#does the funny thing and goes taco bell again

[pierswife]

Two very functional adults--

[technowoah]

Cant Handle This

Quackity's facade keeps breaking, and he tries to keep the pieces together. You're the only one who can make him show his true self

- Quackity x gen neutral reader

- this is a long one yall.

Now playing...

Can't Handle This (Kanye Rant)

Bo Burnham

0:01 ─●──────── 3:29

⚠︎ swearing, angst, mentions of mcyttwt, based on the song above, and ofc its not proofread

Part of my Inside Special!

Quackity sat in his chair currently streaming right now, he seemed like he was having a good time from your spot on his bed. You were currently laying on his bed after he invited you here to relax.

You two had laid in his bed just enjoying eachothers company until he got a call from Tommy saying he was ready for the lore stream which sent Alex into a frenzy. Alex sent out a quick "Im sorry" about the lateness of his stream and then quickly set everything up.

He then started to stream which left you alone on the the bed to your own devices. You were scrolling through Twitter looking at Alex's fans talk about what's happening on the stream and posting screenshots of his character and himself.

You admired him from afar as he ended the lore part of his stream, he took time to type on his phone to text you that he decided to stream longer to talk to his fans. He looked to you and you have him a nod with a smile and he gave one back.

"Hey guys! That's the end of the lore!" He exclaimed to his chat as he types at his computer setting a new background.

You continued to listen to him praise his chat for supporting him and making him be able to make those types of streams. You were always proud of Alex no matter what he did, you were always his number one supporter no matter what happened in reality or on the internet.

"So anyways! I wanted to talk to you guys! How are you all?" He smiled at his camera looking back and forth from his chat.

◇T0mm71nn1t: THE STREAM WAS SO GOOD QUACKITY

"Oh thank you! Im glad I could share this with you. It takes so much to put into these movite type streams, so I know now it is all worth it."

Quackity's pov. . .

He felt so overwhelmed, he shouldn't have began to stream again. The stress of putting everything together, plus being late to the stream made him rush into it more. He just wanted to lay back down with his lover who was enjoying watching him stream, and that's the goal he wants. His goal was to entertain, it was his job and he doesn't want to fail, he doesn't want to crack.

◇Mayatooni3: WE LOVE YOU QUACKITY

◇catiiequak: QUACKITY ITS MY BIRTHDAY CAN I GET A HAPPY BIRTHDAY??

◇yriaaolic: 💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜

"Happy Birthday!" He said seeing the comment pass in a second. "Happy Birthday to anyone who's Birthday it is today."

Right now it was hard. It was hard to keep up when there was always a constant demand, the constant need to be perfect, his past being brought up, and trying to one-up his content everytime. He loved this, but at the same time it had the same weight as a job.

In the back of his mind he knew the "When is Quackity streaming???" is mostly lighthearted, he never wants to leave.

"Quack are you okay? Im fine! Just thinking about how to get something to eat at 2am." He laughed lying to his fans, he wanted to stop this stream.

He kept looking over to his lover lying their head on his pillow scrolling through their phone and alternating their vision from him and their phone. He always caught a glimpse of their small smile everytime he looked. He was doing something right.

"Do yall think Taco Bell is open? The only problem I have is that Im fucking starving."

He paused for a moment taking a deep breath trying to keep his emotions down. The stress was getting to him, and he fucking knew it, but he didnt stop. He was going to get burnt out eventually and stop streaming and YouTube all together, but he needed this. He needed a break, he needed to take time for himself and stop putting on a happy face when he isnt.

TTS ◇pulixsaxe: "Did you see what was happening on Twitter quackity?"

"Wait what's happening on Twitter?" He asked with a weary laugh.

I can sit here and pretend like my biggest problems are

Pringle cans, and burritos

The truth is, my biggest problem's you,

Your eyes widened as he mentioned Twitter. Truth be told he was trending because of his stream, yes, but also they brung up stuff from his past again in the wake of another content creator's past or present being brought up. You hadn't paid attention to that, you were only getting fueled up from Twitter bringing up an issue that he already had addressed.

Tempted to speak and tell him its fine, he already spoke up before you.

"I bet it's fine! I dont wanna... I don't need to look." He said with a smile. He always had that smile on.

Either it was a full smile or a half smile. It never left his face and it comforted you somehow. Maybe it was that you were his significant other, but you always wondered if anyone saw the same things as you. The things like his smile that never left his face.

"Yeah! I dont need to look at that." He waved his hand dismissing the comment away. He then sighed letting his shoulders relax as you saw his smile fade and his eyes close for a second and immediately put that small smile back on his face while his eyes were glossy, but bright.

He needed to end this stream soon. You saw his face fall then in a split second come back to life except his eyes were glossy with tears. You wondered if anyone else noticed.

"I want to please you

But I want to stay true to myself

I want to give you the night out that you deserve"

His eyes tearful as he tried to blink them away trying to not make a scene.

"Sorry! Allergies ugh!" He said as he wiped his tears away claiming them as allergies.

"Are you crying? No! Im not a pussy!" He yelled at his chat in a joking manner.

He was crying and he felt weak. He felt emotionally weak, and weak as in not strong, he didn't feel strong and his lover who was sitting on his bed with a concerned look on their face always told him that it's okay to feel weak. The only meaningful thing is how you pick yourself up, they always told him, bur now he felt at rock bottom.

He wanted to give his fans "himself", the goofy, lovable, loud, quick-witted, Quackity. But then again his lover always told him to separate Quackity from Alex. He wanted to give himself to his audience, he wanted to be authentic and share himself, but he cant. Alex isn't all laughs, he is serious, calmer, and when he gets on the screen is when he lets it all out then goes back to his more calmer self. That's not what they want.

"But I want to say what I think

And not care what you think about it"

Giving himself meant dialing back, he wants to tell how hes actually feeling, he wants to say what he thinks about Twitter, what he thinks about certain friends, about his fanbase, and then leave it alone. He wanted to delete social media and then speak his mind without knowing what anyone is saying about it. It was paradise to him, but of course it cant be that way and that's what he hates. He feels like a actor when he really wants to be himself.

"A part of me loves you,"

Alex loved his fanbase, he had such a supportive fanbase that loved his content. Some of them did atleast he didn't fully know, but they gave him the courage to do this time and time again knowing that his content is at least taking them from the harsh reality of real life for a few minutes or hours. This was the reason he did this, for them.

Alex would never admit this but they boosted his ego too, it would for anyone. The fact that there were people who wanted and enjoyed content from him made him feel good about himself.

"part of me hates you"

He hated the contant criticisms, he hates that they feed his ego so much that it makes him want to stream more to feel good about himself and to make people get away for awhile. Alex knew inside of his heart he couldn't truly hate his fanbase, they gave him everything he ever wanted. He hates them for that and that's such a scary thing. He never fails to wonder if he did the things to deserve all the love and hate he gets.

"Part of me needs you,"

They feed his ego, they make him want to go above and beyond. Alex knows that his fanbase is the reason he is here in this chair infront of three expensive monitors. He knows that this is some sort of a job that he needed. He needed the push to keep going and that was them, it was the 200k people watching his stream watching him answer questions about him and

"part of me fears you"

He was fearful of loosing himself to them. Loosing his authenticity to them was something he feared. He didnt want his funny, loud persona to consume him and make him forget about Alex instead of Quackity. He fears what they think as well, he claims he doesnt care, but he does he wants to please them. It feels like two parts of his brain fighting about if he should care or not.

"And I don't think that I can handle this right now"

The text-to-speech bot continued to speak out people's comments that theu paid for while he sat there quietly. He bit his bottom lip trying to not break down infront of everyone he needed to be strong. He needed to be strong.

If he looked up at the camera everyone would see his tears, they would see him breaking.

He played it off as he brough his shirt up to wipe the tears away, claiming it as sweat.

"Im good! Im sorry I spaced out for a second." He shook his head.

He saw you look at him with that same concerned look on your face. As he switched his gaze between you and his computer, he felt his tears come back again.

"I don't think that I can handle this right-"

"Alex." You tried to get his attention.

"Yeah guys Im fine!"

"Alex"

"I don't think that I can handle this right-"

"I have plans later for another lore stream, so Ill start doing that later tonight."

"ALEX!" You yelled and his head turned around to face you.

"What?" He laughed, biting his lip again.

You couldn't stop him doing this, you could try to course him into going to bed, but right now you couldn't find the words. You just stared at him while he looked at you with a somber smile trying to tell you that he was okay.

He felt his mind telling himself that he need to rest. He wouldnt allow himself to and thats why he was breaking down.

"I don't think that I can handle this right-"

Alex was blinking rapidly trying to keep his breathing and tears at bay while he answered his fans.

"My allergies are fine! And I drank water today."

◇moonchild21: WE LOVE YOU

◇sopusand: Why do you look like that?

◇wuackityoo: are you crying??

"Crying is for the weak! I am a strong manly man! Im crying cause I noticed how alpha I am!" He tried to play it off as a "Im a man" joke but you could see right through it.

"I don't think that I can handle this right-"

"I don't think that I can handle this right-"

You had sent a quick text to Alex which told him to end the stream for his own mental health, but he left the message unread. He began sniffing and the wiping his eyes again. It was a wreck and you couldn't seem to stop it without literally dragging him out of his chair.

Meanwhile the screens were getting to Alex. Alex's eyes were getting tired of the bright screens and the rapid messages that popped up on the screen overwhelmed him for what it seemed like the first time ever in his strraming career. He wanted to give them the fun night they deserved and wanted, but he knows it's getting hard to. He dosent know how long he can keep this up.

As Alex kept joking around about his eyes and physical state the chat was filled with "LMAO" and "HAHAHA" which fuled him more and then at the same time makes him want to stop.

Look at them, they're just staring at me, like

"Come and watch the skinny kid with a

Steadily declining mental health, and laugh as he attempts

To give you what he cannot give himself"

He cannot give himself the luxury of happiness. As he went on with his career it became more and more like a chore, there was mostly down days and of course there were up days, but recently Alex gave his fans the happiness and laughes they wanted while when he turned off the camera he couldn't replicate that same energy as he had before.

It messed him up, he felt himself become separated from his streaming. He wasn't being himself anymore he was being Quackity and that became more apparent as the days passed. He wanted to be himself on camera and at first thats what he thought he was doing. He was himself then it turned into a persona.

Alex wasn't okay and he he needed to take a break from the internet for a while, but he tries to act like he dosent have a dilemma going on inside of his head everytime he sits in this seat. Its for the fans.

"Think that I can handle this right-

I don't think that I can handle this right-

They don't even know the half of this right-

They don't even know the half of it"

"Alex you need to end the stream. Please?"

He looked towards you again where you moved your position from the middle of the bed to sitting up on the end of the bed.

"Ive told you millions of times." He paused for a moment looking down at his lap before looking back up to you. "Im-Im okay." He nodded trying to convince you.

"But I know I'm not a doctor, I'm a pussy, I put on a silly show

I should probably just shut up and do my job, so here I go"

"Cant you belive them!" He laughed to his camera. You scoffed at his comment but still kept an eye on him as he talked.

You didnt need to baby him at all, but right now you were worried about your lover.

Alex continued talking and talking, which you drowned out. You were focused on his face and how he faltered time to time just showing a small frown.

He laughed and showed them a good time even though he was hurting. He kept going and going and you were convinced he was going to hold out until you heard him sniff multiple times while trying to make a joke about the new Minecraft update and how the glow squid has no use.

"Stupid ass squid! Why- why? Its no use expect for glowing ink. Who voted for that!?"

You can tell them anything if you just make it funny, make it rhyme

And if they still don't understand you, then you run it one more time

"Dumbass squid!" He pulled up a picture if the squid as he yelled at it.

You began to worry even more as you saw tears running down his face. He quickly tried to wipe them away, but he knew everyone saw.

Handle this right

You don't even know the half of this right now

Right now (Haa!)

Now

Handle this right

I'll handle this right, I handle this right now

Alex leaned back in his seat and had a blank stare towards the monitor. Looked down for a second and then you heard sobbing coming from his spot. Alex had his head in his hands and was crying harshly into them.

He had finally broken, he couldn't stop the tears from coming and the loud sobs that came from his mouth. He was trying to desperately breathe in to be able to sob, but ended up hiccuping while doing so.

Your eyes widened as you rushed to him resting your hand on his knees and you kneeling infront of him.

"I cant do fu-fucking anything!" He yelled into his hands.

"Hey! I know. Its okay." You tried to console him.

"Its not I try so hard! And I-"

You cut him off. "You are a hard worker Alex and you deserve a week or two off. Take care of you self babe." You stood up bringing his hand with you and trying to make him stand up. He followed your movements and stood up with you putting his head on your shoulder crying into it.

"I just ca-cant right now!"

"You dont have to do anything right now babe."

"Im sorry!" Alex sobbed.

"Dont be." You said bluntly trying to get your lover to calm down.

You rubbed his back soothingly as he sniffled into your shoulder. "Im sorry for ruining your shirt." He tried to laugh through his tears.

"Dont be sorry! Please. You just need rest okay?" You kissed his forehead and he nodded in response.

Alex raised his head up an started to pepper kisses all over your face as you laughed. He gave you one last peck on the lips as he walked away to quickly change into night clothes. You smiled as he laid underneath the covers and continued to softly cry into his sheets. At least he was in bed and not makijg himself even worse.

He couldn't stop the tears from flowing, it was like a flood that could only be stopped with time. He felt like a boulder was lifted off his shoulders only to be replaced with smaller rocks. The smaller rocks was the guilt he held. He felt guilty of making his lover worry about him, he didnt want you to worry.

You rushed over to his desk and turned off the stream and his computers not even bothering to give them a goodnight or goodbye. After the computer lights were turned off it was quite dark in the room except for small light.

Finally you were where you wanted to be all day, in bed with Alex. But this wasnt the predicament you wanted.

"Forgive me. I just cant do shit right can I?" His eyes were still full of tears and he was getting tired.

"Alex dont listen to anyone but yourself." You tried to console him.

"That's what I'm telling myself."

Silence filled the room as you looked at him through tearful eyes of your own.

"Alex, you're so amazing and I cant even tell you how much I appreciate you, and how much you change my life. You do so much shit right its scary sometimes. Some days I think you're perfect, but there's-"

"There's no such thing as perfect." Alex finished your sentence.

"Exactly! Even the best people have their downfalls, they just dont show it. And Alex I know you struggle with that! All I can say is that I love you for you." You finished.

"Can I talk to you about my dilemmas?" He tried to laugh again.

"Tomorrow we can talk. We both need the rest." You said to him as he closed his eyes and nodded in response. He gave you a kiss on you lips before laying back down to sleep.

"Thank you."

"Thank you

Good night

I hope you're happy"

TRENDING

ARE YOU OKAY

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QUACKITY

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ARE YOU OKAY QUACKITY?

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[nefelibata-cloud]

okay so I saw this prank on tiktok where you randomly yell “OMG THEYRE COMING TAKE EVERYTHING AND GO!” and start grabbing stuff and panicking to see what your s/o does and it was funny and I came up with a few ideas...

so this is how I think some of the bnha boys would react...

a/n: this is my first time writing a head cannon like this, probably isn’t all that realistic but I hope you’re at least entertained

warnings: prank, crack, pro hero! bnha boys, established relationships, cussing, gn!reader

THEYRE COMING!

Izuku

would be confused

but still grab something (likely phone, wallet keys)

meanwhile saying “wait! puppy! who’s coming? what do they want? what’s going on?”

you tried to go on with the prank

but you couldn’t

you quickly feel bad

I mean poor man is going into another one of his mumbling fits trying to figure out who would have you so panicked

you tackle him in a bear hug

“I’m sorry! it’s a prank!”

“Puppy, I thought you were in danger and my whole life flashed before my eyes.”

Shoto

he would be very confused

would not do anything really

he’s just stand around watching you run about with random items from around the house in your arms

jerk

why are they shouting? What’s going on?

Eventually he would grab a lamp and the rug or a kitchen towel or something

“Babe, if someone has a vendetta against you we should call the police, and anyways, are you forgetting? I’m one of the top 5 heroes.”

“Babe, babe” you say through laughs. “It’s a prank!”

“Oh thank God.”

“But,” you say before breaking into laughter. “Why’d you grab a lamp and a rug?”

“...I thought...Nevermind,” he says, setting the items down

Tenya

once he sees you panicking he’d grab you and try to calm you down

“Honey, calm down! What’s going on?”

“They’re coming! They’re coming!! We need to go!”

“Who’s coming?” He asks

“THEY’RE COMING!”

get with the program already Tenya!

“Yes, you’ve said that several times now. Just take a deep breath and explain the situation to me.”

“They’re coming! Let’s go!” you say, then add. “I’ll explain in the car.”

Iida sighs before using his quirk to zoom around the house, grabbing all the necessary things and placing them in the car before grabbing you and opening the passenger door for you

he looks around as you get in

once he gets in he turns on the car and says “explain” as the car pulls out of the nice drive way and onto the road

“Jk we can go home now.”

“What?”

“It was a prank!”

“y/n! I was sincerely worried for your safety! Please don’t perform such rash behavior again!”

you give him a kiss before smiling “I’m sorry, I thought it would be funny”

Eijiro

the second this man hears you panicking he’s panicking too

he hears “THEYRE COMING! GRAB EVERYTHING AND GO!”

and he does just that

this man is practically juggling the whole apartment

he’s grabbing everything that’s near him without hesitation

“Pebble! I got it! I got it! Let’s go!”

Then he hears your laughter

“Pebble?”

he thought you were crying

“E-Eiji,” you say wiping a tear off your eye as you feel an ache in your ribs from laughter “it-it’s just a prank”

you remember how he was holding a lot of stuff?

yea he drops it all and hugs you

“oh thank god!” he says “I was so scared there Pebble”

“I’m sorry, Eiji, but,” you break into a fit of giggles “why did you have so much stuff in your arms?”

“you said to grab everything and go and I wanted my pebble to be comfortable!”

“Aww! Thanks!”

Bakugo

“BABE! THEY’RE HERE! THEY’RE COMING! GRAB EVERYTHING AND GO!”

mans doesn’t even move from the couch

“the fuck? who’s here? I’ll just beat their ass.”

“Katsu! They’re coming! We need to go!!”

He FINALLY gets up but instead of grabbing anything he just picks you up, and walks out the door

“Babe! What are you doing?”

“I’m grabbing everything and going, dumbass!”

You pause “wait...baby!!”

oh no Bakugo mentally groans

“I’m your everything?”

“Shut it, dumbass!!”

“Awww!” you gush “Katsuuu!”

“Shut up!” he says, his face red

you pat his arm. “By the way, it’s a prank”

“Fuckin’ knew it.”

“Yeah sure you did!”

“Shut up! You’re terrible at pulling pranks!”

“Then why are you still carrying me?”

“Tch!” he drops you and heads back into the house “Just for that you’re gonna sleep on the couch, dumbass”

“No cuddles?” you whine

“S-shut up!”

you pout

“Fine! Dammit! I’ll give you cuddles.”

Denki

“DENKI! THEYRE COMING! WE NEED TO LEAVE! NOW!”

“DANG IT I KNEW I SHOULDNT HAVE CUT THE LINE IN TACO BELL!”

You pause, hidden from Denki’s view as he starts to unplug the microwave

“What about Taco Bell?”

“I cut this guy in the line to order at Taco Bell accidentally and the guy gave me the scariest stink eye,” he quickly explains

He went to Taco Bell? “You went to Taco Bell?”

“Yeah! C’mon this microwave is heavy!”

“And you didn’t get me a Baja Blast?”

“Baby!! That’s in the paast!! We neeed to goooo!”

“Nah,” you say coming around the corner. “That whole thing was a prank, but the fact that you went to Taco Bell, didn’t get me a Baja Blast and make me sleep next your gassy ass? Seriously?”

Denki waddles towards the kitchen counter and sets the microwave down

“Baby! I’m sorry! Please forgive me!” He says as he goes to give you a hug “I really didn’t mean to forget!”

thanks for reading!

[woodrokiro]

Bar Service (fic)

Fandom: Bleach

Characters/Pairing: IchiRuki

Summary: Bartenders--especially bartenders around the corner from her apartment--are strictly off limits. Restaurant AU. Written for @ichirukimonth . TW warning for mentioned child abuse. 

She doesn’t think much of the restaurant a few blocks away from her new apartment.

She always passes it to and from her work commute, of course. Maybe from time to time she glanced over, musing how it looks cute enough--a great place to take a date or some friends....

Before Rukia remembers: 1. She doesn’t have the time or capacity to date, and 2. She has no friends here yet… And probably won’t for a while, considering her lifelong difficulty making them in the first place. 

It’s fine by her, honestly. She likes throwing everything she has into her job, loves doing her best to earn a smile or laugh from her patients. That’s enough social interaction for her, and at the end of the day she can go home, pour a glass of wine, switch the television on to some silly drama and order takeout without mourning the “loss” of a Friday night.

So for the first few months that she’s living in Karakura: no. She doesn’t even think about stepping foot in Amore e Morte. 

Until she gets a particularly bad case at work. 

The fact that it was a foster child case alone makes her heart hurt--but of course, there’s always more with these sort of situations. 

A little girl named Hina, aged eight but looking so much smaller waiting there in her office. The social worker sitting with her--a woman named Rangiku, who Rukia knows a little and actually quite likes--squeezes Hina’s tiny hand before pulling Rukia to the side, quietly explaining the situation. 

Physical abuse from her former home where she had been for a year. Her teacher kept noticing bruises in odd places and finally called CPS, who did nothing for two months before the behavior escalated and Hina ended up in the ER.

Her new foster mom is a real nice lady, says she hasn’t been acting out or anything but… Rangiku shrugs, flashing a reassuring smile when the little girl looks their way. You know. 

She knows. 

So Rukia does what she does best: she goes to the little girl, introduces herself by her first name, and focuses on her work until she can sob angrily in her car at lunch break. 

And when her workday is done, when her emotions are fried and she’d really like a drink or three anywhere but her lonely apartment--she sees the restaurant’s sign, glowing warmly in the dusk light. 

Amore e Morte. Love and death. A weird name for a restaurant, she thinks, and wonders if the owners either don’t know Italian and thought the name was cool or are just uppity snobs. 

If you’d stop being so cynical you might go out and actually enjoy life. She can practically hear Renji’s voice scoffing in her ear now.

She parks her car at home before walking back over to the restaurant.

--

The outside of the restaurant is nice enough, but the inside is… Well. Lovely.

Brick walls painted white make the entire place look minimalist yet cozy. A couple of trendy paintings hanging sparsely through the restaurant makes the environment chic, but not overbearing. A few hanging lanterns bring just enough light to let everyone see where they’re going, but otherwise candles are utilized at each of the tables for a romantic touch.

Rukia sees by the sheer number of couples there that it is indeed a good place to bring a date.

And by the looks of one dish smelling deliciously of chicken and bell peppers that passes her by in a waiter’s hand, the food isn’t too bad either. Rukia’s mouth waters. 

“A table for one, miss?” 

Rukia startles from her musings, feeling rather silly as the bright and cheery hostess smiles patiently back. 

“Oh! No, I don’t think that’s necessary. I wouldn’t want to take up one of your tables. Do you have bar seating?”

“Of course! Right this way.” 

The hostess leads her into an adjacent room that sits tucked away from the main dining room. There’s still a couple of tables in this room, and two of the eight bar stools are occupied but it’s so much quieter here, the noise of the dining room a mere buzz. She breathes a small sigh of relief as she takes the stool at the far end. She wanted to be out and about, just… Not that out and about.

“Our bartender Kurosaki-kun will be taking care of you. I believe he’s just in the back talking to Chef, he should be right back.”

Rukia thanks her, taking a glance at the menu. 

She quickly finds out Chef Yasutora Sado’s menu inspiration is Mexican-Japanese fusion cuisine, which is… Interesting, considering the restaurant’s name is Italian. In any case, she’s fascinated. Rukia by no account considers herself a foodie, but the thought of blending traditional Japanese dishes with Mexican spices and turning them into something like sukiyaki tacos makes her stomach growl. 

“Can I get you something other than water to drink?”

Her gaze flickers from the menu to the well-toned arm extended out toward her, pouring a glass of water. Her eyes move up the arm to the man it’s attached to. 

A handsome guy, she’ll admit: if it wasn’t for the obviously bleached orange hair, the sword tattoo on his forearm peeking out from under his rolled sleeve, and the fact that he looked like he wanted to be literally anywhere else.

If she had to pick him out from a crowd, there’s no doubt she’d know him as a bartender. What a walking cliche. 

“Yes, I’ll take--” She didn’t even take a glance at the drink menu. She looks down quickly. “Sorry. Can I get a matcha mojito?” 

He nods, his hands suddenly flying through liquors and shakers and mixes to make her drink. “You ready for food, too?” 

“Any recommendations?” 

“Everything.”

She snorts. She’d be irritated by the subpar service if it wasn’t for his small smirk at her response. 

“Seriously, everything’s good here. If you get something you don’t like, drinks are on me.”

“Risky.” Rukia lifted an eyebrow. “You place that bet with every customer?”

“Every single one.” 

She highly doubts that, but she appreciates the trust in his workplace nonetheless. She orders a couple of small plates, and he tends to his other drink orders while she sips her own. 

The food, when it comes out, is… Infuriatingly good. Infuriating because she would have loved to have scored a couple free drinks off the arrogant punk bartender, but she’ll have to swallow her pride because the sukiyaki taco is absolute divinity. She sips her second drink, already accepting that she’s gonna have to admit to him she’ll be paying full price for everything she ordered.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like she’ll have a chance to gloat. From what she hears next door, dinner service has picked up and with that: drink orders. He’s doing as well as he can--hands expertly flying through the liquors, garnishing the cocktails with an expert flourish before passing them on to a server--but she can tell he’s feeling the stress, particularly when he reads his second to last ticket in the rush.

“Fuck,” she hears as he rolls his eyes, stalking over to the wine cabinet. A server comes by, concerned. 

“You need anything, Ichigo?”

He waves a hand, not turning to look at his coworker. “No, no I’m fine. Just annoying when I don't open a bottle before rush, that’s all.”

The server scuttles off to tend to her tables while Rukia watches him bang a (very expensive looking) wine bottle on the counter, clumsily ripping into the foil with an opener. At one point he cuts his thumb, and he half-hazardly wraps a paper napkin around it while he tries helplessly to pull the cork up. The wine opener doesn’t grip the bottle steadily a couple of times, she waits on baited breath to see if he’ll break the bottle. After a few dangerous-looking test runs, he manages to hoist the cork up, cursing out a “fucking finally” at the sound of the cork popping.

The whole thing must have taken ten minutes.

Maybe it’s the matcha mojitos finally hitting her, but she can’t help it. She laughs. 

He shoots her a wild look and she covers her chuckles with the back of her hand. 

“Sorry, sorry! I’m not--it’s not funny. I just… That was the most atrocious opening of a wine bottle I’ve ever seen.”

Ichigo stares for a moment before scoffing, turning back to his (finally opened) bottle and pours the wine into a glass. “Yeah, well… I don’t do wine service here, lady.”

“Excuse me? That’s ridiculous. You’re a bartender.”

“Exactly. Bartender. I do cocktails, not fancy wine stuff.”

“Let me guess, you consider yourself a mixologist.”

“Don’t ever call me that. Ever.” He’s shaking his head as he moves on to his next order, but oddly enough Rukia feels like she knows he’s suddenly having a good time. “Like I said, I don’t do wine etiquette and all that. That’s for the servers.”

“I’m just… It’s hard to believe you’ve made it this far in a nicer restaurant’s bar without knowing how to open wine.”

“Not that far. I’ve been here for like, six months.” He shrugs at her inquisitive stare. “Old buddies with the chef. I bar backed in college where he was a line cook, so… And if he ever got sick of me, my sister is his sous chef. Then again, she’s more likely to fire me than he is, the brat.”

“Especially with you not knowing how to open a fine vintage.”

“Get over it. When it’s not busy I get one of the servers to help me.” He looks down, having seemingly forgotten about his paper toweled thumb. “Shit. Hang on, I gotta get a bandaid from the back--”

“I have some, if you want.” Rukia starts digging through her purse. “If there’s not some restaurant code for the kind of bandage you’re supposed to use, of course.”

“If it looks neater than a shoddy paper towel job, ‘should be fine. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome. Here.” 

He stares at her outstretched hand. She stares back, getting more irritated as she waits. 

“What?”

“... It’s a Chappy bandaid.”

“So?”

“So why are you a grown ass woman carrying around Chappy bandaids?” 

“They’re for my patients, for kids.” She’s telling the truth, technically. To say she also quite enjoys Chappy as a character does not need to be mentioned. “Do you want it or not? Swallow your manly pride or go looking for an ugly beige bandage while your tickets pile up again. Tick tock.”

“Fine! All right, already.” He takes the bandaid and starts unpeeling the paper adhesive. “You a pediatrician or something?” 

“Child psychologist.” Suddenly Rukia remembers Hina’s sweet face and feels terrible for not thinking about her once this entire dinner. 

“Jesus.” Ichigo’s shaking his head, pressing Chappy to his cut.

“What is that supposed to mean?” 

Maybe it’s the alcohol, maybe it’s the guilt, maybe it’s the fact that it’s such a weird response to her revealing her profession, but Rukia can’t help it. She narrows her eyes and crosses her arms.

If he’s uncomfortable with her sudden hostility, he doesn’t show it. He shrugs. “It’s just… I can imagine it’s a hard job. Sometimes, anyway.” 

Oh. 

“Oh,” she exhales. “I’m sorry, I--yes. It can be, yes.I just… That sort of response I’ve only ever gotten from people that don’t believe in the importance of mental health. ‘Shrink talk’ and what have you.”

“Nah, I believe it.” He’s finished his job of covering his wound and moved on to his next drink order. 

She’s abashedly stirring the ice in her glass when she barely hears him say: “I had to go to a children’s therapist once, as a kid. Helped me a lot.”

She raises her head to look at him. He hasn’t changed his facial expression, nor is there any change to his body language as he continues to do his job--but as a psychologist, Rukia can’t help but wonder whether she’s the first person he’s ever told this to. 

“Me too. When I was a child, I… A therapist had helped me, too.” She raises her glass and clears her throat. “To recognizing childhood trauma, I suppose.”

He lets out a short laugh at the sudden dark joke, a sound so quick and so… So nice she can’t stop the fleeting thought that it’s a sound she’d like to hear more of. She shoves it away. 

Bartenders are absolutely off limits. 

He raises the glass that he’s mixing a cocktail in. “Yeah. Cheers.”

--

Later when she finally picks up the check, she pauses.

“Excuse me.” She waves Ichigo down, maybe just a tad tipsy. “You got the check wrong.”

He frowns, taking the bill from her and scanning it. “What are you…”

“You forgot to put a drink on there. My third one.”

It clicks and he rolls his eyes. “Oh my god.”

“What? I’m being honest.”

“It’s on me.” He slides the receipt back to her. 

“But I didn’t dislike any of the dishes!”

“Take some advice, will you Doc? If the restaurant staff didn’t put something on your bill and you still got it, chances are: we wanted to give it to you.” They lock eyes for an intense moment before he clears his throat, looks down to wipe his (suspiciously clean) bar. “‘To childhood trauma,’ and all that. Now stop yapping so loud about it. You want everyone in the restaurant to hear about me giving out free stuff?”

She shuts her mouth at that, but one small detail about what he said is bothering her.

“It’s not ‘Doc,’ so you know. I have a name. It’s Rukia. Rukia Kuchiki.”

“Okay. Whatever, Rukia.” He turns around and waves his hand. “And I’m Ichigo. Just pay your damn bill and come back soon or whatever.”

And with that: she guesses she has a new spot.

[hopeshoodie]

Part 4 of my Pros and Cons of dating the LITG s2 characters

Carl

Cons:

He’s really emotionally unavailable. For someone like me who’s a huge introvert this isn’t a con, but it can be for someone who wants more vulnerability with their partner. Even when Carl and MC are together, they’re not talking about feelings or trauma, they’re talking about things and interests and entertainment. If Carl has trauma, MC only learns about it randomly when it connects to a sporadic conversation. When she tries to be like ‘what, wait- hold on’ Carl’s just like ‘:) so anyways moving on :)”. 

When MC’s upset or crying, Carl gets really awkward and kind of just silently pats her arm. He’s not great at dealing with someone who’s traumatized and visibly struggling. Sometimes he ends up making suggestions on how to fix it, which undermines the reality of facing things like loss/mental health/stress/etc. He kind of thinks that the only way to suffer is silently with dignity, and looks down on people for asking for help.

He eats an insane amount of fast food. Taco Bell (idk if yall have that in the UK but :P) is his go to, and he’ll happily eat there every meal. He generally keeps his car clean, but the glove compartment and center consul are FULL of ‘burrito’ wrappers. 

He doesn’t really consider how MC feels about things all the time (I headcanon him as on the autism spectrum, which is something we struggle with). He’ll make reservations/cancel plans/do things without her and not think about it, then be confused why she’s upset. He does this a lot with making plans because he just assumes that MC’s less busy than he is and she’ll work around his schedule- which is frustrating because MC’s time and schedule matters too. As time goes on he tries to be more considerate, though.

Sure his love language is acts of service, but he also shows he loves people by sending memes. I only count this as a con because he’s really into ‘deep’ tiktok and deep fried memes and will send 40+ memes in one hour, only like 3 of which are actually funny.

His fashion taste is baaad. Like he exclusively sees a suit/outfit on instagram, and buys everything in it and wears it. He has no sense of how to match things or a style of his own outside of ‘fancy menswear’. 

His taste in movies? Also horrid. He’s a big tarantino fan and mansplains why Jennifer’s Body, Teeth, and Midsommar (my three favorite movies) are bad

He feels like his work is more important that everything else, he doesn’t do housework/food prep. He hires cleaners and eats out most of the time, but when MC moves in he lowkey expects her to just deal with his mess until the cleaner comes. If she asks him to do a thing he’s guilty of that ‘doing it badly so she won’t ask again’ thing that shitty men do. MC re-trains him that doing so is NOT acceptable REAL quick.

He’s condescending to pretentious people. Whenever he’s surrounded by influential people who think they’re really smart and interesting, he loves to take subtle digs at them. It’s less about being superior than just calling them out on their bullshit. This is a con because 1) Carl doesn’t realize he IS one of those pretentious people most of the time and 2) it’s super embarrassing to deal with the fall out of everyone being offended at him.

Oh My God. If Carl knows something is true and gets into a debate, he will stop at nothing to prove he’s right. Even if it’s about something dumb, he cannot let it go and will continue arguing past when the other person has lost interest.

I think the biggest con is that he works so much and isn’t around often. He usually works late and doesn’t think twice about going into the office on weekends. This can lead to MC feeling like she’s not a priority.

Pros: 

I think Carl’s relationship with technology is a huge plus. He’s really vigilant about cybersecurity, protecting your cryptocurrency assets, and net neutrality. He’s also super handy with software fixes (don’t ask him to fix a mechanical issue though, he doesn’t know how to solder and he doesn’t want to void your electronics’ warranties). This is a huge pro for someone like me who doesn’t really want to mess with coding unless I know what I’m doing is right, and also is really intimidated by encryption and bitcoin. 

He’s a really really REALLY good listener. If MC’s stressed, he’s content to just sit on the couch with her head in his lap, gently stroking her hair and quietly listening to her. He’s not great at comforting her, but he’ll listen and truly hear her.

His laugh is the most musical and sweetest sound ever. He doesn’t laugh outwardly, but when MC gets him going.... Poetry in motion.

He drops everything if someone he loves is in trouble. If MC calls him saying her car broke down, it doesn’t matter what meetings he has that day. He’s picking her up and he’s leaving NOW.

When he eventually gets wealthy (which seems inevitable), he doesn’t really care about social posturing or fashion or opulence. Instead, he invests his money, makes sure that MC and his home is as comfy and warm as it can possibly be, and then he buys experiences. Carl isn’t really into travel that much, but he adores taking MC to exhibitions and lectures, aquariums, just new and exciting things to experience and learn. They’ve absolutely gone skydiving, cage diving, whale watching, done sensory deprivation tanks… It’s not about the thrill seeking, it’s about trying everything together at least once. 

Of all the men, I think Carl’s the most likely one to give you that Ovie moment. When shit’s kicking off and people are being really hurtful and personal, he’d just get up, grab your hand, and pull you into a separate room to debrief and chill. Carl has no room for the drama, and just wants those he cares about to have peace and be content.

He’s willing to try anything once and is really open to hearing what MC wants. This is great everywhere from the bedroom to everyday life.

Kids really like him because he treats them casually and like adults (within reason, he knows better than to expose them to adult content). But he’ll talk to them without ‘baby talk’ and ask genuine questions, then actually listen when they talk about minecraft or whatever. He’s definitely the favorite uncle. 

He’s REALLY good at taking criticism. He’s able to compartmentalize and recognize ‘this problem happened because I didn’t know X’ or ‘I could’ve done Y’ so he doesn’t take issues personally. This worked in his favor in the villa when Bobby was whining that he didn’t have MC or when Lucas/Noah came onto MC, because he was able to just let it go and focus on what matters. He’s really good at resolving problems with MC because if she has a complaint he’s able to focus just on the action and not being hurt that she’s mad at him.

He never lets MC go without a compliment. He’s not one of the guys to gush every time he sees her ‘you look so good’, but when the moment strikes him or he sees MC put in effort he always says the sweetest things. MC knows when he gazes over at her on a lazy Sunday morning and says “you’re the most captivating person I’ve ever met” he means it with every fiber of his being. Whenever they’re out and about he jokingly presents her, and constantly remarks “doesn’t she look amazing? I’m so lucky.” 

His love language is acts of service, which means when MC does things for him it’s really meaningful and vice versa. He cried once because he was really stressed and mentioned he didn’t even have time to put gas in his car- and then MC left and filled it up while he took a work call in the middle of their movie night. He always finds little things like putting coffee on or bringing takeout to MC at work to do for her. If MC’s a depressed bitch like me, he’ll stop and clean her bedroom for her which means the absolute world during a depressive episode. 

THEY'RE SUCH A POWER COUPLE OML. They just look so good together and work well and ugh. The beautiful and smart wife who's powerful in her own right with the quiet but observant inventor. Ugh I love that for them.

[eightysixed]

happier than ever

You call me again, drunk in your Benz Drivin' home under the influence You scared me to death, but I'm wastin' my breath 'Cause you only listen to your fuckin' friends I don't relate to you I don't relate to you, no 'Cause I'd never treat me this shitty You made me hate this city

words: 3.2k plot: emma and tomo’s relationship, in a nutshell. trigger warnings: abuse, assault, drugs, cheating, violence, blood, suicidal ideation, nsfw

Five years is a lifetime when you’ve just begun your twenties. It’s half a decade of years so formative and important that you don’t really realize their importance until they have flown past.

Emma spent those years with Tomo.

[ SEPTEMBER 2014 ]

A twenty-one year old goes to an Outkast concert. She gets propositioned by a guy. Rough, pushy, handsy, it’s enough to make her feel suffocated, plan paths of escape or desperately look for a face in the crowd that could intervene. Then he comes in with his buddies and they all but rescue her. How ironic Emma thinks, years later. What a Disney-ified, damsel in distress moment to have and to meet by.

They spend the rest of the concert together, follow it up with an after hours at Los Coyotes, wolfing down soft shells in between food-spitting laughter. Emma, Tomo, and his two buddies. The energy is infectious, and she doesn’t want to say goodbye at the end of the night. It’s a feeling she has never felt before; those sparks in his eyes that are in hers too, the way he grounds and floors her. They exchange numbers and Emma’s face lights up as she’s getting off her Muni owl: it’s a text from him.

It doesn’t take long for his contact name to acquire an Emoji heart next to it, the girl who ridiculed these kinds of things in high school now finding herself enamoured, head-over-heels, and not caring for the criticisms of formerly cynical self.

[ OCTOBER ] A month later and she’s packed up and moved into his place, about as happy as she has ever been of late; everything in life falls into place with him, just makes sense.

[ NOVEMBER ] He gets エマ tattooed on his collarbone; her name in katakana. She gets 23, his lucky number.

They spend thanksgiving with her mom in Cupertino. Frankie hasn’t seen Emma this animated again in a long time, composes a poem about in her head as the green beans and pumpkin pie are passed around. Later of course, she pulls out the baby photos, much to Emma’s embarrassment and Tomo’s delight. “You were such a fat baby, Jesus,”  Tomo laughs. “She looks like she ate baby Jesus,” her mother quips.

When her mom falls asleep, they sneak out and climb up Emma’s childhood treehouse armed with blankets. They gaze at a sliver of night sky through a gap in the roof as Emma tells him her childhood dreams of flying to space and inventing computers that could contact extraterrestrial life. They kiss, they make love, Emma ponders her stance on marriage being outdated and for chumps and losers next to a snoring Tomo.

[ FEBRUARY 2015 ] Their first Valentine’s day together they drop acid at Pier 39. An irate parent yells at them for making out on the merry-go-round in view of children; have they no shame.

She makes new friends, dozens, someone always at their place as Tomo plays them new tracks, smoke weed together, and watch the oil projector light show make shapes on the ceiling. They talk about the future, fame, and world domination.

They don’t discuss babies because neither of them care for that sort of shit — but they do talk about moving into a bigger place together, maybe getting a dog or two — the breed is subject of many arguments.

[ MARCH ] In peak puppy fever, Emma adopts a two year old rescue bulldog named Tito. It’s the first, tiny sign of a crack in their relationship, of dissent — she thinks she sees Tomo glare at the precious pup when he thinks she isn’t looking. But maybe she imagined it. He does shed and slobber uncontrollably after all, and her boyfriend happens to be a clean freak.

[ JULY ] That summer, Emma braves a plane once more to see Tomo play in Atlanta. His set is off the walls and for the first time, she is amazed to see just how many fans he has, how far this boyfriend of hers has come from making tracks in his living room. It’s just too bad she is fast asleep when he tiptoes out of their hotel room to meet one of said fans for a back-alley blowjob.

They roadtrip across the South to play some more venues and the pattern repeats itself in Louisiana, Texas, New Mexico. She wakes up in a cold sweat one night in Vegas, confused as to why he’s gone. “Out getting food. Got hungry.” The message hits her in a weird place, but she is tired, sleepy, and in a haze; Emma accepts, does not question. He even returns with some Taco Bell for her.

Timeskip — 3 years:

[ APRIL 2018 ]

Emma is on her hands and knees in a bathroom, vomit dripping off the toilet rim. She can’t remember how or why she got here, but she’s here. Everything seems to be swimming backwards. Eventually she is able to collect herself off the floor, splash water against her face and wall-to-wall stagger back out of the bathroom. It didn’t work, she’s purged the worst of it but still feeling funny. “Oh, Emma, there you are.” A man’s hands wrap around her. He says he’s friends with Tomo. Says he’ll take her to him. Fade to black.

Waking up with strange bruises should not become a norm, but it does. Emma dismisses it, goes to work, does her best.

Things with Tomo are a violent rollercoaster; some days are great, some days nondescript; and some days downright nightmarish. They fight, throw shit, break shit, yell at each other. Things almost border on the unacceptable as words turn into threats, threats turn to action. A hand around the throat; a body pinned to the wall — her body, of course. His weed grinder he threw that hit her in the head which he swore he’d meant to only toss at the wall. It never crosses a line into the unacceptable, though. That’s what Emma tells herself. He might push her down on the bed, sure, but a bed was soft. He might squeeze her throat in the heat of an argument, but never so much that she’s passing out. He doesn’t hit, kick, or punch her. That was what abusers did, not him. 

She tells herself he can��t help it, his mother used to punish him and his father didn’t love him and now he lashes out the only way he knows how, on the only person he can. He didn’t grown up in as loving a home like she did. He had his reasons. It was okay. They were okay. And the makeup sex afterwards? The best ever.

[ MAY 2018 ]  A month later and Emma is walking in on some girl riding Tomo’s dick like the world was ending, right there on their couch. On their goddamn couch they picked out together, hauled up the stairs with the delivery men. Somehow, the worst part about it all, Emma’s fucked up brain tells her, is that Tito is there to witness it. Her innocent, furry son, witnessing his ‘dad’ for all intents and purposes, cheating on his mom. A ridiculously thought but one she has nonetheless as she’s driving away, Tito next to her in the passenger seat. She goes to sleep at a friend’s and sobs the entire night.

Despite herself, she doesn’t break up with him; but the rift is a mile wide and constantly palpable. Tomo becomes relentlessly apologetic. Not only does he beg forgiveness, he does it live on-air at a radio station, on social media, Emma bombarded by strangers she doesn’t know writing her to take him back. Then he goes and uses her personal kryptonite pulls a Lloyd Dobler outside her work with a Cocorosie song she was absolutely weak for. She hates making a public scene but the sentimental part of her is melting at the gesture, the boombox, all of it. Emma stays. He’d been a shitbag, but he was her shitbag, with all his lovable and terrible qualities wrapped into one person, and she just had to take the shit with the good. Because there was no one else she’d rather be with, ripping side-stitches from too much laughter at four in the morning, tears in her eyes for a good reason this time, from one of his horrifying jokes. 

He was hers and she was his, that’s just how it was to be. Well, as much as she could call him hers when he seemed to be everybody else’s in the process.

Emma does ridiculous, degrading, uncomfortable things in the name of love, and yet in the end she can’t hold on to the love she had for him in the beginning. Way back when they were going up on that ferris wheel at the pier and he looked at her like he had nothing but love in this world, for her. That was what hurt the most, because now the ferris wheel only went down.

There are threesomes, fivesomes, sixsomes, so many bodies in between hers and the one she loves, all in the name of exciting him, holding onto him, trying to be something for him that measured up to Enough. But none of it is enough. None of it makes him happy, nor did it make her happy. She gives him an inch and he takes a mile and then demands more, smiling with blood in his mouth.  She breaks down and becomes something she doesn’t recognize in the mirror. Whether it was an act of revenge or desperation, or finally wanting to give him a taste of his own medicine, Emma sleeps with Corey, one of his best friends. She takes pictures, sends them to him “by accident”. She hates herself through it all, every moment of it, mostly for what he made her into. And yet, underneath all the layers of attempts at hurting him she was really just crawling on all fours, begging him to love her again, need her and want he the way he did in the beginning. Craving to get that first hit back, the one she had been on a residue high off of for four years, the one that now tasted metallic and rancid in her throat.

The worst part? Tomo doesn’t care. He texts her back, telling her to have fun, to send more pictures. She’s never felt this hollow, this empty, this non-entity of a being. The day of her high school graduation flashes in her mind, her dad telling her to never lose her identity, the core of what made her, her. Emma took that core and probably threw it into the Pacific. Somewher between Japan and California, it lies at the bottom of the ocean. 

[ APRIL 2019 ]

Turns out, Emma could draw a line, and that line was becoming accessory to a drug deal. She knew Tomo sold on the side to make up for all the money going into the records, but it had always been a few pills here and there, nothing big. But this? Fentanyl, Xanax, bricks of coke and hash? It was a lot. It was too much.

He sells the drugs and her to go with it, and that’s the end right there. The package she delivers to the apartment he asks her to deliver it to turns into a hostage situation, and she leaves hours later, bruises and caked blood on her. She can’t go home, doesn’t want to. She wants to jump off the bridge she’s crossing from Oakland back to the city. Any bridge, any of them would do. She understands why people jump from the Golden Gate now, or maybe always had. She was there now, climbing the railings, she was ready. She wanted that plunge so badly, would be sad to leave one parent, but good to be reunited with the other. Maybe there she’d be happy, maybe there she’d find peace. 

She calls Ben that night. She’s dry eyed and unemotional, but as soon as she gets the right words, verbalizes her situation, she’s sobbing again. Tomo is out of the city, across the country in Philly on tour. Now was the time, if there was any time for it. She’s not even done with the call when Ben is getting in his car to drive to her. It’s 6 hours from Ojai to San Francisco; he tells her he’ll be there in five. She never deserved a friend like him and never would, Emma thinks as she packs, hastily because somehow Tomo walking through the front door as a ‘surprise’ wouldn’t be out of the question. In the end, she can’t pack everything, has to leave so much behind, her records, books, knickknacks. Five years in this apartment and she’s leaving all of it behind, making a getaway in the middle of the night like some kind of burglar.

By three in the morning he’s here, and they get to packing her suitcases in the car, stacking them as best as they fit in his trunk and backseat, all of Tito’s things and then Tito on a bed in the seat in the back. Emma is in busy mode, stacking and packing everything as fast she can, still somewhere in the back of her mind thinking Tomo would appear at the last minute, and how with Ben here, things could get ugly. She doesn’t want them to get ugly. She loved him far too much to see him have to deal with Tomo, the only person in that specific firing line should be her and no one else.

They drive off. She only feels herself unclench an hour out of Daly City, somewhere in between the Bay and Southern California, where she can exhale. She’s still looking behind them constantly, wondering if every passing car could somehow be him. The saddest, most desperate part of all this that a part of her wants him to have followed. One last ditch attempt to get her back. An all out attempt, one where he would get on both knees and apologize, swear to never be this way again and follow through with it, because he was her person, he was her only person, there was nobody else in this world for her but him, but what do you do when you had to run from your person in the dead of night?

She pulls her raincoat tighter when they stop to get gas, a cold and windy middle of nowhere gas station. She’s not sure how she ends up embracing him, but they’re in it, and feeling someone’s arms around her, somebody that actually cares, who’d never hurt her, who was family, was her mom and his sister and everybody she loved rolled into one, feels like a reprieve. She feels like dirt for making him do this, making him worry, Emma was a piece of shit for that.

She says as much. He tells her to shut up, that she’s nothing like that and this was nothing that he wouldn’t have done for her on any night, any time at all. And maybe that, that was the night she fell in love with him a little bit, or realized she had always been, all along, but God likes to play Lucifer’s games with the little lives he watches over, and it wasn’t made to be, too late anyway since she’d left her heart in somebody else’s hands where it would stay. And he doesn’t need a mess like her anyway, just thinking of the name Catarina was enough. It had been five years but she still remembered the day like yesterday. How low he had been back then. How they would get high together and feel miserable together because at least they had that. They had Weetzie too, but she hadn’t experienced loss like they had, she sympathized but she’d never know what this particular slice of hell was like. But Ben and Emma knew. She knew it in that part of her ribs that met his, and she did not know what she would do if she didn’t have that, have Ben Abrams in her life. 

[ MARCH 2021 ]

Fast forward two years, and the ex is in town. Here, in Los Angeles. That very ex you worked so hard to forget, to heal from, to act like he wasn’t there. And yet, reminders of him were constantly there, everywhere. She doesn’t tell her friends, doesn’t tell anybody he’s in town, just balks when his so called best friend turns up in her neighborhood. She nearly grabs Tito and runs the other way, but it had been too late for that and they have a forced, awkward catch-up. He’s oblivious to anything happening, had barely known about her and Tomo breaking up. Figures, Emma thought, that he would act like nothing happened at all.

He’s in town, and every day she goes to work dreading something happening. She thinks she sees him outside the tattoo parlor’s window, but it’s someone else entirely. She’s losing it again, losing sleep, falling prey to her nightmares. Has a boyfriend now but even that doesn’t help, if anything, he’s a guilty reminder of just how little progress she had made, because she couldn’t devote the time and attention somebody like that needed in her life. Not when all she could think about was him.

The worst part is that once he’s long gone again, back up north, she’s feeling that hollow feeling again. Feeling upset that he didn’t seek her out, didn’t come see her. Even though she knew what an unmitigated disaster that would’ve been, the horrible, rotten part of her wanted it. Of course it wanted it. Two years and her skin still itched for him like an addict longing to be in the throes of fullblown relapse. But he didn’t track her down, call, or text, and that was that. Her only run-in with him involves a party flyer papered on a wall, his name in big stylized letters as the headlining DJ at the club. She stares at that flyer for a little too long, it burns itself in her eye like she’d looked at the sun for too long. And then she does the worst thing she could probably do, go on instagram. Only to find he has a new girlfriend. A brunette with tattoos who looked fun and flirty and everything she had been all those years ago.

That was the last tip of the scale. She reactivates her Tinder, finds some half okay looking guy, makes plans to meet him that night. It’s terrifying, so terrifying going through with, but she gets sufficiently drunk, then high on top of that, and goes through with it. Thinking of another boy’s name the entire time, his face, his body, hands and all the rest. Twelve hours later she’s leaving his apartment, no longer the nun of two years she’d become and feeling shitty about that on top of everything else. It was probably time to go see Karen again she thinks, smoking a cigarette under the sun that melts her while waiting for her Uber home. Thanks friends, thanks family, I’ve made terrific process with all your help and am now back to square one. Thanks for everything.  

Maybe in a decade’s time. 

Maybe she’d be over it by then.  

[perseusjackson-jasongrace]

Fluff 11 or Random 23? 🥰

Hello my wonderful darling human! I am eternally sorry I took so long to get this to you. I was writing a test and then I had a headache and there was a looottt going on but I hope you'll forgive me and the fic will make up for it! I managed to get both into this fic (kind of). I edited one a bit.

It is a surprise, to me and probs you, that I didn't write Jercy for this??? I know I'm dying from the shock too. But here you go my love!

Masterlist for more crackships and other stuff

Fluff 11: “Are you flirting with me?” “You finally noticed?”

Random 23:   “I’m bulletproof…but please, don’t shoot me.”

Piper McLean is buzzing with energy, chaotic, vibrant energy. It's like an electric beat in her veins and she can't help but bounce with it. Today she is finally going to tell her best friend of four years, finally going to admit what everyone else already knew. A shuffling from behind her catches her flitting attention.

"Hello Miss McQueen," Brown curls and a troublemaker's grin step into her bedroom.

"Hello Leo," She sighs softly, hugging him.

"How are you and why do you look like your fight or flight instinct has been activated?"

"I'm gonna do it." She took a deep breath, "I'm gonna tell her today."

Those warm brown eyes widen, "Really?"

"Yes." Her nod is firm, "I can't keep dancing around it and I need to know."

The grin she is met with could make fires dim with its brightness, "I'm so proud of you!"

"Thank you," She squeezes her friend, pouring all her gratitude into the hug.

"And hey," He pulls back to look into her, "It's gonna be amazing."

She doesn't let him see her tears of hope and gratefulness.

An hour later she pulls up to a house in a quiet neighborhood and disrupts the peace with the loud hoot of her car.

"Ay yo WiseGirl," She bellows, "If you don't get your cute butt out here I'm not getting you taco bell on the way home."

There is a crash from inside and then the door is flinging open and blonde curls are flying towards her car.

"How dare you bribe me with taco bell!" Annabeth Chase gasps, flopping into the front seat with a glare.

Piper smiles innocently, "When I think of another way to drag you from your books I'll stop."

Her friend huffs, "How do you even know I was working?"

"Let's see," She holds up her fingers to count, "I'm one of your two best friends and Percy is with Jason so that rules out him. It's a Saturday afternoon which means you'll be doing next week's work because you finished last week's stuff yesterday night. I know you're not hanging with you family because you told me yesterday theyre going to the park. Oh and you have pen streaks on your fingers."

"I hate you."

"Lies and propaganda," She grins and then they're hugging each other.

"So what are we doing today?"

"We," Piper wiggles her eyebrows, "Are going laser tagging."

"Hell yes!" Annabeth squeals, high fiving her friend.

"Figured you'd enjoy it. You like any opportunity to pin me down."

"You know it McLean."

They arrive at LaserTaser some minutes later and Annabeth clambers out of the car, racing towards the building.

Piper sucks in a deep breath, trying to steel her nerves.

"You coming BeautyQueen?"

And then she's running after her friend, determined to have a goodtime.

"Hi," They smile at the front desk employee and friend.

"You two are back here?" Nico di Angelo sighs, but they can see the twinkle in his black eyes.

"What can we say Di Angelo," She smirks, "We can't get enough of your charming personality."

He snorts and rings up their request, "More like the only way you can play handsy without getting in trouble."

Piper goes bright red and she looks down, unaware of Annabeth's ruby ears and cheeky smile.

"You know where everything is. Try not to jump through a nonexistent window again."

"That was one time Nico," Annabeth groans, "How was I supposed to know the glass I was seeing was a reflection of water?"

"Maybe," He looks at her dramatically, "Just maybe we can feel before we jump?"

Piper laughs as her friend flips him the bird and stalks off.

"Goodluck Miss McLean!" He smiles, "She's going to give you hell today."

"What's new?" The sparkle in her eyes reflects rainbows as she turns away.

"Are you coming Pipes? Or you just gonna chat up MagicBoy over there?"

"You jealous Chase?"

"I'm gay!" Nico yells.

"Shut up both of you and let's do this."

Pipee waves goodbye to their little Italian friend and joins Annabeth by the gear station. Finally they're all set up and ready to annihilate one another.

"You look delicious WiseGirl," She surveys her friend, distressed Jean-shorts and her white crop top almost completely covered by the heavy vests they have to wear. But it's the determined gleam in her grey eyes and the escaping blonde curls tied in an I-mean-business ponytail that Piper is really focusing on.

Annabeth sets those intimidating storms on her, "I hope you're ready to lose."

"I'm ready to comfort you when you do."

"As if," Her friend takes one step closer.

"Watch me Chase," She mirrors her.

"Oh I plan to," They're so close now those blonde curls are brushing against her cheeks.

"Scared?"

"Only in your dreams." She scoffs.

"That's not all you're doing in my dreams."

Annabeth barks out a laugh, "Kinky bitch. Are you flirting with me right now?"

"You finally noticed?"

"We do not have time for this BeautyQueen."

"Hey you two," Nico shouts from the otherside of the room, "Either make out or start playing. I have other customers waiting."

"Shut up Di Angelo," They both yell. And then they slip into the dark room, put on their 3D glasses and press the giant red button that starts the game.

"Goodluck McLean," Annabeth's smile is wicked.

"Same to you."

The room plunges into complete blackness before neon lights slowly flicker on. The room is tilting and projecting in front of Piper's eyes as she attempts to make her way to a safer spot. Playing normal laser tag is a feat in itself but playing 3D tag, gods she always comes out feeling like she stepped onto Venus.

A shuffling from some way away grabs her attention and she slowly, cautiously tiptoes towards the sound. She spots a dark figure running towards a barrel and with a secret smile aims her gun and shoots.

The beeping goes off and a long string of curse words follow.

"Rethinking your strategy WiseGirl?"

"I'm going to get you for that," Is the snarky reply.

Piper quickly makes her way to the little hut on the far side of the room while her opponent is indisposed. She has about thirty seconds before Annabeth can participate again. Slamming into the wood that looked much further away than it was she bites down a scream and crouches under the low roof. She can hear her friend on the other side stalking through various boxes and barrels, so she takes a deep breath and let's down her guard. Her shoulder is throbbing and she knows she's going home with yet another bruise from this cursed place. Why on earth do they insist on coming here without padding?

She can feel a presence from behind her and before she can react her vest is beeping, red lights flashing all over it.

"Dammit Chase!"

"Not my fault you were daydreaming."

"I was actually trying to see how bad my bruise was.

"Aw poor baby," Piper can hear her friend's pout and her heart skips a beat.

"Did you smack into the hut again?"

She frowns, "This is not funny. My shoulder is permanently blue."

"Come here you darling thing."

"How do I know you're not gonna shoot?"

"You're bulletproof right now, but I promise I won't."

Piper mulls it over for a second before getting up from her cramped position and feeling her way to her friend. Her hand knocks into an arm and she stops.

"Lets see?"

She pulls her shirt-sleeve down, and shuffles into the dim light on a nearby wall.

"Theres nothing there but it does look a little red." Annabeth observes, brushing her fingers over the area.

Piper winces, more from cold fingers rather than pain but her friend mistakes it.

"Sorry," The blonde mutters, "Here, I'll kiss it better."

And then Annabeth's lips are brushing against her shoulder and Piper can't help but inhale sharply. Her knees go weak as she falls back against the wall.

"You okay there BeautyQueen?" Blonde brows furrow, looking down at her.

"Fine," She manages to choke out.

They stare at each other, eyes like thunderstorms and chocolate opals. The air is static, breathless with anticipation. It's now or never.

"Annabeth I—" Piper swallows.

Her vest makes a loud beep and peals of laughter surround her.

"Shouldn't have let your guard down McLean."

Piper growls and pulls at her friend's hand before she can walk away. She swops their positions, Annabeth's back now against the wall, and their bodies flush against each other.

"Can't handle losing?" The blonde smirks.

"Annabeth Chase," She breathes, "I've been wanting to say this since we were thirteen and now that I've worked up the courage I am not letting a stupid laser tag game ruin that."

A perfect brow raises slightly but she doesn't stop her.

"I like you. Like like you like you. Actually I may love you but we don't have to discuss that right now. I'm totally okay staying friends but I needed you to know. It was eating me up inside." She takes a deep breath and stepped back. "Okay we can go back to the game now just had to get that off my chest."

"Are you done?" A smirk plays at her friend's lips.

"What do you mean am I done? I just confessed my love for you and you're gonna ask me if I'm done? How about 'oh Piper I feel the same way.' Or 'no ew Piper I don't want to date you.' Are you done? Ugh why do I even like you?"

"Shut up BeautyQueen." Annabeth laughs.

And then she cups Piper's cheek and pulls their faces together.

Those grey eyes flash with amusement, hope, wonder, love. "I like like you too."

Their lips meet and Piper McLean knows she never wants to go laser tagging with someone else ever again.

Suddenly a vest lights up red and a robotic voice says "Game Over. Wise Girl wins.

"Fucking dick!" She nips Annabeth's lip.

"I don't lose."

"Funny I feel like the winner today."

"I think we both are."

They smile into each other and the stars dance home.

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #338

“i can’t decide if you’re wearing me out, or wearing me well”

Are you a fan of techno? I've gotten more into it lately, actually. I've never minded it. Who’s your favorite horror movie villain/monster? Pyramid Head, though he's called Red Pyramid Thing in the movies. Do you have a favorite muscle car? Nah. I'm not big into cars. What would be a total deal-breaker for you, relationship-wise? You so much as lift your hand at me, bye, motherfucker. Would you consider yourself to be accepting of others? Yes, but not as much as I used to be. There are certain opinions I just don't tolerate in people anymore; I feel like by staying associated with people whose views invalidate or in any way harm others (racism, homophobia, transphobia, etc.), you're on the side of evil as well, even if indirectly. However, I genuinely do feel I have a wide range of viewpoints I'm willing to accept in others, even if I don't agree with them. Are you flirtatious? No. I think I'm only capable of flirting with someone I'm already with and very comfortable around. I'd feel way too shy and awkward otherwise. Have you ever just felt "drawn" to someone, but you didn’t know why? "Didn't know why," no. I've felt drawn to people with good reason, like if I was romantically interested in them. Is there anyone you currently want to reach out to? There's a number, honestly. Especially with the aid of therapy, I'm being motivated to strengthen bonds with old friends and/or acquaintances via Facebook. Freddy or Jason? I think Jason is scarier. Freddy tends to come across as cheesy for me. Have stickers or gems on your cell phone? Nah. Ever teased your hair? Bitch I damn well tried in high school because I wanted the ~ l e g i t ~ emo hair, but mine was just too heavy to hold, at least with the hairspray my sister had. Have any friends with benefits? Nah, that's never been my thing. Ever lost of bunch of valuable information? Ummm I don't believe so. I've lost massive RP posts before, but I can't really call those "valuable information." What drinks or food make you hyper? None, really. Most expensive thing you ever bought? With my own money, my snake. She's a champagne morph ball python. What type of toothpaste do you use? Crest. How much time to spend putting on makeup daily? Zero. When listening to a song, what do you listen for (lyrics, bass, beat, ect)? The beat, more than anything else. What is the color of your toothbrush? It's a white electric one. What is your favorite color(s) of eye-makeup? Black. Just black. Are you sexually active? I'm not. Do you have sensitive skin? Very. Are you attracted to several guys atm? I'm actually not attracted to any guys in my personal life atm. How many toilets are in your house? Two. Do you have an older sister? Excluding the one I don't know, I have three older sisters. Favorite song by Owl City? Probably "Hot Air Balloon," but I don't know many at all. What color is your mum’s car? White. Do you truly understand the (LDS) Mormon religion? I don't know what "LDS" means, but as my former best friend developed into a Mormon, I learned some stuff from her in her self-discovery. I don't remember a lot of it, not that I knew all that much in the first place. Where do you keep your kitty litter box? Ugh, Mom's unmovable about it being in my fucking room for some reason. And we have an extra goddamn room no one uses yet. Roman's shit STINKS, like we think something might actually be wrong, but nope, it has to stay in here. e_e It would literally inconvenience nobody if we moved it in the spare room. Are you a lighter complexion than your father? MUCH lighter. He's very tan. Do you like apricots? No. Solid soap bar or liquid body wash? 100% body wash. Bar soap slips so easily, and as someone who lives with another person, I'm not rubbing my body with the same bar my mother uses, no offense to her. Sharing it's just gross. Where do you live (country or state)? Shitty 'ole North Carolina. Do you use plastic, wooden, or wire hangers? I think we have a mix of them, actually. What is your favorite shade of yellow? I only like pastel yellow. Otherwise, it's one of my least favorite colors. Are there any shades of blue that you don’t like? If so, which ones? Ehhh not really. What is something you want to accomplish before you turn 30? God, can I please have a stable career by then. Who has the best decorated house in your town? I don't know. We live in a cul de sac community thing where it's just houses next to houses, so there's a lot to choose from. I don't pay attention to them. What is your favorite part of Halloween? The decorations. Do you feel a connection to the moon? "As above, so below," as the saying goes. What does your heart long for? Peace and contentness with myself. Did you decorate a pumpkin this year? Last year, I didn't. I do want to this year, though, if I can just think of a really good idea. I have to be motivated. What are some fall activities you would do with your kids? I'm not having kids, but I'll follow along, hypothetically. With how much joy Halloween brought me as a kid, I'd want to do SO much as a family with them. Homemade decorations, carving or painting pumpkins together, and hell yeah I'd be taking them trick-or-treating once I felt they were ready and they wanted to. I'd be one of those parents that probably spends too much on whatever costumes they want, haha... Oh, and then besides Halloween, I'd certainly rake leaf piles together for them to jump and play in. This question has brought to mind like ONE thing I could enjoy as a parent, haha. Have you ever seen a fox? I have; besides in a zoo setting, I've seen one or two in the wild run out of sight, and I also found one poor fellow as roadkill that had been disemboweled by I'm assuming vultures. With my whole roadkill photography thing, I literally almost kneeled into a strand of intestines I didn't see at first. :x What color are the squirrels where you live? We only have brown ones. Is there anything about Halloween you find offensive? lol no What do the trees look like where you live? Lots, and lots, and LOTS of pine trees... There are others, but I'm not well-informed on tree species and such. Oh, then of course there are dogwoods (our "state tree"), which are unmistakable because they smell like fucking manure. What is your dream vacation? Maybe the mountains on the western side of NC during the fall... ugh, that would be breathtaking. We actually have an abandoned The Wizard of Oz-themed park around there that allows tours at certain times of the year, and I'd love to visit and photograph there. As well, western NC has the zoo, which would be spectacular to visit with autumn weather and, once again, load up on photos. Did you like field trips when you were a kid? I LOVED field trips. Do you find museums boring or interesting? Very interesting! Would you ever wear a shirt with your country’s flag on it? No. I'm not patriotic enough at all for that. What’s a medicine that makes you sleepy? Historically, larger doses of Klonopin can knock me the fuck out. Do you like bath bombs? Never used one, because I don't do baths. Who are your favorite small YouTubers? I'm going to guesstimate you mean less than 1M subs as "small," because I really don't know what you consider to fit that description. I watch a lot of people with less than 1M, so it's hard to say, but lately it's probably been a let's player John Wolfe. He's really funny. Then there's some tarantula YouTubers, along with the animal educator Emzotic... and really just many others. I think most of the people I watch actually have sub-1M, but more than 500k. Who are your favorite big YouTubers? Markiplier is absolutely, positively #1. I also really enjoy Snake Discovery, GameGrumps, Jeffree Star (don't judge me ok, he's a fuckin hoot), and while I haven't watched them in years, Good Mythical Morning will ALWAYS be deeply, deeeeply embedded in my heart. What was your favorite girl group when you were growing up? Ummm probably the Spice Girls? Have you ever used an outhouse? Ugh, yes, at old childhood sports games. What was the last good cause you donated towards? When I cut off like 8+ inches of hair to accomplish the style I have now, I donated it to Children With Hair Loss. My hair has always been mega-thick and healthy, so why in the world waste it? One of my most cherished items is the certificate I got in return many months later that my donation had been used. Have any of your exes gotten married or had kids since your breakup? I haven't had contact with Juan in many years, don't know what Tyler's up to either, and I haven't spoken to Jason since 2017, so. I'm very doubtful he's married or has kids yet, though, just knowing him and how "I need to be fully prepared for this" he is with big life stuff like that. Does it bother you when people get super emotional? Not at all. I'll do my all to comfort them. Have you ever worked in a restaurant? No. Do you get a lot of thunderstorms where you live? Depends on the time of year. Summertime? Brief but super intense thunderstorms every late afternoon. What was the last drive-thru you went through? Taco Bell w/ Mom. Do you know anyone who claims they can see/feel spirits or other supernatural ‘things?’ No. Do either of your parents have a mental illness? My mom has depression, and Mom is also convinced Dad has either depression masked as anger and/or bipolarity, but following the divorce, I don't see it in him at all. He's never seen a doctor in that field to be diagnosed with any mental illness. What fun things are there to do where you live? Jackshit. Do you know anyone with a really poorly-trained dog? Mother of fucking god, yes. My little sister lives with her best friend, and said friend has a colossal black lab named Hudson that is absolutely uncontrollable because she neglects the shit out of him. Won't listen to you even if it saved his life. He jumps on you, barks endlessly, and if he escapes the house? Good fucking luck getting him inside. She has absolutely no right to own a dog with how shitty of an owner she honestly is. When you were growing up, did your family rent or own your home? They owned it. The idiots who were moving in after us accidentally burnt the place to a fucking crisp, and my parents were SO not happy to lose that house because people were dumb enough to place boxes atop the goddamn stove. Do you do meal-prepping? No. Do you know anyone who got preggo less than a year into their relationship? Multiple people, not that that's my business. What did you dream about last night? I don't remember it clearly, other than I was with Jason and his mother was also present. What's the biggest age difference you've ever had in a relationship? That would have been with Juan, but I don't remember exactly how old he was. I just know I was a freshman and him a senior that got held back a year or so in HS. If you could save one animal from ever becoming extinct, what animal would you pick? Probably bees, given how vital they are. Name the coolest thing about one of your grandparents. My maternal grandmother worked at Disney World. I can't remember what her position was, though. Do you ever eat peanut butter straight from the jar? If I want a healthy snack, sometimes I'll have a scoop. Do you prefer your clothes loose or close fitting? They need to be loose. Favorite thing you’ve ever painted? This big painting of meerkats grooming on burlap I did in high school. Do you always wear a bra? I question the self-love of anyone who can sleep with a bra on. ;__; Do you normally finish one book before starting another? Oh yes, I can't read more than one at a time. Do you prefer reading books, comic books, manga/graphic novels, magazines, or the newspaper? The normal book. Do you know how to play chess? I don't. Are you watching anything? No, but I do have Manson's "Third Day of a Seven Day Binge" on in another tab. What is your blood type? A-. Has anyone ever borrowed something from you and never returned it? Yes. Do you twitch when you're falling asleep? Dude, I more than "twitch." I can just suddenly spaz out and look like I'm seizing for a moment. Another side effect of my nightmare suppressant medication. Are any of your pets “overweight”? No. Has anyone ever bought you a ring? My mom has bought me a few, and Jason gave me one for one of our anniversaries. Where was the last place you took a bath/shower, other than your own house? My sister's place. What first attracted you to the last person you kissed? Just how unique and happy that way she is. And her pretty much undying loyalty. Has someone ever taken a pic of you while you were making out with someone? No, considering I wouldn't go that far with someone unless we were alone. Had a crush on someone you thought shared your sexuality, turns out didn’t? Yes. What’s your favorite color to wear? Black. Does it gross you out if a guy has hair on his chest? I personally don't find an excess of it attractive, but it doesn't "gross me out." If they bathe themselves just like everyone else, why should it? Do you think sexuality is a choice or not? It is absolutely not a choice. If it was, I'd assume most people would choose to be straight, given phobias, hatecrimes, etc... I could write an essay on this. Do you like industrial piercings? Yeah. Do you think stretched ears are disgusting? "Disgusting" is, once again, the wrong word. Gauges don't really gross me out - hell, I want tiny ones -, but they can reach a size that, to me, is not visually appealing. Did you watch animated Barbie movies when you were little? I do remember loving Princess and the Pauper as well as the Rapunzel one; my sister was addicted to them. Oh yeah! Then there was the Swan Lake one that she adored, too. We usually watched movies together. Do you like fruit in your cereal? Big No. Do you like raw vegetables? Ugh, no. Do you listen to A Day to Remember? I do! They're on my list of faves. Do you like funnel cake? I actually don't. Have you ever been with someone while they were getting a tattoo? Yuh.

[scholarhect]

2 3 15 babey

HI BRO ILY

2. what’s your taco bell order

crunchwrap supreme. maybe a burrito, idk. i had a bean burrito today but i thought it was gross. plus the red freezy thing (starburst flavored, i think). except today i had baja blast and it was pretty good

i want you to know that this question is the entire reason i made this post. this was the germ, the mustard seed. “ask game: what’s your taco bell order”. and the rest was history

3. tell me about that one thing you wish someone would ask you about

(spoilers for tma if anybody’s gonna listen someday, i guess. literally major spoilers for seasons 1-4. turns out i don’t know how to shut up. thanks for indulging me)

okay. okay i’m gonna talk to you specifically. listen to me, i am talking directly into your ear now. i wish for the opportunity to tell you about ms melanie king. you’ve already heard about her as the inspiration for my haircut and also my fishnet outfit from that time i dragged you to that thrift thing, but she is such an icon. first of all she’s a YOUTUBER. (not like a vlogger, i guess, she hosts a show on youtube. but a youtuber nonetheless.) she hunts GHOSTS. on YOUTUBE. so, she shows up at The Magnus Institute, London, to tell them about that time she saw a ghost (but it was like ... a weird ghost. not a normal ghost. you know). immediately she insults the guy’s shitty old tape recorder that she is expected to speak into, in the year 2016. so they get snippy with each other and end up in a full-blown “The Girls Are Fightinggg” passive aggressive argument because they both view each other as pathetic, fake, not-respectable paranormal investigators. (and they both have A Thing about being respected & taken seriously.) like it turns out that the institute has a fucking laughable reputation in The Academic Community because they’ll just take a statement from anybody about their supposed supernatural experience. meanwhile jon thinks the people on ghost hunt shows are charlatans because their goal is entertainment and, yes, they “do ham it up a bit for the cameras.” ANYWAY. she’s all dragging the magnus institute and he’s like. “but you’re here.” it’s very funny. turns out she can’t tell the Serious Academic Community about her experience because it’s so wild that they’d laugh her out of her career. so she’s here. so she’s got no choice but to tell her story. so the episode continues, and ends, okay, and you’re like, “wow that was a fun and iconic one-off character. right?” WRONG.

season two... she’s BACK baby! after her experience at the military hospital, she wants to do research on War Ghosts, but the magnus institute wouldn’t let her in bc she didn’t have the Academic Clout for it, so the only way is to get an employee to vouch for her. so. she goes to jon like “please you’re the only friend i have here i need help” and they DO fight again but he does agree to help her (because they’re the same person. they are *spiderman pointing meme*). so, later, she’s back. she did some research on War Ghosts and broke into an old train graveyard (which is a thing apparently) and got stabbed by the ghost of an army medic and she got caught and arrested and she was screaming about how She Got Stabbed By A Ghost and somebody took a video and posted it online and then she BECAME A MEME for a couple days and nobody wanted to associate with her anymore. rip. but now she likes jon and she’s here to say goodbye (because she’s going to india) (she also sets off the climax of the season because she just happens to be that one person who can see that the monster pretending to be a major character is not, in fact, that character. she’s like “oh, which sasha? the new one? or the old one?” and jon’s like “what the fuck” and she’s like “there’s definitely two sashas. are you trying to gaslight me.” but whatever)

ok this is literally less than half her arc (i’ve covered. three episodes.) but this is long as fuck so i’ll wrap it up. “what a cool reoccurring character,” you may think! “i hope i get to see more of her!” well GUESS WHAT. she comes back from india (she’s been SHOT BY A GHOST) she wants to talk to jon but he’s not there (he was unfortunately in very close proximity to a murder and he’s on the run so he doesn’t get framed. double traumatic experience, very fun. anyway he’s staying at melanie’s friend’s house, whom she has conveniently namedropped a couple times so far (in the last episode she was like “she actually has nice things to say about you, why didn’t you tell me you knew her” and he’s like “we didn’t part on the best of terms”) because she is his ex-girlfriend, so, though he literally was just pretending that he didn’t know her, he now knows that she doesn’t hate him so he shows up at her place and she hides him from the cops because she’s literally the only person he knows outside work. but this isn’t about him.) so melanie has no job so elias is like “you want a job” and she’s like “sure?” so now she’s an archival assistant at the magnus institute (i realized i had to explain that. i don’t think you even know who elias is. head of the institute, everybody’s secretly evil boss, currently lowkey framing jon for the murder he committed. but lowkey) her coworkers don’t want her there because they’ve realized that their job is evil and they Physically Cannot Quit so they’re like “great now she’s stuck here too” but she doesn’t know that so she’s just like “why does everybody hate me. are you misogynists” because her Disrespect Alarm is going off in her head. and then they have a Department Meeting where jon comes back with an open knife wound on his neck and demands elias tell everyone about the TWO murders and then there’s a standoff situation where somebody wants to shoot elias but he’s “knife cat”ing at her and very dramatically forces her codependent friend slash partner (in the cop way not the gay way) to sign a contract as an archival assistant so that daisy (the cop with the gun) can’t hurt elias because, oh yeah, if he dies supposedly they all do too. so melanie is ... thoroughly disillusioned. and she becomes sullen, too, kind of. and she begins to try to murder elias. queen

things get worse (in a supernatural way. she gets Angry Knife Powers. there’s a Ghost Bullet from India lodged in her leg pumping murderous energy through her body and while she’s asleep jon removes it, it’s all very terrible.) but then she starts going to therapy because she wants to get better and she ends up making the difficult journey to Being Okay. (she also literally blinds herself to escape the institute, and that doesn’t really sound analogous to therapy out of context but it is, okay) and her arc is over and she’s the only character in the story who is currently Okay. we’re proud of her. her last appearance (so far. who knows what s5 has in store. hopefully not much) jon, who is in some deeeeep shit by this point, shows up asking for help, and she’s like “i can’t help you bc i can’t get dragged back into all that, but you’re always welcome in my life as a friend” which is not great for him at that point because he is kind of having a breakdown, but it’s still <3. much better than the beginning part of s4 when she wanted to kill him on sight. also she’s dating jon’s ex now lol

15. if somebody irl you didn’t know asked you how you feel about mcr what would you say (this question isn’t quite asking you how you feel about mcr, but it’s not not asking that)

i’d be like “yeah they’re pretty cool. i like them”

[datingintampafails]

Chapter 26: Jake* Part Four

Starting to go Sour.

He blows me off for a couple of days, he’s feeling crappy. Regardless, we are still texting each other throughout the day about this and that, and I am continuously checking on him. Trying to be upbeat or at least funny about it. He has a dark sense of humor and has joked about probably having a tumor, as he does later say he has to see a doctor at some point to make sure he isn’t having, as he said, a “brain stem problem.”

One can assume his boos are his own dogs, but for a second I thought he was talking about me and my dog. We continue to talk, I try to figure out when I will see him again. I’m just a bit attached. 

He gives me more details the next day about more health issues. He now has to have his wisdom teeth taken out.

I ask him why he thinks I won’t like him anymore, asking if it’s because he will be grumpy. Seeing as the current pain medicine makes him disgruntled and non-communicative, this is why I assume that that would be his expectations. He says that is why.

Although we chat every day, it isn’t until Friday, when I finally have a day off work that he subtly asks me to come over. That is, he asks if I am working, which is an indicator that he wants to spend time together. I have a couple of errands to run, but I tell him I will come over after that. I beat him to his place and had to wait for him in the driveway. I was hanging out with a friend that night for dinner, so I was going to hang out until more or less my friend was ready to hang out. 

Jake* excuses himself to the bathroom, rather, he tells me rather explicitly he needs to go take a shit. I’m sitting on the couch waiting for him to be done, he’s taking a bit. My friend texts me and says she is ready so I need to go. I give him another minute or so and when he doesn’t emerge, I say I gotta go, but he doesn’t hear me. I text him “Byeee” instead and he yells out “BYE!”  from the bathroom. As I leave, I send him a kiss emoji and say that I wouldn't kiss him goodbye on the toilet, to which he responds “smart.” We talk just a little the rest of the night, as he too is over at a friend’s house.

The next day, I am going to the beach with Ethan*, as I still owe him taking photos for his dating profile(s). Jake* more or less wants me to bail, not because of the history with Ethan*, but he wants to spend time with me instead. He has a couple of friends sleeping on his couch, so despite me saying I could come to see him before and after the beach, he says no since they’re still sleeping. While I’m on the way to his from dropping Ethan* back home, Jake* tells me that he wouldn’t be available now until 5 pm. This is a little irritating given I bumped up my beach trip so I could spend more time with Jake*, but I am understanding.

While I am driving, I have Apple Carplay, so Siri is reading me the texts. He does some dirty talk, and I ask him if he’s doing it on purpose because he knows I’m using Siri to text. He then just gets silly.

Honestly, though, this is the kind of energy I’m looking for in relationships. Just good fun. I get home and take a shower, he arrives maybe half an hour before 5. I don’t remember what happened that night.

In the early morning, this is Sunday now, we have a direct conversation. 

He must have been over very briefly because I sent him a text a couple of hours later, but only said two things, got a short answer back, and I gave a one-word text back to that one-word text. Four hours after that, I let him know I was playing Among Us. He is much more involved in this conversation and asks a lot of questions and asks for me to show him how to play. I say I will show him, but I never get a chance to. We then get into a conversation about Nintendo Switch. He says he wants to get one. I let him know I just bought one.

The prime word here, I think, is “we.” This for whatever reason is a woah moment for me. He is talking about a “we.” This moment, mixed with how things start to go in the not too distant future from here, utterly confuses me, as, at this time, he is using specific language indicating he sees a future. A “we should” do this or that, indicates it is for us both. A lot of planning goes into the games we are going to buy as well, where to look, etc. 

I’ve also mentioned a few times with him that I would like our dogs all to meet, mostly so that theoretically in the future we could not leave our dogs alone and just have them together when we are staying the night, etc. I am surprised to still be getting tepid responses. 

The next day, we are hardly talking. I am making efforts, but not getting much back. He has had more dental work and is taking a lot of naps. I am starting to go back to trivia nights with friends, and I invite him to join us. 

He responds “yeah true.” The trivia ends up being canceled because of the World Series while my friends and I are there but I hang out anyway. I mention Jake* to this group of friends for the first time, as I haven’t seen them since he and I started talking. My friend says him not wanting to come to trivia is a red flag, I become a little defensive at the moment, though in the end, I tell her she was right after things ended. 

Since there is a stolen base at the world series that night, Jake* tells me that Taco Bell is gonna have free Doritos Locos Taco. This turns into him saying he will bring me lunch the next day at work. He follows through, I give him my order, then I step away from work to be with him. He ordered a crunch wrap supreme, which they had sour cream on, even though he asked without due to his dairy allergy. He is a little bummed but eats his other taco without issue. Lunch starts nice, I’m happy to see him and cozy up to him when I’m done eating. We watch an episode of Legend of Korra on his phone. 

I am touching him and laying my head on his shoulder. Suddenly he blurts out, “why do you do that,” in a rather abrasive tone. I ask him what he’s talking about. He is saying that I am fidgety, anxious, all the time. “I don’t even know I’m doing it,” I responded. We had this conversation once before, but this time he seems more irritable about it. All I am doing is stroking his arms with my finger, something I have done with other men in my past, where it has never been a problem if anything something they liked. 

“So like I’m like this,” he demonstrates, leaning over staring forward, completely still, for a few moments. “And you are like,” he demonstrates shifting a few times, jittering. I am starting to tear up a little bit. I only have a few more minutes left on my break, and I hate to leave back to work in this state. I am no longer touching him and crossing my arms in the passenger seat, watching his phone, and more or less waiting for the episode to end so I can leave. As it is time to go and I’m leaving the car, he is upbeat as if he didn’t just yell at me. He says “see you later?” and I’m caught off guard, “are we going to see each other later?” I asked. “Yeah depending on work,” he replies. “Uh okay. Talk to you later.” I return to work, still misty-eyed, still hurt by him talking to me the way he did. 

He is acting as nothing happened and is debating eating his crunch wrap, I tell him not to. He says he is wanting dinner with me and wants to take me to one of his favorites around town. One which he had sent a menu of me to before. I pick him up on the way to my house and we go get ramen. It’s delicious. He has a few drinks since I am driving. We shared some sake, it was also delicious, and I have a jello shot drink. 10/10 would go again. Afterward we go to my place. I know I am going to need to get it off my chest how I feel about earlier today, and that it hurt me. 

[daredevile]

Illuminate [2/5]

Summary: James Barnes, an upcoming artist in Brooklyn lives a routine life. It’s all sunshine and rainbows until you show up at his building, hesitantly becoming his roommate.

Warnings: Swearing :)

A/N: Well, I haven’t updated this in a loong time. And we’re way past summer so @ruckystarnes, hope you’ll still accept this for your summer of aus challenge lol. So, here you go @halfpasttheworst, I know you’ve been the most excited to read the next chapter, this one’s for you :) [This was in my drafts for the last few months and I never finished it...] Anway, hope you like it!!

The sunlight created a warm glow around your figure, its intensity slowly pulling you from sleep. You yawned, rubbing your eyes while adjusting to the sudden burst of light. It was quiet, peaceful even, no pitter-patter of footsteps, just pin drop silence. Milton brushed past your feet, his tiny paws gliding on the floor. You walked into the living room, noticing his mug placed on the counter, calling out his name - to your delight - received no reply. You grabbed a pan and began making breakfast. The growling sensation in your stomach grew minute by minute as you added the ingredients. Relishing the calm atmosphere, you sat in the balcony, watching cars and people go.

“Hey, Buck,” A man burst through the door, scaring the living daylights out of you. He noticed your alarmed expression and raised one hand to calm you down, “Oh, sorry. You must be Y/N, I’m Steve,” He dropped a cardboard box on the counter before shaking your hand.

“It’s fine, James does that a lot,” You replied, distracted by the softness of his hand. Steve’s eyebrows shot up before smirking at the mention of his friend’s first name.

Steve walked towards the couch, you appreciated his casual, friendly manner. Wondering how Steve could have a friend like James, someone who’s the exact opposite of him. 

“So, what made you move in here? James is usually picky about roommates,” Steve stared at you intently, his blue eyes speckled with flecks of green and gold. They were mesmerising. 

“Believe me, I can tell,” You rolled your eyes, recalling yesterday’s events, “But, I was desperate and this was my only option,” 

Steve chuckled at your annoyance, “He’s not so bad once you get to know him,” 

It was silent for a moment before you spoke, “Can I ask you something?” He nodded, “What’s wrong with him?” Steve remained silent, his body tensed slightly. “Don’t get me wrong, the guy’s artsy, funny and all - but’s what’s his deal? He seems like someone who’d have lines of women throwing themselves at him.”

“The thing is... he has commitment issues. Almost everything in his life is temporary - he doesn’t like getting attached. He pushes it away before he has a chance to get hurt, it’s his coping mechanism,” Steve’s focus shifted to the cardboard box, “He wasn’t always like this,”

“Let me guess, Lara?” You asked, recalling Steve’s voicemail. He sighed at the mention of her name.

“They were good friends, they understood each other. She took care of him, he did the same for her. They were pretty much lost in their own world. He was convinced she was the one, but...” Steve shook his head, “They fought, argued and soon, they were set on different things. He knew it was coming to an end, didn’t accept it though. I used to find him completely wasted on the couch, destroying the apartment. There was nothing I could do to help him, he just never listened. One day, she left. No explanations,” 

You stared at the ground, catching the burst of colour on his paintings in the corner of your eye. No wonder he was closed off and blunt. It was silent again, neither you or Steve could find the words to talk.

“Oh good, you guys are done talking about me,” James pushed himself off the wall, “Gotta say, my legs were starting to cramp,” His eyes trailed the box, his expression was firm, “Thanks for dropping it off, Steve. I’ll see you later,”

“But—“

“I’ll see you later,” The tone of his voice was set, Steve sighed before standing up. He walked past his friend, patting his shoulder.

You scoffed at his expression, mumbling under your breath while his back was facing you.

“Listen, I need the house to myself. So keep yourself busy for the next 6 to 10 hours. Cool? Cool.”

“What? No!” You exclaimed, he paid no attention to your refusal, continuing to set up his easel.

“Wasn’t a request,” He replied, strands of his dark hair falling to the front of his face as he leant forward.

“Fine, you have problems. News flash buddy so does everyone else. If you think you’re tricking me into feeling sorry for you, you’ve got a long way to go.” You grabbed his arm, annoyed at his lack of attention towards you. He eyed your hands, before sighing. 

“You’re gonna stand there? That’s where my easel goes,” He chuckled at your expression, receiving a glare, “It was a joke,” He raised his hands up in defence.

Swirling the hot chocolate in your mug, you stepped out onto the balcony, listening to the sounds of the bustling city. For a few minutes, your eyes were absentmindedly set on the traffic below, until a sudden burst of music came from inside.

“Seriously?”

“What?” He asked innocently.

“I didn’t realise we were back in 1942. Dude, this music is old. Older than you even!”

A fake-laugh at your comment, “This is a classic, and it’s much better than the shit on the radio these days. Plus, it’s your fault, I told you to leave.” He said, waving the paintbrush at you. “Dude,” He resumes dabbing paint on the palette, furiously mixing colours on the wood. 

“Are you done?”

“Sorry?” You snap out of your daydream.

“Are you done ogling me from afar? If not, sorry to disturb, I know I can be devastatingly handsome. But, it’s distracting.” James sends a smug smile your way, you shook your head to cover the red on your cheeks.

“You wish.” Milton brushed against your foot, satisfaction written over his features.“So, what are you painting?”

--------

“Let me get this straight, he kicked you out of your own house.” Natasha raised her eyebrow, unable to process what just happened.

“Yes, but no, he just needed some space.” You shrugged, checking the time on your phone. Only 5 hours more.

“Oh please Y/N, he’s being a jerk. I can’t believe you’re actually listening to him!” She exclaimed, motioning Wanda to listen. “Aren’t you the same girl who stood in line at Taco Bell to get those free tacos even though there were two hundred people in front?”

“Whatever. Look, it doesn’t matter, I didn’t want to be there anyway.” 

“Now you’re defending up for him. See! This is exactly what Wanda said would happen.” 

“What?” You grabbed the packet of Doritos from the table, a smirk appeared on Natasha’s face.

“You like him.”

To be continued

[simptasia]

hc questions 5, 6, 7, 26, 44 & 47 for any or all of the science team members if you want? :)

oh bless!! thank you!! i’ll go with My Beloved Three, as usual, the sci trio

Cleanliness habits (personal, workspace, etc.)

my hcs on this have wobbled over time but overall i imagine dan, char and miles are all like, fairly, neat. tho they all have a tendency to leave papers around

and miles doesn’t make the bed as much. cuz imagining miles napping in rumpled quilts is a very cute mental image. hair disheveled

i think a good term for whats going on with dan and char is Organized Chaos. they’re both scientists (and a musician) for heck’s sake. it doesn’t look like they know what they’re doing but they do. but ur not gonna walk into their house(s) and be like “ugh gross what the fuck”. it’s nice. dan tends to make the bed

and i imagine dan keeps The Rat Room (yes, you heard me) immaculate because you reeeeeeally want that area to be well cared for

as for personal, lets get this out of the way, none of them are yucky. but dan is showering the least, just due to absent mindedness and hyperfixation. like ya really get into a project and then suddenly oh fuck i need a shower. but thats relative. he’s not a stinky gross boy. i imagine miles washes the most because like, he has body piercings and those GOTTA be cleaned every day, especially the downstairs one. miles values his dick, he don’t want an infection

also its amazing how much more you shower/bathe when you have a partner. or in this case, two partners. in general and for sexy purposes. hell yeah

well thats enough of me picturing these three showering, moving on

Eating habits and sample daily menu

its odd how often i’ve pictured these people eating together

dan: eats the least (and for once that isn’t a skinny joke, he could eat cake every day and he’d still be like that) because for the most part he doesn’t have much of an appetite. he eats what he needs, with random bursts of being really hungry (it’s a neurodivergent thing). i imagine he has a extra fondness for pasta and can put a surprising amount of it away when he wants to. tho typically for ease, he’ll stick to noodles. he takes his coffee mild and decaf. i hc him as a vegetarian due to not being able to process meat. his body also cannot handle alcohol and the one time he tried it he needed to be hospitalized. his ice cream preference is vanilla with chocolate sprinkles. or honeycomb. favourite vegetable is capsicum (which he’d call a bell pepper because he’s american), favourite fruit is pineapple. on that note he likes pineapple pizza. overall he eats simple but isn’t against trying new things. he has a very neutral disposition towards food

char: of the trio, i define charlotte as the Loud Passionate One so obviously being a big eater goes with that, likes a big breakfast (eggs, sausages, sometimes french toast!), sometimes skips lunch when she’s working at the museum due to focus, has a ravenous sweet tooth (i haven’t been subtle that i’ve made her ADORE chocolate but in general i see her liking sweet things), she can handle eating less tho because she’s gone on plenty of expeditions and such. so i think she eats a lot under normal circumstances because, like, she can. i don’t think i need to tell you what her ice cream or starbucks preferences are, do i? takes her coffee with three sugars, two coffees and creamy. likes mochas and hot chocolates too. with marshmallows. naturally, her fave kind of chocolate is galaxy because she is an English Woman. another fave of hers is cadbury’s creme eggs. but lest you think Good Lord Sapphire This Woman’s Entire Body Is A Sugar Molecule, don’t worry she does eat well. like veggies, fruits, meats, she’s fine. of meats, she has a fondness for fish (i have no further information, im terrible with fish. but she’s a pom, so...). favourite fruit is pear, favourite vegetable is peas. likes a bacardi, or rum and coke

miles: he eats a “normal” amount but he’s a grazer. which means, not so much Set Meal eating than eating/snacking thru out the day. he takes his coffee black, no surprise, but with sugar! see, its a metaphor. for him. likes fried eggs and hash browns. his fave food is very cheap mac and cheese. i think in general he really likes cheese. he doesn’t have complicated tastes, like, he grew up poor. he likes seafood (in particular fish tacos) but not lobster as he discovered when he got cashed up. he likes salty food but likes sweets too, in particular i can imagine him snacking on m&ms, skittles, gummi bears. little things. doesn’t have a fave vegetable because he doesn’t care enough, to him veggies are things to eat so you won’t die. doesn’t hate him but isn’t excited to eat ‘em. fave ice cream is mint choc. he’ll drink whatever (except for vodka) but is used to beer. thinks pineapple on pizza is an abomination, espech since he really likes pizza otherwise. i consider him a food opportunist, like, oh theres food here? yoink. or like, oh hey, if everybody else is eating, i’ll have whatever’s going on

....i feel like whenever i write hcs about these guys my brain takes on their tone. like, that was a lot of short, eh whatever, sentences for miles there

Favorite way to waste time and feelings surrounding wasting time

dan:

- reading (really depends on how you define Wasting Time). also he composes music and when he was alive, that was considered wasting time (ugh)

- sometimes even just doing hobbies or work or whatever, even then, he tends to have this feeling of never doing enough due to his Perfectly Healthy And Supportive Upbringing [seethes] so uhhhh basically, anxiety? like this was a dude raised to think anything other than his work was a waste of time. it didn’t exactly work but a decent amount of that Pressure has to still sit with him

char:

- watching tv, espech star trek

- not a waste of time if you’re enjoying yourself

miles:

- card and board games (weren’t expecting that, were ya? i’m not saying that's his Fave Thing To Do, but he considers that a good chill out thing to do. something to do when ur bored but you don’t feel like watching tv or having sex)

- “it’s something to do”

Do they have any plans for the future? Any contingency plans if things don’t workout?

dan:

for original lifetime dan, it was Do Science, Make Mom Proud (tiny voice: and maybe spend the rest of my life with charlotte. if i’m lucky. maybe. please? love?) cuz i imagine dan, although very focussed on the future, actually doesn’t think/care about HIS future. i just don’t think he cares about himself enough

limbo dan is like Make Music, Love Charlotte. which is fair. and then Love Miles on top of that. so yeah, just wants to be a good musician and husband. and one day, father. with char actually in his life in this world, thats def on his mind. he won’t bring it up tho, he’ll wait for her to mention it :3

(dan’s canon contingency plan for things not working out is hydrogen bomb)

char:

alive char, like, ADVENTURE! ISLAND! SOLVE MYSTERIES! that makes it sound like she’s a fucking scooby doo character. i mean, her Goal was to find the island and find out what the fucky duck is going on. she did that. and overall his goals seem like adventure/career orientated. i hc that this version of char never intended on getting married or having kids. she wasn’t Against the ideas and she’s certainly had romances but she was more thinking of other things. (that and i think deep down char thought nobody would ever wanna marry her)

in limboverse There Is No Mystery but she still has her great job(s), that is she works at a museum and i think she goes on expeditions sometimes. so theres that, she’s got the great career. really, her Plan for the future in this world is live the live she couldn’t before. she (and dan!) died young so they’re gonna like, actively adore each other and get married and have kids. and also miles is there. ha, that sounded so rude. she loves miles too. (besties/fuck buddies turned Hey You Wanna Join Me And Dan’s Relationship and miles like... yeah sure)

miles:

step one: get money to fill gaping hole of sadness in chest

step two: ????

step three: die

and even my limbo miles whomst i’ve put with dan and char doesn’t have any plans for the future, besides like, do his job and maybe become a dad again (context: i hc that miles had two kids with richard when he was alive). so he’s still chilling but without the depressing ache of loneliness and bitterness

so basically long story short for all of them (in limboverse): Love & Family

Superstitions or views on the occult?

ohooo i like this one

dan: didn’t grow up believing in magic and such (which is super ironic because his mother is a fucking other) but he has a very open mind. i think he’ll believe it if he’s thrust into the situation. it’s interesting really, dan is known as the science guy and that's great but he’s super fucking accepting of not science shit. tho of course, he’s not seeing the island time travel as magic but science. but more importantly, he regards miles’ powers with zero doubt or questioning. he doesn’t even seem confused, he is absolutely on board with miles being able to talk to dead people. this all implies miles told him off screen and dan believes him

so basically he’ll accept whatever is presented to him as true

which honestly, is what a good scientist is like. the trope of the scientist character who is ultra non believing of the supernatural, even when they’re seeing it before their eyes, is annoying. like, you know the ones? the ones who get angry about it. the overly skeptical scientist. hate that. dan is not that

and his character arc includes embracing free will over destiny so there's that

char: she’s not superstitious and doesn’t believe in magic or the supernatural at all. tho thrown into bizarre situations she’s like ???? but has to accept it. and she KNOWS something is up with the island. she knows its different. i just mean, under normal circumstances she’d regard magic stuff as funny nonsense. i hc that char, in living life, doesn’t believe miles can speak to the dead. really fucking weird this isn’t addressed in the show but hahaaaa they wasted char! anyways and like, if presented with the concept that dan’s brain damage is being healed by the island, she’d look confused, say thats impossible but she’d think on it

what i’m saying is she’ll rule out magic concepts at first, on reflex. but would grow to accept them, especially with stuff she knows/has repressed

she doesn’t believe in ghosts, psychics, visions, magic healing and all those exist in her world, so it’s all a matter of experience

miles: WELL WHADDYA THINK

actually it’s funny. miles has magic powers but he’s 0% superstitious and i imagine outside of his own powers, he really doesn’t believe in the occult. i hc that until he personally proved otherwise, he grew up thinking he was mentally ill. and once he realised it was true, thought he was some kind of freak

and he’s incredulous when he finds out hurley has powers too. tho miles, being miles, does roll with the punches a lot in the show, he’s skeptical when it comes to hurley's power. and i find that interesting. also i fucking love how when hurley describes his power, miles says “thats not how it works”, like ???? babe???

but overall his attitude on the island is like “well. this is happening”

i do think thru his life, despite his power, he doesn’t believe in All Magic or occult or whatever. i also hc that he attracted those kind of people who are REALLY into astrology and auras and stuff like that and he found them exasperating. (i think he’d be a lot more okay with it if it was claire who was talking about astrology and palm reading with him. he’d be endeared when its her)

and i think he thinks other psychics he’s met or seen on tv are straight up bullshit. he can believe he has it but he’s skeptical of other people. just assumes they’re scammers. hell, he was a scammer. who just happened to have the power. he was like “well i have this, i may as well get some use outta it”

oh and in limboverse, they all kinda have to accept their situation. and they take it with ease due to appreciating getting happier lives

How do they express love?

a dan who loves you will pet your face and look at you like ur his entire reason to live. a char who loves you will squeak at your jokes and will never once let you feel bad about yourself. a miles who loves you is sorry he isn’t better at this stuff but he really is trying... sure we can cuddle if you wanna, that’s cool v///v

the dan and char we saw in the show was them holding back and i find that very amusing because they were HEART EYES AS FUCK for each other and so affectionate and so soft hearted, like oh my gosh. canon show dan/char is them when they’re pining... when they’re not even a couple (yet, damn it)

imagine them at full power

i figured it out, dan/char couldn’t be an Official Couple because then jeremy davies and rebecca mader would have destroyed us all, especially me

anyways. they’re both very protective of each other. they... they touch each other a lot. like a lot for people who aren’t dating and whomst don’t think the other one loves them. like char is surprised when dan says he loves her. that fucking astonishes me. HE’S NOT SUBTLE. char are you okay???

dan is more open about the love than char, seeing as he said it. and double downed on it. char i feel was holding back for different reasons than dan. dan was holding back (fucking barely) because of eloise’s Love Will Only Bring Pain upbringing, which’d give somebody a serious complex. so he was adverse to actually pursuing a relationship AND i figure he thought “she wouldn’t wanna be with me anyways”. but char i imagine, a deep seated insecurity and need to be defensive, but also! dan was like REALLY mentally unwell before the island. and that's the dan that char knows (and loves) but she’d feel guilty if she pursued anything with him. like she’s taking advantage of a brain damaged person

ah fuck i went on a big thing about why they didn’t become a couple instead of like.... the question. how do they express love? like they did in the show. smiles, touches, longing gazes, protectiveness. they would die for each other

as for miles, how does he express love? Not Well. at first

whoever is the first person he fell in love with (i imagine richard), he was not good at... being open about that. i don’t think miles is good with love. lived his life pretty detached/bitter about the concept, which i imagine is due to having cynicism about life and death. everybody you love is gonna die, so why bother? (his mom dying hit him pretty hard) so uhhh its gonna be... baby steps

slowly becoming more open about liking somebody, becoming more affectionate, more... uh, couple-y (and later throuple-y). it’d take time and he will always be miles, but hey, he gets there. he’ll still always have his snark but he won’t be a Genuine Asshole to people he loves. heck, i imagine he’ll be downright soft in the right situation. and he can be gentle and kind. he’s a salty boy not a cunt

but i digress. basically he’s a little “yeah, yeah, i love you too, shut up” about it but he does have that soft gooey center. basically those who know him, and love him, know his true heart. it’s just a part of being miles “defensive walls” straume

feels love (and even that takes him a while to realise, cuz he hasn’t been a romantic relationship kinda guy, most of his life his relationships have been a Just Sex thing), not Great at like... Doing Love, you know what i mean? but like once he’s used to it, he can be quite a tender little pudding cup, actually

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh S3 Ep 46-47: We Have an Extra Episode, Just Blow Up the Island, I Dunno

Yo can you even believe this season is over?

It was honestly a two-season season, when you think about it. This tournament that was only like a week in showtime but two years in watch time if it was 2001 and I was tuning in every week. Kinda nuts when you think about it.

Anyways, it’s over, and not even the Kaibas are willing to really let it end. They’re camping out in their bunker they just set to explode, just watching everyone run around like ants while the sirens wail across the island (do you NEED emergency sirens if no one else lives on this island?)

And we get one more time for the writers of this show to flip over the Kaiba timeline like pancakes and I just...

I can’t believe they did this to me, but at the same time I can totally see how they just let this one fly under the radar, just wait for it, it’s coming.

(read more under the cut)

So this sort of explains a little bit more of why Kaiba insists on building Kaibaland when it already exists, as apparently the Japanese Kaibaland was just the first of a franchise. Like seriously what child dreams of Franchising? He has Kaibaland but is like “I won’t be truly happy at all and I will try to cut people up with card games until there are more Kaibalands. That will surely make me happy. More Kaibalands.”

But then, sitting in the middle of the orphanage, he stands up in his 70′s ass sweatervest and proudly proclaims:

This borked timeline.

Back in the present Joey is feeling stressed out so he’s turned to his only coping mechanism, that’s right, he’s hassling people.

Duke, who has a million motivations to want to kill Kaiba, since he works for Pegasus, brings up the bright idea of “or I dunno, we could leave them? Like they very much caused every event of the last week to happen outside of the random ass cultists.”

And so, now that Joey has exhausted things to hassle, let them be Roland or the massive engines on the blimp-plane, he decides to board the helicopter. I kid you not, Tea turns to Joey as they’re boarding the copter and says basically along the lines of this:

WTF, show. Like what? Like whaaaat? Anyway, don’t think about how big a helicopter is on the inside, because we’re just gonna shove everyone in here like it’s a mosh pit. Good thing that no one actually packed any luggage or pajamas, so at least that will keep the weight down.

Please admire the height of Yugi compared to Roland.

What followed was an explosion that the show did for...some reason. This didn’t need to happen. This was needless anxiety and it’s like..the season’s over why are we doing this???

So this is just a very Yugioh moment where...they didn’t really HAVE to blow up the island at the last minute. They didn’t HAVE to break the engines on the blimp-plane and they absolutely didn’t HAVE to put Seto Kaiba in a jet in the same very un-aerodynamic shape of a blue eyes white wife.

But they did.

If I’ve learned anything from watching Yugioh is that you must always, at every moment, be going 400%.

Seto just wanted to make a simple visual statement of “I want to move on from the past” so he decided to uh...do a very theatrical statement that was so theatrical that everyone thought that not only he and Mokuba had died, but that they, themselves, were about to die (and they were, they absolutely were)

Please admire the way they drew Seto from the side in this scene.

Anyway, now that the completely unnecessary “lets blow up the island and destroy the ecosystem” drama is over, and Kaiba’s off to encourage Global Warming in some other part of the globe, it’s time to send Marik off on his boat. It’s time for him to go have Marik Boat Time and never ever become a spinoff series although you know I would absolutely watch the hell out of that.

So, they choose the most idyllic landscape to do it, here in the abandoned warehouse district, surrounded by shipping cranes and strangely empty cruise liners. Ah, that twilight hour sunset. The way the sunlight kisses the corners of the abandoned warehouse’s windows.

I am absolutely shocked our background artist didn't use the chance to paint it neon orange. They love neon orange so much but I guess they save the neon for dramatic scenes. This one they left a more natural Instagram creamy color palate.

(PS at this point I guess Bakura decided to go home or go to the hospital. Whichever reason he decided to bounce, he bounced without saying goodbye to anyone apparently. That or the show just decided that no one cares about Bakura so he was the only one we didn’t say a farewell too, which is hilarious since he’s one of the most popular characters on this show.

Bro broke it to me, this whole story line of the puzzle and the tablet and all that--nah. By the time we get to it I’ll have forgotten all of the lore, pretty sure. Bro did ask me if we could skip S4 and I said no we are here for the worst parts first, Bro. When it gets horrible is when we’re finally getting to the good stuff.

Then, Duke suddenly remembered that before this tournament, he was only going on a walk between laundry loads but ended up abducted twice over, stranded on a submarine, an island, and nearly exploded. That and he had to sleep on one of Kaiba’s weird cube couches and that probably sucked. But it’s time for him to pull out his colors and add some bounce sheets to his whites for the dryer.

Can you believe they had Duke Devlin for two seasons but he only dueled once? Lol.

I can’t believe there was never a purpose for Duke Devlin other than to be eye-candy. I’ve only ever really seen this trope done to girls.

Mai also suddenly remembers that she doesn’t live here.

TBH, if Mai wasn’t put in a coma, I think she would have just left the tournament after she lost. She’d have pulled out a hang-glider from her pack and just sailed away rather than spend another minute with people she isn’t absolutely required to hang out with. That seems more her jam.

And then they had to frame up this Joey/Mai ship and...it’s just so funny when you remember that Mai is like waaay to old for Joey. She’s like 24 and he’s a baby but he’s pretty sure that he’s disappointing her so much by not telling her all about how he’s crushing. He’s pretty sure she just has no idea when it’s like, no, she does, and she does not want you to acknowledge it.

As she goes off, Tea for some reason decides to make it her responsibility for Joey to go out there and I guess...mortally embarrass himself in front of his much older crush? I mean you don’t really have to admit to your teachercrush that...you like her? Like, Mai is just a teachercrush right? Like he respects and admires her, she’s pretty, and there’s no other girls but Tea and Miho? Like that’s it?

This weird ass couple. And I mean it’s a weird pairing just because it can never happen on screen, but as some of you have pointed out--it is probably the healthiest couple in Yugioh. Mostly because we know that it will never happen. Unlike everyone else where it’s like, Joey better go eat both those pieces of paper with those phone numbers on it because holy hell a 16 yo dating a 12 yo is pretty freakin wild. What are those boys even going to talk about with Serenity? How wild fractions are? How to make a replica of a cell out of Jello for the science fair? Because that’s the level she’s at.

I was an architecture student once (I know. Ya’ll who’ve read many of these have probably noticed I attempted to major in nearly every art alignment so it’s probably very confusing to figure out wtf I actually ended up finishing in school (it was Illustration) ) so I just can’t with Yugi’s house. We have seen several rooms inside this house and none of them, absolutely none, line up with the outside of Yugi’s house (which is smack dab in the middle of the inner city for some reason??? Like does Yugi have PARKING? This is the most expensive two story house in Japan, it comes with free parking.

And like...I have tried to lay it out but it doesn’t make sense. The stairs of the shop go directly into the front door. The second floor would be half a staircase, so where is this living room? And assuming that Yugi is on the top floor with the slanted roof window...how? Is it the entire floor? what is going on here?

It’s a cartoon, I shouldn’t think about it, but this house is a Dr. Who police box. Anyways, Yugi decides to sneak out of the house by going down the stairs that are again, right in front of the front door. You cannot go through the front door of this house because these damn stairs are directly in the way.

Hey check out who’s alive, it’s Grandpa. I guess he’s...fine? I guess he just woke up on the floor of Bakura’s hospital room and was like “Screw that, I’m going home.” and then just peaced out here until Yugi came back.

I respect his moon pj’s to go with Yugi’s star pj’s.

I can’t imagine being in Grandpa’s position and seeing your boy go out there and get nearly killed by crazy ass cultists again and Seto Kaiba (who put him in a coma), and then catching him Sneaking Out. Like if I were Grandpa I’d just set up camp right outside of the front door because holy hell Yugi is so attracted to danger he’s just gonna waltz around the city in the middle of the night to play cards.

++++++++++RANT ABOUT TACO BELL, FEEL FREE TO SKIP THIS IS JUST ME TALKING ABOUT THE TACO BELL MENU+++++++++++++++++++++++++

Also I looked up Taco Bell in Japan thinking that this wouldn’t be a thing (from what I’ve heard, the only food Japan cannot do is Mexican) but not only does Taco Bell in Japan completely exist, guess what the menu is like? Just go ahead and guess in your head, I’m gonna go over the menu right now because this is very important.

I was expecting it to be pretty wild with a black taco shell made out of squid ink or something but surprisingly, it’s mostly the freakin same but different meats. Like they have a few more pork options (I guess instead of chicken?) and they have a shrimp taco--which I feel like we’ve done in the States before but everyone didn’t like that. Also, you can apparently get a crunchwrap, but it’s in a triangle shape instead of an octagon. They just changed the shape and called it a “stuffed grilled giant nacho”.

Obviously, they do not have a Ranch Doritos taco since America is the only place that is fully obsessed with Ranch. I have heard from so many people from Asia that “can we just not have Ranch today? Can we have a single spread without this weird garlic sauce? And...are you dipping your pizza with it? Is there one thing you haven’t coated with Ranch Dressing?” and it’s like no. There isn’t. Would you like to try our taco bell taco that is frosted in messy Ranch dust?

Like it really feels like this is the one fast food joint where everyone else has the normal Taco bell, and weirdly WE are are the people with the weird ass version of Taco Bell. Even Japan was like “you guys do you over there with your pink Starburst flavored frozen icee and your Quesarito...we’re just gonna put some extra cheese on a taco and call it ‘double cheese.’”

But here’s the craziest thing on the menu--the Taco Bell in Japan has FRIES.

I KNOW.

WHAT????

What would Taco Bell fries even taste like? Would they taste...tacoey? I mean I know that nacho fries are a thing that kinda comes and goes but I’ve never had them actually. Its never the right moment for nacho fries when Nacho fries are still on the menu.

but, I will say they do have one kind of weird thing on the menu I see online. I say “kind of” because it’s...just weird, it’s not actually all that out there as compared to our weird things in Taco bell. They got something called the “honey cheese pocket” which was a small plain flour tortilla filled with melted Monterey Jack cheese rolled into a cigar that you dip into honey.

...I mean...it probably tastes good, but if you released a honey cheese pocket in the States and pretended that’s Mexican food, I’m pretty sure every state touching the south border would cry a single Zesty-ranch-doritos-taco-shaped-tear. I know I would, at the same rate I’m stuffing honey cheese pockets directly into my mouth.

AND...apparently you can just serve alcohol in a Japanese Taco Bell. Which is interesting, because we had that episode of Season Zero where Yugi had to find alcohol in a burger joint, which seemed really odd to me at the time, but I guess you can just serve alcohol in whatever restaurant? Anyways, Taco bell has alcohol so now Yugi can light people on fire in a Taco Bell, if he really felt like it. Go ahead and append your fanfictions accordingly.

+++++++++END OF TACO BELL RANT, BACK TO CARDS ++++++++++++

So, can you imagine having a friend who forces you to wake up at o-dark hundred in order to play cards when you already attend all of the same classes and see eachother every minute of the day otherwise? Can you imagine having a friend like this?

Then again I’m not 100% on whether Pharaoh needs to sleep. It’s pretty clear that Bakura’s ghost doesn’t sleep much (or apparently eat much) so maybe it goes the same for Pharaoh as well that he needs Yugi to remind him how to be human.

Then there was this weird review episode they slapped on at the end. I...don’t know why they put it there, it was really more of an afterthought since nothing really got added or taken away from the finale. It was just a review episode of “in case you didn’t watch this season, here’s what happened this season” But the episode wasn’t over before Tea angsted the hell out about this kid that I guess she’s...

Tea thinks in her head about Yugi more than she talks directly to Yugi. That’s really my biggest issue with this couple. Tea can be so lukewarm towards Yugi and visa versa and then occasionally Tea will just snap and obsesses over this boy, but never tells him about it directly. Except for that one time in the blimp, which was more about “please don’t die”. But have they talked about how freakin anxious she is about how he’ll die? Nah.

It just feels like the writing team had one person who really liked Tea/Yugi, and then the rest who were like “fine, wtv” and so we get a real inconsistent narrative of this pair, that only seems to come up for drama, but then goes right back to being invisible moments later. Like sightings of a giant squid.

Ah, back where they started, on a date with a ghost. I think. This might be a date? It started at 2 PM so I don’t know that counts as a date yet.

These two are a lot.

And honestly...If it was going to happen it should have happened at some point in the end of this arc. She made such a big deal about him going off to card war, and now he’s back and she’s like...ok, cool.

They’re not gonna even talk about it? Or like...maybe high five it out? High five out those feelings? Man I feel so bad for anyone that shipped these two.

But anyway,

I’d add it to the Yugioh Death Count but that’s assuming that I don’t find an excuse to use this font again.

So yeah, that’s it for Season 3 (I wrote in Season 4 just now and had to really think about it because like...it really does feel like I went through 4 seasons, at least, of this show since every season is like 50 episodes)

Originally, when I started this, I thought there were only 3 seasons of Yugioh total. This was the end goal.

But I guess I’m committed now, so we’ll start up Season 4, which bro tells me is “completely different and not what you expected” but I probably won’t post until 2 weeks from now because this is a side hobby and I don’t need to wax long about my main-life stress, but youknow how it is: the more stuff I add the more stuff adds up. However, I do cope with stress by typing, so maybe I’ll just make sooo many updates to combat it? I dunno. But the blog will be back for S4. Eventually. When I get to it.

Many thanks to all y’all who’ve left many kind comments, I’ve been kind of tasked for time lately, so I haven’t really responded to many, but know that I see them and I’m thankful for them and I tell bro about them and he finds many of them amusing and y’all are just very, very nice. Wish Tumblr had an actual comments system since the only way to reply is like...it’s weird. If I reblog my own post I run the risk of it then being out of chronological order for people wanting to read that link I put at the base of each post so...I have to either make a new post to reply or reply within the post and I dunno if y’all can even see that type of reply...it’s tumblr problems.

Anyway, I’ll have a Graveyard for next weekend, maybe an art post, I dunno. But, I’m not dead, just watching how weird the next season is and making a buffer.

And here’s that link to read all these recaps in chrono order from the beginning

[master-sass-blast]

Found Family Part Four: Nathan “Cable” Summers.

This might just be the single best fic I’ve ever written. Holy shit.

Summary: An over view of your relationship with Nathan “Cable” Summers. Has tie ins with Myshka and Dig the Needle In, set before Rubber Meets Road.

Rating: T for adult language, mention of abuse, injuries, and death, and angst.

Pairings: Piotr Rasputin x Reader and Nathan Summers x Wade Wilson.

This the fourth installment of a mini-series I’ve been working on! Check out the first three parts here: Wade, Neena, The Three Teens.

A massive thank you to the amazing @leo-writer for reading over this for me and reassuring me that it is, in fact, good.

Tag List: @marvel-is-perfection, @chromecutie (if you want to be added to the list, DM me or drop me an ask).

(X-Force Rap lyrics found here.)

Nathan Charles “Cable” Summers is an enigma. A grumpy, gun-toting enigma with a techno-organic arm, eye, and various miscellaneous parts.

He spends most of his time with Wade despite the fact that he seems just as annoyed by the merc’s antics as everyone else. He spends his time either working with the X-Men or working on his mission to unfuck the Earth. Given the amount of coffee he downs on daily basis, you’re not sure when he sleeps.

He also wears bifocals when he reads, practices yoga and meditation, and has a vegetable garden that he lets the students at the Institute help him with.

Nathan Charles “Cable” Summers is… weird.

 ***

 You meet him for the first time shortly after your arrival at the Institute.

“This is one of our training rooms,” Charles explains as he gives you the grand tour of the place. “We do require our residents to under go basic mutation control training for safety purposes.” He wheels towards a man with gray hair and a metal arm. “This is Cable. He’ll be your training mentor for the time being.”

Cable turns, techno-organic eye glowing orange as he looks you over. “You have any experience with sparring?”

You blink. “Uh… no.”

“Firearm handling?”

“Not… really.”

He nods. “We’ll start with those tomorrow.”

You stare after him as he turns and walks away, seemingly satisfied with the conversation –or lack thereof, really. What in the actual fuck?

***

 So, Cable –as it turns out—isn’t nearly half as intimidating as he looks.

He’s gruff and grumpy, yeah, but it makes sense after you get the thumbnail version of what happened to his family and how he ended up here from Colossus and the Professor. And he doesn’t talk much, but it’s because he genuinely prefers being quiet. More than that, actually, he doesn’t like having to carry the conversation; he’s more than happy to just let you talk all you want and only chime in occasionally.

He’s especially hard to take seriously after you catch him working in his garden while wearing a pair of hot pink Crocs.

You can’t help but cackle. “Where the fuck did you get those!”

“Wilson got ‘em for me,” he grunts.

“And you’re wearing them because?”

“They’re comfortable. Wash easy. No sense in throwing them away or wasting them.”

You shake your head as you chuckle. What a dork.

***

 Firearm training goes well. Cable is scrupulous about firearm safety; you don’t even get to take your first shot before you can break down a gun and put it back together and recite the rules of responsible gun handling in your sleep.

Sparring and trying to train your powers, on the other hand…

“You’re breaking form again,” Cable says, stopping his swing before it can gain any momentum. “You’re liable to get hurt if you keep flinching away from everything.”

“I know, I know; I’m sorry.”

“I’m not looking for you to apologize. I’m trying to help you avoid hurting yourself.”

“Sor—” You cut yourself off with a grimace and try to keep your hands from shaking. “Right. Let’s… let’s try again.”

Cable doesn’t go back into his sparring stance, though. He puts his hands on his hips and tilts his head back as he regards you. “You got beat on, didn’t you.”

It’s not a question.

You swallow hard and look away. “Does it matter?”

“Yeah.” He puts his hand on your shoulder and nudges you towards the edge of the ring. “Come on.”

“Where are we going?”

“For a walk.”

***

 You wind up in the kitchen. The room’s empty, save for the two of you.

You frown as Cable pulls out the cookie jar from its carefully hidden spot in the cupboard over the toaster. “What are you doing?”

“Mentoring. That, and I’m hungry. You want milk?”

You nod, carefully seating yourself at the counter. “I didn’t, uh, take you for a, uh, sweet stuff sort of guy.”

“Don’t have sugar in my time,” Cable says as he pours two glasses of milk. “Was bitching about it when I first came here, then Wade told me to shut the fuck up, enjoy it if I wanted to, and focus on using my energy for productive shit.” He pauses, then smirks. “And then he listed about twenty things that weren’t productive in the least.”

“Sounds like Wade,” you agree with a laugh. You pick a cookie from the jar, then dunk it into your milk before popping it in your mouth. “You know, for all that you seem to be annoyed by him, you spend a lot of time with him.”

“Wilson’s practical. We have similar worldviews. And when he’s not being an ass, he’s funny.” He shrugs. “I like him.”

You blink, then take the opportunity to play wingman for your best friend. “He likes you too, you know.”

Cable snorts. “Believe me, I know. He’s not exactly subtle.”

“So you’re just… letting him do his thing?”

“Wade’s got his own shit to work out first,” he says with a shrug. “He lost his girlfriend; he’s still grieving.”

“And you aren’t?”

Cable grimaces. “My wife and daughter are alive. Even if I can’t see them, I can build a better world for them. And that doesn’t necessarily stop me from loving. But Wade isn’t ready for that. And if he decides he is, at some point, I’ll be here.”

You smile. “Wow. That’s really romantic.”

He grunts. “I’m not romantic.”

“Yeah, you are. You’re a big softie.”

“I’m not.”

“You so are.”

“Not.”

“Are.”

He huff and shakes his head, corner of his mouth turning up in a smirk. “Whatever, kid.”

You take another cookie and focus purposefully on your glass of milk as you dunk it. “So, uh, why’re we here instead of training?”

“You’re not gonna be able to train properly until you stop being afraid of being hit,” Cable says bluntly. “The way I see it, that’ll be easier for you if you actually trust me.”

You frown and glance up at him. “So, what, we’re… bonding?”

“Yep.”

Weird… but not bad.

You help yourself to another cookie. “Okay.”

 ***

 The two of you don’t operate the way you and Wade do.

First, Wade is about ten thousand times crazier than Cable will ever be. Second, you and Wade are basically best friends; between the larger age gap between you and Cable and his vastly different personality, the two of you just don’t mesh the same way you and Wade do.

But you do connect. The two of you train together, tell each other about various parts of your lives. He teaches you first aid and some basic home maintenance skills, you teach him about which memes mean what and what Wade means when he uses them –which is basically a history lesson for Cable since he’s from the future, but whatever. It’s symbiotic.

You learn about each other. It’s progress.

***

 Your training, however, is not progressing.

You drop down onto your knees on the training mat and grab at your hair. “Fuck!”

Cable kneels down next to you, ignoring the multiple sets of eyes looking in your direction as he puts a steadying hand on your shoulder. “Hey, easy. Deep breaths.”

“I can’t do it.”

“You’re right, because you’re panicking. Come on, in through your nose, out through your mouth.”

You ignore him in favor of biting on the inside of your cheek so you don’t cry. “Fuck, why am I such a fucking failure?”

Cable stays quiet for a moment, then pulls you to your feet. “Come on.” He walks you to a quiet hallway and has you sit down on the nearest bench.

You swipe at your nose with the back of your sleeve. “Sorry.”

“Got nothing to be sorry for. Just focus on calming down.”

“I just really wanna get this fucking right.”

“You’re not going to until you stop expecting yourself to fail,” Cable says, to the point as ever. “It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. And I doubt you’ll get past that until you process more of your childhood trauma.”

You grimace. “I’d really rather not.”

“Christ, what is with this century’s hang up on not working through emotions?” Cable grumbles.

“Yeah, because travelling back in time to murder a child is the pinnacle of working through emotions,” you fire back, too upset and pissy to be concerned with being nice.

“Touché,” he grunts as he sits down next to you.

You sniffle and do your best to dry off your face with your sleeves. “I just… I’m trying. I really am.”

“I know.”

“It’s just… it’s scary,” you admit quietly. “I know you’re not gonna hurt me –not really, anyway, though I’m not fond of the idea of getting hit by your metal fist—but it’s still just… scary.”

“I know. But the only way out is through.”

You shake your head. “I don’t know if I can.”

“You can. You’re capable. And you need to.”

You shake your head again, throat constricting as more tears threaten to spill. “I can’t. Maybe with the hand-to-hand stuff, but not with my powers.”

Cable cocks his head to the side as he looks at you. “What’s the difference?”

You fidget with the hem of your shirt. “I’ve… I’ve killed people before with my powers. On accident. I was a kid; I didn’t know how to control them.”

“Jesus Christ,” Cable groans.

“I can’t –I can’t do that again, I can’t—”

“Okay, okay.” He puts an arm around you and squeezes your shoulders as you try not to cry too loudly. “Let’s be done for today.”

“No—”

“Yes. You’re not in the headspace to train right now. We’ll do something else.”

“Like what?”

He shrugs. “Wilson keeps telling me I need to try Taco Bell.”

You snort. “So we’re going from exercising to diarrhea central. Talk about lifestyle whiplash.” You glance over at him. “You know you’re gonna hate it, right?”

“I figured as much.” He stands and nudges your shoulder. “Come on.”

 ***

 (For the record, Cable actually likes Taco Bell.)

 ***

 Unfortunately, word of your little “meltdown” in the training room spreads during your Taco Bell excursion. By the time you get back, the entire mansion knows about your struggles, and some of the X-Men decide that an intervention is necessary.

And they’re led by none other than Scott Fucking Summers, because that would be your luck, dammit.

You’ve never wanted to melt into the carpet of Professor Xavier’s office so badly before. Unfortunately –also your shitty luck—turning into a liquid is not within your mutation set.

You do, however, sink back into the chair you’re perched on as much as you can, which helps.

“This is a safety issue!” Scott declares as he glares at Cable. “If Y/N can’t train to control her powers, then she is a danger to everyone in this house!”

Gee, you’ve never heard anything like that before. Not even once –definitely not multiple times a week, by both your parents and various members of the town you grew up in.

“Those glasses come off your face, and you blast a hole through whatever’s in front of you.” Cable shrugs. “Doesn’t seem very controlled to me.”

“Scott has trained to regulate his responses and control,” Ororo points out. “If Y/N can’t control her abilities, her future as a resident does have to be brought into question –to say nothing of her potential future as an X-Man—”

“No one ever said anything about her being an X-Man,” Cable growls. “Just that she needed rudimentary training.”

“All permanent residents at the Institute either work as teachers, healers, or X-Men!” Scott snaps, quickly losing patience as the argument drags on. “We aren’t an open house charity!”

“Self-control, please,” Piotr says, holding his hands up in a calming gesture. “This does not need to escalate.”

“I agree with Mr. Rasputin,” Professor Xavier says, inserting himself into the conversation before Scott can start talking again. “Calm discussion is the goal, here. As for Miss L/N’s residency, she’s here for protective custody, which makes her an automatic permanent resident for as long as she wants to stay.”

Scott’s face creases into a frown. “She’s an adult. She doesn’t need protective custody.”

Professor Xavier glances once at you before clasping his hands together and placing them on his desk. “The details of Miss L/N’s past are for her to disclose at her discretion. However, having consulted with our legal representatives on the matter, I can assure you that protective custody is warranted for this situation.”

“But—”

“The terms of Miss L/N’s residency here at the Institute is a closed issue, Mr. Summers,” the Professor says firmly. “However, the issue of her control training does need to be addressed, if only for the peace of mind of the other residents here.”

You can’t fucking deal with this; you can’t handle listening to them talking about you, let alone the thought of having to explain why you can’t get a grip on your powers—

You start crying.

And, apparently, you aren’t as subtle about it –well, as subtle as you can be with a telepath in the room—because Cable notices almost immediately. He’s by your chair in an instant, clasping your shoulder and telling you to take deep breaths.

“They’re all talking about me like I’m not even fucking here,” you seethe, body trembling as you try to reign in your emotions.

“We’re sorry, Y/N—” Professor Xavier starts. 

“No, you’re sorry,” Cable snarls. “Don’t fucking speak for everyone.” He glares at Scott for a moment, then refocuses on you. “Do you want to take the lead?”

You recoil so hard you almost knock over the chair. “No –no. I can’t—”

“Okay, okay. I’ll handle it.”

You frown. “How?”

“I’m your trainer. It’s my job,” he replies with a shrug before standing. “Go on. Go cool off. I’ll take care of things.”

***

 After about a half hour of “cooling off” Cable texts you to come down to the training rooms.

He’s there with Wade and Colossus when you arrive. “We just need to run some preliminary tests, so we can get an idea of your starting threshold.”

You freeze right in your tracks. “What—”

“Relax.” He nods his head at Wade. “We worked things out with Xavier; you’re on the X-Force with us. Wade doesn’t care if you run missions or not—”

Wade gives you a thumbs up, confirming what Cable’s saying.

“—so you can train at your own pace.”

You blink, and the nervous knot in your stomach slowly starts to unwind.

Emphasis on slowly.

“But –I haven’t been able to train with anyone yet,” you point out. “Not without freezing.”

Colossus gestures to the training room. “We have robotic simulates for solo training. Normally, they are only used by experienced members –but, with supervision, you can use them as well.”

You peer into the training room; sure enough, there’s a few robotic dummies on the training floor, currently inactive and slumped over.

“Okay… but I’ve never really used my powers… indoors.”

Well, you have, but most of those times ends with lots of broken glass and injured people.

“This room is designed to withstand Phoenix force,” Colossus explains, smiling reassuringly. “I doubt you could do worse than that.”

It’s a fair point. Jean’s one of the most powerful mutants you’ve met; if the training room can withstand her…

“Okay,” you decide, albeit reluctantly. You pad into the training room, then nearly jump out of your skin when the door swishes shut behind you. Relax, Y/N. Don’t be such a wuss.

A speaker crackles to life overhead a couple minutes later. “Okay, testing, one two, testing one-two-three, there once was a lady in Spain—”

There’s a growl and the sounds of a struggle –along with a lot of swearing and complaining from Wade—and then Cable takes over. “Alright, we’ll power up the training bots when you’re ready.”

You take a deep breath before fitting your flight goggles over your eyes. What the hell? May as well go for it. “Let’s rock this show.”

The bots jerk to life, straightening up—

And loud music blasts through the speaker system.

You flinch. “What the fuck?”

“It pays to team up with the franchise namesake!” Wade shouts over the intercom system. “We have our own theme song!”

You listen for a minute, shocked and utterly distracted. “What… on earth?”

“Nuts for luck! Get the party started! Knock you out like Colossus farted!”

You bust out laughing; you can easily picture the consternated expression on Colossus’s face, to say nothing of Wade’s own delighted expression…

Unfortunately, your lapse in focus gives the training bots ample time to cross the distance between you and them.

You yelp when one swipes at you and propel yourself away with a little blast of air. “Fuck!”

“You need to go on the offensive,” Cable instructs over the intercom system. “We won’t get a comprehensive baseline if you don’t.”

“I don’t want to break them!” you shout as you dodge another attack.

“They are meant to be broken,” Colossus reassures you. “Just try your best.”

So that’s what you do. You manage to bat them away from you repeatedly, but apparently ‘meant to be broken’ is some sort of secret code for ‘virtually indestructible.’ No matter what you try, the sparring dummies keep getting back up and attacking you all over again.

One of them manages to grab your arm, and the other two are quick to pile on. They’re heavier than they look, and trying to shake them off amounts to a whole lot of nothing.

You panic. You squirm and thrash in their grip, borderline hyperventilating as you try to free yourself.

You let out at a scream, and a wall of air slams into the sparring dummies. They careen into the walls, cracking in a few places and deactivating as they drop to the ground in short-circuiting heaps.

You drop onto your knees, panting as you brace yourself against the sparring mat.

Applause and raucous cheering –Wade—bursts over the intercom system, accompanied by general grumbling –Cable—and gentle pleas to calm down –Colossus.

Eventually, Cable manages to regain control of the microphone again. “I think we’ve got what we need. You can head out when you’re ready.”

You don’t run out of the training room, but it’s a near thing.

 ***

 You don’t make it far, though. Wade intercepts you in the hall and practically tackles you with a massive hug.

“That was so cool!” he crows as he swings you around in a circle, ignoring your screeches of protest. “Super cinematic!” He sets you down gently –well, as much as Wade does gentle—and claps Cable on the shoulder. “Good thinking, Nate-y!”

You frown. “Wait, who’s—”

But Wade’s already skipping off down the hall, with Colossus following after him, a harried expression on his face, which just leaves you with Cable.

Cable.

You stare at him incredulously, eyes nearly bugging out of your face. “Nate-y?”

He rolls his eyes. “Nathan. My name’s Nathan.”

Which makes a lot more sense, admittedly.

He smirks. “What, did you think my parents actually named me Cable?”

You shrug. “I dunno. White people do weird shit with names.”

He snorts. “Fair enough. Not a trend that dies out in the future, by the way.”

“There’s really no hope for us, is there?” you joke. “So… you got a last name to go with ‘Nathan?’”

“Summers. Nathan Summers.”

The recognition hits like a light going off.

“Is Scott your dad?” you ask, vaguely horrified.

Cable –Nathan—nods. “Yep.”

You blink as you try to process the information. “I’m not sure if I’m weirded out by that… or if I’m just impressed that he actually managed to get laid.”

Nathan laughs. “You know, Wade said the same thing when he found out.”

“Well, that makes sense,” you say with a shrug. “We are siblings, after all.”

 ***

 Training goes much better after that. Nathan has you work with the dummies for a while whenever the training room’s empty. Eventually, he works you up to training with him or Wade in the empty training room, then to sparring while everyone else is in there.

After a while, he greenlights you for missions with the X-Force.

And, shortly thereafter, you throw yourself through a plate glass window, dislocate your knee, crack three ribs, and have to be carried out to the X-Jet by Colossus.

Oops.

 ***

 Fortunately, Nathan doesn’t mind stepping into the role of physical therapist. He helps you get your strength back and ramp up your training regimen in safe, healthy increments.

He also teaches you about the other aspects of recovering from injuries that you failed to learn from childhood.

“Ice is important to reduce swelling and inflammation; too much of either puts strain on the joint,” he says as he props your formerly dislocated leg over his knees. “But what most people forget is that you have to stimulate movement and blood flow in bits and pieces to help the muscles heal.”

“So, what you’re saying is I should run a marathon.”

He gives you look that would appear annoyed if it weren’t for the way the corner of his mouth turns up. “I’m saying ‘gentle massage and stretching.’” He carefully starts working his thumbs into the muscle area around your injured knee. “Not too much, and not too hard. Just enough to start loosening everything up.”

Colossus walks in while Nathan’s massaging your knee. He stops and stares for half a second, seemingly surprised. “Ah –Cable. The Professor would like to speak with you.”

Nathan helps you set your leg back down, then passes an ACE bandage to Colossus as he leaves. “Wrap her leg, will you?”

“Konechno.” He kneels in front of you, gently propping up your knee before unwinding the bandage. He glances up once –twice—to make sure Cable’s gone, then starts wrapping your knee. “So… you and Cable seem… close.”

“It’s just platonic,” you say quickly; it’s not every day the guy you think is cute asks if you’re “close” with someone else. “He’s like a dad to me. Besides, he’s both too old and too young for me and… yeah, no. Not my speed.”

Colossus chuckles as he slowly winds the bandage around your knee. “Fair enough, myshka.”

***

Things progress from there again. You heal, you get back to training and missions, and you improve quite a bit –and don’t throw yourself through anymore plate glass windows.

Then you get outed for using repression serum.

And everything stops.

 ***

 You spend most of your time in your room after returning to the mansion. If you’re not there, you’re outside, at the fringes of Xavier’s property, where you’re unlikely to hurt anyone. You hike around in the small wooded area, run the trails, and generally keep away from everyone.

Nathan finds your preferred hiding spot after a few days –a tree stump that’s had the space underneath it hollowed out by animals and the weather. He sighs when he sees you. “You can’t hide from everyone forever.”

“I have to,” you choke out between sobs. “There’s no place for me here anymore.”

“Kid—”

“Don’t fucking ‘kid’ me! I’ve killed people; I’m a monster!” You level your index finger at him, baring your teeth as he looks down at you sadly. “And don’t give me that shit about how I was just protecting myself as a kid. I killed twenty people when I stole the repression serum from Harmony. I’m a murderer.”

“Just because the X-Men have a no killing policy doesn’t mean accidents don’t happen—”

“It wasn’t a fucking accident!”

He purses his lips and gives you a hard look. “You chose to kill men who decided they had the right to kill other people.”

“It doesn’t make a difference!”

“Yes, it does!” he snaps. “You went after shitstains that side with the likes of Klansmen and Nazis. I came back in time to kill a kid who was terrified after being abused his whole life because he’d grown up into an asshole that killed my family. If you’re a monster—” he points at you “—then so am I.” He taps his index finger against his chest. “And if you want to technical about the body count, you’re nowhere near me or Wilson. You gonna call us monsters, too?”

You shake your head after a long moment. “No.”

“Then you don’t get to do it to yourself.” His expression softens, and he holds out a hand to you. “Kid, c’mon. You deserve better than hiding out here or in your room.”

You stare at him with watery eyes for a long moment, then take his hand.

He pulls you out from underneath the stump and into a hug. He gently smooths your hair out as you cry and brushes your hair off your back. “You’re not a monster. The choices you made may have not been the right ones, but you’re not a monster.”

You just shake and sob in his arms, unable to speak.

Eventually, when you calm down, Nathan has you sit up so he can pull some tissues out of his fanny pack –utility bag, whatever. “Dry yourself off, kid. Those men aren’t worth your tears.”

You shake your head as you wipe off your face. “I can’t think like. It’s too easy to be angry.”

Nathan regards you for a moment. “You’re incredibly strong, you know that? I knew soldiers who went through half the shit you did, and they were some of the most bitter, hateful people I knew.”

“War and a sucky childhood are two different things.”

“Yeah, but war and abuse both break people, and you haven’t let it break you.”

You blow your nose and let out an exhausted sigh. “I feel pretty broken.”

“You’ll get there. Give yourself time.” He lets you calm down for a couple more minutes before leveling the boom you knew was coming. “You need to get back to training.”

You shake your head automatically. “No. I can’t –I can’t kill anyone again.”

“We’ll start you off on the dummies again—”

“I’m stronger without the serum; I could still hurt people, or bring part of the mansion down, or—”

“You’re not stronger than a cosmic entity at full strength,” Nathan interrupts, adamant. “I know you’re scared, but the longer you stay away from this, the worse it’s gonna be.”

“I can’t,” you whimper, tears coming back. “I can’t do it.”

“You can. You’ve done it before, and you can do it again. Look, you trusted me to help you the first time, right?”

You nod.

“Then trust me now. I’ve had plenty of time to watch your powers and watch you use them. You’re smart. You learn fast. You’re a fucking natural. You managed to correct your landings in a handful of weeks. You’ll get the rest of your powers dialed in.”

You try to swallow the lump around your throat and sniff pitifully. “But what if I really can’t? What if there’s something wrong with me that makes it impossible for me to control my powers?”

“Then you need a different kind of help, not training,” Nathan says simply. “But the Professor taught Jean how to control an omnipotent, several millennia old cosmic entity, and you’re a lot more stubborn than Jean is.”

You manage a weak smile. “I am pretty stubborn, aren’t I?”

“Damn right.” Nathan smiles back, then stands and holds out a hand to you. “Come on.”

You hesitate. “Everyone else is safer if I’m out here.”

“Debatable. Besides, you deserve to be around the people you love and love you.”

You let out a shaky breath, then take his hand.

 ***

 It’s hard. And slow. Two of your least favorite things.

Nate’s with you every step of the way, though –and he listens to Alyssa’s recommendations about how to desensitize you to the training room all over again. The two of you start with just hanging out in the room –with and without other people in there—without doing anything else, then move on to training with weights or the punching bag. It takes three full weeks before you work your way up to training with the dummies.

You’re stronger. A lot stronger. You make Wade let out more than a few choice words over the intercom system as you decimate the X-Men’s collection of training bots over and over again.

“I told you,” Cable says as he helps you stretch before heading in one day. “You’re good. You’re powerful.”

“I don’t want to be powerful,” you mutter as you bend down to touch your toes. “I never asked to be powerful. And I—” you let out a strained laugh “—I don’t give a shit that other mutants would kill for my strength or abilities or what-fucking-ever. I never asked to be this way.”

“You don’t have to give a shit about their opinions. A lot of soldiers wanted my simulated abilities and added strength, thought I was lucky that I had a limb that wouldn’t bleed out. All this virus has ever caused me is pain.”

You straighten up and look at him directly. “You don’t think I’m being ungrateful?”

Nathan shrugs. “Don’t think ‘ungratefulness’ has much to do with it. Being the way you are has caused you a lot of problems and pain. It’s natural that you don’t like it.”

You let out a little sigh of relief and drop your forehead against his human shoulder. “Thanks, Nate.”

He pats your back gently with his human hand. “Anytime, kid. Anytime.”

***

 It takes you a bit, but you eventually realize that you hadn’t been kidding or speaking empty words when you’d told Piotr that Nathan was like a dad to you.

He is like a dad to you. He gives you advice and helps you train and generally acts as a silent, comforting, familial presence whenever you’re flipping out about various things. He learns how to cook with you and about how to exist in the real world with you and teaches you about shooting a gun, fighting, and what a proper budget looks like.

He’s not like Wade, who’s fun and an entire basket of crazy. He’s not like Piotr, who doesn’t challenge you as much and almost never pulls out the tough love that you need to hear from time to time.

He’s more stable than your uncle and more decent than your biological father.

He’s… he’s like a dad to you.

And you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you can’t say anything about it to Nathan. You know he has Hope, that he has a real daughter, and you wouldn’t dare insinuate yourself in a space that’s already been filled.

So you train with him and hang out with him and enjoy his gruff companionship, but you don’t tell him what you really think of him.

You can’t.

***

 You don’t go on missions.

Until you do.

Against your will, admittedly.

“I can’t fucking be here!” you hiss at Nathan as you attempt to hold back tears of terror.

“None of us have a choice right now,” he says, though not unkindly. “It’s an emergency call, remember? It’s why we got picked up in the middle of getting the damn groceries.”

You pick at the hem of your shirt. “I can’t do it. I’m not ready for it yet.”

“Okay.” He bats your hands away before you can destroy your shirt. “Then you wait in the cockpit until everything’s over, alright?”

You take a deep breath, then nod. “Okay.”

 ***

 The mission goes South –which is shocking, considering that Neena’s on the job, too.

There’s just too many bad guys for your team. Even with Nathan breaking out his “ridiculawesome” gun and Russell using his fire to borderline dangerous levels, the goons just keep crawling out of every possible area.

Neena’s lucky powers are probably the only reason everyone other than Wade isn’t dead yet, you think as you watch everything play out from the jet. You wince when Juggernaut lands a devasting hit on Piotr. “Come on, babe! Kick him in the balls!”

Your chest tightens and your breathing speeds up as you watch the fight fall further South. They can’t do it. They’re going to lose. They’re going to…

You don’t even think about what you’re doing as you open the hangar door before sprinting out of the cockpit. You grab your flight jacket and goggles and throw them on as you dash out of the jet and run towards the fight.

Piotr’s managed to throw –literally, yeet and all—Juggernaut back, stunning the brute momentarily before the helmeted honcho started charging down your little family once more.

You speed up, then launch yourself upwards with a burst of air. You put all your focus into what you’re about to do and let a scream of rage as you sail towards Juggernaut.

He notices you halfway through his charge. “What the—”

You land a few feet away from him and throw your hands forward, sending him hurtling back with the most powerful sustained blast of air you can summon.

Several other of the gun toting villains get caught in the burst of wind as well, sailing away into the air with shrieks of alarm.

Behind you, Wade lets out a jubilant crow. “Fuck yeah! Take that you Bane-wannabe-cocksucker!”

You keep up the torrent of wind, pushing Juggernaut back until he figures out how to brace himself and stops moving.

It’s a stalemate. The unstoppable force versus the immovable object.

“I’m gonna stop the wind!” you shout.

“What?” Wade screams back. “Are you insane?”

“Don’t worry! I’ve got a plan!”

As soon as the wind fizzles out, Juggernaut growls and charges at you once more. “I’m gonna shove you down the metal guy’s throat, you dumb bitch.”

You bare your teeth at him in a scowl and cock your fist back. “Shove this, asshole.” You let him get barely outside of grabbing distance, then swing your fist forward

A sonic boom explodes across the landscape as you accelerate Juggernaut past the speed of sound. His shrieks of terror can be heard in the distance as he sails away, followed by the sounds of total chaos and destruction as he crashes into various trees and building-like objects.

“Holy shit!” Wade pumps both his fists in the air. “She wasted Juggernaut! You wasted Juggernaut! What in the ass, that was so awesome!”

“Fight’s still not over,” Nathan says, but he’s grinning. “We’ve got some drones in the air, and we’ve still got people on the ground to take care of.”

“I got the drones,” you say as you run forward and take off.

 ***

 As soon as the jet takes off, once you all have vanquished your foes, Wade yanks you into a big hug and spins you around. “That was fucking incredible!”

You shriek and laugh. “Put me down! Christ!”

“You did it,” Neena says with a massive grin as Wade puts you down. “You didn’t think you could, but you did.”

Piotr clasps your shoulder gently as he kisses the top of your head. “We are all very proud of you, myshka.”

“I realized I was more scared of losing all you than I was of losing control,” you say with a shaky laugh. “You guys are my family.”

Russell grins. “Seriously. We’re your family?”

You grin back. “Hell yeah! Wade’s my brother, Neena’s my big sister, you, Ellie, and Yukio are basically my cousins, and Piotr’s my future baby daddy.” You favor your –now flustered—boyfriend with a cheeky smile while everyone laughs. “You’re all my family. I… I love all of you.”

“Aw, so sappy! Group hug!” Wade cheers as he yanks you, Russell, and Yukio into a hug.

“Absolutely not,” Ellie grumbles as she quickly retreats to the cockpit.

***

 Everything goes well after that.

Except it doesn’t.

Nathan is… oddly distant for the rest of the evening. He barely makes eye contact with you for the rest of the flight, books it off the jet as soon as it lands, and doesn’t speak to you for the rest of the evening.

You’re confused. And hurt. You’d expected –unselfishly—that Nathan would have some sort of… something to say to you after your little “breakthrough.” He’s been so integral in your journey of learning to not be afraid of your powers, and he’s always had some sort of encouragement or praise –or tough love, when the situation called for it—at all your milestones.

You can’t even find him once you’re cleared by Dr. McCoy. He’s a total ghost –one that doesn’t reply to your texts and phone calls, to boot.

“Did I say something?” you ask Wade at one point, nervous to the point you feel like puking. “Something’s wrong, but I don’t know what I did.”

“I don’t know,” Wade says with a grimace. “I’ll see if I can figure something out from him, promise.”

By the time you’re ready –well, need—to go to bed, you still haven’t heard anything from Wade or Nate. You’re so worked up over it that Piotr has to coax you into bed and rub your back to help you calm down.

Which works wonders for him. He’s so tuckered out from his fight with Juggernaut that he falls asleep while rubbing circles up and down your back.

(You think it’s genuinely cute of him.)

You toss and turn next to your snoring boyfriend, replaying the fight and the flight back over and over in your head, searching for any mistake, no matter how miniscule, that might’ve set Nathan off like this.

After what feels like hours –mostly because it’s been hours—Wade texts you.

Bro: Nateys in kitchen. Is willing to talk.

The thought that you don’t want to wake up Piotr is the only reason you don’t sprint out of the room –though you do fly down the stairs.

Wade meets you at the bottom, his mouth set into a deep grimace. “He’s not happy.”

“What did I do?” you ask, borderline panicking. “I’ve been replaying everything in my head over and over, and I can’t think of anything.”

“I know. And I know you didn’t mean anything malicious, but…” He sighs. “He’s hurt. And you need to go make it right –or as right as you can.”

You do your best to fight back the tears that are already stinging your eyes and nod. “Okay. I will.”

Wade gives you a brief, reassuring hug, then nudges you towards the kitchen. “Go on. He’s waiting.”

You can see Nathan seated at the counter, stripping and cleaning one of his guns (he’s put old newspapers down on the counter, which you know Piotr will be grateful for come morning).

He doesn’t look up at you when he walks in.

It takes you nearly three minutes to realize he isn’t going to speak, either; you have to start this. You take a deep breath and clear your throat. “Wade said you were willing to talk things out?”

Nathan just lets out an affirmative grunt.

You scowl in an effort to hold back tears and clench your fists. “Look, Nathan, whatever I did, I’m sorry. But I can’t make this right if you don’t tell me how I hurt you.”

“Nothing to make right,” Nathan bites out as he cleans part of his pistol with more force than necessary. “It’s your choice to make.”

“That doesn’t tell me anything!” you exclaim, throwing your hands up. “Wade said you wanted to talk, you haven’t said otherwise, so talk. I’m not going to apologize for every single thing I can think of in hopes that something will stick.”

“There’s nothing to be sorry for,” he spits out, mouth screwing into a pained frown. “I get it. I’m just not a part of your family.”

Your eyes go wide. “What? That’s not—”

The jet.

You’d given everyone on the jet a designation in your “family” –except Nathan.

You’d be smacking yourself upside the head if it wasn’t so obvious how upset he is over all of this.

“Nathan –I didn’t mean—”

“You don’t have to explain it. I understand.”

“No, Nathan, you’ve always been my family—”

“Don’t just lump me under some umbrella term,” he snarls. “I don’t need your fucking pity.”

“Nathan, just shut up and listen for one fucking minute!” you snap, louder than you ought to at this hour. “We’re okay,” you tack on when you hear Wade’s footsteps run towards the kitchen. “We’re fine.”

The footsteps stop, but don’t retreat in the opposite direction.

You sigh wearily and look at Nathan –who’s borderline glaring at you. “You’re like a dad to me, Nathan.” You see his eyes widen at the admission, and quickly move on so you can finish everything you want to say before he can lay into you for tarnishing his daughter’s memory and future existence like you are. “You’re everything I wanted my biological father to be. You’ve been with me on this journey practically every damn step of the way. There is no possible way for me to express just how grateful and thankful I am for your kindness and support and wisdom. If it hadn’t been for you, I wouldn’t have gotten out of that jet tonight.”

Nathan just stares at you when you have to pause to wipe your face, expression shocked.

“I know you have Hope,” you say, smiling sadly. “And there’s no way in hell I would ever try to step in on her memory or the bond you have with her. Just because you’re my family doesn’t mean I’m supposed to be yours –not like this, anyway.” You spread your arms in a shrug. “And I’ve come to terms with that. I’m okay with that. I know how much you love Hope; I can’t grudge that for even a single second.”

There are tears coming out of Nathan’s human eye that he doesn’t bother to wipe away. He just stares at you, borderline entranced.

“I’m sorry that I didn’t loop you into everything better on the jet,” you apologize. “I should’ve made a point to include you –called you a grandpa or something, I don’t know—but honestly, I was too strung out on adrenaline to even think of it in the moment. I didn’t mean to hurt you, and I’m sorry that you did.” You sniff loudly and take in a shaky breath. “I’ve done all I can do… and I think I’m just gonna go to bed now.”

You barely make it two steps towards the hall outside the kitchen before Nathan darts around the counter, grabs you by the arm, and pulls you into a massive hug.

You latch onto him, shocked.

“I can only hope,” he says, voice thick with emotion. “That Hope will turn out even half as kind and as decent as you are now.”

Your lower lip starts trembling in earnest, and you have to bury your face in his shoulder to keep from losing it.

“And I would be honored,” he adds. “To be your dad and call you my kid.”

You let out a little sob and cling to him harder. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“I know, it’s okay. We’re okay.”

The two of you stand there for a while, just holding each other and crying.

When you do part, Wade’s leaning against the kitchen doorframe, looking genuinely misty-eyed—

And further back in the hall is Piotr, looking half-awake at best and adorkably confused. “What is going on?”

“Good stuff, babe,” you reassure him, smiling even as you wipe your cheeks dry. “All good stuff, I promise.”

Nathan nods, agreeing. “We got it all worked out.” He squeezes your shoulder. “Go get some rest, kiddo.”

“Yeah, okay. Love you, dad.” Your voice breaks, and you almost start crying all over again.

Nathan almost does too, if his expression is anything to go by, and he pulls you into another hug. “Love you too, kid.”

A few tears do leak out when he kisses the top of your head, though.

He pats you on the back and lets you go a few moments later. “Go sleep. We’ll talk in the morning.”

“Yeah, okay.”

Wade trades spots with you as you walk towards Piotr, murmuring something in Nathan’s ear about “told you that was it” as he hugs his boyfriend.

Piotr’s smiling now, seemingly having put the pieces together. He kisses your forehead gently. “Ready for bed, myshka?”

“Yeah.” You yawn. “Will you carry me?”

He chuckles fondly and scoops you into his arms. “Konechno.”

You rest your head against his shoulder and let out a sigh that’s equal parts relief and happiness.

[isaackuo]

No thoughts on “Sad Teen Hotline”, huh?

My upcoming episode guesses

Princess Quasar Caterpillar and the Magic Bell

The cutesy title sounds like a story being told by (or for) Meteora. It would be super cute if this were told in an artistic puppet style or something.

Ghost of Butterfly Castle

I’m not sure if the background fits, but if it does then I guess this is where we see Moon looking up in horror? So I’m guessing this is a Moonriver episode.

Cornball!

We already have an official description that this is where Star tries to convince Buff Frog to return to Mewni. The name “Cornball!” with an exclamation point makes it sound like it might be basketball, but … I’m guessing Ludo and Dennis playing basketball is actually Doop-Doop. We’ll see soon enough. But I feel like Star finding and asking Buff Frog to return to Mewni is going to consume the full 11 minutes.

Also, I feel like this is the climactic story point of this block. Buff Frog’s decision to leave Mewni was a big part of S3’s main story - it hammered home how Princess Star Butterfly could try her best and it still wouldn’t be enough. Imploring Buff Frog to return is going to be heavy emotional stuff. This is no time for flipping Ludo playing hoops with Dennis.

Meteora’s Lesson

We already have an official description that this is where Glossaryck needs Meteroa to help him with an errand. But since this is in the 4 slot, I feel like this is going to end on something momentous like Surviving the Spiderbites did. Perhaps this will continue the storyline of Star and the remaining piece of the Book of Spells?

- - -

The Knight Shift

Maybe just comedic filler? This sounds like it has to do with Mewni’s Knights, and they haven’t been much more than comedic stuff.

Queen-Napped

I’m guessing Mina kidnaps Queen Eclipsa.

Junkin’ Janna

Okay so what gives? We go from zero Janna episodes to two Janna episodes in the final act? Heck, not even Tom has had any episodes titled after him (although I guess Lake House Fever counts since it’s a reference to Tom’s voice actor that fandom noticed right away). Well, whatever. I’m guessing this is comedic filler. But I love Janna so it’ll be fun for me. But what is it doing in the 3 slot? Is it going to have some Tomstar or Kellco stuff jammed in there like The Ponyhead Show?

A Spell with No Name

We think of Star as loud and flashy, but her most powerful spell has been the whispering spell. And her most powerful emotion is one she keeps silent about. So I’m guessing the spell with no name is even more powerful than the whispering spell.

Hmm … what if this is one of those “inside the wand” episodes? I normally would be disappointed with this, since it’s in the 4 slot. But Star doesn’t have a wand now. So whatever the heck “inside the wand” means now would be trippy. Like, we saw a whole new world in Kelly’s World and it was glorious. A whole new “wand” interior? That could be pretty cool.

- - -

A Boy and His DC-700XE

I’m guessing this is a Marco episode with Marco and Nachos. But not in Hekapoo’s dimension. Marco’s like Raphael’s age in that dimension. That’s no “Boy”. So … in some other dimension. Maybe Kelly’s dimension? Or better yet, maybe some random dimension that we’ve never seen. Okay that’d be cool.

The Monster and the Queen

I’m going to go with the obvious guess that this is about Globgor and Eclipsa. But mostly in flashback because there’s no way this episode is showing Globgor being freed. If he were freed, then all heck would break loose in Mewni and there’s no way to be seriously considering:

Cornonation

We already have an official description that Star plans Eclipsa’s coronation. This is a half hour episode, inviting comparisons with Monster Bash. But I’m guessing Tom will be more helpful than he was in Monster Bash, and Kelly will be helping Marco with whatever duty he’s doing this time (maybe the Goblin Dog truck again?).

I had guessed maybe we might see a Starco dance at the prompting of Eclipsa. But … I dunno. That’s probably a stretch.

But there ought to be something more momentous for a half hour episode than just the coronation. Mina raids the party and fights Globgor? No … I don’t think so.

Okay, I’ve got it. Moon shows up and decides to give a speech supporting Eclipsa. Not like a full throated endorsement, but just … something that gets the Mewmans to give her another chance. And after the speech, Moon tells Star that she still doesn’t fully trust Eclipsa, but the good of Mewni comes first.

- - -

Doop-Doop

This sounds like a goofy name for basketball. So I’m guessing this is a Ludo episo…zzz… okay I just don’t care.

Britta’s Tacos

Okay, I’ll go wild with this one … I’m guessing Marco goes to get tacos and runs into Jackie. Lynn. Thomas. It’s been like a year since they’ve seen each other and they’re both a year hotter. They’re both doing great and they really connect and stuff and then Jackie finds out Marco’s dating Kelly. And Jackie’s like, “Dude. What are you doing?”

Beach Day

Okay, so Star’s still dating Tom, and Marco’s still dating Kelly. But here’s the thing. Both Star and Marco are currently happy. Star can be in love with her best friend Marco and still be happy that he’s happy. They can play on the beach and be happy for each other.

Gone Baby Gone

This may be a reference to the film of the same name, where a baby girl has been kidnapped from her irresponsible mother for her own good. Now Eclipsa may be somewhat irresponsible, but she seems to have taking care of Eclipsa covered (and she does have help).

So even though the obvious guess is that Meteora is kidnapped, I think that may be repetitive given Queen-napped. Instead, I’ll guess this is a story about Festivia and Hekapoo. I mean, we’ve already seen what Heinous’s tragic upbringing was like. But I’m guessing Hekapoo was a loving mother and Festivia was happy.

Oh I just can’t help myself:

Hekapoo: Marco, I know you don’t agree with everything I’ve done, but I still am proud of some things.

(Hekapoo points to Festivia’s picture)

Hekapoo: See that? See how happy she looks? She was happy.

Marco: That happiness came at the expense of someone else.

Hekapoo: I know. I mean, my brain knows. But my heart …

- - -

Sad Teen Hotline

The title kind of reminds me of the show-in-show in Steven Universe about Crying Breakfast Friends. So I’m guessing maybe this is a Ponyhead episode. Like, teens call the sad teen hotline and it gets answered by Ponyhead and Seahorse. Okay, that could be funny.

Jannanigans

Another Janna episode? Okay, this is in the 2 slot, so I’m pretty sure it’s going to be just some fun fluff filler.

Mama Star

I don’t know what this is, but it feels like a fakeout title like Marco Jr. Still, it’s in the 3 slot so there could be some significant plot development also.

Ready, Aim, Fire

This seems to be an obtuse title, like “Divide” and “Conquer”. And it’s in the 4 slot. I’m guessing that this is going to involve some serious plot development, but it’s purposefully obscured from us to avoid spoilers.

- - -

The Right Way

Another obtuse title, but I’m kind of feeling Ludo. Like, here would be a good time for Ludo’s story to actually start coming back to where it matters at all to something.

Here to Help

Another obtuse title, but again I’m kind of feeling Ludo.

Pizza Party

I feel like this is going to be one last gathering of all these friends. Kind of like in Honey and Clover when everyone is just hanging out at random, looking for a four leaf clover. And it’s the last time they’d ever all be together and they didn’t know it at the time.

The Tavern at the End of the Multiverse

I’m guessing this is a Hekapoo episode. It may be a reference to The Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (The Restaurant at the End of the Universe in particular). I’m guessing that there’s something dimensional going on which will force Marco to move back to Earth.

- - -

Cleaved

Star gets together with Marco.

[jewpacabruhs]

“You look really tired” or “You think you’re funny” for Kyman 👊🤧

Kyle hates the part of himself that cares deeply for Cartman. Because he does care about him; he can admit that now that he’s matured and all but abandoned his steadfast conviction that he must despise him, though he definitely resents the bastard. Regardless of it all, he knows deep down that even if he’s not fond of him, he’ll always want the best for him, and he’ll always hope to one day see him become someone happier, healthier, and maybe even some semblance of normal, and it pisses him the hell off, because no one deserves to be stuck caring about the well-being and future of someone like Cartman. He supposes someone has to keep an eye on him - he just wishes he didn’t feel bad for him.

But more than anything, it bothers him that Cartman knows he cares about him, and has made a hobby out of exploiting his sympathetic nature and taking advantage of his unending desire to see Cartman evolve into a better person. It upsets him that time and time again, he gives the asshole the benefit of the doubt, and time and time again, Cartman makes him regret it.

So when Cartman sits down for lunch on Monday after having ghosted them all weekend, looking absolutely awful, like he hadn’t slept in a week and had spent that time crying, too, Kyle doesn’t immediately ask what’s up, because he’s sure it’s a ploy for attention and pity, and he won’t give Cartman what he wants this time.

The other boys follow suit; they’re all tired of Cartman’s dramatics, too.

It’s only after Cartman doesn’t prod them to inquire about his state, doesn’t even touch his meal, which is absolutely unheard of, that Kyle gives in and says, “Cartman, is everything okay? You look really tired.”

Craig and Token glare at him, clearly irritated with him for engaging, and Craig goes so far as to gather up his lunch and tug Tweek away by the hand, but Kenny glances over from the nudie mag he’d been looking at with Clyde, peering worriedly at Cartman. Stan’s munching away at a salad - Wendy’s got him eating vegan again, and Stan’s decided salads are his safest option - but he’s watching Cartman, too. It’s some consolation to Kyle that he’s not the only one who does care about Cartman, though Stan and Kenny have frequently criticized him for being too invested.

“Had a bad night,” Cartman says quietly, and his voice is so small and sincere that Kyle’s instantly sympathetic. If this is another scheme, he’ll kick his ass, but by the looks of it, for once in his life, Cartman’s serious in his misery.

“You wanna talk about it, big boy?” Kenny asks him from where he’s sitting to his right. He’s handed Clyde the magazine so he can focus wholeheartedly on Cartman, though Kyle catches the way he’s eyeing Cartman’s untouched chicken nuggets. 

Cartman does, too, apparently. “No,” he replies moodily, before pushing his tray towards Kenny. “You can have them. I’m not hungry.”

Kenny actually hesitates before digging in, apprehensive where he wouldn’t usually be, because of Cartman’s bizarre behavior, but he starts chowing down quickly enough.

No one knows what to say, so they carry on with their lunches, though there’s an air of awkwardness due to Cartman’s mopey presence. He’s horribly quiet; doesn’t even pitch in when Jimmy and Clyde start arguing about early 2000s boy bands, though he’d typically jump right into a conversation like that with some obnoxious spiel about NSYNC’s superiority.

Kyle eats his sandwich solemnly and watches him out of the corner of his eye, even as Stan shows him a series of dumb memes mixed with cute animal videos; the usual lunch procedure. 

By the time the bell rings and everyone stands to go, Cartman’s demeanor hasn’t changed, and he remains seated as the lunch room begins to clear out. Kyle starts to leave with Token to their AP Bio class - but then he stops and looks at Cartman, and something compels him to stay with him. “I’ll catch up with you,” he tells Token, who frowns a little, searching his face briefly, before simply saying, “Okay, dude,” and taking off.

Kyle sits down at the table, straddling the bench. Cartman’s slumped over, head in his hands, but Kyle’s weight makes the seat squeak, and he glances up. “What the hell do you want?” he asks, and his pouty tone is familiar, but so much more legitimately dejected than Kyle’s used to. He’s even got tears in his eyes; real ones, not performative ones.

“What’s going on with you, Cartman?”

The fat boy heaves a sigh, and Kyle sees him fiddling with his hands in his lap, which is something he only ever does when he’s forced to open up and be vulnerable. If this were anyone else, Kyle would put a reassuring hand on his back or arm, something to calm his nerves and show him that he was there for him, but it’s Cartman, and frankly, Kyle’s not willing to let him have that yet. 

Finally, inaudibly, Cartman says, “Ralphie died.”

“Oh,” Kyle says. Ralphie was a sickly stray cat Cartman had been trying to nurse back to health for the last month. He’d named him after the Sopranos character because, according to Cartman, he kind of looked like Joe Pantoliano. That had sparked an argument with Kenny, who thought Pantoliano looked more like a French bulldog than anything (”But he’s Italian!” Cartman had yelled, as if that meant something). Then Kyle had pitched in that it was rude to compare people to pets, which upset Stan, who thought any human should be honored to be likened to an animal. 

Cartman had been excessively lovey with the cat, so Kyle’s not surprised he’s so upset. Part of him is just thankful Cartman’s capable of grieving; it’s proof he’s not soulless, like the other guys try to convince him he is. Proof he’s not a lost cause. 

“I’m sorry, Cartman,” Kyle says gently. The lunch room’s nearly empty, and the few kids left are staring at them as they exit, because their rivalry is decently infamous. The second bell rings; he’s definitely going to be late to class, and somehow, that’s not important to him right now. “I know you really liked that cat.”

Cartman heaves a sigh. “I just - after Mr. Kitty died, I - I missed her so bad, but I didn’t wanna just replace her, you know? It wouldn’t be the same. But when I found Ralphie, I thought maybe it was meant to be or whatever, ‘cause I just found him, on the street, and I thought Kitty wouldn’t feel betrayed about it ‘cause I was, like, doing an act of - of, like, charity, or whatever, you know? And I thought Ralphie was getting better, he was doing super good and he was more cuddly and, and affectionate, we really became friends- but then I came home from skewl on Friday and he wasn’t moving-” Cartman starts to cry, but he covers his eyes with his hands before Kyle can see. That’s how Kyle knows this is the most genuine sadness he’s seen out of Cartman, possibly in all the time he’s known him; his fake cry is hysterical shrieking paired with crocodile tears, but currently, he’s crying very quietly, sniffling a bit, hiding his face away, and it tugs at Kyle’s heart strings like those ASPCA commercials do.

Abandoning his desire to remain stoic for the sake of his own pride, he puts a hand on Cartman’s back. “Cartman, hey, listen - what if after school, the guys and I take you to the pound to pick out a new cat?”

“Really?”

“Yes.” He’ll have to ask them, but Stan’s always down for an opportunity to be near animals, though it might be hard to get him to leave without taking home every single creature there - and as for Kenny, he’ll tag along as long as Kyle offers to take them out to Taco Bell after.

Cartman rubs at his wet eyes with his sleeves and smiles happily. “I’d - I’d like that, Kahl.”

Then he falls on Kyle and hugs him tight, and to Kyle’s disbelief, he’s not annoyed at being embraced by him like he usually would be. Instead, he smiles and hugs him back, patting him awkwardly on the back once he doesn’t let go after a good thirty seconds. He smells like fruity shampoo and peanut butter, which is better than he usually smells, or maybe Kyle’s just not in the mood to pick out petty things to criticize for once.

Kyle’s typically sort of touch adverse, so if anyone else hugged him like this, he’d definitely be irritated by now - but somehow, Cartman holding onto him like he’s a lifeline just makes his heart swell in a way he’ll lie awake tonight worrying about.