#apparently this was some kind of April Fools thing is my understanding

[ingravinoveritas]

Here get booped

Ahh, thank you! I wholeheartedly and enthusiastically accept your drive-by booping. Or, since this is the second actual boop I have received, I can now call it "Booping 2: Electric Boopaloo." Allow me to also offer my own David style boop to you in return:

[selfindulgentpixies]

Part one

Okay here's part two for my Suguru x reader fic i did earlier. It's going to evolve into a Satoru x reader x Suguru fic. This one admittedly has ended up feeling very uh meandering I guess? I'm trying to establish the dynamic between the three of them

Important notes: GN!reader, reader is referred to with chan attached to their name, reader is a year younger than Suguru and Satoru. Suguru and Satoru are absolute menaces. Reader's cursed technique is mentioned. Said CT involves absorbing curses through their hands and converting them into weapons though it's not super important to to this chapter.

Fun fact: the japanese school year apparently begins in in april! So this takes place a bit before hidden inventory shortly after Suguru and Satoru start their second year.

Edit: I've made some revisions to this chapter to bring it up to my current standards! Nothing big just things that make it flow better and some extra details.

Chapter 2: Movie night

Things are different after the mission with Geto, he's softer with you than he’d been in the past. Before the mission he'd almost seemed a little resentful of you behind his smile though you couldn't figure out why. It didn't feel like that now. You aren't dumb, you can pinpoint the moment things felt like they'd begun to shift with him. When he'd held your arm after you absorbed that curse, the way his eyes had looked over darkly bruising flesh with the ink black lines crawling up your arm like an infection. When he'd asked if it was always like this you thought you'd find pity in his dark gaze when you raised your eyes to his, instead you saw something you weren't expecting. Understanding.

You were admittedly thrown off balance by this, plastering what you hoped was a reassuring smile on your face as you answered him. You doubted you fooled his keen eyes as you tried to disguise your discomfort but he didn't push you or even ask if it hurt. Probably because he thought the question would be pointless. Only an idiot wouldn't have been able to see you were in pain. Instead he'd gently examined the limb, his fingers sliding over your arm before letting go when he was satisfied.

He'd also begun going out of his way since that day to help you train as well, though you're not sure how much getting tossed around the training field like a rag doll is helping you. You've gotten very good at breaking your falls. You can at least say that. He said you were improving but you're not sure how true that is, though it probably should have tipped you off he was being honest when Gojo who was sitting on the sidelines more often than not to watch didn't interject to say otherwise. Especially since he was more than willing to point out where you had messed up. Perhaps you just hadn't known them long enough to realize that Geto was soft for you and Gojo was becoming so in turn. Again it's kind of hard to realize someone is soft for you when they regularly send you flying like you weigh nothing. Both older boys could appreciate that you kept dusting yourself off and getting right back to it though. 

These last few weeks play back in your mind on repeat. Especially how gently he'd held your arm on that mission and the look in his eyes. You're broken from these thoughts when you notice the three second years making their way back to the dorms, Shoko splitting off from the boys presumably to head toward her own dorm. Probably to get cleaned up after a mission if you had to guess. You watch Geto and Gojo, watch as their hands brush against each other as they walk. They start to lean in close to each other and you watch as Gojo brushes his lips over Geto’s ear. You’ve apparently been caught staring though as suddenly Gojo is unmistakably looking directly at you as you noisily watch the intimate moment playing out between the older boys. Gojo’s sudden shift in attention of course causes Geto to look toward your window as well.

You let out a squeak and instead of maybe rolling with it and just waving or something to make yourself not seem nosy you flail and pull your curtain closed. "Stupid stupid stupid,” you grumble to yourself feeling your ears burn.

Down below you don’t see the two older boys share knowing and amused grins. You’re also far too consumed by your own embarrassment at having been caught staring at their intimate moment to hear their laughter as you internally berate yourself.

You also don't hear the ensuing conversation.

You get maybe a half hour of peace after that, able to mostly stop cringing at yourself and get back to studying. The peace is shattered when there's a knock on your door. You jolt in your seat, taken off guard since you hadn't expected anyone to stop by your room this late in the day. You turn in your chair and give the door a questioning look, unsure if you want to be bothered. Then he speaks. "Oi, ___-chan, come on don't ignore me." It's Gojo. All your embarrassment at being caught staring earlier floods back.

Reluctantly you get up and open your door a little to stare up at the older boy. He's got his arms full of snacks and he's grinning down at you, eyes obscured by those dark glasses he always wears. "I was almost worried you went to bed early. Come on, we don't want to keep the others waiting."

If an expression could be a question mark that's what your face was now. "Who's waiting and why?"

"You'll see it's a surprise~" he sing songs.

"Senpai, I" You're cut off when he adjusts his hold on the snacks and reaches out to grab your arm, tugging you out of your room since you were apparently taking too long to convince.

You flail, taken off balance and your voice involuntarily raises an octave "Gojo-senpai i-i'm not dressed to go anywhere i'm in my pajamas!"

"Pajamas are perfect for this, don't worry about it." He ignores your sputtering and goes to close your door.

"At least let me grab my phone." You huff.

He glances down at you with a triumphant smile knowing he's gotten his way. He opens your door fully and gestures with a flourish for you to go ahead. You contemplate slamming the door behind you but felt wrong being so disrespectful to an upperclassman, especially as your mind so helpfully reminded you of how you'd been caught rudely staring at him and Geto-senpai only half an hour ago.

You follow Gojo closely, having to take three steps for every one of his. "So you're really not gonna tell me?"

"Stop being impatient, you'll literally see the surprise in less than two minutes."

You pout but go quiet.

He wasn't wrong, soon enough you're standing in front of another dorm room. "Suguru, Shoko, I got the snacks and grabbed ___ along the way. "

You blink a little owlishly, realizing the dorm room you're at is likely Geto's. It's neat, at least by teenage boy standards. There's a biggish bean bag couch set up at the end of the bed facing a tv that's been set up with what looks like a shiny new dvd player along with several stacks of dvd's. Shoko and Geto are both by an open window, blowing smoke outside.

Shoko smiles warmly. "Ahh glad you could make it, ___-chan. When they told me they were inviting you too I wasn't sure you'd actually come."

You glance away for a moment and play with the hem of your sleep shirt. "Gojo-senpai was very... insistent." 

Geto laughs lowly. "Satoru always is once he's decided something."

Your eyes are drawn toward the dark haired boy as he stubs out his cigarette and tosses it into the ashtray. He's smiling at you, his head tilted to the side. You can't help but take in how his hair is down and wet, clinging to his neck. It makes your mouth feel dry in a way you're not really familiar with. Gojo nudges you into the room before going to set out the snacks.

For some reason the idea that your three senpai had decided to invite you to their movie night left you feeling intimidated. "Is uh... anyone else gonna show up?" you ask hoping you don't sound nervous. "Nope-” Gojo pops the ‘P’, ”just the four of us," he throws over his shoulder at you as he continues his task. Your stomach swoops a little. At least Shoko is here otherwise you're pretty sure you would have run away. Being alone in such a casual setting with Gojo and Geto would have been overwhelming right now.

You finally move to go sit on the far end of the beanbag couch only to be jerked toward the middle of it by Gojo as he sits on your left, before you can protest or move back Geto sits on the right side of you, effectively trapping you between the two of them unless you wanted to outright get up and find a different spot to sit, though your options would be the literal floor or Geto's bed since Shoko seems to have claimed Geto's desk chair.

Shoko catches you looking her way and she eyes her peers suspiciously. "___, we can switch places if you'd like." She states already starting to stand. You scoot just slightly forward ready to accept only to feel a strong hand pull back on your shoulder and then feel Suguru's arm pressing along the back of your shoulder's once you've been pulled back to sit snugly in the honestly too small bean bag couch with the two long limbed boys.

"Aww they're fine right here aren't you, ___?" Geto asks as he tilts his head at you, a smile curling his lips and pretty brown eyes turning into crescents.

You're pretty sure your brain is as fried as it could ever be in that moment only for it to get even worse when Gojo's arm presses against Geto's and he too somehow manages to get further into your personal space. "Yeah this is the best place to watch movies from," Gojo's breath  fans over your ear and you swear you can feel the barest hint of his lips brush the skin there.

Your face is so hot that you're surprised you haven't burst into flames and your heart is so rabbit quick you’re wondering how it hasn’t burst out of your chest. You’ve never been subjected to attention like this before. Especially not by a pair of pretty boys like your senpai.

Shoko breaks the moment by tossing two precisely aimed pillows into the faces of the two biggest menaces she knows. "If the two of you don't stop that I'll take ___-chan with me and go have a movie night just the two of us." There’s a clear threat in her voice and they know she means it.

Both boys sputter at the pillows in their faces before grumbling. Geto tosses his on the ground while Gojo holds his on his lap with a pout, he then sticks his tongue out at her. "You're no fun."

"And you're going to send ___ running if you keep it up," She shoots back and goes over to the dvd player to pick a movie. Neither Gojo nor Geto had taken the time to put one in, more focused on getting you trapped between them.

After selecting a movie and putting it in she glances back at you. "So would you like to trade seats?" You keep your eyes firmly on her but you can swear you can feel the two boys looking at you. You don't fully trust your voice but squeak out a small reply anyway. "Y-yeah actually." there was no way you were gonna be able to focus on the movie if they kept doing whatever it was they were doing. You feel Geto squeeze your shoulder briefly before letting go and both boys scoot slightly to allow you the minimal space needed to get up from the squishy death trap that is the bean bag couch. Shoko ends up helping you up before plopping herself in between menace one and two who are both definitely pouting.

The desk chair gives you the space needed to get your bearings for the first time since Gojo showed up at your door. Was this all some weird game to get back at you for staring at them from your window? As the movie plays you're sure you can feel them glancing your way but try to ignore it. Ignore it until Gojo tosses a candy bar directly into your lap startling you during a tense scene and making you squeak. When you realize what had touched you was a candy bar and not a serial killer you look over toward the three on the couch to catch Gojo flashing a grin your way. Geto reaches over shoko to playfully shove his shoulder.

Even now in the mostly dark room you can see it's your favorite. Which probably isn't that strange given that you normally eat one after training with Geto, and since one boy was never far from the other Gojo probably just picked up on it. That or it's all coincidence and your nerves from the evening thus far are making you over analyze a chocolate bar.

You're not sure when you dozed off in the uncomfortable chair but when you're woken up it's by Gojo poking you in the cheek and there are credits rolling on screen. He goes to poke your cheek again but you pull back with a slurred " 'm awake..." You blink blearily at the room, trying to get your brain to catch up with the situation. Gojo pokes you again deliberately on the nose this time. Without thinking and with sleepy irritation overriding all good sense you bite at him, surprising you both when you actually manage to catch his finger.

You immediately release his finger that now has a neat little ring of your teeth dented into it.

"You bit me! What the hell!?"

Embarrassed you yell back, "I only bit you because you kept shoving your finger in my face!"

Distantly through your embarrassment you register Geto laughing at the two of you. Honestly more at Gojo than you though you don’t realize that.

"Will you all shut up," an angry lump on the beanbag couch growls out. You realize it's Shoko. "I'm trying to sleep."

"Ah but Shoko, if you want to sleep you can go back to your own room. Satoru and I aren't going to bed for a while yet." Geto's tone is light as he sits up more in bed, drawing your gaze. From what you can gather it seems both he and Gojo must have moved to the bed at some point during the movie.

 It's while you're occupied with this thought that the white haired menace grabs both arms of the chair you're sitting in. You blink. "Wha-" He spins the chair and you let out a little yell. When he finally stops the chair you slide out of it dazed. The world is still spinning a little. "W-what was that for..?"

"For biting me of course."

"Satoru, don't pick on them too much, you were asking for a reaction poking them like that," Geto admonishes him, though even dazed as you are you can hear the amusement in his voice.

There's an annoyed grunt from the beanbag couch and the lump that is Shoko wrapped in a blanket stands up and heads for the door after tossing the blanket over Gojo. "Guess I will go back to my own room if the three of you can't be quiet."

From your spot you wonder what you did to get lumped in with the two of them.

Gojo pulls the blanket off his head and sticks his tongue out at Geto. "Yeah yeah." Standing he grabs your arm unprompted to pull you off the floor and you stumble into him because the world is still spinning a little from how fast he spun the chair.

You push most of the way off his chest in embarrassment though your hands remain to keep you steady as the world slows back down. You look up at him from beneath your lashes with an unintentional pout and mumble out an apology.

"Oh and what are you sorry for?" He tilts his head to the side and it suddenly strikes you that in the mostly dark room he'd removed his glasses. The full force of his pretty eyes focused directly on you. That is until Geto Speaks up. "That's enough teasing, Satoru." He sits up fully in the bed crossing his legs as he turns his full attention to you.

Geto blessedly gives you an out. "___-chan, do you want to stay with us and watch another movie or do you think you're done?" Honestly you think you could hug him for giving you a clear choice. The thought makes your cheeks flush.

"uh... I should probably go back to my room, it's late yeah? I have to be up early to train." Your hands drop from Gojo's chest now that the world has stopped spinning.

The raven haired boy nods. "I'll walk you back to your room then."

"You don't gotta do that, senpai, i don't even have to go outside."

"I know, but I want to." He smiles at you so prettily. 

Geto is bounced on the bed when Gojo flops down on the mattress.

You shift a little looking between the two of them for a moment. "Alright then.." your hand comes up to rub the back of your neck.

With that Geto is out of bed and walking you through the short halls to your room.

"Thanks for inviting me to watch movies with you guys tonight, or was that just Gojo-senpai?"

He hums. "No we both wanted you to join."

"Can I ask why?"

"What do you mean why?" He raises an eyebrow as he peers down at you. "We like your company, that's reason enough." You were skeptical and your expression must have told him as much as he sighs. "Do you think I spend my time between missions and classes training someone whose company I don't like? And do you think Satoru would stick around to add input if he didn't? Our time is too valuable for that."

"O-oh," you utter lamely before swallowing and speaking again. "Well, thank you, Geto-senpai." You weren't exactly used to people wanting your company. Before Jujutsu tech you were often viewed as being strange by your peers.

He messes up your hair. "Ack!" and when you glance up at him even while his hand is still on your head the smile he's giving you makes your heart thunder in your chest.

"You should call me Suguru."

"Isn't that a bit rude though? You're older than me and-"

"It's not rude if I've told you you can."

You're quiet for a moment as you reach your dorm room. He lets you be, giving you time to process your conversation. He leans against the wall by your door. "Well uh.. thank you again Ge- Suguru-senpai. It was nice at least until I fell asleep." You rock back on your heels before opening your bedroom door.

"Of course. I'll see you tomorrow then for training?"

You nod eagerly. "Yeah I'll see you then. Goodnight." You give him a little wave.

He bids you goodnight as well and goes to return to his room, likely to watch more movies with Gojo if you had to guess. After carefully closing the door you take a deep breath before throwing yourself onto your bed to squeal into your pillow and flail your legs to get out all your feelings from the night, especially the exchange you'd just had with Suguru.

__

Back in Suguru's room you miss when he sits in the desk chair Gojo had aggressively spun you in earlier and how it breaks dramatically beneath him. What you don’t  miss is Gojo's cackling in the hall and the sounds of thudding footsteps outside your room as Suguru chases him. When you peek out your door into the hall to see what's going on they're already long gone.

AHHHH part 2 is officially finished! I hope everyone enjoys it. This is the longest thing i've written i a long while. Keep an eye out for part 3. Upcoming parts will have spoilers for season 2 and the manga.

Tag list! @icy-spicy @strawberrystepmom @nanamikentoseyebags @gojoest

Please let me know if you like it! I put a lot of work into this so far.

Part 3

[2-kamikou-1]

boredom.

So I'm infodumping about all my prsk autistic hcs!

Ichika: (i stole this hc from my friend so I'm gonna paraphrase them some + some things I've observed myself) she's kind of awkward around people who aren't her friends and even then it takes her a while to really be herself around them because she fears that autistic traits drive people away. i smell masking. also miku special interest and she seems to sometimes have trouble communicating her emotions

saki and honami: pure vibes honestly idk it just feels that way. saki sometimes struggles with volume control just like her brother but that's also just one thing ive noticed. idk i dont really pay attention to l/n

shiho: her eyes almost always seem to be averted in her live2d models, in cards where they're talking to people they also appear that way, and even in her 2* they don't appear to be looking into the camera (?), all of which give me the impression of poor eye contact. She seems to struggle with tone, almost always sounding mean/upset without meaning to or even realizing, and has trouble communicating things in ways that aren't blunt. This can sometimes also cause them to say things that are inappropriate for the situation

Minori: haruka/idolship special interest, and we also see her struggle with spatial awareness from time to time, like in the Angel's clover 3dmv she stumbles, and other kinds of general physical awkwardness like that one clip from gunjo sanka. She also has that type of black and white thinking where the first thing she thinks is what she goes with and hard to stray from even if it's incorrect, as shown in the opening to the time to hang out event, where she claims she's "missed the only chance to learn about the Haruka she never knew" despite the fact she had the opportunity to meet up with An again, and when Kohane suggests that she tries to dodge it at first. She also seems to have a hard time making her voice flow naturally, in some mmj covers you can kind of hear her trying really hard to sound good instead of just letting her voice flow

Kohane: general social awkwardness, she seems to have an ability to pick up on music and rhythm just by listening to it. She doesn't seem to pick up on Akito's derogatory tone when reffering to Tsukasa (not by name) in that one area conversation ("My school has this wacko who likes to walk around drawing attention to himself by making random poses"), because she proceeds to say she might ask him for tips on how to be confident. In that same area conversation she worries about drawing attention to herself and refuses to look up. She doesn't understand that An's joking when she says she got 100% on her test on April fool's day, yet another example of her not catching onto tone. In one of her dialogs she hears a cricket chirping in the busy city which is not something neurotypical people can pick out typically!

Toya: he doesn't seem to make a lot of jokes, which is likely because he doesn't catch on to them very well. His speaking voice is sort of flat/monotone, and his facial expressions don't vary much either. His issues with eating squid due to its texture can be chalked up to sensory issues. I think he may also have spatial awareness issues but that one's a little far fetched, seeing as he apparently hits his head off train handles.

might i add, kohane and toya get on in a way only 2 autistic people get along. it's hard to explain they just have that dynamic

long post on the entirety of wxs being autistic

Kanade: she doesn't like the sunlight probably due to sensory issues, and in one area conversation she says she'll wait for a movie to hit streaming because it's too noisy outside to go to the theatre. also sensory stuff! She avoids breaks and resists change, wearing and eating the same stuff every day for the sake of consistency. (These can also be signs of ADHD too but I'm choosing to interpret them as autism because comfort)

Mafuyu: mafuyu is a very good example of the loss of identity that is associated with masking and RSD, both things that can happen in autism. this post explains it in more detail, but in the most simple terms, this happens when an autistic (or any neurodivergence that involves RSD) person creates what are called identity masks to deal with people who are unresponsive to their needs. As they treat personalities like clothes and mirror other people, they start to lose sight of their own identity. That's why we see mafuyu so deadpan when she takes off her good-girl persona, she's disconnected from her core self.

Ena: we see her have something very akin to a meltdown in insatiable pale color, when she makes a mess of all her art supplies. She can be offensive without meaning to at times, as shown in the exciting picnic event. In that same event, it's revealed that Ena defended Airi when she was getting made fun of without even knowing who she was, displaying the innate sense of justice that some autistic people have.

[epicspheal]

Cactusverse aside, how likely is it that Red has aura powers canonically? Like, he grunts at Blue or Leaf, maybe Lance or Professor Oak, his aura transmits exactly what he wants to say, and they reply as if he said it out loud. Like, other protags have visible silence that characters understand, but no one except for Red is actually silent if one takes their Masters personalities as canon. So if Red can afford to be silent and still have people understand his thoughts and his Pokemon obey his commands, then it’s either limited psychic power (which might explain Espeon in Gen 2) or aura powers like Ash has.

Hi there @ether-gearhead! Ooh good question! My guess is that game!Red does likely have some type of power. Considering that the other two main versions of the Pallet Town Protagonist, Ash from the original anime and Red from the Pokemon Special both have something going on (Ash having aura powers, Red having that connection with Deoxys), I would not be surprised if game!Red Also had something going on. From what we've seen with Pokemon Masters Red is very much treated like this living legend cryptid with mysteries surrounding him. Even Blue mentions at one point: "I've known him for a long time now, but there are still a lot of mysteries about that guy." Which to be fair could mean a lot of things and could be totally mundane. But it's definitely a way that they could throw in "Red actually has some kind of power" without it feeling like they're just pulling something out their behinds. The way he communicates with his Pokemon in particular definitely gives the idea he might have some limited telepathic abilities which is indicative of both psychic and aura powers (as seen here under abilities of aura). But also you could make the case of strong empathic abilities as well (N and many of the NPCs in the mainline games who read how friendly you are to your Pokemon seem to be empaths on some level). This would also explain the GSC Espeon since it's a friendship evolution and him having supernatural levels of empathy could trigger such an evolution. That could also be a source of his ability to command his Pokemon non-verbally, and would definitely support the idea of him having aura powers (since part of aura powers does involve bonds and feelings). Plus as Red actually says to Scottie/Bettie and Flint "Words are unnecessary!" when it comes to working with his Pokemon so it's entirely possible he just has the ability to communicate via aura when it comes to his Pokemon. Another thing is apparently he has a really strong aura presence. At least if we judge by Cynthia's quote in the Cynthia vs Red Anniversary Event:

"Are you sensing a strong aura? I may not be able to sense auras like you...but even I can feel this strong presence. If it's someone with a presence this powerful...it must be our opponent for the upcoming event–Red"

That quote gives the sense that he just naturally has a strong aura (because remember in this scene Red was quite a ways from Cynthia where she wouldn't be able to see him).

This is also corroborated with the April Fools Day event in 2022 with the Ditto mimicking trainers. Looker (who is a master of disguise and has detective skills) was unable to figure which was Red was the real one and which one was the Ditto, but Blue was able to figure it out easily just based on vibes/presence alone

"Pffft... It was easy. The fake wasn't giving off any of Red's usual "battle me right here, right now" vibes! That was plenty enough evidence for me."

So this definitely again bolsters the idea of Red having something special about his aura (much like Ash's resembles Sir Aaron's which then led him to being able to use powers). This also suggests that potentially Cynthia and Blue have some affinity for aura given their ability to sense Red's presence like that, even it's less pronounced. A lot of Pokemon's supernatural powers for humans tend to be a bit more subtle, like an extra sense save for a few major feats like Ash, Riley, Sir Aaron, manga Lance and Yellow. So other characters having milder forms of aura power definitely work (in fact this is really huge basis for my cactusverse AU as to why a lot of characters have some form of aura ability...it's not always a flashy sort of deal). This actually leads into your point about communication. We know Blue and Leaf are the designated Red Whisperers of the game and it's very possible that if he did have powers, his aura transmits his thoughts/feelings and because they can pick up on it, they can translate for him. Again this could suggest they also have some latent powers as well (and it makes sense that they would only need to use it on Red since everyone else speaks and why it doesn't show up in other contexts). If we want to go the route of only Red has powers of the three, then the argument here is that he just naturally trusts them more to be willing to use his powers like that compared to other people (this would also apply to Lance and Oak if we see they're able to be Red Whisperers as well). And of course the totally mundane option is they just know him really well.

So yeah, the Tl;dr version of this is I would not be surprised if they said he had some type of power. It's definitely plausible given his other counterparts and what we do know about supernatural powers in the Pokemon world.

[nickgerlich]

Pushing The Needle

You can’t blame a company for trying, for pushing the needle not just a little bit, but so much that it raises eyebrows. After all, these are the innovators among us, but we typically only assign that word when they have pushed that needle and been successful in finding a new way to do something. If they fail…well, it becomes fodder for business school class discussions.

Like today, since Amazon just pulled the plug on its Just Walk Out program that is available in some of its Amazon Fresh grocery stores. And to be on the safe side, I made sure my source material was not published two days ago on April Fools Day. In other words, this is no whopper. It’s legit news.

The premise behind JWO was that once shoppers entered one of the stores and opened an app, they could grab whatever they wanted, and simply walk out. Amazon relied on sensors and cameras to keep tabs on things, and inherently put a lot of trust in its shoppers, no doubt much more trust than the kind offered by Target, Walmart, and others with self-check kiosks.

But what was not apparent all along is the fact that Amazon relied on crews of video surveillance employees in India, who were in fact watching everything that shoppers did, and making sure the running tab was accurate. Even then, it would sometimes take hours of review before a final receipt could be issued, and charges placed on the customer’s credit card.

According to one report, one that Amazon denies, 700 out of 1000 transactions required review.

JWO launched in 2016, which now seems like eons ago. As for Amazon Fresh, of which there are only 40 stores in the chain, it debuted in 2007. About half of the Fresh stores have JWO technology. Instead, Amazon is rolling out—literally and metaphorically—Dash Carts, which allow for shoppers to scan and check out directly from their trolley. It is unclear how airport and stadium shops that have third-party vendors who license JWO technology will have to adapt, if at all.

The whole idea of JWO was to eliminate a layer of overhead by cutting out labor. It’s just that they moved it to India, where apparently labor costs are so cheap that, even after installing all of the in-store equipment and paying those human reviewers, it was still less than just having cashiers here in the States. I can’t imagine the new shopping carts costing much less, but here we are.

It’s easy to bash Amazon for ditching JWO, but the bottom line is this: They use their Fresh stores as a laboratory for retail operations, and if something works, they will likely deploy it elsewhere, like in their much larger Whole Foods chain. If it doesn’t work, then they kill it, and with JWO in only about 20 stores, it is a much less costly misstep than launching it on a much larger scale.

I understand all retailers’ desire to reduce labor costs, but the idea that someone half a world away from me is watching my every move is more than just a little creepy. It sounds Orwellian in application, and even though it’s not the government eavesdropping from a corner-mounted camera, it’s easily just as weird, and maybe even more so.

Stores have long relied on two-way mirrors for observing shoppers, because “shrink” as shoplifting is called has always been a problem. Many other stores also use security cameras to do likewise, meaning there are humans in a control room with their eyes glued to grainy black-and-white screens. But monitoring at what likely amounted to one-on-one surveillance is a harder pill to swallow.

Amazon’s new shopping carts still mean there is an element of trust involved, because the system still depends on shoppers manually scanning and checking out. It is little different from other scan-and-go systems in place, like at Costco and Sam’s Club. There is no perfect alternative, including the traditional check-out with a human cashier.

In Amazon’s quest to shape the future, the company, and by extension, all of us, now know how it won’t look. Like I said, you can’t blame a company for trying. But all the cameras and sensors in the world can’t guarantee that an idea will work. The needle broke on this one.

Dr “What’s In Your Cart?” Gerlich

Audio Blog

[solarishashernoseinabook]

Happy April Fool's Day, everyone! I decided to have a bit of fun today :D I put one of my fics, Halt Pops the Question, through ten layers of Google Translate and decided to post the results. So check below the cut to find out how my fic survived being translated through Kazakh, Slovak, Sesotho, Azerbaijani, Serbian, Hawaiian, Japanese, Sudanese, Irish, and Urdu!

Question

‘So you're going to have dinner in Mrs. Palin's room tomorrow, right?’ Jenny writes a note.

‘Like,’ Holt nodded. 'Brad rolls are the most popular.'

‘Like,’ Jenny said.

Apparently I saw an unpleasant smile on his face. 'You should. I want him to do something and make him happy.’

Back in the kitchen, Jenny slowly broke down.

*

Pauline is ready to wear the old clothes that the tailor gave her. The coat is much shorter than the knees and was painted by the mouse during sewing.

Mora said lightly.

‘Okay,’ said Pauline. ‘But it's one of my favorite things and I want to go with it tonight.’

‘Wow, special post?’ Pig beyond.

Pauline couldn't stop smiling. ‘Lunch without food, yes.’

‘Be Pauline,’ said Maura, ‘is this news true? See ... Do you have any questions?’

Paulina smiled half-heartedly. 'I think. He offers a special meal, and Alice says Jenny is scared. He definitely listened to her.’

‘Puren!’ Oib Mora. ‘I've been waiting for this for 20 years! The long wait and Harty are feeling good, aren't they?’

They both smiled and Mora started to grow old again.

*

The party reached Holt last night, but Pauline is making some preparations. He straightened his hair, put it on the table, poured the wine, and then looked at his hair. Finally the door closed and he stood up laughing. Sit still and let's do it!

He sees her shaving his head with knives. Some things don't change.

‘Thanks, Pauline.’ Pauline's eyes widened as she pulled up the bed and pushed herself onto the chair. He was afraid he would be dragged to the door and slipped on the table. He stood up, took a cup and drank.

‘Are you going to finish training again?’ Pauline asked.

Need one of the bags. ‘I'll put him in Crowley. He's hunting at the next meeting. What if Alice? It's not over?’

Pauline refused. ‘She is OK. She has some problems now, but she is proving herself.’

‘I'm not surprised. He is a good teacher.’

‘The words of encouragement will not take you anywhere,’ Pauline hid her prediction. ‘No shortage.’

Immediately. Stop filling the cup and fill it. Pauline had a great time. He knew that many men would be upset when the time came, but Holt would not let anyone down. Wanted it.

He immediately ate a very tasty meal and gave Halt a discount menu. Pauline smiled. ‘Jenny's ball? No, you don't.’

Stop laughing and let Pauline cook. Jenny doesn't often make these cakes, so Holt's order shows that he wants to make the night special.

At the end of breakfast, Holt leaned into the cup holding his hand. ‘So Pauline ... there's a reason I can have dinner tonight.’

Pauline smiled. ‘Why isn't it suitable for my profession?’

‘That's enough,’ said Hart. ‘Oh, today, today ...’

Pauline smiled a little. ‘I'm kind of having fun. Get out. Come in.’

Hart poured the water into the cup. ‘I thought ... I was throwing someone in the grave. Danchhadha is a good man. I need his help to understand everything.’

Pauline didn't know if he would throw Holt in the grave or laugh.

[365days365movies]

April 9, 2021: Some Like it Hot (1959) (Recap: Part One)

If there was ever a movie more hyped than this one...

Ever heard of the American Film Institute? Well, according to them in 2000 (recent, I know), this is the funniest comedy...period. At the time, anyway. That beats Tootsie (getting there), Dr. Strangelove (love it), Annie Hall (also loved it), Duck Soup (classic), Blazing Saddles (classic, topical, and fantastic), M*A*S*H (maybe later this year), It Happened One Night (maybe next year), The Graduate (later this WEEK), and...THE FUCK DO YOU MEAN Airplane! IS NUMBER 10? You CANNOT be seri...yeah, OK, you know where I’m going.

Anyway. Yeah, so, maybe AFI has Oscar syndrome, because that’s a little bullshit. So, uh...how about the BBC? In 2017, they asked 253 film critics ACROSS THE GLOBE what the best comedy of all time was, and number ONE was Some Like it Hot. Other than beating Airplane! again, it also beat Groundhog Day, Monty Python’s Life of Brian and Monty Python and the Holy Grail, This is Spinal Tap, The Big Lebowski, and His Girl Friday, and...well, every comedy you can think of. This movie CANNOT be that funny.

...Can it?

But there’s more to this film than that. Apparently, it was made without the approval of the MPPDA, which means that it wasn’t Hays Code adherent! Damn! In fact, this film was partially responsible for its collapse about 6 years later! But what is the Hays Code? Well, briefly covered, it was a set of standards laid out by Will Hays and his Motion Picture Produces and Distributors of America, or the MPPDA. It was enforced in the mid 1930s, and stood firmly in place until 1968, when it basically disappeared.

So, what are these standards? Well, there are a lot, but in a nutshell:

No cursing or taking the Lord’s name in vain in any way.

No nudity, real or suggested. And sex is kind of OK, if consensual and between a man and a woman ONLY. But, they can’t be in bed together, and they can only kiss one time, IF one of them isn’t a villain.

No weddings, no wedding nights, and barely any reference to marriage.

No prostitution, or what was called “white slavery”. Yes. Really.

Oh, also, no weird race-mixing stuff. What’s a “civil rights”?

Buuuuuuut...don’t insult any races either. Of course, considering the time period, “insult” or “offense” is probably subjective, so...fuck that, I guess.

PRIESTS ARE HOLY AND CANNOT BE MOCKED

No guns, fire, American flags, murder, smuggling, drugs, hanging, electrocution, or...law enforcement?

No childbirth, seen or inferred, and no naked kids. I mean...that’s common sense, to be completely fair.

NO RACE-MIXI-oh. Oh, I said that already, didn’t I? Well, OK, I’ll pare it down a little. They can’t have sex, but I guess...looking at each other is OK? Yeah, yeah, we’ll go with that. I’m progressive!

That about covers it. And this movie wasn’t adherent to it? Oh...well, I am excited! Let’s jump right in! SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

Recap (1/2)

The whole thing starts with a bang; literally. It's Chicago in 1929, smack dab in the middle of the Prohibition Era, and a group of gangsters are smuggling some alcohol inside of a coffin, while riding in a hearse. The cops aren't fooled, ad a shootout takes place between the gangsters and the cops, but they eventually drop off as the group takes the coffin into a funeral home. At the funeral home, a man named “Toothpick” Charlie (George E. Stone) meets with Mulligan (Pat O’Brien) a detective who’s got Charlie as his informant. With his help, he makes his way into the funeral home, actually a speakeasy in disguise.

Said speakeasy is run by “Spats” Colombo (George Raft), and within the speakeasy is a massive party, which the partygoers call a funeral. Spats arrives there shortly afterwards, and Mulligan watches all the while. Also at this party is a group of dancers accompanied by a band, which contains two partners, ladies’ man and sax player Joe (Tony Curtis) and anxious double bassist Jerry (Jack Lemmon).

The two talk about what they’re going to do with their upcoming paycheck, with Joe planning on using it for gambling on dog races. Jerry is understandably worried about this, as they owe rent, but Joe rattles off other things that he might was well worry about.

Suppose you got hit by a truck. Suppose the stock market crashes. Suppose Mary Pickford divorces Douglas Fairbanks. Suppose the Dodgers leave Brooklyn! Suppose Lake Michigan overflows.

Fun fact, though: the stock market’s about to crash in a year, Pickford and Fairbanks divorce in 1936, and the Dodgers left Brooklyn in 1957, famously. Lake Michigan has not overflowed...YET. It’s actually at record high water levels, and could cause flooding around it in the next few years. So, although those middle three were DEFINITELY part of the joke...that last one wasn’t at the time. Of course, it’s actually there as a line to set Jerry up with a way to tell him that the streets are “about to flood”, as he spots Mulligan and makes him. He tells Joe, and they both quietly pack up their instruments and leave, BEFORE the ruckus is about to begin.

And begin it does, and the cops raid the place almost immediately afterwards. As the party’s broken up and people are loaded into the paddywagon (Spats included), Joe and Jerry take their chance to escape behind the cops’ backs. However, this also means that the two musicians aren’t getting paid after all. Joe’s still set on betting money on the dog the next day, and get the money for the bet by selling their coats. However, while they do sell their coats, they instead end up looking for jobs at a local music agency, run by Sig Poliakoff (Billy Gray). 

The agency is recruited by band owner Sweet Sue (Joan Shawlee) and her nebbish band manager Bienstock (Dave Barry), as they need a bass and a sax player to replace two of their own, in their band in Florida. On hearing this from Poliakoff’s secretary Nellie (Barbara Drew), the two barge into the office. However, much to their dismay, the only ones they’re looking for are women. While Jerry tries to weasel their way in, it doesn’t quite work, and they instead take a job up north for a Valentine’s Day dance. The two go to a garage to borrow a car from Nellie in order to get to the job. There, playing cards, is Toothpick Charlie with a group of men. But then...somebody else arrives.

Spats and his men arrive at the garage, and tell all of the men to stand with their hands on the wall. Joe and Jerry, however, manage to hide in the garage. And if you know anything about Valentine’s Day during Prohibition Era Chicago...then you know exactly what’s about to happen to Toothpick and the guys.

After the massacre (based upon the real St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, Jerry makes a noise and alerts the gang to their presence. This is a problem, because Spats isn’t keen on the idea of witnesses, and immediately orders the musicians killed.With a distraction caused by the still-alive-but-dying Charlie, the two manage to escape Spats’ wrath. Now needing a fast way out of town, Joe figures out a plan. See, that job, the one from Sweet Sue, is in Florida, which is far enough away that they should be able to escape. But, uh...the band is only looking for women. And so...

This is the second most famous thing about the film. Meet Josephine and Daphne, the female aliases of Joe and Jerry respectively. As Jerry realizes the difficulties of the female wardrobe (namely skirts and heels), the two walk up to the band of women, known as “Sweet Sue and her Society Syncopators.” But they aren’t the only arrivals, and the other is the MOST famous thing about this movie...

This is Sugar “Kane” Kowalczyk, the lead singer, ukelele player, and...OK, look, it’s Marilyn Monroe, and I think I need to acknowledge this now. Marilyn Monroe is an underrated talent today, but she had a hell of a lot of potential as an actress and as an individual. She had a lot of troubles, and her early death by suicide is an absolute tragedy, no matter how you slice it. She’s a talented actress and singer, and she deserves recognition for that.

SHE IS ALSO INSANELY HOT I’M SORRY I’M WEAK

Look...it’s Marilyn fucking Monroe, OK? I know, I’m a straight cissexual man, but I wanted to make a point to acknowledge the fact that Marilyn Monroe is a talent far outside of her beauty and physicality. She (and all women) deserve that much, and deserve not to be objectified by the male gaze. I genuinely agree with this, and I do understand that concept. I’ll never personally understand the female experience, but it’s my responsibility and duty as an individual to understand experiences foreign to my own, including this one.

But DEAR LORD, her physicality is not easy to ignore, now and then! I mean COME ON! The woman’s considered a standard of classic beauty to this day by many (not by all, and not by herself), and it’s unfortunately her most famous feature to nearly everybody. But, of course, Monroe got a lot of grief for her looks as well (which is bullshit), and the stress of her life sadly led to her terrible suicide. But that doesn’t mean that her beauty inside and out shouldn’t be appreciated for what it is: beauty.

ALSO SHE IS DROP DEAD GORGEOUS I’M WEAK I KNOW

See, the train agrees with me! Oh...OH RIGHT, THE MOVIE! OK, where was I. Well, Joe and Jerry agree with me about Sugar Kane, but it is the 1950′s when the film is made, so of course they do. They watch her get on, and they follow suit, meeting the women of the band, and Sugar Kane. Sugar, see, has a teensy bit of an alcohol problem. That’s not necessarily to say she’s an alcoholic, but she is admonished for it by Sweet Sue and Bienstock, also being a repeat offender of drinking during working hours. That (and men) is something that Sweet Sue doesn’t tolerate.

She’s almost in trouble that night, when her flask falls from her stocking during a performance. However, Jerry covers for her, much to her appreciation. As they settle in for the night, all of the girls (including Joe and Jerry) sleep in the same cabin, much to the, uh, frustration of Jerry, despite Josephine’s urgings to keep it together. As Jerry continually reminds himself that he’s posing as a girl, he’s surprised that night with the appearance of Sugar, who comes to thank her for her help that night. Sugar tells “Daphne” that she owes her one, and also climbs into the cot with him to hide from Sweet Sue. Jerry...that poor mother fucker.

Well, Jerry tries to ease the tension by offering some of Joe’s whisky. But more of the girls overhear this, and eventually, a massive party erupts, with all the girls mixing drinks and sharing the single space of Jerry’s bed. Joe wakes up from all of this, and tries to help end the party, only for Sugar to climb out of it, and ask Joe for help with a block of ice for the drinks.

It’s here that she reveals that she used to work with men’s bands, but joined this band to get away from men. This is especially to get away from her weakness: tenor sax players. This intrigues Joe, the tenor sax player. However, she’s essentially sworn off of tenor sax players because of multiple bad relationships, and is instead hoping to find a millionaire in Florida, preferably one with a yacht. Meanwhile, Jerry’s bed is getting a little too full, and the girls are getting a little TOO familiar. They start to tickle him, and to prevent his cover being blown, Jerry pulls the train’s emergency brake. All of the girls scatter as the train stops, and they manage to get away with the party as Sweet Sue and Bienstock wake up only then.

The train gets to Florida, and the girls make their way into a hotel. As they check in, Jerry (as Daphne) is spotted by Osgood Fielding III (Joe E. Brown), a millionaire, and a man with eclectic tastes in women. And those tastes apparently include Daphne, as he unsubtly (and unwantedly) hits on her. And Jerry’s having none of it. After Osgood pinches him in the elevator, he gets off after slapping him. Unfortunately, that makes Osgood only want Daphne THAT MUCH MORE. This man...this man may just be the legendary alpha simp of which the stories tell.

Meanwhile, Joe manages to get ahold of Beinstock’s luggage and glasses. He steals his clothes (after fending off an overeager bellboy), and uses them to dress as a millionaire. Why? Why, to seduce Sugar, of course!

This is right at the halfway point, so we’ll pick this up in Part Two! See you there!

[ingravinoveritas]

Boop

Ahh thank you! I saw the whole "Boop" thing going around and had no idea what it was about or how one goes about getting "booped" and/or bestowing boops upon others. How do you even know if you've received a "boop"? I'm also hectically busy because I have three speaking engagements this week, so incredibly behind on my Asks as a result. But I am very happy that I can now say I've been "booped," and I offer you my own boop, Iron Giant style, in return:

[thisbluespirit]

Fic writer interview

I was tagged by @captain-aralias to do this, so here I am:

Name: thisbluespirit.  I previously went by lost_spook and also a very long time ago as vvj5.  (You don’t get my real name, because unfortunately, it’s comparatively uncommon & too easy to find online).

Fandoms: I’m very multi-fannish.  I like the challenge of writing for different fandoms and getting the tone right and so on, and I also love exchanges, which often leads to writing unexpected gifts and treats when somebody’s prompt bites me hard.  As a result, I have quite a ridiculous number of fandoms, but my main ones are probably Doctor Who, Sapphire & Steel, Blake’s 7, Once Upon A Time, Spooks, The Librarians, Adam Adamant Lives! and a lot of very old British TV I love that few others do, like The Shadow of the Tower, the 1968 Dracula, Enemy at the Door, The Power Game and Public Eye and so on.  Recently I fell into the Star Wars Prequels fandom, which was a bit scary but very nice (it’s generally a friendly & very pretty corner of the GFFA) and I definitely want to write some more things for it, and not just Obidala.

Where you post: My fic?  To AO3, and before that (when I was much more mono-fannish) the Doctor Who archive, A Teaspoon and an Open Mind (which we refer to as “Teaspoon” - something that confuses non-DW people).  I once posted three non-DW works to ff.net, which I found so difficult and awkward, I never tried it again, especially not after it later on ate my scene breaks.  (ff.net’s war against scene breaks is apparently eternal and baffling).  Although I used LJ a lot (it was my primary fannish platform for years, and Dreamwidth still is), I was on it for the social and community aspect and find it strange to think of archiving fic there. I only posted it there if it was for a particular comm or meme or challenge being run there. 

Most popular one-shot: By kudos, this is my Yuletide treat where Miss Marple is a genius loci, and by hits, this is my flash ficlet where Miss Marple dusts Dracula.  I write hardly any Miss Marple, but when I die, she’ll be on my fannish tombstone and, at the end of the day, that’s probably a nice way to be remembered!

Most popular multi-chapter: This is impossible to say.  Since I’ve been so ill (for ten years now, much as I hate to say that aloud), I’ve written about 3 multi-chapter works, and only one of them was posted in progress, the others were posted complete.  The rest are very old and are either still only on Teaspoon, or I posted them to AO3 but backdated them, so these just aren’t comparable things.  None of them, being rare fandoms or in OW or backdated Doctor Who works, are popular in any case. The one with the most kudos is a Yuletide fic, The Poison Tree, for Dracula (1968).

Fic you were nervous to post: Lots of them!  The most nerve-wracking are gifts for exchanges, especially if they were serious or shippy, where I have to wait to find out if the recip liked them.  If I’ve written something fun and humorous I tend to know instinctively if it works or not, but when it’s serious, I just feel... terribly stupid and exposed until that comment from the recip, or someone at least, comes at last!

I think, particularly, some of the historical ones and the two Shakespeare ones, understandably, because it would be so easy to go out on a limb and just make a fool of yourself falling off: i love the rose both red and white, (sotT/15th C) his wonders to perform (even though it wasn’t for an exchange- it was a bit outside my usual and I’m still not sure if it really worked) (15th C RPF); movements of the mind (Twelfth Night) and Vigil (Measure For Measure).  The last two proved quite popular-for-Yuletide & I had some of my nicest comments ever on both, though, so obviously I did something right! \o/

How do you choose your titles? Well, either something comes, or I find a poem or song or proverbs quote or I just go dammit and come up with something simple. Remix is easier because you play on the original fic’s title, the fic and your fic, and that always seems to work.

I would worry about this, but I posted a whole bunch of meme fic that I just called “AU Meme: [Character’s Name]” and the summary for each one is “10 AU scenarios for [character] in a Dreamwidth meme” and people read those more than plenty of the others, which does kind of put the whole thing into slightly ironic perspective.

Do you outline? If it’s a long fic, to a certain extent, but only a few notes, or jotting down the ending and so on.  With shorter pieces (which most of mine are), less so, but usually the same things - this scene, or the ending or this line, or a research note or two where needed.

Complete: Number of completed works?  596 on AO3 (599 on my dash, but three are fanvids), but there are more at Teaspoon that I’ve never transferred over.

Do you take prompts?  I write nothing else these days, one way or another, most of the time - bingo squares, random generators, prompt tables, fests, exchanges, writing memes.  I just don’t take them generally, because I am still working on my last writing meme... from April (among other things).  But, yes.  I love prompts.

In progress: 0.  Well, no, actually, I tell a lie, there is one abandoned WIP on Teaspoon, which I started just before I became so ill, a Fifth Doctor crossover with the William Monk & Hester crime series.  Since it is abandoned, though, I don’t think it counts.

Coming soon: My Yule-fic.  Hopefully the last two from the AU Meme before the year is out, maybe a long origfic for Rainbowfic/genprompt_bingo I’ve been working on for ages, which is still in the editing stage, and I’ve a Good Omens/Doctor Who crossover in my notebook that I want to type up soon.  (I promised astrogirl on Dreamwidth I would.)

Tagging: whoever would like to do this and hasn’t been tagged yet - @allegoriesinmediasres @pers-books @human-nxture @luthienebonyx @scarletmanuka @maryellencarter & whoever wants to, feel tagged!  And if you’ve been tagged and you don’t want to, that’s okay, you’re excused.

[movienotesbyzawmer]

April 12: Rocky III

(previous notes: Rocky II)

Because now that Rocky has done the unthinkable and become The Champ, we want to see him tackle the next challenge… win AGAIN.

I remember seeing this in the theater with my buddy. I don't know if I liked it. I'm pretty sure I found Mr. T to be as charismatic and as terrifying as they wanted. I'm pretty sure when I bought the ticket I hesitated and asked the cashier, "hey, wait, we get to see him do some variation on the triumphant steps jogging moment, right? Otherwise never mind I'll go see Poltergeist again". If I'm paying good money for boxing sequels, I want to be assured that the formula has not been altered.

Okay let's go.

Once again, this is Un Film De Sylvester Stallone.

Slight variation on the fanfare with the title, now there's a close-up of the Important Belt Buckle Of Punchsport.

Then we see the climax of the previous movie, maybe edited slightly for time. But not very noticeably different.

That segues immediately to a montage of Rocky doing many successful beatup games, scored by the enormous pop hit "Eye of the Tiger". I suspect this isn't the last we'll hear of this number.

The montage morphs into a different story, one starring Mr. T! He's watching Rocky win stuff and he is not pleased. He can also fist-game, it seems. But the montage makes it clear that it is our hero Rocky who is the star of commercial endorsements and marriage love.

I mock but this visionary filmmaker has indeed opened this movie with energetically cinematic choices.

0:8:40 - Arcade games! Paulie goes to an arcade and it is like the arcades I went to when this movie was out and I see games that I played! But Paulie doesn't like the Rocky pinball machine. It seems he is a sore brother-in-law.

Rocky is now very dashing. Paulie is drunk and whiny about how Rocky is such a big shot now, but he has a point about how prettied up he has become.

Later that night Rocky and Adrian are in their bed and it has a rich person headboard. The director, also visibly present in front of the camera, clearly instructed the production designer to create a bed that would reflect the elite level of financial flexibility that the protagonist has reached.

So apparently Rocky has gotten himself into the strange situation where he has to do a charity boxing match against a wrestler played by the increasingly famous Hulk Hogan. I had forgotten that Hulk Hogan is in this movie. Mr. T is watching this match and he looks intensely the same way he only ever does.

Whoa Hulk Hogan is way taller than Sylvester Stallone. Is that allowed? The rules have changed! And this whole thing is not boxing it is wrestling and it is that silliness instead of boxing. This is a long scene that is the same as a typical Wrestlemania thing, all manufactured drama made to seem like fighting and true menace, but at the end we see that they are just professional coworkers and we have all learned a valuable lesson haven't we.

At a statue-unveiling, Rocky announces that he is maybe retiring. MAYBE. But then Mr. T shows up talking smack, and ladies and gentlemen we have ourselves an end-of-Act-One.

As Act Two begins, we have a scene that was an A+ homework assignment for the screenwriting teacher of Rocky III's screenwriter, who you will recall is the craftsman Sylvester Stallone. Burgess Meredith is like "I quit! I won't help you with this fight! Mr. T is too hard to beat!" But then they talk it out to advance past that scripted complication. And now Rocky and Mr. T are training for their fight in their separate worlds.

Speaking of worlds, in the World Of Rocky, the famous theme that was introduced in the score of the first movie is actually known to the characters in this movie as Rocky music. They play it for him publicly to celebrate their pride in his violence accomplishments.

Apollo Creed appears to be retired, but he is a commentator at this Rocky/T fight.

0:40:00 - They're about to do the fight, but Mr. T is so The Way He Is that the wants to fight on the way TO the fight. That results in some tumult that makes BM have health problems. It was vague what happened, it seemed like BM was shoved aside by all the mad/scared/fighting people, so then he has a conversation with Rocky in a back room where he's like, don't stop the fight even though I am suddenly vaguely frail. He sort of clutches his chest like maybe there's a heart attack but just one of those everyday ones. I have those every time I click send on a work email. My friends should not be discouraged from championship fisticuffs when that happens.

This is the first Rocky movie to be made after Raging Bull came out, and I detect some influence in the boxing footage, like with close-ups of Mr. T.

Rocky loses that fight pretty quickly, and maybe the problem is that he didn't do a pre-victory steps jog. But the movie is telling us that BM is dying on a table in the back room and that's the real problem.

BM dies and SS has done some pretty ambitious cry-acting. Then the funeral is in one of those indoor above-ground file-cabinet-style cemeteries, which is not the normal cinematic choice so nice job there.

I can already tell that we're going to have another thirty minutes of a bummed-out Rocky to fill out Act Two before it starts to look like the setup for a fulfilling climax can begin. It's what I would have told him to write if he were my student at the third-rate community college where I'm a part-time screenwriting teacher in this scenario.

Apollo Creed has shown up to try to pep-talk Rocky, and he keeps saying "eye of the tiger" because of marketing departments. But also, he is a more mature person than in the first two movies. Even though it's a character shift, I do kind of buy it. It seems like another side of the character we knew slightly.

0:59:00 - Another scene beginning with dialogue that sounds like it was improvised by people who don't know what real life is like. "Come on you're going to be late to the airport!" "Maybe you should have packed another sweater" "no in California it's not too cold". AHA THEY ARE GOING ON A TRIP TO CALIFORNIA I AM ON TO YOU ROCKY III

When they go to Los Angeles and show us people on the street and the people have been told to look and act super different so that the audience will be like, wow California is different, then, well, we are at this part of Rocky III did you know.

Although there was my earlier expectation that we were going to have a prolonged funereal story arc, but what's happened is that Apollo is invested in training Rocky so they're showing us that side of Apollo, and that's interesting. But also it's the template of "Rocky is training and he doesn't look like he's going to get there, but then inspiration will hit and he will look like he is going to get there". S. Stallone, noted filmmaker, is using montages and flashbacks to show how recent bad news moments for Rocky are haunting him. It is working.

Adrian performs a pep talk monologue for Rocky. I don't understand her point. It's like a box of those refrigerator poetry magnets jumbled up together and spoken as movie script lines. I guess the gist is "don't give up" and he starts to think maybe he shouldn't give up. Then it's a new training montage, and it's got the classic "running far now" Rocky theme so we know it's going well. The twist on the classic cheering-atop-stairs cadence is it's Rocky and Apollo on the beach, and Rocky is a little faster than Apollo and that is great news for them both.

Now we're right before the final fight, and we heard Mr. T tell a reporter that he "pity the fool". I didn't hear the rest of what he said, I was just so happy to hear him say "pity the fool".

Oh but shortly after that he is asked what his prediction is, and he looks at the camera, OUR camera, at US, and says "PAIN". Submitted without comment.

That face-to-face moment right before the fight starts, Mr. T says "imma bust you UP" and Rocky says "go for it". Advanced Scripted Dialogue with Professor Stallone.

The final fight happens, and it's mostly the same as how the other ones went except without a montage summarizing a whole bunch of rounds. I think this whole fight ended in three rounds. But it ends with the exact same music that I'm getting sick of….

BUT! There is a follow-up scene this time! It's some other day later on and Apollo and Rocky are just palling around at the gym. And THEN the movie ends. I feel that the producers must have implored Stallone, artisan that he is, to just end the movie on that climactic moment right after the fight ends, just like the other movies, but he said NO. That is not ENOUGH for a SYLVESTER STALLONE FILM. We will have an additional scene with INCONSEQUENTIAL BANTER. It will last OVER ONE MINUTE. And here we are. Rocky III: it's like Raging Bull, but better!!

I think Talia Shire is the only female actor with any lines in this movie.

One thing that's very much worth saying about this movie is that there is WAY more actual boxing in this movie. The other ones had almost no scenes where there were live boxing matches, but this one had lots. Plus that wrestling one! And as I observed, the directing style with this one also had a newfound sense of visual pop. But the story seems like it changed not at all from how it was described in the first studio board room meeting where jackass producers blurted out what Rocky III might be like.

(next: Rocky IV)

[purple-ktj]

Why do you think Tae is mostly jealous at Namjin moments? More than other boys. Is it because they know it's the most popular Jin ship? Or because the boys have teased Namjin as a couple on some occasions? Especially Jimin. Saying they look like a couple. Or making that fake couple news for April fool. I don't think it's any kind of ill feelings because one can see how much Tae loves and respects Joon. So I was wondering about the reason.

I think this was the one thing I struggled with the most when trying to figure Taejin out. I denied it for the longest time but the more videos I watched, the more apparent it became that, that is what Taehyung’s jealousy looks like. And why would he be? Didn’t add up in my head. I had some help from fellow Taejinnies and the conclusion I came to is: Tae loves Namjoon and Jin individually, he dislikes the nature of the ship. 

I think this originates from their ship stereotypes. For example, when armys are first introduced to Jin ships on youtube, most will get the impression that Namjin are the married couple/dads of BTS, Yoonjin is the soulmate/eternal roomies, and Jinkook as siblings. 

The most unfortunate and hateful stereotype which I still see till now- Taejin as the mom and son. All the members are aware of their ships and fan’s perception of them. Tae loves Jin so much but he cannot freely express it and has to hold back and instead watch the other members get friendly and touchy with his actual romantic partner. For someone as expressive as him, wearing his heart on his sleeves, imagine how infuriating it must be that he can only watch his team mates be touchy with his partner while if he does, the entire group will be in alert mode. When they’re silent, people think they’re the least closest, when they’re loud, people see it as fanservice. 

He gets the shorter end of the stick either way, he gets touchy with Jin and people just think it's cute, and it still falls into their stereotype or he doesn’t get touchy and Namjin gets the limelight as the romantic pair. Also, Namjin is easy on the eyes and adorable to watch. Namjoon isn’t big on physical touch but he’s extremely comfortable and finds comfort in Jin. Their dynamics are very natural and also makes people laugh because their contrasting personalities complement each other, no matter that it’s all platonic. All these considered, I think he’s got a valid reason to feel jealous at Namjin, because no matter how loud he is, people will still see what’s more obvious and more easier to understand, than Taejin’s complicated dynamics which are more often than not behind the scenes and off camera. 

[afterspark-podcast]

My Little Pony/Transformers: Friendship in Disguise, Part 2 Transcript

[This can also be found on AO3!]

[Stinger]

O: [laughing]

S: Like, I told you about this before.  You- you know my reasoning, you know where it comes from.

[Intro Music]

O: Welcome back to our April Fools’ Special!

S: For the My Little Pony/Transformers crossover.

O: Today we will go through issues 3 and 4, which will finish this little series and now on to part 1 of issue 3- Fluttershy makes friends, or [clears throat] um, ‘Pet Sounds’.

S: Fluttershy and Discord are in Fluttershy's house having a tea party, when they hear a very loud noise outside.

O: Discord, for reference, is a reformed villain in the series.  He's basically just Q from Star Trek if Q were an amalgam of a bunch of different critters all smooshed together.  (Including being played by the same actor.)  Ah, but he's good friends with Fluttershy at tha- this point in the series, presumably.

S: Outside in a crater, Soundwave emerges concluding that this world is ‘illogical’.

O: Fluttershy asks Discord if he's trying to play a trick on her, but he says even he can't think of something this bizarre.

S: Soundwave scares several of Fluttershy's animal friends, who flee into her house for safety.

O: Fluttershy attempts to calm them by saying, “No one's all bad!”  Before she catches sight of Ravage, Ratbat, Rumble, and Laserbeak.

S: Her first instinct is, “I can bond with this person!  He has PETS!!!”

O: Pretty much.  Fluttershy gathers up a few of her animal friends and flies directly over to Soundwave to introduce herself.

S: Said animal friends do not appear to be happy about this turn of events.

O: I don’t blame them!

S: Soundwave does not detect a threat from Fluttershy, but correctly detects a threat from Discord.

O: Meaning Soundwave can scan for chaos magic.

S: Well, considering Starscream, I'm pretty sure he can just scan for chaos in general.

O: [laughs] That's not a bad way of looking at it!  Soundwave begins attacking Discord, while the cassettes make a beeline for Fluttershy

S: Rumble, being the only one who can presumably speak in this group, starts badgering Fluttershy for information about this world's defenses.

O: And also, “Why does everything smell like lavender!?”

S: The Decepticons… I guess, know what lavender smells like.

O: I think the question is, do the Decepticons like what lavender smells like?

S: Very good question.  Discord proceeds to make a nu- a nuisance of himself to Soundwave, transforming into a metallic version of himself.  With puns even!

O: [snorts] Fluttershy, being Fluttershy, spots a scratch on Ravage's nose.

S: Or a booboo, as she calls it.

O: And pulls out some ‘booboo cream’ to tend the wound.

S: Ravage looks rather disarmed by all of this attention.

O: The rest of the animal cassettes all gather around Fluttershy, while Rumble is in the background getting more annoyed as he protests that it's not a ‘booboo’ it's ‘battle damage’.

S: Rumble backhands the cream out of Fluttershy's... hand?  Hoof?

O: Hoof, probably. [laughs]

S: To the shock and chagrin of the rest of the cassettes, Discord, and all of the animals in the vicinity.

O: Fluttershy gets upset because she was, “Trying to be nice!”

S: The other three cassettes turn on Rumble, as Discord transforms Fluttershy's animal friends into little robot versions of themselves.  Surprisingly menacing ones!  And they all attack Soundwave.  Soundwave gets to learn what being attacked by a dozen rabid little bunnies feels like.

O: Rumble attempts to dissuade his fellow cassettes from murder, invoking the ‘f word’.  The ‘f word’ being ‘friendship’ here.

S: Fluttershy immediately changes her tune and asks if friendship is what they really care about.

O: Soundwave responds with, “Unquestionably: Friendship superior.”

S: While being covered in a bunch of tiny, rabid, metal animals.

O: Yes.  The fighting stops, as Fluttershy says they can start over and be friends.

S: Discord points out that he could just turn them all into little pretty ponies, but doesn't.

O: The animal friends are returned to normal, and Rumble apologizes to Fluttershy.

S: Megatron coms Soundwave at this point, and tells him to meet up with the rest of the Decepticons.

O: Soundwave responds in the affirmative, but with the caveat of, “Eventually.”

S: And the final panel has Soundwave sitting down and looking on at- as his cassettes and Fluttershy frolic.

O: It is a stupidly cute panel.

S: Mm-hmm, Rumble has a bunch of bunnies in his arms.

O: Ravage is playing with a birb.

S: Laserbeak and Ratbat are both giving tiny animals rides.

O: And Discord is giving Soundwave a thumbs up.

S: It's happy communication all around.

O: Right!? Like, this is what Soundwave deserves, okay!? This is my humble opinion- Soundwave should just stay here and be happy.  I actually would pay good money for a crossover- like, a crossover fic of them.  Just Soundwave helping with like, Fluttershy's animal hospital thing.  That sounds so cute! [laughs]

S: It would be a relaxing vacation for him.

O: He deserves a relaxing vacation.  My boy deserves a relaxing vacation!  Also, just going to pause- if you guys hear creaking, I am super sorry.  But we- my neighbor is moving around a lot for some reason, and there's a lot of cranking going on here.  So, sorry you can hear that.

S: Issue 3 part 2, “The Flying Fox Trot,” begins with Rainbow Dash reclining on a cloud and chomping on an apple, content with life.

O: At least until Windblade zooms by, dissipating Rainbow's perch.

S: The two introduce themselves to each other and rainbow proclaims herself as, “The fastest in Equestria!”

O: To which, Windblade, seasoned warrior, plane with literal jet engines, asks, “Until I showed up?”  Of course, the only way to settle this is with a race, apparently.

S: Considering Rainbow Dash's personality, yeah.

O: Yeah.

S: At the starting line we get cameos from some horse-based Transformers, Mach Kick and Battle Unicorn.

O: Which, honestly, since one’s a horse and one's a unicorn, I'm just amused that these exist at all- in a toy line for boys.  And also, I kind of want them on principle.

S: They're-

O: They look amazing. [laughs]

S: With very convoluted transformations.

O: Apparently.  Because apparently, you can't, you- you- you- can take the horse out of the organic but you cannot take the horse out of a horse.

S: [laughs]

O: I know that wasn’t right.

S: You can take the organic out of the horse, but not the horse out of the robot.

O: Yes.  So it's, uh, anatomy is just about as bad as a real horse is what I'm getting at here. [laughs]  Windblade and Rainbow Dash take off and are neck and neck, figuratively speaking, since Windblade doesn't have a neck right now, but whatever.  Until they run into a gaggle of Decepticons.

S: Misfire and the Rainmakers not- well, to be specific.  And honestly that just sounds like a band name?

O: Jem and the Holograms’ new rival! [laughs] I like- great- okay, okay, I know- I know- I know that we were talking about this in our warm-up, not in the actual episode but if you want to get into weird things you can that like, fit into the Transformers-verse, arguably Jem and the Holograms takes place in the fit into the same continuity.  And in fact, there was a G.I. Joe character whose entire backstory is that he was a roadie for Jem and the Holograms, and G.I. Joe definitely takes place in the same universe as Transformers.

[Okay, so like, I’m not wrong per say, but arguably Transformers, Inhumanoids, G.I. Joe, and Jem and the Holograms all take place in the same universe due to the presence of Hector Ramirez in all four series. ~O]

S: And considering the comics, which definitely have had multiple G.I. Joe crossovers.

O: Yeah, but not Jem and the Holograms.  Like, I think the last IDW Jem and the Holograms was kind of weird because it didn't- it didn't tie in with the rest of like, the Hasbroverse.

S: Mm.

O: Anyway, I'm sorry, tangent!  It just cracks me up that's all.

S: [laughs] The Rainmakers popped up in a season one episode, in G1, when the Autobots had to visit Cybertron.

O: Misfire doesn't show up in G1 till like, very late season four, and by late I mean, season four only has like, what?  Three episodes?

S: Mm.

O: But, you know what I mean!  And he's more widely known from his IDW appearance with the Scavengers, who are ‘sirs not appearing in this comic’.

S: And also for his incredibly bad name-

B: [laugh]

S: And also for his imp- incredibly bad aim, for which, poor Misfire gets his name.

O: Rainbow Dash suggests doing the ‘Flying Foxtrot.’

S: Which Windblade, understandably, is not familiar with.

O: And I'm half convinced that Rainbow Dash made it up, but whatever!  This entire thing seems to be baiting the Cons into shooting heat seeking missiles at the two of them, and then nyrooming behind them so that the missiles hit the Cons instead.

S: The comic ends with Rainbow Dash and Windblade agreeing to a tie and sitting atop a pile of Rainmakers and Misfire.  Who all look like they are regretting their life choices.

O: They were defeated by a pony, [speaks while laughing] I would hope they were regretting their life choices! [returns to speaking normally] Issue 4, part 1, is, “Strength in Numbers,” featuring Applejack and the Insecticons.

S: It opens with Applejack being very upset that there are some giant ass bugs in her orchard, eating everything.  And, I mean, she unfortunately has a super big pest problem here.

O: Which is a bad thing when her entire income is dependent upon farming.

S: Yep.  The Insecticon horde is very happy, and surprisingly cute as they munch on delicious apples and trees.

O: Applejack attempts to chase them off in multiple ways… none of which work.

S: Spraying them with the hose, hitting them with rakes, spraying them with the hose again, and then trying to push them off the apple trees.

O: Back inside her house, she brainstorms more things to try when Discord appears out of nowhere and she too is like, “Are you playin’ a prank, Discord!?”

S: Well, if i lived in ponyverse or-

O: Equestria.

S: Equestria, I think that might have been my first thought too.

O: I mean, fair.  Giant insects are eating her apples.  Like, who else could do that but Discord on a normal day? [laughs]

S: Mm-hmm.  However, Discord says that this stuff is too mundane to be one of his pranks.

O: Applejack asks for his help.  He declines, as he'd much prefer to watch this madness, but he does summon all of the Apple Family to aid Applejack.

S: The Apple Clan is here!

O: No, really, like, ALL of them are here.  And I am not listing them off, because it's pretty much every single Apple character that appeared in the show at some point.

S: So all of the Apple Clan charge in, and I'm kind of wondering now if he like, showed up and briefed them all- just-

O: [laughs] I think they all saw through the portal, and saw bugs eating apples and were like, “My people are calling me!” [laughs]

S: My- my home needs me!

O: My home needs me, exactly.

S: Babs Seed, Big Mac, and Apple Bloom take out an insecticon by themselves by kicking it,

O: Which are Applejack's cousin, older brother, and little sister, respectively.

S: Several other Apples take out other Insecticons with ropes.

O: And an elderly Apple accidentally kicks one of Bombshell's Cerebral Shells back onto him and then orders him to go away while she's sort of flailing.

S: Accidental mind control, here we are!

O: And the day is saved thanks to the Apples, and we move on to the final chapter of the crossover fittingly called, “Finale.”

S: We open in the Crystal Empire with one of the other princesses of Equestria, Princess Cadence, as several of Twilight’s students report back to her that the Decepticons are nowhere to be found, but are likely planning an attack according to the Autobots.

O: Speaking of attack!

S: [sighs] The wall is smashed in as Megatron, Queen Chrysalis, and their allies arrive and demand that they hand over all the magical artifacts.

O: Twilight Sparkle and Optimus arrive just in time.

S: Optimus attempts to get Megatron to leave with politeness.

O: Surprising no one who's dealt with Megatron for more than 10 seconds, he declines. [laughs]

S: And with a combined call of, “Transform and trot out!” and, “Till everypony are one!”  …Oh, so grammatically incorrect.

O: [laughs]

S: The Autobots and their allies go on the offensive.

O: And I get secondhand embarrassment from those lines existing in a printed form.

S: Pinkie Pie throws a pie in poor Soundwave's face.

O: And we get a pretty great two-page spread where a variety of things are happening...

S: Rarity is riding in Arcee's vehicle mode as they launch themselves at Shrapnel.

O: Optimus is punching the crap out of Starscream.

S: Megatron orders Shockwave to just get some magical shit already!

O: Bumblebee goes on a tangent about Equestria's tasteful decor.

S: More bickering back and forth, and went- then Twilight summons the orange cap of shame onto Megatron's Fusion Cannon.

O: For reference, this is referring to the fact that Megatron with his original alt can't normally be sold without said orange cap identifying that he's not a real gun.  Which was a thing that was put into place after- or like you know, late 80’s, early 90’s.  Um, at least, you know, he can't be sold without this in the states and personally I think it's fucking hilarious.

S: And through the powers of friendship and Spike's awesome skills, the Space Bridge opens and Spike and Grimlock come through and assist.  And this is dragon Spike.

O: Yes.

S: Not human Spike.

O: Oh- to which, dragon Spike is wearing adult human Spike’s exo suit though.

S: Mm-hm.

O: To make this more confusing, how many Spikes would you like to go around?  That sounds really dirty within the fandom- and I'm gonna move right along!

B: [laugh]

S: Twilight and Optimus use alicorn magic and the Matrix in tandem to send the Decepticons home.

O: One delightful tea and Energon party later… the Autobots arrive back home themselves.

S: Optimus then explodes the space bridge behind them to protect Equestria from the Decepticons.

O: Much to the sadness of the Autobots, who enjoyed their time with their new friends.

S: Unfortunately for the ponies, Shockwave might have figured out a way to bring them to Cybertron instead.

O: And on that sequel bait, the crossover ends.  And yes, there is actually a sequel that's been announced.  In fact, I think the first issue or two might be out, and we're definitely looking forward to reading it at some point.

S: I feel like I've definitely seen a cover…

O: Other than that, what were your thoughts and feelings about this crossover?

S: The colors and such were really nice, but the cartoony style that the My Little Pony artist used for the robots didn't really work for us.

O: And we want to add, we're not saying they're a bad artist!  It was merely a stylistic option that didn't mesh well for us, specifically for the robot characters.

S: Mm-hm.

O: Um, this was further compounded by the fact that normal- like, Transformers artists that we are more used to doing comics, were also involved in other issues.  And so, they were drawing the robots better, and then the ponies also didn't look like terribly off model or something.  So it was just less distracting when they were doing it.

S: Mm.

O: Overall the special was good, and we recommend it to you if you like Transformers and My Little Pony.

S: Not that you should, you know, wait for our recommendation or anything.

O: [laughs] Uh, the Fluttershy/Soundwave chapter was a standout for both of us.

S: It was very cute, and I really enjoyed how emotive the non-speaking cassettes were.

O: I loved seeing the poor man have to deal with Discord's nonsense.

S: I feel like... we could have done with something longer having him deal with Discord’s nonsense.

O: I- yeah, it was constrained in the way that they did this, where each- there were only four issues, and each issue was- was split into two parts.

S: Yeah, and it's only 24 pages an issue or something.  So it's very- they're very minimal and very constrained.

O: Right.

S: It's just an issue with the medium.  I also really enjoyed the Spike/Grimlock chapter, because it was nice to see them both admiring each other's qualities, and supporting each other, and just being so uplifting.

O: And cute!

S: Mm-hm.

O: My second favorite was probably the Pinkie Pie chapter though, because it was just completely batshit insane.  Uh, just- again, Shockwave had a whisk and a spatula, because he was planning on eating the ponies.  I- where do I go with that?  How do I make that better!?  I can't, that's the answer! [laughs]

S: Shockwave just really wants to- to practice his, um…

O: Culinary arts? [laughs]

S: Yeah. I don't know, the implication that Cybertronians have culinary arts is- it just kind of weirds me out.

O: [continues laughing] Yeah, but- but Gauge was like, “I have a recipe!”

S: I know!  Well, that's the entire implication, it's just like, oh.  Mm.

O: I love that we probably got more actual like, culinary cannon from a fucking My Little Pony crossover than any of the other Transformers comics combined!

S: Yeah.

O: That's weird! [laughs]

S: I mean, the fact that it does come from effectively a pre-war era does mean that we'd potentially get more culture.

O: Eh, yeah.  I mean, but I don't think this was pre-war.  It seemed like it was mid-war?

S: I know, but just the fact that the uh, IDW2 is mostly pre-war.

O: Ah, that's true, that's true.

S: The characters all felt in character, the relationships were entertaining and sweet, and barring the one artist everyone was very expressive.

O: And with that, thanks for joining us for our April Fools’ special.  We hope ya’ll enjoyed, join us next time as we go back to business with episode 43, The Golden Lagoon.

S: Yay.  And that just about wraps it up for us today.  Remember to check us out on Tumblr or Pillowfort as Afterspark-Podcast, for any additional information, show notes, or links you may have mentioned.  You can also find us on Facebook and Twitter at AftersparkPod (all one word), and various other locations by searching for ‘Afterspark Podcast’ such as AO3, iTunes, Spotify and Youtube, just to name a few.  And feel free to send us questions on Tumblr, Youtube or AO3.  Till next time, I'm Specs!

O: And I’m Owls!

S: Toodles.

[Outro Music]

[nonbinarylowkey]

Who’s the Fool

Summary: It's Loki's first April Fool's Day. You might end up regretting introducing him to the holiday.

Word Count: 2135

Pairing: Loki/Reader

Rating: G

So this is like two weeks late, but I wrote it so I wanted to post it. It’s also completely unedited because it’s midnight and I just want it to be done. So hopefully it’s good. Please read and give me validation.

Also posted on Ao3.

“Have you ever heard of April Fool’s day?”

“Fools have their own day on this planet?” Loki lowers his book just long enough to give you a look of disgust before reburying his nose in it with a scoff. “You Midgardians live such short lives and you choose to spend part of them celebrating fools. I will never understand humans.”

“It’s not a day celebrating fools, Loki. It’s a day dedicated to playing tricks on people. Turning them into fools,” You slouch in your seat so you can stretch your legs and playfully kick him, but you barely manage to do anything more than brush your toes against him. He grins and helpfully lifts one of his legs so that it’s within your foot’s reach. But when you go to kick him again, he moves his leg away faster than you can keep up with so you end up falling ass first onto the floor.

“Well now, that does sound interesting. Tell me more,” he says, laughing at you.

"Just for that, I don't think I will," you stick your tongue out at him, uncaring of how childish you might look. It's not exactly like he's the perfect mature adult either, after all.

"I'd rethink that attitude of yours, little mortal. I am the God of Mischief, after all. I may decide to use this little holiday as an excuse to make a fool of you ."

"Don't you 'little mortal' me, mister. You might live for thousands of years, but I know you're not actually immortal," you cross your arms over your chest with a huff. "Besides, you love me too much to prank me…. too much, at least."

You start to grin because who could argue with your obviously flawless logic until a shock hits your side, startling your smugness away. The shock wasn't painful, exactly, but it certainly wasn't pleasant.

"Alright, little human ," Loki says, voice low and dangerous. He leans forward in his seat, book forgotten about for now. "If you wish to challenge me, I have no choice but to accept."

"Actually, you could choose not to accept. I'm not forcing you to do anything," you suddenly feel a little nervous, what with his grin suddenly seeming a whole lot sharper and more dangerous.

"Where would the fun in that be?"

-

"Tell me about the Midgardian holiday April Fool's," Loki demands of Thor about an hour after his conversation with you.

Thor's shoulders slump. The conversation has barely begun and he's already exhausted by it. He contemplates lying and saying he doesn't know anything about it. After all, what would Thor know of Midgardian holidays? He's Asgardian; he doesn't pay attention to Midgardian holidays!

Except Thor has never been a very good liar, least of all when he's lying to Loki. He puts the barbell he'd been using back in its place. Better to be prepared for this conversation to take a turn for the stabby than to trust Loki to behave when talking about something like April Fool's.

"What do you know of it already?" Thor asks. A question should be safe, he thinks. No lying or giving out information that could potentially be disastrous in Loki's hands.

"That it is a holiday meant for tricks and making people into fools," Loki says. "Not a typical Midgardian holiday."

"If you already know that, why come to me?" Thor swipes a towel across his forehead to catch the sweat before it lands in his eyes. "It is not a holiday based on a religious or spiritual belief system, so far as I can tell. It is simply a holiday Midgardians came up with to amuse themselves."

"I see. And what are the parameters for tricks played during this holiday?"

"No killing," Thor says, perhaps a little more forcefully than strictly necessary. Then, as an afterthought, "No physically harming anyone, either."

Loki raises an eyebrow and scoffs.

"I'm well versed in all sorts of mischief, Thor, not just the kind that involves a blade."

With that, he turns and leaves. He has some scheming to do.

-

You have glitter in your hair, paint under your nails, and pot gummies in your backpack when Thor yells your name.

You slam the cover back on the coffee container in front of you. When you turn around, you can only hope your body manages to hide the glass jar filled with coffee grounds behind you.

“Have you seen Loki today?” Thor asks you, thankfully not giving any sort of hint that he thought something was off with you. In fact, he barely looked like he was giving you any attention at all beyond what he needed to give to ask his question.

“Uh, no, not since I woke up. Why? Did he do something?”

Truthfully, the lack of Loki sightings had been worrying you. It’s April Fool's day and you’d hoped you two could team up for some pranks on the other Avengers, but after you’d messed up and kinda sorta challenged him the other day, it seems you’re having to watch your back for his tricks instead.

“I’m worried he’s up to something nefarious. I ran into the Spider Boy, Peter earlier. He said he caught Loki tampering with his suit, but couldn’t find anything wrong with it.” Thor runs a hand through his beard. He looks around the room, like Loki might’ve materialized nearby in the half a minute he’d been standing there.

Knowing Loki, it wouldn’t be outside the realm of possibilities. The room is still Loki-less. Which is a shame because you’ve got some real questions hearing that Loki was apparently tampering with Peter’s suit and everything looked fine .

“Did he test everything out? It all looked good?” You ask, casually. You lean casually against the counter, too.

“Yes, he tested it in front of me. Everything was fine.”

“Even his web shooters? Nothing weird came out of them? Nothing that definitely didn’t come out of it before?”

Thor squints his eyes at you. It isn’t quite a glare; more like he’s trying to see through you. You squirm, shifting your weight from one foot to the other.

“No, why?”

“No reason. It’s just, if I were Loki and I were going to play a prank involving Peter’s suit I’d probably replace the synthetic webbing with something else. Y’know, if I were hypothetically doing this.”

“Right…” Thor definitely looks suspicious. He stares at you a moment longer. “If you see Loki, tell him I’m looking for him.”

You give him a two fingered salute.

“Will do.”

You turn back to the counter once Thor is out of sight and shove the glass jar into your backpack after a quick sweep to make sure you hadn’t spilled any coffee grounds when you switched them out.

-

“Have you seen your boyfriend lately?”

You turn to face Same, mentally preparing yourself to have the same conversation you’d just had with Thor.

You are not quite prepared to see Sam holding his wings. His perfectly normal, unpainted wings.

“Uh, something wrong?” You ask.

“Not sure yet,” He says. “But I saw him messing with my wings earlier and he disappeared before  I could confront him. Everything seems normal, but…”

Sam doesn’t finish the sentence, but it doesn’t take a genius to figure out what he’s saying.

“Did you actually see him doing something to them? Or was he just, like, standing around near them?”

You take a step towards Sam to get a closer look at his gear. Everything does look normal.

No paint or tissue paper in sight.

Nothing to make it look like butterfly wings at all.

“He had a towel. Looked like he might’ve been rubbing something off. Or on knowing that guy.”

“What in the world is he up to?” You ask, mostly to yourself.

“That’s what I want to know. If you see him, tell him I’m looking for him.” Sam says.

You nod.

-

“Hey, Darcy? Have you seen Loki today?”

“Hey! I was just gonna ask you the same thing!” She shoves a tin in your face and opens the lid to show you the contents. Inside are several perfectly normal looking gummies. “I saw him closing the lid on this, like he was messing with my gummies or something.”

She sniffs them. “Do they even have weed on Asgard? How’d he know where I kept my stash? Oh, you think that asshole switched them for normal gummies? I did not buy those so the guy who tried to take over the world could get high!”

Darcy pops one of the gummies into her mouth and chews it so hard you can hear her teeth gnash together.

“Hey, Darcy?”

“Yeah?”

“Maybe for now just assume he was just trying to make you think he did something when he didn’t really.” You say gently, trying not to let your own annoyance show.

“You think he’d do that?”

“Yeah, I do.”

When you’re out of Darcy’s sight you open up your backpack to take a peek inside.

Staring up at you from the bag you’d put the pot gummies in is a vaguely misshapen gummy Gengar. It’s surrounded by a few other Pokemon gummies; the same number of gummies that Darcy had in her tin when you got to it this morning.

-

You walk into Tony’s lab.

“Just the person I wanted to see,” He says. None of the equipment is wrapped in bubble wrap. “Have you se-- ”

You leave the lab without hearing the last part of Tony’s question.

There’s a list hanging on your refrigerator door when you get back to your apartment. It’s a list you wrote of all the pranks you planned for the day.

Except for the item on the back of the paper. That was written by someone else. And it says:

“ Undo all of this. Leave the Avengers panicking. ”

Well.

You can’t say this is what you expected of Loki for April Fool's day, but it certainly is creative.

And maybe it isn’t too late to do something to get back at him.

-

When Loki returns to the apartment at the end of the day there’s a small chocolate fountain sitting on the kitchen island. He’s looking far too smug for your liking and you can’t wait to wipe that beautiful grin off of his stupidly beautiful face.

“Another attempt at a prank?” He asks as he approaches you.

“Nope, I know when I’m beat,” You say, hands raised in a gesture of surrender. “This is just a prize for you beating me. I didn’t get any of the reactions I’d been hoping for and all of the residents of this compound think you messed with their stuff when it’s all perfectly fine. You win.”

“Smart girl,” is the only thing he says before sticking a finger into the flow of chocolate. He pops the finger in his mouth.

And immediately gags.

“ What is that?” He yells, taking a paper towel to his tongue.

“That is extremely bitter dark chocolate. Nasty stuff. Not what you usually eat when you have chocolate,” You put on your best shit-eating grin. “You may have gotten me by undoing everything on the list, but I didn’t write this one down.”

“You do understand I will have to take my revenge on you for making me eat that vile excuse for chocolate, yes?”

“Nuh-uh, loverboy, because that’s not all I have for you,” You pick up a second chocolate fountain from the stool next to, just low enough that it had been out of his sight until now. “I have another one, this time with the good stuff. I’m not stupid enough to prank you and not make up for it.”

“A shame,” he says, and when he tries the chocolate from the second fountain his eyes light up at the realization that it is, in fact, the good stuff. “My revenge would have been such fun.”

A sudden bang on the door causes you to jump and nearly fall out of your seat.

"Loki!" Thor's voice booms from the other side of the door. He bangs some more, apparently not content to stop until he's able to speak to his brother. "Open the door! I know you're in there!"

"What's with him?" You ask because all you had planned for Thor was to switch his usual coffee with decaf. And if Loki really had just undone everything you'd done, then Thor should have no reason to be angry with him.

"I may have turned all of his coffee into snakes."

"Loki," you say, with all of the exasperation in your body.

"And one of those snakes may have bitten him before I could transform them back. It was an accident, really."

But from the grin on his face, you aren't sure if it was an accident at all.

[jiminwreckedme]

The Beautiful Deception.

Chapter 2

| Masterlist | Trailer | Prologue | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |

Memeber - Bts OT7

Genre - Thriller, Mystery, Angst, (Smut)

Word count - 5K

Summary - When your ex-boyfriend’s wife goes missing, you are the only one who can help him find her. But in a world where everyone is a friend and everyone is a culprit, where lies are decorated with the best ornaments of facade, where everybody and nobody is right, how will you find out what happened to the woman he loves?

Without falling for him all over again?

Warnings - Mentions of kidnapping and accidents.

Rating - NC17 for mature themes of the whole series.

15th February 2017 

10:14

“Do you want to....order a coffee or something?”

“I’m good. I only drink one coffee a day now, at 10.”

You subtly glance at your watch. 

10:15

“How have you been?”

You somehow find the need to clear your throat. “Uh-good, I’m yeah-good.”

10:16

10:17

“I didn’t think you’d come.” He confesses.  

“I didn’t either.”

“Why did you then?”

You sip on your coffee to avoid answering him but how long could you ignore it? 

“I don’t know.”

10:18

10:19

10:20

“I’m glad you came Y/n, thank you.”

You nod.

10:21

10:22

“Why did you call me? You said you needed help.”

“I’m not sure how to explain this….or even ask you to help.”

Why, because there was a time you left me helpless?

“But you asked me, and now I’m here, halfway across the globe. You might as well tell me.”

“I’m really sorry Y/n. I know you left a lot behind to come here for me-”

“No you don’t.” Yoongi looks up at you surprised. Was it because of the tone of your voice? Did it sound more bitter than you intended it to?

“I can understand why you’d think like that, and maybe I really don’t but…..” He takes a deep breath. “I’m desperate. I don’t know anyone else who will help me or even believe me-.”

“You thought I would believe you?”

“Will you not?”

10:23

10:24

“What do you need help with….Yoongi?”

It’s so hard to even take his name.

“She’s missing Y/n. I’ve been going crazy trying to find out how and why and-”

“Who? Who is missing Yoongi?”

“My wife.”

10:25

“To me, marriage is an insult to what we share. I will do whatever, and I mean it Y/n, I’ll do whatever it takes to be with you, and as long as I make you happy, I will be there for you but….. a legal document to join our identities slapped onto the faces of our society? That’s not one of them. Ours is not a relationship that can be forged or ended with two signatures on a paper. That is a disgrace to what’s between us. For me it’s enough if you know what I feel for you, I don’t need anyone else to understand, I have nothing to prove to the world.”

10:26

10:27

“You-you’re married?”

Yoongi slowly nods “About 2 years ago.”

10:28

“Wow, I...I didn’t know- congratulations- I mean it’s been 2 years but it’s the first time I’m meeting you since the- I mean, your wedding so…..”

Stuttering so helplessly. What a fool.

10:29

“I’m sorry Y/n.”

You don’t say anything. What should you even say to that?

“I didn’t know how to tell you about it, it all happened so fast and you were…..”

“I know.” You don’t want to hear anymore, don’t want to know anymore. “It’s fine.... I can understand.”

Could you really? A man who never believed in the institution of marriage yet promised to be with you all his life, left you when it was most important to be by your side and as if that wasn’t enough, he was sitting here talking about a woman he married and was living with happily-

Then you realize what he said.

“D-did you say she’s missing?”

He nods. “11th April 2016. That was the last time I saw her.”

“What happened?”

“We had an argument that day about something. I don’t remember exactly what but it was trivial, I’m sure. We aren’t really the kind who fight.” I don’t need the details of your relationship with her. I really don’t. “She left the house after that, to go to work but she didn’t come back home the time she usually returns. I thought she was angry, taking her time to cool so she was going to come late. But she didn’t come home that night, nor did she return next morning. That’s when I started to panic and so I lodged a missing complainant and went around looking for her but I couldn’t find her and neither could the police. Not that day, not the next. The third day after she disappeared, that’s when I……”

He lets out shaky breath, “There’s a huge lake by her workplace. Three days later, the police fished out a car from there…..her car.”

Your lips part in shock.

“They…..” Yoongi struggles to speak. It hurts just looking at him like that. “It was apparently an accident, some sort of brake malfunction. The driver seemed to have lost control and just….”

He trails off, eyes shut tight.

“I’m so sorry Yoongi, I didn’t know-”

He shakes his head.

“They didn’t find her body though.” Oh. “They only found the drivers. She wasn’t there.”

You find yourself letting out a held breath. “So then she’s ok-”

“Missing.” He corrects. “Since the day she left, I don’t know where she is or how she is, what happened to her, if she’s even okay? I have answers for not one of those questions and I need to find out. Y/n,” He looks at you, the pain so stark in his eyes. “I need to find her. And for that, I need your help and more importantly, I need you to trust me.”  

You frown confused.

“If you do help me then most people who you come across will only discourage you but despite all that, I need you to trust me and whatever I say from now on.” You see his Adam's apple move as he swallows something. “Because Y/n, I think she’s kidnapped.”

Your eyes widen in shock, a strange fear gripping you.

“Nobody believes me when I tell them this but I’ve been trying to find out what happened and this is the only conclusion I could come to. The reason why her body wasn’t found was because she wasn’t in the car and she wasn’t in the car because she was kidnapped.” He states matter-of-factly. “But everyone I told this to, every one of them said that there was no evidence of her being abducted and that I was making up stories.”

His voice turned so bitter, frustrated as he runs his fingers through his hair.

“They showed me her credit card statement and said that transactions in a department store would not have been possible if she was really kidnapped.” He scoffs. “They said she left me and ran away. They said I couldn’t accept that my wife left me over the fight we had and so I was…...I was going mad. B-but trust me Y/n” He almost reaches for your hand on the table, stopping himself just in time. “I know her, she wouldn’t do that. She would’ve come back home that night itself, I’m sure she would’ve and the fact that she didn’t…...I’m sure something bad happened to her.”

He looks at you pleadingly. “That’s why I need your help, that’s why I need you to trust me and help me find her. No one else will Y/n, no one else is helping. The police, the media, organizations I’ve contacted,” He lists. “All of them say there’s no evidence, but honestly, I don’t think they tried to find any.”

All this, this was so much to process. You are still wrapping your mind around all the information when he continues.

Slowly nodding, you think of the right way to tell him what you felt about this without hurting him. But before you can open your mouth and tell him, Yoongi shakes his head.

“What? Are you going to tell me that if so many people are saying she was not kidnapped then maybe she’s not?”

Even after so many years, he still knew what you thought. 

“Fine,” For a second there it seemed like he agreed. “Let’s say she wasn’t then…..Prove it to me. Prove it to me that she really wanted to leave me and that she wasn’t kidnapped. I asked so many people to prove that she was alright, but no one could do it Y/n. It’s been about 10 months now and no one knows where she is.”

You swallow on nothing. Nobody knew where she was? Not even her family?

“I’m all the family she has. I’m the only one she has Y/n. I know she didn’t leave me. The only reason she’s not back is because she’s not able to come back to me, to come back home.”

You blink, once, twice, then again and again.

“What do you want me to do Yoongi?” You speak for the first time in very long.  “Why call me here for….this?”

“If you believe me and you help me, we can find her. 10 months Y/n, do you know how long that is to be away from someone you love?” What? “Every moment feels like-”

“Hell.”

And this is the moment everything changes. The sympathy you were feeling for him, the thoughts that were running through your head about how you can help him, the fact that you were so lost in his pain that you forgot yours. 

Everything changes.

Everything stops. 

“It feels like hell.” Your voice leaves you ever so softly, hands on your lap shaking, hidden from sight. “It feels like you've fallen into hell’s dreaded pit of thorns and your heart has been punctured a million times over by those tiny pricks. And it stings at first, it hurts and hurts and hurts until you feel numb - so numb, you begin to lose sense of everything around you. You think the numbness will go and let you feel again if you just let those wounds heal and you so slowly start to pull those thorns out, one by one, but it only makes more blood gush out. And it hurts all over again.”

Thanks to you Yoongi, I know exactly how it feels to be away from people you love for so long.

Yoongi nods like every word hits home.

“Help me Y/n, I’m tired of being so hurt, I need help and I don’t have anyone but you....”

As you look away from his intense gaze, hands tightly gripping your knees, this is what you want to say to him -

“I didn’t too Yoongi. That day when I left my house, my family, my whole world behind to come to you, I didn’t have anyone but you. I threw away everything for you and what did you do? You left me. I knew you were scared, I knew you weren’t ready but you should have said so. You didn’t say a thing and you just left. You broke me Yoongi. You broke me in ways I cannot even explain. I was in so much pain, I cried, I was hurt, I was angry, I blamed you, I blamed myself, I tried to move on, I tried to forgive myself and a part of me even managed to. When a man came along and said he would hold the broken pieces of me, I decided to let him. I should have been his wife today for god’s sake, but look at me. Once again, like an idiot, I threw everything away to come to you and what did you do? How did you think it was fair to sit in front of me without even offering me an apology and ask me to find the woman you now love? The woman who took my place? So many years Yoongi, we’ve known each other for so long but you didn’t value me enough to think that I deserved an explanation back then. And even now, you still don’t respect me enough to think I deserve an apology? Why Yoongi? How could you?”

You want to tell him all this but you can’t bring yourself to. 

Maybe because you have enough self respect to not beg him for an apology just to heal your ailing heart. Or because you have the dignity to handle your own pain and did not need to explain your wounds to your culprit who ignorantly sits before you. Or because you were shattered all over again by this man and needed to pick up the pieces of you once again. For whatever reason, you can’t say any of that.

“I’m sorry.” That’s what you say instead as you stand up. “I’m so so sorry. But I can’t do this Yoongi. I......I really can’t.”

With that you leave, walking away, avoiding looking at the hurt so evident on his face to protect the your own fragile heart. There was a time you had let Yoongi in there because of his pain. That was the first and last time. 

You were not going to make that mistake again.

18th February 2017

You: Usual place. 19:45.

“Y/n!”

You look up from the message you sent him to see Yoongi, skidding to a stop a few feet away from you. His chest is heaving up and down, mouth open desperately drinking the air, as his cheeks get redder and redder. He looks at the clock tower, far away down the street. He’s a few minutes too late but you’re still here. Relief floods his face. Till he spots the suitcase right next to you, your hand tightly holding on to it.

“Y-you’re-” He grips the sides of his stomach, wincing in pain. “You’re l-leaving Seoul?”

Abandoning your luggage right where you are standing, you turn wordlessly and push the cafe door, walking in. Yoongi’s eyes try to follow you but they fail, simply shutting as he bends over, resting his hands on his knees, as he tries to catch his breath. It’s only when your shadow falls over him that he looks up at you and the bottle of water in your outstretched hand.

Taking it he straightens out, nodding in gratitude, “I-I need a moment.”

“You ran?”

“I thought I was going t-to be late.” He pants audibly but they are getting less heavy by the minute. “I thought you’ll leave if I didn’t....”

Unlike you, I don’t run from those who need me.

He doubles over coughing and you quickly take the bottle from his hand and twist it open before handing it to him again. He drinks it this time, water spilling from the corner of his mouth, down his jaw and then his neck. You look away.

“Thank you.” His voice leaves him softly as he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. As you hand him the bottle cap, once again his eyes fall on your suitcase, but before he can ask you about it, you answer him.

“I’ll help you.”

Holed up almost all the time in that hotel room of yours, you thought for two whole days. You thought and wondered and pondered about what should do but no matter how hard you tried you couldn’t reach a convincing conclusion. 

Until yesterday evening, when you decided to finally leave the suffocation of the room to get some air and somehow found yourself walking by that same cafe. As you reminiscently glanced through the large glass windows, you remember how Yoongi looked when turned to see him one last time. The way his shoulders slumped, the way he just kept staring at nothing on the table, the way the hurt on his face deepened with every passing second. You couldn’t bear to look him. As the mirage of him slowly disappears, all those hundreds of thoughts in you head dissolve into one. I shouldn’t have left him like that. 

How did that make you any different from him? He left you when you needed him and you were doing the same now, you too left him without any explanation. This wasn’t some sort of revenge plot and you weren’t here to play tit for tat, you couldn’t even imagine doing something like that. In fact if not for that one thing he said you were certain you’d have offered to help him right there and then. But his words, they momentarily overpowered the pain you felt for him, they fueled your own agony making you walk away. 

But you shouldn’t have walked away. You should have stayed and been the bigger person. He called you because he trusted you to help him, he believed you would stay and deep down you knew, if you had called Yoongi in a situation like this, he would have stayed.  Because even though he fell out of love with you, even though you had moved on, even though the dynamic between you two was no longer the same, one thing didn’t change - the foundation of the relationship you once shared. It was so strong that even after so long, the two of you could still stand on it, unafraid that it would break.  

So no matter what Yoongi did to you, no matter what you went through because of him, regardless of whether he acknowledged it or regretted it, you should have stayed out respect for the past. And who knew? Maybe this was your chance to finally get what you want. Maybe during this time Yoongi might give you that answer and apology you so badly want to hear coming from the bottom of his heart. Maybe by the end of this you can finally leave him behind in your past and truly move on. 

I shouldn’t walk away. I should stay. 

“I’ll help you in whatever way I can Yoongi, but I want something in return.”

“What?”

“Let this be the last time you and I have anything to do with each other.” You tighten you grip on the handle. “Let’s never see each other again after this and I’ll do whatever I can to help you. ”

Letting out a soft breath, he searches as though there’s a hidden answer on your face. “Is that how much you hate me Y/n?”

“Hate?” You shake your head slowly. “Hate is still an emotion, something that establishes a relationship between two people. After this, I don’t think it’s right for us to have anything to do with each other anymore.”

He looks at you, long and hard, till the chime of the bell tower snaps the eye contact between you two.

“Fine,” He nods, sliding a hand into his pocket. Was he crushing the bottle in his other hand? “As you wish. When all of this is over, whatever you want will be done, I promise.”

Your promises don’t hold any value for me anymore Yoongi.

Silence.

It was the silence between two people who didn’t know what to say to each other anymore. There was nothing left to say-

“If you’re not leaving then…..” He points the bottle towards your suitcase.

“I don’t know how long I will need to be in Seoul and I’m not really comfortable living in a hotel so I’m going home.”

“Home?”  

Did he really already forget everything about me?

“I have a house in this city, Yoongi. My family owns a place here.”

“That house? That place has been abandoned for years Y/n,” Yoongi scoffs. “There’s no butlers, no chefs. How will you stay there? You don’t even know how to cook. And not to mention, it's probably drowning in dust and cobwebs and-.”

“You forget how long it’s been since you haven’t been a part of my life Yoongi.” You smile sadly. “I cook now and I am capable of taking care of myself.”

“I know.” He nods. “I know but you don’t have to. You’re here in this city to help me, it’s not right of me to leave you to manage on your own. You are my responsibility now, I can’t let you go there.”

You let out a soft incredulous laugh. “Then where should I stay?”

“With me.” He lets out casually. “In my house.”

You look at him, eyes slightly widen, lips parting.

“I know, I might be out of place suggesting it and I’m sorry but.... It’s for your comfort and most importantly, your safety. If you stay in your house, your family will know you are here, I’m sure you don’t want that”

“Why?” You frown. “What makes you think my family doesn’t know I’m here?”

“The fact that you came here just a day before your wedding?” What? “I don’t think you would be here had you informed anyone about coming to Seoul. And the fact that you came to help me?” Yoongi lets out a mocking laugh. “You grandfather would have locked you in the room till-”

“Yoongi.” You are still fixated on the first thing he said. “How do you know about my wedding?”

“Tabloids?” He shrugs.

“But how do you know that I left just before my wedding? No one but close family knew when the ceremony was going to happen. You couldn’t have read that anywhere.”

Yoongi looks at you but he’s not at a loss of words

“We are high society people Y/n. Our world is different from what the rest of the world sees. Our stories can be created, destroyed, altered, hidden, everything in a matter of seconds. They can also be found just as easily. Nothing is hidden among the elites.”

“That doesn’t answer how-”

“Doesn’t matter.” He waves away your concern. “The point now is that it’s not safe for you to go to your house.”

You rack your brains to find reasons to say no, but you can’t seem to find any. He had valid points. If your family knew you were in Seoul, all hell would break loose. Knowing very well you will regret this decision, you hesitatingly nod.

Yoongi lets out the breath he was holding and points a thumb at the road, “I’ll hail a cab.” 

It takes about 15 minutes for you to finally find yourself being led by him to the halted car down the street. All this while you just thoughtlessly watched him a few feet away from you trying to flag a cab in the darkening, busy street. It’s a familiar sight that now feels distant. 

Refusing his help, you lift your suitcase into the boot of the car before clambering into the backseat, only flinch slightly upon noticing him sitting almost right next to you when you shut the door. Of course. He had motion sickness just like you, he never calls shotgun. That meant this was how you were to journey today......And the car zooms into the night.

Seoul is always well lit at night. Despite the colorful lights of the LED screens lighting up the cab from time to time, you can barely see his face. For the most part, he’s looking out of the window, hands tucked into the pocket on his bikers jacket. You don’t know for what reason but you find yourself occasionally glancing at him. The both of you were sharing such a close space with each other after so long. It stings you in the chest to feel how much things have changed. You would’ve never imagined sitting like this with Yoongi three years ago. Yes there were times silence was the dominant thing, but that silence with him was always comforting. This silence is ice cold.

You shiver, not at the thought, but because the taxi driver lowers his window, letting the wind and its coldness in, cutting your skin.

“Got a lighter?”

Shaking your head you reply to the questioning eyes of the old man looking at you through his rear view mirror. But before he could get disappointed, Yoongi pulls out a lighter from his pocket, handing it over the shoulder of the now much happier man. As you watch him click the lighters flames to life, your mind wanders elsewhere.

You extend the umbrella in your hand over an already drenched Yoongi as he looks at you, face stoic as ever, eyes fixed on you in a way that said he applauded your audacity. Though he stopped leaning against the lamp post which held the ‘no smoking’ sign when you walked up to him, he stubbornly maintained everything else. The cigarette is still held in place in his mouth, the blackened matchstick still tightly wrapped in his fist. The rain continues to pour fearlessly, as though just moments ago, it did not just wipe the smirk off Yoongi’s face or blow out the flames he had lit for himself.

Bringing up the lighter in your hand, your fingers roll on the spark wheel and you light his cigarette carefully.

“I don’t know what it is but there’s something in there,” You point straight at his chest. “Some kind of pain, something which is the reason you find the need to rebel, the reason you don’t care for anything, the reason you're hurting and you choose to hurt those around you......Yes smoking kills but that pain?” You smile at him pitifully. “That will kill you much faster.”

You reach for his hand, bringing it up and unclamping his fist and flick the burnt matchstick out of his hand, replacing it with the lighter in yours.

“So I can only hope you find what takes that pain away.” You take a step, baring him to the rain again. “I hope you find what helps you live.”

A very long time after that day, Yoongi held your hand under that very lamp post as he permanently handed you his favorite lighter, the one with his initials on it. 

“I found what helps me live.” 

As you wrapped your fingers around it his eyes told you what he couldn’t say.

He found you.

Your gaze follows the lighter as Yoongi takes it, stuffing it into his pocket, where it belonged. So he was smoking again, a habit he detested, a habit he had acquired only to rebel against what life threw at him, a habit you thought he had left in the past because he was no longer hurting. Seeing that lighter in his hands again, your heart aches. It aches to be reminded that he had returned to grieving so painfully once more.

Yoongi notices you looking intently at the hand in his pocket. Before he can say anything, you turn away, choosing to see the fast moving scenery of the estates over conversing with him. A wise choice. If you hadn’t glanced out, you would’ve probably missed the large sign that held the name of the enormous structure that loomed over. 

Min Manor.

You rack your brain for memories of this house. You remember it very vaguely because you had been here perhaps once in all the years you had known Yoongi. The reason was simple. Yoongi never lived here. Though it was his house, though his family lived here for generations together, though he loved every inch of this place, Yoongi never stayed here-

The door opens, jolting you out of your thoughts. 

You turn to see Yoongi who had already gotten off the halted car, holding out the door for you. You uncertainly step out as you recollect where Yoongi stayed almost all his life. In that camper-van that was always parked behind this house, the one his mother had gifted him years ago. Why didn’t you think about where Yoongi was living when he asked you to stay with him? Why didn’t you think that Yoongi might still be living there? Did he expect you to stay in that tiny space along with him-

“Of course not.” You’re not surprised he answers your unspoken questions anymore as he rolls his eyes ever so slightly. “I don’t live there now and if I was, I wouldn’t have expected you to stay there with me. I moved into the Min Mansion a few years ago.”

“Oh.” Something as normal as Yoongi living in his own house shocks you more than him staying in that camper-van. Why did he live here now? Did he sort out everything? But how? “I’m sorry I thought-”

“I don’t blame you.” He closes the door behind you, signaling the man standing by the huge doors with his fingers and a nod. The old butler stops staring at you and hurriedly descends the few stairs to open the boot of the taxi, pulling your luggage out as Yoongi sighs, looking at the house with a strange expression. “I never thought I would live here again either.”

Then why do you live here? 

As the taxi zooms away, you keep your question to yourself as you follow Yoongi not so closely behind. The butler pushes open the large oak doors of the house revealing barely any details of the dimly lit corridor that extends from the entrance. As you step in, you picture your last memory here - your younger self being escorted out by this very butler, Yoongi’s father’s voice the only audible thing as you left.

“How dare you Min Yoongi? Was it not enough that you love the same woman as your brother? Now you have the audacity to bring her into this house? Are you trying to rip apart what’s left of this family?!”

“Y/n.” You break out of your flashback at Yoongi’s voice, turning to see him still by the door. “Welcome home.”

Home.

The word pricks you like a thorn. There was a time I thought this would be home.

“Grace here will help you.” Yoongi points at the middle aged, short woman who you didn’t even notice standing there, as she gives you a bow when you spot her. “Lead her to the guest room and make sure she has everything she needs.”

“Rest Y/n, we have a long mission ahead of us” He takes a step back giving you one final look before he walks into the darkness outside the house. “We will start tomorrow by meeting Officer Jeon Jungkook.” 

[calumcest]

you and i were fireworks that went off too soon - chapter one

[ao3]

The tattoos appear one Wednesday night. 

“What’s yours?” Michael demands, sounding beside himself with excitement. Luke frowns.

“What’s my what?”

“Your tattoo.”

-

another soulmate au...but this time its ANGSTY (but dont worry it will end happy because i am me)

The tattoos appear one Wednesday night. 

Almost everyone wakes up for a few minutes at around three-thirty a.m., feeling a strange burning sensation in some square inch of their body. Almost everyone rubs sleepily at the patch of skin - wrist, bicep, shoulder, hip - rolls over, and goes back to sleep. 

Some people, of course, are already awake when it happens, and some people wake up and don’t go back to sleep. Those are the ones who start shooting off confused questions on social media, comparing tattoos, trying to figure out what they mean. A few people start theorising - mine reminds me of my wife, they say, or, mine reminds me of my first love, and by the time the rest of Australia wakes up, the theories have ballooned from maybe they’re to do with someone you need to reconnect with to this is a clear sign from the government that they’ve placed chips in our minds and know what we’re thinking about. 

Australia is the first major country to get them. As Tuesday rolls into Wednesday across the globe, more and more people’s thighs, forearms and ankles start to burn, until, by the time it gets to LA, people are buzzing with anticipation, almost the entire country awake at three-thirty in the morning, waiting for their tattoos. 

Luke doesn’t notice his immediately. He sleeps like the fucking dead, so he hadn’t even woken up in the middle of the night like most people, and he wakes up late for work so doesn’t have time to check his phone for the fifty billion messages he’s received overnight until he’s made it onto the train, panting as he flops into an empty seat opposite an elderly lady. She gives him a warm smile, which Luke thinks is a little strange, but he returns it slightly tentatively, pulling his phone out to avoid any further eye contact. 

His phone lights up before he even touches it, and Luke frowns as he sees new messages appearing every few minutes. On top of the messages, he’s got seventeen missed calls from Michael, twenty-five from his mum, three from his dad, and even some from Jack and Ben. 

He unlocks his phone and heads for the messages app, barely managing to open the group chat with Michael and Calum before his phone is lighting up with Michael ringing him again. 

“What?” he hisses, as quietly as he can, throwing an apologetic look at the lady opposite him. “I’m on the train.” 

“What’s yours?” Michael demands, sounding beside himself with excitement. Luke frowns. 

“What’s my what?” 

“Your tattoo.” Luke blinks. 

“Are you alright, Mike?” he says. “You know I don’t have any tattoos.” 

“Are you fucking serious?” Michael says, now sounding incredulous over the staticky phone line. “Have you not, like, looked at your phone? Seen the news? Spoken to a single person?” 

“I woke up late,” Luke says, a little defensively, even though he doesn’t really think he needs to defend not looking at his phone for an hour while he showered, dressed, made breakfast, sprinted to the station.

“Jesus Christ,” Michael says, and Luke can just imagine him pinching the bridge of his nose in frustration. “Trust you to sleep through something like this.” 

“Through what?”

“Everyone got a tattoo last night,” Michael says. Luke hesitates for a moment, and then rolls his eyes.

“Mike, I’m not that gullible,” he says. “I think even I’d wake up if a tattoo artist broke into my house overnight.” 

“I’m not joking,” Michael says impatiently. 

“Where are they, then?” Luke says, slightly amused. 

“Mine’s on my elbow,” Michael says. “But everyone has them in different places.” 

“Right,” Luke says. “That’s convenient. Is this just a ploy to try and get me to strip naked on public transport and embarrass myself?” 

“Why do you never believe anything I say?” Michael says indignantly. 

“You’ve never given me much reason to,” Luke says. There’s a beat, and then-

“Yeah, that’s fair enough,” Michael says. 

“What’s yours, then?” Luke asks, because he might as well humour Michael. 

“It’s, uh,” Michael says, cagily. There’s a moment’s pause, and when it becomes obvious Luke’s waiting for an answer, he says quietly: “Duke?” 

“Duke?” Luke says, because he cannot have heard that properly. “Like, Calum’s dog Duke?” 

“Yeah,” Michael says, sounding a little nervous. Luke rolls his eyes. Obviously Michael’s just picked the first fucking thing that came to mind.

“Right,” Luke says. “Not really doing yourself any favours on convincing me this isn’t just a massive joke, Mike.” Michael makes a small noise somewhere between outrage and embarrassment. 

“Check the fucking news, then, arsehole,” he says, and then there’s a beep and he’s hung up. Luke removes the phone from his ear, screen back on the group chat where Calum’s still sending messages, and clicks out and onto his news app. 

He’s immediately confronted with approximately thirty-seven articles about tattoos. Blurry pictures of people’s tattoos, clips of news anchors showing their tattoos to the camera, interviews with people who claim they know what the tattoos mean, interviews with medical officials who are telling people to stay calm, the tattoos don’t appear to be dangerous. Luke’s first reaction is to bring down his notification bar and check the date - okay, May the seventh, so this isn’t an April Fool’s. It might be a late April Fool’s, though, he thinks.  

“He’s not lying to you,” someone says suddenly, and Luke’s head jolts up to see the old lady opposite him smiling at him benignly. 

“Uh, sorry,” he says, “what d’you mean?” 

“Your friend,” she says, “Mike? He’s not lying. Everybody got a tattoo last night.” She rolls her sleeve up to expose a frail, wrinkled arm, and right there, in the middle of her forearm, is a tattoo of a policeman’s hat. 

“That was my late husband’s identification number,” she says, pointing to the number underneath the hat. 

“Oh,” Luke says, because he has absolutely no idea what the appropriate response to everybody got a tattoo last night, by the way, here’s mine of my late husband’s police hat and identification number is. The lady smiles at him again, and rolls her sleeve back down. 

“You should look for yours,” she says knowingly, like she understands this whole tattoo situation. Luke opens his mouth, although he’s not really sure what he’s about to say - thank you? Piss off? What sort of a fucking alternate universe am I living in? - but then the train doors open and he looks outside and realises this is his stop. 

“This is my stop,” he says, thankful that this incredibly uncomfortable conversation is over. “Have a nice day?” He’s not really sure why he phrases it as a question, but he doesn’t have time to think about it, grabbing his bag and coat and just about making it off the train without getting decapitated by the closing doors. 

What a weird fucking start to the day, he thinks, as he starts towards the ticket barriers, but upon realising he’s left his season ticket at home all thoughts of a tattoo leave his mind. 

 ------- 

 The first person Luke sees when he gets into the office is Calum. He’s wearing a scarf indoors, which strikes Luke as a little strange, but he doesn’t have time to ask because as soon as Luke walks into the room, Calum rounds on him.  

“Why the fuck haven’t you been answering your phone?” he demands immediately. 

“Jesus Christ,” Luke groans as he throws himself into his chair. “Not you too.” 

“What?” 

“Mike rang me trying to convince me to get naked on the train because apparently someone tattooed me in my sleep last night,” Luke says, powering up his desktop. Calum gapes at him. 

“Are you telling me you haven’t seen yours yet?” he asks in disbelief. 

“What? Cal, are you fucking serious?” Luke says, annoyed. He might be gullible, but he’s not that gullible. “I’m not falling for this shit.” 

“Have you checked the news?” 

“Yeah,” Luke says, swivelling in his chair to face Calum as he waits for his computer to turn on. “It’s got to be some kind of joke. A late April Fool’s, I dunno.” Calum stares at him as though he’s just said the sky is green, or All Time Low are a bad band, or something. 

“Are you insane?” he asks incredulously. 

“Alright, show me your fucking tattoo, then,” Luke says sarcastically. Calum hesitates. 

“I don’t want to,” he says shiftily, after a moment.  

“Right,” Luke says smugly. “See?” 

“See what?”

“Mike came up with some bullshit too,” Luke says. “Said his was fucking Duke.” Calum stares at him for a moment. 

“Wait,” he says, and he sounds a little strangled. “Duke? Like, my dog?” 

“Yeah,” Luke says pointedly, in what he hopes is a I’m not that stupid kind of tone. 

“Oh,” Calum says, and now he sounds somewhere between frightened and elated. Luke cocks his head, frowning. 

“What?” he asks. 

“It’s just…” Calum trails off, and shrugs. 

“What?” Calum bites his lip, and then tugs the scarf down. 

There, inked on the side of Calum’s neck, is a Gibson guitar with six numbers on it: 201195. It takes Luke a minute to put two and two together, but after realising it doesn’t say 2011-95 but 20-11-95, it suddenly makes sense. That’s Michael’s guitar, and that’s Michael’s birthday. 

“Oh,” he says, and now he’s just confused. “Why the fuck did you get Michael’s guitar tattooed on your neck?” Calum lets go of the scarf and it snaps back up, covering the tattoo again. 

“I didn’t,” he says. “It appeared last night.” 

“Well, where’s mine, then?” Luke asks sceptically, looking down at his hands and turning them over and over, like a tattoo is suddenly going to appear. 

“I don’t know,” Calum says. “Andy’s was on his arse.” Luke stares at him. 

“I’m not getting my arse out in the office,” he says. Calum rolls his eyes. 

“Go to the fucking toilet,” he says. Luke stands up, because it seems like until he plays into this elaborate prank it’s not going to end, and then stops. 

“Wait,” he says. “What if it is on my arse?” 

“Then it’s on your arse,” Calum says, sounding a little nonplussed. It’s Luke’s turn to roll his eyes. 

“I won’t be able to see it,” he says, hoping Calum will get the hint. Calum stares at him for a moment, then shrugs, and stands up. 

“I hope it’s on your dick,” he says, with a grin. 

“Fuck you,” Luke says, as they walk to the toilet opposite their office. Luke pushes open the door to the first cubicle, and then pauses. “Wait, is it going to look weird if we’re in a cubicle together?”

“Probably,” Calum says, but he follows Luke into the cubicle anyway, closing the door behind him. 

It’s cramped with Calum in there too, and they shuffle around each other for a moment before Calum hops onto the toilet and gets out of Luke’s way, leaving him to take his jacket off and then fiddle with his shirt buttons. 

“This is the world’s worst strip-tease,” Calum comments after a moment, and Luke scowls at him. 

“Dickhead,” he says, and then, having finally removed his shirt, he turns around to hang it on the hook on the back of the door. That’s when Calum gasps. 

“It’s, uh. It’s on your back,” he says, and he sounds a little worried. Luke twists, trying to see. 

“What?” he says, because he’s not that flexible. “Where?”

“On your shoulderblade,” Calum says, pointing, as if it’ll help. Out of the corner of his eye, Luke can see a crease of concern between Calum’s brows. 

“I can’t see,” Luke says grumpily. 

“Hang on, I’ll take a picture,” Calum says, standing up and fishing his phone out of his pocket. Luke stands still for a moment, until he reckons Calum must have taken the picture, then turns around. Calum hesitates for a moment, then thrusts the phone at Luke. 

Luke sees his skin, pale and freckled, broken up by dark black ink. It’s a strangely beautiful tattoo, a bird carrying what looks like some kind of stick in front of a waning moon. It reminds him a bit of two of his ex’s tattoos, actually - he had some kind of bird on his neck, and a bunch of moons on his forearms.

It’s that thought that’s on his mind as he looks over the picture again, and his eyes fall on the stick. 

It’s a drumstick. 

Oh. 

Oh. 

“Fuck,” Luke says, and he suddenly feels sick. No fucking way has he woken up with his first ever tattoo, and it’s something to do with Ashton. “Fuck. Calum, tell me this isn’t real. Tell me this is a fucking prank.” Calum looks at him like he wishes he could tell Luke it was a prank, and shakes his head slowly. 

Luke feels his knees give out, falling to the cold tile floor hard. 

“It comes off, right?” he says, an edge of panic in his voice. Calum looks at him again, and then shakes his head again. “Cal, please. I- I can’t have a tattoo to do with Ashton.” 

“I don’t know what to tell you,” Calum says, eyes sincere and sad. 

“What does it mean?” Luke asks. Calum shrugs helplessly. 

“No one knows,” he says. 

“But you have Michael,” Luke says desperately, “and Michael’s got you.” Calum hesitates, and then shrugs again. 

“I don’t know, Luke,” he says gently. 

“Maybe it doesn’t mean anything,” Luke says, like he’s trying to convince himself more than anything. 

“Maybe,” Calum echoes, but he doesn’t sound sure at all. 

 -------

 It takes three months before it’s decided what they are. 

A huge number of studies are done in that time. Calum and Michael themselves volunteer for one, because apparently not everybody knows what - or who - theirs refers to. Some people turn out to have no tattoo, and it seems like people are only getting their tattoos on their eighteenth birthdays. It’s the only topic in the news for that entire time - the only topic of conversation, the only topic Luke encounters fucking anywhere.

He’s grateful his tattoo is on his shoulderblade, so it’s mostly hidden, because he sees everybody sneaking furtive glances at people’s necks, hands, forearms, collarbones, anywhere with visible tattoos. He dodges questions about what his tattoo is from everybody but Calum, Michael, and his family, because the words rise like bile in his throat - it’s Ashton. 

(“Oh, Luke,” Michael says sadly, when Luke tells him, and pulls him into the tightest hug Luke thinks he’s ever had.)

(“Oh, Luke,” his mum says sadly, when Luke tells her, sigh broken up by the static of the phone line.) 

(“Oh, Luke,” Jack and Ben say simultaneously on their group call, a moment of tense, awkward, sad silence hanging between them for a moment afterwards.) 

After three months, though, there’s a huge press conference. They’ve worked out what they are, the authorities say, and they’re going to do a televised conference announcing it and explaining how they reached that conclusion. 

Of course, the whole world is on tenterhooks. They do it in Europe, because it’s deemed the easiest timezone for everybody to work around, so Luke finds himself wedged between Michael and Calum on Calum’s sofa at eleven p.m., biting his nails almost obsessively. 

Michael and Calum aren’t speaking much, either. Luke’s not really sure it was the best move for them to be together while finding out what their tattoos about each other mean, but frankly, he’s too focused on finding out what his tattoo means to worry about them. 

At two minutes past eleven, researchers begin to file into the panel in front of the audience of journalists, world leaders standing behind them. It looks almost comical, Luke thinks a little hysterically, a row of men and women in lab coats to highlight their authority on the matter, the world’s most powerful people standing solemnly behind them. Some of their tattoos are visible too, but Luke’s too caught up willing time to move faster so he can finally fucking find out what having a tattoo about Ashton on his shoulderblade means. 

At four minutes past eleven, they start speaking. There’s about five minutes of preamble that Luke can’t follow, lots of words like hypothesis and methodology washing over him, and then the researcher sitting in the middle of the panel clears his throat, pushes his glasses up his nose, and takes a deep breath. 

“From these international, rigorously conducted studies of large portions of different populations, we have concluded,” he says, and nobody breathes. This is the moment. Luke’s heart seems to be trying to get his daily quota’s worth of heartbeats into a single second. “We have concluded that these tattoos appear to be soulmate markings.” 

Luke hears nothing that he says after that. 

Soulmate markings. The words echo in his mind, bouncing off every cell in his brain. 

It can’t be right, Luke thinks desperately, as he watches the panellists take questions from journalists but doesn’t hear the words they say. Ashton’s not his soulmate. There’s no such thing as soulmates, and if there were, Luke’s wouldn’t be the first man who had ever truly broken his heart, who had left him almost incapable of carrying on, who had brought him so fucking close to the precipice. 

He’d thought Ashton had been it, back then. He’d thought that he’d been so lucky to find the guy he wanted to marry so young in life. And then, three years later, Ashton had turned around one day, ashen-faced, and told him he didn’t love him anymore. 

That had been it. Luke’s world, Luke’s mind, Luke’s heart, had broken. 

So there’s no fucking way, no fucking way, that Ashton can be Luke’s soulmate. Luke’s soulmate wouldn’t have fallen out of love with him. Luke’s soulmate would never have pushed him so close to never seeing another birthday again. Luke’s soulmate wouldn’t leave him. 

Luke’s so caught up in the sickness that’s washed over him, hands trembling, freezing and sweaty, that he doesn’t realise what this means for Michael and Calum until a noise pulls him back to reality harshly. It’s Calum, clearing his throat. 

“Well,” he says, and he sounds weirdly high-pitched, and suddenly Luke thinks, shit. Calum and Michael are soulmates. 

“Yep,” Michael says, equally high-pitched and slightly choked. 

“Oh,” Luke puts in, because fuck, Calum and Michael are soulmates. 

“Oh,” Calum says, like he’s just remembered Luke’s there, and then there’s two sets of arms around Luke, warm and vanilla and mint and pine. 

“Oh, Luke,” Michael says, and he sounds so sad that Luke’s heart breaks all over again. 

Neither of them say anything more, because there’s so much to say that picking any one thing would be doing everything else an injustice.

 -------

 Luke does nothing about it for five weeks. 

Michael and Calum don’t say anything about it either, not wanting to push, but Luke’s getting kind of sick of the wary looks they send in his direction, of the whispered conversations that stop as soon as he walks into the room. They’ve fallen into it so easily that it chokes Luke up when he sees them, easy touches and glances that they’ve always had but have somehow taken on a new meaning. 

(“When did you know?” Luke asks Calum one night over the phone, staring up at his ceiling. 

“That I was in love with him?” Calum asks. 

“Yeah.” 

“I’ve always known,” Calum says, and Luke’s heart hurts because he’s so happy for them, he is, but he’s so fucking miserable.) 

He jumps every time he gets a text for the first few weeks, thinking it might be Ashton, and filled with both relief and a little bit of disappointment when it never is. His mum doesn’t ask, and neither does his dad, and nor do Jack and Ben, and he loves them all for it. He doesn’t want to talk about it, but he hates the way it hangs, thick and solid in the air between them all every time he calls. 

Five weeks is when he breaks. 

He’s in the toilet at work, sat fully-clothed on the closed toilet seat, practically hyperventilating as he types, erases, types, erases. 

Hey. I know we haven’t spoken in years-

Hey. I know we haven’t spoken in a while-

Hi. It’s Luke. 

Hi. It’s Luke (Hemmings).

It feels fucking awful still, even after a few years have passed, to see Ashton Irwin staring at him at the top of the screen, not the stupid inside joke contact name he’d had for the entirety of their relationship. It feels fucking awful typing so formally. It feels fucking awful not knowing what to say to someone who used to know Luke better than anyone else. The whole thing feels fucking awful. 

Eventually, when he’s been sat on the toilet for so long his arse is starting to go numb, he just types two words. 

What’s yours? 

He puts his phone back in his pocket, unlocks the cubicle with shaking fingers, and goes to wash his hands, because otherwise it’ll look like he’s incredibly unhygienic. 

His phone buzzes as he’s drying his hands, and his heart lurches. He hastily wipes his hands on his trousers, fumbling with trembling fingers with his phone and nearly throwing up when he sees Ashton Irwin flashing up on his screen. 

Ashton Irwin It’s you. 

 ------- 

 Luke sits on the information for two days before telling Michael and Calum. 

They’re at Michael’s, sitting on the sofa eating pizza (or, at least, Michael and Calum are eating pizza - Luke’s half-heartedly prodding at his), and Calum and Michael are having some kind of a heated squabble about whether tuna on pizza is acceptable or not, and Luke just blurts it out. 

“I texted Ashton,” he says suddenly, and both Michael and Calum stop, dead still. 

“You- what?” Michael says, after a few (incredibly strained) seconds have passed. 

“I texted Ashton,” Luke repeats, mumbling this time. He’s gazing intently at his pizza, mostly to avoid looking at Calum or Michael. 

“Did he reply?” Calum asks. 

“Yeah,” Luke says. Both Michael and Calum inhale sharply. 

“What did he say?” Michael asks. Luke swallows. He doesn’t think he can say it out loud. 

“I-” he starts, but cuts himself off, the words too heavy for his tongue to handle. He shakes his head instead, fishing for his phone in his pocket, and chucks it over to Calum, who catches it deftly. Michael leans over as Calum types in Luke’s passcode - his birthday, because he’s too stupid to remember any other date - and there’s a moment of tension, of bated breath, as they wait for the message to load. 

Luke knows when they’ve seen it because both of their faces contort into the same expression, somewhere between worry, confusion, fear, concern and sympathy. 

“Fuck,” Michael says, staring at Luke almost hesitantly, like he’s about to implode. 

“Are you okay?” Calum asks quietly. Luke shrugs. 

“I don’t know,” he says honestly, because he doesn’t. He’s over Ashton, he is, but he’s never going to forgive or forget the way Ashton left him, the way he broke him and swept away, not even glancing at the pieces of Luke he left in his wake. Ashton can’t be his soulmate. 

“That’s okay,” Calum says, calm and reassuring. “It’s okay to not know.” 

“It’s just a tattoo,” Michael says. “Tattoos can’t tell you who to love.” 

It makes Luke feel a little better. 

 -------

 He doesn’t text Ashton again. 

In fact, he’s almost succeeded in pushing Ashton into a corner of his mind again, shoving him back into the Do Not Open box that this tattoo business had let him out of, when his phone buzzes in the middle of the night a week later. 

He reaches over groggily, aiming to turn off whatever it is that’s lighting up his screen and sending vibrations resonating through his bedside table, but wakes up with a shot of adrenaline when he sees the name lighting up his screen. 

Ashton Irwin We should probably talk about this. 

Luke sits bolt upright in bed, palms suddenly sweating. The only thing he can think to do is unlock his phone and dial Michael, knowing he’ll be up, even though it’s two a.m. 

“What?” Michael asks, sounding slightly irked. Luke can hear clicking in the background, so it’s probably a safe bet that he’s playing a game. 

“Ashton texted me,” he says, and the clicking stops. 

“What did he say?” 

“Uh,” Luke says, holding the phone away from his ear and squinting as the bright screen blinds him in the darkness of the room. He fumbles for his light switch with one hand while exiting back into the messages app with the other. “‘We should probably talk about this.’” 

“Yeah, we should,” Michael says, “that’s why I’m asking what he texted you.” 

“No, that’s what he said,” Luke says. 

“He said you should talk about it?” 

“Yeah.” There’s a pause.

“That bastard,” Michael says calmly. “What did you say?”

“Nothing, yet,” Luke says. “I called you first.” 

“Tell him ‘nah, you’re good’,” Michael says, and Luke knows he’s only, like, ten percent joking. 

“Michael,” he says, tone admonishing, but his stomach feels a little lighter. Knowing he’s got Michael and Calum on his side - fiercely on his side - makes it feel a lot less scary, a lot easier to handle. 

“Well, what do you want to say?” Michael asks. 

“I don’t know,” Luke says. He’s fantasised about this so many times since they broke up - about Ashton texting him, about Luke having the power to say no, or say yes - but he’s never decided on a resolute response in his daydreams. 

“You don’t have to reply,” Michael says. “You don’t owe him shit.” 

“I know,” Luke says, and it comforts him, somehow. “Maybe I won’t.” 

“I’ll reply for you,” Michael says, and then there’s more clicking. “Just give me a few minutes to look up how to say ‘go fuck yourself’ in at least forty different languages.” Luke laughs at that, the knot in his stomach loosening considerably.

“I can’t fucking believe this,” he says, because now that he’s talking about it, now that it’s not just in his own head and his own heart, it feels a lot less frightening. “What a fucking joke. We get soulmates, and mine’s Ashton?” 

“That’s what you get for saying my fringe was ugly in Year Seven,” Michael says. 

“It was ugly.”

“Well, now something else terrible is going to happen to you,” Michael says cheerfully. 

“What’s worse than waking up with a giant tattoo about Ashton on my back?” Luke says. 

“Having to speak to him again,” Michael says. Luke doesn’t really think he can argue with that. 

“I’m going to turn my phone off,” he says, stifling a yawn, because now that the adrenaline’s subsided, the exhaustion is kicking in again. 

“You should just block him,” Michael suggests. Luke is sorely tempted for a moment, but then sighs.

“I’ll deal with it tomorrow,” he says, because it’s too late, and he’s not thinking straight, and he doesn’t want to do something he’ll regret. “Thanks for listening to me, Mikey.” 

“Always,” Michael says, with a sincerity Luke didn’t know he had in him. “But you’re going to have to pay me for my services in food.” 

“I’ll cook for you,” Luke says. 

“I said food, not chargrilled remnants of what used to be pasta,” Michael says. 

“I can cook pasta,” Luke protests. 

“‘Cook’ is a bit of a strong word to describe what you can do with pasta,” Michael says. 

“Arsehole,” Luke says, but he’s smiling. 

“Love you too,” Michael says, and Luke can hear the grin in his voice. “Go to bed.” 

“Alright, mum,” Luke grumbles. “Night.”

“Night,” Michael says, and then he hangs up, and Luke’s suddenly all too aware of the silence and darkness and sheer loneliness of his room. 

He switches his phone off, rolls over, and lets the warm feeling of knowing Michael’s there for him envelop him, eventually drifting off to sleep.

 -------

 “So,” Calum says, when Luke walks into work the next morning, exhausted and late. He’s swivelled around in his chair to face Luke, fingers steepled against his chin like he’s deep in thought. “Did you text him back?” Luke scowls. 

“I wish Michael would let me tell you things myself,” he says, slamming his bag onto his desk with a little more force than strictly necessary. 

“Did you?” Calum asks again. Luke shakes his head, throwing himself down in his chair, taking his phone out of his bag and putting it on the table before chucking his bag under his desk. 

“I don’t know if I want to,” he says. 

“Fair enough,” Calum says, with a shrug. Luke bites his lip. 

“Do you think I should?” Calum shrugs again. 

“I think you should do what feels right,” he says. 

“I don’t know what feels right,” Luke moans, putting his head in his hands. “He’s my fucking ex. He fell out of love with me. How is he my soulmate?” 

“Maybe he’s, like, a platonic soulmate?” Calum offers, and then recoils in the heat of the glare Luke sends his way. 

“Ashton’s not really high up on the list of people I’m looking to be friends with,” Luke says. Calum looks like he’s about to say something, but then Luke’s phone buzzes. He looks over, half-expecting it to be Michael, but-

Ashton Irwin Don’t ignore me, Luke. This is important. 

Anger suddenly flares hot in Luke’s stomach. 

“Is it him?” Calum asks. Luke nods, and holds the phone up over his desk for Calum to see. “Are you fucking serious?” 

“He texted me at two a.m.,” Luke says. 

“He’s so fucking entitled,” Calum says, sounding almost as irate as Luke feels. Luke’s so angry that he types out a response without even thinking about it. 

Me Are you fucking serious? You texted me at two in the morning. 

“What did you say?” Calum wants to know, and Luke dutifully reads it out to him. Calum nods approvingly. “Call him a bastard next time.” Luke laughs, both bitter and amused, and then his phone buzzes again. 

Ashton Irwin I know you’re at work. 

Ashton Irwin Call me on your lunch break? 

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Luke mutters, thrusting his phone at Calum. 

“At least he put a question mark this time,” Calum says. “Fucking arsehole.” 

Luke’s fingers are shaking as he types.

Me Fuck you. You left me like it was nothing, like I meant nothing after I gave all of myself to you for three years. You never checked in on me, never asked about me, never bothered seeing if I was okay. You just told me you fell out of love with me, and then up and left. You don’t get to demand shit from me now. 

Luke erases it all. 

Me I don’t have anything to say to you.

The typing bubble pops up as soon as Luke’s sent the message, and he watches the words form in front of his eyes. 

Ashton Irwin I do, though. 

 ------- 

 Luke’s not really sure how he finds himself standing outside in the biting early-October wind on his lunch break, finger hovering over the dial button on Ashton’s contact name. 

He’s been standing there for five minutes, almost pressing it but never quite getting there (except one time his finger had slipped and he’d pressed it and then stabbed the ‘end call’ button about fifty times straight in a blind panic). 

On the one hand, he really, really doesn’t want to talk to Ashton. He’s moved on from Ashton, with a lot of expensive therapy, a lot of leaning on his friends more than he should have and a lot of eating his body weight in processed food, and he wants Ashton to stay a part of his past. He’s worked hard to get to where he is today, and he doesn’t need to be flung back to where he had been. 

On the other hand, this is kind of a big deal. They’re soulmates. Ashton was right, although Luke doesn’t want to admit it - this is something they should talk about. Plus, it can’t hurt to hear what Ashton has to say, right?

With ten minutes left of his lunch break and approximately the same amount of time before he has to start sacrificing fingers to frostbite, Luke takes a deep breath and presses the dial button. 

It rings twice, and then there’s a click as Ashton picks up. 

“Hello?” Ashton says, and Luke suddenly feels incredibly sick. He hasn’t heard Ashton’s voice in two years, not since he was telling Luke he didn’t love him anymore, and it throws Luke back to that place, making him feel small and vulnerable and pathetic. 

“Hi,” he says, and he’s proud of how steady his voice comes out given the circumstances. “I have ten minutes.” 

“Okay,” Ashton says. “You’re still living in Sydney, then?” 

“What?” Luke says, slightly taken aback by the question. “Oh. Yeah.”

“Cool,” Ashton says. There’s a moment of awkward silence, and Luke contemplates Googling the quickest way to end his own life before Ashton speaks again. 

“How are you?” he asks, and Luke can’t help but laugh at that. 

“Are you fucking serious?” he asks, and he suddenly feels a little better, a little more in control. Ashton’s asking how he is, and he’s the one laughing. He’s the one with the power. Ashton wants to talk to Luke - Luke doesn’t want to talk to Ashton. 

“What?” Ashton sounds a bit defensive. 

“Get to the point,” Luke says, feeling braver and bigger with every passing second. “I didn’t call for a fucking catch up.” 

“Jesus,” Ashton mutters. “What the fuck happened to you?” You happened, Luke thinks bitterly, but he won’t give Ashton that satisfaction. 

“I grew a fucking spine,” he says instead. “Just tell me what you wanted to talk about.” 

“Well,” Ashton says. “I just- I feel like we should talk about the fact that we’re...y’know. Soulmates.” 

“I don’t have anything to say about it,” Luke says. 

“Are you serious, Luke?” Ashton says, sounding slightly pissed off, and Luke’s caught off-guard for a moment, hearing his name in Ashton’s familiar yet strange voice again. 

“Yeah,” Luke says, and he can’t help the bitterness that tinges his tone. “You fucking left, Ashton, and it’s been two years. What the fuck am I supposed to have to say to you?” 

“We’re soulmates,” Ashton says, like that’s supposed to mean something to Luke. 

“Oh, what, so you wouldn’t have fallen out of love with me if you got a fucking tattoo a few years earlier?” Luke says, fury swirling in his chest. “You needed a bit of ink to tell you who to love?” 

“That’s not what I mean,” Ashton says, even though to Luke it sounds like it’s exactly what he means. 

“Right,” Luke says sarcastically. “What’s the point in this call?” 

“To fucking talk, Luke, not have you bite my head off,” Ashton says. The fury grows hotter in Luke’s chest, seeping into his veins and heating up his muscles. 

“Talk about what?” he spits. 

“You’re my fucking soulmate!” Ashton says, voice rising. “Don’t you want to fucking talk about it?” 

“No!” Luke shouts, and two passers-by give him an odd look. He lowers his voice, and tries again. “No. I don’t have anything to say about it.” 

“I think we should meet up,” Ashton says. 

“I think you’re fucking insane,” Luke tells him. “I’m going back to work. Don’t contact me again.” 

“Wait,” Ashton nearly yells, and Luke, out of instinct, hesitates. “Uh. What’s your-  what’s it of?” 

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Luke growls, and hangs up. 

He lets out a shaky exhale as he tips his head back against the cold brick wall behind him, anger pounding through his veins, ringing in his ears. 

Fuck Ashton Irwin, he thinks, blinking up at the cloudless sky. Fuck Ashton Irwin, and fuck the soulmate tattoos. 

chapter two

[blackfemmecharacterdependency]

Share a Lair 16 || Thunderstruck Birthday Girl

This is basically just self indulgent Charlotte love showering. I generally write Charlotte as an April Taurus, because of when her birthday episode aired, so I figured this is around the time that I can just do a little cute, fun, show of love and stuff, and also give her a chance to get some nice things. It is mostly just filler, but does have at least one important piece of story and I’ll get back to the crucial parts with the next installment.

Charlotte liked a lowkey birthday. Usually, she had brunch and cake with her parents and spent it with the guys in the evening. This year, Max made a bunch of plans for her, and she was curious to see how well he would do with this, so she planned to have brunch with her parents and told the guys that she would touch base with them later in the night. At some point during making plans, the boys got competitive via casual conversation and so she was told that they were going to have a bake off and that as the birthday girl, she would be able to determine who baked the best cake. “So, you’re gonna have like four cakes?” Max asked.

“Knowing the guys, not a single one of the cakes that they plan on making will make it, whether due to calamity or them just eating all of the cake.” But, if there was cake, she was definitely having some of each.

After brunch, Max picked her up from the bistro, not really being that concerned that she wasn’t introducing him to her parents yet. He got a glimpse of them hugging her before leaving and they seemed extremely intimidating. He already didn’t like parents and hers were both successful in their own right and high maintenance from what he understood. Even the bistro that they were at was an exclusive place. Each guest had a personal server, and whenever the Pages came through, their Jamaican chef was given access to the kitchen to prepare their meals for special occasions. This morning, Charlotte had been presented with an authentic Jamaican breakfast and bottomless brunch drinks. Max couldn’t recall ever having had a brunch, much less one in an exclusive bistro, with a personal chef, personal server, and access to all of the bar.

Superhero life paid extremely well, but it was more of a trade off, since one’s body and health was on the line with each mission. Charlotte’s father was a physicist and spent more time working than he did at home. Her mother was a college chancellor and was home just as much as her husband, even though her job was only about an hour away. They tried to make up for the blank spaces with extravagant gifts and expensive celebrations, but Charlotte was simply always happy just to be able to see both of them at once for a little bit of time, even though half of it was generally spent with her having to update them on exactly how her educational career was going and have enough accolades and credentials to account for the time she couldn’t tell them about as a hero’s tech specialist. Learning that made Max understand her overachiever complex a little bit better, but he wanted the rest of her birthday to be as relaxing and rewarding as possible.

He took the scenic route back to the lair and she leaned her seat back and rested, watching everything and listening to a playlist that he made for her. He had several. One for when she goes to sleep, one for her workday, one for when she studied, etc. This one was one that he made for car trips with her. One of his favorite things about doing stuff for her was that she always noticed. The first time he’d made her a playlist, she’d said, “You had to have made this thing specifically for me, right?” He wanted to deny it, but noticed how excited that made her and confessed. It was an amazing feeling to do something for someone special and have them not only not take it for granted, but to really appreciate it. Max didn’t always receive that from his loved ones, but he usually did from Charlotte. He was confident that she was going to LOVE her birthday time with him.

She liked being around a lot of people less than he did. So, where he might be down for a party with his friends and loved ones, she was more like her family was over here for this amount of time, and her friends over there, for that amount of time. Everything and everybody had their time and place.

But, she told him not too long ago, “I never get tired of being around you though. It’s like… you’re practically a part of me.” She said it all casually, matter of factly. He couldn’t even hear her emotion in it, but he definitely started crying. Then there was this whole thing where she thought that maybe she said the wrong thing and tried to comfort him and apologize and explain better, “I’m not saying that you aren’t your own person or anything, just that like… my life is comfortable no matter how much of you is in it…” He had to compose himself to let her know that he was happy to hear it, not upset. He also apologized for crying, because damn… that couldn’t be sexy. Turns out, it was… as long as it’s warranted and not over every little thing! So, that was bonus scores for him.

.

Max made Henry “be scarce” from the lair for today, which was fine by him, because he had to “Serve these fools in the cakes department, anyway!” And Max just… Didn’t even WANT to know what that meant, but was relieved to later find out that it was about baking cakes and not the booty shaking contest that his brain automatically convinced him it would be. So, whenever Charlotte walked in and the place was set up like a spa, she gasped. “What’s happening?”

“You always want to grab a spa day, but you’ve cancelled like a dozen times because of work demands. So, I set up a home spa day for you… I did get funding from Dr. Page and Dr. Page, but they knew that you deserved it and since Henry asked, they just wired it to your birthday fund.”

“You and Henry got money from my parents for a birthday spa day for me?”

“I sent Henry to get money, yes. Is that alright?”

She covered her face, “That is SO SWEET! They could have eaten him alive. They’re very inquisitive people.”

“I sent him with an outline of all of the plans,” he said, with a shrug.

“You know me so well that you know how my parents are, even though I haven’t introduced you yet!” She was thunderstruck. He took her bags and handed her a robe and slippers…

After her spa treatment day, complete with Max playing guitar and singing her some songs during interludes while she waited for something to dry or settle, or whatever, she felt brand new. She hadn’t realized how stressed she’d been, even though Max does stuff for her whenever he can, she obviously had still been hella stressed out - probably because of Russia, graduation, Jasper and Henry, spa days being cancelled… But, she NEEDED this and Max giving her what she needed, right on time? She would miss that when he was gone. Now, she was sad for a moment.

“Time for gift presentation!” He said, distracting her from missing him before he was gone. She perked up, skin radiant, silky smooth curls popping, and her smile beaming. She was still in her robe and had her spa day swag bag next to her, which were packages of the products used today in her spa day treatment and also products from the spa that supplied the materials. “First of all, we have…” he spun his finger around and the kitchen island rotated to reveal where he had hidden all of her gifts, apparently (and she had forgotten that this lair had many secret areas, but he obviously hadn’t). He reached for a huge bag and beckoned it to her. “From the Hart household, warmth and comfort in the form of new silk sheets and pillowcases, plus fuzzy blankets and bamboo pillows!”

“YES!” She had been saying she needed these forever, but not getting around to ordering any because other stuff seemed more important everything she thought about it. She LIVED for luxury, though, she often talked herself out of it.

“From Henry, himself, an assortment of fine chocolates, a wine drinking accessories set, and a collection of gourmet cheeses.”

“Ooooh… He must’ve gone into his hero funds for this!” She said, pulling things out of Henry’s gift bag.

“He did!” Max cheered. “Jasper got you…” He gave her the bucket, wrapped kind of like an Easter basket, “A stationary pail.” There was something weird in his voice. He probably had asked Jasper to get something else and Jasper was having none of it.

She opened it to see a personal planner, a personalized pen and journal set, scented stickers, sticky pads, etc and she squealed. “He got them to match the scheme of my home office whenever I set up my new place after college!” Max furrowed his eyebrows and she explained, “You see, Max… You are very smart and pay attention to detail, but Jasper has known me for a really long time and sometimes has even the most menial of my lifestyle choices down pat.”

“Your work dads got you tickets to the Graduation Concert Festival,” he said, handing her an envelope and ignoring the declaration about Jasper. “My parents got you a kitchen set for your post graduation apartment… Well… actually, my Cousin Blobbin did, but it was my mom’s idea. Cookware and appliances!”

“That’s… nice!” She said. She had just realized that she hadn’t gotten anything for that, yet. Just an electric kettle, a spice rack, and whatever she was going to cop from her parents’ kitchen. This was a much better situation! She had a few more pretty great gifts that she appreciated, then they were down to the last few, which were all from Max. He sat down next to her and she set aside everything that she had and let him hold both of her hands, wondering why it got so serious all of a sudden.

“Charlotte… The past months that I’ve known you have been amazing to me. Even before we got together, just looking forward to experiencing and learning you everyday has been everything that I’ve ever wanted from another person. : Hesighed and looked at their hands, “I’m officially scheduled to go to Russia for three years.” His shoulders sank. “And I know that you plan to visit and that we plan to continue long distance, but that’s still so tentative for me and scary - the thought of you being tasked with waiting on me to come back. But…” He looked over at the counter and floated something to himself, “If you want, you can stay in my comeback home.” He handed her a set of keys with a SuperMax keychain attached to it. “I know that you’ve been looking for apartments and this is actually a house, but…”

“You are asking me to move in with you for 3 years from now?” She asked.

“No! I’m asking you to move in now and get comfortable and make it your own, then whenever I’m back… we can get used to living together again, and you’ll already be set.” Her eyes widened, “But, if you don’t want to, I understand! We haven’t even been together for a year and who knows how Russia will change us.” He pressed a button on the remote on her keys and a holographic image of the house projected from it, “But, if you want to, I’m welcoming you to.” It was an elevated house on top of pillars, a garden with stair rails on either side and a carport. “And you’ll have full access to my underground lab and lair.”

“This is a super cute house,” she said, in a tiny voice. “And a very sweet notion. I’ll… think about it…” Sensibly, she and Max had not been together long enough for this move, but also, their circumstances were special. They lived together already, basically, and their timeline was rushed for a number of reasons… But, just living with him alone, and actually moving in and keeping it while he was on tour was… a lot that she had to rationally comb through. He understood, and was grateful that she didn’t flat out say no and tell him that he was crazy for thinking she’d even want to.

“On a lighter note!” He changed the subject, “I present to you, some of my most inspired works of art…” He gave her a portfolio of several portraits that he had done of her, some very casual and cool, some extremely detailed and graphic, some as herself, some reimagined in other forms and styles. “They’re mostly from the pining days,” he said, bashfully. “But, I’m working on a big piece to hang in the comeback house.” She flipped through pages of her face, beautifully rendered and covered her heart.

“These are really good, Max.”

“I usually just draw project schematics and costumes, but I was having a phase where every time I tried, I had to draw you first, or I’d be distracted the whole time.

“I love it.”

“I figured that I did need to get you a REAL gift, though, so…” He reached for a jewelry box and opened it. It looked elegant, like fine jewelry - a set with a necklace, earrings, bracelet and a ring. “Shapeshifting jewelry!”

“I’m sorry, what kind?”

He put the ring onto his pinky, because it would not fit anywhere else and it lit up, then it reformed itself, unbuilding and then rebuilding to look like a skull and crossbones ring. She gasped. “It scans your body and gets a record of your outfit and accommodates it. Very fun technology to have.” He took it off and handed it back. She put it on her ring finger and once again, it reformed and became a cute, thin band with a tiny pink jewel.

“This is amazing! I’ve never seen it before.”

“Experimental tech being used for facial imagery reconstruction whenever supers get unmasked. I took the principles and put them in your jewelry!” He said, proud of himself. She was proud, too. She honestly had THEE BEST BOYFRIEND. “And, in case you felt like that was a little too much, or whatever, I have backup gifts of a simpler nature. There’s this coupon book of treats and services, yes several of them are sexual, because I made it and I can,” (she laughed) “There is this HUGE concentration candle, I mean… LOOK at this thing! Oh, and this.” He handed her some folded paper. “It’s a handwritten love letter, basically me being kind of a loser and telling you all of my feelings, but on paper, like a madman…”

“Yes,” she said, snatching it.

“Yes, I’m a madman?”

“No… Well… yes, but… yes, I’ll move into your comeback home after college graduation.” She threw her arms around his neck and kissed him.

“To clarify… Was it the letter?”

“It was the… Max. You’re perfect, Dude. I just…” she shrugged and rested her head on him.

.

Whenever Charlotte made her way to the Man Cave, she heard the hijinks as soon as she stepped off of the elevator, and what she saw was four grown men and a young girl all fussing and covered in cake. “Did any of you save any cake?” She called from the elevator. They didn’t stop fussing or even seem to hear or notice her, so she looked around and saw a plate wrapped in saran wrap with assorted slices of cake, “I’m gonna presume that this is mine and leave with it if nobody notices that I’m here!” she called out. They were still fussing at each other and then Ray slapped Jasper in the face with a glob of icing, to which, Jasper growled and charged him and Schwoz, Henry and Piper, began to try to break it up, but all that could be seen was cake and icing flying everywhere. Charlotte left and whenever she did, she heard as the elevator door was closing, “Did any of you hear Charlotte’s voice?”

“Nice try, Henry! You don’t get away from this that easily!” Piper screamed.

“I honestly don’t want to know,” Charlotte told herself. But, she honestly did, too.

Shortly before Midnight, whenever she came back, everything was cleaned up and she announced, “Bringing back the plate!”

“SURPRISE!” Everyone jumped out and screamed, making her scream and drop the plate which shattered on the floor.

They ignored it and began to sing the happy birthday song to her, gathered around a cake platter that Schwoz was holding, only it had an amorphous cake on it, and could hardly hold the candles. It looked like a disaster from a cartoon. She blew out the candles and looked at them, suspiciously, “So, is this the only cake? What happened to the bake off?”

“Bake off?” Ray repeated. “We don’t have to prove that any of us are any better than the others. Besides, it’s YOUR birthday! Today was about you.”

“Did you all fight the entire time, have a huge cake fight, then gather up which pieces of cake that you could and cover it in icing to present as my birthday cake?” Everyone’s face showed that they were caught! That was EXACTLY what had happened. But Ray scoffed and said, “No! And quite frankly Charlotte, it is insulting that you would accuse us of such…”

“I saw you earlier. I took that plate of cake,” she pointed to the broken plate on the floor.

Henry began to fuss about how HE KNEW he’d heard her voice earlier, while Ray was fussing about the broken plate and Jasper was asking which cake was the best. Upon hearing that question, they all became more interested in that, “Yeah, which one? Which? Huh? Bet it was mine…”

“Ummm… they were all actually delicious, but I preferred the lemon one…”

“YES!” Jasper cheered and began to gloat in everybody’s face. “Max liked the chocolate one that tasted like a 5 year old just threw all their favorite things into a cake.”

“I TOLD ALL OF YOU THAT I AM THE CAKE COMMANDO!” Ray yelled. She figured that was his, because it was just a bunch of different chocolate things in a cake - chocolate cookie crumbles, chocolate chips, chocolate candy - she felt sick after one bite of that.

“Yeah, well, he’s probably gonna order one for his dad’s birthday.”

“Thunder Man? He’s still alive?” Ray asked.

Piper asked, “So… you didn’t like the pineapple right side up cake?”

“I did.”

“The chocolate covered strawberry cake was a delicious masterpiece!” Henry fussed.

“It was.”

Schwoz offered, “I think that you may have misjudged the dreamsicle and pickle cake.”

“I did not misjudge it, because I didn’t know what it was and refused to try it. Max said that he didn’t know how it worked, but it somehow did.”

SHe held out her hands, “I enjoyed everybody’s cake…” She pointed at Schwoz,’ “Except for yours.”

“Awwww,” he said, crestfallen.

“But, Jasper asked which one I thought was best and…”

“And she said it without much of a thought that she preferred the lemon icebox layered sponge cake with whipped white chocolate cream cheese icing. TOLD. YOU. GUYS!” He fist bumped her and she just laughed a little bit.

Henry commented, “I got beat with an egg beater for nothing.

“Not for nothing!” Charlotte said. “I completely want that chocolate covered strawberries cake programmed into the auto snacker for my next monthly.”

“My dreamsicle and pickle cake was the only one that used organic ingredients,” Schwoz pouted.

“I will NEVER try it. You won’t EVER tell me anything to make me try a Dreamsicle and pickle cake, Schwoz!” Charlotte said.

Jasper said, “Well… I’m gonna have some of this birthday cake,” and grabbed a plate and the cake cutter.

“Cut me a piece, too!” Henry asked. They all sat down and had a plate with fallen pieces of their various cakes on it and turned on a movie to watch.

“This was actually my best birthday in a while,” Charlotte noted. She didn’t need to go into detail about Max and how perfect he was. Her friends were all happy and full of cake and even that, in it’s own way, was equally as perfect.