselves at all? truly wretched stuff.

happy birthday to fellow february pisces wendy shon, kevin moon, and ten!!

sm has debuted a new girl group. despite knowing nothing about this group when i pressed play, it was immediately obvious that they must be an sm group because of how damn polished they are already.

speaking of....... still waiting for you to announce that ten solo comeback, sm!!!

🐈‍⬛✨wooyo moment of the month✨🐈‍⬛

little homie keeps showing off his abs/belly. clearly he is currently in the midst of a serious hot boy/feeling himself era, and honestly i am so happy for him. nobody deserves to have a hot boy era more than jung wooyoung! 🔥🔥

jk, of course the real star of the month is sagittarius!!!! obviously i am always desperate for whatever wooyoung parts kq deigns to give us, so it's fun to get a song (and choreo!!) that was created specifically for him, and that suits him so well. and also.... it's just a good song! i tend to prefer ateez songs that have an electronic, dance-y vibe, and this one is a real earworm - i contemplated putting this song on my top tracks list, but since it's not an official album release and i already knew i would be talking about it here i decided to leave it off..... kind of arbitrary but whatever. i mentioned earlier that i was really digging g-dragon's vocals on his album, and there's that same scratchy/throaty quality to wooyoung's voice on this track that i really love. idk i'm just so proud of him i love him so much!!! jung wooyoung you will always be famous!!!!!!!

and with that, we're officially moving on to a new month of kpop! there's a ton of new releases scheduled for march, and quite a few that i've been looking forward to, so it's looking like it'll be a fun month of listening. see y'all next time! (maybe?)