#Softball Fails Videos

[coffeegnomee]

Bacon saying "yes. [I watched] the entire thing" about having seen Kab's new video "I watched it for entertainment purposes, but I also think I took some things from it as well"

KAB: "fair enough, I put things in there knowing people would watch it and take things from it"

she brings up how Clown never offered her a team, and that she is close to getting his full trust. Which I think is a lie rooted in the truth that she was so "my son could never hurt a fly he's just misunderstood" in the video to get Clown to trust her more irl/in lifesteal. Like how he trusts Branzy and Ferre.

(even though it is SO WEIRD for her to have been like that about Clown in the video. Like it was an exposé about how right the Mice were to be cautious about her affiliation and assume she was telling him things. She was. Maybe not base coords, but she just leaked that she absolutely told him things about them and that she was not for the team at all. And she left that all in. why? WHY Kab? I can only assume it was to endear her to Clown more? That's the only thing that makes sense? Unless she did it to "prove" to the Mice that they were wrong to assume she was teamed with Clown, "see I was just telling him to be careful and you guys were making him into a villain" or smth. I genuinely don't know. I don't understand her at all.)

But she's bringing it up to Bacon and downplaying it so that he thinks she isn't as close to Clown as she is. She's trying to manipulate him here I think.

then Bacon brings up the google doc of Mapicc's personality, which apparently Mapicc dmed her about (which is hilarious for the record)

To which she says it wasn't real [the doc itself], she made it for the video. She only articulated Mapicc's personality and Mapicc's alone.. which obviously means it was him very much on purpose. So did she do it to stoke Mapicc's ego? Or to see what he would say about it and confirm or deny if she was right? I can so easily imagine her writing it up being like, now Mapicc will think I understand him but this is not really what I think about him and he will be easier to manipulate.

But the analysis, like I wrote about, was right for the wrong reasons, AND YET I saw how they were rooted in very plausible assumptions she would have made bc of talking to Ash.

So I struggle to see how that writeup wasn't what she genuinely thought. This whole video just feels like exactly what she genuinely thought throughout the whole first week.

And it's completely rooted in the concept that she knows what she's talking about, even though her only evidence is that she can read Clown. (the only other moment being that she was right the empire would betray them in the End. Which was the softest of softball throws. It was an allyship against the other team. Obv the beef starts up the second that is over.) Like congrats. You've known Clown for two years very closely. It would be weird if you didn't. And on THAT note,

She called Woogie a dipshit for having his own opinions about Clown based on his interactions with him for the past FIVE whole seasons. THREE YEARS.

She took his words as saying that you shouldn't trust Clown instead of what he was really trying to say, which was we as a team should not trust Clown. Kab knows Clown won't kill her but she just fails to understand that other people have their own valid experiences of the members. She's just so focused on her singular view of people and how they will interact with her that she completely misses the opportunity to learn what other people think of other people without it being an attack on her own opinion.

I know I get on here and analyze everyone to death. I know that that's how I love to watch and enjoy lifesteal. And that not everyone observes the lifestealers like bugs to be pinned down and dissected. Watching vods is a listening-only experience. I cannot talk or add to the convo, right?

But it still boggles my mind that she doesn't see the manipulative value in silently listening to every word that comes out of someone's mouth in order to learn what they think about others. And let that tell you what to think about others.

If she just listened to what people said, especially what they say about people she doesn't understand, she would learn SO much.

Like she completely called Woogie an idiot for wanting to ally with the Empire for the purpose of killing Clown Mane and Flame.

And she said it because she doesn't understand how Mapicc and Spoke think.

And because she doesn't understand them, she thinks Woogie doesn't understand them.

Like I know Woogie isn't always the most active and integrated member, and he's also an unreliable narrator and has assumptions rooted in a subjective path just like she does.

But Woogie AND Mapicc AND Spoke have all been playing on this server since Season ONE. You would think that that would be an excellent learning opportunity to ask Woogie how he views Mapicc and Spoke.

And then from there, sure! Take it with a grain of salt. Take your personal experiences with them as the most important opinion to value for your own safety (bc nobody can tell you what your gut says) but then also take their opinion and use it against them if you want to be such a great manipulator. Or at the very least catalogue their opinion away for further study at a future time.

It's just. She just has her assumptions about herself towards every member and completely and totally discounts what anyone has to say about their assumptions of themselves with other members. And she gets so damn triggered by people saying they have more experience than her, thinking it's a personal attack on her intelligence. Where that comes from I cannot know but that sounds incredibly deeply rooted.

So back to the Bacon conversation.

She said she knew people would watch it and said stuff on purpose.

And yet she completely left in the whole scene about lying to Woogie about being sorry for discounting his opinion. “Sometimes you need to be sopping wet for people to trust you chat”

Everyone on lifesteal is going to watch this video. WOOGIE might watch this video (though I have a feeling he won't tbh) and you're just leaving in that when you apologize you are never sincere about it and are 100% using that to manipulate them later.

INSANE to leave that in. You leave that in the drawing board. You keep that shit hidden. ESPECIALLY if you know your enemies will watch it. Girl was the most open book ever.

And then to end the video saying I'm a liar and manipulator bitch I know what I'm talking about. Insane. You are just BROADCASTING that you should never be trusted ever. (for the second video in a row!)

Also in a video about you desperately trying to prove that you should be trusted. It's two different kinds of trust, funny that we use the same word for both.

Trusted in that you tell the truth vs trusted that you know what you're talking about.

I am so interested to know what Bacon thought of that. What will he think if she does apologize now? He's not dumb. He saw the video.

She just thinks she's playing 4D chess. And yet 4D chess would be being silent and listening to what everyone says. Like how Spokes does. and Clown. No talking, just silently listening in vc's and coming to conclusions about the members.

And Bacon too. He's been asking people so many questions about what they're doing and why and then just listening to what they have to say, and then forming his own conclusion about it and going off to try something. He's becoming great at listening and thinking and this whole little arc was founded on using that information to do something interesting on the server.

Though I suppose he wasn't always that good at it. And therefore the final conclusion you can take is the same every time: Kab needs experience in order to gain experience. And it will be a long and painful process.

[thatbadadvice]

Help! Death is inconvenient!

Dear Prudence, Slate, 6 December 2022:

Q. Bothersome Burials: Is it appropriate to hold a funeral on a Saturday? I have recently noticed that funerals are more frequently being held on Saturdays instead of weekdays and I think it is bad etiquette. On most Saturdays, we already have plans for weddings, baby showers, birthday parties, ski trips, softball tournaments, etc. and I am perturbed when we are expected to change those plans to attend funerals. It seems to me that when you lose someone very close to you that you should be taking time off of work anyway rather than waiting until your scheduled day off to have a funeral and grieve. When you lose an acquaintance, or perhaps do not know the deceased but still want to support your friends and family, you should be able to limit it to a few hours during the week and not give up your weekend plans. Also, it seems inconsiderate to make the funeral home and cemetery staff work on a Saturday. I believe that Saturdays should be off-limits, am I mistaken about this?

Dear Bothersome Burials,

Funerals should absolutely never be held on Saturdays, for all of the excellent reasons you describe. It is inconsiderate in the extreme to interrupt people's ski trips even for legitimate reasons (whatever they may be — nothing immediately springs to mind, but the Bad Advisor is sure someone somewhere will be able to drudge up an example). To derail a romp on the slopes for something as inconsequential as a community gathering to grieve the departure of a beloved friend or family member from the plane of existence as we know it frankly defies comprehension. For the snuffing out of one's mortal lamplight to cause scheduling conflicts around more minor commitments such as weddings and baby showers is naturally a lesser infraction — attendees can always simply RSVP to the next one, or the one after that — but nevertheless impolite. Of course, few will share your deep concern for the wellbeing of those death professionals who work on Saturdays despite undoubtedly being, as you are, shocked by and entirely unprepared to accommodate the customs and traditions surrounding the inevitable fate, old as life itself, that awaits all of us. But your selflessness is noted here nonetheless.

If you are mistaken about anything, it is in failing to interrogate the cause of these breaches of etiquette. There was a time when people treated each other with just a little more consideration — when we left our doors unlocked, our unvaccinated children played together barefoot in the streets until dawn, and we dropped dead when and only when it was convenient for people's busy weekend schedules. My mother would have rather died than shuffle off the mortal coil just before Little Maydelayne's big softball tournament! Sadly, people these days think only of themselves, their own needs, and their own petty concerns — to say nothing of their unwillingness to sacrifice a day of fun and fulfilling work to attend the final celebration of life for some douchebag who had the gall to kick the bucket without checking their second cousin's day-off calendar first. Grief is already experienced for only those fleeting moments we spend attending funeral services; it is unseemly to defer our limited 40- to 90-minute mourning periods until such a time as we can gather together in meaningful community.

Alas, that's the world we live in today! We can lay much of the blame on the obvious culprits — video games, reefer, and heavy metal music — but we would be doing ourselves a disservice if we did not admit that we are responsible for making time for what matters. The next time a cherished friend, loved one, or colleague sets off on that long, mysterious journey to the undiscovered country, we must prioritize the apres-ski reservations at the lodge bar.

[squidhominid]

15 Questions for 15 Friends

Tagged by @venort!

Are you named after anyone?

Oh this is a fun one. So, the name I picked for myself after coming out as trans comes from the character Ellie Williams, from The Last of Us. I almost named myself 'Emma', after the Japanese name for Lady Timpani from Super Paper Mario. My deadname, which I won't share for obvious reasons, comes from... I think my great grandpa? I'm not 100% sure. Something like that. And my dad almost gave me the name Jean-Luc, after Picard, y'know, Star Trek, or Jean-Claude, after Jean-Claude Killy (although I suspect this was just a failed cover story to try and convince my mom to go with Jean-Luc).

When was the last time you cried?

Not answering this one, sorry.

Do you have kids?

Not answering this one, sorry.

What sports do/have you played?

I don't, uh. I'm not. I'm not very physically active these days. In high school they rotated us constantly between soccer, softball, lacrosse, basketball, volleyball, badminton, and I think MAYBE football? I was terrible at all of them, y'know, vision/coordination problems and whatnot.

Do you use sarcasm?

Do I? I'm not sure. What do you think?

What is the first thing you notice about people?

Man I dunno, uh, I just think some people are neat.

What's your eye color?

My V-Tuber avatar has orange eyes. I'm not saying more than that. Eat pant.

Scary movies, or happy endings?

Both, neither, and everything in between. Movies are good. Have you seen The Boy and the Heron? You should go see The Boy and the Heron. Also Paprika. Paprika is really good. I wish Satoshi Kon had lived long enough to finish Dreaming Machine. Actually I just wish he hadn't gotten cancer at all. Fuck cancer.

Any talents?

I'm pretty good with OBS, and tech stuff in general. I enjoy streaming, and people seem to think I'm pretty good at it.

Where were you born?

Washington

What are your hobbies?

Video games, programming, VR/AR, motion capture/streaming/video editing stuff, just, techy stuff in general.

Do you have any pets?

Not at the moment, but I kept a few fish as pets as a kid, and the last place I lived had a local colony of stray cats that me and my dad would feed and look after.

How tall are you?

5'2" in real life, my V-Tuber avatar is supposed to be either 4'11" or 4'9", I'm not 100% decided yet.

Favorite subject in school?

Probably the classes where we just got to fuck around with computers. But if I had to give an actual answer, probably math or physics? If we include university, probably the classes I took on VR, UI design, and product design, or the cognitive science class I took that was about the intersection between cognitive science, society, and popular technology.

Dream job?

Honestly, anything where I'd get to apply my interests in both technology and internet media. Whether that's working on software for streaming, working as an editor or a writer at a tech YouTube channel, working at a video or livestreaming platform like Twitch or YouTube... Alternatively, maybe working on VR software or hardware? Just as long as I'm making a good income, working on something I'm passionate about, and with time to spend on my hobbies.

Tagging @minty-cups @lunacapra @pbyukionna @quinnydoll @largedragonmilf @super-tired-robot @mudmouths @missylanieous @capncococharms @ardnin @dooper64 @astrophelcallisto @emery-matsushita-vt @mammeata @friendbreakfast

[fahrni]

Saturday Morning Coffee

Good morning from Charlottesville, Virginia! ☕️

So ends my week of relaxation. In the past I’d start becoming angry about how quickly my time off flew by. Not this week. I made the most of each day with some lazing about thrown in.

I managed to get some time to work on Stream for Mac and do a bunch of things around the house I’d put off for far too long. Today I plan on cleaning up Kim’s car and working on my dumpster bike. But I’m open to change.

Anywho, my coffee is ready. I hope you enjoy the links.

PZ Myers • Free Thoughts Blog

Nikki Haley got asked a straightforward question: “What was the cause of the United States’ Civil War?” She staggers back, stalls for time, and finally coughs up, I think the cause of the Civil War was basically how government was going to run.

This is one of the most pathetic things I’ve ever seen. Everyone, and I mean everyone, knows the Civil War was fought over slavery. So, either Nikki Haley is a racist piece of crap or extremely stupid. I don’t think she’s stupid.

This was the easiest of softball questions you could give a Presidential candidate and she failed miserably, that alone should disqualify her from holding office in any federal, state, or local government.

Of course she’s competing with the biggest asshole of all for the GOP nomination. Good luck with that, Ms. Haley.

Maybe this was part of her audition for the Vice Presidency? Gotta show the Orange Man how racist she really is to get the job. 🤬

Jessica Wildfire • OK Doomer

Meanwhile, a world-class trail runner named Emilia kills herself after a Covid infection leaves her with an unstable heart. Around the world, smart talented young men and women are losing their careers after Covid ravages their organs, their brains, their immune systems.

COVID is still around and still wreaking havoc on folks.

I still need to get my booster, you should too. 💉

Mike Hanley • GitHub

Over 15 years ago, GitHub started as a Ruby on Rails application with a single MySQL database. Since then, GitHub has evolved its MySQL architecture to meet the scaling and resiliency needs of the platform—including building for high availability, implementing testing automation, and partitioning the data.

It’s wild to see how big services can become. GitHub — the company that centralized a decentralized version control system — has over 1,200 MySQL databases. That’s a metric crap ton.

It also seems strange given Microsoft has their own SQL Server offering continues to use MySQL, owned by Oracle. 🥴

Joan Westenberg

Michael Cohen, the former personal lawyer and fixer for Donald Trump, used an artificial intelligence program to generate bogus legal citations in his motion for early termination of his supervised release.

The moral of the story is don’t believe everything a LLM gives you. You still need to verify the answer.

Laura Paddison • CNN

Scientists in California shooting nearly 200 lasers at a cylinder holding a fuel capsule the size of a peppercorn have taken another step in the quest for fusion energy, which, if mastered, could provide the world with a near-limitless source of clean power.

Will this pan out? If we’ve ever needed it now is the time. At the rate the climate is changing a team of scientists will emerge from their labs to announce to the world they’ve done it only to find the world on fire.

Raymond Wong • Inverse

Inside Apple’s Massive Push to Transform the Mac Into a Gaming Paradise

But will AAA games come around and make the commitment to the platform? Without developers it’s an instant failure.

Diane Duane

Can you add artificial intelligence to the hydraulics?

This is a link to a comment on a post — at least I think it is? Regardless it’s a funny read. If you only follow one link make it this one. AI is taking over all the things even if it can’t.

Alex Castro • The Verge

Earlier this year, Amazon announced plans to start incorporating ads into movies and TV shows streamed from its Prime Video service, and now the company has revealed a specific date when you’ll start seeing them: it’s January 29th.

I’m kind of surprised they don’t just bake this into Amazon Prime pricing.

Brandon Paul • Flo Racing

With over 1,600 total entries on hand for the Tulsa Shootout this week, there is bound to be some NASCAR connections to the biggest Micro Sprint event in the country.

I’m not sure how many folks not into NASCAR would know that drivers often compete in multiple different types of races throughout the year.

Sprint Cars seem to be a real favorite and winning a Golden Driller is still a highly sought after prize. Even for highly talented NASCAR drivers.

[bullsandthebones]

my friends and I are talking about our headcanons for ST characters so, here's mine! some of these are just haha funnies bc I think they're dumb

Eddie:

-he/it

-very gay, very homo

-tries to explain it/its pronouns to Steve

-makes fun of Steve's hair products

-makes "ur mom"/" ur dad" jokes

-calls Steve to help him brush out his hair

-wears croptops

-trans ftm

-cannot cook

-fnaf lvr

-knows the lore of every analog horror ever

-loves walten files the most

-puts dice in his mouth. (we all do, cmon)

-has probably almost swallowed a die

-it was probably a d4

-hurt like hell

Steve:

-doesn't understand pronouns

-mentally blue screens when Eddie and Robin try and explain pronouns

-starts sobbing when neos get put into the mix

-defo himbo but very supportive anyways

-bisexual w/ a lean for the ladies

-has made one deez nuts joke and immediately regretted it

-sobs while brushing Eddie's hair

-has definitely tried on a skirt

-definitely cannot cook

Robin:

-she/they + any neos

-makes deez nuts jokes with Dustin

-canon lesbian, I would never change that

-hates tryna teach Steve about pronouns

-amazing cook, "yes chef" "thank you chef"

-can probably sew

-most definitely makes special clothes for her besties

-wears two different shoes

-cool bitch syndrome

-would probably be really good at ddr and fnf

Nancy:

-she/her 😐

-hetero 😐

-ally (talk valentina! ally!)

-loves Johnathan no matter what his genitals are <3

-can definitely cook

-secretly has read lotr

-probably ate sand as a kid

-if she was a dog she'd be a poodle.

-gets Robin fabric for her projects

Johnathan:

-trans ftm <333

-he/him

-definitely laughs at deez nuts jokes

-mmmm bisexual?

-maybe pansexual

-ooo definitely pansexual

-probably can't hold his liquor

-threw up the first time he hit a bong

-didn't know how to pack a bowl for a long time

-Argyle had to teach him

-actually cooks better when high

Argyle:

-I'll be honest, I haven't finished s4

-idk much about him

-probably he/they

-gives me pansexual vibes

-makes the most raunchy jokes

-has the weirdest cravings when high

Billy:

-"nor/mal"

-"okay but what's between your legs?"

-idfk, probably bisexual but he's got too much internalized homophobia

Dustin:

-wh/at

-por/que

-desperately trying to learn pronouns but he doesn't understand very well

-honestly? straight

-makes deez nuts jokes. it's the funniest shit to him

-has never cooked

-only uses the microwave

-ramen forever

-is quite literally the biggest ally

-the best guy

-the "bro code" probably doesn't matter to him

-will tell on you if you're cheating 👁👁

-feminist

Mike:

-dumb/bitch

-stupid/whore

-I hate him I'm sorry

-probably bi but like Billy, too much internalized homophobia

-misgenders people when they anger him

Lucas:

-I'll be honest

-I'm torn

-probably says pronouns don't exist

-but uses he/they

-straight?

-idk he's confusing

Max:

-non binary

-they/she

-bisexual and on the ace spectrum

-hates fem clothing

-is a bitch when you get pronouns wrong

-will fight transphobes

-probably would do softball

-that's a gay sport right?

-I'm pretty sure it is

-salty when they lose to Robin at ddr

-loves fnaf

-hates that Eddie loves fnaf

-probably more into gemini entertainment than any of the other analog horrors

-plays tlou religiously

-loves zombie games

Eleven:

-agender but is okay with she/her

-aroace spec!

-doesn't have a set sexuality, isn't sure on labels

-mimics Dustin's jokes

-Hopper gets upset at that

-doesn't understand video games but loves watching max play

-is actually pretty good at ddr

-I'm sorry, I love ddr

-has also put dice in their mouth

-Eddie dared them to

Will:

-doesn't have the energy to figure out gender labels

-doesn't care about his own pronouns

-call him whatever

-gay but,,, on the aro spectrum, probably grayromantic

-plays the dark pictures anthology

-loves little hope the most

-has tried to get others to play them

-failed

-wears two different socks

-is probably really good at kickball but he's too scared of getting laughed at

-me too man

that's uh, that's all. you're welcome.

[anonymoushouseplantfan]

People who think oprah will go mild on them are weird. Have you seen any of Oprahs celebrity interviews? Hell, even her audience/mundane interviews? Oprah is and has always been very blunt on every topic. She is not a mild interviewer by any means. There’s a video from the early 2000s where she interviews Brad Pitt just months before the public found out about his cheating on Jennifer Aniston with Angelina Jolie and Oprah’s first question is along the lines “So how’s being married to Jennifer going for you? You happy?” To which Brad quickly backtracks his energy and then tries to change the topic as he fumbles answering the question. LOL Oprah and her team know EVERYTHING about these celebrities. And she is a full-fledged journalist completely educated in this field and how to get information out of people in the most slick ways. Even to just make someone fidget, flinch, or hesitate on a serious question is enough to give an answer the journalist needs to keep poking. And Oprah does it all the time. Just because she has a classier setting and better network approval ratings than Wendy Williams messy ass doesn’t change the fact that she can be and is just as messy as Wendy is. Confronting people is literally how big tv journalists are as big as they are. You’re confusing her with Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon, and that chubby British bloke. They’re simps and would rather ass kiss celebrities in interviews than ask the real questions. Oprah has never simped for these people. She asks the hard questions all the time but she at least offers help to improve their image after they’ve exposed themselves; which is why A-listers liked going on her show. They know someone in the media is probably going to expose them at some point anyway so might as well let it be the one person who will expose them and then offer a solution (and a reputable fanbase who will encourage them and their efforts).

But she has been courting Meghan for a while, which means she may go soft. I think this will be a very friendly interview, at least on Oprah’s side. 

What I think will happen is that the Harkles will fail even the most softball of questions, simply because they are so delusional and out of touch.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Ontario's drug-dealer premier is shockingly bad at distributing vaccines

Ontario politics are a wild ride, but they rarely escape the province, or, at most, the nation. Which is weird, because Ontario has been a leading indicator of neoliberalism's cruelty, paranoia, and surrealism since (at least) the mid-nineties.

Start with the 1995 election of Conservative Premier Mike Harris, a bland, dead-eyed sociopath whose "Common Sense Revolution" slashed Ontario's excellent public services and implemented a forced-labor program for poor people, AKA "workfare."

Harris was a Romneyish sort of fellow: a personality-free, interchangeable suit who didn't raise anyone's pulse but excelled at administration. His major achievement was the amalgamation of Toronto: a forced merger of the City of Toronto with its heretofore separate suburbs.

This was an incredible power-move. The old City of Toronto is the province's economic engine and the seat of its parliament. It is far, far to the left of the suburbs, and has entirely different priorities from them.

Dissolving the City of Toronto let Harris depose the popular left-leaning Mayor Barbara Hall. The election that followed saw the clownish crook Mel Lastman - who long ruled over my birth-suburb of North York - promoted to the big league, as the megacity's first mayor.

Lastman was a shitshow. He was known for his discount appliance store TV ads and for a string of scandals, from fathering and abandoning a secret child with one of his employees to covering up his wife's shoplifting arrest by threatening to murder a reporter.

He also pioneered a lot of the performative, own-the-libs culture-war bullshit that dominates our politics today, with idiotic stunts like ordering the free weekly Now Magazine removed from City Hall over its personal ads.

When the residents of old Toronto had Lastman forced on them by their suburban neighbours, it set the tone for Toronto/Ontario politics for decades, as Harris's masterstroke of disenfranchisement ensured Torontonians would never again get a say in their governance.

In electoral map after electoral map, you can see mayors and premiers coming to office despite the overwhelming disapproval of City of Toronto voters. This 2010 map by Torontoist's Marc Lostracco is pretty typical.

https://torontoist.com/2010/10/which_wards_voted_for_who_for_mayor/

Amazingly, Mel Lastman was the *least* clownish champion of Toronto's suburban voters. These voters quickly converged on the uh, colourful Ford brothers, Doug and Rob.

You remember Rob, right? The crack-smoking mayor who brought sex workers to City Hall, engaged in routine public racism and homophobia, and made demeaning cunnilingus jokes when asked about his marital infidelity?

He and his (marginally smarter) brother Doug ended up in city government thanks to their father - Doug Sr, a Tory MPP who made a fortune with his label-printing business - and their Rush Limbaugh-style talk radio show.

This was the show that featured their paid stooges, who'd call up pretending to be outraged Ontarians who'd rail at socialism or whatever and praise the Fords for their excellence.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/rob-ford-s-friend-dave-made-calls-to-mayor-s-radio-show-1.1405251

But that revelation did nothing to cool suburban Toronto's ardour for the failsons of a label-making kingpin. For these low-information voters, a steady output of xenophobia, cruelty, and racism trumped any scandal. And I do mean ANY scandal.

In 2013, the Globe and Mail's Shannon Kari and Greg McArthur broke a *huge* Ford story, detailing Doug's career as a major hashish dealer and his brother Randy's involvement in a drug-related kidnapping.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/toronto/globe-investigation-the-ford-familys-history-with-drug-dealing/article12153014/

And then there was his sister Kathy and her circle of violent racist cronies. Kathy was once shot in the face by a hash dealer, who remained in the Fords' good books, appearing with his family in videos and pictures, hanging out with Doug at an election-night party.

But nothing stuck. After Rob Ford died of cancer, Doug Ford - incredibly - became leader of the Ontario Conservative Party and won an election through the most laughable, corrupt politics imaginable.

For example, he refused most press interviews, and instead hired a "journalist" to ask him softball questions for his own Youtube channel (ladies and gentlemen, I give you the 'personal responsibility' movement!).

https://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorials/2018/05/06/doug-ford-evades-real-scrutiny-by-hiring-his-own-reporter.html

The Fords were Canada's Trumps, and Doug's 2018 election campaign shamelessly stole from the Trump playbook, right down to the paid actors going nuts at his rallies:

https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2018/05/08/doug-ford-campaign-confirms-actors-were-hired-to-play-the-part-of-pc-supporters-at-mondays-debate-rally.html

Despite all this, the suburban voters continued to support him, even after Rob Ford's widow accused Doug of stealing her children's inheritance, misappropriating millions of dollars from Rob's estate:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/doug-ford-faces-multimillion-dollar-lawsuit-1.4691378

Doug Ford really proved that millions of selfish assholes will vote for rotting roadkill if it promises them $0.25 off their tax bill, blended with gratuitous cruelty. Doug's GOOD at cruelty, vicious stuff like eliminating sedation for colonoscopies:

https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2018/05/08/doug-ford-campaign-confirms-actors-were-hired-to-play-the-part-of-pc-supporters-at-mondays-debate-rally.html

But Doug is a Trump, not a Romney. He is good at performative culture-war bullshit, but he sucks at making deep structural changes. When the national government levied a carbon tax on gas, Ford ordered stickers on every pump decrying the tax.

But in you-can't-make-this-up failson fashion, these labels - ordered by the son of Ontario's most successful label-making kingpin - all fell off the pumps thanks to their defective adhesive.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/anit-carbon-tax-stickers-falling-off-1.5287869

Of course, none of this matters to the roadkill-and-tax-cuts Ford base who continued to support him through a series of blunders...until the pandemic. Turns out you can't defeat a public health scourge with racist jokes and paeans to personal responsibility.

Toronto is heading back into lockdown (again). From nursing homes to First Nations reservations, the province has been scoured by covid on Ford's watch. And Ontario's vaccinations are an utter shitshow.

https://www.thestar.com/news/city_hall/2021/03/30/tight-lockdown-coming-for-toronto-predicts-member-of-ontarios-science-advisory-table.html

As ever, this crisis has awakened the best in political satirists, notably The Beaverton's Luke Gordon Field, whose "Drug dealer shockingly bad at getting people drugs" deserves a place in the gallows humour hall of fame.

https://www.thebeaverton.com/2021/03/drug-dealer-shockingly-bad-at-getting-people-drugs/

> “Electing a guy whose only work experience was ‘drug dealing’, ‘running the family business into ground’ and ‘doing a weight loss challenge with his more popular brother’ was always going to be a risk,” said Political analyst Keith Burns. “But we thought the one thing he is well-suited for would be distributing powerful drugs in an efficient and organized manner.”

> Ford denied that he was failing his “customers. I mean taxpayers. I mean citizens.” He made it clear that if anyone has any issues, the fault lay entirely with his supplier JT.

For a more serious - and ongoing - take on Doug Ford, tune into Canadaland's excellent "Wag the Doug" podcast, wherein Jonathan Goldsbie and Allison Smith document the rampant bumblefuckery of the Ford regime.

https://www.canadaland.com/shows/wag-the-doug/

[itsyourchoicedevotionals]

Loved Everyone

“…But the greatest of these is love.” 1Corinthians 13:13KJV

The prophet Bob Jones said Father God asked him, ‘what have you done with love?’ Then He told Jones, ‘every believer will answer this question  at the judgment seat.’

I have to wonder about the answers for we believers. Per three people, non-church people, Christians are going to score seriously bad. Lady L told me, ‘I believe in Jesus, pray every day, but I want nothing to do with church and religion.’ Lady C said, ‘My grandma always took me to church. But all those people want is money. They’ll tell you— ‘give even if you don’t have food money.’ Sure God is going to feed my kids. As for me, they can keep their churches. Guy J said, ‘I think I believe in Jesus. But it’s His people that are offensive. Everyone points fingers and judges everything. If I’d become like that, why do I want to be a ‘believer?’

Life took Lou and I to a ‘regular good guy’s’ funeral this week, a distant relative. He was gifted with the ‘servant’s gift from Holy Spirit. Everyone loved him, and he loved everyone. People spoke of— his helping hand, generosity, faithfulness, loving kindness, playfulness, never missing special functions of others. Romans 13:8ESV “Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.” Having been an avid softball player, players from various area teams came. Many players sobbed at his death and viewing. Clearly, bar none, his was the largest viewing and the largest funeral I’ve ever attended.

Watching all of this funeral, and surrounding events, I thought of the current series of “The Chosen” videos about Jesus. Many people have told me, ‘I’m falling in love with Jesus.’ ‘He’s so fun and loving.’ ‘I could never hurt Him’ ‘Why didn’t you ever tell me how cool Jesus really is?’ The deceased wasn’t all that far off from the ‘Jesus’ character, in the way he loved people. Should he be judged by the way he loved, he’s probably in heaven. Another of those who saw no difference in the world and the church, no one can point to a date, he believed in Jesus here. Nor can anyone say he wasn’t a believer.

Religion tried to tell me, “Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.” Hebrews 12:14ESV. But holiness answers to love. You can’t be holy without love, and you can’t love without being holy.

All of this made me stand back and take a long look at Debbie in the mirror. Has the greatest emotion in my life been love? No. I’ve been too much of a ‘Christian’ and fell short. Now I’m on my knees repenting. I want to do well in love and have people see love before they notice me. How about you? It’s your choice. You choose.

PRAYER: Father God forgive us for failing to love people like You love us. Change our hearts. Pour out Your love by Holy Spirit into our hearts for all the world to see real love, in the name of Jesus Christ I pray.

by Debbie Veilleux Copyright 2021 You have my permission to reblog this devotional for others. Please keep my name with this devotional, as author. Thank you.

[kbsd]

Hi! Just thought I'd let you know I rewatched all of crazy ex girlfriend because of your spn videos 😊 I love them all, I am still not ever how well the roll call in 'friendtopia' lines up!

aahhhhhh the plan to make everyone (re)watch cxg is working!!!!! and YES the roll call in friendtopia never fails to make me laugh...it’s alarming how well it works i feel like i can’t even take any credit for it like rachel bloom really pitched me a softball on that one lksfkksfk

[yamithediaperdork]

Let’s all go to (baby)jail! (Miraculous ladybug and cat noir)

Nathaniel Kurtzberg yawn loudly and rubbed a eye as he finished cleaning up the main playroom. at age 16 the two time akuma villain had struggled to find then lucked into a job that would help pay for his art supplies over the summer break. at first he'd been thrilled but the truth of the matter was, while playing with the kids that came to rainbow cloud Daycare was fun, and they all loved his sketches he made for them, at the end of the day he was normally too damn tired to do any art for himself. Not helping things was the fact he was suppose to be on the afternoon shift, but one of the other workers had called in sick and as low man on totem pole, Nate got to fill the morning shift and would still have to do his afternoon shift. 'and the stupid evening shift didn't clean up before leaving, again.' he thought glumly. the only other worker on was up in the office, taking in phone calls and the like, or at least that's what Johnson claimed. Nate had a feeling the chubby slob was really just watching YouTube videos on the office computer but since he was the boss's son, there was nothing he could really say or do. all and all it was looking like it was gonna be a shit day, but straitening up and dusting off the brown slacks and white shirt that was his uniform, Nate tried to force a smile on his face. 'no sense in taking out your bad mood on the little ones.' He reminded him, looking at the clock and noting it was almost opening time. there was a heavy knock on the front door and despite the place having a no early drop off rule, Nate wasn't shocked some upper class twit would be dragging their kid by already. shaking his head and making his way to the door he opened it and took a step back in semi concern as some sort of love child between a body builder and a gorilla was standing there, glaring. "Can..Can I help you?" Nate asked, a tremor in his voice though he thought the man looked almost..oddly..familiar. The mountain of muscles made a grunting noise and then held out a letter, which Nate took with shaking hands and glanced over it as the missing link walked towards a fancy black car, leaving Nate hoping that he wasn't leaving cracks in the pavement.

' To which ever wage lackey receives this, my son had been enrolled in your little day care as out of all of the daycare's in the city, this one has the most success with it's potty training. My son despite being older then normally allowed into your daycare and into your potty training program has been allowed due to the frankly massive amount of money i have paid to brush aside all concern's. he's to be treated like any other toddler who's failed to keep his pants clean and know that while i have high hopes this will pay off, no fault will be placed upon you as the boy is simply lazy, and i suspect is doing it just for fun. PS: Don't be scared to spank him if he acts up, he's old enough to know better.

Signed Gabriel Agreste. '

Nate raised a eyebrow as he finished reading, that last name, it could really be.. and then he looked up and grinned ear to ear as of all the people he could of expected to see being enrolled in the daycare's award winning potty class, it was Mr. supermodel himself, Adrien Agreste! The Blond boy was CLEARLY not happy as he was escorted out of the car, pouting and looking down at the ground and muttering something as he was handed a large light black diaper bag with 'Adrien's diaper bag' stitched on the side in white. he was dressed in Black velco sneakers and white socks and wearing a pair of light black shorts to match the shade of his diaper bag and as Nate looked, it was clear to see the shorts were puffed out by a bulky diaper. the diaper itself was over the top of the waistband and was a cream white, it had been visible when Adrien's white t-shirt rode up for a brief second. The shirt itself amusingly had text on the front that ID'ed Adrien as a crybaby brat and while Nate couldn't make out what Adrien was muttering about apparently the gorilla had had enough and gave the blond a firm swat on his padded bottom, making the blond cry out. The gorilla pointed towards Nate and Adrien looked like he wanted to complain, but wisely kept it to himself and carried the large diaper bag (which seemed to be so loaded with extra diapers and the like it took the blond using both arms to lug it) towards the door. '...Oh..today just got a WHOLE lot better.' Nate thought. "hi little guy, welcome to Rainbow Cloud. follow me instead and we'll get you alll set up." Nate said, even as Adrien gave a dirty look.

For Adrien, his hell had started in the last two weeks in school when in the span of 3 days he'd had 6 wetting accidents and woken up having messed the bed twice. Thankfully he'd been able to cover up the accidents so no one had noticed, but naturally his father had found out about him having changes of clothes brought to him, not to mention the bed messing had been impossible to hide. A trip over his fathers knee and 20 minutes with his nose in the corner, and Adrien had been warned NOT to let it happen again or steps would be taken. the blond picked up on the threat and had nodded, promising he'd take care of it and for a day and a half, and carefully controlling his fluid intake he'd been golden. it had been during a pep rally when disaster had struck, he'd been sipping at a soda in the crowd when a loud bit of pyro had gone off and the sudden boom, and the extra bit of fluid had resulted in his flooding his pants, though since they were out in the field the urine had thankfully gone into the ground. thinking quick before anyone noticed he 'accidentally' spilled his soda on himself, soaking his pants even more and joked about his butter fingers and got permission to go and change. His father hadn't been fooled for a second, and when his bodyguard can brought Adrien a change of pants, he'd also brought him a pair of puppy print pull-ups. Knowing better then to argue the part time hero had wore the pull ups, though he could see there was no way anyone could tell under his baggy tan pants, he'd been sure the world knew for the rest of the school day. Further disaster struck on the drive home after school, his father apparently had made it clear no after school fun even if it was Friday, as they got stuck in a traffic jam. trying to ease the sense of doom, and pretty sure he was going to get anther spanking when they got home, Adrien had been watching TV in the back and munching on some rainbow chip muffins he had stashed in a compartment back there, when the urge to go number two hit him like a ton of bricks. he'd been making use of diarrhea medicine to help keep his bed clean and actually hadn't gone number 2 in the day or so as a result, but apparently he'd pushed his luck. squirming and trying to soothe the cramps, he'd begged and pleaded for his body guard to either get them out of the traffic jam, or let him out of the car to use a bathroom, but the doors stayed locked and he'd of blown his secret identity if he had just turned into cat noir and forced his way out. (not to mention he wasn't sure if the pull up would stay hidden with Cat noire's much tighter clothing, and if he was gonna fail at going poopie on the potty it was somewhat better to do it in his civilian clothes, instead of his super suit) the belt and pants had been digging in and Adrien thought MAYBE if he took them off (the back windows were tinted after all so no one could look in) that might buy him the bit of extra time he'd need, and so in just his t-shirt and puppy pull-up, he ended up kneeling on the spacious floor of the back seat, leaning on the seat with his upper half and groaning and pounding a fist, trying desperately not to fudge his pull-up. For all of 20 seconds it felt like it might of worked, then they hit a pot hole, and well that was it. game over. The boy howled and cried as he made softball sized lumps in the back of his pull-up and a rotten stench had filled the back seat. Thankfully (or more accurately, amazingly) the Pull-up hadn't leaked then he was forced to stay in his kneeling position, so that he didn't smush his smelly load and risk leaking out all over the expensive seats. Thankful for the private parking they had, Adrien had been led inside quickly and no one had seen, but instead of being given a chance to clean up he was presented to his father who had wrinkled his nose in disgust. One LONG lecture later, he was allowed to shower, then was spanked and out on time out and put in double pull-ups. For the rest of the remaining school year Adrien could of counted the amount of times he actually made it to the bathroom on one hand. Pull-ups during the day, with him having a pack at the school, and diapers once he got home. thankfully Hawk moth had found something better to do during that week then making villains as Adrien had been put more or less under lock down. it wasn't that he didn't think he couldn't of snuck away from his body guard, but there was also the fact his pants had been taken away, and he was given a pair to wear to school, and any modeling gigs he had booked. rocking the diaper and shirt look around his house was one thing, but he pictured having to turn back after fighting a villain and being stranded in down town Paris in the thick white diaper his father preferred him in. Adrien had figured this was going to be his summer, under house arrest till he could get his bladder and bowels to fall in line but his father had other ideas. "Clearly you're not even making a effort to use the washroom, from what I've seen you just sit on your behind and play your little games while stinking up my house." his father had said. "well I'm not going to let you be a lazy little potty pants and make it so i have to come home to a house smelling like a diaper pail. I've enrolled you in a daycare that will help you get back your control." "But..But..Dad you can't! I can do this! I'll fi-" "I didn't ask for your opinion on it young man, I already took care of it. you'll be going every day, Monday to Saturday, and I expect you to do your best with their 3 week potty training program. You'll either shape up and prove what I've been saying, that your just lazy and been doing this for attention and stop in short order, and then can just stop going once you've proven you can be a 'big boy.' Or you'll prove what you've been saying and you really can't help it and you'll be potty trained..again. Hopefully it'll stick this time." Shopping for the supplies had been mortifying but today as Adrien looked at the face of a semi friend, it seemed like a delight compared to the day that laid ahead of him.

"So little guy, this is the main indoor play area, though we have a playground in the back." Nate said, clearly taking delight in following orders to the letter. "and over here is a area you'll be getting VERY familiar with, hopefully to great success." Adrien followed Nate's gaze and whined loudly, it was a wall lined with 5 training potties, and had a dry erase board above each one. they had tape on them to form a grid that displayed days and times, with room for someone to draw to write something in. "Your daddy must be very eager to get you potty trained, not just anyone gets the full experience.we only focus on 5 kids at a time but if your enrolled in it, your daddy must of paid top dollar." Nate said and then gave Adrien a pat on his padded rump, making the blond sulk even more. the diaper bag had been taken from him and was over by a changing table, so his hands were free at least but all that had meant was whenever they walked anywhere Nate had made Adrien hold his hand. "I will warn you that since your technically one over the limit, you'll be waiting in line to use any potty thats free. I'll be keeping track of your potty progress for you on a card you can take home and show your daddy, so give it your best ok champ?" "..Nate come on, you know I'm not one of these little to-" Adrien said, finally having enough and turning to give the smaller boy a piece of his mind. "Before you dig yourself a nice deep hole, You should know I have full permission to spank your butt if I need to.and we've been told to treat you just like any other little guy struggling to learn how to keep his pants free." Nate said quickly. "..Of course you have. My father is a fucking asshole." Adrien groaned, rolling his eyes then yelped as a hard swat when on his padded rump. "Bad boy! no swearing! Little boys who swear and cuss get their mouths washed out!" Nate said, shaking a finger at him. a mental image of himself with soap suds around his mouth and blowing bubbles popped into Adrien's head and he whimpered. "I.I'm sorry! I didn't know." he said quickly. "...I'll let it go THIS time, but next time, they're gonna be calling you bubble breath. got it mister?" Nate asked. Adrien swallowed his pride and nodded. "right, now going on with our little tour..give me your hand little guy..that's better. anyways, over here is our arts and crafts corner where we'll-" As Nate droned on Adrien whined and found himself oddly fighting the urge to suck his thumb.

Johnson came out and met with Adrien, chuckling lots. Adrien had felt a brief hope spot that maybe he'd be looking after him  but Johnson made it clear he wasn't the type to deal with dirty diapers, so he put Nate in charge of the big baby. As parents started to drop off their children Adrien found a place to try and hide for the most part, which while normally Nate would of raised a fuss and made sure he stayed where he could be seen, having one of Paris's top models in diapers and at a day care might of caused a few issues. It was easier to let him go and hide and the oldest kid being dropped off today aside from the ex model, now pamper packer, was a 5 year old so it was unlikely their parents would believe them or they'd recognize him. Still it didn't stop a few of the children from spotting him as he was hiding under one of the crib, twin brothers age 4 who peered under the crib having seen him. they were dressed in a blue t-shirt and green cover-all's for one, and a green t-shirt and blue cover-all's for the other, both sporting brown hair in mushroom cuts. "Um, Your not 'pose to be under there." blue shirt said, trying to keep his voice down low. "you'll get in trouble and lose your cookie at snack time." "Oh uh..well..I got permission from Nate so it's ok." Adrien said, which, technically was true. it wasn't like Nate didn't know where he was. "wait.." Green shirt said, furrowing his eye brows. "Your kinda..big ta be in here.. how old are you?" "oh uh.." Adrien paused, not wanting to say his real age, but needing to think of something to keep the kids from asking too many more questions. "I'm 9." he said. "hehehe ya don't hafa be shy if your hear and 9 silly. we hada this one um.. " blue shirt paused and looked to his brother for help, and green shirt leaned over and whispered in his ear. "10 year old who was here, and git this! he was here cuz he was a potty pants! me and Joshie were potty trained at -2- and this big kid wa-" "Gawy! you know you're not 'pose ta pick on big babies!" green shirt, or Joshie Adrien supposed, scolded his brother. "Aw come one, it was sooo funny! he kept going " and in place of saying it, Gary blew a raspberry. "in his diaper and bawling like a baby!" "heh.. it was pretty funny." Joshie admitted. "O-Oh yeah.. ehehe..that does sound funny." Adrien said weakly, now really hoping the boys would leave, or at least praying they wouldn't notice his bulky diaper butt. "why dun you come out and we can go and play toys. ya needa hit the toy chest fast if you wanna git a good toy." Joshie said, with Gary nodding and stoking his chin as if his twin had given sage like advice. Adrien chuckled at how cute the boys where being and seeing how the parents were starting to leave he started to crawl out sadly for our hero, the back of his diapers, just under the waistline, but on the seam, caught on a nail. So eager was Adrien to get out and show off (and maybe make this stay SOMEWHAT bearable)  that he didn't notice. Had he but noticed, he might of been able to get away with just a hole in the shorts but atlas, at the high speed he was scooting out the shorts gave way to the nail like a hot knife though butter. Gary and josh both paused as they  heard the ripping noise, and Adrien was blushing bad as he stood up, his hands going behind his back, feeling the slick plastic of his diaper and frantically trying to get the two sides of the massive rip together. "You uh, heh..you OK?" Gary asked, giggling a little. "Did you rip your shorts or was that like a BIG fart?" Josh asked, already holding his nose just in case. "I uh..we;ll." Adrien was very shy and found himself realizing just how much he hadn't appreciated the shorts being in tack. "He totally ripped his shorts. dun worry big kid! I got ya!" Gary said then cupping a hand to his mouth he shouted. "NATTTTE! DA NEW KID RIPPED HIS SHORTS!" Gary hollered, then gave Adrien a thumbs up. "...Oh this isn't going to end well." Adrien muttered.

End part one.

[ellariasand]

i’m not gonna teach him how to dance with you

pairing: frank castle x karen page summary: frank's helping karen with a story. some slight miscalculations put them in serious trouble. rating: t warnings: references to sexual situations & canon-typical violence - no actual depictions of either; swearing word count: 8.2k (sweet jesus) a/n: i’m not particularly used to posting my writing on tumblr (you can find this same piece along with others over on my AO3), so this is new for me! big props to @peoniesforfrankcastle for pitching me the softball of “what do you think would happen if frank and karen ended up in their own version of the landlord threesome situation from new girl??”, because that’s a normal thing to discuss at 1:30 in the morning on a saturday. enjoy!

“You’re sure this is the place?” 

It’s pissing rain outside the pathetic blue Jetta Frank’s sitting in — because of course it is. It’s dark, it’s wet, and the only thing he can see properly is the profile of Karen Page’s face, highlighted by soft blue dashboard lights. It’s cold, he’s not dressed properly, and he’d be at home in bed if not for her. He’d be warm, comfortable, and not packing three different pistols on various parts of his body. He’d be, for as much as the Punisher can be, safe. 

But Karen, despite every warning and caution and threat to her life, never quite knew when to quit.

She’s packing quite a different arsenal as she sits in the passenger seat, hands still covered in glitter from the bachelorette party she’d been at an hour earlier. Marci had insisted, she claimed as she checked the clip on her own gun, just an hour to say hi — but Frank knew better. Just an hour, he thinks as she makes sure her tape recorder’s working, is an hour she doesn’t have to think about what she’s about to do. 

“Wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t.”

She sounds absolutely certain as she speaks, even though Frank can see her hand shake as she stuffs the gun and the tape into her coat pocket. Her research is sound, her head screwed on straight, her plan well-equipped. (Well, perhaps not so much her plan as the plan Madani and Frank helped her make, but it’s all the same to her.) She’s Darius and Daniel all at once, throwing herself into the lion’s den without even a backwards glance. 

She’s here for a story, and she’s going to get what she wants, no matter how it scares the shit out of her. 

Or Frank, for that matter. 

“You’re dead sure?”

His voice is as deadpan as it was the first time he asked - all bite, no bark. Someone once joked that he sounds like he gargles with rocks when he does that, pulls out the Marine voice. The voice meant for giving and receiving orders, not sitting in a Volkswagen with a Bulletin reporter helping her with a story. Apparently, it’s as intimidating as the bruises perennially darkening the orbitals of his eyes - not that he’d be able to tell, the way Karen responds to him.  

“Yes, Frank.” She sounds as impassive as he does, if not more. He can’t read her expression in the low light, but he’s sure it’s as stolid as his. “Why are you so concerned about it?” 

All he can think to do is scoff as she pats herself down in a quick double-check.

“Because I’d’ve appreciated it if you’d told me we were going to a Cooley gun club instead of having to hear about it from Lieberman.” 

If he couldn’t read her expression before, he can now. It drops like a sack of bricks, and for all that his voice suddenly sounds upset, Frank can practically feel the weight of it hit his chest as the frown envelops her entire face. It dents her eyebrows, creases her forehead like some imitation of a child’s origami project. It’s a frown of surprise, not dissimilar to the ones he used to see on Lisa when he caught her reading past her bedtime. She’s been caught with her hand in the metaphorical cookie jar. 

Even if Lieberman hadn’t tattled, Frank would’ve figured it out eventually. Anyone north of 119th this late was asking for trouble, if not pointing the gun at their forehead themselves. Even he didn’t stray this far if he didn’t have to. Not if he wasn’t on a job. Once Central Park was in their rear-view, he’d gripped the Weston under his jacket a little more tightly.  

Karen’s parked herself right in the middle of a warzone, and judging by the loss of confidence in her expression, she knows it.  

“I didn’t want to lose my chance at getting you to help,” she mutters. She sounds as much of a spitfire as she did before, but the way she’s gripping her coat sleeves betrays her real reaction. “David knew?”

“‘Course he did.” Frank scoffs. “Guy can hack the NS-fuckin’-A, you think your laptop’s any different?” 

Karen’s frown deepens, the delicate origami construction of her face crumpling. 

“So that’s why you agreed to come,” she says quietly. It’s almost enough to make Frank regret his choice of words. Almost, if not for the truth of what they’re about to do weighing down on his shoulders.

“You can’t just...throw yourself in with the Kitchen Irish, Karen,” he replies, firmly but carefully. 

“I did it with Grotto.” 

It’s like she doesn’t even think before the words are out of her mouth. She’s so sure of herself. It scares Frank. Just enough. 

“Yeah,” he says, “And look how that turned out.”

“With you in the driver’s seat of my car, wearing a tape wire and helping me with a story.” Karen’s still wearing the frown, but she’s repurposed it now. Outfitted it to her advantage. Crumpled the paper and refolded it - treasure out of trash. “Not too bad in the grand scheme of things.” 

She says it with a shrug and a nonchalant glance over at him, and Frank can’t muster much beyond an incredulous laugh in response. A small part of him knows he’d walk through all seven circles of hell with weights tied to his legs if it meant helping Karen with a story, but sometimes he wonders how she does it - looks danger in the face and laughs like it’s nothing more than a carnival clown, there for her amusement. Like the few inches of column space she’s afforded can be weaponized as much as the Ruger she keeps in her purse. 

Karen dances with devils and comes out in first place every time, and Frank should know. He’s one of them. 

“We get in, you talk to the guy, we get out, alright?” 

He says it with a deadpan that hardly hides how much he’d rather taken Karen right back home, but he doesn’t stop Karen from fixing her lipstick in the mirror, doesn’t stop himself from checking that all three of his pistols are loaded and ready to go. The faster they’re in, the faster they’re out, and the less he has to feel his heart pounding in his chest like an animal trying to escape its cage. 

“No funny business.” 

Karen’s nod in response is perfunctory - she’s thirty-two, not twelve. She knows how this works. Frank knows that too, but the words come out anyway, in some vain attempt to reassure himself that what they were about to do wasn’t completely and utterly batshit. They’re more of a mantra than a command, and Karen’s response comes quickly on their heels as she pops open the door to the Jetta.

“People say my sense of humor is surprisingly dry.” 

Frank Castle has, thus far, simply been too angry to die. No other way to phrase it. He’s been shot, tortured, run through, hit by cars, and electrocuted, amongst a handful of other, unmentionable things. He’s gone through more injuries than a child’s video game character, and yet he’s gotten back up, beaten and bruised, every time, without fail. Whether it’s stubbornness or just rage, no one can ever really tell. 

But, he thinks as she smirks and hops out of the car, Karen Page might just end up being the death of him.

___________

The club they end up loitering outside of is dark, barely more than a husk of a building on the outside. It’s creative, the amount of effort these scumbags put into disguising themselves in plain sight, despite their existence being as common knowledge as the Harlem bus schedule. Decrepit storefronts, butcher shop basements, even the occasional apartment over a nail salon. Real estate in New York is slim, and Frank’s seen just about all of it - and a disproportionate amount of it with Karen at his side. 

He doesn’t understand how he keeps getting dragged into these places, these undercover ops for information held so closely it might as well be fantasy. He doesn’t understand how Karen gets herself involved, much less convinces him on nothing more than a hunch and a prayer to follow at her heels, sneaking about like Zoey when she’s trying to dart out the apartment door before Karen can catch her. 

He is, as Lieberman not-so-lightly puts it, built like a brick shithouse — sneaking isn’t particularly his style. Pretending to be someone else is something he’s done enough of in his everyday life. The life belonging to Pete. The life that doesn’t quite fit right - a present from an overbearing grandparent that collects dust in the basement from disuse. An old shirt, run through the wash one too many times that ends up stretched and worn, too grimy and ugly for everyday use. 

The only parts of that life that seem to fit right are the ones with Karen in them. Even if they involve breaking the law. 

The both of them are soaked by the time they’ve made it down the street, out of sight of their little blue getaway vehicle but in too much of a hurry to have bothered with an umbrella. Mercifully, there’s an overhang, and in some stroke of luck, the Irish at least have the courtesy to answer quickly when Karen knocks at the peeling wooden door with bare knuckles. 

She’s good at that, sneaking right in the front door instead of prowling around out back. Good enough that Frank can only stare in silence as she barely blinks  at a burly, dark-haired man opening the door, drilling her with enough questions to unsettle a Marine. He watches intently as she tosses around names Frank’s never heard, places he’s never been like she’s at some kind of fucked up family reunion. She calls him Robert and herself Harriet, and all he can think as they’re invited to cross the threshold is that at least it isn’t Pete. 

The inside of the club looks more inviting than the outside, but Frank’s eyes are too busy scanning the interior for exits to notice the furnishings. He lets Karen do all the flattering as they’re dragged through room after room, past locked door after locked door, each one more and more concerning as Karen makes inane comments his ears barely hear. He’d been primed on all the exits - and that did mean all - but the anonymity of what lay behind those dark panels of wood doesn’t bode very well for them. 

He manages to count sixteen separate doors by the time one of them opens to invite them in. The creak of it grates on Frank’s nerves, but he pays no mind as his attention zeroes in on Karen, whose blonde hair is disappearing into a dimly lit room, leaving him to chase after her like fool’s fire. 

His eyes are practically evolved for low-lighting by now, but his pupils still blow wide as he ducks past a burly security detail and into the darkened room. He could swear he’s stepped into an old-fashioned parlor, one of those overly ornate ones from the PBS dramas Karen likes to watch. Velvety couch, paintings on the wall, the works - even that awful gold gilt that old New York money people thought was pretty, rather than like they’d plastered scrapyard salvage all over their walls. Frankly, his grandmother had had better taste in decor, but clearly the new Irish have money. And they want to prove it. 

They want to prove they can defend themselves, too, based on the three men Frank clocks the instant the door snaps shut behind them. Strapped to the gills with firepower, looking like they could take a hit from a train and not move and inch, and angry to boot. Not too dissimilar from himself, in a way, aside from the way they mold themselves around the presence of a much slimmer man, in much better clothing, looking significantly more smug. 

If Frank had to describe him, he’d say the man standing in front of he and Karen looks like one of those people mothers describe as “homely” when they’re young, but is really just the kind of person women cross the street to get away from on their commute home. Pasty, skinny, unsettling to a degree that Frank can visibly notice as Karen’s posture goes rigid. The suit he’s wearing is very obviously couture, as are his cufflinks and shoes, but it doesn’t offset the alarm bells that his general presence sets off in the both of them. Not enough to truly make either of them afraid, but enough to suck all the air out of the room in less than an instant. 

Why do all drug lords remind Frank of the rats in the 34th Street subway station?

Perhaps because of the way they sneer like this one does, overconfident and cocky when Frank knows he could crush him under the heel of his boot in one step. Perhaps because of the way they carry themselves like they own the world, own the people standing in front of them and all that they’ll ever say simply because they’re on home turf. They’re leeches of the worst kind - vacuums of airheadedness and egos so big they could stop a truck. 

Frank prays this isn’t the guy Karen’s come to see.

There’s a reason he stopped doing that. 

“Ah, Miss Smith.” 

His voice is as cocky as his face, dripping with something between venom and crude oil. His hand extends towards Karen, and Frank can only watch as she accepts it with a plastic smile. 

“What a treat to finally speak in person. And this is Mister…?”

“Martin,” Karen replies. “My partner, yes.” 

“Partner.” He says the word as if considering it, as if the answer is better than he’d been expecting...which is, ironically, the best reaction Frank’s gotten to his own presence in years. Clearly the beard he’d started growing in was doing its job as a mask. “Wonderful.” 

He’s like a cartoon villain, this guy - if cartoon villains trafficked women and had bodyguards wearing enough firepower to set a building alight. All he’s missing is a mustache to twirl. Too bad he looks too young and skinny to be able to grow one. 

“We weren’t expecting a third,” he jeers, “But in that case, would you prefer business or pleasure first?”

Karen shrugs, and Frank mirrors it. It doesn’t look as friendly coming from someone as broad-shouldered as him. 

“I suppose we could do both,” Karen says. “It’s a bit late for shooting, but I’m not opposed to firing a few rounds while we talk about the--”

The laughter that cuts Karen off is even more jeering than the Bad Bond Villain’s voice. It’s high-pitched, off-key - like the vocal equivalent of nails scratching on a chalkboard. It takes a significant amount of Frank’s restraint not to flinch as he grins at Karen, far too boldly to simply be friendly. 

“Oh no, my dear,” he replies as Karen’s mouth is left hanging open. “This isn’t that kind of club. Did Georgey not tell you?”

Karen’s mouth closes, then opens, then closes again as she blinks. Frank offers a quick “no sir” in place of a response from her, despite the fact that the closest thing he’d ever heard to the name Georgey was one of Karen’s silly pet names for her dog. Whether she’d crucify him for that, he couldn’t tell, but it was better than leaving the reject Lucky Charms man hanging. The expression on the man’s face tells him that’s a bad idea.

“His loss, my gain, then.” The man shrugs, sits up straighter in his seat. “You two are...swingers, no?”

Ah. So, not a gun club then.

Frank can feel Karen tense next to him. Not enough to alarm the asshole, but enough that he hears her breathing go shallow, notices the way she sits up that much straighter on the couch. She nods, refusing to break character, but he can see how far the comment has thrown her off course. He even goes a bit stiff himself - and not in the way the creep sitting in front of them would hope for - so he’s not sure he blames her. He can do guns, he can do knives...but this was new. 

“It’s all part of the deal.” The creep sounds far too satisfied with himself, far too pleased in reaction to Karen’s nod that wasn’t any more than perfunctory. “We give you what you need, you give us...a little something in return.”

The look he shoots at Karen is enough to make Frank’s trigger finger twitch. 

The locked doors suddenly make more sense, much the same as the furnishings that seemed slightly too impeccable for a mafia den. Everything is slightly too pristine, slightly too well-oiled for a bunch of amateurs fresh out of metaphorical diapers. No criminal gives this much of a shit about appearances unless they’re trying to impress - who that is, Frank doesn’t know, but he can only imagine the kinds of clients that run through here. A gun club in the middle of Harlem is bad enough, but this? Nothing wrong with a bit of fun if you aren’t psychotic, but...

“You traffic girls and you run a swinger’s club.” Frank’s voice sounds like he’s down an entire construction site’s worth of grave, disguising the sarcasm he can’t quite keep out of it. “Clever.”

The man nods, oblivious to Frank’s train of thought. 

“We pride ourselves on it.” Pride isn’t exactly the word Frank would use, but the emotion shows on his face anyway. “The guns are a temporary cover. While we get our hooks in, so to speak. Clearly a good cover though, eh?”

He’s teasing Karen now, clearly trying to get under the thick skin of the identity she’s created for herself. It won’t budge, Frank knows that much, but the remark still makes him shift in his seat, fighting off the urge to throttle the bastard before they’ve even gotten a word out of him. 

Frank’s never been good at holding his tongue, but he’ll do it for Karen. 

She nods at the remark, a sound coming out of her mouth that’s as far from her real laugh as Frank imagines she can possibly get. It’s a hollow tittering sound, like hearing birds chirping through the metal of a roof they’ve nested on, but it’s convincing enough for their host, whose grin borders just the slightest bit on insane. 

“We’ll give you two a moment,” he says. “Only reasonable to let you get...comfortable.”

There’s that teasing voice again, and Frank hardly has the chance to let it annoy him before one of the guards is swooping in on them, an ominous black-clad raven with an assault rifle strapped across his chest. He almost reaches out when he puts a hand at the small of Karen’s back, not quite pushing her but not letting her move of her own free will either. The cold stare Frank receives when his nerves jump is enough to tell him that he should follow, or suffer the consequences otherwise. He’s not particular to following the rules - not anymore - but he chooses to make an exception this time. 

The creep stands by as the two of them are herded away, towards a door at the far end of the parlor that hangs just ajar enough to remind Frank too much of The Shining. The darkness beyond doesn’t look promising, and the results aren’t much better as they’re herded into some kind of dimly-lit antechamber, presumably a dressing room of sorts. Broom closet would’ve been a better term for it, given the fact that Frank and Karen are nearly chest to chest once the gorilla takes his hands away and leaves the two of them in relative dark, lit only by mood lighting that does about as much for Frank’s eyesight as a flashlight with mostly-dead batteries. 

He can see about as much of Karen as he could in the Jetta, but he’s hesitant to say anything. Who knows how much of the club the Cooleys had bugged for posterity - he wouldn’t be surprised if there are cameras hidden in the tiny cracks of exposed brick he can see behind the swaths of fabric covering the walls. These types didn’t seem entirely beyond a bit of voyeurism at all. 

“You okay?” 

Frank Castle is not a man to whisper, but that’s how his voice comes out anyway; low enough that it would probably be unintelligible to cameras. It’s not as though he needs to shout in this broom closet anyway. 

Karen shakes her head, less as a response to his question and more as if she’s trying to shake cobwebs from her brain that she’d missed when she dusted last. 

“I swear to God I didn’t know this was going to happen.” She’s rambling, her sentences peeling off one after the other with no way of stopping them. “There was nothing in the notes about it. Not in the witness statements, not in the police reports...fuck, somebody should have told me or else I wouldn’t have brought you here into the middle of this—”

“Hey, hey, hey.”

Frank’s hands are on her shoulders before he can think to stop them, a grounding wire for his emotions and hers. He knows how it feels to have a plan go to shit, that feeling of the ground spinning underneath you without any recourse to stop it. He can see that feeling in Karen, the way her pupils are so blown with fear he can practically see himself in them. It’s not often that anyone can strike fear into Karen Page. 

“Shhh. It’s okay.” He’s rubbing her arms now, though perhaps a bit more for his own sake than for hers. “Even Lieberman missed it. It’s not your fault.”

It really isn’t. He’s not sure how a sex club got confused with a gun league - all euphemisms aside, even Lieberman isn’t that stupid - but the Irish must be smarter than he thinks. Or, at least, clever enough to deflect attention away from themselves. It makes sense, in the long run of things, he thinks... if you’re that kind of subway track scum that traffics human beings.

“I’ll handle it,” he mutters. “You go out the back, call Nelson or Walker or somebody, get the hell out of here. I’ve still got the tape so you’ll still get what you need, I promise. I can take care of—“

“What?”

Karen’s voice interrupts the speech that he has memorized all too well, and he short circuits. Feels his hands squeeze her shoulders in place of a question. Watches her shuffle in place, shift her weight to her hip. He’s not prepared for this. This doesn’t usually happen. 

She’s got her eyebrows raised, shoulders squared under his hands. His mouth opens, closes, then opens again. He can’t focus when she’s looking at him like that. Can barely focus when she’s looking at him at all. 

“Red door down the hall takes you out the back,” he sputters. Now was not the time for thought-out tactical plans. “I’ll get you what you need. You just get out.”

He’s not sure exactly how he’ll manage that, but he will. It’s the least he could do, in return for everything she’s--

“Frank, I’m not leaving.”

He can feel Karen’s enunciation down to his bones. It rattles her shoulders and moves the curtains that swirl around them, an energy not even Red could match if he tried. It’s an energy that speaks to the reason she’s good at her job, why and how she gets herself into situations like this, cramped in a tiny dressing room in a swingers’ club well past midnight when she could very well be at home, safe and secure without a second though otherwise. It’s an energy Frank knows all too well. 

Here she is, looking as much like a scared rabbit as Frank’s ever seen, and Karen chooses now to be stubborn. 

“You kiddin’ me?” 

His arms flop down at his sides, and the air stings his palms where they’d touched Karen’s shoulders. She’s looking straight at him now, and that’s all he can focus on - the stinging and her eyes. Both of which flare when she shrugs. 

“No, I don’t think I am,” she replies. “I don’t think “coercion via the Punisher” is a printable source.  It’s my responsibility to get this information, and if takes going a little out of my comfort zone, then I’m more than willing to—“

“The guy wants you to strip down and have sex with him, and you call that your responsibility?”

It seems like an applicable moment to pinch the bridge of his nose in frustration, had he not broken it less than a week earlier. His definition of “responsibility” might be more muddled than the average New Yorker’s, but being propositioned for a threeway in exchange for information is certainly not in his dictionary. 

“He included you in the offer too,” Karen protests, “And I’m pretty sure I just heard you say ‘I’ll handle it’.” 

“Not by playing into whatever fucked up fantasy he’s got in mind!”

He might as well have pulled the pistol out of his waistband for all the good his words did. They ricochet off the walls like stray bullets, and he can see them lodge into Karen, though the way she rolls her shoulders and stands all that much straighter proves that she’s not in any mood to back down. She never is, and he knows it. Anyone who assumes otherwise is in for the shock of their life. 

Being around Karen is like sticking your finger in an electrical socket, and Frank is a curious kid who doesn’t know when to leave well enough alone. 

“How badly do you need him to squeal?” 

He chooses the sentence carefully, measuring his words as though they can remedy the situation all on their own. He’s not good with that, figuring out what to say. Actions speak louder than words, he’d always believed that, but this is Karen’s show. Karen’s livelihood. A livelihood she’d built on words alone. 

Her expression doesn’t change. 

“Enough that I’m willing to stay,” she says. “Frank, this story could wipe out a whole new generation of Kitchen Irish before they even get started. If I get this guy to talk, they’d be busted wide open within the week. Maybe sooner.”

“Same thing could happen to your head if you say the wrong thing.”

“I’m a journalist, Frank.” Karen squirms under his gaze, but doesn’t falter. “Saying the right thing is what I get paid to do.” 

But you shouldn’t have to.

That’s what Frank wants to say. Wants to blurt it so loudly that the shit-for-brains in the next room can hear him loud and clear. Wants an excuse to bust them out of there, to avoid this situation entirely rather than subject himself to the burning gaze of this woman who doesn't know when to quit. He wants to shake some sense into Karen’s head, despite the fact that she’s about the only sensible person left in his life. 

“I emptied a clip on a man,” she says. Her words are measured, careful. “I think I can handle...that.” 

It suddenly feels like there’s not enough air in the room for both of them to breathe. 

“Fine.” 

Frank can’t tell if she’s being entirely serious, or if this is another facet to the facade she’s put on tonight - whether her bravery is manufactured entirely because she’s too persistent to walk away from a story unfinished. The room feels like it’s running circles around him, and he’s too dizzy to fight. 

“You want it?” His voice is harder now, sharper. “Let’s go in there and get it.” 

It’s not quite the Punisher persona she’s used to - it’s a little frayed around the edges, askew from being out of place - but Karen recognizes an irritated Frank when she sees one.

“I can do it by myself,” she sighs. Frank isn’t convinced - not when there’s half an army on the other side of the door and a creep who’ll undoubtedly take advantage of her the moment he turns his back. 

“Like you said,” he replies, “he said both of us.”

Karen frowns.

“You’re really going to go in there and do this just to get me to admit that I’m wrong?”

“Could do worse.”

His shoulders are too heavy with the weight of their predicament to really make his shrug convincing, but he does it anyway. Tries his hardest to look nonchalant, despite the fact that his dominant hand still burns - this time for something a bit more significant than the air it’s currently grasping at. 

“Too much longer in here and they’re going to get suspicious,” he offers. “Either we do this or we don’t. Your pick.”

He’s offering her an ultimatum. Karen fucking hates those. 

“I do the talking.” 

It’s the only thing she says while she’s shrugging off her jacket, loosening the top button on the starched, Wednesday Addams-looking blouse she’s got on. It’s the only confirmation Frank gets to shirk his own hoodie (how he’s going to finesse hiding the wire he’s wearing, he doesn’t know), before she slips out of the dressing room and back into the parlor, where Redhead Dr. No has shirked his own suit jacket, and the armed gorillas have all but disappeared. 

He can’t tell if the feeling in the pit of his stomach is regret, but it certainly makes him nauseous all the same. 

If it’s at all possible to have dimmed the already barely-lit lights of the parlor, that’s what they’d done in the time it’s taken he and Karen to argue their way into this mess. He can see the room for what it really is now that he’s removed the rose-colored glasses of playing along with Karen’s scheme: the way the room is laid out, with larger-than-usual couches, designed with open slats for things Frank didn’t even want to begin to think about. The fact that, despite being part of a much larger complex of rooms, there are no doors leading anywhere except the small antechamber, and no windows either. All that’s missing is some shitty Careless Whisper saxophone playing in the background, and even Frank wouldn’t do that song that much of a disservice. 

“Ah, the lovebirds return.”  

The phrase lovebirds makes the hair on Frank’s neck stand on end, but he beats the impulse to stir like a startled cat down just enough as their host approaches, clearly more keen than when they’d been whisked away. He’s rolled the sleeves of his shirt up, and Frank’s fairly certain he can see rope burns up and down the lengths of his arms - fresh enough that they might not even be a day old. 

That is what makes him startle. 

“It’s club policy for couples to...initiate proceedings,” their host says, with an eagerness that makes Frank want to beat it out of him. “To ensure all parties have a comfortable evening. Unless, of course, you’d like to…?”

“No, I think we’re fine.”

Karen’s face is red as she replies - not the kind of red it gets when she’s angry, but a brighter kind. It makes her look gaunt. 

“No sense breaking the rules our first time ‘round, huh?” 

The man smiles, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Very well,” he sneers. “I’ll be here. Whenever you’re ready.”

Whenever you’re ready. 

The dealer’s voice is laced with the chill of dry ice, and that fact doesn’t escape Frank. This isn’t some jaunty weekend experiment, where consent is key and anybody who isn’t comfortable can bounce when they want to. This is payment, and he expects his full share, whether they like they like it or not. 

That’s the thought that ruminates in Frank’s head as the dealer fiddles with the buttons on his perfectly-starched shirt, and Karen moves into his space enough that his vision is enveloped by her. That’s the thought as she steps in close, close enough that they can share the same breath, and that’s the thought as he considers the fact that nothing on Earth could possibly be more humiliating than this. The thought of touching and being touched in ways that don’t bear thinking about is worse than any embarrassment he’s ever suffered. Worse than any hazing his Marine buddies ever put him through, worse than any and every time he’s said something stupid and gotten himself landed in the wrong place at the wrong time. He feels stripped bare, down to the bone, and he hasn’t even taken off his clothing yet. 

But for a moment, he looks at Karen, and thinks of the way his hands burned when he touched her, and a part of him thinks, Maybe if we spin this, we can get out mostly unscathed. Maybe this won’t be so bad. Not with Karen. He thinks that, of all the people he could end up stuck here with, at least it’s her. Their foreheads are touching, and he can feel Karen skate her own hands down his arms until she’s gripping his. At this distance, he could reach out and--

But then another part of him remembers Maria, remembers that he can’t recall the last time he used those hands to do anything but cause hurt. He remembers everything he buries deep inside, under layers of Kevlar and firearms and a voice so gravelly no one could ever think that it had ever belonged to a father. He remembers all the reasons why Karen shouldn’t trust him anywhere near her, and the situation morphs, molds itself into something that could only be a disaster, could only end with both of them hurt in a way that no stitches or antiseptics or trauma nurses could ever fix. It’s inescapable, and it’s all his--

“It’s the red door, right?” 

Karen’s voice is a whisper, barely audible even when she leans in close (too close, too close, she’ll get hurt); it’s easily misconstrued as sexy, but really, it’s a well-practiced way of communicating in crisis, and Frank can hear the wobble in it even as she breathes.

He nods just enough that she can feel it, without looking like he’s doing anything but...well, setting the mood. Karen nods too, and he’s sure the both of them look fidgety - like nervous first-timers, not sure how to proceed. And it isn’t far from the truth - Frank’s got no idea how he’s going to proceed from here, but he’s nothing if not good at improvising. 

“I, ah...think you should take charge.”

This she says at full volume, loud enough that their partner can hear. Like she said - she knows when to say the right thing. 

And Frank knows enough about the fear on her face that his pistol’s out of his pocket before she can blink back tears. 

And when he blows them out of there, it isn’t a euphemism. 

_________

The sun is peeking out over the horizon line by the time the two of them stumble down the sidewalk to Karen’s walk-up. It plays peekaboo with them, reminding them that they've survived to see another day as Frank watches Karen digs for her keys in her purse. It’s stopped raining now, though the air is still muggy with its aftereffects, and they walk slowly as they approach the stairs to her building. She’s got cuts in three places on her face, and he’s got at least one broken rib, but they’re out. They’re safe. 

She’s safe. 

Her hands are still shaking though, vibrating ever so slightly as she attempts to find the right key to get them into the building. The ring jingles like an out-of-tune band, and Frank can see the frustrated, tired tears in her eyes as they slip out of her hand and onto the ground.  

“Let me.”

He stoops before she can and dutifully ignores every protest from his tired, overworked muscles as he picks the bundle of metal up from the ground. They chime their high-pitched tune as he does, muffled by the size of his hand compared to Karen’s, like wind chimes in a distant open window. She doesn’t look at him - won’t look at him, maybe - as he straightens his back, but she can’t hide her frenetic blinking from him as he does. He doesn’t blame her. This is the longest night either of them has had in years. 

He’s never sure how to fill long silences between them. He’s a man of few words, always has been, and the idea of saying anything when his entire body wants to shut down is beyond his area of comprehension right now. Is he supposed to hug her? Pat her on the back, tell her it’s alright after she watched him (not for the first time) eviscerate a handful of human beings like it’s nothing? Nothing he could possibly say can erase that. Erase everything else he’s ever done to her, every layer of hell she’s been dragged through and back out again. Silence feels like the only appropriate response, the only way to avoid dragging her through anything else. 

She’s the first to speak up, naturally. Her voice comes out soft, a quiet monotone Frank suspects she uses to disguise the fact that she’s choking back a night’s worth of emotions all at once. 

“Thanks.” She’s still not looking at him, but she doesn’t move to wipe away tears, doesn’t hide behind the high collar of her jacket to avoid him. “Do you want to…?” 

She hesitates, and Frank can nearly hear her backtracking in her head as her sentence drops off. The missing word hangs in the air, heavy and loud despite the fact that it never leaves Karen’s mouth. 

Stay. 

“I’ll be up working on this damn thing to make the deadline.” She shrugs, as though overnight shootouts and going thirty-six hours without sleep are a regular part of anyone’s workday. The laugh that comes with it is watery. “Might as well have some company.”

The scoff that escapes Frank’s mouth isn’t entirely intentional, but it isn’t accidental either. He can feel the bruised muscles in his face sting as he lets the sound ring, ducking his head to fiddle with the glittering skull trinket she keeps on her key ring. 

“Almost get your head blown off and you’re worried about a deadline,” he mutters. “Should be resting.” 

“So should you. And I know for a fact you won’t sleep a wink.” 

Karen shrugs, reaching a hand out for her keys. Frank obliges, and there’s something of a smile on his face when he does. The little skull glints in the light of the streetlamp, a sly reminder of just what kind of a mess she’d gotten herself involved with. 

“I started this story,” she asserts, “And now I'm obligated to finish it. Just like any job.”

“You think you’re gonna be able to get anything outta that wire?”

“I’ll have to,” she says. “If not, I’ll pester Turk, see what else he can get me. Maybe do a ridealong or something. I know what’s there. We saw it. I just need proof.”

Frank laughs then. Not maliciously - not really intentionally, either. It just spills out, a soft, short bark of a thing that sounds off coming from him. Frank Castle doesn’t laugh, much less like that. It’s like interference on a radio; a negative side effect of pushing the wrong button or adjusting the wrong lever. The AM channel no one ever wants to use. 

“Y’know,” he huffs, “I wonder if you don’t know when to let something die.”

It’s not that he doesn’t think before he speaks - Frank’s a smart man, he knows what happens when someone backs Karen Page into a corner. He’s seen it, from the moment she shoved that photo of his family in his face while he was chained helpless to a hospital bed, and he respects it. She’s a force to be reckoned with, a hurricane of immense proportions that doesn’t give a shit who you are or how much power you say you have if you’re in the way of the truth. Karen Page is not someone to be taken lightly. 

But she’s more than that. She’s also a human being, a woman with a life, friends, family that cares about her. She’s got more than blood on her hands and a legacy so stained she can’t even use the name her family thought to give her when she was born. She’s better than that, better than this ugly, misshapen world they’ve both found themselves in whether they like it or not. She’s the best goddamn thing to happen to New York - hell, the country, probably - since god knows what, and to lose her to the storm of her own determination is something that Frank thinks might snap a lot of people clean in two. 

Himself included. 

He knows he’s said the wrong thing, knows he’s pushed that button of hers that makes her cheeks flare red and her voice hike up a few notches. He can tell as soon as the words are out of his mouth, as soon as she bunches her keys up in her fist in a way that’s got to hurt as she finally looks him in the eyes. 

“Oh, you mean the hundreds of people that would die because I put myself over the truth?” She spits the words out like they’re shitty vodka from Josie’s, like if she kept them in she’d explode. “What am I supposed to do, just let this fall by the wayside? Tell Ellison I need him to switch me to the lifestyle section this week? I can’t just let it go. That’s not how this works.” 

A part of Frank knows she’s right - knows that this shit won’t stop until the world can see the man behind the curtain - but a bigger part of him, the stubborn, protective part of him that he can never quite seem to fight down, can’t live with the idea of danger knocking at Karen’s door. 

“You could’ve been killed before the truth ever got out!” He doesn’t mean to be as loud as he is, but that hidden part of him doesn’t like the quiet. “You really want to do that again? You want to put a gun to your own head like that?” 

“I was hardly in danger of anything except hurting my own pride and you know that. I just let myself get scared.” 

Frank can see her flex her hand where her keys are digging into her palm, but she doesn’t relent. She doesn’t look angry, but he can see the way her jaw clenches to fight back another round of frustrated tears threatening to spill over. He can see how tense she is, how close her shoulders are to touching her ears. She’s got every hallmark of a woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown, but she refuses to move an inch. 

“Don’t make this about my safety, Frank,” she says. “You can’t keep mothering me like this. I can handle myself.”

She stares at him like she bore a hole directly to his soul, and Frank’s skin burns when she looks at him like that. Not like fire, but like acid. Corrosive, stinging, sizzling. It’s a burning that seeps through his clothes, plasters them to his body so nothing he does can serve as escape. It’s the worst in his hands - pins and needles that suddenly makes that “reach out and touch faith” song make more sense. He feels the stinging down to his bones, and sometimes he wonders whether he’s just a skeletal ghost floating around anymore. Whether the rest of him matches the skull crudely painted on a vest in his closet. 

No, it’s not like fire. Fire would be too easy, too instant. One splash of water and it’s out, wiped from body and from memory. It burns brightly but shortly, in and out of someone’s life with almost no passing thought beyond treating the wounds left behind. Fire is an easy solution. Fire doesn’t come from people who matter. 

No, the burning Frank feels isn’t fire, because Karen Page never does things the easy way. 

“‘M sorry,” he says, conceding another in a long list of arguments that neither of them would ever be able to win. He doesn’t know what to say, what to do to stop the burning. Isn’t sure if he wants to stop it. “Just didn’t—I didn’t want it to be like that.”

“Didn’t want what to…” 

Her sentence drifts off before she can finish it, and he can’t be sure whether she understood what he was referring to. Her fists clench and unclench, and the burning worsens when she looks at him like she’s staring down the barrel of a gun. 

“Frank, come on.” Her voice is tired - the groan of someone who’s been through far too much, far too soon. “You’re bleeding. I’m tired. Let’s just go up, and you can crash on the couch and we’ll talk about this—“

In the morning. Later. After. That’s always how it goes. Let things settle. Let them rest. Let the blood flow out of things, let the venom run its course. Take the rose-colored glasses off and let reality settle back in before anyone does something dumb. Karen wants an after for him, she’s said as much. She wants him to be able to walk out, as unscathed as a man with blood on his hands can ever manage to be. 

What she doesn’t realize is that his after is already standing right in front of him. 

Which is his only explanation for why his hand shoots out and closes around her arm like he’s pulling her away from some invisible danger. It’s the only explanation for the way he spins her like a top, until they’re close enough that he can see her eyes dilate in surprise. It’s the only explanation for the way he can feel his heart pounding in his chest, a feral animal broken free and running down the streets of Brooklyn with wild abandon.

It’s the only explanation for the way that he kisses her on her front stoop for God, the early morning garbagemen, and the rest of the modern world to see. 

Karen Page, he realizes, is everything good left in the world. She is sun after a thunderstorm and a comfortable bed after a long day. She’s raucous laughter at a terrible joke, the kindness of a stranger when you need it most. She’s good friends and fond memories and the ridiculous way she dances to Lady Gaga whenever she finishes a piece that gives her trouble. She’s the beers they share on her fire escape after weeks away and the tight feeling he gets in his chest every time someone asks what the hell he’s still fighting so hard for. She’s everything he thought he’d given up the right to have a long time ago, and she’s everything he fights to keep. 

Pulling away from her is painful. More painful than any gunshot, any gut punch, any knife wound he’s ever received. Pulling away from Karen is like pulling the skin from his bones, the air from his lungs. It’s like the burning he feels, only a million times worse. A million hot pokers on his skin, burning away anything that makes him who he is and leaving nothing but a shell, cradling this stubborn, beautiful, terrifyingly intelligent woman in its arms. 

All that’s left is her. All that matters is her. 

Her eyes are closed when he finally moves far enough away to see her face in full. For a moment, he panics, terrified -- too close, too close, fuck, did I make her cry again? -- but then she’s opening them, something he thinks might be glee or absolute horror written on her face. He can’t tell which is which, so he improvises. 

“Didn’t want to do that in front of the Irish.”

Karen’s pupils are still dilated, and the glee-horror-something-else-maybe morphs. Becomes a little clearer. 

“Oh.”

It sounds less like surprise and more like a smug question. He shrugs. He’s still got a hand at the small of her back. 

“Didn’t want them to get a chance at it either.”

Now he sounds smug. The garbagemen can definitely see them now. He’s not sure he cares. 

“Mmm.” Karen doesn’t bother to move. Doesn’t bother to separate herself from him. “Kinda glad about that.” 

Frank quirks an eyebrow. 

“Is that so?” 

“Yeah.” She fiddles with her keyring. Glances at the tiny skull. Jams the whole thing in her pocket. “‘Cause you kinda just ruined it for me for the rest of my life.” 

“What, the saving your life or the kissing?”

“Both.” 

She taps his chest with her newly free hand, and the spaces that have been hollow there since the park feel just that much fuller. Just enough to ease the ache. 

“But mostly the latter.”

Frank can’t even remember what the latter is, but Karen’s kissing him again and that’s all that matters. This moment, on this grimy doorstep, with her hands bunched in his coat and his wrapped around her back. 

So this is what it means to finally have an after. 

[noirandchocolate]

Another Invader Zim AU Concept I’m Not Going to Do Anything With*:

AU where Zim comes to Earth the exact same way he does in canon, but instead of deciding the best way to infiltrate society and learn about Earth and its weaknesses is by attending an educational facility, he decides the best way to do that is to get a job at Membrane Labs (based on information retrieval--after all, Membrane would probably show up in tons of searches with relevant terms to Zim and his mission you know?).  Zim looks and acts exactly how he does in canon, including his diminutive height relative to adult humans.  However, Professor Membrane immediately accepts Zim as a human scientist with an impressive resume (after all, Zim DID create an infinite energy absorbing monster, for example) and hires him.  Many of Zim’s evil plans then involve stealing and repurposing, or sabotaging, Membrane Labs’ projects.  However, Membrane treats Zim as a valued colleague and tends to handwave any eccentricities and even laud Zim as a fellow who clearly has a PASSION for SCIENCE!!!  

Meanwhile, Dib is a 12-year-old boy who meets Zim at his dad’s workplace and right away sees through the short little green man from space’s shitty disguise (which stays exactly the same except Zim wears a lab coat to work or something).  In this AU, Dib does spend more time at Membrane Labs after school because Membrane tries harder to be a more hands-on parent, but Dib resents feeling forced into following in his father’s footsteps and prefers paranormal research just like he does in canon.  Dib tries desperately to convince his father that Zim is a) an alien and b) a threat to mankind, to no avail.

Because Zim and Dib don’t go to school together, contrivances to get them into the same setting so they can harass and thwart each other could include:

1) The Company Picnic and/or Softball (or Stupid Near-Future Dystopian Sport of Choice) Game 2) Membrane Sends Zim to Represent the Labs for Career Day at the Skool, Where He Is Paired With Some Hapless Child Dib Wants to Save/Dib Tries to Expose Zim to an Adult Paranormal Researcher Just Like Canon 3) Dib Is Just At the Labs a Lot and Overhears a Lot of Zim’s Ranting, Then Steps In to Defeat the Evil Alien Tech Plans 4) Real Science Convention Dib is Dragged To/Insists on Attending Because Zim Could Do Something Evil!!! 5) Video Game Event Dib Is Attending With Gaz, But Zim Is Going to Try to Use VR or Some Other Tech Thing to Invade Players’ Brains Oh SHIT 6) GIR ‘Runs Away’ and Ends Up at Dib’s House, Zim Comes to Find Him 7) Zim Overhears Dib Talking About Bigfoot and Believes Bigfoot Is Real and Could Be a Valuable Ally/Could Be Captured and Used as a Weapon--Dueling Bigfoot Hunts Ensue (It Turns Out Bigfoot Is Real and Gaz Knows Him) 8) Dib is Selling Candy Door to Door For School and Discovers Zim’s House 9) Dib Then Repeatedly Comes to Zim’s House to Spy on Him Just Like Canon 10) Really Many Canon Episodes Could Be Rewritten to Fit Into This AU Just With Minor Tweaks for Zim to Be a Fake Lab Worker Not a Fake Student 11) Because Once Dib Starts Bothering Zim, Zim WILL Decide Dib is A Threat to the Mission and Declare Him a Nemesis Because That’s How Zim Is 12) Membrane Usually Ends Up Apologizing to Zim for His Son’s Lack of Manners, Because He Isn’t There to See How Zim Is a HUGE Asshole to His Child 13) Eventually Toward the End of the Show’s Run This Changes (EtF-Style, So Membrane Doesn’t Believe Zim’s an Alien but Does Believe He’s a Jerk of a Mad Scientist and Helps His Son Get Rid of Him)

Anyway I feel like such an AU has the same vibe of Dib trying to get his father or in fact anyone else on his side and Zim failing in his nefarious plans but otherwise getting away with everything as canon does, but makes one of the central jokes of canon clearer than it already is: that Zim’s an adult of a technologically advanced alien race who keeps getting dunked on by a middle schooler.  Plus, it just adds the possibility for so many more scenes with Membrane, and Dib and his dad’s relationship--like how we all enjoy in EtF! 

I don’t have time to write fanfic or draw fanart anymore so I’ll never do anything with this lol but y’all know me I get an idea sometimes that needs to be typed out or I cannot rest okay bye.

* If someone is already doing something like this, I was not aware or don’t remember seeing it (my memory can be bad) and do not mean to step on toes and would in fact like to see it.

[flowerbeom]

Sweeter Than Pi | Mark Tuan

Mark Tuan x Fem!Reader

Genre: High School AU. Nerd Mark x Athlete Reader. Fluff. F2L.

Warnings: Some squishy ass, fluffy fluff. 

Words: 5.3k

Concept: Your place on the softball team rested on the back of you passing your General Maths midterm. Though Maths was always your worst subject, your genius best friend, Mark, could offer assistance in helping you study. If you could bring yourself and your heart to ask him... 

A/N: Happy Birthday almost twin @inkahgase! Fuck me, I’m sorry this took so long and that it is sooo long. I don’t know how to write short stories. I’m sorry. But I hope you enjoy soft, nerdy, cute AF Mark. Cause bro, this broke me...

“What was that?” Jackson slung the strap of his overfilled duffle onto his shoulder, rounding your desk to sit on the one beside you. Your voice continued to muffle into the pages of the textbook you were flattening your face into. 

Jackson, in all his measured audacity leant forward, flicking your ear as he ripped open the wrapper of a protein bar with his teeth. “Speak up woman.” 

“I failed!” The whining tone of your voice echoed around the empty classroom. You groaned as you tipped your head back over the chair, arms dangling pathetically beside you. You flailed your legs under the table, sliding down the chair a little more with every exasperated kick. 

“It’s just a mock quiz, it means nothing.” Jackson mumbled through chews. 

“Jack, if I failed the mock quiz it means I’m going to fail the mid-term.” Head still slung back over the chair.

“And?” Jackson barely audible, his mouth preoccupied with trying to tongue chunks of his white chocolate raspberry quest bar out of his molars. 

“And?! If I fail the midterm I’ll get kicked off the team!” Jaw dropped to allow for the extended grown to rumble out of your throat, you lifted your hands to card them frustratedly through your hair. 

Having had enough of your self-loathing, Jackson kicked the edge of your chair, knocking you sideways and out of your moaning. You snapped a hand down onto his ankle, steadying yourself from falling and pulling him off the edge of the table at the same time. Jackson broke his fall with a hand smacked against your forehead. Hands were thrown and insults were flying around until the commotion ended with your fingertips twisting the sensitive skin along his ribs. 

“Gah! God, okay okay!” Jackson shifted away, picking up his bag and moving to the door; pausing to see if you were following him. You were, albeit slowly, trudging to the door; dragging your equally overfilled duffle bag behind you. 

“Ever consider getting tutored?” His tone suggestive. 

“Can’t afford it.” Your tone defeated. 

“You really are stupid.” There was no fight in you left, rather acceptance and the vivid image of your softball uniform being stripped from you, leaving you standing in your underwear in the middle of the field. You shuddered at the thought. 

Approaching your lockers, you stood in a daze, fingers mindlessly rotating the dial on your padlock, not even sure if the combination was correct. Suddenly, and as softly as anyone could manage, you felt a shoulder nudge yours. It could only be one person, and you felt your body shrink into itself upon recognising the familiar smell of the fabric softener his mum used on his shirts. 

“Hey!” Effervescent, cheerful and light. You looked up to see Mark standing beside you, the glasses meant to be perched on his nose rather perpetually hovering above it as they were lifted by the plump in his cheeks made by the smile he could never control. Backpack full; books spilled out into his arms, one sleeve of his unzipped hoodie pushed up while the other dangled below his fingertips. The adorable nerd, Mark Tuan. 

You always felt yourself mirror the smile he effortlessly gave you, as if there was no other acceptable response to give him. No matter how grouchy or sullen you may have been, Mark was always this beaming beacon of joy, and it was impossible to resist getting pulled into the overwhelming happiness that seemed to radiate from him. 

If he was smiling, you were too. If he was laughing, you were too. If you were crying, he never had to do much to stop the tears from falling. It had been that way for years, having grown up beside him, literally. Neighbours since birth, playmates in preschool, deskmates in elementary school leading naturally to best friends in high school. You were inseparable, even when his interests leant towards equations and dabbling in applied physics at the college level while yours swung towards swinging bats at balls that soared past the car-park behind the field and making college scouts travel across the country to watch you play. But as thrilling as all that may be, Mark was the spark that lit your days ablaze. Though it was a shame you could never really tell him that. 

“Hey man.” Jackson reached over your head to knock knuckles with Mark; Jackson tipping his chin while Mark smiled even wider, again completely out of his control.  

Jackson, as he liked to remind you and Mark constantly, was the reason you and Mark stayed so close over the years. As your interests and hobbies split down the middle, Jackson provided the glue that held you together. While you and him bonded over a shared love of sports, he and Mark bonded over a shared love of video games. 

So, afternoons were spent waiting at the end of the pitch after softball practice for Jackson to finish soccer training. He’d jog to you, one arm shoved into the sleeve of a fresh t-shirt while the other had his jersey still hanging off the bend in his elbow. You’d walk home together - Jackson never failing to leave a trail of corn chip crumbs behind him and finally ending up on Mark’s couch; splitting your time doing homework together and watching him and Jackson take out Marakov soldiers in Modern Warfare 2. An unlikely trio, though it somehow worked. 

“Oi!” Jackson dug an elbow into the side of your arm, drawing a hiss to rattle the chemistry paper wedged between your teeth. “Ask Mark how his AP Calculus class was.” 

“It was really good, we started on fundamental theorems and.. “ 

Jackson tutted, making a sharp clicking noise with his tongue against his teeth; Mark’s grin dropping slightly at the corners. 

“No no, she has to ask you first.” You shot puzzled eyebrows in Jackson’s direction, shoving a textbook into your already full bag. 

“Why do I need to ask him?” The edges of the chemistry paper nipping against the corners of your lips as you spoke, Mark glanced around you to stare at the indiscernible look on Jackson’s face. 

“Ask him how his AP Calc class was.” Said sharply through gritted teeth. 

“Why?” You and Mark returned in unison, the word drawn out in confusion. 

“Just ask him how his AP Calc class was, goddamn it!” Slamming his locker door shut, Jackson’s eyes growled at you to turn around and do as instructed, but you weren’t one to back down. Ever. 

“Geez, why do I need to ask Mark how his AP Calc class was?! We all know it was ‘amazing’ and ‘interesting’ and that he’s still top of the class, so why are you being an ass!?” 

Tense pause. Loaded silence. Darting eyes. 

“OH MY GOD!” Dropping your bag to the floor, mouth gaping, your test paper billowed to the ground as you spun to face Mark - almost making him drop the books held precariously in his hands as you smacked your hands onto the sides of his arms. Jackson sighed from behind you, an unmistakable roll of his eyes evident in his exasperated breath. 

Mark’s eyes were blown wide, only to be magnified by the refraction of his lenses. You froze for a second, taken aback by the hint of rose tinting his cheeks and the way his lips rounded into a perfect circle of surprise and you wanted to melt into your sneakers but there were more pressing matters at hand. You made yourself believe that there was, no matter how furiously your heart was pounding in your chest. You sucked in a strengthening breath, his glittering eyes would not distract you now. 

“Mark, Mark! Oh my god, Mark!” Your fingers were digging into his biceps, the fullness of them surprising you.

“Yes?” Replying through a giggle, the smile he could never control once again taking over his expression. 

“Mark, can you tutor me?! I swear to god I will fail my Gen Math midterm if you don’t help me!” You were shaking him, wobbling his thin figure in the air as you continued to ramble. “I can’t fail Markie, I can’t get kicked off the team! Not before graduation! Please--” 

“Yes.” Sincere.

“Help me, please Mar--” Almost manic.

“Yes!” Heartwarmingly earnest. 

“--Kie, please! Wait, what?” Stupefied. 

Mark’s eyes folded as his smile widened, his arms tightening their hold on his books as he rocked back on his heels. “Of course I’ll tutor you, I’m surprised it’s taken you this long to ask!” 

“You and I both, dude.” Jackson smarted from behind you, his hand gripping onto the strap of your bag to lift you up after you had sunk to your knees from equal measures of shame and appreciation. Your eyes lifted to see Mark fumbling with his bag, one hand shoved into its depths. Taking his pile of books out of his other, Mark grinned so endearingly you swore you felt your heart bounce off your sternum. Fishing out his car keys, Mark gently took his books back into his slender hands.

“I’ll come round after you get home from practice. About six, right?” 

“Right.” Your hand lifted almost robotically to return the dazzling wave Mark gifted you as he skipped down the hallway. 

Mark’s ready eagerness to help you had made your heart swell with affection, and despite every desire to act on your feelings continued to tap away at your sanity, you knew better that someone like Mark was better off with someone who could actually challenge his mind. All you could do was beat him in a foot race. So you let Jackson cup your shoulder and drag you outside; critical paths and parabolas would have to wait, and it seemed trying to ease your heart would have to as well. 

As you wiped away a rogue bead of sweat that trickled down your temple, you asked yourself how someone could look so effortlessly perfect. Walking languidly along the footpath that lined your street, you stared at Mark as you approached your house. Sitting on the front steps of your deck, Mark cradled a text book in one hand; elbows leaning into his knees. From the curve of his wrist, your eyes trailed along the lines of his bare arms to the once, maybe twice, rolled up sleeves of his t-shirt. Your lips found themselves wedged between your teeth. 

Watching one delicate hand lift to push his glasses up his nose, you followed his fingers as they combed back his hair that always fell right back down to tickle his lashes. The setting sun sifted golden through his charcoal hair, as if it was made to reflect the light. And as you rounded your mailbox to walk up the paved path, Mark’s ear pricked to your footsteps and he greeted you how we always did; with one perfect smile and your knees went weak. 

Clutching onto the strap of your duffle bag, you pulled it tighter across your body as Mark rose onto his feet. You met him at the foot of the stairs, one step below the one he stood on. Mark clapped his textbook shut and slung his backpack onto his shoulder. 

“Ready?” You weren’t exactly sure what he was referring to, but if it was the hand that he reached out to gently sweep down your braid, you knew for sure it wasn’t that. He leant forward, glasses slipping down his nose as he tilted his face to look past your shaking eyes to what his fingers were doing. You could smell the eczema cream he rubbed into the back of his elbow as his index finger curled hair behind your ear. It felt like your entire body had broken out in hives, why was his face so close to yours?

“How many deep hits did you dive for? You have so much grass in your hair.” Mark knocked his knuckles into your shoulder, lightly pushing you back before he turned to step towards your front door. Following slowly behind him, you needed to catch your breath or else asking him to tutor would be a massive waste of time. You can’t tutor someone if they’re dead. 

“Come on, those quadratic equations aren’t going to solve themselves!” 

Mark stood there patiently, one hand deep in the back pocket of his jeans while the other held his textbook to his chest. Unlocking the door, you let it swing open before stepping through, Mark close behind you. 

“Bedroom?” Eyes shooting open, you whipped your head around to Mark’s innocent expression.

“Sorry, what? Bedroom, excuse me?” Blinking rapidly with every vowel, you watched Mark slowly tilt his head to the side; his puppy like eyes giving you puppy like confusion. 

“Want to study in your bedroom?” Not a completely outlandish question. Mark had been in your bedroom plenty of times over the course of your friendship. Sleepovers were a plenty and Jackson joined the fray once your duo became a trio. But it had been a while since it was just you and Mark. Alone. In your bedroom. So you deferred, you didn’t need the distraction; for he, in all his tall, slim, attractiveness was one giant distraction already. A disruption of the sweetest kind that you weren’t completely against but you really needed to study. 

“No.” Far too blunt to seem polite. You winced at the your own brashness. 

“No?” Mark’s body seemed to stutter, never having heard you be to short before. 

“Sorry! That sounded so mean! It’s just post-practice me talking.” You let your duffle bag crash to the floor, your hands quick to cup your cheeks to mask the red glow building under the skin. 

“So…?” 

“Dining table! Closer to the kitchen, closer to snacks!” Good save, you thought to yourself as you tapped your belly with one hand, the other resting on your hip. A bad impression of Jackson whenever he wanted to not so subtly tell you and Mark that he was hungry. Amused with the imitation, Mark hooked the straps of his backpack carefully on the back of one of the chairs bordering the dining table before taking out his notes and sitting down. His eyes glanced over to you expectantly. 

“Shall we get started then?” Timidly, you lowered into the seat next to him. Twirling a pen between his fingers like a poker player juggles a chip on their knuckles, Mark showed you nothing but honest determination as he displayed just how incredibly intelligent he was; yet it took a little longer for any of it to rub off on you. 

An hour had passed. Mark was nothing but sweet in his explanations and patient as you continued to endure this special form of torture. Math and Mark; one hard for your brain, the other excruciating on your heart. Every slight brush of his shoulder against yours as he leaned in to see your work sent shivers to crawl down your spine. Every time his hand would pull yours back so he could write the proper formula beside your incorrect answer made all the air block in your lungs. Mark was incredibly intelligent, but pretty dumb when it came to body language. And you were beyond thankful for that. 

Despite your body’s conflicting emotions between emotionally flustered and mentally confused, you had actually made progress. Whatever method Mark used to make you understand what your teachers had failed to teach you was proving a success. Question after question was solved correctly, Mark high-fiving you with the most genuine smile on his face with every tick he inked onto your page. However, expanding equations had shrunk your stomach - snack time was calling, and the time was now. 

“Super spicy or regular spicy?” Calling from the kitchen counter, two varieties of ramen held in each hand. 

“Can you just nuke me a plate of broccoli in the microwave? I’m trying to maintain my figure.” Mark bellowed from the dining table. Brows furrowing together, you threw your head over your shoulder catching Mark doubled over - body shaking with silent laughter upon seeing the look of perplexity on your face. 

“Regular spicy please, heavy on the cheese.” 

Once the narrow in your eyes had dropped and Mark heard the tap pour water into a pot, he turned back to the flat lay of books on the table. He was curious as to how you were doing so badly in class when you had made so much progress beside him. He always knew you were smart, and how focussed you could be - so he wanted to know what had stumped you so badly when it came to math. 

Slipping the textbook off the corner of your notebook, Mark began to thumb through the pages, searching for clues as to where the numbers stopped making sense in your mind. Page after page failed to reveal much; half written questions with notes sloppily taken in rushed handwriting that he knew wasn’t like you. 

Picking up the notebook, Mark closed it to gather the bottom corners under his thumb to start flicking through the pages rapidly. His eyes scanned the pages as they flew past, a chunk of blank pages ended with meticulously written words at the back of the notebook. Laying the notebook down, he smoothed out the spine so the pages stayed open on the table. Mark felt his lips carve a smile into his cheeks, his eyes following the intricate curves of your handwriting across the page. 

“Is this why you’re failing Gen Math?” A chuckle finished the question he threw behind him. 

“What?” Fumbling with a bag of shredded cheese as you answered him.

“Who’s got you so distracted in class?” 

“What are you talking about?” Rounding the counter with both bowls in hand, you froze one step away from the table; Mark’s index finger drawing an invisible line under the words who had written in the back of your notebook.

“I’m not being obtuse, but you’re acute guy.” You placed both bowls on the table, mainly because you’re hands had started to go numb.

“You are one well-defined function.” You lowered slowly into the seat next to Mark, fingertips clawing into your knees.

“Mark…” Voice shaky at best. 

“Oh this one is good. If I went binary, you’d be the one for me.” His soft laughter jiggled his glasses down his nose as your hand lifted to gently pull your notebook away from him. 

“Mark, stop please..” 

“Oh no, no this one’s my favourite.” Watching his finger hover below the last sentence on the page, you felt your body heating up from its core. Nervousness pulsated from the depth of your stomach and radiated through your skin. You saw his eyes crinkle at their corners, his ears twitching as he grinned. 

“You are sweeter than Pi.” He turned to you at that moment; cheeks plump, smile intoxicating. A wave of anxiety crashed over you. 

“No wonder you’re failing. Dude, seriously, who’s got you so distracted?!” Mark was asking you as if he really didn’t know; and a part of you wanted it to stay that way. You wanted to leave him in his naive innocence and continue on being brilliant, and wowing college mathematicians with his insight and natural numerical skill. You wanted him to find someone who would be just as excited about binomials and integrals as he was or at least someone who could understand them.

Mark lifted his arm to sling his elbow over the back of the chair. Combing back his hair with his other hand, he pushed up his glasses with his thumb before flicking you in the shoulder, and you knew it was because you looked like an idiot. Your face held no expression, your body was frozen in place. 

You knew pressure. You knew what it felt like having everything on the line. You knew what it meant to have both joy and sorrow rest in your hands. So in that moment, you would have gladly taken loaded bases, deep hit into left field, sun in your eyes as you lined up your mitt to take the last catch that would secure the last out to win the game. You would have gladly taken the chance to lose the championship over the way Mark was staring at you. Over the way his sparkling eyes were boring into you expectantly for an answer you weren’t sure he was ready for. Or more so, one you were about to give. Especially if it was the wrong one. 

“So, who is it?” But Mark always got the right answer. 

“You.”  

The pen Mark was twirling between fingers his crashed onto the table. An exaggeration, but everything seemed heightened after you somewhat easily confessed your feelings to Mark. Your hands had found themselves back on your knees, and your lips had found themselves between your teeth. Mark pulled his arm off the back of the chair and mirrored your stance, yet you noticed him swallow roughly. Your heart stammered at the sight. 

“We’re not even in the same class anymore..” You fought the urge to laugh, Mark’s charming naivety cutting through the tension in the air, his eyes twinkling in your direction. Lips parting to pull in a breath, you blew loose strands of hair off your forehead before letting your shoulders relax. Mark was doing it again, comforting you in his own special way. In the way only he could, even if he didn’t know he was doing it. 

“That’s the way it is, isn’t it? Love..” 

“You-you… love me?” Mark pushed up his glasses with both hands, swinging his legs around to face you; his knees merely grazing past like a single gentle flap of a butterfly’s wing. You sunk into your shoulders, there was no turning back now. 

“It’s funny right? How you stopped being in my classes years ago, but as soon as I look at an equation my mind flips and all I can think about is you. How funny is that?” Leaning forward to lean an elbow onto the table and your cheek into your hand; your eyes locked on Mark. He held your stare but you were caught in the unravelling of your own sanity to see how his eyes were flitting across your face. 

“Man it’s so funny. Mr. Grant stands at the chalkboard and starts drawing up some parabolic graph, and all it does is remind me of your smile. I open up my textbook and start reading about perfect angles and all that I can compute is the goddamn perfect angles of your cheekbones against your jaw.” You were laughing now, completely out of control. You weren’t even aware of what you were saying, the words simply falling out of your mouth. Blame it on dehydration, practice was gruelling; sure you could do that - but you simply kept talking. You weren’t even looking at Mark anymore.

“I try you know? I try really hard to study. And it’s only maths. I ace every other subject - I have no issue with Lit or History. Go, ask me anything about the Balkan War, I know it all. But Maths, phwoah..” Your head tipped back against the chair, your braid swinging behind it. 

“Maths, man I can’t even concentrate. All I see is your face in the numbers. All I can think about is your laugh when someone starts reciting algebra formulas. And when exams come around, I’m stumped.” Mark jumped in his seat when you shouted out a laugh. 

“I stare and stare at the exam paper and think about how you would solve every question and how quickly you would have done it. And once I’m thinking about you, that’s it. I’m gone.” Your rambling halted when Mark reached out his hand and placed it atop yours. Lowering your head back to level with his eyes, you saw the sheer shock in them. You swallowed dryly, the realisation of the utter madness you had spat out finally overwhelming you. Mark scooted forward in his chair, clearing his throat and lifting a shaking head to sweep his fringe off his eyes. 

“You know, Madison Kim asked me out in the same way.” Your hands went limp, the weight of your heart dropping into your stomach caused your shoulders to slump forward. You were an idiot. Literally, figuratively, emotionally. Of course Madison Kim would have asked him out the same way. She may be a genius, but she was an airy head girl, who in all honesty would be a fool to not ask out the gorgeous man who sat beside her in AP Calc every day. 

You shifted back in your seat, but Mark’s hand tightened around yours; your eyes darting up to find a softness in his eyes you had never seen before. In the entirety of your lives together, you had never seen that look, and it terrified you. 

“She asked me out with silly little mathematical pick up lines that she slipped into my textbook and I turned her down.” You could feel your teeth grind against each other. Your tongue pressed against the roof of your mouth as you swallowed down the saliva that had pooled beneath it. Mark scooted forward a bit more, taking your other hand in his. 

“Do you know why I turned her down?” A simple smile painted across his lips, his fingers curling around your palms. You shook your head, too afraid to speak; too afraid to let your stupidity form any more sentences than it already had. 

“Because she isn’t you.” A breath caught in your throat. Then swiftly gulped down with the lump that had clung to your tonsils. 

“Wh-what?” Mark sighed through his nostrils, a sweet tender exhale as his thumb drew circles into the back of your hand. 

“Since we’re confessing, I’ll go next.” Mark straightened, lifting his chin as if to give his valedictorian speech. “I never told you I love you because I never thought I was right for you. That I wasn’t the guy to make you happy.” 

Your chin dropped into your chest, eyes folding in amusement; your shoulders bouncing as you chuckled. 

“Now why would you think that?” Speaking into your stomach before looking up at him with a tilted head and an angled grin. Mark released his hold on one of your hands to hold his nape instead, fingers rubbing into the skin; a flush of embarrassment evident in the pink smoothing over his cheeks. 

“I don’t know.. I just thought that you’d prefer someone who could keep up with you. I can barely do a push up..” Timid and a little hushed; Mark darted his eyes around the room before slowly meeting your gaze. Like him, you straightened, shifted forward in your seat and retrieved his hand from his neck to lace your fingers between his. 

“Then I guess we’re both stupid.” Mark’s confused puppy expression returned to his face, and you suppressed a giggle to answer the question his eyes silently asked you. 

“I never told you I love you because I didn’t think I was smart enough for you. That sooner rather than later, you’d get bored of me..” The flush of pink that had filled his cheeks crept over yours; you bit down on your top lip. Mark stared at how your bottom lip plumped into a pout and felt his heart stutter at the sight.

“We’ve known each other our whole lives, you think I would’ve gotten bored of you by now.” 

“Hey!” Ducking but failing to dodge the sharp whack that your hand delivered on his arm, Mark grabbed your wrist and pulled you towards him. Lifting his other hand, Mark hesitated for a second before reaching forward, gently cupping your cheek. You swore he could feel how hot you were, your cheeks burning so fiercely you were afraid his fingers would singe. But he didn’t pull away. He kept his hand tenderly pressed against your cheek and you began to drown in the smile he gave you. Another one of his perfect smiles. 

“Let’s not be stupid anymore, yeh?” Blinking softly, his bottom lip folded between his teeth as he awaited your answer. Leaning forward, closing the space between your faces, you took a moment to catch the glimmer in his eyes. Whether it was the light catching in his lenses or the spark they naturally held; you wanted to get lost in the magic of them. But he was waiting, and Mark always got the right answer. 

“Okay.”

His kiss was as tender as you imagined it to be. His lips were as soft as you had dreamt them to be and you could feel him smiling against yours. Breaking the kiss, Mark pulled back to rest his forehead against yours as he drew in a breath. You weren’t sure if you were breathing, but you could see his glasses begin to fog so you knew you must have been. 

Both sitting back, you stared at each other silently; your hands fitting perfectly in each other’s. Yet the gaze was fleeting, both you and Mark breaking into laughter; possibly from the haphazard confessions or your shared stupidity. Either way, the air was clear and the problem of your irrational hearts solved. Mark would have enjoyed that the most; solving a seemingly unquantifiable problem and the thought made you feel warm. 

“Now I’m even more screwed.” Mark hummed quizzically in response, reaching under his chair to pull it closer to yours; letting his thigh press against yours as he removed the space separating you.

“Now I really won’t be able to focus on Maths...” Mark laughed with his entire chest, head tipping back to let laughter tumblr out of his mouth, yet his hand never let go of yours. Finally regaining composure, Mark angled his body to face you, wrapping his arms around your waist and pulling you into his chest. Reactively, and almost naturally, your arms weaved around his neck. A single giggle fluttered through his lips before he spoke.

“I guess I’m just going to have to tutor you every day until the numbers make sense.” 

Trying not to let any laughter flicker out, despite your heart racing in your chest; you thought that you could be a little bold. “Do I get a kiss for every answer I get right?” 

Mark edged forward, touching the tip of his nose against yours. 

“Of course.” Mark briskly pressed his lips against yours as a full stop to his statement. Giggling as he pulled away, his arms slid off your waist to turn you back towards your notes. 

“Come on, you have three more equations to solve then we’re done, and we still have to eat. I’m starving!” Flailing in your chair in protest, Mark silenced your whining with another kiss planted onto your cheek. 

“I’m not going to go any easier on you cause we’re dating now.” You couldn’t help but feel your heart swell. Picking up your pen, you slid over your notebook that was still in front of Mark. Turning back to the page you were on, you gave Mark one last narrow-eyed look. 

“A kiss for every correct answer, remember.” You nodded in agreement. He was a brilliant tutor after all. And a cute one at that. Because he was Mark Tuan, the adorable nerd. Mark Tuan, your adorable nerd. 

[talkingtea]

He doesn’t disappoint when it comes to lying and failing at showing how supportive he is. That post was so fake. He didn’t to appear people, it wasn’t heart felt that’s what it’s looking like more and more now. I don’t understand why he can’t show support ? Is it his manager or is it himself . I can see how it maybe his attempt at trying to appear like the good husband. He’s trying tooo hard to show the opposite of how he feels (maybe) at its only making him look bad.

Being able to show support should be a no-brainer. Good grief, nobody is going to think he’s in love with his co-star if he has her back when she’s being unfairly attacked by racists. That was the absolute least he could have done.

That TV Guide article was like being lobbed a softball. And he still missed it. A simple repost could have brought that article to the attention of even more people than it already had reached. And it wouldn’t be major or even that big of a deal but it would be a simple way of Grant actually doing what he said he was going to do in that video.