#being genuine and honest is probably the least canadian thing someone can do

[jade-curtiss]

Wow I can't believe I woke up in time so I can have the delightful experience of going waste my time with service canada. It will be great.

[weabooweedwitch]

not to be a debby downer and i'm sure everything will go fine and you'll have nothing to worry about but as someone who has had far too many bad experiences with men, do you have a plan for what you're going to do if it turns out your friend's intentions uhhhh extend beyond the bounds of a friendship if you catch my drift? I'm sure it will be ok and he sounds like a genuinely good friend but some men are dodgy out here and it can be especially hard to suss someone out online so it's always good to have an escape route mapped out in advanced yknow what I mean? (assuming you wouldn't be down for it lol idk your relationship)

Oh no for sure it is a perfectly valid concern and I don't blame you for being worried at all. Given my family history and background I myself am one of those "women should always be careful being alone with men" kinds of people

So uh this is something I have already considered because to be perfectly honest we did have. Some sexual tension in the past. And you know idk if he still feels any attraction to me. In the past it was just kind of being inappropriate with each other for a while but I eventually kind of started realizing "hey do I just get like unhealthy levels of attached to men who show me approval and such" and I kinda had a little baby crush on him and I wasn't exactly sure if that was like related to daddy issues but. That was in the past and im hoping he doesn't remember it but I think he'll probably be cool about it if he does but I hope he doesn't bring it up bc I'll be so embarrassed, I was a little wild back then emotionally and impulsively 💀

I mean I guess my overall stance is, if things were going good and he got a little flirty I would maybe be receptive to it but like it would be hard for us to have any sort of deeper relationship living in two different countries. Like ok so hypothetically we would bang or something but dating would be long distance and idk if my heart could take that so it's like is it worth sacrificing our friendship for something physical, I doubt I could be one of those friends with benefits, I have attachment issues that I don't think would mesh well, idk. Although to be perfectly honest going to see him isn't especially difficult, the expensive thing is mostly having to pay for a hotel while I visit because he has housemates, which, apparently Canada has one of the most expensive housing markets in the entire world and I think all of my Canadian friends either have multiple roommates or live with their parents which sounds scary haha, and we were randomly talking about US citizenship one day and how bullshit the process to renounce it was (I was speaking of it in regards to joking about moving to Europe) and he mentioned that it was a big reason he wasn't interested in US citizenship

So. I dunno. I guess my overall answer is "he's someone I trust and feel affection for at least platonically but I also recognize I have my own mental health issues and past trauma that can kind of affect how I interact and am influenced by men and maybe I should just avoid certain things entirely"

But until then he's asking if I would be interested in learning how to play MTG and he's asking me to bring soup to make into this dip and he bought some weed and it sounds like it'll be a lot of fun :) idk. I am mentally preparing myself for. Idk. Stuff. But there's no use making myself paranoid over it, and also my mom keeps trying to wig me out

We'll see fjdjfjfjf im probably going to intend to keep things chill and I don't have any fears of him trying to force me into anything but if things got too awkward like, I have my own motel room and money and can have the rest of my vacation by myself I guess

[bamfdaddio]

X-Men Unabridged: 109 (1978)

The X-Men, those plant-loving mutants that have sworn to protect a world that hates and fears them, are a cultural juggernaut with a long, tangled history. We’ve been untangling that history for a while, but sometimes, you really want a more in-depth look. Interested? Then read the (un)Abridged X-Men!

(X-Men 109) - by Chris Claremont and John Byrne

Ororo not noticing Moira casually drowning Banshee or Wolverine being punted around by some poutine-roided idiot because she’s too busy eating the Piotr-shaped eye candy is such a mood.

I wonder what my ethnic curse would be. Perhaps: ‘By Mata Hari’s bedazled bikini!’

Plot-wise, issue 109 is not that dense. Half the issue deals with the X-Men coming home from their space-adventures, the other half has Wolverine dealing with the Canadian government coming to claim their lost asset. I mean, Claremont uses three pages to tie up some loose Shi’ar ends through flashback because the last issue couldn’t fit it all in. It’s by its very definition a breather issue.

Doesn’t mean it’s not awesome.

WHERE TO START?! Why not with plant mommy Ororo?

Storm’s secondary mutation has to be that her hair always looks like a fabulous follicular cascade, even during an indoor spring shower.

Look, if I had weather powers, I’d probably be using it for mundane shit like watering my plants and ensuring nice weather at my friend’s weddings too. (Okay, maybe sometimes I’d zap dudes who tell random girls in bars to smile more.)

While Storm talks to plants and takes all her clothes off, Kurt does the other thing I do after a rough day at the office: he calls someone for some nookie.

I love that Amanda is so extra that she gives out signed photos of herself.

Kurt just looks so fucking cute here. Look at those little fangs! Yeah, Amanda, get it.

Like a lot of people to whom communication comes as easily as breathing, Piotr is defeated when faced with a blank letter. Look at that trash can: he’s tried this waaaaay too many times.

Anyway, I think “Sorry I haven’t been writing, was busy saving the universe. Weather’s lovely” has a nice ring to it.

Star Wars had been out for around half a year when this comic was published, and it’s safe to say Claremont was a huge fan. You can tell by the direction these comics are taken: the whole Shi’Ar space opera is obliquely inspired by Star Wars and Star Trek and their aesthetics. I mean, Corsair asks to be beamed up and there’s even references to a captain “Spo’ock”.

It was the end of the 70s. Everybody wanted to be a Skywalker: space was big, y’all. Nightcrawler loving the movies is not a coincidence - I wonder if Claremont was also a fan of Errol Flynn.

Anyway, we follow Kurt one more floor down, where he spooks Scott, brooding at the window. The result is an unintentionally hilarious interaction, where Scott and Kurt discuss Real Issues Like Men while Jean comes out to her parents outside.

“Mom and dad, I’m… the Phoenix.”

“Honey, we figured you might be when you introduced us to Misty Kn… Wait, what?”

To be fair, being possessed by a cosmic force for rebirth is almost the same as being gay: it imbues you with fabulous new insights, you start experimenting with your wardrobe and ever so often, you want to burn down the galaxy because some bitches in a gay club have slighted you.

But all that will come later.

Anyway, Jean’s kinda silly coming out leads to a pretty honest heart-to-heart between Nightcrawler and Cyclops. Scott tries to give Kurt grief because of his happy-go-lucky attitude, and Kurt gives him a deserved put-down.

Life can be unkind, Scotty, so embrace the kindness provided to you by a wise little devil.

Scott prefers to brood and Kurt is hanging with Amanda, so it’s a foursome - maybe even a double date? Moira and Sean, Piotr and Ororo. Logan asks for a ride - not because he wants to eat cheese and crackers among ants, no, he wants to blow off steam.

The X-Men’s chicken or egg: did Logan’s sideburns decide the shape of his headpiece, or did the headpiece shape his haircut?

I started reading the X-Men just when the Marvel Universe was starting to reach the height of Wolverine saturation: he was simply everywhere. Like, at some point, he was in X-Force and the Avengers while also being a Headmaster of the Jean Grey school. Add to that him being the face of the Fox X-Men universe… Listen, it was easy to get sick of him. I kind of did.

But this? Original flavor Wolverine, who’s still kinda short, kinda ugly and kinda stuck being a loner? He works as a character. Chris Claremont is beginning to explore his duality: the wild animal who has been experimented on vs. the honorable man who would do anything for his found family. He gives me major Granny Weatherwax vibes: he’s the kind of person who doesn’t need people, but he does need people to know that he doesn’t need people.

So yeah, he's still cool.

Also, his healing factor hasn’t been kicked to superhuman levels yet - you know, being able to regenerate from a single cell or whatever - so he actually feels kind of anxious when he’s about to toss himself off cliffs etc.

Not happy about that red belt, though.

Anyway, Wolverine is out doing the noble hunting-without-killing-thing, and then this motherfucker wrapped in a flag shows up. Look, I know I have something against dudes who brandish their nationality as their superhero identity, but this fool is just… ugh.

James MacDonald = the worst. Trust me on this.

Major MacMapleleaf then punts Wolverine across the forest, right into the other X-Men’s picnic, and now we’re all caught up.

Out of all the X-Men in this issue, Sean gets the least amount of screen time but, hey, at least I can steal a joke from him.

Don’t worry, despite the martyr/pièta pose, Moira will turn out just fine!

You weren’t worried?

Anyone?

Look, is there anyone who genuinely likes Moira as a character?

James Hudson, being the worst, doesn’t give a fuck that he just cross-fired an innocent woman - er, innocent as far as he knows, at least - and just nopes out of there, too outnumbered to fight the X-Men.

Yeah, you better run.

He vows to return with Alpha Flight, which… Eh, he’ll at least bring some more interesting characters with him. (Snowbird!) Now that he has sown enough seeds for a future plot to pick up on, Claremont calls it a day. I will also call it a day, after a little fashion watch. Out of all of these character, who has chosen the worst outfit?

Scott. It’s Scott. Look, I get that those ruby quartz glasses make the world a different color for you, but you’re wearing a mustard suit and a bespeckled yellow shirt underneath. Even when considering Moira’s attitude, it’s still the most stank thing in the doorway.

Sean, just what do you see in her?

[purpleyellow]

Last breath of hope

NCT 22nd member / Dream 8th member

Bee’s Masterlist

“Love is a two way street”

a/n: As you can see, I like to be dramatic. Don’t be shy and interact a little, ask box is always open. Any kind of feedback will be very appreciated💛

“And that’s why you have to think a little before saying things, even if they are obvious for you” Doyoung finished the lecture he had started once they left the dorms making Haechan agree with his head low before saying bye and pulling Bee inside a practice room.

To be honest with you, the girl didn’t pay attention to anything they had said after leaving the building, still too absorbed on the previous night’s events and confused as to why she had come to SM during lunchtime even though it was technically a day off for the Dreamies.

“As we could understand from Hyung’s long speech, I messed up,” Hyuck told her taking his beanie off and fixing his hair on the big mirror before turning back to her “I really didn’t think it would be that big of a deal and it would actually help you move things faster with Mark”

“But I never told you I even wanted to move things at all,” The girl said sitting on the floor and doing some random leg stretches. “And you made me feel like a dumbass with that, it was obvious bit”

“Sorry, you know I like to be dramatic” He smirked trying to get a laugh out of her but she didn’t even look his way “Really, I’m sorry. Jeno was telling me about how you were still figuring out about all of this, and I probably should have talked with you before pulling that whole stunt”

“I’m glad you get me at least,” She said moving to the other leg and Hyuck furrowed his eyebrows.

“You’re not forgiving me?”

“Doyoung Oppa told me I shouldn’t apologize for my feelings, but I still feel like the stupidest person in the world, and since my brain can understand you are the reason for it, I’ll only forgive you after I stop being mad at myself” 

“Fair enough” He shrugged and sat next to her on the floor "But why?”

“Why am I stretching? I also don’t know, you were the one who dragged me here”

“Why are you mad at yourself? Is it because of the sensitivity thing everyone keeps telling me about?” He said nonchalantly and Bee furrowed her eyebrows, pretending she was about to cry, which made the boy reach over and hug her while patting her head “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I’m going over the line again, aren’t I?” 

Relaxing her face, Bee nodded and hugged him back, finding some kind of amusement in the way he became hyperaware of everything. Once she figured the hug had lasted long enough, she softly slapped his back for him to let her go.

“I didn’t actually want to know this, but something tells me I should know what happened after I left?” She said moving so they were sitting in front of each other. 

“I’m not sure I’m the one who should be telling you this” With a sigh, Haechan rubbed his hands on his face and contemplated for a moment before speaking, unintentionally making the girl nervous “We ate the rest of the pizza” 

Slapping his arm, Bee whined “I’m serious right now, there’s no way you guys just kept acting like nothing happened”

“I know, it’s just… Renjun, Jeno, and Jaemin teamed up against me and started nagging about me not knowing how to keep my mouth shut” 

“Did they tell you that, or they told you to be more careful around me?” The girl asked fidgeting with her fingers and shutting him up. After a few seconds without a response, she looked up at him again “I want to know Donghuyck” 

“Both… but the problem was more on me than you” He said fast and putting a hand on his chest assuming his part of the fault “Look, no one looks down at you because of it. Really, we’re all very supportive of you”

“What happened after… Did Mark say something?” She ignored him and kept asking, once again, it took him a while to answer.

“Mark... was a little in shock, he kept asking us for how long we’ve known and what he should do now” 

“Mark will die from awkwardness if he found out” Bee mumbled Jungwoo’s words again, and sighed dropping her body on the ground. “I think I’m going to hide in the mountains so none of you can find me again”

“Hey, I’m the dramatic one here,” Haechan said without much energy and nudged her leg “Really, cheer up baby give it a little more”

“A girl shouldn’t give away her heart so easily” The girl continued singing but got interrupted by the door suddenly opening and Mark’s upside-down figure walking in.

Sitting up in a halt and with her back facing the door, she stared at Haechan with wide eyes, while the boy had a similar face, but when his gaze stuck for an extra minute on the door, Bee figured Mark must be mouthing something to him, and if she wasn’t frozen in place, she might have turned around to see what it was.

“Can you please leave?” Mark’s voice aggressively broke the awkward silence in the room and for a split second Bee thought he was talking to her.

“I’m trying to be a better friend here, man,” Haechan said exasperated and slightly scared of what the Canadian might say.

“Well, me too” Mark huffed and Bee could imagine him rolling his eyes at the younger. “Seriously, I really need to talk to her”

“Do you want to talk to him?” Hyuck ignored the boy and turned his eyes back to her. Honestly, Bee didn’t want to, but she wasn’t sure what was going to happen if she said no, and part of her wanted to hear what he had to say.

Nodding to him, she found some courage and got up from the floor at the same time as Haechan, following him out of the room, her gaze inevitably fell on Mark and his cute round glasses. With her heartbeat increasing significantly and her hands becoming sweaty, Bee recognized those symptoms being her nerves catching up with the fact she was about to hear something she wasn’t ready to.

“We can stay sitting on the floor if you want,” Mark said closing the door, his voice trembling a little as he tried to convince himself of what he was about to do, but when the girl shrugged her shoulders he just leaned against the wall, directly facing her pacing figure “You don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to”

“I’m not sure there’s anything for me to say, even if I wanted to” Bee mumbled while playing with her fingers.

“Oh, okay” Mark sighed and crossed his hands, taking a big breath before speaking “I was very surprised to … you know, find out that… you know” He gulped and clapped his hands as if he had just said something that made sense.

“I figured” She mumbled once again not making eye contact and still pacing in circles.

“We could try it” The boy said after another long breath and catching her attention, Bee stopped on her tracks and looked at him for the second time that day, only to find that he couldn’t hold eye contact and looked to the ground. “If it’s going to make you happy, I’m willing to go on a couple of dates”

Looking at his face, something didn’t sit right with Bee, so she stood in silence until he looked up at her confused face. “What do you mean if it’s going to make me happy?”

“You weren’t the one who told me about it. I’m not sure what you want me to do right now?” He said as if it was obvious and the girl frowned.

“I don’t want you to do anything,” She said and Mark huffed making her even more confused “I’ve never felt like this to anyone, especially somebody who’s close to me. All I wish is we could go back to two days ago when nothing was different”

“Well, that can’t be done, and we can’t just pretend that everything is normal” He said annoyed and getting off the wall to walk closer to her “Why can’t you just let me help you here? I’ve never been in this position as well, and I don’t want you to feel bad about it”

“I don’t want your help because it sounds like you’re being forced into something just to please me” Her tone was sad and she crossed her arms, gently rubbing them to calm her down a little.

“I’m- Wh- Hmm” He mumbled and sighed again, her small demeanor making him feel bad for being the cause of it “I’m still getting used to this idea, to be honest. I’m saying right now, me, Mark Lee, am willing to give this a try”

“Are you saying this because you genuinely think something can happen, or you just don’t want to make me feel bad?” She asked taking a step away from him and Mark couldn’t form an answer.

He never saw the girl as anything past a friend, or maybe a sister at times, and the whole fiding out about her crush on him had completely thrown him off. Sure she was cute and endearing, but he had never thought of Bee as something else other than part of his weird and huge family.

Seeing the boys protecting her after she stormed off, and when Jaemin told him she could get into her head sometimes, Mark didn’t want to be another worry to the girl, so he blindly decided that being selfless and putting her whishes on top of his would be the best thing to do. But not once he realized how all she needed was someone who could replicate her feelings, and that made him question if he could be that person.

“I could try, I’m serious, I could give it my all,” Mark said apologetic and Bee felt tears pooling on her eyes.

“But it’s not what you want to do, right?” She asked and Mark smiled sadly.

“I’m really sorry” Himself felt some tears forming and all he wanted was to give her a hug, although he doubted that would be appropriate. “Really, I wish it wasn’t like this”

Letting out a chuckle, she sniffed and walked out of the room, drying some of the tears that had fallen and taking a deep breath. Although the hurt was most certainly there, strangely enough, she felt like some weight had been lifted off of her shoulders since everyone involved was aware of her situation.

She had just been rejected and her feelings were all over the place, it’s not like she actually thought her crush on Mark would bloom into something bigger, but with that little spark of hope being killed, Bee felt emotionally drained. 

In her mind, there was only one thing that could make her feel better... Dumplings.

[neednothavehappenedtobetrue]

under the cut, a long update on Today When A Dude From Work Yelled At Me

tl;dr my boss is being even more spineless than usual, has explicitly told his two disabled female direct reports that if we experience more ableist nonsense from some guy who has already yelled at us he will not intervene or back us up because “conflict is healthy”

however, the director of another team was also there and at least she is not spineless!

also I fully hate my job and have resigned from interviewing applicants for staff positions here, because I’m worried that the next time someone asks what it’s like to work here I will tell them.

(I do know that “previously never having been yelled at in your workplace” is a big privilege few people have and I know I sound here a bit like my boss does every time he goes “wow I didn’t realize there was so much ableism,”)

(also yeah, he has repeatedly this week been like “I’m so surprised that ableism is so entrenched and people are so unwilling to talk about it,” and it’s like, buddy, you are surprised all by yourself here)

anyway, this meeting’s key players:

-my boss

-me

-my favorite coworker, who does a similar job to mine

-the woman who does my boss’s job, but in Canada

-the woman who does my job, but in Canada

-the jackass who yelled at us

-two women from his team, neither of whom said much, although one of them did decide, at a point well after her team member literally yelled at us, that the conversation was “over time, we’ve gotta go” and ended the call abruptly.

(I would pay money to see any backchannel conversations those team members were having during this call, like, do they totally agree that we’re being Extreme and Adversarial or are they like “uh, buddy, maybe we could back this up a step?” do the two women have a chat thread the asshole’s not in and what does it say?

but also I don’t need them to see the backchannel my team had that started out with “this is a lot of jargon, what does this mean?” and finished with, like, it’s a work software and if they wanted to IT could see it so there’s a line to be mindful of, but there was mild snark all around, and a few instances of me using the word “buddy” in the way where I would use “asshole” on a non-work chat software.

(Cool Colleague and I did at one point start a text message thread on our personal phones that’s just completely impolitic and 50% full-on swearing)

I would not be delighted if other people saw our Teams backchannel, but I would be willing to defend all of it, if I had to.

we haven’t fired one lady for “bullying other team members so bad that two of them quit explicitly because of her bullying and said so on the record,” so I feel like “being sarcastic on the work chat” is not a firing offense here.

also, like, they’d have to fire at least 2/3 of my department, which would be… kind of hilarious, actually? no one of us is individually irreplaceable, but if our whole department collapsed it would be a Bad Time For Everyone.

Cool Coworker is for SURE quitting as soon as she can line something up, so probably she’ll be replaced before I quit, but also, do you know how funny it would be if we quit simultaneously and the whole office was like “oh fuck, we needed those two people pretty bad, actually, maybe we should have done something the fifth or sixth time they said they were feeling undervalued and demoralized? whoops!”

anyway, as I said earlier, this meeting consisted of our three person team, the two-person team who does our job in Canada, and the team of which Yelling Man is the director

(today I learned that Yelling Man actively wants to quit working here, but can’t because “the CEO won’t let him,” is that a thing? how does that work? I’m sorry you hate it here, buddy, but you still can’t yell at me)

anyway, Canada’s department head had to leave the meeting early (by which I mean like 30 minutes after it was supposed to end, it continued after that) so I think she missed the yelling (now I wish she hadn’t, I feel like she was the person most likely to say “guy, you’re yelling at us, what if you didn’t?)

so the meeting ended, we debriefed.

I asked my boss to interrupt this guy if he raises his voice in future meetings. my boss said no, because conflict is healthy

I asked my boss if he would back me up/cover for me if I need to leave a meeting for 90 seconds to calm down because a dude is yelling at me. no, he will not do that either, because conflict is healthy.

there will be at least one additional meeting on this subject with a dude who yelled at us for calling out ableism and my boss has informed his two junior female disabled staff members that if this guy yells ableist nonsense at us a second time, he will do literally nothing to intervene or help us and he won’t try to call out this guy on how he behaved today, either.

I do genuinely appreciate the vast amount of off-the-record paid sick time I’ve gotten, but also, I am maybe ready to stop saying “my boss is so great, but sometimes…”

like, my boss is a spineless asshole, but sometimes he does nice things.

anyway! you know who is <not> a spineless asshole? the head of the department from Canada! she missed the yelling, but noticed how needlessly hostile and also incredibly ableist this dude was being, so she got the other Canadian to fill her in on the part she missed.

she is horrified and using words like “harassment”

she wants the folks on my team to meet with her individually to discuss and document how inappropriate this guy was, so she can do something about it.

I don’t know what our options are. despite being an org with somewhere in the neighborhood of 250 staff, I’m not sure we have an HR department?

we have the Talent people, who oversee our definitely garbage probably illegal hiring process (with interview questions like “what is your relationship with your mother like?” and “oh, but aren’t most disabled advocates just so mean all the time?”) so my hope is we can get Almost Anyone Else, but I don’t think there’s anyone else, it’s probably them.

-the Integrity team might be good, but as far as I know the three members of that team either just quit, are secretly quitting very soon, or are on sabbatical, and also I think they deal more with legal issues than just “some asshole yelling at work”

-and there’s Yelling Man’s boss, our CEO, who is not… famous for being a reasonable guy with a good understanding of workplace norms, acceptable behavior, nuance, etc. he’s also the guy who refuses to let Yelling Man quit, so I don’t know if he would be at all helpful here

but at least somebody is trying!

also, for a while I was interviewing candidates for jobs here, and I thought I could do a little bit of harm reduction. I would skip the wildly inappropriate interview questions, and I would be as honest as possible with people who asked what it was like to work here.

a woman I interviewed in January is quitting as soon as she can because it sucks so much here. her job is to tell people when we’re breaking the law, usually in ways related to privacy laws, but also I think some equity stuff.

I knew when I interviewed her that her job in particular would suck, I watched how people treated the other people who did it, ignoring them at best, belittling them sometimes. fuck rules, we’re innovators!

I definitely told her we had some strong personalities and it wouldn’t be an easy job.

in the meeting where everyone who interviewed her met to make a decision a dude tried to stop us hiring her because, essentially, fuck rules, we’re innovators, why do we need someone who cares about complying?

-the boss of her team, who has since quit, was like “we probably should try not to break the law, though”

so she got hired and now both of them are quitting because it sucks here and I feel complicit in getting her here.

- so I’m resigning from doing interviews with job candidates, theoretically because of “limited capacity” but actually because if someone asks me what it’s like to work here, I will not be able to hedge, I will absolutely be like “it sucks so much to work here. we do occasionally manage to do good work, but the process of making that happen in this incredibly dysfunctional environment grinds down staff. it is bad to work here, I am quitting the second I can, go somewhere else”

and, like, if I got lucky I could get away with that once, and also it would be a fun way to get fired, but instead of that I’m just not helping bring on staff anymore, because it makes me feel complicit when this place grinds them down”

[thetriggeredhappy]

I absolutely love your writing! If you're taking requests, could you maybe do a speeding bullet soulmate au?

thanks a lot pal! and sure thing, i’ve actually had something half-finished in my drafts for soulmate!au for a while. in this AU, it’s the classic “your first words to your soulmate are written on your wrist”, with a minor twist–if your soulmate’s words are on your left hand, that means you will need to speak first. if it’s on the right, then your soulmate is the one who has to speak first before you say your words. this adds a little bit of clarity in-universe, since you can see your phrase is something simple like “how can i help you” and if you’re speaking second you can shoot them back with something buckwild. it can lead to people being more or less extroverted–knowing your line comes second means you can say whatever without being worried that it’ll be written on some poor sap’s skin, and knowing your line comes first means you don’t have that luxury. also limitations like “must be speaking exclusively to that one person” (unless polyamory), “can’t be through a phone or writing”, and “must be identifiable as the person” (do with that what you please). anyways, i like soulmate AUs and put a lot of thought into them.

actual fic is below the cut, and again, you’re very kind

”Are you doing alright, mate?”

To be honest, that wasn’t the worst line that Jeremy could’ve gotten, but fuckin’ seriously.

It wasn’t as bad as his brother Joey, he had “Your shoe’s untied” on the left, and Petey got the nightmare scenario and just got “Hey, how’s your day?” on the right, but the thing that really frustrated him was that it wasn’t even the reaction phrase. That was the opening phrase, meaning they had to say that to him first before he could respond with his own line, and if they were asking if he was doing alright that had to mean something bad was gonna happen and he’d probably look stupid in front of his soulmate and not have a good response or whatever because he’d just, like, fallen in the harbor or something.

Turned out, by the time Jeremy was twelve, he was starting to find out that bad things happening to him was gonna be a consistent issue. He had bad luck, worse than all his brothers combined, and over the course of all that time he got an awful lot of “Are you okay, dude?” and “Are you alright?” from a lot of people. But none of them ever got it exactly right,

missing the crucial few words, nobody ever saying “mate”. Nobody ever asking him that in a voice that felt dark orange.

“Y’know,” his Ma said to him one day when he was sulking, twenty-two and still soulmate-less and with a terrible time at job hunting to boot considering his most recent cast, luckily on his left arm so he could still glare at his mark. “It does have a hint at least.”

“That I’m gonna be a total klutz forever?” Jeremy sulked.

“That your soulmate isn’t gonna be an American, sweetheart,” his Ma corrected gently. “He’s probably gonna be British, or Irish, something like that. They’re the only ones who say “mate”, right?”

“Didn’t you also think my dad was gonna be a Canadian?” he asked suspiciously.

“Honey, I’m not magic, I don’t know everything. I thought it was unrealistic to think it would be someone actually from France,” she said, a little haughty.

She was one of the lucky people to get a really specific phrase, in a language that wasn’t her own no less. It was in French, and when he’d asked as a kid what it said, she’d laughed and said it meant “I promise I had a much more intelligent line to say, but I’m afraid I’ve forgotten it.”

She always said his dad had died, and worn the traditional covering to show that someone’s soulmate was dead, to hide where the words had gone black. But once or twice he’d glimpsed her wrist, and to be honest, the words looked more navy blue.

“Why the heck am I gonna talk to a British person?” Jeremy asked, sulking again.

“World works in mysterious ways, J-Bear,” his Ma shrugged.

She was right. Because a few months later, he was in a particularly terrible situation, and he received a phone call asking if he wanted a job.

-

”I’m seriously, actually, 100% going to murder you.”

It hadn’t shown up until he was four years old, which Mick’s parents had a bloody field day with, and once they were good and tired of dealing with that conundrum they moved right along to address the fact that in reply to whatever their son was going to say, he was going to promptly be threatened.

Great.

He ended up baking under the sun just like everyone else in his god-forsaken country, which only made the bright, cherry-red phrase stand out all the better. His mum tried to be supportive, honest she did, but even getting bullied at school every other day never led to him finding anyone, and she wasn’t all that surprised when at age nineteen he packed up the bare essentials and left home without a word.

He had an idea in his head. He’d heard before of people, terrible people, who used the idea of soulmate to do… bad things. To manipulate people, to make them stay in bad relationships because they thought this one person could and would solve all their problems. And if his soulmate’s first words to him were a threat…

He’d admit if he was asked that he was a lonely person. He didn’t ever seem to fit with anyone. Nobody ever seemed to understand what he meant once he started actually talking, being honest. And he didn’t know if he would have the strength to get out of a bad situation if he was promised up front that this person would understand him. He was pretty sure he would put up with a lot of bad things just for the sake of genuine connection.

So he decided he wouldn’t ever find his soulmate. He’d go off to do hunting and tracking in fuckall nowhere and nobody would ever bother him and he’d never need to deal with a soulmate. He didn’t need one. He’d be fine alone.

When he eventually turned to killing people for money, some part of him deep down wondered if he was just getting too lonely and giving in to what fate had in store for him. If becoming an assassin was the most pathetic, fucked-up bid for someone’s love that had ever happened in history. People did threaten to kill him a lot in that line of work. And more often, people actually tried.

Eventually he got a job offer out in America, more consistent pay and all for the same job, less moving around required, and he took it. He was getting up there in years, and he had a feeling that if he hadn’t found his soulmate by the time he hit thirty, he never would.

-

Jeremy got a new name: Scout. And his new coworkers—“teammates”, as the very pretty lady who unfortunately didn’t ask if he was doing alright had specified to him—were from all over the place. And he’d had high hopes for a minute as he realized one of his teammates was Scottish, but when he spoke face-to-face with the guy he’d instead greeted him with a cheerful “Pleasure to meet you, lad!” and his reply of “Yo, so you’re the Demoman?” had elicited exactly no response, so that was a bust.

He spoke to the Pyro, as briefly as possible since they freaked him out, but they’d similarly not seemed to react to what he first said to them, and neither had any of the rest of the team. Hell, the Heavy had outright brushed him off up front and the Sniper had given him exactly one up-and-down before he’d left entirely.

So cool. Great. New job with people who didn’t care. Nice.

And he found out more and more as time passed that they very much didn’t care. Most of the team could hardly tolerate him for more than ten minutes at a time, Spy he could barely put up with for two sentences, and even though he eventually got to be better friends with Pyro, and Engie eventually started putting up with him more, they still got annoyed with him pretty quickly. Pyro basically ignored him once they reached their limit, and Engie would essentially kick him out of his workshop.

And… to be honest, he didn’t feel totally comfortable talking to them about certain stuff. He felt a little bit like he’d get laughed at. And his once-every-two-weeks phone call home sometimes wasn’t enough to deal with various stresses and he usually was more interested in hearing their news than complaining anyways.

He didn’t know why he went out to the watchtower. Maybe because he was out for a run and it just happened to be in his line of sight. Maybe because it occurred to him that Sniper could keep a secret, wouldn’t tell the guys about whatever he ended up talking about. Maybe because he felt like he didn’t really have any other options.

Anyways, he ended up climbing the watchtower, asking Sniper if it would bug him if Scout sat around and hung out for a while. Sniper didn’t reply, just glancing at Scout over his shoulder briefly before returning to his scope. And then Scout made it exactly three minutes before he started in on talking. “I dunno I just think it’s funny that Spy thinks I’m rude when he’s always the one starting shit for no reason—“

And Sniper didn’t interrupt him, didn’t say anything, didn’t chase him off. He sat there, staring down his scope, occasionally pausing to take a drink of his coffee, for about two hours. Two hours of Scout just talking, thinking out loud.

It was nice. So nice that Scout cut himself off, eventually said goodbye and left the tower again, sure that Sniper would get tired of him and he’d never be allowed back up there again.

It became a weekly thing, every Monday Scout would go up there and talk to Sniper. Talk at Sniper, more like. And Sniper would listen.

One of the days, Scout said something, something he couldn’t even remember, because it was overshadowed by the thing that immediately followed it—Sniper laughing.

He’d never heard Sniper laugh before, he didn’t think. Not in the real way, anyhow. Sniper didn’t talk much. He’d occasionally mention something over the comms, and once or twice Scout heard him cheering along with the rest of the team when they won a match, but overall, he was a man of few words. So getting him to laugh…

He thought about it a lot.

-

Sniper didn’t entirely get why Scout started talking to him.

He tried so hard—so hard—to be left alone. He put on a scowl and wore the brim of his hat low and carried his knife off the clock and didn’t say hello or goodbye. He wanted to be left alone. He deserved to be left alone.

Scout, apparently, didn’t notice. And halfway through Sniper trying to figure out what to say to get the kid to leave, he started telling some story about his brothers back home, and…

He never got around to it. He never… got around to telling him to leave. And once Scout had that foothold, had that… constant nature, that consistency, once Sniper knew to expect him every Monday two hours after the team dinner or half an hour before sunset—whichever came first—he found himself…

God damn it. Enjoying Scout’s company. He liked some of the phrases Scout used. He talked in an interesting way. It was pleasant to listen to. And he was honest, uncomfortably honest at times. He told Sniper about all sorts of things that he figured it was safe to say nobody else knew about.

He talked about his family. His mum. His dad, who died, and then later he corrected himself to say his dad, who disappeared, who probably left, words in navy and not in black. He talked about growing up in the bad part of town, about never being allowed to walk home from school without at least one of his older brothers there until he was eight, when he started carrying a knife on him because sometimes none of his brothers showed up for him, until he was twelve, when he just started running there and back every day after baseball practice to save the trouble. About shoplifting, about getting a job delivering newspapers the second he was legally allowed to, about older brothers going in to work sick and Ma working two jobs to try and support them all when they got too sick for work, too sick for anything for a while. About what he did with his paycheck—he kept some pocket change for himself, to buy records sometimes, or posters, or snack foods for when dinner sucked, or fast food or drinks at the bar when he had time on the weekends. The rest of it—every goddamn penny—went back home. One day, maybe his Ma would never have to work again.

He wanted to tell Scout about his own sad life story. Climbing up the tree outside school and throwing rocks at the bullies who chased him, starting to skip classes and smoke towards the end of his schooling just to try and look a little more intimidating. About his dad scoffing at him when he tended to use a gun to chase off predators from their flock of sheep instead of fighting them hand-to-hand like a good Australian. About running away from all of his problems, and how killing animals, especially people, seemed to be the only thing he was ever any good at, and how sometimes that really did bother him, a lot.

But he didn’t. He couldn’t convince himself that Scout cared, somehow. Visits jumped up to twice a week, Monday and Thursday, same time. It was hot for a while, and he went into town one Sunday to pick up two cases of beer, hauled a cooler up into the watchtower, and left three beers next to where Scout sat and three next to himself about ten minutes before the kid showed up. When it started getting cold at night, he brought up his own quilt like he always did, but brought up the spare as well, left that on what he’d mentally started thinking of as Scout’s Crate. Scout drank the beers, and used the blanket, and would talk for his two hours and then say goodbye and not mention anything to Sniper when they went out to battle the next day.

It…

He didn’t like that he enjoyed it so much. He didn’t like looking forward to it, didn’t like perking up when he heard the ladder rattling, didn’t like hanging on to every word and the increasing frequency at which Scout was making him laugh. He didn’t like how much harder it got every time to bite his lip and hold back from chiming in.

He was a killer, he reminded himself. A hermit from absolutely nowhere Australia who didn’t deserve the company of other people. This was the best thing that could’ve happened to him, and he couldn’t push his luck. If he pushed his luck, then he’d drive Scout away and be left alone again. Scout only talked to him because he was quiet anyways, because he was a mystery. Remove the mystery, and the draw would be gone, and he’d be all alone again. Already this was selfish; he should just shut up and be grateful.

He stared down his scope and drank his coffee and was grateful.

-

A bad day at work, followed by a bad weekend, had Scout hesitating at the base of the watchtower.

Some part of him was rational, and knew he was being ridiculous. But another, stronger part of him couldn’t seem to make his feet move, was repeating a steady mantra to him.

Not wanted.

Sniper didn’t like him. Sniper didn’t want him around. Sniper was just too polite to turn him away, too nice, and was annoyed with his constant talking and wished he would go away but didn’t have the courage, didn’t want to be rude. He wasn’t wanted. Or maybe Sniper just pitied him, maybe Sniper just heard his assorted sob stories and thought, man, poor little idiot kid, might as well set out a blanket for him and let him talk. Maybe Sniper was collecting everything he said for blackmail.

The worst idea to run through his head: maybe Sniper had never been listening to him in the first place.

If Sniper wanted him around, he would’ve said something, right?

Scout didn’t go up into the watchtower that day, or the following Thursday. He didn’t bother looking for Sniper in battle, sure that Sniper would be ignoring him the same way he always did, pretending he didn’t exist the same way he always did.

When he went to the store that weekend, hoping to pick up some chips and soda, he found himself staring at a six-pack of beer. He didn’t even particularly like beer, usually, he preferred other drinks. But he was looking at this six-pack of beer, and he wound up buying it.

It wasn’t some cheap garbage, it was craft beer. It was more expensive.

He drank exactly three of the six and tried not to think about it.

-

Scout was gone. He never showed up. Sniper ended up getting so freaked out about it that he went to check the Medbay, sure that something bad had happened. Medic was there, working on something bloody, but not Scout. And Scout wasn’t in the workshop either, or the workout room, or the rec room. He got a lot of strange looks from his teammates as he asked around. For some, it was the most he’d spoken to them in months.

He was halfway to Scout’s room when he realized he was probably being strange, manic. Scout was allowed to not want to come visit him. He wasn’t offering anything. In all the time—six months, he realized, they’d been doing this for six months—that Scout had visited, all he really had to gain was Sniper occasionally humming or laughing, and exactly three beers on the hotter days and a tobacco-scented blanket in the winter. There was no reason for Sniper to expect him to show up on the little schedule that had been established. He started to feel silly.

Then he didn’t show up on Thursday either, and…

He felt worried, of course he felt worried, obviously he felt worried. One of the only good things to ever happen to him, and it just stopped showing up one day. And he wanted it back. God, he wanted it back. Two days and he already felt more lonely than he ever felt in his life. Maybe having felt even the smallest glimmer of companionship had made him soft, but damn it, he wanted to feel it again.

He made a decision.

-

Scout was lacing up his shoes before battle on Monday when a pair of boots stopped in front of him. This wasn’t strange. What was strange was that it wasn’t the calm amble of Engie, the sturdy stride of Heavy, the confident stomp of Soldier, or the crisp stride of Medic. No, it was an awkward shuffle. A rough clearing of a throat. He looked up, and it was Sniper.

He froze up. “Uh,” he said. “Hi.”

Sniper was looking at him. That was strange. In something like 95% of their interactions, Sniper was facing away from him down a scope, occasionally viewed in profile as he took a sip of beer or coffee, depending on the weather. And the other times were in battle itself, both of them otherwise preoccupied. But now Sniper was looking at him, thumbs shoved in his front pockets. After a second he moved to take off his sunglasses and immediately glanced off to one side, tapping them against his palm.

It looked like a nervous tick. This was strange. Sniper was never like this. Scout was confused.

Sniper glanced towards the rest of the team, all a short ways away, chatting amongst themselves at various volumes. When he spoke, his voice was rough and low and quiet. If Scout had to describe it, he would call it a dark orange.

“Are you doing alright, mate?” he asked, tone hesitant.

Scout remained frozen. Stared. Stared.

“It’s just,” Sniper continued, stumbling awkwardly with his words, unable to make further eye contact with Scout. “You haven’t come around in a while, and I suppose I just got… worried, that something happened—“

Scout got to his feet, whirled around, and angrily started digging through his locker, jaw clenched. He eventually pulled forth a pocket knife and angrily started ripping the grip tape from his right hand. He didn’t say a word.

“I’m sorry,” Sniper said quickly, holding up his hands, taking a step back. “I, I just thought it was odd is all, I didn’t know if—“

Scout silenced him by holding his now-bare wrist directly in Sniper’s line of sight, a few inches from his face, Sniper flinching back minutely at the motion. When he realized what he was looking at, his eyes widened. He looked at Scout. Scout looked at him.

“I’m seriously, actually, 100% going to murder you,” Scout said calmly, matter-of-factly, and Sniper had never thought about it before, but he would absolutely describe Scout’s voice as a bright red. Shaking hands moved to undo his watch, and he held his own wrist, the left, out for Scout to see.

Silence for a few seconds. “I—“ Sniper started to say, but was cut off by Scout.

“I cannot believe that you’ve never once since I’ve met you ever talked one-on-one with me. You’ve never said a fuckin’ word to me, Snipes,” Scout said, more than a little pissed off.

“I didn’t realize,” Sniper defended, a little weakly. “I thought… I thought I had.”

“Man, how many people can say they fuckin’ monologued to their soulmate for hours and hours before meeting them, huh?” Scout asked, hands on his hips now.

“I’m sorry,” was all Sniper could think to say.

“Here’s what we’re gonna do,” Scout declared, glaring at Sniper hard. “I’m gonna meet you after work like usual at the watchtower, and you’re takin’ me to go get pizza, and I’m gonna eat pizza while you talk about yourself. You’ve got about—“

He did some math in his head.

“Somethin’ like sixty hours or so of talkin’ to do to make it even,” he decided. “Got it?”

“Got it,” Sniper agreed weakly. Scout moved to sit down and start lacing his shoes up again, but before he could get to it, Sniper spoke again. “I’m… glad you’re okay.”

Scout looked back up at him. The sudden influx of nervous honesty on Sniper’s face made him feel surprisingly guilty. “Sorry. I just… got all up in my own head. I figured I was probably pissing you off, so I stopped going.” A pause. “I wasn’t pissing you off?”

“No,” Sniper replied. “Not at all. I… liked… having you around.”

Scout fought hard against the smile threatening to take hold. “Good to know,” he finally said.

“And I should’ve said something earlier,” Sniper continued, words flowing forth in a rush. “I should’ve told you, I should’ve—let you know. I really should’ve.”

“Well,” Scout shrugged, and finished tying his laces up, and stood to face Sniper head-on. “Now you told me.”

A pause between them, Sniper clearly working very hard to maintain eye contact.

“It doesn’t have to be pizza,” Scout amended, picking at his remaining hand’s worth of grip tape. “It can be anything. I just wanna hang out, like, away from base.”

“Like a date?” Sniper asked, slowly, hesitantly.

“Sure,” Scout shrugged.

A pause again. “Pizza’s fine,” Sniper seemed to decide.

“Alright,” Scout said, and smiled at him. “Alright. I’ll see you then.”

“Yeah,” Sniper agreed, and took his cue to walk away. He stood off to one side of the rest of the team, moving to take a drink of his coffee. His wrist caught his eye, and he looked over the words again, and for the first time in his life, they didn’t bring him dread. They brought him hope.

[darthspideys]

all that glitters // 1

chapter 1 // once or twice was enough 

a/n : hi! welcome to another chapter of backstory/development because im gonna be honest with you I underestimated the work it was gonna take to make ten original male characters but next week you will get to meet all the guys I promise :) also from now on chapters are going to be released on Mondays at 9pm EST - as always shoot me an ask if you want to be added to the taglist

The mansion is massive. It doesn’t intimidate you in the way that you know it should, because she reminds her of home. Home is a sprawling mansion in Boston, with brick exterior that couldn’t be more different then the one in form told her with its white pillars and green plants growing over the front. You’re walking around to the back of the house, where there’s a group gathered outside. There are tiny tables put out with drinks and snacks on top of them, as the sounds of people making polite conversation fill the air. It looks torturous if you're being perfectly honest and you're happy that it seems you're moving past them.

“We’re going to go and do your intake interview just to get that out of the way,” Casey says, leading you through the courtyard. “Just like to tease the guys a little bit and see if they notice you.”

She smiles which only makes your anxiety worse, and you turn your head to the side hoping that they don’t see you just yet.

Suddenly, a loud noise cuts the air. You recognize it instantly, and you stop dead in your tracks. You're thrown back to New York, back to the overcast day, where you were so nervous about a presentation at work that you couldn’t pay attention to anything else. That’s when he ran right into you, pushing you back a ways with the force of his push.

He reaches out for you, and grabs your arm gently in a way that sends a shock through your body that you still can’t forget. “Sorry,” He says, with an accent in the voice you can’t forget, that you still haven’t forgotten after months.

“It’s fine,” You say quickly, in that way that you always do to be polite. “You’re fine.”

“You’re pretty,” He says and then shakes his head like he was enveloped in some kind of trance. “Sorry, again, I didn’t mean-“

“It’s whatever,” You tell him, holding up your hands in a way to stop him from talking.It's very awkward, but you would be lying if you said you didn’t think he was cute at that moment. He just keeps looking at you like you're a mural drawn onto the side of some building that he saw walking home from work. One second you weren’t there, and the next second you're right in front of him, all brilliant and bright and colorful. He can’t stop staring at you like he just ran into something that’s going to change his life. 

You on the other hand are just thinking about how long he’s going to keep staring at you, and how much time you have to get to work before you’re late for the biggest day of your career. Then he opens up his stupid pretty mouth, “Do you want to get a drink with me tonight?” You almost say no, you should say know because he’s a stranger, a stranger who keeps looking at you in a way that makes you feel open to the world, like he’s exposed you to the sun finally but it’s beginning to burn. 

But you give him your number, and scurry off because you have to get work. It’s only after everything that you romanticize the whole thing, probably too much. When the two of you are strangers again, you make up this whole story in your mind about this twist of fate chance meeting and how it felt to think that maybe this is the one for you. It’s a nice story, but you don’t think it’s true, until now he was just something to hold onto, not even a person, a concept, a what if to make you feel better when the world seemed so impossibly out of your control. 

Only now he’s here. Standing in a group of attractive men, ready to fight tooth and nail hoping that you'll pick him, and you can’t shake the feeling that maybe this is fate. But you push it down, there’s no room or whimsy or fate or some invisible string in the midst of this fishbowl, this curated environment where nothing is real, and you can’t know if anything is genuine. 

“So just tell us your name, where you're from and what you do.” 

There is so much smiling, the person in front of you is smiling, there are people off to the sides smiling, and well there's a couple of production assistants in the back not smiling which you appreciate. After an hour of hair and makeup, they’ve sat you in a plush red chair with three spotlights and three cameras all at different angles, you assume you look good because otherwise they would’ve called the makeup and hair people back in. 

You platser on a fake smile to match theirs, “My name is y/n l/n, I was born and raised in Boston but I live in New York. I work as an associate editor at a magazine, so I organize what’s going onto my segment and then I read over everything to make sure it's good to publish.” 

“What’s your family like?” 

You’re smile dims for a moment, and you hope the camera didn’t catch it. “I’m a very family oriented person,” You lie right through your teeth, and it’s natural. “My family is a driving force in my life, I have one brother and one sister, we are all so close and they are both happily married, I just want to have what they have.” You hope that the smile sells it, because saying that out loud makes you want to throw up in your mouth a little. 

“Why are you here?” 

You want to roll your eyes, isn’t that that question of the year? “I’m just ready to want someone who wants me back, it’s a little weird sure, but at least you know the people here aren’t going to play games. They’re all here for  a reason, hopefully it's the right reason, but either way it’s nice to not play the should I text them back game.”

You answer what feels like a million more questions ranging from deep to what’s your favorite animal. When it’s all done, your face hurts from smiling, and you can’t wait to get a makeup wipe. An assistant leads you to your room, and you flop down on the queen sized bed happily. You’re looking forward to getting some sleep, or at the very least some mindless scrolling through instagram time, but there’s a knock at the door as soon as you settle in. 

By this time, you’ve changed into your sweatpants, and your hair looks disheveled to say the least so of course there would be a guy at the door. Standing in the doorway when you open it, is a very tall man with windswept black hair and piercing blue eyes. “Hey,” He says looking you over and then hitting his hand against his leg a couple times absentmindedly. 

“Hi?” You say with a raised eyebrow, “What can I help you with?” 

“I just wanted to meet you before tomorrow, I’m Liam.” Well he’s definitely Canadian, that you can tell the more he talks, but there’s something else about him that you can’t quite place. 

“Liam can I ask you something?” You say. 

“Sure,” He smiles, “Whatever you want.” 

“What makes you think you’re more important than anyone else?” You ask with a sweet smile, and try to hide all of the disdain from your face and your voice, because you’re going to need this guy to like you later so let’s not burn bridges right away. He looks a little stunned, “I mean everyone’s going to have to play this game right? Why do you think you should get the head start?” 

You’re half wondering what he would say when he answered, if he was willing to give you a good answer for why he thinks he’s better than you’d probably be willing to have a conversation with him tonight. But of course, he doesn’t say anything, just stands before you dumbfounded like you’d just asked him how many cells were in the human body, like he didn’t even know where to start. “Well, good night then,” You say and slam the door in his face. 

It’s going to be a long few weeks.

taglist: 

@anikinskywalkr​ // @living-life-underoos​ // @poesflygirl​

[kingsboroaurora]

Discord Thread | Berora

FT. Aurora & Beth ( @bethanyrob94 )

DATE: August 23rd, 2020

SUMMARY: Aurora comes over to Beth’s place to have a serious talk with her. She confesses that she has feelings for her and asks if they want to make things official. Rora receives an answer she isn’t expecting and feels like her heart got ripped out of her chest.

TRIGGERS: mentions of bipolar disorder, mental illness, and PAIN

It was pretty obvious at the point that Beth really, really liked Aurora. She wanted to date her. God, she wanted to date her so bad. But she was so terrified of relationships at this point. She just had so many thoughts going through her bad and such a negative experience with her last relationship she never really thought she’d be ready for one...ever. At least not right now. Beth was freshly showered after work and had her favorite pair of comfy Lulu Lemons on. Her and Aurora were sat across from each other on Beth’s couch. She liked having Aurora’s company, especially since Ellie moved out. Her tiny apartment had been more lonely than ever lately. Aurora always brightened her day. “I completely agree....I mean I could pick apart the symbolism in that book all day.” She mused, dipping a California roll in soy sauce and tossing it in her mouth with the chop sticks. “Have you practiced using chopsticks since I taught you?” She chuckled.

Each and every time that Aurora and Beth would hang out, they only seemed to get closer and overall more comfortable with one another. The other had asked if she wanted to spend her evening with her and she said yes without any hesitation. Sitting on her couch, she ate the takeout they had ordered and she was enjoying this time with her. “You know, I actually have! Here let me show you and you can tell me if I’ve improved at all,” she let out a chuckle as she grabbed for her chopsticks and went to grab another piece of sushi.

“hey there you go!” She exclaimed with a laugh. That was so endearing and overall just really fucking cute. Beth actually taught her something, and aurora cared enough to practice it. Beth was probably overthinking the fact aurora bothered to learn that because Beth was the one that taught her. “Impressive.” She joked, looking over at the blonde and smiling when their eyes met.

"See, I'm getting there," she pointed out, finishing the roll and swallowing it. God, sushi had became one of her favorite things to order for take out. It was light and she was about to mix and match the different kinds of rolls she might want to try out. It was nice that Beth also had such a strong liking to sushi, the two had so much in common. "Thank you, thank you. How has your week been by the way?" she asked her.

Beth looked down at her food when her crush asked her how her week was. "Fine." She began. "Honestly, good. Like...New York has been so good to me. I haven't been this happy in a while. I'm close with my sister, I'm going to be an aunt soon, I have a really good job, and..." She paused and looked up at the blonde. "I obviously really like spending time with you." She said shyly. She gave her a quick smile then looked back down at her food because now she was blushing. Dammit.

”I’m so happy that things are going well for you, Beth. You deserve it and deserve to be happy,” she replied with a nod of her head. Beth was something she had gotten close to in a rather short amount of time but somebody she already cared so deeply for. “That feeling is mutual, but I think you already know that,” she gushed out. Aurora, just ask her already she thought to herself. Just do it. Of course she knew she enjoyed being around her, no shit.

Beth flushed. Hearing Rora saw all of those amazing things about her - like how she deserved to be happy and the blonde liked spending time with her. It just made her heart flutter. Beth reached out to grab her hand and squeezed it lightly. Bethany leaned in to give Aurora a soft, yet passionate kiss. She brought her free hand up to cup the back of her neck and pull her in closer. She pulled away after a moment. "Sorry." She mumbled. "You just looked so damn cute I couldn't help it." She mused.

Aurora hadn't been expecting Beth to kiss her with that much passion, but it was a sweet surprise. The blonde accepted the embrace, closing her eyes just for a moment to enjoy it. "Oh god, don't say sorry to me," she let out a giggle. "You're a good kisser and I think I'll always appreciate that."

Her look of embarrassment turned to one of joy when she told her that she was a good kisser. Bethany giggled along with her for a brief moment until a flip switched. "Yeah?" She said, a tiny smirk growing on her face. "I could kiss you again, if you wanted." She said with big, pleading, brown eyes.

"You know what?" Aurora raised a brow, a playful smirk forming on her lips. She was liking where this was headed. "I wouldn't be opposed to that, at all," she added on, drawing closer to her once more. The blonde tucked a piece of the other hair behind her ear, looking into Beth's eyes.

Beth blinked several times when her brown eyes met the younger’s blues. She smiled, trying to keep herself from blushing a rosy shade of pink. She bit down on her bottom lip before placing another kiss on the other woman’s lips, this tone with more passion. Her hand found the woman’s waist to bring her in a little closer.

Aurora let Beth deepen the kiss, feeling her arms wrap around her waist as she pulled her in closer. She was about to get lost in the moment when she realized she hadn’t gone over to her place to make out. As much as she just wanted to do that, her actual goal was to have an honest chat with her. Do the thing she’s been putting off for so long. Pulling away, she smiled at Beth. “I’ve, uh, been meaning to ask you something...,” she muttered out.

God, this was really what Beth was dreading. She knew this was coming soon, and she knew exactly what this question was going to be. And yes, she wanted to be auroras girlfriend so fucking bad. She was just perfect for Bethany. Literally everything the brunette could ever want in a partner. The Canadian pulled away and cleared her throat as she sat back. “Yeah?” She asked, hesitantly.

Aurora took a deep breath. She had been waiting for what seemed like a million years to ask this, even though the two of them had only known one another for a few months. The blonde knew that she just needed to rip the bandage off and fucking ask her, so that is what she was going to do. “Look, I really like you. Like, so much. I was wondering if you maybe....wanted things to become official between us?” She asked. God, it was now out there in the open.

Beth actually blushed when the blonde asked her that question, even though she knew it was coming. She was still taken so off guard. She just didn’t expect herself to feel this way; so excited, so full. Things felt so right with Aurora. More right than any relationship she’d ever been in. Say yes, Beth. Smiling, the physical therapist opened her mouth to speak. “Y — um...” Her smiled suddenly faded. “I mean...” She hesitated as he’d heart fell into her stomach and she felt like she was going to vomit. “I don’t think I’d be a good girlfriend. Like...I’m still having a hard time...my ex...he...” she couldn’t form a complete sentence and her anxiety was getting the best of her.

Aurora was only expecting Beth to be hesitant when asked such a huge question. She had opened up to her about some of her past relationships and how she was still trying to heal from them. The last thing she wanted to do was pressure the other to do something she wasn’t ready for. Yet, she felt her heart dropping to her as Beth started to talk. “Um,” she stuttered a bit. “Are you not ready?” She asked.

Beth’s heart literally fell into her stomach. She really fucking liked Aurora, and genuinely didn’t want anyone else. They were cut from the same stone and Beth felt like she could understand Aurora without her even having to speak. There was never a time where she was around the younger when she wasn’t smiling. Until now at least.”Rora...” She began, putting her feet on the floor and facing forward. She hunger her head. “I really like you. But my ex fucked me up so bad.” She admitted, blinking several times. She took a deep breathe. “And I haven’t told you this, but I have bipolar disorder. And i really struggle with it. And i have anxiety and depression which I’m sure you could’ve guessed by now.” She rarely told anyone this information. There was really only one other person in Kingsboro that new that about her, and it was Ellie. “I’d be a really awful girlfriend. And I know I’ve opened up to you a lot. And I trust you. But I don’t know when I’ll be ready for a relationship. I’m just...he honestly traumatized the fuck out of me and I don’t think I’ll be able to be a good girlfriend.” She admitted, finally looking over at the teacher.

This conversation sure wasn't getting easier. While Aurora was appreciating Bethany's honesty, it still hurt getting a response like this. Ava, Alison, and anybody else in her life that she had spoken to about her potential relationship with the other girl had reassured her that everything would be fine. That only an idiot would say no to someone like her. Yet there she was, in the midst of being rejected. Feeling her throat close up, it was almost like she couldn't speak. "I," she muttered out. "I....should probably go," she shook her head, trying her hardest not to cry. God, this was so hard.

Beth just wanted to curl up in a hole and stay there forever. Dark, alone and where no one could ever find her. She was on the verge of fucking tears as Aurora got up to leave her apartment. She brought her legs into her chest and held the tightly, laying her forehead between her knees. She took a deep breath. “Okay. I’m sorry.” She her voice was muffled because she couldn’t look up. She’d cry if she did. She was so mad. SO mad. Her ex had really fucked yo her chances of ever being happy again. She wasn’t going to stop Aurora from leaving. She knew if she stayed things would only get worse. “I’m really sorry.” She repeated. She felt like she had completely lead the younger on; told her how much she liked her, liked being around and loved kissing her. What a tease, Beth. She probably hates you now.

[justkimberley]

HSMTMTS Thoughts Episode 7

Episode 1   Episode 2    Episode 3   Episode 4   Episode 5  Episode 6

This one is also kinda long (~2200 words)

Nini and Ricky doing a fantastic job harmonizing in Start of Something New

the dance routine around them is absolutely crazy and all over the place

So it seems that Seb is just their resident piano player (side note, who ended up getting Kelsey??)

Big Red with the flashlight trying so hard to keep it on the disco ball

EJ interrupting because of the bell. Does anyone really love Thanksgiving that much??

Also I always forget that American Thanksgiving is like a month later than Canadian Thanksgiving and I was hella confused for a second.

Ricky is so surprised that Nini is complimenting him

Ashlyn as Robotics Team captain! (side note Big Red gives her an impressed look after he overhears that she’s the captain)

Also: debate team, baking club, high priestess of the Renaissance Faire

We love a multifaceted lady

Miss Jenn/Mr. Mazzarra trying to have a ‘my horse is bigger than your horse’ banter except neither of them have the horses they claim to have

“With whoever could possibly love you,” lol ok Miss Jenn went for the head

“Late night party” - party starts at 8 that’s adorable

“Small group or…” “PARTY AT ASHLYN’S HOUSE!”

It’s really interesting learning about Nini’s Lola (? I think that’s how it’s spelled, which is what I believe Filipino people call their grandmother’s), and her story

I’m just really proud of Ricky’s Dad. Like he was in such a bad place 2-3 episodes ago and now he’s taking care of himself and Ricky (even if it isn’t a grandiose Thanksgiving) he’s trying and I think he’s doing great

“We roll hard” I just really love this line

“I suppose if you’re lonely, you could always just… randomly text my drama teacher,” “Too soon… RIck,” “... yeah okay”

That was pretty funny. Also, it seems like Ricky’s okay with his dad dating?

Ricky’s mom waiting for him to call

I don’t know how I feel about this to be honest. I feel like maybe she should have tried to call him first and then if he didn’t answer or want to talk to her, that she should wait for him to make the next move then.

EJ’s truth arc is very funny to me

Big Red and Ashlyn

“I promise not to steal your phone if you promise not to throw a basketball at my face,” “No, the only thing I’d ever throw at your face is a brighter spotlight cause, I like the way you sing

Oof they’re so cute, we love little crushes

Also this might be an unpopular opinion but y’all need to calm down about the whole ‘Ashlyn and Big Red are GAY and they only THINK theyy like each other’ thing. #1 It was never confirmed for them to be gay. #2 You can still have wlw and mlm head-cannons for them! Bi, Pan, and other multiple gender attraction oriented people exist, even if you forget about us sometimes.

They are a cute little pairing of people who are always looking out and taking care of other people. It’s okay for them to do things for themselves.

Ricky debating calling his mom, it took a lot of courage and then Todd picks up.

Hangs up immediately, it almost looked like he was going to have a panic attack. That would be so hard, such an extreme shift

I guess the reason he was more okay with his Dad dating was that his Dad was open and honest with him about it. Calling your Mom only to find out that she has a boyfriend that a. She never told you about b. He knows about you and c. is trusted enough to be left alone with her phone while she showers? Is a lot, and probably means that she started dating him before the split was official.

Ricky going to call Nini and then deciding against it. Why doesn’t he feel like he can talk to Big Red about this kind of stuff? Why does he always go to Nini first?

Gina shows up, those are good looking cupcakes

She made him a hat!

She looks so hesitant before she gives it to him!

Gina’s like ‘look dude, I know something’s wrong, spill the beans’

Ignore it and push through - I understand where she’s coming from but you really shouldn’t ignore your problems, it usually just makes them worse

“Do what makes you happy,” “... Give me that hat,”

Adorable, also do what makes you happy is good advice so we’re a little all over the map here

“That’s too big,” “I’ll grow into it,” (adorable)

Miss Jenn and Mr. Mazzarra’s whole interaction is hilarious.

Don’t burn down my shop! - holy shit, foreshadowing buddies

Ashlyn is so cute! She’s so happy when people compliment her

“I highly recommend not telling someone you love them for the first time on instagram” - yup! That’s what I said in the first one of these I did.

Carlos - “The party may begin!” - I totally thought he said “The party made me gay,” the first time I watched it so uhh yeah

Big Red is lactose intolerant

Carlos’ board game is amazing

“High School Musical the Choosical,” - fantastic name

Everyone is so accepting

Ashlyn and Big Red choosing to be on the same team

“South Side Knights -” “It’s the West High Nights,” “the West High Knights”

Ej is like a compulsive truther now. And it’s kind of hilarious

His face when he says “She laughed!” is hilarious and kind of adorable

“I gotta go join the party, and admit some terrible things, you ladies, catch up!” - I wish we got to see what he was admitting to, I find this whole thing quite funny

I’m glad that Emily and Nini got some reconciliation, I know Nini felt guilty even though it wasn’t her fault

That is not a good cockney accent

Why did Ricky enter alone when him and Gina walked together?

And he left her to open the door on her own with all those cupcakes?

“Buddies,” “We,”

Ricky and Gina both laughing about YouTube, cuties

Look, feelings are feelings and you can’t help what you feel, but pushing someone away and insisting to remain only friends means that you shouldn’t be upset when he makes a new friend

Mr. Mazzara and Miss Jenn

The plug socket is in the frame, more foreshadowing

“He won’t.. Not… fall” this show loves it’s double negatives huh? I don’t not love you, he won’t not fall etc.

“Ok but the center of gravity is off,” YES to different kinds of intelligence being helpful in fields other than the main one people associate them with

Carlos thinking people are going to keep judging him and the theater people being as accepting as possible

EJ is a gleek

What I’ve Been Looking For to the rhythm of Get Your Head in the Game is hard! (Catch me on the piano later trying to figure it out lol)

It just turns into a terrible rap

EJ - “That was terrible,” Seb -  “I’m so happy”

EJ vs. Ricky - “without laughing… or killing each other,”

This is a good parallel to the basketball scene, once again they get kind of aggressive, but this time they also joke around and no one gets hurt

Also I would love to see them become friends, I mean they both need to grow a little before that happens, but I have hopes

They missed the ‘neeee howww’ part of it, I really wanted to hear them do the high voices

EJ’s little “mehh” that sounds like a duck kills me everytime

Gina and Nini awkwarddd

“I do have high hopes for a junior year at East High” oof babey :(

“It must be nice sometimes though, right?” - nini does not understand

This actually gives us an insight as to why they don’t understand each other. Nini would love nothing more than to start a new life with no drama and Gina would love nothing more than to have a life that lasts longer than a couple months before being restarted.

Gina/Nini apology very exciting, hopefully they can actually become friends

“It’s all good,” from Nini seemed disingenuous, I don’t know if it’s because of the Wonderstudy thing or the Ricky thing. 

The sleepover thing I was so worried that it would be a mean spirited thing but I’m so glad it wasn’t

Nini sits on Ricky’s lap when she goes back to the game room and I don’t know if it’s intentional or not but it’s kind of like she’s trying to lay her claim back on Ricky.

Gina looks so happy when a. Carlos calls her in and b. the happy dance about the sleepover! (why’d they have to ruin the happiness??)

Mr. Mazarra returning the favour

“It’s beautiful,” “Math often is,” dudde I feel you I fucking love math

“I cannot stress to you enough how uncomfortable that would make me feel,”

“You know what we should do?” “Break off eye contact sometime soon?”

I’m dying

“It’s about a robot!” this is… pretty adorable. She just wants to make a genuine connection with him

Also are they going to do a romance route with these two? Because I can see them setting it up but also imagine if they just become like… best friends? I feel like they’d be unstoppable.

Musical Choosical Handbook of Rulesicals

“I thought you had never actually played this with people-” “Honey not today of all days,”

Carlos and Seb are the only couple with no bad drama and I’m living for it (please let them just stay happy)

Oops! I knew that jersey question… also it’s definitely the answer Big Red would now because he’s only watched the movie with no words (at his allergists office)

“And do people usually talk like that?” “No they do not.” - gold

EJ the compulsive cheater and also compulsive truther makes a comeback (I seriously find this so funny I don’t know why)

“I love to pop and lock and jam and break,” oh GIna

She’s so happy about winning

Not realistic, you know that the second she called her mom at least someone would be like “pass the weed,” (you know because friends are awesome and also terrible)

“Can you take me off speaker”

Some people are like ‘oh no is she in trouble?’

I kind of hate that it looks like Nini looks sort of happy about Gina’s mom asking her to take her off speaker - I really don’t want Nini to turn into a catty person.

Ricky is concerned

Why did her mom tell her this right now? She should have waited until the next morning, like that wouldn’t have hurt anyone and it would have let them form stronger bonds. And Gina would have had her first sleepover and also they might form strong enough bonds to try and stay in contact with her

Ricky is worried for her, he’s like, ‘You made me feel better, so I’ll go make you feel better’

Nini’s looking upset that Ricky’s being emotionally aware for once? Like dude, he’s grown up a lot since BEFORE summer break? That’s like six months ago I think at this point?

Ricky just wants to help Gina feel better because she made him feel better

She doesn’t understand that they can stay friends even if she leaves and I just :(

“Please don’t do that” he’s so overwhelmed

“My mom moved out two weeks ago and she’s already got a new boyfriend, sound familiar?” Oooh low blow Ricky bud.

“Really don’t need advice from a .. buddy right now,”

Ok but then who does Ricky want advice from? I’m so confused. This boy needs to get a better support system and learn how to use it. Romantic relationships should not be your only outlet for your problems.

Red and Ashlyn

“I hope Gina’s gonna be okay,” - Big Red is so sweet!

They’re so cute

“Hey Big Red? Don’t forget your dip,” - oh she was so going to ask him out and then lost the nerve

Write something for yourself.

It’s a hard thing to do, dude. It’s also hard to let yourself feel so vulnerable, even if it’s only you that’s going to hear it

Gina packing, I feel so sad for her, she’s finally made some good friends and now she has to leave again. She kept the badge! :( 

EJ losing followers and being cancelled, at least we know why now

It seems like a lot of EJ’s self worth comes from how others think of him. So losing followers is probably a pretty big hit. I wonder if he’ll keep going with his whole truth thing when it has these consequences or if he’ll just go back to what he was doing before. I hope that he has a positive arc but, will it go downhill from here? I hope not.

Ricky about to apologise to Nini (why did he erase it, he probably should have sent that) - side note: their conversation before was them asking each other if they were going to the party

It’s interesting that Nini had pictures of EJ and Ricky up still

Gina’s crying face is making me cry

“Hey mom, it’s me, I miss you so much,” tears

Nini hanging up pictures of her grandma and the musical. She’s really trying to move forward from boys huh?

Is nini going to apply to the theater school??

Electrical fire???????? WHy??

[meltiverse]

(22-H ficlet) Discovering the truth

Note: Looks like I’m deep into a MHA phase recently! Oh well! This is a ficlet on how Mel and Chizome met, and how they discovered the truth about each other. (Mel discovering that Chizome is Stain and Chizome learning about Mel’s quirk since she pretends to be quirkless)

So, I think I read somewhere that Chizome did work in retail at some points, since he would still need a way to make money. I don’t know if this was accurate, but I decided to go along with it anyways. Also, obviously this take place before Stain was arrested.

Warning: Even though there’s no actual sex in this one, there’s still mentions of sex. There’s also mentions of stalking/tracking, attempted sexual assault and mention of Mel being a cancer survivor. There’s also some strong language, a bit of violence, gore, blood and the death of a random “false hero”.  

Chizome allowed a sigh to escape him. He needed money, to buy food and pay his apartment. He wasn’t a thief, nor was he going to squat at some random place. As such, he had no other choice but find himself a job as a civilian, as Chizome. Thankfully, he found a job that was almost perfect for his needs; small retail store, night shift (4pm to midnight), Monday to Friday, a bit over minimum wage and a quick and discreet checkup at the place confirmed that there wasn’t any security cameras (The owner apparently being unable to afford both security cameras and paying his employees more than minimum wage and opting for the latter)… It was probably the best he could find.

Of course, Chizome had to make sure he wouldn’t be recognized, hence why he favored this small store. When he went to the job interview, he opted to tie his hair in a low ponytail, hid the lower part of his face under a surgical mask under the pretense that he had a “somewhat sensitive respiratory system” and wore black slacks, a dark red dress shirt and black buckle shoes. It seemed to work well enough, since he was hired, so he repeated it today, for his first shift.

When he arrived at the store, he was greeted by a person who was smiling sweetly at him.

“Ah, you must be the new employee! I remember seeing you when you came for your job interview. I’m the one who will oversee your training; you can call me Mel.”

Chizome couldn’t stop himself from smiling under his mask while he shook the hand they extended to him. Their handshake was firmer than he expected, but their voice was pretty much dripping genuine kindness, and Chizome liked that.

“First thing I always ask to new employees is what name they want to be called and what pronouns they identify with. Just to make completely sure to not accidentally misname or misgender anyone.

-You can call me Chizome… and “He” for my pronouns. What about you?

-Well, as I said, you can call me Mel, and I use both “She” and “They”, one or the other, I honestly don’t mind.”

For the next week or so, Mel oversee Chizome’s training, teaching him everything he need to know for this job. From 6pm to midnight, they were the only two employees and there aren’t too many customers, so he gets to talk to Mel and get to know them. What he learnt that he considered of interest was; they were quirkless, or rather, that’s what they said but Chizome had his doubts, there was something off in their voice when they said it. They made great homemade snacks and gladly shared them with him. They were a self-proclaimed and proud geek and nerd. They were a part of the LGBTQ+ community and moderately active fighting for their rights. They were a thyroid cancer survivor. Even thought they looked like they were in their mid 20’s, they were actually around his age, early 30’s. They moved from Canada to Japan about 5 years ago, for reasons they refused to mention.

After the training week, Chizome still saw Mel a few days a week, now that he was trained, they returned to their usual schedule of working from 4pm to 9pm, 3 days a week. Chizome knew he shouldn’t get close to them, it was dangerous both for him, to keep his secret identity and for them, if the fact that he was Stain ever came to light but he couldn’t stop himself. He was drawn to Mel.

One night, after another news report about “The Hero Killer”, Chizome and Mel had a pretty serous conversation about “Stain” and his ideologies. To his surprise, Mel not only understood his ideologies, but also wholeheartedly agreed with them.

“To tell you the truth, Chizome… I had my fair share of interactions with false heroes, back in Canada… It’s the main reason why I moved as far as I could, here, in Japan. I wanted a new start. Oh, I wish I was strong enough to get rid of them once and for all, but…

- Uh… I would have never expected that…

- Expected what?”

Chizome looked at Mel fondly. He was so tempted to tell them the truth, but it was far too dangerous. Getting close to them and becoming friends was already risky enough.

“You seem so kind and loving, I would’ve never expected you to support Stain’s ideologies too. To be honest, when I admitted supporting his ideologies, I expected you to… I don’t know… find it creepy, repulsive, or something like that?”

Mel giggled and rolled their eyes, an amused smile on their lips.

“Yeah, there’s a lot of things people don’t expect about me. Like that… or like the fact that I’m a pretty big fan of any horror-related medias. Movies, shows, video games, books, you name it. I always had an affinity for horror.”

Another week or so passed. One night, around 8 pm, someone barged in the store. And for the first time, he heard Mel swear.

“Fuck… Chizome, hide in the back store. That guy’s dangerous.”, they whispered to him.

But Chizome didn’t move. He knew the guy, he saw him on the tv, in a report on Canada’s top heroes.

“Goddamn Bitch! You really though you could run away from me? Have you any idea how much it cost me to track you down here? You’re lucky your quirk is so useful that I can’t kill you, but at least, I can beat the shit out of you. It’s not like it would change much anyways, you’re already fucking ugly…”

Chizome instinctively pushed Mel behind him, glaring at the other man.

“Leave. Now.”

The man sneered at Chizome.

“Oh, and who are you? Her new boyfriend? Sorry, bro, but her and her quirk belong to me. You had your fun, now she comes back with me.

- I said: Leave. Now.”

The man laughed sarcastically.

“Oh? And what are you going to do? Looks like you’re just a civilian, and I’m one of Canada’s top hero…

- I know who you are… a false hero.

- Whatever, man… Look, I just want Mel back, I need her quirk and I’d rather not fight a civilian for it. I’m sure I can beat you even if you got her boost and I don’t.

- What boost?”

The man looked surprised, but then started laughing again

“What, you mean you haven’t fucked her yet? I mean, I don’t blame you, she’s an ugly fatass after all, but then, why are you even with her?”

Chizome had enough. He instinctively attacked, not caring about revealing his identity to Mel anymore. The man didn’t even had time to react; the folding knife Chizome kept hidden in his sleeve now unfold in his hand, he slashed at the man, leaving a bloody cut. Less than a second later, the man was on the ground, paralyzed. Stain put his mask back in place as he had to free his mouth to be able to taste the man’s blood.

“What… what is going… on… release me… you sonofa…”

The man couldn’t finish his phrase. Stain kicked him in the face, breaking his nose and a few teeth, blood pouring out and making the man choke on it. Stain turned around to look at Mel. Their eyes were wide open, a hand covering their mouth in surprise.

“Close the store. Stay here. Don’t call the police.”

Chizome’s tone was sterner and more threatening that he wanted, but he needed Mel to stay there. He grabbed the man by the collar and dragged him through the door that led to the back alley. He chuckled darkly when imagining what would be on the news the next day, the confusion of a dead Canadian top hero being found in one of Japan’s back alley… Stain knocked the man out to stop him from sputtering more blood, dragged him to a different back alley, as to not link him to the store, and finished the job.

When Chizome returned to the store, he was pleasantly surprised that Mel was still there and that they closed the store as he asked. “We had to close earlier tonight due to technical difficulties. We apologize for the inconvenience.”, the message on the door read. Stain was gone long enough that if they had called the police, the police and some heroes would have already arrived by then. They even mopped the floor to clean the traces of blood the man left because of his broken nose and teeth. Mel was sitting on a counter, frowning. They gasped when they saw Chizome returning.

“Don’t be afraid. I have no intentions of hurting you.

- You’re… Chizome, you’re…

- Yes. I am Stain, The Hero Killer.”

Chizome removed his mask, letting Mel see the lower half of his face.

“It wasn’t my intention to involve you with this part of my life, but I couldn’t just let that false hero talk about you like that.

- Well, I’m glad that I got to learn the truth. And… thank you.

- So, I guess that’s what you meant when you said you had your fair share of interactions with false heroes… And it seems like I’m not the only one hiding information about myself…”

Mel smiled shyly before starting to explain. In their opinion, it was only fair, since Chizome had to reveal that he was Stain.

“As you may have guessed, I lied to you. I’m sorry. I’m not quirkless, but I wish I was. My quirk only brought me misery. For a long time, I had no idea what my quirk was. The doctor confirmed that I had one, that I wasn’t quirkless, but since the situation in which my quirk activates never happened so far at that time… I discovered what my quirk was with one of my first boyfriend. I was young, I was in love, I was stupid… I accepted to have sex with him… And we both found what my quirk was. He started insisting to have sex regularly… I refused and broke up with him. That’s when I started pretending that I was quirkless. I didn’t wanted people to abuse my quirk. I may have been young, I knew that if villains, or even some heroes came to know about it… Unfortunately, my ex-boyfriend didn’t care, he just told everyone he knew about my quirk. The man you just killed, he started flirting with me a year before I moved here. At the beginning, he was sweet. He was one of the most popular heroes, loved by all. What I didn’t knew is that he knew about my quirk, and that’s all he wanted. When I refused to have sex with him, he got angry… He… tried to force me… But I fought back, kicking and punching him and I ran away. I… I didn’t go to the police. They wouldn’t have believed me. He was a top Hero and I’m just a civilian, after all. I moved to another city, and then another, but he kept tracking me down. I always managed to escape before he could… But I was getting tired to run away. I made my decision and moved as far as I could afford, here. I never thought he would have been able to track me down here. I have to admit, I almost forgot him during the last 5 years. But now, thanks to you, I’m free. I’m really free. So, thank you, and if there’s anything I can do to thank you…

- The only thing I can ask from you is to keep my identity a secret.”

Mel looked at Chizome, slightly surprised

“Sure! That’s all? Nothing else?

- Were you expecting me to ask more? To ask you to use your quirk? I don’t need it. I don’t want it. If I used your quirk for my own benefit, I would be no better than villains and false heroes, wouldn’t I?

- It’s not… I… What I am trying to say is… I want to help you, but… I don’t have much else to offer… and… I wouldn’t mind… If it was you, I wouldn’t mind…”

Chizome chuckled, Mel was too cute when they were blushing. He couldn’t help it, he got closer to ruffle their short hair and gently kiss their forehead.

“Maybe there is something else. I don’t want to endanger you, but I would really appreciate if you accepted to stay in my life. I will try to keep you safe to the best of my abilities, but it will still be dangerous. I feel selfish for asking, but I have grown quite fond of you.

- Chizome… Of course! I wouldn’t want you to leave my life either, you know? I’d miss you…”

From then on, Mel and Chizome started secretly dating. It wasn’t easy, Chizome didn’t have much free time between his work at the store as Chizome and his work toward a world freed from false heroes as Stain, but every moment he spend with Mel were precious to him.

[haninging-blog]

teaching in korea: step 1

1. pre-applying

before filling out the application or asking some references to write a letter of recommendation, you need to think about yourself for a little bit.

there are a lot of people (and i mean A LOT) coming to teach in south korea for the “wrong” reasons. here are some questions to ask yourself that you really need to answer. i urge you to be honest to yourself -- blatantly, unbiasedly honest.

do you like teaching?

why do you want to come to south korea?

how long do you plan on staying in south korea?

where do you want to live in south korea and why?

do you have the money to do this?

do you like teaching?

EPIK stands for “english program in korea”, meaning that you will be, obviously, teaching in south korea. it may seem redundant to point this out, but there are many cases of people rejecting a job offer because they weren’t placed in their preferred location (mostly seoul), leaving during orientation because it finally hit them that this is a job and not paid vacation, and people even dip out in the middle of the night within the first couple of months of working without even saying anything to their school or to EPIK.

to avoid being in any of those situations, you need to think about if you actually like teaching. if the answer is “yes” then move onto the next question. if the answer is “no”, let’s talk about it.

do you have teaching and/or tutoring experience and genuinely hate it? then do not apply to EPIK, because teaching is all you’re going to do. do you not have teaching and/or tutoring experience and you do not know if you would like or hate it? then think of situations where you’ve have to teach someone something (how to cook, dance, etc.) and assess whether you enjoyed do it or not. if the answer is no, then you probably won’t enjoy being an english teacher. if the answer is yes, then why not try it out?

why do you want to come to south korea?

there could be a range of answers, anywhere from something simple (you like k-pop) to something some complex (you are a south korean adoptee and wish to learn about the place you came from). in orientation, or even in kakaotalk group chats, you’ll learn that the reason for people picking south korea over any other country is really diverse… and you’ll also notice that some people want to come to south korea for some odd reasons.

story time 1. there is someone who is a current EPIK teacher who lives in the southern part of the country and travels to seoul practically every weekend just to sit in a cafe near an entertainment agency and wait for their idol to pass by. through her actions and the way she talks about korean celebrities (and her lack of enthusiasm in regards to teaching), i think it’s safe to assume the only reason she came to south korea was to stalk her favorite celebrities. do you think wanting to stalk celebrities is an ok reason to live and work in south korea? i pray that you answered no.

story time 2. there is someone who is a current EPIK teacher who is absolutely obsessed with japan and has stated repeatedly in separate occasions that japan is better than south korea, that south korea stole a lot of food, culture, and other items from japan, and has said that the only reason that they applied to EPIK was because the JET program is harder to get into and korea is close to japan so they can travel there whenever they want. they also want to use japan as a topic for lesson plans. now, there is nothing wrong with having a preference, but if you know the history between korea and japan, then you know why these statements are absolutely absurd and blatantly offensive. do you think it is alright to be completely ignorant of korea’s history and unabashedly promote japan (a brutal colonizer of korea) in lesson plans and in everyday life? i hope you answered no.

in my opinion, it doesn’t matter if the reason you want to live and work in south korea is “shallow” at first (hell, my initial reason was because i think the language is pretty and the food is amazing). but, i do think you should do research on the country and figure out more things than just something as basic as “food” (and probably in most people’s cases, the music). i also think that if your reason is harmful or offensive (reference the stories above), then please do not come to korea. the next few questions are less serious, so let’s get into them.

how long do you plan on staying in south korea?

this question won’t make or break you, but it’s great to plan ahead for multiple reasons. if you only want to stay in south korea for a year or two, your preparations are going to be a lot different than someone planning on staying for five years (we’ll get into how to prepare in later guides). whoever interviews you will more than likely ask you this question, too, so it’s good to have an answer. know what you want out of the experience, or at least what you hope to learn and how you hope to grow.

where do you want to live in south korea and why?

from my experience, around 70% of applicants want to live in seoul and put seoul down for their preference. however, seoul is just one city in korea; there are plenty more with a lot of culture and things to do. do some research on different cities and different districts, find things to fall in love about different places and locations. now, i’m not telling you to not try for seoul, but i also want to warn you that not that many people get their preference (and, as stated at the beginning of this gude, some people even reject a job offer from EPIK because they didn’t get seoul). if it’s either seoul or nothing for you, perhaps go back to the question “why do you want to come to south korea?” and think about it again.

do you have the money to do this?

this entire process is not only stressful, but it is also expensive. applying to EPIK is free, but gathering all of your documents, doing your TEFL (if you don have a teaching degree), applying for your visa, getting a plane ticket, phone plans, packing, moving, exchanging money to have korean cash on you, the medical exam at orientation, storing your things you are leaving in your home country, buying things for your korean apartment... it all costs money. i recommend having AT LEAST 3,000usd to work with -- you could need more or less, it depends on your situation, but this is what i had to work with. i’ll make a whole other post about money and the expenses of the application process later, but you should know now what you’re getting yourself into. 

now that you’ve thought about your intentions, let’s talk about starting your application.

there are two ways to go about the application process: directly through EPIK or with a recruiter. there are pros and cons to both, but it’s really up to whatever you think would work best for you.

going directly through EPIK

pros:  - your application typically gets processed faster (in regards to the actual application, interview, documents, and placement) - you actually get to meet your EPIK coordinator

cons:  - if you have any random questions (before you get a coordinator), you’re on your own - if you are the kind of person that needs someone to guide them and hold their hand (before you get a coordinator), you’re on your own

going through a recruiter

pros:  - they can help you on your application, a practice interview + tips, and double check your documents - some have pre-orientation orientations where you can get sim cards and open up a bank account - if you don’t get a job with EPIK, some will help you get a different job in korea (still primarily teaching-focused)

cons:  - a recruiter is a middleman to the middleman, so things will progress slower (EPIK is the middleman between you and DOE/NIIED (department of education / national institute for international education development))

there may be more pros and cons depending on your circumstances and your own personal needs (as well as pros and cons between different recruiters), so i urge you to do your own research. i went direct and had no problems at all (and actually prefered going direct), but i have had friends say that they really liked going through their recruiter and wouldn't have done it any other way! there are arguments for both ways, it is just up to what will work for you.  

here is a list of some recruiters and links to their websites: 

Korvia https://www.korvia.com/

Korean Horizons https://www.koreanhorizons.com/

Reach to Teach https://www.reachtoteachrecruiting.com/

CIEE https://www.ciee.org/

TEFLUK https://www.tefluk.com/

Greenheart https://greenhearttravel.org/program/adult/teach/teach-in-south-korea

Canadian Connections https://www.canconx.com/

Gold Key Education http://www.goldkeyeducation.com/GKE/WelcomePage.html

please remember that you are your own person and can do whatever you want; don’t let some stranger on the internet (aka me) tell you how to live your life. the purpose of this guide is simply to help you make an informed decision on whether or not to apply to the EPIK program. the entire process is long, stressful, and can wear you down. if your heart isn’t in it, then it isn’t worth going through the trouble of applying and dropping loads of money on something you don’t even really want to do.

[frenchfriesandvinegar]

School

This is my second Tumblr post! Yesterday I posted one thing; my goal was two, but that’s fine. Today’s topic seems pretty unoriginal, and, to be honest it is. Yesterday I really wanted to make a text post, and I probably should’ve. I just don’t want to push myself to do a blog every single day then get burnt out. That’s what happened when I tried to do a journal over the summer. I lasted a good month or so, but my entries were getting shorter (the first and second day I had a lot to cover, because I needed to explain everything), but then they gradually got shorter and shorter, until they were like 2 sentences long. I got discouraged, and I wanted to start again at the beginning of the year, but I never got to it.

So anyways. School. That’s today’s topic, after all. I lived in South America until I was about 5, but I can’t say exactly how I did in school off the top of my head. I don’t remember much, but from what I do remember, I was always marked late. Essentially, school started at 7:45 or something, but the students had to arrive there by 7:30 to be marked “early” (they stamped a little booklet- red if you were late and blue if you were early. I never arrived by 7:30 unless my dad took me, once in a blue moon. It ended up being a little bit of an embarrassment. I didn’t want my dad to see that I always arrived “late.” 

One thing I was proud about, however, was my ability to speak English, when most of my classmates were just starting learning it. I probably couldn’t hold a conversation completely in English, but I could understand my dad (who is Canadian) and I had a pretty extensive vocabulary. Anyway, I moved here when I was 5 or 6, and I started school in January (I was put in kindergarten, even though I had already finished it). This was because the year in the school I went to in South America ended at Christmastime and began in March. So they thought I wouldn’t be advanced enough to be put in first grade, where I belonged. My parents talked to the school about moving me up, but the school kept insisting that I should just be placed in the gifted program. The principal intervened and I was eventually allowed to move up to first grade. I usually arrived “late.” The bell rang at 8:40 and we left at around 8:37. We would get there just as the bell was ringing and I had to sprint to try to catch a door so I could get in without being marked as late. The first day of first grade, however, I did arrive early, about 5 minutes before the class started. We stood out on the concrete near where the backpacks were, and waited until someone from the office came to greet us. She walked us over to the front office and seated us on a couch. And we waited. About 5 more minutes until the bell rang, when my teacher, Mrs. Teich, arrived. She was old, and in my mind, that meant she was mean. I gulped as my mom stood up to shake her hand. I was going to be put in the care of HER? She ended up being nice, and she asked me a few basic questions as we walked down the hallway into the classroom. What was my name? Where did I come from?

My English wasn’t that strong, and I was very stressed. I was starting to cry by the time we arrived. My teacher seated me next to a boy, who is now one of my best friends… still! I remember that we sat at the back of the classroom, and that he was reading a Jack and Annie book about Pompeii. The year wasn’t that eventful, although I had a little trouble with math, which ended up being pretty easy for me anyway. I like to tell people that I started reading Jack and Annie books in first grade (which would be considered advanced for a child that age), although I don’t think that’s true. One last thing happened at the end of the school year; Mrs. Teich had put together a little video with lots of pictures from throughout the school year. Of course, I wasn’t here for most of it (I started first grade in February), but people kept asking me if I remembered those events. I said yes and yes and yes, even though there were only two photos of events I was actually there for. Second grade was a little more stressful, with the introduction of AR. Accelerated Reader. It was a program where you would read a book irl, and then take a quiz on it! It was a straightforward concept, but my English wasn’t that good and I wasn’t very interested in reading books. But my dad REALLY wanted me to take a quiz. I don’t think it was grade, exactly, but at least I think you could get a few extra credit points. With one of my friends, Oliver Williams, I would read a book called “100 Hungry Ants.” It was a fun book and it made me laugh a ton. I decided to try my hand at taking a quiz. I went on the app from a school iPad, searched up a book and it appeared. It was a gray background, and the book showed up. It was the only book on there. I waited. What was it doing? For some reason, I expected AR to automatically choose the book. I ended up figuring out that I had to click it, and I took the test. I got a 100%. After this contratempts, I started taking more and more quizzes. The next quiz I did got a 60%, but then I started getting pretty good scores and getting better at comprehension.

In third grade, I was looking forward to spending another year with Oliver, but he sadly moved away. I made friends with another Oliver (our moms had met through the PTO), and that year wasn’t that memorable. That’s the year I began to hate math, but that’s also the year I started to form my love for literature and writing. Up until fourth grade, my success in school wasn’t…. Anything really remarkable. I think I probably didn’t get C’s, but I don’t think I was a straight-A student. Fourth grade changed that. My new friend, Oliver, was really good at school, getting straight-A’s every year and he even got a million words in AR in third grade alone. He would always say “I’ve never gotten below an A” or “Oh no! I’m getting so close to a B!” It made me want to push myself so I could join in and share these “struggles.” My success in school is, and I don’t mean to brag, undeniable, but I never think so. I think of myself as more of a pseudo-straight-A student. It’s not that I bribe the teachers or anything, but the success doesn’t really come from a genuine place, and it feels like more it’s me just… I don’t even know. One thing good about myself is that I retain information from school very well, and that I remember about schoolwork very well, even if I was just passively listening. It seems to have saved me quite a few times. 

Fifth grade was one of my happiest years, the teacher that I had was just so passionate and loving it was great. I started noticing that I loved geography, and that my reading craze was not stopping. This was also the first year I was in honors. I didn’t really like the teachers, and I felt like I didn’t really deserve to be there. On the first day, the teacher said that I was “very bright” because I took a palindrome from Weird Al Yankovich’s video “Bob.” Everyone was just so smart. 

Sixth grade was another… fine year. I got a new honors teacher which I like a lot better than the first, and I got to a million words for the third year in a row. I had also managed to get all A’s and B’s (but mostly A’s) for the last three years. I was faced by a choice at the end of 6th grade. Pretty much everyone from my school was going to Explorer Middle School, but there was another school called Sunrise that had a special program for “gifted” students. Explorer had much better electives, but Sunrise had a special program and 1 of my 2 best friends was already going there no matter what. I could tell my dad really wanted me to go to Explorer, but I really wanted to go to Sunrise. I pushed for Sunrise, even though it disappointed my dad. My seventh grade year was fine, I kept up the A’s and B’s and even made a few friends, which was starting to get rare. That’s where I am now, distance learning. I find it very hard to focus, whether it’s searching something up or looking out the window, but, on the bright side, I can wake up at 7 even and still make it on time, not even mentioning the 10 minute brakes we get in between classes. 

My sister recently took the gifted quiz, and she actually did better than me. She had tried more times than me, and she had just, for the first time, been able to qualify for “gifted.” Although I congratulate her, I can’t help but discredit her a little. The difference between my passing of the test and hers was that she had access to tons of training books. Books made for parents that NEEDED their kids to pass the test, and I did not. Now my dad is pushing for my sister to go to Sunrise, whereas last year he was pushing me to go to Explorer. My sister wants to go the latter. I feel bad for her. Just this year she was taken from the normal class (where she wants to be) and was put in the “self-contained” program, where they don’t switch classes and my sister can’t be with her friends (which none of them have passed the test). My sister wanted to go into honors (where only math and reading are in a special class). 

I’m sorry for the rant, and that this entry is so long (if anyone’s reading this). Yesterday my post was liked by Cheezbot, which I was excited about until I noticed it was a bot :/ 

See you next time!

[kayvsworld]

Could u convince be not to hate Steve 'Hypocrite' Rogers? I'm really trying not to hate him but whnever I think about anything to do with him I just get even angrier at him. MCU Steve is a repentless fuck up and I wanna know what u have to say about him? U don't seem like u hate him and u also love Tony so I figure u probably see stuff I'm not seeing and I wanna know what ;u; (mostly so I can stomach stony fics to widen my range of reading material) :p

steve rogers is a stubborn emotionally-constipated asshole. i also love him very very much. here are some post-cacw thoughts on why i still love him:

flawed characters are good, and the only reason we expect Perfection from This Particular Human Character is bc other people (and…the narrative….) put him on a pedestal. I can’t be mad at him for doing what he thought was the right thing, because as a fan of tony stark, i know that sometimes things that seem like a good idea at the time are maybe actually not always that great

issue: banking on the fact that your rich genius teammate and his team of lawyers will still get you and your friend out of a bad situation After you let him know that the friend in question murdered his parents a week before christmas and that you’ve lived in his house and looked him in the eye while Knowing Abt This for several goddamn years is uh. a v scary situation and potentially a bad plan for 19 reasons. prioritize the people you know are ride or die & cut ur losses

some people are emotionally constipated assholes who do their best and fail miserably,,,,To Cope™

ok but seriously have you ever had 6.3 billion Terrible Things happen to you in rapid succession, and then One More Thing comes along (to take away the only remaining thing in your life you can control and the only semblance of normalcy you have left) and you just. dig your heels in automatically and go “absolutely fucking not”

like i will personally bet you 5 canadian dollars that steve has been crossing his arms and glaring at the tv for months like “listen what else do they want us to do. we’re helping. we’re the good guys. they Have To See That we’re good people and we’re doing our best and we saved the world Come On if we just wait…maybe…….it will…..Be Fine without us having to do anything? maybe?” 

he’s been fighting to keep People™ safe for a While and it’s Apparently still not enough and he is probably tired and bitter and frustrated. also, last time he was working for/with a third party they turned out to be nazis and while i get that that 100% isn’t the same as a UN Panel (noT THE SAME, STEVEN) at some point you have to take a quote out of context, plant urself like a stubborn asshole tree, and say “actually no fuck you please just let me do the only thing that is giving my life meaning right now in a way that doesn’t make me feel trapped and afraid for myself and my team”

peggy (steve’s last connection to his life before waking up in the future) had just died, and bucky (steve’s surprise Actual last connection to his life before waking up in the future) has been having a Hell Time and is being targeted. sometimes when you find out your best friend has been brainwashed and tortured for 70 years, your bullshit meter maxes out and you (steve rogers, “fight me” personified) want to give the finger to anyone who wants to do absolutely else to that person. yes, getting him help was an option (the other option being some kind of prison?) but also, it still would have been someone else making that choice for bucky, and at some point yelling “can you please just leave him alone” with ur fists becomes a default reaction

as someone who regularly avoids things when i should really deal with them, i 100% believe that there is a large part of steve that genuinely thought he was protecting tony. sure, he was protecting himself and bucky, too, and he admits that openly, but i can buy that steve had been sitting on the couch for months listening to tony talk about Processing His Grief Through Technology and screaming internally like “would it truly and genuinely make it easier on this guy to know that his parents were brutally murdered by my friend and i’ve known abt it for 2 years when he’s still this messed up over it already oh my god”

the problems i have with a lot of steve’s choices really just come down to the film not giving him room to put up a legit argument. a lot of it was banking on me assuming that captain america & the team were correct bc they’re cap & the team in a captain america movie? if they had given steve a speech instead of a shitty letter, i’m sure i would have initially understood his side a lot better

some people are emotionally constipated assholes who do their best and fail miserably,,,,To Cope™ Part 2: The Letter

steve is not great at feelings. steve is not great at processing and expressing his feelings in a healthy way. steve is an all-or-nothing prickly bitch (see: every film he’s been in) and taking these excellent canon facts into account, i do actually genuinely believe that this dude forced himself to sit down while in hiding to write 12 different drafts of this letter by hand in cursive and eventually ended up with the monstrosity tony received

he can’t apologize for the accords situation, because he doesn’t think he’s wrong, so he can only apologize for hurting tony. “i’m not sorry for what i did but i’m sorry that it hurt you” is a shitty thing to read and say but i guess at least,,,he,,,was honest? steven why didn’t you get a friend to proofread this letter

by saying that the avengers are more tony’s family than his, he probably thinks he’s acknowledging that tony cares about them and was doing what he thought was best. im personally for my own sanity choosing to believe that.

“i’ve never really fit in” aka “okay i definitely didn’t talk enough about where i was coming from at all for the past few…..years….and this was the only draft that included my ‘i’ve been lowkey struggling’ admission and didn’t sound vaguely pathetic or directly mention my friend who involuntarily murdered your parents” 

this entire thing is actually imo a fairly decent “listen i know things are really messy right now and i hurt you and we’re both still upset, but here’s some effort on my part. if you ever need anything, here’s how you can contact me & i promise i will still drop everything to come help you with what you need” gesture considering the situation & time frame

anyway, steve for sure messed up with his approach to this and put a lot of people in danger, but as someone who is a fan of tony stark i have to take The Context into consideration and also understand that sometimes people do questionable things even while having the best intentions. it was a really rough situation and i think mr evans did a great job of showing steve emotionally shutting down and struggling for the past few films? i can see where he was coming from from an emotional standpoint, & bc of these and 130 other reach-y reasons including me just enjoying him as a person, i forgive him. it’s 2:30am this is so long oh my god

[jordm]

Heartland 11x03 - Decision Time review

For the first time in awhile, I didn’t watch live. Thankfully, I have a good reason. HAPPY [belated] TURKEY DAY! Or, as most people know it, Canadian Thanksgiving.

To preface, this episode, many characters have… well, decisions to make as the title suggests; some more serious than others. They’re at a fork in the road and need to choose which way to go. 

GEORGIE

Dear Val; of course she has other priorities. She’s in school. And you know, kind of wants to graduate? But I don’t think that’s the other “priority” Val was concerned about; I think Val was talking about Extreme Team. To Val’s credit (and later Amy’s), I do see where she was coming from. Both equine sports take up a lot of time and dedication (no half measures- breaking bad reference anyone?) so doing both, combined with school; like Amy pointed out, eventually, something would eventually slip through the cracks. She could wear herself out and get hurt, her school work could neglect, she could find herself way too over worked. To Val’s detriment, the way she presented/explained this and essentially forced Georgie to choose, even if it was for the best of all parties, wasn’t quite so smooth and I don’t think it was until Amy finally told her the same thing in a nicer, more nurturing way that Georgie finally understood it. 

While I do understand why she sided with Val, or I guess Flame; and I do think that with Show Jumping you have the potential to go further/on a more international stage, I am a little sad that she is quitting Extreme Team. Extreme Team was always so exciting to watch since there are so many new tricks and they always look death defying. Plus, all last season Georgie worked so hard at it to get the headliner spot and to perfect her tricks; it really is a shame it’s all going to go to waste, so to say. Or maybe i’m just sad that she might have to give away Checkers or Trouble, because even though we know nothing really about Checkers especially, it is still kind of sad to give away any horse, as she might do next episode. 

Either way, I look forward to seeing what drama Val brings in the future and how Georgie does. In some way, her picking Show Jumping allows the show to let Georgie “grow” more story-wise. We saw her grow as a trick rider all season. Now we get to see Georgie struggle to compete in jumping as she gets back into it competitively (because she hasn’t been doing in awhile) and face new adversaries (like Val, new opponents, struggles etc.) which may not have been brought out if she chose Extreme Team since we already saw it play out last season. So I guess this is a really long winded way to say, I’m okay with this decision.

OLIVIA & ADAM

How awkward was Olivia calling Adam her boyfriend in front of Georgie? Also is it just me, or does Olivia and Adam just not mesh as a couple? They seem to have opposite personalities; and if Adam can’t be himself with Olivia/is different around Olivia then with others, then that isn’t good right? Oh well. This leads to Adam and Georgie agreeing to not be awkward around each other anymore; even though i’m not sure it’s something you can agree on. Isn’t that something that has to happen naturally? You can’t instantly not be awkward around each other… it takes time. 

Lastly, Olivia’s reaction at hearing that Georgie is quitting made me think that she secretly wanted the solo headliner spot.. but then why would she even give Georgie the option to do a double stunt? Why even offer it? I don’t think she hurt Georgie on purpose- she’s not that malicious but I do think she thought her quitting as a result of (a) her getting hurt and (b) Val issuing an ultimatum was just a nice bonus. To Adam’s credit, Adam didn’t seem to agree with Olivia’s reaction, even if he didn’t say anything. 

I still say they’re an awkward couple. A little mismatched. But, I guess we again, don’t know much about their dynamics as a couple. So, meh.

JADE

Here’s a prediction: Avery and Jade will be friends by the end of the season. Or at the very least, competitors who respect and have no animosity towards each other. After all, they are the only girls we’ve seen so far in this rodeo school, who show any promise.

My first thoughts on Avery was that she didn’t ask for it. She didn’t ask to be called out by her brother to show off her skills. She was perfectly content watching, as she was doing. She even seemed nice, trying to befriend Jade and trying to provide feedback from her experiences as a girl bulldogger, saying she can’t just bulldog the way the guys do- which is true. 

Jade isn’t receptive at first and even shrugs her off, due to her thinking Avery was just there to show off. Now, I don’t blame Jade for thinking this, as this was my first thought about Avery from the first look- look at this girl who wants to show off and even looks a little smug. A girl who just happens to be watching and happens to be good? Seems pretty coincidental. We are quickly proven this wrong as we see the kind of person she is (mentioned above), someone who genuinely loves the rodeo and likes to compete, while helping others. Jade seems to see the error of her ways after Avery tells her she only came because of Jade and tells Avery she wants her to stay, with her even asking Avery to be partners in team roping, and accepting that Avery being there made her better. I look forward to seeing where this relationship between the two of them goes.

CALEB & TIM

So it turns out that the students seem to respect him and trust his methods more than Tim since y’know that’s how he learned and he did amazing at the circuit last year (did we know this?). I think they seem to forget that Tim, way back when, also was a big thing. But recency bias is a real thing.

Predictably, Tim doesn’t like it. When he gives one-on-one lessons to Jade, when she says she isn’t ready for a real steer, Tim pushes her to use a real steer anyways, since I do think deep down he didn’t want to admit that Caleb may have been partly right in his methods. He even ends up hurting himself when he ends up trying to one up Caleb by demonstrating bulldogging instead of him, which turns out well for Caleb since he defends Tim and makes Tim question firing Caleb. Caleb is even working on recruiting more students! 

I’m glad Tim is coming around to working with Caleb because they both bring two different experiences, past and present to teaching and one can only gain by hearing both sides. Plus, even though Tim doesn’t really like Caleb’s methods all the time, and Caleb can’t really draw (and should probably stick to writing or verbalizing out his ideas), I do think they can make a good team. For example, if Caleb takes the newer students to work with the dummy to practise and then Tim takes the more experiences on the real steer. 

AMY & TY / CASS & CALEB

They finally leave the house with Lyndy! And boy is she adorable. Every time they do a closeup on her face, stretching her legs or doing anything, I’m jelly. I love babies, especially when they’re happy and playful. 

Cass and Caleb apparently had the same idea as me and when they see Amy and Ty at Maggie’s with Lyndy, they fawn over Lyndy and basically ignore Amy and Ty. They even make Amy and Ty move over so they can be closer to Lyndy. What good god parents! 

“But be honest, it’s really her you want to see” - Amy

It was so cute to see Amy reading to Lyndy to put her to bed and then Ty and her’s moment in the kitchen where they tell each other they love each other and how everything is going so well. So. Basically things are going to go downhill, because that’s basically jinxing yourself, no?

True to form, poor Lyndy get’s sick that night. In a panic, Ty consults the world wide web- and finds out Lyndy only has 7 minutes to live. Joking. But he does find out that she could die… which I guess could be true of any illness- to be fair. On top of that they get no sleep because they spend the night in the ER and Lyndy is teething! Mental note to anyone: do not self diagnose via google. 

After Cass and Caleb come over with take out to see their super cute god daughter, only for Cass to be thrown up on, Cass and Caleb decide that they are going to wait to start a family, which is all good; they do have a dog now! I am also a firm believer that it is better to wait and be 100% sure you want a kid than have a baby just because its the “next step”.  I only wish we got to see this said discussion between Cass and Caleb about the choice to start a family/not start a family, instead of hearing about it. But again, I wasn’t really expecting to see it. 

Lastly, how cute was Lyndy near the end when the three of them were in the loft as a family and she had her first laugh?! I love these Tamy family moments. Plus I love the Tamy/Cassaleb… Casleb? Calandra? friendship.

Okay. So i’m still working on the Cass/Caleb ship name. They both start with Ca… soo ideas anyone?

MITCH

Mitch, like everyone else and half of tumblr, is not convinced his new job is indeed great, as it seems. Jack doesn’t seem convinced, Tim isn’t buying it… Mitch isn’t buying it. Maybe his new employers are buying it?

Jack asks him to dinner at the ranch because well, he hasn’t been there in awhile. Sure. Jack clearly has something up his sleeve, but what is it? (Well from the promos we know he’s going to bring back Mitch in some capacity, so I guess the suspense is more what is Jack gonna offer?) Either way, i’m all for it. more Mitch. With a beard please. 

Anyways, Mitch only agrees to come to dinner when he hears Lou is still in NYC. Yep. Still. Although I digress, that it’s probably only been a week in Heartland time. Again, not the point, but also kind of the point. It makes me wonder what Lou will think when she comes back and sees Mitch has re-integrated himself into the family since she’s been gone. 

After dinner, Jack can tell Mitch isn’t so fond of city life and asks Mitch to work with him (because working for him would be a step back)/be his partner in the cattle business, and might I add without Tim’s input. Then again, Tim is so busy with his rodeo school, Jack has often been left on his own so I don’t blame him. 

Welcome back Mitch! Please don’t just get back with Lou when she gets back just because. I’d also like to hear more about Mitch’s new job and exactly what is so wrong with it (if it is indeed not just because it’s the city. There has to be other factors). 

STRAY ENDS/RIDICULOUSLY CUTE MOMENTS

- Amy can still trick ride! It’s so nice to see that Amy still has her ability to magically be good at any equine sport.

- Lyndy’s smile when Val arrived at the ranch… or anytime there was a close up of Lyndy laughing, smiling, holding her legs. Ugh. I just want to eat her up.

- Jack holding the tiny calf in the saddle while riding the horse

- A really nice final scene with everybody at the table eating together, for once, as a nice nod to Thanksgiving since it is actual Thanksgiving in real life. Lyndy really was born into a loving family, even if they don’t all show it.

GENERAL THOUGHTS OF THE SEASON

Despite the total lack of Lou, honestly, this season has already been so much better than last season. We have no indication of Ty leaving (at least to Mongolia), Amy and Ty are parenting together, heck; Amy and Ty are together. Georgie is dealing with non-boy problems, a nice change of pace, especially since she dealt with her past plus I’m expecting (and hoping) more Lisa than last season. 

I love that we already have character development from all characters in some way and that we are learning new things about recurring characters, ilke Lisa. The new characters don’t even seem that bad. Avery, as a “foe” to Jade competitively, Charles who gave depth to Georgie’s past and heightened her relationship with Peter and Lyndy (who seems like the exception since she was kind of in all last season already) is adorable as heck. So let’s hope they keep this up- with more Lisa, Lou, Peter, Cass, Caleb and Scott please. 

I’m going to end this with some (two) really really cute pics of baby Lyndy that I thought was adorable, among others.

SONGS IN THIS EPISODE [@heartlandians]

Sweet Enola - Written by Christopher Rider, Performed by Cree Rider

Right Here, Right Now - Written by Christopher Rider, Performed by Cree Rider

Take me Home - Written by Maureen Ennis, Performed by the Ennis Sisters

[makgriggs]

Bachelor in Paradise Season 4, Week 1

I’ve been a ghost to tumblr the last few years, but what has brought me back is because I wanted to write a blog to get out some feelings I have towards the recent Bachelor in Paradise episode that aired 8/15/2017. Anyone who knows me knows that the entire bachelor series (The Bachelor, Bachelorette, Bachelor Pad, Bachelor in Paradise) anything involving the bachelor is totally my guilty pleasure and I love talking about the show. Even if no one cares, at least on tumblr I can speak my mind about the show and not get the same judgement as if I was talking to someone face-to-face who has no interest in the show.

Wow...I can’t believe my last blog post was in 2013..four years ago.

With that being said onto my blog about this episode...

↓ SPOILERS ...duh   ↓

Let me start off by listing the cast below by seasons they were previously on...

Bachelor Season 21 (Nick Viall)

Raven Gates, Corinne Olympios, Alexis Waters, Lacy Mark, Kristina Schulman, Danielle Maltby, Taylor Nolan, Jasmine Goode.

Bachelor Season 20 (Ben Higgins)

Amanda Stanton

Bachelorette Season 13 (Rachel Lindsay)

DeMario Jackson, Dean Unglert, Matt Munson, Diggy Moreland, Jack Stone

Bachelorette Season 12 (JoJo Fletcher)

Derek Peth, Nick Benvenutti, Robby Hayes, Alex Woytkiw, Vinny Vintiera

Bachelorette Season 11 (Kaitlyn Bristowe)

Ben Zorn 

...so far I have to say not much variety in the girls...all being from the same season except for one. Hopefully there will be more diversity as more people come into the show. If you don’t know how the show works here’s a quick description; there’s essentially a starter group of people who first come into paradise, every week the girls and guys alternate between giving roses out and every week new people enter paradise. So say the girls have the roses new guys will come in and vice versa. The show is about relationships, if you don’t find one you’re eliminated because you won’t be receiving a rose from anyone...so whenever new people come in either they find a relationship and stay or they don’t find one and go...usually when a new person comes in they tend to disrupt current relationships and if a new person stays usually a current person will end up leaving.

I promise I’m getting to the actual episode.

So if anyone is a bachelor series fan, bachelor in paradise (BIP) season 4 was in production of filming when suddenly filming and production shut down due to allegations that Corinne was too drunk to consent to sexual activities with DeMario. The entire cast was sent home and there was uncertainty if season 4 would continue. After a twelve day halt and after an investigation the cast was brought back to Mexico to resume filming minus the two who were involved in the incidents that occurred. From watching the first episode to hearing what the cast had to say it seems like this entire situation was blown out of proportions (but I wasn’t there so I have no room to say what was or wasn’t appropriate actions to take)... before production came to a halt you see producers grab both Corinne and DeMario which both of them were having conversations with other people and seemed to be going about their days as any other day. In my personal opinion if I had felt sexually “victimized” by someone I wouldn’t be going about my day in a normal fashion...but again it’s not my place to say what and was not appropriate action to take because I was not apart of the situation. 100% if for any reason someone feels victimized in anyway to sexual misconduct absolutely report it and take action. The season 4 “scandal” of BIP might finally be the truth to Chris Harrison’s saying, “the most dramatic season in bachelor history” ...but that actually isn’t what made me wanna blog, there were more than enough blogs, magazines and news stations talking about the scandal. What bothers me is what happened the days after the cast returned to paradise.

So before paradise production shut down it seemed to be who was getting whose rose... 

Dean was getting Kristina’s rose.

Derek was getting Taylor’s rose.

Alex was getting Amanda’s rose.

Ben was getting Raven’s rose.

Matt was getting Jasmine’s rose.

Jack was getting Danielle’s rose.

Corinne was shown telling Vinny that he was gonna get a friendship rose. Alexis was unsure, but was talking to DeMario possibly. Lacy left due to her grandfather passing away so her rose was not included at this time. 

...leaving Robby, Iggy, Diggy and Nick possibly without roses.

Alright so returning to resuming production in paradise...

Dean was pushing Kristina to go on other dates and not just commit to him even though he did go traveling with her to Kentucky during the production shut down. Raven hadn’t talked to either Ben or Robby since production shut down. Danielle was now saying that Jack was perfect on paper but just not for her. Matt was now concerned about getting too involved with Jasmine right from the start and possibly not being able to get to know other people (considering Jasmine was telling him how to decline other women, valid concern for him). Amanda now flipped a switch and was annoyed by Alex contrary to even being friends with him. Lacy now back you would think she wanted to give her rose to Iggy still, but things changed and she said he wasn’t as interested in her but now more interested in hanging with his bros. With Corinne not returning that left Vinny without even a friendship rose and with DeMario gone that left Alexis back at square one, but for Diggy and Nick it’s another chance to possibly get a rose considering they were probably not getting roses before production stopped. Taylor and Derek seem to be the only couple still going as strong as they were before the production shut down.

Here’s my opinion on everyone so far...

Dean and Kristina have to be my first mention because I totally support them, I love them together contrary to my friend who’s totally in love with Kristina and thinks this is the worst pairing ever because he (my friend) should be with Kristina... I think Dean isn’t sure about committing so soon to one person (rumors have it that Danielle lombard comes to stir up that relationship though, teaser trailers for the upcoming season looks to be true) and is trying to push Kristina in the direction of let’s be together but also not rule out the possibility to meet new people. After all meeting new people for possible relationships is what BIP is about (unless you’re like Jade and Tanner from season 2 who instantly hit it off, stayed together the entire season, got married and now have a baby). They also just look like the perfect boy next door/girl next door kind of couple which makes them more adorable together. 

So Ben and Raven, some people think it’s weird how much Ben talks about his dog (which Raven didn’t see as a great conversation mostly talking about his dog), but I have no room to talk, I’m completely obsessed with my dog too (lol) so I’d be all for a dude who loves dogs and is obsessed with his dog as much as Ben is. Plus have you seen his adorable rottie, Zeus? So if Raven goes for Robby over Ben I’m gonna be a little sad for Ben.

Just adding for viewing pleasures whether you like the looks of Zeus or Ben ;)

Back to everyone else...

Taylor and Derek are cute, hopefully they’ll stick together and we’ll have at least one outstanding couple that makes it through the season (although I’d much rather that couple be Kristina and Dean).

Jasmine and Matt, I don’t know really how I feel about them. Jasmine isn’t my favorite considering she likes to choke people being funny which I think is creepy. Even though Matt is pretty willing to be outrageous and funny (coming in a penguin suit and dressing in drag for his date with Jasmine) I still think he should explore his options and more women come into paradise.

Here is the “couple”, set of friends or just people that really get to me... Alex and Amanda. I’m a little bias to Alex, in my opinion he’s the best looking guy and two he’s a marine (my husband is also a marine). When Amanda came back to paradise she should have just told Alex straight up that she was not interested in anything more...instead she just keeps talking behind his back, to the cameras and to others, but NOT to him. I can see how it would be annoying that Alex was coming on a little too strong and aggressive, but again just put a stop to it by saying you’re not interested in anything more. Alex is a marine, marines are used to direct confrontation. Stop trying to avoid him and then go talk about him behind his back... When Danielle and Raven gave Alex advice to stop pursuing her and get to know others he then pulled her aside to get on the same page with her that he wasn’t meaning to come on too aggressive and was reassuring their friendship. Others seemed to think that he was taking Raven and Danielle’s advice and doing the opposite but it seemed as if he was hearing them out and then wanted to let Amanda know that he didn’t mean to be coming off the way he was. I don’t think that Alex deserved all the snide remarks made by the cast because he genuinely seemed to be unaware of the way he was coming off and when he was told he tried to clear the air and be sure things were alright with him and Amanda as friends.

To be honest, everyone else so far doesn’t interest me so I’m going to stop with those people and move on. I was a little disappointed that Corinne decided not to return to paradise, although I understand...but I do think she is a fun person to watch on TV and it would have been interesting if we got to see her attempt to find love in paradise. It’s also a little sad that Wells is strictly in paradise just to bartend, don’t deny we all miss Jorge a little too. I am excited to see who else is coming on the show, according to the previews everybody’s favorite Canadian, Daniel will be joining...the twins will be there, they’re always fun tv...and hopefully the couples will get better as more people show up in paradise otherwise so far this season isn’t looking good for the current people in paradise.

Hopefully it won’t be another four years before something sparks my interest enough to blog about it.