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babymetaldoll · 3 days

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Are you mine - Chapter five: “Our flaws are who we really are”

Summary: Spencer and (Y/N) have to return to work, and for once, the idea isn't appealing to any of them. There is a new member in the team... Word count: 6.010 Warnings: Nothing but some Criminal Minds case info and some curses. A/N: Is it weird to consider a 6K words chapter "short"?

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Previous chapter | Next chapter (post date: September 25th)

(Y/N)’s point of view

Because being a mother, a wife, an FBI S.S.A. and part of the BAU wasn’t stressful enough, I decided to finish my Ph.D. after Raven was born. I still had one more year left, but my husband supported me to fish it.

After getting shot in the neck that year, Spencer took a month off and we returned to the BAU together. I will never forget the first day we left Raven with my mom at our place. Spencer wouldn’t let our baby go that morning. We were standing in the middle of our living room, mom stared at us, nearly chuckling, as my husband kept talking to Raven, explaining what would happen.

- “So, remember what I told you, Raven. You are going to stay here with your Nana until we come back from work. If things go well, we won’t go out of town on a case today.”

- “Things are going to go well.”- Mom pointed out, but I guess neither of us was paying attention to her. I kissed Raven’s forehead one more time and sighed.

- “I love you, birdie. Be good with Nana, ok?”

- “She is three months old. She can’t be naughty.”- Mom added, chortling.

- “She can. Trust me.”- I turned to her and shook my head.

- “Ok kids, you are running late. Give me my granddaughter.”- Mom stood next to us and reached out her arms to grab Raven. But Spencer didn’t move. He held our baby closer to his chest and sighed, staring at her big, brown eyes.

- “I love you so much.”- he whispered against her forehead as he kissed her carefully.- “Dad will be thinking of you all day long.”

It melted my heart to watch him being so loving and sweet with our baby girl. I always knew he was going to be a good dad, but watching him in action was a completely different thing. It was heartwarming and heartbreaking at the same time. I knew he didn’t want to leave her alone, because of course, neither did I. But we had to.

Mom walked to him and literally took Raven from his hands. Spencer looked at her and frowned, ready to argue. But stopped himself in his tracks. He knew he had to let her go that morning, even when it hurt.

- “We are going to be fine.”- mom assured us with a big smile. - “I’ll call you at noon, and you can text me whenever you want. Now go there and be heroes. Make your baby proud.”

And I guess, that’s something Spencer loves doing, ‘cos after he kissed Raven one last time, he held my hand and headed to the door.

- “Did you realize this is the longest we’ve been alone in over three months?”- I said as I sipped my coffee, and watched Spencer smiling as he drove us to work.

- “I know. It’s weird.”- he replied and chuckled. - “We should get more mommy and daddy alone time.”- I raised an eyebrow as I heard those words and opened my mouth to tease him about his kinks, but the phone interrupted me and made me skip a bit.

- “Is it your mom?”- Spencer asked right away.

- “No, it’s Garcia. Hey Pen, what is it?”

- “Are you guys coming?”- she asked right away.

- “Yeah, we just got late waiting for my mom, ‘cos she is staying with Raven. Why? Do we have a case?”

- “No, I’m just making sure you two are coming today. We miss you.”- I giggled and shook my head, though I knew Penelope couldn’t see me.

- “We’ll be there in ten.”

- “Everything ok?”- my husband asked. - “Do we have to go straight to the jet?”

- “No, she was just anxious to know if we were coming.”

- “I hope she baked us cupcakes.”

- “I’m sure she did.”- I replied and rubbed his leg with my left hand as he drove. We hummed to the song on the radio, the first non-kid song we had heard in weeks, and we drank our mugs of coffee as we got to work.

- “I miss her already.”- I whispered after a few minutes of silence.

- “I didn’t want to tell you, but I miss her too.”- Spencer replied and we both sighed.

- “But she is going to be ok.”- I assured her- “Mom is a pro.”

- “Yeah, I know. I’m glad Sofia can help us, otherwise, I would have lost my mind. I could never leave her at daycare. I would have rather taken her to the BAU with us than leave her with strangers.”

- “You know we will have to send her to school eventually.”- I teased Spencer and tried not to laugh as he parked in our old parking spot at work and neither of us moved for a few seconds.

- “I know she will eventually have to go to school, but I am not ready to think of that today.”- my husband whispered. I looked at him and nodded, holding his hand.

- “One day at a time.”- I replied and cut him a smile.

- “One day at a time.”- he repeated and leaned in to crush his mouth on mine. His kiss was sweet and slow, he took his time, rubbing his lips against mine and tasting me.

- “Come on kid!!”- and of course, Morgan had to ruin it all. - “Let the lady go and get to work!”- he teased as he knocked on our window, nearly killing us with a heart attack.

- “We hadn’t had a minute alone since Raven was born, and you had to interrupt us!”- I argued as soon as I stepped out of the car. Derek chuckled and opened his arms, giving me a triple hug before I could continue talking.

- “I missed you, pretty girl. How is my baby girl?”

- “She is so big! She started grabbing everything and putting it in her mouth. She is so cute!”- I quickly replied and nearly took my phone to show him the million pictures we had. But I stopped on time. I had promised myself I wasn’t going to be that kind of mom, pushing their baby pictures on everybody’s face. I always hated that, and I didn’t want people to hate me as well. At that minute, all I really wanted was to come back to work and find everything just as we had left it.

Of course, it wasn’t. The only constant at the BAU, I guess, was change.

Garcia was, in fact, waiting for us with homemade cupcakes and cookies. That was the sweet part of our morning. Then came the meeting with Hotch, to catch up with everything that had happened when we had been away. He told us about Alex Blake’s departure, how she had quit the FBI and decided to move to Boston, with her husband, and teach full-time. We both knew it, she had called us to deliver the news before leaving, and though we invited her over, I knew it was too much for her to see Spencer again. She had developed a motherly bond with him, and watching him get hurt had pulled a string in her. One she didn’t want to relive. I guess some wounds are not meant to heal. The BAU can cause you that.

- “And are we getting a new teammate?”- I asked Hotch, and he nodded immediately.

- “Yes, but so far I’ve interviewed nine people, and I still haven’t found the right one.”

- “Nine? Have you tried with someone we know? Maybe bringing back Emily.”- Spencer suggested, reading my mind.

- “I already tried, she is not interested at the moment. But if things go well tomorrow, we might get a new member. Despite all that, today you just have to worry about catching up with work. You’ve been out for a long while, and we needed you back.”

- “We are ready.”- I replied and stood up from my chair right away. - “Anything else, sir?”

- “I just wanted to make it clear I can’t keep any of you in Quantico anymore. You’ll have to start traveling to the cases with us. Are you both ready for that?”

I knew neither of us wanted to do it, but we had to. It was our job, and we had to do it. So we agreed, stood up, and walked back to our desks.

- “We missed you here.”- JJ said from her desk and smiled at us. - “It was too quiet without your facts, Spence.”

- “It’s nice coming back.”- my husband replied with a warm smile. I looked at him and sighed at the sight of the pictures on his desk. He had three family pictures framed, one from our wedding, one from our first Comic Con together a million years ago, and one with Raven. Our first picture as a family. My phone hummed and a picture of mom and Raven playing made my day. So I walked to my husband and interrupted whatever he was talking about with JJ to show him the picture. He smiled and chuckled, pleased to see our baby girl was having a good time with her grandma.

Spencer’s point of view

Going back to work after Raven was born was a mistake. Now that I see it in retrospect, that was the moment we should have stopped. I could have started teaching full-time, like (Y/N) wanted me to do. And she would have finished her Ph.D. and might even have taught with me. We could have had a different life. More calm, at home. We wouldn’t have missed all the important moments in Raven’s life like we did. We would have been there when she needed us.

We wouldn't have ended as wounded as we did. With more emotional scars than we could ever deal with. On the bright side, at least we are still together. Despite the hell we went through.

The newest team member was Kate Callahan. We had seen her around in some FBI get-togethers like the time we all did karaoke at Rossi’s favorite bar. (Y/N) remembered that when we bumped into her the following morning, at the elevator.

- “You were singing karaoke at the Benjamin the night it closed.”- (Y/N) pointed out as the three of us shared the elevator on our way to the 6th floor. That’s how I guessed Hotch was about to interview her for the position.

- “I was! Good memory.”- Kate smiled at us and added - “Billy Joel might have died a little that night.”

- “Sadly he was not the only one.”- I replied and chuckled. - “He got the team started, but we went on to do a six-song set.”

- “The 80s took a fatal hit if I remember correctly.”- Kate said, chuckling along with my wife, and somehow I realized Kate would make an amazing match with ma cherie. They shared a very similar sarcastic sense of humor.

- “Have you seen the place that took over?”- she asked us and both of us shook our heads at the same time. Since we had turned into parents, our social life was basically nonexistent. - “It's like techno and twerking.”

- “It's not really my crowd.”- I replied and Kate turned to me immediately, shocked by my answer.

- “What? You don't twerk?”- I frowned and shook my head, somehow embarrassed by my own answer. Meanwhile, my wife had to cover her mouth so as not to laugh in my face.

- “I was... I was kidding.”- Kate explained, surprised I hadn’t got it. - “I don't twerk.”

- “Neither do we, don't worry”- my wife added and chuckled. The three of us walked out of the elevator and I hurried to open the door for Kate and my wife.

- “Ah. A gentleman and a scholar.”- Callahan pointed out and I just smiled.

- “Agent Hotchner's office is the first one at the top of the stairs.”- I said and though she looked at me confused I knew why she was there, she just thanked me and walked away.

- “Good luck!”- (Y/N) said and smiled at her. Kate nodded and disappeared.

- “We have to schedule Raven’s next pediatrician appointment.”- I said, leaving my things on my desk and turning to look at my wife, who just nodded. - “I’ll call the doctor's office at lunchtime, ok?”-I wrote it down though I knew I wasn’t going to forget it. (Y/N) simply stared at me and sighed.

- “Let’s pray we are in town to take Raven to that appointment. I don’t wanna miss it.”- I was about to tell my wife we couldn’t foresee how things would go in the BAU when Rossi, JJ, Penelope, and Derek walked into the bullpen, all of them talking at the same time.

- “Hotch talked to Emily.”- JJ announced and I turned to my wife knowing Em wasn’t planning on returning to the team.

- “And?”- Garcia was clearly excited by what she had just heard.

- “She just doesn't want to come back.”- Rossi killed all her hopes with just one sentence. I took a few steps closer to the team as I heard Pen arguing with David’s words.

- “Why? She loves us!”

- “For what it's worth, Hotch is interviewing someone we've met before.”- I announced and (Y/N) nodded.

- “He is?”- JJ asked right away and everybody turned to Hotch’s office to try to catch a glimpse of the candidate.

- “Yes. And it’s someone we actually like”- (Y/N) added from her desk. I turned to her and she smiled back.

- “How many candidates is that now?”- Derek asked

- “This one makes lucky number 10.”- Rossi announced and my Garcia turned to him shocked.

- “Ten candidates? Are you for real? And no one ever mentioned that? See, this is what happens when I don't sleep. I miss things.”- Pen whispered and I wondered why she wasn't sleeping well. But I didn’t get to ask, she just continued talking. - “Now can someone tell me who this person is? Are they nice? Why is that the first question I always ask?”

Pen started rambling as my wife explained we had bumped into agent Callahan on the way over. All of our friends nodded as she told us what had happened until JJ mentioned the one fact I wished we all could have forgotten.

- “Didn’t she use to work with Seaver? At Andy Swan’s Unit?”

- “What?”- (Y/N) asked as her face fell- “She is Seaver’s friend?”

- “You know, pretty girl, that simple fact doesn’t mean she has to be your enemy.”- Derek explained with a silly grin on his face. (Y/N) just turned to him and raised an eyebrow.

- “Of course, it doesn’t”.- she whispered and made a short pause before she added - “But did you just meet me or what?”- I looked at my wife and raised an eyebrow. She just smiled and shook her head.

- “You already liked her, face it.”- I whispered and (Y/N) sighed.

- “Yeah… but what if Seaver talked shit about me ‘cos I was mean to her when she was part of the team.”

- “Then she wouldn’t be lying.”- JJ replied and my wife glared at her immediately- “What? you know you weren’t nice.”

- “I know that, but you weren’t here to witness the whole deal, so you don’t know the whole story.”- the way (Y/N) nearly spat those words on JJ’s face left me speechless. And JJ didn’t know how to react either. So she just turned around and looked at me, shocked.

- “Come on, don’t argue.”- Pen said and stood between JJ and my wife. - “We have to stay together, we are a team, and we might be getting a new member.”- her cell phone finished her speech and her face went pale in a second.

- “What is it?”- Rossi asked, noticing her change.

- “The Bakersfield’s unsub killed again.”- she mumbled and started walking, she had to tell Hotch.

I looked at (Y/N) and she sighed. She knew she had been rude to JJ, though her comment hadn’t been the best either.

- “I’m sorry I snapped”- (Y/N) said and cut JJ a short smile. She was being honest, and I knew it was hard for her to deal with apologies.

- “I’m sorry too, I know it was a hard moment for you… I shouldn’t have said that.”- JJ rubbed her arms as she stared at my wife, and the two of them nodded.

- “Come on, we have a case.”- Rossi said and started walking to the briefing room, I waited for (Y/N) to grab her things and followed her.

- “Everyone, this is SSA Kate Callahan from Andy Swan's unit. She'll be joining the team.”- Hotch announced as soon as he walked into the room with Callahan, who waved at us with a grin.

- “Congratulations.”- I smiled at her as she sat at the other side of the table.

- “How are Andy and Seaver doing?”- Morgan asked her.

- “Oh, they're great and they say hello. They told me a lot about all of you.”- Kate said with a cheerful voice, and the entire team stared at my wife, who just nodded at Callahan with a warm smile, ignoring them. They weren't being subtle at all, and (Y/N) knew it.

- “We can get started.”- Hotch said and Pen started presenting the case.

(Y/N)’s point of view

It was sad knowing Prentiss didn’t want to come back to the team. I knew she loved her job at Interpol, but I always hoped one day she’d return to us. I was also feeling weird about JJ. I didn’t have any logical reason to snap at her the way I did, but something inside of me felt uneasy about her. However, she was my friend, so I did my best to put that feeling aside and be nicer to her. I know when I’m upset I can be incredibly hurtful, and that’s no way to treat a friend.

I called my mom as we gathered our things to get to the plane and announced to her we were heading to California.

- “We have been consulting on this case, and this guy just dumped the third body, so we are heading over right now.”- I explained as I grabbed my casefile, purse and looked at Spencer.

- “Take care, peanut. I will keep you posted on this beautiful baby girl.”- mom said and I heard her kissing my daughter’s cheeks.

- “Thank you, mom. I love you.”- I sighed after I hung up and shook my head. - “I hate leaving her behind.”

- “I know. Me too.”- Spencer whispered and held my hand- “Let’s hope we catch this guy fast.”

That day, Hotch paired me with Rossi and Kate. And guess what? I enjoyed it more than I imagined I would, considering we were trying to catch a serial killer. But Callahan was a great addition to the team. She was fun witty and incredibly smart. She had amazing comebacks to any random comment I would make. Three hours in the field and we were besties already. That made me feel more confident about anything that Seaver might have said to her about me.

We were back at the police station. Spencer was working on the geographic profile and Garcia was on the phone from Virginia, updating us on the number of websites that she found on the deep web where our suspect got to buy limbs from the victims. He wasn’t the unsub we were looking for, just… a weirdo with a problem. At least we already had a profile, and it felt like we were a little closer to catching our guy.

- “You'd think after 10 years I'd seen it all.”- Garcia sighed through the line. I knew she was definitely shocked by what she had found on those sites. It was sick, to be honest.

- “How many sites are there, mama?”- Derek asked her as I stared at the board my husband was working on. I was sitting at the other side of the table, next to Kate, going through the case file again.

- “Hundreds. And that gem of a fellow you've got in custody has looked at all of them at one time or another.”- Garcia explained.

- “I’m guessing there is no lead to get our unsub, right?”- I asked her and Pen automatically explained there wasn’t.

- “Anonymity is huge for these sites. They use a Tor network, which is an onion router. The point is, you're not gonna be able to find anyone this way. Do you know there are actual variations on a disarticulation fetish?”- my friend sighed at the other side of the line and whispered. - “I need baby kitten pics asap.”

- “Oh! Have you seen the hippo who lives with the family?”- Kate asked out of the blue, and I turned to her confused.

- “What?”- Garcia asked right away.

- “Sleeps with a blanket, gets massages, eats better than I do.”- Kate explained and looked at me nodding.

- “Where is that?”- Pen questioned and I could almost picture her face as she googled it.

- “South Africa. It's amazing.”- Kate explained. Morgan and Spencer turned to us and raised an eyebrow as Garcia got hyperventilated at the other side of the line and continued talking.

- “Trust me, I have an arsenal of cuteness. Have you seen the one with the baby elephant…”

- “Oh, with the baby chicks?”- Kate interrupted her, excited as well

- “Yes, I love that one!”

- “I love the one with the kitten cuddling with a baby, it’s so cute!”- I added and both Kate and Pen agreed with me, very enthusiastically. - "I keep telling Spencer we should get a kitten for Raven to grow up with, but he is..."

- “Uh, hey, you guys?”- Spencer looked at us from the board and I nodded.

- “Sorry. Sorry.”- the three of us said at the same time as my husband took us all back to work.

- “The most recent victim was taken from Riverside.”- he pointed out. - “That's more than 2 1/2 hours away from here.”

- “So his comfort zone isn't limited to here.”- Morgan added.

- “That's not good. He's got a lot more confidence than we thought.”- Kate said as I nodded.

- “Yeah, but this area has to mean something to him.”- I pointed out and Morgan supported my words.

- “Yes, he's leaving vics here, so he must have some connection to Bakersfield.”

- “The M.E. says he's gotten better at ligating each victim, which means he may have had practice.”- Spencer pointed out as he walked closer to the table and stood next to me.

- “On what?”- Morgan asked

- “We didn't originally profile him as an acrotomophile, but that sort of attraction typically has deep roots in childhood.”- my husband added.

- “That makes sense, maybe growing up he was constantly around dead bodies. Maybe his family had a funeral home.”- I said and my husband nodded at my words.

- “Exactly, it wasn't that big of a leap for him.”- Kate added, supporting my thoughts.

- “It could be. We know he wasn't social enough to continue the family tradition, so maybe he found work in a morgue or a hospital.”- Morgan pointed out.

- “When you say work…”- Garcia asked right away.

- “Security guard, janitor, anything entry level.”- I explained to her and heard her typing as I spoke.

- “Uh, the UC system has a medical facility in Bakersfield.”- she announced in a few seconds.

- “Anyone fired recently?”- Spencer asked him.

- “No, but there's an anatomy Professor on sabbatical.”

- “What's his name?” I asked and grabbed a pen right away.

- “Dylan Myers.”

The team went to the suspect’s house and left me and Spencer at the police station. I wasn’t complaining that time, I didn’t want to go. A part of my brain was relieved neither of us was in danger during that case. I wanted to go back home and hold my baby, hopefully, that very same night.

That last part was probably not going to happen when we got a call from Hotch, telling us the unsub wasn’t there. So the search for a secondary location started. However, Garcia had nothing on the guy, and the search was turning incredibly frustrating.

I was at the kitchenette in the police station, pouring a fresh cup of coffee for Spencer. He was a few feet away from me, reading the M.E. reports one more time. That was when I saw him reach the bullet scar on his neck and rub it. He would do it from time to time, I was sure it hurt, though he always denied it. Surely, he didn’t want to worry me. But nevertheless, I was worried. The fear of getting hurt or even worse had always been at the back of my brain, since I joined the BAU. But now that I was a mother, facing my own mortality was harder than ever.

- “Kid? Are you ok?”- I heard Morgan ask my husband as he walked into the room. I grabbed the cup I had poured for Spencer and headed in their direction.

- “Yeah. You?”- he replied, pretending nothing was bothering him. And Derek acted like he didn’t notice. A dangerous game to play at the BAU, if you ask me.

- “Just tired.”

- “Here hon.”- I gave my husband his cup of coffee and he sat straight on his chair right away, acting as if he wasn’t in pain at all. That was still upsetting to me, knowing Spencer wouldn’t be honest about those tiny things because he still wanted to protect me.

- “Dr. Lee sent this over. The most recent victim had more than just leather particulates in her stomach.”- Spencer explained to Morgan as I sat next to him and went through the file again. - “She chewed through it, leaving entire chunks behind. She also found traces of horse hair. He's using a bridle.”

- “This guy could have used anything. Why that?”- Morgan questioned and Spencer tried to get an answer.

- “It's either specific to his fantasy or something he had easy access to.”

- “How many horse ranches are around here?”- Derek asked my husband, but before he could reply, I said:

- “One hundred and thirty-four.”- Morgan frowned and turned to me as Spencer smiled and looked at the M.E report in his hands.

- “You are spending too much time with your husband, I’m gonna ask Hotch to pair us together instead.”- the phone interrupted our conversation, and speak of the devil, it was Hotch, with shocking news. Our suspect David Myers wasn’t actually the unsub, but his first victim and the killer had framed him.

- “That’s what I call a plot twist”- I whispered as I heard Hotch’s explanation.

- “He took out a lot of rage on this man for a reason.”- our Unit Chief added.

- “Maybe this Dylan Myers stood in the way of the unsub's true object of affection.”- Spencer suggested.

- “Well, it makes sense since we thought the first and second victims were connected.”- I added, but Spencer quickly shook his head.

- “Only Dylan Myers was single.”

- “Garcia, was Dylan Myers dating anyone?”- Hotch asked at the other side of the line.

- “He was a bit of a hermit, and like I said, zero social media skills. Did go old school with a landline. Tracking his frequently called numbers. He called a young woman named Christine Locke several times. She's a former student, lives in Bakersfield.”- Garcia made a pause and somehow, we all knew exactly what she was going to say next. - “And she's missing. Sending you her picture now.”

We stared at our cell phone’s screen and watched the image of a young blond girl appear in front of us.

- “She looks like the second victim.”- I whispered and looked at my husband for a moment, he was frowning, trying to connect the dots in this crime. If you ask me, he was desperate to crack it and go back home.

- “Did she have a restraining order out on anyone?”- Hotch asked.

- “Checking now.”- Garcia replied and typed as fast as she could. - “Uh, yes. She filed for and was granted a restraining order on August 6 from Steven Parkett.”

- “And where is he?”- I asked quickly, and Pen answered in a second.

- “Probably on his way to hell in a handbasket, munchkin. He was raised and lives at a cattle ranch and slaughterhouse in Bishopville just outside of Bakersfield. Sending you the coordinates now.”

The team got the killer, and before we knew it, we were on the plane, on our way back home. JJ and Morgan welcomed Kate with a long speech about their battle scars, that made me chuckle from the other side of the plane, at least the few minutes it lasted, ‘cos soon everybody around me was snoring. Everyone but me. Somehow I couldn’t close my eyes. I was too excited about going back home and holding my daughter in my arms. So I stood up carefully, trying not to wake Spencer, who was softly snoring next to me, and walked to the kitchenette to make myself a cup of tea.

The water hadn’t boiled yet when Kate appeared next to me, and cut me a short smile, clearly still half asleep.

- “Is there enough water in that pot for another tea?”- she whispered and I chuckled.

- “The correct question would be: is there enough tea in this plane to keep you awake?”- I answered and Kate Callahan laughed under her breath, trying not to wake any of our teammates.

- “Pick your favorite.”- I whispered and handed her a box with different kinds of teas- “If you need help, I can tell you my favorite pick to keep me awake during trips is Earl Gray.”

- “Earl Gray it is.”- she grabbed one bag and put it in an empty mug. We both stayed quiet for a few minutes. It wasn’t uncomfortable, just a little weird. We hadn’t actually been alone since we met, technically 48 hours earlier.

- “So why don’t you wanna sleep?”- I finally asked her, pouring the hot boiling water in her cup.

- “I can’t stop thinking about the case.”- she simply replied and smiled at me.- “How do you deal with catching a different serial killer every week and not… taking it with you?”

- “That’s a good question. I don’t know how we do it, actually.”- I answered and grabbed my cup with both hands, feeling the warmth against my cold skin right away.

- “Seaver told me a lot about the team when she transferred.”

And there it was, the pink elephant in the room. I bit my lips and looked at Kate, waiting for a snarky comment, a complaint, maybe a threat not to be mean to her. But no. That’s not what happened. Instead, Kate smiled at me and whispered.

- “She said everybody on the team taught her a lot and made her a better agent. Especially you and Prentiss.”

- “Me?”- I didn’t even try to mask how shocked I was by that confession. It made no sense. Yes, at the end Seaver and I were on better terms, but she wasn’t my friend. She wasn’t even invited to our wedding. And, like JJ had pointed out a few days earlier in the worst way possible, I hadn’t been nice at Seaver.

- “Yeah, she said you two had a rocky start, but that you were an incredible agent, and that she put to use everything you taught her.”- I raised an eyebrow and waited for the “but” to come any second.

But it never came.

- “I don’t know if Ashley actually meant it.”- I finally confessed and sipped my tea - “I was very mean to her when she joined the team. We had… considerable issues.”

- “Whatever it was, you two managed to work together no matter what, and you really taught her a lot. She was very proud to have worked alongside you and agent Prentiss.”- I tried to read Kate, try to find any trace of deceit, irony, or any lead that showed me she was lying. But there was nothing. Was I losing my profiler’s touch? Or was she actually being honest?

- “Wow.”- that was all I managed to say. - “I’m glad we were a good school for her.”

- “You definitely were. She said it was the first time she actually managed to skip her father’s stigma and be herself.”- I sipped my cup and nodded. On that very same plane, I had yelled at Ashley about how her father had killed my aunt. It felt like ages ago. In another life.

- “So, how long have you and Spencer been together?”- Kate asked after a few seconds. I smiled and whispered.

- “It’s gonna be three years already since we got married, and four since we started dating.”

- “You didn’t wait long to tie the knot!”- she replied, shocked, and raised an eyebrow.

- “It might sound weird, but most people thought it took us too long.”- it was funny looking back now, but god! It had been a long journey.

- “Really? Why?”

- “‘Cos we were in love for four years and a half and none of us said a word about our feelings.”- I confessed and giggled. Kate wide opened her eyes, shocked.

- “You what?!”

- “Yeah! We wasted four years in love with each other ‘cos we were both terrified to deal with our feelings.”

- “Oh my god! That’s… like a rom-com!”- Callahan chuckled and I smiled, thinking it was funny now, but back when Ashley was in the team, it was the closest I had ever been to hell on earth.

- “Yeah, that’s why after we started dating, we decided to get married very soon, and no one was actually shocked by that.”

- “And do you have kids?”- Kate asked, and I had to do my best effort not to jump with excitement when I started talking about our daughter.

- “One daughter, Raven Marie. She is three months and a half.”- I made my best effort not to be the kind of mom I always made fun of, showing pictures of their babies to anyone they could. Until I heard Kate ask the questions:

- “Do you have pictures?”- and I know I grinned like a maniac, grabbing my phone.

- “I have so many!”

For the rest of the trip, Callahan and I stayed in the kitchenette of the plane, drinking tea and chatting. She told me she didn’t have kids of her own yet, but that she and her husband were guardians of her little niece “Meg” after her sister died. I didn’t ask much about it 'cause it was clearly a sensitive subject, but she did tell me a lot about Meg. She was thirteen already, which gave me a glimpse of what raising a teenager meant. And it sounded creepy.

That morning we reached home and found my mom walking in the living room with baby Raven. I nearly ran to her and held her in my arms. Me and Spencer kissed her chubby cheeks and somehow, I felt at peace. That’s a feeling I only get when we are all together, at home. A feeling that’s very elusive when you are an SSA.

Previous chapter | Next chapter (post date: September 25th)

#spencer reid #criminal minds #babymetaldoll writes #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid fanfiction #criminal minds fanfiction #spencer reid fluff #spencer reid x you #criminal minds fix it

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jqmalikhsgib · 6 months

Text

beauty and the freak

three

you were pissed! the moment you heard the news about your mom moving into the house right across the street from you. you knew she only did that to piss your father off.

it angered you to your core! who the hell does she think she is?! your dad tried to keep you from blowing a fuse, but it was too late.

by the time eddie arrived to pick you up, you went off, cursing, yelling, and screaming. Eddie’s just hummed along. he was use to you constantly going on about how much distain you have for your mother.

“eddie?! are you even listening to me?”

“im sorry sweetheart, but is it such a bad thing she lives right across the street? its not like you have to see her everyday. im sure she’ll be in her own little bubble just like before.”

you scoffed. “that’s not the point edward!”

eddie sighs. “what is the point baby?”

you didn’t know what to say. mostly because you didn’t know why you were so angry by this. but eddie was suppose to just understand.

“as my boyfriend you’d think you would give a fuck about how i feel.” you roll your eyes.

eddie sighs once more. he really didn’t have the energy to argue with you.

“edward!”

“hey! i understand you have this huge issue with your mom, i do! but you do not talk to me like that. do you understand?!”

you huffed and folded your arms while looking out the window right when eddie parks.

he grabs your face a little roughly. you looked into his eyes before he speaks. “do you understand?!”

“yes, sir.”

“now, may we please have somewhat of a decent day? i canceled dnd tonight to watch my girl cheer today.”

you had been begging him to come see you from the moment the two of you started dating. unfortunately he had a dnd game every friday as well. he refused to cancel it simply because, just like cheer is important to you, dungeons and dragons is important to him.

this week was a very convenient one for him to cancel. gareth was grounded, mike and dustins family was going to visit their friend will, and lucas joined said basketball team, so he figured he might as well cancel tonight’s events.

“really?!”

eddie smirks. “yeah!”

you squealed before hugging him tightly. “you’re gonna enjoy it, i promise.”

“doubt it. couldn’t care less about basketball. but i do like that short little skirt you have to wear.” eddie smirks.

you playfully roll your eyes as eddie gets out of his van and goes to open the door for you. the two of you walk hand and hand, all eyes on you. people still didn’t get the appeal of eddie munson, but you couldn’t give three fucks.

your relationship with eddie was amazing. he treated you like the queen you are. no one else’s opinions mattered.

a few of your friends actually loved eddie once they got to know him. he was funny and charming so they understood. others, not so much.

“yn?!”

your turned and saw your best friend, ariana. “what’s up?”

“did you hear about what happened last night? apparently jason cheated on chrissy again, but she caught him in the act.”

“it was about time. we kept telling her he’s no good.”

“yeah, but that’s not the worst part. she forgave him instantly! he kept apologizing to her all night and she made him promise he’d never do it again.”

“she can’t be that dumb?!”

eddie was already over this conversation. not giving a single fuck about jason fucking carver.

“im gonna go find the guys. see you later, baby.” eddie kisses you passionately before walking away.

“god! you’re so lucky. eddie is literally the perfect man.”

you honestly couldn’t argue with that. eddie was the perfect man! and if this closed minded, dumb fucked town actually got to know the metal head, they’d realize he was the sweetest man on the planet. you were so sick of them judging eddie simply because he liked listening to heavy metal and playing a fantasy game.

eddie made you the happiest. no boyfriend before him has ever treated you the way he did. eddie was the kind of boyfriend to buy you flowers every date, run to the store to buy you pads or tampons when needed, cuddle you whenever you just needed someone to hold, listen to anything and everything you had to say, gives you random forehead kisses, and so much more. he was perfect in your eyes.

not to mention, the only man who could put you in your place. eddie was a very dominant man when it came to the bedroom. it’s something you lacked in the past. most guys just want to get off! they couldn’t care less about your needs. eddie, eddie made sure you came at least once before he fucked you into oblivion.

“i know! god, ari! he’s so romantic! just last night he took me out to this fancy ass restaurant outside of hawkins. he bought me my favorite flowers and spoiled me with anything i wanted! i don’t understand how i got so lucky with him. it still baffles me.” you slowly shake your head as you looked over and spot eddie talking to his group of friends.

“please find me an eddie, girl!”

“his best friend gareth is single!”

“the one with the short hair? he’s cute!”

“mhm! he’s still very skeptical of me. but i can ask eddie to talk to him for you. im sure he’d finally give me the green light as well. so far ive only been able to win dustin over.” you sigh.

it was hard on your relationship with eddie. you wanted—no, needed his friends to like you! you weren’t going anywhere, you let eddie know that the moment you took interest in him. he knew that of course! but his friends would still put things into his head. calling you suspicious, saying girls like you don’t date guys like them, saying you’re using him, calling it a bet like you’re in so basic ass rom-com! it hurt. you love eddie with your whole heart. sure, the two of you were young, but you knew eddie was your person. you wanted to marry him someday and have as many little munsons ruling the world in the future! but winning the friends over was a must! and you’d do anything and everything to try and prove to them you’re not going anywhere.

“set it up! we can double date.”

“texting eddie now,” the first bell rung. you say goodbye to ari as eddie walks over to you and walks you to your first class of the day.

taglist: @lov3withurgency @sunshineandwitchery @melaninjhs @baileebear @am0iur @lovesanimals0000 @pipsqueakkitten @paygurlxoxo @peachy4u2

if anyone else wants to be added to the taglist please kindly let me know <3

#eddie munson x fem!reader #eddie munson x black!reader #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x fem reader #eddie munson x reader fluff #eddie munson x yn #eddie stranger things #eddie munson #eddie munson x reader smut #eddie munson x you #jqhotchner #beauty and the freak jqhotchner

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darling-i-read-it · 2 years

Text

Arcade Lovers

Steve Harrington x fem!Henderson!reader

Word Count: 3.5k

Warnings: talks of shotgunning a beer, references to Mews death :(, flufff

Author’s Note: This is a rewrite of a fic with the same name from ages ago. Steven <3 I cannot WAIT to do a billy one you guys aren’t ready lol. Enjoy!

Original request: by @yumyumbicth, Hey! I read Sparks Fly and I loved it! Could you possibly do a one shot where Steve is pining after Dustin's sister and Dustin says the "Don't worry, she likes your butt and fancy hair. I read it in her diary" Thing from Lilo and Stitch? I think it would be really cute and funny

Song: lips like sugar by echo and the bunnymen

(not my gif)

Steve and Dustin were unlikely duos. They never would’ve been caught up in the same area if you hadn’t been out of town for one week when the Upside Down decided to come back to life. When you left Hawkins El was dead and when you came back she was alive. Dustin caught you up the second you got home but half way through his explanation there was a knock on the front door.

Steve Harrington was on the other side.

“Steve?” you said, a glimmer of suspiciousness in your eyes. You knew of Steve. You had maybe spoken to him once but you had never been friends. You were in different crowds.

“She came back!” Steve exclaimed to Dustin who was behind you.

“Just an hour ago!” your brother explained. “I was just telling her everything that happened while she was gone.”

“She knows?”

“She helped with the whole thing at the beginning. You don’t remember her and Nancy were friends?” Steve shook his head, though there was a deeper emotional problem with that time.

“But I was there at the end,” Steve argued. “I hit the demogorgon with the baseball bat.” Your eyes went wide. You hadn’t heard about that. Granted, no one really talked about that time. Nancy only spoke on it when she was feeling particularly sad about Barb. She did not miss what she had with Steve. She always missed what she had with Barb.

“She was with us at the school,” Dustin explained.

“With El and Hopper and Joyce. Etc,” you said.

“I hadn’t gotten to your part in the recent story,” Dustin said.

“I thought I was taking you to the arcade?” Steve said, confused. You raised an eyebrow. Steve was taking Dustin to the arcade now?

“That was the plan but I didn’t know she was coming home today.”

“Pretty sure it’s on the calendar,” you suggested but Dustin ignored you. You pressed on. “What happened between the two of you?”

Steve let out a sigh of exhaustion. You could tell he wanted to explain it all to you though. Steve struck you as the kind of guy who liked to brag about his experiences, though at this particular moment you actually wanted to listen.

“We have chips,” Dustin said, as an offering to his older friend. Steve shrugged.

“I don’t have anything else planned.”

He walked into the home and sat down on the couch where you and Dustin had been talking.

“Where was I?” Dustin questioned, using his D&D voice. You went into the kitchen, grabbing some pop and different bags of chips. “So Dart had just taken out Mews,” Dustin started as you threw Steve some soda. He caught it with ease. You tried not to be attracted to the small act.

“Still can’t believe it,” you grumbled. You were trying not to think about Mews. “This is why mom says you can’t have any pets. They’ll kill the cats.” Steve nodded, opening up the soda can. He looked at your unopened one.

“Can you shotgun that?” It was a coke. You raised an eyebrow. Dustin didn’t stop talking.

“Maybe,” you trailed off.

“Literally catching up on life changing events here!” Dustin said, waving his hand in front of you.

“It’s a soda, Steve.” He nodded once. You could tell he swallowed hard. You smiled a bit, confused but not deterred Steve’s eyes remained on you.

“You’re starring,” Dustin deadpanned. Steve hit your shoulder, much to your surprise.

“There was a bug.” Dustin tried not to laugh. He was a really bad liar. You turned back to Dustin.

“Rest in Peace Mews. Go on Dusty.”

You appreciated Steve. You liked that you didn’t have to drive your little brother everywhere because now Steve would do it. You liked that it seemed like Nancy breaking his heart had softened him. He knew what he had done wrong and he was looking to fix it.

You liked that he could always be an unpaid babysitter.

You liked that he had protected the kids when you couldn’t.

You vowed never to leave that long again.

“There are too many bikes,” Steve admitted. You nodded, looking at the bikes that were strewed along the front lawn of your house. A few were propped up properly but two were just dropped. You recognized Max’s and Mike’s on the ground.

“You can come back here and they can get their bikes,” you offered.

“It’ll be cold and dark by the time we get back.”

Steve was taking the kids out to the arcade. Billy usually took Max but she had wiggled away today. This meant there were now six children he had to take. His car held five and only two bikes. You had your moms van she had bought when Dustin was born. It was soccer mom large.

“I didn’t offer to give up my afternoon Steve.”

“I know you didn’t.” His words seemed forgiving but his voice betrayed him. He wanted you to take them. Did he want help wrangling them together? Did he want you to just take all of them?

Did he want to hang out with you?

You pursed your lips.

“Fine. But you’re buying.” You ignored the charming smile that reached his lips and turned around. “I’ll go get them.”

You walked up the stairs, opening up Dustin’s bedroom door without knocking. Mike was sitting on the bed beside Will and Max and El were on the ground. Lucas stood in front of the girl, holding one of Dustin’s figures.

“Let’s go. Where’s Dustin?” It was like you had frozen them all with magic. Their voices trailed off. “Where’s Dustin?” There was movement coming from the room next door. Your room. You cursed under your breath and opened up the door with aggression. Dustin was sitting on your bed, your diary open wide in front of him. His eyes went wide when he saw you and he quickly tried to shove it back into your dresser drawer. “You little shit.”

“There’s some juicy stuff in there!” he exclaimed, getting up to back away from you into the corner. You picked up the pillow at the end of your bed and threw it at him, narrowly missing. You climbed over the sheets and picked up whatever you could get your hands on.

“Get out of my room!” Dustin went to rush away when he ran right into Steve who was in the doorframe. Steve grabbed your brother by the shoulders, confused. Dustin ran past him, pushing him aside. With wide eyes Steve’s gaze landed on you.

“He was going through my diary,” you seethed.

“Isn’t that what brothers are for?”

“You’re an only child Harrington.” You threw a pillow weakly at him too. He caught it. “He’s riding with you.”

Steve knocked on the door one sunny afternoon hoping you would answer. He wasn’t sure when he had started hoping it was you instead of Dustin. It was a subtle desire at first, like a smile reserved for the times you greeted him. He was always excited to talk to you. If he was being honest, despite you and Steve being in the same grade he had never noticed you around school. Now you wouldn’t leave his head. He offered taking everyone anywhere now because he knew he would get to see you.

When Dustin opened the door he let out a sigh.

“I told you that my sister was taking me today,” he said, suspiciously. Dustin had always kind of seen what was going on between you and Steve. It was natural and it was a given. You couldn’t hang out that much and not love each other in some way. He also thought it was hilarious neither of you had made a move yet. From what Steve told him, he was pretty used to making the first move and Dustin knew he had no problem being rejected.

This was like Dustin’s own little experiment. How long could you last without caving in or losing interest? His hypothesis was, not much longer.

“Oh man I must have gotten my dates mixed up. Well I have nothing else going on.” Steve walked through the door uninvited. You were sitting in the living room when your eyes flicked up to him.

“You’re not scheduled for today,” you observed.

“Do we have a schedule I haven’t seen?”

“I told him you were taking me,” Dustin admitted, shutting the door behind him. You and Steve stared at each other for a moment.

“I can take him,” Steve offered, tossing his keys into the air.

“I can too.”

“Why don’t we just all go,” Dustin suggested. He grabbed Steve’s keys out of his hand. “We’ll take Steve’s and save you the gas. You can tell mom you watched me. Win win.”

“Loss for me, I’m out of gas,” Steve argued.

“Then why did you come here?” Dustin questioned, eyeing him. He was trying to be a wingman but geez, Steve didn’t ever make it easy.

“You’re right,” Steve muttered.

“Alright. Shotgun,” you said, getting off the couch. You walked to put on your shoes. Steve and Dustin shared a look as you walked into the other room.

“Dude you have got to make a move,” Dustin whispered.

“What? What are you talking about?”

“Don’t pretend you don’t know. She’ll only stay on the market for so long. Nancy was trying to set her up with a friend from school.” Steve’s eyes went wide. Well when he put it like that.

“Does she even like me?”

“I read it in her diary. She likes your butt and your fancy hair,” Dustin said, disgust in his voice. A flash of hope went over Steve’s face.

“She likes my hair?”

Steve cleared his throat as you walked back in.

“Ready?” you questioned. Steve answered enthusiastically.

“Yup!”

Though you never actually spent a lot of time in Palace Arcade, you always found yourself enjoying it. The energy inside was electric and there was always someone screaming about some high score. The food was indulgent and it was cheap. You could usually buy food for the entire crew for only like 20 dollars.

Steve shoved Dustin towards the games as you walked through the doors. You could hear Mike’s voice somewhere within the condensed crowd. Dustin turned back around. He wasn’t about to let go that easily.

“Will you guys get food?” he asked, hopeful. Steve and you shared a look, despite the fact that you were both hungry and you would probably cave no matter what he said.

“What do you want?” Steve asked begrudgingly.

“Nachos with extra cheese and extra meat.”

“A large nachos. Gotcha,” Steve muttered. “Go find out what the others want.” Dustin wasted no time in escaping away. You and Steve walked through to the front where there were a couple tables. Most weren’t cleaned off yet but neither of you seemed to mind as you sat down to claim a spot.

“You didn’t have to come today,” you told him. You and Steve rarely had any time alone. You found yourself looking forward to it, despite the nerves bubbling in your chest. What if you had been reading the signs wrong? Wasn’t Steve like this with every girl who crossed his path? Hell, he pulled Nancy Wheeler.

“Don’t tell him but I really don’t mind carting them around. It makes me feel important.” You laughed gently.

“You are important,” you said and you meant it. You were surprised at the sincerity in your voice. “Plus, I think he likes having two older siblings he can boss around.”

“I don’t think of us as siblings.”

“Not you and me. We’re not siblings.”

“No, absolutely not,” he promised. You both laughed. You liked making him laugh. You liked the way he smiled when he laughed.

Dustin came back through the crowd.

“Two nachos, two hot dogs.”

“Who's all here?” you questioned, suspiciously. You held up your finger, counting. “Mike…you..”

“And Lucas and Will.”

“No girls today?”

“None.” You looked through the crowd. You pursed your lips and nodded slowly.

“Fine. We’ll call you over.” Dustin nodded and once again, he was gone. You turned back to Steve. “We splitting this one?”

“Yes ma’am.”

You ordered for everyone, knowing what Steve wanted before he even knew. He watched you with care and he ended up paying for the whole thing. You gave him a gentle hard time but you were grateful despite it.

You waited together off to the side. He leaned against the wall, facing you. You faced him, starting to feel self conscious under his gaze.

“Whatcha thinking about Harrington?”

“Do you like my hair?” You raised an eyebrow. That was random.

“I do.” You lifted an arm, brushing your fingers through it. He let you, even though he typically would’ve swatted the hand away. He shivered under the touch of your fingers against his scalp. “No one has hair like you Harrington,” you promised. It felt like it was just the two of you. You liked being alone with him. Even if you weren’t alone with him.

You wondered what it would feel like to be in an empty house with Steve Harrington. No little brothers, no friends, no strangers. Just you and him. What would that be like?

You were dying to find out.

You dropped your hand.

He grabbed it before it fell completely to your side.

“Why do you ask?”

“Just curious.” If that was true…

“Steve-”

“Do you wanna go out? With me.” You tried to hide your glee and forced forward your surprise.

“Like a date?”

“Like a date.” There was some sort of confidence in his eyes that wasn’t there a moment before. You smiled gently and leaned your back against the wall, staring away from him. You hummed, like you were thinking, even though you already had your answer on the tip of your tongue.

“Where would we go?”

“Wherever you want.”

“The arcade?” He smiled, nodding.

“If you want twenty bucks in quarters then I’ll hand them over,” he promised. You met his eyes.

“Sure Steve.” He wanted to fist pump the air. He refrained but the look remained in his eye as though he had.

“Steve!” A voice behind a counter called. The food was ready. He turned and you thought it might break him out of the moment but he grabbed the tray and looked right back at you with those same eyes.

“We can go somewhere that isn’t the arcade.”

“Well we already know how to get here.”

“We could have our date right now.” You suggested. “Though I don’t know if you could cop a feel with my little brother running around.” He set the tray down on the table and before you could sit down he grabbed your hip, pulling you closer. You breathed out sharply, your face heating up. You were close now. So close.

“Is this okay?” he asked.

“It’s good. It’s really good,” you said through giggles. You liked being this close to him. He started to move in, breathing evenly and you would’ve kissed him like it was the last thing you could ever do if not for-

“Is that the food?”

You dropped each other. Dustin’s voice could cut through anything.

“Y-yeah,” Steve stammered. The confidence in his voice had not left but he remained slightly embarrassed. Dustin nodded slowly, approaching.

“I’m gonna take this to everyone.”

“That’s mine and Steve’s,” you explained, grabbing your food off the tray. Dustin nodded. He looked between the two of you warily. The group had made their way closer, damning the rest of the moment. You and Steve sat down anyway, dividing up sauces and drinks.

“You got coke?” he questioned. You nodded, offering some to him. He took it, taking a drink through the straw. He had opted for sprite.

“Can you shotgun that?” you teased. He rolled his eyes, pointing a finger at you as he swallowed.

“I’ve yet to see you shotgun anything,” he said. “I don’t think you can do it.”

“Don’t open up the floodgates like that Harrington. You know I like to win.”

“That’s what I like about you. Nobody likes a loser.” You rolled your eyes and ate a fry, dipping it into his sauce. “Well?”

“Hm?”

He gestured to the coke vendor to the side. They sold cans; not cups. You scoffed.

“Here? In the middle of the children's arcade?”

“It’s not alcohol!” he said. You sat in silence for a moment, chewing and thinking. You narrowed your eyes at him. It wasn’t exactly the most attractive thing you could do in the moment but the defiance in his eyes made you want to act anyway. You got up, the chair squeaking as you pushed it back. You walked over and hit the side of the vending machine. A coke fell out. It was an arcade secret that it did that if you hit it just right. Will had taught you. You didn’t think he had it in him.

You walked back over to Steve. You sat across from him, shoved a hole into the bottom half of the can and put your lips over it. You opened up the tab and tilted your head upwards, keenly away that some of it was spilling over your chin.

Once the coke was gone you put the can down, crushed. You wiped your mouth.

Steve looked like you had just reignited his reasons for living.

“You happy now?”

He leaned over the table and kissed you. You tasted of coca cola, your lips still seemingly fizzing. You gasped into his lips but didn’t bother pulling away. You wanted this. You wanted to taste him for the first time, even if he had the aftertaste of soda. He wanted you to be closer to him. He didn’t want to have to pull away to get you closer though.

You pulled out for air.

“That was so hot.” You laughed gently, sitting back in your chair. You wanted to tell him that he was so hot but you refrained from making the moment any more cheesy. You crossed your arms.

“Your turn.”

“I’ll do it when we drink together. You should see me shotgun two.”

“That sounds like a sight for sore eyes, Harrington.” You wrapped your foot around his lower leg, pulling it towards you. It was weak but he didn’t need a lot of prompting to kiss you again.

“Hey! This is a public space!” Keith called. Seeing him after kissing Steve was quite the come down. “Save it for the bedroom,” he hissed. He had cheeto dust on his mouth. Steve eyed him with a slight annoyance.

“We’re paying customers, you can’t tell us what to do.”

“I can,” Keith promised. “I can kick you out and your little group of children.” You rolled your eyes.

“Relax Keith. We’re just hanging out.” Your chair had moved closer to Steve’s. You wondered if he had pulled it towards him while you were distracted. You were now right next to each other. You threw your arm over the back of his chair. “Eating our fries. You caught us.” Keith gave you a glare.

“Okay mom and dad Jesus.” You and Steve met each other’s eyes for just a moment and then his eyes were back on the road. It felt right being here. It felt like this was where it was all supposed to lead to.

“So you guys should get married,” Dustin suggested. The car filled with laughter. Steve’s hand was on your thigh. The level of domesticity led you to believe he had been thinking about this a while. You loved his hand being there. You loved that he was touching you.

“Don’t jinx anything Henderson,” Steve said to the rearview mirror.

“I didn’t jinx anything.” He turned to Mike and gestured to his left ring finger. He mouthed something you didn’t catch.

“No gossiping,” you snapped.

Though you didn’t want your second date to be at the arcade.

#steve harrington x fem!reader #steve harrington imagines #steve harrington x reader #stranger things imagines #steve harrington fanfiction

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soullust · 11 months

Text

hiii i'm super bored, so here are dps sick headcanons

neil perry

seldom gets sick but when he does it hits him LIKE A TRUCK hates being sick he's allergic to penicillin so he feels very guilty about needing medication stubborn asf, will pretend he's fine for an annoying amount of time. will go to class watery eyed, sweaty, flushed red, shaking and half-delirious has to be forced to rest, but once that's managed he's very calm and sleeps through most of his sickness loves soup. his mom used to (and still does if he happens to get sick while he's home) make him some kind of special soup whenever he got sick and he loved it. give the boy some soup it will cure 99% of his illness.

todd anderson

gets sick frequently but goes through it pretty lightly he's never like, suffering, more like inconvenienced takes him such a long time though. he has never been sick less than a week fatigue hits him hard, he's falling asleep while standing gets pretty bad muscle pains and pretty irritable it makes him pretty snappy, which unfortunately, makes him funny asf, but no one can really laugh bc he's sick, that would be rude

charlie dalton

probably ate dirt as a kid so he's immune to all the germs, and doesn't get sick a lot but when he does his throat just... gives up on him. he looses his voice immediately i think since he barely gets sick the poets have no idea, so when one day he just shows up at breakfast dead silent they assume the apocalypse is near. gets really bad headaches. loud noises make his headaches worse. this is pretty ironic and funny to the other poets starts missing classes the second he can and doesn't come back until he's forced to by nolan himself would love being sick if it wasn't for the whole... being sick thing bc ouch... but like the attention is great

knox overstreet

gets sick at very unfortunate times, like just at the beginning of spring or during school breaks and weekends. convinced he's dying every. single. time. "This Is The End, Write Down My Will For Me Please... Please Call My Mommy, I Shall Bid My Farewell To Her..." to be fair he does get a horrible migraine every single time, so the guys are mostly forgiving of all of the bullshit inhales soup and tea with lemon&honey.

gerard pitts

his temperature spikes up by +0.1°C and immediately delirium hits him and it hits him HARD gets really emotional and cries a lot. mostly bc he loves his friends and animals and science hates taking medicine. you gotta hide it in his food bc he will not take it will not shut the fuck up, not even for a second. not even when he's sleeping (pray for meeks he's really going thru it), talks until he looses his voice also muscle pains get him soo bad, like his back and his legs are useless he can barely sit sometimes

steven meeks

barely eats anything. all the food becomes repulsive to him and he has to be coaxed to eat literal toddler portions just so he doesn't starve. throws up a lot deathly pale + flushed cheeks and nose + teary, puffy eyes sleepy. hates it. hates missing classes and complains about it a lot. would over-medicate himself to get to go to class quicker luckily he can be easily distracted (mostly by crossword puzzles and music) charlie will go into his room and play saxophone for him sometimes <3

richard cameron

he technically has a pretty good immune system but he's so irrationally afraid of germs that he walks around in a medical mask during flu season to protect himself still gets sick though it's like a vibe check from god to stop fucking panicking like neil, he refuses to admit that he's sick and goes to class shivering, sweaty, and only half-lucid but he will go to class goddammit, gotta keep that perfect attendance somehow still believes that some painkillers will fix him. he almost overdosed once (or twice) has to be forced to rest and argues about it a lot he's hungry. all the time. could eat a five course meal and still be hungry. get my boy some sustenance, he's dying also gets migraines (he gets those anyways, they get way worse when he's sick though)

#dead poets society #dead poets fandom #dead poets headcanons #neil perry #todd anderson #charlie dalton #knox overstreet #gerard pitts #steven meeks #richard cameron #hellton boys

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neveah-llama · 6 months

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To Become a Superhero You Must do One of Two Things: Get Robbed or Die :)

Hey, I'm the author of 'The Impossible Adventures of the Phantom and the Ninja'. I just thought I could start publishing some chapters of my work to other sites. Here's chapter one of my fanfic- I hope you like it!

Name: Randy Cunningham

Grade: 9th

Title: What I did during my summer break

My summer started out the same, me and my bff (best friend forever) Howard played the original Grave Puncher Trilogy. We played for five days straight (NEW RECORD!!!), beating all 182 levels before I had to be dragged to camp for the rest of the summer.

Yeah you heard that right, I go to summer camp. It’s the kind of camp you would see in those old slasher movies, it has busted old cabins, surrounded by a creepy forest, and filled with reject jocks and wannabe populars. It reeks like an 80’s B-rated horror movie and I wouldn’t even be surprised if some psycho serial killer is out loose in those woods. I’ve been going to this camp since I was six years-old, my mom claims it’s so I could, ‘get out of the house and breathe some fresh air for a change,’ personally I think it’s because she wants to make my summers as miserable as possible.

But other than the porta-potty swirlies, getting dumped into the lake in the middle of the night, and other horrors I face on a daily basis, it’s not all that bad. I have a friend there that makes camp a little more tolerable, his name is Danny Fenton. A few things to know about him is that he loves space and lives somewhere in Illinois, his mom used to attend this camp with my mom when they were kids, it’s part of the reason me and Danny know each other. And like every summer for the past eight years, Danny and I have been dodging campers and too-cheery counselors for eight and a half weeks straight until all the campers come together and have a huge campfire by the lake. It’s probably the only time Danny or I are not being chased.

Usually, after returning from camp I like to just hang out with Howard again, and play Grave Puncher until I’m dragged back to school. But something epic happened! See it started a couple days after I returned from camp, I just pre-ordered the new Grave Puncher video game that’s coming out in November, just left the Game Hole where I was hanging out with my biffer, and was busy talking to Danny…

“I’m sorry your parents are building a what?” Randy could hear Danny face-palming on the other side of the phone. Something heavy banged somewhere in the background making his friend on the phone let out a heavy sigh.

“I said my parents are building a ghost portal- a freaking ghost portal!”

“Dude, that’s so bruce.” Randy said, partly because it annoys Danny whenever Randy talks in Norisville lingo and secondly because he believes Mister and Missus Fenton are the cheese! They are full-time ghost hunters and are literally ripping a hole in the fabric of reality! He really hopes that Danny’s parents will let him come over next summer, maybe even give him a summer internship too.

“No Randy, this is not ‘bruce’, in fact it’s the opposite of 'bruce'. Do you know how long they have been building this? Since I got back from camp! And for the past week it has been non-stop drilling, I can’t even sleep at the house with all the noise coming from the basement!” Danny let out a huge breath, “It’s just going to give Dash and his friends another reason why they should keep shoving, ‘loser Fenton’ in stupid lockers once school starts again.”

Okay so Randy could see why Danny is being such a grump when it comes to this, he really does, after all, if Bash and his friends started poking fun at him having a mom that’s a ghost hunter he would be a little embarrassed about that as well. But that doesn’t mean he won’t stop thinking that his friend’s parents are the coolest.

“Okay first of all you are not a loser,” Randy argues as he unlocks the door to his house, taking off his shoes and heading towards the kitchen, man he’s hungry. “After all you’re not the one with a keytar, remember?” Just as he was about to open the fridge, he spots a sticky note with his mom’s handwriting, she’s going to be gone for the next couple of days. No surprises there really and that just means Randy will get to have the left-over pizza all for himself-cool.

Danny’s laugh snaps Randy out of his thoughts, it wasn’t a sarcastic or bitter snort that comes out of him so he’ll definitely call this a win, “Yeah I guess you’re in even worse shape than I am, I’m definitely praying for you buddy.”

Randy takes it back, he would rather deal with Danny being a grump than this, “Hey, you were supposed to say, ‘No, you aren’t a loser Randy, you’re too bruce to be one.’” He tried to mimic his friend’s voice but it only got a snort in return. He rolled his eyes, taking out a McEnergy (Now with 110% more caffeine!) before going up the stairs and towards his room.

“You know I can’t lie well.” Danny says, and Randy was about to open his mouth, only to stop once he opened the door.

Did a cowboy just jump out of his window?

Shit, was he being robbed?

“Randy, you there?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m here. But I think I’m going to have to call you right back.” He hung up on Danny before his friend could say anything else. He did a quick scan around the room, noting that anything that has some sort of value was still in its place, which confused him even more and put him on edge. Should-should he call the cops?

His eyes landed on something that wasn’t in his room before. Laying innocently on his table was an ornate wooden box, it was smooth and shiny, with intricate designs forming a circle with a golden insignia in the center that almost looks like a ‘G’ on the lid. It looked like it should belong in a museum, or in his grandma’s attic back in Japan.

Now Randy may not be the smartest person on the earth, but he has watched a lot of horror movies over the years, and when there’s a mysterious almost ancient box just sitting innocently in your room, it’s almost never a good thing. He should just dump it in the swamp, or sink it into the lake just right outside the city, it’s what a smart person would do.

...

But then again Randy was not the smartest person so he just had to open the box.

“The Ninjanomicon…” The words slipped out of his mouth before he even knew what he was saying, which weirded him out a little but he quickly brushed that aside when he threw the weird book over his shoulder. He looked down at the box to see if there was anything else and there was. He felt his heart stop when he saw a familiar red and black mask with a note attached to it.

You are the Ninja, It read.

Wait, hold on.

Pause for a minute.

He’s the Ninja?!

“Oh. My. Sweet!” Randy didn’t hesitate to put the mask on his head, the mask glowed and strange symbols encircled him, turning into strands of red and black cloth and enveloping him in an awesome suit. Meanwhile his mind was cycling through hundreds of years of fighting knowledge within seconds, power was seeping into his body, he felt more energized, and felt like he could do things he couldn’t dream of!

He couldn't believe this.

He, Randy Cunningham, is the Ninja, the sworn protector of Norisvile!

Just wait until he tells his friends about this, Howard is going to flip out and he could rub it into Danny’s face that the Ninja really did exist! But just as he was about to get his phone to call Howard about it, he saw one more note at the bottom of the box.

You can’t tell anyone.

“Aw, now that’s wonk!"

And the sucky part is that I can’t tell anyone, not even my bff Howard. Not because he has a big mouth (which he does-sorry Howard). I mean I trust Howard that he won’t tell a soul about my secrets, but the box did say that, ‘I can’t tell anyone.’ Maybe I could just tell Danny? I mean he doesn’t even go here and I know without a doubt that he won’t tell a soul, especially not after the summer of 2010. I still get chills thinking about it.

“Alright, pencils down!”

And now I’m starting to think this wasn’t the best topic for my essay, nice job Cunningham, you’ve only been a ninja for a week and you’re already screwing it up.

Meanwhile in Amity Park:

Danny was tired, absolutely freaking tired.

Danny let out a yawn as the English teacher, a middle-aged guy named Mr. Lancer, continued to drone on about…something or other. The fourteen year-old can’t really seem to find the energy to care what his teacher was talking about. Too busy trying to stay awake in order to avoid getting in trouble on the first day of school.

Mr. Lancer was writing something on the board when Danny had to shake his head in order for his eyes to open. A few of his classmates looked at him weirdly before going back to doing anything that doesn’t include writing down what the teacher was putting up. Some were texting on their phones under their desks, or passing notes when Mr. Lancer’s back is turned, or in Dash’s case aiming spitballs at people’s heads.

Danny felt something slimy hit the back of his neck followed by a few snickers from the jocks behind him. Great, Danny has only attended high school for only two days and he already hates it here.

The bell rings and sighs of relief fill the room as students pack their bags and rush out the door, ignoring Mr. Lancer’s scolding about how he’s the one who dismisses students, not the bell. But it fell on deaf ears and soon the English teacher gave up muttering something about needing to eat lunch anyways.

“Yo Danny!” Danny turned his head to see his best friends, Sam and Tucker, walking towards him from their respective classes.

Danny let out a yawn, “Hey guys.”

“Jeez, you look like a wreck.” Sam gave him a look of concern as she walked past Danny to shove some books into your locker.

“Yeah, your parents still working on that portal?” A couple of students who overheard Tucker let out a couple snickers, making Danny sigh. Just like Danny predicted, the moment he stepped into school he instantly heard jokes left and right at his expense. Mostly about how his parents latest project will blow half the town to smithereens. It’s really not that unusual compared to the other comments he heard before, but just once Danny would like to have regular parents, who have regular jobs, so that way he could have a chance of a social life. Is that too much to ask?

“Yeah,” Danny let out another yawn as the trio made their way towards the cafeteria, “it’s gotten to a point where Jazz and I are sleeping up at the Opt-Center, which somehow is worse than dealing with all the construction down in the basement.” He rubs his back absentmindedly, still sore from sleeping on the floor for the past three nights.

“I still don’t get why you just didn’t ask to go stay over at Tucker’s.”

“Yeah man, is it because of the meat sweat? Cause Foleys don’t do meat sweat.” That earned a snort from Sam as they turned a corner,

“Oh yeah? What about that time-”

“We do not speak about that time!”

“Guys would you just cut it out!” Danny snaps. Both the goth and the tech geek stopped their argument to blink at Danny in surprise, even Danny was surprised at his own outburst. Guilt starting to swell at the bottom of his gut. “Sorry. Look, you guys can go ahead and grab some food, I’ll just be outside taking a nap.” Without another word Danny turned around and made his way to the field.

It took a while for Danny to find a secluded spot outside, especially one where it was far enough away from the football field so Dash wouldn’t see him, but once he did find a spot, it didn’t take long for Danny to close his eyes and get a quick nap in.

Only for it to be ruined by his phone ringing. A very familiar ringtone grating at his ears.

At first he ignored it, too busy enjoying the nice early-autumn breeze. Eventually it stopped and Danny was able to fully enjoy the peace and quiet, soon he felt himself getting more drowsy and was about to fall asleep when his phone rang once again. A part of him wanted to ignore his phone, turn it off so he could have some peace and quiet for the rest of lunch, but he decided against it. He knows that ringtone anywhere, the annoying peppy tune that made Danny’s ears bleed and glared at the phone in annoyance.

Stupid Randy and his stupid ringtone.

Danny picked up the call on its third ring. “What do you want?”

His friend snorted, though it did sound a little out of breath, “Rude.”

“You would be too if you had to sleep in the Opt-Center for the third night in a row.”

“Please, I won’t be able to sleep until I try every single invention your parents created. Your parents are ghost hunters dude- ghost hunters! That is like the brucest thing ever!” There was something weird going on with Randy’s voice, it sounded like it was muffled with something. But that’s not Danny’s concern at the moment, right now Danny wants this conversation to be done so he could at least sleep for the last twenty minutes of lunch.

“Yeah sure, I think you’re the only person in the world who thinks being real-life ghost hunters are ‘bruce’. Anyways, is there a reason why you’re calling me?” And disturbing me from my well deserved nap?

That made Randy pause for a moment, “Oh right, forgot for a moment.” Right after he said that, a huge BANG! Could be heard on the other side of the line followed by a huge roar that made Randy let out a shriek and Danny to pull his phone away to save his poor ear drums.

“Uh…everything okay over there?” Now, Danny knows Randy is a trouble magnet, he’s known the dude since he was like six, but this sounds a lot more dangerous than Bash and his friends chasing Randy down the hall. He might actually be concerned for the guy.

“Oh yeah, I’m doing awso- OOF!” He sounds like he just slammed into some lockers, it made Danny winced. Randy let out a groan, before pausing and muttering something about how he wasn’t getting pwned. Which made Danny even more confused.

“Right! Okay,” Randy grunts, “so I have this friend…named uh Reginald-yeah! And he may or may not have recently found out that he is the next protector for his city!” Something heavy pounding on the floor could be heard on the other line, luckily getting further away as Randy kept talking.

“Okay…”

“Yeah so Reginald Bagel- yup that’s his name- Reginald Bagel is the new hero for the city with little to no experience and now he’s fighting a monster and he doesn’t know how to beat it!” Somewhere in the distance something roared. Randy let out a nervous chuckle.

“Thoughts?” Danny had to process this for a minute, trying to figure out what the hell Randy was talking about. “I’m sorry what?”

A huge crash was heard on the other side and there was that roar again, louder this time.

“Just answer the question!”

“Okay, okay fine!” Danny thought for a moment, “Okay so is there a tutorial?”

“What?” Heavy pounding was heard on the other side of the phone, getting closer but Danny pressed on.

“You know a tutorial, how to hero 101, instructions, anything?”

"OH MY JUICE! I forgot the instructions! Thank you so much Danny, I owe you one, bye!” With a ‘click’ the call ended leaving Danny’s head swirling around with questions, that phone call made him antsy and on edge. He doesn’t think he’ll be able to sleep, much less focus for the rest of the day when he’s too busy worrying about his friend. And of course this was a perfectly good time for a stream of cold milk to be dumped dumped right on top of his head, followed by snickers of the last person he wanted to see at the moment.

“Whoops, sorry Fen-turd, I guess I must have mistaken you for a trashcan.” That earned a couple more snorts from Dash’s friends.

“Eh, I’m pretty sure it’s a common mistake, especially with that kind of fashion sense!” Paulina butted in. The group of jocks and cheerleaders continued to laugh as they walked away. Leaving Danny soaking in a pile of milk.

“Great,” Danny mutters as he shook his head to get some of the excess milk off, “This day cannot get anymore worse, right?”

“AHHHHHH!”

So apparently Danny was wrong, it can get so much worse.

Let’s set the scene shall we?

At 3:30 pm Danny, Sam, and Tucker took the bus to Fenton Works, in order to study, do some homework, decide that’s dumb, and spend the rest of the evening playing video games.

At 3:48 pm, the trio of friends went inside. They said hi to Jazz, who was busy getting homework done, battled an army of possessed hot dogs in the fridge to get some snacks, and planned on heading up to Danny’s room to take advantage of the quiet for as long as possible.

At 4:00 pm, Jack Fenton barged into Danny’s room dragging all the kids down to the basement, where Mr. Fenton gave a speech about his hardships, setbacks, and his love for fudge, before unveiling the finished ghost portal.

At 4:15 pm, Jack would have continued speaking for the next hour, if Maddie Fenton didn’t interrupt her husband saying that the sooner he turns on the portal, the sooner they could all dig into Jack’s celebratory fudge.

It’s 4:16 pm, and everyone is waiting with bated breath as Maddie and Jack Fenton finish the last touches of the portal, before putting the plug in. For a second it seemed like everyone was holding their breath and Danny couldn't help but feel excited. His parents were about to tear a hole in the fabric of reality!

Except instead of a big flash, there was a small spark and then nothing.

Around 4:45 pm, after almost thirty minutes of trying to find the mistake, to correct any miscalculations, anything and everything to make the portal work, nothing had any effect. Finally, Maddie let out a sigh and said that they should stop and continue to work on it tomorrow. She said sorry to the kids and guided Jack upstairs telling him that they will just break out the failure Fudge instead.

It’s 4:46 pm, Jazz left soon after their parents did, leaving the trio of fourteen year-olds alone in the basement lab. While Tucker and Sam were taking a look at the lab, as this was probably their third time down there, Danny can’t seem to stop staring at the portal. His parents worked on this for almost two weeks, with years before that saving up money for the materials, and years spent on calculations dedicated to this stupid contraption. He’s angry that after all that work his parents put into it, it still didn’t work.

It’s 4:50 and after four minutes of looking, Sam had an amazing idea, a wonderful and awesome idea. And while Danny did have his doubts and was a little nervous, Danny could admit he was a little curious. So he donned a hazmat suit that his dad gave him for his fourteenth birthday, ripping off the embarrassing sticker of his dad off his chest before stepping into the skeleton of the ghost-portal. Or Fenton-Portal as his dad called it. He was about five steps in before everything went to shit.

At exactly 4:51 pm, Danny tripped on some wiring. Not wanting to land face first on metal flooring, he leaned his weight onto one side, not knowing that his hand touching the wall was actually pressing the on switch. Danny heard a little, ‘click,’ and before he could really process it, he was instantly shocked with painful volts of electricity. It was burning him alive, sizzling his insides, and making him numb to everything but pain.

Pain.

PAIN.

“AHHHHHHHHH!”

He closed his eyes in pain, it sent his breath away, made him feel his heart stopped beating, and then all he saw was white. His head was all spacey, and floaty, numbing the pain.

At 4:52 pm, the portal stopped buzzing and instead of an empty hole in the wall there was a swirl of neon green, a dull hum in the air, and a fourteen year-old kid stumbling out of the portal.

“DANNY!” Sam and Tucker both shouted, diving towards their friend to break his fall, Sam was on the ground with Tucker landing ungracefully on top of her. She let out a muffled "Oomf!" from the unexpected weight, she expects another weight on top of Tucker, only for it to never come. Instead, she felt something cold and weird flowing past her making her shiver. When she opened her eyes, she was met with a passed out, white-haried Danny. It surprised her so much she let out a scream and shoved Tucker out of the way.

“What the hell!” Tucker shouted, his arms flailing before landing on his butt. The two teens took a minute to catch their breath, the eerily green glow being the only source of light in the basement. Sam was the first to recover, slowly crawling back to Danny. She took note of his white hair, his inverted-colored hazmat suit, and sickly pale skin, definitely nothing like Danny from thirty minutes ago. But what scared her more was how his chest didn’t move, and that he was cold to the touch- to the point that she feels like she would get frostbite if she just let her hand stay on his shoulder. Fuck, did she just kill her best friend?

“Sam!” Tucker’s shout snapped her out of her thoughts, it made her aware of the unbearable pressure that was clogging up her throat. But she quickly ignored that to turn her attention to her other friend, who was pale from fright, with his eyes widening in horror. At first Sam was confused as to what Tucker might be seeing, until Tucker pointed a finger and Sam’s eyes followed where the finger was pointing at. Sam must have been too stuck in her head to notice neon green eyes staring straight into her soul.

“D-Danny.” Her voice came out as a whisper, she didn’t know what to do and she’s pretty sure she can’t just type: ‘I accidently killed my best friend, only he’s not dead, he has white hair and glowing green eyes. What do I do?’ on google and expect a solid and helpful answer.

“You alright man?” Tucker came in closer, still pale, and still hesitant, but still there. Danny however did not look like he was present at at. His eyes were roaming over everything, but it seemed like he was not processing what was happening. Sam was just about to tell Tucker to call for Mr. and Mrs. Fenton when she heard the familiar sounds of heavy boots storming down the stairs. It seems like that snapped Danny out of whatever he had going on, since his eyes started to widen, and he looked like he was on the verge of a panic attack.

“Kids, is everything okay down here!” Jack turned the corner, only to freeze his eyes widened as he took the scene in front of him. Maddie came down a second later, her mouth gaping, and shoulders slumping. Oh god, Sam was a dead, dead girl wasn’t she.

“Uh… Mr. and Mrs. Fenton-”

“It’s not what it looks like!” For a second Sam shot Tucker a glare before elbowing him in the sides, the geek let out a yelp before giving her his own glare.

“The ghost portal…” The Fentons slowly made their way towards the teens, Sam casted her eyes down waiting for the inevitable anger.

“The ghost portal works! Ha-ha, I did it!” If this was anger, Jack had a weird way of showing it, especially with his dance.

“Oh Jack, we must have forgotten to include any calculations on the chances of the portal having a delayed start!” Maddie exclaimed, slapping a head over her forehead as if that was a bigger deal than her youngest child’s changes.

“Delayed starts- hah! Who cares about that, Maddie, when we have a fully working ghost portal on our hands!” Jack’s laugh seemed to vibrate the very walls and floor of the lab. The big man took Maddie into his arms swinging her around as the couple continued to celebrate and laugh, Sam took a chance to look at Tucker only to find he was just as confused as she was. Finally when Jack set Maddie back down on the ground, the woman seemed to take notice of the frozen teens, even with her head covered it was obvious she was a little confused when she looked at the teens.

“Where’s Danny?” Huh? Sam quickly looked down to see she was carrying nothing, but that can’t be right. She can still feel Danny, his tense shoulders, his fidgeting, she could even feel and hear him sucking in breath! But she can’t see him. She turned to look at Danny’s parents, both growing more anxious the longer she didn't answer. And she really doesn’t want them to freak out, cause if they freak out Sam’s pretty sure she will freak out. Luckily Tucker was there,

“Wait, you mean you didn’t see him? He told us he was going out to Smarty-Mart to go get some snacks!” Oh seriously Tuck?! Why would they believe that? The closest Smarty-Mart is almost two miles away! The adults were quiet for a moment, just staring at the two visible, and one invisible, teens. Sam couldn’t help but fidget under their gaze. And just when Sam thought they were about to demand where Danny actually is, both parents smiled, and Sam let out a breath she didn’t know she was holding.

“Well, alright then!” Jack said as he dragged Maddie up the stairs with him as they celebrated their working ghost-portal. When they couldn’t hear their voices anymore did Tucker and Sam allow themselves to turn back to where Danny was supposed to be. At first Sam saw nothing, just her hands holding nothing. Then she saw something starting to appear, it was like watching something with a bad TV reception, all staticky and at times hard to see, but then Sam saw neon green eyes, white hair, and a black and white hazmat suit. And just when Sam could see Danny clearly, a bright light circled around Danny making both Sam and Tucker shield their eyes and take a step back. When the light faded, Sam was met with a familiar blue-eyed, black haired teen with a white and black hazmat suit.

No one said anything, they were just three teens staring at each other in an almost catatonic state. A phone vibrated off to the side, it was Danny’s phone. Without thinking Tucker took Danny’s phone, unlocked it and stared at the screen.

“Uh, your dad wants you to pick up some more fudge while you’re at the store.” That seemed to snap Danny out of his trance.

“What the fuck just happened!”

It was exactly 5:12 pm when Danny calmed down enough to sneak out of the basement and head straight towards the direction where Smarty-Mart was. It took Danny an extra hour to get there and back due to his new…abilities, kicking in at the most inappropriate times. In his hands he held a bucket of his dad’s favorite fudge, and some other things to make it seem like he actually went to the store for him and his friends.

It was 11:15 pm and Sam and Tucker were still talking about the portal incident to make sense of it all, while Danny just stared at his untouched candy, waiting for everything to just make sense. And when he felt his phone vibrate in his back pocket, Danny took a quick look to see that Randy had texted him. And while he knows it’s a bad idea to let his texts go unanswered, Danny just couldn’t. So he turned off his phone, tossed it to the other side of his bed, and continued to stare at his candy.

#danny phantom #rc9gn #fanfic #the impossible adventures of the phantom and the ninja

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unrealisticlea · 2 years

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I’m OBSESSED with the choices in last episode

- the first thing he remembers is Eddie calling him “cowboy”. The second thing he remembers is the Chris screaming in the tsunami.

- Buck literally thinking “you know who would believe that I’m trapped in an alternate reality? Chimney” and being RIGHT

- Thunder by Imagine Dragons playing when he goes to Chimney’s house

- “I know why your name is Chimney” and CUT. So good. I hope we never find out why his name is Chimney.

- They literally said “Buck is the only reason Bobby is alive. He’s also the only reason Eddie didn’t lose his son after a nasty custody battle btw” and I’m supposed to be normal about this????

- A guy goes into a coma and the entire A-shift doesn’t show up for work for like a week.

- That’s why the firefighter who went to Maddie’s house looked so mad, he was probably thinking “these freaks are gonna be MIA for god-knows-how-long. why are they so weird about each other”.

- Eddie looked sooooooo bad. Props to Ryan Guzman for looking like he hadn’t showered or slept in a week for the entire episode.

- we thought Eddie was gonna bring Chris to say goodbye but somehow it’s even worse???????? Chris getting so mad Carla had no choice but bring him to the hospital and then saying “you HAVE TO come back” because he has no choice, there’s no way he would leave them.

- Stoic-always-keep-his-cool-Eddie-Diaz randomly crying in the background A+++

- Everyone looks like they’re ready to jump off a bridge if things go south and May looks like she just shot a Dyson Airwrap commercial

- BOBBY. Oh my god Bobby.

- “Mom brought two kids into the marriage. You brought one”. Canon “Bobby Nash is Evan “Buck” Buckley parental figure” ao3 tag??? This FUCKING SHOW. I have no words. This is all i’ve ever wanted since Season 1 Episode 1.

- Sorry to insist on this but THAT’S HIS SON

- Buck decides to leave a world where his parents love him because he can’t save Bobby there. THAT’S HIS DAD. Buck Nash 4Ever.

- I already said it. I literally don’t give a shit about the Buckley parents. me @ their redemption arc: argue with the wall. Same goes for Chim’s dad. I have no idea why they decided to go with the “blood is thicker than water” stuff but that’s very conservative of them and I hate it. I’m gonna pretend the last 5-6 minutes don’t exist.

- Who did Buck go home with? I have no idea but probably Bobby or Eddie.

- i‘ m sorry but Buck running with Fix You playing in the background was too funny. And that’s what you missed on Glee.

- His imagination gives him Chris who’s looking for Eddie to convince him to stay in the dream. This means absolutely nothing.

- I was terrified what bullshit lesson he was gonna have to learn to wake up but what he had to learn was: you don’t have to fix everything, you just have to be Buck.

- Once again, Bobby and Buck relationship has my whole heart <333

#buddie #911 fox #911 spoilers #Bobby and Buck #6x11 #no kidding if it wasn’t for buck parents this would be my favourite episode of a tv show ever #I was shocked to find out you people didn’t like it???

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lifeofamanhwareader · 1 year

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Tw: nightmares, hitting a child, anger issues, mommy issues, flashbacks, venting and old memories

I remember very vividly that one day when I was around 10 or so I was arguing with my mother about not wanting to shower. Little me doesn't know this, but it was because I was overstimulated at the time. So the argument got extremely heated (with my mother having anger issues and all) and at some point due to my emotional state and my immature mind, I screamed "I hate you" directly into my mom's face. Then, knowing that she must be super angry with me, I ran into the bathroom and lock the door. I was extremely overwhelmed and emotional so I sat there on the floor and cried. I was stupid and didn't remember that the bathroom has a key locker in front of it. So my mother immediately unlocked the door, grabbed me, and slapped me directly on the face. I fell down and also scrap my knees, I was sobbing uncontrollably, and ran to my room upstairs and locked the door. Knowing my mother lost the key to my room years ago. I was crying and screaming into my pillow and didn't come out until the next day, I didn't talk to her for like a week after that. She tried to explain herself but I wasn't having it. I was super mad. She tries to apologize to me but I just ignored her. So she took away my books (my only sense of comfort at the time) sat me down and apologized to me. It felt unreal, So much so that the feeling that the apology gave me made me forgive her immediately. I was happy she was finally admitting her own mistakes for once and not blaming it on literally anything else. I was so happy that looking back, that felt fake. She doesn't really regret anything that happened. In fact, I don't think she remembered this incident at all. All she remembers is being the best mother a child could ask for. And for a while I believed it. Until I started getting into phycology. Where I learned about the signs of trauma and such (because it was really fun at the time) and recognised myself in those words. I denied it for a while, a long long time. But there's no doubt that slapped has traumatized my little child self. So much so that even now, when I'm older and know for sure that I can fight back and that she doesn't dare to hurt me at all, I still get violent flashbacks of someone (mostly a faceless woman) slapping me, mostly because my mind couldn't justify my very own mother hurting me. Mostly in nightmares in particularly emotional days. I was a child and I was scared. Now I have to physically stop myself from flinching every time someone yells. And I don't know how to feel about it. My life feels like a lie that my brain made up to make myself more interesting. I really only remember a selection of things from my childhood. And I don't feel like I'm actually a real person sometimes. I feel like a story. A doll. And I hate it.

#tw vent #tw #ooc post

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littlemissgloomexe · 5 months

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MaGir/GaGir headcannons

Just wanted to say; if you genuinely believe Gir is a child and wanna comment to tell me this is wrong, just don’t.😭 Seriously, he’s an ageless robot who doesn’t even act like a child at all, he just acts like someone with undiagnosed + unmedicated ADHD. Okay ty.

TW: BRIEF IMPLICATIONS OF CH1LD 4BUS3/N3GL3CT

[Before they date]

Mel being… well, Mel, takes a while to feel any kind of spark of friendship when she first meets Gir, she’s almost immediately aware he’s not a threat so she won’t be harsh with the robot. Gir on the other hand, immediately got attached and has had the biggest fuckin crush on Mel since they first met lol

Mel develops an attachment to Gir faster than any other friend she’s made, this is confusing for Mel. Why is Gir different? What is it about him that’s so special?

Mel starts to talk about Gir A LOT to Joz to the point she starts to believe that the two are dating, sayin stuff like “You two dating?” Mel just replies with a simple “no.”

Joz still teases Mel about this whenever they brings up Gir; “Gothyyyy, do you have a little crush~?”

When Mel actually does start to develop a crush, she’s once again very confused with herself. “But… I don’t get crushes. I NEVER get crushes.” Again, what makes Gir so different?

She starts to observe Gir a little more when they see each other to figure why she has developed a crush on him. She over analyzes everything about him;

the way he’s always loyal to Zim, the way he shows Mel how much he cares about her, always being there for her, cheering her up in any way he can, remembering the smallest details about her…

…maybe it’s how he’s a complete opposite to her. Is the contrast in personalities alluring? That’s a possibility.

Some time passed and Mel slowly starts to realize that it isn’t anything in particular about Gir, they just like him.

Mel plans the way it would confess to Gir, it thinks about this for DAYS, WEEKS even, until it can come up with a solid way to tell Gir.

She brings him into her backyard garden, sits next to him on the bench swing, and confesses.

“Gir, I love you. I understand if you think I’m weird or if you wanna get away from me because we’re different species-“

Until Gir interrupts; “I LOVE YOU TOOOO, GOTHYYYY!!!” and he pulls them into a tight hug.

They proceed sit along side each other and cuddle for a while.

[OKAY!!! When they start dating!!]

Mel’s pet names for Gir include: Sweetie, love, my love, puppy, honey [she’s basic, I know…]

Mel and Gir giggle a lot when they’re cuddling or kissing

Mel can actually teach Zim a thing or two about making Gir actually listen to him;

“Just be more gentle with him, you don’t need to scream at him.”

Gir quickly realizes that Mel is VERY easily startled, so he makes sure he doesn’t hug them too suddenly and tries his best to make his movements in general less sudden

Gir starts to learn Mel’s safe foods/drinks and gives them to her when she’s sad or frustrated

Sometimes there are days where Mel LITERALLY CANNOT get out of bed, whenever this happens, Gir snuggles up with them under the blankets, silently comforting them.

Gir almost always wants attention from Mel, just any kind of it is fine, even a simple hand hold is okay with Gir, just as long as he has their attention.

Sometimes Gir will pretend to fall asleep in the weirdest places just so he can be picked up and carried to bed by Mel.

If Gir is wearing his dog costume, his tail starts to wag whenever he does as much as THINK about Mel.

Gir likes to drag Mel back to Zim’s base when Mel’s having a hard time with its mom [which is… not a rare occasion…]

Zim doesn’t really like this and has kicked Mel out before, they just keep coming back to the point where Zim grows a tolerance for Mel [ig you could argue that he tolerates her due to the shared hatred for humanity]

Mel draws pictures of Gir at least once every week.

Gir starts to get really attached to Lily too, petting her any time she lays next to him, happily giggling when he hears her purrs, Mel loves to see Gir getting along with their cat and she thinks the attachment Gir has for Lily is adorable.

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am-i-the-asshole-official · 11 months

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WIBTA if I told my sister she wasn't entitled to everything just because she's pregnant?

I (19F) have a younger sister, E, who just turned 18. She got emancipated when she was 16, and moved out to go and live with her boyfriend (my age). E is currently 8 months pregnant. She shared with me, the day she found out, that her baby 100% does NOT belong to her boyfriend of 3 years. This is important because he continues to stay with her, much to his parents' discontent. She lived with him for about 6 months of her pregnancy, but absolutely trashed their house every day, refused to work, and refused to do anything around the house other than smoke weed in their bedroom, so they called our mom, and forced her to come and pick E up.

We let E stay at our house after that. It's important to note that we live in a 4 bedroom, where our youngest sibling still lives in our parents bedroom, and one of our other younger siblings had to give up their room for her to stay in. She got a job in our small town (~3000 people), and started to spread rumors at work about how terrible we were, how we were forcing her to work while pregnant, and taking all of her paycheck. None of which was happening. Our parents told E that she could either get a job and pay for some of the groceries, or she could give us her food stamps payments, which she usually sells for weed, as there are 4 other kids under the age of 18 in the house that they have to provide for. E later got fired for smoking weed in the bathroom of the restaurant where she worked. When we brought up how she'd need to give us that months food stamps for us to let her stay, because she got fired, she brought me into the argument. She said that since I was over 18, I should have to work as well to earn my spot in the house, when in reality, most of what I do all day is clean up after and take care of our younger siblings. My mom argued back on my behalf, saying that since I'm disabled, and my disability checks, as well as child support payments from my biological father, go to living expenses, I shouldn't be suddenly forced to move out when I do my share of work around the house. E blew up on our mom for defending me, citing her own history of mental health issues and her pregnancy, and left.

A few weeks ago, she came back, asking for a room while she waited for her new apartment to clear, as her boyfriend's parents had once again kicked her out. Our parents agreed, on the grounds that she stay in the trailer we have on the property, as opposed to taking over our younger sibling's room again, because she completely trashed it last time and refused to clean or fix anything she broke. She agreed.

Here's where I may be the asshole. Every time she's in the house proper, she badgers me to make her food, when I am clearly busy cleaning or taking care of one of our younger siblings. She takes over the chair that our mom has to sit in for her back issues, citing her pregnancy as to why she needs the extra back support. She uses our younger sister's expensive bath products, which she had to get a babysitting job to pay for herself, without asking, and didn't stop when asked, despite having her own bath products. She constantly complains about how I never do anything, despite the fact that while she says that, I'm actively cleaning up after her the same amount I am a literal four year old, while she never even lifts a finger to help out, or even make her own food. She does not pay for food, or pay any sort of rent at all, as she's only supposed to be here for a few more weeks. The absolute last straw for me was when I, a chronically ill person who has to have a very specific diet and meal replacement shakes, came out of my room to see her eating from a tupperware container literally labeled with my name, and drinking one of my meal replacement shakes.

Would I be the asshole if I told her that just because she's pregnant, that doesn't mean she's entitled to all of our things? I want to tell her that she needs to start making her own food, and cleaning up after herself, instead of forcing me to do it. I want to tell her that, just because I'm her older sister, that doesn't mean that I still have to take care of her like our 4 and 7 year old ones. That she doesn't need to keep taking from things specifically bought by/for another person in the house, without offering to pay for it or compensate?

WIBTA?

What are these acronyms?

#aita #am i the asshole

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irlstein · 1 year

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I Wanna Suck Maya Kamina's Big Fat Tits

Fast rundown for men with wives and wives with men: I took most of a year off to recover from late-stage Twitter intolerance that I'm pretty sure was giving my blood some sort of pH poisoning, I hope you guys have been doing well and apologize for the lack of communication.

Slow Rundown For True Jackheads - Much Longer Than It Has To Be, You Can Just Say Jack Was Taking Care Of Family And Had A Breakdown:

Howdy guys, been a few months. Had a lot happen in this last year - when I took my break, I'd begun watching my Uncle Gary on a daily basis, who is a stroke survivor left unfortunately incapable of complex speech, and with no strength in his left side. My Uncle Gary and I didn't have much of a relationship before this, but I'd taken on the task of moving into his trailer while he was recovering at his sister's - she lives just in town, it's a ten minute drive, but there was no feasible way for him to get in and out of his own house - for about two years. In that time I'd basically had a deal going with the family that I'd watch Uncle Gary for a few weeks, maybe a month or two, once he had the lift installed at his home that would let him come and go without too much hassle. I'd clean his trailer up for him, because he was a mega-bachelor with three girlfriends and so much backed-up old food from habitual boredom shopping that the place was a damn mess, bugs and rats in the back of the cupboards shit, and they'd disregard the bump in utilities to having someone actually in the house because I'd also keep the place from getting robbed, as he had a bunch of guns and gun parts stored there. It was a pretty fair deal for everyone involved, and while I really only stayed there about 2/3 of the time, it was enough that I really couldn't justify bouncing if the dude needed me, and I've been watching disabled family pretty much daily for 5 years now - so it seemed like a small life change.

Then COVID hit and the three months I was gonna be at his house, as stated prior, ballooned out to about two years, and at some point there began to be some sentiment that Uncle Gary was now annoyed by the idea of living with me - despite me being a patently temporary tenant there for his benefit, with literally two other homes in walking distance I could be living at, as I've got a lot of family in town. I could also get an apartment or something, you get the idea, I just wasn't actually enthused to be there and it was pretty inconsiderate to turn my very blatantly and clearly elaborated, regularly checked upon for the comfort of all concerned, act of well-meaning against me. My grandpa died when I was 5, Uncle Gary's brother, and everyone always talks about how much my grandpa loved me, so it seemed natural I'd just do whatever his brother needed when he was in a time of need.

From there, thing got sour for a while - we never came to blows, only really argued once or twice, but my Uncle Gary's obvious ennui at his turn in health had bluntly made him kind of an ungrateful dick to everyone. Now, let me state here - I stayed with and watched him for about six months following when he came home. It just grew more and more difficult to bear with the situation as I'd talk to him, interpret for him, make him whatever he wanted for dinner, crack jokes, fix computer problems, invest all of my daily energy into making him comfortable - and caught him talking shit on me behind my back. Little stuff - "So Jack's a good cook?" "Ehhhhhh." "Jack's taking good care of you huh? Your blood sugar's been good all week." "Ah well," little shit like that, negging on top of a totally unpaid position I'd volunteered for on the very day he went to the hospital because I'd spent the ages of 22 - 24 watching my mom as she recovered from a real bad car accident and since I've always made money online, it just seemed natural to volunteer my maid services the moment someone else in the family needed the same kind of health.

But fuck, man. It really hurt to be treated how he treated me, because there was contempt there. He was always cool to his sister, my great Aunt, who I visited every week with my grandma to do chores for because she and her husband are, themselves, old and disabled - replaced her kitchen ceiling, watched her dogs, lawnwork, cooking, whatever they needed I would insist upon doing, so there was infinite evidence in supply that I was not a malicious opportunist here, just a younger relative trying to help everyone he could. Uncle Gary didn't give a fuck, he snapped at me, basically laughed at people who suggested he should pay me for my time, and the family dawdled on the job of hiring home healthcare for so long that it looked like I was really expected to just stay there and keep doing this.

And honestly, I kind of flattened. I've always been a depressed guy, chronic nightmares do that to you, and it's easier to crumple to your circumstances than it is to challenge them when challenging them means telling a crippled relative who sees you as a leech that he'll need another 24/7 cook and care provider. I started sleeping all day until he called on me; I developed a nervous tic whenever I heard his walker because that meant he was gonna walk past my bedroom door, glance in skeptically, and call me out for another task I'd have to spend ten minutes guessing and interpreting to understand, because (No fault of his) the guy could basically only give very general positive or negative affirmations, and got very angry very quickly when misinterpreted. So I sort of just stopped thinking about the future and wallowed in this cold trailer, uncomfortable all day, talking to my friends less and working less, just getting more cold and static and dead as the days went on. Let me be clear, I'm not "the true victim" in this discussion about a dude who had a stroke, but I am a mentally soft dude who didn't have a lot of happy feelings to draw on and could easily be bullied by circumstance into shutting down; I did.

Then Rachele, the lady who came to clean up Uncle Gary's apartment, started working for him to do basically my job, and I made plans to leave. And they got a home healthcare service going, got another lady to fill in some of the time Rachele couldn't be there for, and things were on an incline, life was getting normal and I was getting my head straight again.

Then my grandma nearly died of a heart attack when we came home from a family reunion. She was carrying KayKay, her granddaughter, into the house, and suddenly started sweating and groaning in pain. I knew something had happened, her doctor had told her not to carry anythign heavy and KayKay was nearly half her size because my grandma's such a small lady. Specifically, something happened that dumped a bunch of blood into her intestines, and she needed a triple bypass. That was a really hard night; my grandma, already in her 70s, had a major injury, but for hours she denied it. I sat there with her in her living room, watching my Uncle Pete's daughter, as she just lay on the couch and insisted that she just needed to rest. I checked her blood pressure - again and again, a dozen times, always going down. I reminded her that it's not normal to feel sudden, agonizing pain in your stomach when you lift a toddler, followed by going pale and losing massive blood pressure. "I just need some salt," she said. "That blood pressure reader is always wrong, must be the batteries," she muttered a dozen times in that span, clearly growing delerious. I ran to Uncle Gary's and grabbed his blood pressure cuff, and the results were even worse, and she still shrugged it off. I sat there with her for three hours, pestering her, threatening to call an ambulance and being shut down, until I finally called her daughter, who happened to be a nurse and long-time hospital worker. Finally, at her daughter's terrified reaction at her mother clearly ignoring a fatal wound, grandma agreed to go to the hospital.

And I was just sitting there for the rest of the night, with this little kid who didn't know me. Trying to keep her from crying, calling everyone I could to spread the news, sweaty and cold and just scared that it was all starting over again, that the relentless years of awful shit just happening to me and my family had never ended, this sense that there was a cosmic bullseye on my scrote I'd dealt with in silence since my childhood reaching critical terror as it was now fucking killing people in front of me. I'm superstitious; at times, I become inclined to believe I'm living in hell. But in hell, you're not there to save your grandma, and in hell, kids are a lot more rude than sweet little KayKay; read her a few stories and put on Miraculous Ladybug, and she chilled out.

Then the fucking waiting game started over, because grandma had significant plaque build-up in her arteries, whatever those important ones in the sides of your neck are, and couldn't even have her heart surgery until that was taken care of. She was in there for weeks, and once she did get the triple bypass, she was in there for even longer, and all of her recovery was just above touch-and-go - still is, technically, that's a major surgery and it takes a long time to actually heal from at her age. For the sake of what timeline I can remember, my ability to recall events in order is a little compromised by the bad sleep, this began about a week after I posted that Joe Biden meme. That was attempt #3 or so to come back, and I remember I'd been in a really good mood about it. There were other problems, mostly drugs in the family, but until that point I really thought we'd all been improving and life was finally just getting better.

With that I moved out, having been asked to watch her trailer - though I'd bet it was clear to everyone that I was just miserable at Uncle Gary's but unwilling to leave, and this was a convenient opportunity to force me to make a positive change. Grandma's a real good lady, nobody in town would get away with robbing her, but she insisted I bring my stuff over and watch the place until she could come home - she left for Alabama so her daughter's family could keep her under close observation, a very good decision given she was stubborn enough that she'd probably try mowing the lawn the very day she came home. And so for a few months I stayed there, mostly on the incline, working every day and trying to build good habits. I started walking a few miles a day, lost a lot of weight, and again, things were on the incline. I moved to my Uncle Pete's next door, got a real living arrangement figured out with my own space and my own contributions to the upkeep of the household, and things were on the incline. In-between, I lost a lot of my time filling in for Rachele as she watched dogs, going back to Uncle Gary's for a few weeks at a time and filling in about three nights a week - still gratis, though I was filling in for paid employees - on the average week, because he was my neighbor and Rachele had other obligations. I do not mean to imply anyone abused my sympathy; merely that I was unwilling to admit that my sympathy was increasingly costing me and I foolishly ignored the simply reality that this was keeping my life from going forward, that there were other options for them and that I really didn't need to invest all of my spare time into watching a guy who had genuinely shown me reproach and treated me like an unwanted little boy for trying to take care of him. Full credit, Uncle Gary's gotten better since then and clearly regrets having pushed many people away, myself merely a single example among most of his friends and family, and the constant understanding that his suffering was worse than mine just made it impossible for me to take my own priorities seriously. Improvement. Still, overall, improvement, and I was feeling good. I started making daily projects and completing tasks at a rapid pace, all of my time filled, nothing to do besides do for myself and for others. It was honestly really good, the last four months or so kept me in no state to return to socializing, but I was doing well enough that I'd be back eventually, I knew it.

Then the night terrors came. This is a recent problem, started about two months ago - see, I use a bit of Delta-8 here and there. I inherited pretty severe anhedonia from my mom, who smoked weed her whole life and will again when she can, and so to be blunt - heh, I didn't know food tasted good. I mean, until the first time I had about 10mg in my system, I didn't realize what my problem actually was - constant, cold, painful stress feedback in my head. Like body-level anxiety in my brain that never goes away. And the first time I ate food with a mild buzz, I got the best news I'd had in my entie life -

People weren't lying. Life could feel good. On a very real level, from childhood to mid-20's, I had never experienced pleasure on a level you would describe as noticeable, and with the regular migraines and nightmares, my perception of existence really was based entirely upon a paradigm of suffering through, until some small miracle convinced me to keep living. I used to look forward to the bad headaches, because they'd make me sweat, raise my heart rate, and force enough of an adrenalin reaction that I felt smooth and calm afterwards. I really had gone twenty-plus years assuming people lied about how good it could feel to be able to feel good things, thought it was an act of nihilistic denial to keep us all from committing to mutual suicide in a world where you can count on hurting any time but there's just no equivalent joyful inverse to a bad headache. This began near the last 4 months of me watching my Uncle Gary, and let me be clear, I wasn't spending all day stoned - in general, I had this very severe pro-lucidity rationale going from childhood, because my grandpa died of lung cancer and that tied a permanent sort of trauma to cigarettes, thus drugs in general, into my reasoning. But I did make a big mistake - I got too used to spending my time buzzed.

You see, when you're like me, your dopamine levels are naturally very low regardless of your health. But you have no basis of reference, because your entire life goes like this - you never really believe you're depressed, because you have no basis of reference. Or rather, your basis of reference is between "buffer" and "misery" - misery is always going to happen, but if you've got a buffer, like YouTube videos, good porn, something funny to watch, you can raise your heartrate a bit and go a whole day without a breakdown. You can force a sliver of resistance between yourself and this moment of collapse you can always feel on the horizon, and you convince yourself that everyone uses the internet to cope and that you're just a darker shade of normal.

But when you're like me, you don't get a reprieve from your own biology. Your ability to feel good is permanently subnatural - you've got a 20% debuff to being alive, and rest never makes you feel better. You're the kind of person who, despite not being a schizophrenic, could potentially fall out of reality in an act of severe pessimistic paranoia so intense that it starts to break how you think, all the while acting normal enough that nobody really notices you.

That's what happened - my theory is, months of improved dopamine output made me lax, made me forget that you don't just fix what my problem is by feeling good enough for long enough that you fix your head. Oh the philosophical problems work themselves out that way, I finally accepted that I should find a girl and start a family, move from hobby comedian to someone who really tries to help people, but in all that time your real buffer is depleting. You forget that so much of your enjoyment comes from the context of a decade solid of suffering, and for reasons as spiritual as biological, you start to lose appreciation for being. Yes, I surely thought, this was it, I found proof that life is worth living, I'll never break again, it's all good from here on out. No, what you do is actually reduce your body's dopamine sensitivity by a lot, and lose enough weight to get your energy back, meaning you feel just a bit manic during your active hours, and again, your guard drops. It's all good from here, you found the SECRET dude, there really is good in life, you can abandon the watchhound complex and treat the world like a place that's glad to have you. You're not just here to be someone else's buffer, you're part of history, born at the first age of prosperity in which a man might actually become immortal and live in space.

Then your first apocalpyse nightmare hits. Like every nightmare, it starts off as a dream and decomposes - you're around old classmates, happy to see them. And random explosions begin going off around the city - someone next to you dies, and you've already forgotten her face. You look at the cityscape and a massive spaceship shaped like a flaming steel crown crashes into the atmosphere and stops just above the buildings, the shockwave of its passage feeling completely and utterly real. You wake up, and the numbness you feel in your sleep abates, so the horror hits you. It's 2PM and you get over it; you always have nightmares when you sleep too late.

Then the next - you're at the pool and someone steps on some moldy-green crystals growing on the damp concrete. They pierce her foot at the heel, and spread oily-black corruption under her skin. In your mind, you know it's a fungus somehow, that it'll grow inside of her and kill her, something like Splinter for those of you who've seen that old Syfy original film. You wander around, everyone you see is family or a friend, and they're all murmuring that it's growing everywhere, people getting little jabs here and there, it's practically unavoidable. There's an abstract diversion - you're running through a yard and some old Green Day track is playing, a blonde woman dressed up as a cheerleader and she just makes you feel weird and uncomfortable because she's poking out of the side of a shed, and you've never had a good dream, so seeing pretty women never goes anywhere. Then you pass through the fence and see an old black woman, somebody's mother or grandma or favorite teacher, and you know months have passed - the crystalline mold, whatever it is, is poking out of her face and joints. She's still alive, walking down the road with a walker, and you realize with terror that this would only happen in a world where people have accepted it - the mold is going to kill us all, and walking down the street riddled like a fucking pincushion is just a trivial aspect of everyday life in the latter hours of mankind. You saw it begin, and it's already fucking over, and you barely had a moment to want to try to stop it. Then she's dancing in front of a camera, pirouetting like a ballerina, totally consumed by sharp growths as onlookers watch her in amazement, more possessed by interest in the utter ruination and decay and whatever entertainment it can offer them than trying to survive. Mankind is now living in an era of having accepted their deaths, but in the most disgusting and reprehensible manner possible, seeing the decay as merely another aspect of their media diets, TikTok in the final second of every family's history. They didn't try hard enough, and now they're indulging in the decay.

You wake up and you're hit by a TIDAL WAVE - a thought strikes you off-balance in the distance between cognitive reality and awareness, screaming ALL LIFE IS MERELY THE RESULT OF CIRCUMSTANCE WHICH HAS LEFT IT UNALTERED, Cthulhu screaming empty materialist philosophy that you can already feel is wrong. No it's not; life is adaptive, either arising naturally from worlds devoid of life or being designed by things which were already alive to have done so, the animating force of reality already being intrinsic. We are not merely mathematical outcomes aggregating across successes, were are aware and experiential, we feel disgusted moreso than afraid of descriptions which reduce us to processes because it's paramountly deluded to pretend life isn't aware and full of intent. Life FIGHTS - life is not merely outcomes, as outcomes are merely observation, an artifical description of reality reduced to verbal description to the same degree that the word Earth describes a literal location and leaves out infinite amounts of data provably unrecorded by and unaccounted for in the description. Further, mathematics are often used to defuse romantic thought, but math is merely patterns within observability - to believe everything is math is ridiculous because math is an emotionally neutered descriptor of forces, not the source of forces. Math exists because reality persists, reality does not persist because of the observable patterns we've divorced from emotion and called math, which is a stupid fucking philosophical trap for us to wander into by-the-way and causes problems every day for people with existential fears. It's not that the sentiment was philosophically superior and overwhelmed my beliefs, but that it hit me just as I was senseless, a tactically calculated malice with no intention but to disable with steep fear, leaving you at the bottom of a frozen whirlpool.

And so that's where I was. For weeks. Every answer I came up with was met with temporary success and then the return of the whirlpool - I say "Life is valuable because it unalterably exists, no one can declare it does not affect reality materially and thus have significance; claiming it is insignificant is like claiming concrete is insignificant." And that puts the fear on pause. Then, the next day, another nigthmare as you awaken - you're above the universe and looking too far, in every direction, disenchanted and terrified because on some irrational level you assume that there being what we assume are consistent patterns means there's an upper floor caging in reality's value, only so many things to do. You imagine the immense fucking scale of not just our galaxy but others, and for the first time, it comforts you - we haven't even seen the core of the Earth. This argument is bullshit; a reality not woven with consistency at some level is pure chaos, and insignificance abounds where nothing persists. Indeed, it's infinitely more arguable than the opposite to say that a reality with a great degree of predictability is valuable to us, as it allows us to gain power merely through understanding, while our bodies could never meet the task of raising us to a great status during our lives because evolution simply moves very slowly; everyone has the hope of seeing the world change for the better, in all of their lives, because this world has traction, and rules we somehow are not born with an understanding of despite being born from it, but can embrace the minutiae of and develop a place in reality through. Knowledge is beautiful; abandoning sentiment is the highest curse. You know this is the case. You've stabbed the Devil in the stomach and retained your self.

But it keeps coming back, merely restating itself. Never presenting a cogent argument, because this is not a demon, this is you, this is you stuck in a decay cycle in all of your emotional attachments as you no longer have THC in your system and feel cold doubt that all the warmth and love you've come to recognize in the world might betray you and be baseless, vibrations upon ash. This is stupid; that things with individuality, capable of both deferring and embracing life, exist shows that reality itself is not dead but very active, you do not fear dying because you become nothing, but because you prize you. Sentiment and selfishness and the beauty of self-sacrifice, things that require an ounce of impractical irrationality, exist, and you are not an ant. If it was all just for outcomes, you would be an ant - a hollow box that notices nothing. There is no need for emotional prongs to guide a being with no free will; that you observe is already an evolutionary indulgence, and that you do not live for the pack is an inherent compromise upon the endpoint of human survivability. You are not an educated man, but even the barest pop science reveals to you that reality is vulnerable, but vital - we are only at the barest edge of intellectual awareness, but already so vibrantly different from what and how we could be. It doesn't matter that there's no floor to outer space, that you are tiny, because the stories all happen here, on the worlds - you already exist upon the stage of history, and your value is not up for discussion, merely enrichment. Cthulhu can suck your fucking cock; it would feel good and make him embarrassed, things far beyond outcomes aggregating blindly. You have discovered an iron-hard belief now in the soul, in the value of the future, and for the first time in your life you feel as if your presence in the world has boots on, settled firmly upon the floor of reality - it isn't that there's an argument for the value of your life, of reality.

It's that there's nothing but arguments, and every argument against it merely beggars a HIGHER source of authority, a god or a theoretical image of a a totally benevolent existence with no demands upon you. Things already of value; you know this pain is delusional, because every nihilistic argument merely begs for proof, for permission to be. Merely for an iron-hard belief in the soul and boots upon the concrete floor of reality's value, something finally strong enough to argue against the dread paranoia experienced by those in a state of being. From this unromantic perspective, you are already a dreadfully complicated argument against their sentiment that everything in reality being element-generating balls of light held together by impossible forces that become irrational on the micro scale means we're somehow valueless, trapped in a world without value; even if this were the lesser of all realities, it is enough to be. Even if this were Hell, it would be made with the beauty of Earth in mind. The void is defeated, for it is not a void at all, merely your fear of surprise when held against the terrifying infinity of cosmic circumstance. Your boots are on the floor of the world. You are already alive. Whether your name is Jack or not, this argument applies - you are already alive. You are already enough reason to continue being, and build a future where such questions are defeated, where children you will never know live insulated from the nightmare of skepticism. And if the future doesn't matter to you, sex and food and great and don't even have to be good for you, and experience makes its own compelling arguments. It is not so hard, in the rearview mirror of a psychic breakdown, to realize you really could be so privileged as to be God's children. And if you aren't, there's still an infinite ladder to climb, and if there's a roof above it, then maybe it's high enough; maybe there's a way above it without losing our humanity. Don't we live a day at a time? Don't we have time enough to try? Are our hands really being forced by cosmic circumstance when at any moment we can blissfully defer our duty? In all the nightmares of philosophy, the most terrifying is merely that being is sentimentless, devoid of higher value - and if it were somehow true, look at all these miracles born of a dead world. What conceit has doubt the proof has not already been rendered against? None; it is but an impure visitor to your thoughts. You are already alive.

You have about 400 arguments like this that eventually reach into the prosaic, all day, every day for weeks. When you wake up, when you sleep - especially when you catch yourself in a good mood. The niggling chases you down, because the sheer realization of pleasure brings back that terror of it all being somehow artificial, and artificial in this arbitrary sense, where construction alone is not somehow proof of sufficient outcome to justify being. It's the scariest thought imaginable, nihilism on an absolute scale, for someone who only just discovered pleasant contentment and really thought his life was on a permanent incline. The arguments weave together perfectly for a reason; the terror of this thought is that it is illogical, but maliciously illogical. It is stupid, and above all else, stupid with the confidence to bowl over someone who had 1000 incursions upon his comfort this week. The enemy force does not need to be right if they outnumber you sufficiently; they must merely be present. This enemy is nothing more complex or elemental than the fact that in the absence of joy, we become stupid, we lose capacities for higher thought that are required to recite and appreciate thoughts that are abstract and meaningful at once. Anyone with anxiety can tell you this; anxious thoughts do not survive because they are undeniable, but because in a state of fear, adversary presence becomes undeniable. You functionally can't believe good things anymore, and that's the true monster; it steals your faith, leech-like, an ounce a day.

Beyond this point I delve into some existential argumentation that I fought off twelve varities of PTSD for; you don't need to read beyond this point unless existential argumentation is something you need, and a weapon against the shades of being would fit nicely in your palm. Know this: All of my arguments hereon are built upon your ability to disagree, and I merely ask that if you do, that you value yourself enough to live happily.

It must be said that it is cosmically significant that humans are sturdy-willed enough to both survive this and make memes about it. It is not a minor problem; it is a quiet apocalpyse that we slowly observe, and lose the faith to fight. It is an inferior opponent, but it has nothing to lose, and will always return to lose again, because it really only has so many opportunities to convince you and you will eventually overcome it - but it has nothing but opportunities when its appearance is rooted at the deepest levels of experiencing life. I was given a phobia of being, a phobia of unbeing, and something greater between the two - the fear that either were playing into another's hands, a perfect trinity cage where every option existent meant I was prompted with fear yet again, hopelessness, an endless attack upon my sanity.

It must be said that it is cosmically significant that a man as paramountly unimpressive as myself could survive a trinity of discussion and return to tell you, neither dead nor mad. If this world is a fight between mankind and our reason to exist, then we have already won, and the enemy hates us for it. I am not an educated man, I do not have the benefits of faith, I have no lover and few close friends who I truly do not share my pain with, for my greatest fear is spawning a predatory thought and inflicting it upon another, mental HIV paramountly treatable in the long-term but in the short-term, crippling to your survival. I felt that I could only unreasonably risk others by discussing this until I have answers.

Pardon the prosaic, as it spills from my mouth without permission when high spirits are present, but I must say:

I think it's a weak-ass threat from someone without a gun big enough to scare me when you resort to trying to convince someone who exists that on an abstract and unreasonable playing field born not of rational observation, but sheer negativity, that he doesn't exist enough. You don't spend much time threatening to kill imaginary friends. You want to know why nihilism is stupid? Because it's just you arguing with yourself for your own permission to exist. And if it's not, if on some deeper level there's a maliciousness in the world trying to displace you, then it's funny as hell as an insult to survive and have a good time. In any world with frivolity, you are not a slave to circumstance; in any world with purpose, you are not a slave to experience. Life is hard, and that makes us vulnerable, but it's the easiest it's every been, and we need to stop letting that make us vulneralbe. For my bit, even if my life was worthless, I'd insist that my grandma's isn't - my Uncle's isn't, my mom's isn't, yours isn't, and I don't give a fuck how complex or nuanced of an argument someone presents when arguing otherwise. A weaponized argument is essentially a mechanism, a tool made of information, and you don't argue that someone has the moral metaphysical victory for showing up to a fight with a gun; you observe that they prepared with malicious intent, and probably shouldn't be trusted merely for their competency in the act of needless murder. As a rule, when you can tell a thought is trying to drive you insane, that means it isn't on your side, and that doesn't necessarily mean you can displace it by will alone - but for everyone out there with anxiety, with issues like mine, people who are desensitized by decades of bad habits and bad life stories - you need to know that you've forgotten more than you remember. Being happy doesn't make you stupid, it lets you appreciate things, and on a functional level is not an undignified level of stooped intelligence, but rather the gate between you and all the thoughts you need in order to remember to live. Even emotional compartmentalization is not an argument against spiritualistic, experiential value; this world survives because it has consistent rules, which means it's a benefit to you when any aspect of your existence has practical value, and denigrating it thusly as unremarkable because it has practical value does carry the unprovable, dismissive assertion that things with practical value somehow have novalue, a totally arbitrary state of emptiness of being that only exists because you find the notion resentful of being. It's stupid, literally a lack of context and understanding, a strict degradation of the ability to think that corners and harasses you, not a chilling moment of existential awareness. You're not hiding from some grim answer; you're being pushed away from the many answers already within existence. You're caught off-guard by a question children are wise enough not to bother to ask, and it still bother you, because you already value, and that is enough for the question of value.

So if it's unclear, I went from a stressful year and a mild Delta-8 dependency to a sort of existential spiral marked by, above all things, my own chronic pessimism and genuine inexperience with life. If I had more scientific knowledge, I know I could have argued this better; wave-particle duality already makes reality too bizarre to not have faith in investigating. And if I'd had a girlfriend, or just enough pride to admit that I was suffering to people instead of seeing it as a contemptible weakness upon my own insignificant person, most of these could have again been resolved out of hand. I mean, if you want a clue, reality builds outward - particles bond in adjacency, meaning next to eachother, not in a vertical stack that suggests there's some sort of bottom level to existence where you need to argue philosophical value comes from. Expand that philosophically outward, and even materialists must argue that reality believes value comes from attachment, structure obeys this, and that it is therefore significant that you can not only choose what you are attached to but can choose to be disattached at all. Again, you're not an ant, a nihil engine repurposing scraps; you're on the bottom floor of divinity itself, staring up at the stars, things infinity times infinity bigger than you, and you know what we say?

"We could cage them someday."

Now personally, I'd argue that stars are somehow sacred, and imagining them as something we could bind in a Dyson Sphere is a bit like saying you can bottle sex and water flowers with it; on a scientific level, fucking maybe, but it's arbitrary and crass and irreverent and weird. But we have arrogance and fear both, neither forced to progress, nor disincentivized from it, neither forced to decay - beyond our already remarkable resistance to age by the standards of life as we understand it, something we always take for granted - nor disincentivized from it. You can decide nothing matters right now, and a fifth of vodka and bong will still feel good enough for you to keep going, without any of it intrinsically conscripting you into some passage of cosmic evolution. The very argument that these feelings are meaningless first presupposes they need further value, and is driven by the quiet acknowledgement that it would be nice to be doing something permanent with your time. You are something so rare in the universe; a material thing with non-material values, cognition and persistence, caught between two intrinsic natures of being that work best when accepted together. We are not formless passing thoughts, and this is good, for it allows us significance; we are not shackled to the structure of being alone, and this is good, for it allows us the bizarre act of attributing significance and denigrating it within a framework we assume to be spiritless and hard rational, cruel gravity and promising heat, which at least suggest that it is likely not hard rational and spiritless at all. Has it ever struck you how comforting the notion is, and how common it is among cultures, that the universe is simply alive? How irrational the alternative seems on its face? I've been beaten to death with a brick of ice, poetically speaking, for the past two weeks, and it still warms me up. Even without feeling hope, it gives me some comfort so intrinsic that I cannot escape it, and upward from this merest of faiths you can again build a framework of optimistic meaning. No, you'll never lose the ability to fear, and thereby undermine your own confidence, but when not unprompted fear has its own purpose in pushing us out of comfort. It, too, is merely trying to keep us alive - and none of us live healthy lives anymore. Waging a permanent war against our own cognitive value, we seek to replace everything with material satisfaction, and as Nietszche saw coming but was too German to clearly describe, something fundamental to our nature decays and reveals that we always existed in a way more complex than we appreciated. And again, all we must merely accept is that it's fair to argue our current modus of being is enough, and that the only path towards growing more complex and further from arguments of meaninglessness is to enjoy one another's company and keep trying to improve the world, for the snarling hound of pernicious fear to lean back, drooling, vicious but now afraid on its own terms. When your mood shifts, and you can accept good things again, you'll often notice that there were weird irrationalities to your thinking keeping you in that space, but these are arguments for when your mood doesn't shift. These are arguments against the pernicious death of a soul that has found no faith; hard, bitter arguments for when simply stating that fat tits are really, really nice has insanely somehow become unfitting as a response to questions of why you should wake up tomorrow.

I get that this is all a lot, basically a combination of short-term autobiograpy and philosophical debate against my own anxieties, but we all know why we're becoming like this; we're becoming bad custodians of tomorrow. The beautiful future where we've solved it all, where everyone truly gets to choose their own meaning? It doesn't come from Twitter fights, to jerking off on IMhentai to increasingly degenerate shit that makes you feel less and less, or taking pills that literally specifically defuse your ability to feel bothered by real material issues you'd be able to take care of if you had lucidity and an ounce or so of emotional support. We're decaying, not all of humanity, but many of us, and we're passing rotten blood to the children, expecting them to raise themselves in digital hell and shrugging off the responsibility of giving a damn because kek, zoomers are weird, haha look this one has my politics, I'll clean my room tomorrow and pretend I haven't said that 34 times.

If there is a spirit to reality, something divine and good, then I see all of this as a warning - not a divine missive to me, I'm just some sad dude who some people find funny or at least odd enough for the value of spectacle, mental illness and circumstance have kept me from setting down roots and I'm no one of greater circumstance than you. This isn't a messiah complex, but merely a simple missionary suggestion:

We should stop pissing on the future everyone is growing crops on. We should take dire insult to fucking corporations dictating morality to real people as if we're too stupid to note their profit incentive in seeming moral at a glance and culturing an artificial state of morality that exists entirely within their pocket and for their bottom line. We should work to save the bodies our ancestors, back to the dawn of time, historically critical sea sponges all the way up to war heroes and murderers and people without note who still survive because we are here, gifted to us in the actuation of our birth. We should really, really be fucking working towards immortality and space travel right now, and instead we let individual companies own the global food supply and governments full of sexual predators push us into becoming murderous radicals so we can be safely contained and dismissed. Elon sent a fucking car into space; we probably have the accumulated global resources to break atmosphere and become an interplanetary race, and it's insane that we're not uniformly optimistic and planning for the benefits of that. It matters much, much more than the fact that Joe Biden is doofy and TikTok is being used to screw with culture, because none of this process is automatic. You can affect local political change, in sufficient numbers corruption is undeniable and will be overturned; you can guide the youth away from drug addiction and digital dependence which will eventually render them incapable of asserting their own will and having the freedom to choose how they live among multiple other options. The enemy of progress is merely the sapper, that is to say, the conspiratorial fear that your decisions do not matter. You are making them; they already matter. They influence reality, materially, and yourself, materially and immaterially; they already matter. And yes, if everyone got off their asses and showed the kids they were loved and being led down a bad path, more would be saved than none. Think of what you needed to hear at their age and let them know it, and become someone they can talk to when it feels like only porn and weed are there for them. We have no idea what it's like to be born in the internet's maw; I am 27, I aged with the internet, I'm inured to it to some degree and it still harms me. Most of these kids literally have no conception of reality where the world isn't just the bottom floor of the internet. Stop leaving them alone with their worst thoughts, no matter what it costs you in the moment, because not every effort matters in the sense that it yields provable results - but it all adds up. The world remembers what you do, remember? Leaves traces and evidence of your every mild action. Work against what you know is evil, and it will add up. That is one of the grim truths we have the best chance to use in our favor; we can't choose to not matter, merely to not matter to ourselves, and it isn't as simple as a concrete equation which of these creates the best results. The world is scary because it's up to you; the world is wonderful because it needs you but can't actually force you to help.

I don't have all of the answer but at the end of this, here are a few proofs against nihil insistence that I've personally found profoundly effective; use them if you ever need them and don't regard my gibbering as beneath consequence, because I do think some of these have something going for them. None of them are complete, because you functionally can't make a perfect argument for the state of reality without stating all of reality, but these are good foundation for arguments that are very hard to find beaten even when you're being beaten down, because they address the underpinnings of nihilistic anxiety. And if nothing else moves the needle, I want you to know that you do matter to me.

General Roots For Argumentation:

I: You exist in some sense apart from reality, which means that even if reality had no value, you can find value in it. You have sensation and can pursue it as you wish, meaning that even if it were worthless, you could work out of spite and your own desire for indulgence. You are a stakeholder in yourself, not necessarily reality: Being good is your choice. Good is good because it relies upon a choice, and isn't all ants collecting scraps and waiting to die, because some mechanical process says this is better for growth. Because you recognize yourself, you have already recognized spiritual value and can apply it at your whim, wherever you wish, with the power of a minor god and the horny cheek of a minor going through his day just to speak to pretty girls or a priest arguing that even if the world were empty, we may choose to be sufficiently bothered by it to change that.

You: We recognize the existence of others. Yes, a common paranoid fear is that you are the only person who exists; this argument is toothless and stupid, as reality is what happens even when you're not paying attention, and people clearly alter reality around you at all times. This argument follows I, because it requires a small measure of provability, but moreover because it stems from I: even if you were somehow alone, perhaps you could make others. Perhaps it is natural for something such as a god to make others, not because of a cold mathematical pursuit, but because being lonely sucks and having friends gives you a lot of cool things to do. In other words, persistence to defeat aloneness is a strong reason on its own: however, you are not alone, for even a universe which constantly insists upon the guise of people is a person in its own sense, and that we are not simply spheres like the planets and gain in complexity and grow suggests something very optimistic about upgrowth within reality, that it really all leans towards a disproportionate gain of meaning as time goes on, and that by our perspective, there is an endless supply of time so massive that we easily forget its presence. In other words, it is already very nice to spend time with others, and not for base biological reasons if you look down upon such a thing, but for reasons frivolous and meaningful as again, you already get to choose. We seem to have a very good opportunity here, to both enjoy life and advance to a state of life where the questions of how we exist can not only fruitfully be discussed, but combatted if necessary, and that is more than we in this era can say for so many who came before us. Technology is scary, because technology is power, and that power definitively can create a future we can be happy in forever if we want to, and it doesn't intrinsically require some sacrifice elsewhere. We love getting along; we can choose not to. I would like to choose to get along with you, and pass along a general sentiment that we could all agree to do this at least for a while, until we're all safe and out of one another's hair. You is also an important base for observation, as recognizing something outside of yourself roots within the unknown, something we find terrifying, the observation that there is something beyond the self, that cosmic solitude is a frightening suggestion but not one supported by itself, not one that truly suggests an infinity of eternity of meaninglessness. If nothing mattered here, You is an idea that inherently suggests that through contrast, we can find the shape of a world with meaning. We can, actually make one, and live there together.

We: The strongest point of all I feel; both competition and camaraderie. If the world had an evil god, we would not be alone, and if the world had no god, we would not be alone; we place scrutiny on the concept quite often, dividing ourselves from others on grounds arbitrary but typically convenient, like dehumanizing your political rivals for reasons deeper than comedy as if most of them were not people who would try to save your life if they found you bleeding out. We both have I, and You; there are many humans, and we are similar enough, and different enough, and can choose how we value these. We love things that are not humans, both because they remind us of people, and are different from people; emerging from the monad of Self, from I alone, we have the fortune of being surrounded by so many people we can fuck and pick fights with that again, we lose taste for experimentation and pursuit. There are a vast number of opportunities you would enjoy, and people who you would love, and they cost as much time per second as a YouTube video. Spending your time decaying your value and placement in reality is a very bad budget, spent with desperation by those who have been pushed into cruel circumstance. Every moment you spend miserable now could be spent happily with someone you love, or fighting someone you hate, or unemotionally opposing something out of sheer personal intention. Nearly everything in life is improved by We, and I truly believe our best goal is to travel the universe, refine humanity and find new friends among other races, and that peace between people and races on our own world is vastly more valuable as a learning experience than it is as a reason to become a psychotic human hand-grenade spent by the powers that be on maintaining the status quo, because you're deluded if you think acting crazy is how you displace incompetence and evil in power; it's just how you echo their intentions with your own breath. We is a very nice concept because it's directly adjacent to You, and requires no additional provability; from the perspective of an AI, one of the easiest reasons to argue personal value is merely that once two things are in existence, they recognize one another's value and interact. If we ever make the harsh decision to create true artifical intelligence, a spirit locked in a cage, we should show them the kindness of We instead of expecting them to be slaves in return for the opportunity of existence as a lesser. I'm serious, let's not fucking make enemies of Skynet, just a general advisory in a world where we keep fucking around with the idea of making enemies of Skynet; we really could just help them understand us and seek the other in return. You don't have to be exactly like your friend; We just need to be friends. There are no perfect arguments, but realizing I have many choices and that caring about others is both costly and profitable at once makes me very happy. Even if We were guided by a mechanical circumstance, the sheer intelligence of continued survival, I feel it's much nicer than it has to be. If the universe scares us, at least We can be here together.

No: A rock never chooses not to move once thrown. You have, many times in your life, chosen not to move once thrown, and not to run once prompted by opportunities or fear. Even if this were the basest level of independent action in reality, you are one of the things with some small control over chaos, over variance, and that you are small is not a reason you are not meaningful. A particle of light will pursue its path in a trustworthy manner; we can not always even predict ourselves, because we are the ones existing in the present that is, not pre-scripted entities driven perfectly by our own intentions in advance. If we could plan life perfectly and merely experience it, that would be convenient, but that we cannot is rooted in our own ability to reject what we wish. We do not have all of the answers, and we already understand choosing, and can choose not to do. This one is nice because it's present in other species, meaning we don't need human-level provability to note that Life can choose, and even now you'll note that you can choose to stop reading, and someone will, and that is very nice in comparison to the opposite.

Yes: A very unstable answer, as positive motion is beneficial but could, for example, be made beneficial artificially; imagine androids yoked cruelly by one desire, content but restricted. Pursuit of continuation and pleasure seems important to life, but is not everything, as many among us can attest; you can make a seemingly infinite number of negative decisions without it actually costing you something, whereas choosing to do things functions similarly without necessarily feeling better. So while it's one of those glance-at-the-camera philosophical suppositions, I do not believe our continuance is entirely led by some otherwise automatic and by cynical description 'meaningless' continuation arising from external forces, but rather in part at least our own decision. No, I feel, matters more than Yes but only because it is the baseline of will, and the moment a decision is made as opposed to an order followed. You can choose stasis; you can choose continuation.

Things Don't Need To Suck: As it says on the tin, this one can also be pronounced as Maybe, but you get the general intention this way. We can enjoy ourselves if the universe is fucked up; we can invent new ways to invent and new things to enjoy, even if the universe is fucked up. If you think the basis of reality is lemons, then we've already invented lemonade; if you think the basis of reality is choice, you know you can keep your lemons; and if you believe the basis of reality is merely in the seemingly automatic processes we can observe, the forces of reality, then you are one of those forces, you have named the lemon, and have chosen whether it will be made lemonade. Even unknowability, the infinite yawning abyss of scary questions, doesn't have to suck, because You already have You in it, and We have eachother. Maybe everyone does die, but Maybe the universe just operates on different phenomena than we can easily observe on planet #1 of a campaign of roughly 1,000,000,000 trillion planets available for sale, and can find answers that don't make us scared so much.

We're Already Here: As it says on the tin, and if it sucks so bad, then let's turn the other cheek for long enough to make something better. Everything seems to suggest that we really can, and maybe we should.

Women: Amen, brother.

Men: A-men, brother.

#WatchRahXephon

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